This volume seeks to understand the central role of governments in intra-state conflicts.The book explores how the government in any society plays two pivotal roles: as a deterrent against those who would use violence; and as a potential danger to the society. These roles come into conflict with each other, as those governments that can best deter
Published in 1999, this text examines domestic wars, looking at inter-state relations only in as far as they are directly relevant to understand such wars. The book aims to indicate how intra-state war differs from the inter-state war, and focuses primarily on such domestic armed conflicts that at least have significant ethnonational components. The book assesses how heterogeneous a category "ethnic conflict" is in terms of causes and consequences, and gauges the complex interplay between class, regionalism and ethnicity. It is not limited to description and causal analysis, but also attempts to assess suggestions as to what types of actors may contribute in what ways to avoiding ethnonational mobilization/polarization, avoiding militarization of manifest conflicts, and de-escalating militarized conflicts by looking for tenable generalizations on what types of approaches are fruitful in bringing about de-escalation, ceasefires, political compromises, peaceful division or peaceful integration, reconciliation.
This volume explores the nature of civil war in the modern world and in historical perspective. Civil wars represent the principal form of armed conflict since the end of the Second World War, and certainly in the contemporary era. The nature and impact of civil wars suggests that these conflicts reflect and are also a driving force for major societal change. In this sense, Understanding Civil Wars: Continuity and change in intrastate conflict argues that the nature of civil war is not fundamentally changing in nature. The book includes a thorough consideration of patterns and types of intrastate conflict and debates relating to the causes, impact, and ‘changing nature’ of war. A key focus is on the political and social driving forces of such conflict and its societal meanings, significance and consequences. The author also explores methodological and epistemological challenges related to studying and understanding intrastate war. A range of questions and debates are addressed. What is the current knowledge regarding the causes and nature of armed intrastate conflict? Is it possible to produce general, cross-national theories on civil war which have broad explanatory relevance? Is the concept of ‘civil wars’ empirically meaningful in an era of globalization and transnational war? Has intrastate conflict fundamentally changed in nature? Are there historical patterns in different types of intrastate conflict? What are the most interesting methodological trends and debates in the study of armed intrastate conflict? How are narratives about the causes and nature of civil wars constructed around ideas such as ethnic conflict, separatist conflict and resource conflict? This book will be of much interest to students of civil wars, intrastate conflict, security studies and international relations in general.
Since the end of the Cold War a significant number of peace agreements have been signed, many of them in bloody intra-state conflicts that were previously thought beyond resolution. How have these agreements addressed issues of territory, security, power and justice? Do they reveal a blueprint for peace, and what can we learn from both their successes and their failures? This timely book provides a comprehensive and cutting-edge analysis of peace agreements signed in separatist conflicts from 1990 to the present day. Drawing on a diverse range of cases, including Bosnia, Indonesia, the Philippines, Sudan, Israel-Palestine and Ukraine, it analyses the different peace 'packages', focusing on the interaction of the elements in play, and exploring the impact of political contestation within conflict parties and of peace process dynamics. Though some of these agreements have displayed great ingenuity in finding lasting solutions, many have relied on more traditional, and often problematic, designs. For all such agreements, the enduring challenge is that of ensuring flexibility while avoiding destructive ambiguity. This is why the content of peace agreements really matters - not only to sustain peace once it is achieved but to make the prospect of peace possible in the first place.
"This book identifies the most important sources of intra-state conflict in the individual countries of the Horn of Africa. It explores the seriousness of the threats to the security of the states, their peoples, and the region; and it identifies the appropriate conflict resolution approach"--
"These two volumes clearly demonstrate the efforts by a wide range of African scholars to explain the roots, routes, regimes and resolution of African conflicts and how to re-build post-conflict societies. They offer sober and serious analyses, eschewing the sensationalism of the western media and the sophistry of some of the scholars in the global North for whom African conflicts are at worst a distraction and at best a confirmation of their pet racist and petty universalist theories." --From the introduction by Paul Tiyambe Zeleza This book offers analyses of a range of African conflicts and demonstrates that peace is too important to be left to outsiders.
Through a comparative analysis of six case studies, this volume illustrates key conflict-resolution techniques for peacebuilding. Outside parties learn how to facilitate cooperation by engaging local leaders in intensive, interactive workshops. These opposing leaders reside in small, ethnically divided countries, including Burundi, Cyprus, Estonia, Guyana, Sri Lanka, and Tajikistan, that have experienced communal conflicts in recent years. In Estonia and Guyana, peacebuilding initiatives sought to ward off violence. In Burundi and Sri Lanka, initiatives focused on ending ongoing hostilities, and in Cyprus and Tajikistan, these efforts brought peace to the country after its violence had ended. The contributors follow a systematic assessment framework, including a common set of questions for interviewing participants to prepare comparable results from a set of diverse cases. Their findings weigh the successes and failures of this particular approach to conflict resolution and draw conclusions about the conditions under which such interactive approaches work, as well as assess the audience and the methodologies used. This work features research conducted in conjunction with the Working Group on Preventing and Rebuilding Failed States, convened by the Wilson Center's Project on Leadership and Building State Capacity.
′The SAGE Handbook of Conflict Resolution demonstrates the range of themes that constitute modern conflict resolution. It brings out its key issues, methods and dilemmas through original contributions by leading scholars in a dynamic and expanding field of inquiry. This handbook is exactly what it sets out to be: an indispensable tool for teaching, research and practice in conflict resolution′ - Peter Wallensteen, Professor of Peace and Conflict Research, Uppsala University and University of Notre Dame ′Bercovitch, Kremenyuk and Zartman are among the most important figures in the conflict resolution field. They have pieced together, with the help of more than 35 colleagues from numerous countries, a state-of-the-art review of the sources of international conflict, available methods of conflict management, and the most difficult challenges facing the individuals and organizations trying to guide us through these conflict-ridden times. The collection is brimming with penetrating insights, trenchant analyses, compelling cases, and disciplined speculation. They help us understand both the promise of as well as the obstacles to theory-building in the new field of conflict resolution′ - Lawrence Susskind, Professor and Director of the MIT - Harvard Public Disputes Program ′The last three sentences of this persuasive book: "We conclude this volume more than ever convinced that conflict resolution is not just possible or desirable in the current international environment. It is absolutely necessary. Resolving conflicts and making peace is no longer an option; it is an intellectual and practical skill that we must all posses." If you are part of that "we," intellectually or professionally, you will find this book a superb companion′ - Thomas C Schelling, Professor Emeritus, Harvard University and University of Maryland Conflict resolution is one of the fastest-growing academic fields in the world today. Although it is a relatively young discipline, having emerged as a specialized field in the 1950′s, it has rapidly grown into a self-contained, vibrant, interdisciplinary field. The SAGE Handbook of Conflict Resolution brings together all the conceptual, methodological and substantive elements of conflict resolution into one volume of over 35 specially commissioned chapters. The Handbook is designed to reflect where the field is today by drawing on the contributions of experts from different fields presenting, in a systematic way, the most recent research and practice. Jacob Bercovitch is Professor of International Relations, and Fellow of the Royal Society, at the University of Canterbury in Christchurch, New Zealand. Victor Kremenyuk is deputy director of the Institute for USA and Canada Studies, Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow. He is also a research associate at IIASA. I. William Zartman is Jacob Blaustein Professor of Conflict Resolution and International Organization at the Nitze School of Advanced International Studies of Johns Hopkins University
This book introduces the subject of third party intervention, one of the core subject matters of the fields of conflict resolution and peace studies. It provides a comprehensive introduction to the dimensions, issues, and methods of third party intervention, and approaches the subject from an interdisciplinary perspective. It delves into third party definitions, typologies, actors, rationale, motives, decision dimensions, and roles. This book provides in-depth analysis of such third party methods as mediation, arbitration, hybrid procedures, problem solving workshops, and peacekeeping, uniquely bringing all major topics of third party intervention into one text. The last two chapters deal with timing of intervention and ripe moments, and ethics. Students of conflict resolution and peace studies will benefit from this book.
