Religion, Conflict, and Peacebuilding

2015 ◽  
pp. 658-682 ◽  
Author(s):  
Atalia Omer
Keyword(s):  
Political Violence ◽  
Theory And Practice ◽  
Liberal Peace ◽  
Theories Of Change ◽  
Global And Local

This synthetic chapter describes the contributions to the Oxford Handbook on Religion, Conflict, and Peacebuilding, putting them in tension with one another through a consideration of larger orienting themes. One such theme is the tension between the liberal peace and justpeace paradigms. Another orienting thread in this synthesis is a more expansive interpretation of violence and the relevance of not only direct and acute violence but also structural and cultural modes of violence to the analysis of religion, conflict, and peacebuilding. A related dimension of an expansive interpretation of religion and violence invites a discussion of the tool of discursive critique and scrutiny of the conventional categories informing theorizing about religion and political violence. Finally, the chapter discusses some of the tension emerging in the field between theory and practice as well as between global and local meanings, agendas, and theories of change. The synthesis proceeds with a careful effort to locate the contributions within a broader landscape of debates about modernism, secularism, and the so-called resurgence of religion.

“We care about others”: discursive constructions of corruption vis-à-vis national/cultural identity in Indonesia’s business-government relations

2020 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Kanti Pertiwi
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Identity ◽  
Theory And Practice ◽  
Government Function ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Government Relations ◽  
Starting Point ◽  
Political Dimensions ◽  
Local Discourses ◽  
Global And Local ◽  
Discursive Constructions

Purpose This paper aims to problematize existing conceptualization of corruption by presenting alternative perspectives on corruption in Indonesia through the lens of national/cultural identity, amidst claims of the pervasiveness of corruption in the country. In so doing, the paper also sheds light on the micro-processes of interactions between global and local discourses in postcolonial settings. Design/methodology/approach The study applies discourse analysis, involving in-depth interviews with 40 informants from the business sector, government institutions and anti-corruption agencies. Findings The findings suggest that corruption helps government function, preserves livelihoods of the marginalized segments of societies and maintains social obligations/relations. These alternative meanings of corruption persist despite often seen as less legitimate due to effects of colonial powers. Research limitations/implications The snowballing method of recruiting informants is one of the limitations of this paper, which may decrease the potential diversity and lead to the silencing of different stories (Schwartz-Shea and Yanow, 2013). Researchers need to contextualize corruption and study its varied meanings to reveal its social, historical and political dimensions. Practical implications This paper strongly suggests that we need to move beyond rationalist accounts to capture the varied meanings of corruption which may be useful to explain the limited results of existing anti-corruption efforts. Social implications This study calls for a greater use of qualitative methods to study broad social change programs such as anti-corruption from the perspective of the insiders. Originality/value This paper contributes to the discussion of agency at the interplay between the dominant and alternative discourses in postcolonial settings. Moreover, the alternative meanings of corruption embedded in constructions of national identity and care ethics discussed in this paper offer as a starting point for decolonizing (Westwood, 2006) anti-corruption theory and practice.

International Territorial Administration

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ntina Tzouvala
Keyword(s):  
International Law ◽  
Ad Hoc ◽  
United Nations Security Council ◽  
Theory And Practice ◽  
Peace Building ◽  
Liberal Democracies ◽  
Diverse Range ◽  
Post Conflict ◽  
Liberal Peace ◽  
Breeding Grounds

Few legal developments have been so closely associated with the end of the Cold War and the perceived renewal of international law as the proliferation of schemes of international territorial administration (ITA) in the 1990s and early 2000s. Schemes of ITA were implemented in a diverse range of post-conflict settings, including Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo, and East Timor. Since then, ITA has been closely associated with the revival of the United Nations Security Council, its adoption of expansive interpretations of threats to “international peace and security” for the purposes for Chapter VII of the UN Charter, and the authorization of the use of force as well as of schemes of internationalized administration of varying degrees of comprehensiveness. Relatedly, the revival of interstate competition and the increasingly frequent usage of veto powers, coupled with growing unrest against the post-1990 global order, has raised doubts about the future of the practice. As both critics and supporters of ITA point out, modern ITA is not without precedent. Rather, notions of trusteeship, protectorate, mandated territories, and colonialism have been mobilized to situate the practice historically. Conceptually, international territorial administration is also associated with “robust peacekeeping,” which decisively moves away from ideas of minimal interference and neutrality, as well as with the concepts of “state-building,” “peace-building,” and “liberal peace-building.” Relatedly, the theory and practice of international territorial administration after the 1990s has been informed by ideas about “liberal peace,” the conviction that liberal democracies do not go to war with each other and, therefore, the spread of this particular form of government is a precondition for peace. Rising concerns about “weak” or “rogue” states as the breeding grounds for ethnic conflict, genocide, and terrorism also form the background of the practice. The ad hoc character of ITA has meant that the international organizations and states that are involved in each experiment vary greatly as does their mandate and lawful authority. As a result, multiple legal issues surrounding ITA remain contested and unresolved. For example, the applicability of the international law of occupation in the context of ITA is still fiercely debated, and so are issues about the human rights obligations owed by and the immunities enjoyed by international actors when they exercise de facto governmental functions.

scholarly journals Conceptualizing Development and Underdevelopment: From Classical Modernization to Contemporary Post-Development Discourse

2018 ◽  
Vol 4 (2) ◽  
pp. 107
Author(s):  
M. Saiful Islam
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Unintended Consequences ◽  
Theory And Practice ◽  
Development Discourse ◽  
The People ◽  
Local Contexts ◽  
Global And Local ◽  
Development Discourses ◽  
Dynamic Trajectory ◽  
The Way

Development, as an ideology and practice, has been a matter of much contestation since its inception at the enlightened period. The way development has been understood, explained and practiced has undergone various experiments and directions over the time. Yet, what development is theoretically and what it should be in practice remains as contested and vague. This article is an attempt to examine the trajectory of development from its origin in the classical modernization to the more contemporary neo-liberal and post-development discourses. It is argued that the way development has been propagated by the modernists as economic growth and positive change has been vehemently challenged by the post-modernists on the ground that development is not only hegemonic, authoritative and dependency creating mechanism that routinely fails and but also produces unintended consequences on the lives of the people. Thus, there has been a growing realization that development needs to be rethought in a way that would promote an alternative development or even an alternative to development. Such a shift in perspectives and continuing deliberations on development has given rise to the question whether development has reached an impasse which needs to be pushed forward. By reviewing the existing literature, this article aims at unfolding the dynamic trajectory of development both as theory and practice, and argues that development is and continues to be an interesting and stimulating topic in social sciences given its vibrant engagement with and implications on various stakeholders both at the global and local contexts.

The Oxford Handbook of Religion, Conflict, and Peacebuilding

2015 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Use Of Force ◽  
Conflict Transformation ◽  
Theory And Practice ◽  
American University ◽  
University Campuses ◽  
The Third ◽  
Liberal Peace ◽  
And Gender ◽  
Context Specific

This book provides a comprehensive, interdisciplinary account of the scholarship on religion, conflict, and peacebuilding. Extending that inquiry beyond its traditional parameters, the volume explores the legacies of colonialism, missionary activism, secularism, orientalism, and liberalism. While featuring case studies from diverse contexts and traditions, the volume is organized thematically, beginning with a mapping of scholarship on religion, violence, and peace. The second part scrutinizes challenges to secularist theorizing of questions of conflict transformation and broadens the discussion of violence to include an analysis of its cultural, religious, and structural forms. The third part engages contested issues such as religion’s relations to development, violent and nonviolent militancy, and the legitimate use of force; the protection of the freedom of religion in resolving conflicts; and gender as it relates to religious peacebuilding. The fourth part highlights the practice of peacebuilding through exploring constructive resources within various traditions, the transformative role of rituals, spiritual practices in the formation of peacebuilders, interfaith activism on American university campuses, the relation of religion to solidarity activism, and scriptural reasoning as a peacebuilding practice. It also offers extended reflections on the legacy of missionary peacebuilding activism and the neoliberal framing of peacebuilding schemes and agendas. The volume is innovative because the authors grapple with the tension between theory and practice, cultural theory’s critique of the historicity of the very categories informing the discussion, and the challenge that the justpeace frame makes to the liberal peace paradigm, offering elicitive, elastic, and context-specific insights for strategic peacebuilding processes.

Human Rights and Mental Health Among Latin American Women in Situations of State-Sponsored Violence

1993 ◽  
Vol 17 (4) ◽  
pp. 525-544 ◽  
Author(s):  
M. Brinton Lykes ◽  
Mary M. Brabeck ◽  
Theresa Ferns ◽  
Angela Radan
Keyword(s):  
Mental Health ◽  
Human Rights ◽  
Political Violence ◽  
Latin American ◽  
Task Force ◽  
American Psychological Association ◽  
Theory And Practice ◽  
Public And Private ◽  
American Women ◽  
Progressive Organizations

A Task Force of the American Psychological Association Division 35, Psychology of Women, has been collecting resources that address issues of human rights and mental health among Latin American women living in situations of war and/or state-sponsored violence. This work is being conducted primarily by women's groups, progressive organizations, and individual women in these contexts of institutionalized political violence. This paper describes our reflections on themes that emerged from our reading of this work. We discuss the false dichotomy between public and private violence, the silencing of women as an inevitable consequence of state-imposed violence, and the collective efforts of women to resist violence and heal its effects. These themes suggest that extreme violence against women can be most adequately understood and responded to within a psychosocial and cultural framework. We examined three issues that emerge from the material gathered by the Task Force that suggest how some Latin American psychologists and activists have begun to articulate such a framework: (a) exile within and outside of one's country of origin; (b) torture, the most extreme form of state-sponsored violence; and (c) nontraditional, culturally appropriate interventions that are alternatives to Anglo-Saxon theory and practice. The work of Latin American individuals is described here as a resource for all who are engaged in the struggle to achieve justice for women.

scholarly journals Preparative, Enactive, and Intertwined Theories of Change: Cultural Practitioners Influencing Conflict in Ecuador

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sarah Ullom-Minnich
Keyword(s):  
Theory And Practice ◽  
Cultural Work ◽  
Narrative Interviews ◽  
Work Of Art ◽  
Actual Performance ◽  
Cultural Workers ◽  
Research Article ◽  
Conflict Intervention ◽  
The Many ◽  
Theories Of Change

The use of arts-based work as a form of conflict intervention is still an emerging field, and scholarship often focuses more on the theory of this work than the application. This research article seeks to contribute to the bridge between theory and practice, by presenting the findings from a study of narrative interviews conducted in June and July of 2017 with cultural workers in Ecuador who were members of the Cultura Viva Comunitaria movement. The goal of the study was to explore practitioner’s theories of change of how arts-based cultural work influenced conflict. Through an analysis of the many theories identified, three notable categories emerged. Some practitioners described preparative impacts, impacts that came about because of the process of preparation of a work of art or cultural project. Others described enactive impacts, which were driven by the actual performance of the work. The final category was intertwined impacts, in which practitioners included both preparative and enactive elements to describe the impacts that were created. Different theories of change often corresponded to different contexts and purposes of practice.

scholarly journals Review of the basic mechanisms of energy efficiency management and emissions control from ships

2021 ◽  
pp. 121-129
Author(s):  
Svitlana Petrivna Onishchenko ◽  
Oleksiy Mykolayovych Melnyk ◽  
Andriy Oleksandrovych Voloshin ◽  
Yevgen Volodymyrovych Kalinichenko ◽  
Sergey Valentinovich Zayats
Keyword(s):  
Energy Efficiency ◽  
Energy Conservation ◽  
Energy Use ◽  
Environmental Safety ◽  
Current Theory ◽  
Theory And Practice ◽  
International Standards ◽  
Maritime Transport ◽  
Waste Products ◽  
Global And Local

Increasing relevance of the problem of energy conservation and use of alternativesources of energy in connection with global and local resource crises led to the formation of adeveloped system of international standards in the field of energy management, which is aimed atregulating and disclosing the content of the principles of energy efficient processes and development.Rational policy in enterprises of various industries and the implementation of energy-savingmeasures, particularly in the maritime transport. The dynamics of implementation of projects aimedat increasing the efficiency of energy use is growing steadily at different levels and in different sectorsof industry. It is widespread in the fields of design, modernization and reconstruction of energyefficient buildings and structures, construction of industrial infrastructure elements, technologicalproduction processes. Implementation of such projects is a priority line of activity for enterprises andcompanies of various types of economic activity. Accordingly, the leading sectors of industry develop strategies to improve environmental safety and energy efficiency - ship navigation is no exception.Indeed, the process of increasing energy efficiency is achieved by reducing fuel consumption, whichwithout exception leads to a reduction in the amount of waste products discharged into theatmosphere. Therefore, the problems of energy efficiency in order to increase requirements forenvironmental safety of transport and increasing responsibility of shipowners become the centralobject of research of current theory and practice of operation of maritime transport means. Anotherurgent issue is the improvement of universal principles of energy efficiency within the framework ofindividual ship-owning companies and the development of tools for economic analysis of energyefficiency of the own fleet, search for new ways to form professional competencies of shipcrewmembers in the field of energy conservation.

‘Propaganda by the Deed’ in Theory and Practice

2020 ◽  
Vol 1 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 86-98
Author(s):  
Phil Chilton
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Political Violence ◽  
Vantage Point ◽  
Theory And Practice ◽  
Early Twentieth Century ◽  
Late Nineteenth ◽  
The Creation ◽  
Material Conditions ◽  
Propaganda By The Deed

Abstract Many analysts of the ‘terrorism’ phenomena locate the desire to cause terror as a key definitional concept: terrorists seek to cause terror. Such a conception risks obscuring the motivations for the act of terrorism, it is committed purely to terrorise. The idea that this type of political violence is an act of ‘propaganda by the deed’, however, is one commonly applied by the perpetrators themselves. The anarchist ‘terrorists’ of the late nineteenth and early twentieth century and contemporary ‘jihadists’ both understood their acts, at least in part, as propaganda by the deed. Beyond just the creation of terror propaganda by the deed can be used as an alternative conceptual vantage point to examine and understand the motivations that lie behind acts of terrorism and the material conditions that give rise to these acts.

Sufism Between Asceticism and Jihad: A Conceptual and Historical Review

2021 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
pp. 36-57
Author(s):  
Junizar . Suratman ◽  
Husnul Fatarib ◽  
Desmadi Saharuddin
Keyword(s):  
Political Violence ◽  
Islamic Law ◽  
Descriptive Analysis ◽  
Historical Review ◽  
Theory And Practice ◽  
Safe Alternative ◽  
Islamic Movements ◽  
Resistance Movements ◽  
History Of ◽  
Islamic Civilization

In the picture of ordinary people, Sufism teaches Zuhud and distances itself from the world in theory and practice. But this is different from reality. Sufism orders in the archipelago also appeared in the vanguard to fight and repel the invaders. The history of Islamic civilization records a series of resistance movements led by Sheikh Sufism with his followers to fight against the Dutch colonialists. For this to become evident to us, we must examine some of their words and actions: Abu Hamid Al-Ghazali wrote his book (Reviving the Sciences of Religion) during the period of the Crusaders victory over the Levant, and the author remembered everything from the works of hearts and did not remember to write a chapter on jihad. We conducted literature studies and verified and interpreted the descriptions in the literature. With a descriptive analysis, the approach is obtained. The conceptual ambiguity that afflicted Sufism regarding the concepts of jihad and the application of Islamic law" played a major role in the emergence of some analyses that suggest Sufism playing a safe alternative to extremist Islamic movements. Therefore, in this article, we try to answer a complex question, which is the degree of The link between the Sufi orders and the concepts of jihad and the application of Islamic law, and is it possible for the Sufi orders to adopt a form of political violence to implement their goals?

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