Post-conflict recovery and peacebuilding

Civil wars are the most common type of large scale violent conflict. They are long, brutal and continue to harm societies long after the shooting stops. Post-conflict countries face extraordinary challenges with respect to development and security. In this paper we examine how countries can recover economically from these devastating conflicts and how international interventions can help to build lasting peace. We revisit the aid and growth debate and confirm that aid does not increase growth in general. However, we find that countries experience increased growth after the end of the war and that aid helps to make the most of this peace dividend. However, aid is only growth enhancing when the violence has stopped, in violent post-war societies aid has no growth enhancing effect. We also find that good governance is robustly correlated with growth, however we cannot confirm that aid increases growth conditional on good policies. We examine various aspects of aid and governance by disaggregating the aid and governance variables. Our analysis does not provide a clear picture of which types of aid and policy should be prioritized. We find little evidence for a growth enhancing effect of UN missions and suggest that case studies may provide better insight into the relationship between security guarantees and economic stabilization.

Indigenising civil society : applying Ibn Khaldun’s asabiya concept on tribes in Iraq

After the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003, civil society has become among the buzz words that are frequently used by local and international government and non-government institutions. However, the connotations of civil society were merely drawn from Western conceptions referring to formally organised types of institutions, like NGOs, unions and media. This paper argues that Muslim/Arab theories should also be tested in their original indigenous societies before generalisation of Western models. The Western conceptualisation overlooks the informal type of civil society organisations and excludes family and kinship ties from its equation. Indigenous social structures, i.e. tribes are key active player in the daily life of the Iraqi political, economic, social and cultural scenes. This study argues that the spirit of social solidarity drawn from Ibn Khaldun’s “asabiya” concepts as well as functions of civil society organisations are the bases for examining tribes in Iraq. Tribes have played significant roles in conflict management, peace-building, reconciliation, policy-formulation, advocacy, active citizenship and democratisation since 2003. The article concludes that, based on their sense of solidarity that is the impetus to functions, tribes are among the active civil society organisations in Iraq.

Australia’s initiatives in post-conflict nation building in Iraq

After decades of growth and development, Iraq has become amongst the worst performing states worldwide as a legacy of successive wars and sanctions despite the rich endowment with ample natural resources and capable human resources. Many observers expected that the “new” Iraq after the US “liberation” in 2003 will be a tolerant and unified nation-state that “with a degree of civil society” will grant and secure the human rights for all the Iraqi people (Gresham 2006: 27). However, due to the external military intervention lead by the US, the Iraq state collapsed after the 2003 war (Diamond 2005) as well as its economic, educational, health systems and infrastructure; and, Iraq’s development indicators are amongst the lowest globally (Hassin 2010). Australia’s controversial joining of Bush’s Coalition of Willing has been discussed by various intellectual studies from different angles. It is discussed in the socio-political discourse from an international relations perspective (Verrier 2003), social resistance to war (Hil 2008), and the implications on the Australian internal politics (McAllister and Bean 2006) and federal elections (Kelton 2008). However, there is scarce evidence about any research engaging with Australia’s roles in post-conflict nation building in Iraq. This article explores developmental roles and initiatives played and funded by Australia in Iraq since the invasion in 2003. Based on Hippler’s (Hippler 2004- 2005) multi-faceted approach to nation building this paper will study Australia’s roles in the three interlinked dimensions or “starting points” for nation building: improvement of living conditions, structural reforms and integration of the national political system.

Prevention and insurance of conflict and terrorism: issues and evidence for Latin America

Includes bibliography

Algorithms for UAS insertion in civil air space

One of the most interesting challenge of the next years will be the Air Space Systems automation. This process will involve different aspects as the Air Traffic Management, the Aircrafts and Airport Operations and the Guidance and Navigation Systems. The use of UAS (Uninhabited Aerial System) for civil mission will be one of the most important steps in this automation process. In civil air space, Air Traffic Controllers (ATC) manage the air traffic ensuring that a minimum separation between the controlled aircrafts is always provided. For this purpose ATCs use several operative avoidance techniques like holding patterns or rerouting. The use of UAS in these context will require the definition of strategies for a common management of piloted and piloted air traffic that allow the UAS to self separate. As a first employment in civil air space we consider a UAS surveillance mission that consists in departing from a ground base, taking pictures over a set of mission targets and coming back to the same ground base. During all mission a set of piloted aircrafts fly in the same airspace and thus the UAS has to self separate using the ATC avoidance as anticipated. We consider two objective, the first consists in the minimization of the air traffic impact over the mission, the second consists in the minimization of the impact of the mission over the air traffic. A particular version of the well known Travelling Salesman Problem (TSP) called Time-Dependant-TSP has been studied to deal with traffic problems in big urban areas. Its basic idea consists in a cost of the route between two clients depending on the period of the day in which it is crossed. Our thesis supports that such idea can be applied to the air traffic too using a convenient time horizon compatible with aircrafts operations. The cost of a UAS sub-route will depend on the air traffic that it will meet starting such route in a specific moment and consequently on the avoidance maneuver that it will use to avoid that conflict. The conflict avoidance is a topic that has been hardly developed in past years using different approaches. In this thesis we purpose a new approach based on the use of ATC operative techniques that makes it possible both to model the UAS problem using a TDTSP framework both to use an Air Traffic Management perspective. Starting from this kind of mission, the problem of the UAS insertion in civil air space is formalized as the UAS Routing Problem (URP). For this reason we introduce a new structure called Conflict Graph that makes it possible to model the avoidance maneuvers and to define the arc cost function of the departing time. Two Integer Linear Programming formulations of the problem are proposed. The first is based on a TDTSP formulation that, unfortunately, is weaker then the TSP formulation. Thus a new formulation based on a TSP variation that uses specific penalty to model the holdings is proposed. Different algorithms are presented: exact algorithms, simple heuristics used as Upper Bounds on the number of time steps used, and metaheuristic algorithms as Genetic Algorithm and Simulated Annealing. Finally an air traffic scenario has been simulated using real air traffic data in order to test our algorithms. Graphic Tools have been used to represent the Milano Linate air space and its air traffic during different days. Such data have been provided by ENAV S.p.A (Italian Agency for Air Navigation Services).

The Civil War in Southern Sudan and Its Effect on Youth and Children

The Civil War in Sudan, which began in June 1983, has caused a numbers of social, cultural and economical problems for Sudan. Many social changes took place, not only in the southern Sudan, where the war has been fought since its inception, but also in the Sudanese Nation as a whole. In this contribution, I would like to give a short summary about the effect of the war on the Sudanese society, in general, and on youth and children, in particular. This is important, because youth and children are the future of every nation. Because the youth and children in southern Sudan are gravely affected by the current war, this article will specifically address these effects. Youth and children in the North of the country are, however, almost equally affected by the conflict. After discussing historical background of Sudan and its political and developmental condition, I will briefly summarize the social situation and the role of social work in Sudan during and after the conflict.

Guest Editorial: Racial and Ethnic Conflict and Violence

Racial and ethnic violence takes many forms. Genocides, ethnic cleansing, pogroms, civil wars, and violent separatist movements are the most obvious and extreme expressions, but less organized violence such as rioting, and hate crimes by individuals or small groups are products of racial and ethnic conflict as well. Also, the distribution of criminal violence within societies, which may or may not be aimed at members of another group, is in some places a by-product of ongoing conflicts between superior and subordinated racial or ethnic groups. Although estimates of the number of deaths attributable to ethnic violence vary widely, range of eleven to twenty million given for the period between 1945 and the early 1990s show the gravity of this type of conflict (Williams 1994, 50). So it comes as no surprise that scholars have paid increasing attention to such conflicts over the last decades.

Militares, gobierno y sociedad civil, en Israel

Este trabajo trata acerca de las cambiantes relaciones entre las fuerzas armadas, el gobierno y la sociedad civil en Israel. A pesar de que Israel cuenta con una democracia bien establecida, una sociedad civil activa e históricamente las fuerzas armadas han mostrado una subordinación a los gobiernos electos, los cambios que afectan los distintos niveles de la democracia en el país, los desarrollos sociales y la naturaleza evolutiva de sus fuerzas armadas presentan un desafío para el análisis. El marco de este tema es lo que generalmente es conocido como el conflicto Árabe-Israelí, en sus diversas fases. La larga duración de los conflictos en los que Israel ha estado involucrado desde su establecimiento como un estado independiente en 1948, sus múltiples y cambiantes características, ambos generan presiones sobre los distintos actores fuerzas armadas, sociedad y gobierno - y sirven como un recurso para la legitimación y deslegitimación de iniciativas, actitudes y políticas.

"La estrategia del caracol". El Neozapatismo : Insurgencia indígena y desobediencia civil

A la luz de sus autodefiniciones, se puede advertir el devenir del movimiento zapatista desde una organización indígena-campesina, democrática -y de tinte "multicultural"-, a una fuerza indígena-popular de carácter democrático y anticapitalista. La característica que especifica al movimiento es el haber hecho del problema de "los pueblos indios" una cuestión social y política al mismo tiempo, sin reducirla a un conflicto jurídico-político con el Estado. En el marco de los debates y polémicas -académicas y políticas- generados en los últimos años en torno a este devenir, nos propusimos explorar el proceso, enfocándonos en las relaciones entre las comunidades zapatistas en movimiento, y la sociedad civil mexicana

Antonio Sánchez Barbudo y Guillermo de Torre. Una polémica durante la Guerra Civil española

Antonio Sánchez Barbudo y Guillermo de Torre mantuvieron durante 1937 una polémica en torno al arte y a la función social del intelectual y el artista. La misma se suscitó a partir de un artículo publicado por Guillermo de Torre en la revista Sur, que mereció la inmediata respuesta de Sánchez Barbudo en su condición de secretario de la revista Hora de España; y luego un segundo artículo del teórico de las vanguardias. La controversia, al igual que la que mantuvieron los artistas Ramón Gaya y José Renau, es ejemplar en tanto permite leer las condiciones de creación y el lugar del compromiso del artista e intelectual, durante los últimos momentos de la II República y en medio de la Guerra Civil. Este trabajo es parte de un artículo en curso que analiza el debate entre destacados intelectuales en la revista Sur, en donde se explicitan dos posiciones bien precisas y diferenciadas que trascienden el contexto del conflicto español.

"La estrategia del caracol". El Neozapatismo : Insurgencia indígena y desobediencia civil

A la luz de sus autodefiniciones, se puede advertir el devenir del movimiento zapatista desde una organización indígena-campesina, democrática -y de tinte "multicultural"-, a una fuerza indígena-popular de carácter democrático y anticapitalista. La característica que especifica al movimiento es el haber hecho del problema de "los pueblos indios" una cuestión social y política al mismo tiempo, sin reducirla a un conflicto jurídico-político con el Estado. En el marco de los debates y polémicas -académicas y políticas- generados en los últimos años en torno a este devenir, nos propusimos explorar el proceso, enfocándonos en las relaciones entre las comunidades zapatistas en movimiento, y la sociedad civil mexicana

Antonio Sánchez Barbudo y Guillermo de Torre. Una polémica durante la Guerra Civil española

Antonio Sánchez Barbudo y Guillermo de Torre mantuvieron durante 1937 una polémica en torno al arte y a la función social del intelectual y el artista. La misma se suscitó a partir de un artículo publicado por Guillermo de Torre en la revista Sur, que mereció la inmediata respuesta de Sánchez Barbudo en su condición de secretario de la revista Hora de España; y luego un segundo artículo del teórico de las vanguardias. La controversia, al igual que la que mantuvieron los artistas Ramón Gaya y José Renau, es ejemplar en tanto permite leer las condiciones de creación y el lugar del compromiso del artista e intelectual, durante los últimos momentos de la II República y en medio de la Guerra Civil. Este trabajo es parte de un artículo en curso que analiza el debate entre destacados intelectuales en la revista Sur, en donde se explicitan dos posiciones bien precisas y diferenciadas que trascienden el contexto del conflicto español.

"La estrategia del caracol". El Neozapatismo : Insurgencia indígena y desobediencia civil

A la luz de sus autodefiniciones, se puede advertir el devenir del movimiento zapatista desde una organización indígena-campesina, democrática -y de tinte "multicultural"-, a una fuerza indígena-popular de carácter democrático y anticapitalista. La característica que especifica al movimiento es el haber hecho del problema de "los pueblos indios" una cuestión social y política al mismo tiempo, sin reducirla a un conflicto jurídico-político con el Estado. En el marco de los debates y polémicas -académicas y políticas- generados en los últimos años en torno a este devenir, nos propusimos explorar el proceso, enfocándonos en las relaciones entre las comunidades zapatistas en movimiento, y la sociedad civil mexicana

Antonio Sánchez Barbudo y Guillermo de Torre. Una polémica durante la Guerra Civil española

Antonio Sánchez Barbudo y Guillermo de Torre mantuvieron durante 1937 una polémica en torno al arte y a la función social del intelectual y el artista. La misma se suscitó a partir de un artículo publicado por Guillermo de Torre en la revista Sur, que mereció la inmediata respuesta de Sánchez Barbudo en su condición de secretario de la revista Hora de España; y luego un segundo artículo del teórico de las vanguardias. La controversia, al igual que la que mantuvieron los artistas Ramón Gaya y José Renau, es ejemplar en tanto permite leer las condiciones de creación y el lugar del compromiso del artista e intelectual, durante los últimos momentos de la II República y en medio de la Guerra Civil. Este trabajo es parte de un artículo en curso que analiza el debate entre destacados intelectuales en la revista Sur, en donde se explicitan dos posiciones bien precisas y diferenciadas que trascienden el contexto del conflicto español.