This book poses the question, “How do we transcend the cycles of violence that bewitch our human community while still living in them?” Peacebuilding, in the view of this book, is both a learned ...skill and an art. Finding this art, this book says, requires a worldview shift. Conflict professionals must envision their work as a creative act — an exercise of what the book terms the “moral imagination.” This imagination must, however, emerge from and speak to the hard realities of human affairs. The peacebuilder must have one foot in what is and one foot beyond what exists. The book is organized around four guiding stories that point to the moral imagination but are incomplete. The book seeks to understand what happened in these individual cases and how they are relevant to large-scale change. The purpose is not to propose a grand new theory; instead it wishes to stay close to the “messiness” of real processes and change, and to recognize the serendipitous nature of the discoveries and insights that emerge along the way. Like most professional peacemakers, the author of this book sees his work as a religious vocation.
Making War and Building Peace examines how well United Nations peacekeeping missions work after civil war. Statistically analyzing all civil wars since 1945, the book compares peace processes that ...had UN involvement to those that didn't. Michael Doyle and Nicholas Sambanis argue that each mission must be designed to fit the conflict, with the right authority and adequate resources. UN missions can be effective by supporting new actors committed to the peace, building governing institutions, and monitoring and policing implementation of peace settlements.
Preventing humanitarian atrocities is becoming as important for the United Nations as dealing with inter-state war. In this book, Ramesh Thakur examines the transformation in UN operations, analysing ...its changing role and structure. He asks why, when and how force may be used and argues that the growing gulf between legality and legitimacy is evidence of an eroded sense of international community. He considers the tension between the US, with its capacity to use force and project power, and the UN, as the centre of the international law enforcement system. He asserts the central importance of the rule of law and of a rules-based order focused on the UN as the foundation of a civilised system of international relations. This book will be of interest to students of the UN and international organisations in politics, law and international relations departments, as well as policymakers in the UN and other NGOs.
A vivid exploration of the history of a very powerful and long lasting idea: building European worlds outside of Europe. Veracini outlines how the founding of new societies was envisaged and ...practiced and explores the specific ways in which settler colonial projects tried to establish ideal and regenerated political bodies.
How Rivalries End Karen Rasler, William R. Thompson, Sumit Ganguly
03/2013
eBook
Rivalry between nations has a long and sometimes bloody history. Not all political opposition culminates in war-the rivalry between the United States and the Soviet Union is one example-but in most ...cases competition between nations and peoples for resources and strategic advantage does lead to violence: nearly 80 percent of the wars fought since 1816 were sparked by contention between rival nations. Long-term discord is a global concern, since competing states may drag allies into their conflict or threaten to use weapons of mass destruction.How Rivalries Endis a study of how such rivalries take root and flourish and particularly how some dissipate over time without recourse to war. Political scientists Karen Rasler, William R. Thompson, and Sumit Ganguly examine ten political hot spots, stretching from Egypt and Israel to the two Koreas, where crises and military confrontations have occurred over the last seven decades. Through exacting analysis of thirty-two attempts to deescalate strategic rivalries, they reveal a pattern in successful conflict resolutions: shocks that overcome foreign policy inertia; changes in perceptions of the adversary's competitiveness or threat; positive responses to conciliatory signals; and continuing effort to avoid conflict after hostilities cease.How Rivalries Endsignificantly contributes to our understanding why protracted conflicts sometimes deescalate and even terminate without resort to war.
In order to ensure safe and sustainable design of geosynthetic-reinforced soil foundation (GRSF), settlement prediction is a challenging task for practising civil/geotechnical engineers. In this ...paper, a new hybrid technique for predicting the settlement of GRSF has been proposed based on the combination of evolutionary algorithm, that is, grey-wolf optimisation (GWO) and artificial neural network (ANN), abbreviated as ANN-GWO model. For this purpose, the reliable pertinent data were generated through numerical simulations conducted on validated large-scale 3-D finite element model. The predictive power of the model was assessed using various well-established statistical indices, and also validated against several independent scientific studies as reported in literature. Furthermore, the sensitivity analysis was conducted to examine the robustness and reliability of the model. The results as obtained have indicated that the developed hybrid ANN-GWO model can estimate the maximum settlement of GRSF under service loads in a reliable and intelligent way, and thus, can be deployed as a predictive tool for the preliminary design of GRSF. Finally, the model was translated into functional relationship which can be executed without the need of any expensive computer-based program.
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•Predicting the settlement of geosynthetic-reinforced soil foundations (GRSF).•Development of hybrid grey wolf optimised artificial neural network (ANN-GWO).•Validating the developed model through rigorous statistical testing, sensitivity and robustness analysis.•Derivation of trackable mathematical relationship for settlement prediction of GRSF.
Few concepts have captured the imagination of the conflict and development communities in recent years as powerfully as the idea of a ‘political settlement’. At its most ambitious, ‘political ...settlements analysis’ (PSA) promises to explain why conflicts occur and states collapse, the conditions for their successful rehabilitation, different developmental pathways from peace, and how to better fit development policy to country context. Yet despite the meteoric rise of the term and its tremendous promise, not all is well in the world of PSA. Rival definitions of the concept abound; there are disagreements about its scope and the way it should be used; a growing schism between conflict specialists and economists; basic concepts are ambiguous; and little progress has been made on measurement. This book consequently has three main aims. The first is to argue for a revised definition of a political settlement, capable of unifying its diverse strands. The second is to put the concept on a more solid theoretical and scientific footing, providing a method for measuring and categorizing political settlements, using both qualitative case studies and a large-n statistical analysis to illustrate its potential. And the third is to examine the implications of the findings for mainstream social science analysis and for policymakers.
•A grouting-based treatment of tunnel settlement in soft deposits in Shanghai is presented.•The grouting procedure and parameters are proposed based on in situ tests and practice experience in soft ...deposits.•The effects of grouting are elaborated using the cases of a DOT tunnel and twin tunnels.•The grouting can significantly reduce the tunnel settlement rate and prevent the further tunnel settlement.•The key factors influencing the grouting effects are the grouting uniformity, sequence and parameters.
Excessive tunnel settlement, especially differential settlement, will deteriorate the operational serviceability and safety of a metro system. This paper presents grouting-based treatment technology for tunnel settlement in the soft deposits of Shanghai, China. The aim of the grouting treatment is to control the development of the tunnel settlement. The mechanism of settlement control through grouting is presented. A dual-fluid system of cement and sodium silicate is adopted in the proposed grouting-based treatment technology. A new front-end device is designed specially to avoid blocking the grouting holes. The grouting parameters are determined based on field tests and engineering practices. Engineering cases of a double-O-tube (DOT) tunnel and twin tunnels are used to present the feasibility and efficiency of the grouting treatment. For the DOT tunnel, the grouting treatment was carried out in multiple stages; the tunnel settlement finally ceased, from an initial settlement rate of 0.4 mm/d, and the maximum horizontal differential settlement decreased from 20 mm to 10 mm. For the twin tunnels, the tunnel settlement recovered after grouting; the recovery of the maximum tunnel settlement was 8 and 11 mm for the upper- and lower-line tunnels, respectively, and the settlement finally ceased, from an initial rate of 0.027 mm/d. Moreover, in situ measurements of the surroundings indicate that the proposed grouting-based treatment technology creates minimal disturbance to the surrounding soil. This grouting-based treatment provides an effective way to control the settlements of tunnels in soft deposits.
Mediating International Crises Wilkenfeld, Jonathan; Young, Kathleen; Quinn, David ...
2005, 20070507, 2007-05-07, Letnik:
48
eBook
This new book shows how international crises are dangerous episodes that can be destabilizing not only to the actors directly involved but also to the entire international system.
Recognizing the ...primacy of crises as defining moments in international relations, scholars and policy makers alike are increasingly concerned with identifying mechanisms for crisis prevention, management and resolution.
Mediating International Crises is the first comprehensive study into one such mechanism that has been used with increasing frequency in the 20th Century: mediation by a third party. This important research attempts to determine whether third party mediation is an effective means of alleviating or managing the turbulent and violent consequences of crises. The authors examine three approaches to mediation: facilitation communication between parties, formulating possible agreements and manipulating the parties through sanctions or rewards. They explore how these mediation approaches affect crisis outcomes through sanctions or rewards
The book begins with a thorough discussion of the theoretical literature on mediation, with particular attention paid to the important distinction between crisis management and conflict resolution. The authors then provide empirical analyses of instances of mediation in 20th century international crises, which is supplemented with data derived from simulated negotiation settings with human subjects.
Preface and Acknowledgements Chapter 1. The Role of Mediation in Managing International Crises, Chapter 2. A Multi-Method Exploration of Crisis Mediation Chapter 3. Patterns of Crisis Mediation in the International System Chapter 4. Mediation Style Chapter 5. Crisis Mediation and Relative Power Chapter 6. Crisis Mediation, Ripeness, and Zones of Agreement Chapter 7. Conclusion, Appendix A: Mediated International Crises, 1918-2001, Appendix B: Ecuador-Peru Simulation Crisis Scenarios, Endnotes, Bibliography, Index.
The first book that deals with the territorial cults of early Japan by focusing on how such cults were founded in ownerless regions. Numerous ancient Japanese myths and legends are discussed to show ...that the typical founding ritual was a two-phase ritual that turned the territory into a horizontal microcosm, complete with its own ‘terrestrial heaven’ inhabited by local deities. Reversing Mircea Eliade’s popular thesis, the author concludes that the concept of the human-made horizontal microcosm is not a reflection but the source of the religious concept of the macrocosm with gods dwelling high up in the sky.
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