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"In September of 2007 ORB, a British opinion polling firm, released an estimate that 1.2 million Iraqis had been killed in the conflict, subsequently lowering its estimate to 1 million. The authors compare three ORB polls and find important irregularities in ORB's mortality data in four central governorates of Iraq that account for more than 80% of the estimated deaths. These internal validity checks indicate that the ORB mortality data are not credible and would suggest a much lower estimate than ORB has published. They also analyze a number of specific error sources in the poll. Systematic errors, which include non-coverage and measurement errors, mostly point toward overestimation. Variable errors are also substantial but they are difficult to quantify in part due to incomplete disclosure of methodological details by ORB. External validity checks, including comparisons with two much larger and higher quality surveys, reinforce the conclusion that ORB has overestimated the number killed in Iraq by a wide margin. Thus, their paper answers a challenge facing the field of survey methodology, to explain how different surveys have produced such divergent mortality estimates for Iraq." (author's abstract)

Das Werk versammelt Originalbeiträge von politischen EntscheidungsträgerInnen, führenden WissenschaftlerInnen und PraktikerInnen im Post-Konflikt-Managment aus Europa und den USA. Manche der Autoren wie Madeleine Albright, Carl Bildt, Erhard Busek, Carla Del Ponte, Joschka Fischer, Lord Robertson, Javier Solana aber auch Milan Kucan, Stjepan Mesic, Zeljko Komsic, Dimitrij Rupelj, Goran Svilanovic waren oder sind als Akteure an den historischen Prozessen in Südosteuropa aktiv beteiligt. Im Mittelpunkt stehen kritische Bestandsaufnahmen über den Kontinent und seine fundamentale Transformation fünfzig Jahre nach der Unterzeichnung der Römer Verträge. Friedenskonsolidierung und Wiederaufbau werden einer fundierten Analyse unterzogen, wobei Themen wie Verantwortung und Versöhnung ebenso angesprochen werden wie Menschenrechte und die prekäre Lage der Minderheiten in Nachkriegsgesellschaften. Weitere Beiträge befassen sich kenntnisreich mit den politischen und ökonomischen Prozessen der Region im Kontext der europäischen Einigung. Vor dem Hintergrund großer Herausforderungen der verspäteten Transformation der Staaten des Westbalkans wird der Frage nach der neuen Rolle Europas als "Global Actor" nachgegangen. Die Perspektiven für eine erfolgreiche Lösung der noch verbliebenen Probleme – von der Zukunft eines multiethnischen Bosnien und Herzegowinas bis zum serbisch-kosovarischen Status-Konflikt – werden sachkundig thematisiert. Kurz, die in Conflict and Renewal versammelten Essays entwerfen die Konturen einer regionalen Vision des Balkans im Rahmen eines größeren Europas. Dieses Buch entstand anlässlich des 60. Geburtstages des Hohen Repräsentanten in Bosnien-Herzegowina Wolfgang Petritsch

International Relations scholars and practitioners commonly agree that relationships in world politics are managed impersonally. Personal connections between agents of states are perceived as having only little impact on foreign policy of states. The current article challenges this impersonal ethos, suggesting that personal relationships play an important role in conducting, and thus understanding, interstate relations. Interviews conducted with 21 senior Israeli officials concerning mundane professional practices reveal three elements that are essential for successful statecraft: acknowledging the power of interpersonal relations; substantive knowledge of counterparts; and the excellent communicative competencies needed to realize the potential of personal connections. We argue that statespersons' behavior can be located on an impersonal-interpersonal continuum. Furthermore, we suggest explanations for deviations from the impersonal ethos and discuss the role of interpersonal practices in managing interstate relations. At the very least, the personal aspect should be taken into consideration when examining foreign policy. However, personal relations may have a highly significant impact on interstate interactions, thus requiring a revision of the current paradigm in IR, which marginalizes the personal aspect.

International Relations scholars and practitioners commonly agree that relationships in world politics are managed impersonally. Personal connections between agents of states are perceived as having only little impact on foreign policy of states. The current article challenges this impersonal ethos, suggesting that personal relationships play an important role in conducting, and thus understanding, interstate relations. Interviews conducted with 21 senior Israeli officials concerning mundane professional practices reveal three elements that are essential for successful statecraft: acknowledging the power of interpersonal relations; substantive knowledge of counterparts; and the excellent communicative competencies needed to realize the potential of personal connections. We argue that statespersons' behavior can be located on an impersonal-interpersonal continuum. Furthermore, we suggest explanations for deviations from the impersonal ethos and discuss the role of interpersonal practices in managing interstate relations. At the very least, the personal aspect should be taken into consideration when examining foreign policy. However, personal relations may have a highly significant impact on interstate interactions, thus requiring a revision of the current paradigm in IR, which marginalizes the personal aspect.

The disastrous US and UN interventions in Somalia provoked an equally unhappy failure to intervene in Rwanda. This, in turn, has now produced a reassessment of the role of the United Nations and the international community in the resolution of internal crises. A number of writers have turned to the insights of writing on conflict resolution to seek remedies for the inadequacies of development theory and international relations. Although this new interest has its own problems, not least because states tend to make little use of conflict analysis once crises ensue, it has sought strategies that do not depend on 'quick fix' military strikes. In the process, it has advanced an important debate about the need for local and national initiatives and institutions in resolving conflicts and about the issue of collective intervention for humanitarian purposes.

Scholars have worked either on civil society or on ethnic conflict, but no systematic attempt has yet been made to connect the two. In an attempt to explore the possible links, this article makes two interconnected arguments. First,interethnicandintraethnicnetworks of civic engagement play very different roles in ethnic conflict. Because they build bridges and manage tensions, interethnic networks are agents of peace. But if communities are organized only along intraethnic lines and the interconnections with other communities are very weak (or do not exist), ethnic violence is then quite likely. Second, civic networks, both intra- and interethnic, can also be broken down into two other types:associational forms of engagementandeveryday forms of engagement. This distinction is based on whether civic interaction is formal or not. Both forms of engagement, if robust, promote peace: contrariwise, their absence or weakness opens up space for ethnic violence. Of the two, however, the associational forms turn out to be sturdier than everyday engagement, especially when confronted with attempts by politicians to polarize the people along ethnic lines. Both arguments have significance for theories of ethnic conflict and social capital.

Countries as diverse as Afghanistan, Angola, and Sierra Leone are now attempting to recover from major wars, often amidst continuing insecurity. The challenge is to achieve a broad-based recovery that benefits the majority of people. The economic and social recovery of conflict-affected countries cannot be separated from their interaction with the rest of the world through flows of finance, goods, and people. Unfortunately, the global economy is not working well for peace. Trade reform, in particular, must take account of the need to create better, and non-violent, livelihoods for the world's poor: rich-country protectionism in agriculture hinders broad-based recovery and thereby harms the new international security agenda. Post-conflict economies also need more external finance to support early institutional development and reform, thereby increasing the effectiveness of longer-term aid inflows.

For decades, studies of oil-related conflicts have focused on the effects of natural resource mismanagement, with the attendant economic booms and busts, or clashes between rebels and ruling governments over hydrocarbon resources. In Oil Sparks in the Amazon, Patricia I. Vásquez writes that while oil busts and civil wars are common, the tension over oil in the Amazon has played out in ways inextricable from the region itself. Oil disputes in the Amazon primarily involve local indigenous populations. These groups' social and cultural identities differ from the rest of the population, and the diverse disputes over land, displacement, water contamination, jobs, and wealth distribution reflect those differences. Vásquez's conflict analyses, and her recommendations to resolve or prevent them, are based on fifteen years of travel to the oil-producing regions of Latin America, and hundreds of interviews with the stakeholders in local conflicts.

Abstract: This article is a review of the talk: Peace to Prosperity: A Vision to Improve the Lives of the Palestinian and Israeli People. Washington: The White House, January 29, 2020.181 p.