Recommending Books for Purchase (Bulletin 86 - June 2020): Peace Studies

This study explores corruption in Rwanda and highlights the necessity of developing anti-corruption education as a way of combating corruption. It argues that an effective campaign against corruption should consider promoting anti-corruption education with the aim of enabling present and future generations to maintain and live out the Ubupfura (meaning "trust/respect") ethical values. Considering the link between anti-corruption and peacebuilding efforts, as explained in this study, it is underlined that continuous efforts to raise such generations could undoubtedly move Rwandan society toward a sustainable peace. Peacebuilders, anti-corruption agents, and public policymakers are the primary beneficiaries of the study.

Cultures of violence are characteristic of many countries in sub-Saharan Africa and attempts to move towards cultures of peace have often proved difficult and ineffectual. And yet, the wide variations in levels of violence within and between countries show that it is not inevitable; rather, it is the result of choices made at individual, community and societal levels. This book examines the potential of peace infrastructures as vehicles to strengthen and spread progress towards cultures of peace. Peace infrastructures vary hugely in sophistication and level. The examples examined in this book range from tiny structures which help resolve conflicts between individuals and within community organisations, peace committees which serve local communities, peace education and peace club programmes in schools, mediation mechanisms to prevent election violence and to ministries of peace to coordinate government and non-government efforts in peacemaking and peacebuilding. The overall finding is that the development of peace infrastructures at all levels has great potential to build cultures of peace. 1.     It is the only book available which documents the experience and potential of nonviolence in post-independence sub-Saharan Africa. 2.     It makes a persuasive case for the development of various peace infrastructures in order to make peace sustainable. 3.     It explains how strategic planning can be utilised, both to bring about change and to institutionalise it.

This book asks the question: what is the role of memory during a political transition? Drawing on Ethiopian history, transitional justice, and scholarly fields concerned with memory, museums and trauma, the author reveals a complex picture of global, transnational, national and local forces as they converge in the story of the creation and continued life of one modest museum in the Ethiopian capital, Addis Ababa--the Red Terror Martyrs Memorial Museum. It is a study from multiple margins: neither the case of Ethiopia nor memorialization is central to transitional justice discourse, and within Ethiopia, the history of the Red Terror is sidelined in contemporary politics. From these nested margins, traumatic memory emerges as an ambiguous social and political force. The contributions, meaning and limitations of memory emerge at the point of discrete interactions between memory advocates, survivor-docents and visitors. Memory from the margins is revealed as powerful for how it disrupts, not builds, new forms of community. 

This book draws lessons and conclusions, based on the methodology outlined in the author's previous book, Water as a Catalyst for Peace (Routledge, 2013), and further charts the course to a more practical framework for achieving regional stability and justice. Past agreements are examined and analysed, outlining the change along the way that occurred to the land and people of Palestine. The book is written with the intention of exposing past events that led to the current situation, evaluating the current state of the conflict in light of new circumstances and the reality on the ground.  Viable options are explored to seek a practical and satisfactory negotiated settlement that ensures justice and viability.  In conclusion, a roadmap for future direction is proposed to achieve equitable water allocation through proper negotiation between Israel and Palestine and to ultimately settle the conflict. Water resources allocation is at the heart of this pragmatic framework and roadmap.

This book examines links between post-conflict security, peace and development in Africa, Latin America, Europe and New Zealand. Young peace researchers from the Global South (Uganda, Ivory Coast, Kenya, Brazil, Colombia) as well as from Italy and New Zealand address in case studies traumas in Northern Uganda, demobilisation and reintegration of ex-combatants in the Ivory Coast, economic and financial management of terrorism in Kenya, organised crime in Brazil, mental health issues in Colombia, macro realism in Europe and global defence reforms within the military apparatus since 1990. The book reviews linkages between regional stability, development and peace in post-conflict societies while adding on to the post 2015 international agenda and discusses linkages between peace, security and development.