Peace, Conflict and the State
Peace
- the distance between wars
Afghans question the liberal peace, the democratization and the development projects that have set the course for Afghanistan’s transition from war to peace.
It is freezing cold in Jowzjan, a province north in Afghanistan with the largest gas and oil resources in the country. The provincial capital has only expensive electricity every second day, bought from their neighbouring country. As the safest and most peaceful area in Afghanistan, Jowzjan has barely benefited from the international development assistance and the peace dividend promised to the Afghans in 2001, claimed the Provincial Governor and elected members of the Provincial Council. They had not been informed nor consulted by the government in Kabul on the plans for the utilisation of the energy resources in the province, they said. They feared that “the mafia” governing Afghanistan would secure the valuable income for their personal benefit. They worried that the international donors would prioritise their own interests and not those of the Afghans, and wondered whether they would have received more development funds if there had been full-fledged war in their province as well.
People question the liberal peace, the democratisation and the development projects that have set the course for Afghanistan’s transition from war to peace. They question the extent to which Afghans themselves are allowed to decide upon their own future and the type of state by which they are to be governed. Afghan colleagues share their thoughts of what risks the development of their carbon-based natural resources might represent. Peace has for many Afghans become the distance between wars.
These issues are not only of relevance for the Afghans. Researchers within the Peace, Conflict and the State resesarch group have worked with existential issues of peace, conflict, development and politics, striving to understand and to explore these issues within the local contexts in which each conflict – and peace process – emerge and develop. Doing research the “CMI way” - through extensive collaboration with local researchers and institutions - not only sharpens the relevance of our research questions, but provides essential contextual insight throughout the research process, and ensures an immediate quality control of the validity of the findings and recommendations given to decision-makers. 2009 has shown again that solid empirical research produces important research and generates interest for our expertise and knowledge production within the research community, the media and the public.
The role of women in peace-processes has been a welcomed initiative at CMI this year, aiming to explore and expose the complexity of implementing “gender mainstreaming” locally. The project Women and Peacebuilding in Sudan brings a sobering analysis of the problems inherent in the international discourse which assumes that women, irrespective of their religious, ethnic and class backgrounds, have a common agenda in any given conflict situation. Sudanese women put women’s issues on the agenda, despite authoritarian constraints. Examining attitudes towards gender equality among Muslim women shows that Muslim female activists are as disunited and politicised as all female activists. Organisations emerge with multiple and competing priorities rather than a common gender-based agenda. Gender mainstreaming does not automatically translate into gender equality.
The Moderation of Islamist Movements’ project is part of the Politics of Faith research portfolio, and analyses to what extent political inclusion into state institutions moderates the political strategies and ideology of Islamist movements in Sudan, Jordan and Palestine. The concerns, focus and even direction of a movement may change over time as a result of both internal and external factors. In undemocratic and (post)-conflict environments the relationship between inclusion and moderation is complicated, and the two distinct propositions – that political exclusion increases radicalism and political inclusion increased moderation – are frequently conflated. By their very nature any social movements, including the Islamist ones, carry a multiplicity of discourses and perceptions espoused by diverse fragments and constituencies. Rather than viewing moderation and radicalization as a continuum it is more viable to view these as simultaneous and contradicting processes.
Flammable Societies project examines the role of the oil and gas industry in the promotion of poverty reduction and social volatility. Drawing on a range of case studies and multilevel research approaches, it explores both positive and negative social and environmental impacts on the local level in Latin America, Norway and Africa, and the extent to which this industry leads to improvement of local development conditions and poverty reduction. Photo-essays provide additional visual access and documentation to the written research reports and publications.
