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Nationalism, development and ethnic conflict in Sri Lanka
\"Following the dramatic and violent conclusion of the 26-year old civil war in May 2009, Sri Lanka faces a new 'ground-zero' moment. The defeat of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) and the weakening of the Tamil nationalist project has meant that attention is now switching firmly back towards its counterpart, Sinhala nationalism, and on the ways in which it is likely to influence the evolution of the post-war, post-Prabhakaran future. The most pressing challenges for this new post-war future are ethnic reconciliation and economic reconstruction. This book explores the complex and contradictory relationship between these two trajectories in post-colonial Sri Lanka with a view to understanding how they will come to affect the contours of an uncertain future. In doing so, it poses some very fundamental questions: why has the Sri Lankan ethnic conflict been so protracted, and so resistant to solution? What explains the enduring political resilience of Sinhala nationalism, and how is it related to socioeconomic mobility, leftist politics, and market reform policies? How will Sinhala nationalist politics and the role of military employment interact with future generations of market reform and economic growth? Based on over a decade of research, and drawing on a wide range of qualitative and quantitative evidence from colonial administration reports and household economic surveys to in-depth interviews with contemporary political figures, it asks how Sinhala nationalism has related to the social democratic state in the period of its rise and decline since the mid-1950s. In doing so, this book is informed by and engages closely with recent debates in nationalism, critical development theory, and peacebuilding, and reflects an interdisciplinary reach across history, comparative politics, development economics, conflict theory, human geography, and social anthropology\"-- Provided by publisher.
Book
Can Development Aid Contribute to Social Cohesion after Civil War? Evidence from a Field Experiment in Post-Conflict Liberia
A field experiment in which villages in northern Liberia were randomly assigned to receive international development assistance provides evidence that the introduction of new local-level institutions can alter patterns of social cooperation in a way that persists after the program's conclusion. Villages exposed to a community-driven reconstruction program exhibit higher subsequent levels of social cooperation than those in the control group, as measured through a community-wide public goods game. Results suggest that changes in community cohesion can take place over a short period of time, can occur in response to outside intervention, and can develop without fundamental changes either to the structure of economic relations or to more macro-level political processes. Random assignment of communities to treatment provides confidence in the causal nature of the relationship, and the use of behavioral outcome measures reinforces the sense that the effects are real.
Journal Article
Repression or Civil War?
This paper contributes to the debate about the nature of political equilibrium in poor countries with weakly institutionalized polities where the use of political violence can be endemic. It argues that it is useful to think about repression and civil conflict in a unified way and develops a simple model to illustrate this argument. This approach recognizes three states, and the paper discusses how this helps us to think about measurement of political outcomes. Finally, the data support the idea that there is indeed an ordering--with peace, repression and conflict as the three states. The ultimate goal is to map political and economic circumstances into the wider understanding of the forces that shape economic and political development. This short paper is only a small building block in that wider project.
Journal Article
Defensive Weapons and Defensive Alliances
In 2002, US President George W Bush initiated the deployment of a new ballistic missile defense system. The move triggered vociferous international concerns, including a recent statement of Russia and China condemning US plans as a destabilizing move. Indeed, the move amounts to a withdrawal from the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile treaty. The US position is that such missile defense systems reduce the damage caused by an incoming strike, but do not threaten international stability. This paper provides a careful analysis of how the unilateral acquisition of defensive weapons may affect the sustainability of peace. It considers a dynamic game in which two symmetric countries repeatedly decide to be peaceful or attack.
Journal Article
The status of nutritional knowledge, attitude and practices associated with complementary feeding in a post‐conflict development phase setting: The case of Acholi sub‐region of Uganda
Inappropriate complementary feeding is an important challenge to proper child nutrition in post‐conflict rural areas in many sub‐Saharan African countries. While in protected areas during conflict situation and soon after during recovery, communities normally receive nutrition education as part of capacity building to improve knowledge, attitude, and practices to enable them manage maternal and child nutrition issues during the post‐conflict development phase. It is largely unknown whether capacity in nutrition provided is maintained and adequately applied in the post‐conflict development situation. Using Acholi sub‐region of Uganda, an area that experienced violent armed conflict for 20 years (mid‐80s–early 2000), as a case study, we examined the status of nutritional knowledge, attitude, and practices associated with complementary feeding among caregivers of 6‐ to 23‐month‐old children in a post‐conflict development phase following return to normalcy nearly 10 years post‐conflict emergency situation. The results showed that a high proportion of caregivers had good knowledge (88%) and attitude (90.1%) toward complementary feeding. However, only a half (50%) of them practiced correct nutrition behavior. Education status of the household head and sex of the child significantly predicted caregiver knowledge on complementary feeding (p ≤ 0.05). Education status of the household head also predicted caregiver attitude toward complementary feeding (p ≤ 0.05). Poverty, food insecurity, and maternal ill health were the major factors that hindered caregivers from practicing good complementary feeding behavior. These results demonstrate that nutrition education on complementary feeding provided to the community during conflict emergency and recovery situation is largely retained in terms of knowledge and attitude but poorly translated into good child feeding practices due to poverty, food insecurity, and maternal ill health. Maternal health, food security, and poverty reduction should be prioritized if adequate complementary feeding is to be achieved among conflict‐affected communities in the post‐conflict development phase.
The study examined the status of nutritional knowledge, attitude, and practices associated with complementary feeding among caregivers of 6‐ to 23‐month‐old children in a post‐conflict development setting following return to normalcy nearly 10 years of post‐conflict emergency using Acholi sub‐region of Uganda as a case study. The results demonstrated that nutrition education on complementary feeding provided to the community during conflict emergency and recovery situation is largely retained in terms of knowledge and attitude but poorly translated into good child feeding practices due to poverty, food insecurity, and maternal ill health.
Journal Article
Societal dynamics and fragility
Today's world is changing at breakneck speed, shaking the very foundations of many societies. Increased mobility through massive urbanization and migration allows people unprecedented access to different cultures and ideas; advanced technologies speed the pace of human interaction; the globalization of communication offers new forms of social relationships that may directly contradict traditional norms for behavior. These changes create tremendous stresses on relationships in societies - affecting the way youth interact with their elders, the way women and men relate to each other, how urban migrants and refugees relate to their new environments, and so on. The impacts of these changes are felt acutely in 'fragile' situations, where groups and institutions struggle to adapt to the stresses of rapid social change. In the worst cases, where fragility has given way to open violence - people are more than twice as likely to be malnourished, more than three times as likely to be unable to send their children to school, twice as likely to see their children die before age five, and more than twice as likely to lack clean water. In addition to these domestic challenges, the costs of fragility often spill over to neighboring regions in the form of trafficking in illegal goods and persons, corruption, and violence. 'Societal Dynamics and Fragility' frames a fresh approach to these challenges, by focusing on improving relationships across groups and institutions in society. Drawing on case studies from Yemen, Central African Republic, Haiti, Liberia and Aceh (Indonesia), the book provides a framework for understanding and healing the social divides that often get in the way of building capable institutions and exiting from fragility.
eBook
Reaching across the waters
This study reviews the experience of cooperation in selected international river basins and during selected time periods in those basins. The review is from a country perspective and focuses on the countries' perceived risks and opportunities in engaging in regional cooperation deals in response to the prospects for cooperation. It is primarily aimed at external development partners who promote regional public goods (river basin institutions and agreements) and support cooperative activities and investments in international waters. We also believe that countries and individuals engaged in international waters issues will find this study and reflections helpful in enhancing their knowledge and advancing their actions with respect to regional cooperation. The specific purpose of the study is to alert teams engaged in promoting cooperation in international waters to the need for a careful risk analysis and for the formulation of a risk reduction strategy to help countries move toward cooperation.
eBook
Pirate trails
It is estimated that US$339 million to US$413 million was claimed in ransoms between April 2005 and December 2012 for pirate acts off the Horn of Africa. Twenty-first century piracy in this region has developed as a violent criminal act, which not only affects the victims but also has an impact on the region and the global economy. Chapter two describes the context and audience for the study; explains the study's methodological framework, including information on what data sources were available; and identifies the challenges in undertaking the study. Chapter three provides background on the issues of pirate activities off the coast of Somalia and the Horn of Africa, and defines the problem of piracy and its origins. Section two then focuses on understanding the financial flows with respect to piracy activities. Chapter four looks at the ransoms paid to pirates, starting with negotiations of the ransoms and the volume of money involved. Then chapter five focuses on the distribution of proceeds from piracy to the various actors involved in supporting or carrying out pirate activities. Chapter six explores the ways in which proceeds are moved in and out of Somalia. Chapter seven looks at how the financiers invest their proceeds. Following this analysis, chapter eight focuses specifically on investment by piracy financiers in the khat business and real estate. In the final section three, chapter nine of the study concludes with suggested areas for policy and operational engagement within the region and beyond.
eBook