scholarly journals Multiple inter-university online lesson programs in conflict areas-evaluation for improvement

Impact ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 2021 (3) ◽  
pp. 12-14
Author(s):  
Mitsuru Ikeda ◽  
Aya Fukuda
Keyword(s):  
Evaluation Research ◽  
Theoretical Models ◽  
Human Mind ◽  
Educational Programme ◽  
Associate Professor ◽  
Programme Evaluation ◽  
Armed Conflicts ◽  
Conflict Prevention ◽  
Mere Exposure Effect ◽  
Prevention Education

Peacebuilding and conflict prevention studies play a crucial role in promoting peace on earth. Such studies must be evaluated in order to ensure they are as effective as possible. At the Tokyo University of Foreign Studies (TUFS), Japan, Associate Professor Mitsuru Ikeda, Professor Toru Miyagi and Dr Aya Fukuda are part of a team that have developed an educational programme on peacebuilding and conflict prevention that connects several universities in Asia via an online conference system. The Global Campus Program (GCP) is novel for many reasons, particularly because of its psychological angle. Ikeda is a psychologist who is a proponent of the importance of the involvement of psychology in conflict prevention education. This is because armed conflicts are caused by the human mind and psychology is also closely linked to programme evaluation research. Through the GCP, Ikeda, Miyagi and Fukuda are performing a programme evaluation of peacebuilding and conflict prevention education. This involves inviting students from different parts of the world, including conflict-affected countries and enhancing students' learning through interaction and dialogue. The researchers use two major psychological theoretical models in their work: mere exposure effect and the idea that co-action based on common goals deepens mutual understanding.

Early Warning and Conflict Prevention Responsibilities of the International Community

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alice Ackermann
Keyword(s):  
Early Warning ◽  
Quantitative Methods ◽  
Warning System ◽  
Early Warning Systems ◽  
Armed Conflicts ◽  
Conflict Prevention ◽  
Missed Opportunities ◽  
Response Options ◽  
Qualitative Approaches ◽  
Humanitarian Crises

As human tragedies—such as armed conflicts, humanitarian crises, crimes against humanity, and genocide—continue to occur, early warning and conflict prevention are essential comprehensive subjects in any crisis and conflict prevention architecture. Early warning refers to the collection and analysis of information about potential crisis and conflict situations for the purpose of preventing the onset and escalation of such situations, preferably through appropriate preventive response options. Indeed, qualitative approaches to early warning and prevention have produced an impressive list of preventive mechanisms and tools, ranging from non-military—such as political and economic inducements, fact-finding, dialogue, and negotiations—to military ones, such as preventive missions. Meanwhile, a more theoretical and empirically guided approach has made extensive use of quantitative methods to create data-based predictive models for assessing risks of complex humanitarian crises, political instability and state failure, intrastate and ethnopolitical conflicts, and genocide and politicide, as well as other massive human rights violations. There are three types of analysis of risk assessment: the first makes use of structural indicators, the second of sequential models, and the third of inductive methods. However, there are challenges in early warning and conflict prevention posed by the warning-response gap and the issue of “missed opportunities” to prevent. At present, there is no U.N.-wide coordinated early warning system. Nevertheless, several efforts in establishing operational early warning systems on the level of regional and subregional organizations can be identified.

Digital Media’s Impact on Civic Engagement

2021 ◽  
pp. 193-214
Author(s):  
Michael A. Xenos
Keyword(s):  
Young People ◽  
Civic Engagement ◽  
Research Program ◽  
Evaluation Research ◽  
Theoretical Models ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Youth Engagement ◽  
Specific Domain ◽  
Early 21St Century ◽  
Challenges And Opportunities

Like those before them, contemporary youth are in the process of forming habits and orientations toward civic life that can establish patterns of political engagement that follow them through their lifetimes. Unlike earlier generations, however, early 21st-century “born digital” youth face a dramatically different communications environment than that experienced by their parents and grandparents. This chapter charts a path toward effective evaluation research for broadband within the specific domain of political and civic engagement among young people. After introducing core dimensions and constructs relevant to such a research program, it reviews key theoretical models as well as particularly fruitful strands of scholarship that can make important contributions to a program of broadband evaluation research focused on youth engagement. The chapter concludes with a discussion of challenges and opportunities for future research, both in terms of key substantive questions and particularly useful methodological approaches.

Explaining How Human Rights Protections Change After Internal Armed Conflicts

2020 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
pp. 248-264
Author(s):  
Johannes Karreth ◽  
Patricia Lynne Sullivan ◽  
Ghazal Dezfuli
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Theoretical Models ◽  
Armed Conflicts ◽  
Human Rights Violations ◽  
Post Conflict ◽  
Internal Armed Conflicts

Abstract Societies emerging from internal armed conflicts display surprising variation in the degree to which governments protect human rights. Employing new data on civilian victimization by both government and rebel forces, we find that the human rights climate of a post-conflict country is not simply a perpetuation of pre-conflict conditions, or the result of repressive regimes remaining in power. Instead, the treatment of civilians during conflict has an independent impact on post-conflict human rights protections (HRP). Analyses of ninety-six post-conflict periods (1960–2015) show that when governments systematically and extensively target civilians during counterinsurgency campaigns, post-conflict human rights conditions decline substantially compared to pre-conflict levels, even accounting for other predictors of human rights violations, including pre-conflict human rights conditions. This holds regardless of who is in power after conflicts end. These findings have implications for theoretical models of repression and conflict cycles, and for practitioners and policymakers aiming to restore and protect human rights after war.

The need for a manifesto for educational programme evaluation

2007 ◽  
Vol 37 (3) ◽  
pp. 321-336 ◽  
Author(s):  
John Elliott ◽  
Saville Kushner
Keyword(s):  
Educational Programme ◽  
Programme Evaluation

scholarly journals Re-describing transnational conflict in Africa

2019 ◽  
Vol 57 (3) ◽  
pp. 377-391 ◽  
Author(s):  
Noel Twagiramungu ◽  
Allard Duursma ◽  
Mulugeta Gebrehiwot Berhe ◽  
Alex de Waal
Keyword(s):  
Civil Wars ◽  
Armed Conflict ◽  
Research Agenda ◽  
Interstate Conflict ◽  
Armed Conflicts ◽  
Conflict Prevention ◽  
Cross Border ◽  
Conflict In Africa ◽  
Armed Intervention ◽  
Internal Armed Conflicts

ABSTRACTThis paper discusses the principal findings of a new integrated dataset of transnational armed conflict in Africa. Existing Africa conflict datasets have systematically under-represented the extent of cross-border state support to belligerent parties in internal armed conflicts as well as the number of incidents of covert cross-border armed intervention and incidents of using armed force to threaten a neighbouring state. Based on the method of ‘redescribing’ datapoints in existing datasets, notably the Uppsala Conflict Data Project, the Transnational Conflict in Africa (TCA) data include numerous missing incidents of transnational armed conflict and reclassify many more. The data indicate that (i) trans-nationality is a major feature of armed conflict in Africa, (ii) most so-called ‘civil wars’ are internationalised and (iii) the dominant definitions of ‘interstate conflict’ and ‘civil war’ are too narrow to capture the particularities of Africa's wars. While conventional interstate war remains rare, interstate rivalry using military means is common. The dataset opens up a research agenda for studying the drivers, patterns and instruments of African interstate rivalries. These findings have important implications for conflict prevention, management and resolution policies.

Beyond Numbers: A Broader Perspective on Risk Perception and Risk Communication

1994 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paul Slovic
Keyword(s):  
Risk Assessment ◽  
Environmental Protection Agency ◽  
Risk Perceptions ◽  
Theoretical Models ◽  
Human Mind ◽  
National Academy Of Sciences ◽  
The Public ◽  
The People ◽  
The Government ◽  
Academy Of Sciences

In a bold and insightful speech before the National Academy of Sciences at the beginning of his second term as the administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), William Ruckelshaus called for a governmentwide process for managing risks that involved the public. Arguing that the government must accommodate the will of the people, he quoted Thomas Jefferson's famous dictum to the effect that "if we think [the people] not enlightened enough to exercise their control with a wholesome discretion, the remedy is not to take it from them, but to inform their discretion" (Ruckelshaus 1983, p. 1028). Midway into his tenure as the EPA administrator, Ruckelshaus's experiences in attempting to implement Jefferson's philosophy led him to a more sober evaluation: "Easy for him to say. As we have seen, informing discretion about risk has itself a high risk of failure" (Ruckelshaus, 1984, p. 160). This chapter attempts to illustrate why the goal of informing the public about risk issues—which in principle seems easy to attain—is surprisingly difficult to accomplish. To be effective, risk communicators must recognize and overcome a number of obstacles that have their roots in the limitations of scientific risk assessment and the idiosyncrasies of the human mind. Doing an adequate job of communicating means finding comprehensible ways of presenting complex technical material that is clouded by uncertainty and inherently difficult to understand. Greater awareness of the nature of risk perceptions, the fundamental values and concerns that underlie those perceptions, and the difficulties of communicating about risk should enhance the chances of designing an environment in which all parties can cooperate in solving the common problems of risk management. Risk assessment is a complex discipline, not fully understood by its practitioners, much less by the lay public. At the technical level, there is still much debate over terminology and techniques, and technical limitations and disagreements among experts inevitably affect communication in the adversarial climate that surrounds many risk issues. Those conveying these issues to the public must be aware of the strengths and limits of the methods they use to generate this information. In particular, such risk communicators need to understand that risk assessments are constructed from theoretical models that are based on assumptions and subjective judgments.

Partner Abuse Prevention Education: An Integrative Approach to Program Development and Evaluation

Partner Abuse ◽  
2013 ◽  
Vol 4 (2) ◽  
pp. 255-273 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kylie A. Murphy
Keyword(s):  
Risk Factors ◽  
Program Development ◽  
Partner Abuse ◽  
Evaluation Research ◽  
Traditional Risk Factor ◽  
Integrative Approach ◽  
Abuse Prevention ◽  
Relationship Education ◽  
Education Programs ◽  
Prevention Education

Evidence linking emotional, attitudinal, and behavioral factors to partner abuse suggests that relationship education programs targeting these risk factors in youth might minimize harmful outcomes. In this article, it is argued that such programs are important but need to be evaluated for their effect on both the hypothesized risk factors and the critical interactional tendencies of individuals that can feed high-risk relationship dynamics. The dyadic slippery-slope model is proposed as a theoretical framework to guide educators and researchers in developing and evaluating partner abuse prevention education (PAPE) programs for specific groups of young people. The approach described takes a broader view of the aims of PAPE than approaches aimed at reducing particular physical acts. This approach, if adopted, has the potential to produce more constructive findings for advancing PAPE than traditional risk factor and evaluation research is capable of.

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