Conflict disruption: Reassessing the peaceandconflict system

The notion of conflict disruption is proposed as an addition to the established conflict response framework of conflict management, resolution and transformation. Drawing on Schumpeter’s idea of creative disruption, the article considers how disruptive actions or stances may trigger or operate within conflict management, resolution, or transformation Moreover, conflict disruption prompts us to think of peace and conflict in systemic terms: peaceandconflict. Thus the article concludes by discussing the wider implications of conflict disruption for four aspects of peace and conflict: Time, Power, Scale and Connectedness

The EU and Critical Crisis Transformation: The Evolution of a Policy Concept

While often caused by conflict, crises are treated by the EU as a phenomenon of their own. Contemporary EU crisis management represents a watering down of normative EU approaches to peacebuilding, reduced to a technical exercise with the limited ambition to contain spillover effects of crises. In theoretical terms this is a reversal, which tilts intervention towards EU security interests and avoids engagement with the root causes of the crises. This paper develops a novel crisis response typology derived from conflict theory, which ranges from crisis management to crisis resolution and (critical) crisis transformation. By drawing on EU interventions in Libya, Mali and Ukraine, the paper demonstrates that basic crisis management approaches are pre-eminent in practice. More promising innovations remain largely confined to the realms of discourse and policy documentation

The self-concept as a bounding on occupational choice in young with problematic substance abuse and law offense history. Systematic review

This article aims to delve into the social stigma associated with being young with problematic substance abuse and law offense, and its direct implications in the process of building self-concept and occupational choice. To approach this issue, we developed a systematic literature review, in order to clarify whether self-concept acts as a limitation on occupational choice on this population. To develop this research we included thirty five articles, in which relationships between keywords were established. Although it was not possible to find literature to directly answer our initial research proposal, through the articulation of the results, we were able to confirm the supossed raised

Diffusion of e-health innovations in 'post-conflict' settings: a qualitative study on the personal experiences of health workers.

BACKGROUND: Technological innovations have the potential to strengthen human resources for health and improve access and quality of care in challenging 'post-conflict' contexts. However, analyses on the adoption of technology for health (that is, 'e-health') and whether and how e-health can strengthen a health workforce in these settings have been limited so far. This study explores the personal experiences of health workers using e-health innovations in selected post-conflict situations. METHODS: This study had a cross-sectional qualitative design. Telephone interviews were conducted with 12 health workers, from a variety of cadres and stages in their careers, from four post-conflict settings (Liberia, West Bank and Gaza, Sierra Leone and Somaliland) in 2012. Everett Roger's diffusion of innovation-decision model (that is, knowledge, persuasion, decision, implementation, contemplation) guided the thematic analysis. RESULTS: All health workers interviewed held positive perceptions of e-health, related to their beliefs that e-health can help them to access information and communicate with other health workers. However, understanding of the scope of e-health was generally limited, and often based on innovations that health workers have been introduced through by their international partners. Health workers reported a range of engagement with e-health innovations, mostly for communication (for example, email) and educational purposes (for example, online learning platforms). Poor, unreliable and unaffordable Internet was a commonly mentioned barrier to e-health use. Scaling-up existing e-health partnerships and innovations were suggested starting points to increase e-health innovation dissemination. CONCLUSIONS: Results from this study showed ICT based e-health innovations can relieve information and communication needs of health workers in post-conflict settings. However, more efforts and investments, preferably driven by healthcare workers within the post-conflict context, are needed to make e-health more widespread and sustainable. Increased awareness is necessary among health professionals, even among current e-health users, and physical and financial access barriers need to be addressed. Future e-health initiatives are likely to increase their impact if based on perceived health information needs of intended users

Constitutional referendums and ethno-national conflict: The case of Northern Ireland

This piece reviews the utility of constitutional referendums in ethnonational conflicts. It concentrates on Northern Ireland, where calls for a constitutional referendum have been made in the wake of the 1998 Belfast Agreement. Although the Agreement has significant consensual and consociational elements, its provision for a constitutional referendum on Northern Ireland's sovereignty means that the Agreement cannot form the basis for a definitive settlement. Instead, constitutional politics have been re-energized. Using data from a survey of public attitudes, it finds that a binary choice constitutional referendum is unlikely to lead to a satisfactory outcome

Conclusions

This conclusion combines insights from the analysed of urban conflicts over peace(s) to answer the principal research question. The subsequent argument is that the postwar city reinforces rather than transcends its continuities of war into peace because urban conflicts over peace(s) attack its transcending potential and enhance its destructive potential while the city itself—untouched by postwar contestation—is destructive towards war-to-peace transitions. Yet the chapter also focuses on complementary explanations such as the routinisation of division and the impossibility to combine certain peace(s). It additionally presents an alternative picture of the postwar city by demonstrating that it also transcends its continuities of war in peace. The wider conclusions drawn from this ambiguity is that the postwar city is inherently Janus-faced, that it has a significant transcending potential, that there are no easy solutions to its problems, and that its unique situation necessitates cooperation between peace research and urban studies