Peace is commonly considered as 'absence of war'. Nevertheless, peace the so called 'positive peace' (Galtung, 1996) – implies a lot more than this. It implies the creation of a society based on social justice through equal opportunity, a fair distribution of power and resources, equal protection and impartial enforcement of law, and above all, mutual cultural understanding and respect. Th us, ...

Once a set of civil war actors reach a final peace agreement, a number of different implementation sequences are possible as the negotiated provisions are put into practice. We focus on a key but threatening stepping stone in the post-accord period—the holding of the first post-accord election—which has the capacity to be a stabilizing or destabilizing force. We identify effective accommodation...

Increasingly, adolescents are growing up in multiethnic multicultural societies. While intergroup prejudice can threaten the multicultural societal cohesion, intergroup friendships are strong predictors of reduced prejudice. Thus, more research is needed to fully understand the development of intergroup friendships and their relations to less prejudicial attitudes. This study addressed two majo...

This analysis combines phenomenological and sociological research for an investigation of the social relationship of “friendship”. From a phenomenological perspective, it focuses on the epistemological basis, on the subjective constitution of the phenomenon of “friendship”. The social construction of friendship however, is described from a sociological research perspective with reference to con...

Social contexts exert structural effects on individuals' social relationships, including interracial friendships. In this study, we posit that, net of group composition, total context size has a distinct effect on interracial friendship. Under the assumptions of (i) maximization of preference in choosing a friend, (ii) multidimensionality of preference, and (iii) preference for same-race friend...

Throughout Africa, there has been a rising amount of civil unrest. The continent has been plagued with genocide, resource wars, ethnic conflict and civil war. In recent years, the world has seen multiple efforts to create peace throughout Africa. While there have been many peace accords signed throughout the region, the success of creating stable peace has not been achieved. In response to the ...

Achieving peace and building the institutions that will make it last require much time and e¤ort on the part of adversaries. While making this e¤ort, the likelihood of peace is uncertain and preparations forcon‡ict are on-going. We examine a setting that takes such considerations into account. Adversaries divide their resources between “guns,”“butter,” and investments in con‡ict management. Eve...

This paper brings mechanism design to conflict resolution. We determine when and how unmediated communication and mediation reduce the ex ante probability of conflict in a game of conflict with asymmetric information. Mediation improves upon unmediated communication when the intensity of conflict is high, or when asymmetric information is significant. The mediator improves upon unmediated commu...

The issue of reconciliation has been widely investigated in many eutherian mammal species. Nevertheless, no data are available for marsupial mammals. Indeed, the majority of reports focus on group dynamics from an ecological and reproductive perspective, but no study has investigated them from a social point of view. We observed the red-necked wallaby colony (Macropus rufogriseus) hosted at the...

We consider the conditions of peace and violence among ethnic groups, testing a theory designed to predict the locations of violence and interventions that can promote peace. Characterizing the model's success in predicting peace requires examples where peace prevails despite diversity. Switzerland is recognized as a country of peace, stability and prosperity. This is surprising because of its ...