Much has been said about the news media's role in instigating war, conflict and violence. Less attention has been paid to the news media's role in mitigating conflict. Criticism has been directed ...towards the ways in which journalists and war correspondents cover conflict with an emphasis on violence, suffering, polarization of the views of main stakeholders, and over-simplification of the underlying causes of conflict. The growing literature and scholarship around Peace Journalism stands as a response to this. In the context of the African continent, further critique has been levelled against frames and narratives of war, conflict and violence grounded in Western epistemologies and dominant discourses of African conflicts and stakeholders. Based on data collected from interviews with a selected group of journalists working on--and covering--the African continent, the article assesses awareness towards alternative narratives and news frames, as well as attitudes towards alternative practices and models for journalism. Particular attention is paid to ideas and responses regarding Peace Journalism as an alternative model for reporting.
Somalia has been grappling with a three-decade-long peace-building and state-building process. During this period, there have been several attempts to restore peace and political stability in this ...Horn of Africa nation. The peace processes have, however, been based more on the perspective of external actors, with little participation by Somali political elites and warlords, if any, leaving the ordinary populace. The effect has been an elusive peace process. The notion of Western-style democracy has made the federalization process—also itself a foreign concept—further fragment the country. Since the early 2017 indirect ‘elections’, however, there seems to be a glimmer of hope, despite the shortcomings in the process. It is on the basis of this conflicting glimmer of hope and despair in search for peace, state reconstruction, and political stability that this paper aims to provide an overview of the Somali conflict and peace process, conceptualize the Somali peace process, examine Western democracy within the context of Somalia democratization process, as well as try to re-examine and reignite the Somali peace processes.
After several coups assisted by US agencies since the fifties in Latin America, and deep economic crises in the eighties and the nineties in South America explained by "the rule of markets" enforced ...by multilateral organizations, the US leadership in the Americas has been lost, and democratic countries have turned against neoliberalism with wide popular support inside a new "South American revolution" with important projects of integration. Colombia has become the capital in South America for US leadership in economics and politics, and the only country that still has guerrillas, paramilitary armies, and internal conflict. What has been the role of the US in Colombian conflict? What is in stake with the new peace process in Colombia? How this process will affect the US leadership in Latin America? These are some questions that will be reviewed by Noam Chomsky, one of the most influential thinkers of our times. Keywords: North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), narcotrafickers, guerrillas (FARC), paramilitary armies, peace process, Colombia
The fact that civil society groups play important roles in post-conflict peacebuilding has entered the mainstream of international conflict resolution dogma. Rarely do local civil society groups get ...a seat at the negotiation table for peace accords. Although the exclusion of civil society from peace negotiations may streamline the process, the absence of civil society voices and interests at the negotiating table can negatively impact the sustainability of a peace agreement during peacebuilding. Surveying a wide variety of different peace processes, a strong correlation was found between active civil society participation in peace negotiations and the durability of peace during the peacebuilding phase. Cases in which civil society groups actively engaged in peace negotiations seemed to enjoy more sustained peace in the peacebuilding phase. This holds true also for cases in which civil society groups did not have a direct seat at the table, but did exercise significant influence with the negotiators because they were democratic actors. War resumed in many cases not characterized by direct or indirect civil society involvement in the peace negotiations. No claim of causality is made; the sustainability of peace surely rests on causes as complex and dynamic as the initiation of war does. However, these findings do call attention to the need for further research to understand the special impact that civil society inclusion at the peace table may have. Adapted from the source document.
This essay explores international engagement in the Sri Lankan peace process between 2002 and 2008. The internationalization of peacebuilding in Sri Lanka is analysed as part of a broader ...international shift towards a model of 'liberal peacebuilding', which involves the simultaneous pursuit of conflict resolution, liberal democracy and market sovereignty. The essay provides a detailed and disaggregated analysis of the various exporters, importers and resisters of liberal peacebuilding, with a particular focus on the contrasting ways in which the United National Front (UNF) and the United People's Freedom Alliance (UPFA) regimes engaged with international actors. It is argued that an analysis of the Sri Lankan case provides a corrective to some of the core assumptions contained in much of the literature on liberal peacebuilding. Rather than viewing liberal peacebuilding as simply an hegemonic enterprise foisted upon countries emerging from conflict, the essay explores the ways in which peacebuilding is mediated through, and translated and instrumentalized by, multiple actors with competing interests - consequently liberal peacebuilding frequently looks different when it 'hits the ground' and may, as in the Sri Lanka case, lead to decidedly illiberal outcomes. The essay concludes by exploring the theoretical and policy implications of a more nuanced understanding of liberal peacebuilding. It is argued that rather than blaming the failure of the project on deficiencies in its execution and the recalcitrance of the people involved, there is a need to look at defects in the project itself and to explore alternatives to the current model of liberal peacebuilding.
Introduction Disarmament, demobilisation and reintegration (DDR) are widely regarded as a mainstay of twenty-first century peace agreements and related peace support operations. Since the landmark ...Agenda for Peace (1992) and the Report of the Panel on United Nations Peace Operations (2000), DDR has been repeatedly emphasised in UN Security Council resolutions, General Assembly declarations and reports of the Secretary General. Prescriptive guidelines, manuals and training materials have been ...
The study has started with the sole argument that the peace process of this region is now turned into a complex political theatre where terrorism is the major menace. The aim of this study is to ...scrupulously investigate the nature and substance of the South Asian peace process with particular emphasis on India-Pakistan. Thus intends to extend the scope of further research on the peace process through linking it with terrorism. The methodology of this research relied largely on qualitative analysis. Methodologically, the study does not directly address the policies of the South Asian countries rather it uses already available literature of policy experts to research the linkage between terrorism and peace process, test their correlations (whether it is positive or negative) in context to South Asia, and to conclusively make a judgment based on the research question-to what extent the incidence of terrorism is hindering the progress of South Asian peace process?
This article addresses an urgent but largely sidelined issue in the study of peace processes: that high levels of violence-usually framed as 'crime'-are often ubiquitous in societies experiencing ...peace processes, even after the signing of peace accords. From South Africa to El Salvador, Guatemala to Northern Ireland, rising interpersonal violence has come to characterise the 'peace'. This violence often takes place in the context of ambitious post-conflict development efforts. The article argues that even the seemingly non-political violence after peace accords is intimately linked to war, as well as the peace process-in both the causes of violence and in the types of violence that perpetrators use. In order to conceptualise post-peace accord violence, the article presents a framework of violence based on the perpetrators of violence and the types of violence (social, economic or political) that occur. This unpacking of post-peace accord violence emphasises the interconnectedness of political and non-political violence, and stresses the importance of security for development.
This article analyzes how the idea of local ownership is functioning in the context of security sector reform in the Democratic Republic of the Congo with a focus on European Union's efforts in the ...area. The authors argue that despite discursive emphasis on ownership, in practice local resistance in combination with the notion of security sector reform and the idea of ownership being externally constructed concepts with vague definitions create counterproductive dynamics between local and international actors. The result has been a paralysis of the security sector reform efforts in the Congo. Real progress in security sector reform is possible only if the local authorities "own" the reforms, but if progress means less power for these authorities, they are unlikely to sustain it. While the literature traditionally emphasizes the role of external inconsistency in ownership's shortcomings, this article demonstrates that a full picture also requires highlighting the local dynamics of ownership resistance.
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