perception that we represented the regime and were its mouthpiece; that the situation was more sensitive than we had realised; that feelings of hurt and anguish ran deep; that we had in fact been resigned to accepting an atrocious situation. I apologised for this complacency, for the loss of dignity our colleagues had suffered for so long, and for all our errors of omis~ion, and expressed the h...

This article examines the Shuhanron emaki (The illustrated scroll of the wine and rice debate) as not only a reflection of late Muromachi-period cultural trends, but also a reworking of its sixteenth-century historical setting. The work ostensibly features three men who each argue their various positions: one extolling wine, the other rice, and the third a balance of both. Yet its references to...

We describe our research on the role of education in the social reconstruction of countries after mass conflict. Our studies focus on the voices of those least heard in the discourse – teachers, students, administrators and parents. We examine schools in four societies that experienced profound violence, ethnic cleansing and genocide during the 1990s – Croatia, the UN-administered province of K...

Developments in the late 1990s, including paramilitary cease-fires and the advent (albeit, short-lived) of devolved Government, offered a new dispensation from which to appraise the community relations problem in Northern Ireland and advocate policy action. This paper considers an emergent policy framework entitled A Shared Future. Drawing on the experience of delivering better relations throug...

Following the end to Liberia’s 14-year civil war in 2003, the current challenge is to successfully resettle and reintegrate its displaced population. Central to this, and essential in terms of long-term peace and sustainable development, will be the disarmament, demobilisation, reintegration and rehabilitation (DDRR) of young ex-combatants. If the DDRR programme is to be a success in Liberia, t...

The Gender Audit (GA) and associated reports and reviews drawn upon in this article enable an evaluation of how far the intervention processes at work in Kosova since 1999 have been inclusive of gender analysis and supportive of women’s and girls’ needs and interests. This assessment considers the strengths and drawbacks of various attempts to use and implement gender-sensitive projects. The GA...

Within a 14-year period, Liberia endured two consecutive civil wars in what one scholar has called a ‘descent into anarchy’ (Ellis, 1999). The first war—led by US–Liberian Charles Taylor—started in 1989 and ended with a peace agreement in 1996, only to be followed by the election of Taylor as president one year later.1 The second war began in April 1999, when a group of insurgents of the Liberi...

The incentive for international agencies to promote ‘local’ peacebuilding is commonly premised on the hope that micro-level interventions can nourish grassroots activism and participatory citizenship. Tracing reconciliation processes across Iraq following defeat of ISIL provides a window through which view transactional relationships between ‘national’ forms politics, conflict peace in post-Ba’...