Rising Powers and Peacebuilding: Breaking the Mold
This book is open access under a CC BY 4.0 license. This edited volume examines the policies and practices of rising powers on peacebuilding. It analyzes how and why their approaches differ from those of traditional donors and multilateral institutions. The policies of the rising powers towards peacebuilding may significantly influence how the UN and others undertake peacebuilding in the future. This book is an invaluable resource for practitioners, policy makers, researchers and students who want to understand how peacebuilding is likely to evolve over the next decades.
UN-Friedenssicherung und Terrorismusbekämpfung: seltsame Bettgenossen?
English summary: UN Peacekeeping and Counterterrorism: Uncomfortable Bedfellows? Based on the case of the UN Stabilization Mission in Mali (MINUSMA), the article argues that UN peacekeeping neither is, nor will be ready operationally, doctrinally or politically to take on counterterrorism tasks. Such a development will jeopardize the legal protection of UN staff, and the ability of the UN to be an impartial arbiter of conflict, and for other parts of the UN family to carry out humanitarian work. The article thus argues that MINUSMA is an anomaly in the history of UN peacekeeping, and should be avoided as an example for future operations.
The evolving landscape of African insurgencies
Amid an array of shifting national, regional, and global forces, how have African insurgents managed to adapt and survive? And what differences and similarities can be found, both among the continent's diverse rebellions and guerrilla movements and between them and movements elsewhere in the world? Addressing these issues, the authors of Africa's Insurgents explore how new groups are emerging and existing ones changing in response to an evolving landscape
Mali: Islam, arms and money
Amid an array of shifting national, regional, and global forces, how have African insurgents managed to adapt and survive? And what differences and similarities can be found, both among the continent's diverse rebellions and guerrilla movements and between them and movements elsewhere in the world? Addressing these issues, the authors of Africa's Insurgents explore how new groups are emerging and existing ones changing in response to an evolving landscape.
Africa's insurgents in comparative perspective
Amid an array of shifting national, regional, and global forces, how have African insurgents managed to adapt and survive? And what differences and similarities can be found, both among the continent's diverse rebellions and guerrilla movements and between them and movements elsewhere in the world? Addressing these issues, the authors of Africa's Insurgents explore how new groups are emerging and existing ones changing in response to an evolving landscape.
Pathways to reconciliation in divided societies: Islamist groups in Lebanon and Mali
Why do some population groups choose to turn away from the state and opt for violence, while other groups that may be equally frustrated with the state remain engaged with the existing polity? This question has become particularly salient and complex in the last five years following the Arab revolutions and counter-revolutions. In a number of states, Salafi groups had to choose between standing outside the domestic political game or participating in formal and informal ways in national and local politics. We approach Sunni and Shi’I Islamism not as monolithic blocks, but as ideological arenas of dispute between competing and evolving social movements, operating in specific local contexts. Thus, focusing on cases from Tripoli, Lebanon and Bamako, Mali we show that religious actors are positioned in multiple fields at the same time. No position or pattern of allegiance should therefore be seen as permanent, but rather possible flexible and shifting. We analyse how such actors navigate such situational fields, what factors that determine their strategies’ potential for contributing to peaceful reconciliation, the sustainability of such reconciliation, and what lessons learned from the divided societies of Lebanon and Mali that are relevant for the case of Syria.
Africa's Insurgents: Navigating an Evolving Landscape
Amid an array of shifting national, regional, and global forces, how have African insurgents managed to adapt and survive? And what differences and similarities can be found, both among the continent's diverse rebellions and guerrilla movements and between them and movements elsewhere in the world? Addressing these issues, the authors of Africa's Insurgents explore how new groups are emerging and existing ones changing in response to an evolving landscape.
Contested Professionalization in a Weak Transnational Field
I analyse the contested emergence of so-called needs assessments and the push towards ‘evidence-based action’ within humanitarian organisations. The introduction of evidence-based action since the late 1990s inaugurated a systematic change within humanitarian organisations: it implied that practical experience from humanitarian crises - since long a hallmark of authority among humanitarian professionals - was no longer sufficient alone to establish authority and dominate humanitarian organisations. The push to use ‘objective’ methods to assess humanitarian needs came primarily from donors, who demanded that humanitarian organisations better demonstrate efficiency, effectiveness, and accountability. While humanitarian professionals across different organisations can be said to share moral commitments and expertise, they were nonetheless not able to push back against the introduction of standardised needs assessments. The explanation for this is to be found in the fact that the humanitarian field lacks autonomy: Because humanitarian organisations rely extensively on outside actors (donors) for financial and political support, their internal organisation and outlook is heavily shaped by non-humanitarian actors. As a result, the ability of transnationally organised humanitarian professionals - operating in humanitarian crises - to shape humanitarian priorities and modes of work is undercut by their respective organisations´ relative dependence on outside actors. Present-day humanitarian organisations are thus marked by two different strands of professionalism: one with basis in practical experience from humanitarian crises, emphasising proximity to those in need and the role of bearing witness, and one with basis in more abstract models of knowledge of management, resource-mobilisation, and measuring needs through standardised methods.
Societal Transformation in Conflict Contexts (TRANSFORM)
In times of radical uncertainty and flux: how do individual actions inspire collective action or lead to new institutional practices in ways that determine the direction of a society? ...