VIOLENCE: General (incl. Peacebuilding)

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A Community Guide for Opposing Hate

 

Publisher: Bard Center for the Study of Hate; the Western States Center, and the Montana Human Rights Network.

Year of publication: 2022? [no date given]

[From the preface:]

The purpose of this manual is to provide those who want to “do something” about hate the something they can do, step by step, not only for the immediate aftermath of a hateful act, but for years to come to improve their community. [...]


However one chooses to define it, hate is at its most dangerous when it is seen as something noble—and not only

noble, but as a “truth” that’s a rallying point to organize around, in order to inflict it on our neighbors. Expressions of

hate are shocking, a swastika on a wall, a noose on someone’s locker, a rally by white supremacists in full regalia or

business suits, explaining why other human beings—the “theys”—are a threat to “us,” so much so they should have

fewer rights, if not outright expelled or murdered.


This manual has been written by people who have spent decades combating hate and hate groups. If we’ve learned

one lesson, it’s that organized haters are classic bullies. If they get away with bullying, they will only bully more.


But we’ve learned another lesson too, that communities CAN push back against hatred. It’s hard work, but not

daunting or overly complicated. This manual will show you how.


Our goal here is to provide different organizations in different regions—small rural coalitions, nongovernmental

organizations (NGOs) in larger cities, and everything in between—the best practices to combat hate and hate

groups. Some of the strategies are reactive, but the most important ones are proactive—organizing so when hate

comes to town, it has a lesser chance of success. [...]


What you’ll see in this manual are tried-and-true strategies for organizing against hate, from the nuts and bolts of

how to build and sustain groups and coalitions, how to reach out to others for help, how to report crimes to the

police, how to work with journalists and politicians, and how to research hate groups in your community.


Contents:


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Community-Based Urban Violence Prevention 

: Innovative Approaches in Africa, Latin America, Asia and the Arab Region  


Publisher: Transcript Publishing

Year of publication: 2014

FREE DOWNLOAD: 

https://www.transcript-publishing.com/978-3-8376-2990-3/community-based-urban-violence-prevention/ 

Urban violence has become a major threat in big cities of the world. Where the orthodox protection through the police and individual target hardening remain inefficient, the population must organize itself.

This book contains first-hand accounts on a selection of the most innovative experiences in Africa, Latin America, Asia and the Arab region and is of interest likewise for academics and urban practitioners, policy makers, international cooperation experts or travelers preparing a visit of one of the affected countries. 


Table of contents:

Preface

Contents

SETTING THE CONTEXT


LESSONS LEARNT FROM AFRICA


A LESSON FROM CHINA


LESSONS LEARNT FROM LATIN AMERICA


YOUTH AND GANG VIOLENCE


ALTERNATIVE APPROACHES TO COMBAT URBAN VIOLENCE


The Contributors


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A Glossary of Terms and Concepts in Peace and Conflict Studies

(Author: Christopher E. Miller ; Editor: Mary E. King)

 

Publisher: University for Peace

Year of publication: 2005 [2nd edition]

A Note to Readers:

The idea for this glossary originated with the positive response to the lecture ‘Definitions, Conceptions, and Debates in Peace and Security Studies in Africa’. Delivered by Dr Ebrima Sall at the Africa Programme Advisory Meeting in Maputo, Mozambique, 23–25 October 2003, it was jointly written by Sall, then at the Nordic Africa Institute, and Dr Mary E. King, professor of peace and conflict studies at the University for Peace.


Contents:


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Jihad

: A South African Perspective

(author: Hussein Solomon)

 

Publisher: SunBonani Scholar

Year of publication: 2013

What are the factors which have made South Africa so appealing to terrorist and radical Islamic organisations? What role has South Africa played within global Jihad?


This book examines how South Africa has come to play a major role in global terror networks stemming from growing criminality and corruption within state structures. It also examines the interaction between local and foreign extremist elements which undermine South Africa’s security.


The author brings the discussion beyond the usual mundane academic treatise to the sharp reality of the global dangers of politicised Islam – a Muslim talking candidly about Islam. 


The book contributes to both a rethinking of liberal democracy and its relationship to world politics, as well as the effects of liberal internationalism on global processes. Furthermore, Liberalism and Transformation invites readers to reflect on global ethics and transformation in world politics. In the first place, it shows how ethical imaginings of the world have direct effects on actions of transformative importance. In the second place, it suggests that discourses are fluid, changing, and complex.


Contents (brief):


        Jihad: A South African Perspective

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Liberalism and Transformation

: The Global Politics of Violence and Intervention

 

Publisher: University of Michigan Press

Year of publication: 2021

Liberalism and Transformation is the first scholarly work that explores the historical, philosophical, and intellectual development of global liberalism since the nineteenth century in the context of the deployment of violence, force, and intervention. Using an approach that includes interpretive and contextual analysis of texts from writers, philosophers, and policy-makers across nearly two centuries, as well as historiographical and historical analysis of archival documents (some of which have been recently declassified) and other media, Liberalism and Transformation narrates the messy history of emancipatory liberalism and its engagement with issues of war and peace. 


The book contributes to both a rethinking of liberal democracy and its relationship to world politics, as well as the effects of liberal internationalism on global processes. Furthermore, Liberalism and Transformation invites readers to reflect on global ethics and transformation in world politics. In the first place, it shows how ethical imaginings of the world have direct effects on actions of transformative importance. In the second place, it suggests that discourses are fluid, changing, and complex.


Contents (brief):


Acknowledgements

Ch. 1: Introduction: Liberalism and Violence

Ch. 2: The How of Emancipatory Liberalism

Ch. 3: Transformation and Civilization: Liberalism, Empire, Intervention

Ch. 4: Transformation and Self-Determination: Internationalists at War

Ch. 5: Transformation and Totalitarianism: Intervention and Cold War Liberalism

Ch. 6: Transformation and Terror: State Failure, Development, and Human Rights

Ch. 7: Conclusion: Toward a Minimalist Liberalism


Notes

Bibliography

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New Directions in Women, Peace and Security 

 

Publisher: Bristol University Press 

Year of publication: 2020

The Women, Peace and Security (WPS) agenda, associated with the United Nations Security Council resolutions of a similar name, is widely recognized as the most significant and wide- reaching global framework for advancing gender equality in military affairs, conflict resolution and security governance. The first of these resolutions, UN Security Council Resolution (UNSCR) 1325, bound the international community to ensure, among other provisions, greater participation of women in decision making in national, regional and international institutions; their further involvement in peacekeeping, field operations, mission consultation and peace negotiations; increased funds and other support to the gender work of UN entities; enhanced state commitments to the human rights of women and girls and the protection of those rights under international law; the introduction of special measures against sexual violence in armed conflict; and due consideration to the experiences and needs of women and girls in humanitarian, refugee, disarmament and postconflict settings. 


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Nonviolence and Religion 

 

Publisher: MDPI 

Year of publication: 2023

This reprint discusses the relation between nonviolence and religion by adopting Mohandas K. Gandhi’s concept of satyagraha as a starting point and by also discussing nonviolent hermeneutics of holy scriptures with a special emphasis on interpretations of the Qur’an. 


The first part consists of chapters that directly deal with Gandhi’s concept of nonviolence and how it influenced later faith-based peace activists. By reading Gandhi’s active nonviolence through the lens of Judith Butler’s recent work on nonviolence, it engages with contemporary discussions about violence and nonviolence and also reflects on how nonviolence relates to gender. It also looks at how Gandhi related to different religions and further broadens the usual focus on physical violence by addressing economic violence and environmental degradation. Gandhi’s view of Judaism and Zionism is critically discussed in one chapter. 


The second part comprises contributions that study the use of holy scriptures in relation to (non)violence, its problems, its boundaries and its inspiration. Religious authoritative texts play a major role in the continuation and legitimation of connected belief systems. Again, Gandhi’s own nonviolent hermeneutics of holy scriptures are investigated and his interpretation of the biblical figure of Daniel is especially discussed. Three contributions deal with the interpretation of the Qur’an and its potential for nonviolence. A concluding chapter provides a range of hermeneutic guidelines for an Islamic theology of nonviolence. 


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Pathways for Peace 

: Inclusive approaches for preventing violent conflict

 

Publisher: World Bank

Year of publication: 2018

This is a joint United Nations and World Bank study that looks at how development processes can better interact with diplomacy and mediation, security and other tools to prevent conflict from becoming violent. The study’s objective is to improve the way in which domestic development processes interact with security, diplomatic, justice, and human rights efforts to prevent conflicts from becoming violent.


The study stresses the importance of exclusion-related grievances that are at the root of many violent conflicts today; it particularly focuses on grievances related to access to power, natural resources, security, and justice.


While societies have a shared responsibility to ensure that conflict does not become violent, governments and states are particularly accountable in this area. However, in addressing the multiple global risk factors that drive violent

conflict today, governments are often one actor among many.


Faced with these multiple challenges, prevention efforts require a shift in approach to address the risks of violence before violence starts. Yet to a much greater degree, the problem is one of incentives. Actors at all levels do not always have incentives to act effectively or  collectively to prevent conflicts from turning violent.


Based on its review of cases in which prevention has been successful, the study has articulated several recommendations for both countries facing emerging risks of violent conflict and the international community. These include the following:


• Prevention requires sustained, inclusive, and targeted attention and action. Prevention is not only about avoiding or stopping repeated violent crises. While it is necessary to mitigate the impact of shocks, prevention also requires proactively addressing deeper, underlying risks that prevent sustainable development and peace.


• Most successful prevention is endogenous, undertaken by local or national actors. International actors need to support these broad and inclusive processes. In this sense, prevention enhances sovereignty, empowering each country to be in control of its own destiny and the state to build positive relationships with its citizens.


• Exclusion from access to power, opportunity, services, and security creates fertile ground for mobilizing group grievances to violence, especially in areas with weak state capacity or legitimacy or in the context of human rights abuses.


• Inclusion is key to prevention—in institutions, development policies, and provision of security and justice. Preventive action needs to adopt a more people-centered approach that includes mainstreaming citizen engagement in programs.


• The primary responsibility for preventive action rests with states, both through their national policy and their governance of the multilateral system. However, in today’s shifting global landscape, states are often one actor among many. States are increasingly called to work with each other and with other actors to keep their countries on a pathway to peace.


• Development policies and programs must be a core part of preventive efforts. Growth and poverty alleviation are crucial but alone will not suffice to sustain peace. Preventing violence requires departing from traditional economic and social policies when risks are building up or are high. It also means seeking inclusive solutions through dialogue, adapted macroeconomic policies, institutional reform in core state functions, and redistributive policies.


• To be more effective, new mechanisms need to be established that will allow greater synergy to be achieved much earlier among the various tools and instruments of prevention, in particular, diplomacy and mediation, security, and development.


• Efforts to address the economic, social, and political aspirations of young people are central to prevention and require innovative approaches.


• Societies in which women have more equal access to livelihoods and education are more resilient to violent conflict. Women’s voice and engagement is a core aspect of effective prevention policies and fundamental to sustaining peace at all levels.

 

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Peace and Democratic Society

 

Publisher: Open Book Publishers

Year of publication: 2011

Recent acts of terrorism and the current unrest in the Middle East remind us how important it is to understand the relationship between violence, peace and democracy. In a challenging and insightful essay, Amartya Sen explores ideas around 'organised violence' (such as war, genocide and terrorism) and violence against the individual. Highlighting the inadequacies of some of the widely accepted explanations for violence—including the idea that the world is experiencing a 'clash of civilisations'—Sen makes a plea for a global, multilateral debate on the causes of conflict, and an understanding of the multiple identities of the individuals involved.

 

The introductory essay draws on the findings of the Commonwealth Commission on Respect and Understanding, which was chaired by Sen, and established to promote mutual communication and understanding among all faiths and communities in the Commonwealth. Its timely report, "Civil Paths to Peace", suggests that governments, media and educators—indeed, everyone—must take the time to understand the complexities around violent behaviour and its causes, without prejudging what these might be.


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Post-conflict reconstruction and development in Africa

: Concepts, role-players, policy and practice

 

Publisher: UCT Press

Year of publication: 2013

During the 1990s, nine out of ten of the bloodiest conflicts occurred on the African continent. And despite some 20 peacebuilding operations in Africa in the last 25 years, there is still a significant lack of cohesive strategy to target the key areas in the regeneration of a conflict-ridden country. An Afrocentric perspective is therefore a suitable starting point for research into the possible strategies for post-conflict peacebuilding.


It is clear that a military approach to peace missions needs to include developmental, economic and governance support to ensure lasting stability and human security. Furthermore, an army needs to be equipped and trained for these multiple roles that previously were regarded as secondary functions, but are now priorities in peace mission involvement.


The authors of this book consider the problems around the concept of ‘post-conflict’ and the blurring of military and civilian roles, analysing the UN roles in the DRC and Sierra Leone, as well as the African Union Mission in Burundi. The main context of the book, however, is the South African Army’s strategy, which has been developed with the African Union’s 2006 Post-conflict, Reconstruction and Development Needs Assessment Guide in mind. This book emanates from this plan. It therefore also explores South Africa’s policy imperatives to integrate development projects and peace missions, involving the military as well as civilian organisations.


While this book is not intended as an instruction manual, it hopes to ignite an understanding of the particular processes required to develop a sustainable and cohesive post-conflict peacebuilding strategy within the African environment.

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Relational Peace Practices

 

Publisher: Manchester University Press

Year of publication: 2023

FREE DOWNLOAD:  https://doi.org/10.7765/9781526168979  (chapters)

                             Or https://directory.doabooks.org/handle/20.500.12854/118612  (whole book)    

This book contributes to scholarly debates about what peace is and how it can be studied by developing a novel framework and tools for studying peace as relational. Drawing primarily on peace and conflict research and sociology, it defines relational peace as entailing non-domination, deliberation, and cooperation between actors in a dyad, that the actors recognize and trust each other, and that they conceive their relationship as one between fellows or friends. 


The book provides tools for empirical studies of relational peace and applies the framework in several sites: Cyprus, Cambodia, South Africa, Abkhazia, Transnistria/Russia, Colombia, Sri Lanka, the Philippines, and Myanmar. It shows how the framework can be applied across cases, actors, geographical locations, levels of analysis, types of data, and stages of peace processes. 


The book offers guidance on how to use the framework empirically with a variety of methods. Each case study in the book also makes unique contributions to specific literatures, such as civil–military relations, frozen peacebuilding, nation-building, mediation, arts-based peacebuilding initiatives, post-war elite studies, ideational analysis, and post-Soviet studies and everyday peace. 


The book offers nuanced understandings of peace in particular settings and illustrates the multifaceted nature of peaceful relations. It shows how relationships are formed though repeated interactions, exchanges, and practices. The book also demonstrates that studying how actors understand these relationships is key for analyzing the nature of peace and its dynamic and processual character. 

By depicting relational peace practices, the book expands the field of studying peace beyond the absence of war.


Contents:


Front Matter


Introduction: Conceptualizing and studying relational peace practices


Index

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 Social Theories of Urban Violence in the Global South

: Towards Safe and Inclusive Cities

 

Publisher: Routledge, IDRC

Year of publication: 2018

While cities often act as the engines of economic growth for developing countries, they are also frequently the site of growing violence, poverty, and inequality. Yet, social theory, largely developed and tested in the Global North, is often inadequate in tackling the realities of life in the dangerous parts of cities in the Global South. Drawing on the findings of an ambitious five-year, 15-project research programme, Social Theories of Urban Violence in the Global South offers a uniquely Southern perspective on the violence–poverty–inequalities dynamics in cities of the Global South.

 

Through their research, urban violence experts based in low-and middle-income countries demonstrate how “urban violence” means different things to different people in different places. While some researchers adopt or adapt existing theoretical and conceptual frameworks, others develop and test new theories, each interpreting and operationalizing the concept of urban violence in the particular context in which they work. In particular, the book highlights the links between urban violence, poverty, and inequalities based on income, class, gender, and other social cleavages.

 

Providing important new perspectives from the Global South, this book will be of interest to policymakers, academics, and students with an interest in violence and exclusion in the cities of developing countries. 


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The State of Peacebuilding in Africa

: Lessons Learned for Policymakers and Practitioners

 

Publisher: Springer

Year of publication: 2021

This open access book on the state of peacebuilding in Africa brings together the work of distinguished scholars, practitioners, and decision makers to reflect on key experiences and lessons learned in peacebuilding in Africa over the past half century.

The core themes addressed by the contributors include conflict prevention, mediation, and management; post-conflict reconstruction, justice and Disarmament Demobilization and Reintegration; the role of women, religion, humanitarianism, grassroots organizations, and early warning systems; and the impact of global, regional, and continental bodies. The book's thematic chapters are complemented by six country/region case studies: The Democratic Republic of Congo, Rwanda, Sierra Leone, Sudan/South Sudan, Mozambique and the Sahel/Mali. Each chapter concludes with a set of key lessons learned that could be used to inform the building of a more sustainable peace in Africa. 

The State of Peacebuilding in Africa was born out of the activities of the Southern Voices Network for Peacebuilding (SVNP), a Carnegie-funded, continent-wide network of African organizations that works with the Wilson Center to bring African knowledge and perspectives to U.S., African, and international policy on peacebuilding in Africa. The research for this book was made possible by a grant from Carnegie Corporation of New York.

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Terror Crime Prevention with Communities   

(author: Basia Spalek)

 

Publisher: Bloomsbury Academic 

Year of publication: 2013 

 

FREE DOWNLOAD: http://dx.doi.org/10.5040/9781472545039

Historically, countering terrorism has been something that security services have carried out on behalf of the state, without community consultation or consent. Since 9/11 however, this tradition has increasingly been questioned and the idea that communities have the potential to defeat al Qaeda - related or influenced terrorism has gained ascendency across policy, security and other contexts.


Based on research in the US, Britain and Northern Ireland, this book examines the involvement of Muslim and other communities in terror crime prevention work, exploring the complexities of community involvement as well as its advantages and examining how trusting relationships between police, security services and communities can be built.


Contents page:


 Acknowledgements

Preface


Ch. 1. Terror Crime Prevention with Communities : Trust, Community and Counter-Terrorism; an Introduction

Ch. 2. Credibility in Counter-Terrorism Practice

Ch. 3. Community Policing within a Counter-Terrorism Context : Understanding Police and Community Engagement

Ch. 4. Citizenship, Responsibilisation and Trust in Counter-Terrorism

Ch. 5. Police and Community Engagement and Partnerships for Counter-Terrorism

Ch. 6. Understanding Emotions in Counter-Terrorism Practice

Ch. 7. Governing Terror; ‘Top-down’ and ‘Bottom-up’ Approaches to Counter-Terrorism

Ch. 8. Conclusion : Engaging Communities for Twenty-First-Century Security


Index

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