The international conference “Rebuilding War Societies: Continuities and New Beginnings” will be held at the university of Sulaimania, Iraq from October 17-21, 2016. The conference is an opportunity for academics, practitioners, and students to exchange ideas and explore emerging issues in the field of violence research.
Coping with situations of violent conflict resolution has become part of the every-day life reality of an increasing number of societies in the 21st century. The boundaries between war situations and non-peace constellations have become fluent and in many cases, the rebuilding of societies has to take place in the course of an ongoing violent conflict, and in an increasing number of cases, violent conflict resolution does not result in a change of system, but rather in a redistribution of power and access to resources. The reconfiguration of the military as well as the economic sector coincides with a pragmatic realization of a change of the political system. The conference aims to create a better understanding of the complex challenges of rebuilding war societies in post-conflict and ongoing conflict situations. It aims to look critically at the core concepts underpinning aims and strategies for rebuilding, reconstruction and reconfiguration.
The main set of questions to be addressed concerns various aspects of the role of institutional development and governance based on collaboration between state, civil society and market. Through the investigation of the above mentioned topics the conference particularly aims at understanding:
- historical continuities leading from the reconstruction of post-war societies towards the reconfiguration of war societies in ongoing conflicts;
- new developments in conflict coping strategies and mechanisms of societies;
- the complex interactions between relief, rebuilding and development activities and between local and international actors and how they contribute to the escalation or de-escalation of a conflict;
- the pacification mechanisms such as demobilization of combatants, the reintegration of refugees and internally displaced people and the reform of governance structures in an ongoing conflict;
- the long-term effects that the extraction of resources and the destruction of the natural environment has on the rebuilding of war societies;
- the role of instruments such as democratic institutions, universities and the injection of finance to rebuild the infrastructure.
The anticipated output of the conference is a publication including the conference proceedings and the papers presented by the participants.
The organization committee is therefore calling for papers which address the above mentioned issues. Researchers from academia, think tanks and practitioners are invited to submit the title and a short abstract of their research paper no later than July 31, 2016, to: Diese E-Mail-Adresse ist vor Spambots geschützt! Zur Anzeige muss JavaScript eingeschaltet sein! . Presentations shall not exceed 20 minutes plus 10 minutes for discussion. Each panel will close with a concluding discussion of 30 minutes.
