Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter School for Peace and Conflict Resolution
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The Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter School for Peace and Conflict Resolution is a community of faculty, students, staff, alumni, and partners with a fundamental commitment to building peace. Through the development of cutting-edge theory, research, education, and practical work, we seek to identify and address the underlying causes of conflict and provide tools for ethical and just peacebuilding on the local, national, and global stages.
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Item 25 Spheres of Digital Peacebuilding and PeaceTech(Toda Peace Institute and Alliance for Peacebuilding, 2020-09) Schirch, LisaThis report outlines twenty-fives spheres where technology can contribute to peacebuilding goals and describes five generations of thinking related to the evolution of technology’s impact on peacebuilding. Digital peacebuilding contributes to democratic deliberation, violence prevention, social cohesion, civic engagement and improved human security. Digital peacebuilding contributes to the wider field of digital citizenship and “tech for good.”Item A "Community of Values" in the CSCE/OSCE?(School for Conflict Analysis and Resolution, 2001-06) Sandole, Dennis J. D.“Dr. Dennis Sandole has long been interested in questions of peace and security and has published a range of empirical and theoretically oriented studies on the subject. This current Working Paper represents a report on his most recent investigation into the role of international organizations in creating the structures for comprehensive common security. His focus here is on the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) and its predecessor, the Conference for Security and Cooperation in Europe (CSCE). This Working Paper analyzes data collected through interviews with heads of delegation to the organization conducted in 1993, 1997, and 1999. These successive surveys allow Sandole to explore changes of attitudes in the context of the momentous events of the 1990s, most notably the NATO intervention in Bosnia (1995) and the more contentious intervention in Kosovo (1999). Details of the surveys are included in the appendix of this paper.”Item A Journey from the Laboratory to the Field: Insights on Resolving Disputes through Negotiation(School for Conflict Analysis and Resolution, 2001-03) Druckman, DanielThis Occasional Paper is Druckman's answer, at least in part, to a fundamental question that graduate students at the Institute for Conflict Analysis and Resolution and elsewhere often ask—where do ideas for research come from? The response put forward in this paper is that they come in large part from theoretically derived models and from methodologies designed to explore the implications of such models. Druckman argues that frameworks are valuable as organizational tools and as guides for the design and analysis of data-collection. He believes that the immediate situation is generally the primary influence on the behavior of actors in a negotiation and that such behavior is best understood in terms of an ongoing process.Item A Summary of Lessons Learned: Studies and Evaluations(United Nations Department of Political and Peacebuilding Affairs, 2020) United NationsThe United Nations Department of Political and Peacebuilding Affairs, in order to strengthen its accountability and organizational learning, commissions several evaluative exercises—lessons learned studies and evaluations—every year. This report provides key findings, lessons learned, and recommendations of evaluative exercises commissioned by the Department in 2020. These include an evaluation around the drawdown, reconfiguration and withdrawal of a number of peacekeeping operations and Special Political Missions (SPMs) and how they affected the presence and work of the wider UN. The report also focused on the UN mediation of the Equatorial Guinea-Gabon boundary dispute between 2008 and 2016, which relates to their overlapping claims of sovereignty over three islands, and the delimitation of their maritime and land boundaries. In addition there were evaluations of the increased support by the Mediation Support Unit (MSU) for local mediation initiatives and an analysis of UN engagement with the Maldives in support of its nascent democratic gains to build confidence between political actors and to foster the conditions for meaningful political dialogue and the discussion of delicate religious and societal issues. Finally, the report reviews UN efforts to advance the Women, Peace and Security (WPS) agenda during the peace negotiations (2012- 2016) and then through the establishment of two consecutive special political missions (SPMs) in Colombia to verify specific provisions of the Agreement. In its efforts to implement the WPS agenda in Colombia, the UN worked in close cooperation with the authorities and former guerrillas, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC-EP), as well as with civil society and international stakeholders.Item A Willingness to Talk(School for Conflict Analysis and Resolution, 1990-10-29) Mitchell, Christopher“Moves intended to initiate de-escalation and begin a peace process are often difficult to make and even more difficult to identify unambiguously. Two examples from recent Anglo-Argentine relations provide a basis for investigating whether successful gestures of conciliation demonstrate any common qualities or occur only in highly propitious circumstances. A number of hypotheses are advanced concerning characteristics which enhance a gesture's credibility and chances of success. Although it is noted that even gestures attempting to signal a clear ‘willingness to talk’ with an adversary, which demonstrate these characteristics, can be missed entirely, misinterpreted, or ignored by a Target firmly committed to continuing the conflict by coercive means; the initiation of a successful process of conflict termination remains a highly uncertain procedure. “Item Adaptive Mediation and Conflict Resolution: Peace-making in Colombia, Mozambique, the Philippines, and Syria(Palgrave Macmillan, 2022) de Coning, Cedric; Muto, Ako; Saraiva, RuiThis open access book introduces adaptive mediation as an alternative approach that enables mediators to go beyond liberal peace mediation, or other determined-design models of mediation, in the context of contemporary conflict resolution and peace-making initiatives. Adaptive mediation is grounded in complexity theory, and is specifically designed to cope with highly dynamic conflict situations characterized by uncertainty and a lack of predictability. It is also a facilitated mediation process whereby the content of agreements emerges from the parties to the conflict themselves, informed by the context within which the conflict is situated. This book presents the core principles and practices of adaptive mediation in conjunction with empirical evidence from four diverse case studies – Colombia, Mozambique, The Philippines, and Syria – with a view to generate recommendations for how mediators can apply adaptive mediation approaches to resolve and transform contemporary and future armed conflicts.Item Adding Up to Peace: The Cumulative Impacts of Peace Initiatives(CDA Collaborative Learning Projects, 2018-04) Chigas, Diana; Woodrow, PeterThis book aims to identify how cumulative impacts in peace practice operate at all levels, in order to provide practical lessons for policymakers, donors and practitioners to develop more effective strategies for greater progress towards peace. This book builds on CDA’s Reflecting on Peace Practice Project (RPP), launched to answer the question: What works—and what doesn’t work—in peacebuilding? It seeks to deepen our understanding of how multiple peacebuilding initiatives in a conflict zone interacted and added up (or didn’t), to result in progress towards larger societal level peace, or Peace Writ Large. The findings are a product of sixteen case studies conducted between 2007 and 2012, gathering the perceptions of both local and international stakeholders.Item An Intervenor's Role and Values: A Study of a Peace Committee Report in Grahamstown, South Africa(School for Conflict Analysis and Resolution, 2002-02) Midgley, J. R.“The extraordinary transition in South Africa has received well-deserved attention. Midgley tells a less well-known part of the story relating to the work by members of a collection of Peace Committees acting to manage and resolve community conflicts between the time of the September 1991 National Peace Accord and the 1994 elections to majority rule. He focuses on his experience with the Grahams town Peace Commission and a specific set of conflicts within the Rini Township between members of the community and between the community and the police. Midgley uses this story to explore a wide range of issues at the heart of conflict resolution practice, including mediators' roles and tensions between the roles of peacebuilder, activist, and peacemaker, ethical considerations, and the relationships among the Peace Committees and political actors. He provides an assessment of the work of the Peace Committees and both points to their significant accomplishments during a period of transition and their failure to transform themselves into an institutionalized part of the post-transition political order. Rob Midgley's insights will be valuable to everyone interested in the potential and the limits of building new structures of peace in a complex social and political environment. We thank him for his contribution.”Item Assessing International Statebuilding Initiative Effectiveness at Preventing Armed Conflict Recurrence: The Cases of Burundi, Chad, Côte d'Ivoire, and Nepal(Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter School for Peace and Conflict Resolution, 2020) Short, ElliotThe practice of statebuilding is employed by a broad spectrum of multilateral organisations and national governments as a tool to stabilise fragile states, including those that are recovering from conflict. However, much of the existing literature focuses on weighing up the ethical arguments concerning statebuilding rather than analysing its impact on the societies in which it takes place. This assessment combines data from Fund for Peace’s Fragile States Index, financial data harvested from relevant publicly available databases, and an extensive survey of the academic and policy literature to examine whether statebuilding is an effective means of preventing post-conflict states from relapsing into war. By exploring the cases of Burundi, Chad, Côte d’Ivoire, and Nepal, it demonstrates that although statebuilding can help to achieve this goal, certain conditions and methods are required for it to be effective. When such conditions and methods are absent, donors’ resources are employed to build regimes rather than states and leave the recipient country at risk of returning to conflict.Item Ceasefire Drafter’s Handbook: An Introduction and Template for Negotiators, Mediators, and Stakeholders(Public International Law & Policy Group, 2013-05)The Public International Law & Policy Group’s (PILPG) Ceasefire Drafter’s Handbook is a guide intended to effectively supplement the activities of negotiators and drafters of ceasefire agreements. This Handbook draws from PILPG’s experience in ceasefire negotiations, as well as state practice and comparative analysis of over 200 ceasefire agreements from Africa, Asia, Europe, the Middle East, and Latin America. This Handbook includes an Introduction to Ceasefires and an Annotated Ceasefire Template. The Introduction to Ceasefires provides information on the core elements of ceasefires, the effects of asymmetry on ceasefire agreements, the role of third parties, and the legality of ceasefire agreements. The Annotated Ceasefire Template describes core provisions and provides sample language for drafters to incorporate into ceasefire agreements. Although each template section offers drafters a guiding framework, it may be necessary to reshape the provisions to address the nuances of each situation.Item Cities After the 1960s-- Where Have All the Promises Gone?(School for Conflict Analysis and Resolution, 1994-03-01) Wilkins, RogerThe promise for the cities in the 1960s was that America had taken an honest look at its racial history. The country was rich then and growing and vital. Some people thought that America had experienced a profound change of heart and that justice could be purchased with our bountiful growth. We were then experiencing a continual period of low inflation, low unemployment, and steadily growing gross national product. I remember I was upbraided once after I had given a speech by a man who said, ‘We will have justice out of growth. America is never a zero-sum game. We will always grow. Out of our bounty, we will have justice.’ Well, unfortunately it did not turn out that way. Some of us had strong suspicions-Jim and I, Wally Warfield among them-that there was less promise and more foreboding in our sixties experiences. From the things that we had seen in the cities all across the country, I had profound doubts that the humane trajectory of the early sixties could be sustained in the cauldrons of despair deep in our inner cities. There was too much animosity toward the people there. There was too much poverty. There was too much human devastation. And, there was too little will and money to be marshaled against those things. So, I left the federal government almost exactly 25 years ago, making the same warnings in speech after speech. There were really two warnings. First, if we do not change our national investment patterns, our cities will become blacker and poorer, and that will be a disaster for our nation. Second, if we continue to treat people like savages, they will become savages, and raising groups of savages in the middle of the central points of growth and renewal of a culture is a wonderful way for a civilization to commit suicide. Now, 25 years later, the forebodings have clearly outdistanced the promise.Item Civil Society in Conflict Transformation: Strengths and Limitations(Berghof Foundation, 2011-01) Fischer, MartinaThis book chapter focuses on the potential contribution that civil society actors can make to peacebuilding. There is also an examination of what types of activities international and transnational NGOs undertake in order to influence international politics in a way that contributes to coping with global challenges. The author explores key questions such as: What are the strengths and limitations of civil society actors? What types of activities do NGOs undertake? What problems and dilemmas are faced in the development of civil society in war-torn societies? What is the role and potential of (local) civil society actors in war-to-peace transitions and what problems and dilemmas stem from the development of civil society in war-torn societies? She uses the example of Bosnia-Herzegovina to explore the limitations of civil society's contributions to peacebuilding, and how civil society relates to state-building. Finally, the chapter addresses how such considerations impact theoretical conceptualizations of the term "civil society".Item Cognitive-Affective Mapping and Digital Peacebuilding(Toda Peace Institute, 2021-06) Hoffman, Evan A.Ideologies play a fundamental role in the emergence, escalation and resolution of conflict by underpinning divergent narratives and worldviews. These ideologies are often developed and sustained through a combination of interrelated and deeply-held core beliefs, values and emotions which have been acquired over the course of a lifetime and become reinforced through several cognitive processes and biases. Thus, it can be very difficult to alter or change ideologies once they have been formed. Yet, despite their central importance to conflict resolution, practitioners still need the proper tools to adequately visualise these complex ideologies in individuals and/or groups. Practitioners also have very few examples of ways to work with these divergent ideologies as part of a larger peacebuilding process. This policy brief presents a technique for visualising ideologies using a new software tool called Valence that enables technology-assisted Cognitive Affective Mapping (CAM). It then offers lessons from a recent online conflict resolution exercise in which multiple stakeholders used this tool in an ongoing water conflict in Canada via a series of facilitated Zoom sessions held in 2020.Item Conceptions of the World Order: Building Peace in the Third Millennium(School for Conflict Analysis and Resolution, 1997-04-23) Rapoport, Anatol"...It is a very great pleasure to welcome Dr. Anatol Rapoport to George Mason University to deliver the Tenth Annual Vernon M. and Minnie I. Lynch Lecture, "Conceptions of World Order: Building Peace in the Third Millennium," in this, the Institute for Conflict Analysis and Resolution's Fifteenth Anniversary Year.Item Conflict and Culture: A Literature Review and Bibliography, 1992-98 update(School for Conflict Analysis and Resolution, 1998-06) LeBaron, Michelle; Garon, Stephen“The 1992 publication, Conflict and Culture: A Literature Review and Bibliography by Michelle LeBaron begins with the premise that the goals of conflict resolution are complementary to those of multiculturalism. It further posits that conflict resolution is a tool to achieve multiculturalism, which is defined as valuing the existence, maintenance and extension of individual cultures. A true multicultural society, it claims, is one in which equal participation is unfettered by race, ethnicity, gender, or class. LeBaron further proposes that if conflict resolution is to fulfill its promise vis-a-vis multiculturalism and facilitate successful intergroup relations, the conflict resolution community must engage in critical self reflection and examine its theoretical underpinnings for cultural biases. In particular, it contends that any process for effective multicultural conflict resolution must address cultural diversity, culture-influenced perceptions, and the issue of power. In addition to making these claims, the literature review addresses several related themes. For example, it deals with the ubiquity of the mediation model and the numerous culture-bound assumptions which undergird it. Recognizing the rapid changes in ethnic diversity and the growth of alternative dispute resolution (ADR), it asserts the need for both formal and informal conflict resolution systems to respond to cultural concerns. It also explores some of the characteristics of effective service providers in cross-cultural settings, and raises the implications of multiculturalism for dispute resolution training.”Item Conflict Resolution and Civil War: Reflections on the Sudanese Settlement of 1972(School for Conflict Analysis and Resolution, 1989-03) Mitchell, Christopher“Christopher R. Mitchell's ‘Conflict Resolution and Civil War: The Sudanese Settlement of 1972’ is the third in a series of Working Papers reflecting the research interests and findings of the Center for Conflict Analysis and Resolution at George Mason University.”Item Conflict Resolution and Power Politics/ Global Conflict After the Cold War:Two Lectures(School for Conflict Analysis and Resolution, 1996-01) Rubenstein, Richard“The two public lectures contained in this working paper were presented by Institute for Conflict Analysis and Resolution faculty member Richard E. Rubenstein at the University of Malta. ‘Conflict Resolution and Political Power’ was presented in Valletta, Malta, on January 12, 1995, under the sponsorship of the International Foundation. ‘Global Conflict After the Cold War’ was given on November 30, 1994, at Sir Teri Zammit Hall, Msida, under the auspices of the University of Malta's Department of Sociology. Malta's continuing interests in international peacemaking and conflict resolution are well known throughout the world. Almost from the time it became independent, this former British colony saw itself as a force for peace in the Mediterranean region: a natural bridge between Europe and North Africa, the First World and the Third. Pursuing these interests, Maltese public officials and academics have played a leading role in negotiating international agreements on the Law of the Sea and on environmental security. They have reached out to the Islamic nations and to Israel and have convened important conferences on Mediterranean regional problems. In fall 1994, I was pleased to attend the annual meeting of the International Peace Research Association hosted in Valletta by the University of Malta's Institute for Peace and Conflict Studies.”Item Conflict Resolution as a Political System(School for Conflict Analysis and Resolution, 1988) Burton, John W“‘Conflict Resolution as a political System" was the first of the Institute's series of working Papers to be published, and when it came out in 1988 both the author and the then Director regarded the series as a vehicle for timely ‘think pieces’ or reports of research in progress at the Institute, then only a small Center. John Burton's original paper was introduced as extending the boundaries of conflict resolution and offering ‘. . .a view of what the field's fundamental philosophy should be...’ Over the last five years, however, it has become more and more evident that one of the fundamental problems facing the so called ‘Post Cold War World’ is the intellectual and practical construction of innovative forms of political systems, to replace the dominant model of the unitary, "‘national", territorial state which, in the real world, has increasingly been shown to be non-unitary, multi-national, and inconveniently unwilling to remain confined to assigned chunks of state territory. Without new thinking about possible and appropriate forms of political organization, that contain within themselves means of resolving inevitable conflicts, the ‘Post Cold War World’ seems likely to become the Small Shooting War World and to be filled with Bosnias, Somalias, Ngorno Karabakhs, or Afghanistans. Hence, the Institute's decision to republish John Burton's piece is both a timely response to the need to rethink the fundamentals of political organisation and a reminder of the liveliness of Burton's original work, which still has much to say about the world of the mid-1990s.”Item Conflict Resolution in the Post Cold War Era: Dealing with Ethnic Violence in the New Europe(School for Conflict Analysis and Resolution, 1992-10) Sandole, Dennis J. D.“This timely paper by Dr. Sandole is part of a continuing project at the Institute intendedto analyse and recommend remedies for the resurgence of overt and violent conflict in Eastern Europe. It takes the form of a consideration of the manner in which the ‘security problematic’ for Europe as a whole has changed as a result of the end of the confrontation there between the USSR and the USA, and how this has become a matter of coping with conflicts that are internal or transnational, arising from long suppressed ethnic rivalries. Such conflicts have not been wholly unknown in Western Europe since 1945 - Alto Adige, Catalonia, the Basque country, Northern Ireland - but since the ending of Soviet control in Eastern Europe and the development of the idea of a ‘common European home’ the world has become all too familiar with the management and mismanagement of conflicts between Croats and Serbs, Russians and Lithuanians, Czechs and Slovaks, Georgians and Ossetians. In these, and many more, ethnicity and the search for ethnic identity and security play major roles.”Item Conflicts in the Second World: A View on Track 2 Diplomacy(School for Conflict Analysis and Resolution, 2001-06) Riegg, Natalya Tovmasyan“Natalya Tovmasyan Riegg has been a Visiting Fellow at the Institute for Conflict Analysis and Resolution (ICAR) and a Research Fellow at the National Peace Foundation since 1999. This Working Paper reflects her thinking about the problems of creating a peaceful settlement to the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict in her native Armenia. We at ICAR have benefited greatly from our association with her, and it is with great pleasure that we share her thoughts in this Working Paper.”