Yes / Poor people attempting to claim a share of resources in post-conflict societies seek allies internationally and nationally in attempts to empower their campaigns. In so doing, they mobilize the languages of liberalism, nationalism and local cultural tradition selectively and opportunistically to both justify stances that transgress the strictures of local culture and to cement alliances with more powerful actors. In the case of poor widows in East Timor, the languages of nationalism, ritual, and justice were intermingled in a campaign aimed at both international actors and the national state in a bid to claim a position of status in the post-conflict order.

No / This volume contributes to the growing literature on women, conflict and peacebuilding by focusing on the moments after a peace accord, or some other official ending of a conflict, often denoted as `post-conflict¿ or `post-war¿. Such moments often herald great hope for holding to account those who committed grave wrongs during the conflict, and for a better life in the future. For many women, both of these hopes are often very quickly shattered in starkly different ways to the hopes of men. Such periods are often characterized by violence and insecurities, and the official ending of a war often fails to bring freedom from sexual violence for many women. Within such a context, efforts on the part of women, and those made on their behalf, to hold to account those who commit crimes against them, and to access their rights are difficult to make, are often dangerous, and are also often deployed with little effect. Gendered Peace explores international contexts, and a variety of local ones, in which such struggles take place, and evaluates their progress. The volume highlights the surprising success in the development of international legal advances for women, but contrasts this with the actual experience of women in cases from Sierra Leone, Rwanda, South Africa, Afghanistan, Bangladesh, East Timor, Peru, Central America and the Balkans.'

This briefing paper seeks to increase awareness of and review the linkages between disarmament, demobilisation and reintegration (DDR) and small arms and light weapons (SALW) reduction in the context of post-conflict reconstruction (PCR). It is targeted at those working on poverty reduction at both the policy and programme level, particularly those with comparatively modest engagement in these areas. Its objective is to outline the types of activities that have been undertaken under these rubrics, the difficulties and constraints encountered at the level of implementation, and, in particular, to identify opportunities in linking SALW programmes and DDR. It also seeks to highlight the problems created by widespread arms availability and usage in PCR. This briefing paper is not intended as a comprehensive review of the state of DDR/SALW/PCR programming and policy, but rather an introduction to some of the core issues.

With its departure in the challenge of avoiding conflict-issues becoming politics, the present study merges the literatures on reconciliation and post-conflict politics, and asks why a difference in post-conflict political moderation can be observed in individuals. It uses questionnaire- and interview-material gathered in Mostar during spring 2013 to do a comparative case study, testing the hypothesis that reconciliation makes individuals more politically moderate with respect to war-related issues. Results in line with the hypothesis are found, and the relationship appears to be causal. However, the causal mechanism requires additional work, and the issue of confounders needs to be addressed by future studies to ensure robustness. In conclusion, with these caveats in mind, the answer to the question is that the level of reconciliation affects the levels of political moderation.

No electronic version of the thesis exists at present. For the print version please use the link above to the University of Bradford Library Catalogue.

No description available.

Recent years have seen an increasing emphasis on local ownership in UN peacebuilding. Advocates of local ownership assert that it boosts the legitimacy and sustainability of UN peacebuilding by helping to preserve the principles of self- determination and non-imposition of externally-conceived solutions onto post-conflict countries in an activity that can contravene them. However, while the UN perceives local ownership as enabling it to act in accordance with these principles, it also perceives local ownership to imperil the achievement of its operational goals, thus bringing its normative and operational objectives into conflict. This thesis evaluates the UN’s discourse, understandings, and operationalizations of local ownership in peacebuilding. Drawing on examples from the UN peace operation in DR Congo, it shows that despite the UN’s regular invocation of local ownership discourse, it operationalizes ownership in restrictive and selective ways that are intended to protect the achievement of operational goals but that consequently limit self-determination and increase external imposition on the host country. This gap between the rhetoric and reality of ownership suggests that the UN uses local ownership primarily as a discursive tool for legitimation, one intended to reconcile the organization’s normative and operational imperatives. However, because its actions do not match its rhetoric, the UN’s attempts to generate legitimacy through discourse appear to fall flat, particularly in the eyes of local actors. Moreover, because of contradictions in the ways that the UN operationalizes local ownership, it not only deepens the curtailment of self-determination and the degree of external imposition, it also undercuts its ability to realize the very operational goals it is trying to protect. Ultimately, because it is a contradictory and contested concept, local ownership fails to eliminate or ‘fix’ the trade-offs the UN faces in peacebuilding, suggesting that the UN must instead accept them and incorporate them into its goals and expectations.

The main purpose of this research was to understand the civil war in Sierra Leone and its antecedents, and to analyse the package of reconstruction reforms which came along in the post-war era and their relevance for and impact on the local challenges for longer term peace. Continued corruption among the political class, the persistent disenfranchisement of important social groups, and emerging tensions along political party lines suggested that, ten years on from the Lomé Peace Accord, there may have been a malaise in the peacebuilding plan. To investigate the complex issues, and to support the hypothesis that the model for reconstruction was not best suited to local conditions and local priorities, the work first made a deep interrogation of the historic political, cultural and economic factors which led to the violent conflict. This scrutiny of the local experience allowed the conceptualisation of a germane 'framework for peace' which represented the most pressing priorities of the local community and the central challenges for peace. The framework reflected the main concerns of the local populace and was used as an analytical tool to better understand the relevance of the model for reconstruction vis-à-vis the local context. Through a critical analysis of the post-war reforms and their impact on the social dimensions of recovery, in particular macro-economic reforms and the promotion of democracy, conclusions were drawn about the appropriateness and efficacy of the model of reconstruction experienced in Sierra Leone and how it supported local priorities for peace. The enquiry found that, in general, the model for reconstruction was not best suited to the local context because of its inflexibility to support the local peacebuilding and its many challenges. In some ways the model for reconstruction heightened residual tensions from the conflict because it failed to address key issues for reform such as governance and social justice.

A major weakness of the literature on the regulation of freedom of expression within the field of political science is the assumption of peaceful, liberal democratic conditions. My project seeks to contribute to a better understanding of the legitimate regulation of speech by analyzing disciplinary approaches to freedom of expression through the lens of countries recovering from intractable conflict. I ask: How appropriate are current understandings of freedom of expression to the regulation of speech in post-conflict environments? Relying on insights from the field of social psychology and the case of post-genocide Rwanda, I argue that greater restrictions on freedom of expression could be legitimate in countries recovering from intractable conflict. However, rights derogations must take place within limits so as not to become a tool of authoritarian rule.

This thesis examines the challenge of coordinating civilian and military efforts within a so-called ‘whole-of-government’ approach to stability operations. The empirical analysis focuses on British and American attempts to implement an integrated civilian-military strategy in Afghanistan and Iraq between 2001 and 2010. Unlike many existing analyses, the thesis consciously avoids jumping to the search for solutions to fix the problem of coordination and instead offers a nuanced explanation of why it arises in the first instance. Empirical data was gathered through personal interviews with a wide range of civilian and military practitioners between 2007 and 2011. Together with the in-depth study of official documents released by, and on, the defence, diplomatic and development components of the British and American governments, they provide the basis for a fine-grained analysis of obstacles to interagency coordination. The thesis offers a framework for analysis that is grounded in organisation theory and distinguishes between material, bureaucratic and cultural dimensions of obstacles to interagency coordination. It identifies organisational cultures as a crucial force behind government agencies’ reluctance to participate and invest in an integrated approach. The empirical chapters cover interagency dynamics within the government bureaucracy and in operations on the ground, including the role of specialised coordination units and Provincial Reconstruction Teams in the pursuit of coordination. The thesis concludes that stabilisation remains an inherently contested endeavour for all organisations involved and that the roles and expectations implied by contemporary templates for coordination clash with prevailing organisational identities and self-perceptions. These findings caution against the procedural and technocratic approach to interagency coordination that permeates the existing literature on the subject and many proposals for reform. While the thesis examines a specific empirical context, its conclusions have broader implications for civilian-military coordination and the quest for an integrated approach to security in the twenty-first century.