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- Resilience, Fragile States, Development and Security, Peace Processes, Global governmentality, Broad Human Security and Global Governance, and 22 moreInterpretive Research (Research Methods), Political Science, Comparative Politics, Terrorism, Bibliometrics, Security Studies, Risk and Vulnerability, Ethnopolitics, Development Theories And Policies, Sudan, South Sudan, Statebuilding, Political Settlements, Sociology of Science, Failed States, Peace and Conflict Studies, Security, Development, Peacebuilding, Securitization, Interpretive research methodology, and Vulnerabilityedit
- Working on (un)governance, political unsettlement, peace processes and political settlements, historical institutiona... moreWorking on (un)governance, political unsettlement, peace processes and political settlements, historical institutionalism, resilience and security, South Sudan, and Sudan
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Nach einem jahrzehntelangen Bürgerkrieg erlangt die Republik Südsudan am 9. Juli 2011 ihre Unabhängigkeit. Doch trotz aller Bemühungen um einen friedlichen Staatsaufbau nimmt die erste Dekade der Eigenstaatlichkeit einen gewaltsamen... more
Nach einem jahrzehntelangen Bürgerkrieg erlangt die Republik Südsudan am 9. Juli 2011 ihre Unabhängigkeit. Doch trotz aller Bemühungen um einen friedlichen Staatsaufbau nimmt die erste Dekade der Eigenstaatlichkeit einen gewaltsamen Verlauf: Im Dezember 2013 schlittert der Südsudan in einen blutig geführten Bürgerkrieg, der sich nicht als einheitlicher Konflikt mit klar definierbaren Parteien, sondern zu einem Amalgam komplex verschachtelter Konfliktlandschaften entwickelt. In analytischen Vignetten, die verschiedene Regionen sowie die nationale und internationale Dimension des Bürgerkrieges untersuchen, gibt Jan Pospisil einen Einblick in die südsudanesische Konfliktrealität.
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International peacebuilding has reached an impasse. Its lofty ambitions have resulted in at best middling success, punctuated by moments of outright failure. The discrediting of the term ‘liberal peacebuilding’ has seen it evolve to... more
International peacebuilding has reached an impasse. Its lofty ambitions have resulted in at best middling success, punctuated by moments of outright failure. The discrediting of the term ‘liberal peacebuilding’ has seen it evolve to respond to the numerous critiques. Notions such as ‘inclusive peace’ merge the liberal paradigm with critical notions of context, and the need to refine practices to take account of ‘the local’ or ‘complexity’. However, how this would translate into clear guidance for the practice of peacebuilding is unclear. Paradoxically, contemporary peacebuilding policy has reached an unprecedented level of vagueness. Peace in political unsettlement provides an alternative response rooted in a new discourse, which aims to speak both to the experience of working in peace process settings. It maps a new understanding of peace processes as institutionalising formalised political unsettlement and points out new ways of engaging with it. The book points to the ways in which peace processes institutionalise forms of disagreement, creating ongoing processes to manage it, rather than resolve it. It suggests a modest approach of providing ‘hooks’ to future processes, maximising the use of creative non-solutions, and practices of disrelation, are discussed as pathways for pragmatic post-war transitions. It is only by understanding the nature and techniques of formalised political unsettlement that new constructive ways of engaging with it can be found.
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Seit den 1990er Jahren durchläuft Entwicklungspolitik eine Wandlung. Die Frage bewaffneter Konflikte und Kriege in den Peripherien hat »Nachhaltigkeit« als neue und zentrale Problemstellung abgelöst. Dieser Prozess verläuft nicht bei... more
Seit den 1990er Jahren durchläuft Entwicklungspolitik eine Wandlung. Die Frage bewaffneter Konflikte und Kriege in den Peripherien hat »Nachhaltigkeit« als neue und zentrale Problemstellung abgelöst. Dieser Prozess verläuft nicht bei allen Akteuren gleich. Vielmehr werden spezifische Rationalitäten von Steuerung sichtbar, die sich mit dem Foucault'schen Begriff der Gouvernementalität fassen lassen.
In einem Vergleich der entwicklungspolitischen Praxis der USA und Deutschlands arbeitet diese Studie die Unterschiedlichkeiten der Konzepte und institutionellen Ausrichtungen heraus und analysiert deren Implementierung in Sri Lanka.
In einem Vergleich der entwicklungspolitischen Praxis der USA und Deutschlands arbeitet diese Studie die Unterschiedlichkeiten der Konzepte und institutionellen Ausrichtungen heraus und analysiert deren Implementierung in Sri Lanka.
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In over four decades of scientific exploration, Otmar Höll has approached international security from often unorthodox and unconventional perspectives. Starting with the issues of development and environmental policy, the challenge of a... more
In over four decades of scientific exploration, Otmar Höll has approached international security from often unorthodox and unconventional perspectives. Starting with the issues of development and environmental policy, the challenge of a more comprehensive notion of security increasingly becomes a primary focus. Otmar Höll accepted this challenge and sought to combine it with his interests in the theory of political psychology, the practice of psychotherapeutic and mediated approaches to conflict resolution. Comprehensive Security therefore became a concept with a particular personal relevance. This Festschrift highlights Otmar Höll’s professional achievement through the contributions of friends, companions and colleagues.
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Research Interests: Sociology, Colombia, Political Science, Ideology, Music and identity, and 11 moreIdentity Formation, Collective Identity, Identity, Insurgency, Guerrilla Warfare, Music Teacher Identity, Proceso De Paz En Colombia, Guerrilla and Revolutionary Movements, Left Wing Politics, ELN, and Urban Guerrilla Movements
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Political settlements are now at the centre of international development efforts to promote more peaceful and inclusive states and societies. This special issue brings together a collection of theoretical and empirical contributions that... more
Political settlements are now at the centre of international development efforts to promote more peaceful and inclusive states and societies. This special issue brings together a collection of theoretical and empirical contributions that engage critically with the political settlement concept and the question of how to navigate inclusion, with a focus on underlying politics, power and institutional dynamics, and how these influence trajectories of change. Three insights, in particular, emerge from the analysis in this issue. Firstly, the relationship between inclusion, stability, violence and resilience is complex and non-linear. Secondly, peace processes on their own are not sufficient to alter political settlements and tend to yield formalised political unsettlement instead. Lastly, processes of institutional transformation often involve trade-offs and dilemmas. Therefore, efforts to engage with political settlements need to adopt a long-term framework that overcomes idealist models of change.
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ABSTRACT. Development policy is one of the most important instruments used by the core states of the world system in pursuit of national interest. This article examines the development cooperation between the governments of the United... more
ABSTRACT. Development policy is one of the most important instruments used by the core states of the world system in pursuit of national interest. This article examines the development cooperation between the governments of the United States and the Philippines in the conflict-affected ...
Resolving armed conflict by forging an inclusive political settlement is the contemporary paradigm of international peacebuilding. War-to-peace transitions are envisioned as a sequenced process, cumulating in a signed comprehensive peace... more
Resolving armed conflict by forging an inclusive political settlement is the contemporary paradigm of international peacebuilding. War-to-peace transitions are envisioned as a sequenced process, cumulating in a signed comprehensive peace agreement as the central cornerstone on the pathway to normal politics. However, the reality of peace processes appears ungoverned. While peace negotiations may succeed in formalising political unsettlement at play and to tame violence, they regularly fail in resolving the radical disagreement at the heart of the conflict. Liberal peace governance, resting on the pillars of settlement, resolution, and relation, is unlikely to deliver its promised outcomes. The irresolvable discrepancy between the promise of liberal peace and its inability to deliver is the background against which peace ungovernance emerges. It operates under the premise of nonclosure in enduring transitions, where time, space, and relationality are not subject to an agreed common understanding, but elements of strategy and politics.
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Fifteen months after the revolution that ousted long-term dictator Omar al-Bashir in April 2019, it becomes increasingly evident that Sudan's two parallel transitional processes of democratisation and peacemaking contradict one another... more
Fifteen months after the revolution that ousted long-term dictator Omar al-Bashir in April 2019, it becomes increasingly evident that Sudan's two parallel transitional processes of democratisation and peacemaking contradict one another and follow different political logics. The second year after the removal of the Bashir-regime provides a harsh reality check for Sudan's transitional endeavour. The democratic transition, based on a fragile compromise between the Sudanese military and the revolutionary Forces of Freedom and Change (FFC), faces significant stumbling blocks.
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This research draws on discussions held at two Joint Analysis Workshops in October and November 2019 organised by the Political Settlements Research Programme (PSRP). The workshops were held in cooperation with The British Academy (BA)... more
This research draws on discussions held at two Joint Analysis Workshops in October and November 2019 organised by the Political Settlements Research Programme (PSRP). The workshops were held in cooperation with The British Academy (BA) and the Rift Valley Institute (RVI). In total, over 100 participants from 25 countries involved with or researching on local peace agreements contributed to thematic discussions. The research also draws on the PA-X Peace Agreements Database (www.peaceagreements.org), a database of all peace agreements at any stage of the peace process from 1990 to 2019. The database is fully searchable and supports both qualitative and quantitative examination of peace agreements.
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Supporting inclusive peace is the core mission of peacebuilding policy today and is reflected in the international development consensus in the 2030 Sustainable Development Goals Agenda. To empirically investigate the interrelation... more
Supporting inclusive peace is the core mission of peacebuilding policy today and is reflected in the international development consensus in the 2030 Sustainable Development Goals Agenda. To empirically investigate the interrelation between peacebuilding and inclusion, the Political Settlements Research Programme (PSRP) has generated a new and innovative data source, the PA-X Peace Agreement Database.
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In order to work, international peace - and statebuilding has had to reshape the traditional notion of state sovereignty and legitimize increasingly interventionist endeavours in terms of an attenuated ‘shared’ sovereignty. Over the last... more
In order to work, international peace - and statebuilding has had to reshape the traditional notion of state sovereignty and legitimize increasingly interventionist endeavours in terms of an attenuated ‘shared’ sovereignty. Over the last decade, however, governments in recipient states have pushed back, demanding a more active role in negotiating with their OECD counterparts. The g7+ group, an international organization of now 20 self-proclaimed fragile states, has evolved as a key actor from the global South dealing with international peace - and statebuilding. The group's approach to multilateral negotiations on development goals, and its creative use of donor concepts and approaches such as resilience, ownerships and measuring development progress, challenge the customary peace - and statebuilding practices. This challenge demonstrates that political elites in fragile states have started to self-confidentially occupy the arenas of statebuilding and development. This article argues that in so-doing the g7+ group establishes a post-liberal sovereignty claim that is based on two pillars: resilient nationhood, and selectivity in the application of global liberal principles. Since it relies on the development policy principle of national ownership, such post-liberal sovereignty is difficult to counter for actors subscribed to liberal norms. Effectively, sovereignty is ‘unshared’ again.
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Political settlements are now at the centre of international development efforts to promote more peaceful and inclusive states and societies. This special issue brings together a collection of theoretical and empirical contributions that... more
Political settlements are now at the centre of international development efforts to promote more peaceful and inclusive states and societies. This special issue brings together a collection of theoretical and empirical contributions that engage critically with the political settlement concept and the question of how to navigate inclusion, with a focus on underlying politics, power and institutional dynamics, and how these influence trajectories of change. Three insights, in particular, emerge from the analysis in this issue. Firstly, the relationship between inclusion, stability, violence and resilience is complex and non-linear. Secondly, peace processes on their own are not sufficient to alter political settlements and tend to yield formalised political unsettlement instead. Lastly, processes of institutional transformation often involve trade-offs and dilemmas. Therefore, efforts to engage with political settlements need to adopt a long-term framework that overcomes idealist models of change.
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Against the background of a conceptual history of approaches to the ‘common good’ in peace- and statebuilding, this working paper explores potential pathways for external engagement in transitions from violent conflict. While it is... more
Against the background of a conceptual history of approaches to the ‘common good’ in peace- and statebuilding, this working paper explores potential pathways for external engagement in transitions from violent conflict. While it is academically widely undisputed that liberal interventionism has reached an impasse, the common political space that opens up beyond that remains widely unexplored. The paper suggests to hold on to the notion of inclusive politics, but instead of framing it as a legalistic and representational exercise to interpret navigating inclusion as a relational endeavour of dialogue and learning.
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The project of ensuring that political settlements are inclusive is key to the attempts of negotiating transitions from conflict over the last 25 years. Examining such transitions, we point to the emergence of the ‘formalised political... more
The project of ensuring that political settlements are inclusive is key to the attempts of negotiating transitions from conflict over the last 25 years. Examining such transitions, we point to the emergence of the ‘formalised political unsettlement’ as a persistent outcome. The formalised political unsettlement translates the disagreement at the heart of the conflict into a set of political and legal institutions for continuing negotiation. As the conditions of its emergence will not change and the formalised political unsettlement may be here to stay, we point to the opportunities for navigating between elite inclusion and broader societal inclusion that it offers.
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EU's global peacebuilding ambitions demonstrate the failure of the neo-functionalist 'peace by integration' paradigm. What is needed instead is an active, but pragmatic engagement with the complexities of peace.
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Resilience is on the rise in security policies, at the international as well as at the national level. Current academic research often links resilience with either the neoliberal retreat of the state and the respective attempt of... more
Resilience is on the rise in security policies, at the international as well as at the national level. Current academic research often links resilience with either the neoliberal retreat of the state and the respective attempt of ‘governing from a distance’, or with an almost totalitarian grasp of ‘resilient subjects’, or both. Against the background of the application of resilience in UK security policy, this article argues that resilience does neither of these. Instead, it unfolds as a rather mundane endeavour focused on micro-practices of civil emergency response at the local level. In doing so, resilience enables the repackaging of ‘unbound security’, which was doomed to fail in delivering its promise. It is, however, neither offering another promise nor symbolising a retreat from state responsibility, but engages in a defensive micro-management of potential catastrophe. Resilience hence does not replace security as a practice of the state deriving from its sovereignty, but links up with it to create a nexus between the doable and the undoable, the resilience-security-nexus.
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‘Resilience’ has quickly risen to prominence in international security and development circles. In recent years it has found its way into political discourse on state building and state fragility, triggering a vast but often conceptually... more
‘Resilience’ has quickly risen to prominence in international security and development circles. In recent years it has found its way into political discourse on state building and state fragility, triggering a vast but often conceptually indistinct examination of the subject. Given its meaning in policy publications and guidelines, ‘resilience’ tends to eschew a static conceptualisation of statehood, turning instead to a more dynamic, complex and process-oriented rendering of state–society relations. This illustrates a conceptual shift from ‘failed states’ to ‘fragile states and situations’. It also transforms the concept of ‘failed state’ as a mere threat perception – with ‘stability’ as its logical other – into ‘fragility’ as a particular form of social and political risk. This paper analyses the concepts in 43 policy papers, focusing on the nexus of ‘resilience’ and ‘fragility’ in international state building, and assesses potential consequences. What does ‘resilience’ – as the opposite vision to ‘fragility’ – in fact mean? What is the practice derived from this chimerical state of states?
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Mit dem »Umfassenden Abkommen über die Bangsamoro« soll der seit Jahrzehnten andauernde bewaffnete Konflikt in Mindanao endgültig in friedliche Bahnen gelenkt werden. Der Friedensprozess ist allerdings durch kurz- wie langfristige... more
Mit dem »Umfassenden Abkommen über die Bangsamoro« soll der seit Jahrzehnten andauernde bewaffnete Konflikt in Mindanao endgültig in friedliche Bahnen gelenkt werden. Der Friedensprozess ist allerdings durch kurz- wie langfristige Herausforderungen gekennzeichnet. Der Beitrag analysiert diese Herausforderungen im Vergleich zu vorangegangenen Friedensprozessen in der Region und diskutiert, wie ihnen im Zuge der Verhandlungen offensiv begegnet wurde. Trotz seiner innovativen Gestaltung ist der Friedensprozess noch keineswegs gesichert; vor allem die starke Verknüpfung mit der Präsidentschaft Aquino und die fehlende Einbindung relevanter Konfliktparteien stellen schwerwiegende Risiken dar.
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In conflict studies, identity has been posited as an explanatory factor of the resilience of insurgencies. This article focuses on the identity formation of the National Liberation Army (ELN), a leftist insurgency group in Colombia. As a... more
In conflict studies, identity has been posited as an explanatory factor of the resilience of insurgencies. This article focuses on the identity formation of the National Liberation Army (ELN), a leftist insurgency group in Colombia. As a Marxist–Leninist organisation, the ELN aims to overcome capitalism. In their perception, this is possible via the transformation of the individual into a ‘collective personality’. Along the dimensions of ‘content’ and ‘contestation’, we will demonstrate the mechanisms they impose for such identity formation. Identity, as we will argue, is a main factor in explaining why people participate in this insurgency and thereby enhance its resilience.
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The term “resilience” has evolved to a key concept of security policy in recent years. This development is closely interrelated with the change in the perception of what actually is “security”. The long search for clearly definable... more
The term “resilience” has evolved to a key concept of security policy in recent years. This development is
closely interrelated with the change in the perception of what actually is “security”. The long search for
clearly definable threats has been replaced by the management of relatively indefinite risk positions. Based
on a qualitative analysis of security policy documents, this article illustrates the state of the art in the
conceptual development of the term “resilience”. Cumulatively, these documents allow us to segment the
term around the constitutive elements of coping, adaptability and redundancy. Together, these form the
basis of a resilience-based strategy of risk management.
closely interrelated with the change in the perception of what actually is “security”. The long search for
clearly definable threats has been replaced by the management of relatively indefinite risk positions. Based
on a qualitative analysis of security policy documents, this article illustrates the state of the art in the
conceptual development of the term “resilience”. Cumulatively, these documents allow us to segment the
term around the constitutive elements of coping, adaptability and redundancy. Together, these form the
basis of a resilience-based strategy of risk management.
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In recent policy papers on developmental statebuilding, for example in the European Report on Development in 2009, the concept of ‘resilience’ has been introduced as an alternative to ‘fragility’ and ‘fragile states’. This concept even... more
In recent policy papers on developmental statebuilding, for example in the European Report on Development in 2009, the concept of ‘resilience’ has been introduced as an alternative to ‘fragility’ and ‘fragile states’. This concept even offers the possibility of forging a ‘common European approach’. Although a considerable number of donor agencies (and, in particular, the European Commission since 2012) have adopted the concept and are applying it in some of their guidelines and strategies, the state of implementation in concrete interventions is unclear at present. Taking the development cooperation of the European Union and its member states in South Sudan as an example, this article assesses the current status of resilience in statebuilding efforts to be ambivalent: although there is little explicit reference to the concept in current country strategies and concrete programming, some components of resilience inform interventions.
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Burkina Faso ist ein prototypisches Beispiel der pragmatischen Verkettung unterschiedlicher, einander auch widersprechender Legitimitätsquellen zum Zwecke der nachhaltigen Machtkonsolidierung. Der vormalige Präsident Blaise Compaoré... more
Burkina Faso ist ein prototypisches Beispiel der pragmatischen Verkettung unterschiedlicher, einander auch widersprechender Legitimitätsquellen zum Zwecke der nachhaltigen Machtkonsolidierung. Der vormalige Präsident Blaise Compaoré generierte sich auf regionalem Parkett als führender westafrikanischer Konfliktmediator, ohne den bei den internationalen Partnern als erfolgreich wahrgenommenen im Peacebuilding-Bereich nichts gehen sollte. Zugleich versuchte er, diese internationale Legitimität über den Transmissionsriemen der Tradition national zu verankern. Im Zuge des Volksaufstandes gegen die geplante Verfassungsänderung zur Aufhebung der präsidentiellen Amtszeitbeschränkung zeigte sich diese Mixtur aus internationaler und traditioneller Legitimität jedoch als brüchig – Compaoré stürzte ausgerechnet über ein klassisches Problem der „input legitimacy“, der von ihm angestrebten Aufhebung der präsidentiellen Amtszeitbeschränkung.
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This research used expert surveys on a set of conflict countries, to understand how Covid-19 pandemic responses were affecting conflict and peace process dynamics. Our main findings were as follows: 1. It could have been expected that... more
This research used expert surveys on a set of conflict countries, to understand how Covid-19 pandemic responses were affecting conflict and peace process dynamics. Our main findings were as follows:
1. It could have been expected that the Covid-19 crisis would have provided an incentive to opposing groups to ‘pull together’ around ceasefires and peace initiatives. However, experts were pessimistic overall about the pandemic’s impact on peace processes. Main causes for pessimism were the diversion of national and international actors’ attention, potentially reduced donor funds, and the strategic ‘gaming’ of the crisis by government and non-state actors for conflict-related purposes.
2. The Covid-19 crisis, as such, is not ‘causing’ conflict but is playing into existing conflict fault lines and threats to peace processes.
3. The UN Secretary-General’s global ceasefire call was only of limited success, with tangible, albeit short-lived, impact in Colombia, the Philippines, and Yemen. In all of these countries, those declaring ceasefires (the ELN in Colombia, the CPP-NPA in the Philippines, and the Joint Coalition Forces in Yemen) have not extended their initial ceasefires.
4. Governments seem to be more at risk of losing public support compared with armed groups or the non-armed opposition.
5. Authoritarian tendencies appear to be strengthening under the guise of Covid-19 responses, especially where there are already authoritarian governments in place. Particular worries included shrinking civil society space (for all forms of activity), and the postponement of elections.
6. The crisis-related lack of national peace processes and conflict oversight has provided an opportunity for armed campaigns, and has also resulted in an increase of local violence in, for instance, the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Kenya, Libya, South Sudan, and Yemen.
7. Some peace talks that are being kept alive by moving them online, such as in Sudan and Myanmar, are facing severe challenges due to the lack of face-to-face interaction. While there is mounting pessimism about the impact of the crisis on peacemaking and existing peace processes which are often fragile, subnational or local settings are perceived with more optimism.
8. Anti-foreigner sentiments, xenophobia, and other forms of discrimination are key themes across contexts, and focus on UN staff as well as expatriates and other groups. Covid-19-related discrimination might also be directed against outsider ethnopolitical groups and is sometimes linked to conspiracy theories.
9. In some countries, the situation seems to be particularly fluid in terms of conflict risks because of the Covid-19 crisis, especially in the Central African Republic (CAR), the DRC, Libya, and in South Sudan.
1. It could have been expected that the Covid-19 crisis would have provided an incentive to opposing groups to ‘pull together’ around ceasefires and peace initiatives. However, experts were pessimistic overall about the pandemic’s impact on peace processes. Main causes for pessimism were the diversion of national and international actors’ attention, potentially reduced donor funds, and the strategic ‘gaming’ of the crisis by government and non-state actors for conflict-related purposes.
2. The Covid-19 crisis, as such, is not ‘causing’ conflict but is playing into existing conflict fault lines and threats to peace processes.
3. The UN Secretary-General’s global ceasefire call was only of limited success, with tangible, albeit short-lived, impact in Colombia, the Philippines, and Yemen. In all of these countries, those declaring ceasefires (the ELN in Colombia, the CPP-NPA in the Philippines, and the Joint Coalition Forces in Yemen) have not extended their initial ceasefires.
4. Governments seem to be more at risk of losing public support compared with armed groups or the non-armed opposition.
5. Authoritarian tendencies appear to be strengthening under the guise of Covid-19 responses, especially where there are already authoritarian governments in place. Particular worries included shrinking civil society space (for all forms of activity), and the postponement of elections.
6. The crisis-related lack of national peace processes and conflict oversight has provided an opportunity for armed campaigns, and has also resulted in an increase of local violence in, for instance, the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Kenya, Libya, South Sudan, and Yemen.
7. Some peace talks that are being kept alive by moving them online, such as in Sudan and Myanmar, are facing severe challenges due to the lack of face-to-face interaction. While there is mounting pessimism about the impact of the crisis on peacemaking and existing peace processes which are often fragile, subnational or local settings are perceived with more optimism.
8. Anti-foreigner sentiments, xenophobia, and other forms of discrimination are key themes across contexts, and focus on UN staff as well as expatriates and other groups. Covid-19-related discrimination might also be directed against outsider ethnopolitical groups and is sometimes linked to conspiracy theories.
9. In some countries, the situation seems to be particularly fluid in terms of conflict risks because of the Covid-19 crisis, especially in the Central African Republic (CAR), the DRC, Libya, and in South Sudan.
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The ethical dimension of the current debate on Covid-19 policy responses often remains confined in the apparent objectivity of numbers. Behind these objectivised arguments is a substantial ontological transformation that has started long... more
The ethical dimension of the current debate on Covid-19 policy responses often remains confined in the apparent objectivity of numbers. Behind these objectivised arguments is a substantial ontological transformation that has started long before the current crisis.
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Little is known about public attitudes towards peace processes in South Sudan. To help fill the gap, the United States Institute of Peace (USIP) funds the research project “Perceptions of Peace in South Sudan” that documents public... more
Little is known about public attitudes towards peace processes in South Sudan. To help fill the gap, the United States Institute of Peace (USIP) funds the research project “Perceptions of Peace in South Sudan” that documents public opinion and draws relevant policy lessons for decision-makers.
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International sponsors of South Sudan’s peace process should respond creatively to the delay in forming the Transitional Government of National Unity (TGNU). An intemperate response, which might include a new, immovable and near deadline... more
International sponsors of South Sudan’s peace process should respond creatively to the delay in forming the Transitional Government of National Unity (TGNU). An intemperate response, which might include a new, immovable and near deadline or rapidly imposing sanctions, runs two risks. First, it jeopardizes the ceasefire—the truly substantial achievement of the Revitalized Agreement on the Resolution of the Conflict in South Sudan (R-ARCSS). Second, a deadline could be an opportunity for the government of Pres. Salva Kiir Mayardit to reinforce its authoritarianism. The 100-day extension provides an opportunity to put in place inclusive processes to address South Sudan’s governance crisis.
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Dr Jan Pospisil analyses Sudan’s transitional power-sharing framework as the process of forming a government continues. Jan is a Senior Researcher at the Austrian Study Center for Peace and Conflict Resolution, and a researcher at the... more
Dr Jan Pospisil analyses Sudan’s transitional power-sharing framework as the process of forming a government continues. Jan is a Senior Researcher at the Austrian Study Center for Peace and Conflict Resolution, and a researcher at the Political Settlements Research Programme.
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The briefing gives a brief overview of the current state of play in the Sudanese transition after the fall of the Bashir regime. It discusses possible pathways for transitional arrangements and international support.
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This brief focuses on the relevance of security arrangements in peace processes to women. Security provisions in peace agreements tend to focus on security in relation to armed actors that are primarily men, and often fail to take into... more
This brief focuses on the relevance of security arrangements in peace processes to women. Security provisions in peace agreements tend to focus on security in relation to armed actors that are primarily men, and often fail to take into account women’s experiences of insecurity during conflict, and the security needs they expect and require the peace process to deliver. The brief therefore highlights the particular security challenges for women at all stages of peace negotiations and peace processes.
This brief is part of a Gender Briefing Series to support women’s meaningful participation and the integration of gender perspectives in peace processes that aim to end violent intrastate conflict. It was funded with generous support from the German Federal Ministry of Economic Cooperation and Development.
This brief is part of a Gender Briefing Series to support women’s meaningful participation and the integration of gender perspectives in peace processes that aim to end violent intrastate conflict. It was funded with generous support from the German Federal Ministry of Economic Cooperation and Development.
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In this blog, Jan Pospisil and Christine Bell address some of the questions their concept of formalised political unsettlement raises.
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How to engage with formalised political unsettlement in transitions from violent conflict? Briefing Paper by the Political Settlement Research Programme
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This blog post by Jan Pospisil, PSRP researcher, reviews David Chandler’s new book Peacebuidling, The Twenty Years’ Crisis, 1997-2017.
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In this post, Dr Jan Pospisil critically reviews the European Union’s 2016 ‘Global Strategy’. He notes that ‘conflict settlement’ has become the term under which peace- and statebuilding attempts are now framed. The grand narrative of the... more
In this post, Dr Jan Pospisil critically reviews the European Union’s 2016 ‘Global Strategy’. He notes that ‘conflict settlement’ has become the term under which peace- and statebuilding attempts are now framed. The grand narrative of the drafters appears to be to project the European Union as ‘peace power’.
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Despite the rejection of the peace treaty between Colombia and the FARC-Guerilla in a referendum, the Nobel Peace Prize 2016 has been awarded to the Colombian president Juan Manuel Santos. The committee’s explicit hope was to get the now... more
Despite the rejection of the peace treaty between Colombia and the FARC-Guerilla in a referendum, the Nobel Peace Prize 2016 has been awarded to the Colombian president Juan Manuel Santos. The committee’s explicit hope was to get the now protracted peace process back on track. Given the positive repercussions of the award on the necessary horizontal inclusion of competing factions of the Colombian elite, this hope might be fulfilled.
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This blog post, by Dr Jan Pospisil, PSRP researcher based at the Law School, University of Edinburgh, analyses the political context in which the referendum on the peace agreement in between the Colombian government and the FARC-EP. This... more
This blog post, by Dr Jan Pospisil, PSRP researcher based at the Law School, University of Edinburgh, analyses the political context in which the referendum on the peace agreement in between the Colombian government and the FARC-EP. This is the fourth of a series of blog posts related to the Colombian Peace Process.
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• Three UN review documents have been produced in 2015 along the UN reform agenda: the UN peacekeeping review, the review of the UN peacebuilding architecture, and the Global Study on the implementation of UNSCR 1325. • All three reviews... more
• Three UN review documents have been produced in 2015 along the UN reform agenda: the UN peacekeeping review, the review of the UN peacebuilding architecture, and the Global Study on the implementation of UNSCR 1325.
• All three reviews call for a reform of the UN’s work in fragile and conflict-affected states, and argue for a more dynamic and political approach.
• The need for building more inclusive partnerships is highlighted in all review documents.
• In UN peacekeeping in particular, the mandating of UN missions have to get more realistic – for this purpose, a sequenced, two-stage mandating process is suggested.
• The increasing political character of missions has to be based on a distinction between impartiality and neutrality. While UN missions have to be impartial, they cannot be neutral against violations of fundamental rights.
• The ‘political arrangements’ in the regions where peacekeeping and peacebuilding interventions take place have to be taken into account.
• All three reviews call for a reform of the UN’s work in fragile and conflict-affected states, and argue for a more dynamic and political approach.
• The need for building more inclusive partnerships is highlighted in all review documents.
• In UN peacekeeping in particular, the mandating of UN missions have to get more realistic – for this purpose, a sequenced, two-stage mandating process is suggested.
• The increasing political character of missions has to be based on a distinction between impartiality and neutrality. While UN missions have to be impartial, they cannot be neutral against violations of fundamental rights.
• The ‘political arrangements’ in the regions where peacekeeping and peacebuilding interventions take place have to be taken into account.
Research Interests:
Fifteen years after the decision on the UN Security Council Resolution 1325 on women, peace and security (WPS), a Global Study was launched this September to reflect upon its impact and to discuss ways of further improving and developing... more
Fifteen years after the decision on the UN Security Council Resolution 1325 on women, peace and security (WPS), a Global Study was launched this September to reflect upon its impact and to discuss ways of further improving and developing the WPS agenda. Although the Global Study was unanimously welcomed in the circles of advocates and activists around UNSCR 1325, a careful reading leads to a more cautious approach.
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The South Sudanese civil war is showing an increasing tendency towards an ethno-political conflict. It would be a mistake, however, to interpret these as the root causes of the conflict. Rather, the claim of the former liberation movement... more
The South Sudanese civil war is showing an increasing tendency towards an ethno-political conflict. It would be a mistake, however, to interpret these as the root causes of the conflict. Rather, the claim of the former liberation movement and now ruling party SPLM/A to be the sole representative of South Sudanese politics represents a major obstacle to peaceful negoti-ation processes in the South Sudanese “political settlement”. The international community was not able to provide adequate answers to this issue. In fact, it supported SPLM/A’s claim to sole representation by its engagement, and was thus contributing to a worsening of the cur-rent tensions.
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Nach massivem internationalen Druck hat der südsudanesische Präsident Salva Kiir am 27. August ein Friedensabkommen mit der bewaffneten Opposition unterschrieben, das den seit fast zwei Jahren andauerenden blutigen Bürgerkrieg im Land... more
Nach massivem internationalen Druck hat der südsudanesische Präsident Salva Kiir am 27. August ein Friedensabkommen mit der bewaffneten Opposition unterschrieben, das den seit fast zwei Jahren andauerenden blutigen Bürgerkrieg im Land beenden soll. Obwohl bereits erste Schritte der Implementierung erfolgt sind, konnten die Kämpfe trotz der von beiden Seiten deklarierten Beendigung der bewaffneten Auseinandersetzung noch nicht gestoppt werden. Dies ist nicht zuletzt auf den auf allen Seiten bestehenden Widerstand gegen das Abkommen zurückzuführen. Die Beendigung des Blutvergießens ist derzeit sicher das entscheidende Erfolgskriterium des Friedensschlusses; die für eine nachhaltige Friedensentwicklung dringend notwendige Neuordnung der politischen Landschaft im Südsudan kann es jedoch nicht gewährleisten.
Research Interests:
The long-term “frozen conflict” in Transnistria has currently been brought back on the international political agenda by the Ukrainian crisis. The tensions between pro-Russian and pro-European interests that resulted in armed hostilities... more
The long-term “frozen conflict” in Transnistria has currently been brought back on the international political agenda by the Ukrainian crisis. The tensions between pro-Russian and pro-European interests that resulted in armed hostilities in the Ukraine have also been constitutive for Transnistria within the last 20 years – although without any serious violent outbreaks since the secession. Diverse domestic issues and geopolitical factors impede the transformation of the conflict. The Association Agreement between the EU and Moldova has a deep impact on the relationship to Russia and the one between the two conflict parties. The OSCE, in charge of mediating the 5+2-negotiation process, is seemingly not able to achieve any more significant progress in the matter of conflict solution. In order to revive the stalled peace process, a paradigm shift and a change of perspective on the Moldovan side will need to take place.
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Der nationale und internationale Sicherheitsdiskurs hat sich nach seinem ersten Aufbrechen in ersten erweiterten Sicherheitskonzepten in den 1990er Jahren mittlerweile bemerkenswert ausdifferenziert. Während das Konzept der „menschlichen... more
Der nationale und internationale Sicherheitsdiskurs hat sich nach seinem ersten Aufbrechen in ersten erweiterten Sicherheitskonzepten in den 1990er Jahren mittlerweile bemerkenswert ausdifferenziert. Während das Konzept der „menschlichen Sicherheit“ bei einigen kleineren staatlichen Akteuren, vor allem aber bei internationalen Organisationen wie den Vereinten Nationen noch einen hohen Stellenwert genießt, sind Ansätze wie die „vernetzte Sicherheit“ – Grundlage beispielsweise der deutschen Sicherheitsdoktrin – oder die in ihrer sicherheitspolitischen Bedeutung aus dem angloamerikanischen Raum stammende „Resilienz“ hinzugetreten. Der politische Gehalt dieser Konzepte wird in der Politikwissenschaft gegenwärtig nur unzureichend diskutiert. „Menschliche Sicherheit“ ist, vorwiegend aufgrund ihrer historischen Leistung in der Ablösung rein souveränitätsbasierter Sicherheitskonzepte, kaum vertieften politischen Bewertungen unterzogen worden. „Vernetzte Sicherheit“ und „Resilienz“ wiederum werden hauptsächlich und in oftmals unreflektierter Form als neoliberale Sicherheitskonzeptionen interpretiert. Anhand einer theoretischen Reflexion von empirischen, qualitativen Auswertungen von Schlüsseltexten verfolgt das Paper die Frage, wie diese drei Sicherheitskonzepte „menschliche Sicherheit“, „vernetzte Sicherheit“ und „Resilienz“ politisch kontextualisiert werden können. In dieser Kontextualisierung wird die Neoliberalismus-These kritisch hinterfragt und durch alternative Erklärungsansätze ergänzt.
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Das Projekt untersuchte die spezifischen Wirkungen in diachronen Friedensprozessen. Hier konnten empirisch fünf Beobachtungen herausgearbeitet werden: Erstens besteht ein enger, anhand der verhandelten Inhalte nachweisbarer Zusammenhang... more
Das Projekt untersuchte die spezifischen Wirkungen in diachronen Friedensprozessen. Hier konnten empirisch fünf Beobachtungen herausgearbeitet werden: Erstens besteht ein enger, anhand der verhandelten Inhalte nachweisbarer Zusammenhang zwischen den verschiedenen Friedensprozessen. Insbesondere wirkt jeder geschlossene Friedensvertrag als Benchmark für kommende Prozesse. Obwohl diese Einsicht trivial wirkt zeigen beide Vergleichsfälle, dass dies dennoch nur unzureichend reflektiert und in laufende Verhandlungsprozesse eingespeist wird. Zweitens zeigen die Vergleichsfälle einen engen Zusammenhang zwischen den Friedensprozessen und der jeweils an der Macht befindlichen staatlichen Administration. Dies kommt in Kolumbien und den Philippinen durch die präsidiale Ausgestaltung des politischen Systems verstärkt zur Wirkung – angelegte Zeitleisten, Transitionsphasen und angesetzte Verhandlungsprozesse sind nahezu immer auf die Zeitfrist der laufenden Präsidentschaft (oder, im Falle Kolumbiens, mit Wiederwahlüberlegungen) verknüpft. Längerfristige Garantien werden kaum abgegeben. Drittens werden die Prozesse mit nur wenigen Ausnahmen (Kolumbien in den frühen 1990er Jahren) exklusiv gestaltet, es wird also von Seiten der staatlichen Administration – auch mit dem Ziel einer Vereinfachung des Prozesses – immer nur mit einer bewaffneten Gruppierung schwerpunktmäßig verhandelt. Viertens ist es nahezu ein Automatismus, dass nicht eingebundene oder sich in den Verhandlungen benachteiligt fühlende Akteure gewaltsam antworten – zum Teil aber auch durch eine entpolitisierte, kriminalisierte Gewalt. Fünftens schließlich ist die besondere Doppelrolle des Staates in solchen Verhandlungsprozessen zu beachten. Der Staat nimmt einerseits die Rolle als Verhandlungspartner, also als Akteur des Gewaltkonfliktes ein, andererseits kommt ihm allerdings auch eine Schiedsrichterrolle zu, die sich in diachronen Prozessen noch durch die getroffene Entscheidung, mit wem verhandelt und nicht verhandelt wird, verschärft.
Research Interests:
Paper presented at the 9th Pan-European Conference on International Relations, September 2015, Giardini Naxos, Italy
Research Interests:
Paper presented at the 9th Pan-European Conference on International Relations, September 2015, Giardini Naxos, Italy
Research Interests:
With its “Action Plan for Resilience in Crisis Prone Countries” from June 2013, the European Commission has presented a document that proposes a courageous and innovative policy concept. The action plan intends to guide in particular the... more
With its “Action Plan for Resilience in Crisis Prone Countries” from June 2013, the European Commission has presented a document that proposes a courageous and innovative policy concept. The action plan intends to guide in particular the policy fields of humanitarian relief and development cooperation until the year of 2020. Subsequent to the first two resilience initiatives in the Sahel region and in the Horn of Africa, which the EU has been pursuing for about two years now, the Action Plan develops resilience as a concept that is meant to follow up the LRRD approach in linking relief and development policies. Furthermore, it is designed to give the EU an internationally recognizable, distinctive profile. The paper will assess the consequences of the resilience approach for EU’s external policies. Mainly, two implications are elaborated: (1) for the institutions assigned with the task to implement a resilience policy, the concept provides the severe governance challenge of inducing a bottom-up concept like resilience from top-down. (2) Resilience could prove to be a fundamental challenge to the concepts of relief and development as such – therefore, applying a resilience-based approach could, in the long run, sustainably undermine both in theory as well as in policy practice. Hence, there is a possibility that resilience implies a substantial transformation, if not the end of relief and development.
Research Interests:
Keynote, National Dialogues Conference 2019, Helsinki