Informational Memorandum No. 3 • 2011

ACUNSTHE ACADEMIC COUNCIL ON THE UNITED NATIONS SYSTEM

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C O N T I N U E D O N P A G E 2 >

The five months of violence which followed Cote d’Ivoire’s presidential election in November 2010, tragically dramatized why international institutions such as the United Nations must make preventing electoral violence a top priority. Electoral violence is certainly not a phenomenon unique to Africa, but it is a particular challenge for the continent. The moral imperative for preventing electoral violence is clear: electoral violence canlead to significant loss of life, and in extreme cases, to mass atrocities or civil war. The violence between forces loyal to Cote d’Ivoire’s defeated incumbent, Laurent Gbagbo, and the internationally-recognized winner, Alassane Ouattara, led to the deaths of approximately 3,000 people and displaced over 1 million. In the first few weeks following Kenya’s disputed elections in 2007, more than 1,100 people died and nearly 350,000 were displaced.

There are also strategic reasons for making electoral vio-lence prevention an important objective. Electoral violence undermines domestic support for representative democracy. Countries that have a history of electoral violence have a tendency to experience a recurrence in a seemingly vicious circle, as has been the case in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Kenya, Nigeria, Zimbabwe and elsewhere. Electoral violence usually begets more electoral violence.

Understanding the causes of electoral violence is the first step towards effective international preventive action. An election can be the spark that ignites violence in countries at risk, particularly if the electoral system itself is considered flawed or unfair, or the outcome is the result of real or per-ceived manipulation. However, the causes are usually more fundamental and structural.

ABIODUN WILLIAMS

While specific local contexts should not be ignored, there are root causes, singularly or in combination, which increase the risk of electoral violence. First, extreme economic inequality leads to discontent and strong grievances. It can also contribute to high levels of unemployment especially among the youth, who become easy recruits for violent activity. Second, marginal-ization of groups on the basis of ethnicity, language or geogra-phy can be especially dangerous. The manipulation of identity and societal differences by politicians increases the likelihood of conflict. Third, when groups in society have underlying grievances over land and land tenure laws an election is likely to raise the potential for violence.

The broader political context is also critical. Electoral violence appears to be more likely when countries are making the difficult transition from war to peace and elections are part of implementing peace agreements; when states are so-called “anocracies”, neither fully democratic nor fully autocratic; and when democracy is weak or fragile.

There are essential measures that need to be part of an effective electoral violence prevention strategy.

Fundamentally, it requires identifying countries at risk based on an assessment of the seriousness of the root causes of electoral violence, and addressing them before elections are held. It includes conflict-sensitive development assistance, constitutional and electoral reform, pre and post election power sharing arrangements, land reform, ensuring transparent, fair, and credible elections, and establishing efficient and accessible dispute resolution mechanisms.

The UN has assisted many countries with elections ranging from the organization of elections to the provision of technical support. It has emphasized strengthening administrative capacity, such as training of electoral officials and assessing the costs of registration and balloting. However, over the medium and long term, the UN’s assistance needs to go beyond the administrative and technical, and take a more comprehensive approach to preventing electoral violence. The UN also needs a strategy for preventing electoral violence that should be an intrinsic part of the system’s overall conflict prevention strategies.

Abiodun Williams is Vice-President of the Center for Conflict Analysis and Prevention, USIP

C O N T I N U E D F R O M C O V E R > Fundamentally, it requires identifying countries at risk based on an assessment of the seriousness of the

root causes of electoral violence and addressing them before elections are held.

ACUNS Board Members 2 0 1 1 - 2 0 1 2

Chair Christer Jönsson, Lund University

Chair Elect: Abiodun Williams, CenterforConflictAnalysis and Prevention, USIP

ACUNS Secretariat Staff

Alistair Edgar, Executive Director

Brenda Burns, Co-ordinator

ACUNS Wilfrid Laurier University75 University Avenue, West, Waterloo, Ontario, Canada N2L 3C5

T. (519) 884-0710, ext. 2766F. (519) 884-5097 E. bburns@wlu.ca www.acuns.org

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Members AldoCaliari,CenterofConcern Roger Coate, Georgia College and State University Sam Daws, University of Oxford Lorraine Elliott, Australian National University Melissa Labonte, Fordham University Rama Mani, University of Oxford Lise Morjé Howard, Georgetown University Ramesh Thakur, University of Waterloo Jan Wouters, University of Leuven

NEW BOARD MEMBERS

Welcome to our new appointees

Abiodun Williams is vice president of the Center for Conflict Analysis and Prevention. Previously, he served as associate dean of the Africa Center for Strategic Studies at the National Defense University. From 2001 to 2007, he served as director of strategic planning in the Office of the United Nations Secretary-General. In that capacity, he advised Secretaries-General Kofi Annan and Ban Ki-moon on a full range of strategic issues including U.N. reform, conflict prevention, peacebuilding and international migration. He held political and humanitarian affairs positions in U.N. peacekeeping mis-sions in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Haiti, and Macedonia from 1994 to 2000.

Williams began his career as an academic and taught international relations at the Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service, Georgetown University, University of Rochester, and Tufts University. In 1990 he was awarded the Constantine E. Maguire Medal for outstanding service to the School of Foreign Service and its students, and in 1992, he won the School's teaching award. He was the recipient of a Pew Faculty Fellowship in International Affairs in 1990.

Williams has served on the boards of the United World Colleges, Lester B. Pearson College of the Pacific, Jesuit International Volunteers, and QSI International School of Skopje. He holds an M.A. (Hons) from Edinburgh University, and M.A.L.D. and Ph.D. degrees from The Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, Tufts University. He has published widely on conflict prevention, international peacekeeping and multilateral negotiations.

Dr. Melissa Labonte is assistant professor of political science at Fordham University. She received her Ph.D. and A.M. in Political Science from Brown University, and has taught previ-ously at Providence College, the University of Richmond, and Brown University.

Dr. Labonte’s research and teaching interests include international and nongovernmental organizations, the United Nations system, humanitarian politics, peacebuilding, multilateral peace operations, conflict resolution, human rights, and West African politics. Her recent publications include journal articles and book chapters on non-state actors and peacebuilding; humanitarian access, protection, and human rights; elite capture and peacebuilding in Sierra Leone; jus post bellum and peacebuild-ing; and the UN humanitarian reform. She is co-editor, with Kendall W. Stiles (Brigham Young

University), of the International Organization Section’s (IO) component of the International Studies Association’s (ISA) Compendium Project. Dr. Labonte has also recently completed a book manuscript entitled Human Rights, Humanitarian Intervention, and the Responsibility to Protect: Back to the Future?

Dr. Labonte serves on the Boards of Directors of the Center for International Policy Studies at Fordham University and the Friends of ACUNS. She previously served as Chair of the IO Section of ISA. In 2009 she conducted research with the Office of the President of the UN General Assembly on issues including Security Council reform, the Global Financial Crisis, and the Responsibility to Protect, and in 2010 she conducted research in Sierra Leone to examine the peacebuilding implications of decentralization and local governance.

Dr. Rama Mani, Senior Research Associate, Centre for International Studies (University of Oxford); Director of the Global Project 'Responsibility to Protect: Southern Cultural Perspectives'

An internationally renowned expert on peace, justice and human security, Dr. Rama Mani is a Councillor of the World Future Council. She is a Senior Research Associate of the University of Oxford's Centre for International Studies, and Director of the Carnegie Corporation-funded project: 'Responsibility to Protect: Southern Cultural Perspectives'. She is an Associate Faculty Member and former Director of the New Issues in Security Course at the Geneva Centre for Security Policy (GCSP).

She was previously Executive Director of the International Centre for Ethnic Studies in Colombo, Sri Lanka. She served the Commission on Global Governance as their Senior External Relations Officer. She was Oxfam GB's Africa Strategy Manager and Regional Policy Coordinator for Oxfam (GB) based in Ethiopia and Uganda, and she has extensive peace building experience as a practitioner and scholar across Africa, Asia and Latin America. She is the initiator of Justice Unlimited, a small non-profit that promotes peace and justice through creative and cultural wisdom, and supports other innovative initia-tives. She is the author of "Beyond Retribution: Seeking Justice in the Shadows of War" (Polity/Blackwell, 2002/2007), and numerous academic articles on peace and security. She serves on the Boards of several international institutions and journals. A French national and

Indian Overseas Citizen, she holds a Ph.D. in Political Science from the University of Cambridge and an M.A. in International Affairs from Johns Hopkins University.

Dr. Lise Morjé Howard is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Government at Georgetown University. She was previously the founding director of the Master of Arts Program in Conflict Resolution at Georgetown. She received her M.A. and Ph.D. in Political Science from the University of California, Berkeley, and her A.B. in Soviet Studies magna cum laude from Barnard College of Columbia University. Previously, she was an Assistant Professor of Government at Wesleyan University. She has held pre- and post-doctoral fellowships at Stanford University (Center for International Security and Cooperation), Harvard University (Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs), and the University of Maryland (Center for International Development and Conflict Management).

Dr. Howard's research and teaching interests include international relations, comparative politics, conflict resolution, civil wars, peace-keeping, and area studies of the Balkans and sub-Saharan Africa. She has published several articles and book chapters on these topics. Her book, UN Peacekeeping in Civil Wars, was published by Cambridge University Press in 2008, and it won the 2010 Book Award from the Academic Council on the UN System (ACUNS). She is also working on several other projects including one on the norm of negotiated settlements in civil wars, and another on U.S. mediation in ethnic conflicts.

Dr. Howard has also received awards for her work on peacekeeping from the Soroptimist International, the Barnard College Alumnae Association, and the James D. Kline Fund. She has received support from the MacArthur Foundation, the Institute for the Study of World Politics, the National Security Education Program, and the Institute on Global Conflict and Cooperation. Dr. Howard is fluent in French and Russian, and speaks some Bosnian/Croatian/Serbian, Spanish, and German. Prior to beginning graduate school, she served as Acting Director of UN Affairs for the New York City Commission for the United Nations.

ACUNS is proud to announce the appointment of Abiodun Williams (Chair Elect), Melissa Labonte, Rama Mani and Lise Morjé Howard to the Board of Directors, effective June 2011, for three-year terms.

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MY COLUMN IN THE LAST NEWSLETTER (No. 2, 2011) presented a picture of “who we are, and where we are” as a global network of scholars and practitioners. Having taken that brief but – I thought - important and necessary detour in terms of the normal content of these pieces, I am returning in this Newsletter to my regular program-ming – offering some reflections on our completed events and projects, and looking ahead to plans still in the making. Of course, that means looking back at a successful 2011 Annual Meeting, and then looking ahead to programs, projects and other ACUNS matters appearing on the horizon.

Approximately 135 ACUNS members and others from around the world attend-ed the ACUNS 2011 Annual Meeting, organised around the theme of “Multiple Multilateralisms”, which took place 2-4 June in the warm sunshine of Waterloo, Ontario, Canada that briefly was interrupted by an impressive thunderstorm while we all were indoors. Co-hosting the Meeting were Wilfrid Laurier University (President and Vice-Chancellor Dr. Max Blouw welcomed us and gave our attendees a wonderful outdoor reception) and the Centre for International Governance Innovation (CIGI, with Executive Director Thomas A. Bernes greeting our members), supported by the gen-erous sponsorship and active participation of David Shorr from The Stanley Foundation. Opening Keynote speaker Suzanne Nossel, U.S. Deputy Assistant Secretary of State, Bureau of International Organization Affairs, spoke to us about “Smart Power at the UN” – a notion that she coined earlier in an article published by Foreign Affairs and which

subsequently had been taken up by Secretary of State Clinton. Her thoughtful and balanced presentation – which will be available for viewing on the ACUNS web site – was appreciated by an audience very interested to hear directly from a representa-tive of the US Administration about current attitudes and thinking in Washington DC towards the United Nations. On the following day, Bruce W. Jentleson of Duke University delivered the John W. Holmes Memorial Lecture, “Multilateralism in a Copernican World”, building from the arguments that he and Steve Weber presented in their 2010 book The End of Arrogance. Video of Bruce’s lecture also will be made available for viewing on the ACUNS web site, while the text will be revised and published in a forthcoming issue of Global Governance.

Aside from the two ‘keynote’ addresses, I was very pleased with the substantive content of our plenary sessions and workshop panels, and the representativeness of our speakers in both of these components of the AM11. In the four plenary sessions, the centrality of ideas, changing forms of global institutional arrangements, the challenges to leadership posed by new or emerging values, and the significance of public-private partnerships for advancing the goals of the UN, were addressed by senior current and former UN representatives from New York (UN DPI, Global Compact Office, Executive Office of the Secretary General, DPKO) and Vienna (CTBTO PrepCom); by senior and rising young scholars from Australia, New Zealand, South Korea, Sweden and the United States; and by representatives of leading global

N o t e s f r o m t h e E x e c u t i v e D i r e c t o r

STAYI NG on topic:

ACUNS' SUCCESS STORY CONTINUES

Alistair Edgar, Executive Director, ACUNS

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Keeping in touch during these not-so-lazy days of summer

TAKING STOCK DURING THE EVENT FILLED ACUNS 2011 ANNUAL MEETING IN WATERLOO, CANADA

Renew your membership or become a member online at www.acuns.org

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ACUNS' SUCCESS STORY CONTINUES

think tanks (Brookings Institution, Centre for International Governance Innovation) and private foundations (The Stanley Foundation). Fourteen workshop panels in three periods of concurrent presentations brought together ACUNS members from around the world to highlight and discuss a wide variety of research topics and themes, in the well equipped multimedia teaching rooms of Laurier’s Bricker Academic build-ing. We have invited voluntary submissions of papers from these panels, and will post all of the papers thus received (and perhaps a selection of any photos that members may have taken during the panel discussions) to the web site.

Looking forward, at the ACUNS Members’ Business Meeting the location and dates for the 2012 Annual Meeting were announced: ACUNS will celebrate its 25th anniver-sary meeting at the Ralph Bunche Institute, Graduate Center-CUNY, New York City on 13-15 June 2012. We will be inviting the senior UN leadership, and hoping also to see many of the founding mothers and fathers of ACUNS in attendance as well as having

wide participation by the familiar and the new faces from our membership. Details of the meeting, and the Call for Papers, will be up on the web site and undoubtedly will form parts of our regular monthly e-updates – please do keep your eyes open and look for them (at least, starting in August after we have finished with the running of the 2011 ACUNS- ASIL Summer Workshop!).

Have a great summer, everyone: both Brenda and I have promised our families that we will take holidays at some point in time, and when we do so the Secretariat office will be relatively quiet for one or two weeks. As anyone who knows me will attest, however, I might have to take a little peek at my email inbox during those days even if responses might be slower than usual. It is always a good time to go and see Niagara Falls, up close and soaking wet – ask your ACUNS Chair, Christer Jönsson, and his lovely wife Evy about that :)

–Alistair Edgar

Above left, top: Tom Bernes, Max Blouw and Alistair Edgar attend the outdoor reception at ACUNS'

11th Annual Meeting in Waterloo

Above left: Louise Fréchette, Tom Weiss and Christer Jönsson

Above centre: Sam Daws

Above right, top: Christer Jönsson addresses the conference attendees

Marking ACUNS' 25th anniversary AM12 will take place at the Ralph Bunche Institute, Graduate Centre, CUNY, New York City.

FAC

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CALL F O R A N E W

The Academic Council on the United Nations System

(ACUNS) is pleased to announce the competition to host the

ACUNS Secretariat headquarters for the period 1 July, 2013

to 30 June, 2018. Since 2003, the Secretariat has been located

at Wilfrid Laurier University, Waterloo, Ontario, Canada.

As is customary, the headquarters location

is chosen on a five-year cycle.

ACUNS SECRETARIAT HOSTFOR THE PERIOD 1 JULY, 2013 TO 30 JUNE, 2018

According to the By-Laws, the headquarters office shall be established (by a vote of the Board of Directors) at a non-profit institution that is (or will become) a member of ACUNS and which offers to provide the necessary accommodations and other arrangements for the Secretariat. ACUNS shall operate as a special project within that institution and shall for legal and financial purposes be deemed a part of the host institution. The Executive Director shall be an employee and member of the faculty or research staff of the host institution, and shall be responsible for the operation of the headquarters office in accordance with the approval of the Board of Directors.

In its present and past headquarters, the host institution has contributed to some portion of the secretariat’s operations

through course relief to the executive director, provision of support staff, facilities and equipment, or other forms of financial and/or in-kind support. Additional information about ACUNS and its programs can be found on the public website at www.acuns.org

Letters of interest or intent from potential host institutions are welcome at their earliest convenience, and the deadline for receipt of full formal applications is Friday, 4 November, 2011. The final decision will be announced by the ACUNS Board of Directors in June 2012 on the basis of recommendations by an independent search committee. It is anticipated that the new Executive Director and staff would be able to begin to work with the current Secretariat staff beginning 1 July, 2012.

ACUNS was established in 1987. Its by-laws describe ACUNS as “an international association of scholars, teachers, practitioners, and others who are active in the work and study of international organizations.” They share a “professional interest in encouraging and supporting education and research which deepen and broaden our understanding of international cooperation.”

ACUNS maintains a close working relationship with the secretariat of the UN, and with UN agencies and programs, as well as with other intergovernmental and nongovernmental organizations. The award- winning journal Global Governance: A Review of Multilateralism and International Organizations is published quarterly with the support of the Korbel School at the University of Denver, where the main editorial offices currently are located. All ACUNS paying members receive a subscription to this innovative, refereed journal as part of their membership fees. The Council also maintains contacts and builds new relationships with its institutional and individual members around the world through the Annual Meeting, Summer Workshop, the quarterly newsletter, monthly e-update, other publications and programs or activities, and the ACUNS website.

The Council’s ongoing core programs include the Annual Meeting, the Summer Workshop organized in collaboration with the American Society of International Law, and the dissertation award. The full program range is designed to help promote new research and develop new teaching materials, to encourage emerging specialists, and to create stronger ties between officers in international organizations, scholars in colleges and universities, and other practitioners in nongovernmental bodies. At present there are over 500 individual and 50 institutional members from approximately 60 countries worldwide.

For any further information, please contact Dr. Alistair Edgar, Executive Director of the

Academic Council on the United Nations System:

Dr. Alistair Edgar, Executive Director, ACUNS

Wilfrid Laurier University • Waterloo, Ontario N2L 3C5 Canada

Tel: (519) 884.0710 ext. 2728 • Fax: (519) 884.5097E-mail: aedgar@wlu.ca

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The Peacebuilding Implications of

Elite Capture and Governance From Below

in Sierra Leone

1 The other was Burundi. UN Security Council, S/RES/1645 (20 December 2005), UN General Assembly, A/RES/60/180 (20 December 2005).

2 Decentralization generally takes three main forms. Deconcentration includes shifting central government responsibilities to regional or local governmental units. Devolution allocates political decision-making and implementation authority to sub-national governmental units held to accountability standards. Delegation involves implementing central government functions and directives through elected sub-national government institutions. The main forms of decentralization in Sierra Leone are devolution and delegation.

Having overcome its longstanding notoriety as the face of ‘blood diamonds,’ Sierra Leone is now the face of modern, liberal peacebuilding. It is one of the first two countries to fall within the UN Peacebuilding Commission’s mandate shortly after that institution’s establishment in 20051. The international community has invested hundreds of millions of dollars to help transition Sierra Leone toward sustainable peace. As part of this effort, peacebuilding in Sierra Leone features a national strategy to decentralize authority from the capital, Freetown, to localities across the country2. The goals of devolution include reducing rural and peri-urban poverty, providing basic services and fiscal management; fostering responsive governance; and addressing a root cause of the eleven-year civil war.

In principle, decentralization holds significant promise to achieve peacebuilding goals associated with democracy and responsive governance. In practice, however, the institutions of local governance most closely associated with decentralization, the Chieftaincy System and Local Councils (LCs), play uneven decision-making, management, and implementation roles, rendering the process at risk of elite capture. Elites are actors who enjoy disproportionate influ-ence in the peacebuilding process because of their de facto or de jure elevated social, political, or economic status. Elite capture occurs when elites control, shape, or manipulate decision-making processes, or institutions in ways that serve their self-interests and priorities, typically resulting in personal gain at the expense of non-elites and local commu-nities. Examples of elite capture in Sierra Leone include fal-sifying financial or tax records in local municipalities, using public goods for private gain, bid-rigging for peacebuilding projects, and manipulating local electoral processes to accrue power and resources to elite groups.

My recent research examines the intersections between Sierra Leone’s decentralization strategy and elite capture, and explores the implications carried for broader peace-building goals. I use a political economy approach to focus on key strategies employed by international and local actors to reduce this risk, and offer recommendations to address response gaps. To mitigate elite capture, international actors and the government have adopted two different vari-ations of a ‘co-opt-elite’ approach vis-à-vis Chiefdom actors and LCs. Field work for the project was carried out in 2010 in Freetown, and involved interviews with representatives from the UN Integrated Peacebuilding Office for Sierra Leone (UNIPSIL), its Strategic Planning Unit, and the lead/co-lead agencies and development partners responsi-ble for decentralization programmes, the UN Development Programme (UNDP) and the World Bank. Interviews were also conducted with staff from a range of INGOs and local NGOs whose recent and ongoing programming had a decentralization focus.

I find that the UN Country Team’s (UNCT) use of the co-opt-elite approach, which focuses on elite-elite relations, has not been effective in terms of reducing the likelihood of elite capture by attempting to cultivate a positive duty among elites in these institutions. The international commu-nity and the government have resurrected old institutional forms of governance, but have not succeeded in changing the underlying power relationships that perpetuate elite capture. Decentralization is a fragile process that has only been partially completed. Progress, where it has occurred, exists at the surface level and could well be reversed. A second variation of the co-opt-elite approach, mainly employed by international nongovernmental organizations (INGOs) and local NGOs, focuses on rebalancing the asymmetries in power relations between elites and non-elites in decentralization. Here, inroads are slowly being made to sensitize non-elites to demand good governance and accountability from LCs, but serious challenges remain, particularly in rebalancing power relations between Chiefdom actors and non-elites.

The power imbalances that facilitate elite capture continue to be deeply entrenched at local levels, particularly in rural communities, and attitudinal change among non-elites regarding their civic rights and how to advocate for responsive governance may take decades to foster. Perhaps more importantly, where non-elites remain dependent on elites (e.g. Chiefs) under custom and tradition for land use rights and determination of ‘native status,’ recalibrat-ing power relations between elites and non-elites will be extremely difficult but necessary. Along with continued, robust oversight of the devolution process involving LCs, the Chieftaincy System requires deeper reforms to guard against elite capture and suboptimal peacebuilding outcomes that perpetuate political, economic, and social marginalization of non-elites in Sierra Leone.

Melissa T. Labonte, Fordham University

Elite capture occurs when elites control, shape, or

manipulate decision-making processes, or institutions

in ways that serve their self-interests and priorities,

typically resulting in personal gain at the

expense of non-elites and local communities.

The international community and the government have resurrected old institutional forms of governance, but have not succeeded

in changing the underlying power relationships that perpetuate elite capture.

Melissa T. Labonte

Religion and governance were linked inseparably through centuries, indeed millennia, of human history. Religion provided the basis and justification, the mandate and limits of just and peace-ful governance. Governance turned to religion for its legitimacy and authority. And since religions claimed to establish peace on earth and between men, there was a natural and legitimate role for religions in establishing the foundations of sound governance and just peace. Sovereigns were imbued with divine authority in cultures across the diverse continents for a reason. Today, 87% of the world’s population still claims to have a religious affiliation. Yet, religion and governance have long since been torn asunder. The erstwhile aptitude of religions to unite and dissolve disputes has been overpowered by the capacity of religious institutions of various faiths and denominations to divide, oppress and conquer.

Why is this so? Is this inevitable? And can it be changed? Can the latent potential of spirituality to act as a positive influence for peace-building be unleashed? Can the spiritual wisdom drawn from the world’s diverse religions contribute to deepening the foundations of sound and peaceful governance, rather than uprooting them? My current research project examines critically the controversial and paradoxical role that religion has played in (frequently) fuelling conflict and (sometimes) nurturing peacebuilding, and uncovers the largely untapped potential of spirituality to contribute to peaceful governance.

The project pursues its research through three components: first, it examines religion’s role in contributing to peacebuilding and peaceful governance; second, it investigates the underlying reasons why religions cause division and violent conflict; and third, it explores how this negative relationship can be transformed, so that the potential of religion and spirituality to build peace and to establish the foundations of just governance could be tapped.

On the positive side of the ledger, is the important and sometimes decisive role that religious leaders have played in crystallizing peace processes – for example, in Mozambique, in Liberia, in Sudan, and in Uganda. Also noteworthy are ongoing albeit as yet unsuccessful initiatives which nevertheless have helped incrementally to build trust between opposing sides, such as in the Middle East, and (again) in Uganda. Also significant both directly and indirectly, is the growth of the interfaith movement, the impact of its charismatic leaders, and their influence on peace and governance.

Nevertheless the negative side of the ledger remains overwhelming. Religions of all hues and shades, and especially the major religions which hold sway over the vast majority of the world’s faithful, have variously condoned, incited, financed, sanctioned, or exhorted violent conflict. Nor is religiously incited violence restricted only to violent armed conflict, such as in the Sudan or the Middle East. Beyond overt violent conflict lie all the other forms of violence within society associated with religions. There is violence within religions, between religions and between the religious and secular; between believers and heretics. There is the structural violence, the ‘negative peace’ of injustice, exclusion and discrimination that religions birth and breed or fail to condemn and eliminate; there are the humiliating social distinctions

made between ‘believer’ and ‘non-believer’, between high-caste and untouchable, between ‘saved’ and ‘heathen’ souls, between ‘pure’ and ‘infidel’.

With recent interest in the role of religion in conflict and peacebuild-ing, particularly but not only in the Middle East, many studies have been conducted to understand the ostensible causality between religion and conflict. While such findings and the numerous case studies conducted are useful, what is also required is a deeper philosophical and socio-political understanding of what went wrong across these diverse religions to make them prone to belligerence. More pressing still, at a time of spiraling religious fundamentalism of all hues and across all continents, the question that must be asked is how the tide can be reversed, and how religions and their underlying spiritualities can become anchors for building peace and stabilizing governance. This is the fundamental aim of this research project.

My research (slightly provocatively) puts forward seven rather bold hypotheses of why religions and the religious today are so often bellicose, then seven ‘ways forward’ suggesting how they could transform to be more conducive to peace.

To summarize, the seven latent tendencies of religious practices across most faiths that lead them quasi-ineluctably towards violence, both chronic and acute, are, I would argue:

1. Bowing to power rather than to justice, and tolerating injustice for power;2. Promoting exclusion versus inclusion;3. Proselytizing and homogenizing versus permitting heterogeneous co-existence; 4. Adopting anthropocentric versus Cosmotheandric attitudes to the universe;5. Prioritizing form over substance;6. Stagnating and oppressing versus innovating and adapting;7. Sowing division versus union.

After examining each of the above in detail, my analysis will address how the violence inherent in religions that practice any or all of the above practices might be transformed, so that religions could become conducive to peace, and to peaceful governance.

The five steps that I believe are most urgent today across religions in order for them to become foundations for peace and peaceful governance are the following:

1. Let justice trump or marry power – each time; 2. Include and integrate what was hitherto rejected, particularly women, minorities and the marginalized;3. Undertake and encourage critical enquiry – particularly of your own theology and scriptures;4. Pursue contemplation, self-examination and personal evolution;5. Embrace spiritual expression over religious freedom.

Dr. Rama Mani is a Senior Research Associate at the Centre for International Studies, University of Oxford where this research was conducted.

Transforming the Paradoxical Role of Religion in Conflict, Peacebuilding and Governance

Dr. Rama Mani

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FROM MALADY TO REMEDY?

SUMMARY OF ONGOING RESEARCH

Benefits for members:• subscription and electronic access to the quarterly journal, Global Governance and ACUNS’ quarterly newsletter

• access to official UN system meetings and library collections thanks to our Category 1 consultative status with ECOSOC

• access to our global network through our liaison offices in Delhi, Geneva, New York, and Vienna

• opportunities to participate in ACUNS events that address pressing global issues by putting researchers in conversation with practitioners

PLUS Institutional Members can designate up to four representatives who will each receive the same benefits plus the opportunity to profile new programs or projects on the ACUNS website.

Adela AbaziTom BernesIlaria BorellaBarry CarinGregory ChinJohn GambleCatia GregorattiJean-Marie Guéhenno,Daniel Hido

Lauren E KolbBruceJentlesonTibor Tóth LouiseFrechetteJongryn MoMaher NasserSuzanne NosselTedPicconeMelissa Powell

Maria Rost RubleeHerman SaltonAmir SaadatiLoraine SieversDavidSchorrLisa SingletonKunwar V Singh

New Individual Members

Renew your membership or become a member online at

www.acuns.org

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ACUNS Dissertation Award Program | ACUNS, Wilfrid Laurier University | 75 University Ave. W. | Waterloo, Ontario N2L 3C5 CANADA

Tel: 519.884.0710, ext. 2766 | Fax: 519.884.5097 | Email: bburns@wlu.ca | Website: www.acuns.org

A completed on-line application can be found at www.acuns.org and must include all of the following:(a) A dissertation proposal, a representative dissertation chapter, or a description of the research of no more than 25 pages in length;(b) A curriculum vitae;(c) Two letters of recommendation, including one letter from the applicant’s doctoral advisor or a faculty member who knows his/her work.Recommendation letters can be uploaded online at: http://www.acuns.org/programsan/dissertationYou will be notified by the online system when each recommendation letter is uploaded by your reference. Your application will not be considered if it is incomplete.

The ACUNS Dissertation Award recognizes students of extraordinary potential who are writing graduate-level dissertations on topics related to the United Nations system.

Eligible candidates may be citizens of any country and must be at the dissertation-writing stage of a Ph.D., J.S.D. or LL.M. level and engaged in the writing stage of their program.

The Award is in the amount of $1,500 US.

The winner will be notified by April 30, 2012. Due to the large volume of applicants, the Secretariat will contact only the Award winner. Details of the winning research project will be posted on the ACUNS website, and will be announced at the ACUNS Annual Meeting in New York (13-15 June at the CUNY Graduate Centre).

The winner is encouraged to submit some written product to Global Governance, though use of any materials remains at the discretion of the journal editorial team.

Applications must be received by Monday, February 27, 2012.

If you have any questions, please contact Brenda Burns, at bburns@wlu.ca.

Call for applications

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Democratizing Global Governance: Ten Years of Case Studies and Reflections by Civil Society ActivistsHeather MacKenzie (Editor)Published by: Mosaic Books, New Delhi, 2009ISBN: 81-902776-9-3

This book is a compilation of thirteen civil society practitioner case studies and articles spanning ten years of activism from 1998 to 2008. All focus on the democratization of global governance through civil society engagement with the multilateral system and the majority offer perspectives from the South. The book offers to civil society activists, academics, policy-makers, citizens, and students a plethora of strategies and lessons learned by practitioners working through campaigns, movements, steering committees, and international conferences and fora. It also critiques civil society methodolo-gies and strategies for advancing the democratization of global governance and offers a new, more inclusive and profound, vision for the future of civil society activism.

Governing Cotton: Globalization and Poverty in AfricaAdam SneydPublished by: Palgrave Macmillan, 2011ISBN: 978-0-230-25278-3

This book traces the historic relationships between cotton production, the international cotton trade and poverty south of the Sahara, and assesses various approaches to corporate social responsibility and nongovernmental policy advocacy in this area.

Thousands of people around the world are currently engaged in efforts which they believe will make African cotton work better for the millions of people who grow this crop and the millions more who depend upon it. This book traces the historic relationships between cotton and poverty south of the Sahara and assesses aspects of the new social concern evident in the area. Taking an empirical international political economy approach, it details the ways in which globalization has enabled poverty reduction and poverty maintenance on African cotton farms. Sneyd argues that while cotton farming and poverty will be connected for many years to come, there is hope that these issues are now on the agenda.

International Criminal Tribunals, Justice and PoliticsYves Beigbeder Published by: Palgrave Macmillan, 2011 ISBN: 978-0-230-29429-5

This book reviews the statutes, achievements and limitations of international criminal courts, starting with the Nuremberg Tribunal, followed in the 1990s by temporary international or hybrid national/international courts, and by the creation of the permanent International Criminal Court. These courts have all been exposed to pressures and interfer-ence of national and international politics, which have limited their impact. Are they really independent from states which have created them and on which they depend for their financing and cooperation ? The book provides both an overview and a politi-cal analysis of the strengths and weaknesses of the various tribunals, and of international criminal justice in general. The final question is whether international criminal justice is a utopian enterprise based on unrealistic and unfair grounds, or whether it constitutes a major step forward in the long fight against the impunity of criminal leaders.

Promoting Good Governance, Development and Accountability: Implementation and the WTOSusan Brown-ShafiiPublished by: MacMillan Palgrave, 2011 ISBN: 978-0-230-54525-0

Can a WTO Agreement be used to promote good governance, development and accountability? Anchored in the text of the 1994 WTO Government Procurement Agreement and the liberal trading system of which it is a part, Brown-Shafii looks for answers across a disparate institutional and intellectual terrain. She discovers that while the three concepts may be inter-twined, the GPA and other procedurally-based regimes designed to promote transparency are principally about accountability. Taking into account nearly 30 years worth of efforts to interest the developing countries in membership, she discovers additional relationships between transparency, the rule of law, popular sovereignty and accountability – many of which could be better safeguarded by national governments through membership in the GPA, albeit with a critical caveat. Countries in the process of accession must be allowed to deter-mine their timetables for coverage on the basis of their own social and developmental priorities. Moreover, to protect the potential developmental benefits of membership, consideration should also be given to the extension of the rights of private actors affected by domestic administrative decisions.

A C A D E M I C C O U N C I L O N T H E U N I T E D N A T I O N S S Y S T E M

The World Food Programme and Global PoliticsSandy RossPublished by: First Forum Press (A Division of Lynne Rienner Publishers) ISBN Number: 978-1-935049-35-7

How has the World Food Programme come to be so well-regarded—even in the US—despite being part of the much-maligned UN system? What are the political and institutional conditions that have enabled it to accrue legitimacy as an international organization? And how much substance lies behind the perceptions of its effectiveness? Finding the answers to these questions in his analysis of the institutional politics of the WFP, Sandy Ross illustrates important larger issues about international institutions and global governance. He also shows that the very terms of its success limit the WFP's capacity to change the systemic problems that generate large-scale global hunger.

For a democratic United Nations and the Rule of LawErskine Barton ChildersDevelopment Dialogue No. 56, June 2011

Erskine Barton Childers devoted his career as an international civil servant and his too short life thereafter to the tireless promotion of ideals and visions that both acknowledged and were animated by the spirit of Dag Hammarskjöld. His writings testify to his convictions and commitments, and thereby translate the legacy of the second Secretary-General of the United Nations into political discourse and practice in our times. Like Hammarskjöld, he relentlessly promoted the ideal of and belief in the relevance of a truly united family of nations. So do all of those, who have provided their reflections on the selected texts by Childers in this publication.Their statements are striking evidence of the continuing relevance of the positions taken by Childers, who was a friend to all of them.

Erskine Childers’s thought-provoking and pioneering ideas on reform of the UN system were also published earlier on in the very same Development Dialogue series. The current volume, presented 15 years after the death of Childers as a kind of comprehensive homage, keeps alive not only his thoughts in their relevance for today, but also the spirit of Hammarskjöld, whose untimely death occurred half a century ago this year.

Dag Hammarskjöld and the United Nations: Vision and Legacy – 50 years later!New Routes No. 2/2011

This is a very special issue of New Routes on the theme Dag Hammarskjöld and the United Nations.This edition is a special collaboration between the Life & Peace Institute (LPI) and the Dag Hammarskjöld Foundation (DHF). This is the most comprehensive issue of New Routes that has ever been published. On its 60 pages you will find a number of prominent authors, among them Sir Brian Urquhart, former UN Under-Secretary-General and a close colleague of Dag Hammarskjöld, Margot Wallström, UN Special Representative of the Secretary General on Sexual Violence in Conflict, and Kiyo Akasaka, UN Under-Secretary General for Communications and Public Information.

The Dark Side of GlobalizationJorge Heine and Ramesh Thakur (Editors)Published by: United Nations University Press, 2011 ISBN: 978-92-808-1194-0

http://unu.edu/publications/books/2010-2020/the-dark-side-of-globalization

Seen by some as a desirable and irreversible engine of prosperity and progress, globalization is resisted by others as the soft underbelly of a corporate imperialism that plunders and profiteers in the global marketplace. Globalization has brought many benefits, including the reduction of poverty in several countries. But it also has a dark side: the unleashing of negative forces as a result of the compression of time and space made possible by modern technology. Examples include the transnational flows of terrorism, drug and human trafficking, organized crime, money laundering, and global pandemics. How do these various expressions of "uncivil society" manifest themselves? How do they exploit the opportunities offered by globalization? How can governments, international organizations, and civil society deal with the problem?From arms trafficking in West Africa through armed insurgencies in South Asia and the upsurge of jihad in the age of globalization, this book examines the challenges that the dark forces of globalization pose to the international system and the responses they have triggered. Written largely by authors from developing countries, the book's goal is to help maximize the beneficial consequences of globalization while muting its baleful effects.

R e c e n t M e m b e r P u b l i c a t i o n s

Please note: Submissions of books for inclusion in the ACUNS Newsletter should be for publications no earlier than 2009.

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