article looks at definitions of peace from a cultural studies perspective, suggesting that binary oppositions governing such fields as peace and war, individual and society, tradition and modernity offer few grounds for progress towards peace. The article suggests instead that the utopian principle of hope can be recruited for a culture of peace based on the surrender to difference, at a subjec...

This Essay first explores the historical context of prisoner release in Ireland, North and South. Second, the role of prisoners in the process of conflict resolution in the 1990s is examined in the periods before and after the breakdown of the first IRA ceasefire. The provisions within the Good Friday Agreement and subsequent legislation are then analyzed in so far as they relate to prisoner re...

This paper exploits data on the pattern of violence across regions and over time to estimate the impact of the peace process in Northern Ireland on house prices. We begin with a linear model that estimates the average treatment e¤ect of a con‡ict-related killing on house prices –showing a negative correlation between house prices and killings. We then develop an approach based on an economic mo...

Supported by the EU and the international community, the extraordinary effort of the UN to mediate a settlement of the Cyprus problem before the integration of Cyprus into the EU ended in failure. The two historical highlights that marked the failure of the peace process were the top level talks at The Hague in March 2003 and the Cyprus referendum in April 2004. The purpose of this paper is to ...

The same dilemma remains for those in Northern Ireland today who genuinely want peace, reconciliation, and stability, but who at the same time see in what is termed the peace process, if not deceit, then much glossing over, a lot of ambiguity, and a deal of bad history. In 1921 the new institutions in Northern Ireland, the regional government and Parliament began life under the fiercest onslaug...

We consider whether the fragmentation of combatants during civil war has downstream effects on the durability of peace following civil wars. We contend that the splintering of combatant groups, a primary manifestation of rebel group fragmentation, produces potential spoiler groups that are neither incidental nor unimportant in the process of civil war resolution. Making connections to the spoil...

The web is the largest bulletin board of the world. Events of all types, from flight arrivals to business meetings, are announced on this board. Tracking and reacting to such event announcements, however, is a tedious manual task, only slightly alleviated by email or similar notifications. Announcements are published with human readers in mind, and updates or delayed announcements are frequent....

Th e Impact of Spoilers on Peace Processes and Peacebuilding M ceasefires and peace agreements in civil wars are initially unsuccessful and give way to renewed violence. In other cases, peace processes have become interminably protracted: lengthy and circular negotiations in which concessions are rare and even if agreements are reached they falter at the implementation phase. State-building and...

O 29 December 2006, the national elections commission, the Aceh Independent Elections Commission (KIP), announced the offi cial results of the governor elections in the Indonesian province of Aceh: Irwandi Yusuf, representative of the former rebel movement GAM, which fought for the independence of Aceh in a civil war lasting almost 30 years, emerged as victor. The elections on 11 December 2006,...