Suchergebnisse

In recent years, especially since the signing of the peace agreement between the Colombian government and the FARC guerrillas in 2016, social leaders, human rights and environmental activists and other critical groups have been facing increasing attacks and hostilities by state and non-state actors in many regions of Colombia. In this context, the Colombian government has implemented a series of security measures and programs to address this increasing violence and provide protection to social leaders at risk. Thus, this paper analyzes the conceptual framework of "protection" and "security" underlying these governmental initiatives as well as the implementation procedures, that have proven to have serious difficulties and failures in providing effective protection to threatened civil society actors. As this article shows, the Colombian security paradigm and protection policies for human rights activists and social leaders do not seem to have an effective long-term, comprehensive and participative approach, increasing even in some cases the risk of those who should protect. In order to discuss these points, this paper will address the following questions: What are the main characteristics and dilemmas of the Colombian state protection policy? How do these protection policies impact on the security of social leaders and civil society actors? What are the main challenges to effectively reduce violence against social leaders in Colombia?

Auch zehn Jahre nach Beginn des Syrien-Konfliktes ist die EU führender Geber von humanitärer Hilfe. In ihrem militärischen Engagement ist sie jedoch weiterhin zögerlich und ringt darum, vor Ort Frieden herzustellen. Es stellt sich die Frage, warum die EU, trotz ihrer relativen Misserfolge in Syrien, ihr Engagement nicht deutlich verstärkt. Neben externen Einflüssen wird dies durch interne Faktoren verursacht, die zeitweise die gesamte EU lähmten. Zu diesen Faktoren zählen das Einstimmigkeitsprinzip in der Gemeinsame Außen- und Sicherheitspolitik, das außenpolitische Entscheidungen anfällig macht für Blockaden einzelner Mitgliedsstaaten und Einflussnahme von außen. Zu den Faktoren zählen auch gegensätzliche Ziele und Interessen einzelner Mitgliedsstaaten. Zudem beeinflussten auch globale Ereignisse, die scheinbar keine Verbindung zum Syrienkonflikt aufweisen, das Engagement der EU.

Armed conflict terminates the life of its victims and radically transforms the realities of its survivors. Participation in conflict and its transitions is constrained by its (gendered) social contexts (Sjoberg (2016) quoted in Kaufman/Williams 2016a: 205). The Autonomous Region of Bougainville (ARoB) is a region where a decade long conflict caused death and devastation, which was followed by new beginnings in the form of significant change in gender relations and women's political participation in particular. The initial cause for this transformation was the locally called Bougainville Crisis (1989-1998), the second longest and deadliest conflict in the South Pacific since the end of World War II in Papua New Guinea's (PNG) easternmost province (Boege 2009: 206). A mining dispute about revenue shares, employment opportunities, and environmental damage caused the conflict (Regan 2010: 17). After failed negotiations with the mining company and central government, protest formed, followed by repressive action of government forces that led to a secession war from Papua New Guinea (PNG) (Boege 2008b: 1–2). Turning from a war of civilians against 'foreign' government troops, the conflict later escalated into a war among Bougainvilleans themselves. Due to customary principles and methods, traditional dispute settlement in Bougainville requires the participation and the commitment of all members of the parties involved in a conflict (Boege 2011: 448). Bougainville's women played a leading role in resolving this conflict: Their contributions to peacebuilding, both in localized contexts and within formalized peace processes, are celebrated within the country and have been accorded respect across the Pacific Islands region (George 2019: 475). Women then used this opportunity, and the post-war period of political transformation to successfully negotiate for more political representation. In 2004, as the first and so far, only island in the Pacific region, Bougainville introduced three seats in its regional parliament that ...

This paper reviews recent debates in peace and conflict studies on the theoretical and empirical integration of spatial categories. We examine three notable strands of research. The first consists of studies that analyze the influence of topography, borders, and resource availability on the occurrence of international and intra-state war. The second strand comprises recent studies in civil war research focusing on territory and territorial control. The third strand is the debate on so-called environmental conflicts. We argue that most studies in all three fields are limited to the analysis of allegedly external material influences on violent conflict, failing to take into account the social and political meaning of physical materiality. We examine how recent research methodologically deals with interrelated scales (local, national, global). We argue that an analysis of the relationship between space and conflict should encompass both the materiality of space and its social meaning, and that these two aspects find themselves in a mutually constitutive relationship. Spatial theory therefore provides a useful approach. ; Dieser Beitrag untersucht, wie Raumkategorien theoretisch und empirisch in der Friedens- und Konfliktforschung verwandt werden. Im Mittelpunkt stehen dabei drei Forschungsstränge: erstens Arbeiten zum Einfluss topographischer Faktoren, von Grenzen sowie Ressourcenvorkommen auf das Auftreten internationaler und innerstaatlicher Kriege; zweitens Studien aus dem Bereich der Bürgerkriegsforschung zu Territorium und territorialer Kontrolle; und drittens die so genannte Umweltkonfliktforschung. Festzustellen ist, dass die meisten Arbeiten sich auf die Analyse vermeintlich externer materieller Einflüsse auf Gewaltkonflikte beschränken und dabei die soziale und politische Bedeutung der physischen Materialität außer Acht lassen. Wir argumentieren, dass demgegenüber die Analyse des Verhältnisses von Raum und Konflikt zugleich die Materialität von Raum und ihre soziale Besetzung umfassen sollte, und dass ...

Despite the importance that current peacebuilding literature assigns to internal legitimacy ; we know next to nothing about the development and the negotiation of ideas in the context of an intervention: How exactly do interveners convey an image of the new political order? How do local political actors imagine the political future? What is the image they convey to their constituency? And how do converging or contradicting ideas affect the relationship between interveners and local actors and the reforms at large? Designed as a contribution to the theorization of external nation building ; this work develops a theoretical framework to observe the ongoing struggles between local and international actors over the meaning of political reforms. It proposes an understanding of political authority that is tied to processes of identity formation. The analysis draws on UNTAC produced audio- and video material ; the internal and public communication of its Information and Education Unit ; and interviews with Cambodian politicians and former members of the large scale intervention that took place in the early 90s. Based on these materials it documents the strategies of the Transitional Authority to discipline public political discourse based on their interpretation of the Paris Peace Agreements ; and the attempts of Cambodian political actors to generate political authority by confirming ; rejecting ; or re-interpreting their claims. Ideas of the new political order ; this is the central argument ; are formed as a result of this creative negotiation process.

The dissertation examines the relationship between conflict and trade on several levels: First, data problems and resulting sample selection bias are being discussed. Second, the impact of different forms of conflict on bilateral trade flows is being analyzed employing a gravity equation. Third, the co-founding factors of the trade-conflict relationship, namely democracy and development, are being included in a country-by-country vector auto-regressive analysis.

Although non‐nuclear‐weapon states have an important function to play in advancing nuclear disarmament, the academic literature lacks a comprehensive investigation on both the conceptual as well as empirical dimensions. Against such a background, the central purpose of the study is to analyse the roles of NNWS and Germany in advancing nuclear disarmament. In a first step, the project aims to establish related role concepts for NNWS. This aim is to be achieved by capturing how the roles were constructed within the expert discourse between 2007 and 2013 and by translating the characteristics found into ideal type role concepts. In a second step, the empirical role of one specific NNWS, namely Germany, is investigated. In order to do this, the study applies the concepts developed here to the proclaimed role of Germany in the 2007‐2013 timeframe as well as to its role performance in the 2012‐2015 Review Cycle of the Non‐proliferation Treaty. The research is designed in the form of a research synthesis and a case study, respectively. For the collection of data, the study relies on documents, while the data is processed using qualitative content analysis. Role theory and ideal type literature provide the theoretical, methodological and conceptual grounds for the deliberations presented. The benefits of proceeding in the manner outlined are a better conceptual and empirical understanding of the role of NNWS in general and of Germany in particular in the advancement of nuclear disarmament and aims to provide a validated tool for the systematic investigation of further empirical roles. ; Obwohl Nichtnuklearwaffenstaaten eine wichtige Funktion im Voranbringen der nuklearen Abrüstung innehaben, mangelt es der akademischen Literatur an einer umfassenden konzeptionellen wie empirischen Forschung. Vor diesem Hintergrund ist der zentrale Forschungszweck der vorliegenden Arbeit die Analyse der Rollen von Nichtnuklearwaffenstaaten und Deutschlands im Voranbringen der nuklearen Abrüstung. In einem ersten Schritt wird ein diesbezügliches Rollenkonzept für Nichtnuklearwaffenstaaten etabliert. Dies wird mittels der Erfassung von Rollenkonstrukten im Expertendiskurs zwischen 2007 und 2013 und deren Übersetzung in ein idealtypisches Rollenkonzept erreicht. In einem zweiten Schritt wird die empirische Rolle des Nichtnuklearwaffenstaats Deutschland untersucht. Die Arbeit wendet dafür das entwickelte Konzept auf die proklamierte Rolle Deutschlands von 2007 bis 2013 sowie auf sein Rollenverhalten im Überprüfungszyklus des Nichtverbreitungsvertrags von 2012 bis 2015 an. Das Forschungsdesign hat die Form einer Forschungssynthese sowie einer Fallstudie. Die Datenerhebung stützt sich auf Dokumente, während die Daten selbst durch eine Qualitative Inhaltsanalyse aufgearbeitet werden. Literatur zu Rollentheorie und Ideal Typus stellen den theoretischen, methodologischen und konzeptionellen Rahmen für die hiesigen Überlegungen. Der Nutzen des skizzierten Unterfangens ist ein besseres konzeptionelles und empirisches Verständnis der Funktion von Nichtnuklearwaffenstaaten generell und Deutschland im speziellen im Vorantreiben der nuklearen Abrüstung sowie die Bereitstellung eines validierten Werkzeugs zur systematischen Erforschung weiterer empirischer Rollen.

Since the end of the Cold War, Human Security has become an important approach in international politics, law, and political science. In contrast to the so-called 'Westphalian System' that knows only states as subjects and objects of security, human security aims at the security of individual human beings if failed or failing states do not protect them nor provide for their basic needs. Thereby, such heterogeneous forms of security as security from war, food security, energy security or security from crime and traffic accidents become common problems of international politics. Developing this new concept of security, UN documents as well as some experts suggest that the extended concept of security is a recurrence of the premodern concept of security that prevailed before the clear-cut distinction between domestic and international politics and the evolution of the system of states. This introduction discusses contributions on the premodern and contemporary history of (human) security and tries to assess the heuristic potential of the concept for historical research.

Das Buch widmet sich den Argumenten zeitgenössischer muslimischer Denker zum Thema Krieg und Frieden und behandelt die konfessionelle, geografische und ideologische Diversität islamischer Friedensethik. Ein Teil der Beiträge wurde verfasst von unterschiedlichen Gruppierungen und Gelehrten, die sowohl die sunnitischen als auch die schiitischen Zweige des Islams repräsentieren, und es gibt Beiträge zu den unterschiedlichen Einstellungen gegenüber Gewalt, ausgehend von Pazifismus und Traditionalismus hin zu Fundamentalismus und Dschihadismus. Die Beiträger sind Wissenschaftler aus verschiedenen Ländern, u.a. Indonesien, Pakistan, dem Iran, der Türkei, Deutschland, dem Vereinigten Königreich, den USA und Belgien. Die Kapitel des Buches behandeln das Thema aus unterschiedlichen disziplinären Perspektiven wie Theologie, Philosophie, Religions-, Kultur- und Politikwissenschaft. Das Buch ist in drei Teile gegliedert: a) Methodik und Theorie islamischer Friedensethik, b) Jus ad bellum und c) Jus in bello. Mit Beiträgen von: Dirk Ansorge, Abdessamad Belhaj, Seyed Hassan Eslami, Oliver Leaman, Simona E. Merati, Najia Mukhtar, Charles M. Ramsey, Sybille Reinke de Buitrago, Yahya Sabbaghchi, Heydar Shadi, Bianka Speidl und Asfa Widiyanto. ; Heydar Shadi (ed.) ; Gesehen am 15.10.2020