More than half the world's population live in violent settings, such as civil wars, communal conflicts, cities plagued by gang violence, and entire areas governed by criminal organizations. Living exposed to diverse forms of violence, individuals and communities have found innovative-and sometimes counterintuitive-ways to protect themselves and others. Civilian Protective Agency in Violent Settings establishes the study of civilian agency and its protective dimension across various violent settings as a systematic and unified field of research. It brings together researchers spanning several social science disciplines to study civilian protective agency in different violent settings, including civil war, genocide, communal violence, and organized crime, and in various geographical locations, from Syria to Mozambique, Sri Lanka to Mexico, Iraq to Colombia and Western Europe. The volume offers conceptual foundations, new theoretical insights, and detailed empirics that advance our understanding of civilian protective agency and promote future research on the topic that is comparable, tractable, and cumulative.

More than half the world's population live in violent settings, such as civil wars, communal conflicts, cities plagued by gang violence, and entire areas governed by criminal organizations. Living exposed to diverse forms of violence, individuals and communities have found innovative-and sometimes counterintuitive-ways to protect themselves and others. Civilian Protective Agency in Violent Settings establishes the study of civilian agency and its protective dimension across various violent settings as a systematic and unified field of research. It brings together researchers spanning several social science disciplines to study civilian protective agency in different violent settings, including civil war, genocide, communal violence, and organized crime, and in various geographical locations, from Syria to Mozambique, Sri Lanka to Mexico, Iraq to Colombia and Western Europe. The volume offers conceptual foundations, new theoretical insights, and detailed empirics that advance our understanding of civilian protective agency and promote future research on the topic that is comparable, tractable, and cumulative.

Using original fieldwork, Violent Resistance explains when, where, and how communities form militias to defend themselves in civil wars.

The 2011 WDR on Conflict, Security and Development underlines the devastating impact of persistent conflict on a country or region's development prospects - noting that the 1.5 billion people living in conflict-affected areas are twice as likely to be in poverty. Its goal is to contribute concrete, practical suggestions on conflict and fragility.

This volume explores the implementation of key gender policies in international peace and security, following the adoption of UN Security Council resolution 1325 in October 2000, the first thematic resolution on Women, Peace and Security. How should we understand women’s participation in peace processes and in peace operations? And what forms of gendered security dynamics are present in armed conflict and international interventions? These questions represent central themes of protection and participation that the international community has to address in order to implement UNSCR 1325. Thus far, the implementation has often employed varying approaches related to gender mainstreaming, a third theme of the resolution. Yet, there is a dearth of systematic data which until recently has restricted the ability of researchers to evaluate the progress in implementation and impact of UNSCR 1325. By engaging with both empirics and critical theory, the authors of this edited volume make important contributions to the gender, peace and security agenda. They identify some of the problems of implementing UNSC 1325 and offer a sobering assessment of progress of implementation and insights into how to advance our understanding through systematic research. Many of the chapters are focused on operational aspects of UNSCR 1325, but all also engage with the theoretical underpinnings of UNSCR 1325 to bring forth central debates on more fundamental challenges to the development of knowledge in the fields of gender, peace and security. This book will be of much interest to students of gender studies, peace and conflict studies, security studies and IR in general.

The protection of civilians which has been at the forefront of international discourse during recent years is explored through harnessing perspective from international law and international relations. Presenting the realities of diplomacy and mandate implementation in academic discourse.

Demonstrates how civilian behaviour in conflict zones involves repertoires of survival strategies, not just migration.