Suchergebnisse

Utilizing a qualitative research methodology, the paper introduces the background to the conflict in Darfur, including its origins, main causes, and related consequences and impacts. The causal factors of the conflict include colonialist and post-independence policies of economic and political marginalization, environmental degradation, demographic pressures and ecological hardships, ethnic and tribal conflicts fuelled by the then Al Bashir's governmental inaction or partial support, and wider regional conflicts and intervention. Later the paper addresses Darfur Peace process from a general perspective. Then, the third part of the study sheds lights on the vital needs and tremendous challenges of Darfur's post-conflict reconstruction, respectively. The paper concludes that addressing these all-encompassing and overlapping needs and challenges represents the indispensable conditions for post-conflict reconstruction in Darfur, without which the recovery, sustainable development, and prosperity of greater Darfur region are likely to be negligible or insignificant.

In theoretical terms 'peace' remains a largely contested concept. Academics propose competing definitions and conceptualizations, which possess their own normative and analytical advantages or disadvantages. Yet despite heated academic and theoretical debates, studies looking at the empirical understandings of peace and conflict-settlement strategies of different states are largely missing. The paper set out to cover this gap and ask how similarities and differences in the actors' conceptual understandings of peace play themselves out in their agreement and disagreement over the advocated 'peace strategies'. Employing qualitative/ quantitative content analysis of the statements made by the representatives of the Russian Federation and the United States at the UN Security Council, Evgeniya Bakalova and Konstanze Jüngling analyze the debates around four recent and/ or ongoing conflicts (Georgia 2008, Libya 2011, Syria 2011-2014 and Ukraine 2014). The study reveals that while agreement over the conceptualization of peace does not impede further disagreement as to the advocated peace strategies, disagreement at the conceptual level breeds deeper disagreement.

Prediction and forecasting have now fully reached peace and conflict research. We define forecasting as predictions about unrealized outcomes given model estimates from realized data, and predictions more generally as the assignment of probability distributions to realized or unrealized outcomes. Increasingly, scholars present within- and out-of-sample prediction results in their publications and sometimes even forecasts for unrealized, future outcomes. The articles in this special issue demonstrate the ability of current approaches to forecast events of interest and contributes to the formulation of best practices for forecasting within peace research. We highlight the role of forecasting for theory evaluation and as a bridge between academics and policymakers, summarize the contributions in the special issue, and provide some thoughts on how research on forecasting in peace research should proceed. We suggest some best practices, noting the importance of theory development, interpretability of models, replicability of results, and data collection.

Feminist peace research is an emerging field of social sciences that is transdisciplinary, intersectional, and normative—as well as transnational. Although it draws from disciplines such as peace and conflict research (in and outside of international relations [IR]) as well as feminist security studies, it also differs from them in terms of research scope and research design. Consequently, it not only provides insights on what can be termed "spectacular" instances of violence or peace but also sharpens our analysis of the everydayness of reconciliatory measures and the mundaneness of both violence and peace. As a feminist endeavor, feminist peace research necessarily asks questions about unequal gender relations and power structures within any given conflict environment. In this collective discussion piece, a diverse group of scholars, who formed part of the recently convened Feminist Peace Research Network, explores and further develops the parameters of this emergent field through a set of short conversation pieces.

The nexus of violent conflict and forced migration has received continuous scholarly attention since the 1980s, but what are the focus areas and key strands in these research debates? Based on a semi-systematic review of research published between 1980 and 2020, this article examines debates about conflict, displacement, and peace. The review leads to the identification of three main strands that are closely connected: the structural links outlining how conflicts contribute to displacements; the various prevailing risks of violence; and the individual and collective strategies of displaced people to cope with dangers and experiences especially in host countries and regions. Despite this broad and still-growing body of literature, peace is found to have been insufficiently addressed in debates thus far. Only few studies attend to peace, and they mainly connect it to return to places of origin, peace(building) education by aid actors, or partly displaced people being potential destabilisers of peace processes. Hence, the roles of peace and displaced people's practices to support peace constitute key areas requiring further research going forwards.