Rwanda witnessed devastating conflicts leading to genocidal attacks in 1994 with active participation of the police in the pogrom. Various reports implicated the police in high-handedness, torture, extra judicial killings, intimidation, rape, and other heinous crimes during the conflicts. The police force was reformed for optimal performance. This paper examines the impact of the post-conflict reconstruction of the police on internal security management in Rwanda. Findings from the study, which relied on secondary data, are that reform impacted (...) positively on the performance of the police, sharpening its skills in crime detection and prevention and leading to improved security for lives and property in Rwanda. Over-reliance on dwindling external sources and dysfunctional equipment still undermines maximum performance by the police. There should be adequate provision of advanced security devices and better funding of the police for the optimal discharge of their constitutional mandates of securing lives and property in Rwanda. (shrink)

Elite domination is recognized as a significant downside of “linking social capital,” but its remedies are under-theorized and scarcely documented. Addressing this gap, we argue that bonding or bridging ties characterized by strong reflexivity, awareness of the state’s symbolic violence, and rich cultural resources for cross-fertilization serve as countervailing mechanisms against unresponsive linking ties. If bonding and bridging ties lack these characteristics, even when those ties are numerous, they are unlikely to challenge unresponsive linking ties. Our theoretical argument is substantiated (...) through a three-village comparison in Taiwan during the post-Typhoon Morakot reconstruction period, where linking ties among most disaster areas, state agencies, and large NGOs were deployed to promote elite agendas. Based on forty-five in-depth interviews, our findings suggest that in Namaxia, where all three features identified in our framework were absent in bonding and bridging ties, grassroots resistance against unresponsive linking ties largely failed. In Jialan, bonding networks displayed strong social reflexivity, but neither bonding nor bridging ties cultivated awareness of the state’s symbolic violence or cultural resources for cross-fertilization. The village only partially succeeded in challenging unresponsive linking ties. In Ali, where local bonding and bridging networks developed all three features mentioned above, the village successfully transformed unresponsive linking ties. The conceptual delinking of network homogeneity/heterogeneity and exclusivity/inclusivity in this study bears broader implications for social capital theories. (shrink)

This article attempts to demonstrate that the use of the International Criminal Court (ICC), which is retributive in praxis to address crimes against humanity in post-conflict societies without concurrent comprehensive political restorative processes, is ineffective. This article uses the Kenyan case after the 2007/8 post-election violence (PEV) to demonstrate the ineffectiveness of a retributive justice approach toward social reconstruction. The main weakness of the ICC as an institution using lies in its narrow focus on and use (...) of retributive justice, as an essential transitional process. This article shows that such an approach, fails, though not absolutely, to efficiently offer a comprehensive process likely to promote possibilities for peace and reconciliation. Thus, the article suggests restorative justice as a necessary political strategy to foster peace and unity in Kenya. (shrink)

Over the past decades, there has been a consistent and poignant ambiguity with regard to the role of education in the context of post-conflict and divided societies working towards building peace. Most recently, global developments, including the after-effects of the Arab Spring, the devastating wars in Syria, and the refugee crisis in Europe, have directed our attention once more to the part that education can play in building peace at many levels. In this context, it is timely to (...) create a space for a focused inquiry and scholarly debate about peace-oriented pedagogies and how they might affect the post-conflict reconstruction in divergent settings. Thus both the subject and the content of this book are important in the light of the current needs in many societies emerging from conflicted community relations. In particular, they propose a refreshing and transformative view of peace based on a humanising conception of education and dialogic pedagogy as a key avenue for peacebuilding. Through both conceptual inquiries and empirical case studies, the book will appeal to educational thinkers, researchers, practitioners, policy-makers, NGO workers, and the public in re-examining some of the key concepts identifying pivotal underlying issues in the field. Furthermore, by offering a principled, persuasive conceptual framework and by problematising implementations and interventions in practice, this book can serve to provoke more appraisals, evaluations, and constructive critiques of humanisation and dialogic pedagogy in peacebuilding education. This book was originally published as a special issue of _Compare: A Journal of Comparative and International Education. _. (shrink)

This paper responds to recent criticism from Alejandro Agafonow. In section I, I argue that the dilemma that Agafonow points to – while real – is in no way unique to liberal peacebuilding. Rather, it arises with respect to any foreign involvement in post-conflict reconstruction. I argue further that Agafonow’s proposal for handling this dilemma suffers from several shortcomings: first, it provides no sense of the magnitude and severity of the “oppressive practices” that peacebuilders should be willing (...) to institutionalize. Second, it provides no sense of a time frame within which we can hope that endogenous liberalization should emerge in the local political culture. Finally, it provides no suggestion for what the international community should do if the desired liberalization should fail to materialize within that time frame. In section II, I show that Agafonow’s argument resonates poorly with the concepts and ideas that he claims to adopt from Rawls’s Political Liberalism. Instead, his argument evokes the guiding ideas behind Rawls’s later work The Law of Peoples. I offer a critical perspective on these ideas, focusing specifically on Rawls’s treatment of women’s rights. Section III applies this critical perspective to Agafonow’s arguments, before closing with an example of a more constructive and empirically informed approach that critical studies of post-conflict reconstruction could take. (shrink)

The United States’ continuing engagements in Iraq and Afghanistan have focused reflection on how best to wage counterinsurgency, recognizing that the blurred lines between combatants and noncombatants that characterize this type of fighting broaden the range of opportunities and obligations counterinsurgents face. While many have looked to jus in bello constraints on the just conduct of war to guide this effort, jus post bellum requirements for the just cessation of conflict provide a better framework in which to discuss (...) how soldiers and marines may effectively and ethically pursue insurgents while simultaneously building host-nation capacity to govern politically, economically, and militarily. This paper demonstrates how jus post bellum obligations provide an important structure within which counterinsurgents may understand the full range of their obligations to the host nation and its population, best pursue insurgents while honoring their commitment to noncombatant immunity, and set the standard for what constitutes the end of the conflict and the appropriate point for military disengagement. (shrink)

Many argue that the problems encountered in and after today’s armed conflicts demonstrate the need for norms to govern the aftermath of war. Therefore,jus post bellumis welcomed as a ‘new’ branch of just war theory, complementing the theory’s two traditional branches—jus ad bellumandjus in bello.Jus post bellumis meant to function as moral compass, offering the needed guidance in the aftermath of war. While many agree on the importance of a third branch, an important question is often overlooked: After (...) war, how should we distribute post war duties? This question deserves more attention, because uncertainty about specific duty bearers might lead to a situation in which no one will properly acquit these duties, and the critique could be raised thatjus post bellumis in fact merely empty rhetoric. Two specific questions need answering. First: Which conditions can serve as the foundation for post war duties? Second: How to weigh these conditions when they clash or when they point to different actors? This article directly addresses the foundation for responsibility after war, using David Miller’s and H.L.A. Hart’s theories on responsibility, with an eye to developing a system for assigning post war duties in concrete situations. Only with such a system in place is there a realistic prospect thatjus post bellumfunctions as a useful tool in the creation of a just and stable peace. (shrink)

The government of Rwanda has pursued reconciliation with great determination in the belief that it is the only moral alternative to post-genocide social challenges. In Rwanda, communities must be mobilised and reshaped for social, political and economic reconstruction. This creates a rather delicate situation. Among other strategies, the state has turned to the concepts of confession and forgiveness which have deep religious roots, and systematised them both at the individual and community or state level in order to bring (...) about reconciliation, justice, social cohesion and ultimately economic development. In view of these strategies and challenges, some of the important questions are: Does forgiveness restore victims and empower them to heal their communities? What empirical evidence exists that religiously inspired justice and reconciliation processes after mass political violence make a difference? In what areas might the understanding of religious thought and activity towards transitional justice be deepened? These questions provide the backdrop against which I examine the case of post-genocide Rwanda in this article. A hermeneutic interpretative analysis is used to situate the phenomena of forgiveness, confession and social transformation within the specific context of post-conflict societies. (shrink)

I examine some of the main philosophical, conceptual and normative issues in Colleen Murphy’s recent book The Conceptual Foundations of Transitional Justice (2017). I am sceptical whether we need yet another theory of justice to fit particular ‘transitional circumstances’, as Murphy argues. Instead, before presenting an alternative normative, ‘moral’ theory, we need to re-examine the very concept of transitional justice. I examine particularly the following. Firstly, what we really mean by ‘transitional justice’ in various contexts; and I argue that transitional (...) justice is not, as Murphy argues, ‘a special kind of justice’ needed during certain periods of political and social change. Transitional justice is rather an escape route from difficult questions of justice that transitional societies must deal with to maintain the delicate balance between justice and peace. Currently, the concept of transitional justice refers most directly to the overarching and expanding ‘toolkit’ of various mechanisms and processes used in post-conflict reconstruction. It is not quite clear how this toolkit fits with current debates on global, international, regional and local justice. Indeed, I would have preferred that Murphy focus on the complex conceptual foundations of transitional justice, rather than build a theory that conceptually and foundationally remains complex and ambiguous. (shrink)

This volume discusses and expands the current state of research on military interventions. In this regard, it discusses questions concerning the legitimacy of interventions, their implementation and the actors involved. The volume is structured into three interdisciplinary parts, each with a focus on a specific topic. Part I deals with the question of under which circumstances intervention is legitimate and, if so, how it should be conducted. Part II focuses on the question of whether and, if so, why the high (...) thresholds currently applied to interventions should be considered legitimate. Finally, Part III elaborates on the question of who should intervene and which parts of society should be involved in post-conflict reconstruction. (shrink)

This paper examines the way that women’s relationship to peace is constructed in international institutions and international law. It identifies a set of claims about women and peace that are typically made and considers these in light of women’s experience in the conflicts in Bougainville, East Timor and the Solomon Islands.

This paper addresses a recent wave of criticisms of liberal peacebuilding operations. We decompose the critics’ argument into two steps, one which offers a diagnosis of what goes wrong when things go wrong in peacebuilding operations, and a second, which argues on the basis of the first step that there is some deep principled flaw in the very idea of liberal peacebuilding. We show that the criticism launched in the argument’s first step is valid and important, but that the second (...) step by no means follows. Drawing a connection between liberal peacebuilding and humanitarian intervention, we argue that the problems that the critics point to are in fact best addressed within the framework of liberal internationalism itself. Further, we argue that the development of the notion of human security marks a dawning awareness within liberal internationalism of the kinds of problems that the critics point to, however difficult it may still be to embody these ideas in practice. (shrink)

The concept of jus post bellum deals with moral considerations in the aftermath of conflict and is concerned with how a just peace should look like. This paper analyses the concept of jus post bellum as developed by contemporary Just War theorists. Its aim is to provide a critical perspective on the proposed substantial scope of this concept. In other words, it will consider the question: in restoring peace after war, is it justified for just combatants to (...) change the political structure of a defeated aggressor? The piece will be divided into two main parts. First, through a review of the literature, I define the current state of the art on jus post bellum thinking in relation to a number of key aspects of this concept. What does241 it entail? Which principles is it made of? What sort of activities do just war theorists speak about when they speak of creating a just peace? Second, I focus on the principle of ?political rehabilitation? of the defeated state: is it permissible? Under what circumstances? While considering these questions and authors' views on this matter, the paper will provide a critical reappraisal of the current debate on the justifiability of political reconstruction in post-conflict states. (shrink)

The article, authored by Ukrainian and Polish social researchers, analyses normative approaches towards understanding models of democracy and their relation to civic space. Despite the existence of multiple models of democracy, they can largely be reduced to two main forms: direct and representative democracy.Deliberative democracy is posited as a third form, which, according to some scientists, combines elements of representative, direct, and participatory democracy. The analysis is based on the assessment of democracy and civic space in Ukraine, utilising data from (...) six applied international social studies, as well as the evaluation of the modern characteristics of some components of Ukrainian civic space. According to the rating of CIVICUS Monitor, Ukraine has been classified in the category of countries where the civic space is «obstructed» from 2019 to the present time (Autumn 2023). Currently, the advancement of civic space in Ukraine towards more favourable forms of freedom of association, peaceful assembly, and expression of opinion in the country are threatened by several factors simultaneously, with the dominant role being Russia's full-scale war against Ukraine.During the martial law and in the post-war context of Ukraine, civil society acts as an indispensable ally of the authorities in the process of democratic reconstruction. Civil society organizations (CSOs) represent a wide range of social interests, ensuring that the voices of different groups and segments of thepopulation are heard and taken into account. Their broad base allows them to bridge the gap between government and citizens, helping to build trust and ensuring transparency. CSOs have a proven track record of institutional monitoring, which is a critical factor in preserving and strengthening democratic values in a post-conflict environment.The article also uses the results of the authors' previous and current academic research*, as well as the results of twenty years of advocacy and analytical work as public experts in Ukraine and Europe. ==== *Remark. The Ukrainian author relies on the results of her own previous and current academic research within the H. Skovoroda Institute of Philosophy of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine and analytical studies as a public expert, and the research of the Polish co-author was supported by the National Science Center (research project 2019/33/B/HS5/02648). (shrink)

A leading scholar of humanitarian intervention, Brown (2002) refers to British internal politics to satisfy the influential church and other non-conformist libertarian community leaders, and above all ?undermining Britain's competitors, such as Spain and Portugal, who were still reliant on slave labour to power their economies, as the principal motivation for calls to end the slave trade than any genuine humanitarian concerns of racial equality or global justice?. Drawing on an empirical exploration, this article seeks to draw a parallel between (...) this politics of humanitarian intervention which characterised the abolition movement, albeit rarely recognised in the academic literature, and the British intervention to end the almost 11 year civil war in Sierra Leone. The article concludes with a discussion on the implications of this politics of humanitarian intervention in the reconstruction of post-conflict Sierra Leone. (shrink)

The early 1990s saw an increase in conflict in Africa and increasingly brutal tactics of war ranging from using rape as a weapon of war to the amputation oflimbs of citizens. By 2006 nearly half of all high-intensity conflicts were fought on the African continent. In many cases, fragile peace had been achieved in countries that saw some of the most brutal actions of war and experienced the most horrific human rights abuses. These societies embarked on processes ofpost-conflict (...) reconstruction and the search for sustainable peace through national reconciliation and forgiveness in the hope of creating sustainable peace and democracy. This article seeks to engage the notions that underpin Western or retributive justice and African or restorative notions of justice in achieving democratic durability in a post-conflict society. It is premised on the argument that sustainable peace in Africa can only be achieved with a creative mixture ofboth Western and African approaches to transitional justice. (shrink)

I assess the force of a justification for post-conflict amnesties that is aimed at overcoming the most common objection to their conferral: that they entail retributive injustice. According to this justification, retributivists ought to consider amnesties to be justified because they are analogous to plea bargains, and because retributivists need not consider plea bargains to be unacceptable. I argue with reference to the 2001 Timor-Leste immunity scheme that amnesties conditional upon perpetrators’ not only admitting guilt and confessing but (...) also making reparations may count as plea bargains. I show that plea bargains providing sentence discounts in return for guilty pleas, allowing offenders who accept these bargains to be punished in the absence of trials, and plea bargains offering leniency in punishment in exchange for offenders pleading guilty and providing testimony or other incriminating evidence against superiors or accomplices, may be consonant with versions of retributivism that allow less than the full measure of an offender’s deserved punishment to be exacted where necessary to maximise or expand deserved punishment overall. I argue that amnesties that are also plea bargains may be considered justified by plea bargain-defending retributivists. So too may amnesties conferred in exchange for perpetrators’ admitting guilt and providing incriminating testimony or other evidence against their superiors and accomplices, some of which count as plea bargains, since they too could in some cases maximise or expand deserved punishment. (shrink)

This book examines links between post-conflict security, peace and development in Africa, Latin America, Europe and New Zealand. Young peace researchers from the Global South as well as from Italy and New Zealand address in case studies traumas in Northern Uganda, demobilisation and reintegration of ex-combatants in the Ivory Coast, economic and financial management of terrorism in Kenya, organised crime in Brazil, mental health issues in Colombia, macro realism in Europe and global defence reforms within the military apparatus (...) since 1990. The book reviews linkages between regional stability, development and peace in post-conflict societies while adding on to the post 2015 international agenda and discusses linkages between peace, security and development. (shrink)

This paper examines the importance of reconciliation in post-conflict state-building. We argue that while the economic and political aspects are vital components of the state-building tool-kit, states can hardly be reconstructed without the support of the society. Individuals and communities are central to the re-establishment of peace and democracy. We will conduct a case study analysis focusing on Bosnia and Herzegovina (hereinafter Bosnia). After more than 10 years of international supervision, Bosnia remains fragmented by ethnic tension, and continues (...) to need the guidance of the United Nation’s Office of the High Representative and European Union Special Representative. The Dayton Accord provided little direction for how to proceed with reconciliation beyond a state-centered peace-agreement and constitution. This study suggests that the peacebuilding process that has taken place in Bosnia over the past decade has been unable to foster reconciliation and re-create social trust, two necessary elements for ensuring lasting peace in the aftermath of conflict. (shrink)

Researches conducted so far within the project Spinning out of control: rhetoric and violent conflict. Representations of 'self' - 'other' in the Yugoslav successor states focused on exploring the relations towards the Other in a state of conflict. Moreover: most of the author's and coauthors' contributions were oriented towards discourse analysis in the context of violence. Except for the peaceful dismemberment of Montenegro and Serbia, proclamation of independence of other Yugoslav states did not go without violence, to a (...) greater or lesser extent. The Other in these situations was predominantly the ethnic Other, and usually treated as enemy. For that reason, the greater part of our past work was oriented towards analysing media reports of the most stiking war events. Also, some of the contributions intentionally targeted media reportings of tense situations and those bearing the unpredictable outcomes, such as referenda or meetings discussing war and peace matters; or, we focused our inquiries on radical standpoints expressed by certain media or political parties - all that in order to explore the essencial forms of constructing and manifesting the Otherness on a rhetoric level. From a broader perspective, the analysed period, marked by the wars of ex - Yugoslavia in the last decade of 20th century, could be comprehended as the preiod of a state of emergency, where the old order had been brutally and radically destroyed and the new one was installed. In such a process, as it was shown, the relation towards the Other was also usually extreme and ethnically motivated. Now, after the constitution of seven new states where once former Yugoslavia was, new questions emerge. We are interested, as we were before, in the identity constructions, especially in the relations toward the Other, and Otherness in general, now in the period of transition and normalization of mutual relationships that these societies are undergoing. Along with the theories of ethnicity and identity construction, the key perspective remains discursive analysis. Our main question is What is happening with the phenomenon of Otherness in public discourse, in the peaceful times, or in the post conflict state? Do the ways of representing Others from the conflict times disappear, or do they 'freeze', that is to say, remain the same, or get manifested on some other levels and by different rhetorical tools? In short, what is happening with the Others in discourses that do not 'spin out of control'? Are the Others stable, mutable or flexible category and where are the imagological boundaries of Otherness? Who are the Others now? Are there any Others among us in ethnical sense? What is the nature of relation towards the common Yugoslav past, in other words, has the common past also become the Otherness for the people of former Yugoslavia? Are the 'refugees', 'cast-outs', 'displaced persons', 'returnees'... only the new names for the old display of Otherness? (shrink)

Notoriously, state-building is a key enterprise in regard of addressing the international conflicts throughout the globe. The consolidation of peace associated to it is intimately connected with the institutionalization of liberal ideas in structuring realms such as the political, the economical and the social spheres. Departing from Foucauldian concepts such as dispositif, government, discipline and biopolitics, this paper aims to critically analyze the post-conflict state-building practice. In a first moment, the paper delineates how peace was operationalized during the (...) Cold War and post-Cold War periods. In a second moment, it will present the Foucauldian conceptual tools that enables the (re)problematization of the state-building practice as a post-conflict normalizing dispositif, rather than merely a conflict-resolution tool. (shrink)

New-wave psychoneural reduction, a la Bickle and Churchland, conflicts with the way certain adaptation properties are individuated according to evolutionary biology. Such properties cannot be reduced to physical properties of the token items that have the adaptation properties. The New Wave may entail a form of individualism inconsistent with evolutionary biology. All of this causes serious trouble as well for Jaegwon Kim's thesis of the Causal Individuation of Kinds, his Weak Supervenience thesis, Alexander's Dictum, his synchronicity thesis that all psychological (...) kinds supervene on the contemporaneous physical states of the organism, Correlation Thesis, and indeed his Restricted Correlation Thesis. All these theses are strongly individualist, in the sense of entailing that ALL a thing's properties are determined by its own physical properties and relations, contrary to many properties in biology and psychology. (shrink)

There seems to be a pervasive trend towards public apologies, forms of national introspection, and appeals to grant forgiveness. Does 'forgiveness' enable a public or political use of the term? Is it possible to forgive on behalf of others, and if so, under what conditions? These conceptual questions are related to reflections on the cultural and religious contexts of expressing forgiveness. Do forgiving words promote a willingness to look ahead and prevent a relapse into conflicting views on the poisonous past? (...) Or do they bring along aversion? Maybe the 'push' towards forgiveness is experienced as highly unfair. Archbishop Tutu's motto that "there is no future without forgiveness" is well known. The South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission has become an important model and source of inspiration for many other countries that want to deal with their past grievances and internal conflicts. This book discusses the role of forgiveness within processes of peace building and transitional justice. (shrink)

Post-conflict criminal prosecutions for the worst of crimes can play a meaningful role in achieving transitional justice. This once-common view has recently been the subject of widespread criticism that is rooted in the belief that criminal prosecutions undermine reconciliation. This has lead some scholars to argue that we must either abandon criminal prosecutions post-conflict or that we ought to use them for more general transitional justice aims, like restorative justice. This article argues against abandoning criminal prosecutions (...) post conflict and against subsuming criminal justice aims under restorative or reconciliatory aims. When post-conflict criminal prosecutions are properly structured and practiced they can bolster respect for the international, regional and domestic rule of law and in that way limit conflict in a number of important ways. (shrink)

Though scholars of political science and moral philosophy have long analyzed the justifications for and against waging war as well as the ethics of warfare itself, the problem of _ending_ wars has received less attention. In the first book to apply just war theory to this phase of conflict, Eric Patterson presents a three-part view of justice in end-of-war settings involving order, justice, and reconciliation. Patterson’s case studies range from successful applications of _jus post bellum,_ such as the (...) U.S. Civil War or Kosovo, to challenges such as present-day Iraq. (shrink)

U ovom tekstu skiciraju se dosadasnji rezultati rada na projektu Spinning out of control: rhetoric and violent conflict. Representations of 'self' - 'other' in the Yugoslav successor states, i obrazlazu smernice daljeg toka istrazivanja.

Traditionally, transitional justice has referred to that field of theoretical scholarship that proffers recuperative strategies for political societies divided by a history of violence. Through the establishment of truth commissions, public confessionals and reparative measures, transitional justice regimes have sought to establish restorative conditions that might help reconcile historical antagonists both to each other and to the trauma of their shared past. Because of some of the theoretical lapses in this scholarship some have turned recently to the field of radical (...) democratic and ‘new pluralist’ thought – and especially to agonistic literature – to foreground a theory of post-conflict reconciliation based not on the principles of the sublimation of difference, but rather the perpetual deferral of accord. This essay works both to underscore that effort, as well as to problematize it. Through unorthodox readings of Giorgio Agamben, Jean Améry and Sheldon Wolin, the essay argues that an emphasis on messianicity as the temporal mode of political repair is ultimately less productive for what I call an agonistics of reconciliation than a more nuanced approach to what Wolin calls ‘fugitive democracy’. Where the former is allied with a problematic politics of mutual respect, the latter affirms a more germane politics of abiding resentment. In the end, a startling conclusion is drawn from reading agonistic reconciliation through Wolin: democracy may be a political experience reserved for scenes of transitional justice alone. (shrink)

Drawing on a longitudinal case study of a 10‐year cross‐sector partnership for development in Colombia, this paper makes three contributions to current discussions on new collaborative governance approaches in which business, non‐governmental organizations and development agencies jointly address development challenges. First, our study explores how partnerships can be successful in achieving longer term development while being designed as short‐term governance arrangements. Second, we shed light on how power asymmetries can shape partnership governance. Many studies have highlighted the negative aspects of (...) donor involvement in cross‐sector partnerships. We identify, however, that an interplay of formal and informal governance in partnerships can provide a positive enabling framework for partner relationships to grow and mature. Third, the case highlights that the studied partnership employed governance mechanisms that facilitate local ownership and empower small‐scale farmers, which effected (longer term) value chain relationships. In this regard, our case study helps to understand governance processes and conditions under which transformative local partnerships can emerge and sustain in post‐conflict settings. The paper adds observations on the collaborative governance content that is required for a more integrative research approach to corporate contributions to development. (shrink)

The capacity-building strategy used by a US-based research organisation, the Pacific Institute for Research and Evaluation , to strengthen the system for the protection of human research subjects and the infrastructure of its international collaborating partner, the University of Liberia, are discussed. To conduct the much-needed biomedical and social science-based research-related activities in the future, this partnership is expected by PIRE to gradually evolve over time to strengthen the capacity of the local investigators and administrators of the University of Liberia. (...) Accordingly, a unique opportunity to share technology and resources with a post-conflict, resource-constrained country is created by this partnership. This capacity-building model to strengthen the protection of human subjects in research can also be replicated in similar resource-constrained international settings and, accordingly, our experiences and limitations are shared in this paper. (shrink)

In 1994 the IRA and Loyalist paramilitary groups declared ceasefires, leading to a more relaxed attitude and cross-community contacts in Northern Ireland. The result was the establishment of a new type of church-based reconciliation group, the Church Fora, intended to improve community relations and promote peace and reconciliation within local areas. This article focuses on the ways in which Church Fora have expanded the methods of such work since 1994. It will assess their effectiveness in promoting peace and reconciliation and (...) developing community relations in Northern Ireland by placing them within the broader framework of church-based reconciliation work. Finally, by assessing how successful Church Fora have been in achieving their aims and objectives, I examine the lessons that could be learned for church-based reconciliation work being carried out within Northern Ireland. (shrink)

Recently the World Health Organization has highlighted the need to strengthen mental health systems following emergencies, including natural and manmade disasters. Mental health services need to be informed by culturally attuned evidence that is developed through research. Therefore, there is an urgent need to establish rigorous ethical research practice to underpin the evidence-base for mental health services delivered during and following emergencies.

ABSTRACT Although considerable attention has been given to ethical issues related to clinical research in developing countries, in particular related to HIV therapy, there has been limited focus on health systems research, despite its increasing importance in the light of current trends in development assistance. This paper examines ethical issues related to health systems research in ‘post’‐conflict situations, addressing both generic issues for developing countries and those issues specific to ‘post’‐conflict societies, citing examples from the author’s (...) Cambodian experience. It argues that the destruction of health infrastructure results in a loss of structures and processes that would otherwise protect prospective research subjects who are part of vulnerable populations. It identifies the growth of health systems research as part of a trend towards sectoral and programmatic development assistance, the emergence of ‘knowledge generation’ as a form of research linked to development, and the potential for conflict where multilateral and bilateral donors are both primary funders and users of health systems research. It also examines the position of the health system researcher in relation to the sponsors of this research, and the health system being analysed. (shrink)

Post-conflict economies often prove daunting for foreign investors. Many of these nations are reaching out to diasporans, emigrants, and their descendants living abroad, for much-needed foreign investment capital. Little is known about why diasporans invest in their countries of origin. Recent scholarly inquiry regarding investment decision making has suggested that non-pecuniary, psychological concerns often motivate investment decisions. We develop a conceptual model identifying three types of investment return expectations — financial, emotional, and those related to social status — (...) that may drive diaspora investment interest. We contend that the psychological realities and social-status structure of the diaspora experience generate greater salience for non-pecuniary investment motivations, particularly when the origin country emerges from a period of conflict. We outline an agenda for future research and discuss the implications of our model for policies seeking to promote peace utilizing diaspora investment. (shrink)

Given UBI’s performance in poor and rural areas of India and Namibia and its transformative effects on livelihoods, one can foresee a potential for UBI supporting refugees and Internally Displaced Persons rebuild their lives in their country of origin. Furthermore, given UBI’s egalitarian rationale stemming from the idea of a more just society with a minimum level of economic security to all, UBI can be considered a key element of a state’s welfare system, the relevance of which cannot be overstated (...) for countries emerging from conflict. Additionally, the field of international aid has as of recently, for efficiency considerations, started questioning its policies focused on in-kind aid, vouchers, prescribed spending in favor of cash transfers. To test UBI’s potential in post-conflict scenarios, we propose to examine its applicability in Syria, source of today’s largest refugee population. (shrink)

A feminist stock-taking on ‘post-conflict’, this paper revisits a study made by the author in 1996–1997, when the women's community sector was a lively actor in the processes leading to the Good Friday Peace Agreement of 1998. Refusing to observe sectarian conflict lines, women's centres were re-writing official ‘community development’ policy as community empowerment and political challenge. The author draws on new interviews conducted in 2012 with feminist community activists of that earlier period of ‘frontline feminism’, associated (...) with the Belfast Women's Support Network. The women reveal how continuing poverty, discrimination, violence and unhealed trauma still characterise working-class life in the post-conflict period, and impede the integration of Protestant and Catholic communities. Official provisions for gender equality have been interpreted in gender-neutral ways, and in some cases turned against women. The demilitarisation of masculinity has been painfully slow. The women's community sector has experienced a loss of political drive as women's centres have become service providers, dependent on state funding. Feminism is renewing itself, but in fresh forms with different priorities. Will it recover a voice that ‘speaks truth to power’? (shrink)

The phenomenon of ‘innocent guilt’ regards cases where people feel guilty without being responsible for the wrongdoing or suffering at which the guilt is directed. The aim of this article is to develop a consistent account of innocent guilt and show how it may arise in the aftermath of conflicts. In order to do this, innocent guilt is contrasted with guilt and collective guilt, and the account is substantiated by drawing on the writings of Ludwig Wittgenstein and Emmanuel Levinas, who (...) both consider the phenomenon of innocent guilt a necessary element in the fundamental structure of the ethical subject. These thinkers, furthermore, show a connection between guilt and possible victims of wrongdoing, rather than between guilt and personal acts of wrongdoing. Innocent guilt may thus appear in the aftermath of conflicts as an ethical and emotional response to the fact of finding oneself in a post-conflict situation still marked by suffering. It thus reveals a fundamental need to contribute to the relieving of such suffering. (shrink)

This paper explores the difficulties of implementing international human rights standards in post conflict states, particularly in Islamic States, using Afghanistan as a case study. The paper will submit that imposing international human rights law with a ‘top down' approach is ineffective, using the example of the western-style Afghan constitution which contains many human rights protections, such as freedom of religion, that cannot be realized in contemporary Afghan society. It will be argued that a more transparent, consultative and (...) long-term approach to human rights implementation should be taken in post conflict situations, if ‘human rights' is to be more than a catch phrase for membership of the international community. (shrink)

György Márkus’s post-Marxist writings on high culture are evaluated in terms of their possible contribution to a neo-Marxist theory of high culture. Because of the highly essayistic character of Márkus’s presentation, this necessarily involves investigation of their dependence on his previous work. According to Márkus, Marxism can be critically reconstructed and superseded on the basis of an independent theorization of the consequences of Marx’s most basic theoretical move: the identification of production as paradigmatic for social action in general. In (...) section 3 this idea of the production paradigm is criticized. In section 4 I show how in Márkus this idea is made the basis of an ostensibly historicist concept of critical theory, in which not only the theory’s object is historicized, but the theory is itself organized as an articulation of the needs of historically specific constituencies. I argue, however, that in reality the idea of the production paradigm stands in fundamental contradiction to this methodological ideal. Márkus’s theory of high culture likewise combines historicist ambitions and reliance on the dehistoricized ‘production paradigm’. I argue that his ‘systematically dialectical’ deployment of this notion allows a quasi-historicist conceptualization of modern high culture as a whole, but that this method simultaneously renders theorization of high culture’s connection with more ‘infrastructural’ social relations problematic, and tends to exclude reflection on the ‘utopian moment’ in high cultural practice today. Section 5, and some remarks at the end of Section 11 suggest horizons for a genuinely historicist theory of high culture, in relation to the constitutive failure of Marxism to confront its dependency on the institutions of high culture, and also suggest a possible confluence and conflict with Roy Bhaskar’s work. (shrink)