• POST-CONFLICT: International Assistance to Countries Emerging from Conflict • ARMED GROUPS: In Their Own Words: Reading the Iraqi Insurgency • DEVELOPMENT: Failing States or Failed States? The Role of Development Models • GOVERNANCE: Weak States and Global Threats: Fact or Fiction? • CONFLICT PREVENTION: Beyond Preemption and Preventive War • HUMAN RIGHTS: The Profile of Human Rights Violations in Timor-Leste, 1974-1999 • DISPLACEMENT: Displaced Women and Girls at Risk: Protection Solutions and Resource Tools • GENDER: Claiming Space: Reconfiguring Women’s Roles in Post-conflict Situations • RESOURCES: A Closer Look at Oil, Diamonds, and Civil War • PEACEMAKING: Hamas Triumphant: Implications for Security, Politics, Economy, and Strategy • TERRORISM: The Moral Logic and Growth of Suicide Terrorism • HUMANITARIAN INTERVENTION: The War in Iraq: Norms, Discourse, and State Practice POST-CONFLICT RECONSTRUCTION International Assistance to Countries Emerging from Conflict: A Review of Fifteen Years of Interventions and the Future of Peacebuilding International Peace Academy Much has been written in the last few years on post-conflict peacebuilding. If even a small portion of that knowledge were translated into practice, some of the serial failures of international assistance to countries emerging from conflict might have been avoided. Instead, there are multiple layers of disconnect between the growing body of knowledge on post-conflict peacebuilding, hortatory commitments by policy makers to more effective peacebuilding, and international engagement on the ground. The chasm between knowledge, policy and practice is no longer sustainable. Too much is at stake for countries emerging from conflict to continue serving as laboratories for ongoing experimentation by the international community through trial and error. Similarly, given the range of global challenges in the early decades of the twenty-first century, there is no justification for not improving international policy and practice after more than fifteen years of experimentation. The establishment of the Peacebuilding Commission, the Peacebuilding Support Office and the designated Peacebuilding Fund at the United Nations at the end of 2005 provides an important opportunity to draw the appropriate lessons from international efforts to date, and to design the next generation of peacebuilding policies and practices. Continue Reading More on Peace Operations and Post-Conflict Reconstruction ARMED GROUPS In Their Own Words: Reading the Iraqi Insurgency International Crisis Group The U.S. and its allies seem to know little about the enemies they are fighting in Iraq, despite volumes of information on insurgent web sites, chat rooms, magazines and videos, which are a large part of their communication with each other and their constituents. Analysis of this undervalued communication suggests armed insurgency groups are less divided between nationalists and foreign jihadis than commonly reported, and are increasingly coordinated, confident and information-savvy. The better the U.S. understands their message and why it resonates, the better it will understand how to win hearts and minds. Coalition forces should take what the opposition says seriously, rather than dismiss it as propaganda, and adjust political strategy accordingly. An anti-insurgency approach based squarely on reducing the insurgents’ perceived legitimacy – rather than, as at present, on military destruction and dislocation – is likelier to succeed. Continue reading More on Armies, Paramilitaries, Non-State Armed Groups DEVELOPMENT Failing States or Failed States? The Role of Development Models: Collected Works Fundación para las Relaciones Internacionales y el Diálogo Exterior (FRIDE) In recent years the notion and phenomenon of ‘failing’ states - states incapable to fulfil the basic tasks of providing security for their populace -, has been rapidly drawing attention. The incidence has been on the increase especially among countries of the South, and particularly, though not exclusively, in Africa. Among the explanations offered, fragility of state structures, lack of capacity and ‘bad’ governance have been recurrent ingredients put forward, though each of these inevitably begs further queries: why are they fragile to begin with, why is there this lack of capacity, and so forth. The phenomenon continues to prompt searches for explanation as well as contemplation of international policy responses. Not a few of such explanatory explorations have tended to look for ‘inherent’,‘intrinsic’ or other internal factors that might be held accountable for the weaknesses concerned. To be sure, the state systems concerned, or what remains of them, are generally not ‘robust’. However, if we further probe into how they came to be this way, and what models for state building and developmental perspectives have been held out to them over the years, then this will require us to extend the perspective and ask whether it is just fragile and failing states we are looking at, or whether we also have to do with failing models? Continue reading More on Development and Security GOVERNANCE Weak States and Global Threats: Fact or Fiction? Washington Quarterly It has become a common claim that the gravest dangers to U.S. and world security are no longer military threats from rival great powers, but rather transnational threats emanating from the world’s most poorly governed countries. Poorly performing developing countries are linked to humanitarian catastrophes; mass migration; environmental degradation; regional instability; energy insecurity; global pandemics; international crime; the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction (WMD); and, of course, transnational terrorism. It is striking, however, how little empirical evidence underpins these sweeping assertions and policy developments. Policymakers and experts have presumed a blanket connection between weak governance and transnational threats and have begun to implement policy responses accordingly. Yet, they have rarely distinguished among categories of weak and failing states or asked whether (and how) certain types of developing countries are associated with particular threats. Too often, it appears that the entire range of Western policies is animated by anecdotal evidence or isolated examples, such as Al Qaeda’s operations in Afghanistan or cocaine trafficking in Colombia. The risk in this approach is that the United States will squander energy and resources in a diffuse, unfocused effort to attack state weakness wherever it arises, without appropriate attention to setting priorities and tailoring responses to poor governance and its specific, attendant spillovers. Continue reading More on Governance and Security CONFLICT PREVENTION Beyond Preemption and Preventive War: Increasing US Budget Emphasis on Conflict Prevention Stanley Foundation Since the end of the Cold War, the U.S. has stood as the world’s sole superpower. Economically, it is the strongest nation in the world—with a GDP more than twice that of any other country and nearly double the combined GDPs of all the countries in Europe. The U.S. also has the most powerful, best-equipped, and arguably best-trained military in the world. In its 2002 National Security Strategy, the Bush White House embraced a policy that it calls preemption, but that experts generally call preventive war. The new policy calls for the U.S. to go on the offensive when it believes that an enemy is gathering the capability to attack, even though the time, place, or even likelihood of an enemy move is unknown and perhaps far in the future. Clearly, the Bush administration embraces the notion that the best defense is a good offense. But in truth, the best defense may instead be the prevention of attacks on the United States and prevention of conflict around the globe. Such a policy would be pursued through increasingly nonmilitary means and through a stronger emphasis within the defense establishment itself on countering the proliferation of dangerous weapons and materials, participating in stability operations and post-conflict reconstruction, and cooperating with allies. Continue reading More on Conflict Prevention HUMAN RIGHTS The Profile of Human Rights Violations in Timor-Leste, 1974-1999 Human Rights Data Analysis Group This report details widespread and systematic violations in Timor-Leste during the period 1974-1999. Benetech's statistical analysis establishes that at least 102,800 (+/- 11,000) Timorese died as a result of the conflict. Approximately 18,600 (+/- 1000) Timorese were killed or disappeared, while the remainder died due to hunger and illness in excess of what would be expected due to peacetime mortality. The magnitude of deaths in Timor-Leste has long been a subject of contentious debate, and Benetech's results help to place the debate on a factual basis. These estimates are the most accurate and scientifically rigorous ever made for conflict-related mortality in Timor-Leste. They are based on a database of three independent sources: narrative statements, a retrospective mortality survey, and a census of public graveyards -- all of which were developed jointly by Benetech's Human Rights Data Analysis Group (HRDAG) and the Commission for Reception, Truth, and Reconciliation (CAVR in Portuguese), the truth commission for Timor-Leste. By collecting new data and using well-established statistical and demographic methods, HRDAG assisted CAVR to become the first official truth commission in the world to draw on a household survey and public graveyard records. Continue reading More on Human Rights DISPLACEMENT Displaced Women and Girls at Risk: Risk Factors, Protection Solutions and Resource Tools Women's Commission for Refugee Women and Children There is a growing understanding among practitioners and policy makers that the experiences of women and girls vary significantly from that of men during flight, in exile and once peace has been brokered or populations return home. Less, however, is understood about the many forms of violence and risks to women’s safety and wellbeing during various phases of displacement, and how to address them. This paper and accompanying checklists build on research, reports and tools developed by the University of New South Wales’ Centre for Refugee Research to better understand what places women at risk, and how to respond to immediate needs and prevent further harm to their safety and well-being. In addition to supporting the work of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, this document is an effort to broaden the understanding of field-based practitioners in the humanitarian community about women and girls at risk so as to engage them in more effectively addressing the protection needs and protection solutions of women and girls. Continue reading More on Refugees and Internally Displaced People GENDER Claiming Space: Reconfiguring Women’s Roles in Post-conflict Situations Institute for Security Studies Many African countries are in the process of democratising their states and societies. These periods of transition, often from violent conflict situations, provide opportunities for political reorganisation that can result in human security for all, but particularly for women and girls. Armed conflicts in Africa have predominantly been intrastate, and men, women and children have succumbed in large numbers. For those who survived, their lives and livelihoods have often been severely damaged. A feature of these conflicts is that the civilian population is increasingly ‘caught up’ in the conflict or even deliberately targeted by parties to the conflict. In this context women and girls are often exposed to acts of violence, including death and injury from indiscriminate military attacks and the prevalence of mines, lack of basic means of survival and health care, and limitations to their means of supporting themselves and their families. During armed conflict, women and children are more likely to be subjected to disappearances, hostage-taking, torture, imprisonment, sexual- and gender-based violence, forced recruitment into the armed forces and displacement. The paper focuses on the violence that women experience in conflict situations and on state policies and practices as corrective measures for gender inequities, cognisant that this is not the only locus of struggle, because women’s realities are shaped by multiple social hierarchies and gendered power relations are deeply rooted in our societies. Continue reading More on Gender and Security RESOURCES A Closer Look at Oil, Diamonds, and Civil War Annual Review of Political Science Studies of natural resource wealth and civil war have been hampered by measurement error, endogeneity, lack of robustness, and uncertainty about causal mechanisms. This paper develops new measures and new tests to address these problems. It has four main findings. First, the likelihood of civil war in countries that produce oil, gas, and diamonds rose sharply from the early 1970s to the late 1990s; so did the number of rebel groups that sold contraband to raise money. Second, exogenous measures of oil, gas, and diamond wealth are robustly correlated with the onset of civil war. Still, these correlations are based on a small number of cases, and the substantive effects of resource wealth are sensitive to certain assumptions. Third, petroleum and diamond production lead to civil wars through at least three different mechanisms. Finally, the only resource variable robustly linked to conflict duration is a measure of “contraband,” which includes gemstones, timber, and narcotics. Continue reading More on Natural Resources and Armed Conflict CONFLICT RESOLUTION AND PEACEMAKING Hamas Triumphant: Implications for Security, Politics, Economy, and Strategy Washington Institute for Near East Policy The victory of the Islamic Resistance Movement— Hamas—in Palestinian Legislative Council elections on January 25, 2006, unleashed a political tsunami throughout the Middle East and beyond. Aft er forty years of undisputed dominance in Palestinian politics, the secular, nationalist Fatah—the party of Yasser Arafat and Mahmoud Abbas, the party of both the Oslo Accords with Israel and violent uprisings against Israel—had been displaced by a radical Islamist upstart that has deep roots but was itself founded less than two decades ago. Hamas’s success has compelled all regional and international actors to undertake a wholesale review of the assumptions that have long guided their policies in the Arab-Israeli and even wider Muslim arenas. Continue reading More on Conflict Resolution and Peacemaking TERRORISM The Moral Logic and Growth of Suicide Terrorism Washington Quarterly Suicide attack is the most virulent and horrifying form of terrorism in the world today. Although suicide attacks account for a minority of all terrorist acts, they are responsible for a majority of all terrorism-related casualties, and the rate of attacks is rising rapidly across the globe. During 2000–2004, there were 472 suicide attacks in 22 countries, killing more than 7,000 and wounding tens of thousands. Most have been carried out by Islamist groups claiming religious motivation, also known as jihadis. Terrorism analyst Bruce Hoffman has found that 80 percent of suicide attacks since 1968 occurred after the September 11 attacks, with jihadis representing 31 of the 35 responsible groups. More suicide attacks occurred in 2004 than in any previous year, and 2005 has proven even more deadly, with attacks in Iraq alone averaging more than one per day, according to data gathered by the U.S. military. The July 2005 London and Sinai bombings, a second round of bombings at tourist destinations in Bali in October, coordinated hotel bombings in Jordan in November, the arrival of suicide bombings in Bangladesh in December, a record year of attacks in Afghanistan, and daily bombings in Iraq have spurred renewed interest in suicide terrorism, with recent analyses stressing the strategic logic, organizational structure, and rational calculation involved. Continue reading More on Terrorism HUMANITARIAN INTERVENTION Humanitarian Intervention and the War in Iraq: Norms, Discourse, and State Practice Parameters Before 9/11, norms on humanitarian intervention were developed and applied in an international security milieu in which there was less concern about the possibility that a humanitarian justification for military force could provide cover for nonhumanitarian military campaigns, such as those associated with the “war on terror.” As such, the normative development of the rules on humanitarian intervention emerged in a certain way, with a great deal of attention being given to what was learned from previous experience with humanitarian interventions. Until the Iraq war, the most contested instance of military force of the time was the 1999 Kosovo intervention, which subsequently colored discussions on how to best govern humanitarian intervention, and for finding ways for it to be undertaken in the event that the UN Security Council fails to act. Because of the urgency of getting states to act against perpetrators of gross human rights violations, much of the discourse on humanitarian intervention after Kosovo but before 9/11 became such that Security Council authorization was seen as less important, and mixed motives in armed intervention were deemed permissible. It seemed apparent that unless the rules on the use of force were relaxed a bit, humanitarian intervention would never occur when and where it was most urgently needed. This was the lesson of Rwanda, where the Security Council was paralyzed, where no powerful state had a pressing security interest to intervene, and where, ultimately, nearly a million people were slaughtered. But in the age of global terrorism, easing the requirements for what is considered the acceptable use of force—even if it is to accommodate well-intended humanitarian interventions—has consequences, and we are quite possibly witnessing them today in Iraq. Continue reading More on Humanitarian Intervention Compiled by Robert Hartfiel and Arezou Farivar Human Security Research is produced by the Human Security Centre at the Liu Institute for Global Issues at UBC. The Human Security Centre produces the annual Human Security Report and is funded by the governments of Canada, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland and the United Kingdom. For more information on human security visit the Human Security Gateway, an online research and information database that contains a broad range of human security-related resources. To subscribe to Human Security Research , send an email to hsc.list@ubc.ca with 'subscribe HS Research' in the subject field or click here. To unsubscribe, please reply to this message with 'unsubscribe HS Research' in the subject heading. |
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