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Contents:
1. Welcome to the fourth MICROCON Newsletter
2. Muslim Integration in Bulgaria and Neighbouring Countries: Report on the First Set of Interviews
3. New fieldwork
Tanzania
Democratic Republic of Congo, Ivory Coast and Sierra Leone
4. Publications
Policy Briefings
Policy Working Papers
Research Working Papers
5. Other news
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Dear Colleague,
This is the fourth MICROCON Newsletter. It contains news on our new publications; news from our fieldwork teams; and news of upcoming fieldwork studies.
If you haven't done so already, you can also sign up for alerts of publications in your area of interest as soon as they are published.
We are planning to send out our newsletters more frequently, moving from twice a year to four times a year. This is because we are entering a more intense phase of the programme when most fieldwork is occurring and we are publishing more regularly. If, in light of the increased frequency, you would prefer not to receive the newsletter any more please reply to this email putting "unsubscribe" in the subject line.
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2. Researching Muslim Integration in Bulgaria and Neighbouring Countries: Report on the First Set of Interviews
This summer, Project 6 of MICROCON, 'Muslim Integration in Bulgaria and Neighbouring Countries', entered its core phase, with three interview campaigns in North East Bulgaria. In this ethnically mixed region, 45 narrative biographical interviews were recorded, with respondents from the towns of Razgrad, Isperih and Zavet and surrounding villages. This project aims at establishing patterns of inter-ethnic and inter-religious understanding, everyday ways of dealing with past violent conflict, and potential lines of future ethnic conflict.
Field studies lasted 4-6 days and included 4-5 team members. Of the 45 interviews, 26 are already transcribed (average 23 pages of text) and ready for qualitative analysis. Respondents were contacted applying a snowball technique, however using a sample matrix to ensure that respondents are well mixed in terms of gender, education, ethnic self-definition, etc.
Teodora Karamelska, who led the interview teams, reports: “Most respondents at first declined to engage themselves in a lengthy biographical narrative, arguing that their life was not interesting enough. Some respondents – especially Bulgarian Turks who had become victims of the attempts of forced Bulgarianisation in the 1980s – instantly employ a ritualised narrative, repeatedly presented in other contexts, which is accepted in this social environment.”
“Almost all respondents start their narrative with an account of how difficult the recent years are for them economically. Living in a poor and remote part of the country, most of them feel a nostalgia for socialism (which ended 1989). In their memory, socialism is marked by sustainability of the social world, including financial stability. This attitude is common even amongst younger people who spent their adulthood completely after the fall of communism.”
“Most respondents speak readily about inter-ethnic relations in their home town or village, concentrating on mutual tolerance, understanding and peaceful neighbourhood in the period before the so called Renaissance process of forced Bulgarianisation (1980s).”
“Respondents with Bulgarian ethnic background feel a strong reserve towards their Turkish fellow citizens. For them, the Turks came back from Turkey in 1989 with raised self esteem. Especially one political party which is in the public widely identified as “the party of the Turks” is seen as a factor of growing economic misbalance. Ethnic Bulgarians are also very sensitive to the public use of the Turkish language. However, at the same time, all respondents speak with positive emotions about their own Turkish neighbours and friends.”
“Most of the Turkish respondents at first try to hide their bitterness that Bulgarians generally encounter them with mistrust. Later in the interviews, they mention how unjust they find this attitude. Most Turkish people expressed their wish to live unperturbed and in peace; they do not strive for political compensation for the trauma they suffered during the 1980s.”
“Initially, we were worried that religion might be a topic that was difficult for people to comment on. However, nearly all respondents were ready to speak about their religious life without hesitation. Usually they knew well the religious practices of both orthodox Christianity and Islam.”
“Using some key phrases in the Turkish language was very helpful for contacting Turkish respondents. Also, just mentioning that the research team had attended a Turkish language course had a very good effect.”
In October 2008, further interviews will be recorded in the town of Glavinica and the village of Kalugerene (both in the Silistra region).
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3. New fieldwork
Tanzania
Johanna Kramm of the United Nations University Institute for Environment and Human Security will soon be leaving to undertake field research in the Lake Eyasi region of Tanzania. She will be carrying out this research under project 26, 'Water Management and Violent Conflicts'. The specific focus of this research is governance of water resources, looking at the institutional/organisational aspect of the respective conflicts, as well as at the individual aspect. The research aims at determining whether the introduction of new regulation has broken old regulative structures and made conflict more likely, or enhanced existing mechanisms and enabled the positive management of conflictive situations.
An ethnographic census will be conducted in the chosen villages, which will include open as well as some closed questions. Additionally a resource and social mapping will be prepared to get an impression of people’s assets and access to resources. To gain information of the development of the conflict and the regulation of water issues, the techniques of the empirical investigation will be: in-depth and/or focus groups interviews, expert interviews, tools of the Participatory Rural Appraisal (e.g. Venn-Diagram, conflict mapping) and participant observation.
Democratic Republic of Congo, Ivory Coast and Sierra Leone
Research teams from the Conflict Research Group, University of Ghent, will soon be carrying out their fieldwork for project 25, 'Governance Without Government' . This project is examining the relationship between violent conflict and social change in a series of specific subregions of the Democratic Republic of Congo, Sudan and the Ivory Coast. In particular, it will focus on the relationship between violent conflict and local “governance”, i.e. the regulation of (access to) public services, rights and goods by various actors and organizations. This broad definition will enable the analysts to disentangle the various ways the societies under scrutiny organize to use power to manage public resources, involving the making of collective decisions, enforcement of rules, and resolution of conflicts.
This research will mainly be carried out through participatory observation, although some occasional focus group discussions and individual semi-structured interviews may also be used.
4. Publications
Policy Briefings
PB3: The European Union, Civil Society and Peacebuilding - Nathalie Tocci
The European Union considers conflict resolution as a cardinal objective of its foreign policy. It makes use of a number of policy instruments to promote conflict transformation through 'constructive engagement', which cover a range of sectors affecting conditions and incentives at the micro level. The EU has recognised the importance of engaging with civil society in situations of violent conflict, but needs to engage more with local civil society to make its policies more effective. This briefing aims to aid the understanding of the role of civil society organisations in situations of violent conflict, and the potential role of EU policies in enhancing CSOs' conflict transformation efforts.
PB4: Social Contracts, Civil Conflicts and International Peacemaking - Mansoob Murshed
The regularity with which peace deals break down and civil wars resume is well established. This briefing looks at the factors that drive violent conflicts, and the factors that may undermine peace deals, including those brokered and supported by international third parties. For peace to last, agreements must be viable, credible and enforceable, and the commitment of donors must not be in doubt. For these conditions to be in place, conflict resolution must be in donors' interests.
Policy Working Papers
PWP1: The European Union, Civil Society and Conflict Transformation: A Conceptual Framework - Nathalie Tocci
The first paper in our Policy Working Paper series looks at the European Union's role in supporting civil society conflict transformation efforts. The EU considers conflict resolution as a cardinal objective of its foreign policy. It makes use of a number of policy instruments to promote conflict transformation through ‘constructive engagement’, which cover a range of sectors affecting conditions and incentives at the micro level. The EU has recognised the importance of engaging with civil society in situations of violent conflict, but needs to engage more with local civil society to make its policies more effective. This paper provides a conceptual framework and discussion to analyse which local civil society actors play a role in conflict and conflict transformation, through which activities they impact on conflicts and how, what determines their effectiveness, and finally how EU neighbourhood policies can enhance their constructive impact in peacefully transforming conflicts in its near abroad by engaging with civil society.
Research Working Papers
RWP6: Poverty and Violent Conflict: A Micro Level Perspective on the Causes and Duration of Violent Conflict - Patricia Justino
This paper argues that endogenous mechanisms linking processes of violent conflict and household poverty provide valuable micro foundations to the ongoing debate on the causes and duration of armed conflicts. Household poverty affects the onset, sustainability and duration of violent conflict due to the direct and indirect effects of violence on the economic behaviour and decisions of households in conflict areas. These effects lead to the emergence of symbiotic relationships between armed groups and households living in areas they control that may sustain the conflict for a long time. The strength of this relationship is a function of two interdependent variables, namely household vulnerability to poverty and household vulnerability to violence.
RWP7: Is Fiscal Decentralization Conflict Abating? Routine Violence and District Level Government in Java, Indonesia - Mansoob Murshed and Zulfan Tadjoeddin
This paper examines the relationship between routine/everyday violence and fiscal decentralization in 98 districts of Java. By examining possible relationships between fiscal decentralization and routine violence, this paper fills a gap in the literature where the analysis of the relation between fiscal decentralization and violence is relatively scant. Routine violence, which is different from both civil war and ethno-communal conflict, centres around group brawls, popular justice or vigilante violence. Despite the uniform implementation of fiscal decentralization, sub-national entities exhibit varying experiences with decentralization, but a common consequence is the increased size of local government. Fiscal decentralization, and the associated increased size of local government, can alleviate pent-up frustrations with a centralized state, as local government expenditure is seen to satisfy the needs of communities that people identify with more closely. The results of this paper show that this is indeed the case, but the capacity to do so mainly lies with richer districts.
RWP8: The Micro-foundations of Social Contracts, Civil Conflicts and International Peace-making - Jose Cuesta and Mansoob Murshed
This paper explores the micro-foundations of conflict generation and persistence within the traditional greed and grievance non-cooperative set up between a government and a rebel group. It expands the traditional model in various ways that provide a better understanding of conflict persistence, the consequences of competing international aid and why sub-optimal sanctions provision (‘cheap talk’) by the international community are frequent.
5. Other news:
Tilman Brück honoured as 'outstanding scientist'
Lars Wirkus publishes brief on 'Monitoring Environment and Security'
International Day of Peace, Sunday 21st September 2008
Frances Stewart's new book on horizontal inequalities and conflict launched on Whitehall
Yvan Guichaoua interviewed in Les Echos on the taking of four hostages in Niger