By being part into the theory of the rebels' credibility dilemma, this research takes its framework in a historical analysis of relations between rebel groups and governments, in order to better understand the mechanisms of demands and negotiations between these two actors. In this paper, we propose to test the validity of the theory of the rebels' credibility dilemma in Latin America, and to provide specific precision to this geographical area. For that, our approach proposes an historical and political study on data going from 1945 to 2019. The study is characterized by the creation of specific classifications and a relative power indicator of the rebel groups, making it possible to highlight new specificities of the rebels' credibility dilemma. The results show that globally the theory seems valid on the studied area, but that new parameters can be implemented to the initial theory, namely the search for popular and international credibility, through a general model of the rebels’ credibility dilemma.
This article reviews the empirical data the second author collected from 120 semi-structured interviews with the leaders of Civil Society Organizations (CSOs) and funding agency development officers conducted during the summer of 2010 in Northern Ireland and the Border Counties. The research explores 44 Derry City respondents' experiences and perceptions regarding external economic aid in the Northern Ireland peace process. To this end, this article explores the role of economic aid from the International Fund for Ireland (IFI) and the European Union (EU) Peace and Reconciliation or Peace 3 Fund in engaging with civil society in transforming psychological and cultural barriers towards building sustainable peace in Londonderry or Derry City. Themes emerged inductively from data. It includes the CSO leaders' and funding agency development officers' perspectives on building peace and both funds' impact on the Northern Ireland peacebuilding process. CSO leaders and funding agency development officers acknowledge the importance of external economic assistance support in development and forging cross-community contact projects. The interviewees also highlighted issues related to political participation, community competitiveness, and psychological barriers that emerge from CSOs working with both programs. Some of the conclusions are related to broadened peace process interventions to a multi-articulated approach that includes different areas of peacebuilding intervention.
The paper studies the immense opposition to a nonviolent campaign against the practice of moral policing in Kerala to understand the dominant spaces, collective identities, and discourses that give shape to the outrage of public morality in India. The campaign through its politics specifically targeted rightwing and political groups as well as socially embedded familial and institutional structures that exercise control over individuals through patriarchal regimes. The adverse reaction to the campaign revealed that collective aggression or violence can be used to impose majoritarian values and exert social control through the authority of public morality and everyday acts of moral policing in masculinized, politico-religious spaces that characterize the traditional public sphere in India. The contested ‘morals’ were gendered and communal notions particular to the middle classes and central to the maintenance of dominant structures of family, marriage, religious community, and the nation. The same informs notions of popular morality that give moral policing its ‘rational’ authority. The research employs online opinion pieces, reports and discussions, and two structured interviews to examine why the campaign became prominent in the public sphere. It gives coherence to the campaign’s agenda to counter the underlying violence of moral policing and suggests measures for peaceful resolution of public contestations.
Having empathy and respect for oneself and others when engaging in difficult dialogue is an essential part of peace education. Gandhi emphasized that involving emotions was more transformative than purely intellectual approaches to education. Nonviolent communication (NVC), as developed by Marshall Rosenberg, is a tool for fostering empathy and building connection across difference. Using NVC for difficult conversations in any college classroom is a way of mainstreaming peace education across the curriculum. Though there is literature on difficult conversations in the college classroom, and on the effectiveness of NVC in general and in K-12 classrooms, there is very little on NVC in college spaces, and none on NVC for difficult conversations. In this primarily qualitative study college students were asked to use NVC to discuss controversial nonviolent actions. We found that even when both professor and students were NVC beginners, students were able to use it to discuss polarizing protests in a class with a diversity of views and needs for respect were overwhelmingly met. NVC was also useful for deepening analysis of the effectiveness of nonviolent actions, and could serve as a tool of emotional regulation for nonviolent action, or a modern day sort of purification for satyagraha.
Over 150,000 people were intentionally killed in Mexico since 2006, after the Mexican government decided to openly combat organized crime. Against the backdrop of the security crisis, members of Mexican society have developed national and transnational strategies to contribute to the respond to the rampant violence in their homeland. By introducing a transdisciplinary approach and peacebuilding theories, this paper argues that Mexican migrants living in Brussels and Paris have been able to orchestrate transnational art-based strategies to contribute to the violence alleviation in their country of origin. In particular, this empirical paper argues that Mexican migrants living in these two European cities have deployed artistic bottom-up strategies to reduce direct violence, transform relationships and build capacity from overseas.
This article addresses gaps in linking the conceptualization and practice of vertical social cohesion. Through a review of literature, examination of field-based case studies and focused discussions with academics, the article crystalizes the understanding of vertical social cohesion—often restricted to state-society relations—and offers four mutually reinforcing strands of the vertical dimension that are cognizant of the hybridity of state, non-state, formal and informal institutions that exist in most societies. Through a deeper reflection on practice, the article discusses two considerations for strengthening the practice of vertical social cohesion that should start with intentional consideration of the vertical dimension of social cohesion during the intervention design: leveraging governance programming based on its complementarities with social cohesion; and careful blending of interventions that promote horizontal and vertical social cohesion. It argues that, while the focus of community-level social cohesion interventions is often biased towards strengthening horizontal social relations, both the vertical and horizontal dimensions are important in shaping the nature and strength of a society’s cohesiveness. The article contends that social cohesiveness is determined by how vertical and horizontal social cohesion interact and proposes a tool—Social Cohesion’s Four-Quadrants Model—to harmonize and weigh programming choices in order to influence broader, sustainable societal change.
This article discusses the different roles of religious leaders in peacebuilding processes, and their specific understanding of peace. It is based on analysis of 75 in-depth interviews with Catholic, Orthodox, and Muslim religious leaders from Bosnia and Herzegovina, conducted in the period from 2015 to 2017. In the first part, peace is analyzed as a concept that contains elements of giftness, spirituality, and praxis. Arguing for the relevance of all three elements, the article warns against possible misunderstandings that can come when peace is assessed only through directly measurable indicators. In the second part, peacebuilding activities of religious leaders are divided into three groups: 1) before conflicts, 2) during conflicts, and 3) in post-conflict phases. In those scenarios, religious leaders play preventive, reactive, and transformative roles, respectively. The preventive role comprises all activities related to the development of moral character and social ethics that promote non-violence. The reactive role includes activities related to humanitarian assistance, spiritual and emotional accompaniment, denunciation of crimes, and promotion of alternative social visions to those of group-separation. Lastly, in the post-conflict phase (the transformative role), peacebuilding is inseparable from the challenges related to the legacy of past violence, especially those of forgiveness, reconciliation, and memory of conflicts.
Given the legacy of racial injustice and mistrust that continues to plague race relations in the United States, it is important that citizens of different racial backgrounds come together to share their feelings and thoughts about race issues in order to advance racial reconciliation in their own communities. Saunders (1999) asserts that such dialogues can transform interracial relationships that could inspire the larger community to change itself. This study presents the results of nine interracial focus groups from two dialogues on race relations events held in Dothan, Alabama in 2015 and 2016. Our findings illustrate that many Black respondents displayed both anger and sadness as they provided stories of the institutionalized racism (e.g., racial profiling, educational inequality, residential segregation, etc.) as well as the more personalized racism that they had experienced. White respondents too demonstrated anger and sadness when relating their own experiences of strained race relations. This mixed-methods study also employed API analysis to further strengthen our original qualitative exploration of emotions. We argue that interracial dialogues can hold the potential for racial reconciliation as participants’ stories elucidate our most intransient race problems while also highlighting the emotions that connect discussants through the dialogic process.
This article critically examines the extent and nature of engagement with environmental issues within the field of peace research, and specifically with the unfolding ecological crisis (‘the Anthropocene’). A representative sample of journals and book series associated with peace research were analysed in order to a. quantify the extent of engagement with climate change and other environmental issues in peace research, and b. assess the range of discursive positions vis-a-vis the environment represented in the sample. The article finds that, in comparison to other ‘thematic niches’, environmental issues have received limited attention. It also finds that the dominant orientation of publications that do have an environmental focus can be considered ‘reformist’ - largely concerned with or assuming the possibility of significant continuity from the present. More ‘radical’ perspectives are present but in a much lower proportion. Whilst acknowledging the validity of and need for a plurality of perspectives and approaches, it is argued that the scientific evidence of an accelerating and increasingly dangerous ecological crisis does raise challenging questions for peace research. The article concludes with a call for renewed debate on the purpose(s) and assumptions of peace research, informed by a wider range of perspectives on environmental issues. It is a contribution to a tradition of critical reflection within the field but is the first to provide a systematic and grounded analysis of engagement with and perspectives on, the environment within peace research.
This article attempts to examine an issue regarding the reintegration of disengaged Al-Shabaab combatants in Somalia. Nowadays, some countries have undergone current generation disarmament, demobilization and reintegration (DDR), known as third-generation DDR; in the Somali context, although DDR is designed to disengage and rehabilitate defectors of Al-Shabaab for their reintegration into society, in practice, its implementation is not preceded by conventional approaches to conventional DDR, and it has suffered from various problems and contradictions. Previous research and information on the subject are extremely limited, due to a severe security situation. Accordingly, the author conducted interviews in Somalia in 2016 and 2019 with disengaged combatants and community members, to examine conditions necessary for good reintegration. The findings of the interviews revealed a gap in understanding between ex-combatants and members of the community, which significantly undermines the prospect of successful reintegration. A detailed analysis of the findings firstly shows that two problems exist regarding rehabilitation: a lack of knowledge, and an absence of accountability and transparency; secondly, further associated problems, such as severe unemployment, unstable security, financial difficulty, and distrust of the current government, which has devastating consequences for reintegration.
Preface Part I: The Promise of Peace, the Problems of War 1. The Meanings of 2. The Meanings of Wars 3. Terrorism Versus Counterterrorism: A War Without End? 4. The Special Significance of Nuclear Weapons Part II: The Reasons for Wars 5. The Individual Level 6. The Group Level 7. The State Level 8. The Decision-Making Level 9. The Ideological, Social, and Economic Levels Part III: Building Negative Peace 10. Movements 11. Diplomacy, Negotiations, and Conflict Resolution 12. Disarmament and Arms Control 13. International Cooperation 14. Through Strength? 15. International Law 16. Ethical and Religious Perspectives Part IV: Building Positive Peace 17. Human Rights 18. Ecological Well-Being 19. Economic Well-Being 20. National Reconciliation 21. Nonviolence 22. Toward a More Peaceful Future Author Index Subject Index About the Authors
The recent attention of peace studies scholars to the role of the "public" parallels an increased interest of democratic theorists in the legitimacy of "mini-publics:" initiatives that bring small groups of citizens together to discuss policy issues. In fact, democratic activists and peace activists who seek to engage the public face similar theoretical and practical challenges. The purpose of this article is to contribute to an emerging dialogue between the disciplines of democratic theory and peace studies. Such a dialogue can be beneficial in at least two ways: it allows an exploration of the role of legitimacy in public peace processes and the burdens that legitimacy put on the institutional design of such processes, and it allows an exploration of more ambitious models of public participation in the peace process. Introduction Traditionally, peace studies understood peacemaking as the realm of diplomats. This is no longer the case. Many scholars of peace studies believe that peace must be made by publics, not politicians. Sustainable peace requires a "public peace process:” “sustained action by citizens outside governments to change the fundamental relationship between groups in conflict” (Chufrin and Saunders 1993, 155-6). Indeed, Gawerc (2006, 440) notes that in recent years peace studies scholarship “have given voice to the critical role that private citizens, local The “Public” in "Public Peace Process" and in "Mini-Publics" Peace and Conflict Studies • Volume 17, Number 2 348 initiatives, and people-to-people activities have in building peace, as well as in maintaining conflict.” Practically, peace scholars and activists who embrace the notion of a “public peace process” focus on grassroots initiatives that try to create ongoing productive dialogue among groups of citizens within and across the belligerent sides. These initiatives operate at two levels. At one level, they seek to modify the views of the participants themselves. At the same time, the hope and expectation is that this change of minds will trickle wide and up, so to speak, and lead to a similar change of minds in the public at large and among policy makers. The recent theoretical and practical interest of peace studies scholars in the role of the public parallels similar trends in democratic theory. Scholars and practitioners of participatory and deliberative democracy are exploring the idea of "mini-publics:" initiatives that bring small groups of citizens together to discuss policy issues (Fung 2003; Goodin and Dryzek 2006). There are obvious similarities between initiatives of "public peace process" and "mini-publics." Both try to generate a small-scale model, a microcosm, of a process that has to take place in society at large. The underlying belief of both is that citizens can change their minds when they encounter different perspectives, and that they need to have the opportunity to do so for the desired social change to be possible. Furthermore, both kinds of initiatives also face similar difficulties. They are mostly local initiatives and typically with limited budgets (Ross and Rothman, 1999, 9, describe them as “bootstrap operations;” see also Dajani and Baskin, 2006, 75, 107-8). They often take place in hostile environments which question the very legitimacy of the initiative, and the attention that these initiatives receive from politicians and the media is mostly scarce and fickle. The “Public” in "Public Peace Process" and in "Mini-Publics" Peace and Conflict Studies • Volume 17, Number 2 349 Given these theoretical and practical similarities, it is surprising that there is very little dialogue between democratic theory and peace studies. One reason for the lack of dialogue is probably the different orientations of the two fields: the theoretical orientation of democratic theory vs. the practical orientation of peace studies. Yet, these orientations too are changing. Democratic theorists are increasingly interested in on-the-ground experiments in democracy, and peace studies scholars are engaging in theoretically sophisticated reflections about their practices. Within this fertile ground, a dialogue between peace studies and democratic theory begins to emerge, and the purpose of this paper is to contribute to this dialogue by examining the relevance of works done in democratic theory to the theory underlying public peace process initiatives. I argue that a conversation between the two research-action areas can be beneficial in at least two ways. First, generally speaking, peace studies understand the role of public participation in conflict resolution through the framework of social-psychology (for example Azar and Burton 1986; Kelman 1997). Public participation is a way to shift the discussion from the political dimension to the level of inter-personal relationships (Kelman 1999). In contrast, within democratic theory public participation is understood as a pre-condition for achieving legitimacy. Even if officials can reach a stable agreement, the only way to know whether this agreement is legitimate is through a process of reflective scrutiny by those who will be affected by the terms of the agreement. A dialogue between democratic theory and peace studies allows an exploration of the role of legitimacy in public peace process. This is not merely a theoretical or philosophical question. The claim for legitimacy depends on aspects of institutional design of the public peace process. To be sure, practitioners in both camps generally engage in an uphill The “Public” in "Public Peace Process" and in "Mini-Publics" Peace and Conflict Studies • Volume 17, Number 2 350 battle in which institutional design is dictated more by the limited perseverance of funding agencies and participants than by what is required for gaining legitimacy. Nevertheless, democratic theorists take more liberty to imagine ideal conditions of more control over design and therefore engage in a comparative analysis of the legitimacy of different models of institutional design. Their conclusions speak directly to similar issues in public peace processes. The second benefit of such a conversation is that it allows an exploration of more ambitious models of public participation in the peace process. In particular, I refer to the model of Citizens’ Assemblies on Electoral Reform that took place in British Columbia (2004) and Ontario (2008). In these cases, the provincial government assembled a group of citizens who were selected randomly and asked them to study electoral systems and recommend electoral reforms to the province if they find that reforms are needed. What was unique in these cases was not just that the government invested comparatively vast resources in the process, and the length and depth of the deliberative process itself, but also the fact that the government committed itself to submit the recommendations of the assembly to a referendum (Lang 2007; Warren and Pearse 2008). Thus, the government took itself outside of the process of decision-making and allowed a deliberative body of a small group of citizens to make recommendations to the public at large. I believe that this model serves as a precedent for citizens’ involvement in policy making that should excite the imagination of scholars of peace studies (the limited success of the assemblies in the referenda and then many differences between electoral reforms and peace agreements notwithstanding). Peace scholars can and should build upon this precedent and study the viability of more ambitious models of public involvement in the peace process. The “Public” in "Public Peace Process" and in "Mini-Publics" Peace and Conflict Studies • Volume 17, Number 2 351 The scope of the discussion is therefore limited to the questions that emerge from a dialogue between these two kinds of practical initiatives and the academic scholarship about them. It does not purport to offer a comprehensive survey of the relationship between democracy and peace-making. Furthermore, my focus here is on the question of legitimacy. While I believe that both mini-publics and public peace processes are promising and important kinds of social activism, I am in no position to assess within the scope of this article the likely effectiveness of such initiatives in any particular setting. Background The last two decades witnessed a dramatic change in the terrain of democratic theory. While previous generations of democratic theorists understood democracy to be a mechanism for fair aggregation of preferences via the mechanism of voting, the "deliberative turn" in democratic theory shifted the scholarly attention to the important role of reasonable debate in democracy. In this latter view, the mere fact that a majority of the citizens favors a policy or a candidate provides only weak grounds for claiming legitimacy for this decision. Democracy can and should make a stronger claim for legitimacy, which is that democratic institutions provide a site for exchange of reasons. Democratic decisions are legitimate not only because they won a plurality or majority of votes but because they are an outcome of public debate. Strong democracy, then, requires a viable public sphere where citizens can freely exchange opinions and debate policies. Furthermore, the strength of democracy depends on the quality of the discussion in the public sphere. Even a viable public sphere would not be legitimate if arguments of certain participants are systematically silenced or marginalized. The public, in this view, is not simply The “Public” in "Public Peace Process" and in "Mini-Publics" Peace and Conflict Studies • Volume 17, Number 2 352 an aggregate of individual opinions but a social sphere where different players demand and give justifications for public policies. However, when viewed through the lenses of deliberative democracy, many established democracies face a deficit, if not a crisis, of democratic legitimacy. Most citizens choose to remain ge
In common parlance the term 'conflict' connotes a dispute in which two or more parties are involved who are seeking to pursue goals that are (or, are perceived to be) incompatible by resorting to violence, if necessary. Defined in this sense, a conflict situation implies use of physical violence. However, of the three different types of conflicts – 'fights', 'games' and 'debates' – not all involve physical violence. Since conflicts are endemic to human societies, it is not possible to eliminate them altogether. Nor are all conflicts zero-sum games where one party achieves its goal by totally defeating/eliminating the other. Attempts should, therefore, be made to understand the roots of conflict so that the intensity of conflicts may be reduced through a policy of 'conflict management' of conflicts thus paving the way for their final resolution. In contemporary international relations most of the protracted conflicts are not binary; a key to their understanding may be provided by the concept of 'Conflict Clusters' having multiple dimensions, making their resolution that much more difficult. An attempt has been made here to analyse the root causes of three protracted conflicts in South Asia and to suggest ways and means of resolving the same.
Aside from the enormous loss of human lives, economic downturn, poverty and human insecurity effects of COVID-19 Pandemic, it has brought about indelible reality and lingering impacts in the sphere of International security sector. The paradigm shift in international security system from over seven decades of multilateral cooperation to global nationalism and its profound consequences in terms of: cybercrimes escalation; world powers rivalries; autocratic backsliding and increased authoritarianism; the crumbling of international institutions and aids for COVID-19; and weakened international cooperation system have been well acknowledged by scholars. These developments no doubt constitute the concept of the ‘New Normal’ in the global security space. However, the aspect of increased digitalization and automation of security operational processes across the globe represents new opportunities brought by COVID-19 Pandemic which have not received adequate attention from scholars. In fact, their reverberating consequences in the socio-economic and political spheres of both the developed and developing countries constitute matter of continuous debate in the international security discourse. Hence, this paper by adopting descriptive approach intends to identify key developments and trends in the digitalization and automation processes of global security space amid COVID-19. This will enable the researcher to explore both its areas of threats and opportunities for the advancement and sustainability of the global security sector.
The paper reviews the political debate by African scholars in the early 80s and 90s on the concept of democracy and its role in development. It acknowledges that though economic growth may engender problems in the short run, in the long run democracy stands a better chance of addressing these than non-democracy. To complete the process of development and democracy, therefore, African governments should periodically submit to a peer review process to be able to discern better how growth translates into development and what challenges and opportunities arise out of certain demandsfor reforms. NESG Economic Indicators Vol. 13 (1) 2007: pp. 10-14
Modern-day Nigeria has multifarious challenges: Gender, social violence, communal conflict, poverty, hunger, illiteracy, corruption, bad leadership, infrastructure gaps, political upheavals, fiscal indiscipline, unemployment, anger on the streets, etc. Perhaps, the greatest concern to the average citizen is insecurity. The spate of conflict (political violent, economic or social) appears insurmountable to frustrated citizens. At the slightest provocation, aggrieved groups, persons or even state apparatus resort to violence. Consequently, insecurity and violence are opposing forces to development. A population under a constant deluge of violence accepts it, as a way of life: Brute or cruel force is viewed as superior to dialogue. Domestic and communal conflict or social violence negates economic activities, farming activities, educational activities, discourages investors, leads to capital flight and reduced investment and high unemployment. The citizenry views spontaneous force or attack as superior to dialogue. It is an intractable cyclic circle of woe. The fallouts from the level of violence and insecurity in Nigeria especially in the Erei north and Erei south communities in Biase LGA Cross River State encapsulated in the emergence of internal displacements of large populations. Undoubtedly, in Nigeria displacements are a direct result of academic, political, social, economic and environmental disruptions, i.e. insecurity occasioned by social, gender base violence, communal conflict, banditry, and criminal violence as in cattle rusting, kidnapping, armed robbery. Today, Nigeria being a land of diversity, with people of different groups and communities with divergent customs, norms, values, taboos, ethnic and political fault lines which periodically can lead to frequent clashes resulting from economic – socio-cultural and political demands is an endowed country. The purpose of the study was to examine gender; social violence and communal conflict and the need for national development in the light of its academic activities. Data was collected from six respondents selected from ten political wards in Biase Local Government Area of Cross River State, Nigeria. The Pearson product moment correlation was used to test the hypothesis. The result revealed a significant relationship between gender, social violence and communal conflict and the need for national development in the light of academic activities. It is recommended that effective conflict resolution should be adopted by the village heads of the affected communities in Biase Local Government Area and the Government as a whole if we must experience national development.
The recent attention of peace studies scholars to the role of the "public" parallels an increased interest of democratic theorists in the legitimacy of "mini-publics:" initiatives that bring small groups of citizens together to discuss policy issues. In fact, democratic activists and peace activists who seek to engage the public face similar theoretical and practical challenges. The purpose of this article is to contribute to an emerging dialogue between the disciplines of democratic theory and peace studies. Such a dialogue can be beneficial in at least two ways: it allows an exploration of the role of legitimacy in public peace processes and the burdens that legitimacy put on the institutional design of such processes, and it allows an exploration of more ambitious models of public participation in the peace process. Introduction Traditionally, peace studies understood peacemaking as the realm of diplomats. This is no longer the case. Many scholars of peace studies believe that peace must be made by publics, not politicians. Sustainable peace requires a "public peace process:” “sustained action by citizens outside governments to change the fundamental relationship between groups in conflict” (Chufrin and Saunders 1993, 155-6). Indeed, Gawerc (2006, 440) notes that in recent years peace studies scholarship “have given voice to the critical role that private citizens, local The “Public” in "Public Peace Process" and in "Mini-Publics" Peace and Conflict Studies • Volume 17, Number 2 348 initiatives, and people-to-people activities have in building peace, as well as in maintaining conflict.” Practically, peace scholars and activists who embrace the notion of a “public peace process” focus on grassroots initiatives that try to create ongoing productive dialogue among groups of citizens within and across the belligerent sides. These initiatives operate at two levels. At one level, they seek to modify the views of the participants themselves. At the same time, the hope and expectation is that this change of minds will trickle wide and up, so to speak, and lead to a similar change of minds in the public at large and among policy makers. The recent theoretical and practical interest of peace studies scholars in the role of the public parallels similar trends in democratic theory. Scholars and practitioners of participatory and deliberative democracy are exploring the idea of "mini-publics:" initiatives that bring small groups of citizens together to discuss policy issues (Fung 2003; Goodin and Dryzek 2006). There are obvious similarities between initiatives of "public peace process" and "mini-publics." Both try to generate a small-scale model, a microcosm, of a process that has to take place in society at large. The underlying belief of both is that citizens can change their minds when they encounter different perspectives, and that they need to have the opportunity to do so for the desired social change to be possible. Furthermore, both kinds of initiatives also face similar difficulties. They are mostly local initiatives and typically with limited budgets (Ross and Rothman, 1999, 9, describe them as “bootstrap operations;” see also Dajani and Baskin, 2006, 75, 107-8). They often take place in hostile environments which question the very legitimacy of the initiative, and the attention that these initiatives receive from politicians and the media is mostly scarce and fickle. The “Public” in "Public Peace Process" and in "Mini-Publics" Peace and Conflict Studies • Volume 17, Number 2 349 Given these theoretical and practical similarities, it is surprising that there is very little dialogue between democratic theory and peace studies. One reason for the lack of dialogue is probably the different orientations of the two fields: the theoretical orientation of democratic theory vs. the practical orientation of peace studies. Yet, these orientations too are changing. Democratic theorists are increasingly interested in on-the-ground experiments in democracy, and peace studies scholars are engaging in theoretically sophisticated reflections about their practices. Within this fertile ground, a dialogue between peace studies and democratic theory begins to emerge, and the purpose of this paper is to contribute to this dialogue by examining the relevance of works done in democratic theory to the theory underlying public peace process initiatives. I argue that a conversation between the two research-action areas can be beneficial in at least two ways. First, generally speaking, peace studies understand the role of public participation in conflict resolution through the framework of social-psychology (for example Azar and Burton 1986; Kelman 1997). Public participation is a way to shift the discussion from the political dimension to the level of inter-personal relationships (Kelman 1999). In contrast, within democratic theory public participation is understood as a pre-condition for achieving legitimacy. Even if officials can reach a stable agreement, the only way to know whether this agreement is legitimate is through a process of reflective scrutiny by those who will be affected by the terms of the agreement. A dialogue between democratic theory and peace studies allows an exploration of the role of legitimacy in public peace process. This is not merely a theoretical or philosophical question. The claim for legitimacy depends on aspects of institutional design of the public peace process. To be sure, practitioners in both camps generally engage in an uphill The “Public” in "Public Peace Process" and in "Mini-Publics" Peace and Conflict Studies • Volume 17, Number 2 350 battle in which institutional design is dictated more by the limited perseverance of funding agencies and participants than by what is required for gaining legitimacy. Nevertheless, democratic theorists take more liberty to imagine ideal conditions of more control over design and therefore engage in a comparative analysis of the legitimacy of different models of institutional design. Their conclusions speak directly to similar issues in public peace processes. The second benefit of such a conversation is that it allows an exploration of more ambitious models of public participation in the peace process. In particular, I refer to the model of Citizens’ Assemblies on Electoral Reform that took place in British Columbia (2004) and Ontario (2008). In these cases, the provincial government assembled a group of citizens who were selected randomly and asked them to study electoral systems and recommend electoral reforms to the province if they find that reforms are needed. What was unique in these cases was not just that the government invested comparatively vast resources in the process, and the length and depth of the deliberative process itself, but also the fact that the government committed itself to submit the recommendations of the assembly to a referendum (Lang 2007; Warren and Pearse 2008). Thus, the government took itself outside of the process of decision-making and allowed a deliberative body of a small group of citizens to make recommendations to the public at large. I believe that this model serves as a precedent for citizens’ involvement in policy making that should excite the imagination of scholars of peace studies (the limited success of the assemblies in the referenda and then many differences between electoral reforms and peace agreements notwithstanding). Peace scholars can and should build upon this precedent and study the viability of more ambitious models of public involvement in the peace process. The “Public” in "Public Peace Process" and in "Mini-Publics" Peace and Conflict Studies • Volume 17, Number 2 351 The scope of the discussion is therefore limited to the questions that emerge from a dialogue between these two kinds of practical initiatives and the academic scholarship about them. It does not purport to offer a comprehensive survey of the relationship between democracy and peace-making. Furthermore, my focus here is on the question of legitimacy. While I believe that both mini-publics and public peace processes are promising and important kinds of social activism, I am in no position to assess within the scope of this article the likely effectiveness of such initiatives in any particular setting. Background The last two decades witnessed a dramatic change in the terrain of democratic theory. While previous generations of democratic theorists understood democracy to be a mechanism for fair aggregation of preferences via the mechanism of voting, the "deliberative turn" in democratic theory shifted the scholarly attention to the important role of reasonable debate in democracy. In this latter view, the mere fact that a majority of the citizens favors a policy or a candidate provides only weak grounds for claiming legitimacy for this decision. Democracy can and should make a stronger claim for legitimacy, which is that democratic institutions provide a site for exchange of reasons. Democratic decisions are legitimate not only because they won a plurality or majority of votes but because they are an outcome of public debate. Strong democracy, then, requires a viable public sphere where citizens can freely exchange opinions and debate policies. Furthermore, the strength of democracy depends on the quality of the discussion in the public sphere. Even a viable public sphere would not be legitimate if arguments of certain participants are systematically silenced or marginalized. The public, in this view, is not simply The “Public” in "Public Peace Process" and in "Mini-Publics" Peace and Conflict Studies • Volume 17, Number 2 352 an aggregate of individual opinions but a social sphere where different players demand and give justifications for public policies. However, when viewed through the lenses of deliberative democracy, many established democracies face a deficit, if not a crisis, of democratic legitimacy. Most citizens choose to remain ge
Man is born free but he is everywhere in chains. There was need then to form a political organism known as the general will. As a political organism, the features include the guarantee of personal and social freedom, infallibility, representative democracy and public deliberations, and a glaring colossal confusion over what the ‘will of all’ is and that of the general will. Therefore, the main questions begging for answers in this work include what is the general will according to Rousseau? Is it a collective will or an independent organism different from individual will? What constitute Rousseau’s general will? Aim of the study is to examine the concept of general will in Jean Jacques Rousseau. The study adopts a qualitative textual analytical research method. The study argue that Rousseau general will theory is systematic and outlines of how a government could exist in such a way that it protects the equality and character of its citizens. The study recommends that presentday political societies ought to embrace Rousseau general will theory and voluntarism.
