During a 20-year civil war, the UNited Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) has served as a bastion of international support, democratic values, and humanitarian assistance. Highlighting democratization, security, economic assistance, and human rights, we employed over 20 years of UNited Nations (UN) archives to examine the effectiveness of its mission mandates, and foUNd that UNAMA had reduced child labor and judicial corruption while increasing civil society and facilitating international humanitarian aid. However, UNAMA failed to improve security or establish an inclusive government, particularly with respect to human rights violations. After the US military withdrawal in 2021, the future of UNAMA is contingent upon political negotiations with the Taliban. Only time will tell whether contributions of the mission will persist into the post-conflict era.

The Myanmar military staged a coup against the elected civilian government in February 2021. Since then, the coUNtry has been in a state of emergency and ruled by a military jUNta. Resistance to the coup was swift and widespread, beginning with the Civil Disobedience Movement that has now morphed into the People’s Defense Forces. A state of civil war has remained for well over two years now, reversing the previous trend toward democratic transition. Nonetheless, the democratic interlude has spawned strong resistance to military rule. The armed conflict and contestation for power looks set to continue into the medium term and may eventually lead to domestic political changes toward democratization.

This study investigates the extent to which the benefit levels of the North Korean Defector Settlement Support System (NKDSSS) have changed and differentially impacted the various groups of North Korean Defectors (NKDs). It employs a historical approach to policy analysis and uses datasets compiled, summarized, and converted with the Consumer Price Index by the author. Findings suggest a portion of UNconditional Cash Transfers decreased through the first pro-work reform period (2005-2014) and Conditional Cash Transfers conditioned on job preparation decreased through the second pro-work reform period (2015-2019). The changes may generate a blind spot of poverty and enhance inequality among the NKDs. For the NKDSSS to accomplish its goals of promoting socio-economic integration of NKDs in South Korea and preparing for a peaceful Korean UNification, supplemental policies are required.

Expectations that the end of Suharto’s thirty-two years of authoritarian rule in Indonesia in 1998 would usher in an era of political reform, including the end to separatist rebellions, human rights abuses, and military impUNity, were dashed by the intensification of old conflicts and outbreak of new forms of violence. Despite initial optimism, efforts to address human rights violations during the New Order stalled. This article surveys the various forms of conflict in Indonesia over the past twenty years and the major trends in scholarship, together with the smaller body of literature framed specifically in terms of peacebuilding. It concludes that much of the literature on peacebuilding has been driven by institutional interests and the incentives created by the fUNding of these institutions.

Peace and conflict studies in Thailand is considerably influenced by the security narrative prescribed by the state and manipulated for political purposes. The field of study consequently promotes the interests of the Thai state rather than exploring the socio-political factors that have sustained the longevity of conflicts in the first place. This outcome is most evident in the cases of violence in the three southernmost provinces of Thailand—Pattani, Yala, and Narathiwat—and the ongoing political conflict between royalists and their opponents. Because the focus is on national security, the field often overlooks the human aspect of peace and conflicts. This state-centric focus has influenced Thai peace and conflicts studies to take an inwardlooking approach, raising the possibility of it disconnecting from international scholarship.

Peace studies in China has had meaningful initial developments, but the sustainability of the field’s development has been constrained by an authoritarian political atmosphere. Rights and justice are core issues in peace studies, but these remain UNaddressed in China. Thus, this article highlights studies on rights movements as de facto peace studies in an authoritarian setting and compares the movement among the middle class and that of peasants/workers, which can help us UNderstand current contradictions and disharmony in Chinese society. Maintaining the stability of a turbulent society is becoming a crucial agenda for the Chinese state. Accordingly, studies on rights movements will become increasingly important.

The purpose of this article is to study the characteristics and patterns of the field of peace and conflict studies in South Korea by tracing its history. A reflection on peace and conflict studies in Korea shows that the 1987 democratization was a critical moment, and that the subsequent end of the global Cold War initiated the full-blown development of the field. The Korean case shows that the advancement of peace and conflict studies is linked to real-world changes. The recent inclusion of human rights and transitional justice issues is meaningful since rights and justice were core but UNaddressed issues in Korea. It is time for peace and conflict studies in Korea to leap forward, and this new attention to human rights and transitional justice can be a way to lead this development.

This introductory article illustrates the development of peace studies and then reviews the Asian context in it. Peace studies has developed through three approaches state-centered, human-centered, and structure-critical—the origins of which can be traced back to Kantian federalism and republicanism, Tolstoy’s criticism of institutionalized violence, and Marx’s critique of capitalism, respectively. In the post-Cold War era, the theories of security commUNity, human security, and ecosocialism have developed separately. At the same time, the three approaches have competed and merged with one another in the face of increasingly complex global problems, resulting in the birth of “responsibility to protect” (R2P) and differing but simultaneous responses to climate change. Both ASEAN as a multifaceted commUNity and development-based human security characterize the Asian context.

We addressed the research question, how does the host commUNity perceive the effects of Rohingya influx to Bangladesh, from their perspectives using a questionnaire survey, key informant interviews, and focus group discussions. Bangladesh sheltered over a million Rohingyas, fleeing genocide and serious crimes against humanity, on humanitarian groUNds. The local people welcomed them and offered direct support and assistance. Our findings suggest that their immediate sympathy for Rohingyas faded over time due to various factors. An overwhelming majority perceived the Rohingyas as pressure on their land and resources and being deprived on numerous groUNds outweighed the disproportionate economic incentives of the influx. The findings offer fresh insights into the challenges of hosting refugees in the local commUNities because of the diverse impacts of forced displacement.

The immediate cause of the East Asian states’ pursuit of new economic statecraft, which has led to changes in the regional order, was the rise of US-China strategic rivalry. However, one structural factor behind the adoption of this statecraft is the economic network formed in East Asia. The emergence of new economic statecraft has had systemic effects, such as the spread of network sanctions, the adoption of divergent strategies, and the dual dynamics of cooperation and competition between states.

As it witnesses rising China’s assertive diplomacy and growing military might, Washington is seeking to restrain Beijing’s economic growth and technological development. The Biden administration’s digital-liberal coalition initiative resonates with liberal states which have growing concerns about democratic backsliding all over the world and China’s UNdue influence on other coUNtries’ domestic politics and civil society. The UNited States and its liberal allies are increasingly likely to cooperate in technological innovation, the development of standards and norms, and the protection of human rights, resisting this authoritarian threat to their interests and values. However, it is UNclear whether and how China will adjust its foreignpolicy strategy and which option non-liberal and/or developing states will prefer in this UNcertain era of Sino-US order competition in global politics.

The US-China strategic competition, combined with other structural changes such as the global spread of COVID-19, climate change, and competition for technological innovation has dramatically increased UNcertainty in Asia. Against this backdrop, the strategic competition between the US and China in the 21st century shows profoUNd differences from the hegemonic competition in the past. The systemic consequences of hyper-UNcertainty, as we are witnessing, are protectionism, nationalism, and the proliferation of conflicts and disputes between states. A collection of four papers in this special issue systematically examine the way in which the US-China strategic competition combined with other factors amplify the instability of the regional order, and explain the dual dynamics of competition and cooperation that Asian coUNtries demonstrate in responding to US-China strategic competition and redesigning the regional order.

Economic aid and peacebuilding efforts to transform the Northern Ireland conflict impact grassroots, civil society organizations (CSOs) and vulnerable people of concern. Brexit is an example of how democracies privilege white, cisgender, heterosexual, able-bodied voices, exclude marginalized voices from peacebuilding efforts, and maintain structural violence that exacerbates sectarian identity conflicts. A qualitative methodology was used to interview 120 participants who shared their experiences of grassroots peacebuilding efforts to transform the Northern Ireland conflict. Findings revealed that commUNity audits are critical to inclusion of local needs, and helped to assess what escalates conflict, British job cuts create needs that overwhelm CSOs and youth who feel hopeless are attracted to sectarian paramilitary groups. They reject peace and trigger further conflict as a result.

With aroUNd 34,000 North Korean defectors having arrived in South Korea (as of JUNe, 2021), perceptions toward them remain ambiguous and UNbalanced. The dominant discourse about North Korean defectors centers on adaptation, and cultural difference is often identified as one of the most challenging obstacles. This article examines how a specific conceptualization of culture is utilized to alienate North Korean defectors, while securing the belief in a single ethnicity of all Koreans. As a result, North Korean defectors are rendered as cultural other in South Korean society. While cultural difference is often believed to be the basis of discrimination for North Korean defectors, this article argues that social prejudice and discrimination reproduce and reinforce the discourse about cultural difference of North Korean defectors.

This paper explores why Afghanistan’s centralized planning and budgeting policies, despite consistent failure to improve local participation and allocative efficiency, remained stable. Based on policy feedback theory, there are two explanations. First, policy actors, given their interests, often tend to keep the status quo UNchanged; and second, policymaking processes play a facilitative role for policy actors. This paper explains how centralized policymaking processes enable policy actors to bypass specific constraints of institutional environment such as agenda setting, principalagent dynamics, information symmetry, and credible commitment to keep certain policies UNchanged. With the recent collapse of Afghan state, the Taliban would most likely continue the centralized planning and budgeting policies given their past governance approach and their recent performance.

This study illustrates collaborative platforms and diversifying partnerships for South-South and triangular cooperation in development. The English School’s pluralism-solidarism spectrum is applied as a tool to explain transformative features of the changing international society in times of crisis. The study focuses on the intermediary pluralist-solidarism phase that shows dynamics of middle power coalitions using nation branding and collaborative governance as key strategies. The transitional phase is exemplified by two approaches. One is the bilateral approach to coalition shown through the case of China, whereas the other is the inclusivemultilateral approach demonstrated through the case of South Korea. Implications are given toward relatively loose networks that have the potential to evolve into platforms with institutional groUNds, especially for middle powers seeking opportUNities in the new normal.

This article examines the outcomes of collective forms of engagement in the ASEAN region. By examining how convening power in these south-south engagements has worked since the BandUNg Conference, the paper reviews how the mode of consensus building adopted in 1955 has been channelled into regional cooperation. In particular, the paper considers the implications of these forms of cooperation for the consensus building that characterizes ASEAN today. The paper uses the processes evident in the ASEAN Development Outlook to set out the consequences of these findings for how the UN system can set out more effective criteria for global South cooperation. This has direct implications for institutional mechanisms for advancing capacity and expertise in new forms of cooperation between the global North and global South.

In light of recent efforts by the UN to more firmly embed SSC and TrC in all its institutions, this paper examines the challenges that lie ahead by first tracing the emergence of the terms SSC and TrC on a discursive level in the UN system. Second, it reflects theoretically on the concepts of solidarity and development to show that voices from the Global South are suggesting alternative UNderstandings that may do more justice to the poor and disadvantaged. Third, it explores what can be learned from various interlinked health crises and the recent COVID-19 pandemic regarding the flaws of SSC and TrC. Fourth, it sketches a way forward by looking at ways in  which a more human rights based democratization of global health can be achieved.

Various parts of the UNited Nations (UN) system have been part of the definition and implementation of technical cooperation among developing coUNtries (TCDC), South-South cooperation (SSC) and triangular cooperation (TrC) over the years since the Buenos Aires Plan of Action of 1978 (BAPA). This paper will take the view that there is a perception that South-South and triangular cooperation have not achieved their potential to be transformative because accompanying changes needed for the modalities have not been pursued fully and thus these development modalities seemingly remain largely cosmetic. To respond to this perception, the authors will review what was expected of the UNited Nations development systems (UNDS) from BandUNg to Buenos Aires and what has been achieved since noting the constraints of lack of data and measurement.

UNited Nations (UN) entities have repeatedly been asked to mainstream their support for South-South and triangular cooperation (SSTC). However, there is hardly any systematic evidence on whether and how they have done so. This article contributes to addressing this gap. The analysis focuses on organizational efforts over the last two decades to integrate SSTC support into institutional processes across the UN development system. It centers aroUNd a scorecard of fifteen UN entities that maps the levels and contours of their organizational focus on SSTC. In light of a highly diverse SSTC support landscape and the complex political dynamics behind mainstreaming efforts, the article discusses the way ahead for UN engagement with SSTC, including the potentials and challenges of a continued focus on mainstreaming itself.

This special issue discusses, in-depth, the embedded conUNdrum of South-South and triangular cooperation (SSTC) whose frontiers are shifted from collaboration to contention within the UNited Nations (UN) development system and beyond. This introductory article provides the conceptual framework—the contentioncollaboration spectrum—that guides all the contributors and serves as the collective starting point for this project. The moving frontiers of SSTC reflect the shifting historic relationships between the global South and North as well as Southern partner coUNtries. The framework enables the six articles of this special issue to investigate the paradoxical structure of contrasting dynamics of SSTC, which has always been exposed to historical transformations at multi-levels of analysis: global governance, regional engagements, middle power perspectives, and the UN development system and beyond.

This article aims to explain why recent tensions between religious groups in Papua, Indonesia, did not develop into ethnoreligious conflicts such as those which broke out in Ambon and Poso. Such tensions are likely to occur because of the migration of Muslim ethnicities from elsewhere in Indonesia that leads to political, racial, religious, and economic divisions. Migrant populations are generally Malay, Muslim, and prosperous, while native Papuans are Melanesian, Christian, and impoverished. The Christian indigenous Papuans feel threatened by the influx of Muslim migrants. Based on Lederach’s concept of peace agents, we argue that the adoption of cultural mechanisms driving peace agencies is central to preventing ethnoreligious conflict. The curricula of local schools should include such local wisdom in order to reach all ethnoreligious groups.

This article explores the prospect of theorizing UNarmed civilian peacekeeping as a transformative justice concept. Utilizing the principles of transformative justice theory as a framework of analysis, it finds that UNarmed civilian peacekeeping produces an environment of everyday justice, thereby contributing to transformative peacebuilding. Crucial to this proposed concept of everyday justice is the ability of an UNarmed civilian peacekeeping approach to form a link between the elite-level negotiating panels in a peace process and the grassroots constituency in a postconflict society. The case of volUNtary and mandated nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) involved in the Bangsamoro peace process in Mindanao is used to corroborate these conceptual suggestions.

This study discusses social accoUNtability in Timor-Leste by scrutinizing the patterns of state-society interactions and the role of non-governmental organizations (NGOs). Analyzing five case studies in peacebuilding and development, it highlights NGOs’ multiple positions—from oversight and advocacy, to their role in facilitating statesociety relations in service delivery, suggesting alternative forms of public services, and conveying citizens’ views on government performance to the state. It elaborates how NGOs are closely associated with suco (village) and commUNity authorities and bridge the gap between the state and society. In a fledging state, these dynamics emerge from the state’s attempts to formalize this relationship into law and society’s accommodation of its citizens within the local context. The study also addresses international actors who strive to support NGOs.

This paper provides a mid-term assessment of externally-led Security Sector Reform (SSR) during the UNited Nations (UN) led peacebuilding intervention in Timor- Leste. Despite initial difficulties, several core institutions, introduced by the UN, remain effective and were integrated into local practices. These initial security problems of the new-born Timor-Leste state, included the radical reconfiguration of the power balances within elites and an UNfamiliarity with new approaches to security governance by the indigenous actors themselves. The lack of contextual knowledge and insensitivity to local political dynamics by external actors exacerbated these issues. Nonetheless, Timor-Leste has foUNd ways to achieve some measure of political stability and physical security, both of which were always overarching goals of SSR.

This article revisits the role that Ahn JUNg-geUN plays in Korean collective memory today and contrasts this with the Moon administration’s foreign policy. An analysis of Korean collective memory shows that Ahn’s assassination of Ito Hirobumi is heavily emphasized but Ahn’s ultimate goal of bringing peace to Northeast Asia is overlooked. This emphasis is UNderstood through Jan Assmann’s model of collective memory. Based on Aleida Assmann and Linda Shortt’s proposition, it is argued that the historical figure of Ahn can instead play a constructive role. Shifting the focus of collective memory toward Ahn’s ambition for peace in Northeast Asia may serve as a positive nudge for Seoul’s Japan policy, thus helping to ameliorate Korea-Japan relations in the medium term.

Deforestation is a severe environmental problem in North Korea. Beginning in 2001, the government implemented ten-year reforestation projects with few positive outcomes. Inter-Korean forestry cooperation began in 1999. Local governments and NGOs were the main implementers of cooperative projects from South Korea. The two Koreas had also been seeking financial and technical support from international organizations. This study examines the cooperative networks between government agencies, NGOs, and international organizations and financing possibilities to identify the reasons why so little has been accomplished. It also provides a meaningful contribution to the UNderstanding of comparative relationships among the stakeholders and practical recommendations to improve the effectiveness of cooperative forestry programs in North Korea.

This article explores how a leading Korean literary critic, Kim Kirim (1908-?), UNderstood the controversial term “fascism” in his writings. If we associate fascism with wartime Japanese totalitarianism, it is difficult to UNderstand why and how he warned against fascism in liberated Korea. By interpreting his use of the term “fascism” from the colonial to the liberation period, we are able to gain a better UNderstanding of the international relations between imperial Japan and colonial Korea, as well as of the internal relations between North and South Korea from 1945 to 1950. Such an approach allows us to see the struggle for mutual respect among Korean writers experiencing the ideological conflict and exclusive sectarianism immediately before the outbreak of the Korean War.

This article is a study of the legacy of the Korean War, as well as being a case study on the first instance of regime transition in the Cold War era. This study compares the incorporation of “Reclaimed Areas” (subokjigu) by South Korea with the incorporation of “Newly Liberated Areas” (sinhaebangjigu) by North Korea comprehensively from the aspects of occupation, politics, economics, and national identity. Both South Korea’s transplantation of capitalism in the Reclaimed Areas and the expansion of North Korea’s “people’s democracy” (inminminjujui) took place UNilaterally and in a Cold War fashion. Changes to the national identities in each region took place in silence and conformity, paradoxically illustrating the pain and suffering felt while each region was incorporated into an UNyielding regime.

This article looks into how media representations of North Korean defectors reproduce the images of North Korean defectors, while paying particular attention to the contrasting voices of North Korean defectors which reflect self-presentation. The media-perpetuated image of North Korean defectors as displaced victims whose memories are mostly clustered aroUNd the oppressive regime fails to grasp the intersection of aspiration, determination, and agency of North Korean defectors. The self-presentation of North Korean defectors reveals that they are eager to be in charge of constructing and controlling their own images, which goes beyond hitherto nationalized, gendered, and ethnicized identities. Self-presentation, at the same time, is a product of strategic choices conditioned by social discourse and media representation.

During the 2015 refugee crisis, hospitality for migrants was frequently invoked as a European value, in both secular and religious contexts. Hospitality as a valued principle varies from actual instances of hospitality, which involve conditions and moral expectations. This article examines expectations of morality in humanitarian church organizations’ responses to the refugee crisis, based on a case study of an open café project for refugees in a German metropolitan city. Notions of hosting, being a guest, choosing a home, arrival, and integration play significant roles in considerations about the organization for this regular event. The line between volUNteers and visitors becomes increasingly blurred with time, but moral discourses focusing on language, translation, self-formation, and personhood recur and reinforce the distinction of host and guest.

The arrival of many Yemeni people on Jeju Island in 2018 to seek asylum became a mega-political issue in South Korea. This article investigates two questions. First, how and why have Yemeni asylum seekers suddenly become the focus of securitization concerns in South Korea? And second, how have these concerns affected the government’s responses? We argue that three key factors—the influence of media on the refugee crisis in Europe, the Yemenis’ race, gender, and religious backgroUNd, and South Korea’s internal political and economic situation—have intersected with each other and produced the securitization of Yemeni migration. Amidst highly contested political debates on the protection of forced migrants in South Korea, the state has strictly controlled the border but showed contradictory refugee policies.

The definition of refugee status and the right to seek asylum is based on international law and the UNiversal Declaration of Human Rights. After the 1967 Protocol Relating to the Statues of Refugees removed the geographic and temporal restrictions of the 1951 UNited Nations Refugee Convention, these international conventions have been widely accepted and ratified by 147 coUNtries(as of September 2019). While the principles were established half a century ago,the actual practice of granting refugee status has shown variability in different parts of the world, with continuous changes and transformations. Although transfigurations in the political conjUNcture and changes in the implementation of international law—as well as alternating policy trends in international politics—represent significant contexts and UNdercurrents for migration and refugee studies, there are social practices which cannot be sufficiently comprehended exclusively with static insights on laws, rules, or principles.

This research article explains why Cambodia’s dual transition of peacebuilding and democratization after the civil war led to peace but not democracy. The research finds that democratization often threatened peacebuilding in Cambodia. Particularly elections led to political instability, mass protests, and renewed violence, and thus also blocked reforms to democratize Cambodia’s government institutions. By applying the war-to-democracy transition theory and theories of political reconciliation to Cambodia’s dual transition, the following research article finds that a lack of political reconciliation between Cambodia’s former civil war parties is the main reason why the dual transition failed. This article argues that peace-building and democratization are only complementary processes in post-civil war states when preceded by political reconciliation between the former civil war parties.

This study seeks to assess how the conflict in Somalia has transformed over the years and examines the merits of adopting a hybrid approach to peacebuilding. The article argues that given the changes experienced in the conflict and the sociopolitical and cultural characteristics of the Somali Society, a hybrid peace strategy which combines the traditional Xeer approach and contemporary coUNter-terrorism strategies can fill the gaps previous peace efforts failed to achieve. This approach has the potential to re-establish the horizontal and vertical social contracts between the people themselves and with the government which had been lost prior to and during the conflict.

With the North Korean waves of armament race in 2017-19, noted by the diplomacy of the Trump Administration, de-nuclearization has become a top priority for the Korean peninsula. In the meantime potentials for economic reforms in North Korea, perhaps even to the point of systemic change, are still open issues, as the need to feed people and improve the dismal economic performance remains high on the agenda. What lessons might be learned from the systemic change of Central and Eastern Europe for the context of East Asia? Implications based on International Relation (IR) theory are suggested.

The aim of the present study is to shed light on the diplomatic achievements of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), by exploring the way in which it has dealt with the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) implemented by China. ASEAN is little more than an association of minor powers with insignificant military and economic capabilities. However, in its dealings with the BRI, it has proactively advanced its own interests by skillfully conducting equidistant diplomacy with China and the US, without becoming too remote from or too close to either one of them, thereby reaping benefits from its favorable relations with each of them.

This article addresses the UNderexplored question of why some state violence cases in Asia are not followed by transitional justice even during a democratic transition. It explicates the two factors that obstruct or delay seeking truth and accoUNtability and thus bring impUNity for perpetrators. One is the context in which the violence took place, and the other is longevity of the violent regime. If the violence occurs during a period of conflation of state construction and regime building, and if the perpetrators’ power persists long enough to be institutionalized, transitional justice is least likely to take place. Five cases of violence violence which were committed by anticommUNist regimes during the Cold War in four Asian coUNtries are explored.

Efforts to “operationalize” the Responsibility to Protect (R2P) continue to encoUNter resistance from key member states. Where it matters most, among vulnerable civilian populations caught up in war, the R2P appears to be making scant difference. Rising geopolitical tensions have added to a growing sense of pessimism among R2P advocates. UNsurprisingly, the most contentions aspect of the R2P concept continues to revolve aroUNd the question of the use of force for humanitarian purposes. It is a subject on which states, for an admixture of historical and political reasons, remain deeply divided. Nonetheless, as a politically significant norm, the R2P has come to command growing support from states, even though the degree to which the R2P norm has been truly internalized across international society varies greatly.

Human security should not be considered as a mere academic rhetoric-it is, in fact, a political tool aimed at transforming individuals from conditions of exploitation and domination to that of political participation and accoUNtability. This paper adopts political governance perspectives to analyze human security in Africa. It argues that without accoUNtable democratic governance, the expressed objectives of human security would be difficult to achieve in Africa. By this focus, the paper adopts a broader view of human security, satisfying both the governance and development prerequisites of the concept, which has UNderpinned [in] security in Africa. The overall estimation of human security in Africa is that only a marginal improvement has been made in the region, especially over the last decade.

In 2001, the Finnish Parliament approved the plan for a high-level nuclear waste (HLW) repository in Finland, the first move of its kind worldwide. This article analyzes the historical backgroUNd of radioactive waste policy formation in Finland, comparing it to that of (West) Germany in the Cold War context and after. Military ambitions and non-proliferation, political culture and civil society, and energy policy are considered. In Germany, reprocessing of spent nuclear fuel (SNF), which could make nuclear armament possible, was pursued UNtil 1989 and often spurred opposition movements. Finland, in contrast, renoUNced reprocessing aroUNd 1980. In addition, there was a notable absence of a strong nationwide anti-nuclear movement in Finland against the backdrop of the Cold War.

The aim of this paper is to examine the reasoning behind the ongoing U.S. policy of, in effect, ignoring Israel’s nuclear capability. By law, the American administration is obligated to impose sanctions on every coUNtry that joins the “Nuclear Club.” Despite this, not only has the UNited States not imposed sanctions on Israel, but the latter enjoys the lion’s share of U.S. foreign aid. This article tries to follow the logic of this policy. My hypothesis is that by ignoring Israel’s nuclear policy (of ambiguity), the UNited States can continue to declare her ongoing commitment to the security of Israel, while not having to anchor it in a formal pact. By adopting such a policy, both sides can “have their cake and eat it too.”

Art increasingly appears at “dark” museums and related formal sites to balance the traditional exhibits of war. This article explores how art might contribute a peace education perceptive in differing coUNtries and a globalizing context. Case studies from the UNited Kingdom, Europe (West and East), and Southeast Asia (Cambodia and Vietnam) are analyzed. The former deploys new technologies and supports wellknown artists who appeal to art markets. Asian curation relies more on creativity, including children’s and victim’s art. Both deploy artistic devices to symbolize the scale of atrocities and create aesthetic depth-juxtaposition, prominence, perspective, repetition, patterning, and soUNdscapes. The analysis provides tools and checklists to assist curation and inform artists, and concludes that critical educational processes are as important as the art.

In this article, the limits and possibilities of Korean UNification education is critically examined and compared with the peace process on the Korean Peninsula for overcoming division from the perspective of peace education. For the purpose of becoming a single UNified Korea, the direction of UNification education has been presented within a hostile frame to cultivate attitudes and values for its own sake. Peace education in a divided society refers to a collective effort to transform the situation of hostile division into peaceful coexistence and rapprochement. In this context, UNification education for overcoming the division of the Korean Peninsula should be established as the subject of critical peace education according to the global standards of Sustainable Development Goal 4.7.

The introduction of civic education in Serbia in 2001 marked a beginning of an allencompassing reform that set the tone for future changes designed to support the coUNtry’s democratization. This article draws on documentary and elite interview data to UNpack the conceptualization of this policy, revealing it to be a multi-level positioning exercise in the national and international political space. It argues that, by using favorable political and international policy conditions, Serbian policymakers created a version of civic education that significantly drew on grassroots peace education programs developed during the 1990s, recognizing the priority of needs in building a democratic society. The latter offered Serbian policymakers agency in the context of what critical literature perceives as a transfer/imposition of policies in societies facing “Westernization.”

Timor-Leste will celebrate the twentieth anniversary of its independence on May 20, 2022. As we approach this milestone, it is worthwhile to look back on the history of Timor-Leste’s state-building, examining the efforts of its governmentand people and the roles played by the international commUNity. In this special issue, twenty years of state-building in Timor-Leste is examined, from the preindependence period, when the foUNdations and basic frameworks of the state were envisaged and laid out by the UNited Nations (UN), up to the present. In those two decades, a wide range of state-building initiatives were implemented. For example, a series of elections were held, including the 2001 election for a constitutional assembly, presidential elections (in 2002, 2007, 2012, and 2017), general elections (in 2007, 2012, 2017, and 2018), and elections of suco (village) chiefs and coUNcils (in 2004-5, 2009, and 2016). The constitution and other laws, including the law on the veterans’ pension scheme, were drafted and enacted, the parliament was inaugurated, and national languages and a currency were selected. Statutory institutions such as the Falintil Defense Force of Timor-Leste (F-FDTL), the National Police Force of Timor-Leste (PNTL), the public administration, the suco coUNcils, and the Petroleum FUNd were established. The recruiting and training of civil servants was carried out. In addition, directions and visions for state-building were set, including the establishment of national symbols for integration and nationally shared myths through the construction of the resistance museum and the memorial to heroes (and victims), commemorating their suffering and devotion to the liberation struggle.

Liberal missteps have paved the way for the local turn in post-conflict peacebuilding. However, localized peacebuilding does not always produce peaceful outcomes. Several scholars have previously demonstrated that UNresolved tensions from international-local encoUNters result in a negative hybrid peace in which political and social hierarchies are preserved and conflict and violence persist. To add to existing analyses on the local turn in peacebuilding, this article analyzes some of the causes and consequences of negative hybrid peace using the case of Timor-Leste. Exclusive and superficial local involvement, political cleavages within the local leadership, and UNresolved tensions from international-local encoUNters were roadblocks in Timor-Leste’s post-conflict peacebuilding. These characteristics prelude a return to a status quo dominated by the local elite and plagued with governance and socio-economic issues.

This article examines how truth commissions (TCs) contribute to promoting accoUNtability, and argues TCs generate two horizontal accoUNtability relationships. First, TCs hold state agencies accoUNtable. Second, recommendations made by TCs can generate a relationship of horizontal accoUNtability between the governing regime and the state agencies towards which the recommendations are directed. Next, I present the case of the 1994 Zonal Commissions in Sri Lanka, and to assess their contribution to accoUNtability, I compare the evidence collected against evaluative criteria. The results show that while the commissions produced answerability, recommendations compiled in the final report were not implemented. The findings show long-term effectiveness of TCs may depend on senior officers within the state apparatus in addition to political leaders.

More than fifteen years of intense internal armed conflict has made Pakistan home to one of the largest populations of internally displaced persons (IDPs). This article investigates the impact of conflict on socioeconomic well-being through measuring changes in post conflict levels of schooling, livelihood, and income, and also seeks to UNderstand the challenges faced by IDPs from the Federally Administered Tribal Areas located in Jalozai Camp, Khyber PUNkhtoonkhwa (KP). The results of a survey analysis indicate significant gaps in educational attainment due to displacement and this impacts socioeconomic well-being.

This article argues for a relational and historical UNderstanding of the violent conflict in Muslim Mindanao, the Philippines that goes beyond treating this region as a violent “space of exception,” but instead points at similarities and congruities with other parts of the Philippines. The consequences of this observation are discussed in relation to the ongoing peace negotiations in the region. Rather than seeing these as efforts potentially transforming Muslim Mindanao into a peaceful “space of normality,” it is argued that the impact of these negotiations will remain confined, as they solely tackle the national conflict scale and remain confined to only one type of armed organization.

Post-war reconstruction in Sri Lanka, which is aided by many coUNtries, is aimed at consolidating the UNitary state structure as part of a geo-strategic security complex in the Indian Ocean Region. In this process, discourses of democratization and human rights have been reconfigured to contain or totally remove any threat to the UNitary state emerging from the Tamils in the North and East whose claim to self-determination is seen as a major challenge to the geo-strategic complex in South Asia. In such a context, the bio-politics of the development-security nexus and neo-liberal governmentality operates by strengthening the hegemony of the Sinhala state against the Tamils and weakening or destroying the essential foUNdations of Tamil nationhood. Without recognizing these local and global dynamics every peacebuilding attempt will fail.

The case of East Timor is distinct in that it offers both its own specifics and a common perspective widely shared among peacebuilders. Its UNique trajectory of developments could be more succinctly UNderstood through a four-dimensional taxonomy: “givens,” the past, the present, and the future. Three “givens” represent the UNique historical, political, and geographical dimensions of the coUNtry. Its distinct position in the historical context of UN peace operations is marked not only by reaffirmed relevance as a “success” model despite its increasingly complicated form, but also by UNprecedented challenges for consent of the host coUNtry and adoption of local wisdom. However, East Timor is subject to pitfalls in the progress of peacebuilding. Also, as time passes it may face changing agendas and disquieting woes.

This article seeks to add to the existing literature on Japan’s peacebuilding by examining its involvement in the psychosocial reconstruction of children in conflictaffected regions. It demonstrates that to this end Japan has implemented creative, recreational activities, and, to a lesser extent, commUNity-building strategies. This article argues that there are three important implications of Japan’s involvement in psychosocial reconstruction for its own foreign policy: (1) psychological reconstruction can enhance its non-military approach to peacebuilding; (2) this field can potentially be another area of expertise in its own peacebuilding policy; and (3) in so doing, Japan may be able to carve out a niche in the field of international peacebuilding. This article concludes by identifying some limitations that can be developed into areas for future research.

Various factors affect the ability of internally displaced persons (IDPs) to achieve socioeconomic stability. Aid and repatriation attempts have a short-term impact, whereas opportUNities like access to education and healthcare have a long-term impact. Thus, a measurement of inequality of opportUNity is needed in order to formulate an appropriate development policy that can achieve socioeconomic stability. The objective of this study is, therefore, to measure inequality of opportUNity affecting a commUNity in India that has been displaced for a period of less than twenty years by ethnic conflict. A field survey revealed that IDPs were more deprived than non-IDPs. Inequality of opportUNity has been measured using a D-Index, and determinants of the inequality of opportUNity have been identified.

Nepal adopted a UNique post-conflict development framework for mobilizing international support and government resources to facilitate its peace process. The main focus of this paper is the role played by the Nepal Peace Trust FUNd (NPTF) in Nepal’s transition. The paper concludes that the main strengths of this model were its success in keeping ex-combatants in cantonments by creating a conducive environment, its harmonization of fUNds from donors and the government, and its contribution to national elections. However, the NPTF’s defects were many, including weak monitoring mechanisms, an inability to prepare for successful rehabilitation and to initiate projects to support transitional justice, and failure to stop the misuse of fUNds and corruption. Having taken stock of these failures, the paper explores a core reason for them: the NPTF’s isolation from the political process.

The “rise of China,” especially within U.S. academic and policy circles, has been increasingly analyzed through a geopolitical lens. Yet geopolitics alone cannot accoUNt for the complex political mobilization of historical memory and how it frames any discussion of peace and cooperation in the region. Drawing on the concept of geobody, or how space and people are connected in a biopolitical manner, this article examines how the territorial disputes in the South China Sea are remaking the identity and interests of China. It develops an alternative theoretical UNderstanding of China’s rise that focuses on identity (or geobody) politics, and explores the risks involved in a further escalation of tensions for peace and cooperation in the area, and in East Asia more generally.

The Syrian refugee crisis is characterized by the gap between refugees’ needs and donors’ expectations as humanitarian organizations struggle to meet emergency and development needs. The perspectives of eleven field workers from three levels of field management in the Zaatari and Azraq refugee camps in Jordan shed light on the field dynamics that contribute to this gap. I argue that the expectations gap in humanitarian operations is widened by the inability of humanitarian organizations to accurately commUNicate refugees’ needs to donors due to a lack of regular and professional needs assessments. Disparities within organizations regarding UNderstanding contexts, adherence to rigid operational standards, and the need to address stressors on the groUNd also reinforce power imbalances within humanitarian operations and widen the expectations gap. Two effective responses for managing this gap are transparency with refugees and donor flexibility.

t is regularly claimed that CommUNism and Confucianism shape gender-related norms, practices, and institutions in Vietnam. Some scholars emphasize the ongoing relevance of Confucian traditions, while others hold that CommUNist rule led to more gender-equal norms, practices, and institutions. By contrast, I suggest that broader socioeconomic modernization processes should be considered. I use data from the World Values Survey to investigate the question of the relative influence of CommUNism, Confucianism, and modernization processes on gender attitudes. The results show that modernization is a crucial factor in UNderstanding gender attitudes, but that CommUNism and Confucianism likewise have an influence.

Truth commissions (TCs) have become a recurrent mechanism for states to deal with and address past human rights violations. This article argues that TCs generate accoUNtability relationships at three different stages. Before their establishment, TCs generate vertical accoUNtability relationships between civil society and the state. During the period between their establishment and the release of the final report, TCs hold state agencies horizontally accoUNtable. In their final reports, TCs put forward recommendations capable of generating horizontal accoUNtability between the governing regime and the state agencies towards which the recommendations are directed, and vertical accoUNtability as civil society pushes the governing regime to implement these recommendations. This article suggests criteria for evaluating how truth commissions contribute to promoting accoUNtability.

Building peace to prevent the recurrence of conflict is an inevitable role of UNited Nations peacekeeping operations today. As this activity increasingly occurs in populated, low-intensity conflict areas, relations between peacekeepers and civil commUNities become significant. Peacebuilding cannot achieve any level of success UNless it is directly relevant to the commUNal needs of the local people. Building an alliance for peace in civil commUNities is vital not only for strengthening civil commUNity-peacekeeper relations but also for fostering a sense of ownership and responsibility in local minds. By examining the peacebuilding experience of South Asian states, this article shows that the complex, sensitive and volatile nature of today’s operational environments have necessitated employing soft aspects of military science as part of a commUNity-centered approach to peacebuilding.

Controversial and insufficient post-accident measures implemented by the Japanese government after the Fukushima nuclear power plant accident in 2011 have caused prolonged anxieties over radiation. These anxieties resulted in multiple insecurities, including health, economic, food, environmental, commUNity, personal, and political insecurities. The Fukushima disaster shows that threats to human security may come not only from the manifest “enemy” outside, but from “dysfUNction of the state” supported by peoples’ choices to sacrifice the victims for the sake of the interests of the “majority,” which is called a “sacrificial system.” At the same time, people are still patiently trying to restore their human security by means of volUNtary actions.

This article examines the impact of a natural disaster on the political dynamics of an ethno-nationalist conflict. The humanitarian space generated by the 2004 tsUNami could have revived the peace process between the Sri Lankan state and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), as evidenced by the joint mechanism that was formed for rehabilitation and reconstruction. However, the impact of the tsUNami carried a potential for both peacebuilding and escalation of the conflict. The growing securitization of South Asia, led by the UNited States, upheld a militaristic approach and strengthened the Sri Lankan state against the LTTE. The militaristic approach to the decades-long conflict was advanced and eventually resulted in a massive war which claimed thousands of lives. The tsUNami was a missed political opportUNity.

The concept of human security gained prominence in Southeast Asia in the aftermath of the Asian financial crisis of 1997-1998. In a rapidly changing ASEAN, the list of human insecurities covers issues of both development and security, and fall within the ambit of both freedom from want and freedom from fear. But while human security has gained traction 20 years since the 1994 UNDP Human Development Report, more needs to be done to translate discourse into action. This article argues that in order to advance human security ASEAN states must be imbued with the political will to act decisively in addressing human insecurities and to work with other actors in promoting protection and empowerment of people and commUNities.

This article discusses the role of the UNited Nations in the development of the concept of human security since the 1998 Lysøen Declaration. The UN’s role in the evolution of UNderstandings of human security in international society is examined, emphasizing conceptual development, the incubation of ideas, consensus building, legitimation and codification, and practice. It also considers the limitations on the organization in promoting human security, given its state-centric character and substantial contestation of the idea of sovereignty in international society. The analysis suggests that the organization has played a significant role in the effort to define, promote, legitimize and implement elements of human security, but faces serious constraints given its state-centric nature.

This article seeks to make a contribution to the existing literature on the South China Sea issue by focusing on the impact of regional institutions on conflict management and resolution as well as the limits these institutions face when seeking to de-escalate disputes. The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) has attempted to preserve its neutrality and UNity over sovereignty disputes and has focused on the establishment of a conflict management mechanism with China-the Code of Conduct for the South China Sea. However, ASEAN’s efforts have been UNdermined by an escalation of the situation in the disputed waters and by rising China-U.S. competition in the region. The article concludes by discussing various scenarios regarding the future of ASEAN’s South China Sea policy.

The history of Australia’s attempts to acquire a nuclear deterrent capacity transpired both within and outside the spirit of the international Atoms for Peace program. While this article reprises a range of scholarship to provide a historical overview, it provides for the first time a level of detail not previously disclosed concerning the mechanisms, costs, and approaches of successive Australian governments in their estimations of obtaining an indigenous nuclear capacity. One such revelation concerns Australia’s “back-door” acquisition option by hosting Peaceful Nuclear Explosions, ostensibly for civil engineering purposes, and their provision of preassembled thermonuclear technologies and devices. During the international and bilateral negotiations for the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, Australia was deeply concerned that the draft Treaty would limit or deny this option.

Myanmar is currently UNdergoing widespread changes that are transforming the coUNtry’s political and socio-economic landscape. These changes include the newly promulgated Constitution that was ratified in 2008 and a national election held in November 2010. Additionally, by-elections in April 2012 saw the return to Parliament of the National League for Democracy and its leader AUNg San Suu Kyi. The reforms UNder the new Thein Sein-led government include a congenial working relationship with the political opposition, freeing political prisoners and the granting of amnesty to political exiles to encourage their return, the negotiation of ceasefire agreements with almost all of the ethnic insurgent armies, and the inauguration of the Myanmar Peace Centre as a vehicle for the resolution of domestic conflict. These and related reforms are designed to secure the government’s internal and external political legitimacy which it has lacked since the fall of the previous socialist government in 1988.

It is a pleasure and an honor to be addressing all of you today. First of all, I must thank the UNiversity for conferring this honorary degree on me, and I hope that I will be able to do enough for education in Burma to deserve such an honor. There is much that we have to do and there is much support and help that we need from our friends.

This research note outlines a series of questions about conducting research on state violence and human rights in Thailand. Taking as a central problem the recurrence of state violence across regimes both dictatorial and democratic in the 80 years since the end of the absolute monarchy, I argue that the failure to secure accoUNtability for state violence can productively be placed at the center of researching and writing about modern Thai history. UNevenness is common both to the attempts to secure state accoUNtability for state violence and to the available archival and other sources for writing histories of such violence. This research note examines the particular methodological and analytical difficulties and productive possibilities presented by the partial attempts and failures to secure state accoUNtability and the equally partial available documentation of state violence.

The institution of nuclear power in Japan appears to be drifting; nevertheless it persists. For the past 60 years, conservative politicians, technologists, and electric companies have acted in concert, for different reasons, to achieve a full nuclear fuel cycle: specifically technology for reprocessing and uranium enrichment. Their pursuit has eroded the bottom-line spirit of peaceful use; to be sure, it has been excessively ambitious for Japan’s status as a non-nuclear-weapon state. The mastering of the full nuclear fuel cycle has resulted in a competency trap, excluding or delaying development of alternatives to nuclear power. Furthermore, this situation has heightened nuclear power’s sUNk costs. The critical conjUNcture of the March 11, 2011 incident has had a limited impact only. Anti-nuclear activists, the weakest concerned actor, try to dramatize their movement for “exit from nuclear,” but they have failed to bring about electoral changes.

In 2008, the Thai-Cambodian conflict over the Preah Vihear Temple was reignited after the issue became politicized by political groups in Thailand. The opposition accused the Samak SUNdaravej government of aspiring to achieve its private interests in exchange for Thailand’s support for Cambodia’s bid to have the Preah Vihear listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site. In Thailand, there was a belief that if Cambodia’s bid was successful, the coUNtry would lose the disputed 4.6-square-kilometer area surroUNding the temple. This pushed elements in Thailand to UNofficially declare a state of war with Cambodia. This crisis also had a serious impact on ASEAN. Thailand rejected ASEAN’s mediating role, thus revealing its distrust in regional dispute settlement mechanisms. For ASEAN, it UNveiled its weakness in exercising authority over its members, and its incompetency in the management of regional disputes. This article argues that ASEAN was caught between the need to be a key player in regional politics, especially in tackling territorial disputes in the region, and the need to maintain the region’s status quo by appearing subservient to the members’ self-interest in protecting their national sovereignty at the expense of progress on regionalization.

Tensions in the South China Sea have risen in recent years for reasons related to conflicting territorial claims and rivalry, competition for access to fish stocks as well as oil and gas fields, and in China’s case, emerging strategic interests. Because international law largely excludes it from an area it regards as historically Chinese, China has recently become more assertive in pushing its claim, resorting to power projection, particularly against smaller claimants, such as Vietnam and the Philippines. China’s actions have drawn in external powers, including the UNited States, Japan, and India, a development that exacerbates the problem. The danger is not that the UNited States and China may come into a direct conflict, but that through error or miscalculation a clash may escalate into a conflict involving external powers. Proposals to prevent conflict and stabilize the area include an agreement to avoid incidents at sea. Also a UN-sponsored conference on the South China Sea could contribute to a long-term resolution of the issue by dealing with competing claims in a semi-enclosed sea and other outstanding issues.