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Books > Reference & Interdisciplinary > Interdisciplinary studies > Peace studies
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.
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.
Why our democracies need urgent reform, before it's too late A generation after the fall of the Berlin Wall, the world is once again on the edge of chaos. Demonstrations have broken out from Belgium to Brazil led by angry citizens demanding a greater say in their political and economic future, better education, heathcare and living standards. The bottom line of this outrage is the same; people are demanding their governments do more to improve their lives faster, something which policymakers are unable to deliver under conditions of anaemic growth. Rising income inequality and a stagnant economy are threats to both the developed and the developing world, and leaders can no longer afford to ignore this gathering storm. In Edge of Chaos, Dambisa Moyo sets out the new political and economic challenges facing the world, and the specific, radical solutions needed to resolve these issues and reignite global growth. Dambisa enumerates the four headwinds of demographics, inequality, commodity scarcity and technological innovation that are driving social and economic unrest, and argues for a fundamental retooling of democratic capitalism to address current problems and deliver better outcomes in the future. In the twenty-first century, a crisis in one country can quickly become our own, and fragile economies produce a fragile international community. Edge of Chaos is a warning for advanced and emerging nations alike: we must reverse the dramatic erosion in growth, or face the consequences of a fragmented and unstable global future.
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.
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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