Travelling Models In African Conflict Management

Travelling Models offers a theoretical concept for comparative research on conflict management in Africa in processes of globalization: how is change in one place related to developments in other places? Why are certain issues that are important in one place taken up in other places, while others are not? The authors examine how the travel of models enact changes, particularly in African conflict situations, most often in unexpected ways. They look at what happens when a model has been put into practice at a conflict site, and they pay attention to the forms of social (re-)ordering resulting from this process. The authors look, among others, at conflict managing models of power- and revenue sharing, mediation, freedom of expression, disaster management, community involvement and workshopping. Contributors are: Andrea Behrends, Lydie Cabane, Veronika Fuest, Dejene Gemechu, Mutasim Bashir Ali Hadi, Remadji Hoinathy, Mario Krämer, Sung-Joon Park, Tinashe Pfigu, Richard Rottenburg, Sylvanus Spencer and Kees van der Waal. The Introduction of this volume is being offered in Open Access

The prevailing narrative on Africa is that it is awash with violent conflict. Indeed, it does suffer from a multitude of conflicts — from border skirmishes to civil wars to terrorist attacks. Conflicts in Africa are diverse and complex, but there have been a number of cases of successful conflict management and resolution. What accounts for the successes and failures, and what can we learn from Africa’s experience? Minding the Gap: African Conflict Management in a Time of Change takes on these questions, bringing together more than 20 experts to examine the source of conflicts in Africa and assess African management capacity in the face of these conflicts.

Over the past two decades, Africa has seen dozens of conflicts over a variety of issues. Responding to these conflicts requires concerted action to manage the crises - the violence, the political discord, and the humanitarian consequences of prolonged fighting. But it is also necessary to rebuild communities, societies and states torn apart by the conflict, addressing the long-term social and economic impact of the conflict. To do so, it is necessary to look at institutions and groups rarely considered in formal official conflict management activities of African and partner governments - schools, universities, religious institutions, media, commercial enterprises, legal institutions, civil society groups, youth, women, and migrants. These entities can potentially play an important role in building a sense of identity, fairness, shared norms, and a cohesion between state and society - all critical components of the fabric of peace and security in Africa. This book brings together leading experts from Africa, Europe and North America to examine these critical social institutions and groups and identify how they can either build or impede peaceful resolution of conflicts and commitment to common purpose. The second of two volumes on African conflict management capacity, this book will open new doors of understanding for students, scholars and practitioners focused on bringing strengthening peace in Africa.

This critical and empirically based volume examines the multiple existing Nordic models, providing analytically innovative attention to the multitude of circulating ideas, images and experiences referred to as "Nordic". It addresses related paradoxes as well as patterns of circulation, claims about the exceptionality of Nordic models, and the diffusion and impact of Nordic experiences and ideas. Providing original case studies, the book further examines how the Nordic models have been constructed, transformed and circulated in time and in space. It investigates the actors and channels that have been involved in circulating models: journalists and media, bureaucrats and policy-makers, international organizations, national politicians and institutions, scholars, public diplomats and analyses where and why models have travelled. Finally, the book shows that Nordic models, perspectives, or ideas do not always originate in the Nordic region, nor do they always develop as deliberate efforts to promote Nordic interests. This book will be of key interest to Nordic and Scandinavian studies, European studies, and more broadly to history, sociology, political science, marketing, social policy, organizational theory and public management. The Open Access version of this book, available at http://www.taylorfrancis.com, has been made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives 4.0 license.

Since the beginnings of independence, a number of African nations have been plagued by repeated coup d'états. Within the African Union (AU), there has been a concerted effort to break this cycle through the official adoption of an ‘anti-coup norm’, by which the AU is mandated to suspend a member state and restore constitutional order following a coup. Supporters of this stance see it as strengthening democracy in Africa, while critics argue that it has served to prop up existing regimes. But there has been little analysis of what the AU’s attempts to ‘restore constitutional order’ have meant for individual African states. In this book, Antonia Witt looks at the legacy of the AU’s intervention in Madagascar following the 2009 ‘Malagasy crisis’, one of the increasingly relevant yet under-researched cases of non-Western intervention in Africa. The book looks at the ways in which international intervention reconfigured the political order in Madagascar, how it facilitated the power struggle within the Madagascan elite and prevented more profound political change. It also considers what the example set by the Madagascan intervention means for the wider international order in Africa and the powers attributed to African international actors such as the AU.

How is ethnicity viewed by scholars of different academic disciplines? Can its emergences be compared in various regions of the world? How can it be conceptualized with specific reference to distinct historical periods? This book shows in a uniquely and innovative way the broad range of approaches to the political uses of ethnicity, both in contemporary settings and from a historical perspective. Its scope is multidisciplinary and spans across the globe. It is a suitable resource for teaching material. With its short contributions, it conveys central points of how to understand and analyze ethnicity as a political resource.

Within the framework of globalization from below, this multi-disciplinary collection addresses important phenomena of social change across the African continent and in China that have resulted from intensifying interactions between Chinese and African social and economic actors since the early 2000s.

The continuing Darfur War has caused mass displacement since 2003, with hundreds of thousands driven from their homes and many forced into refugee camps in western Sudan and neighbouring Chad. Building on twenty years of research in the region, Andrea Behrends tracks the repercussions of this conflict—sometimes referred to as the ‘first genocide of the twenty-first century’—for those living through it: those who stayed put, those who fled from rural areas to towns, those who moved to refugee camps, and those who fought. Telling the story of everyday survival on the Chad–Sudan border, an area central to state politics in the larger region, her account sheds light on how people create belonging, exchange knowledge, develop new practices and build futures in the face of extreme uncertainty. Departing from the focus on large-scale humanitarian and military interventions associated with ‘states of emergency’, Behrends highlights the forms of cooperation and mutual knowledge production that emerge on the ground in these lifeworlds in crisis. She combines meticulous ethnographic description with theoretically grounded arguments to offer a pioneering study of how individuals have anticipated, survived and adapted to recurring crises and war in one of the world’s most economically marginalised regions.