Peace Architecture

In the sixties the green and the peace movements alerted the international community of the deterioration of the environment and of the danger of nuclear conflicts. Since then, the green movement has been transformed into political parties, departments, jobs, environmental impact assessments and several international regimes. The first publication of the Club of Rome in 1972, Limits of Growth, had a catalyzing effect for raising life and death questions that confront mankind and claiming that planetary planning was the most important business on earth (Meadows 1972). The peace movement, on the other hand, evolved differently. There were some peak moments such as the peace marches in the eighties, but the impacts were weaker and less decisive. One explanation is that the peace movement had to cope with the strong bureaucracies of foreign offices and of defense departments that claimed the expertise. Another explanation is that a great deal of the peace movement does not define peace as a collective good. Being removed from the embedded conflict gives a false sense of apartness making some conflicts seem irrelevant to societies at peace. The possibility of cruise missiles hitting peaceful countries caused huge peace marches; the snipers in Sarajevo did not. A third reason is that costs of violence continue to be underestimated because of inadequate estimates of the price of failed conflict prevention (Reychler 1999a)

Field Diplomacy: A New Conflict Prevention Paradigm?

Excerpt One of the most important challenges facing the global community in the next decade, is the prevention of destructive conflicts. Listening to the discourse in the United Nations and other governmental and non governmental organizations this may sound like kicking in wide open doors (Bauwens and Reychler, 1994). But the failure of conflict prevention and the high number of conflict zones, indicates that we still have a long way to go. A global survey of contemporary conflicts counts 22 high-intensity and 39 lowerintensity conflicts, and 40 serious disputes (PIOOM, 1995). In 1995 five groups were victims of genocides or politicides. The risks of future victimization of 47 communities in different parts of the world is assessed as high of very high (PIOOM, 1995). The growth of nationalist feelings at the end of the Cold War is only the beginning of more suffering. More conflicts are expected, with old and new causes, such as the unequal or unfair trade balances between North and South, unemployment in the North, the environmental pollution, religious extremism, mass immigration and the growing number of failed states. These problems could hurt people so much that they would be prepared to fight for them

External review of the Peace, Conflict and Development (PCD) Program : final report

This findings brief is based on reports from the external review of IDRC’s PCD programme. Overall, PCD has supported and contributed high-quality ouputs of meaningful research on peace, conflict, peacebuilding, and development issues in a variety of ways; contributions to trauma healing and gender and reparations knowledge base, increased relational capital within regions, and towards inclusion of gender by policy makers in specific processes. PCD needs to expand its partner base to include lesser known organizations and those new to peacebuilding research and action, and accept some inherent risks and costs of this approach

Major flaws in conflict prevention policies towards Africa : the conceptual deficits of international actors’ approaches and how to overcome them

Current thinking on African conflicts suffers from misinterpretations oversimplification, lack of focus, lack of conceptual clarity, state-centrism and lack of vision). The paper analyses a variety of the dominant explanations of major international actors and donors, showing how these frequently do not distinguish with sufficient clarity between the ‘root causes’ of a conflict, its aggravating factors and its triggers. Specifically, a correct assessment of conflict prolonging (or sustaining) factors is of vital importance in Africa’s lingering confrontations. Broader approaches (e.g. “structural stability”) offer a better analytical framework than familiar one-dimensional explanations. Moreover, for explaining and dealing with violent conflicts a shift of attention from the nation-state towards the local and sub-regional level is needed.Aktuelle Analysen afrikanischer Gewaltkonflikte sind häufig voller Fehlinterpretationen (Mangel an Differenzierung, Genauigkeit und konzeptioneller Klarheit, Staatszentriertheit, fehlende mittelfristige Zielvorstellungen). Breitere Ansätze (z. B. das Modell der Strukturellen Stabilität) könnten die Grundlage für bessere Analyseraster und Politiken sein als eindimensionale Erklärungen. häufig differenzieren Erklärungsansätze nicht mit ausreichender Klarheit zwischen Ursachen, verschärfenden und auslösenden Faktoren. Insbesondere die richtige Einordnung konfliktverlängernder Faktoren ist in den jahrzehntelangen gewaltsamen Auseinandersetzungen in Afrika von zentraler Bedeutung. Das Diskussionspapier stellt die große Variationsbreite dominanter Erklärungsmuster der wichtigsten internationalen Geber und Akteure gegenüber und fordert einen Perspektivenwechsel zum Einbezug der lokalen und der subregionalen Ebene für die Erklärung und Bearbeitung gewaltsamer Konflikte

An emerging sustainable peace building paradigm

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Peacemaking, Peacekeeping and Peacebuilding

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Verviers en de Europese terroristen

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Terreindiplomatie in Kameroen en Burundi

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Naar een nieuwe veiligheidsorganisatie voor Europa

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Women in violence prevention

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