Mediating among Mediators: Building a Consensus in Multilateral Interventions

2018 ◽  
Vol 23 (1) ◽  
pp. 125-154 ◽  
Author(s):  
Timea Spitka

AbstractThe conditions under which multilateral international intervention are effective in ending a violent conflict is a critical question for scholars and practitioners. Scholarly studies have demonstrated the importance of a united intervention but have been in disagreement over the effectiveness of neutral versus partisan intervention. This article examines the conditions under which mediators construct a consensus on the type of intervention process. What are the factors that enable a consensus on a neutral versus a partisan intervention? Distinguishing between four types of international intervention processes – united-neutral, united-partisan, divided-partisan, and divided neutral and partisan intervention – this article argues that it is a united intervention, whether united partisan or united-neutral, that contributes to creating leverage on conflicting parties to end a conflict. The article examines consensus building among mediators within two divergent case studies: Northern Ireland and Bosnia and Herzegovina.

2021 ◽  
Vol 9s3 ◽  
pp. 1-9
Author(s):  
Nina Parish ◽  
Daniele Rugo

This supplementary issue looks at how informal, often unrecognised, memory practices are used to deal with the legacy of violent conflict as a way to heal trauma, demand justice, and build sustainable peace. By drawing on case studies from Bosnia and Herzegovina, Colombia, India, Lebanon, Northern Ireland, Rwanda, Sri Lanka, Syria, and Vietnam, the articles examine informal practices of memorialisation that challenge amnesia and hegemonic discourses of conflict by creating spaces for dialogue and exchange.


This chapter seeks to address the question of how is sport governed in societies that are deeply divided along ethnic, religious or other lines? The chapter focuses on three case studies: Bosnia and Herzegovina, Cyprus and Northern Ireland. It argues that in each of these cases, the institutions that have been employed in order to manage relations between groups in the governance of sport are more integrative than those that have been employed at the broader political level, where accommodation or outright division are the norm. The chapter explores the nature of these institutions and examines the role of a range of actors involved in their establishment. In particular, the chapter highlights the rhetorical impact that claims about the unifying experience of sport have on relevant actors' perceptions of how it should be governed, but also questions whether the integrative approach taken in the three case studies is part of a deliberate conflict management strategy or whether it is instead simply a product of the more technocratic concerns of international and regional governing bodies.


2020 ◽  
pp. 1-13
Author(s):  
Stefano Baschiera

This article will offer an overview of the ever-changing relationship between the crime genre – understood as a global, transnational phenomenon – and European art cinema, with its national specificities. After a historical contextualization, this contribution focuses on the mode of production and circulation of contemporary European crime cinema by looking at two case studies of the contemporary national productions of Spain and Northern Ireland. The goal is to grasp the shifts occurring in this relationship, so understanding both the role played by the ‘auteur’ label in the distribution, commercialization, and appreciation of European crime cinema and how easily-marketable crime storylines promote the creation of new modes of authorship.


Author(s):  
James Waller

A Troubled Sleep: Risk and Resilience in Contemporary Northern Ireland revisits one of the world’s most deeply divided societies more than 20 years after a peace agreement brought an end to the Troubles. The book asks if the conflict, while perhaps managed and contained, has been transformed—structurally and relationally—into a win-win situation for both sides. It addresses this question by drawing on ethnographic fieldwork, comparative research, and more than 110 hours of face-to-face interviews with politicians, activists, community workers, former political prisoners, former (and sometimes current) paramilitary members, academics, journalists, mental health practitioners, tour guides, school teachers, museum curators, students, police and military personnel, legal experts, and religious leaders across Northern Ireland. The heart of the book analyzes Northern Ireland’s current vulnerabilities and points of resilience as an allegedly “post-conflict” society. The vulnerabilities are analyzed through a model of risk assessment that examines the longer term and slower moving structures, measures, society-wide conditions, and processes that leave societies vulnerable to violent conflict. Such risk factors include the interpretation of conflict history, how authority in a country is exercised, and the susceptibility to social disharmony, isolation, and fragmentation. Resilience is examined from a survey of the countering influences, both within and outside Northern Ireland, that are working diligently to confirm humanity by reducing or reversing these vulnerabilities. The book concludes by examining the accelerating factors in contemporary Northern Ireland that may lead to an escalation of crisis as well as the triggering factors that could spark the onset of violent conflict itself.


Author(s):  
Gu Jifa

Meta-synthesis knowledge system (MSKS) is based on the meta-synthesis system approach and knowledge science. This article introduces the basic theory of meta-synthesis knowledge system like DMTMC system, model integration, opinion synthesis, consensus building and expert mining. Similar MSKS systems are illustrated. Case studies and examples are also explored in this article.


Author(s):  
Colin Harvey

This chapter focuses on Northern Ireland, a jurisdiction within the UK acutely affected by the nature of the Brexit debate and the process. It is a contested region that is divided along ethno-national lines and still emerging from a violent conflict. Removing Northern Ireland from the EU against its wishes will have long-term consequences that remain difficult to predict. One result is a more intense discussion of the region’s place within the UK, with Irish reunification acknowledged to be a way to return to the EU. The chapter then analyses the Protocol on Ireland/Northern Ireland attached to the Withdrawal Agreement which regulates the single most controversial issue in the Brexit process: namely, the Irish border question. It looks at the difficulties connected to the fragile peace process in Northern Ireland and explains the creative solution that was ultimately agreed in the withdrawal treaty to prevent the return of a hard border in the island of Ireland through regulatory alignment, while also indicating the challenges that the Protocol creates.


Author(s):  
Berit Bliesemann de Guevara ◽  
Morten Bøås

This chapter covers experiences of doing fieldwork. It talks about a gender-balanced group of field researchers at different stages of their careers that work in different countries around the world. It also analyzes how the field researchers did their fieldwork in areas of international intervention into violent conflict and/or illiberal states. The chapter provides an overview of the frank and critical accounts of the field researchers who have taken the courage to publicly reflect upon some of their mistakes and to name the dilemmas of fieldwork in violent and closed contexts. It draws attention to the personal reflections of the field researchers' practices, performances, and positionalities in the field, including their contributions to address questions currently discussed in related literatures.


Author(s):  
Andrew C. Gilbert

This introductory chapter provides an overview of international intervention in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Years of international intervention had significantly shaped postwar politics in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Comprising an uneasy encounter between and among the political classes claiming to represent one of Bosnia's three main ethnic groups (Croats, Serbs, and Bosniaks) and a wide array of foreign agencies like the one headed by Austrian diplomat Wolfgang Petritsch, these interventions ranged from indirect relations of supervision to the direct participation of foreign agents in Bosnian government. This book studies international intervention and the problems of legitimacy that emerge in and through what can be called “intervention encounters.” It analyzes international intervention as a series of encounters to reveal the creative processes of cultural production and social transformation that happen in everyday interactions by members of unequally positioned groups.


Author(s):  
Will Mason ◽  
Kate Morris ◽  
Brid Featherstone ◽  
Lisa Bunting ◽  
Gavin Davidson ◽  
...  

Abstract Research exploring inequalities in UK child welfare interventions has produced counter-intuitive findings with respect to Northern Ireland (NI). Despite experiencing the highest levels of deprivation, NI also displays the lowest rates of children in care of all the UK nations. With reference to wider evidence in the field of child welfare inequalities, this article details the findings of two exploratory mixed methods case studies, located within NI Health and Social Care Trusts. Drawing on the narratives offered by child and family social workers, a series of possible explanations for NI’s significantly lower out of home care rates are considered. We suggest the operation of intersecting factors at multiple levels, including social work systems and practices, early help systems and structures, communities and families. These findings extend understandings of NI’s out of home care rates whilst raising broader questions for social work research and practice.


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