Journalism a ‘Peacekeeping Agent’ at the Time of Conflict offers a critical analysis media’s role on peace-making and conflict-resolution.

Setting out multiple perspectives from media and journalism scholars, this collection addresses the implications that today’s technological, socio-political, and economic conditions have for relations between journalists, sources, audiences, and wider publics. Applying an inclusive concept of ‘conflicted societies’ that goes beyond those affected by violent conflict to include traditionally ‘stable’ but increasingly polarised democracies, such as the UK and the USA, contributors engage with longstanding questions and new challenges surrounding concepts of responsibility, trust, public service, and public interest in journalism. The unique span of studies offers international scope, including societies often overlooked in media and journalism studies, such as Northern Ireland, Turkey, Cyprus, Pakistan, The Democratic Republic of Congo, and the Central African Republic. Chapters also feature contemporary case studies, such as the COVID-19 pandemic, as a route into understanding the pertinent issue of fake news, and the ‘local turn’ in journalism. Responsible Journalism in Conflicted Societies is not only a valuable resource for those studying conflict reporting and international journalism but will also appeal to scholars working at the intersection of media, journalism, communication, peace, conflict, and security studies.

Transmediality in Independent Journalism investigates mainstream journalism and its escape routes to independence through transmedia strategies. Within the scope of the latest debates in Turkey, the author argues that the function of transmediality in Turkish journalism is gradually shifting from being only a commercial entity to becoming a political system for social change, a survival mechanism for independent journalists to reach out to diverse audiences, and gain back the public trust. Bringing a fresh perspective to recent studies on cultures of transmediality along with an in-depth analysis of three contemporary Turkish cases, the book: Builds upon questions of whether transmedia storytelling can offer a support system to construct an alternative news media world in a political context such as Turkey’s Examines how transmedia storytelling can reach places the mainstream news media can’t control Explores whether transmedia storytelling can sustain the survival of an independent journalist in Turkey’s political context Looking beyond the case of Turkey, this study will be an important addition to the literature on rethinking journalistic form and practice, teaching transmedia strategies, and social communication. It will be of great benefit to students and scholars of journalism studies, transmedia studies, and media and communication studies.

This book is a critical political and institutional reflection on UN peace operations. It provides constructive suggestions as to how the UN and the international system can evolve to remain relevant and tackle the peace and security challenges of the 21st century, without abandoning the principles that the UN was founded upon and on which the legitimacy of UN peace operations rests. The author analyses the evolving politics on UN peace operations of the five veto powers of the UN Security Council, as well as major troop-contributing countries and western powers. He investigates the move towards peace enforcement and counter-terrorism, and what consequences this development may have for the UN. Karlsrud issues a challenge to practitioners and politicians to make sure that the calls for reform are anchored in a desire to improve the lives of people suffering in conflicts on the ground—and not spurred by intra-organizational turf battles or solely the narrow self-interests of member states. Finally, he asks how the UN can adapt its practices to become more field- and people-centered, in line with its core, primary commitments of protecting and serving people in need.

This book is about two prominent issues: conflict prevention, and the media. Conflict prevention is a challenging concept for the media because journalists normally work on current affairs: reporting what is going on now, not trying to change the course of events in the medium or long term. However, the media can also play a determinant role in conflict prevention by providing swift and reliable information of emerging or potential conflicts to local and external actors. Governments, international organizations and public opinion alike need in-depth understanding of pre- and post-conflict social, economic, cultural and political environments in order to fully understand the benefits and feasibility of preventive policies.

Dealing with Conflict in Africa analyzes the role of the various organizations involved in conflict resolution in Africa. The bulk of the chapters examine case studies of the major conflicts in Africa, such as the Congo War. For each case study, the author looks at what responsibilities and tasks were taken on by different organizations, the relationship between the organizations, and seeks to determine which kind of organization is the most effective in working towards successful conflict resolution. The contributors also examine the effectiveness of coalitions of states or eminent leaders to that of UN cooperation with regional organizations, and what directions this cooperation should take in the future. The contributors are an international group of scholars and consultants, all of whom are well positioned to analyze these issues.

This new study questions whether peacekeeping fundamentally changed between the Cold War and Post-Cold War periods. Focusing on contrasting case studies of the Congo, Cyprus, Somalia and Angola, as well as more recent operations in Sierra Leone and East Timor, it probes new evidence with clarity and rigour. The authors conclude that most peacekeeping operations - whether in the Cold War or Post-Cold War periods - were flawed due to the failure of the UN member states to agree upon achievable objectives, the precise nature of the operations and provision of the necessary resources, and unrealistic post-1989 expectations that UN peacekeeping operations could be adapted to the changed international circumstances. The study concludes by looking at the Brahimi reforms, questions whether these are realistically achievable and looks at their impact on contemporary peace operations in Sierra Leone, East Timor and elsewhere.

Conflict is a major facet of many environmental challenges of our time. However, growing conflict complexity makes it more difficult to identify win-win strategies for sustainable conflict resolution. Innovative methods are needed to help predict, understand, and resolve conflicts in cooperative ways. Agent-Based Modeling of Environmental Conflict and Cooperation examines computer modeling techniques as an important set of tools for assessing environmental and resource-based conflicts and, ultimately, for finding pathways to conflict resolution and cooperation. This book has two major goals. First, it argues that complexity science can be a unifying framework for professions engaged in conflict studies and resolution, including anthropology, law, management, peace studies, urban planning, and geography. Second, this book presents an innovative framework for approaching conflicts as complex adaptive systems by using many forms of environmental analysis, including system dynamics modeling, agent-based modeling, evolutionary game theory, viability theory, and network analysis. Known as VIABLE (Values and Investments from Agent-Based interaction and Learning in Environmental systems), this framework allows users to model advanced facets of conflicts—including institution building, coalition formation, adaptive learning, and the potential for future conflict—and conflict resolution based on the long-term viability of the actors’ strategies. Written for scholars, students, practitioners, and policy makers alike, this book offers readers an extensive introduction to environmental conflict research and resolution techniques. As the result of decades of research, the text presents a strong argument for conflict modeling and reviews the most popular and advanced techniques, including system dynamics modeling, agent-based modeling, and participatory modeling methods. This indispensable guide uses NetLogo, a widely used and free modeling software package, to implement the VIABLE modeling approach in three case study applications around the world. Readers are invited to explore, adapt, modify, and expand these models to conflicts they hope to better understand and resolve.

The Oxford Handbook of War is the definitive analysis of war in the twenty-first century. With over forty senior authors from academia, government and the armed forces world-wide the Handbook explores the history, theory, ethics and practice of war. The Handbook first considers the fundamental causes of war, before reflecting on the moral and legal aspects of war. Theories on the practice of war lead into an analysis of the strategic conduct of war and non Western ways of war. The heart of the Handbook is a compelling analysis of the military conduct of war which is juxtaposed with consideration of technology, economy, industry, and war. In conclusion the volume looks to the future of this apparently perennial feature of human interaction.

The settlement of Namibia's long running conflict remains one of the major successes of the United Nations. Over the course of one year, UN peacekeepers assisted the people of Namibia to gain their independence after years of oppressive South African rule. This book provides an in depth study of the conditions contributing to the UN's success in Namibia and what these reveal about peacekeeping and peace enforcing in other countries.