The UN and Intra-State Conflict: Problematising the Normative Connection * Rethinking the UN Through Intra-State Peacekeeping: the Analytical Framework * The UN's Role in Historical Context: Impact of Structural Tensions and Thresholds * UN Peacekeeping in Intra-State Conflicts: Evolution of the Normative Basis * The UN in the Congo Conflict: ONUC * The UN On the Cyprus Conflict: UNFICYP * The UN in the Angola Conflict: UNAVEM * The UN in the Cambodia Conflict: UNTAC * Reflections on International Normative Change.

This volume seeks to understand the central role of governments in intra-state conflicts.The book explores how the government in any society plays two pivotal roles: as a deterrent against those who would use violence; and as a potential danger to the society. These roles come into conflict with each other, as those governments that can best deter

Explores how outside intervention affects the course of civil wars

The end of the Cold War has been characterized by a wave of violent civil wars that have produced unprecedented humanitarian catastrophe and suffering. Although mostly intra-state, these conflicts have spread across borders and threatened international peace and security. One of the worst affected regions is West Africa which has been home to some of Africa's most brutal and intractable conflicts for more than a decade. This volume locates the peacekeeping operations of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) within an expanded post-Cold War conceptualization of humanitarian intervention. It examines the organization's capacity to protect civilians at risk in civil conflicts and to facilitate the processes of peacemaking and post-war peace-building. Taking the empirical case of ECOWAS, the book looks at the challenges posed by complex political emergencies (CPEs) to humanitarian intervention and traces the evolution of ECOWAS from an economic integration project to a security organization, examining the challenges inherent in such a transition.

Violent conflicts today are complex and increasingly protracted, involving more nonstate groups and regional and international actors. It is estimated that by 2030—the horizon set by the international community for achieving the Sustainable Development Goals—more than half of the world’s poor will be living in countries affected by high levels of violence. Information and communication technology, population movements, and climate change are also creating shared risks that must be managed at both national and international levels. Pathways for Peace is a joint United Nations†“World Bank Group study that originates from the conviction that the international community’s attention must urgently be refocused on prevention. A scaled-up system for preventive action would save between US$5 billion and US$70 billion per year, which could be reinvested in reducing poverty and improving the well-being of populations. The study aims to improve the way in which domestic development processes interact with security, diplomacy, mediation, and other efforts to prevent conflicts from becoming violent. It stresses the importance of grievances related to exclusion—from access to power, natural resources, security and justice, for example—that are at the root of many violent conflicts today. Based on a review of cases in which prevention has been successful, the study makes recommendations for countries facing emerging risks of violent conflict as well as for the international community. Development policies and programs must be a core part of preventive efforts; when risks are high or building up, inclusive solutions through dialogue, adapted macroeconomic policies, institutional reform, and redistributive policies are required. Inclusion is key, and preventive action needs to adopt a more people-centered approach that includes mainstreaming citizen engagement. Enhancing the participation of women and youth in decision making is fundamental to sustaining peace, as well as long-term policies to address the aspirations of women and young people.

Intervention in armed conflicts is full of riddles that await attention from scholars and policymakers. This book argues that rethinking intervention—redefining what it is and why foreign powers take an interest in others' conflicts—is of critical importance to understanding how conflicts evolve over time with the entry and exit of external actors. It does this by building a new model of intervention that crosses the traditional boundaries between economics, international relations theory, and security studies, and places the economic interests and domestic political institutions of external states at the center of intervention decisions. Combining quantitative and qualitative evidence from both historical and contemporary conflicts, including interventions in both interstate conflicts and civil wars, it presents an in-depth discussion of a range of interventions—diplomatic, economic, and military—in a variety of international contexts, creating a comprehensive model for future research on the topic.

Published in 1999, this text examines domestic wars, looking at inter-state relations only in as far as they are directly relevant to understand such wars. The book aims to indicate how intra-state war differs from the inter-state war, and focuses primarily on such domestic armed conflicts that at least have significant ethnonational components. The book assesses how heterogeneous a category "ethnic conflict" is in terms of causes and consequences, and gauges the complex interplay between class, regionalism and ethnicity. It is not limited to description and causal analysis, but also attempts to assess suggestions as to what types of actors may contribute in what ways to avoiding ethnonational mobilization/polarization, avoiding militarization of manifest conflicts, and de-escalating militarized conflicts by looking for tenable generalizations on what types of approaches are fruitful in bringing about de-escalation, ceasefires, political compromises, peaceful division or peaceful integration, reconciliation.