RIREC examines post-accord
peacebuilding and the difficult but pressing questions of
how to create a sustainable, just peace after protracted conflict.
The project brings together an interdisciplinary team of scholars
and practitioners working around three research themes: violence,
youth/the next generation, and truth telling and peacebuilding.
At the heart of the project is an effort to develop new theoretical
lenses for comprehending the nuances of post-accord peacebuilding,
which will integrate conflict management and conflict transformation
concerns, techniques and methodologies. The project will test
these lenses against cases and develop relevant policy recommendations.
The synergy of youth,
transitional justice and post-accord violence has not been
conceptualized in this fashion, much less systematically studied
as a dynamic process generating its own outcomes and patterns
of behavior. The project hypothesizes that any peace process
is doomed if it lacks a realistic strategy to reduce levels
of violence and counter violence-legitimating myths and memories;
skirts the hard political, legal and cultural choices that
attend the nurture of genuine reconciliation and a peaceful
civil society; or fails to recognize and accommodate the central
role of youth. Each of the research clusters will produce
a published volume, and a fourth volume will summarize and
synthesize the findings.
Research Clusters
The project has
identified three key dimensions of the post-accord landscape
and has developed three working groups of scholars and practitioners
engaged in dialogue and publication in these areas:
Post-Accord Violence - Led
by John Darby,
this research cluster examines the perpetuation of violence
after the accord is signed, either as a vestigial force, or
as a tactic used by hardliners and rejectionists to derail
the implementation phase of the peace process.
Youth/The Next Generation - Led by Siobhan McEvoy-Levy,
the project's second dimension explores the relationships
of this violence to the availability of recruits from among
the marginalized youth on all sides of the conflict, and,
more broadly and programmatically, the conditions under which
youth might resist recruitment into gangs and militia, contributing
instead in constructive ways to the peace process.
Truth Telling and Peacebuilding - Led by Tristan
Anne Borer, the third dimension of the project examines cases
which are furthest along in the post-accord process and investigates
whether truth telling processes, including truth commissions,
contribute to sustainable peace by exploring the links between
truth telling and various dimensions of sustainable peace,
including reconciliation, civil society, and the emergence
of a human rights culture.
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Joan B. Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies,
University of Notre Dame