Kofi Annan’s Multilateral Strategy of Mediation and the Syrian Crisis: The Future of Peacemaking in a Multipolar World?

2015 ◽  
Vol 20 (3) ◽  
pp. 444-478 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tom H.J. Hill
Keyword(s):  
Civil War ◽  
Civil Wars ◽  
International System ◽  
Detailed Examination ◽  
Great Power ◽  
Syrian Crisis ◽  
International Mediation ◽  
The Future ◽  
Fault Lines ◽  
To Come

This article examines the multilateral mediation strategy attempted by Kofi Annan in Syria in 2012. In a world of fragmenting power, can international mediation in civil wars be effective at the new fault-lines of great power rivalries? If so, how? As territorial fault-lines between rival great power interests deepen with increasing multipolarity, this is set to become a growing minefield for civil war mediators. Addressing this question requires analysis of recent examples that are indicative of crises to come. Was the failure of the Annan mission in Syria inevitable because of the depth of international polarization? Or, did it fail for other reasons? This detailed examination reveals that the mission was fatally wounded most of all by a Western “illusion of unipolarity” over and above any inherent obstacles posed by geopolitical polarization. This suggests greater, not fewer, possibilities for peacemaking in the future in similar contexts – that is, if Western policy can be better calibrated for the emerging multipolar international system.

Moderate Radical

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rosamund Oates
Keyword(s):  
Civil War ◽  
Civil Wars ◽  
Cultural Practices ◽  
Great Power ◽  
The Rich ◽  
Stuart England ◽  
To Come ◽  
New Perspective ◽  
The Church ◽  
Insight Into

This book explores Puritanism in Elizabethan and Early Stuart religious politics. Tobie Matthew (c. 1544–1628) was a religious radical at the start of Elizabeth’s reign, yet ended up in a position of great power within the English Church during the tumultuous years leading up to the British Civil Wars. Moderate Radical work provides a new perspective on this period and an insight into the power of conforming Puritanism as a political and cultural force. Matthew’s vision of conformity and godly magistracy brought many Puritans into the Church, but also furnished them with a justification for rebellion when Puritanism was seriously threatened. Through new sources, including Matthew’s annotations of his extensive library and newly discovered sermons, this book explores the guiding principles of Puritanism and explains why the godly promoted the national Church, even when it seemed corrupt. As Archbishop of York, Matthew protected Puritans, but his protection meant there was a rich seam of dissent at the heart of the Church that emerged when the godly found themselves under attack in the 1620s and 1630s. This is a story about the evolution of conforming Puritanism and its significance for the politics of Tudor and Stuart England; it also examines the influence of Puritan cultural practices, in particular the rich culture derived from sermons. This study is also a biography of a leading figure in the Church who struggled to come to terms with his own son’s Catholicism and the disappointments of his family. It provides new insight into tensions of the pre-Civil War Church.

scholarly journals Coup-Proofing and Civil War

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jun Koga Sudduth
Keyword(s):  
Civil War ◽  
Civil Wars ◽  
Civil Conflict ◽  
The Other ◽  
Civil Military Relations ◽  
Rebel Groups ◽  
The Future ◽  
Face Threats ◽  
Military Relations ◽  
The Military

Political leaders face threats to their power from within and outside the regime. Leaders can be removed via a coup d’état undertaken by militaries that are part of the state apparatus. At the same time, leaders can lose power when they confront excluded opposition groups in civil wars. The difficulty for leaders, though, is that efforts to address one threat might leave them vulnerable to the other threat due to the role of the military as an institution of violence capable of exercising coercive power. On one hand, leaders need to protect their regimes from rebels by maintaining strong militaries. Yet, militaries that are strong enough to prevail against rebel forces are also strong enough to execute a coup successfully. On the other hand, leaders who cope with coup threats by weakening their militaries’ capabilities to organize a coup also diminish the very capabilities that they need to defeat their rebel challengers. This unfortunate trade-off between protection by the military and protection from the military has been the long-standing theme in studies of civil-military relations and coup-proofing. Though most research on this subject has focused primarily on rulers’ maneuvers to balance the threats posed by the military and the threats coming from foreign adversaries, more recent scholarship has begun to explore how leaders’ efforts to cope with coup threats will influence the regime’s abilities to address the domestic threats coming from rebel groups, and vice versa. This new wave of research focuses on two related vectors. First, scholars address whether leaders who pursue coup-proofing strategies that weaken their militaries’ capabilities also increase the regime’s vulnerability to rebel threats and the future probability of civil war. Second, scholars examine how the magnitude of threats posed by rebel groups will determine leaders’ strategies toward the militaries, and how these strategies affect both the militaries’ influence over government policy and the future probability of coup onsets. These lines of research contribute to the conflict literature by examining the causal mechanisms through which civil conflict influences coup propensity and vice versa. The literatures on civil war and coups have developed independently without much consideration of each other, and systematic analyses of the linkage between them have only just began.

Civil War and Terrorism: A Call for Further Theory Building

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Charity Butcher
Keyword(s):  
Civil War ◽  
Civil Wars ◽  
International System ◽  
The United States ◽  
Political Processes ◽  
Rebel Groups ◽  
The Media ◽  
September 11 Terrorist Attacks ◽  
Terrorist Acts ◽  
External Actors

Since the September 11 terrorist attacks on the United States, terrorism has gained increased prominence in both scholarship and the media. While international terrorist acts are quite visible and highly publicized, such attacks represent only one type of terrorism within the international system. In fact, a very large number of acts of terrorism take place within the context of civil wars. Given the great disparity in power in most civil wars, it is not surprising that terrorism might be seen as a tactic that is often used by insurgent groups, who may have few resources at their disposal to fight a much stronger opponent. There is a clear linkage between the concepts of terrorism and civil war, yet until recently scholars have largely approached civil war and terrorism separately. Recent literature has attempted to specifically map the intersection of terrorism and civil war, recognizing the extent to which the two overlap. As expected, the findings suggest that civil war and terrorism are highly linked. Other scholars have endeavoured to explain why rebel groups in some civil wars use terrorism, while others do not. Further research focuses on how governments respond to terrorism during civil war or on how the decisions of external actors to intervene in civil wars are affected by the use of terrorism by insurgent groups. These studies show that there is too little theorizing on the relationship between civil war and terrorism; while scholars are finally considering these concepts collectively, the full nature of their relationship remains unexplored. Additional research is needed to better understand the various ways that terrorism and civil war overlap, interact, and mutually affect other important international and domestic political processes.

The Aftermaths of Civil Conflicts

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jaclyn M. Johnson ◽  
Clayton L. Thyne
Keyword(s):  
Civil War ◽  
Civil Wars ◽  
International System ◽  
State Level ◽  
The State ◽  
Foreign Assistance ◽  
Sub Saharan Africa ◽  
International Terrorism ◽  
Positive Effects ◽  
The Impact

The devastating Syrian civil war that began after the Arab Spring in 2011 has reminded the international community of the many consequences of civil war. However, this conflict is simply one of many ongoing conflicts around the globe. Civil war has a number of effects on individual lives, the country experiencing the conflict, as well as the international system more broadly. The humanitarian costs of civil war are steep. Individuals are negatively impacted by civil war in a myriad of ways. Three main areas of research are of interest: mortality, physical and mental trauma, and education. Several factors increase the number of deaths in a civil war, including a lack of democracy, economic downturns, and foreign assistance to combatants. Even if civilians survive conflict, they are likely to endure trauma that affects both mental and physical health. Strong evidence indicates that civil war spreads infectious diseases and severely diminishes life expectancy. Mental health is also likely to suffer in the face of conflict, as individuals often must overcome debilitating trauma. Finally, children are particularly susceptible in civil war settings. Children are often unable to continue their education as a consequence of civil war because combatants often target schools strategically or the state is unable to fund education as a result of funneling resources to the conflict. Civil wars also pose a number of threats to the state itself. First, a state that has experienced a civil war is much more likely to have another civil war in its future. Conflict recurrence has been explained through the type of settlement that concludes the initial civil war, institutions that may prevent recurrence like proportional representation, and the role of third parties in providing peace-ensuring security guarantees. Beyond recurrence of war, scholars have looked at the impact that civil wars have on state-level institutions, including democratization. While most state-level effects of civil war seem to be deleterious, there may also be positive effects, specifically in terms of female representation. Civil war in sub-Saharan Africa has been shown to increase the number of female representatives, perhaps providing an avenue for gender equality. Civil wars have ripple effects that impact neighboring countries and the international system more broadly. Proximate states are often challenged with an influx of refugees that may burden social programs or facilitate the spread of diseases and illicit arms. However, positive consequences of hosting refugees may include trading opportunities or economic growth from remittances. Moving beyond proximate states, civil wars have consequences for the entire globe. For example, civil wars have been demonstrated to spur international terrorism. The civil war literature has explored the various effects of conflict at the individual, state, and interstate level.

Lebanon Confronts Partition Fears: Has Consociationalism Benefitted Minorities?

2018 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 5-29 ◽  
Author(s):  
Francisco Salvador Barroso Cortés ◽  
Joseph A. Kéchichian
Keyword(s):  
Civil War ◽  
Territorial Integrity ◽  
Deep Fault ◽  
Region Partition ◽  
External Pressures ◽  
The Future ◽  
Fault Lines

Lebanese consociationalism has been under stress due to serious internal and external pressures. Though Lebanese regional and global leaders continue to pay lip service to Lebanon’s unity and uphold putative commitments to its sovereignty and territorial integrity, partition to resolve internal crises remains on the table. After a long and still unsettled civil war, absolute internal discord among citizens and, increasingly, the uprisings throughout the region, partition was and is once again openly discussed by many even if most camouflage it under the decentralization, federalism, or con-federalism schemes. The article underlines the inherent vulnerabilities of the Lebanese state and analyzes its deep fault lines raising a serious question about the future integrity of Lebanon.

How Civil Wars End: The International System, Norms, and the Role of External Actors

2018 ◽  
Vol 42 (3) ◽  
pp. 127-171 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lise Morjé Howard ◽  
Alexandra Stark
Keyword(s):  
Civil War ◽  
Civil Wars ◽  
International System ◽  
Methodological Approach ◽  
War Termination ◽  
International Intervention ◽  
Negotiated Settlement ◽  
Time Periods ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
External Actors

Historically, civil wars ended in one-sided victory. With the end of the Cold War, however, the very nature of how civil wars end shifted: wars became two times more likely to terminate in negotiated settlement than in victory. Since the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, the proportion of victories has increased, especially for civil wars that include a terrorist group; wars are also ending less frequently. Why would civil war termination vary by time period? The literature on civil wars looks to three basic types of causes: domesticstructural factors, bargaining dynamics, and types of international intervention. Current explanations cannot account for why civil wars would end differently in different time periods because, as Kenneth Waltz might say, they are “reductionist” in nature. Material and ideational factors constitute the international political environment, which varies in different time periods. This environment drives outside actors' normative strategies of viewing victory, negotiation, or stabilization as the appropriate solution to civil war. These norms, in turn, directly affect how civil wars end. A novel, three-part methodological approach using quantitative analysis, case studies, and original content analysis demonstrates that civil wars tend to end the way external actors think they ought to end.

scholarly journals International System and Technologies of Rebellion: How the End of the Cold War Shaped Internal Conflict

2010 ◽  
Vol 104 (3) ◽  
pp. 415-429 ◽  
Author(s):  
STATHIS N. KALYVAS ◽  
LAIA BALCELLS
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
Civil War ◽  
Civil Wars ◽  
Structural Characteristics ◽  
International System ◽  
The Other ◽  
Internal Conflict ◽  
Other Hand ◽  
The One ◽  
The Cold War

Because they are chiefly domestic conflicts, civil wars have been studied primarily from a perspective stressing domestic factors. We ask, instead, whether (and how) the international system shapes civil wars; we find that it does shape the way in which they are fought—their “technology of rebellion.” After disaggregating civil wars into irregular wars (or insurgencies), conventional wars, and symmetric nonconventional wars, we report a striking decline of irregular wars following the end of the Cold War, a remarkable transformation of internal conflict. Our analysis brings the international system back into the study of internal conflict. It specifies the connection between system polarity and the Cold War on the one hand and domestic warfare on the other hand. It also demonstrates that irregular war is not the paradigmatic mode of civil war as widely believed, but rather is closely associated with the structural characteristics of the Cold War.

scholarly journals Proxy Wars: Implications of Great-Power Rivalry for the Onset and Duration of Civil War

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Indra de Soysa
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
Civil War ◽  
Civil Wars ◽  
Multilevel Models ◽  
Contentious Politics ◽  
Great Powers ◽  
Time Inconsistency ◽  
Great Power ◽  
Primary Focus ◽  
The Cold War

Theories of civil war focus largely on factors internal to countries, generally ignoring the systemic effects of superpower rivalry during the Cold War, or great power politics associated with regional rivalries and ambitions. The question of the importance of proxiness of civil wars potentially challenges notions of commitment and time-inconsistency problems associated with explanations of why rational agents fail to find less costly bargains compared with fighting costly wars. Great powers often influence the politics of lesser powers by supporting sides in contentious politics as a means to achieve foreign policy objectives relatively cheaply. Models of civil war that focus exclusively on in-country ills, thus, would have very limited predictive power. It is argued here that great powers influence the politics of other nations without bearing the costs of direct involvement by supplying the logistics that allow the feasibility of rebellions. Examining these issues is all the more critical today because the multipolar world emerging out of the Cold War era promises to generate proxy struggles in many strategic places. While the study of civil war moves in the direction of disaggregating in order to understand micro processes associated with rebellion, it might be prudent to examine the interplay of factors between the micro and macro processes in multilevel models because the feasibility of fighting over not fighting is likely to be decided at higher rather than lower levels of aggregation. How to cauterize great-power machinations in civil war must in turn become a primary focus of international institutions, such as the United Nations, for strengthening instruments that would curtail external influences that propagate civil wars.

Paradoxes in Turkey’s Syria policy: Analyzing the critical episode of agenda building

2016 ◽  
Vol 55 ◽  
pp. 107-132 ◽  
Author(s):  
Özlem Tür ◽  
Mehmet Akif Kumral
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Policy ◽  
Public Opinion ◽  
Civil War ◽  
Humanitarian Intervention ◽  
Third Party ◽  
Agenda Building ◽  
International Intervention ◽  
Syrian Crisis ◽  
Policy Elite ◽  
To Come

AbstractThis article explores the discursive reasons behind the paradoxes in Turkey’s foreign policy since the onset of the Syria crisis. By looking at representation of Turkey’s Syria policy in two prominent pro-government newspapers, Star and Yeni Şafak, the authors highlight the significance of the February 2012 episode, after which Ankara experienced deep discursive dilemmas for three reasons: the uncertain portrayal of the dyadic context, the ambiguous framing of third-party roles, and ambivalent agenda building. Despite the shadow of imminent civil war, Turkey’s foreign policy elite refrained from framing the real risks arising within Syria. Idealistic-normative calls appealed to massacre rhetoric in order to legitimize humanitarian intervention. However, the geopolitical framing of third-party roles did not assist in the building of diplomatic ground for international intervention. Quite the contrary, it led to the shaping of public opinion toward realistic-utilitarian interference. Swinging between intervention and interference, Ankara pushed itself toward a liminal position. Even though the Turkish government’s rhetorical ambivalence helped to sway anti-war domestic public opinion, it did not help to control the spiraling of Syria into civil war. That is to say, the ambivalent agenda building in the critical February 2012 episode perpetuated paradoxes in Turkey’s Syria policy and left lingering implications for the transformation of the Syrian crisis in the years to come.

scholarly journals Civil War from a Transnational Perspective

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kristian Skrede Gleditsch
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
Civil War ◽  
Civil Wars ◽  
Armed Conflict ◽  
International System ◽  
Civil Conflict ◽  
Armed Conflicts ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Dominant Form ◽  
Post Cold War

Civil war is the dominant form of armed conflict in the contemporary international system, and most severe lethal armed conflicts in the post-Cold War era have been civil/intrastate rather than interstate. Still, it would be misleading to see these conflicts as purely domestic, as many contemporary civil wars such as Syria display clear transnational characteristics, including inspirations from events in other countries, links to actors in other countries, as well as international interventions. Moreover, civil wars often have important implications for other states, including security concerns and economic impacts. There is a need to focus on the growth and core findings in the literature on transnational dimensions of civil war, in particular on how factors outside a particular state can influence the risk of conflict within states as well as some of the central consequences of domestic conflict for other states or relations between states. This line of research has helped expand our understanding of both civil conflict and interstate war, and that a comparative focus on varieties conflict and attention to the possible transnational dimensions of civil war deserve a prominent role in future research.

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