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Books > Reference & Interdisciplinary > Interdisciplinary studies > Peace studies > General
Peacemaking and Peacebuilding in South Africa examines the creation and implementation of South Africa's National Peace Accord and this key transitional phase in the country's history, and its implications for peace mediation and conflict resolution.
It is now 30 years since the National Peace Accord (NPA) was signed in South Africa, bringing to an end the violent struggle of the Apartheid era and signalling the transition to democracy. Signed by the ANC Alliance, the Government, the Inkatha Freedom Party and a wide range of other political and labour organizations on 14 September 1991, the parties agreed in the NPA on the common goal of a united, non-racial democratic South Africa, and provided practical means for moving towards this end: codes of conduct for political organizations and for the police, the creation of national, regional and local peace structures for conflict resolution, the investigation and prevention of violence, peace monitoring, socio-economic reconstruction and peacebuilding.
This book, written by one of those involved in the process that evolved, provides for the first time an assessment and in-depth account of this key phase of South Africa's history. The National Peace Campaign set up under the NPA mobilized the 'silent majority' and gave peace an unprecedented grassroots identity and legitimacy. The author describes the formulation of the NPA by political representatives, with Church and business facilitators, which ended the political impasse, constituted South Africa's first experience of multi-party negotiations, and made it possible for the constitutional talks (Codesa) to start.
She examines the work of the Goldstone Commission, which prefigured the TRC, as well as the role of international observers from the UN, EU, Commonwealth and OAU. Exploring the work of the peace structures set up to implement the Accord - the National Peace Committee and Secretariat, the 11 Regional Peace Committees and 263 Local Peace Committees, and over 18,000 peace monitors - Carmichael provides a
uniquely detailed assessment of the NPA, the on-the-ground peacebuilding work and the essential involvement of the people at its heart.
Filling a significant gap in modern history, this book will be essential reading for scholars, students and others interested in South Africa's post-Apartheid history, as well as government agencies and NGOs involved in peacemaking globally.
In South Africa, two unmistakable features describe post-Apartheid
politics. The first is the formal framework of liberal democracy,
including regular elections, multiple political parties and a range
of progressive social rights. The second is the politics of the
‘extraordinary’, which includes a political discourse that relies
on threats and the use of violence, the crude re-racialization of
numerous conflicts, and protests over various popular grievances.
In this highly original work, Thiven Reddy shows how conventional
approaches to understanding democratization have failed to capture
the complexities of South Africa’s post-Apartheid transition.
Rather, as a product of imperial expansion, the South African
state, capitalism and citizen identities have been uniquely shaped
by a particular mode of domination, namely settler colonialism.
South Africa, Settler Colonialism and the Failures of Liberal
Democracy is an important work that sheds light on the nature of
modernity, democracy and the complex politics of contemporary South
Africa.
The international community has donated nearly one trillion dollars
during the last four decades to reconstruct post-conflict countries
and prevent the outbreak of more civil war. Yet reconstruction has
eluded many of these countries, and 1.9 million people have been
killed in reignited conflict. Where did the money go? This book
documents how some leaders do bring about remarkable reconstruction
of their countries using foreign aid, but many other post-conflict
leaders fail to do so. Offering a global argument that is the first
of its kind, Desha Girod explains that post-conflict leaders are
more likely to invest aid in reconstruction when they are desperate
for income and thus depend on aid that comes with reconstruction
strings attached. Leaders are desperate for income when they lack
access to rents from natural resources or to aid from donors with
strategic interests in the country. Using data on civil wars that
ended between 1970 and 2009 and evidence both from countries that
succeeded and from countries that failed at post-conflict
reconstruction, Girod carefully examines the argument from
different perspectives and finds support for it. The findings are
important for theory and policy because they explain why only some
leaders have the political will to meet donor goals in the wake of
civil war. The findings also shed light on state-building processes
and on the political economy of post-conflict countries.
Paradoxically, donors are most likely to achieve reconstruction
goals in countries where they have the least at stake.
From the 494 B.C. plebeians' march out of Rome to gain improved
status, to Gandhi's nonviolent campaigns in India, to the
liberation of Poland and the Baltic nations, and the revolutions in
North Africa, nonviolent struggles have played pivotal roles in
world events for centuries. Sharp'sDictionary of Power and Struggle
is a groundbreaking reference work on this topic by the "godfather
of nonviolent resistance." In nearly 1,000 entries, the Dictionary
defines those ideologies, political systems, strategies, methods,
and concepts that form the core of nonviolent action as it has
occurred throughout history and across the globe, providing
much-needed clarification of language that is often mired in
confusion. Entries discuss everything from militarization to
censorship, guerrilla theater, pacifism, secret agents, and protest
songs. In addition, the dictionary features a foreword by Sir Adam
Roberts, President of the British Academy; an introduction by Gene
Sharp; an essay on power and realism; case studies of conflicts in
Serbia and Tunisia; and a guide for further reading. Sharp's
Dictionary of Power and Struggle is an invaluable resource for
activists, educators and anyone else curious about nonviolent
alternatives to both passivity and violent conflict.
"Gene Sharp is perhaps the most influential proponent of nonviolent
action alive."--The Progressive
"Sharp has had broad influence on international events over the
past two decades, helping to advance a global democratic
awakening."--The Wall Street Journal
" Sharp's] work has served as the template for taking on
authoritarian regimes from Burma to Belgrade."--The Christian
Science Monitor
As Oliver Richmond explains, there is a level to peacemaking that
operates in the realm of dialogue, declarations, symbols and
rituals. But after all this pomp and circumstance is where the
reality of security, development, politics, economics, identity,
and culture figure in; conflict, cooperation, and reconciliation
are at their most vivid at the local scale. Thus local peace
operations are crucial to maintaining order on the ground even in
the most violent contexts. However, as Richmond argues, such local
capacity to build peace from the inside is generally left
unrecognized, and it has been largely ignored in the policy and
scholarly literature on peacebuilding. In Peace and Political
Order, Richmond looks at peace processes as they scale up from
local to transnational efforts to consider how to build a lasting
and productive peace. He takes a comparative and expansive look at
peace efforts in conflict situations in countries around the world
to consider what local voices might suggest about the inadequacy of
peace processes engineered at the international level. As well, he
explores how local workers act to modify or resist peace processes
headed by international NGOs, and to what degree local actors have
enjoyed success in the peace process (and how they have affected
the international peace process).
This volume of essays explores the long-unstudied relationship
between religion and human security throughout the world. The 1950s
marked the beginning of a period of extraordinary religious
revival, during which religious political-parties and
non-governmental organizations gained power around the globe. Until
now, there has been little systematic study of the impact that this
phenomenon has had on human welfare, except of a relationship
between religious revival to violence. The authors of these essays
show that religion can have positive as well as negative effects on
human wellbeing. They address a number of crucial questions about
the relationship between religion and human security: Under what
circumstances do religiously motivated actors tend to advance human
welfare, and under what circumstances do they tend to threaten it?
Are members of some religious groups more likely to engage in
welfare-enhancing behavior than in others? Do certain state
policies tend to promote security-enhancing behavior among
religious groups while other policies tend to promote
security-threatening ones? In cases where religious actors are
harming the welfare of a population, what responses could eliminate
that threat without replacing it with another? Religion and Human
Security shows that many states tend to underestimate the power of
religious organizations as purveyors of human security. Governments
overlook both the importance of human security to their populations
and the religious groups who could act as allies in securing the
welfare of their people. This volume offers a rich variety of
theoretical perspectives on the nuanced relationship between
religion and human security. Through case studies ranging from
Turkey, Egypt, and Pakistan, to the United States, Northern
Ireland, and Zimbabwe, it provides important suggestions to policy
makers of how to begin factoring the influence of religion into
their evaluation of a population's human security and into programs
designed to improve human security around the globe.
One of the longest and seemingly most intractable civil wars in
Latin America was brought to an end by the signing of the Peace
Accords between the Guatemalan government and the Unidad
Revolucionaria Nacional Guatemalteca (URNG) in December 1996. The
essays in this volume evaluate progress made in the implementation
of the peace agreements and signal some of the key challenges for
future political and institutional reform. The volume opens with a
chapter by Gustavo Porras, the government's main negotiator in the
peace process. The first section then examines the issue of
demilitarization. This is followed by aspects of indigenous rights
in the peace process, including conceptual frameworks for rights
advancement, the harmonization of state law and customary law, and
the challenges of nation-state and citizenship construction. The
next section examines issues of truth, justice, and reconciliation,
and assesses prospects for the Truth Commission. The volume closes
with an analysis of different aspects of political reform in
Guatemala and includes comments made on the chapters and developed
in the debate which took place at the conference on which it is
based. The contributors are Marta Altolaguirre*, Marta Elena
Casa?s*, Demetrio Cojt?*, Edgar Guti?rrez*, Frank La Rue, Roger
Plant, Gustavo Porras*, Alfonso Portillo*, Jennifer Schirmer,
Rachel Sieder, David Stoll, Rosalina Tuyuc*, Anna Vinegrad, Richard
Wilson (* chapters in Spanish).
Although conflict is a normal aspect of human life, mass media
technologies are changing the dynamics of conflict and shaping
strategies for deploying rituals. Rituals can provoke or escalate
conflict; they can also mediate it. Media representations have long
been instrumental in establishing, maintaining, and challenging
political and economic power, as well as in determining the nature
of religious practice. This collection of essays emerged from a
two-year project based on collaboration between the Faculty of
Religious Studies at Radboud University Nijmegen in the Netherlands
and the Ritual Dynamics Collaborative Research Center at the
University of Heidelberg in Germany. Here, an interdisciplinary
team of twenty-four scholars locates, describes, and explores cases
in which media-driven rituals or ritually saturated media
instigate, disseminate, or escalate conflict. Each chapter, built
around global and local examples of ritualized, mediatized
conflict, is multi-authored. The book's central question is: "When
ritual and media interact (either by the mediatizing of ritual or
by the ritualizing of media), how do the patterns of conflict
change?"
The African Union's Agenda 2063 is ambitious. It advocates for,
among others: equitable and people-centred growth and development;
eradication of poverty; creation of infrastructure and provision of
public goods and services; empowerment of women and youth;
promotion of peace and security, and the strengthening of
democratic states, and creating participatory and accountable
governance institutions. New African Thinkers: Agenda Africa, 2063
presents the thinking of emerging scholars on these critical issues
- those on whose shoulders the responsibility rests for taking this
agenda forward. The book will be an essential reference for
researchers and educators who are interested in Africa's
developmental path as designed in the Agenda 2063.
In a world with more than 7 billion people, 196 countries, 7,000
spoken languages, and close to 30 religions, the probability of one
group or one person intentionally or unintentionally offending
another group or another person is absolutely certain. Many people
limit themselves in life based on their inability to get along with
others, and too often we allow ourselves to be ruled by our
emotions. When we're emotionally reactive, we're not our best
selves, nor do we produce the smartest outcomes. Emotional
reactions create winners and losers. And winning directly at the
expense of another is actually losing in disguise, due to the
resentment it inspires in the loser. Often, people get stuck in a
pattern of reacting emotionally, long past the time when the
combativeness that once served them no longer does; long past the
time when the pattern has become destructive without them being
aware of it. For everyone who wants to change that part of
themselves-everyone who wants more peaceful interactions and more
successful outcomes, but doesn't know how to achieve that-Quiet the
Rage is the answer.
Unlike some other reproductions of classic texts (1) We have not
used OCR(Optical Character Recognition), as this leads to bad
quality books with introduced typos. (2) In books where there are
images such as portraits, maps, sketches etc We have endeavoured to
keep the quality of these images, so they represent accurately the
original artefact. Although occasionally there may be certain
imperfections with these old texts, we feel they deserve to be made
available for future generations to enjoy.
The Puzzle of Peace moves beyond defining peace as the absence of
war and develops a broader conceptualization and explanation for
the increasing peacefulness of the international system. The
authors track the rise of peace as a new phenomenon in
international history starting after 1945. International peace has
increased because international society has developed a set of
norms dealing with territorial conflict, by far the greatest source
of international war over previous centuries. These norms prohibit
the use of military force in resolving territorial disputes and
acquiring territory, thereby promoting border stability. This
includes the prohibition of the acquisition of territory by
military means as well as attempts by secessionist groups to form
states through military force. International norms for managing
international conflict have been accompanied by increased mediation
and adjudication as means of managing existing territorial
conflicts.
In The Costs of Justice, Brian K. Grodsky provides qualitative
analyses of how transitional justice processes have evolved in
diverse ways in postcommunist Poland, Croatia, Serbia, and
Uzbekistan, by examining the decision-making processes and goals of
those actors who contributed to key transitional justice policy
decisions. Grodsky draws on extensive interviews with key political
figures, human rights leaders, and representatives of various
international, state, and nongovernmental bodies, as well as
detailed analysis of international and local news reports, to offer
a systematic and qualitatively compelling account of transitional
justice from the perspective of activists who, at the end of a
previous regime, were suddenly transformed from downtrodden victim
to empowered judge. Grodsky challenges the argument that
transitional justice in post-repressive states is largely a
function of the relative power of new versus old elites. He
maintains that a new regime's transitional justice policy is
closely linked to its capacity to provide goods and services
expected by constituents, not to political power struggles. In
introducing this goods variable, so common to broad political
analysis but largely overlooked in the transitional justice debate,
Grodsky argues that we must revise our understanding of
transitional justice. It is not an exceptional issue; it is but one
of many political decisions faced by leaders in a transition state.
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New Poems
(Hardcover)
Thomas Trzyna
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R576
R525
Discovery Miles 5 250
Save R51 (9%)
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Ships in 18 - 22 working days
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In Offering Hospitality: Questioning Christian Approaches to War,
Caron E. Gentry reflects on the predominant strands of American
political theology-Christian realism, pacifism, and the just war
tradition-and argues that Christian political theologies on war
remain, for the most part, inward-looking and resistant to
criticism from opposing viewpoints. In light of the new problems
that require choices about the use of force-genocide, terrorism,
and failed states, to name just a few-a rethinking of the
conventional arguments about just war and pacifism is timely and
important. Gentry's insightful perspective marries contemporary
feminist and critical thought to prevailing theories, such as
Christian realism represented in the work of Reinhold Niebuhr and
the pacifist tradition of Stanley Hauerwas. She draws out the
connection between hospitality in postmodern literature and
hospitality as derived from the Christian conception of agape, and
relates the literature on hospitality to the Christian ethics of
war. She contends that the practice of hospitality, incorporated
into the jus ad bellum criterion of last resort, would lead to a
"better peace." Gentry's critique of Christian realism, pacifism,
and the just war tradition through an engagement with feminism is
unique, and her treatment of failed states as a concrete security
issue is practical. By asking multiple audiences-theologians,
feminists, postmodern scholars, and International Relations
experts-to grant legitimacy and credibility to each other's
perspectives, she contributes to a reinvigorated dialogue.
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