Sumários

The politics of post-war reconstruction

12 Março 2025, 18:00 • Manuel João Ramos

With Prof. João Terrenas (UBI)
Key topics:

  • New wars and failed states; Post-war reconstruction; From peace-building to peace-keeping; Dilemmas of Statebuilding; Conventional and Emerging approaches to state-building

Key Questions:

  • What does postwar reconstruction mean?
  • Where does it fit alongside concepts like peacekeeping, peacemaking, peacebuilding, nationbuilding and statebuilding?
  • What is the Liberal Peace thesis?
  • What is a failed state?
  • How did practices of postwar reconstruction evolved?
  • What are the main differences between the four waves of postwar reconstruction?
  • What are the dimensions of postwar reconstruction and stabilization?
  • What are the main challenges identified by practitioners?
  • What are the key issues linked to international intervention and postwar reconstruction as practiced since the 1990s?
  • How contested is liberal postwar reconstruction in the literature?
  • Is liberal postwar reconstruction viable?
  • What is the concept of resilience and in what way does it affect liberal postwar reconstruction?
  • How does contemporary postwar reconstruction affect the concepts of autonomy and sovereignty?


Trabalho autónomo:

Suggested Readings:

  • Ikenberry, G. J. (2009) 'Liberal Internationalism 3.0: America and the Dilemmas of Liberal World Order', Perspectives on Politics, 7(1): 71-87.
  • Paris, R. and Timothy Sisk (eds) (2009) The Dilemmas of Statebuilding: Confronting the Contradictions of Postwar Peace Operations (Routledge 2009).
  • Helman, G. B and Ratner, S. R., 'Saving Failed States, Foreign Policy , No. 89 (Winter, 1992-1993), pp. 3-20
  • Doyle, Michael (2005) 'Three Pillars of the Liberal Peace', American Political Science Review, 99/3.
  • Richmond, O. P. (2010) (ed.), Palgrave Advances in Peacebuilding. Critical Development and Approaches. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Ch. 1.
  • Rocha Menocal, A. (2011). 'State Building for Peace: a new paradigm for international engagement
  • in post-conflict fragile states?', Third World Quarterly,32(10), 1715-1736.
  • Paris, R. and Timothy Sisk (eds) (2009) The Dilemmas of Statebuilding: Confronting the Contradictions of Postwar Peace Operations. Abingdon: Routledge. Chapter 1: Introduction
  • Department for International Development (2010) Building Peaceful States and Societies. Available at https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/67694/Buildingpeaceful-
  • states-and-societies.pdf
  • United States Institute for Peace (2009) Guiding Principles for Stabilization and Reconstruction. http://www.usip.org/sites/default/files/guiding_principles_full.pdf
  • Paris, R. (2010) 'Saving liberal peacebuilding', Review of international studies, 36(2): 337-365.
  • Cooper, N., Turner, M., & Pugh, M. (2011). The end of history and the last liberal peacebuilder: a reply to Roland Paris. Review of international studies,37(4), 1995-2007.
  • J ahn, B. (2007) 'The Tragedy of Liberal Diplomacy: Democratization, Intervention, Statebuilding. Part I, Journal of Intervention and Statebuilding, 1(1): 87-106.
  • Jahn, B. (2007) 'The Tragedy of Liberal Diplomacy: Democratization, Intervention, Statebuilding
  • (Part II)', Journal of Intervention and Statebuilding, 1(2): 211-229.
  • Mac Ginty, R. (2010) 'Hybrid Peace: The Interaction Between Top-Down and Bottom Up Peace', Security Dialogue, 42(3): 391-412.
  • Chandler, D. (2013) 'International Statebuilding and the Ideology of Resilience', Politics, 33(4), 276-286.
  • Joseph, J. (2013) 'Resilience as embedded neoliberalism: a governmentality approach', Resilience, 1(1), 38-52.
  • Chandler, D. (2006) Empire in Denial: The Politics of State-Building. London: Pluto Press. Introduction.
  • Chandler, D. (2008) Statebuilding and Intervention: Policies, Practices, and Paradigms. Abingdon: Routledge.
  • Chandler, D. (2010) International Statebuilding: The Rise of Post-Liberal Governance Abingdon: Routledge. Introduction and Ch. 3.
  • Darby J. (2008) and Roger Mac Ginty, Contemporary Peacemaking. Conflict, Peace Processes and Post-war Reconstruction. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.
  • Dobbins, James et al (2007) The Beginner's Guide to Nation-Building. Santa Monica, CA: RAND. Summary and Ch. 1. Available online. http://www.rand.org/content/dam/rand/pubs/monographs/2007/RAND_MG557.pdf
  • Fukuyama, F. (2005) Statebuilding. Governance and Order in the Twenty-First Century. London: Profile Books.
  • Hehir, A. and Neil Robinson (eds) (2007) State-Building: Theory and Practice. London: Routledge. Ch. 1.

  • Other resources:

    International Crisis Group - http://www.crisisgroup.org/

    Carnegie Endownment (Political Reforms) - http://www.carnegieendowment.org/topic/?fa=list&id=351

    UK Government Stabilization Unit - http://www.stabilisationunit.gov.uk/

    ISOA - association of private forms active in peace and stability operations - http://stabilityoperations.

    org/index.php

    RAND (Nationbuilding) - http://www.rand.org/topics/nation-building.html

    OECD - http://www.oecd.org/site/dacpbsbdialogue/

    New Deal - Building Peaceful States - http://www.newdeal4peace.org/

    US Department of State (Bureau of Conflict Stabilization Operations) -

    http://www.state.gov/j/cso/index.htm

  • Documentaries and movies:

    Green Zone (2010)

    Control Room (2004)

    Restrepo (2010)

    Statebuilding in Theory and Practice

    Iraq-No End in Sight (2007)

    The Death of Yugoslavia (1995)

    How to Build a Country from Scratch (2011)

4. Terrorism, counter-terrorism and conflict

12 Março 2025, 15:30 • Vasco Martins

4. Terrorism, counter-terrorism and conflict

Problems of definition and positionality; 

The root causes of terrorism and the route to explaining a social phenomenon and attempts at prevention.

4. Terrorism, counter-terrorism and conflict

12 Março 2025, 13:00 • Vasco Martins

4. Terrorism, counter-terrorism and conflict

Problems of definition and positionality; 

The root causes of terrorism and the route to explaining a social phenomenon and attempts at prevention.

An anthropological view of War and Conflict

26 Fevereiro 2025, 18:00 • Manuel João Ramos

The nature of violent conflict in human societies:

Ethological, archaeological, historical evidence.

Classical anthropological models:

Their difficulty incorporating aggression and conflict in its epistemological foundations.

A short history of anthropological thought, from after its evolutionist foundations to the end of the "expansive moment". The enduring legacy of durkheimianism.

A look into the historical exceptions: Max Gluckman and the Manchester School, Sol Tax and the Chicago School - the importance of the "knowledge from the field", the case-study based approach.

Changing moments, missed opportunities: the African independences didn't change the conceptual paradigm.

Rwanda, Ethiopia, South Africa, Congo-Zaire: the problem with "localizing strategies".

David Graeber's seminal testament: The nature of violent conflict in human societies

https://www.eurozine.com/change-course-human-history/

Two case-studies:

The (ir)relevance of the work of Harry Turney-High for a renewed anthropological vision of the war in human societies.

The Napoleon Chagnon controversy as example of the enduring presuppositions in anthropology.

Towards an anthropology of war and violence:

Power, violence, and collective imagination. An add-on to Lévi-Strauss's model.

The phenomenon of war and the establishment of the nation-state.

The sacralization of power and state formation and dissolution (a reading of Luc De Heusch).

The cultural concepts of war and their relation to ideologies and political systems: readings of J. Kegan (The Face of Battle, A History of Warfare).

­

Trabalho autónomo:

Readings:

Ingo W. Schröder and Bettina E. Schmidt: "introduction: Violent imaginaries and violent practices". In Anthropology of Violence and Conflict. London: Routledge, 2001.

Andrew Strathern and Pamela J. Stewart: "Introduction: Terror, the Imagination, and Cosmology". In A. Strathern, P. J. Stewart (eds). Terror and Violence. Imagination and the Unimaginable. London: Pluto, 2006.

Turney-High, Harry (1949). Primitive War: Its Practice and Concepts. Columbia, SC: University of South Carolina Press.

3. The study of war

26 Fevereiro 2025, 15:30 • Vasco Martins

3. The study of war

Mary Kaldor's 'old' and 'new wars': characteristics and links to globalisation and identity politics. 

Populist parties and governments, globalisation, identity politics and the liberal order.