The Role of External Actors in Incentivizing Post-Conflict Power-Sharing

2013 ◽  
Vol 49 (1) ◽  
pp. 47-69 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joanne McEvoy

External actors engaged in peace building often induce domestic elites to share power. This article explores the effectiveness of external incentives in establishing, maintaining or reforming power-sharing. Adopting a rationalist approach to socialization, the research investigates the strategic interaction between external and internal actors in two cases of contemporary power-sharing: Northern Ireland and Bosnia-Herzegovina. External incentives will probably be more effective when they uphold a peace agreement that satisfies groups’ structural preferences on constitutional issues. External incentives can, under certain conditions, lead to internalization and the potential ‘habitualization’ of power-sharing as norm-conforming behaviour. The strategy of external actors will be less effective when their socialization efforts are inconsistent and coercive, viewed as threatening to one or more of the contending groups.

Author(s):  
Lidija Georgieva

This article will focus on theoretical and practical dilemmas related to the concept of peace governance, and within this context on the possible transformative role of peace education trough facilitation of contact between communities in conflict. The basic assumption is that violent conflicts in the Balkans have been resolved trough negotiated settlements and peace agreements. Yet, education strategy including peace education and its impact on post-conflict peacebuilding and reconciliation are underestimated. Peace governance is recognized as a dynamic but challenging process often based on institutional and policy arrangements aimed to at least settle conflict dynamics or in some cases even to provide more sustainable peace after signing of negotiated settlement in multicultural societies. We will argue that education in general is one of the critical issues of peace governance arrangements that could facilitate peacebuilding and create a contact platform between communities. The first question addressed in this article is to what extend peace agreements refer to education as an issue and the second one relate to the question if education is included in peace agreement to what extent it contributes for contact between different conflicting communities. Although it is widely accepted that contacts between former adversaries contributes for multicultural dialogue it is less known or explained if and in what way peace agreements provisions on education facilitate contact and transformation of conflicting relations.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Dylan Page

<p>The potential role of women in conflict and post-conflict environments has been the subject of much debate in the field of peace and conflict studies. In 2000 the United Nations Security Council passed Resolution 1325, which called for a greater involvement of women and acknowledgement of gender issues in conflict and post-conflict environments, and this has led to further discussion about what this might mean and how it might be implemented. Despite this women are continually under-represented in nearly all peace processes and there is no universally agreed upon way to ensure this situation does not come about. The barriers women face range from cultural to logistical and economic, and surmounting them can be hard to achieve.  One case where women have been involved at all levels in the peace process with substantial success is the Pacific island of Bougainville, where a conflict over mining issues and secession from Papua New Guinea was waged from 1988-1997. Women were active in attempts to bring all parties to negotiations during the conflict and have also been heavily involved in the continuing reconciliation and healing processes. For cultural reasons Bougainvillean women were well placed to perform the role of peace-builders but that is not to say that they did not face challenges and barriers to their involvement. This thesis examines the involvement of women in both the immediate peace negotiations and the longer-term aspects of the peace process in Bougainville in order explain how and why they enjoyed these successes and what lessons can be learnt from this case in regards to the potential roles of women in other post-conflict environments. Four factors will be identified as key to women's involvement in the peace process: the history of Bougainville up to and including the conflict; the grassroots mobilisation and organisation of women; the traditional cultural roles of women in Bougainville; and the identification of women with motherhood and its associated traits.  These factors indicate that the involvement of women in peace processes is highly context-specific and although there are policies which can be pursued to encourage their participation the potential barriers to this are imposing.</p>


Author(s):  
James Waller

A Troubled Sleep: Risk and Resilience in Contemporary Northern Ireland revisits one of the world’s most deeply divided societies more than 20 years after a peace agreement brought an end to the Troubles. The book asks if the conflict, while perhaps managed and contained, has been transformed—structurally and relationally—into a win-win situation for both sides. It addresses this question by drawing on ethnographic fieldwork, comparative research, and more than 110 hours of face-to-face interviews with politicians, activists, community workers, former political prisoners, former (and sometimes current) paramilitary members, academics, journalists, mental health practitioners, tour guides, school teachers, museum curators, students, police and military personnel, legal experts, and religious leaders across Northern Ireland. The heart of the book analyzes Northern Ireland’s current vulnerabilities and points of resilience as an allegedly “post-conflict” society. The vulnerabilities are analyzed through a model of risk assessment that examines the longer term and slower moving structures, measures, society-wide conditions, and processes that leave societies vulnerable to violent conflict. Such risk factors include the interpretation of conflict history, how authority in a country is exercised, and the susceptibility to social disharmony, isolation, and fragmentation. Resilience is examined from a survey of the countering influences, both within and outside Northern Ireland, that are working diligently to confirm humanity by reducing or reversing these vulnerabilities. The book concludes by examining the accelerating factors in contemporary Northern Ireland that may lead to an escalation of crisis as well as the triggering factors that could spark the onset of violent conflict itself.


Author(s):  
Andrew Sanders

After Clinton’s second term in office ended, President George W Bush moved the Special Envoy to Northern Ireland to the State Department, but his Envoys, led by Richard Haass and Mitchell Reiss, were no less engaged in Northern Irish affairs as the political figures there sought to create a functional government at Stormont Parliament Buildings. A series of significant obstacles emerged, but the Northern Ireland Assembly finally formed in 2007 before Bush left office. He was succeeded by President Barack Obama who had little interest in Northern Ireland but Obama’s initial Secretary of State, former Senator Hillary Clinton, was well-versed in Northern Irish issues. This chapter also examines the role of Northern Ireland in the 2008 Democratic Primary contest and, to a lesser extent, the 2008 Presidential Election.


Author(s):  
Paul Stubbs

The chapter explores theoretical, political and ethical challenges inherent in activist research in conflict and post-conflict environments, focusing on Croatia and the wider post-Yugoslav space. Framed in terms of ‘ambivalence’, ‘positionality’ and ‘reflexivity’, the chapter revisits themes which were especially important in the wars of the Yugoslav succession: the ‘projectisation’ of NGOs; the relationship between ‘the real’ and ‘the virtual’; the role of external actors within a ‘new humanitarianism’; the over-emphasis on medicalised understanding of ‘trauma’; and the limits and possibilities of anti-nationalist movements in times of nationalist mobilisation. The chapter emphasises the importance of multi-voiced ethnography, a conscious post-colonial positioning and a stance of deep humility as preconditions for activist research to open up new arenas of possibility, struggle and change.


Author(s):  
Gray Christine

This final chapter examines the role of regional peacekeeping, the limitations on what may be expected from it, and the uncertainties about the applicable law that remained at the end of the Cold War. The UN Secretary General, in his 1991 Agenda for Peace, argued that the regional organizations possessed a potential that should be used for preventive diplomacy, peacekeeping, peacemaking, and post-conflict peace building. Since then the UN has increased its cooperation with regional organizations in the sphere of peacekeeping. The Brahimi Report and the 2015 High-level Panel Report made recommendations on the division of labour between the UN and regional organizations in the light of their comparative advantages. Today, regional organizations, and particularly the African Union, operate as ‘first responders’ when the UN is not willing or able to take swift action in situations of ongoing conflict.


Legal Studies ◽  
2011 ◽  
Vol 31 (2) ◽  
pp. 305-325 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jonathan Doak ◽  
David O'Mahony

Restorative justice principles often feature prominently in peace agreements and initiatives to foster reconciliation and peace-building. As part of its own transitional process, Northern Ireland has undertaken a wide-ranging programme of criminal justice reform, whereby restorative practices have become a central response to juvenile offending. Drawing on a major evaluation of the Northern Ireland Youth Conferencing Scheme, this paper suggests that restorative conferencing holds the potential not only to promote reconciliation between victims and offenders, but it may even bolster the legitimacy deficit suffered by criminal justice institutions. Whilst is vital that such schemes continue to foster their engagement with civil society and the wider community, the broader potential of restorative processes to contribute to post-conflict peace-building is considerable, especially in relation to fostering a sense of legitimacy necessary for the operation of society and the institutions of the state.


Author(s):  
Monica McWilliams ◽  
Avila Kilmurray

Women’s activism played an important role in conflict transformation in Northern Ireland, from the early civil rights activists to the development of the Northern Ireland Women’s Coalition political party. This chapter follows the history of activism in Northern Ireland, using the trajectory to illustrate how the exclusion of women from formal institutions resulted in a women’s movement that became an alternative means for creating change. It identifies important characteristics of women’s activism, including a willingness to build broad alliances in civil society and framing tactics that brought gender-specific interests to the peace process and the Good Friday peace agreement. As the chapter examines the successes and challenges of the post-conflict women’s movement in Northern Ireland, it reflects on the power of creativity and innovation in altering institutional dynamics during times of transition.


2017 ◽  
Vol 16 (2) ◽  
pp. 75
Author(s):  
Husnul Khotimah

This paper intends to explore the events of the conflict on 23 May 1997 from the aspect of the peaceful resolution. Where a peace-building effort is needed to maintain a peaceful situation. With the collective memory being represented in the present mass, it is part of the form of efforts in fostering post-conflict sustainable peace. Through the elements of society (Non-Governmental Actor) the memory of conflict is represented in the public sphere as a form of warning against forgetting over history.The role of a non-governmental actor in peacebuilding has a strategic role in resolving conflicts and building peace post-conflict. There are three things raised in this research that is: The incident of conflict "Jum'at Kelabu" in the city of Banjarmasin in 1997, a collective memory form of conflict that built elements of society after the conflict, and the views of elements of society to the collective memory that was represented in the present in the effort to build peacebuilding. This research is a qualitative research, using a sociology-historical approach. The method used in data collection is through observation, interview, and documentation as secondary data. From the results of data analysis, the following results are obtained: the conflict that occurred in Banjarmasin city has a long chronology, the cause of this conflict is an unclear campaign route, the party base that controls Banjarmasin, because the mass of one the OPP that interfere with the Friday prayer, and aggressiveness of campaign participants. The form of peacebuilding efforts of the elements of society is to take peaceful action down the street, discussion/dialogue, and watching a documentary film. Elements of society argue that bringing back the memory of the conflict has two impacts: negative and positive impacts on people’s lives thereafter. These efforts need to be built to create an awareness that the conflict is painful, unpleasant and disturbing so hopefully it will never happen again.


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