This book examines the dynamics of security provision in international interventions in post-conflict states. It focuses on how international security interventions – such as Disarmament, Demobilisation and Reintegration (DDR) programmes, Security Sector Reform (SSR) and Armed Violence Reduction (AVR) – play out in the post-civil war context in which they are implemented. The underlying assumptions of such interventions are that the state is the best placed to organise violence, that the ideal state has to function as an organisation with the legitimate monopoly on the use of violence, and that the primary task of the state is the provision of security. Post-civil war contexts, however, are characterised by hybridity, in which various authority structures are overlapping, cooperating and competing. The interactions between different security actors (both state and non-state) create struggles in society about whose security interests are promoted, which actions to provide security are considered legitimate, and about who is considered a legitimate security actor. This book investigates the interactions between international actors organising and supporting security interventions and the local security dynamics created by the interactions between both state and non-state actors involved in security. It draws on extensive field research in Eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, Burundi and South Sudan. This book will be of much interest to students of statebuilding, peacebuilding, peace and conflict studies, security studies and IR.

Hybridity on the Ground in Peacebuilding and Development engages with the possibilities and pitfalls of the increasingly popular notion of hybridity. The hybridity concept has been embraced by scholars and practitioners in response to the social and institutional complexities of peacebuilding and development practice. In particular, the concept appears well-suited to making sense of the mutually constitutive outcomes of processes of interaction between diverse norms, institutions, actors and discourses in the context of contemporary peacebuilding and development engagements. At the same time, it has been criticised from a variety of perspectives for overlooking critical questions of history, power and scale. The authors in this interdisciplinary collection draw on their in‑depth knowledge of peacebuilding and development contexts in different parts of Asia, the Pacific and Africa to examine the messy and dynamic realities of hybridity ‘on the ground’. By critically exploring the power dynamics, and the diverse actors, ideas, practices and sites that shape hybrid peacebuilding and development across time and space, this book offers fresh insights to hybridity debates that will be of interest to both scholars and practitioners. ‘Hybridity has become an influential idea in peacebuilding and this volume will undoubtedly become the most influential collection on the idea. Nuance and sophistication characterises this engagement with hybridity.’ — Professor John Braithwaite

Influential armed groups continue to confound policymakers, diplomats, and analysts decades after their transformational arrival on the scene in the Middle East and North Africa. The most effective of these militias can most usefully be understood as hybrid actors, which simultaneously work through, with, and against the state. This joint report from The Century Foundation identifies the factors that make some hybrid actors persistent and successful, as measured by longevity, influence, and ability to project power militarily as well as politically. It finds that three factors correlate most closely with impact: constituent loyalty, resilient state relationships, and coherent ideology. The authors of this report examined cases in Lebanon, Syria, and Iraq, drawing on years of fieldwork, to distinguish hybrid actors, classic nonstate proxies, and aspirants to statehood--all of which merit different analytical and policy treatment. The report demonstrates the ways that groups can shift along a spectrum as they adapt to changing conditions.

The Armed Conflict Survey is the annual review of the political, military and humanitarian dimensions of all active conflicts from the International Institute for Strategic Studies. It offers in-depth analysis of the drivers, dynamics and outlook of 34 current armed conflicts along with detailed information on conflict parties and more than 60 full-colour maps and infographics. The Armed Conflict Survey is an essential resource for those involved in security, foreign and humanitarian policymaking, and an indispensable handbook for anyone conducting serious analysis of armed conflict. Key features · Essays on global trends in armed conflict, with a focus on the changing nature of third-party intervention, the long aftermath of armed conflicts, and economic migration and forced displacement in a COVID-19 world. · Overviews of key events and political and military developments from January 2020–February 2021 for each conflict. · Strategic analysis of national and regional drivers and conflict outlooks. · Regional analyses with unique insights into the geopolitical and geo-economic threads linking conflicts across regions and globally. · Expanded information on conflict parties. · The Armed Conflict Global Relevance Indicator (ACGRI), an IISS proprietary indicator that combines measures of incidence and human impact with geopolitical impact to assess the global salience of armed conflicts. · Analysis of the humanitarian, social and economic impact of conflicts. · Conflict-specific trends, strategic implications and prospects for peace. · More than 60 full-colour maps, tables and infographics highlighting key conflict developments and data. · Key statistics on violent events, fatalities, military power, geopolitical salience, refugees and internally displaced persons. · The 2021 Chart of Armed Conflict, presenting information on conflict start dates, typologies and relevant refugee flows, as well as providing a visual overview of each conflict’s geopolitical relevance, looking at 2020 UN Security Council resolutions, multilateral missions and the involvement of third-party countries.

This book investigates competing modes of thought about gender security and aims to understand the policy implications of personal-political imaginations. The work draws upon extensive research conducted by the author in Serbia to develop a comprehensive picture of how feminist and women’s organising relates to the broader national and international contexts surrounding gender security. Through an innovative analytical framework of personal-political imaginations, the book explores the role that memories, perceptions and hopes about conflict and post-conflict have upon the logics of gender security. It investigates how contrasting and competing modes of thought about ‘gender security’ are made, paying attention to how the dynamics of gender politics in Serbia shape the security discourse and narratives of activists. The volume explores in detail how feminist and women’s organisations have responded to UNSCR 1325 by analysing two policy debates and campaigns that seek to ‘achieve’ its goals and gender security in Serbia: (1) feminist antimilitarism and (2) connecting domestic violence to the abuse of small arms and light weapons. Ultimately, the book argues that the configuration of gender security discourse is intimately linked to personal-political imaginations of conflict and post-conflict. This book will be of much interest to students of gender politics, conflict studies, critical security studies, European politics and IR in general.

This book comprises contributions by leading experts in the field of international humanitarian law on the subject of the categorisation or classification of armed conflict. It is divided into two sections: the first aims to provide the reader with a sound understanding of the legal questions surrounding the classification of hostilities and its consequences; the second includes ten case studies that examine practice in respect of classification. Understanding how classification operates in theory and practice is a precursor to identifying the relevant rules that govern parties to hostilities. With changing forms of armed conflict which may involve multi-national operations, transnational armed groups and organized criminal gangs, the need for clarity of the law is all-important. The case studies selected for analysis are Northern Ireland, DRC, Colombia, Afghanistan (from 2001), Gaza, South Ossetia, Iraq (from 2003), Lebanon (2006), the so-called war against Al-Qaeda, and future trends. The studies explore the legal consequences of classification particularly in respect of the use of force, detention in armed conflict, and the relationship between human rights law and international humanitarian law. The practice identified in the case studies allows the final chapter to draw conclusions as to the state of the law on classification.

This book explores theories of conflict and peacebuilding and applies them to case studies from the Asia Pacific region, seeking to shift attention to the inherency of conflict, the constant danger of re-emergence, and the need to establish mechanisms to resolve it. The authors argue that the central focus of peacebuilding should not be state-building per se, but rather the creation of effective mechanisms for peaceful resolution of both past and newly emerging conflicts. To do so, it is important to consider the entire process of creating peace, to contemplate the linkages between conflict, resolution, and post-conflict peacebuilding, rather than focus only on the period of institution-building.