The Sri Lankan government implemented commissions of inquiry between 1977 and 2010. Though several commissions of inquiry produced comprehensive accounts of the violence in Sri Lanka’s civil war, and offered thorough recommendations, they rarely resulted in policy reforms or accountability. What motivated successive administrations in Sri Lanka to hold truth-seeking measures throughout the war? Building on theories concerning the alternative objectives of justice, this article argues that the commissions of inquiry in Sri Lanka were created by the government as strategies of legitimation. Drawing on empirical evidence from fourteen distinct commissions, the article discusses four strategies of legitimation, the impact of these strategies, and the implications of this case for future research on justice processes conducted during civil war.

This article surveys the trajectory of peace and conflict studies in Myanmar—from its early focus on civil war and insurgency, to state institutions and ethnic armed actors, and later broadening into relational and networked approaches covering formal peace processes, regional geopolitics, conflict economies, and everyday peacebuilding. It suggests that the widening of peace and conflict studies was brought about by the opening of the country from the early 2010s, which both granted scholars and researchers more access to the country and introduced new foreign specialists, discourses, and developmental actors into the political sphere. The peace agenda and directions of peace studies have been upended by the military coup of 2021; how reconciliation, justice, and federal democratic reform will look like in the future remains to be seen.

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.

Why has the United States (US) changed its stance toward China and kept it in the digital economy domain, despite the change in its government? The extant literature finds causes from China yet barely addresses perceptual factors. This study, however, argues that the strategy and policy of the US have undergone a process whereby the US has securitized the domain by designating China as a threat instead of a risk. Furthermore, the US has internationalized securitization to include its allies and close partners among the Indo-Pacific countries. Analytical narratives examine the US’ economic statecraft, including commercial, industrial, and investment policies. A close examination reveals that the US-China technology competition has been undergoing partial decoupling in global supply chains of critical technologies.

Hiroshima and Manila were both severely damaged during World war II. While Hiroshima is known around the world as a city destroyed by an atomic bomb, the damage done to Manila is less well-known internationally and also in Japan, despite the deaths of one hundred thousand civilians. The atrocities perpetrated on civilians by Japanese soldiers during the Battle of Manila cast a dark shadow over postwar views of Japan in the Philippines. But why has the battle been forgotten in today’s Japan? This article traces the history of the battle and examines Japanese perceptions of it. It also analyzes how the Japanese atrocities escalated and additionally discusses Filipino views on the atomic bombings. The article considers how to deal with memories of “negative history” through a case study.

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.

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.

Poles exhibit contrasting attitudes towards absent Muslim refugees and physically present Ukrainian labor immigrants. Both groups have been historically seen as “Significant Others,” potentially perilous to the nation. Today, however, Muslims are rejected, while Ukrainians are accepted. This situation can be attributed to historical, ethnic, political, social, and economic factors, all of which are discussed here. The ethnic, linguistic, and religious superhomogeneity of Polish society affects the approach to the “culturally distant” Muslim migrants who were cynically rejected by the right-wing populist authorities during the 2015 refugee crisis. Economic necessity justifies the acceptance of the Ukrainians, who are perceived as culturally close. It is argued here that within the category of Significant Others, it is necessary to distinguish between Distant/Absent/Hostile and Familiar/Present/Tolerated Significant Others.

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.

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.

Contrary to its humanist image, Hidankyo, the Japan Confederation of Atomic and Hydrogen Bomb Sufferers Organizations, has engaged in contentious politics against the state for decades. This article traces the little-known history of the Hidankyo movement from the mid-1950s to the early 1980s, introducing how this organization formed in relation to the movement to ban nuclear bombs in the mid-1950s and how it grew into an independent social movement organization with clear policy demands after overcoming an organizational crisis triggered by the Cold war politics of the 1960s. The movement slogan for Hidankyo, “no more hibakusha,” did not naturally emerge from the sufferers’ experience with the atomic bombings, but was substantiated through their struggles to confront their adversaries, most importantly the Japanese government.

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 the present article, I discuss current and past peace and reconciliation educational efforts conducted between Palestinians and Israelis. I concentrate on the educational initiatives conducted for Jewish- and Palestinian-Israeli citizens and not on those less common taking place between Israelis and Palestinians in the Palestinian Authority. In the first section of this article I describe the Israeli sociopolitical and educational context. I then review the main theoretical perspectives which underwrite the educational work undertaken. The third section is dedicated to reviewing the main existing programs and offering information regarding research results where research has been conducted, and in the fourth and last section I offer critical insights on the educational initiatives portrayed.

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.

This article focuses on a seven-year legal battle initiated against the Japanese government in the 1970s by a South Korean illegal entrant and its historical significance. Son Jin-doo, a victim of the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima, demanded the Korean hibakusha receive the same medical and legal rights that the Japanese hibakusha had been granted since 1957. His legal case contributed to bringing Japan’s long-forgotten colonial past to the surface and raised the question of why many Koreans resided in Japan during the colonial era. Additionally, the trials revealed the different legal statuses of Japanese hibakusha and overseas hibakusha. Son Jin-doo was a pioneer in asserting the rights of the latter and raised consciousness about the abandonment of the Korean A-bomb survivors.

Although Southeast Asia was brutally occupied by Imperial Japan during World war II, the region has reconciled with postwar Japan. That Southeast Asia is not hostile to Japan today is due to several reasons: the relatively short duration of the Japanese occupation, the pragmatic needs of the Southeast Asian states to deal with immediate security and economic problems rather than to dwell on the past, and the efforts of Japan to be a good neighbor to Southeast Asia since the enunciation of the 1977 Fukuda Doctrine. Public opinion surveys of Southeast Asians towards Japan today and the content analysis of the history textbooks of various ASEAN states show little hostility towards Japan.

This article analyzes the overturning of time and space in the daily lives of North Koreans during the Korean war. The overturning was caused by the aerial bombings by the United States Air Force that lasted for three years. In particular, after the execution of the scorched earth policy, in November 1950, which destroyed all the cities and villages in North Korea, most people lost their dwellings and had to endure living underground, in dugouts or mud-huts; they were also mobilized at night to restore industries and transportation facilities. This article describes the miserable daily lives of North Korean civilians during the war, a topic that has rarely been discussed, and explains how this experience continues to affect the worldview of the North Korean people.

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.

In recent years, scholars have discovered that the American public responds to foreign policy issues on the basis of fairly stable broad orientations toward international affairs, influenced by a number of demographic, ideological, and partisan factors. Although there has been much recent speculation about the role that religion plays in shaping such orientations, there are very few empirical analyses of that influence. In this article, I use the 2012 Chicago Council on Global Affairs survey to classify American religious groups on Wittkopf ‘s (1990) classic dimensions of foreign policy attitudes: militant internationalism and cooperative internationalism. I find rather different religious constituencies for each perspective, with Evangelical Protestants and religious traditionalists from other faiths most supportive of militant internationalism, while ethnoreligious minorities and religious modernists are most likely to back cooperative internationalism.

The history of nuclear weapon testing by the major nuclear powers during the Cold war is intimately tied to the history of military colonialism in the 20th century. For each of the first five nuclear powers (U.S., USSR, UK, France, and China) the process of selecting a site for nuclear weapon testing was driven more by the location of a small group of politically marginalized people unable to object to being exposed to dangerous levels of radioactive fallout, to the loss of their homes, and the contamination of the land and seas providing their primary food sources, than it was by scientific and military requirements. Invariably these populations were constituted of people of a different racial, ethnic or religious group than that of the colonial power. This article examines the selection of nuclear test sites for each of the five major nuclear powers both in the reaches of their military empires and their own domestic landmasses.

Reconciliation between the Japanese people and those of China and Korea may have better prospects for advancement through a new cultural approach that is experience-based, starting at individuals’ levels and interests, rather than focusing solely on victimization and confining activism to more conventional organizationbuilding and public protests. The peace movement opposed to nuclear weapons has continued to center around the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, but in the past has not fully dealt with Korean and Chinese forced labor by Imperial Japan. However, the alternative experience-based cultural approach by a number of individuals and relatively small organizations has combined these two historical issues. This article highlights examples of two Japanese who directly witnessed Chinese and Korean forced labor in wartime Japan, but who also opposed the atomic bombings. They became activists themselves in the postwar era and utilized traditional cultural forms (tanka poetry and sumi drawing) to help create awareness of the full dimension of Japan’s wartime history. There is strong potential for extending this alternative social movement model, which may be more effective in achieving reconciliation of unresolved historical injustices, to younger generations.