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Helpem Fren, Michael Wesley's diplomatic history of the Regional Assistance Mission to Solomon Islands (RAMSI), the Australian-led multilateral intervention in Solomon Islands from 2003-2017, is a near definitive study of the intervention from an Australian perspective. As such, it shares some of the failures of RAMSI itself, such as overconfidence in its success. The reviewer, based on his experience of living in the Solomons during many years of the RAMSI intervention, examines both the strengths and weaknesses of RAMSI and this volume, its semi-official history. These include RAMSI's early success in peacemaking and its more problematic long-term exercise in state building, including its inflexible entrenchment in law and justice, finance, and governance sectors to the exclusion of support for sustainable human development. The reviewer notes areas not dealt with in the book, including RAMSI's cost and its relations with the Solomon Islands Truth and Reconciliation Commission and the churches. While Helpem Fren is an essential study for understanding the Australian role in RAMSI, its strictly Australian perspective calls for further critical study of RAMSI. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Based on an empirical comparison of peace processes in carbon-dependent economies over time, this article investigates the impact of decarbonization and the related declining availability of political finance on peacemaking. While the period of high oil prices in the mid-2000s saw a small number of peace deals that attempted comprehensive settlements, the decline of oil prices in the years from 2014 resulted in a new era of turbulence. The turbulence is characterized by a high number of peacemaking attempts that strongly lean toward conflict management rather than resolution. The reasons for this new turbulence are twofold: the available means for substantial "buy-in," into a political marketplace by ruling elites in carbon-dependent conflictive political marketplaces have vanished while, at the same time, the strategic interest of international powers in geopolitical stability and their willingness and capability to invest in such stability has declined. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As representatives of the chief global peacemaking body, United Nations (UN) mediators are often deployed to conflict contexts where religion is important to warring parties. However, religion is largely absent from the academic and policy literature on UN mediation. In response, this study systematically explores the place of religion in UN mediation policy. To consider the extent to which religious issues, actors, values, norms, and identities inform the work of UN mediators, I thematically analyse all publicly available UN mediation guidance resources. I find that religion holds a more meaningful position in UN mediation than the literature suggests, and that the UN has taken positive steps to promote religious sensitivity among its mediators. However, the guidance is less clear as to how religion matters in conflict spaces, and my analysis reveals that religion tends to be understood in a tribal and depoliticized way. This view offers a reductive reading of the multiple and complex roles that religion plays across conflict environments, which may limit the success of UN peacemaking efforts. My findings highlight the importance of adequately understanding the role of worldviews and normative dispositions in spaces where the UN mediates, including, but not limited to, religion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Throughout history, empires have promised perpetual peace and justice for all; however, they have constantly bathed in blood while expanding their colonies and control. This paper intends to explore the theological concept of peacemaking from the experiences of the United Church of Christ in the Philippines (UCCP) and the Presbyterian Church in the Republic of Korea (PROK), both of which suffered from U.S. (neo)colonialism. It also aims to study how we can live faithfully amidst the empire by decolonizing theology and the church. To achieve this, I will begin by reviewing the concept of peace as proclaimed by empires, from the Roman to the American, and contrast it with the biblical concept of peace. This will be followed by analyzing and evaluating the impact of the received colonial American Protestant cultures and the churches' responses to the colonial gospel. The final part will propose peace as a way of peacemaking amid the empire. This paper suggests that the concept of peacemaking is essential to decolonizing theology, particularly the theology of sallim (life-giving). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates possible sociopolitical reconciliatory mechanisms to garner support for peacemaking in conflict-torn societies. Building on the Kurdish question in Turkey, associated with a four-decade-long armed conflict that has spilled over into neighboring Syria and Iraq, we identify policies and framing that can attract support for a political solution to the conflict. We highlight the need for a sociopolitical reconciliatory approach that addresses both the hopes of the warring minority and the fears of the majority. The results from an original nationwide survey indicate that minority demands can initially be addressed through a 'soft settlement,' lying between individual and collective rights. Our results point to the need to relax the concept of negotiated settlement, which has become the most frequent approach to ending internal armed conflicts in the post-Cold War era. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article investigates "Hiraago" peacemaking practices in the Hadiya Social Philosophy, Ethiopia. The main goal of the study is to examine how the "Hiraago" practice aids in the resolution of disputes and the promotion of reconciliation and social cohesion among the Hadiya. Both primary and secondary data were utilized. The data was collected through indepth interviews and observation. Other techniques of gathering information included analyzing articles from cultural magazines and journals. The "Hiraago" practice, which is strongly entrenched in the Hadiya tradition, is demonstrated to resolve complex, concealed, and long-standing issues and foster peaceful coexistence. The study indicates that "Hiraago" is important peacemaking methods that influence human relations and promotes reconciliation and forgiveness among conflict parties, hence contributing to the maintenance of peace in the studied area. The study suggests more research into the "Hiraago" and other indigenous model peacemaking techniques in social Philosophy of the Hadiya and other community traditional practices. And it urges collaboration between traditional peacemaking methods and modern ones to improve conflict resolution and peace sustainability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The fragility and instability of peace issues in the world, requires investigating the factors of this instability from the perspective of international law, especially, Chapter VI of the United Nations Charter. This paper seeks to examine the reason for the instability of peace from a legal point of view and also to provide legal and objective solutions in order to help the peace process to end the armed conflicts, adapting the negotiations, agreements to the rules of international law. In this context, the premise of this paper is the chapter 6 of the charter, the agreements made, the role of the security council, the general assembly and international judicial institutions, but in order to synchronize these processes, we need a legal evaluation so that peace is realized and the end of this process really contributes to the establishment of peace, not a peace to start the war again. What we are witnessing, the opinionated approaches to the fight against violence and its symbols. Inspite of inequalities and injustices, it is naturally not possible to talk about lasting peace without considering strong legal structures. Therefore, investigating legal solutions for creating a constructive and sustainable peace are necessary to protect the peacemaking process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Contributed by scholars from diverse traditions and perspectives around the world, this article evidences both unifying and diversifying impulses in Christian ethics and moral thinking. Christian ethics is understood as both lived experience and academic study reflecting upon practice, deploying moral norms, engaging present-day issues, and more. Major topics include climate change, the body, peacemaking, and more. Consideration is also paid to the powerful the role of the Bible in the everyday lives and decision-making of Christian people. Persistent emphases include God’s bias to the poor and how God’s gift of the earth to all in common requires human beings to ensure that those things necessary for life are available to all, including future generations. Christian ethics is shown to be distinctive because it follows from belief in Jesus Christ, the incarnate Son of God, and capable of argumentation without direct reference to revelation. Together, and in a conscious effort to reflect the polyphony of Pentecost (Acts 2:4–6), the contributors find Christian ethics to be an academic discipline of both sorrow and hope.

Civil society inclusion has become a widely accepted norm in international peacemaking. Scholars have analysed the impact of inclusion on mediation effectiveness, mediators' rationales for broadening participation, and the different modalities to include civil society actors. Drawing on the concept of the 'agency of the governed' in norms research, this article examines the inclusion norm from the perspective of civil society actors. It conducts a case study of the United Nations (UN) mediation in Syria based on 41 interviews gathered between 2018 and 2020. The article shows how Syrian civil society actors perceived inclusion and compares these views to the dominant international narratives on inclusion. It demonstrates that the link between inclusion and effectiveness is conditional, and that inclusion risks – under certain conditions – to lower legitimacy, disempower civil society, and entrench conflict lines. The article thereby nuances arguments about how inclusion leads to effectiveness by broadening the perspectives on inclusive peacemaking. It has crucial practical implications because mediators may decide on whether and how to design inclusive processes, but civil society actors ultimately determine the effectiveness of such inclusion attempts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Collective instruments, such as UN peacekeeping or mediation, are a lens through which we can examine broader normative fault lines in the international order. They hold both practical and symbolic value. In the post-Cold War moment, these instruments started reflecting liberal values. They became concerned with balancing the rights of individuals and state sovereignty. These advances around "human protection" are now in question, with contestation perceived as emerging from non-Western powers. I contribute to the debates on the "pragmatic turn" within collective responses but contend that while the focus in current debates about the normative shift has become global fragmentation, the momentum for the de-prioritization of human protection within collective instruments comes from within the liberal order itself. Human protection is now a broadly shared and firmly entrenched norm, but to shield the norm from abuse, the collective international community progressively restricted any use of force to advance the norm within the instrument of UN peacekeeping. The co-optation of UN peacekeeping into counter-terrorism efforts and the introduction of stabilization mandates undermined the principled nature and moral authority of the instrument of peacekeeping itself. This, in turn, compromised the implementation of human protection. This development is now accelerated and exposed due to global fragmentation, influencing not just peacekeeping but also other adjacent activities, such as mediation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Relaciones Internacionales (1699-3950) is the property of Autonomous University of Madrid, Spain, International Relations Studies Group (GERI) Law Faculty and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

In honor of Tom Greening, who recently passed from this world, this reflection explores Greening's poetry and activism for peace in light of his theory of existential psychology. Greening faithfully served as an Editor of Journal of Humanistic Psychology for many years, but perhaps his most public face was the poems he often shared on the Society for Humanistic Psychology's email listserv, many of which were also published. His often humorous, irreverent, and ironic poetry is interpreted as a means by which Greening navigated the existential dilemmas that he held to be intrinsic to human existence. Greening's use of poetry to escape the either/or dichotomies of literal prose and the logic of the excluded middle allowed him, also, to embrace nonviolence as an authentic confrontation with the paradoxes of human existence, including strength in weakness, affirmation of life in the face of death, finding meaning in response to life's absurdities, discovering freedom within life's determinisms, and seeking hope for community despite one's existential aloneness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Perspektive Mediation is the property of Verlag Oesterreich GmbH and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Journal of Actual Problems of Jurisprudence / Habaršy. Zan̦ Seriâsy is the property of Al-Farabi Kazakh National University and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This article (re) appraises the role of civil society in South Sudan's peace process. Situated at the confluence of civil society inclusion/exclusion, the significance of civil society participation and its contribution to peace processes, the article contributes to literature on inclusive and sustainable peace. The article employs a qualitative case analysis to illuminate the dynamics of civil society participation in the Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD)-led peace process for South Sudan. The article engages with factors that compromise the efficacy of civic action in South Sudan and issues that are injurious to the sector's legitimacy. The article neither downplays the complexity and precarity of the environment in which the South Sudanese civil society finds itself nor overplays the importance and contributions of civil society to the peace process. More importantly, it reveals that civil society in South Sudan is severely ffagmentated and suggests that this fragmentation needs to be addressed as it simultaneously compromises civil society's peacemaking efficacy and undermines the sector's legitimacy. In the end, the article adds to the view that civil society is not always a force for peace and the sector's inclusion; participation does not necessarily contribute to legitimising or sustaining peace processes and their outcomes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

China's relationship with human security has been ambiguous. It has acted as the most visible objector of the concept, while simultaneously contributing the most troops of all UN Security Council permanent members to UN protection of civilians (POC) peacekeeping missions. To analyse this ambiguity, we develop a typology of activities used by external actors to address human security concerns: mediation, physical protection including the use of force, and capacity building. The typology draws on the three constituent responsibilities in Responsibility to Protect (R2P) and closely aligns with the three tiers of the UN peacekeeping POC policy. We apply our typology on China's engagement with the South Sudan civil war. We posit two interlinked arguments. First, we argue that China pursues a dual-track approach to human security, within and outside multilateral deployments, and these need to be read simultaneously to appreciate its understanding of the concept. Second, we argue for a refocus on all three types of activities. While most research has focused on the Chinese approach to the use of force, we show that the two other types of activities—mediation and capacity building —present highly productive sites of contestation. Given the current global fragmentation, where any authorisation of the use of force in the UNSC and robust peacekeeping deployments are increasingly improbable, understanding Chinese understandings of human security within mediation and capacity building is of paramount importance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article draws on my time as a classroom teacher and my experience as a museum educator affiliated with the Center for Restorative History to argue for learning that centers relationships over education that centers measurement. The world we live in is shaped by a logic that prioritizes categorization, regulation, and metrics measured against a western liberal ideal. Restorative history, building on practices of peacemaking and restorative justice, offers maps to different ways to be together and think about the world. Places and moments of learning informed by critical pedagogy are the ground on which we can use restorative history practices to build a different world that centers relationship building, mending, and maintaining right relations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper reviews nondietary uses and symbolic connotations of cycads (Cycas seemannii) in Vanuatu, relying on data from ethnographic studies, anthropological literature, and local media reports. The authors focus on the uses of cycads in magical practices, in grade-taking ceremonies and traditional land tenure, in reconciliation and peace-making, in tabooing and emblematization of chiefly authority, and in the symbolism of political movements and state institutions. The article suggests two potential genealogies of cycad prominence in the archipelago, one stemming from the role of the plant as an emblem of pacificatory influence of graded societies and the other centered on the use of cycad leaves as tallies for recalling debts in traditional ni-Vanuatu culture. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This data feature introduces a new dataset to study peace processes to end organized armed violence in Africa: the African Peace Processes (APP) dataset. The APP dataset includes observations on both mediated and unmediated rounds of negotiations in state-based and non-state conflicts in Africa between 1989 and 2019 and builds on conflict data from the Uppsala Conflict Data Program (UCDP). The APP dataset covers peacemaking efforts in both active and inactive conflicts. Moreover, the start and end month and year of each observation are specified, giving researchers some flexibility with regard to the temporal unit of analysis they use. In addition to discussing the rationale behind the creation of the APP dataset, we explain the data collection process and show some patterns based on the data. We also illustrate how the data could be used by looking at the association between the no. of peacekeepers deployed and the onset of mediated negotiations in intrastate and non-state conflicts. We find that high no. of peacekeepers are associated with a higher likelihood of negotiations in non-state conflicts, but not in intrastate conflicts. A plausible explanation for this finding is that security concerns play a more important role in the decision to initiate negotiations in non-state conflicts than in intrastate conflicts. Our short analysis thus illustrates the value of having data on both intrastate and non-state conflicts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Peace-talk is incoherent because we do not have one definition of the word "peace." Everyone has different understandings of this term, and thus we cannot help but selfishly impose our understandings of peace onto someone else's understandings of peace. With the help of Augustine of Hippo, we underscore this issue through an analysis of disordered desire; in addition, with the help of French theorist René Girard and his theory of mimesis (which very much has an Augustinian flavor in terms of its low theological anthropology), we emphasize how humanity cannot help but disorder even the noblest of endeavors such as just peacemaking. Therefore, this essay argues that humanity's peace presents a mimetical trap that needs to be broken from above via a divine disruption that is simultaneously violent and nonviolent. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Drawing on research conducted as part of a UN sabbatical leave programme, this article seeks to challenge a long-standing understanding of human rights and peace mediation as two distinct and often competing areas of work and expertise at opposite ends. By illustrating how human rights analysis and actors have directly contributed to and facilitated mediation efforts, the article demonstrates the inherent problem-solving nature of human rights by putting a spotlight on their role in supporting peace-making efforts by the UN and other entities. The article is based on eight in-depth case studies—from Palestine in 1948 to Colombia in 2016—and close to 60 interviews with present and former senior UN officials, representatives of non-official intermediaries and other experts engaged in mediation and human rights. With a view to better and more consistently applying the inherent potential of human rights in the political work of mediators, it demonstrates how human rights in fact stand 'at the heart of mediation' and breaks a prevailing narrow understanding of rights concerned primarily with criminal accountability. In so doing, the article not only fills a gap in academic literature but aims to trigger debate among practitioners and researchers on how human rights experts and mediators can learn from each other's comparative approaches with a view to designing more sustainable and legitimate peace processes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Qatar’s role in mediation diminished following the 2017 Gulf Crisis and the regional backlash to its interventionist policy during the Arab Spring. After the resolution of the Gulf Crisis in 2021, the Qatari role in conflict mediation re-emerged with a return to third-party mediation in the early 2020s, receiving widespread attention following the U.S.-Taliban agreement. The post-crisis return of Qatar to playing central mediator and facilitator roles in conflict management has, however, been subject to discontinuities as well as continuities in its mediation style as a result of the crisis in its international relations. This article analyses the evolution of mediation strategy, utilizing case studies of Qatar’s mediation in Afghanistan, Chad, and Libya through a framework focusing on results, modality, acceptability and reception. The analysis identifies key comparative findings on Qatar’s post-2020 renewed role in conflict mediation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article discusses instances of feud-like behaviour, enmities and peacemaking among peasants in seventeenth-century Denmark. It provides examples of early modern peasants declaring enmities, exacting vengeance, committing various forms of feud-related violence and making private peace settlements, and discusses whether such practices may be seen in continuation of late medieval peasant feuds. It is concluded that while such behaviours and mentalities were indeed rooted in earlier conflict resolution paradigms, they need to be interpreted in the context of social change, not least state-making, pacification and criminalisation, in order to estimate their significance and avoid selective use of evidence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Centring on non-nobles in the Duchies of Styria, Carniola and Carinthia, this paper addresses dispute settlement in Inner Austria, following the Imperial prohibition of feud in 1495 and the Habsburgs' local consolidation of power earlier in the century. These developments are said to have brought about an end to feuding in the duchies in the 1500s, but by focusing on the concept of enmity, which articulated the same state of social relations, this article presents ample evidence that among all social classes dispute settlement retained much of the traditional practices well into the 1700s. Their survival was instrumentally underpinned by various courts of law and local authorities, regarding them as an indispensable element of keeping social cohesion and peace. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Collective instruments, such as UN peacekeeping or mediation, are a lens through which we can examine broader normative fault lines in the international order. They hold both practical and symbolic value. In the post-Cold War moment, these instruments started reflecting liberal values. They became concerned with balancing the rights of individuals and state sovereignty. These advances around “human protection” are now in question, with contestation perceived as emerging from non-Western powers. I contribute to the debates on the “pragmatic turn” within collective responses but contend that while the focus in current debates about the normative shift has become global fragmentation, the momentum for the de-prioritization of human protection within collective instruments comes from within the liberal order itself. Human protection is now a broadly shared and firmly entrenched norm, but to shield the norm from abuse, the collective international community progressively restricted any use of force to advance the norm within the instrument of UN peacekeeping. The co-optation of UN peacekeeping into counter-terrorism efforts and the introduction of stabilization mandates undermined the principled nature and moral authority of the instrument of peacekeeping itself. This, in turn, compromised the implementation of human protection. This development is now accelerated and exposed due to global fragmentation, influencing not just peacekeeping but also other adjacent activities, such as mediation.

In 2022, the world experienced the deadliest year of armed conflict since the 1994 Rwandan genocide. Much of the intensity and frequency of recent conflicts has drawn more attention to failures in forecasting—that is, a failure to anticipate conflicts. Such capabilities have the potential to greatly reduce the time, motivation, and opportunities peacemakers have to intervene through mediation or peacekeeping operations. In recent years, the growth in the volume of open-source data coupled with the wide-scale advancements in machine learning suggests that it may be possible for computational methods to help the international community forecast intrastate conflict more accurately, and in doing so reduce the rise of conflict. In this commentary, we argue for the promise of conflict forecasting under several technical and policy conditions. From a technical perspective, the success of this work depends on improvements in the quality of conflict-related data and an increased focus on model interpretability. In terms of policy implementation, we suggest that this technology should be used primarily to aid policy analysis heuristically and help identify unexpected conflicts.

In the course of its postcolonial development, the African continent has faced many challenges, ranging from socio-economic crises to political instability and the proliferation of terrorism. The lack of security, which remains a source of constant concern for Africans, and the gradual disengagement of the international community, primarily the United Nations (UN), from armed involvement in the resolution of military conflicts on the continent in the 1990s, led to the emergence of the concept of “African solutions to African problems.” The phrase, which reflects the determination of Africans to solve their problems without the participation of external actors, has become a source of their pride; however, the possibility and ability of the inhabitants of the continent to implement this approach still raises justified doubts for a number of reasons that are to be discussed in this paper. The concept of “African solutions to African problems” has now become the main principle that determines the level and nature of the peacekeeping activities of the African Union (AU) and African regional blocs; the verbal adherence of the AU member states to this maxim has been noted by many Russian and foreign researchers. However, a comprehensive analysis of the reasons for the unsuccessful implementation of this concept has not yet been carried out by Russian scholars, so the present article aims to fill this gap. In particular, the paper examines attempts of Africans to solve their problems in the field of security independently. The study allows us to claim that the African continent, primarily due to its insufficient integration and lack of consensus on a number of issues of political development and security, is not yet ready to carry out full-fledged peacekeeping operations without external support, although the gradual acquisition of relevant experience, the decrease in economic dependence on the West, and the diversification of foreign policy will contribute to laying a solid foundation for the idea of “African solutions to African problems.”

This article presents the concept of a Peace-Oriented Mindset (POM), based on peace psychology and the significance of conflict-related context. It highlights the role of preventing conflicts through creating an enabling and peace-supportive milieu, facilitated by individuals with specific peace-oriented capabilities. The phenomenon of POM is analyzed, as well as delineated in the context of the current knowledge in this field. Next, the method used to construct a questionnaire measuring the POM is presented. The POM scale is verified on an N = 1074 representative sample, documenting high reliability. Factor analysis confirms the conjecture that there are three dimensions of the POM: Cognitive, performative, and doability conviction. Moreover, social norms are documented. A cross-segment comparison delivers several insights, e.g., that women have a higher POM level than men and that those who consider themselves leaders or innovators and those who are involved in social activities have a higher POM level than those who do not. The POM concept and scale are valuable resources for identifying future peacebuilders, especially from conflicted communities, as well as for training future youth leaders in the field of peacebuilding. Finally, indications for future studies are discussed, e.g., for verifying the hypothesis that individuals who score high in POM also have higher levels of empathy and compassion.

This article explores the experience of the Afro-Colombian movement over the course of two peace processes, investigating the relationship between opportunities for participation and effective inclusion. The 1991 Constituent Assembly that emerged from the peace processes of the late 1980s presented a particularly open opportunity for civil society participation, and yet the Afro-Colombian movement was unable to gain representation in negotiations for a new constitution. In the 2016 peace process with the Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia, or FARC, despite insistence from the government that its negotiations with FARC were exclusively bilateral, the Afro movement was able to gain a seat at the table along with its Indigenous counterparts and generate a commitment from both parties to protect ethnic rights, known as the Capítulo Étnico (Ethnic Chapter). In contrast to existing literature that focuses on international actors as drivers of inclusion, we argue that effective inclusion reflects in large part the internal capacity, coherence, and unity of the movements themselves.

Online hate speech is ripping Ethiopian society apart and threatening the values of democracy, human dignity, and peaceful coexistence. The current study argues that understanding people's responses to hateful posts helps combat hate speech online. Therefore, this study aims to comprehend the roles social media users play in responding to online hate speech. To this end, 14 ethnic-based hate speech posts each with more than 1,000 comments were collected from the public space of four purposefully selected YouTube news channels and four Facebook accounts, which are considered as hot spots for the circulation of hate speech during data collection period. Then, 100 random comments were collected from each hate speech post using “exportcomment.com” which automatically extract comments from social media posts in excel format. After extracting a total of 1,400 random comments, 460 of them were removed because they were found irrelevant and unclear to be coded and analyzed. Then, inductive coding was employed to identify, refine, and name codes and themes that describe the main roles played by social media users in reacting to the hate speeches. The findings showed five major roles social media users play in responding to hatful contents: trolling, pace-making, peace-making, informing, and guarding. The paper discusses the findings and provides recommendations deemed necessary to counter online hate speeches.

This article presents the concept of a Peace-Oriented Mindset (POM), based on peace psychology and the significance of conflictrelated context. It highlights the role of preventing conflicts through creating an enabling and peace-supportive milieu, facilitated by individuals with specific peace-oriented capabilities. The phenomenon of POM is analyzed, as well as delineated in the context of the current knowledge in this field. Next, the method used to construct a questionnaire measuring the POM is presented. The POM scale is verified on an N = 1074 representative sample, documenting high reliability. Factor analysis confirms the conjecture that there are three dimensions of the POM: Cognitive, performative, and doability conviction. Moreover, social norms are documented. A crosssegment comparison delivers several insights, e.g., that women have a higher POM level than men and that those who consider themselves leaders or innovators and those who are involved in social activities have a higher POM level than those who do not. The POM concept and scale are valuable resources for identifying future peacebuilders, especially from conflicted communities, as well as for training future youth leaders in the field of peacebuilding. Finally, indications for future studies are discussed, e.g., for verifying the hypothesis that individuals who score high in POM also have higher levels of empathy and compassion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article introduces the Civil Conflict CeaseFire (CF) dataset. The CF data covers all ceasefires in civil conflict between 1989 and 2020, including multilateral, bilateral and unilateral arrangements, ranging from verbal arrangements to detailed written agreements. In total, the CF data includes 2202 ceasefires across 66 countries and 109 civil conflicts. The data feature information on the actors involved in the ceasefire, and the class, purpose, coverage, and end date of the ceasefire. The CF data provide an empirical basis to assess the conditions that give rise to ceasefires, how ceasefires affect the dynamics of conflict, and the role of a ceasefire in the peace process. This article presents the rationale underlying the data collection, the coding rules and procedures, and how this data can be used for analysis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The African Peacemaking Database is a collection of knowledge intended to catalogue and nourish, for the very first time, traditional and daily practices of positive peace throughout the African continent. Existing peace and conflict databases focus on peace within the context of the government and its institutions, use data sources and definitions rooted in Western ways of knowing, and concentrate on measurement and analysis. Through research and partnerships over the past two years in Eastern and Southern Africa, we fill these gaps by partnering with the United Religions Initiative so that local, intercultural Pan-African leaders can lead Peace Mapping workshops in existing interfaith circles on a country-by-country basis. This essay discusses the implementation of an Indigenous Methodology rooted in local knowledge on a continental scale to harvest peace practices and traditions from women, youth, and elders so that community strengths of reconciliation, daily peacemaking, and rituals of music, dance, and storytelling are shared with the wider world. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the face of the current decline or spectacular collapse of peace processes, this article investigates whether peace has become systematically blocked. It investigates whether the ineffectiveness of an 'international peace architecture' (IPA) can be explained by a more potent counterpeace system, which is growing in its shadow. It identifies counterpeace as proto-systemic processes that connect spoilers across all scales (local, regional, national, transnational), while exploiting structural blockages to peace and unintended consequences of peace interventions. It elaborates three distinct patterns of blockages to peace in contemporary conflicts across the globe: the stalemate, limited counterpeace, and unmitigated counterpeace. Drawing on the counterrevolution literature, this research asks: Have peace interventions become the source of their own undoing? Which factors consolidate or aggravate emerging conflict patterns? Are blockages to peace systemic enough to construct a sedimentary and layered counterpeace edifice? [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores the experience of the Afro-Colombian movement over the course of two peace processes, investigating the relationship between opportunities for participation and effective inclusion. The 1991 Constituent Assembly that emerged from the peace processes of the late 1980s presented a particularly open opportunity for civil society participation, and yet the AfroColombian movement was unable to gain representation in negotiations for a new constitution. In the 2016 peace process with the Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia, or FARC, despite insistence from the government that its negotiations with FARC were exclusively bilateral, the Afro movement was able to gain a seat at the table along with its Indigenous counterparts and generate a commitment from both parties to protect ethnic rights, known as the Capítulo Étnico (Ethnic Chapter). In contrast to existing literature that focuses on international actors as drivers of inclusion, we argue that effective inclusion reflects in large part the internal capacity, coherence, and unity of the movements themselves. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article is the Alan Keith Lucas lecture given at the 72nd NACSW Annual Convention at Oak Brook, Illinois by Dr. Lawrence Ressler. The presentation calls for Christian social workers to have four peace and reconciliation skills based on the Psalm 85:10 framework of mercy, truth, justice and peace. The competency skills include forgiveness support skills, truth-seeking skills, amends facilitation and reparation skills, and vision facilitation skills and mediation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since the 1980s, psychiatrists, psychologists, and diplomats have proposed psychoanalytic theories to inform peacemaking in international relations through Track II negotiations, defined as unofficial meetings among influential stakeholders with access to government policymakers. These contributions have focused on initiating or maintaining Track II negotiations (Aggarwal et al., 2023). In this article, we apply psychoanalytic concepts to the problem of restarting negotiations that have previously failed. This study introduces theories based on a dialogue that a cultural psychiatrist trained in South Asian Studies moderated with the past directors of India's and Pakistan's foreign intelligence agencies to consider how both countries could recommence negotiations. The two former directors have participated together in five Track II initiatives between India and Pakistan. All three authors reviewed best practices for addressing impediments to Track II negotiations and how Track II negotiations may be reinstituted once stalled. We did this in a far-reaching discussion devoted to the psychology of peacemaking. We introduce the theories of trust as interpersonal authenticity, the normalization of conflicts, the back channel as a process to work through diplomatic resistance, and negotiator selection criteria. Our theories and method present new ways to apply psychoanalytic concepts to diplomacy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Violent conflict is a global phenomenon with devastating costs to individuals and their communities. Government experts and policymakers have responded with efforts to reduce violence and make peace. Such efforts are often implemented from the top-down, however, and are consequently limited in their peacemaking capacities. Top-down peacemaking is limited because it is typically done by community outsiders who simply lack the knowledge and capabilities to systematically plan and make peace in diverse societies throughout the world. We discuss a bottom-up alternative to peacemaking grounded in entrepreneurship. We argue that entrepreneurs make peace by (a) offering individuals a peaceful means to acquire the things they desire, (b) establishing commercial links across (social and geographic) distances, and, in so doing, (c) helping to cultivate habits of peacefulness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines implementation of national political agendas in two urban settings—Israel’s program aimed at sole sovereign control of Jerusalem and Northern Ireland’s effort to build peace in Belfast. It is based on seven months of in-country research and 122 interviews conducted in 2015 and 2016. Political goals of united Jerusalem in Israel and shared future in Northern Ireland are problematized as they confront micro-scale urban dynamics and resistant patterns of community power. A national policy agenda aimed at managing a city requires a political-spatial process of implementation having erratic effects. National-urban disjunctions were found in fundamentally different national programs, illuminating the inherent disruptive quality of urban dynamics in resisting national mandates. Findings inform theories of policy implementation and urban governance, highlighting problematic characteristics of national goals when implemented in urban space and the role of ethnic and cultural interests operating outside formal urban governance institutions in impeding national directives.