Breaking the cycle of violence: applying conflict sensitivity to transitional justice

The legacies of mass violence can, if left unaddressed, fuel future conflicts. Transitional justice seeks to address the legacies of large-scale past abuses. Despite the sensitive nature of transitional justice and recognition that initiatives can adversely influence conflict-affected contexts, there has been limited attempt to extend the application of conflict sensitivity to transitional justice. Conflict sensitivity is an approach and tool to help aid actors to understand the unintended consequences of aid and to act to minimise harm and achieve positive outcomes. Transitional justice initiatives can exacerbate tensions by replicating existing tensions; introducing resources that become a struggle for control; or challenging power and vested interests. This article argues that conflict sensitivity should be applied to transitional justice; and identifies tools and factors that could contribute to conflict sensitive transitional justice. They include promoting: broad-based participation; resonance with local actors; social cohesion; public outreach; collaboration with other sectors; and appropriate sequencing.     

Polarity,preponderance and power parity in the generation of international conflict

Almost a decade ago one of the authors introduced the concepts of “opportunity” and “willingness” in this journal (Starr, 1978). We have since devoted considerable attention to clarifying these concepts and their relationship to international conflict. In a series of recent articles we have focused on the micro/decision making/willingness level. In the present discussion we expand more fully on the macro/system/opportunity level, demonstrating through the use of logic and simulation that such decision processes operate within structures which appear logically to set limits, ceilings or constraints on the amount of conflict which is possible. We do so by using the different positions regarding polarity and conflict, and the parity vs. preponderance debate as starting points; (and come to some non‐obvious conclusions on the roles of power and system structure).     

Turning down the heat: Influences on conflict management in enduring rivalries

Enduring rivalries represent the most difficult challenges for policy makers seeking to promote international peace and security. Once in place, enduring rivalries account for a disproportionate number of crises, militarized disputes, as well as wars, and include conflicts that are more likely to escalate than those falling in other conflict contexts. Unfortunately, we know very little about conflict management in enduring rivalries from either a theoretical or policy perspective. This study seeks to account for why some rivalries are successfully managed while others persist at high and unabated levels of conflict In addressing these concerns, we explore 35 enduring rivalries over the period 1945–1992. We find that although enduring rivalries are quite resistant to influences that produce changes in their dynamics, both endogenous and contextual influences can exercise a significant impact upon the prospects for conflict management between enduring rivals.     

Flip-Flops and High Heels: An Experimental Analysis of Elite Position Change and Gender on Wartime Public Support

We address whether politicians’ flip-flopping on support for a war is damaging to their electoral fortunes, and if the gender of the politician has a conditioning effect on this relationship. A series of survey experiments, conducted in 2010 and designed specifically for this project, allows us to examine the causal power of these two cues. Our results challenge the conventional wisdom: respondents do not fault leaders who change their minds about a conflict, and importantly, this effect holds irrespective of the gender of the politician. Instead, individuals react to the policy position the politician currently holds on a war regardless of the politician's consistency and gender.     

Between conflict management and role conflict: the EU in the Libyan crisis

This paper assesses the role of the European Union in the Libyan crisis (2011) and critically considers the implications for its evolution as an international security actor. Employing role theory, the paper reviews the historical development of the Union's security actorness and sheds specific light on the balance between self-conception and external expectations in the case of the Libyan crisis. Its central argument is that, despite external expectations and European narratives of a ‘comprehensive power role’, the Libyan crisis showed that the Union still acts in line with its traditional role as a civilian power. The inability to go beyond civilian power stemmed from internal dissonance on a potential hard power role and a corresponding lack of material capabilities. The growing gap between expectations about comprehensive actorness on the one hand and performance on the other is likely to damage the Union's future credibility as an international security actor.     

The New U.S. Human Rights Policy: A Radical Departure

The United States, as the most powerful state and as the self-appointed champion of human rights, has a profound impact on the way human rights norms are interpreted and applied throughout the world. The human rights foreign policy of President George W. Bush can be distinguished from the policies of other administrations in three crucial respects: (1) In identifying the values that Americans can and should promote abroad, it avoids human rights terminology and scorns multilateral institutions, and instead looks to divine inspiration; (2) in place of well-recognized human rights norms, it uses a concept of "dignity" that is narrow and self-serving; and (3) it engages in "exceptional exceptionalism," continually holding others to standards that it does not apply to itself. This essay contends that the new U.S. human rights foreign policy drains human rights of its core meaning and limits its potential impact. Moreover, the United States lacks moral authority to act on human rights grounds as long as it fails to prioritize human rights explicitly and to uphold the same standards to which it holds other nations accountable.     

The unexpected EU leadership on landmines: the influence of the Ottawa Convention on the EU

Abstract

The European Union (EU) has led international politics on antipersonnel landmines (APLs) for a decade now, and its foreign policy in this domain is perceived as a success story. Nevertheless, at the beginning of the negotiations that led to the Ottawa Convention, the EU looked unable to play any relevant part. This article addresses the emergence of the EU's foreign policy on APLs by arguing, in a second image-reversed way, that the corresponding international regime has deeply influenced the EU. It has changed Member States' and EU institutions' preferences, and it has empowered pro-Ottawa and pro-integration actors. This article explores the intra-EU conditions that have facilitated this influence and the way in which the regime itself has shaped them.     

Terrorism and Democracy: Perpetrators and Victims

Most observers believe that the 'democratic rules of the game' provide a peaceful means for resolving political conflicts. This may be true but not all groups or even single individuals in democratic societies need play by these rules. This analysis uses two data sets: one that classifies most countries of the world based on how they were ruled in the mid-1980s, and the other on the frequency with which their nationals either perpetrated or were victimized by terrorists attacks, to investigate the relationship between terrorism and democracy. The findings suggest that stable democracy and terrorism go together. An analysis of the data reveal that terrorist attacks occur most often in the world's most stable democracies, and that, further, both the perpetrators and victims of those attacks are citizens of the same democracies.     

International conflict,military rule,and violent authoritarian breakdown

ABSTRACT

Why do some transitions of power from military rule occur violently while others do not? What effect, if any, does the international security environment have on how violent breakdowns of authoritarian rule are? I argue a conflict-prone security environment ameliorates the commitment problem by ensuring an influential role for the military out of power. Therefore, when facing a domestic crisis in a threatening security environment, military leaders are more likely to peacefully cede power rather than wield violent measures to stay in office. Perhaps counter-intuitively, international conflicts thus lead to transitions of power from military rule that minimize violence and human costs. International conflicts do not have this moderating effect on other types of authoritarian rule.     

Propaganda and United States foreign policy: The case of panama

Abstract

This paper probes the use of propaganda by the U.S. government as a device for generating domestic public support for its invasion of Panama. The findings indicate that the government did succeed in influencing domestic public opinion. What accounted for the success? First, through the propaganda technique of selection, the U.S. government carefully chose those “facts” that supported its predetermined objective of removing General Manuel Noriega from power. Concomitantly, it concealed the information that would have undermined the veracity of its story: (1) the fact that Noriega was its Frankenstein monster; (2) its poor record on democracy in Panama; (3) the fact that there was no serious threat to American lives or interests; (4) the enormous human and material carnage occasioned by the invasion; and (5) the various violations of international law. Further, the traditional sources of public influence—the Democratic party, major opposition party to the Republicans, and the American press—failed to provide competing perspectives. In fact, they joined the government's propaganda bandwagon. The result was that the American public became convinced that the Bush administration's “official story” was the truth.     

Being resilient to radicalisation in PVE policy: a critical examination

ABSTRACT

The problematic nature of certain policies and approaches to preventing and countering violent extremism has been robustly demonstrated; it is clear that rethinking the prevention of violent extremism requires concerted attention. One response to critiques of security-driven approaches has been the adoption of the language of resilience building. However, the turn to resilience has not been matched by a fundamental rethinking of approach, and may often mask troubling approaches in the language of objectivity and positivity. In rethinking the question of prevention, examining the concept of resilience is important not only to address a current trend in policy discourse, but also to benefit from the rich literature on resilience from which valuable lessons may be drawn. A critically informed concept of resilience has the potential to provide a framework of response that recognises individuals and communities as political actors who, rather than being shielded from ideologies, require the resources and channels to challenge violence, discrimination, and injustice, be it state or non-state driven. This article, through examining the current use of “resilience” in PVE policies, makes a modest attempt to draw on lessons from applying resilience in other contexts to articulate possible features of a critically informed approach to preventing violent extremism.     

Typology of State Types: Persistence and Transition

Research on state fragility has seldom examined questions of persistence and transition of states. We develop a sixfold typology of states to examine how key structural features of states evolve and contribute to successful exits from fragility in some cases and persistence in others. Particularly worrisome is the lack of positive transition among the weakest states. Our findings are derived from a minimalist construct of a refined time series data set involving state indicators of authority, legitimacy, and capacity. Case studies of some of the more turbulent examples support our state trajectories. Additionally, changes in legitimacy most often led state transitions into or out of fragility. Implications of intervention policy for transitioning states out of fragility are addressed, and these are given particular focus since fragile states experience at least twice the intensity/incidence of internal armed conflict compared to other states.     

How International Reputation Matters: Revisiting Alliance Violations in Context

We investigate the role of international reputation in alliance politics by developing a signaling theory linking past alliance violations with the formation of future alliance commitments. In our theory, past violations Are useful signals of future alliance reliability conditional on whether they effectively separate reliable from unreliable alliance partners. It follows that states evaluating potential alliance partners will interpret past violations in their context when deciding to enter a new alliance, attaching less weight to violations in “harder times,” when many states are defaulting on their alliance commitments together, and more weight to violations in “easier times,” when fewer states are defaulting on their alliances. We test our theory and find that states are empirically more likely to form new alliances with states that violated in harder times compared to states that violated in easier times. The results have important implications for how scholars understand and estimate the impact of international reputation.     

Dimensions of Chinese foreign conflict and cooperation: A research note

Key mediation attributes, such as mediating actors, the strategy they choose, and previous mediation experiences, are widely thought to influence the nature of a conflict management outcome. But how and when these features shape outcomes is not a straightforward matter, and a standard analysis of these factors does not lead to their widely anticipated results. Why? We develop a new analytical framework that argues that a dispute's intensity alters the conflict management processes. Furthermore, in order to observe this variation, we also need to expand the traditional, dichotomous notion of conflict management outcomes (success or failure) to include a fuller range of observed results. Using the most recent International Conflict Management data set and our new analytical framework, we analyze the effect on conflict management outcome of mediator (a) identity, (b) strategy and (c) history. We find that directive strategies and international mediators are effective in resolving high intensity conflicts, procedural strategies and regional mediators are effective in resolving low intensity conflicts, and that mediation history always affects resolution. Our results have implications for both the study and practice of international dispute mediation.     

The effectiveness of interregional security cooperation: evaluating the joint engagement of the EU and the AU in response to the 2013 crisis in the Central African Republic

African Union (AU)–European Union (EU) interregional security cooperation has not so far been analysed systematically with regard to its effectiveness despite the substantial support of African capacity building by the EU and joint peacekeeping of the partners. Assessing AU–EU cooperation in the Central African Republic (CAR), this paper examines to what extent and under which conditions EU–AU efforts are effective. Concerning the dependent variable, the presented conceptualisation of effectiveness includes both internal (goal attainment) and external (problem-solving) perspectives. The independent variable draws on two strands of literature that barely speak to each other: interregionalism and inter-organisationalism. It focuses on the conditions of effectiveness which include both internal (RO-specific) and interregional factors. The findings suggest that AU–EU engagement in the CAR was effective in the medium term. Strong incentives of the partners, the French leading role and the convergence of the partners are identified as factors conducive to a medium to high effectiveness of the engagement.     

Trump and the End of an Era? The Liberal International Order in Perspective

ABSTRACT

The liberal international economic and political order which the United States created from the ashes of World War II and has since led is in trouble. To United States President Donald Trump, the order which provided the framework under which sovereign states agreed to follow a rules-based system of economic and political cooperation and shared multilateral governance, has not only allowed other nations (in particular, China) to take advantage of US ‘magnanimity’, but also weakened the United States economically, while asymmetric alliances compromised its military advantages. Given the sustained assault this cosmopolitan order is facing, many fear that it may not survive if Trump is re-elected in November 2020. Indeed, if the United States response to the COVID-19 pandemic is any guide, an ‘America First’ agenda, especially a hard-line approach to China, will shape US policy if Trump wins a second term.