Suchergebnisse

This book offers a detailed study of the psycho-politics of governmental manipulation, in which a vulnerable population is disciplined by contorting their sense of self-worth. In many conflict settings a nation's government exerts its dominance over a marginalized population group through laws, policies and practices that foster stark inequality. This book shows how such domination comes in the form of systems of humiliation orchestrated by governmental forces, and draws upon recent findings in social psychology, conflict analysis, and political sociology. Case studies are provided of governmental directives, verdicts, policies, decisions and norms that, when enforced, foster debasement, disgrace or denigration. One case centers on the US immigration laws that target vulnerable population groups, while another focuses on the ethnic discrimination of the central government of Sudan against the Sudanese Africans. By contrast, the book's conclusion focuses on the collective compassion that are exhibited by some people who are immersed in protracted violent conflict.

AbstractIn stark contrast to detailed studies of negative emotions, peacebuilding scholar‐practitioners pay scant attention to the social psychology of positive emotions that are critical for the long‐term transformation of relations among conflict actors. I offer results from one case study of compassion, the first of its kind, of a group of 23 young people from conflict‐ridden countries who were enrolled in a 2‐year peace education program called Rondine. All of the research participants exhibited compassion for the civilians who suffered from the effects of the violence. Most of them exhibited compassion even for the militants who caused such violence.

Episodes of character association (CA) among political figures are ubiquitous in the current political landscape of the United States, where political campaigns routinely include ad hominem attacks of one's opponent. Yet, another form of CA lies beneath the surface of political figures hurling insults at each other. CA is also situated within certain social-political systems that strategically deploy mechanisms to dominate a targeted population group by casting them inherently inferior to society's so-called pure members. The primary objective of this article is to characterize systemic character assassination [SCA] within the United States as an insidious form of disciplinary control. After identifying certain features of governmental domination over segments of society (section 1), the author introduces the notion of SCA (section 2). A case study is provided of the systemic denigration of migrants seeking asylum in the United States (section 3). This case is followed by an analysis of SCA in terms of the power dynamics between governmental authorities and the targeted population group (section 4). All of which indicates a fundamental tension between the state's legitimacy as rightful rulers and its illegitimacy from the perspective of those subjected to the insidious manipulations of SCA.

This Special Issue of Peace and Conflict Studies focuses on the power dynamics that drive participants of protracted violent conflicts. Such dynamics undergird every act of brute force by militants of such conflicts, every state policy that diminishes the lives and life prospects of marginalized people, and every public speech by a political leader that degrades a segment of the population as inferior, dangerous or impure. Despite the ubiquity of power to violent conflicts generally, this subject matter lacks primacy as a central topic of prevailing conflict theories. Power is cast tacitly as secondary to the cardinal categories of violence, conflict and peacebuilding. This subordinate positioning is mistaken. A robust understanding of protracted violent conflicts requires attending to power's complexity, its many forms, and its inseparability in the interactions and potential transformation of conflict actors.

In recent decades the political state has been implicated in genocide, mass violence, political oppression, and targeted deprivations. Yet, in the field of conflict analysis, the meaning of state "power over" in conflict settings is under-theorized. In this article I probe the conceptual depths of state power to show that such power is neither singular nor simple. It's neither ahistorical nor asocial. Beneath the surface of the state's wide-ranging practices of governing its political subjects is a fundamental paradox that juxtaposes the state's authority as the rightful authority over its subjects against the state's vulnerability to potentially de-stabilizing threats to such authority. Critical to the meaning of state power, this paradox is revealed in an entanglement of contrary forces of state legitimation and its de-legitimation by threatening forces. Such an entanglement is illustrated in the state's power to protect the nation from aggressors, to enact laws, and to manage its political subjects. The paradox implies that state power is fundamentally conflictual and, as a result, suited perfectly for analysis by scholar-practitioners in our field.

This book examines the continuing devastation in the Darfur region of Sudan, from the perspective of a multiplicity of conflicts of distinct types. The crisis reached its peak in 2003-2004, when certain Arab militias joined forces with the Sudan armed forces in a campaign against insurgent resistance movements. Engulfed in the tumult, Darfurians experienced systematic slaughter, sexual violence, and internal displacement on a massive scale. Although the violence has waned in recent years, the fighting continues to this day.

Identity, Morality, and Threat offers a critical examination of the social psychological processes that generate outgroup devaluation and ingroup glorification as the source of conflict. Daniel Rothbart and Karyna Korostelina bring together essays analyzing the causal relationship between escalating violence and opposing images of the Self and Other

pt. 1. Disempowering civilians -- Who dies in armed conflicts? -- Distinguishing the enemy from the innocent in war -- Deportation from Crimea -- Genocide in Rwanda -- The Second Lebanon War -- Better safe than dead in Iraq -- pt. 2. Conflict theory as value theory -- Limitations of social identity theories in relation to conflict analysis -- Understanding group identity as collective axiology -- The normative dimensions of identity conflicts -- Causality in explanations of civilian devastation

More than an individual emotion experienced by conflict resolution practitioners, compassion constitutes a primary norm of the field of peacebuilding. Three domains of peacebuilding practice are showcased: first, the human rights agenda of the United Nations, second, the practices of everyday peace, and third, the strategies among professionals of interactive conflict resolution. Motivated by the compassion‐related programs in these domains, we propose that peacebuilders develop strategies that are intended to foster compassion among the conflict parties. The notion of systemic compassion is introduced and illustrated with examples within current practice.