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Based on field research carried out in Central Kalimantan during June and July 2000, this chapter examines the likely impact of the decentralisation reforms on forest management in Barito Selatan. Conclusions are derived from three major sources. First, interviews were conducted with key government officials and community figures in the provincial capital, Palangkaraya, and the district capital, Buntok. These were supplemented with information from relevant newspaper and government reports. Thirdly, brief visits were made to a number of communities around the district to examine the implications of these reforms for forest dependent communities and to consider the degree to which local communities are likely to benefit from the new decentralised arrangements. The first section of this chapter provides an overview of the geographic and economic context, at the same time discussing the forestry sector in the district. The second section examines specific disputes, controversies and decisions regarding land use, forestry regulations, law enforcement, and revenue collection, considering the roles and motivations of different stakeholders during the decentralisation process and the consequent implications for forests and people. The third section considers the situation of forest dependent communities in the district in the midst of the decentralisation process. It examines the fate of village communities dependent on rattan gardens, the circumstances of an isolated and impoverished community living in the middle of a logging concession area, and a hamlet where eleven unlicensed sawmills had opened operations over the previous twelve months. Based on this discussion, the final section draws some conclusions regarding the real and anticipated effects of decentralisation on forest management in the district.

What are the effects of institutionalisation on long-term peacebuilding? In theory, institutionalisation enhances national and local capacities to sustain peace in the long term. However, in the case of Kenya, institutionalisation now poses a threat to peacebuilding. Institutionalisation is the process of formalising peacebuilding through state policy and structures that aim to sustain more permanent capacities for peace. Institutionalising peacebuilding through the infrastructure for peace in Kenya has increased national capacities for peace. Yet the process of institutionalisation now threatens local agency, effective peace practice, and resource sustainability. These findings are based on qualitative data gathered through semi-structured interviews, participant observation, and documentary evidence. While infrastructures for peace vary in composition and degree of institutionalisation, the findings from Kenya offer insights on the potential threats of institutionalisation to the sustainability of long-term peacebuilding.

"Track Two Diplomacy between India and Pakistan studies the nature and context of providing an alternative platform for conflict resolution between the two countries. Considered one of the most intractable conflicts in the world, the India-Pakistan conflict has been defined by casualties, religious extremism, and the looming threat of war. With the conflict playing out against the backdrop of many nationalisms, official Track One diplomacy remains insufficient. The author analyses the role of Track Two diplomacy when official diplomacy remains confined and sensitive to their respective official positions as well as the contribution of maintaining various communication lines intact when official channels are suspended and inaccessible. In this context, this book explores citizen-led diplomatic efforts, probing the economic and ideological forms of power that influence this mode of diplomacy outside governmental channels. The book is a general evaluation of the Track Two process in terms of its achievements, challenges and failures vis-à-vis India and Pakistan. An original contribution towards the development of a conceptual understanding of Track Two diplomacy, this book will be of interest to researchers studying International Relations, Foreign Politics, South Asian Politics, with particular emphasis on India - Pakistan relations"--

"Preface" -- "Contents" -- "List of Figures" -- "List of Tables" -- "1: Why Religion Matters" -- " Introduction" -- " What Is This Thing Called Religion?" -- " Religion, Morality, and Social Control: Why Religion Matters for Criminology" -- "References" -- "2: Evolutionary Approaches to Understanding Religion" -- " Introduction" -- " The Past, Present, and Future of Religion" -- " Evolutionary Approaches in the Social and Behavioural Sciences" -- " Evolutionary Approaches to Understanding Religion: General Considerations" -- " Key Evolutionary Approaches" -- " Religion as a By-Product" -- " Religion as Adaptive/Adaptation" -- " Cultural Evolutionary Approaches" -- " Conclusions" -- "References" -- "3: Religion, Crime, and Prosocial Behaviour" -- " Introduction" -- " Religion, Cooperation, and Prosocial Behaviour" -- " Religion, Crime, and Antisocial Behaviour" -- " Criminological Explanations" -- " The Evolutionary Origins of Antisocial and Prosocial Behaviour" -- " Integrating Distal and Proximate Explanations" -- " Summary" -- "References" -- "4: The Dark Side of Religion? Prejudice, Inter-Group Conflict, and War" -- " Introduction" -- " Religion and Religious Groups as the Target of Violence" -- " Religion as a Cause of Inter-Group Violence: A Contested Relationship" -- " Perspectives on the Religion–Violence Relationship" -- " The Relationship Between Religion, Prejudice, and Inter-Group Conflict: The Empirical Literature" -- " Understanding the Relationship between Religion, Prejudice, and Inter-Group Conflict: An Integrated Evolutionary Perspective" -- " The Evolutionary Origins of Prejudice and Inter-Group Conflict" -- " Key Psychological and Social Processes" -- " The Role of Religion" -- " Conclusions" -- "References" -- "5: Religion, Punishment, and the Law" -- " Introduction

The beginning of the 21st century saw many complex phenomena, events and processes with diverse backgrounds shaping the new order related to international security after the breakdown of the bipolar division of the world. Despite the ongoing euphoria, the time of transition has been a string of military and non-military conflicts, whose participants have fought for dominance in the international security environment and for leadership in the global security space. The three main actors: The United States, China and Russia are pursuing their partisan goal, which is dominion in the global security space. The U.S. policy, which is aimed at confrontation, both with Russia and China is noteworthy. This conflict is present in the political, economic, military and scientific-technical spheres, as in the cases of China, which is a leader in access to artificial intelligence. The world is watching the Russia-Ukraine armed conflict. Each side has opponents and supporters. The conflict is affecting international political, economic and military relations. This complex and unpredictable situation is accompanied by a global information war, with participants pointing to their particular political goals. The global security space is evolving, but will politicians be able to make rational decisions so as not to cross the tipping point?"

Can the legacy of state violence undermine participation in transitional justice services designed to consolidate peace after conflict? We argue that, in the aftermath of armed fighting, state-perpetrated violence leads to reduced uptake of government reconciliation policies. We leverage spatial and temporal variation in levels of civilian victimization by perpetrator and find that, in contrast to violence committed by non-state groups, violence carried out by state forces against civilians is associated with lower levels of enlistment in Colombia's state-run victims' registry. We replicate this relationship using survey data and present evidence linking victimization by the state to lower levels of trust in the government overall. Together, our analyses demonstrate that disaggregating the identity of armed actors can provide significant theoretical and empirical advances in our understanding of peacemaking and post-conflict reconstruction. In the Colombian case, the legacy of state violence leads to the systematic exclusion of certain types of victims from transitional justice and undermines trust in the institutions responsible for building durable pathways to peace. Consequently, our findings have implications for the design of transitional justice policies, the study of the legacies of conflict on political and social outcomes, and processes of post-conflict peacebuilding.

MICRO CONTEXTS OF VIOLENCE IN THE CIVIL WAR: ON THE ARMED CONFLICT, LOCAL ANTAGONISMS AND PEASANT FORCES IN PERU
The article discusses the mechanisms of the Peruvian internal conflict development (1980‑2000), with particular emphasis on the beginning of military operations in the central‑southern province and the circumstances of the peasants' involvement. In the text, I decolonize the image of comuneros as passive victims of political violence. I assume that they were generally involved in the armed conflict but they responded primarily not to the macro‑ but the micro‑conditions of the processes of violence (i.e. inter‑ and intra‑village antagonisms instead of the political competition of the irregular forces with the state that arose outside their community). The article looks, therefore, at the mechanisms of the Peruvian conflict before the beginning of village self‑defense forces and identifies the sources of civilian terror in the province as well as its impact on the further course of the war. The text is based on the existing sources describing the participation of the peasants in the struggles, confronted with the results of my fieldwork in Peru in 2005‑2010 and their update from 2015‑2019.

This article explores the meaningful nothingness between conflict and hedonism experienced by most surfers. It explains how meaningful nothingness is achieved through constructive individual and collective sociation choices. These choices, exemplified through acts of omission and commission, inform mutually beneficial social forms where conflict is mundanely resolved or avoided by diverse social types. For the past 60 years, scholars have employed interpretations of Marx's conflict theory to focus on surfing's extremes by emphasising objective inequities and explaining how marginalised social types are confronted by the deviant in a power struggle for limited resources. The originality of this article is in its use of Simmel's conflict theory and Scott's sociology of nothing as a balanced framework to illuminate the unnoticed and taken-for-granted practices and processes that receive little analytical recognition but are fundamental to pleasurable surfing for all. Drawing on data from a 20-year ethnography of global surfing, findings reveal how constructive sociation choices are learned and employed by surfers to ensure that either triadic closure or sociability is the tribe's final form. The significance of this article is that it presents an insight into how a diverse majority of surfers choose meaningful nothingness over the politics of difference.

How do foreign powers disengage from a conflict? We study this issue by examining the recent, large-scale security transition from international troops to local forces in the ongoing civil conflict in Afghanistan. We construct a new dataset that combines information on this transition process with declassified conflict outcomes and previously unreleased quarterly survey data of residents' perceptions of local security. Our empirical design leverages the staggered roll-out of the transition, and employs a novel instrumental variables approach to estimate the impact. We find a significant, sharp, and timely decline of insurgent violence in the initial phase: the security transfer to Afghan forces. We find that this is followed by a significant surge in violence in the second phase: the actual physical withdrawal of foreign troops. We argue that this pattern is consistent with a signaling model, in which the insurgents reduce violence strategically to facilitate the foreign military withdrawal to capitalize on the reduced foreign military presence afterward. Our findings clarify the destabilizing consequences of withdrawal in one of the costliest conflicts in modern history, and yield potentially actionable insights for designing future security transitions. (JEL D74, F51, F52, O17)

Abstract
Due to intensive conflict, a significant amount of Syrian capital flight has funnelled to Turkey since 2011. Drawing upon fieldwork conducted in five major Turkish cities which have hosted the highest number of Syrian business people, this paper first reveals the convergence of the interests of the host state and of the displaced capital owners, as well as the increasing transnationalization of Syrian economic practices. It then assesses the capacity and/or willingness of the Syrian business people to organize themselves as an interest group regarding their interests in Turkey and to assist the process of conflict resolution in Syria. Finally, the paper reflects upon whether a hybrid identity is in the making within the Syrian business diaspora in Turkey. Our findings suggest that the Syrian business diaspora in Turkey is evolving itself into a transnational business community, and developing hybrid socio-economic practices. Yet, we delineate this flourishing community as 'shy' because the issues concerning both domestic and Syrian politics are carefully being avoided to keep stability and unity within. This consequently hinders the Syrian business community to form itself as an interest group in Turkey focused on conflict resolution and post-conflict reconstruction in Syria.

This study examines the conflict between the community and oil palm plantation companies in Peranap District, Indragiri Hulu Regency, Riau. Conflicts occur due to community dissatisfaction with government policies and companies. Another cause is the expropriation of people's land by large plantations, which triggers community resistance. This writing uses the historical method with four stages, namely heuristics, source criticism, interpretation, histiography. In order to collect data, it is done by digging up information through interviews with perpetrators and witnesses of the history of oil palm plantation conflicts, besides collecting documents belonging to the company (notary deed), personal collections, Decree of the Regional Government of Indragiri Hulu Regency, then the data collected and conducted a process of criticism of sources internally and externally. The results of this study indicate that this conflict consists of external and internal factors. External factors, namely land grabbing, internal, namely the absence of the role and function of the cooperative. the presence of large companies has positive and negative impacts on society. The positive impact is the help of the community's economy, the lack of unemployment, the negative impact of the community losing land, and the promised plasma is not fulfilled.

Ethnic organizations are definitely the main actors in ethnopolitical processes in the modern world. It is they who act as the main agents of mobilization on ethnic grounds and as a result as the direct initiators and par-ticipants of ethnopolitical conflicts too. Of course, in this context, it becomes necessary to structure the eth-nic organizations' typology. However, the typologies existing at the moment reflect only the formal aspects of the status of ethnic organizations (parties, NGOs, etc.), ignoring the organizational aspects of their func-tioning. In the article, based on the author's database of ethnic organizations in Eastern Europe, a new typol-ogy of ethnic organizations is proposed. Based on empirical data on organizational characteristics of 203 ethnic organizations in Eastern Europe (strategies, representative ability, availability of resources, etc.), and using hierarchical clustering, three functional types of ethnic organizations are identified, depending on their manifestation in ethnopolitical conflict. Moreover, the study identifies an aggregate parameter of the signifi-cance of the organizational characteristics of the ethnic organizations in an ethnopolitical conflict. It is also found that the organizational characteristics of ethnic organizations may describe up to a quarter of the varia-tion in ethnic conflict.

Families facing separation or divorce in Spain encounter a number of obstacles, including a primarily adversarial and slow justice system, nonspecialized courts and judges, and a lack of resources to help them through the process. Recent legislation at the regional level (autonomous communities) is moving toward emphasizing shared parental responsibility and introducing parenting plans, while at the national level, legislation advances slowly. One of the main challenges professionals are facing in high‐conflict couple separation is protecting children from the effects of being in the middle of their parents' conflict. Traditional psychological, legal, and social services are insufficient to support parents and protect their children from interparental hostile conflict—which can be exacerbated by litigation, professional intervention, domestic violence, or addiction. This article illustrates, through a case study, the implementation of parenting coordination in Spain. Different jurisdictions in Spain are slowly implementing (co‐)parenting coordination, an in‐depth intervention designed to support these families. The objective is to help families focus on children's needs and follow the court‐approved parenting plans or court orders, reduce relitigation, and improve parental communication and conflict resolution skills. This article analyzes different aspects and challenges relating to the implementation of parenting coordination in Spain. Recommendations are then made to address them.

AbstractTo prevent catastrophic asteroid–Earth collisions, it has been proposed to use nuclear explosives to deflect away earthbound asteroids. However, this policy of nuclear deflection could inadvertently increase the risk of nuclear war and other violent conflict. This article conducts risk–risk tradeoff analysis to assess whether nuclear deflection results in a net increase or decrease in risk. Assuming nonnuclear deflection options are also used, nuclear deflection may only be needed for the largest and most imminent asteroid collisions. These are low‐frequency, high‐severity events. The effect of nuclear deflection on violent conflict risk is more ambiguous due to the complex and dynamic social factors at play. Indeed, it is not clear whether nuclear deflection would cause a net increase or decrease in violent conflict risk. Similarly, this article cannot reach a precise conclusion on the overall risk–risk tradeoff. The value of this article comes less from specific quantitative conclusions and more from providing an analytical framework and a better overall understanding of the policy decision. The article demonstrates the importance of integrated analysis of global risks and the policies to address them, as well as the challenge of quantitative evaluation of complex social processes such as violent conflict.

Of all the problems of peacemaking and peacebuilding in the modern international system, none is as contentious a matter of religion and identity as that of the Arab-Israeli conflict. The weight of spiritual significance and history has caused more than one author to expound upon the way religion has uniquely marked this land. Foreign interest and interference in the allocation of privileges and ownership in the region have led one recent analyst to bemoan the plight of this "much too promised land." (Miller 2008) In a history of the conflict written long before its descent into the first and second intifadas and the expansion of the number of religious antagonists, David Smith noted that .the years after the 1967 [Arab-Israeli] war would defy a solution an spawn a new conflict between Arabs and Jews. In the tiny battleground of the West Bank — just 80 miles long and 26 miles wide — the two peoples would live together, contesting the same territory. Many on both sides would claim that it was granted to them by God... In the process, Arabs and Jews would be locked in a modern-day secular conflict, fuelled by age-old religious zealotry and bigotry. They would become prisoners of God. (Smith 1987: 4)