scholarly journals RE-CONCEPTUALISING LEADERSHIP FOR EFFECTIVE PEACEMAKING AND HUMAN SECURITY IN AFRICA

2020 ◽  
Vol 37 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
'Funmi Olonisakin

This article explores the meaning of peace and human security from theperspective of the individual — the presumed referent point of security— and examines responses to armed conflict, a leading source of insecurity for African peoples. It identifies inherent flaws in approaches to conflict in Africa and looks to a different field — that of leadership — for a more effective formula for peacemaking. In the absence of a framework that can effectively end the cycle of conflict relapse in Africa,the paper argues that an alternative framing of leadership is needed; and that alternative leadership approaches to dealing with conflict andinsecurity offer a chance for stable peace and human security. It suggests that an expanded perspective on leadership provides a basis for exploring interventions that can potentially alter peacemaking discourses as well as the terrain in which peacemaking takes place. The article therefore asks what a focus on the individual as the referent point of security means if and when viewed from the perspective of a collection of individuals. In this regard, it presents emerging perspectives from a study of young Africans on leadership programmes in a classroom setting and attempts to extrapolate them to wider societal settings. It then explores how a different perspective of leadership might serve as a facilitator of peace and human security in Africa, drawing examples from past and on-going situations of armed conflict in Africa. 

Author(s):  
Tilman Rodenhäuser

Analysing the development of the concept of non-state parties to an armed conflict from the writings of philosophers in the eighteenth century through international humanitarian law (IHL) treaty law to contemporary practice, three threads can be identified. First, as pointed out by Rousseau almost two and a half centuries ago, one basic principle underlying the laws of war is that war is not a relation between men but between entities. Accordingly, the lawful objective of parties cannot be to harm opponents as individuals but only to overcome the entity for which the individual fights. This necessitates that any party to an armed conflict is a collective, organized entity and not a loosely connected group of individuals. Second, de Vattel already stressed that civil war is fought between two parties who ‘acknowledge no common judge’ and have no ‘common superior’ on earth....


2021 ◽  
pp. 1-23
Author(s):  
Craig Albert ◽  
Amado Baez ◽  
Joshua Rutland

Abstract Research within security studies has struggled to determine whether infectious disease (ID) represents an existential threat to national and international security. With the emergence of SARS-CoV-2 (COVID-19), it is imperative to reexamine the relationship between ID and global security. This article addresses the specific threat to security from COVID-19, asking, “Is COVID-19 a threat to national and international security?” To investigate this question, this article uses two theoretical approaches: human security and biosecurity. It argues that COVID-19 is a threat to global security by the ontological crisis posed to individuals through human security theory and through high politics, as evidenced by biosecurity. By viewing security threats through the lens of the individual and the state, it becomes clear that ID should be considered an international security threat. This article examines the relevant literature and applies the theoretical framework to a case study analysis focused on the United States.


2018 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 104-127
Author(s):  
Nicoletta Varani ◽  
Enrico Bernardini

Abstract Planetary interdependence makes the task of states and international organizations to guarantee security inside and outside national borders ever more urgent. The tendency is to widen the space from national to international and to conceive of security as multidimensional for the satisfaction of human needs, assumed as priority needs with respect to those of the States. The old concept of national security must today confront the new concept of human security cultivated within the United Nations, which places the fundamental rights of the individual and of people at the centre of attention and lays the foundations for overcoming the traditional politics of power. The concept of human security emphasises the security of the individual and his protection from political violence, war and arbitrariness. It takes account of the strong correlation between peace policy, human rights policy, migration policy and humanitarian policy. The contribution provides, through a series of social indicators such as the Global Peace Index (GPI), Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI) and the World International Security and Policy Index (WISPI), a framework on risk, security, human rights violations in the African continent and examines some significant case studies related to sub-Saharan Africa.


Author(s):  
Олена Семеног

The article describes the essence and content of academic culture as a significant component of national innovation security. The semantic and terminological analysis of the key concepts of the research like «national security», «human security», «human security of humanity», «human capital» were carried out. The concept of «innovative security» is described as a stable, effective provision of country’s innovations in the economy, creation of conditions for modernization of industries, development of priority areas of fundamental and applied scientific research, technical and technological developments that ensure the competitiveness of the country.It was proved that main features of academic culture are the culture of study at the university, ethical values, traditions, norms, rules for conducting scientific research; scientific linguistic culture, professional subculture of the scientific community; social, moral responsibility for the process and results of the research which is formed in the cultural and educational space of higher education institution. The cultural and educational space of the university is described as a component of the development of human capital and one of the factors of national innovation safety. It is noted that universities must clearly show the values of educational services, be centers of academic culture, act on the principles of academic freedom, public responsibility, respect for human dignity and support adherence to academic integrity in research activities. The formation of the researcher’s academic culture in the conditions of the university’s cultural and educational space is defined as a complex, multidimensional, phased process of qualitative changes in the psychological sphere of the individual, taking into account the main provisions of the theory of activity, intercultural communication; the ideas of a humanistic, acmeological paradigm; concept of continuous pedagogical education.


Author(s):  
Olha Hurenko ◽  
Nataliia Matseiko

The concept of «gender-based violence» essence, which recognized as an extreme manifestation of the individual rights and freedoms violation and as reproduction mechanism of society gender system, which based on uneven powerful relationships between women and men in the society and characterized by the egalitarian attitudes absence has been revealed in the article. Manifestation features of the phenomena and their varieties have been outlined. The fundamental difference between the concepts «gender-based violence», «domestic violence» has been defined. The Ukraine state social politics of gender-based violence prevention and opposition based on international and national legal framework has been analyzed. The current information about trends of this negative phenomenon spread within the country, including considering the consequences of the armed conflict in Eastern Ukraine has been listed.  Problems and prospects of the struggle with gender-based violence in Ukraine in the context of social work have been defined. And priority among which are improvement of reaction measures at the stages of violence facts detection and further support to the victim or the offender; setting-up systematic correctional work with perpetrators of violence or with perpetrators belonging to a risk group for its commission, the interdepartmental interaction of subjects of prevention and opposition this phenomenon; activating the system of preventive influences to the younger generation's consciousness and society in general to the direction of tolerance, mutual respect, opposit to gender role attitudes and stereotypes.


2013 ◽  
Vol 14 (2) ◽  
pp. 59-82
Author(s):  
Stephen Robert Nagy

This paper argues that human security (HS) is a suitable framework for the protection of migrants in Northeast Asia. Drawing on policy papers and interviews with Ministry of Foreign Affairs officials and scholars in Japan, this paper contends that the Japanese focus on “freedom from want” vis-à-vis HS resonates with the views on HS of neighbours in the region, as it focuses on the collective rather than the individual, is non-interventionist, apolitical and non-ideological. By focusing on existing capabilities in the region, this paper advocates that, through harmonization of migrant policies bilaterally or multilaterally, employing mutually agreed upon, pre-existing understandings of labour rights, and finding a role for local governments and NGOs, human security-based migrant policies can help protect migrants in the region.


Author(s):  
Andrea Del Pilar Rodríguez-Sánchez ◽  
Alberto Cabedo-Mas ◽  
María Elisa Pinto García ◽  
Gloria Patricia Zapata Restrepo

This chapter analyzes the theoretical concept of social fabric, as well as the damage which armed conflict has caused it and how art can contribute to rebuilding it. Affective and symbolic characteristics of art, engaging the body, and the act of collective interpretation-creation may provide the conditions required for the necessary intangible and tangible factors to rebuild a social fabric damaged by war. Artistic spaces, as shown by a case in Colombia, can be an important place to generate, especially, intangible factors which keep the flow of social fabric active, such as values and beliefs, sense of community, confidence, and emotional stability of the individual and the group.


Author(s):  
Ipsen Knut

This chapter examines the regulation of combatant status in treaty law and the many challenges for combatant status in recent armed conflicts. The primary status under international law of persons in an international armed conflict will be one of two categories of persons: ‘combatants’ and ‘civilians’. Combatants may fight within the limits imposed by international law applicable in international armed conflict, that is, they may participate directly in hostilities, which members of medical or religious personnel and ‘non-combatants’ may not do because they are excluded—by international law and by a legal act of their party to the conflict—from the authorization to take a direct part in hostilities. The chapter then discusses ‘unlawful combatants’, or what may be considered the better term: ‘unprivileged belligerents’. The term ‘unlawful enemy combatant’ was particularly used after 11 September 2001, to introduce a third category of persons which under existing law may be either combatants or civilians, but are denied such status as not fulfilling essential conditions. To use this third category in order to reduce the individual protection below the minimum standard of human rights is under no circumstances legally acceptable.


2019 ◽  
Vol 22 (4) ◽  
pp. 802-829
Author(s):  
Holly L Guthrey

Abstract The maintenance and/or achievement of security is of paramount importance within settings recovering from armed conflict; however existing studies in the field of peacebuilding do not sufficiently explore how various processes undertaken within peacebuilding programming result in different types of security outcomes at the individual and community level. In this article, I develop a novel conceptual framework for analyzing “microlevel” security risks and benefits of peacebuilding processes, through an adapted version of Johan Galtung's work on direct and structural violence. For the purposes of this article, the framework is applied in the context of “local” transitional justice (TJ) processes used in the aftermath of armed conflict, for which advocacy and implementation has increased in the recent past. Relying on a social psychological definition of security, I disaggregate components of direct and structural violence and use illustrative examples from existing empirical studies about the effects of local TJ processes in various settings to demonstrate ways in which these types of violence may be perpetuated, or initiated in new forms through these processes, thus posing security risks. The framework is further developed through the elucidation of factors that may help to repair the consequences of direct and structural violence and/or hinder the likelihood of their repetition, thematically conceptualized as physical and psychological welfare and social justice (respective to direct and structural violence) that I suggest link to security benefits. The framework is intended to provide new perspectives on understanding how peacebuilding processes may both promote and prevent security from being realized at the local level following armed conflict.


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