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- Hirblinger, A. T., et al.
(författare)
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Forum: Making Peace with Un-Certainty: Reflections on the Role of Digital Technology in Peace Processes beyond the Data Hype
- 2024
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Ingår i: International Studies Perspectives. - : Oxford University Press (OUP). - 1528-3577 .- 1528-3585. ; 25:2, s. 185-225
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Recent years have seen the acceleration of data- and evidence-based approaches in support of peace processes, creating a renewed confidence that conflicts can be predicted, known, and resolved, based on objective information about the world. However, new technologies employed by conflict parties, stakeholders, and those who aim to make or build peace have also made peace processes less ascertainable, intelligible, and predictable. Technology can thus create both more certainty and uncertainty in (and about) peace processes. This forum article presents a first collaborative attempt to explore how the use of technology by conflict parties and peacebuilding actors influences these dynamics. We examine various fields of engagement, ranging from conflict prevention to peace mediation, peacekeeping, and longer-term peacebuilding. Our discussion engages with a variety of related activities, including predictive analysis and foresight, conflict analysis, cease-fire monitoring, early warning and early action, and problem-solving and trust-building dialogues. We suggest approaching un-certainty as a spectrum between uncertainty and certainty that can be studied across epistemic, ontological, and normative dimensions, thus inviting further academic research and policy reflection. The article is coauthored by scholars and current or former practitioners and underlines the necessity, benefits, and feasibility of research-practice exchanges on this topic.
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| 2. |
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| 3. |
- Sticher, Valerie, et al.
(författare)
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Do Eyes in the Sky Ensure Peace on the Ground? The Uncertain Contributions of Remote Sensing to Ceasefire Compliance
- 2023
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Ingår i: International Studies Review. - 1521-9488 .- 1468-2486. ; 25:3
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- In many conflicts, international ceasefire monitors are deployed to mitigate future violence. Increasingly, such monitors use satellite imagery, uncrewed aerial vehicles, and other camera-equipped assets to supplement, and sometimes substitute, human monitoring efforts to document ceasefire violations. To date, we know little about when and how such technology contributes to ceasefire compliance, with scholars offering diverging assessments of the effects. Integrating scholarship on the use of remote sensing in ceasefire monitoring with theories on the causal processes underlying ceasefire monitoring, this analytical essay offers a framework to assess the contribution of remote sensing to ceasefire compliance and illustrates the empirical application of this framework by examining the most technologically advanced cease- fire monitoring mission yet deployed, the Special Monitoring Mission in Ukraine. Focusing on the period prior to the Russian invasion of 2022, our research finds that while the mission’s observational power was expanded, remote sensing technologies ultimately had little effect on modifying conflict party behavior or compliance. While in this case remote sensing technology minimally increased compliance, the study contributes to debates on the use of technology as a conflict management tool, and provides an assessment framework for scholars and for policymakers considering adopting technology in other monitoring contexts.
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| 4. |
- Verjee, Aly, 1983
(författare)
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A Faulty Prescription? Critiquing Joint Security Units after Peace Agreements in Sudan, South Sudan, and the Central African Republic
- 2022
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Ingår i: African Security. - : Informa UK Limited. - 1939-2206 .- 1939-2214. ; 15:2
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- This article critiques the prescription of joint security units called for by civil war peace agreements as a means to integrate armed forces previously in conflict. Drawing on cases from Sudan, South Sudan, and the Central African Republic, this article offers a comparative assessment of the joint security units attempted in each country. As negotiators and mediators often employ templates from other contexts, the deficits exemplified by these cases call for rethinking the practice of establishing joint units in the doctrine of military integration, as well as in the wider practice of negotiating security arrangements in peace processes.
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| 5. |
- Verjee, Aly, 1983
(författare)
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Ceasefire monitoring under fire: The OSCE, technology, and the 2022 war in Ukraine
- 2022
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Ingår i: Global Policy. - : Wiley. - 1758-5880 .- 1758-5899. ; 13:5, s. 808-817
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- This Policy Insight discusses what was the world's largest dedicated third-party ceasefire monitoring operation, the Special Monitoring Mission (SMM), which, until the Russian invasion in early 2022, oversaw a ceasefire in Ukraine. Although it may now seem obvious to conclude that the SMM failed to deter conflict escalation, this once-heralded, ‘model’ mission provides insights for the design and implementation of other ceasefire monitoring efforts. This Policy Insight argues that the limitations and differing interpretations of the SMM's mandate, an inability to attribute responsibility for violations, and a failure to act in response to violations substantially weakened the practice of ceasefire monitoring in Ukraine. Still, important lessons can be identified for future monitoring work, whether in Ukraine or elsewhere, including agreeing on the mechanisms for consequences when violations occur, better understanding the limitations of remote sensing technology in monitoring, and establishing more robust planning for mission suspension, evacuation, and termination.
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| 6. |
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| 7. |
- Verjee, Aly, 1983
(författare)
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Political transitions in Sudan and Ethiopia: an early comparative analysis
- 2021
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Ingår i: Global Change, Peace and Security. - : Informa UK Limited. - 1478-1158 .- 1478-1166. ; 33:3, s. 279-296
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- This article presents a comparative analysis of the political transitions occurring in neighbours Ethiopia and Sudan since 2018. To date, these political transitions have largely been analysed independently. While the transition in Sudan is often characterised as a revolution, events in Ethiopia are not usually so described. However, despite the narrative and substantive differences, this article argues that there are important similarities in both countries’ contextual circumstances and processes of change. These include the trajectory of concurrent decline of the previous regimes, elements of continuity of the new transitional governments with the previous regimes, societal, especially youth, expectations of change, the rise of a new generation of political leadership, the role of women, the continuing difficulties and challenges of subnational politics, the persistence of economic drivers of political change and discontent, and, most recently, the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. Moreover, developments in both countries inform and reinforce each other, with consequences for stability and conflict, as the recent prospect of a Sudan-Ethiopia border war starkly demonstrates. Understanding and contextualising the politics of change in one country would benefit from greater comparative analysis of its neighbour.
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| 8. |
- Verjee, Aly, 1983
(författare)
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Routine but Consequential: How Ceasefire Monitors’ Reporting Constructs Opportunities for (Non)Compliance by Conflict Opponents
- 2024
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Ingår i: International Peacekeeping. - 1353-3312.
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Third party ceasefire monitors routinely gather and report information on conflict events. Although ceasefire monitoring is a common conflict response intervention generally correlated with ceasefire durability, how its routine practices contribute to ceasefire compliance and noncompliance is little understood. This article asks how reporting, monitors’ most common practice, affects conflict opponents. Based on the experiences of more than 100 monitors, as well as archival research, I develop theory for how ceasefire monitors’ reporting constructs opportunities for conflict actors to demonstrate both compliance and noncompliance, and show evidence for this in cases from Kosovo and South Sudan. That monitoring can produce ceasefire noncompliance challenges existing understandings of monitoring as generally contributing to ceasefire durability. The implication is that even credible monitoring and accurate reporting may have inadvertent consequences on conflict trajectories.
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