Caguan's and Havana's Peace Talks

Different to previous attempts, negotiations currently under way in Havana between the Government and FARC, since 2012, were preceded by a decline in both parties' contentious tactics. This chapter seeks to analyze the relation between the conflict cycle and the start of a peace process, through the Colombian experience, and Dean Pruitt and Sun Lee Kim's perceived stalemate concept. It is argued that Havana dialogues are likely to be successful on the grounds that it seems that both parties share a mutual perception of stalemate. Finally, it is suggested that the context in which dialogues arose may also have an impact in an eventual DDR process.

Criminal Interests within Political Insurgencies

Insurgencies are progressive and systematic insurrections with political aims. They are usually aimed at the creation of a new state, the liberation of a nation from foreign intervention, the transformation of the political system, or the imposition of a certain way of life. Whereas this political character sets them apart from common criminals, whose main objective is personal profit; in practice, most insurgencies are a combination of criminal and political interests. Solutions that address political grievances or criminal motivations separately, leaving one of them aside, are highly likely to fail, perpetuating violence. Development-centred counterinsurgency seems to be an ideal framework to confront this type of insurgencies. The case of Colombia is examined to observe achievements, failures and challenges.

From the Studies of Violences to Memories

This paper presents some of the effects of Colombia´s armed conflict in people who were displaced from their territories, and the institutional mechanisms proposed to address this problem. The author studies the cases of El Salado (Bolívar Department) and Nueva Venecia (Department of Magdalena) in a research conducted in these populations after the massacres of the years 2000 by paramilitary groups, and articulates the notions of violence and memories in order to question the current interventions on them in terms of transitional justice.

The Trade Union Movement of Iraq after 2003

This chapter argues that transition after critical junctures is heavily linked to the narratives which prevail the discourse of the respective country. Different political actors try to legitimize retroactively current claims to power. In such “zero hour” the extent of ability to organize, mobilize, set incentives, and protect followers is of the essence. This chapter uses the example of Iraq after 2003 where the split between Kurds, Shi'i Muslims, and Sunni Muslims, became the driving force behind political action and loyalty. An established counter-narrative deconstructs the claim that an eternal Shi'i – Sunni split determined all outcomes of Iraqi history, stating that religion was historically a rather subordinate identity. Then crucial contributions to the deepening of the sectarian cleavage by religious networks, the Iraqi constitution, and the policies of the Coalition Provisional Authority, (CPA) are shown and exemplified using the Iraqi trade union movement after 2003.

The Complexity of Non-Violence Action

This chapter claims that non-violent action corresponds to a political dimension in which society has become a magnificent complex organism. Moreover, non-violent action corresponds to the phase of highest complexity in a social organization. Examples are provided ranging from ecology to population biology, from ethology to swarm intelligence. At the end, several conclusions are drawn that shed new lights on the social, cultural, and political understanding of our world and to the foreseeable future. The study of non-violent action provides sufficient arguments that allow the distinction between “politics” and “policy”, i.e. “policies”, so much so that politics is highlighted as a highest and most significant dimension of the human experience, and policies are then considered as secondary or lower. The human rights provide the ground for the understanding and comprehension of non-violent actions. In the core of the text a topology of non-violent actions is provided along with its explanation.

Enforcing Central Authority

This article brings together historical and political research in order to give an account of Iraq's recurring authoritarianism. Focusing on the agency of three distinct state elites, it will compare how these networks used cooptation and coercion to dominate their respective political arena. As a part of this, structural aspects like the allurement of the centralized state economic and the aspect of Western assistance in the (re)building of a central authority will join the analysis. However, the article will be primarily concerned with Iraqi politicians, their authorship of authoritarianism, their efforts to build a “modern” nation and their attempts to overrule dissent. The main interest of this inquiry is for the present and recent past: As Iraq has shaken off the oppression of 35 years of dictatorship, the new democratic system has shown to be extremely susceptible for a renewal of the authoritarian tradition.

Gacaca Courts in Rwanda

This article deals with the past activities of the gacaca courts in Rwanda. The first section of the article will review the reasons for reactivating the gacaca courts and consider its theoretical suitability as a means of resolving conflicts. The second part offers a survey of the actual implementation and results of the gacaca trials. In the final section, the concrete effects of these results on the inner-Rwandan processes of pacification and reconciliation are assessed.

Military vs. Citizens in the Arab Zone

All the political systems of the Arab-Islamic zone are authoritarian, with the exception of Tunisia where fair elections recently took place and political alternation was accepted. Lebanon is another exception in the sense that state prerogatives – shared between antagonist religious communities – do not enjoy sufficient power to exert coercive policies. But apart from these two cases, this global authoritarian environment is of no avail vis-à-vis any initiative that would aim at forging some idea of citizenship – with its obligations and privileges – amongst the population, and particularly among the military. The present analysis will concentrate on the links existing between authoritarianism and citizenship, with an emphasis on Arab armed forces considered within their sociological contexts, since these entities are as much the emanation of the people(s) as the physical manifestation of the regimes' strength. The issue will be addressed through two perspectives: politics and philosophy.

Reparations for Children and Youth

Violence against children and youth in war causes severe damage to individuals, communities and societies. This chapter aims to demonstrate the importance of reparations for children and youth as a peacebuilding mechanism in the context of transitional justice. On one hand, the chapter seeks to address reparations for children and youth understood as a political project, with a transformative and participatory potential for rebuilding societies and healing the wounds of those who have been affected by armed conflict. On the other hand, the paper attempts to overcome the conception of children and youth as passive victims, providing them with agency to become engaged political members in building peaceful societies. Thus, reparations should position them as subjects of rights, giving them voice as contributors in peacebuilding processes.

Turbulent Peace, Power, and Ethics

A situation of turbulent peace is defined as an ambiguous transition from direct violence (which ends by means a fragile and incomplete peace agreement among enemies) to an indirect and subtle violence euphemistically denominated as progress. Indeed, a big rate of economic growth implies growing prosperity, incremented consumption, and increasing investment in the present but, sadly, the consequence of this material progress will be the suffering of future generations because the exhaustion and deterioration of nature in a world where the entropy is worsened by the rapacity of actual generations. The depletion and contamination of natural resources is the inherent cost of material progress and development of “productive” forces. The ideological, coercive and economic power of some organized minorities, and the acquiescence of a big majority of human beings constitutes the root of this problem. The antidote against this power is the critical examination of values by active citizens and the guide of ethics. In the long run this problem can be solved promoting a nonviolent economy.