Authors:Gavin John Bradshaw et al. Abstract: An initial response to the thought-provoking critique of John Burton’s conflict resolution approach by Laureen Park (2010), became a substantive re-evaluation of Burton’s Human Needs approach. Her critique is based on the idea that Burton’s basic human needs approach is ‘biological’, and overly deterministic, and therefore to be rejected out of hand. We defend Burton’s position, using the ideas of the very Critical Theory/psychoanalysis and poststructuralist perspectives that she also uses, and point out that Burton’s thinking is ultimately not entirely at odds with the central tenets of the first, second and third generation Critical Theory scholars such as Horkheimer, Habermas and Žižek, respectively. It is important for the conflict resolution field that Burton’s perspective on basic human needs continues to be explored and further elaborated. PubDate: Mon, 09 Sep 2019 11:51:00 PDT
Authors:Terry Beitzel Abstract: The following provides a brief overview of one of the founders of conflict studies, John Burton, and his Basic Human Needs theory. Since Burton is seldomly cited in contemporary scholarship1 the following relies heavily on the reflections of David Dunn, published in 2004 and on a collection of writings written by Burton’s colleagues in 1990. While a set of questions remain incredibly important — are needs universal, how do they differ from interests and desires, do they exist in a hierarchy of importance, and, what is the relation between needs and culture' — the following concentrates primarily on two features that deserve re-examination and further reflection: first, what is the significance of the difference between Burton’s understanding of “puzzle-solving” and “problem-solving” and, second, how does Burton envision the term his created term of “proventing” conflict. Finally, does Human Needs Theory provide an emancipatory agenda for action or does it simply offer a critique of existing institutions and systems' Do we need to go beyond Burton' PubDate: Mon, 09 Sep 2019 11:50:50 PDT
Authors:Jon D. Unruh Abstract: The enormity of the world’s dislocated population generated by contemporary conflicts has brought significant attention to a complicated process of returning housing, land and property (HLP) to their rightful occupants once conditions permit. As the complexity of large-scale HLP restitution becomes increasingly apparent, significant obstacles emerge that require examination. This article describes how the ‘evidentiary bind’ is such an obstacle. This bind emerges when large-scale HLP restitution processes require titles and deeds to be in the possession of the population who are the least likely to have them—the forcibly displaced. The technical, legal and political inability to acknowledge and accept alternative, informal, customary, or hybrid evidence for finding rightful owners means that the ‘evidentiary bind’ prevents returns, leaves a large amount of land in a state of limbo, produces grievances in the war-affected population, and invites corruption and the use of potentially destabilizing means to regain one’s HLP. This article looks at the case of Sri Lanka where the current HLP restitution process faces a particularly acute form of the ‘evidentiary bind.’ PubDate: Mon, 09 Sep 2019 11:50:40 PDT
Authors:Jeffery D. Pugh Abstract: The expansion of international trials over the last decades has reinvigorated the debate surrounding the efficacy of retributive justice over restorative justice in response to mass humanitarian crises. This study examines the ways different transitional justice models contribute to stable peace. It suggests that a hybrid utilization of both restorative justice mechanisms (e.g., amnesty) and retributive justice mechanisms (e.g., trials) is most effective in achieving a stable peace in a post-accord state, and that context is an important intervening factor. Using a mixed method approach, I first examine a group of 25 test cases, analyzing the relationship between restorative and retributive justice and post-conflict stability. I then examine more closely the paradigmatic case studies of El Salvador, Rwanda, and Mozambique in order to see how the three dominant models worked within individual country contexts. While the data suggests some linkage between the hybrid model and post-conflict stable peace, there are intervening factors (such as culture, alignment of narratives with elite and popular interests and values, and international legitimacy), which are also at work. PubDate: Mon, 09 Sep 2019 11:50:31 PDT
Abstract: Michael Alaimo is a lecturer at Niagara University’s Leadership and Policy program. Dr. Alaimo’s research utilizes a geographic information system and structural equation modeling to evaluate the effects of social environmental conditions on terrorist activities. Dr. Alaimo’s research interests also include policing strategies (e.g., community policing, problem oriented policing, and zero-tolerance policing).Christopher Hrynkow is Associate Professor in the Department of Religion and Culture at St. Thomas More College, University of Saskatchewan. He teaches courses in Religious Studies, and Critical Perspectives on Social Justice and the Common Good. Dr. Hrynkow’s research sheds light on Catholic social thought and praxis for over a decade.Patrik Johansson is a Senior Lecturer and Director of Studies at the Department of Political Science, Umeå University in Sweden. Dr. Johansson served with the European Union Monitoring Mission (EUMM) in Macedonia from 2001 to 2002, and with the Temporary International Presence in Hebron (TIPH) in the West Bank from 2003 to 2004. His most recent publications include such topics as a peace studies research programme and building resilient peace as well as decisions and actions at the UN Security Counsel.Sabine Mannitz is head of department and member of the executive board at the Peace Research Institute in Frankfurt/Main (PRIF). Dr. Mannitz specilises in urban anthropology, institutional socialisation, collective imagery, the study of migration and processes of social boundary construction. Dr. Mannitz has published extensively on civic enculturation among the offspring of post-war labour immigrants in Germany as well as a role of the German Nazi past in the making of a collective memory. Her latest research covers global-local entanglements in the field of norm contestation and the dynamics of cultural change under conditions of glocalisation.Maria Power is Las Casas Institute Research Fellow in Human Dignity, University of Oxford. Dr Power’s research focuses on the role that religions can play in ameliorating violence and ethnic conflict. Her research on conflict and peace seeks to understand how religious organizations should behave in conflict and post-conflict situations in order to have a positive impact. She has published widely on the topic, especially in relation to the conflict in Northern Ireland.Yonghong Tong is an Assistant Professor of Computer and Information Sciences at Niagara University. His teaching and research areas include information technology use in education, geographic information systems (GIS) research, and data visualization. PubDate: Tue, 14 May 2019 15:24:52 PDT
Authors:Michael Alaimo et al. Abstract: This study uses a geographic information system (GIS) and a zero-inflated negative binomial regression model to evaluate if terrorist organizations that display a higher level of abstract/universal characteristics are more lethal in individual terrorist attacks than those organizations that exhibit a higher level of limited/political characteristics The results from the zero-inflated negative binomial regression model indicate that indeed there is an association between organizations that demonstrate a higher degree of abstract/universal characteristics and higher fatality rates in individual attacks. Likewise, terrorist organizations with a greater degree of limited/political characteristics were determined to produce less fatalities in individual attacks. PubDate: Tue, 14 May 2019 15:24:45 PDT
Authors:Christopher Hrynkow et al. Abstract: AbstractThis article maps two distinct bodies of thought before moving to a synthesis discussion, which proceeds in dialogue with the contributions of Pope Francis to fostering substantive peace. The first section presents select challenges and promises of employing inter-religious dialogue as a tool for peacebuilding. The article then positions papal contributions coupling inter-religious dialogue and peacebuilding. A synthesis section analyzes how Francis is buttressing this connection in particular ways with reference to his notion of building up cultures of dialogue and encounter. The results of this approach will be of interest to nonviolent activists, conflict transformation practitioners, religious studies scholars, and others concerned with dialogue’s potential as a path to peace. PubDate: Tue, 14 May 2019 15:24:38 PDT
Authors:Sabine Mannitz Abstract: This article focuses on challenges in the commemoration of war dead for peace education, drawing on modes of remembrance of the war dead in Germany as an informative case: In Germany’s official remembrance culture ‘all victims of war’ are mourned. Yet in public and in private divided narratives and interpretations have been cultivated. In this ‘memory competition,’ the vanishing of the contemporary witnesses of World War II entails challenges but it also offers opportunities for peace education. To take advantage of these, questions must be tackled publicly about what the (different) war dead may mean to us today, and to future generations. A reflective remembrance culture requires historical accuracy but also recognition of the complexity that belies the notion of there being one collective memory. PubDate: Tue, 14 May 2019 15:24:30 PDT
Authors:Patrik Johansson Abstract: The concept of resilience is currently making its way into the field of peace and conflict studies, but it is a concept with different meanings and implications. The argument advanced in this paper is that in order to make the most of resilience thinking, the field should not conceive of resilience merely as the ability to bounce back to an original state after a disturbance, a conceptualization usually referred to as “engineering resilience.” Instead, it should engage with “ecological resilience,” which refers to the amount of disturbance that a system can absorb before being pushed across a threshold from one stable state to another. I also relate these different types of resilience to another distinction between specified resilience to anticipated disturbances and general resilience to unknown ones. Finally I consider a few other implications of resilience thinking for research on peace and conflict. PubDate: Tue, 14 May 2019 15:24:23 PDT
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