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Protracted Social Conflict; Theory and Practice in the Middle East
By Edward E Azar, Paul Jureidini, and Ronald McLaurin

Article Description:
The Arab-Israeli conflict plays its traditional role as an excuse for inaction. This is one of the most useful and, perhaps, most destructive of the implications of the protracted conflict. Inaction is excused as caution; indecision, as cunning. The Arab-Israeli conflict has been exploited and continues to serve as a rationale for both the Arab states and Israel when leadership prefers to ignore a knotty problem rather than to deal with it. Both Israel and its Arab neighbors entertain major social problems in terms of ethnic minorities; income and services distribution; the role of religion; health delivery; and important shift in societal composition and mobility. These problems are being assiduously avoided I the name of security, in the name of Arab-Israeli conflict.

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Contemporary Conflict Analysis in Perspective
By João Gomes Porto

Chapter Description:
In the conclusion, the author has three analyses about contemporary conflict in sub-Saharan Africa. Three lessons are important to consider in relation to the design and implementation of conflict prevention and management policies. Those are (pp 32):

1. Conflict in sub-Saharan Africa is structurally and functionally open. Conflicts in sub-Saharan Africa operate within broader regional and international systems. Apparently isolated conflicts are in reality intimately linked to broader political and economic contexts involving multiple, and often times, competing individuals and group actors, and interests. The institutions, policies and legal regimes governing these, moreover, are overlapping and mixed. Policy makers, therefore, must explicitly recognize the role of external engagers, and incorporate their involvement in policy formulation and interventions.

2. Conflict systems in sub-Saharan Africa are operationally complex. The levels of engagement and the number of variables underlying conflict are many; and more often than not the operation of conflict is uncertain. Tracing the role of different conflict variables, including ecological, demands scrupulous policy attention to such operational vagaries.

3. The ecological variable is clearly an important factor in conflict. It is critical that policies consider how the ecological variable triggers and sustains conflict, as well as how it generates conflict. Moreover, it is also important that policy research and analysis trace the relationship of ecology to conflict through different pathways. Policies will vary depending on how the ecological variable is linked to conflict. Identifying and assessing linkages is critical to targeting effective policy interventions that have lasting impact.

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Strategic Rivalries, Protracted Conflict, and Crisis Escalation
By Michael Colaresi & William R. Thompson (Department of Political Science, Indiana University)

Abstract of This Article:
Underlying the emerging interest in the role of rivalry processes as antecedents to interstate conflict is the simple idea that conflict within the constraints of rivalry works differently than conflict outside of rivalry. In this article, the authors inspect the concepts of protracted conflict, as developed within the International Crisis Behavior (ICB) project, and rivalry, and discuss some of their applications to crisis escalation.

The protracted conflict and rivalry concepts are not identical, but they do overlap in terms of their emphases on historical context, serious goal incompatibilities, and stakes that might be resolved coercively. Developing an argument for the concept of rivalry possessing fewer limitations than protracted conflict, the authors proceed to analyze and test the interaction between rivalry and other variables, again making use of an ICB escalation model, when predicting crisis escalation to war. Throughout, their basic question concerns what role interstate rivalry plays in crisis behavior. Are the crises of rivals more lethal than those of non-rivals? If so, can we pinpoint why that is the case?

The authors find that rivalry not only makes escalation more likely, but also significantly interacts with more traditional predictors of conflict, such as capability ratios, the number of actors in a crisis, democracy, and the issues under contention.

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The Arab-Israeli Conflict: Learning Conflict Resolution
By Yaacov Bar-Siman-Tov (Department of International Relations, The Hebrew University & Department of Political Science, University of Florida)

Publish in : Journal of Peace Research, vol. 31, no. 1, 1994, pp. 75-92

Article Description:
This article has a good explanation to examine why, how, and when effective management of a conflict can develop into conflict resolution; how do the most effective mechanisms originate and how are they sustained; and how can they influence the controlling, limiting, and resolving of a conflict?

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The Middle East and the Theory of Conflict
By Johan Galtung (International Peace Research Institute, Oslo)

Article Description:
One approach to the problem of conflict is to preserve the parties and preserve the incompatibility, but at the same time to push the incompatibility far into the background of the political agenda because the goals are no longer so relentlessly pursued. The conflict is there, in that sense it is not resolved, it is protracted, institutionalized, made less salient and kept static. How can this be brought about, and what does it have to do with the Middle East situation? This analysis is so comprehensive to define exactly the complicated Arab-Israeli conflict with many perspectives and approaches in the term of conflict resolution.

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Article Description:
It is obvious that conflict resolution in the Middle East context, as distinct from all kinds of ephemeral conflict management, can only come about through a process of open-ended peace talks between the legitimized leaderships of the two parties to the conflict; talks that would address themselves to the conflict in all its dimensions to all the fundamental problems involved, all the ten and other stumbling-blocks that have through the years erected an almost insurmountable barrier against peace. The revolutionary ethnic conflict of the Middle East can only be resolved by way of negotiable acceptance policies by both sides to the conflict. In the Middle East context genuine acceptance solutions revolve around a federal binational or consociational Palestine, a federal binational Jordan or two states in historical Palestine. The resolution of a revolutionary ethnic conflict such as the Palestinian-Israeli clash cannot come about by the magic stroke of the traditional diplomatic mediator and other such deus ex machina, and even less so by irredentism and 'denial' policies that can do nothing more than prolong the conflict indefinitely.

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Chapter 4: Understanding Contemporary Conflict

Chapter Description:

Contemporary Conflict Resolution: The Prevention, Management, and Transformation of Deadly Conflicts
By Hugh Miall, Oliver Ramsbotham, and Tom Woodhouse

Article Description:
This book argues that, on the contrary, the developing tradition of thinking about conflict and conflict resolution is all the more relevant as the fixed structures of sovereignty and governance break down. All over the world, societies are facing stresses from population growth, structural change in the world economy, migration into cities, environmental degradation and rapid social change. Societies with institutions, rules or norms for managing conflict and well-established traditions of governance, are generally better able to accommodate peacefully to change; those with weaker governance, fragile social bonds and little consensus on values or traditions are more likely to buckle. Strengthening the capacity of conflict resolution within societies and political institutions, especially preventatively, is a vital part of the response to the phenomena of warlordism and ethno-nationalism.

The authors argue that conflict resolution has a role to play, even in war zones, since building peace constituencies and understandings across divided communities is an essential element of humanitarian engagement. Then, conflict resolution is an integral part of work for development, social justice and social transformation, that aims to tackle the problems of which mercenaries and child soldiers are symptoms. And the authors argue for a broad understanding of conflict resolution, to include not only mediation between the parties but efforts to address the wider context in which international actors, domestic constituencies and intra-party relationships sustain violent conflicts. Finally, although the theories and practices of conflict resolution that deal with spring from western roots, every culture and society has its own version of what is, after all, a general social and political need. The point is not to abandon conflict resolution because it is western, but to find ways to enrich western and non-western traditions through their mutual encounter.

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Japan's International Relations, 2nd Edition
By Glenn D. Hook

• Publisher: Routledge
• Number Of Pages: 623
• Publication Date: 2005-08-24
• ISBN-10 / ASIN: 0415336384
• ISBN-13 / EAN: 9780415336383
• Binding: Paperback

Book Description:

This book is essential reading for those studying Japanese politics and international relations of the Asia Pacific, as well as US and European foreign policy.

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Globalisation, Domestic Politics and Regionalism The ASEAN Free Trade Area
By Helen E. S. Nesadurai

• Publisher: Routledge
• Number Of Pages: 224
• Publication Date: 2003-07-29
• ISBN-10 / ASIN: 0415308003
• ISBN-13 / EAN: 9780415308007
• Binding: Hardcover

Book Description:

This book examines the relationship between globalisation and regionalism through a detailed analysis of the ASEAN Free Trade Area (AFTA) project. It analyses how the interaction between globalisation and domestic politics shaped the evolution of AFTA over the past 10 years, arguing that although AFTA was triggered primarily by the pressures of globalisation, it was a tussle between the imperatives of growth and domestic distribution that shaped the way economic cooperation unfolded and the forms it took.

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• Publisher: Brill Academic Pub
• Number Of Pages: 324
• Publication Date: 2005-03-30
• ISBN-10 / ASIN: 9004143181
• ISBN-13 / EAN: 9789004143180
• Binding: Hardcover

Book Description:
This work addresses the politics of globalisation through an examination of neo-liberalism, the third way, and anti-capitalist responses and alternatives. It utilises a Marxist approach, not only to challenge the claims made by apologists for 'actually existing globalisation', but to explain, contextualise and problematise the rise of anti-globalisation politics. Central to the work is a critique of globalisation theory, neo-liberalism and the third way; an examination of the role of the state as an agent of globalisation, particularly the hegemonic US state; a theorisation of the nature of uneven development in the global order; and an examination of the political implications of these issues for progressive alternatives to neo-liberal globalisation.

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New Regionalisms in the Global Political Economy

• Publisher: Routledge
• Number Of Pages: 256
• Publication Date: 2002-10-25
• ISBN-10 / ASIN: 0415277671
• ISBN-13 / EAN: 9780415277679
• Binding: Hardcover

Book Description:

This collection features a distinguished list of international contributors who provide a systematic and stimulating 'state of the art' discussion on regionalism and key issues such as sovereignty, autonomy, identity, and global financial crisis.

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The Politics of Globalisation and Polarisation
By Dr Maurice Mullard (Reader in Public and Social Policy, University of Hull, UK)

• Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing
• Number Of Pages: 232
• Publication Date: 2004-08-01
• Sales Rank: 1383027
• ISBN / ASIN: 1843765799
• EAN: 9781843765790
• Binding: Hardcover

Book Description:

The Politics of Globalisation and Polarisation is interdisciplinary and will therefore be relevant for academics and researchers of politics, social policy, public policy and economics. Scholars involved in globalization will find this book to be a major contribution to the ongoing debate.

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Globalisation, Poverty, and Conflict: A Critical “Development” Reader
Edited by Max Spoor (Institute of Social Studies, The Hague, The Netherlands)

• Publisher: Springer
• Number Of Pages: 339
• Publication Date: 2004-12-22
• Sales Rank: 2634985
• ISBN / ASIN: 1402028571
• EAN: 9781402028571
• Binding: Hardcover

Is ‘development’ passé? Is it merely a by-product or a ‘trickle down’ effect of economic growth, spurred by globalisation? Will poverty simply diminish with increased global markets? This state-of-the-art critical ‘development’ reader deals with these and related questions. Globalisation, Poverty and Conflict examines the inter-relationship between globalisation, poverty and conflict. It complements current debates in the field of development studies and, in an era in which development fatigue seems to have become more profound than ever before, it brings the importance of development once again to the forefront. Achieving the Millennium Development Goals by 2015 is a concrete target which many governments have agreed to work towards.Whether these goals can be realised is another issue. Nonetheless, the Millennium Development Goals have brought more focused attention to development in the past few years and renewed debate about the relationships between the process of globalisation and widespread poverty and the emergence of violent conflicts.

The authors in this edited volume discuss these inter-related and highly controversial topical elements of development in a number of chapters organised around three sets of issues: (1) globalisation, inequality and poverty; (2) governance, civil society and poverty; and (3) resource degradation, institutions and conflict. The contributions represent current thinking on (and practice of) development policy, poverty reduction, the need for multi-level democratic institutions, and the containing and prevention of conflicts. The authors confront the predominant mainstream ideas on ‘development’ and propose alternatives.

The chapters, written by a select group of scholars and development practitioners, will be of direct interest to those involved in this field of social sciences and in ‘development practice’, but they are composed in such a way as to remain accessible for the generally interested reader.

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Industrialisation and Globalisation: Theory and Evidence from Developing Countries
By John Weiss

• Publisher: Routledge
• Number Of Pages: 224
• Publication Date: 2002-05-10
• ISBN-10 / ASIN: 041518018X
• ISBN-13 / EAN: 9780415180184
• Binding: Hardcover

Book Description:
In a refreshingly accessible style John Weiss has presented a survey of industrialisation in developing countries since 1945, as well as offering a study of the predominant theories of industrial growth in the third World.

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International Trade in Hazardous Waste
By D.K Asante-Duah

• Publisher: Taylor & Francis
• Number Of Pages: 224
• Publication Date: 1998-04-23
• ISBN-10 / ASIN: 0419218904
• ISBN-13 / EAN: 9780419218906
• Binding: Hardcover

Book Description:

This book discusses the need for a regulated and informed forum for international trade in hazardous waste. The authors argue that with careful planning, health and ecological risks can be minimized and net economic benefits realized fairly. The book examines the key parameters that should be considered by potential trading nations to ensure an optimally safe and mutually beneficial partnership. The authors provide comprehensive coverage of the political, environmental, industrial and economic issues involved in this complex and increasingly controversial practice.

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