Comprehending and Mastering African Conflicts

Comprehending and Mastering African Conflicts PDF Author: Adebayo Adedeji
Publisher: Zed Books
ISBN:
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 408

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Book Description
More and more African countries are falling prey to civil war and the disintegration of government authority and social order. Here, for the first time, teams of African scholars actually based in the countries principally affected examine what is happening. Their first aim has been to understand the complex and diverse roots of these conflicts. To this end, they analyse the conflicts in Angola, Burundi and Rwanda, Liberia and Sierra Leone, Somalia and Somaliland. They also reflect on the general obstacles to comprehending conflict in Africa. Possible ways of anticipating, containing and indeed preventing new conflicts are discussed, as are the experiences of successful transitions to peace in Northern Mali and post-civil war Nigeria. Proposals for mastering conflict in future range over a wide diversity of ideas like a moratorium on the importation of arms, trans-frontier development projects, political reform creating real space for participation by different social groups, and governmental decentralisation. This timely volume is a significant contribution by African intellectuals to resolving the most intractable problems confronting Sub-Saharan Africa.

Comprehending and Mastering African Conflicts

Comprehending and Mastering African Conflicts PDF Author: Adebayo Adedeji
Publisher: Zed Books
ISBN:
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 408

Get Book Here

Book Description
More and more African countries are falling prey to civil war and the disintegration of government authority and social order. Here, for the first time, teams of African scholars actually based in the countries principally affected examine what is happening. Their first aim has been to understand the complex and diverse roots of these conflicts. To this end, they analyse the conflicts in Angola, Burundi and Rwanda, Liberia and Sierra Leone, Somalia and Somaliland. They also reflect on the general obstacles to comprehending conflict in Africa. Possible ways of anticipating, containing and indeed preventing new conflicts are discussed, as are the experiences of successful transitions to peace in Northern Mali and post-civil war Nigeria. Proposals for mastering conflict in future range over a wide diversity of ideas like a moratorium on the importation of arms, trans-frontier development projects, political reform creating real space for participation by different social groups, and governmental decentralisation. This timely volume is a significant contribution by African intellectuals to resolving the most intractable problems confronting Sub-Saharan Africa.

Violent Conflicts, Fragile Peace

Violent Conflicts, Fragile Peace PDF Author: Norman Mlambo
Publisher: Adonis & Abbey Publishers Ltd
ISBN: 1909112909
Category : Reference
Languages : en
Pages : 303

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Book Description
The African continent has experienced too many violent conflicts leading to much loss of life, destruction of infrastructure, disruption of productive socio-economic activity, displacement of hundreds of thousands of people, and the diversion of scarce resources towards arms procurement. It is clear to all that for sustainable development of the African continent, it is important that policy makers and all levels of society understand Africa's security challenges so that all may work towards sustainable peace and security for the African continent. This book is a collection of papers, most of them written for the journal African Renaissance, by prominent African scholars and practitioners who seek to understand the various causes of African conflicts, the many forms and different dimensions that these conflicts have taken, their devastating effects and the challenges for sustainable peace and security on the African continent. The book is proudly blessed by the inclusion (with permission) of the report of the outgoing United Nations Secretary General Kofi Anan entitled "e;The Causes of Conflict and the Promotion of Durable Peace and Sustainable Development in Africa"e;. The book is aimed at policy makers, academics, students, and for all who are interested in peace, security and sustainable development on the African continent.

The Resolution of African Conflicts

The Resolution of African Conflicts PDF Author: Alfred G. Nhema
Publisher: Ohio University Press
ISBN: 0821418084
Category : Conflict management
Languages : en
Pages : 225

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Book Description
"These two volumes clearly demonstrate the efforts by a wide range of African scholars to explain the roots, routes, regimes and resolution of African conflicts and how to re-build post-conflict societies. They offer sober and serious analyses, eschewing the sensationalism of the western media and the sophistry of some of the scholars in the global North for whom African conflicts are at worst a distraction and at best a confirmation of their pet racist and petty universalist theories." --From the introduction by Paul Tiyambe Zeleza This book offers analyses of a range of African conflicts and demonstrates that peace is too important to be left to outsiders.

Conflict Resolution in Africa

Conflict Resolution in Africa PDF Author: Francis M. Deng
Publisher: Brookings Institution Press
ISBN: 0815707185
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 441

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Book Description
While dramatic changes are taking place on the international scene and among the major powers, Africa continues to suffer from a multitude of violent conflicts. The toll of these conflicts is monumental in terms of war damage to productivity, scarce resources diverted to armaments and military organizations, and the resulting insecurity, displacement, and destruction. At the same time, Africans, in response to internal demands as well as to international changes, have begun to focus their attention and energies on these problems and are trying innovative ways to resolve differences by nonviolent means. The outcomes of these attempts have urgent and complex implications for the future of the continent with respect to human rights, principles of democracy, and economic development. In this book, African, European, and U.S. experts examine these important issues and the prospects for conflict management and resolution in Africa. They review the scholarship in resolution in light of international changes now taking place. Addressing the undying, internal causes of conflict, they question whether global events will promote peace or threaten to unleash even more conflict. The authors focus their analysis on the issues involved in African conflicts and examine the areas in need of the most dramatic changes. They offer specific recommendations for dealing with current problems, but caution that unless policymakers confront the security situation in Africa, further destruction to national unity and political and economic stability is imminent. Case studies and themes for further, long-term research are recommended.

Minding the Gap

Minding the Gap PDF Author: Pamela Aall
Publisher: McGill-Queen's Press - MQUP
ISBN: 1928096220
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 342

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Book Description
The prevailing narrative on Africa is that it is awash with violent conflict. Indeed, it does suffer from a multitude of conflicts — from border skirmishes to civil wars to terrorist attacks. Conflicts in Africa are diverse and complex, but there have been a number of cases of successful conflict management and resolution. What accounts for the successes and failures, and what can we learn from Africa’s experience? Minding the Gap: African Conflict Management in a Time of Change takes on these questions, bringing together more than 20 experts to examine the source of conflicts in Africa and assess African management capacity in the face of these conflicts.

The Fabric of Peace in Africa

The Fabric of Peace in Africa PDF Author: Pamela Aall
Publisher: McGill-Queen's Press - MQUP
ISBN: 1928096417
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 350

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Book Description
Africa has experienced dozens of conflicts over a variety of issues during the past two decades. Responding to these conflicts requires concerted action to manage the crises – the violence, the political discord, and the humanitarian consequences of prolonged fighting. It is also necessary to address the long-term social and economic impacts of conflict, to rebuild communities, societies and states that have been torn apart. To accomplish this requires the involvement of institutions and groups rarely considered in formal official African conflict management activities: schools, universities, religious institutions, media, commercial enterprises, legal institutions, civil society groups, youth, women and migrants. These groups and organizations have an important role to play in building a sense of identity, fairness, shared norms and cohesion between state and society – all critical components of the fabric of peace and security in Africa. This volume brings together leading experts from Africa, Europe and North America to examine these critical social institutions and groups, and consider how they can either improve or impede peaceful conflict resolution. The overarching questions that are explored by the authors are: What constitutes social cohesion and resilience in the face of conflict? What are the threats to cohesion and resilience? And how can the positive elements be fostered and by whom? The second of two volumes on African conflict management capacity by the editors, The Fabric of Peace in Africa: Looking beyond the State opens new doors of understanding for students, scholars and practitioners focused on strengthening peace in Africa; the first volume, Minding the Gap: African Conflict Management in a Time of change, focused on the role of mediation and peacekeeping in managing violence and political crises.

The Roots of African Conflicts

The Roots of African Conflicts PDF Author: Alfred G. Nhema
Publisher: Ohio University Press
ISBN: 0821418092
Category : Africa
Languages : en
Pages : 257

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Book Description
This work, along with 'The Resolution of African Conflicts', clearly demonstrates the efforts by a wide range of African scholars to explain the roots, routes, regimes and resolution of African conflicts and how to re-build post-conflict societies.

Conflict Resolution in Africa

Conflict Resolution in Africa PDF Author: Francis Mading Deng
Publisher: Brookings Institution Press
ISBN: 9780815717973
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 418

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Book Description
In this book, African, European, and U.S. experts analyze the issues involved in African conflicts and examine the areas in need of the most dramatic changes. They offer specific recommendations for dealing with current problems, but caution that unless policymakers confront the security situation in Africa, further destruction to national unity and political and economic stability is imminent.

Conflict Management and African Politics

Conflict Management and African Politics PDF Author: Terrence Lyons
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1134068492
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 250

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Book Description
This edited volume builds on a core set of concepts developed by I. William Zartman to offer new insights into conflict management and African politics. Key concepts such as ripe moments, hurting stalemates, and collapsed states, are built upon in order to show how conflict resolution theory may be applied to contemporary challenges, particularly in Africa. The contributors explore means of pre-empting negotiations over bribery, improving outcomes in environmental negotiations, boosting the capacity of mediators to end violent conflicts, and finding equitable negotiated outcomes. Other issues dealt with in the book include the negotiation of relations with Europe, the role of culture in African conflict resolution, the means to enhance security in unstable regional environments, and the strategic role of the United States in mediating African conflicts. This book will be of much interest to students of international conflict management, peace/conflict studies, African politics and IR in general.

African Conflicts and Informal Power

African Conflicts and Informal Power PDF Author: Mats Utas
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 1848138849
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 266

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Book Description
In the aftermath of an armed conflict in Africa, the international community both produces and demands from local partners a variety of blueprints for reconstructing state and society. The aim is to re-formalize the state after what is viewed as a period of fragmentation. In reality, African economies and polities are very much informal in character, with informal actors, including so-called Big Men, often using their positions in the formal structure as a means to reach their own goals. Through a variety of in-depth case studies, including the DRC, Sierra Leone and Liberia, this comprehensive volume shows how important informal political and economic networks are in many of the continent's conflict areas. Moreover, it demonstrates that without a proper understanding of the impact of these networks, attempts to formalize African states, particularly those emerging from wars, will be in vain.