Suchergebnisse

The nature and features of conflict as a concept are often misunderstood, particularly by people outside the domain of peace and conflict or other related social science disciplines. To them, any form of conflict is war. It is commonplace to find people describing a little disagreement between people as war because of the underlying social implications of such a disagreement, whereas, an outright physical combat between another set of people might be seen and handled as mere disagreement. This in essence implies that the socio-psychological factors surrounding a particular conflict would determine its future dynamics and dictate the choice of resolution mechanism to apply. This paper sets out to examine the Rwandan conflict of 1994 as it relates to the concept of genocide and to determine its relationship with war as a concept. Adapted from the source document.

The Arab Spring, which brought an end to the authoritarian regimes in Tunisia, Egypt and Libya, was greeted with so much expectation, especially as it gave hope for the expansion of democracy. Unfortunately, however, the Arab Spring has only helped to bring about a period of political uncertainty in the affected countries and created the opportunity for political instability in the Sahel and Sub-Saharan Africa. The fragility of states in Africa with the attendant governance deficits have also created the platform for non-state armed actors to penetrate the Sahel and Sub-Saharan Africa, which ultimately impacts negatively on the region. This study, therefore, seeks to investigate the implication of the Arab Spring for peace and development in the Sahel and SubSaharan Africa.

Os partidos políticos são instituições cruciais na construção de uma ordem democrática participativa; eles fornecem plataformas para o desenvolvimento de propostas de políticas públicas concorrentes, bem como servem como instrumentos para canalizar grupos sociais díspares em uma plataforma política comum, proporcionando, assim, um efeito estabilizador a uma sociedade de outra forma fragmentada. O significado dos partidos políticos, portanto, vai além da função utilitária de contestar ou reter o poder político para incluir a capacidade de fornecer uma força unificadora em face de clivagens étnico-religiosas profundas. A trajetória histórica da formação de partidos políticos na Nigéria, entretanto, contraria esse ideal teórico e normativo. Os partidos políticos na Nigéria pré e pós-independência serviram como locais para a mobilização do povo ao longo das linhas de falha primordiais. Este artigo argumenta que os dois principais partidos políticos da Nigéria hoje apresentam uma oportunidade para romper o ciclo de partidos regionais que não se esforçaram ativamente para a integração nacional.

The conflict between the mining companies and the people of Ibise-Komu community of Oyo State has become perennial. The interventions to manage the conflict have also been continuously applied with limited success. This study is motivated by this background to better understand the dimensions of the miners-community conflict and analyze the immediate and remote causes of the conflict. To do this, the researcher visited the community and implemented a purposive random sampling technique to select 200 locals to participate in the study. A self-designed questionnaire was administered among all the respondents while only 20 of them participated in the semi-structured interview sessions. The empirical analysis was guided by frequency counts, percentages, descriptive statistics and logit regression. Findings revealed that the miners-community conflict has indeed become existential. While the community lays claim of ownership and control over the mineral deposits in their land, the behaviors of the miners seem to be in opposite of the perspectives of the general members of the community. In particular, the respondents argued that the miners recruit less of the indigenes in their mining activities, destroy their roads, pollute their environment and contribute minimally to the growth and development of the community. It follows that the solutions to the miners-community conflict should be addressed from the ends of the miners. This may be labelled with hurdles if the miners enjoy discriminatory backing of the government.

Non-state armed groups (NSAGs) are increasingly responsible for mas atrocities in contemporary armed conflicts. As agents with a monopoly on the legitimate use of force, the state has the responsibility to engage NSAGs for peace and security. How to sustainably engage them remains the subject of intense debate among policymakers and academics. While some advocate for the use of a coercive approach, others favor a non-coercive approach or a combination of both. Contemporary reality has shown states often opt for the adoption of a non-coercive approach to end mass atrocities and extreme violence because a coercive approach has proven to be counter-productive because it often escalates violence. The utility of this engagement approach to reduce the commission of mass atrocities and the extreme use of violence by armed groups remains a critical question that has not been interrogated academically, hence this study. Using case studies of the Presidential Amnesty Program (PAP) implemented in the Niger Delta region where armed conflict is rife and there are calls to grant amnesty to Boko Haram fighters in the North East Nigeria, this paper holds that it is not just enough to adopt a mono-dimensional non-coercive approach in engaging armed groups, but that any non-coercive approach must promote society-wide reconciliation and address core problems and the root causes of the grievances that developed into hostility and armed conflict. As suggested by the Niger Delta case, neither coercive nor non-coercive approaches are sufficient. Rather, a holistic reconciliation approach is needed. This is the only way the non-coercive approach can reduce mass violence and promote sustainable peace.

Non-state armed groups (NSAGs) are increasingly responsible for mas atrocities in contemporary armed conflicts. As agents with a monopoly on the legitimate use of force, the state has the responsibility to engage NSAGs for peace and security. How to sustainably engage them remains the subject of intense debate among policymakers and academics. While some advocate for the use of a coercive approach, others favor a non-coercive approach or a combination of both. Contemporary reality has shown states often opt for the adoption of a non-coercive approach to end mass atrocities and extreme violence because a coercive approach has proven to be counter-productive because it often escalates violence. The utility of this engagement approach to reduce the commission of mass atrocities and the extreme use of violence by armed groups remains a critical question that has not been interrogated academically, hence this study. Using case studies of the Presidential Amnesty Program (PAP) implemented in the Niger Delta region where armed conflict is rife and there are calls to grant amnesty to Boko Haram fighters in the North East Nigeria, this paper holds that it is not just enough to adopt a mono-dimensional non-coercive approach in engaging armed groups, but that any non-coercive approach must promote society-wide reconciliation and address core problems and the root causes of the grievances that developed into hostility and armed conflict. As suggested by the Niger Delta case, neither coercive nor non-coercive approaches are sufficient. Rather, a holistic reconciliation approach is needed. This is the only way the non-coercive approach can reduce mass violence and promote sustainable peace.

This study investigates the impact of mining activity on the environment of a local mining community. A novel approach was employed by contextualizing the role of deforestation and operational disturbance of mining activities in dragging environmental sustainability of the local community. This was anchored by specifying and estimating a structural equation model (SEM). Data used for the analysis were collected by administering questionnaires among 200 residents and indigenes of Ibise-Komu community in Oyo State, Nigeria. The instrument administration was facilitated by two indigenous volunteers who introduced the researcher to the community leaders who in turn mobilized the general community to participate in the study. The choice of this community was informed by the narratives of the locals that their environment has been perennially destroyed by the mining companies. The findings revealed that deforestation and operational disturbance are characteristic of the mining companies in the community, which have done little to champion the development of their host environment. As a result, the community environment is littered with land, water and air pollution which is majorly induced by indiscriminate mining of mineral deposits in the community. It is therefore recommended that the government and regulatory agencies should tie the operational license of the mining companies to their continuous compliance with environmental safety and sustainability of their host communities. This is a mechanism of managing conflicts between the community and the mines.