The Political Economy Of Transitions To Peace

Much attention has focused on the ongoing role of economics in the prevention of armed conflict and the deterioration of relations. In The Political Economy of Transitions to Peace, Galia Press-Barnathan focuses on the importance of economics in initiating and sustaining peaceful relations after conflict.Press-Barnathan provides in-depth case studies of several key relationships in the post-World War II era: Israel and Egypt; Israel and Jordan; Japan, the Philippines, and Indonesia; Japan and South Korea; Germany and France; and Germany and Poland. She creates an analytical framework through which to view each of these cases based on three factors: the domestic balance between winners and losers from transition to peace; the economic disparity between former enemies; and the impact of third parties on stimulating new cooperative economic initiatives. Her approach provides both a regional and cross-regional comparative analysis of the degree of success in maintaining and advancing peace, of the challenges faced by many nations in negotiating peace after conflict, and of the unique role of economic factors in this highly political process. Press-Barnathan employs both liberal and realist theory to examine the motivations of these states and the societies they represent. She also weighs their power relations to see how these factor into economic interdependence and the peace process. She reveals the predominant role of the state and big business in the initial transition phase ("cold" peace), but also identifies an equally vital need for a subsequent broader societal coalition in the second, normalizing phase ("warm" peace). Both levels of engagement, Press-Barnathan argues, are essential to a durable peace. Finally, she points to the complex role that third parties can play in these transitions, and the limited long-term impact of direct economic side-payments to the parties.

Despite the growing focus on issues of socio-economic transformation in contemporary transitional justice, the path dependencies imposed by the political economy of war-to-peace transitions and the limitations imposed by weak statehood are seldom considered. This book explores transitional justice’s prospects for seeking economic justice and reform of structures of poverty in the specific context of post-conflict states.

A volume on the political economy of clean energy transition in developed and developing regions, with a focus on the issues that different countries face as they transition from fossil fuels to lower carbon technologies.

A global examination that includes nations in Latin America, Asia, Russia, Eastern Europe, and Africa, Pathways to Democracy investigates the implications of the various paths that nations take to democracy and the political and economic programs needed to stabilize new democracies. From military to authoritarian to communist oligarchies, the essays reveal that democratic transitions were instigated by divisions within the ruling elite, challenges came from groups and interests outside the elite, and poor economic performance followed in its wake. An extensive look at what the United States can do through its foreign policy to promote and invest in democratization is included. An introduction to democratization that is comprehensive and global in scope. Includes comprehensive focus on U.S. foreign policy

This book focuses on the economic dimensions of peace processes and examines the opportunities and constraints for assisting negotiated exits out of conflict. Various works have addressed the economic characteristics and consequences of armed conflicts over the past two decades, including issues such as ‘blood diamonds’, natural resource wars, economically motivated armed violence, self-financing conflict, or the complicity of companies and state elites in conflict economies. However, rather than treating these issues as obstacles for peace, this book explores whether they can be opportunities for peacemaking by adopting a political-economy perspective. The book looks at income sharing from natural resources as an opportunity for forward-looking peacemaking strategies, and the implications of deal-making in situations in which war economies and insecurity provide strongmen with disproportionate political and economic power. The book also highlights that peace processes are not necessarily about the rectification of a conflict’s ‘root causes’, but rather about what matters most to the main stakeholders at the moment when a peace process starts taking shape. Finally, efforts to establish a lasting peace need to go beyond the traditional set of actors associated with peace processes. The strategic involvement of donor agencies, companies, and diaspora communities can strengthen forward-looking peace processes. The book will help both student and practitioner audiences to better understand armed conflicts and their belligerents, optimize the planning and management of peace initiatives, and shape expectations in peace agreements. It will be of much interest to students of peacebuilding, conflict studies, development studies, International Political Economy and International Relations in general.

This book enhances our understanding of how societies torn by violence can be rebuilt. Instabilities in those societies continue to be fuelled by political marginalization, economic-social inequality, violent crimes, and injustice. Historically, international response has been largely inadequate due to a failure of adaptation to local circumstances. This collection focuses on how peacebuilding programmes can be more effectively carried out to create a more functional society. In a nutshell, this volume sheds light on local practice and experiences that can be utilized to meet unique circumstances of countries that have suffered from a destructive conflict. The collection will investigate the transition to peace by highlighting the missing links between peacebuilding norms and practice, political economy, emotions, justice, and reconciliation.

In The Political Economy of Regional Peacemaking, scholars examine the efficacy of trade agreements, economic sanctions, and other strategies of economic statecraft for the promotion of peace both between rival states and across conflict-ridden regions more generally. In the introduction, Steven E. Lobell and Norrin M. Ripsman pose five central questions: (1) What types of economic statecraft, including incentives and sanctions, can interested parties employ? (2) Who are the appropriate targets in the rival states—state leaders, economic and social elites, or society as whole? (3) When should specific economic instruments be used to promote peace—prior to negotiations, during negotiations, after signature of the treaty, or during implementation of the treaty? (4) What are the limits and risks of economic statecraft and economic interdependence? (5) How can economic statecraft be used to move from a bilateral peace agreement to regional peace? The chapters that follow are grouped in three sections, corresponding to the three stages of peacemaking: reduction or management of regional conflict; peacemaking or progress toward a peace treaty; and maintenance of bilateral peace and the regionalization of the peace settlement. In each chapter, the contributors consider the five key questions from a variety of methodological, historical, cultural, and empirical perspectives, drawing data from the Pacific, the Middle East, Europe, Asia, and Latin America. The conclusion expands on several themes found in the chapters and proposes an agenda for future research.

The book provides critical perspectives that reach beyond the technical approaches of international financial institutions and proponents of the liberal peace formula. It investigates political economies characterized by the legacies of disruption to production and exchange, by population displacement, poverty, and by 'criminality'.

The last two decades have seen many societies attempt the move from authoritarianism to democracy. Some of these transitions have been successful, while others remain tentative, and some have been reversed with either a relapse into full dictatorship or with the trappings of democracy used to cloak semi-authoritarianism. Some transitions have involved ending long and bloody civil wars, while others have been made with few lives lost. In some societies, long civil wars continue after periodic, but failed, attempts at peace and are spreading themselves across borders to become larger regional conflicts. Transition is a highly complex phenomenon. One dimension is transitional justice, defined as “efforts during post-conflict and post-authoritarian transitions to address the legacies of massive atrocities and human rights abuses.”2 Violence is often used to create distributive injustice (the expropriation of land from indigenous people, for example) and to perpetuate it (including the exploitative economic relations that underpin high social inequality). The fiscal cost of the military and security apparatus left by authoritarianism can be a significant burden to new democracies, and the economic involvement of the military and other powerful elites left over from authoritarianism can continue to impose a heavy economic price well beyond the end of authoritarian rule. If authoritarianism created a distorted economy and high inequality, democrats may find this difficult to change. Democracy's prospects will then be endangered since expectations of social justice will be high but frustrated. Consequently, transition is unlikely to succeed unless its economic dimensions are adequately addressed.

Transition from central planning to a market economy, involving large-scale institutional change and reforms at all levels, is often described as the greatest social science experiment in modern times. As more than two decades have passed since the fall of the Berlin Wall and the collapse of the Soviet Union, it is now an excellent time to take stock of how the transition process has turned out for the economies that have moved on from socialism and the command economy. This new handbook assembles a team of leading experts, many of whom were closely involved in the transition process as policymakers and policy advisors, to explore the major themes that have characterized the transition process. After identifying the nature of initial conditions and the strengths and weaknesses of institutions, the varying paths and reforms countries have taken are fully analyzed – from the shock therapy, privatization or gradualism of the early years to the burning issues of the present including global integration and sustainable growth. Topics covered include the socialist system pre-transition, economic reforms, institutions, the political economy of transition, performance and growth, enterprise restructuring, and people and transition. The country coverage is also extensive, from the former socialist countries of the USSR and the satellite states of Central and Eastern Europe to the Asian countries of China, Vietnam and others. The rise of China as a key actor in the drama is chronicled, along with the emergence of a new, more confident, oil-rich Russia. The comparative prosperity of the Central European countries such as Poland and the Czech Republic is contrasted with the mixed fortunes of the former USSR, where some countries are stagnating while others boom. This Handbook of the Economics and Political Economy of Transition is the definitive guide to this new order of things in the former Communist world.