This paper assesses the impact of the demobilization, reinsertion and reintegration program in post-war Burundi. Two major rebel groups benefited from cash and in-kind transfers, the CNDD-FDD from 2004, and the FNL from 2010. A panel data of households collected in 2006 and 2010 is combined with official records from the National Commission for Demobilization, Reinsertion and Reintegration. Regression analysis shows that the cash payments received by FNL demobilized households had a positive impact on consumption, nonfood spending and investments. The program also generated positive spillovers in the villages where FNL combatants returned. Ex-combatants indeed spent a large part of their allowance on consumption goods and clothing, thereby generating a short-run economic boom in villages. However, the long-run evolution of consumption indicators is negative for CNDD-FDD households, as well as for villages where CNDD-FDD combatants returned, suggesting that the direct impact and the spillovers of the program vanished in the long run.
This article introduces the special issue on DDR and 'Armed Non-Statutory Actors' (ANSAs) which we prefer to the less precise label of Armed Non-State Actors. The understanding that disarmament, demobilization and reintegration (DDR) programs are essential in helping to prevent the recurrence of war in post-conflict situations is at the heart of current peacebuilding practice and the academic literature on peacekeeping and stabilization. But the changing strategic context of DDR programs and in particular the proliferation of ANSAs presents new challenges, the responses to which have been characterized as 'second generation' DDR. The changing context poses new questions and forces us to rethink assumptions and templates of DDR as the concept is blurred and expanded. The question is if it makes sense to hold on to the concept or whether the assumptions associated with it will get in the way of rethinking templates for violence reduction in the future.
While scholarly attention has been devoted to social media's potential mobilizing function, they may also contribute to demobilization discourses: social communication actively promoting nonvoting. This paper examines discourses around mobilization vs. demobilization in the context of the municipal elections in Jerusalem. As the sweeping majority of East Jerusalem Palestinians have continuously been boycotting Jerusalem's municipal elections, this is a potent case through which to examine how demobilization functions in action, through social media conversations. Using a mixed-methods analysis of Twitter contents as structured by different languages, our findings show how mobilization and demobilization discourses can co-occur during the same election event. Users of different languages - reflecting different social and political identities - interpret the elections in contrasting ways, with tangible implications for (in)equality in political participation. The study thus contributes theoretically to several domains of political communication, including election studies, local politics, and language fragmentation in online political discourse.
This dissertation aims to understand why protests lessen when they do by investigating how and why social movements demobilize. I do this by questioning the causal link between consistent state polices (concessions or repression) and social movement demobilization. My interviews with the February 20 Movement, the main organizer of mass protests in Morocco during the Arab Spring, reveals how ideological differences between leftist and Islamist participants led to the group's eventual halt of protests. During my fieldwork, I conducted 46 semi-structured elite interviews with civil society activists, political party leaders, MPs, and independent activists throughout Morocco. My interviews demonstrate that the February 20 Movement was initially united, but that this incrementally changed following the King's mixed-policy of concessions and repression. The King's concessionary policies convinced society that demands were being met and therefore led to the perception that the February 20 Movement was no longer needed, while repression highlighted internal divides. The King's calculated mixed-policy approach killed this social movement by delegitimizing it, in addition to internally fracturing it. This dissertation will show how the February 20 Movement became a divided movement that could not uniformly respond to a series of concessions and repression.
The article aims to trace the dynamics of contention in austerity-driven Slovenia, explain why it ended, through the processes of demobilization, despite the protest movement's initial successes, and verify the explanatory power of Charles Tilly and Sidney Tarrow's theoretical framework of demobilization. The analysis applies the method of source analysis, conceptual qualitative content analysis, and the conceptual framework of contentious politics. In doing so, it addresses the research problems of the dynamics of contention in Slovenia and why the contention resulted in demobilization. The article argues that after mass mobilization an upward scale shift appeared. The shift moved the contention beyond its local origins in Maribor, touched on the interests and values of new subjects, and involved a shift of venue to sites where the demands might have been met by state institutions. The dynamics of contention was a cycle of active and passive contentious episodes. The movement identity shift and successful recognition of its claims influenced the performances and episode sequence. The processes of demobilization started when people stopped attending protests, organizing particular performances, and implementing innovations to modular performances instead. Demobilization occurred when most of the protesters became discouraged from protest through boredom and a desire to return to everyday routines.
This study uses Liberation Theology as a vehicle for understanding the demobilization of a religious social movement due to democratic consolidation. Building on social movement organizational literature, I analyze the case history of Departamento Ecuménico de Investigaciones in San José, Costa Rica in order to explain how a social movement remains effective in a competitive field of change organizations by becoming embedded in a representative organization that is able to mobilize its core constituency and maintain social influence. Macro organizational analysis is used to determine its position in the organizational field while organizational theory is used develop five characteristics of movement transformation that enable the organization to resist attrition and develop an enduring niche. Documentary and interview data of first and second generation Liberationists are used to provide an account of the structure and strategies that have enabled Liberation Theology to continue its influence in Latin America. I will argue that Liberation Theology has established a slow, protracted and unobtrusive strategy that has enabled the movement's activists to extend their influence and establish a permanent niche in the socio-religious landscape of Latin America. This study contributes to the body of knowledge regarding social movement demobilization; particularly of a religious movement and contributes an update on the status of Liberation Theology in Latin America and the Caribbean.
This article describes the demobilization and disarmament process in Nicaragua during the 1990s, and the national and international agreements that enabled the demobilization by the ex-combatants, the compliance and the public policies carried out by the government to accomplish their reintegration. This work also analyzes the successive rearmament cycles resulting from not complying with the agreements, and seeks to identify the learnt lessons and the pending challenges of an unaccomplished process of peace construction that, after three decades in the context of a social-political crisis, appears again in the public agenda. ; En este artículo se presenta una descripción del proceso de desmovilización y desarme en Nicaragua durante la década de 1990, en el pasado siglo XX; los acuerdos internacionales y nacionales que facilitaron la desmovilización de los excombatientes, su cumplimiento y las políticas públicas que ejecutó el gobierno para su reintegración. También se analizan los sucesivos ciclos de rearme que se produjeron por el incumplimiento de los acuerdos, procurando identificar las lecciones aprendidas y los retos pendientes de un proceso inconcluso de construcción de paz que tres décadas después, en el contexto de una crisis sociopolítica, emerge nuevamente en la agenda pública.
Given the start of new peace talks between the FARC guerrillas and the Colombian government, it is crucial to understand the role of Colombian journalists in reporting peace and war.This article presents an analysis on the National Press coverage of the demobilizations of a paramilitary group (Bloque Cacique Nutibara) and a section of the FARC guerrillas (BloqueCacicaGaitana) within a frame that reflects over the ethical practice of journalism in the context of war. The results are consistent with literature arguing that ethical codes are not documents dictating how journalists should do their job, but rather they represent political acts of communication which allow journalists to reclaim their proffessional independence from sources and defend themselves from threats. The paper also discusses the apparent tension between journalism ethics, and the barriers imposed by the media´s informational needs and the strategic military aims of armed groups.
Despite efforts employed by the Colombian state to demobilize paramilitary groups and to tackle organized crime structures since 2003, Colombia today remains characterized by a repressive apparatus of social control by paramilitary successor groups in certain sectors of the population. Drawing on information from Colombia's second-largest city – Medellín – and various rural areas of the Department of Antioquia, this work offers a characterization of the legacies of the paramilitary phenomenon, and its continuities and transformations in relation to one particular paramilitary confederation, the Autodefensas Unidas de Colombia (AUC). In many regions, the AUC gained territorial, economic, and social control by managing the illegal drug economy and perpetrating political violence against leftist parties and social organizations. Paramilitaries have thus exerted what we refer to as status quo-oriented violence. As we illustrate for the case of Medellín, mechanisms of territorial, economic, and social control, as well as the particular manifestations of violence related to these mechanisms, have been transferred to paramilitary successor groups. The findings are mainly based on the outcomes of qualitative field research carried out in Medellín in mid-2015. Keywords: Medellín, Department of Antioquia, social, economic, and territorial control, paramilitary successor groups, organized crime, Colombia. Resumen: Paramilitarismo en un contexto post-desmovilización? Perspectivas desde el Departamento de Antioquia en ColombiaA pesar de los esfuerzos desplegados desde el año 2003 por el Estado colombiano para desmovilizar a los grupos paramilitares y hacer frente a las estructuras de crimen organizado, la Colombia de hoy sigue estando caracterizada por la existencia de un aparato represivo de control social ejercido por los grupos sucesores del paramilitarismo sobre ciertos sectores de la población. Partiendo de fuentes informativas procedentes de la segunda ciudad más grande de Colombia – Medellín – y de algunas zonas rurales del Departamento de Antioquia, este trabajo ofrece una caracterización de los legados del fenómeno paramilitar, sus continuidades y transformaciones en relación a una confederación paramilitar en particular, las Autodefensas Unidas de Colombia (AUC). En muchas regiones del país, las AUC lograron establecer un control territorial, económico y social por medio de la gestión de la economía ilegal del narcotráfico y la perpetración de una violencia política contra partidos de izquierda y organizaciones sociales. Así, los paramilitares ejercieron lo que nosotros denominamos una violencia orientada al mantenimiento del status quo. Tal como ilustramos para el caso de la ciudad de Medellín, tales mecanismos de control territorial, económico y social, así como sus manifestaciones particulares de violencia inherentes a dichos dispositivos, han sido transferidos a los grupos sucesores del paramilitarismo. Los hallazgos de este estudio se basan principalmente en los resultados de una investigación de campo de carácter cualitativo llevada a cabo en Medellín a mediados del año 2015. Palabras clave: Medellín, Departamento de Antioquia, control territorial, económico y social, grupos sucesores del paramilitarismo, crimen organizado, Colombia.
Working-class support for social democratic parties has declined in Denmark and Western Europe generally. What role have social democratic parties played in the class demobilization? While existing work has considered policy positions, this article focuses instead on the group-based appeals of the Social Democrats. Based on content analysis of six party programs between 1964 and 2015, I find that class appeals have largely been replaced by appeals targeting non-economic groups. Also, the appeals that do concern class-related groups increasingly target businesses at the expense of traditional constituencies like workers, tenants and pensioners. Results imply that party strategy matters for the decline of class politics but also suggest that scholars should adopt a group perspective in future work.
"Prepared by Paul A. Samuelson and Everett E. Hagen." ; At left of title: National Resources Planning Board. ; Includes bibliographies. ; Mode of access: Internet.
This paper examines the Rwandan experience of Disarmament, Demobilization and Reintegration (DDR) from 1997 to 2008, with a view to x-raying the nature, pattern, principles, and legacies of DDR in that context, in addition to setting agenda for the practice of DDR elsewhere in Africa. By way of a desk exegesis, the paper posits that DDR was significantly successful given the fact that it led to successful demobilisation and reintegration of a large number of ex-combatants who participated in the Rwanda crisis. The paper notes, however that the Rwanda DDR failed to a large extent in disarming and demobilizing many of the ex-armed groups operating in the country and its proximate region. In the light of the limited success of the Rwandan DDR efforts, it is therefore recommended that future DDR programmes in Africa should be holistic and pragmatic enough to address the concerns of DDR within the formal military sector as well as frontiers of militia formations. This entails considering DDR not merely as a Security Sector Reform (SSR), but essentially, an effort at state building in conflict and post-conflict situations.
The purpose of this study is to assess the demobilization and reintegration of ex-combatants in Dansha resettlement project. It is to make impact assessments on the ex-combatants' economic independence and their subsequent acceptance by the host community. The study was highly important to examine the potential risks of the resettlement, which is taken as a means to reintegrate ex-combatants, and draw possible lessons to prevent these risks. To meet the objective of the study, both primary and secondary data were used. For the primary data, key informants were interviewed and questionnaires were distributed to randomly selected 120 settlers and focus group discussions were undertaken. The data were analyzed using descriptive and qualitative techniques. The findings of the study clearly show that the settlers are reintegrated economically, socially and politically in a sustainable way. The economic impact assessment of the program revealed that the settlers were provided land for farming and housing facility. They also had access to credit, pension scheme, and other transitional subsistence support such as farming tools, seeds and other extension packages. Like wise, the settlers are now economically reintegrated, having the capacity to produce sesame for cash and sorghum for food. Livestock breeding and off-farm activities also helped them to have sustainable livelihood in the area. The social impact assessment also indicates that settlers have got sufficient social services, that are access to health, potable water and education which are comparatively adequate to support the settlers. The study also shows that settlers have close relationships with host community and high involvement in political and social affairs of the society. Therefore, it is inferred that, existence of sufficient social infrastructure, access to credit and market, with potential area for farming and livestock are observed to be potential strengths that enabled settlers to be successful. On top of that, the close relationship with the host community and among themselves encouraged the achievement of sustainable reintegration. The study concludes that resettlement scheme can be an effective way of reintegrating ex-combatants. For the success of such type of resettlement, it needs to be guided by well-organized documents, committed government, motivated staff and willing beneficiaries. It also should be based on adequate and reliable socio-economic study with proper implementation and monitoring. On top of that, the consent of the host community with the above mentioned factors is decisive for successful reintegration of ex-combatants. The study then recommends that clear and consistent orientation on benefits and modalities of reintegration should be stated appropriately. It also recommends better training on agricultural extension, and veterinary services should be realized
The issue of felon disenfranchisement has grown considerably over the past two decades. The following thesis places (criminal) disenfranchisement in the US, and those affected, firmly in the sphere of political economic studies. That is, this work takes the issue of felon disenfranchisement in the United States as a case in point regarding the relationship of political (de)mobilization and the welfare state. Utilizing a multi-method approach, this study contextualizes the place of political participation within welfare policy, integrates correctional systems into a welfare state framework, and reports on the detailed political and economic preferences of those removed from the electorate on account of felon disenfranchisement policy. This study is to the knowledge of the author the first to approach this issue from the political-economic lens of welfare state studies. In what follows, I illustrate the significance of political agency for the welfare state, as well as the role which welfare policy plays in fostering that same political agency. In addition, I provide a new framework for conceptualizing the welfare state, enveloping those services previously omitted from the accounting of welfare state effort into one coherent structure. Finally, this work provides detailed quantitative and qualitative data on the preferences of the politically disenfranchised not previously recorded. In particular, the evidence strongly suggests that the political demobilizaiton of low-income workers through the institutionalization of criminal disenfranchisement is of special interest to political scientists and scholars of the welfare state in general. In addition, it is argued that such policies may in fact benefit particular interests in the Democratic party and negatively impact the Republican party. Far from removing these voices from public discourse, the state may indeed benefit from their particular preferences - themselves products of their experiences with the state. In as much, the politically demobilized clients of the social corrections tier should be viewed not as destructive to democracy, but instructive to welfare policy oversight and development.
