Suchergebnisse

The incentive for international agencies to promote 'local' peacebuilding is commonly premised on the hope that micro-level interventions can nourish grassroots activism and participatory citizenship. Tracing reconciliation processes across Iraq following the defeat of ISIL provides a window through which to view the transactional relationships between 'national' and 'local' forms of politics, conflict and peace in post-Ba'athist Iraq. This paper focuses on the example of Yathrib, Salah al-Din province, where over ninety per cent of residents were displaced in 2014, and an estimated eighty-five per cent subsequently returned following peace negotiations. The paper uses qualitative interview findings to demonstrate on the one hand that seemingly 'local' tribal solutions are built into national-level 'peace strategies', while on the other, state capture and power politics is infused into the management of apparently parochial disputes. While these observations are not an indictment of international efforts to intervene at the subnational level, they serve to thoroughly 'de-romanticise' the local.

Academic and political debates on peace and conflict dynamics increasingly acknowledge the relevance of the interaction between global and subnational or local dynamics but rather neglect the regional neighbourhood as an important intervening variable. The concept of "regional peace formations" either as an enabling or hindering factor for peacebuilding fills this gap. Empirical evidence from Latin America, the Middle East, and sub-Saharan Africa shows the added value of the concept for explaining regional differences.
Peacebuilding is a complex undertaking shaped by a variety of factors such as the nature of conflicts, the actors involved, and local contexts. A regional perspective regarding patterns of conflict and violence shows high levels of variation between regions.
The concept of regional peace formations is an important tool to analyse the region-specific variation in actors and conflict dynamics. It allows us to identify either convergent or divergent contexts for peacebuilding.
Empirical evidence from Latin America, the Middle East, and sub-Saharan Africa identifies relevant differences and the need to incorporate regional factors into peacebuilding strategies.
The regional level of peacebuilding offers the possibility for meaningful donor coordination and joint multilateral action. But a minimalistic approach seeking only the end of war or a certain degree of stabilisation is not enough. Initiatives need a clear focus on long-term peacebuilding, as a process of constructive conflict transformation. Regional economic and social networks are central to sustainable development, and to transforming structural conditions - leading either to the violent escalation of conflict or to the fostering of more peaceful societies.

In the rapidly unfolding multipolar world order, an unprecedented number of states, international organisations, advocacy groups, and other actors are devising and implementing a growing number of interventions to strengthen democracy, peace, and security. The political and normative views on these external interventions differ fundamentally.
Negative connotations predominate with respect to the term "intervention" in the international promotion of democracy, peace, and security. This is mostly due to its popular association with military operations, the increasingly blurred divide between "the external" and "the internal," contested legitimacy, and the prevailing focus on Western actors. However, a narrow understanding focused on military operations leaves aside an increasing variety of less coercive forms of intervention.
Differentiating between the various forms, goals, and contexts of intervention is a precondition for proper analysis and application. The most important factors are the actors involved, the mode of operation (coercive vs. less ­coercive), and the specific targets to be achieved – for instance, the underlying concept of "peace."
Current trends in the international arena include the ever-increasing number of actors, the erosion of dominant norms, the crisis of multilateralism, and the decrease in democracy-promotion activities in favour of addressing security concerns.
Due to the complex nature of international interventions, assessing their effects can be frustrating. It is most important to adequately tackle the individual interventions' contexts and to group similar kinds of intervention. For instance, UN peacekeeping, in conjunction with other factors, has often contributed to the ending of severe violent conflicts.
Western states are no longer the dominant powers when it comes to democracy promotion, peacekeeping, and peacebuilding. Against this background, pursuing pragmatic approaches to safeguard minimum conditions of democratic governance and security seems to be the most feasible option. To properly assess individual interventions' effects, practitioners (and scholars) should make more consistent efforts to establish yardsticks and evaluation designs before devising specific interventions.

Im Jahr 2012 brach in Mo­sambik, zwan­zig Jahre nach Ab­schluss des Friedens­vertrags, der be­waffnete Konflikt zwischen den eh­emaligen Bürger­kriegs­parteien wieder aus. Neben pol­itischen und öko­nomischen Schief­lagen scheinen die Ur­sachen in tief lieg­enden erin­nerungs­kultur­ellen Konflikten zwischen den je­weiligen An­hänger­innen und An­hängern der beiden Bürger­kriegs­parteien zu liegen. [Der Autor] zeigt in seinem Report, wie die fehl­ende er­innerungs­pol­itische Auf­ar­beitung der Ver­gangen­heit eine er­folg­reiche, in­klusive Nations­bildung ver­hindert. Er legt dar, mit welchen In­strumenten eine Auf­ar­beitung und Ver­handl­ung der ver­schied­enen Er­innerungs­stränge vor­an­ge­bracht werden könnte, um so eine nach­haltige Be­friedung Mo­sambiks auf den Weg zu bringen.

In 2012, twenty years after the conclusion of the peace treaty, the armed conflict between the former civil war parties broke out again in Mozambique. In addition to political and economic imbalances, the root causes seem to lie in deep-seated conflicts over memory cultures between the respective supporters of the two civil war parties. In his report, [the author] shows how a lack of reckoning with the past from the perspective of the politcs of memory prevents successful, inclusive nation-building. He explains which instruments could be used to further process and negotiate the different strands of memory in order to initiate a lasting pacification of Mozambique.

Der Beitrag beleuchtet am Beispiel des EU-Mitgliedstaates Österreich die Voraussetzungen und Umsetzungen von Operationen im Rahmen der Europäischen Sicherheits- und Verteidigungspolitik (ESVP). So wird im ersten Schritt zunächst die Entwicklung der österreichischen Außen- und Sicherheitspolitik seit 1960 skizziert. Der zweite Schritt beschreibt knapp die rechtliche Dimension friedenserhaltender Maßnahmen im Kontext der Gemeinsamen Außen- und Sicherheitspolitik (GASP), während der dritte Schritt den Vertrag von Lissabon und seine Auswirkungen thematisiert. Die beiden nachfolgenden Schritte betrachten schließlich Österreichs militärische Beteiligung an der ESVP bzw. die Beteiligung an militärischen ESVP-Operationen. Auf dieser Grundlage liefert der sechste Schritt einen Überblick über die Einsätze des Lands im Rahmen der EU, dazu gehören (1) ECMM/EUMM (ehemaliges Jugoslawien, Albanien), (2) EUFOR 'Concordia' (Mazedonien), (3) EUFOR 'Artemis' (DR Kongo), (4) EUFOR 'Althea' (Bosnien-Herzegowina), (5) AMM (Indonesien), (6) AMIS II (Sudan), (7) EUSEC RD CONGO, (8) EUFOR RD Congo, sowie (9) EUFOR TCHAD/RCA. Die Ausführungen schließen im siebten Schritt mit einem kurzen Ausblick auf die mögliche weitere Entwicklung des Krisenmanagements im Rahmen der ESVP. (ICG2)