The Ecology of Violent Extremism

Editor: Lisa Schirch

Publication date: August 2018

The Ecology of Violent Extremism brings together leading theorists and practitioners to describe an ecological or systems approach to violent extremism. Nothing can be fixed until it is understood. News media keep us alarmed to the close--‐up devastation of acts of terrorism. This book climbs a ladder to get a better view of the problem. What is beneath and beyond violent extremism? How do we respond to the problem of violent extremism in ways that do not fertilize the root causes that fueled it in the first place? The book offers a “map of violent extremism” drawing connections between twenty--‐five factors that correlate with violent extremism (VE).

Making Peace with Faith: The Challenges of Religion and Peacebuilding

Editors: Michelle Garred & Mohammed Abu-Nimer

Publication date: January 2018

Although religion is almost never a root cause, it often gets pulled into conflict as a powerful element, especially where conflicting parties have different religious identities. Every faith tradition offers resources for peace, and secular policy makers are more and more acknowledging the influence of faith-based actors, even though there remains a tendency to associate religion more with conflict than peace. In this text, practitioners from different faiths relate and explore the many challenges they face in their peacebuilding work, which their secular partners may be unaware of.

Human Security: Theory and action

Author: David Andersen-Rodgers & Kerry F. Crawford

Publication date: March 2018

Human security refers in its broadest sense to the protection of individuals from harm. Human Security: Theory and Action explores the theory and application of concepts central to this notion of security. It examines the conceptual roots of human security, connecting its origins to its applications and challenges in war and peacetime. With a unique focus on the evolving notion of responsibility for security, the text introduces the critical questions and priorities that underpin policies and actions.

How to Resolve Conflict: A practical mediation manual

Author: James E. Gilman

Publication date: January 2017

This guide to the practice of mediation as conflict resolution means is a short how-to manual that includes resources to teach and train conflict mediators. Gilman explains the conceptual framework of conflict and peacebuilding, the steps of the mediation process, and the resources available to individuals to conduct mediation sessions, like role-playing. This book serves as a useful resource for those in the field of conflict resolution to successfully employ mediation tools.

Civil Society, Peace and Power

Authors: David Cortright, Melanie Greenberg & Laurel Stone

Publication date: October 2016

Civil society is a vital component of the global landscape, as key actors prevent and manage conflict, and work to build more peaceful societies. In this volume, several authors including Alliance for Peacebuilding’s CEO, Melanie Greenberg, examine several case studies that illustrate the development of civil society engagement in national, regional, and international peacebuilding policy. This book displays the benefits of civil society involvement: well-informed, accountable government decision making and more effective peacebuilding policies.

Forging Peace in Southeast Asia

Author: Zachary Abuza

Publication date: September 2016

For decades, Southeast Asia experienced separatist insurgencies that plagued the region with violent conflict. However, innovative and effective peace processes in Indonesia and the Philippines have developed, serving as examples for Thailand and other protracted conflict-stricken areas. This book offers case studies with a common history of insurgency and analyzes the insurgent group’s organization, operations, tactics, and capabilities. Further, Abuza examines the peace processes in the region and evaluates what made them successful, providing a framework for peacebuilding efforts.

Drug Trafficking and International Security

Author: Paul Rexton Kan

Publication date: August 2016

Global drug trafficking intersects with a vast array of international security issues ranging from war and terrorism to migration and state stability. More than just another item on the international security agenda, drug trafficking in fact exacerbates threats to national and international security. In this light, the book argues that global drug trafficking should not be treated as one international security issue among many. Rather, due to the unique nature of the trade, illegal drugs have made key threats to national and international security more complex, durable, and acute. Drug trafficking therefore makes traditional understandings of international security inadequate.

Each chapter examines how drug trafficking affects a particular security issue, such as rogue nations, weak and failing states, protracted intrastate conflicts, terrorism, transnational crime, public health, and cyber security. While some texts see drug trafficking as an international threat in itself, others place it under the topic of transnational organized crime, arguing that the threats emanate from criminal groups. This book, on the other hand, provides a thorough understanding of how vast array of threats to international security are exacerbated by drug trafficking.

Ethics for Peacebuilders: A practical guide

Author: Reina C. Neufeldt

Publication date: August 2016

This book provides guidance for structuring ethical reflection as well as analytical tools to get to the heart of issues quickly. It is designed to help practitioners engage ethically in applied peacebuilding and conflict transformation and to help students aspiring to be peacebuilders think about ethics. It discusses ethics and morality, significant barriers to ethical deliberations in applied work, moral theories, creative problem-solving for situations when moral values conflict, and the need for healthy ethical organizations. Throughout, concrete examples, scenarios, and discussion questions help draw out key issues to improve peacebuilding practices. Detailed case studies include peacebuilding initiatives in East Timor, Afghanistan, Sierra Leone, and more.

Written by an experienced practitioner, the book will help identify and analyze ethical problems and resolve moral value conflicts to create healthy practices. It will provide valuable guidance for thinking ethically about peacebuilding work and handling the specific dilemmas related to it.

Criminalized Power Structures

Editor: Michael Dziedzic

Publication date: July 2016

Criminalized power structures (CPS) are illicit networks that profit from transactions in black markets and from criminalized state institutions while perpetuating a culture of impunity. The book articulates a typology for assessing the threats of CPS and for implementing appropriate strategies to achieve sustainable peace effectively and efficiently. The international case studies address interventions undertaken either to support the implementation of a peace agreement (i.e., a peace operation) or to stabilize a country entangled in an internal conflict in the context of a power-sharing agreement among key protagonists (i.e., a stability operation). In each of these cases, at least one of the parties to the agreement was a criminalized power structure that was a leading spoiler. The final chapter identifies strategies that are most effective for each type of CPS, including the ways and means (or tools) required for effective conflict transformation.

A companion volume, Combating Criminalized Power Structures: A Toolkit, provides practitioners with the means of coping with the challenges posed by CPS.

Combating Criminalized Power Structures

Editor: Michael Dziedzic

Publication date: July 2016

Criminalized power structures (CPS) are illicit networks that profit from transactions in black markets and from criminalized state institutions while perpetuating a culture of impunity. These criminalized power structures are the predominant spoilers of peace settlements and stability operations. This volume focuses on the means available to practitioners to cope with the challenges posed by CPS along with recommendations for improving their efficacy and an enumeration of the conditions essential for their success. The means range from economic sanctions and border controls to the use of social media and criminal intelligence-led operations. Each step of this toolkit is detailed, explaining what each tool is, how it can be used, which type of CPS it is best suited to address, and what is necessary to ensure success of the peace operations. The effectiveness of the tool is also assessed and its use is illustrated through real life situations, such as international supply chain controls to prevent the looting of natural resources in Western Africa or the intervention of international judges and prosecutors in Kosovo.

A companion volume, Criminalized Power Structures: The Overlooked Enemies of Peace, articulates a typology for assessing the threats of CPS illustrated by many case studies.

Security 2.0: Dealing with global wicked problems

Author: Charles Hauss

Publication date: June 2015

Today, international security issues are slowly being reconsidered through the lens of human security, which refers to a combination of political, economic, social, nutritional, environmental, physical health, and personal safety issues. When first mentioned in 1994, the concept of human security represented a significant first step in understanding that security dilemmas could no longer be seen as purely geopolitical phenomena that revolve around the nation-state.

This book explains the progress made toward human security since then and the steps that remain to be taken to achieve it fully. It begins by addressing how the nation-state is both the source and the solution of security problems in the world before demonstrating how the meaning of security itself is being reconsidered and traditional approaches are being challenged. Building on the concept of human security, the book looks at how we are slowly moving toward large-scale political and social change. It argues that it is time for a “security 2.0” approach, different from the traditional models of national security.

Thus Security 2.0 addresses new challenges and their political responses, pointing toward alternatives to what is referred to as “permanent war.” It highlights such themes as cooperation, the multi-dimensionality of security issues, and the continuing pressures towards democratization, global markets, and multilevel governance and how these contribute today to make a safer world. Further, it shows how environmental threats, global corporations, identity issues, and international regimes such as the EU, are also fostering a fundamental rethinking of the concept of security. Including a variety of perspectives, and written in a jargon-free, accessible manner, the work will provide students with new insights on conflict processes and international security.

Military Chaplains in Afghanistan

Editor: Eric Patterson

Publication date: August 2014

The role of military chaplains has changed over the past decade as Western militaries have deployed to highly religious environments such as East Africa, Afghanistan, and Iraq. U.S. military chaplains, who are by definition non-combatants, have been called upon by their war-fighting commanders to take on new roles beyond providing religious services to the troops. Chaplains are now also required to engage the local citizenry and provide their commanders with assessments of the religious and cultural landscape outside the base and reach out to local civilian clerics in hostile territory in pursuit of peace and understanding.

In this edited volume, practitioners and scholars chronicle the changes that have happened in the field in the twenty-first century. Using concrete examples, this volume takes a critical look at the rapidly changing role of the military chaplain, and raises issues critical to U.S. foreign and national security policy and diplomacy.