Preparing for Nonviolence – Experiences in the Western BalkansHandbook Article

Reflects on experiences and lessons learned from an insider activist’s and practitioner’s point of view. The author looks back at over a decade of training practice at the Centre for Nonviolent Action (CNA) in the Western Balkans, offering provocative thoughts on goals and methods, trainer-participant relations and dilemmas such as sustaining momentum, the risk of individual burn-out and the hope for achieving social change. (Updated for the 2011 print edition.)

Year2011
Author(s)Nenad Vukosavljevic

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Training for Conflict Transformation – An Overview of ApproachesHandbook Article

Seeks to provide a first orientation for an audience less familiar with the field of conflict transformation and its educational possibilities. Questions raised include: who is offering training for which target audience? What are strengths and shortcomings? Are there criteria that help assess training? What challenges remain, what recommendations can be made for improving training offers? The article has an extensive reference section covering training manuals and materials, organisations, resources and analyses. (updated and revised for 2011 print edition)

Year2011
Author(s)Beatrix Austin

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Varieties of State-Building in the Balkans: A Case for Shifting FocusHandbook Article

Takes a critical look at the debate on state failure, examining the various ways that state-building programmes have impacted on the successor states of the former Yugoslavia. The author shows how unchallenged assumptions, unrealistic expectations and ignorance of local contexts can lead to political orders being imposed with little regard for domestic legitimacy or locally-driven solutions. Instead of explaining away the predictably poor outcomes, she suggests the need for critical appraisal of those driving the state-building agenda. (The article builds on ideas first contributed to Dialogue Series No 8)

Year2011
Author(s)Susan Woodward

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Security Sector Reform in Developing and Transitional Countries RevisitedHandbook Article

Takes a critical look at the debate on state failure, examining the various ways that state-building programmes have impacted on the successor states of the former Yugoslavia. The author shows how unchallenged assumptions, unrealistic expectations and ignorance of local contexts can lead to political orders being imposed with little regard for domestic legitimacy or locally-driven solutions. Instead of explaining away the predictably poor outcomes, she suggests the need for critical appraisal of those driving the state-building agenda. (The article builds on ideas first contributed to Dialogue Series No 8)

Year2011
Author(s)Herbert Wulf

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Conflict Transformation and the Corporate Agenda - Opportunities for SynergyHandbook Article

Takes a critical look at the debate on state failure, examining the various ways that state-building programmes have impacted on the successor states of the former Yugoslavia. The author shows how unchallenged assumptions, unrealistic expectations and ignorance of local contexts can lead to political orders being imposed with little regard for domestic legitimacy or locally-driven solutions. Instead of explaining away the predictably poor outcomes, she suggests the need for critical appraisal of those driving the state-building agenda. (The article builds on ideas first contributed to Dialogue Series No 8)

Year2011
Author(s)Luc Zandvliet

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Transitional Justice and Reconciliation - Theory and PracticeHandbook Article

Outlines two major strands of activity aimed at helping societies come to terms with the legacy of a violent past. The emerging paradigm of transitional justice is broadened out to incorporate gender justice and the many different aspects of truth recovery. The concept of reconciliation is discussed in light of its relevance to conflict transformation, also addressing the problems posed by selective remembrance, denial and victimhood. The author identifies open questions and stresses the need for more practice-orientated research.

Year2011
Author(s)Martina Fischer

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Human Rights and Conflict Transformation: Towards a More Integrated ApproachHandbook Article

Moves beyond the stereotyped dichotomy of "justice vs. peace" and proposes that applying a perspective of human rights brings conflict transformation closer to its aims by forcing greater emphasis on structural conditions, especially the role of the state, systems of governance and issues of power. It discusses the practical demands and dilemmas of pursuing an integrated approach, focusing on asymmetric conflicts, resistance to change and clarity of roles. It offers examples from the author's own work in South Africa, Nepal and Northern Ireland. (updated for 2011 print edition; a longer version including an extensive literature review was first published in Dialogue Series No 9)

Year2011
Author(s)Michelle Parlevliet

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Human Rights and Conflict Transformation: The Challenges of Just PeaceHandbook Dialogue Series No. 9 - complete

Contributors to this Dialogue aim to go beyond the divide and polarising language of "peace versus justice" in order to gain a clearer understanding of the potential – and limits – of bringing together human rights and conflict transformation in specific contexts. Drawing evidence from contexts such as Nepal, South Africa, Israel/Palestine, Uganda and Colombia, they argue that a more thorough emphasis on human rights – as causes and manifestation of conflicts, but also as normative and practical intervention tools – contributes to bringing conflict transformation closer to its aim of tackling conflicts at their deepest roots. The lead author and respondents engage in a rich dialogue on areas of tensions as well as complementarity between the two sets of practices: they encourage mutual learning and joint work, and stress the importance of locally-designed, timely and context-specific initiatives, as well as the hard-nosed analysis of political context and use of human rights and conflict transformation discourses.

Year2010

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From Revolutionary War to Democratic Revolution: The Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front (FMLN) in El SalvadorTransitions Series No. 9

In the context of an authoritarian regime, controlled by the military in alliance with a powerful landowning oligarchy, Salvadoran political-military organisations sprung up throughout the 1970s. Political and economic exclusion were the basis from which a wide popular movement arose – one that was to be almost immediately confronted with massive and indiscriminate repression. Faced with the closing of arenas for political participation, huge numbers of activists joined the ranks of the guerrilla army during the late 1970s. The five Salvadoran revolutionary organisations1 created the Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front (Frente Farabundo Martí para la Liberación Nacional, FMLN) in October 1980, with the joint aim of both procuring the government’s defeat as well as creating a socialist project.

Year2010
Author(s)Alberto Martín Álvarez

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The KLA and the Kosovo War: From Intra-State Conflict to Independent CountryTransitions Series No. 8

The recent conflict in Kosovo is often referred to as a unique case study for several reasons: the factors that contributed to the sudden rise of the Albanians’ armed insurgency movement in the mid- to late-1990s; the heavy involvement of the international community, climaxing in the armed intervention of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) against a sovereign state – Serbia/Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (FRY); and the subsequent establishment of the international protectorate in Kosovo, led by the United Nations (UN) in concert with the NATO Kosovo Force (KFOR) and the widest array of international organisations to date. These unique circumstances, so the argument goes, have followed Kosovo’s political path, leading up to its declaration of independence. Along this path, international norms of self-determination and human rights versus those of national sovereignty and non-interference in internal matters have been invoked, tested and have even clashed repeatedly. The recent deliberations at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) at the Hague as to whether or not Kosovo’s declaration of independence is legal bear testimony to this clash.

Year2010
Author(s)Armend R. Bekaj

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