Spoiling the Peace Or Seeking the Spoils?

Spoiling the Peace Or Seeking the Spoils? PDF Author: Michael Glenn Findley
Publisher: ProQuest
ISBN: 9780549339984
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 253

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Book Description
One of the greatest threats to the peaceful resolution of civil wars comes from "spoilers," leaders and factions who use violent or nonviolent strategies to alter the course and outcome of a peace process. Spoilers have successfully wrecked peace agreements in contexts as diverse as Rwanda, Angola, Northern Ireland, and Bosnia. This dissertation addresses the questions: (1) under what conditions do individual groups use spoiling strategies that risk derailing the peace process and (2) what are the aggregate effects of spoiling behavior on the process as a whole. I argue that to understand spoiler behavior, its causes and effects over the course of an interdependent three-stage peace process need to be examined. In particular, groups must choose whether to spoil decisions to negotiate, peace agreements, and the implementation of those agreements. Changing incentives to spoil are rooted in the capability and opportunity structure that groups face at each of these stages. These incentives influence individual group behavior (to spoil or cooperate), which; in turn, affects the outcome of the peace process (is peace achieved, or is there a return to war?). Because of the complexities of civil wars (e.g., multiple factions, multiple stages, path dependencies, and extreme uncertainty), I use an agent-based computational model to generate hypotheses about spoiling behavior. The hypotheses are tested using data on all civil wars between 1945--1999, and with case studies of the Bosnia and Rhodesia/Zimbabwe civil wars. Empirical tests support many of the theoretical propositions and show that spoiling behavior occurs throughout peace processes often motivated by different factors, and having different effects, depending on the stage of the process.

Spoiling the Peace Or Seeking the Spoils?

Spoiling the Peace Or Seeking the Spoils? PDF Author: Michael Glenn Findley
Publisher: ProQuest
ISBN: 9780549339984
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 253

Get Book

Book Description
One of the greatest threats to the peaceful resolution of civil wars comes from "spoilers," leaders and factions who use violent or nonviolent strategies to alter the course and outcome of a peace process. Spoilers have successfully wrecked peace agreements in contexts as diverse as Rwanda, Angola, Northern Ireland, and Bosnia. This dissertation addresses the questions: (1) under what conditions do individual groups use spoiling strategies that risk derailing the peace process and (2) what are the aggregate effects of spoiling behavior on the process as a whole. I argue that to understand spoiler behavior, its causes and effects over the course of an interdependent three-stage peace process need to be examined. In particular, groups must choose whether to spoil decisions to negotiate, peace agreements, and the implementation of those agreements. Changing incentives to spoil are rooted in the capability and opportunity structure that groups face at each of these stages. These incentives influence individual group behavior (to spoil or cooperate), which; in turn, affects the outcome of the peace process (is peace achieved, or is there a return to war?). Because of the complexities of civil wars (e.g., multiple factions, multiple stages, path dependencies, and extreme uncertainty), I use an agent-based computational model to generate hypotheses about spoiling behavior. The hypotheses are tested using data on all civil wars between 1945--1999, and with case studies of the Bosnia and Rhodesia/Zimbabwe civil wars. Empirical tests support many of the theoretical propositions and show that spoiling behavior occurs throughout peace processes often motivated by different factors, and having different effects, depending on the stage of the process.

International Conflict Resolution After the Cold War

International Conflict Resolution After the Cold War PDF Author: National Research Council
Publisher: National Academies Press
ISBN: 0309171733
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 640

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Book Description
The end of the Cold War has changed the shape of organized violence in the world and the ways in which governments and others try to set its limits. Even the concept of international conflict is broadening to include ethnic conflicts and other kinds of violence within national borders that may affect international peace and security. What is not yet clear is whether or how these changes alter the way actors on the world scene should deal with conflict: Do the old methods still work? Are there new tools that could work better? How do old and new methods relate to each other? International Conflict Resolution After the Cold War critically examines evidence on the effectiveness of a dozen approaches to managing or resolving conflict in the world to develop insights for conflict resolution practitioners. It considers recent applications of familiar conflict management strategies, such as the use of threats of force, economic sanctions, and negotiation. It presents the first systematic assessments of the usefulness of some less familiar approaches to conflict resolution, including truth commissions, "engineered" electoral systems, autonomy arrangements, and regional organizations. It also opens up analysis of emerging issues, such as the dilemmas facing humanitarian organizations in complex emergencies. This book offers numerous practical insights and raises key questions for research on conflict resolution in a transforming world system.

Sorry to Disrupt the Peace

Sorry to Disrupt the Peace PDF Author: Patty Yumi Cottrell
Publisher: McSweeney's
ISBN: 1944211314
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 120

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Book Description
Helen Moran is thirty-two years old, single, childless, college-educated, and partially employed as a guardian of troubled young people in New York. She’s accepting a delivery from IKEA in her shared studio apartment when her uncle calls to break the news: Helen’s adoptive brother is dead. According to the internet, there are six possible reasons why her brother might have killed himself. But Helen knows better: she knows that six reasons is only shorthand for the abyss. Helen also knows that she alone is qualified to launch a serious investigation into his death, so she purchases a one-way ticket to Milwaukee. There, as she searches her childhood home and attempts to uncover why someone would choose to die, she will face her estranged family, her brother’s few friends, and the overzealous grief counselor, Chad Lambo; she may also discover what it truly means to be alive. A bleakly comic tour de force that’s by turns poignant, uproariously funny, and viscerally unsettling, this debut novel has shades of Bernhard, Beckett and Bowles—and it announces the singular voice of Patty Yumi Cottrell.

Let Us Have Peace

Let Us Have Peace PDF Author: Brooks D. Simpson
Publisher: UNC Press Books
ISBN: 1469617463
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 360

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Book Description
Historians have traditionally drawn distinctions between Ulysses S. Grant's military and political careers. In Let Us Have Peace, Brooks Simpson questions such distinctions and offers a new understanding of this often enigmatic leader. He argues that during the 1860s Grant was both soldier and politician, for military and civil policy were inevitably intertwined during the Civil War and Reconstruction era. According to Simpson, Grant instinctively understood that war was 'politics by other means.' Moreover, he realized that civil wars presented special challenges: reconciliation, not conquest, was the Union's ultimate goal. And in peace, Grant sought to secure what had been won in war, stepping in to assume a more active role in policymaking when the intransigence of white Southerners and the obstructionist behavior of President Andrew Johnson threatened to spoil the fruits of Northern victory.

Spoils of Truce

Spoils of Truce PDF Author: Reinoud Leenders
Publisher: Cornell University Press
ISBN: 0801465435
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 289

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Book Description
In Spoils of Truce, Reinoud Leenders documents the extensive corruption that accompanied the reconstruction of Lebanon after the end of a decade and a half of civil war. With the signing of the Ta’if peace accord in 1989, the rebuilding of the country’s shattered physical infrastructure and the establishment of a functioning state apparatus became critical demands. Despite the urgent needs of its citizens, however, graft was rampant. Leenders describes the extent and nature of this corruption in key sectors of the Lebanese economy and government, including transportation, health care, energy, natural resources, construction, and social assistance programs. Exploring in detail how corruption implicated senior policymakers and high-ranking public servants, Leenders offers a clear-eyed perspective on state institutions in the developing world. He also addresses the overriding role of the Syrian leadership’s interests in Lebanon and in particular its manipulation of the country’s internal differences. His qualitative and disaggregated approach to dissecting the politics of creating and reshaping state institutions complements the more typical quantitative methods used in the study of corruption. More broadly, Spoils of Truce will be uncomfortable reading for those who insist that power-sharing strategies in conflict management and resolution provide some sort of panacea for divided societies hoping to recover from armed conflict.

Challenges to Peacebuilding

Challenges to Peacebuilding PDF Author: Edward Newman
Publisher: UNU
ISBN:
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 352

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Book Description
Many ceasefires and peace agreements in civil conflict are initially unsuccessful. Whilst some give way to renewed and often escalating violence, others have become interminably protracted leading to lengthy negotiations in which concessions are rare. Given the huge material and human costs of a failed peace process, the international community has a strong interest in helping these processes succeed and addressing threats to their implementation. This publication focuses on the groups and tactics (referred to as 'spoilers') that actively seek to obstruct or undermine conflict settlement through a variety of means, including terrorism and violence, drawing upon experience from Northern Ireland, the Basque region, Bosnia, Colombia, Israel/Palestine, Cyprus, the Caucasus and Kashmir. It explores the concept of 'spoiling' and spoiling behaviours from a broad range of interests involved (including rebel groups and insurgents, diasporas and governments), considers how this can be addressed, and demonstrates how ill-conceived or imposed peace processes can themselves contribute to the problem.

Spoiling and Coping with Spoilers

Spoiling and Coping with Spoilers PDF Author: Galia Golan
Publisher: Indiana Middle East Studies
ISBN: 9780253042378
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 240

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Book Description
For as long as people have been working to bring peace to areas suffering long-standing, violent conflict, there have also been those working to spoil this peace. Taking into account the multitude of factors that can lead to the breakdown of negotiations, Spoiling and Coping with Spoilers shows how spoilers have been a key factor in Israeli-Arab negotiations in the past and explores how they will likely shape negotiations in the future.

Spoiling and Coping with Spoilers

Spoiling and Coping with Spoilers PDF Author: Galia Golan
Publisher: Indiana University Press
ISBN: 0253042380
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 171

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Book Description
Essays analyzing the role of those who damage or work to damage peace negotiations, specifically in connection to the Israeli-Arab conflict. For as long as people have been working to bring peace to areas suffering long-standing, violent conflict, there have also been those working to spoil this peace. These “spoilers” work to disrupt the peace process, and often this disruption takes the form of violence on a catastrophic level. Galia Golan and Gilead Sher offer a broader perspective. They examine this phenomenon by analyzing groups who have spoiled or attempted to spoil peace efforts by political or other nonviolent means. By focusing in particular on the Israeli-Arab conflict, this collection of essays considers the impact of a democratic society operating within a broader context of violence. Contributors bring to light the surprising efforts of negotiators, members of the media, political leaders, and even the courts to disrupt the peace process, and they offer coping strategies for addressing this kind of disruption. Taking into account the multitude of factors that can lead to the breakdown of negotiations, Spoiling and Coping with Spoilers shows how spoilers have been a key factor in Israeli-Arab negotiations in the past and explores how they will likely shape negotiations in the future. “Overall, Spoiling and Coping with Spoilers offers a refreshing approach to understanding the Israeli-Arab conflict and peace process. By examining the role of spoiling and spoilers, it engages the reader in questions about the potential for and challenges to peace in the region. . . . Highly recommended.” —Choice

Justice in Conflict

Justice in Conflict PDF Author: Mark Kersten
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0191082945
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 273

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Book Description
What happens when the international community simultaneously pursues peace and justice in response to ongoing conflicts? What are the effects of interventions by the International Criminal Court (ICC) on the wars in which the institution intervenes? Is holding perpetrators of mass atrocities accountable a help or hindrance to conflict resolution? This book offers an in-depth examination of the effects of interventions by the ICC on peace, justice and conflict processes. The 'peace versus justice' debate, wherein it is argued that the ICC has either positive or negative effects on 'peace', has spawned in response to the Court's propensity to intervene in conflicts as they still rage. This book is a response to, and a critical engagement with, this debate. Building on theoretical and analytical insights from the fields of conflict and peace studies, conflict resolution, and negotiation theory, the book develops a novel analytical framework to study the Court's effects on peace, justice, and conflict processes. This framework is applied to two cases: Libya and northern Uganda. Drawing on extensive fieldwork, the core of the book examines the empirical effects of the ICC on each case. The book also examines why the ICC has the effects that it does, delineating the relationship between the interests of states that refer situations to the Court and the ICC's institutional interests, arguing that the negotiation of these interests determines which side of a conflict the ICC targets and thus its effects on peace, justice, and conflict processes. While the effects of the ICC's interventions are ultimately and inevitably mixed, the book makes a unique contribution to the empirical record on ICC interventions and presents a novel and sophisticated means of studying, analyzing, and understanding the effects of the Court's interventions in Libya, northern Uganda - and beyond.

Democracy and Conflict Resolution

Democracy and Conflict Resolution PDF Author: Miriam Fendius Elman
Publisher: Syracuse University Press
ISBN: 0815652518
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 306

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Book Description
Studies of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict typically focus on how international conditions drive the likelihood of conflict resolution. By contrast, Democracy and Conflict Resolution considers the understudied impact of domestic factors. Using the contested theory of “democratic peace” as a foundational framework, the contributors explore the effects of various internal influences on Israeli government practices related to peace-making: electoral systems, political parties, identity, leadership, and social movements. Most strikingly, Democracy and Conflict Resolution explores the possibility that features of democracy inhibit resolution of conflict, a possibility that resonates far outside the contested region. In reflecting on how domestic political configurations matter in a practical sense, this book offers policy-relevant and timely suggestions for advancing Israel’s capacity to pursue effective peacemaking policies.