DOCSLIB.ORG

Peace and Democracy at the Crossroads: 14 Peacebuilding Dilemmas After Civil War

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
Peace and Democracy at the Crossroads: 14 Peacebuilding Dilemmas After Civil War Peace and democracy at the crossroads: 14 peacebuilding dilemmas after civil war A thesis submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Faculty of Law, Education, Business and Arts (LEBA) School of Creative Arts and Humanities Charles Darwin University Izabela da Costa Pereira Watts January 2019 This page intentionally left blank Declaration This work contains no material which has been accepted for the award of any other degree or diploma in any university or other tertiary institution and, to the best of my knowledge and belief, contains no material previously published or written by another person, except where due reference has been made in the text. I give consent to this copy of my thesis, when deposited in the University Library, being made available for loan and photocopying online via the University’s Open Access repository eSpace. Izabela da Costa Pereira Watts January 2019 This page intentionally left blank Abstract When a civil war ends, what are the main dilemmas involved in seeking to mutually achieve “peace, democracy, and a functional state”? And, what role do UN operations play in bringing simultaneously peace and democracy to post-civil war countries? After 30 years since the end of the Cold War, something seems wrong with the “democratic peacebuilding” agenda. The political transition to civil democratic peace is often conflict-ridden. Despite an unprecedented number of UN interventional operations “to enforce peace and build democracy”, rarely can war-torn countries make a transition to both peace and democracy. Either they are trapped in an endless cycle of conflict or achieve stability only through nondemocratic rule. Contrary to the common belief that peace and democracy go hand in hand after a civil war, this research explores how they are at a crossroads. It proposes an innovative set of 14 dynamic dilemmas with respective trade-offs called the Philosophical – Actors – Tactical (P-A-T) platform of democratic peacebuilding dilemmas. It focuses on understanding the contradictions in post-conflict recovery, the challenges facing interim governments and the role of the international community when transitioning from internal armed conflict towards political, legal, civil and social orders from 1989 to 2018. The conceptual framework of transitional dilemmas is used to analyze a set of 12 issues commonly found during transition times: elections and political parties; the constitution, checks and balances and power sharing; transitional justice: human rights and amnesty, truth commissions and ad hoc war crime tribunals; disarmament, demobilization, and reintegration (DDR) & SSR; media reform and civil society. Solving one dilemma leads to at least one or more other dilemmas that shape a complex apparatus for the restoration of peace and the installation of a new political regime. This research contributes theoretically by advancing the paradoxes already identified by the literature (temporal, systemic, horizontal and vertical) with an additional ten dilemmas: central, existential, design, moral, operational, resource, security, sequencing, financial and, transparency. Understanding this systematic set of dilemmas may provide the key to guiding disrupted states through the difficult process of transition after conflict. With a new procedural approach, it also helps to explain why UN missions sometimes bring some peace but rarely a functional democracy to civil war-torn countries; it claims that often a moderate level of each is achieved. Civil wars represent contemporary challenges, not only to a state’s stability and legitimacy, but also to regional and international order and security. So that they often become “global civil wars”. The transition is invested by hybrid forms of peace, along with hybrid forms of political structures and processes, imposed via a top-down approach by international actors. Beyond understanding the causes and consequences of civil wars, more research is required to foresee the challenges after civil war on the path towards sustainable democratic peace, state-building, and perhaps, even nation-building. Therefore, this research addresses the contemporaneous paradoxes interrelated to civil war, fragile states, peacebuilding, democratization, state-building and the United Nations. With the objective to avoid failed states, the research proposes a tool for better decision-taking through awareness of probable dilemmas that are faced in any post-civil war situation. v Acknowledgments Whether by coincidence or not, the scope of this research shares the same acronym as Charles Darwin University (CDU): it is all about Conflict, Democracy and the United Nations! I dedicate this research to those who are the main characters: the past and future generations of modern civil wars. To choose a political topic that involves so much despair and unfairness requires the strong equilibrium to maintain research objectivity and a methodological structure for years without ever losing the vision of what it is all about: humanity. Having been a peacekeeper myself with the ability to speak different languages certainly added a different layer of comprehension to the proposed field of knowledge. This was particularly effective when analyzing the cases of Angola, Timor-Leste, Mozambique, Haiti, Côte d' Ivoire and DRC. With the large literature on democratization, peacebuilding and state-building, this researcher does not pretend to have discovered a miracle truth that somehow eluded all predecessors. There is no magic formula for success. Nonetheless, pulling together the strands of the various theories, practices, and case analyses, the study provides interesting insights into the contradictions of building peace, democracy, and a strong state as simultaneous goals in the aftermath of civil war. I have never been alone. I owe a debt of gratitude to Professor Wayne Cristaudo, my principal “super-supervisor”, who guided me throughout the entire journey with excellence. Not only has he provided academic insights but, most of all, he gave me respect, support and opportunities without ever doubting my capacities. In the same way, Dr. Joakim Kreutz was a great supervisor who assisted with substantive methodological understanding as well as with supporting the incredible opportunity for me to be a visitor scholar at the prestigious Department of Peace and Conflict Research of the Uppsala University in Sweden. This experience also gave me the chance to interview key academic experts on civil war transitions whose comments were fundamental to achieving this research. I also thank Anna Jarstad and the contributing authors of the book From War to Democracy: Dilemmas of Peacebuilding (2008) whose work inspired this research. My deepest thankfulness is also expressed to all those who contributed with special insights during field trips in Kosovo and Serbia and interviews in the United States, Ireland and Northern Ireland. Special thanks go to all senior current and former UN officials of DPKO, DPA, UNMIK, UNMIT, MINUSTAH, and MINUCA, and members of the Presidency and the Parliament of Kosovo and the Presidency of the Philippines. I am also grateful to the former President of Timor-Leste and Nobel Peace Laureate José Ramos-Horta, for his contributions. Furthermore, gratefulness must also be given to CDU staff in the Darwin and Sydney campuses who provided absolutely all the necessary support for this higher degree research to be completed. I owe everything to my family, particularly my mother Marli, who echoes perseverance, elegance and moral principles without comparison. I also dedicate this to my sister Gleice and my father Jonas, who suddenly passed away during this research journey. To my friends all over the world; my deepest gratitude. Last, but definitely not least, my husband Anthony Watts deserves to co-share the title of Doctor of Philosophy due to his unquestionable intellectual, financial, and emotional support when I most needed. Meu amor, eu te amo mais e mais! I must vi also confess that I did not foresee the experience of undergoing and surviving cancer surgery and later being blessed with my first pregnancy, which certainly added to the challenging journey. And then another miracle brought even more happiness with a second pregnancy as I submit my thesis. Far from any naivety, motherhood made the space to widen my intellectual horizons and understanding from a perspective that I never thought would be possible. My babies Daniel and Julia have shown me the obvious: freedom and safety, also commonly known as “peace”, should not be a privilege of the few. And that is precisely what keeps me passionate to continue in the turbulent areas of humanitarian affairs, good governance and political affairs, international development cooperation and peacebuilding. vii Publications Some extracts of this doctoral research have been published. • Pereira Watts, Izabela (2016). From war to peace: when democracy prevails? Saint Louis University Public Law Review. Vol. XXXV/2 ISSN: 0898-8404 (Includes extracts of chapters 1, 6 and 7) • Pereira Watts, Izabela (2017). Beyond the Rhetoric on Gender and Peacekeeping: Victims of war, freedom fighters and wonder women in blue helmets? UA: Ukraine Analytica. Vol 1. Issue 7. ISSN 2518-7481 • Pereira Watts, Izabela (2016), 'The Role of Independent Volunteers in Humanitarian Crises', E- International Relations, Jun 29 2016. ISSN 2053-8626 Available at http://www.e-ir.info/2016/06/29/the-role-of-independent-volunteers-in-humanitarian- crises/ (Includes extracts from chapter
Load more

Recommended publications
  • Scott Herring, Series Editor
    ABNORMATIVITIES: QUEER/GENDER/EMBODIMENT Scott Herring, Series Editor PREVENTION GENDER, SEXUALITY, HIV, AND THE MEDIA IN CÔTE D’IVOIRE CHRISTINE CYNN THE OHIO STATE UNIVERSITY PRESS COLUMBUS This edition licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial- NoDerivs License. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Control Number: 2018020066 Cover image: Aboudia. Untitled, 2013. Acrylic and mixed media on canvas, 198 x 124 cm (00557). Image courtesy Jack Bell Gallery, London. Cover design by Susan Zucker Text design by Juliet Williams Type set in Adobe Minion Pro The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of the American National Standard for Information Sciences—Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials. ANSI Z39.48-1992. CONTENTS List of Illustrations vi Acknowledgments ix INTRODUCTION 1 CHAPTER 1 AIDS as an “Imaginary Syndrome”: Humor as Negotiation of Racism, Austerity, and the Single-Party State 18 CHAPTER 2 Popular Satiric State Television Programs and HIV Prevention 50 CHAPTER 3 Regulating Female Reproductive Potential: Abortion and Family as HIV Prevention 95 CHAPTER 4 The Melodrama and the Social Marketing of HIV Prevention 138 CHAPTER 5 “Stay away from unhealthy places”: Sex Work, Condoms, and the NGO 169 AFTERWORD 203 Bibliography 209 Index 229 ILLUSTRATIONS FIGURE 1.1 Sketch of “Moussa” 28 FIGURE 1.2 AIDS is there . IT KILLS 46 FIGURE 1.3 Ivorian athlete Gabriel Tiacoh 47 FIGURE 1.4 Emaciated bodies as index of the truth of AIDS 48 FIGURE 1.5 Television spot: “AIDS is not a joke.
    [Show full text]
  • University of Cape Town 2019 University
    EXAMINING THE IMPEDIMENTS TO CONFLICT MANAGEMENT IN WEST AFRICA: A STUDY OF THE ECOWAS INTERVENTIONS IN LIBERIA (1990) AND COTE D’IVOIRE (2010). Town Emmanuel Ampomah (AMPEMM001) A minor dissertation submitted in partial fulfilmentCape of the requirements for the award of the degree of Master of Socialof Science in International Relations Faculty of the Humanities University of Cape Town 2019 University Supervisor Associate Professor John Akokpari i The copyright of this thesis vests inTown the author. No quotation from it or information derived from it is to be published without full acknowledgement of the source. The thesis is to be used for private study or non- commercial research purposes Capeonly. of Published by the University of Cape Town (UCT) in terms of the non-exclusive license granted to UCT by the author. University COMPULSORY DECLARATION This work has not been previously submitted in whole, or in part, for the award of any degree. It is my own work. Each significant contribution to, and quotation in, this dissertation from the work, or works, of other people has been attributed, and has been cited and referenced. Signature: Date: 22 July 2019 ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENT I owe a depth of gratitude to the underlisted individuals and organizations for their immense contributions towards my academic work and personal development: To Associate Professor John Akokpari, thank you for the advice, support and guidance throughout the conceptualization and writing of this piece, To the Mastercard Foundation, I am extremely grateful for your support throughout my academic journey at the University of Cape Town, To my family, especially Ebenezer and Grace Ampomah, you ignite hope in me every day, To Danielle Nkau, I can’t thank you enough for your support and concern.
    [Show full text]
  • Côte D'ivoire
    CÔTE D’IVOIRE COI Compilation August 2017 United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees Regional Representation for West Africa - RSD Unit UNHCR Côte d’Ivoire UNHCR Regional Representation for West Africa - RSD Unit UNHCR Côte d’Ivoire Côte d’Ivoire COI Compilation August 2017 This report collates country of origin information (COI) on Côte d’Ivoire up to 15 August 2017 on issues of relevance in refugee status determination for Ivorian nationals. The report is based on publicly available information, studies and commentaries. It is illustrative, but is neither exhaustive of information available in the public domain nor intended to be a general report on human-rights conditions. The report is not conclusive as to the merits of any individual refugee claim. All sources are cited and fully referenced. Users should refer to the full text of documents cited and assess the credibility, relevance and timeliness of source material with reference to the specific research concerns arising from individual applications. UNHCR Regional Representation for West Africa Immeuble FAALO Almadies, Route du King Fahd Palace Dakar, Senegal - BP 3125 Phone: +221 33 867 62 07 Kora.unhcr.org - www.unhcr.org Table of Contents List of Abbreviations .............................................................................................................. 4 1 General Information ....................................................................................................... 5 1.1 Historical background ............................................................................................
    [Show full text]
  • CEU Political Science Journal
    Vol. 6, No. 2 May 2011 CEU Political Science Journal Department of Political Science Central European University CEU Political Science Journal Department of Political Science Central European University, Budapest May 2011 Advisory Board S.M. Amadae, Ohio State University Carol Harrington, Victoria University of Wellington Karen Henderson, University of Leicester Herbert Kitschelt, Duke University Levente Littvay, CEU Budapest Cristian Pirvulescu, SNSPA Bucharest Phillippe C. Schmitter, EUI Florence Carsten Q. Schneider, CEU Budapest Jan Zielonka, University of Oxford Managing Editors Sergiu Gherghina, University of Leiden Arpad Todor, European University Institute, Florence Editorial Board Dorothee Bohle, CEU Budapest Andras Bozoki, CEU Budapest Mihail Chiru, CEU Budapest Anil Duman, CEU Budapest Zsolt Enyedi, CEU Budapest Stela Garaz, CEU Budapest Dylan Kissane, CEFAM Lyon Robert Sata, CEU Budapest Daniela Sirinic, CEU Budapest Fouad Touzani, CEU Budapest Editorial Assistants Gabriela Borz, University of Aberdeen Oana Lup, CEU Budapest ISSN: 1818-7668 CONTENTS ARTICLES Davor Marko The role of opinion leaders in the dissemination of media messages during the pre-election period: The case of Bosnia and Herzegovinia 167 Nicole Gallina Challenging the East-West divide: Insights from a comparison of Ukraine and Italy 192 J. Shola Omotola A cabalised regime: neopatrimonialism, president Yar’adua’s health crisis and Nigeria’s democracy 222 Victoria Makulilo Access denied? examining the loans board facility for higher learning students in Tanzania 254 BOOK REVIEWS Mabel Berezin, Illiberal Politics in Neoliberal Times. Culture, Security and Populism in the New Europe (New York, Cambridge University Press, 2009). Reviewed by: Adriana Marinescu 286 Fred I. Greenstein, Inventing the Job of President: Leadership Style from George Washington to Andrew Jackson (Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 2009).
    [Show full text]
  • Atlantic Countries' Voting Patterns on Human Rights and Human
    12 Atlantic countries’ voting patterns on human rights and human security at the United Nations: the cases of Côte d’Ivoire, Haiti, Iran and Syria Susanne Gratius Associate Research Fellow, FRIDE ABSTRACT An analysis of the voting patterns at the United Nations (UN) on human rights and human security helps identify points of convergence or divergence among the countries of the Atlantic basin with regard to values and approaches to international crises. This paper explores if such countries, or groups of countries within the Atlantic basin, share political concepts and values. Based on four case studies – Iran, Syria, Haiti and Côte d’Ivoire – the paper assesses the similarities and differences regarding conflict resolution and responses to massive human rights violations. The first section reviews the current debate over the UN principle of “Responsibility to Protect” (R2P), notably in relation to the Brazilian concept of “Responsibility while Protecting” (RwP). It looks at the perceptions of Atlantic countries, groups and alliances on issues of national sovereignty, sanctions and military interventions authorized by the UN Security Council (UNSC). The second section focuses on the initiatives and positions of Atlantic countries and regional organizations and their alignments at the UN Security Council, the UN General Assembly, and the UN Human Rights Council (HRC). The section concentrates on their voting patterns concerning four cases in particular: two outside the Atlantic space (Syria and Iran) and two inside (Haiti and Côte d’Ivoire). These four countries have been selected because they represent different types of conflicts: Iran and Syria are international hotspots and suppose, albeit for very different reasons, potential threats for regional peace and global stability; Haiti and Côte d’Ivoire rank high on the list of fragile states and the international community has been highly engaged in crisis management and stabilization in these countries.
    [Show full text]
  • Class Code ITAL-UA9513/MCC-UE9452001 Instructor Details
    ITAL-UA9513/MCC-UE9452001 Class code Name: Cristian Vaccari Instructor Details NYUHome Email Address: [email protected] Office Hours: By appointment only, Wednesdays, 6pm-7pm Villa Ulivi Office Location: Borgo de’ Greci Villa Ulivi Office Extension: 313 For fieldtrips refer to the email with trip instructions and trip assistant’s cell phone number Semester: Spring 2013 Class Details Full Title of Course: Global Media Seminar: Television and Democracy in Italy Meeting Days and Times: Wednesdays, 3:00pm - 5:45pm Classroom Location: Montughi None Prerequisites The goal of this course is to present a comparative perspective on media and politics in Class Description Western democracies and a thorough historical survey of political communication in Italy, with a special emphasis on the relation between television and democratic politics and an eye towards the evolving role of digital media. Students who take the course will be able to comprehend the most recent developments in political communication across Western democracies as well as to understand the complex media-politics relationships in Italy. The first part of the course will enable students to contextualize the Italian case within global trends in political communication that affect most Western democracies. Students will learn how to evaluate the ways in which the media contribute to democracy from a normative standpoint and to appreciate how different types of media systems affect citizens’ levels of information and political participation. Moreover, they will learn about parties, party systems, and party identification, which will allow them to better understand the dynamics of elections and vote choice. Building on this groundwork, the second part of the course will deal with the history of political communication in Italy from the post-War era until present-day developments.
    [Show full text]
  • FERDI-WP266-Civil Conflict and Firm Recovery: Evidence from Post
    Pap ing er rk o W s fondation pour les études et recherches sur le développement international e D i 266May c e li ve 2020 o lopment P Civil conflict and firm recovery: Evidence from post-electoral crisis in Côte d’Ivoire* Florian Léon Ibrahima Dosso Florian Léon, Research Officer, FERDI. [email protected] Ibrahima Dosso, Consultant, World Bank, PhD Student, Université Clermont Auvergne, CERDI. [email protected] Abstract This paper examines how firms recover after a short, but severe, external shock. Thanks to a rich firm-level database, we follow surviving formal enterprises before, during and after the 2011 post-electoral crisis in Cˆote d’Ivoire. Main findings are summarized as follows. First, recovery was rapid in the first year but imperfect: three years after the shock, firms did not reach their previous level of productivity. Second, we show a wide heterogeneity in recovery across firms (within the same industry). Young and local firms were more able to rebound after the crisis. In addition, credit-constrained firms were less resilient, highlighting the importance of access to credit in post-crisis periods. Finally, the recovery was higher for labor- intensive firms but firms relying more on skilled workers and managers faced a lower rebound. Key words: Political violence; Firm; Recovery; Africa; Labor. JEL Classification: D22; L25; N47; O12. * We would like to thank the National Institute of Statistics for sharing data with us. We also thank Pierrick Baraton, Luisito Bertinelli, Arnaud Bourgain, Joël Cariolle, Lisa Chauvet, Boubacar Diallo, Marie-Hélène Hubert, Jordan Loper, Patrick Plane, Laurent Weill and Alexandra Zins, as well as participants at African Development Bank (Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire) and CERDI (Clermont-Ferrand, France), and audiences at JMA (Casablanca, Morocco) and AFSE Conference (Orléans, France), for their helpful advice.
    [Show full text]
  • The Syntheist Movement and Creating God in the Internet Age
    1 I Sing the Body Electric: The Syntheist Movement and Creating God in the Internet Age Melodi H. Dincer Senior Thesis Brown University Department of Religious Studies Adviser: Paul Nahme Second Reader: Daniel Vaca Providence, Rhode Island April 15, 20 2 Table of Contents Acknowledgments. 3 Introduction: Making the Internet Holy. .4 Chapter (1) A Technophilic Genealogy: Piracy and Syntheism as Cybernetic Offspring. .12 Chapter (2) The Atheist Theology of Syntheism . 49 Chapter (3) Enacted Syntheisms: An Ethics of Active Virtuality and Virtual Activity. 96 (In)Conclusions. 138 Works Cited. 144 3 Acknowledgments I would briefly like to thank anyone who has had a hand—actually, even the slightest brush of a finger in making this project materialize outside of the confines of my own brain matter. I would first like to thank Kerri Heffernan and my Royce Fellowship cohort for supporting my initial research on the Church of Kopimism. My time in Berlin and Stockholm on behalf of the Royce made an indelible mark on my entire academic career thus far, without which this thesis would definitely not be as out-of-the-box as it is proud to be. I would also like to thank a few professors in the Religious Studies department who, whether they were aware of it or not, encouraged my confidence in this area of study and shaped how I approached the religious communities this project concerns. Specifically, thank you to Prof. Denzey-Lewis, who taught my first religious studies course at Brown and graciously sponsored my Royce research amidst her own travels. Also, infinite thanks and blessings to Fannie Bialek, who so deftly modeled all that is good in this discipline, and all that is most noble in the often confusing, frustrating, and stressful task of teaching “hard” topics.
    [Show full text]
  • Human-Computer Interaction and Sociological Insight: a Theoretical Examination and Experiment in Building Affinity in Small Groups Michael Oren Iowa State University
    Iowa State University Capstones, Theses and Graduate Theses and Dissertations Dissertations 2011 Human-computer interaction and sociological insight: A theoretical examination and experiment in building affinity in small groups Michael Oren Iowa State University Follow this and additional works at: https://lib.dr.iastate.edu/etd Part of the Psychology Commons Recommended Citation Oren, Michael, "Human-computer interaction and sociological insight: A theoretical examination and experiment in building affinity in small groups" (2011). Graduate Theses and Dissertations. 12200. https://lib.dr.iastate.edu/etd/12200 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the Iowa State University Capstones, Theses and Dissertations at Iowa State University Digital Repository. It has been accepted for inclusion in Graduate Theses and Dissertations by an authorized administrator of Iowa State University Digital Repository. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Human-computer interaction and sociological insight: A theoretical examination and experiment in building affinity in small groups by Michael Anthony Oren A dissertation submitted to the graduate faculty in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY Co-Majors: Human Computer Interaction; Sociology Program of Study Committee: Stephen B. Gilbert, Co-major Professor William F. Woodman, Co-major Professor Daniel Krier Brian Mennecke Anthony Townsend Iowa State University Ames, Iowa 2011 Copyright © Michael Anthony Oren, 2011. All
    [Show full text]
  • French Foreign Aid Policies in Côte D'ivoire
    French foreign aid policies in Côte d’Ivoire: a continuance of colonial legacies and a cause for the Ivorian state’s legitimacy deficit During and after the First Ivorian Civil War and the Second Ivorian Civil War Name: Anke Besseling Student number: 11013729 Course: Foreign Aid, Development and the Politics of Legitimation in Africa Readers: Dr. Michael Onyebuchi Eze & dr. Sebastian Krapohl Date: 24 June 2019 Word count: 8714 words Source: Ballouhey 2010. Table of contents Introduction 3 Literature review 5 Theoretical framework 8 Methodology 13 Data: case description of Côte d’Ivoire 14 Analysis 18 Conclusion 23 Bibliography 24 2 Introduction The cartoon from 2010 on the title page of this thesis represents French president Nicolas Sarkozy choosing between two Ivorian ‘products’: presidential candidates Laurent Gbagbo and Alassane Ouattara. France indeed chose one of the two ‘products’: that is, France chose to support Ouattara over Gbagbo. France even helped Ouattara’s forces to arrest Gbagbo on 11 April in 2011. As a result, Ouattara became president of Côte d’Ivoire in 2011. ‘Le France Afrique march encore…’ stands for unequal and exploitative economic relationships between France and (former) French African colonies, which are assumed to still be in place. The term France Afrique was first used in 1955 by the former president of Côte d’Ivoire, Félix Houphouët-Boigny, to describe these ‘good’ economic relationships. That is to say, the France Afrique community received a privileged economic status in France and Europe, France protected African regimes, offered aid packages and supplied African elite leaders with European consumer goods (Bovcon 2009: 283 – 284).
    [Show full text]
  • Behavior and Prediction in Cˆote D'ivoire
    Violence and cell phone communication: Behavior and prediction in Coteˆ d’Ivoire Daniel Berger∗1, Shankar Kalyanaramany2, and Sera Linardiz3 1Department of Government, University of Essex 2Department of Computer Science, New York University 3Graduate School of Public and International Affairs, University of Pittsburgh November 12, 2014 Abstract We investigate the relationship between low-level incidents of political violence and com- munication patterns seven months after the 2012 Ivorian Civil War using network traffic from all of Orange Telecom’s Coteˆ d’Ivoire cell towers and 500,000 randomly sampled cell phone subscribers. We first show that in the days preceding small violent incidents, mobile phone call volumes increase by 10% and the number of cell phones that are active increases by 6%, while the length of average calls decreases by 4%. These unique communication patterns at- tenuate as the distance from violence increase and strengthen when incidents with no fatalities are excluded. We then use machine learning techniques to explore whether these changes can predict the day of violent events at the cell tower level. The addition of cell phone data to base models appear to improve our ability to predict violent events at very fine spatial and temporal resolution. JEL-Classification: C53, C55, D74 D83, D84, N37 ∗[email protected] [email protected] [email protected] 1 Introduction Does communication behavior change immediately before and after violence? Intuitively, we almost certainly believe so. Whether it is general chatter surrounding rising tensions, plotters conspiring, victims calling for help, confused onlookers searching for understanding, or relatives calling to check on their loved ones afterwards, the behavior of people in proximity to violence is likely different from their behavior in general.
    [Show full text]
  • Forms of Government (World General Knowledge)
    Forms of Government (World General Knowledge) Anarchism A system that advocates self-governed societies based on voluntary institutions. These are often described as stateless societies, although several authors have defined them more specifically as institutions based on non-hierarchical or free associations. Anarchism holds the state to be undesirable, unnecessary, and/or harmful. Anarchy A society without a publicly enforced government or political authority. Sometimes said to be non-governance; it is a structure which strives for non-hierarchical, voluntary associations among agents. Anarchy is a situation where there is no state. Autocracy Autocracy is a system of government in which supreme power (social and political) is concentrated in the hands of one person or polity, whose decisions are subject to neither external legal restraints nor regularized mechanisms of popular control Aristocracy Rule by the nobility; a system of governance where political power is in the hands of a small class of privileged individuals who claim a higher birth than the rest of society. Anocracy A regime type where power is not vested in public institutions (as in a normal democracy) but spread amongst elite groups who are constantly competing with each other for power. Adhocracy Rule by a government based on relatively disorganised principles and institutions as compared to a bureaucracy, its exact opposite. Absolute monarchy A traditional and historical system where the monarch exercises ultimate governing Downloaded from www.csstimes.pk | 1 Forms of Government (World General Knowledge) authority as head of state and head of government. Many nations of Europe during the Middle Ages were absolute monarchies.
    [Show full text]