So not all numbers are ‘Mister Right’ and some are downright liars. But, to push the analogy a bit, that is no reason to then conclude that ‘all numbers are pigs’ and throw our hands up in the air in despair.
Continue Reading →Determining what is “old” and “new” about conflicts demands attention to how we know what we know. Despite increasing demands for conflict data, as Kelly Greenhill argues in this post, “accurately assessing the human costs of conflict can be difficult at best.”
Continue Reading →Perhaps, then, the question should be restated. Instead of debating what is new versus what is old when it comes to war, those who wish to understand conflict should pose the more straightforward question: what has changed in the realm of armed conflict since the end of the Cold War?
Continue Reading →But surely the discovery that there is a political economy of conflict has had more to do with shifting geopolitical winds than a sudden transformation in the nature of warfare itself. This does not mean to suggest that conflict and the global context within which it takes place have not changed at all, but rather to simply point out that the end of the Cold War is what created the political opening to bring political economy more centrally into the study of conflict in the first place.
Continue Reading →Mary Kaldor’s New and Old Wars (first edition, 1999) crystallized thinking about the changing nature of war in the globalized post-Cold War era, in particular focusing on the proliferation of non-state actors and the systematic targeting of civilians, the importance of identity politics, and the inter-relationship between private and often criminal interests and [...]
Continue Reading →Archives
Tags
advocacy Afghanistan Africa African Union arms trade atrocities AU book review Burma conflict data Darfur Democratic Republic of Congo Drugs Ethiopia gender genocide Getting Somalia Wrong? Guantanamo Guatemala human rights memorial Human Security Report illicit trade Indonesia justice Kony Libya Mali mediation Mexico new wars Olympics peace Re-Framing the Debate responsibility to protect Rwanda Somalia South Sudan sports Sudan Syria trafficking Uganda UN urban conflict Zenawi






