{"title":"Women’s overlooked contribution to Rwanda’s state-building conversations","authors":"David Mwambari, Barney Walsh, ’. Olonisakin","doi":"10.1080/14678802.2021.1974699","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/14678802.2021.1974699","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT This paper does not directly engage the state-formation, political settlement and state-building debates in Africa but it foregrounds the notion of conversation as the lens through which to examine Rwanda’s state-building history. In particular, it explores an overlooked perspective from Rwanda’s state-building trajectory by focusing on a particular class of actors – women – whose voices also contributed to inter-elite and elite-society state-building from pre-colonial times. The paper examines how and why conversible spaces have been created in post-genocide Rwanda that are locally conceived yet given form by Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF) elites. It shows that these spaces are progressions of a long history of state-building conversations in Rwanda that pre-date colonialism. The paper asks how and why have conversible spaces for peace and state-building evolved over time? To what extent do their contemporary form have the potential for being genuinely transformative? What do these processes mean for future peace and state building in Rwanda? In addressing these questions, this paper foregrounds women’s agency and contributions to state-building in Rwanda over time. It shows that while there is evidence that women’s agency has evolved from covert to overt spaces, limitations to women’s influence of peace-building and state-building conversations still exist particularly for those whose visions of society diverge from that of the ruling party Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF).","PeriodicalId":46301,"journal":{"name":"Conflict Security & Development","volume":"4 1","pages":"475 - 499"},"PeriodicalIF":1.3,"publicationDate":"2021-07-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"90476164","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"The role of peace education in countering violent extremism in Pakistan: an assessment of non-governmental efforts","authors":"Z. Ahmed, Rizwan Shahzad","doi":"10.1080/14678802.2021.1943150","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/14678802.2021.1943150","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT This article is located in the wider discourse on the nexus of policy, research and practice of peace education for countering violent extremism (CVE) with a focus on learnings and insights from non-governmental initiatives in Pakistan. It presents an analysis of how the diverse and complex school education system in Pakistan ‘does’ and/or ‘does not’ respond to the challenges of an increasing scale and manifestations of violence, conflict and extremism in society. Moving beyond the discussion on the historical emergence, drivers, actors and characteristics of violent extremism in Pakistan, this paper engages with the erstwhile literature on the research-policy-practice nexus to examine nine peace education projects – mostly foreign-funded – in Pakistan. Considering the insights from these nine projects, the paper finds that there are several examples of successful stand-alone peace education for CVE projects but without a link to policy and research. Despite producing good quality CVE and peace education material, and applying these materials successfully in the diverse education setting of the country, many projects lacked sustainability due to over-dependence on foreign funding. Due to comparatively consistent external funding in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, the organisations there are more successful in their peace education interventions than the ones in Punjab and Sindh.","PeriodicalId":46301,"journal":{"name":"Conflict Security & Development","volume":"17 1","pages":"199 - 222"},"PeriodicalIF":1.3,"publicationDate":"2021-05-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"84744718","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Assessing authoritarian conflict management in the Middle East and Central Asia","authors":"M. Keen","doi":"10.1080/14678802.2021.1940011","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/14678802.2021.1940011","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT Authoritarian conflict management (ACM), conceptualised by Lewis et al. (2018), is an analytical framework aimed at understanding how authoritarian regimes respond to violent domestic challenges in ways that reject liberal conflict resolution practices that have emerged since the 1990s. Operationally, the authors define ACM as having three pillars: discursive control, spatial control and authoritarian political economic practices. Quantitative methods have not yet been broadly applied to ACM. This study quantitatively examines violent intrastate conflict in the Middle East and Central Asia to test several assumptions undergirding ACM, namely ACM’s prevalence over time and impact on governments’ ability to garner external support in domestic conflicts. I find that regimes in these regions deployed full ACM in fewer than half of cases, and the prevalence of ACM has not increased over time. Discursive and spatial control practices were employed more frequently than authoritarian political economic interventions. Finally, regimes that deployed full ACM were more likely than regimes that did not to have received external authoritarian support; no such difference was observed vis-à-vis support from external non-authoritarian countries.","PeriodicalId":46301,"journal":{"name":"Conflict Security & Development","volume":"6 1","pages":"245 - 272"},"PeriodicalIF":1.3,"publicationDate":"2021-05-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"82539620","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Rebuilding armies in southern Somalia: What currently should donors realistically aim for?","authors":"C. Robinson","doi":"10.1080/14678802.2021.1940773","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/14678802.2021.1940773","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT Improving defence accountability and effectiveness is even more difficult when wars are actively underway. Southern Somalia bears considerable resemblance to previous counterinsurgency theatres in Afghanistan and Iraq, and thus considerations of defence assistance should be actively informed by those campaigns. The African Union Mission in Somalia (AMISOM) intervention force has been critical to seizing much of the towns and terrain now freed from the Islamist Al-Shabaab insurgents. But after 13 years AMISOM’s power is waning. There are vanishingly few instant and game-changing initiatives donors could take quickly to aid the build-up of Somali military forces either at the federal or regional levels. Yet decentralised Federal Member State governments represent important political forces in southern Somalia, and since 2012 efforts have been made to reinforce them. Perhaps the most immediate action that donors could take to aid the build-up of legitimate Somali military forces is to supply and work with, not just the Federal Government’s forces as has long been the case, but also the various military forces maintained by the Federal Member States.","PeriodicalId":46301,"journal":{"name":"Conflict Security & Development","volume":"36 1","pages":"313 - 336"},"PeriodicalIF":1.3,"publicationDate":"2021-05-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"82102154","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Bridging identities through activism: Palestinians in Sweden navigating the transnational divide","authors":"H. Lindholm","doi":"10.1080/14678802.2021.1933033","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/14678802.2021.1933033","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT This article deals with the ways in which diaspora communities use activism, transnational political engagements and mobilisation in order to create and sustain identities and navigate in the transnational space of being neither ‘here’ nor ‘there’. Through an exploration of how Palestinians in Sweden use activism as a way to navigate their situation in between Palestine and Sweden, it is shown that transnational activism and social mobilisation are means of managing, meaning-making, mediating and negotiation vulnerable and complicated position between places and identities. Using narrative material collected through interviews with Palestinians in Sweden, this article unveils the relationship between conflict, activism and identity formation and how tensions, struggles and contestations inform that interlinkage. The article explores those relationships through investigating the case of the Palestinian community in Sweden and its narrated experiences of conflict and activism through the lens of the former homeland as well as the new or current country of residence. The study aims to deepen our understandings of the profound meaning of solidarity with a homeland lost as well as to a deeper understanding of the Palestinian diaspora in the Global North.","PeriodicalId":46301,"journal":{"name":"Conflict Security & Development","volume":"1 1","pages":"293 - 312"},"PeriodicalIF":1.3,"publicationDate":"2021-05-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"88716040","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Why do youth participate in violence in Africa? A review of evidence","authors":"O. Ismail, ’. Olonisakin","doi":"10.1080/14678802.2021.1933035","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/14678802.2021.1933035","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT This paper systematically maps the field of scholarly works on the theme of youth and violent conflict in Africa. It reviews the evidentiary base of the nexus between youth and violent conflicts in Africa by interrogating the conceptual, methodological, and empirical foundations of the different explanations adduced for why and how youth participate in armed conflicts. It observes that the evidence base linking youth vulnerability and exclusion with violence is generally mixed across the board; each extant perspective offers some useful insights within its narrow conceptual and methodological contours. In addition, the social agency of youth and the power context of society are crucial to understanding the link between youth and violence, and the risk of violence in Africa. Social agency speaks to why and how youth encounter, process, interpret and act on social phenomena, including violence. It highlights the need for further research into the dynamic nature of how youth identities interact with new trends in violence and insecurity such as violent riots and protests and post-election violence, among others.","PeriodicalId":46301,"journal":{"name":"Conflict Security & Development","volume":"175 1","pages":"371 - 399"},"PeriodicalIF":1.3,"publicationDate":"2021-05-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"82969618","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"The unfortunate omission of entangled resistance in the ‘local turn’ in peace-building: the case of ‘forced marriage’ in the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia (ECCC)","authors":"Mona Lilja, Mikael Baaz","doi":"10.1080/14678802.2021.1932321","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/14678802.2021.1932321","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT The concept of resistance within the peace-building literature has received considerable attention as well as becoming central to the critique of liberal interventions. Scholars approach to resistance within the ‘local turn’ literature has resulted in more elaborate studies; even so, local agency is typically narrowed down and conceptualised as a response to what is considered as problematic aspects of peace-building interventions. By analysing the resistance to/against the inclusion of ‘forced marriage’ as a crime against humanity in the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia (ECCC), this paper suggests that the study of resistance within the local turn must be broadened. The case study reveals how different forms of resistance are performative of and intertwined with other forms of resistance as well as how resistance evokes local power reactions. In addition to this, the paper also demonstrates that external international interveners sometimes mobilise local resistance, which results in the formation of strong but uneasy alliances against local political elites. All in all, the resistance is far more complex than most local turn literature suggests.","PeriodicalId":46301,"journal":{"name":"Conflict Security & Development","volume":"38 1","pages":"273 - 292"},"PeriodicalIF":1.3,"publicationDate":"2021-05-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"80314591","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"European migration and terrorism: humanitarian crisis, political rhetoric, or pragmatic policy?","authors":"J. Treistman, Charles J. Gomez","doi":"10.1080/14678802.2021.1940781","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/14678802.2021.1940781","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT The security debate concerning the recent wave of migrants into Europe has been contentious. This article examines the impact of recent migration flows into Europe and assesses the veracity of political rhetoric that migrants from Muslim states were reputedly responsible for the uptick in terrorist attacks. After conducting a series of quantitative tests that control for a variety of factors, we find little evidence that the increase in the number of migrants corresponded to an increase in terrorism during the European crisis. Our findings, therefore, contain important implications in terms of migration policy and counterterrorism tactics.","PeriodicalId":46301,"journal":{"name":"Conflict Security & Development","volume":"5 1","pages":"337 - 370"},"PeriodicalIF":1.3,"publicationDate":"2021-05-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"84468041","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Linnéa Blomqvist, Elisabeth Olivius, Jenny Hedström
{"title":"Care and silence in women’s everyday peacebuilding in Myanmar","authors":"Linnéa Blomqvist, Elisabeth Olivius, Jenny Hedström","doi":"10.1080/14678802.2021.1933031","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/14678802.2021.1933031","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT This article draws on feminist perspectives on the everyday to explore women’s everyday experiences of peace in Kayah state in Myanmar. We locate the daily practices women engage in to maintain life and minimise violence, making visible women’s contributions to everyday peace. In addition, we examine the ways in which women are disproportionally affected by war and prevented from benefitting from post-war changes. Our findings demonstrate that practices of care and silence are key avenues for women’s everyday peacebuilding, through which women sustain peace, ensure survival, and minimise violence in their families and wider communities. At the same time, however, these practices are conditioned by and may contribute to gendered insecurity and marginalisation for women. Through this focus, our analysis shows how women’s positioning in gendered relations of power may both enable their agency in peacebuilding and reinforce their gendered inequality and marginalisation in the post-war period. We conclude that while everyday peace practices may hold the potential for positive change, these can also contribute to the reproduction of inequality, oppression and structural violence.","PeriodicalId":46301,"journal":{"name":"Conflict Security & Development","volume":"55 1","pages":"223 - 244"},"PeriodicalIF":1.3,"publicationDate":"2021-05-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"76620777","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"The legacy of rebel order: local (in)security in Colombia","authors":"Clara Voyvodic","doi":"10.1080/14678802.2021.1911065","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/14678802.2021.1911065","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT In the aftermath of a peace agreement, the demobilisation of armed combatants from the field of war is taken as an indication of improved security. However, in many contexts, the withdrawal of armed groups also represents the dismantling of informal sources of order for local communities. Drawing from work on rebel governance and the local turn in peace-building, I argue that rebel orders shape security experiences even after a rebel group demobilises. In Colombia, following demobilisation of the Armed Revolutionary Forces of Colombia (FARC), local communities framed their insecurity in the face of other armed groups – including government forces – by invoking features of order previously provided by the FARC. I introduce the concept of relational security indicators, building on Mac Ginty’s everyday peace indicators, to incorporate the influence of rebel order on subjective evaluations of security. Through an inductive qualitative approach in the Departments of Antioquia and Nariño, I identified two features of FARC order, protection and structure, that framed communities’ experience of insecurity in their absence. Communities had to address the dual legacies of rebel order and violence in order to make sense of the uncertainty they faced after the FARC’s demobilisaton. Work on rebel governance has largely excluded the legacy of rebel order post-demobilisation, while local peace-building studies rarely consider the experience of local communities through the lens of rebel order. The recent demobilisation of a long-standing example of ‘rebel ruler’ such as the FARC offers an insight into how communities invoke the legacy of rebel order to evaluate and understand their insecurity during conflict transitions.","PeriodicalId":46301,"journal":{"name":"Conflict Security & Development","volume":"47 1","pages":"177 - 197"},"PeriodicalIF":1.3,"publicationDate":"2021-03-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"77281315","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}