Peace and Conflict Studies Commons^™

Introduction To The Special Issue On Secrecy And Technologies, Clare Stevens, Sam Forsythe

Secrecy and Society

Many scholars have treated the inscrutability of technologies, secrecy, and other unknowns as moral and ethical challenges that can be resolved through transparency and openness. This paper, and the special issue it introduces, instead wants to explore how we can understand the productive, strategic but also emancipatory potential of secrecy and ignorance in the development of security and technologies. This paper argues that rather than just being mediums or passive substrates, technologies are making a difference to how secrecy, disclosure, and transparency work. This special issue will show how technologies and time mediate secrecy and disclosure, and vice versa. This …

Using Community Organizing Best Practices To Redesign The Dart Organizers' Institute, Anna Long

Capstone Collection

This Training-of-Trainers Course-Linked Capstone project explores three approaches to community organizing from three different scholar-practitioners. It begins with the father of grassroots organizing, Saul Alinsky’s, neighborhood-based and congregation-based approach. Alinsky’s approach is followed by Alicia Garza’s approach; Garza is the founder of the international Black Lives Matter movement. It ends with author and organizer adrienne maree brown’s Emergent Strategy approach. This paper will synthesize all three approaches, ultimately identifying four recommended approaches to community organizing: power, motivation, emotion, and centering impacted voices. The four recommended approaches will be used to evaluate the new organizer training (Organizers’ Institute) for the Direct …

“How Scared Are You?” Mapping The Threat Environment Of San Diego’S Elected Officials, Rachel Locke, Carl Luna

Kroc IPJ Research and Resources

Democracy cannot function without individuals stepping up to serve as representatives of their community. The presence and growth of threats and harassment directed towards elected representatives poses a direct risk to our democracy, weakening community cohesion and our ability to address collective challenges. While our research found threats and harassment to be present across political parties, it identified women as far more likely to be on the receiving end both in terms of quantity and severity. If under-represented groups are pushed out of the processes of debate and decision-making, solutions will not be oriented around the diversity of our society. …

A Historical Perspective On Today’S Recruiting Crisis, Brian Mcallister Linn

The US Army War College Quarterly: Parameters

This article analyzes the US Army’s successive recruiting crises, identifying their consistent patterns and the efforts to resolve them, and makes three provocative arguments. First, there is a long-standing institutional tension between recruiting personnel for the combat arms and technical and administrative specialists. Second, many of today’s talent management problems were first identified in a 1907 General Staff report and reiterated in subsequent studies. Third, the Army has pursued innovative recruitment strategies, but much of their success depended on factors outside the service’s control. The essay concludes with four history-based recruiting lessons and an affirmation that the 2019 Army People …

A Call To Action: Lessons From Ukraine For The Future Force, Katie Crombe, John A. Nagl

The US Army War College Quarterly: Parameters

Fifty years ago, the US Army faced a strategic inflection point after a failed counterinsurgency effort in Vietnam. In response to lessons learned from the Yom Kippur War, the United States Army Training and Doctrine Command was created to reorient thinking and doctrine around the conventional Soviet threat. Today’s Army must embrace the Russo-Ukrainian conflict as an opportunity to reorient the force into one as forward-thinking and formidable as the Army that won Operation Desert Storm. This article suggests changes the Army should make to enable success in multidomain large-scale combat operations at today’s strategic inflection point.

Missed Connections In The U.N. Agenda: Applying The Women, Peace And Security Framework To The Feminization Of Poverty, Lauren A. Fleming

Michigan Journal of Gender & Law

Women, Peace and Security, a multifaceted agenda intended to address the particular ways in which conflict affects women, has been on the United Nations agenda since the landmark Security Council Resolution 1325 passed in 2000. The unequal burden of poverty on women, a phenomenon that has been coined “the feminization of poverty,” has been on the United Nations agenda for even longer, since the 1995 Beijing Conference on Women. Yet, despite the fact that poverty and inequality both cause and result in conflict in a violent cycle, the problem of the feminization of poverty has not been integrated into the …

Book Review: Managing Sex In The U.S. Military: Gender, Identity, And Behavior, Mary Raum

Parameters Bookshelf – Online Book Reviews

Editors: Beth Bailey, Alesha E. Doan, Shannon Portillo, and Karen Dixon Vuic

Reviewed by Dr. Mary Raum, professor of national security affairs, US Naval War College

This compilation of scholarly, practical, and historical writings presents a running record of events gleaned from research on government policies from the eras of World War II, the Vietnam War, the Korean War, and the War in Afghanistan. It provides greater insight into the complexities of gender issues with direct ties to defense systems. While service examples and dialogues are primarily aimed at the Army, the Navy and Marine Corps are also included. Historical …

Book Review: The Age Of Ai And Our Human Future, Russell W. Glenn

Parameters Bookshelf – Online Book Reviews

Authors: Henry A. Kissinger, Eric Schmidt, and Daniel Huttenlocher

Reviewed by Dr. Russell W. Glenn, principal, Innovative Defense Research LLC

Notable for its authoritative arguments and analysis of the nature and potential impact of artificial intelligence (AI), this short, effective primer complements many longer treatments and journal articles on the subject. Readers well-versed in AI will find little new here, but the book’s national security implications merit consideration. Primary themes include the transformative character and criticality of establishing international agreements regarding the application of AI. The authors remind readers of humanity’s control of AI development and the contingent responsibility to …

On Occupying: Women's Representation In The Israeli-Palestinian Conflict, Emma Hillstead

University Honors Theses

Scholars of peace and conflict studies have begun to investigate the impact the inclusion of women has on the success of peace talks that seek to resolve violent conflict. Many of these scholars have found that when women are included at the negotiating table, the likelihood for the conflict to come to a peaceful conclusion increases. With the historical, religious, and cultural nuances, this paper seeks to apply the existing research on this subject to that of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. This paper first analyzes the positionality of women within the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, specifically looking at access to power, then applies …

Gis Use And Land Conflict In Rwanda: Case Of Gasabo District, Emmanuel Mushimiyimana

Journal of African Conflicts and Peace Studies

Land conflicts in Rwanda have been exacerbated by demographic boom, land scarcity, and social and political instability. Therefore, Rwanda adopted Geographical Information System (GIS) to empower existing traditional land demarcation in order to defuse land conflict. The aim of this research is to investigate and seek the effectiveness of GIS application and Land Information System (LIS) to land-based conflict with a special focus on Gasabo District and the challenges related to that. Both quantitative and qualitative research methods were used to collect and analyse data. Besides, the research used purposive sampling techniques in getting access to potential respondents of a …

The Art And Artifacts Of Solidarity, Yasmin Merali

New England Journal of Public Policy

In Complex Adaptive Systems in a Contentious World I showed how viewing social systems as Complex Adaptive Systems exposes the systemic mechanisms that underpin their resilience and sustainability. In this article I show the utility of that approach for elucidating the role of art and artists in the evolution of resilient social movements. I do this by exploring the way in which art and artifacts were implicated in the evolution of the Polish Solidarność movement.

Seeing Race As We Are: Avoiding, Arguing, Aspiring, Michael A. Cowan

New England Journal of Public Policy

Racial conflict in the United States pushes people to positions of argument or avoidance, more or less intensely and for varying lengths of time, depending on external events like the murder of George Floyd. Neither stance produces the conversations required to seek common ground and compromise around racial issues. Argument alone deepens divisions and avoidance leaves them to metastasize in the social body. In an attempt to go beneath these two positions, this article first explains the role and form of interpretation in all conflict and dispute resolution and how it is shaped. Then it examines the concepts and strategies …

Editor's Note, Padraig O'Malley

New England Journal of Public Policy

The articles in this issue of the New England Journal of Public Policy primarily interrogate the challenges facing democracy and democratic peacebuilding in divided societies.

Peacemaking And Peacebuilding In A Divided Society: South Africa’S National Peace Accord In The Transition From Apartheid To Democracy, Liz Carmichael

New England Journal of Public Policy

South Africa’s complex history is outlined, providing an explanatory background to the two chief conflicts that existed in 1990 as the apartheid era drew to a close: the divide between the government with its security forces and the majority of the population, and grassroots violence between African National Congress supporters and the conservative Inkatha movement. During the 1990s, as South Africa accomplished its transition, a series of structures were created to manage the process. The best remembered is the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, which was the final transitional structure, holding its hearings in 1996–98. The first was the National Peace …

Referendum Metrics: The Numbers Game, Chapter Five From Perils And Prospects Of A United Ireland, Padraig O'Malley

New England Journal of Public Policy

This article is an extract from Perils and Prospects of a United Ireland, published by Lilliput Press, Dublin, Ireland in March 2023. The book draws on extensive interviews with ninety-seven senior politicians across the ethno-national divide, a range of academics and political commentators, and religious leaders.

The context for the chapter is the Belfast/Good Friday Agreement (B/GFA), which ended thirty years of violent conflict between Irish republicans, mostly Catholic, who wanted Northern Ireland to become reunified with the rest of Ireland, and unionists, mostly Protestants supported by British security forces, who wanted to maintain the union of Northern Ireland …

Reset Or Revolution? Contemporary Problems Of Political Stability And Some Ancient Solutions, Dariusz Karłowicz

New England Journal of Public Policy

In this article I take a critical look into the challenges faced by the contemporary social, political, and economic scene in Europe and the United States after nearly eighty years of political stability. I question the sources of the anger, frustration, and distrust toward national and supranational institutions that are visible both on the streets and in the light of numerous public opinion polls. I argue that political and legal stability—the driving force and most desirable product of Western democracies—is becoming a problem. Through the tendency to permanent, often hereditary, marginalization of large groups of the population, a stable political …

Toward A New Political Project: Resetting By Reconceptualizing, Scherto Gill

New England Journal of Public Policy

This article starts by pointing out that existing proposals to confront the failures of democracy tend to be limited to tackling the symptoms of the current dysfunctional system rather than offering meaningful alternatives to transform the system. It then suggests that a total reset is required and offers an innovative theoretical framework, to conceptualize the new political project, that can transcend the existing impasses. It further argues that such a framework ought to consist in four fundamental, interdependent, and mutually reinforcing principles: (1) equal primary, non-derivative value of all persons; (2) non-instrumentalization of persons; (3) well-being of all as a …

Historical Trauma: Literary And Testimonial Responses To Hiroshima, Mariam Ghonim

Theses and Dissertations

The concept of trauma is controversial in literature. While one may be able to come up with ways to describe trauma in fiction, representing historical trauma is a hard task for writers. Some argue that trauma can not be described through those who did not experience it, while others claim that, provided some elements are added, one can represent trauma to the reader. This thesis focuses on twentieth-century historical traumas related to a nuclear catastrophe and explores the different literary and testimonial responses to the catastrophic man-made event of Hiroshima (1945). In this thesis, Kathleen Burkinshaw’s historical fiction The Last …

Mine Action And South-South Cooperation: Case Of Jica And Cmac, Hayashi Ontoku Akihito

The Journal of Conventional Weapons Destruction

South-South cooperation has been pursued across various fields of international development. However, there has been a paucity of efforts to promote South-South cooperation in mine action. Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) and Cambodia Mine Action Centre (CMAC) have been at the forefront of expanding South-South and global cooperation by leveraging CMAC's extensive experience and expertise accumulated over its thirty years’ of operation. This article delves into the motives and mechanisms behind JICA’s and CMAC's joint efforts to foster this collaboration.

Computer Vision Detection Of Explosive Ordnance: A High-Performance 9n235/9n210 Cluster Submunition Detector, Adam Harvey, Emile Lebrun

The Journal of Conventional Weapons Destruction

The detection of explosive ordnance (EO) objects is experiencing a period of innovation driven by the convergence of new technologies including artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning, open-source intelligence (OSINT) processing, and remote mobility capabilities such as drones and robotics.1 Advances are being made on at least two tracks: in the automated searching of photographic image archives, and in the real-time detection of objects in the field.2 Different technologies are responsive to different types of EO detection challenges, such as objects that are buried, semi-buried, or partially damaged. Computer vision—a type of artificial intelligence (AI) that enables computers and systems …