Power, Politics and Dealing with Conflict: DDR as a Political Process

Unmistakably, innumerable world events have set the stage for a multitude of moments of peace, liberty, and justice throughout the globe that have been long awaited for extensive periods of time. The key formula of momentous changes throughout history have not only been political decisions, but also the commonly associated aspect of warfare. Together, these often-chaotic melting pots of policy and conflict have paved the way for ending extensive moments of injustice and hardship while also toppling the authoritative rule of brute dictators such as Adolf Hitler. However, quite commonly the long-fought pathways towards victory and sequential freedom leaves behind a long tail of destruction and chaos often paid for in the cost of lives, limbs, damaged societies and post-traumatic stress disorder. On the positive side, however, what these long-fought battles sometimes give birth to are organizations and policies that emphasize the necessity of not only preserving peace, but also aiding those commonly negatively impacted by those moments of disorder and chaos. A great example of an

The first edition of the book (1999) was written at a time when, despite setbacks, conflict resolution approaches in peacekeeping, peacemaking and peacebuilding were widely seen for the first time to be central in global politics in the

Before relating the R2P to the Darfur Crisis it is important to understand the fundamental tenants of the R2P debate in relation to humanitarian intervention and the repercussions for state sovereignty. The R2P concept can trace its modern origin to the address given by former UN Secretary General Kofi Annan, to the General Assembly in 1999 putting forward the challenge of preventing another Rwanda.

Aside from the western interests in the eras described by Tom Keating, the goals of the security agenda is very western centric. Erin Simpson in “From Inter-Dependence to Conflation: Security and Development in the Post-9/11 Era”, lays out some of the end goals of security development for ODAs eligibility. The list Simpson provides includes democratic control of budgeting, management, accountability, and auditing of security expenditure, enhancement of civil society’s role, introduction of legislation to prevent recruitment of child soldiers, security reform to improve democratic governance and civilian control, and civilian activities for peace building. This list has a western democratic scope to it that perhaps is not culturally relevant in the region. Simpson concludes her work by saying that the states signed the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and

Diverse personal encounters with non-state armed actors animate my research agenda, and I seek to discern the meaning of a picture formed by pieces of a puzzle collected during my years of military service. As a peacekeeper in Kosovo, I witnessed how a random rifle shot could spark a series of reprisals across invisible lines that separated villages. My soldiers and I were almost powerless to stop them. On one hand, our legal mandate prevented our ability to take direct action. One the other, we understood so little about our adversaries we did not fully know which action to take. Subsequent experiences leading soldiers during counterinsurgency efforts in both Iraq and Afghanistan immersed me again in the turmoil created by overlapping networks of non-state armed groups competing for economic, social, and political power. Each incident revealed another piece of the puzzle, but the picture it formed remained unclear. I started to wonder if the pieces actually fit, or if I was putting them together incorrectly.

Initially, I found the Democratic Peace Theory to seem hypocritical and backwards, but continuing to read more throughout the chapter, the conclusion that came, was that this theory actually makes a compelling argument. However, the fact that democracy leaders will wage war in the efforts of building more democratic systems, often referred to as expanding the “zone of peace”, in hopes for attaining worldwide peace among the states, was the exact portion that seemed hypocritical. The compelling part of the argument, as previously mentioned, is based on the “Dyadic Model” of the democratic peace theory that stresses three supporting arguments: the structural argument, the normative argument,

In presenting the rationale behind the publication of the third edition to their book, Ramsbotham, Woodhouse and Miall, explain how the field of conflict resolution has emerged as a specialization in the post-Cold War era. The authors “argue that it is an integral part of work for development, social justice, and social transformation”. As the fundamental challenges linked with state fragility surface, the development of conflict resolution and the related perspectives gain relevance, and will increasingly become more relevant when responding to changing societies; particularly where social bounds are weak due to a lack of consensus between values and traditions. This evolution in conflict analysis is a reflection of the evolution of classical

According to JP 3-0, foreign internal defense (FID) and peace operations are military operaions unto themselves. FID is an operation “taken by another government or other designated organization to free and protect its society from subversion, lawlessness, insurgency, terrorism, and other threats to its security.” Peace operations “contain conflict, redress the peace, and shape the environment to support reconciliation and rebuilding and facilitate the transition to legitimate governance.” By definition and purpose, FID and peace operations are both clearly designed to achieve conditions of stability. Calling these two doctrinal military operations “Stability Operations” assigns an additional and unnecessary layer of operational title that confuses the situation and creates misunderstanding. This is especially true when offices chartered with “Stability Operations” feel compelled to intercede in the mission planning and execution by virtue of the “Stability Operations”

The Darfur crisis is not only a predicament for the Sudanese, but is also a regional quandary. The crisis is menacing the peace and stability in other parts of Sudan, also its impacts transcend

First, while understanding that R2P is a broad framework with preventive and reactive measures, military intervention can only be allowed when the State has manifestly failed to protect its populations and when peaceful means have proven to be inadequate. Second, intervention under the R2P must specifically protect populations from genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity. Third, as agreed to in 2005, R2P legitimizes the use of force only if it is employed collectively through the UN Security

As a result, regional and international actors have carried out several peace initiatives to end the violence. The peace efforts that constitute the Darfur peace process include the N'Djamena peace negotiations of September 2003 and April 2004,[2] The Addis Ababa peace negotiations of May 2004,[3] the Abuja peace negotiations of August 2004-May 2006,[4] and the Sirte peace negotiations of October 2007.[5] These peace initiatives have not made substantial progress towards sustainable peace. Since the peace efforts began in 2003, every peace effort has been followed by increased violence, and ultimately, the peace process has failed. Therefore, the key research question that this paper sets out to answer is: Why did the Darfur Peace Process

In the modern world, politics and war are connected in an important way. Political competition has led to civil wars in many countries. Moreover, political interference from developed countries has led to political instability in foreign countries. For example, in the recent past the world has witnessed political crisis some Arab countries such as Iraq, Syria, Egypt, and Libya. In each of these countries, war has led to loss of lives and property. Considering the political instability in these countries, we should ask ourselves: was there an aspect of external interference from developed countries? Well, credible sources indicate that the political instability in the said Arab counties was as a result of foreign policies of some developed countries. In this case, the idea was to create democratic countries in the affected countries since most of these countries were ruled by dictators (Buterbaugh, Neil, Calin &Theresa 7).

Disarmament , demobilization and reintegration are three major aspects of post -conflict consolidation that have been displayed obviously in the authorization of peacekeeping operations over the last twenty years. Disarmament is the collection, documentation, control and disposal of small arms ,ammunition ,explosives and light and heavy weapons from combatants and from the civilian population. Demobilization is the discharge of active combatants from the armed forces and groups which includes a phase of “reinsertion that provides short term assistance to ex-combatants. Reintegration is defined as the process in which ex-combatants acquire civilian status and gain sustainable employment and income. It is also a political, social and economic process that has an accessible time frame which is generally taking place in local communities. This clearly illustrates that world peace can exist among countries

Since the end of the Cold War, the total amount of wars has declined sharply compared to those that occurred during the cold war period. According to Baylis et al. the 1990’s were the least violent decade since the end of World War II. Along with the striking decline of wars, lie a new form of state cooperation, one which theorists call the Democratic Peace Theory. This theory holds that while democracies do go to war that they do not fight each other. In essence, in a region where all democratic countries exist, war will become nonexistent. However, along with the Democratic peace theory are other theories within the theory of Realism that pose great reasons for the causes of war. On the same note, we see new conflicts arising in the form of terrorism taking up the new image of wars. So despite the overall commendable decline of wars, wars continue to persevere in certain regions of the world where it is exhibiting new features. As a result, I agree with Joll’s argument that most wars have many intertwining causes especially in this day and era where most of the conflicts and all wars current are as a result of an ethnic clash often linking to religion. (Baylis et al. 2011).

While nation-states are not the only actors, they are the primary ones and form the structure of the international system.