Journal of Conflictology

Complete Issue Journal of Conflictology Volume 5 Issue 2

Claudia Solanes — 2014-10-31

Biological Roots of Human Conflict, and its Resolution via Cultural Evolution

Lou Marinoff — 2014-10-31

The biological roots of human conflict are evolutionarily ancient, and correspondingly deep. Fortunately, some of our most destructive human tendencies can be mitigated or obviated by cultural evolution. But since culture is to biology as software is to hardware, one must correctly understand the biological nature of conflict in order to nurture effective resolutions, and beyond that to build enduring cultures of peace. This paper focuses on the biological roots of human conflict. A sequel would focus on conflict resolution via cultural evolution.

The Future of the Palestinian Authority

Hani Albasoos — 2014-10-31

The Oslo Agreement signed between Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) in 1993 created indirect control over the Palestinians, a better and cheaper strategy than direct control, where the Israeli government transferred administrative and security responsibilities to the Palestinian Authority (PA) in Gaza and the West Bank. Some Palestinian politicians and scholars consider the direct coordination and cooperation between the Israeli and Palestinian security forces as an Israeli vision that was adopted in the peace agreements to perpetuate the occupation. However, others believe the PA to be the administrative basis of a future Palestinian state. Without evidence of existential progress toward this goal, many have begun to question the need for the Authority, which has failed to carry out national tasks. Currently, the PA appears to be in an existential crisis. The Palestinians are increasingly criticising it, and many have sought to distance themselves from government involvement in local affairs. Moreover, some of its leaders have called for its dissolution. The PA is encircled by Israeli concerns and problematic and overlapping Palestinian partisan interests. This research gives an explanation of the future scenarios of the PA two decades after its establishment, and explores the possibility of redefining its role, taking into account the significant developments in the Palestinian new status at the UN, Palestinian reconciliation, and the efforts to revive and rebuild the PLO.

Pacifying Cyberspace in the Age of the Zettabyte

Tom Woodhouse — 2014-10-31

The growth of the world-wide-web, and the revolution in information and communications technology of which it is a part, is an event of global historic significance, equivalent to the changes brought about by the industrial and agricultural revolutions of the 18^th and 19^th centuries. We are now living in a knowledge based world in which the internet is the core technological driver for knowledge storage, exchange and to a significant extent knowledge analysis and creation. The web is also a contested space, meaning that the values and ideas it generates and transmits are not neutral but have significant impact on how we live our lives. New forms of militarisation (cyberwar) and exploitation (cybercrime) are enabled by web technology and it can be argued that these darker aspects are in danger of becoming a dominating characteristic. This article explores the ways in which the web can be used to enhance capacities for creative peacebuilding though new forms of cyberpeace, which complement and extend the range of the traditional modes of conflict resolution while putting human agency – the choices and decisions of people – at the centre of the project to generate a global peace culture.

Fundamental Consequences of the Ethio-Eritrean War [1998-2000]

Wuhibegezer Ferede Bezabih — 2014-10-31

This is a study of the effects of the 1998-2000 Ethio-Eritrean war on both Ethiopia and Eritrea. The purpose is to stimulate informed public discussion on the unending interstate cold war. The paper is a product of field work in Mäkällé, Adigrat and its vicinity. The information presented here was gathered using semi-structured, face-to-face interviews with the residents in the then war zone on the Ethiopian side, Eritrean refugees and Ethiopians deported from Eritrea. Beside the interviews, literature in the form of reports and war narratives are included to balance the information gathered from informants. However, I did not hold interviews with ministers, top-level military commanders, or local administrators. The research adopts a qualitative and historical approach. Though the paper presents pertinent information, the study faced problems in tackling a complex and contentious issue in a situation where much of the information needed for full understanding is not available. Therefore, many deeply contested issues were excluded from this project. It was also extremely difficult to produce a comprehensive picture of all causal connections, for war is never an isolated act. Thus, in this paper I attempt to give meaning to what was seen as a senseless war by assessing the economic, social, political and environmental impacts of the war from an emic perspective.

Girl Child Education in Post War Sierra Leone

chukwuma osakwe — 2014-10-31

Conflict in any part of the world creates multidimensional impact on the society. It runs-down human and material resources of the state. While the material resources of the state that were destroyed by conflict could be replaced easily, the human resource damage is often difficult to correct in most cases. The Sierra Leonean state has been touched by the damaging hands of conflict. The consequence of the conflict on the girl-child has directly and indirectly affected the overall human capital development of the state. Today the war-torn mothers are increasingly begetting teenage and child-mothers too, thus creating a dangerous multiplier effect on the nation building process. The poverty level in the country has enhanced the pool of the uneducated girls in the society, creating a potential danger for the future children of the country, who would be nurtured by these largely uneducated present and future mothers. Consequently, the paper has presented the need for girl-child education in the Sierra Leone nation building process. It has also highlighted a number of post conflict stress disorders and other challenges which were undergone by the girl-child. Finally, it calls for all stakeholders in the country to promote girl-child education in one way or the other for improved national development.

A Brief Introduction into Transrational Peace Research and Elicitive Conflict Transformation

Wolfgang Dietrich — 2014-10-31

This article is a summary of the author’s `Many Peaces´ trilogy, which comprises in its original version more than 1200 pages. It has been published by Palgrave Macmillan in London 2012, 2013 with the third volume still to be issued.

It presents a broad range of peace interpretations in history and culture, which are divided into the so called five peace families – the energetic, the moral, the modern, the post-modern and the transrational perceptions and understandings of peace(s).

It further elaborates the transrational peace philosophy and derives from John Paul Lederach’s famous pyramid of conflict (work) a broader systemic understanding of conflict as relational phenomenon. It offers a tool for analysis of these complex processes that happen at human “contact boundaries at work” – the enlarged pyramid-model of themes, levels and layers.

Finally, it introduces resonance, correspondence and homeostasis as principles of elicitiv conflict mapping, the methodological toolkit for applied conflict work.

Holey Union: Contested European Frontier Zones

Andreas Oberprantacher — 2014-10-31

Especially since the creation of the Schengen Area (1985; 1995; 2005), the establishment of the European agency Frontex in October 2004 and the successive implementation of integrated border patrol missions, the European Union and allied states manifests itself to irregular migrants as a maneuverable body of relatively loosely interrelated, treacherous, frontier zones. In consideration of the current trend to diffuse two major elements of the liberal rule-of-law, that is, jurisdiction and accountability, also as a result of the European Union’s Integrated Border Management, this article sets out to explore a variety of options to make such zones of post-Westphalian governmentality public, and to engage with the passion for democracy other than in a managerial sense. More specifically, this article outlines prevalent elements of Europe’s governmental operations in frontier zones and then looks at the question: what acts of dissent are becoming visible that not only cut through former national borders, but also traverse and subvert frontier zones while exposing chances for political association and responsiveness that are not those legitimated by the liberal democratic state? In order to exemplify such acts of dissent, this article refers to the contemporary Refugee Protest Camp Vienna movement, to the Forensic Architecture research project, and also to the Hotel Gelem artistic project. The purpose of this paper is to illustrate and argue in favor of the different possibilities of challenging the increasing institution of European frontier zones by waging acts of dissent that are elicitive.

Elicitive Conflict Mapping: A Practical Tool for Peacework

Josefina Echavarría Alvarez — 2014-10-31

This article presents the tool of elicitive conflict mapping (ECM), developed by Wolfgang Dietrich (2011, 2013, unpublished) at the Innsbruck UNESCO Chair and MA Program in Peace Studies, which seeks to operationalize the philosophy of transrational peace and the art of elicitive conflict work. The art of elicitive conflict work is based on the guiding principle that elicitive transformation does not develop or offer a content solution for the conflict episode, but it provides a safe space for the parties, in which they can work on changes in their relationships along the horizons of their own intelligibility. In this context, the practical relevance of ECM is not the creation of prescriptive methods or recipes, because transrationality and elicitive work exclude such instruments, but to support conflicting parties in finding orientation and recognizing new and concrete courses of action in their own contexts. Read in conjunction with Dietrich’s article in this very same issue and methodologically inspired by mind mapping, this contribution surveys practical ways in which elicitive conflict workers can find a point of entry into conflict analysis and seek guidance in the complex reality of themes, layers and levels. The aim is to shed light on the steps that elicitive workers and facilitation teams can take in order to create possibilities and courses of action that enable the recovery of the dynamic equilibrium of the conflictive system.

Law as Transformative Conflict Work – A Transrational Approach

Florencia Benítez-Schaefer — 2014-10-31

This paper addresses the question of how law and legal work can be envisaged from a perspective of transrational peaces and within an approach of elicitive conflict transformation. The narrative of law is connected here to the perspectives of energetic, moral, modern and postmodern peaces as elaborated by Wolfgang Dietrich, and addresses particularly the shortcomings of a fragmented approach to law when it comes to respond to complex social conflicts. The author presents how a transrational approach can foster the necessary awareness and transformation of crucial aspects of human relations within the work in the field of law. To illustrate this, the text provides some examples from different fields of legal praxis, which show that multiple perspectives on law are currently interacting in order to address social conflict. Most importantly, these examples demonstrate that a transrational and transformational approach to law is not only possible, but rather that it is already taking place.