Search

Begin New Search Political Geography Global Focus Journal Conflict Trends Publication Year within 25 Years

1. Patriarchy is the Constraint: Resolution 1325 Two Decades Later

Author:
Seema Shekhawat
Publication Date:
04-2021
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Conflict Trends
Institution:
The African Centre for the Constructive Resolution of Disputes (ACCORD)
Abstract:
Two decades ago, history was made as far as gender security is concerned. The United Nations Security Council (UNSC) led a revolutionary policy change by passing Resolution 1325 – also known as the women, peace and security (WPS) agenda – on 31 October 2000. The resolution marked the United Nations’ (UN) full-fledged attention to gendered aspects of peace and conflict. This was revolutionary: advocacy for placing women at the centre of peace processes – not merely as victims, but as peacebuilders. The resolution called for the full participation of women in all efforts towards conflict prevention, resolution, peacemaking and post-conflict reconstruction. This resolution is considered a crucial international document for advocating gender equality in all processes of peacebuilding, both during conflict and post-conflict.[1] It brought into focus the official endorsement of the involvement of women in formal peace processes.[2] This article[3] argues that since we recently celebrated the 20th anniversary of UNSC Resolution 1325 in Africa, and elsewhere, a reality check is in order.
Topic:
Conflict Resolution, Gender Issues, United Nations, Peacekeeping, Feminism, and Equality
Political Geography:
Global Focus

2. The Six Principles of Adaptive Peace-building

Author:
Cedric De Coning
Publication Date:
05-2020
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Conflict Trends
Institution:
The African Centre for the Constructive Resolution of Disputes (ACCORD)
Abstract:
Peacebuilding is about influencing the behaviour of social systems that have been, or are at risk of, being affected by violent conflict. A society sustains peace when its social institutions are able to ensure that political competition is managed peacefully, and that no significant social or political groups use violence to pursue their interests. Peacebuilding attempts to assist societies to prevent and mitigate the risk of violent conflict. For peace to be self-sustainable, a society needs to have sufficiently strong social institutions to identify, channel and manage disputes peacefully.
Topic:
Peacekeeping, Conflict, Local, and Peace
Political Geography:
Global Focus

3. Social Media

Author:
Carolyne Mande Lunga
Publication Date:
05-2020
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Conflict Trends
Institution:
The African Centre for the Constructive Resolution of Disputes (ACCORD)
Abstract:
The power of social media in contemporary society cannot be ignored. Social media platforms such as Twitter, Facebook and WhatsApp, among others, provide a space in which society can communicate freely and cheaply, articulating their divergent viewpoints. Social media can be used to promote peace and tolerance if used carefully. However, academics have noted that social media can also have destructive consequences for society, such as heightened conflicts and hatred, due to the spread of “fake” information from various sectors of society. There is empirical evidence showing how social media has been used as a tool to promote hate speech and the isolation of certain groups in society. When parties with divergent viewpoints take their conflict into the offline sphere, it can lead to bloodshed and death.
Topic:
Mass Media, Social Media, Conflict, and Peace
Political Geography:
Global Focus

4. Key Lessons for Global Counter-Insurgency from the Fight against Boko Haram

Author:
Andrew Hankins
Publication Date:
05-2020
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Conflict Trends
Institution:
The African Centre for the Constructive Resolution of Disputes (ACCORD)
Abstract:
Whilst the number of insurgencies has steadily increased since the end of the 1990s, today they constitute the majority of all globally monitored conflicts.1 Insurgencies, defined as “organized subversion and violence to seize, nullify, or challenge political control of a region”2 have consequently become a key focus for conflict analysts, with counter-insurgency (COIN) operations now a central tenant within the education of modern professional armed forces.3 COIN itself consists of a “combination of measures undertaken by a government, sometimes with […] multinational partner support, to defeat an insurgency”.4 These missions have been primarily conducted by Western forces, which this article defines as those belonging to the European Union, Canada, New Zealand, the United Kingdom or the United States of America – as not only are these states in line with what is traditionally considered Western society, but are well documented as leaders of Western COIN operations.5 However, non-Western COIN operations now constitute the majority of global COIN operations. One such example is the ongoing operation against the Islamist group known as Boko Haram, in the Lake Chad Basin.6 Despite the fact that Boko Haram continues to operate today, between 2011 and 2019 the Nigerian Joint Task Force (NJTF), as part of the Lake Chad Basin Multinational Joint Task Force (MNJTF), successfully reduced both the ability and reach of Boko Haram. This was achieved by adopting the widely accepted best practices of COIN: a regional focus, a political strategy and a population-centric security focus.7 This article explores each of these strategies, analysing them through a theoretical lens, before outlining the mission’s shortcomings and finally considering the lessons that can be learnt and contrasting them with Western COIN missions in Afghanistan, Vietnam and Kenya.
Topic:
Terrorism, Military Strategy, Insurgency, Counterinsurgency, and Boko Haram
Political Geography:
Global Focus

5. Adaptive Mediation

Author:
Cedric De Coning and Stephen Gray
Publication Date:
09-2018
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Conflict Trends
Institution:
The African Centre for the Constructive Resolution of Disputes (ACCORD)
Abstract:
When United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres took up his post in December 2016, he observed that “conflicts have become more complex and interlinked than ever before”.1 The increase in complexity that Guterres refers to stems in part from a proliferation in the range of national and transnational stakeholders and interests that affect peace processes. We are now concerned with, for instance, the roles that governance, corruption, organised crime, increasingly fragmented opposition movements, violent extremism, the environment, gender, youth and natural resource management play in contributing to – or hindering – conflict resolution. The proliferation of actors and threats stretches the limits of traditional state and multilateral mediation processes. The challenge of navigating complex stakeholder landscapes is compounded by dynamic, interconnected and unpredictable local to global societal processes. Digital interconnectivity allows people to mobilise in ways that was not possible just a few years ago. The more the world is globalised, the more changes one factor can have in unpredictable and unintended political, economic, migration or conflict consequences elsewhere. The consequence of increasing complexity for peacemakers is that there are more variables that can affect peace processes, less stability in the behaviour of these variables, and less predictability when it comes to how peace and conflict processes are likely to unfold. Complexity therefore renders rigid adherence to analysis, plans and structures ineffective and potentially harmful. In the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), for instance, Eriksen has argued that the state-building project of external actors has failed, in part, because their designs have been based on fixed, non-negotiable conceptions of what the state should eventually look like, without due regard to the complex and evolving interests and relations between domestic powers.2
Topic:
Globalization, United Nations, Conflict, and Mediation
Political Geography:
Global Focus

6. Why States Fail

Author:
John H.S. Aberg
Publication Date:
09-2018
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Conflict Trends
Institution:
The African Centre for the Constructive Resolution of Disputes (ACCORD)
Abstract:
he tentative argument made in this article is that “failed states” have failed to develop successful projects of internal colonialism. Yet, in the present era, human rights norms and world society governance models denounce states that pursue internal colonial projects. This paradox highlights the great challenge of state making in the present age. Internal colonialism can be defined in terms of a failed state concept that conceives of the state along a strong-weak state continuum, based on three core factors: the monopoly of the legitimate use of force, effective institutions and national consensus.1 In that order, they relate to coercive power, administrative and infrastructural power, and cultural hegemony. Succeeding with these three core aspects of state making has historically been an internal colonial process – that is, it involved (1) pacification and subduance of enemies of the state; (2) dismantling of the existence of parallel institutions; and (3) suppression of rival cultural frameworks. The campaign of the Argentine state to establish dominance over Patagonia, known as the Conquest of the Desert, is an example of this internal colonial process, which had catastrophic effects for the indigenous people who inhabited the area. This was in line with the dominant understanding of the Westphalian ideal of the state where authority is one, bureaucracy is one and nation is one – and together they make up the trinity of the modern state. The fundamental contradiction between internal and external sovereignty inherent in the modern Westphalian system is evident.2 States gained external sovereignty through recognition before they gained internal sovereignty within their territories. Therefore, to establish internal sovereignty, states needed to engage in internal colonialism – that is, processes of organised violence, bureaucratic expansion and cultural assimilation. States that fail these processes thus fail in their projects of internal colonialism and, hence, fail in their state making project as conceived by the Westphalian ideal of the state.
Topic:
Governance, Fragile States, Colonialism, and State Building
Political Geography:
Global Focus