Resisting RAMSI: Intervention,Identity and Symbolism in Solomon Islands

ABSTRACT The Australian‐led Regional Assistance Mission to Solomon Islands (RAMSI) continues to enjoy high levels of approval amongst Solomon Islanders. However, this approval belies the existence of a minority, but nevertheless important, dissenting perspective, one which has mostly emanated from Malaitan quarters. How are we to interpret Malaitan expressions of opposition to RAMSI? While these dissenting voices can, in part, be seen through a lens of legal and economic rationality, Malaitan opposition to RAMSI must be properly located within a deeper tradition of Malaitan resistance to the imposition of alien and centralised authority. Malaitans have responded to the RAMSI intervention by invoking kastom as a symbol of difference, unity and resistance, just as they have done in the past. It is argued that resistance to RAMSI must be (re)interpreted as having fundamentally cultural and historical underpinnings. Resisting RAMSI is as much about asserting culture and identity as it is about money and power. This argument is drawn out through an historically contextualised analysis of contemporary articulations of Malaitan resistance. The voices examined come from the public statements of prominent Malaitans, the published manifesto of the Malaita Ma'asina Forum, and interviews with former members of the Malaita Eagle Force.     

The Misappropriation of Malaitan Labour:

During the ‘crisis years’ in Solomon Islands from 1998–2003, Guadalcanal militants and the Guadalcanal provincial government showed resentment to the ‘foreign’ Solomon Islanders, mainly Malaitans, who lived there and forcefully claimed that the indigenous people of Guadalcanal suffered economic disadvantage on their own island. Malaitan counter-justification related to the need to protect their families in Honiara and stabilise the crumbling central government. This paper looks at the historical reasons why Malaitans left their island in the first place. The answer involves complex causes going back to the 1870s. Because Malaita has always been heavily populated, it drew labour recruiters from Queensland, Fiji and within the Protectorate, but for various reasons never attracted traders or planters. Unthinkingly encouraged by the British Protectorate administration and all post-independence governments, a pattern developed of ‘Malaitan muscle for hire’. Malaitan males became primarily a labour force for development projects elsewhere, and little attempt was made to introduce similar projects on Malaita. The paper also explores issues relating to resource development in Malaita Province and concludes that the problems there are no more difficult than on other large Melanesian islands.     

Le Conte de deux cités1 : Analyse comparative des conflits urbains de Montréal et Valence, 1995–2010

A tale of two cities: 9 Comparative analysis of urban conflicts of Montreal and Valencia, 1995–2010 Metropolization processes at work in contemporary societies produce social and spatial change, which can raise strong opposition from a variety of urban actors, leading to acts of dissent. While such urban conflict has been examined in the past, geographical analysis of urban conflicts as sociospatial processes is more recent. Systematic quantitative research on urban conflict is virtually nonexistent in terms of comparative analysis conducted with an international perspective. Systematic comparative analysis sheds light on the existing relationship between urban conflicts and the socio‐territorial contexts in which conflicts emerge and evolve. This article presents a comparative analysis of urban conflict that occurred in a selection of boroughs in two cities characterized by different geographical realities, Valencia (Spain) and Montreal (Canada), between 1995 and 2010. Spatial autocorrelation techniques applied to a conflict database show a significant relationship between the emergence of urban conflict and the spatial distribution of some contextual variables. Indeed, for Montreal as for Valencia, the concentration of urban conflict is the greatest in the most deprived neighbourhoods. Also, regarding the management and regulation of urban conflict, results shed light on important differences between Montreal and Valencia. These differences include the outcome of urban conflicts, repertoire of action of actors involved in conflict activity, and the type of contestation faced by actors who promote the challenged urban projects.     

Social Capital and Post‐Conflict Reconstruction in Burundi: The Limits of Community‐based Reconstruction

Using an examination of three NGO interventions in post‐conflict Burundi, this article questions community‐based reconstruction as a mechanism to rebuild social capital after conflicts, particularly when direct livelihood support is provided. The authors demonstrate a general shortcoming of the methodology employed in community‐based development (CBD), namely its focus on ‘technical procedural design’, which results in what may be termed ‘supply‐driven demand‐driven’ reconstruction. The findings suggest the need for a political economy perspective on social capital, which acknowledges that the effects on social capital are determined by the type of economic resource CBD gives access to. Through the use of a resource typology, the case studies show that the CBD methodology and the potential effects on social capital differ when applied to public and non‐strategic versus private and strategic resources. This has particular consequences for post‐conflict situations. A generalized application of CBD methodology to post‐conflict reconstruction programmes fails to take adequate account of the nature of the interventions and the challenges posed by the particular post‐conflict setting. The article therefore questions the current popular ‘social engineering’ approach to post‐conflict reconstruction.     

In pursuit of productive conflict in strategic planning: project identification

This paper discusses three normative standpoints on conflict in strategic spatial planning: no conflict, conflict for consensus and conflict for meta-consensus on the validity of dispute. These views apply to the questions of whether and why projects, as a major source of conflict, should be identified in the process of strategic planning. In their approaches to these questions, the performance school advocates the production of general guidelines to avoid conflict, the collaborative perspective supports the identification of projects in strategic planning in order to utilize their potential in a conflict-to-consensus journey and the conflict-oriented perspective favours the identification of projects in strategic planning in order to arrive at meta-consensus on the immediate disputability of robust agreements. Reflecting on the collaborative perspective, this paper tests a hypothetical model of how conflicts created in the face of project identification can feed in making consensual strategies. Findings in the North West region of England support the model and suggest some difficulties with reviewing such consensus around which a resistance network forms. The paper puts forward some recommendations for overcoming the review challenge.     

Two flags in the sand: anti-Communism in early Cold War Northern Ireland

ABSTRACT

This article reveals how the Cold War impinged upon not just national, but local political considerations and became woven into communal narratives. It contributes to the examination of religion in the conflict, adds to the historiography of Britain and the Cold War, and provides a context by which British Cold War experience and responses can be assessed. With Northern Ireland’s political similarities to Great Britain, its consistency with European norms and its overlaps with popular sentiment in the United States, Northern Ireland offers a gauge to better understand the nature of anti-Communism in the Cold War’s first decade and offers an unexplored perspective on the conflict.     

Understanding large-scale institutional change

A remarkable reform in modern Swedish political history was the transformation of the local government structure between 1952 and 1974. In a mere 22 years, the number of municipalities was reduced from 2,498 to 277. This study aims to answer how such large-scale reforms could come about politically, particularly since much of the literature on institutions and political reform asserts that carrying out large-scale political change should be a difficult task. Two opposing stories of institutional change are presented: evolutionary accounts, which see the amalgamations as rational adaptations to changing circumstances, are contrasted with a social conflict perspective, which explains amalgamations in terms of their distributional consequences. By investigating the processes leading up to this vast restructuring of Swedish local political geography, we demonstrate that an understanding of these reforms as rational adaptations to changing circumstances, made on the basis of consensus among leading political actors, is not accurate. The reforms were not as uncontroversial and non-conflictual as they often have been portrayed. Our results weaken the evolutionary approach to institutional change, whilst supporting the social conflict perspective.     

What can María Zambrano contribute to mediation and to the philosophy of mediation?

ABSTRACT

From a specific point of view, mediation is the process whereby a third party helps to change their attitude from an adversarial one to a collaborative one which allows them to work together in finding and creating solutions to their conflict. Mediation deals with conflict from its own perspective and it has its own status as a dispute resolution process in the systems of justice, where it is recognized. The Philosophy of Mediation has been developing as a discipline, which analyses the status of mediation as knowledge. It studies its nature, its constituent elements, its ontological foundations and its connection with other disciplines. This article argues that it is possible to include certain basic principles of the philosophy of María Zambrano in the Philosophy of Mediation framework. Those elements are essential for understanding the world of human conflict since they provide a new perspective from which to see dispute resolution methodologies. They can be summed up in the idea of including the hidden as the substrate of the visible, revealing the underlying forces of human existence. Within the context of the mediation, the understanding of these forces could help to resolve conflicts.     

“Continental crossings”: European influences on British public opinion and Irish politics, 1848–2002

Histories of Britain and Ireland are still often written as if cultural and political influences were limited by national or insular boundaries. This article offers a broader perspective by tracing the impact of events, parallels and ideas from continental Europe on British opinion and policy towards Ireland since 1848. It demonstrates that these European influences have often been more threaded and complex than is commonly assumed, and that to review transnational connections can be to illustrate neglected possibilities and to liberate repressed historical potential. Indeed, the role of European referents in political discourse towards the contemporary Northern Ireland conflict retains considerable ambiguity and room for political manoeuvre.     

Genocide and frontier violence in Australia

Did frontier conflict in Australia amount to genocide? Answers to this question have revolved around topics such as contemporary understandings of the conflict, intent, the applicability of the term to Australian history and considerations of Indigenous agency. In this historiographical article, we argue that ‘genocide’ is a useful framework with which to understand the frontier experience in the Australian colonies. From that perspective, we provide a critical review of the literature up to the present.     

Liberation: The End of Australian Rule in Papua New Guinea

Abstract

In its very early stages, the Bougainville conflict was analysed by academic observers in terms of three main perspectives: ethno‐nationalist demands precipitated by grievances about the Panguna copper and gold mine; cultural perspectives which emphasise the impact of a large mining project on either Melanesian communities generally or particular Bougainvillean communities; and class conflict and other forms of economic inequality. To assess the extent to which these perspectives illuminate the dynamics of almost 10 years of conflict, they are re‐considered in the light of both other published material about Bougainville and an overview of the main stages of development of the conflict. While each perspective illuminates aspects of the conflict, none of them stands alone as an explanation. Rather each tends to reinforce the significance of the others. Stresses in Bougainvillean societies caused by interaction of evoloving cultures with growing economic inequality within and between societies are central, with local grievances about the mine and ethno‐nationalism crucial to the way those stresses manifested themselves.     

The Rise and Fall of ‘Internally Displaced People’ in the Central Peruvian Andes

This article analyses the possible effects of the introduction of the category of ‘internally displaced people’— IDP — in the context of violent conflict in central Peru. It gives an account of the ways in which the IDP category has been introduced and appropriated by local NGOs, people affected by violent conflict and displacement, and by the governmental organization, PAR, set up to facilitate return and repopulation after the declared end of the armed conflict. The category has facilitated and given leverage to a national organization of IDPs. However, the agencies and programmes that work in support of IDPs tend to regard existing mobile livelihood practices as an impediment for advocacy and longer‐term development strategies. This article suggests that, instead of considering displacement (and return) as an absolute break with the past, a focus on networks and mobile livelihoods may be a better way to help people affected by violent conflict to move beyond emergency relief.     

When less was more: external assistance and the political settlement in Somaliland

The internationally unrecognized ‘Republic of Somaliland’ presents a case in which the domestic drivers of peace and development may be examined when aid and other forms of international intervention are not significant variables. The relative autonomy of its peace process offers an alternative perspective on post‐conflict transitions to that offered in the majority of the literature, which instead problematizes either the perverse outcomes or unintended consequences of international interventions in conflict‐affected areas. The purpose of this article is not to establish the salience of Somaliland's relative isolation in its ability to achieve peace and relative political order, as this is already documented in the literature. Rather, it explores the ways in which that isolation fostered mutual dependence between powerful political and economic actors for their survival and prosperity. It uses a political settlements framework to probe the implications of this dependence for western statebuilding interventions in post‐conflict situations. The findings present a challenge to orthodox assumptions about how states transition out of conflict, particularly that: greater vertical inclusivity necessarily strengthens a political settlement; effective Weberian institutions are a prerequisite of an enduring peace; and that external assistance is usually necessary to end large‐scale violence in developing states or to prevent a recurrence of the conflict.     

Maintaining the absent other: the re-use of religious heritage sites in conflicts

This article explores the relationships between heritage and conflict by focusing on the re-use of religious architectural heritage in conflicts that resulted in the displacement of communities. Such re-uses place the autonomy of buildings in the absence of their original users under question. The study focuses on three churches in the northern part of Cyprus, which had new functions assigned by the actual community after the displacement of the original users. The article argues that when heritage is conserved by the mandate of the community, it reveals attempts to maintain the ‘absent other’ reflected by the way churches are adapted with minor alterations. Accordingly, it aims to contribute to theories that question how architecture can maintain its autonomy following conflicts and seeks to offer a new perspective on the debate regarding heritage-conflict relations by interpreting heritage as a sign of peace rather than conflict.     

“Let Every Christian Denomination Cheerfully Unite”: The Origins of Presbyterian Interdenominationalism

The history of religion during the eighteenth century is, fortunately, a well‐developed and researched field. Despite the strides taken, however, little has been written on denominational attempts at Christian unity. Historians have instead focused on the multitude of conflicts, both social and religious, that marked the period and preoccupied churchgoers. Although this perspective is indispensable for any understanding of the eighteenth century, it is incomplete. The current portrayal of the late colonial religious scene as one of violently opposed denominations presents the well‐known instances of denominational unity, such as the bishopric crisis, the constitutional crisis, and the War for Independence, as products of political or temporal motivations. Overlooked are the religiously motivated attempts between churches to cooperate, such as the interdenominational journey begun by the Presbyterian Church during the French and Indian War. By examining the Presbyterian struggle to establish a stronger spiritual bond between Christian denominations, it sheds new light which calls into question the current understanding of church participation in the pivotal events of the eighteenth century. Harkened by a divine punishment, Presbyterian interdenominationalism reveals not only that ecclesiastical harmony was pursued in an era defined by conflict, but that these unions could also be motivated by religious rather than solely political ideology.     

Ten years of peace,bravery and resilience in Aceh

The date 15 August 2015 marks the 10th anniversary of the Helsinki Peace Agreement, which ended a major thirty‐year conflict between the Free Aceh Movement and the Government of Indonesia. In this article I argue that much greater acknowledgement should be given to the creative responses that ordinary conflict survivors have brought to the process of post‐conflict social recovery. The article briefly discusses some observations on resilience made through 17 months of ethnographic fieldwork with Acehnese conflict survivors. I conclude that while Acehnese resilience is impressive, there remains a need for greater recognition of the experiences of conflict survivors, both to support justice for survivors and to enable a deeper understanding of ongoing political complexities in Aceh.     

The “Science” of Policy Development During Administrative Rulemaking

The legitimacy of government agencies rests in part on the premise that public administrators use scientific evidence to make policy decisions. Yet, what happens when there is no consensus in the scientific evidence—i.e., when the science is in conflict? I theorize that scientific conflict yields greater policy change during administrative policymaking. I assess this claim using data from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA). I identify policy change—what I refer to as “policy development” in this article—between the FDA's draft and final rules with a novel text analysis measure of shifts in regulatory restrictions. I then go on to find that more policy development does occur with scientific conflict. Moreover, using corresponding survey data, I uncover suggestive evidence that one beneficiary of such conflict may be participating interest groups. Groups lobby harder—and attempt to change more of the rule—during conflict, while an in‐survey experiment provides evidence of increased interest group influence on rule content when scientific conflict is high.     

Consensus and conflict among Australia's leaders∗

This paper reports and analyses survey data on the opinions of 353 top position‐holders in business, trade unions, federal and state politics, the Commonwealth Public Service, mass media, national voluntary associations, and major universities and research institutes during the latter half of 1975. Patterns of elite responses to 15 issue sets aggregating 46 separate opinion items are examined. The main focus is on the extent and configuration of elite conflict and consensus over economic policy, foreign and defence policy, industrial relations, social issues, and institutional structure. In general, substantial conflict between left‐of‐centre and right‐of‐centre elites in all major issue areas, save possibly that of social issues, is found. However, the extent of this conflict varies as between specific policies, over which it is relatively small, and the legitimacy or desirability of various group actions and major policy innovations, over which it is quite large. Whether conflict during 1975 was sufficiently great to threaten the fundamental unity of Australian elites is discussed.     

Inferring Human Behaviors from Isotopic Analyses of Rat Diet: a Critical Review and Historical Application

Rat (Rattus spp.) bone collagen stable isotope values are often assumed to reflect an average of food stuffs that were available to archaeological populations. This paper considers the feasibility of using stable isotope evidence from rat remains as a source of proxy information for human food-related social, economic, and sensorial behaviors. First, a literature review of archaeological and modern ecological rat isotope work reveals that, while rat dietary signatures are often a reasonable proxy for human food waste, they will not always record an unbiased average of foods which are available in a given environment. Second, an overview of ethological, biological, and environmental factors that can influence rat diets is given from the perspective of archaeological bone chemistry, to help identify factors that require explicit and critical consideration when rat stable isotope data is taken as a proxy for human food-related behaviors. Finally, rat stable isotope values are considered to provide new evidence about the social and economic responses of an important historical English fishing community at Ferryland (CgAf-02) to conflict and political turmoil at the turn of the eighteenth century. These results also highlight how information on rat diets can provide a counterpoint to other common faunal isotope approaches that focus on dogs and pigs as a proxy for human dietary behaviors.     

Seeking peace and security in the Horn of Africa: the contribution of the Inter‐Governmental Authority on Development

This article assesses the contribution that IGAD has made to regional security in the Horn of Africa since the adoption of its peace and security mandate in 1996. It describes the evolution of IGAD and its mandate in the context of regional conflict and wider African peace and security processes. It explores the local dynamics of the two major IGAD‐led peace processes, in Sudan (1993–2005) and in Somalia (2002–2004), and discusses the effectiveness of IGAD's institutional role. A consideration of the wider impact of the peace agreements highlights the way IGAD has enhanced its role by setting the agenda on peace support operations in Somalia. The article concludes that IGAD's successes are more the result of regional power politics than of its institutional strength per se. Despite the obvious need for a better regional security framework, the scope for the IGAD Secretariat to develop an autonomous conflict‐resolution capability will remain limited. However, IGAD brings a new diplomatic dimension to conflict management that locks in regional states and locks out interested parties beyond the region. With regard to Somalia, the organization has played a pivotal role in directing African and wider international responses to conflict in the region.