Post Conflict Peacebuilding Research Papers (original) (raw)

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- Post-Conflict State Building, Post Conflict Peacebuilding

This article looks at the interface between the International Criminal Court and transitional justice processes in Northern Uganda. It takes a doctrinal approach, drawing on qualitative work in the fields of international criminal law, human rights, and political science. The Ugandan situation demonstrates that top-down transitional justice has both positive and negative dimensions. This article argues that, while the International Criminal Court has helped transform judicial aspects, it has also contributed towards the decline of traditional justice mechanisms. Overall, the article concludes that there is still a compelling case to be made for the involvement of international criminal tribunals in postwar contexts, but that it needs to be done in such a way that promotes good domestic processes and incorporates bottom-up perspectives.

Sebha is the key and the most populated city in Fezzan,
the South of Libya, and the main gateway between
North and South. In 2018, it es􀆟matly hosts around
210,000 inhabitants constitu􀆟ng around 2/3rd of its
governorate.
It has experienced figh􀆟ng and damage, especially in
2011 and 2014. Most of the displaced were within the
boundaries of the city and its immediate
neighborhoods, accelerating the development of its
informal settlements.
15,190 IDPs from Sebha outside the region has
returned, cons􀆟tu􀆟ng today 7% of the population. This
is while there are s􀆟ll 8,390 displaced IDPs.
Sebha became also a major step on the migra􀆟on road
from Africa to the North. 35,040 migrants were
accounted for in August 2018 (18% of the municipality
popula􀆟on), in an accelera􀆟ng trend. 89% of the
migrants are from Africa, mainly Niger and Nigeria.
Their humanitarian situation is a priority issue.

From restorative justice literature in general. two conceptions of restorative justice processing can be discerned. The one is a
modest conception based on individual (dispositional) theories of crime and the other is an expansive view which is closer to peacebuilding and has a further distinction. One distinction is based on situational theories of crime which hold that structural factors are responsible for crime. The other distinction is based on integrative theories of crime which hold that there is an interaction between individual and structural factors that produce crime and that structural factors should be taken into account during restorative justice processing.

This article examines power dynamics in political groupings during
the 2014 Afghanistan presidential election and assesses the impact on
political stability and order. The focus is the power dynamics of local
political-economic and identity networks that have come to underpin
and constitute the state in post-2001 international state-building.
The article first seeks to understand how the complex relationships
between the two leading presidential candidates, Ashraf Ghani and
Abdullah Abdullah, and key powerbrokers were negotiated and
subsequently influenced electoral outcomes. Second, focusing on
negotiations over the appointment of the Cabinet ministers, advisers
and staff, and governors, the study maps the restructuring of political
networks within the Afghan state. The analysis reveals the impact of
the election on the redistribution of power and resources, and the
consequences for political order and state stability in the post-2014
period.

This study undertook a resilience assessment of Michika Local Government Area in Adamawa state of Nigeria, based on the Communities Advancing Resilience Toolkit (CART) framework. The framework of social constructivism was used to examine concepts of conflict particularly violent conflict that is politically motivated as in the case of insurgency. Concepts of peace and resilience were also framed using the social constructivist lens.
Michika community, which is located in North Eastern Nigeria, was once part of the self-proclaimed Boko Haram caliphate. The community lived under Boko Haram rule for 7 months before the Nigerian army liberated it and those who were displaced began to return. The historical and socio-cultural overview of Michika provides the background to study area. A questionnaire was administered to respondents through key informant interviews and focus group discussions. The questionnaire was based on the four CART domains of connections and caring, resources, transformative potential and disaster preparedness. This allowed the researcher to obtain descriptive, qualitative data on Michika community.
The study highlights the impact of the Boko Haram insurgency on Michika, challenges to the community’s recovery efforts, the national and international Post-Conflict Recovery efforts undertaken in Michika, and lessons learned by the community. These are examined and analyzed to see how they affect the resilience of Michika community. Findings are then presented along with recommendations for PCRD policy in Michika.

- by OMAR HASSAN
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- Sustainable Peacebuilding, Post Conflict Peacebuilding

Disarmament, demobilization and reintegration (DDR) programmes form part of standard post-conflict peacebuilding tools regularly applied in the context of UN peacekeeping operations. Yet, the limitations of such templates become evident when peacebuilders are confronted with unconventional settings, such as the urban environment. So far, there is a scarcity of research on UN-led DDR efforts in cities, even though the proliferation of urban armed groups is projected to pose an intractable challenge for decades to come. Based on six months of fieldwork in Port-au-Prince, this article presents new empirical evidence on innovative DDR programming in Haiti, the only country where a United Nations Stabilization Mission (MINUSTAH) tried to implement a traditional DDR programme for gang members. As this attempt proved to be a failure, the mission subsequently changed its approach to a more community-focused armed violence reduction and prevention programme which aims to disincentivize at-risk sections of the population from joining gangs. Even though the current community violence reduction approach is better adapted to the unconventional conflict environment in Haiti and is seen by many practitioners today as a role model, it shares a number of limitations with traditional DDR programmes and is not a panacea for urban peacebuilding.

It has been years but the reconstruction of Marawi leaves much to be desired. In 2017, a battle between the government and ISIL-affiliated elements destroyed the city. This article turns attention to the youth who have been affected by this conflict. In a postconfict context in which reconstruction has yet to be seen, do the youth aspire to anything? If so, what are their aspirations? Drawing on interviews, we argue that their main aspiration is to ‘go home’. We unpack it in two respects: transparent and people-centered reconstruction and the reassertion of Marawi’s Islamic identity. These aspirations are not only couched in a positive language. Underlying them is a critique of the state of affairs: technocratic but inefficient rehabilitation and the moral and religious condition of the community prior to the conflict. By foregrounding the role of aspirations, this article advances the scholarship on young people’s participation in postconflict settings.

Benghazi is the second city of the country with a
population estimated between 715,000 and 812,000
inhabitants within its present administrative
boundaries. Its historical districts of Old Benghazi have
experienced severe damage during the conflict. The
population of the municipality have been subject to
significant displacements (more than half of all
displaced in Libya, 1/3rd of the population of the
municipality), while receiving relatively small number
of IDPs. Most of the displaced remained in the
region/mantika/governorate/mohafaza of Benghazi
and returned to the city after the end of the conflict.

Tackling maritime security is one of the major global challenges today.
Safeguarding international transport by sea; preventing accidents and disasters; fighting transnational organised crimes like piracy and the trafficking of narcotics and weapons; addressing fishery crimes and preventing other environmental crimes are all vital for international security and realising the prospects of the blue economy.
Maritime security is a global task. It requires effective maritime security governance at both national and regional levels, but also external capacity building to assist countries in developing their human and material capacities.
Significant investments have been made in maritime security and a rich experience base has been built over the years regarding how to organise maritime security governance and do capacity building work. This report consolidates this experience and identifies best practices to organise maritime security more efficiently and devise ways in which it can be effectively supported by donors. It provides guidelines for mastering maritime security.
Mastering maritime security requires reflexive capacity building. What reflexivity means in practice is demonstrated in this report by drawing on the experience of the Western Indian Ocean region.
The report is an important toolkit for all practitioners involved in maritime security. It also provides an essential guide for the planning, programming and implementation of capacity building for maritime security.

Reconciliation has become an integral part of the post-conflict peace-building process, and has come to be seen as an integral part of sustaining peace and security, particularly at the local level. The tension between a state security and human security approach to peace-building is particularly evident in national reconciliation and transitional justice processes. There is a continued emphasis on high-level reconciliation processes and the reconciliation of elite actors over processes that facilitate reconciliation at the community level. This article explores this in the case of Zimbabwe, where the emphasis is on a state-based approach to resolving conflict, which fails to take into account or address the needs and issues that affect local communities. Drawing from fieldwork undertaken in Matabeleland in April, 2014, this article describes what community members identify as their central needs when it comes to reconciliation, within the context of the state-driven processes that have been implemented to date.

- by Cori Wielenga and +1
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- Transitional Justice, Reconciliation, Post Conflict Peacebuilding

Over the past decades, the Africa continent had experienced several violent conflicts. These conflicts resulted in the deaths through battlefield casualties and war-induced famine and diseases. As part of the strategy to terminate violent conflicts in conflict-prone and post conflict countries, the international community adopted the liberal peace building approach. The basic principles of the liberal peace building approach include: the promotion of democracy, market-based economic reforms and a range of other institutions allied with modern states as a driving force for peace building process. Nevertheless, this approach has failed to promote long lasting peace and stability in war shattered countries such as Mozambique, Burundi and Angola because international policy-makers and practitioners failed to recognise the importance of the diverse infra-political, cultural and social– economic conditions of these countries during the peace building process. In particular, in South Africa and Rwanda, where both the liberal peace building and traditional peace building approaches were mutually applied, the peace building process was very successful. In view of this, the paper argues that the strategic (libetradilised) peace building approach, which goes beyond security-focused strategies, and focuses on sustainable peacebuilding at all levels of society is critical for promoting a durable and self-sustaining peace in war-torn countries in Africa.

This is the second in a series of land studies for northern Uganda, whose core objective
is to inform the Plan for Recovery and Development of Northern Uganda (PRDP) and
the National Land Policy. It builds on the work of the first phase conducted in Teso
region to present a more quantitative analysis of trends on disputes and claims on land
before displacement, during displacement and emerging trends or occurrences on
return for Acholi and Lango sub-regions.
The key findings in the Teso study are that there is a high level of distrust towards the
Central Government’s intentions toward land; customary tenure has evolved and
adapted to changing circumstances but remains to be seen as a legitimate form of
tenure; there was not a high prevalence of land disputes; the statutory and customary
institutional framework for land administration and justice has been severely weakened;
and vulnerable groups such as women and children have been marginalized during the
return process. However, the Teso region has been one of the most secure regions
during the conflict and has experienced very short periods of displacement and as such
does not provide a good marker for the situation in the rest of northern Uganda. This is
exemplified by the fact that though land conflict prevalence was extremely low in Teso
region, it is high in the Lango and Acholi regions.
The study is premised on the fact that the issue of land in return (restitution and
resettlement) processes has not been adequately dealt with in the National Land Policy
and various policies regarding IDP return in Northern Uganda. Land is a critical element
in peace building and economic reconstruction in post- conflict situations; relevant
issues must be understood and given appropriate priority for stabilization. The PRDP
should prioritise the protection of land rights and re-establishment of production
relations on land to bridge the poverty gap, which has been widening since 1997,
between war-affected areas (northern Uganda) and the rest of the country.

This paper traces the changing relationship between state and its education system at the intersection of diverging visions and agendas of local and international actors in post-war Kosovo in the period 1999-2014. Specifically, it explores why and how externally-driven reforms that carry the ideals of an inclusive multi-ethnic polity clashed with domestic actors’ visions of education as a locus of national resistance and independent statehood. To critically inquire into the direction of education reforms in the post-war context, the empirical part of the analysis identifies critical historical junctures through which these competing ideas and relevant actors changed and/or gained traction. Accordingly, the paper focuses mainly on the post-war period, but also considers the pre-war period in order to highlight the predominant vision of local actors on the roles of education, its intertwinement with unfolding conflicts, and its central role in processes of state formation and nation-building, in particular in a post-war context. The analysis is based on genealogical historical narrative, textual analysis of key official documents related to the education sector in Kosovo, and semi-structured interviews conducted in Prishtina in November 2013 and October 2016. The analysis demonstrates that the role of education in post-war Kosovo reflects tensions between multicultural ideals promoted by international actors, on the one hand, and nationalist, often exclusive concerns of local actors embedded in an unfinished and contested process of state- and nation-building, on the other hand. The paper finds that by over-emphasizing equal collective rights, extensive autonomy for the different communities and ethnic-based decentralized governance, international actors have unwillingly contributed to further education separation along ethnic lines.

- by ervjola selenica
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- Multiculturalism, Education, State Formation, Nationalism

Memorials have become increasingly relevant in societies seeking to come to terms with the past of mass violence, and there is a growing body of academic scholarship that scrutinises the politics of memory in divided societies. This article takes a different approach to the politics of memorials: it does not focus on what is remembered, i.e. to what a memorial testifies, but how memory at a memorial (supposedly) takes place through the aesthetic strategies put to work. It contributes to emerging literature which explores aspects of performativity and the politics of affect The objective is, however, to take it one step further by not only shifting attention to studying the engagement with, experience and performance at these sites but also to the politics of the aesthetics choice that promote this engagement. To do so it differentiates between three aesthetic styles of memorials: imposing, counter and affirmative memorials, that were all developed at a particular time in order to pursue particular political and social objectives. The current phenomenon, affirmative memorials, holds that there is a duty to remember and is firmly embedded in efforts to build peace, advance liberal norms and contribute to transitional justice. Pursuing this strategy is however ad odds with the aesthetic style of these affirmative memorials that is derived from counter memorials and celebrates plurality and openness rather than wanting to affirm one message.

Titulaire d'un MBA et d'un DEA en Histoire, Dima de Clerck est docteur en histoire de l'Université Paris I. Sa thèse a porté sur les mémoires collectives communautaires dans le Liban d'après-guerre et plus précisément sur les cas des villages druzo-chrétiens. Elle est chercheuse associée à l'Institut français du Proche-Orient et auteur de plusieurs articles publiés.

- by Dima de Clerck
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- Peace and Conflict Studies, Middle East Studies, Refugee Studies, Conflict

With responses to urban violence receiving increasing academic attention, the literature on anti-gang efforts in Latin America has focused mainly on coercive mano dura policies and cooperative gang truces. Yet, there remains a paucity of studies going beyond such carrots-and-sticks approaches towards gangs. To fill this gap, this study investigates the possibilities and limitations of substitutive security governance across Latin America and the Caribbean. More specifically, this article looks at Disarmament, Demobilisation and Reintegration (DDR) programmes in Medellín, Armed Violence Reduction and Prevention (AVRP) efforts in Haiti and Security Sector Reform (SSR) in Guatemala and Rio de Janeiro. It will be argued that communities are driven to support gangs against the oppressive state when they are indiscriminately targeted through muscular operations. Likewise, engaging gangs in dialogue grants them legitimacy and further weakens the position of the state. Therefore, the only sustainable solution lies in substitutive security govern-ance, which aims to replace the functions gangs fulfil for their members, sponsors, and the community in which they are nested with a modern and accountable state that is bound by the rule of law. Still, substitutive strategies vis-à-vis gangs have their own limitations, which can only be overcome by way of an integrated and coordinated framework.

- by Moritz Schuberth
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- Peace and Conflict Studies, Violence, Colombia, International Security

The Srebrenica crime gained several dimensions in the last 25 years: the legal qualification of genocide, The Hague judgments and life sentences, established facts, a memorial, survivors’ testimonies. Still, except on July 11, every day in this small town is ‘the day after’: post-genocidal, empty and contested. The continuation of life in trauma and negation of an enormous crime thus prolong the agony of victims, survivors and their families. Transgenerational transfer of divided memory normalises the climate of impunity, atomised truths which habituate between two opposite memory politics and fragile personal, alternative narratives. The shaping of collective memory thus occurs between the denial and
facts about the Srebrenica genocide, preventing all attempts of the criminal law and symbolic reparations to come down to the Srebrenica soil. The absence of legislation which would prohibit the negation and denial of committed crimes, as well as the glorification of the crime and war criminals, makes it impossible to stop such practice. In overcoming the past, in the case of Srebrenica, it is necessary to understand that empathy and readiness to call genocide by its name will not come simply and naturally, and that the ethnically divided society of Bosnia and Herzegovina does not have a political, collective, or systematic commitment to peace building outside the exclusive ethnical narratives about the past.

- by İ.G. SEN
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- Cyprus conflict, Puerto Rico, French Overseas Territories, New Caledonia

- by Septrin Calamba
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- Sociology, Psychology, Peace and Conflict Studies, Youth Culture

In the context of a difficult transition from war to peace, arrangements aimed at achieving peace (such as power-sharing, including autonomy) may come into tension with human rights (such as non-discrimination or indigenous rights). When this happens, peace and human rights are often unhelpfully characterized as binary or even mutually exclusive. The aim of this chapter is to query this binary characterisation, using three case studies where a particular tension was contested before a court: Bosnia and Herzegovina, the Philippines and El Salvador. The chapter shows that since neither peace nor (most) human rights are absolute, it is possible to weigh the two against each other; and the tension can be framed in a way that is more conducive to its resolution, by conceptualising peace as a fundamental public purpose, a legitimate aim, and/or a human right, thus internalising it in human rights reasoning, rather than treating it as external.

The responsibility to rebuild needs to be re-elevated to prominence as an integral component of R2P: conceptually, normatively and operationally; and its institutional homes in the un system and the Secretary-General's role clarified. The 2009 three pillar formulation of R2P works well in most contexts, but is problematic in that it buries and loses sight of the critical importance of the original iciss third ' responsibility to rebuild' and reconstruct war-raved societies to the point of being viable and self-sustaining once again. We derive some key lessons from the major international interventions of the twenty-first century and recall the context in which R2P was originally formulated in order to highlight the distinctive features of its contribution to international policy. We then describe three dimensions of the responsibility to rebuild – recovery, reconstruction and reconciliation – and the strategies and steps needed for the rebuilding agenda. Recalling that Security Council authorisation of R2P coercive operations is a nonnegotiable prerequisite, we suggest that the responsibility to rebuild can be reintroduced and implemented through the administrative and political leadership roles of the Secretary-General.

This paper assessed the contributions of the United Nations (UN) to the post-conflict peace building efforts in Sierra Leone. The objectives are defined by focusing on the immediate and remote causes of the Sierra Leone Civil war, examining the peace-building and post-conflict interventions of the United Nations to reconstruct the war-torn nation and identifying the lessons other African countries particularly Nigeria can learn from the Sierra Leonean civil war. To achieve these, both primary and secondary sources of data were utilized. The primary data involved Key Informant and In-depth Interviews of some stakeholders while the secondary sources of data were obtained from books, journals, newspapers, magazines and internet materials. Findings showed that the UN contributed to the post-conflict peace building process in Sierra Leone through its relevant missions such as the United Nations Peace Mission in Sierra Leone (UNAMSIL) instituted in 1999 and later the United Nations Integrated Peace Building Mission into Sierra Leone (UNIPSIL) established in 2008. Some of the peace-building strategies included disarmament, demobilization and reintegration , establishment of truth and reconciliation commission and its quasi-judicial variant, setting up of a peace-building peace Commission among others. Through these agencies, the UN helped to rebuild most of the government institutions in Sierra Leone that collapsed during the civil war and strengthen those that were still functioning. The lessons for African states are three folds; inclusive governance system is necessary for effective peace-building, looking inward to create African solutions to address African problems and rethinking radical model of development for real transformation to take place.

Why has the internationally-promoted Weberian-style bureaucracy failed to replace patronage as the dominant principle of state organization in post-war Kosovo? This article explores how international actors’ rule-promotion activities and local actors’ strategies of resistance play out and interact to explain the failure. The empirical analysis focuses on rules of recruitment in the civil service system in the period 2000-2016. The analysis juxtaposes two consecutive stages of the state-building process, which are marked by different degrees and forms of international involvement: the pre-independence period, 1999-2008; and post-independence period, 2008-2016. Evidence from the case suggests that during the pre-independence period, legal inconsistencies embedded in the internationally promulgated legislation enabled local actors’ formal and informal strategies to recruit political cronies in the newly created civil service system. The transfer of authority from international administrators to elected local authorities, especially after Kosovo’s declaration of independence in 2008, did not solve the problem of legal inconsistencies, and instead, served to consolidate governing parties’ strategies of control over recruitment in the state bureaucracy. More often than not, patron-client relationships that thrive at the borderline between formality and informality of political behaviour, continued to undermine external rule transfers.

- by J. P. Linstroth
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- Anthropology, Social Anthropology, Peace and Conflict Studies, Terrorism

The Conflict in Afghanistan has spanned for more than four decades and we are expecting an end to it through the reconciliation process initiated after 2003. The Afghan Government and U.S, as well as the regional actors, have made efforts to politically resolve the issue by holding talks with the stakeholders and in the Hague conference, a framework was
drafted for the achievement of Justice, Peace and Reconciliation of Afghanistan. The study intends to understand the role of Art and Cinema in the process of reconciliation by beginning the initiative through voicing the crimes and injustices that were committed during the war,
further the paper addresses some of the vital questions in peacemaking: ‘How’ is it happening, ‘What’ is being or been done, ‘When’ is it going to be fruitful, ‘Where’ is it happening and ‘Who’ is being involved. But the effect of the reconciliation can only be understood if there’s
lasting positive peace in Afghanistan.

- by Sufia Shaikh
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- Peace and Conflict Studies, Afghanistan, Politics, Music and Media

Timor-Leste's extractive industry became economically and politically important during the post-conflict transition period. The government established the Petroleum Fund in 2005 to protect the economy from a "resource curse. " However, the management of the Fund has since become a source of controversy as it created opportunities for corruption and unsustainable spending practices. We argue in this article that political dynamics, in addition to if not more than weak institutions, engendered corruption, clientelist rule, and economic disenfranchisement in postconflict Timor-Leste. Using the Political Settlements approach as an analytical framework, we demonstrate that patronage, rivalry, and rent seeking in the management of petroleum revenues are associated with economic and political challenges in Timor-Leste's state-building process.

Transitional justice (TJ) has developed in relative isolation from development discourse. However, in recent years, a growing number of academics, practitioners and policy makers have advocated for the adaptation of participatory methods from development studies to TJ. This article critically analyses the opportunities and challenges of implementing participation in TJ. I argue that participation can provide avenues for the voices of victims and other stakeholders to be heard, albeit not without significant challenges. I also argue that there should be increased focus to carry out participatory attempts where victims and affected community members are partners and decision makers; this just might be a starting point to ensure that TJ is indeed victim-centric.

This DPC Policy Brief reviews the state of BiH today in the wake of a decade and a half of a EU-led policy predicated on "ownership" by BiH's political elites, then proposes a "pressure sandwich" approach to be undertaken by the transatlantic democracies - in partnership with BiH's citizens - to develop accountable structural alternatives.

Bosnia and Herzegovina is a young, post-conflict and ethnically divided country in Europe. It is well known for being the scene of a conflict centred on religious divisions. For the researcher, this raises a number of interesting questions. What is the role of religious institutions in conflict and peacebuilding? Why is religion politi-cised? Can religious dialogue be perceived as a factor in the process of reconciling opposing ethnic communities; in this case, Serbs, Croats and Bosniaks? A section of this article is devoted to the stories of survivors from Bosniak, Croatian and Serbian families 1. Each of these three ethnic groups suffered during the massacres in Ahmići, Trusina and Bradina, which took place in the first half of the 1990s. In addition, the authors analyse the role played by institutions like the Inter Religious Council in Sarajevo and the Maximilian Kolbe Foundation in order to assess their contribution to reconciliation and peacebuilding. In this regard, the purpose of the article is to conceptualise the issue of religious peacebuilding in the wider context of peace and conflict studies, as well as to call attention to the ubiquitous unobjective and unbalanced perceptions of the role of religion in contemporary conflicts and conflict resolution.

Democracy, gender and peacebuilding have assumed a prominent role in public policy debates of the last two decades. A substantial discourse and practice have emerged in establishing this trilogy. Today, no one questions that gender mainstreaming is critical in expanding the political space, increasing citizens’ participation in the political process, deepening democracy and consolidating peacebuilding efforts. Although research of the nexus between democracy and peacebuilding has generated huge literature, the gender element of this trilogy is a comparatively new and under-researched area. It is within this context that the paper examines the democracy, gender and peacebuilding trilogy. The paper provides conceptual background to explore the contributions of women and sketches their growing involvement in peacebuilding. The thesis sponsored by this paper is that whereas peacebuilding is a product of multiplicity of efforts and interventions, the gender role of women in peacebuilding has received little attention. It argues that women are critical, invincible and invisible actors in the transition to, and sustainability of democracy and peacebuilding efforts. It identifies the structure of the political system, the patriarchal nature of society and the ‘Hobbesian’ political environment (thuggery, gang wars, kidnappings and political assassinations) as some of the factors militating against the full expression and visibility of women in democracy and peacebuilding. An approach that presents women not only as victims and vulnerable but active peacekeepers and peace builders whose innate capabilities as mothers and acquired abilities as victims and perpetrators is instructive in strengthening this trilogy. Equally central to the above is the full implementation of the United Nations (UN) Security Council Resolution 1325 (2000) in Africa.

- by Dr. Obi N Neji
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- Gender Studies, Sex and Gender, Gender History, Gender and Sexuality

This article looks at the interface between the International Criminal Court and transitional justice processes in Northern Uganda. It takes a doctrinal approach, drawing on qualitative work in the fields of international criminal law, human rights, and political science. The Ugandan situation demonstrates that top-down transitional justice has both positive and negative dimensions. This article argues that, while the International Criminal Court has helped transform judicial aspects, it has also contributed towards the decline of traditional justice mechanisms. Overall, the article concludes that there is still a compelling case to be made for the involvement of international criminal tribunals in post-war contexts, but that it needs to be done in such a way that promotes good domestic processes and incorporates bottom-up perspectives.

This book provides a fact-filled overview of the problem of political violence and what is being done to ameliorate it. The book presents extensive data about wars that have taken place since 1991, including information on what started and stopped them, the actions being taken to reduce the extent of armed conflict in the world, and the organisations that conduct and fund peacebuilding operations and research.
Those interested in stopping or preventing wars will see how wars ended and what caused them to stop. Peacebuilders, funders and researchers will find an extensive catalogue of organisations with similar interests with which they can collaborate. Scholars and teachers will find the book as a helpful resource for courses on political violence.

- by Elliot Short
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- Peace and Conflict Studies, War Studies, Armed Conflict, Peacekeeping

Since 1980s, the scientific field of comparative politics has been the arena for debating on the issues of the post-conflict and divided societies and the ways those societies are to be institutionally built. In this academic dispute the centripetalists and consociationalists are having a debate about the arrangement of the government, territorial organization and the electoral system. The close attention is given to the electoral system which is recognized as “the most powerful leverage of the constitutional engineering for the social accommodation in deeply divided societies” and serves as a part of the comprehensive institutional design.
The institutional design of the post-Dayton Bosnia and Herzegovina contains many elements of consociationalism and is anchored in the academic debate. Because of the accentuated elements of consociationalism, Bosnia and Herzegovina serves as a relevant case for testing and building up theoretical propositions which emerge as results of the academic dispute pertaining to the consequences of the electoral system. Bosnia and Herzegovina employs a proportional electoral system which is theoretically and empirically disputable, because,on the one hand it properly represents ethnic segments of the society, whilst on the other hand it portrays divisions in the institutions of power and deepens them even more.
The doctoral dissertation identifies the impact of the electoral system on the stability of political institutions in the post-Dayton Bosnia and Herzegovina. The Bosnia and Herzegovina sample is divided into eight cases, that is, eight election cycles involving elections for the state and entity levels of power in 1996, 1998, 2000, 2002, 2006, 2010, 2014 and early elections in Republika Srpska in 1997. Since the research strategy is case-oriented, we will not focus solely on the relation between the electoral system and the stability of political institutions, but,because of the complexity and configuration of the case, we will rather identify multiple causes that explain the outcome.

This national report on Colombia focus on the most relevant aspects of how social rights and the fight against poverty are addressed and protected in the Inter-American Human Rights System and in the Colombian constitutional law. It also tackles the main legal tools in the interaction between international and domestic law. The discussion on social rights at the inter-American and constitutional level takes place within the context of the right to a dignified life, the fight against poverty and the satisfaction of an adequate minimum standard of living. Additionally, at a domestic level, the report shows that the Colombian Constitutional Court has been an essential actor in guaranteeing the social rights charter included in the 1991 Constitution and in creating a privileged protection framework for the most vulnerable communities. Lastly, the report makes some remarks on these issues regarding the current situation of Colombia and its transition from an internal armed conflict to a post-conflict scenario, discussing how the peace agreement can potentially enable social change. This last part suggests that besides the relationship between the armed conflict and Colombia's economic resources, to achieve greater compliance with social rights requires also political will.

- by Kurt W . Bassuener, PhD
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- NATO, Bosnia, Post-Conflict State Building, Security sector Reform

Análisis sobre las operaciones de mantenimiento de la paz de Naciones Unidas, los retos y oportunidades que enfrentan y su relevancia para México

In this article, the authors argue against the angle being pursued in US and EU-brokered discussions to change BiH's election law. These have precipitated by long-held grievances and goals held by both the HDZ leadership and the RS,both aimed at further consolidating party and party leader dominance, as well as entrenching the idea of BiH as an ethnic condominium, rather than a polity. The authors go on explain the current BiH election system - its incentive, inherent tensions, and failings. They go on to suggest an alternative path forward.

- by Kurt W . Bassuener, PhD and +1
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- Bosnia, European Foreign Policy, Electoral Systems, Political Corruption