Globalization and Challenges to Building Peace (Anthem Studies in Peace, Conflict and Development) - Hardcover

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1843312875 ISBN 13: 9781843312871

Publisher: Anthem Press, 2007

Synopsis

Although globalization creates new wealth and encourages technological innovations, it has also failed to support and promote sustainable human development and thus can be accused of generating anguish and deprivation. This has already resulted in growing civil unrest and, in some cases, contributed to armed conflicts in the developing world. However, peace and conflict research has hitherto somehow overlooked the influence of increasing globalization on the formation and management of such emerging conflicts. This impressive edited volume asks the question: what concrete measures exist which can be effective in addressing the causes of conflict and building peace in an increasingly interdependent world?

About this title

About the Author

Ashok Swain is Professor of Peace and Conflict Research, Uppsala University and Coordinator, Swedish Network of Peace, Conflict and Development Research.

Ramses Amer is Associate Professor and Senior Lecturer at the Department of Political Science, Umeå University.

Joakim Öjendal is Professor of Peace and Development Research, Gothenburg University.

From the Back Cover

'A very interesting collection of essays exploring the links among globalization, peace, conflict, and development. The roster of contributors includes not only some leading recognized experts but also several engaging new voices.'
"Dr. Ken Conca, Professor of Government and Politics, University of ""Maryland"
'Offers a thorough re-thinking of the evolving - and complex - pursuit of a world free from war.' Dr. James R. Lee, Associate Director for Technical Support and Training, American University, Washington DC 'This book contains deep analyses, critical views, and future expectations on the impact of globalization, democracy, and international migration on conflicts and peace-building.'
"Hamdy A. Hassan, Professor of Political Science, ""Cairo""University"," ""Cairo"," ""Egypt"
The world has gone through a major transformation in the last two decades. The end of the Cold War in Europe has led to a massive increase in private capital flow and, also, has brought an information and telecommunication revolution. In this new interdependent and interconnected world, international trade and investment has overtaken the importance of national economies. Globalization has created new opportunities as well as many risks and challenges. Globalization generates new wealth and encourages technological innovations, but at the same time it has failed to support and promote sustainable human development and thus can be accused of generating anguish and deprivation. This has already resulted in growing civil unrest and, in some cases, contributed to armed conflicts in the developing world. However, peace and conflict research has hitherto somehow overlooked the influence of increasing globalization on the formation and management of such emerging conflicts. The study of globalization also tends to overlook a proven fact that the management of conflicts in the South has been invariably influenced by the global powers and their strategic politics. This impressive edited volume makes an attempt to assess what concrete measures exist and are likely to be effective in addressing the causes of conflict and building peace in an increasingly interdependent world?
Ashok Swain is Professor of Peace and Conflict Research, Uppsala University and Coordinator, Swedish Network of Peace, Conflict and Development Research. Ramses Amer is Associate Professor and Senior Lecturer at the Department of Political Science, Umea University. Joakim ojendal is Professor of Peace and Development Research, Gothenburg University.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Globalisation and Challenges to Building Peace

By Ashok Swain, Ramses Amer, Joakim Öjendal

Wimbledon Publishing Company

Copyright © 2007 Ashok Swain, Ramses Amer and Joakim Öjendal
All rights reserved.

ISBN: 978-1-84331-287-1

Contents

Acknowledgements, vii, 
List of Contributors, ix, 
1. Building Peace in the Era of Three Waves Ashok Swain, Ramses Amer and Joakim Öjendal, 1, 
2. The Problem of Peace: Understanding the 'Liberal Peace' Oliver P Richmond, 17, 
3. Pre-emptive Self-defence New Legal Principle or Political Action? Ramses Amer, 39, 
4. Beyond Criminal Justice: Promoting the Rule of Law in Post-Conflict Societies Richard Sannerholm, 55, 
5. Peace by Pact: Data on the Implementation of Peace Agreements Anna Jarstad and Ralph Sundberg, 73, 
6. Refugee Repatriation as a Necessary Condition for Peace Patrik Johansson, 91, 
7. Catapulting Conflicts or Propelling Peace: Diasporas and Civil Wars Jonathan Hall and Ashok Swain, 107, 
8. UN Peace Operations as Norm Entrepreneurs: The Challenge of Achieving Communicative Action on Human Rights Katarina Månsson, 121, 
9. To Practice What They Preach: International Transitional Administrations and the Paradox of Norm Promotion Annika Björkdahl, 145, 
10. Re-examining the Roots of War in West Africa in a Globalizing World Cyril I Obi, 165, 
11. The African Union (AU) and Its Commitment to Non-Indifference: Can the AU be an Actor for the Promotion of Human Security? Linnea Bergholm, 181, 
12. Hamas Between Sharia Rule and Demo-Islam Michael Schulz, 195, 
13. Environmental Scarcity and Intrastate Conflicts: The Case of Nepal Fiona J Y Rotberg, 213, 
14. Narcotics: The New Security Threat for China Niklas Swanström, 221, 
References, 237, 
Bibliography, 247, 

CHAPTER 1

BUILDING PEACE IN THE ERA OF THREE WAVES

Ashok Swain, Ramses Amer and Joakim Öjendal

Introduction

During the last few decades, the nature of peace and development in the international system has shifted considerably so has the measures applied in support of those values. Whereas 'war' has structurally shifted from being interstate concern to becoming intrastate in nature, 'development' has moved from one of typically defining national development strategies to one of tapping into a neo-liberal global order in the most efficient way possible. As such, the values and processes of, and measures to support, peace and development have, to a large extent, conflated. Moreover, internal war is typically founded in a particular political economy further feeding — or even being the origin of — conflicts; adaptation to the neo-liberal globalization has, on the other hand, turned 'development' into a conflict prone process, marginalizing large number of people. Globalization which — for good and bad — is driving the processes described above will not fade within the foreseeable future, but rather it is likely that the trend will increase in the decades to come. While undeniably, this shift in 'order' has brought some positive values, globally the problems may be even more severe, including the creation of social and internal conflicts, ethnic strife, political instability (often related to democratization), pauperization, forced migration and rampant natural resource extraction with severe livelihood losses for millions, just to mention a few of the far too prevalent problems.

One of the major policy responses from the international community has been the invention of a battery of 'repairing', 'reconstructing' and 'reconciliatory' policy approaches. Perhaps the most comprehensive of these attempts has been branded 'peacebuilding' that dates back to the tenure of General Secretary Boutros-Boutros Ghali. Its origin in the UN system was an early attempt to respond to the first cycle post-cold war conflicts and its ambition was to adapt to a post-cold war world. At bottom, it contains an ambition to deal with the problems described above comprehensively including both peace and development aspects. However, hitherto few successes have been recorded in these efforts. The international responses have been largely separated into conflict resolution as carried out from the UN offices, or traditional development activities carried out by different actors and agencies, missing the obvious connection between these two values. Self-critically, it could also be observed that research has to a large extent followed that path too.

This volume aims to present a broad inventory of the study of the contemporary peace, conflict and development research in light of the above-mentioned problematic. The chapters, in various degrees, take as their point of departure the ongoing globalization and reflect upon the viability of various peacebuilding efforts. Below follows a brief review of the themes we have chosen in order to illuminate the issue at hand. Neither the themes, nor the coverage of them, are comprehensive, but rather a dip into a wide sea of possible themes and approaches whose full treatment goes beyond the scope of this volume.

Globalization and Conflicts

The world has gone through a major transformation in the last two decades. The end of the cold war in Europe has directly led to massive increase in the private capital flow and indirectly to an information and telecommunication revolution. In this new interdependent and interconnected world, the international trade and investment has overtaken the importance of national economies. Globalization has created new opportunities as well as many risks and challenges. The World Commission on the Social Dimension of Globalization in its report in February 2004 praises globalization for promoting open societies, open economies and better exchange of goods and ideas. At the same time, the Commission finds the current working of global economy 'ethically unacceptable and politically unsustainable'.

Globalization is generating new wealth and encouraging technological innovations, but at the same, it has failed to support and promote sustainable human development (Swain, 2006). So far, it has had largely negative impact on the poor and underprivileged sections of the society. In 1990s, the global growth in gross domestic product has been sluggish compare to previous decades. The debt burden of developing countries has multiplied, which impedes their development. The gap between the ratio of per capita income in the developed and the developing countries has widened further, from 50 to 1 in the 1960s to more than 120 to 1 in 2006.

The number of poor and unemployed people is at its highest level ever. There is no doubt that the globalization's benefit has failed to reach the majority of the poor.

While the key to the sustainable growth lies in the countries' own efforts to pursue sound policies and strengthen institutions, these efforts need to be complemented with financial and technological support from the international community. Unfortunately, the foreign aid is decreasing overall. In the last decade, the Official Development Assistance (ODA) of the OECD (Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development) countries has gone down from 0.35 per cent to 0.22 per cent of the gross national income and far below the 0.7 per cent target the developed countries had promised to meet. In 2003, only five donor countries reached or exceeded the UN target. According to the World Bank estimate, due to this failed promise, developing countries are loosing USD 100 billion every year. The donor community has been increasingly alleging that development assistance intended for crucial social and economic sectors are being used directly or indirectly to fund unproductive military and other expenditures.

Globalization, so far, has not been able to foster sustainable human development; it instead has generated anguish and deprivation, resulting in growing civil unrests and, in some cases, in armed conflicts in the developing world. However, peace and conflict research has till now somehow overlooked the influence of increasing globalization on the formation and management of the emerging conflicts. The study of globalization also tends to overlook a proven fact that the conflicts in the South have been invariably influenced by the global powers and their strategic politics.

Thus, the causes of major violent conflicts need to be monitored and assessed, particularly in developing countries. What concrete measures exist and are likely to be effective in addressing the causes of conflict in an increasingly interdependent world? The problem areas need to be identified as significant in a particular developing country, in a region or on a given continent or generally in the developing world. Research in the field of peace and conflict is concerned with possible major violent conflicts that arise within states, while it takes into account their global and regional sources and effects. Put differently, globalization has reached such depths that it cuts deep into national affairs, causing structural changes loaded with potential conflicts. Such conflicts may be civil wars, revolutions, intercommunal violence, genocides or general state breakdowns, including possible consequences such as massive humanitarian crises. Since violent conflicts in the developing regions may follow a series of stages at which international intervention may occur, conflict prevention turns into a contemporary concern. Also our ability to identify these stages and to intervene in an appropriate manner becomes increasingly prioritized.

Democratization and Conflicts

Coinciding with this third wave of globalization (the first wave was colonialism while the second was the imperialism), there is another wave of democratization (Huntington, 1991). Parallel to the collapse of Communism in Eastern part of Europe, a process of democratic reform ran its course in Latin America, Africa and Asia (O'Donnell and Schmitter, 1986; Simensen, 1999). The notion that democracy is the ideal form of government has almost become axiomatic. There is a strong belief that a community of democratic nations is the best way to maintain domestic and international peace. In fact, in contemporary Western academic discourse on Afghanistan and Iraq, mere imposition of democracy was prescribed as the most important step towards peace, as it previously was in Mozambique and Cambodia (Öjendal and Lilja, 2006). However, in the later two cases there was an international consensus and a broad domestic acceptance of the peacekeeping efforts of the international community. This has not been the case in Iraq and international lawyers have criticized the military intervention of 2003. Internal opposition to the intervening forces is also in evidence in Iraq and Afghanistan. The notions of 'pro-democratic' and 'pro-self determination' military interventions have been and still are seriously challenged with the scholarly debate.

Theoretical works on democratic transition and democratization have also emphasized the conflict resolution capacity of democracy. The idea that democracy, as such, rather than any other form of government, is the best way to resolve interstate conflicts has been stressed. Several theorists have also extended the democratic peace thesis to argue that a 'democratic peace' is evident within intrastate conflicts as well (Mathew and Myers, 1997; Rummel, 1985). It should be noted that the 'democratic peace' notion was first put forward in the context of interstate relations. In the context of domestic developments it has been reasoned that democracy reduces the likelihood of discrimination, especially of ethno-political minorities, and thus the likelihood of political repression (Gurr, 1993). However, as Errol A Henderson (2002) points out, 'the democratic peace proposition' has not been explicitly tested with reference to third world post-colonial states, where most civil wars take place. It has also, significantly, been pointed out by Mansfield and Snyder (2005) that in periods of democratization — which may be prolonged for decades — the risks of political instability, social turmoil and severe conflicts are enhanced, putting a spin on the democratic peace theory.

It is also true that democracies are more prone to host violent secessionist movements. According to the Uppsala Conflict Data Project, Russia, Turkey, India, Indonesia, Sri Lanka, Senegal, Philippines are among the democracies that faced separatist violence. There is no doubt that democracies face more separatist violence than non-democracies. Even several 'mature' democracies either are facing a number of violent separatist challenges at present or have faced them in the recent past.

Democracy, which introduces competitive elections, is commonly offered as a solution to political problems. While this is a reasonable, overall and long-term argument, it carries, nevertheless, problematic aspects. In contexts of post-conflict resolution, the introduction of competitive politics often resembles the conflict it was supposed to solve and often in a situation where institutions to absorb tensions and instability around this is lacking. Hence it may contradict its purposes. Moreover, as Przeworski (1999) points out elections may not represent the will of all population groups. There are several democracies that refuse to follow international human rights standards, subjecting minorities to arbitrary power by a predatory majority (O'Brien, 1983; Roeder, 2005; Swain, 2005). In a democracy, the majority has the ability to abuse its electoral power against the minority or to elect a government that imposes laws and mores of one religion (Clemens, 2002). This does not mandate an abandonment of democracy, but it suggests that efforts at democratization should be guided by the realization that it is a conflict-driven process which may exacerbate inequalities and encourage affected groups to pursue insurgency (Henderson, 2002).

Migration and Conflicts

The world, at present, is not only experiencing third wave of globalization and democratization, but also the third wave of large-scale human migration. In that first wave up to 1914, nearly ten percent of the population of the world moved from one country to another — and in many cases from one continent to another. The second wave of human migration came up after the World War II, caused by massive destruction and redrawing of state boundaries, particularly in Europe.

Migration is a highly multifaceted term, which includes all types of voluntary as well as forced movements of a population. A series of demographic, economic, socio-cultural and psychological issues influences the nature, pattern and direction of voluntary human migration, while forced migrations are the results of civil war, political and ethnic persecution, famine and environmental disasters (Swain, 1996). The present wave is a combination of both voluntary and forced migration of large number of population.

In the last decade, the number of internal conflicts increased and that displaced a large number of people. Though, there is a drop in the number of civil wars in recent years, the population migration has not decreased. It is one of the safest of predictions that the population migration will increase in the decades ahead. There is no holding back to this tsunami. The United States alone detains more than 1.5 million people along the Rio Grande border to Mexico every year.

Every year, world population is increasing by 78 million, roughly the equivalent of another Germany. Some describe world demographic trends as 'revolutionary', because though the human species emerged perhaps 150,000 years ago, most of its growth has been in the last forty years. More than 90 per cent of population growth is taking place in the developing countries. Recently, research has found pressure of population growth to have a significant impact on the likelihood of state becoming involved in interstate military conflicts. Whether the population growth directly affects the decision making of the state to go to war or not, but it undoubtedly generates scarcity of resources in a technologically underdeveloped country. In spite of the tall claims by the agricultural scientists, it is true that 700 million people on this earth do not get the 2,200 calories per day generally accepted as the nutritional bottom line, and 40,000 die every day of hunger and hunger-related diseases. The availability of fresh water has also fallen short of meeting its increased demand. One billion people in the world lack access to clean water and nearly two billion do not have adequate sanitation facilities. The loss of living space and source of livelihood due to civil war and/or environmental change could force the affected people to migrate. Ethnic conflicts and food scarcity have already forced a large number of people to move across international borders. This phenomenon has been one of the growing concerns to the international community. This mass movement of population creates security concerns for a nation state.

It is true that the refugee statistics showed a downward trend from 2001 to 2005. International community claimed that this drop in refugee population was due to the peacebuilding efforts in the conflict zones and voluntary repatriation. However, the refugee statistics of these years fail to tell the whole story. In reality, the total population of concern to United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) increased from 19.5 million persons at the beginning of 2005 to 20.8 million by the end of the year. This 6 per cent increase is due to increasing numbers of internally displaced people and stateless persons. In 2005, in Iraq alone, 1.2 million people have been internally displaced. Moreover, the declining security situation in Iraq, Afghanistan and Sudan has again contributed to increased number of refuges in 2006.

(Continues...)

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Edition details

• Publisher: Anthem Press
• Publication date: 2007
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1843312875
• ISBN 13: 9781843312871
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 284
• Editor: Swain Ashok, Amer Ramses, Öjendal Joakim