OJPCR: The Online Journal of
Peace and Conflict Resolution is a resource for students, teachers and
practitioners in fields relating to the reduction and elimination of
destructive conflict. It is a free, yet valuable, source of information to aid
anyone trying to work toward a less violent and more cooperative
world.
Issue 5.1
Experience
From
Peacekeeping to Peacebuilding
From
Violence to Peace: Terrorism and Human Rights in Sri Lanka
Personal
Empowerment as the Missing Ingredient for a Resolution of the Israel/Palestine
Conflict
Creating a More Peaceful Classroom Community by Assessing Student
Participation and Process
Analysis
To Protect
Democracy (Not Practice It): Explanations of Dyadic Democratic Intervention
(DDI)
Why did
the Colombia Peace Process Fail?
Truth and
Reconciliation: The Road Not Taken in Namibia
Africa
Crisis Response Initiative: Its Workability as a Framework for Conflict
Prevention and Resolution
Culture, Gender, Power and Conflict in Melanie Thernstrom's
Halfway Heaven: Diary of a Harvard Murder
Kant's
Perpetual Peace: A New Look at this Centuries-Old Quest
An Analysis
of Bloody Sunday
The
Jewish Group: Highlighting the Culture Problem in Nation-States
How Can I
Teach Peace When the Book Only Covers War?
Cooperation in Pluralistic Societies: An Analytic Mathematical
Approach
|
Publications of Interest
Books
Conflict Resolution |
Ethnic Conflict | History | International
Relations/Diplomacy | Reconciliation |
General
General
Dynamics of Contention By Doug McAdam, Sidney Tarrow,
and Charles Tilly. 2001.
Cambridge; New York, Cambridge University
Press. 387 pp with index. Hardback, $59.95, Paperback $21.95.
While the
literature of social mobilization and violent conflict share a focus on issues
of social conflict, there has been little work that incorporates both
perspectives into a coherent model of social behavior. Considering everything
from a strike to war part of "contentious politics," McAdam, Tarrow, and Tilly
have been able to identify parts of larger social processes that can be
examined and compared between cases. The insight that allows this is that these
social processes cannot be seen through single-actor models and must involve
the study of dynamic interaction.
Ethnography in Unstable Places: Everyday Lives in Contexts of
Dramatic Political Change. Edited by Carol J. Greenhouse, Elizabeth
Mertz, and Kay B. Warren. 2002. Durham, Duke University Press. 439 pp with
index. Cloth $64.95, Paper $21.95.
Ethnography in Unstable
Places is an impressive collection of essays built around the notion that
there is something unique about social life under dramatic political change. In
most cases, this change is the result of uneven globalization, as states are
unable to maintain a balance between capital liberalization and social
conditions. This book tackles not only the lives of people, but also the
conceptual ideas necessary for discussing their lives. The essays argue that
scholastic objectivity and boundaries are untenable in the contemporary world
and that the social developments being studied require a new conception of the
role of anthropology (and other disciplines) in light of the study of new
social forms.
Operation Defensive Shield: Witnesses to Israeli
War Crimes. Edited by Muna Hamzeh and Todd May. 2003. London;
Sterling, Va., Pluto Press. Hardback $65.00, Paperback $19.95.
This
book gathers firsthand accounts from individuals who have witnessed Israeli
military actions that were part of Operation Defensive Shield, which was
launched in March and April 2002. It seeks to show both what has happened
during the operation and why it has happened. The editors view Operation
Defensive Shield as an important reference for understanding Israeli actions in
the conflict. The narratives primarily focus on the perspectives of
Palestinians and Israeli and international peace activists. While there is a
section examining American, European and Arab responsibility for Israeli
policy, this book does not attempt to suggest a path toward peace. It concern
is documentary, and this is a role it fills well.
No
Place Like Home: Echoes from Kosovo Written and photographed by Melanie
Friend. 2001. Softcover, $39.95. San Francisco Emeryville, CA, Midnight
Editions ; Distributed by Publishers Group West.
Melanie Friend, a
British photojournalist, covered the Balkans from 1989, and eventually moved
from documenting devastation to finding other ways to visually represent what
was happening, such as photographing room and gardens where police raids had
taken place and then interview the individuals involved. In 1999, she traveled
to Macedonia to interview refugees and chose to photograph them as if in a
studio instead of as a traditional newspaper photographer.
No Place
Like Home is a collection of 75 of Friend's photographs and comments from fifty
of the people she interviewed. It covers the period from 1994-1999. As with the
comics journalism of Joe Sacco's Safe Area Gorazde, No Place Like Home proves
that often, by stepping outside our traditional texts, we can better understand
the human aspects of conflict. |
King of
the Mountain : The Nature of Political Leadership By Arnold M. Ludwig.
2002. Lexington, University Press of Kentucky. 475 pp including index. Cloth
$32.00.
In King of the Mountain, Arnold Ludwig argues that world leaders
are driven to become leaders by the same dynamics that shape hierarchical
behavior in other primates. Leaders gain power, whether autocratic or
democratic, through the show of alpha-male behaviors. These findings are the
result of an eighteen-year study of all primary rulers from independent
countries in the 20th century.
An important aspect of Ludwig's argument
is that the political system does not create alpha-male leaders, but that
individuals who exhibit alpha-male behaviors are elevated to and maintain
positions of leadership. Ludwig takes care to distance himself from the
practice of politics, insisting that he is only a psychiatrist interested in
the individuals and also presents his argument with a very readable narrative,
saving the data exposition and methodology for the appendices.
Of
special interest to OJPCR readers is the final chapter, when Ludwig considers
the relevance of alpha-male behavior to warmaking. For him, warmaking is the
utmost expression of the alpha-male. It is to be expected as the
biologically-selected preference for human society. However, he also recognizes
the potential for peace. First, some governmental forms, most notably
checks-and-balances democracy, are formulated to limit the influence of any
single individual. Second, although Ludwig is convinced of the relationship
between human social behavior and that of the other high primates, he is not
biologically deterministic. Instead, he does believe that we can overcome our
biological natures and forge a world of peace.
Partner
to History : The U.S. Role in South Africa's Transition to Democracy
Princeton N. Lyman. 2002. Washington, D.C., United States Institute of
Peace Press. 344 pp with index. Paper, $19.95.
As the US Ambassador to
South Africa during that country's transition from apartheid, Princeton Lyman
was is in a unique position to illuminate the role of the US in assisting this
process. Lyman describes the actions of the US within the context of "conflict
resolution diplomacy" and takes special effort to differential what he sees as
the US's facilitation of the process as opposed to mediation of the conflict.
Along with an excellent account of the transition process, Lyman includes a
chapter describing the lessons that can (and have) been drawn from this case.
Bounded missions : military regimes and democratization in the
Southern Cone and Brazil Craig L. Arceneaux. 2001. University Park,
Penn, Pennsylvania State University Press. 262 pp. Cloth, $35.00, paperback
$19.95.
Transitions from autocracy to democracy in South America are
inconsistent. While many authors have examined external factors affecting these
transitions, Craig Arceneaux focuses on internal military dynamics. The result
is a study of eight political transitions, five in Brazil and others in
Argentina, Chile, and Uruguay. Each is documented and Arceneaux's arguments are
developed through comparison.
Internally Displaced People: A Global
Survey Global IDP Survey. and Flyktningerêad (Norway) 2002.
London; Sterling, VA, Earthscan. Hardback $89.95, Paperback $32.50.
This report, produced by the Global IDP Project of the Norwegian Refugee
Council and published by Earthscan, documents internal displacement around the
world. It includes a few short chapters on the Global IDP Project, but by far
the most useful aspects are the regional profiles contained in the rest of the
book. Each of these begins with a regional overview and then concentrates on
individual countries. While the country reports vary in detail, they all
contain some understanding of the background to the problem, the current
condition of internally displace persons, and the efforts being taken to meet
the needs of the displaced people. No other global survey on internally
displaces persons is as complete as database of the Global IDP Project, and
this book is a handy way to become acquainted with the problem and its possible
solutions. |
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