Violence, Politics and Conflict Management in Africa

Violence, Politics and Conflict Management in Africa PDF Author: Munyaradzi Mawere
Publisher: African Books Collective
ISBN: 9956764485
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 416

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Book Description
This volume critically interrogates, from different angles and dimensions, the resilience of conflict and violence into 21st century Africa. The demise of European colonial administration in Africa in the 1960s wielded fervent hope for enduring peace for the people of Africa. Regrettably, conflict alongside violence in all its dimensions physical, religious, political, psychological and structural remain unabated and occupy central stage in contemporary Africa. The resilience of conflict and violence on the continental scene invokes unsettling memories of the past while negatively influencing the present and future of crafting inclusive citizenship and statehood. The book provides fresh insightful ethnographic and intellectual material for rethinking violence and conflict, and for fostering long-lasting peace and political justice on the continent and beyond. With its penetrating focus on conflict and associated trajectories of violence in Africa, the book is an inestimable asset for conflict management practitioners, political scientists, historians, civil society activists and leaders in economics and politics as well as all those interested in the affairs of Africa.

Violence, Politics and Conflict Management in Africa

Violence, Politics and Conflict Management in Africa PDF Author: Munyaradzi Mawere
Publisher: African Books Collective
ISBN: 9956764485
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 416

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Book Description
This volume critically interrogates, from different angles and dimensions, the resilience of conflict and violence into 21st century Africa. The demise of European colonial administration in Africa in the 1960s wielded fervent hope for enduring peace for the people of Africa. Regrettably, conflict alongside violence in all its dimensions physical, religious, political, psychological and structural remain unabated and occupy central stage in contemporary Africa. The resilience of conflict and violence on the continental scene invokes unsettling memories of the past while negatively influencing the present and future of crafting inclusive citizenship and statehood. The book provides fresh insightful ethnographic and intellectual material for rethinking violence and conflict, and for fostering long-lasting peace and political justice on the continent and beyond. With its penetrating focus on conflict and associated trajectories of violence in Africa, the book is an inestimable asset for conflict management practitioners, political scientists, historians, civil society activists and leaders in economics and politics as well as all those interested in the affairs of Africa.

Constitutions and Conflict Management in Africa

Constitutions and Conflict Management in Africa PDF Author: Alan J. Kuperman
Publisher: University of Pennsylvania Press
ISBN: 0812246586
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 304

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Book Description
Presenting the first database of constitutional design in all African countries, and seven original case studies, Constitutions and Conflict Management in Africa explores the types of domestic political institutions that can buffer societies from destabilizing changes that otherwise increase the risk of violence.

Elections and Conflict Management in Africa

Elections and Conflict Management in Africa PDF Author: Timothy D. Sisk
Publisher: US Institute of Peace Press
ISBN: 9781878379795
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 244

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Book Description
Elections have emerged as one of the most important, and most contentious, features of political life on the African continent. In the first half of this decade, there were more than 20 national elections, serving largely as capstones of peace processes or transitions to democracies. The outcomes of these and more recent elections have been remarkably varied, and the relationship between elections and conflict management is widely debated throughout Africa and among international observers. Elections can either help reduce tensions by reconstituting legitimate government, or they can exacerbate them by further polarizing highly conflictual societies. This timely volume examines the relationship between elections, especially electoral systems, and conflict management in Africa, while also serving as an important reference for other regions. The book brings together for the first time the latest thinking on the many different roles elections can play in democratization and conflict management.

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.

Vanguard or Vandals

Vanguard or Vandals PDF Author: Jon Abbink
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 9047407008
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 311

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Book Description
This book contains a range of original studies on one of the major challenges in Africa today: the controversial role of youth in politics, conflict and rebellious movements. The issue is not only the drafting of child soldiers into insurgent armies or predatory militias, as in Somalia, Sierra Leone or Congo, but, more generally, that of the problematic insertion of large numbers of young people in the socio-economic and political order of post-colonial Africa. Even educated youths are being confronted with a lack of opportunities, blocked social mobility, and despair about the future. Many of the political antagonisms and conflicts in which youths are involved do not only exist at the discursive level but are being produced by current demographic and socio-political contradictions in Africa. African youth, while forming a numerical majority, largely feel excluded from power, are socio-economically marginalized and thwarted in their ambitions. They have little access to representative positions or political power, which is making for a politically volatile situation in many African countries. The authors address several case studies from across Africa: the Mungiki movement in Kenya, youth agency in southern Sudan in times of war, the challenges of ‘re-integrating’ youthful ex-combatants in Sierra Leone, and street children in Togo. A common aim is to try to explain why patterns of generational conflict and violent response among younger age groups in Africa are showing such a remarkably uneven spread across the continent and to advance the comparative study of youth and generational conflict beyond mere description of the varied empirical cases.

War And Peace In The 20th Century And Beyond, The Nobel Centennial Symposium

War And Peace In The 20th Century And Beyond, The Nobel Centennial Symposium PDF Author: Geir Lundestad
Publisher: World Scientific
ISBN: 9814487236
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 266

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Book Description
At the turn of the 21st Century, the world was immediately gripped by the War on Terrorism followed by the Iraq War. In reflection, the 20th Century was a period marked by tremendous technological and economic progress — but it was also the most violent century in human history. It witnessed two horrendous world wars, as well as the conflicts during the Cold War.Why do wars persistently erupt among nations, particularly the Great Powers? What are the primary factors that drive nations to violence — power, prestige, ideology or territory? Or is it motivated by pure fear and mistrust? Peering nervously at the 21st Century, we wonder whether American supremacy and globalization will help ensure peace and stability. Or will shifts in power with the emergence of new economic super-nations lead to further tensions and conflicts in this century?Together with 29 Peace Nobel laureates, an outstanding group of scholars gathered in Oslo, Norway, on December 6, 2001, for the three-day Nobel Centennial Symposium to discuss “The Conflicts of the 20th Century and the Solutions for the 21st Century”. Read this book for the scholars' candid insights and analyses, as well as their thought-provoking views on the factors that led to conflicts in the 20th Century and whether the 21st Century will be a more peaceful one. This is a rare — and possibly the best and only — book compilation of the highly intellectual analyses by world experts and Nobel Peace laureates on the perennial issues of War & Peace.

War and Conflict in Africa

War and Conflict in Africa PDF Author: Paul D. Williams
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
ISBN: 1509509089
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 400

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Book Description
After the Cold War, Africa earned the dubious distinction of being the world's most bloody continent. But how can we explain this proliferation of armed conflicts? What caused them and what were their main characteristics? And what did the world's governments do to stop them? In this fully revised and updated second edition of his popular text, Paul Williams offers an in-depth and wide-ranging assessment of more than six hundred armed conflicts which took place in Africa from 1990 to the present day - from the continental catastrophe in the Great Lakes region to the sprawling conflicts across the Sahel and the web of wars in the Horn of Africa. Taking a broad comparative approach to examine the political contexts in which these wars occurred, he explores the major patterns of organized violence, the key ingredients that provoked them and the major international responses undertaken to deliver lasting peace. Part I, Contexts provides an overview of the most important attempts to measure the number, scale and location of Africa's armed conflicts and provides a conceptual and political sketch of the terrain of struggle upon which these wars were waged. Part II, Ingredients analyses the role of five widely debated features of Africa's wars: the dynamics of neopatrimonial systems of governance; the construction and manipulation of ethnic identities; questions of sovereignty and self-determination; as well as the impact of natural resources and religion. Part III, Responses, discusses four major international reactions to Africa's wars: attempts to build a new institutional architecture to help promote peace and security on the continent; this architecture's two main policy instruments, peacemaking initiatives and peace operations; and efforts to develop the continent. War and Conflict in Africa will be essential reading for all students of international peace and security studies as well as Africa's international relations.

The Origins of Ethnic Conflict in Africa

The Origins of Ethnic Conflict in Africa PDF Author: Tsega Etefa
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 3030105407
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 284

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Book Description
From Darfur to the Rwandan genocide, journalists, policymakers, and scholars have blamed armed conflicts in Africa on ancient hatreds or competition for resources. Here, Tsega Etefa compares three such cases—the Darfur conflict between Arabs and non-Arabs, the Gumuz and Oromo clashes in Western Oromia, and the Oromo-Pokomo conflict in the Tana Delta—in order to offer a fuller picture of how ethnic violence in Africa begins. Diverse communities in Sudan, Ethiopia, and Kenya alike have long histories of peacefully sharing resources, intermarrying, and resolving disputes. As he argues, ethnic conflicts are fundamentally political conflicts, driven by non-inclusive political systems, the monopolization of state resources, and the manipulation of ethnicity for political gain, coupled with the lack of democratic mechanisms for redressing grievances.

Pathways for Peace

Pathways for Peace PDF Author: United Nations
Publisher: World Bank Publications
ISBN: 1464811865
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 415

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Book Description
Violent conflicts today are complex and increasinglyprotracted, involving more nonstate groups and regionaland international actors. It is estimated that by 2030—thehorizon set by the international community for achievingthe Sustainable Development Goals—more than half ofthe world’s poor will be living in countries affected byhigh levels of violence. Information and communicationtechnology, population movements, and climate changeare also creating shared risks that must be managed atboth national and international levels.Pathways for Peace is a joint United Nations–WorldBank Group study that originates from the convictionthat the international community’s attention musturgently be refocused on prevention. A scaled-upsystem for preventive action would save betweenUS$5 billion and US$70 billion per year, which couldbe reinvested in reducing poverty and improving thewell-being of populations.The study aims to improve the way in which domesticdevelopment processes interact with security, diplomacy,mediation, and other efforts to prevent conflictsfrom becoming violent. It stresses the importance ofgrievances related to exclusion—from access to power,natural resources, security and justice, for example—thatare at the root of many violent conflicts today.Based on a review of cases in which prevention hasbeen successful, the study makes recommendations forcountries facing emerging risks of violent conflict aswell as for the international community. Developmentpolicies and programs must be a core part of preventiveefforts; when risks are high or building up, inclusivesolutions through dialogue, adapted macroeconomicpolicies, institutional reform, and redistributive policiesare required. Inclusion is key, and preventive actionneeds to adopt a more people-centered approach thatincludes mainstreaming citizen engagement. Enhancingthe participation of women and youth in decisionmaking is fundamental to sustaining peace, as well aslong-term policies to address the aspirations of womenand young people.

Peace and Conflict Resolution in Africa

Peace and Conflict Resolution in Africa PDF Author: Ernest E. Uwazie
Publisher: Cambridge Scholars Publishing
ISBN: 1527525821
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 401

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Book Description
This publication is the product of the 25th Annual Africa and Diaspora Conference in 2016, organized by the Center for African Peace and Conflict Resolution at California State University, Sacramento, on the theme of “Peace and Conflict Resolution in Africa 25 Years Later: Lessons, Best Practices and Opportunities”. It brings together reflections on both historical and contemporary or recurring conflicts in Africa, especially on issues of ethno-religious conflicts, corruption, land, and leadership. The chapters include case studies and some theoretical perspectives on the persistent search for the right size and scope of visioning and programming on peace and conflict resolution in Africa. Understandably, this collection of ideas, thoughts and proposals will resonate with the field of Peace and Conflict Studies. Arguably, Africa is “rising” in the 21st century, with declining violent conflicts and an increase in stable democracies and economies. However, there are still the significant challenges of extremism, climate change, poor governance, ineffective leadership, widening wealth gaps, and weak institutions of moderation. The essays collected here also document areas of progress in legitimizing democracy and conceptualizing social justice, and suggest the need for building the next generation of peace leaders in Africa.