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Begin New Search Topic Conflict Political Geography Global Focus Content Type Working Paper Publication Year within 5 Years

1. Mapping Pathways for Peace through the Composition of Official Development Assistance

Author:
Jannie Lilja and Gary Milante
Publication Date:
08-2023
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Stockholm International Peace Research Institute
Abstract:
Mapping the changing composition of official development assistance (ODA) against peace and conflict patterns in recipient countries over time can enhance the understanding of how pathways to peace look like in practice. This working paper presents empirical findings from more comprehensive research into the composition of ODA across aid recipient countries in the period 1990–2020. ODA is broken down into humanitarian, development and peacebuilding aid components. While development assistance is found to dominate across all types of country contexts, and the humanitarian share tends to be larger during conflict, peacebuilding assistance varies by conditions in countries. Post-conflict countries that avoid conflict relapse receive significantly higher shares of peacebuilding aid compared to post-conflict countries that relapse. A ternary graph is introduced to strategically track the composition of the total ODA envelope at the country level during different time periods. The findings suggest that a more effective future deployment of ODA for the advancement of peace and stability is possible.
Topic:
Foreign Policy, Development, Conflict, and Peace
Political Geography:
Global Focus

2. Paradigm Shifts in Macrosociology

Author:
Renate Mayntz
Publication Date:
06-2023
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Max Planck Sciences Po Center on Coping with Instability in Market Societies (MaxPo)
Abstract:
This paper looks at changes in macrosociological paradigms for social development that traditionally stretch from the primitive society through the stratified medieval society to the image of a functionally differentiated modern society. Changing the perspective from a systems theoretical view of societies to an actor perspective, I focus on populations of individual actors and organizations as collective actors. Over recent decades, important structural changes in the nature of populations and of organizations have taken place in the Western world. The most important relate to economic globalization and financial internationalization. An increasingly flexible population and narrowly goal-specific organizations produce a situation of societal instability that appears to characterize the present, though its causes reach back half a century.
Topic:
Development, Conflict, Integration, and Financial Globalization
Political Geography:
Global Focus

3. Bilateral trade and conflict heterogeneity

Author:
Katrin Kamin
Publication Date:
06-2022
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Kiel Institute for the World Economy (IfW)
Abstract:
Although the number of interstate disputes has fallen in the past 30 years, rising geopolitical competition is challenging the foundation of the absence of great power war. Additionally, the number of internal conflicts is surging. At the same time, globalisation has spun a net of global trade connections and has thus created dependencies, making everyone more vulnerable to the repercussions of conflict. In this context, this paper analyses the relationship between trade and conflict from a trade perspective: Using data from UCDP and COMTRADE this paper studies the effects of five different conflict types on international trade flows in the period 1992 - 2011, including interstate and internal conflicts as well as other types of violence.Applying the gravity equation of international trade and the ppml high-dimensional fixed effects estimator, this paper finds that the heterogeneity of conflict types and their distinct characteristics matter for the magnitude and direction of their influence on trade.
Topic:
Globalization, International Trade and Finance, Conflict, and Trade
Political Geography:
Global Focus

4. The Impact of the Russia-Ukraine War on the Global Sanctions Landscape

Author:
Ali Ahmadi
Publication Date:
11-2022
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
The Geneva Centre for Security Policy
Abstract:
The Russia-Ukraine conflict will accelerate the global trend towards increasing great power competition that pits the existing West-anchored world order against others, especially Russia and China. This new era will have significant implications for the global sanctions landscape as sanctions that have been effective in harming countries with smaller economies are increasingly focused on larger economic powers that are integrated into the global economy. This will carry a far greater risk of diminishing the effectiveness of the sanctions weapon, because larger economies like that of China have a greater capacity to overcome technology export restrictions and the US dollar’s centrality in global finance. While sanctions campaigns often seek to coerce the target state into policy modification, sanctions may be increasingly used for the purpose of economic containment by attempting to retard the long-term economic development of states. This may result in open-ended sanctions campaigns that will generate a new era of geoeconomics where sanctions risk factors become key to the design of business relationships and supply chains. The use of financial sanctions against larger economies will exacerbate already existing trends of de-banking and a decline in corresponding banking relationships. Technology sanctions and export controls will be increasingly central as sanction-imposing countries in the West seek to leverage their superiority in key emerging technologies against those they perceive to be their adversaries.
Topic:
Security, International Cooperation, Sanctions, Conflict, and Russia-Ukraine War
Political Geography:
Global Focus

5. Food Insecurity Beyond Borders: Untangling the Complex Impacts of Ukraine War on Global Food Security

Author:
Jose Montesclaros and Margareth Sembiring
Publication Date:
08-2022
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Centre for Non-Traditional Security Studies, S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies
Abstract:
Conflict has historically influenced food insecurity within countries. However, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is of a different nature, as it is worsening food insecurity in other countries too, thereby undermining global food security. This NTS insight untangles the dynamics of conflict-induced food insecurity beyond borders amid the ongoing war. Today’s conflict poses an unprecedented challenge to global food security given its timing, with countries inheriting fiscal challenges from previous bouts with the COVID-19 pandemic; concurrent disruptions to food and energy supply chains; and worsening climate threats to agriculture. Should the war be protracted, the world risks further instability through cost-of-living crises and food price crises. World leaders should therefore carefully weigh these risks, as they deliberate their stances in putting an end to the war.
Topic:
International Cooperation, Food, Food Security, Conflict, and Russia-Ukraine War
Political Geography:
Global Focus

6. Inflation in the Time of Corona and War: The Plight of the Developing Economies

Author:
Servaas Storm
Publication Date:
11-2022
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Institute for New Economic Thinking (INET)
Abstract:
Reliance on established macroeconomic thinking is not of much use in trying to understand what to do in response to the constellation of forces driving up inflation and slowing down growth in these times of COVID-19 and war. This paper attempts to reduce the heat and turn up the light in the debate on the return of high inflation and looming stagflation—by providing evidence-based answers to key (policy) questions concerning the return of high inflation: How close are the parallels between the current conjuncture and the 1970s? What are the differences? Does what is currently happening already amount to stagflation? Can central bankers engineer a ‘soft landing’ of their economies or are we already poised for a deep (global) recession? What are the likely spill- over effects of monetary tightening in the US on the emerging economies? What, if anything, can we learn from the monetary and fiscal policy experiences and policy mistakes of the 1970s? And, finally, are there alternative, less socially costly, ways to bring inflation down?
Topic:
Economics, War, Conflict, Inflation, Pandemic, and COVID-19
Political Geography:
Global Focus

7. Western financial warfare and Russia’s de-dollarization strategy: How sanctions on Russia might reshape the global financial system

Author:
Maria Shagina
Publication Date:
05-2022
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Finnish Institute of International Affairs
Abstract:
Since 2014, Russia’s de-dollarization plan has been guided by security and geopolitical considerations. By dumping the US dollar from its foreign currency reserves, Russia diverted from the traditional approach where liquidity and the credibility of the issuer determine the choice of currency. In 2022, Russia has doubled down on its efforts to de-dollarize the economy. What started as de-dollarization in 2014, transformed into full-blown rouble-ization in 2022. Following the dynamic of an emerging multipolar world order, the global financial system is also gravitating towards fragmentation and currency multipolarity. The overuse of sanctions could strengthen revisionist countries’ desire to increasingly conduct their trade in non-dollar currencies in an attempt to avoid US oversight. If current trends continue, the de-dollarization effort could gain ground and undermine the primacy of the US dollar.
Topic:
Monetary Policy, Sanctions, Finance, and Conflict
Political Geography:
Russia, Europe, and Global Focus

8. Large-Scale Land Deals and Social Conflict: Evidence and Policy Implications

Author:
Alexander De Juan, Daniel Geissel, Jann Lay, and Rebecca Lohmann
Publication Date:
05-2022
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
German Institute of Global and Area Studies
Abstract:
How do large-scale land acquisitions (LSLAs) increase the risk of conflict, and what kind of policies can mitigate this effect? We address these questions with a systematic and poli-cy-oriented synthesis of prior research. First, we suggest a simple conceptual framework linking LSLAs to social conflict through relative deprivation. Second, we present empirical evidence on the associations between land investments and social conflict, drawing on pre-existing quantitative and qualitative studies as well as on own descriptive analyses and case studies. Taken together, this evidence suggests that conflicts accompany a sub-stantive share of LSLAs (10 to 20 percent). Specifically, contentious dynamics often start with violations of community interests, which spur largely peaceful community protests that trigger coercion and violence at the hands of armed actors associated with national governments and investors. Third, we develop a set of policy recommendations in high-lighting the need for thorough regulatory frameworks, meaningful consultation, and full transparency.
Topic:
Reform, Regulation, Conflict, Transparency, Land, and Community
Political Geography:
Global Focus

9. Wartime governance and state-building trajectories in post-conflict societies

Author:
Patricia Justino
Publication Date:
05-2022
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
United Nations University
Abstract:
To date, there is limited understanding about the consequences of wartime dynamics for post-war state-building processes. This paper explores one such dynamics—the forms of governance exercised by armed groups during wartime—and proposes a theoretical framework outlining how forms of wartime governance affect trajectories of state-building in the aftermath of civil wars. Six possible trajectories are mapped out: stable democracy, weak democracy, stable autocracy, fragmented rule, contested autocracy, and durable disorder. Each trajectory is shaped by the interaction between two dimensions of wartime governance: how armed groups build institutional capacity in wartime and the characteristics of wartime civilian rule by armed groups. The core argument is that civil wars generate within themselves bureaucratic and institutional capacity—through how armed groups govern territories and civilians within them—that under certain circumstances may be harnessed in the post-war period to build states capable of governing. The characteristics and durability of those forms of wartime governance shape the type of statebuilding and political regime trajectories that emerge in the post-war period.
Topic:
Political Violence, Development, War, Conflict, Peace, and State Building
Political Geography:
Global Focus

10. The legacies of armed conflict: insights from stayees and returning forced migrants

Author:
Isabel Ruiz and Carlos Vargas-Silva
Publication Date:
02-2022
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
United Nations University
Abstract:
How does conflict, displacement, and return shape trust, reconciliation, and community engagement? And what is the relative impact of exposure to violence on these indicators? In this paper we explore these questions by focusing on the legacies of armed conflict and the differences between those who stayed in their communities of origin during the conflict (stayees) and those who were displaced internally and internationally and who returned home over time (returnees). The results, which rely on analysis of data we collected in Burundi, suggest that internal returnees have significantly lower levels of trust, reconciliation, and community engagement than stayees, whereas the differences between international returnees and stayees are mostly statistically insignificant. Greater exposure to violence has a more positive effect on trust for returnees compared to stayees. On the other hand greater exposure to violence has a more negative effect on reconciliation and community engagement for returnees compared to stayees.
Topic:
Displacement, Conflict, Reconciliation, Trust, and Migrants
Political Geography:
Global Focus

11. Investigation of Russia's Crimes in Ukraine: A Turning Point for the International Criminal Court?

Author:
Ori Beeri and Pnina Sharvit Baruch
Publication Date:
04-2022
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Institute for National Security Studies (INSS)
Abstract:
The Chief Prosecutor at The Hague has already begun to investigate actions taken by Russia in the Ukrainian arena, while accelerating judicial proceedings and bureaucracy. This reflects a change of approach, which includes the prioritization of recent events, as part of an effort to strengthen the status of the Court. How will this affect the investigation of the war in Eastern Europe – and the investigation concerning Israel?
Topic:
Military Strategy, Conflict, International Crime, and Russia-Ukraine War
Political Geography:
Russia, Europe, Ukraine, and Global Focus

12. Lessons from the COVID-19 Crisis: 6 Opportunities to Strengthen Conflict Sensitivity across the HumanitarianDevelopment-Peacebuilding Nexus

Author:
Céline Monnier and Leah Zamore
Publication Date:
01-2022
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Center on International Cooperation
Abstract:
The COVID-19 pandemic, and efforts to control its spread—including lockdowns, social distancing measures, and border closures—have led to unprecedented health, humanitarian, and socioeconomic shocks worldwide. These shocks, in turn, are raising the likelihood that risks for many forms of violent conflict—crime, armed conflict, violent extremism—may increase. It is crucial for the United Nations (UN) to adopt a conflict-sensitive lens in all relevant operations across the humanitarian, development, and peacebuilding (HDP) nexus to prevent an increasingly volatile situation from deteriorating further.
Topic:
Development, United Nations, Conflict, COVID-19, and Peacebuilding
Political Geography:
Global Focus

13. United States Counterterrorism Operations 2018–2020

Author:
Stephanie Savell, Rachel McMahon, Emily Rockwell, and Yueshan Li
Publication Date:
02-2021
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs at Brown University
Abstract:
The map illustrates countries in which the U.S. government conducted operations it explicitly described as counterterrorism, in an outgrowth of President George W. Bush's “Global War on Terror.” These operations include air and drone strikes, on-the-ground combat, so-called “Section 127e” programs in which U.S. special operations forces plan and control partner force missions, military exercises in preparation for or as part of counterterrorism missions, and operations to train and assist foreign forces. (The map does not comprehensively cover the full scope of U.S. post-9/11 warfare, as it does not document, for instance, U.S. military bases used for counterterror operations, arms sales to foreign governments, or all deployments of U.S. special operations forces.) Despite the Pentagon’s assertion that the U.S. is shifting its strategic emphasis away from counterterrorism and towards great power competition with Russia and China, examining U.S. military activity on a country-by-country basis shows that there is yet to be a corresponding drawdown of the counterterror apparatus. If anything, the map demonstrates that counterterrorism operations have become more widespread in recent years.
Topic:
Military Affairs, Counter-terrorism, and Conflict
Political Geography:
Global Focus and United States of America

14. Handbook on the Prevention and Resolution of Self-Determination Conflicts

Author:
Liechtenstein Institute on Self-Determination
Publication Date:
03-2021
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Liechtenstein Institute on Self-Determination, Princeton University
Abstract:
The Handbook on the Prevention and Resolution of Self-Determination Conflicts is the latest product of a long and fruitful collaboration between the Mission of Liechtenstein to the United Nations, New York, and the Liechtenstein Institute on Self-Determination at Princeton University to assess the relationship of self-determination to conflict. The Handbook includes four case studies: Aceh, Bougainville, Mindanao, and Northern Ireland, in addition to setting out guidelines specifically aimed at those working to prevent and resolve self-determination conflicts. The handbook was conceived chiefly as the result of two meetings on self-determination held jointly by the Liechtenstein Institute on Self-Determination and the Liechtenstein Mission to the UN: “Models of Self-Governance as Tools to Promote Peace and Stability in Europe,” held in March 2016, in Triesenberg, Liechtenstein, and “Self-Determination in Conflict Prevention and Resolution,” held in December 2018, in Princeton, New Jersey, U.S.A. In these meetings, participants discussed the relationship between self-determination and conflict, as well as ways that self-determination conflicts may be prevented and resolved. These discussions drew on the tensions and links between self-determination, minority rights, autonomy and self-governance, and mediation, all of which are key elements of the handbook.
Topic:
Conflict Prevention, Diplomacy, Governance, Self Determination, and Conflict
Political Geography:
Global Focus

15. Adapting humanitarian action to the effects of climate change

Author:
ALNAP, Véronique de Geoffroy, Paul Knox Clarke, Mihir Bhatt, François Grunewald, and Jennifer Doherty
Publication Date:
10-2021
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
ALNAP: Active Learning Network for Accountability and Performance
Abstract:
Humanitarian agencies need to reflect on the past, learn from the present and actively imagine the near and increasingly threatening future. From excessive consumption to the over-exploitation of natural resources, polluting activities to large-scale deforestation, humans have already dramatically changed the Earth’s climate and environment. As a result, we are experiencing more frequent and more intense weather events, the humanitarian consequences of which are major. Droughts, flooding and tropical storms cause death, disease, destruction and large-scale population displacement. Public health emergencies are already increasing because of these changes. Conflicts and conflict situations may increase, as may the resulting human migration and displacement. Humanitarian actors working on the ground with climate-related disasters are well placed to observe the intensification of climate-related effects and the increasing complexity of extreme weather events in all regions of the world, including regions where such events were previously rare or unknown.
Topic:
Climate Change, Humanitarian Aid, Natural Disasters, Conflict, and Public Health
Political Geography:
Global Focus

16. In Search of a Systematic Approach to Hybrid Threats

Author:
Gordan Akrap
Publication Date:
01-2020
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Institute for Development and International Relations (IRMO)
Abstract:
Hybrid threats and hybrid conflicts and wars are one of those terms that have suddenly entered in public knowledge, raising many concerns. This is not surprising because there is no common and generally accepted definition of hybrid threats by which these processes are defined. The emergence of this term in the the complexity of this issue. Specifically, hybrid threats are not a new phenomenon to theorists of conflicts and wars. What makes hybrid warfare different from previous wars is the change in the importance and intensity of the individual components of the conflict, such as information or influence warfare component. In fact, until regional media space was, in the beginning, connected with journalist’s perception that intention of the state is to impose censorship of writing and publishing. Over time, fear in the media receded and gave way to understanding the end of the 20th century, information and media operations, that could be called influence or cognitive operations, were in the function of military operations.
Topic:
Foreign Policy, Military Strategy, and Conflict
Political Geography:
Global Focus

17. Military Spending and Official Development Assistance in Recipient States: Is there a Relationship?

Author:
Nan Tian and Diego Lopes da Silva
Publication Date:
08-2020
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Stockholm International Peace Research Institute
Abstract:
Official development assistance (ODA) plays an important and complementary role in promoting development in low- and middle-income states. Previous research in the literature has shown that ODA can have unintended con­sequences by enabling recipient states to shift ‘freed-up’ resources away from activities now funded by ODA to other spending categories. This literature has argued that the ‘freed-up’ resources could be funding military spending. This SIPRI Insights on Peace and Security queries these con­clusions and contributes to the debate by placing the relation­ship between ODA and military spending in context. The results show that, for low-income states, armed conflict is a major explanatory factor in determin­ing the positive association between increases in ODA and increases in military spending. While the existence of armed conflict drives both higher military spending and the need for higher levels of ODA, peace helps to lower military spending and states’ reliance on external aid.
Topic:
Development, Military Spending, Conflict, Peace, and Sustainability
Political Geography:
Global Focus

18. Understanding Climate-Security Risks: A Mechanism-based Approach

Author:
Zafar Imran
Publication Date:
05-2020
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Center for International and Security Studies at Maryland (CISSM)
Abstract:
Whether climate change can stoke political violence and civil conflict is a critical and controversial question. Differences in methodological traditions (qualitative vs. quantitative) are often blamed for academic infighting over this question. This brief suggests that the real problem lies with an impoverished understanding of the process of climate change, particularly how social and ecological systems interact, and how changes in either propagate through the other and generate feedbacks. By presenting a dynamic understanding of the climate-conflict equation, this brief presents a mechanism-based analytical framework that can be used to study the complex phenomenon across diverse social settings. It illustrates the approach by tracing mechanisms through which climate change is fueling protests by farmers in Pakistan, and suggesting other potential applications.
Topic:
Agriculture, Climate Change, Environment, Conflict, and Rural
Political Geography:
Global Focus

19. 65 Years After the Russell-Einstein Manifesto: Where Are We Now?

Author:
Pugwash Conferences on Science and World Affairs
Publication Date:
07-2020
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Pugwash Conferences on Science and World Affairs
Abstract:
On July 9, 1955, two of the most eminent intellectuals of the 20th century, Bertrand Russell and Albert Einstein, issued an appeal to humanity, urging that the immense peril associated with nuclear weapons be recognized by governments and publics alike. The Russell-Einstein Manifesto warned that nuclear weapons pose a threat to the survival of the human species and called for major efforts to address and contain nuclear dangers. One of the consequences of the Manifesto was the holding of the first Pugwash conference in 1957. The origins and goals of Pugwash are contained in the Russell-Einstein Manifesto: to highlight the dangers of nuclear weapons, to call for the elimination of nuclear weapons, and to promote peaceful resolution of conflicts. Today, July 9, 2020, is the 65th anniversary of the Russell-Einstein Manifesto. We ask, how is the situation now, 65 years later?
Topic:
Arms Control and Proliferation, Human Rights, Nuclear Weapons, Conflict, and Peace
Political Geography:
Global Focus

20. Pugwash Document on Cyber Security and Warfare

Author:
Gian Piero Siroli, Gotz Neuneck, and Paolo Cotta-Ramusino
Publication Date:
11-2020
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Pugwash Conferences on Science and World Affairs
Abstract:
Since its foundation, the Pugwash Conferences on Science and World Affairs (Pugwash) has continued to bring together, from around the world, influential scientists, scholars, experts and public figures concerned with reducing the dangers of armed conflict, especially regarding nuclear weapons and other weapons of mass destruction, and with understanding the new threats related to new technologies, while seeking cooperative solutions. Pugwash held three workshops on the topic of cyber security and warfare between December 2018 and January 2020, gathering a total of about 60 experts and practitioners from Europe, North and South America, and Asia, focusing on a broad set of specific themes. The first workshop (Geneva, Switzerland, December 2018, hosted by the GCSP) discussed battlefield digitalization and offensive cyber capabilities, weapon-system vulnerabilities, and the implications of Artificial Intelligence (AI). The second workshop (Bariloche, Argentina, October 2019, supported by INVAP, Global Security Foundation and KPMG) focused on “Cybersecurity in Latin America”. The third workshop (Geneva, Switzerland, January 2020, sponsored by the Mission of Brazil to the UN Office in Geneva) focused on “Cyber Security and Warfare,” and included discussions on international cooperation, the multi-stakeholder approach, and implications of AI and autonomous weapons systems. Reports are available on the Pugwash website1. The participants, who came from many countries, carried out an analysis and reflection on various aspects of the cyber ecosystem in the context of international stability and security, and reviewed current initiatives included within the international agenda. Better definitions, a common nomenclature, and reliable communication between responsible stakeholders—based on the principles of International Humanitarian Law and the experiences of arms control for risk reduction, self-restraint and crisis management--might be useful or necessary. Sound technical analysis and forensics are a precondition to understanding the different threats and vulnerabilities of the cyber-sphere. Detailed proposals for discussion and implementation were elaborated during the workshops.
Topic:
Security, War, Cybersecurity, Conflict, and Artificial Intelligence
Political Geography:
Global Focus