Peace and Conflict Studies Commons^™

Hd R&D Field Evaluation: Bearcat, U.S. Humanitarian Demining Research And Development

Global CWD Repository

The Bearcat is a remote controlled, skid-steer chassis integrated with a vegetation cutter and a remote monitoring system for operation in suspect mine and UXO contaminated areas. Bearcat utilizes a completely commercial-off-the-shelf (COTS), plug-and-play, remote control system, and is designed for a wide range of area preparation tasks. The system allows demining and battle area clearance teams to quickly and efficiently remove vegetation for follow-on manual clearance teams. Distribution Statement A: Approved for public release.

The Key Factors Driving Ccp Opposition To Taiwanese Independence, Connor Warshauer

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

The CCP strongly opposes a formal declaration of independence from Taiwan, and has threatened military force should Taiwan take that step. This paper seeks to explain the underlying reasons for the CCP’s aggressive policy. To do so, it uses a two-part methodology composed of a comprehensive engagement with existing secondary sources from the academic literature and four new interviews with experts in the field. The paper considers three main explanations for China’s opposition to independence: nationalism, international geostrategic factors, and factors of domestic politics. It concludes that domestic politics, and specifically the CCP’s perception that independence threatens its claim to …

North Korean Refugees Along The Route To Freedom: Challenges Of Geopolitics, Deborah Da Sol Jeong

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

This Independent Study Project conducts an analysis of the North Korean Refugee Crisis by following the refugees along their escape route from the North Korean regime. By following a common escape route that includes China, Laos, Thailand, and finally, South Korea, this study unpacks the geopolitical factors and diplomatic relations that hinder and improve the progress of these refugees. Afterward, this study analyzes the resettlement process that North Korean refugees undergo in South Korea and the challenges that remain even after gaining South Korean citizenship. Finally, this project concludes by suggesting that the international community actively endeavor to establish a …

Ensuring Accountability To Affected Populations In Humanitarian Settings: "Holding Humanitarian Organizations Accountable To People.", Jazmin Williamson

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

Aim: This research aims to examine what guidelines and regulations help ensure that humanitarian organizations are held accountable to their beneficiary populations.

Background: Although people have always been the focus of humanitarian aid, their voice and participation didn't become a centralized part of the conversation until the 1990s and later gained real traction in the early 2000s. During these times, many new foundational documents were created to highlight the "centrality of local participation in aid." Among the documents that enshrined this new principle of population participation included the 1992 Code of Conduct for the International Red Cross and Red Crescent …

Rastreo De La Agencia De Los Uchurracaínos: Yuxtaposicionando La Cvll Y La Cvr Para Analizar La Representación De La Gente Indígena Durante La Violencia Política Peruana, Emma Smith

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

Este trabajo investigará la representación de las comunidades campesinas-­‐indígenas (CCIs) según la Comisión Vargas Llosa (CVLL) y la Comisión de la Verdad y Reconciliación (CVR), enfocando específicamente en el tema de la agencia. ¿Cómo son representados en los informes finales (IF) y la memoria oficial promovido por el Estado y por qué? La CVLL ha sido criticada por culturalizar la violencia y la CVR, aunque dio voz al sector más marginado en el país, los campesinos-­‐indígenas, ha sido atacado por establecer una visión maniqueísta de los actores en la violencia política (VP) que les pintó como seres humanos sin la …

Friendship Projects Within Embargo: Peacemaking And Power Between Us And Cuban Quakers 1987-2019, Jade Souza

University Honors Theses

This paper analyzes Quaker friendship projects between US and Cuban Quakers within the embargo period, with friendship construction being looked at as creative act within a contact zone. How are these intercultural friendships formed and sustained within communities from two countries in conflict? How do they relate to larger social dynamics such as intractable conflict and tourism? How do the friendships change the dynamics within these communities? Two examples of friendship projects are looked at in terms of the strategies they employ to navigate the dynamics of conflict and social inequality between the two states.

Barack Obama: From An End To Terror To Drone Wars And Isis, Gabriel Rubin

Department of Justice Studies Faculty Scholarship and Creative Works

Barack Obama attempted to recalibrate presidential rhetoric on the terror threat. He made far fewer speeches about terrorism than George W. Bush did. Yet, despite some efforts to the contrary, he continued many of Bush’s policies—and in the case of targeted assassinations using drones (unmanned aerial vehicles), went further than Bush. The analysis of Obama’s rhetoric on terrorism shows a president who both wants to distance himself from his predecessor and one who wants to be seen as tough on terrorism. In the final analysis, Obama’s rhetoric and policies hewed rather closely to George W. Bush’s. This chapter raises questions …

How Can Presidents Properly Calibrate The Terror Threat?, Gabriel Rubin

Department of Justice Studies Faculty Scholarship and Creative Works

Presidential rhetoric has minimally changed from the narrative set by George W. Bush after the 9/11 attacks. Bush’s policies and agenda have also largely remained. This chapter provides proposals for change given the empirical and theoretical findings made in the book. The counterterrorist policy agenda needs to be narrowed and made more precise. The public needs to educate itself about the terror threat to understand that it is not a significant risk when weighed against others. Presidents need to be more careful with what words they use when describing America’s terrorist adversaries and with who they call terrorists. Recalibrating the …

Review: A Role Of Measures To Address Terrorism And Violent Extremism On Closing Civic Space, Sachal Jacob

The Journal of Social Encounters

No abstract provided.

Book Review: International Human Rights, Sachal Jacob

The Journal of Social Encounters

International Human Rights by Jack Donnelly and Daniel Whelan is holistic overview of human rights theory, institutions and law. The text is a well-developed summary that does not shy away from abstract concepts and advanced ideas. This allows the writers to do two things, convey the history of thought on the matter of rights, and to introduce the palpable tension within human rights concepts versus practice. Time is spent on democracy and human rights for example, where guarantees of freedom for all can understandably lead to violation of rights for some. This is important because these foundational concepts set the …

Book Review: Violence And Nonviolence: Conceptual Excursions Into Phantom Opposites, Rene Mcgraw Osb

The Journal of Social Encounters

The reader is first struck by the immense bibliography of the author, Peyman Vahabzadeh. The author is well-acquainted with both the relevant peace studies literature and philosophy. In addition he has a section where he comments on two of Tolstoy’s short stories “Ezarhaddon of Assyria” and The Three Questions.”

The fundamental strength of this book is its character as a literature review of the topic from a philosophic perspective. Its fundamental weakness is its character as a literature review of the topic from a philosophic perspective. The book contains so many brilliant examples of people who have written and …

Book Review: Nothing Ever Dies: Vietnam And The Memory Of War, Diane Niblack Fox

The Journal of Social Encounters

Nothing ever dies. Not the memories of war, not its trauma, not its controversies--and not the hope that we can one day extricate our present from our traumatic pasts in order to create a more peaceful future. This hope threads through Viet Thanh Nguyen’s Nothing Ever Dies: Vietnam and the Memory of War. The book is about war, identity, and memory, Nguyen tells us. His goal is to “beat….hearts back to life.” Our hearts, the hearts of the generations wounded, in different ways and to different extents, by war.

Book Review: Champions For Peace: Women Winners Of The Nobel Peace Prize, Patricia M. Mische

The Journal of Social Encounters

Judith Hicks Stiehm is a political science professor who has served on the Defense Advisory Committee on Women in the Military and as a consultant to the United Nations Division for the Advancement of Women and to the Lessons Learned Unit of the Department of Peacekeeping Operations. In earlier publications she explored nonviolent resistance in America (1973); analyzed and challenged the traditional protector/protected male and female roles in war, arguing that the path to gender equality entailed equal responsibility for military protection (1982); then turned to an examination of women in the military (1996), and military education. In Champions for …

Book Review: The Warrior And The Pacifist: Competing Motifs In Buddhism, Judaism, Christianity, And Islam, Wilbert Van Saane

The Journal of Social Encounters

The subject matter of this book is both relevant and urgent. Several contributing authors describe recent incidents of religiously motivated violence, and since its publication in May 2018 such violence has not abated. Notable incidents are the attacks on synagogues in the United States (October 2018 and April 2019), mosques in New Zealand (March 2019) and churches in Sri Lanka (April 2019). Such atrocious events demonstrate the continuing need for academic reflection on the relation between religion and violence. The Warrior and the Pacifist offers readers ample material to deepen their understanding.

Book Review: Choosing Peace: The Catholic Church Returns To Gospel Nonviolence, Joseph Okumu

The Journal of Social Encounters

Choosing Peace is an edited collection of essays, reflections, and testimonies of participants at the Conference on Nonviolence and Just Peace: Contributing to the Catholic Understanding and Commitment to Nonviolence, held in Rome between April 11 and 13, 2016.

The overarching theme of the book is nonviolence and just peace, their relationship to the gospel of nonviolence, and usefulness in the twenty-first century. A subtheme that refuses to go away, and the backdrop to the quest for nonviolence and just peace, is just war.

These themes turn on four distinct but related views on war and peace historically associated with …

Hegel’S Philosophy Of History-A Challenge To The African Thinker: The Thought Of Leopold Sedar Senghor, Basile Sede Noujio

The Journal of Social Encounters

Philosophy of History, as an academic discipline, challenges the choices that we make, motivated by our respective historical circumstances. Hegel considers Africa as an unhistorical continent, whose inhabitants can only be equated to animals or worthless article, bound to remain in slavery and in subhuman conditions. On the other hand, Léopold Sedar Senghor, in his Négritude ideology, portrays the values embedded in the African cultural and traditional practices. The intellectual aptness of the Africans, in this work is manifested in the very ideas of Senghor which we are using to contest those of Hegel. Some call Hegel a racist, others …

Gendered Conflict Resolution: The Role Of Women In Amani Mashinani’S Peacebuiding Processes In Uasin Gishu County, Kenya, Susan Kilonzo, Kennedy Onkware

The Journal of Social Encounters

The role of women in peacebuilding is acknowledged by many stakeholders central in peace work. While this is so, there are still concerns about what we know about women’s involvement in peacebuilding structures established by non-state actors. Drawing from Amani Mashinani (Peace at Grassroots) peacebuilding model initiated by the Catholic Church in Kenya’s North Rift region, we examine the role of women in processes of conflict resolution in Uasin Gishu County. Suggestions to support women’s participation will be discussed.

Peace Connector Projects: Bishop Korir's Strategy For Grassroots Peacebuilding, William Kiptoo

The Journal of Social Encounters

This essay is a narration of my personal experiences in peacebuilding in the North Rift region of Kenya as a resident of the region, and peace worker from 1995 to date. I draw from my work experiences with the National Council of Churches of Kenya (1995-2005), Catholic Relief Services and the Mennonite Central Committee (2007-2019). Specifically, how connector projects were used as a strategy for grassroots peacebuilding for the conflict-affected communities in the North Rift Valley region. The processes of mobilizing the communities, challenges, and outcomes of reconciliation efforts are discussed. The four connector projects discussed show the rewards attained …

Community Involvement And The Role Of The Church In Peacebuilding In Kenya: Amani Mashinani Approach, Kimeli B. Richard

The Journal of Social Encounters

Amani Mashinani (Peace at the Grassroots) is a model of peace building that demonstrates the importance of community involvement and Church leadership in peacebuilding efforts in North Rift region of Kenya. The role of community members and the Church in working together during times of conflict demonstrates the possibilities of increased opportunities for positive peace and reconciliation. This essay highlights the role Sacred Heart of Jesus Cathedral of the Catholic Diocese of Eldoret played to transform inter-ethnic conflicts. The role of Bishop Korir as a religious leader is acknowledged through his ability to mobilize local warring communities to embrace the …

Amani Mashinani Conflict Transformation Model: Bishop Korir’S Legacy On Peace And Reconciliation, Elias O. Opongo, S.J

The Journal of Social Encounters

This chapter is about the story of the late Bishop Cornelius Kipng’eno Arap Korir who stood up for peace and reconciliation in the midst of numerous interethnic conflicts. Bishop Korir, who was then the bishop of the Catholic Diocese of Eldoret, lived the experience of inter-ethnic violence between the Marakwet, Pokot, Kikuyu, and the Kalenjin communities. As a person from the Kalenjin ethnic community, he had to learn to distant himself from the abrasive political rhetoric and violent actions and embrace the path of the Gospel of Jesus instead. He started what he called Amani Mashinani (Kiswahili for 'peace at …