6,337 research outputs found
Returning culture to peacebuilding : contesting the liberal peace in Sierra Leone
No full textThis thesis investigates the advantages and limitations of applying culture to the analysis of violent conflict and peacebuilding, with a particular focus on liberal peacebuilding in Sierra Leone. While fully aware of the critique of the concept of culture in terms of its uses for the production of difference and ‘otherness,’ it also seeks to respond to the critique of liberal peacebuilding on the account of its low sensitivity towards local culture, which allegedly undermines the peace effort. After a careful examination of the terms of discussion about culture enabled by theoretical approaches to conflict in Chapter 2, the thesis presents a theoretical framework for the analysis of cultural aspects of conflict and peace based on the processes and effects of meaning-generation (Chapter 3), developing the conceptual apparatus and vocabulary for the subsequent empirical study. Instead of bracketing out the recursive nature of cultural theorising, the developed approach embraces the recursive dynamics which arise as a result of cultural ‘embeddedness’ of the analyst and the processes which s/he seeks to elucidate, mirroring similar dynamics in the cultural production of meaning and knowledge. The framework of ‘embedded cultural enquiry’ is then used to analyse the practices of liberal peacebuilding as a particular culture, which shapes the interaction of the liberal peace with its ‘subjects’ and critics as well as framing its reception of the cultural problematic generally (Chapter 4). The application of the analytical framework to the case study investigates the interaction between the liberal peace and ‘local culture,’ offering an alternative reading of the conflict and peace process in Sierra Leone (Chapter 5). The study concludes that a greater attention to cultural meaning-making offers a largely untapped potential for peacebuilding, although any decisions with regard to its deployment will inevitably be made from within an inherently biased cultural perspective
Father Andrew Mullen 1790-1818: a study in early nineteenth century spirituality
No full textThis thesis is laid out in three parts: Part I. The life and death of Andrew Mullen. The life is based, to a large extent, on a long letter to his mother, Catherine Mullen, dated 7 January 1810. The letter gives a definite insight into his spirituality based on his membership of the Archconfraternity of the Blessed Sacrament. There is a hint that he had a premonition of an early death. Part II. The burial of Andrew Mullen and the immediate cult to him This is based on documentary evidence. Part III. Most of this part is a catalogue of testimonies taken from 1993 onwards. Then there is the conclusion on the popular devotion to Andrew Mullen stressing the theological aspect of the subject. In the course of writing the thesis it was decided to separate the documentary evidence from the oral tradition. This was advantageous in developing the thesis, and the documents provided a secure basis for the oral tradition. Two pieces of information were found in March 1997. They are death notices: 2 January 1819, The Leinster Journal and 7 January 1819, The Car low Morning Post. There is a slight discrepancy between the two on the date of his death. Also this discrepancy shows a slight difference from the date of the tombstone
'Hollow promises?' Critical materialism and the contradictions of the Democratic Peace
No full text© Cambridge University PressThe Democratic Peace research programme explicitly and implicitly presents its claims in terms of their potential to underpin a universal world peace. Yet whilst the Democratic Peace appears robust in its geographical heartlands it appears weaker at the edges of the democratic world, where the spread of democracy and the depth of democratic political development is often limited and where historically many of the purported exceptions to the Democratic Peace are found. Whereas Democratic Peace scholarship has tended to overlook or downplay these phenomena, from a critical materialist perspective they are indicative of a fundamental contradiction within the Democratic Peace whereby its universalistic aspirations are thwarted by its material grounding in a hierarchical capitalist world economy. This, in turn, raises the question of whether liberal arguments for a universal Democratic Peace are in fact hollow promises. The article explores these concerns and argues that those interested in democracy and peace should pay more attention to the critical materialist tradition, which in the discussion below is represented principally by the world-system approach
The marriage record of Holland, Andrew J. and Fulford, Lizzie
No full textMarriage license for Andrew J. Holland and Lizzie Fulford. W.E. Johnson was the Justice of the Peace
What I know about my ancestors, and their families : also, some account of my wife's ancestors, and their families /
No full textIncludes index."This book is donated by Dr. Victor J. Andrew, great grandson of the author, who copied it from the original manuscript which is in the possession of Mr. Morton O. Perkins, grandson of the author, and who still lives on the author's farm."Reprint of: What I know about my ancestors, and their families : also some account of my wife's ancestors, and their families / Edward Perkins. Weymouth, Ohio : Perkins, 1888.Mode of access: Internet
'Mysterious in content' : the European Union peacebuilding framework and local spaces of agency in Bosnia-Herzegovina
No full textThis thesis aims to investigate EU peacebuilding in Bosnia-Herzegovina, focusing on the ways in which EU actors engage with local cultural actors and vice versa. Given that, in the liberal peacebuilding tradition, civil society has been considered a key actor in the public sphere, peacebuilding actors have tended to neglect seemingly more marginal actors and their subtle ways of impacting on the peacebuilding process.
However, this thesis contends that processes of interaction are not always direct and
visible, but centre on discourse clusters, which I frame as imaginary ‘spaces of agency’.
Through the creation of meanings within a space of agency and its translation into other imaginary spaces, actors develop the power to impact upon the peacebuilding process, often in coded ways and therefore invisible in the public sphere, as peacebuilding actors, including the EU, have created it. A typology of the modes of interaction and possible responses between spaces helps understand the complexities and nuances of peacebuilding interaction.
The thesis uses this framework to analyse several exemplary spaces of agency of the
EU, rooting them in institutional discourses with specific reference to Bosnia-Herzegovina. Based on this, I investigate a number of responses to those spaces on the
part of local cultural actors, as well as how the latter contribute to the emergence of
alternative localised spaces, where the EU’s spaces fail to connect to the everyday dimensions of peace. I suggest that this represents a way in which local actors try to
claim the ownership of peacebuilding back in subtle ways. This also points to the ability
of actors that have traditionally been excluded from the peacebuilding project to
contextualise abstract and distant processes into what matters locally, as well as their
capacity to reject and resist when the EU’s spaces remain irrelevant for local peacebuilding imaginations
The marriage record of Townsend, Andrew J. and Devane, Lucy L
No full textMarriage license for Lucy L. Devane and Andrew J. Townsend. John W. Matehett was the Justice of the Peace
The marriage record of Lastinger, Andrew J. and Clemens, Harriet E
No full textMarriage license for Andrew J. Lastinger and Harriet E. Clemens. W.G. Jameson was the Justice of the Peace
The Cold Peace: Russo-Western Relations as a Mimetic Cold War
No full textIn 1989–1991 the geo-ideological contestation between two blocs was swept away, together with the ideology of civil war and its concomitant Cold War played out on the larger stage. Paradoxically, while the domestic sources of Cold War confrontation have been transcended, its external manifestations remain in the form of a ‘legacy’ geopolitical contest between the dominant hegemonic power (the United States) and a number of potential rising great powers, of which Russia is one. The post-revolutionary era is thus one of a ‘cold peace’. A cold peace is a mimetic cold war. In other words, while a cold war accepts the logic of conflict in the international system and between certain protagonists in particular, a cold peace reproduces the behavioural patterns of a cold war but suppresses acceptance of the logic of behaviour. A cold peace is accompanied by a singular stress on notions of victimhood for some and undigested and bitter victory for others. The perceived victim status of one set of actors provides the seedbed for renewed conflict, while the ‘victory’ of the others cannot be consolidated in some sort of relatively unchallenged post-conflict order. The ‘universalism’ of the victors is now challenged by Russia's neo-revisionist policy, including not so much the defence of Westphalian notions of sovereignty but the espousal of an international system with room for multiple systems (the Schmittean pluriverse)
Relative Rebel Strength and the Onset and Outcome of Civil War Mediation
No full textTo what extent does the relative strength of a rebel movement impact upon the likelihood of a peace settlement in civil conflict? This paper argues that relatively stronger rebels are more likely to overcome the strategic bargaining problems that can prevent the resolution of war. Relatively strong insurgents are better equipped to significantly challenge core government interests, and fundamentally threaten the survival a regime. The incumbent’s fear of future violence therefore makes mediation more likely to be undertaken in high-stakes conflicts between states and strong rebel groups. Relatively strong insurgencies are also those with the greatest leverage to negotiate enforcement mechanisms, and the best equipped to defend themselves in the event that the government reneges on an agreement. This reduces the scale of the commitment problem and increases the probability of relatively strong rebel groups agreeing to a settlement with an incumbent. This argument is tested using dyadic data that captures the relative position of insurgents in civil war from 1946 to 2004. This represents an important methodological shift within the mediation literature, which has in the past largely relied upon aggregate country-level data. The results suggest that relatively stronger insurgents are more likely to force the state to open a mediation process and eventually concede some form of settlement. This is further evidence of the need to capture the dyadic relations between actors with fine-grained disaggregated data
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