Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR) methods are becoming increasingly attractive and more people are opting for them in resolving disputes ranging from interpersonal to international conflicts. The impetus to shun violence of any form is gradually compelling people to look for options outside the judiciary. Litigation, considered as one of the Alternative Dispute Resolution options, is considered adversarial due to its lose-win, win-lose outcome which, rather than uproot the cause of conflict, exacerbates and entrenches it the more. One of the options open to parties in conflict is the electronic media third-party intervention where the public is given opportunity to be part of the resolution of conflicts. This paper looks at one of such cases handled on the program ‘Olowogbogboro’ on the Ogun State Television, Abeokuta, Nigeria. We analyze its process and outcome against the background of the law of inheritance in Yorubaland.

Recently, Irigaray scholars have paid attention to the notion of hospitality in Irigaray’s work. Judith Still, who has traced this idea through the work of Levinas and Derrida as well, emphasizes that while most scholars use a notion of identity and sameness to frame the conditions for hospitality, Irigaray grounds the conditions for hospitality in respect for sexuate difference. I agree with Still’s analysis of the importance of preserving space, difference, and autonomy in our notions of hospitality, but I want to develop these notions further by thinking through the implications of what I ought to do when I am seeking hospitality rather than offering hospitality. This work is both academic and practical. Academically, I want to contribute to scholarship on Irigaray’s concept of hospitality because she adds an emphasis on sexuate difference and possibilities for transformation that other philosophers fail to address. Yet, those who are writing about hospitality and Irigaray are not addressing the question of seeking welcome in contexts where my presence risks perpetuating oppression. Practically, I want to prepare myself for an upcoming research trip to Brazil where I will meet with people who are victims of human trafficking. The purpose of the trip is to learn from the people who are exploited what research and actions, U.S. students and faculty can offer in support of them since we are already in relationship with them. In this paper, I will use Luce Irigaray’s work on hospitality that emphasizes dialogue/silence as well as space and difference to think about how those of us who have unconsciously benefitted from human trafficking have an obligation to make ourselves worthy of hospitality instead of reproducing relationships of subordination.

This paper details how Petra Kelly and Dorothy Day looked at peace from inside and outside the government structure. The paper gives some background information about the two women and their lives. The paper then examines personalism, social movement theory and peace studies theory to establish a lens to look at the lives of each woman. The paper states how Kelly, while retaining her activist philosophy, worked within the government structure to establish new ways to involve peace in public policy. The paper also states how Day established an alternative community to fight for peace in an everyday existence devoid of government support. The paper finishes with some key ideas to develop further study about both Day, Kelly and peace activism.

In 2007, Pope Benedict XVI beatified the Austrian peasant Franz Jägersttätter as a martyr for his refusal to serve in the Nazi military, over against the counsel of his wife, his pastor, and his bishop, which led to his court-martial and execution, in 1943. Recognition of Blessed Franz came to pass only because of the discovery of the Jägerstätter story by the American Catholic sociologist Gordon Zahn in the process of researching his classic account, German Catholics and Hitler’s Wars (1962). Jägersttätter was introduced to the world through Zahn’s second classic study, In Solitary Witness: The Life and Death of Franz Jägersttätter (1964, revised 1986). In these two books, Zahn has contributed substantially to a sociological understanding of conscience, which is otherwise lacking in many Catholic accounts of moral conscience. This essay will offer a narrative analysis of Jägerstätter’s life and writings and elaborate Zahn’s “sociotheology” of conscience.

The idea that peace prevails in the relations among liberal democratic states, given its first expression in Kant’s essay “Toward Perpetual Peace,” has gathered a great deal of attention in the post-Cold War period as both a testable hypothesis and a proposal for expanding peace through democratization. This article examines the explanations for how a democratic peace is achieved and sustained. It argues that, despite tendencies within democratic state relations toward peaceful conflict resolution, such a peace is destabilized by continued adherence to a set of assumptions and practices which we might call, following Jane Addams and John Dewey, ‘the war system.’ In the context of the ideological and institutional supports of militarism, democratic states remain subject to the dynamics of conflict escalation that produce occasions for war. This war system is the undoing of the democratic peace.

The Nigeria’s Niger Delta region has been associated with oil-induced violence characterised by confrontations between the security forces and youth militias. It has been argued that the State’s approach to security is dominated by the character of deterrence at the slightest hint of insecurity. This has given rise to formation of armed ethnic militias that reject the authority and legitimacy of the government and operate outside the effective control of traditional governance institutions. This article, thus, examines the linkages between the militarisation of the Niger Delta and the emergence of youth militia. It also interrogates the state management of the intractable conflicts in the Niger Delta. Conclusively, any effort to arrest the perennial violent conflict in the Niger Delta would require a critical policy review. Providing viable employment opportunities for the youth, and channelling their energies into the development of sustained livelihoods can reduce the insecurity in the Niger Delta.

This essay begins with a brief critical outline of the retributivist view of interpersonal justice, specifically focusing on the tendency of retributivism to leave victims with neither healing nor closure, but rather with a negative emotional remainder. It is argued that this phenomenon is indicative in part of a certain form of violence, what I identify as the perpetual retribution that extends from fixation of the identity of the offender as offender. In response to this issue, I draw on the categories developed by Søren Kierkegaard in his Works of Love. More specifically, Kierkegaard’s reflection “Love Hides a Multitude of Sins” serves as a powerful critique of the retributivist position, and the reflection “The Victory of the Conciliatory Spirit in Love” provides an insightful account of the requirements of interpersonal justice if it is to avoid violence. In the end, it is argued that Kierkegaard’s account of love and edification represents a promising alternative to retributivism.

Increased melting of Arctic sea ice due to climate change attracts interests of national states who sense the potential that opening northern waters will enhance access of the Northwest Passage (NWP) and subsoil resources. Claims for Arctic sovereignty include conflicts around the status of the NWP, ownership of resources, but also attempts of Inuit to decolonize through the establishment of self-government in their respective countries that receive a new urgency due to the effects of climate change. From a review of different existing institutional and organizational bodies and mechanisms that serve as intervention tools in the sovereignty disputes in the Arctic (the UN, the Arctic Council and the Inuit Circumpolar Council) it emerges that such actors can ultimately only provide a non-binding platform for orientation and exchange and eventually leave nation-states as ultimate power-holders which reinforces and is in accordance with realist theory and its understanding of the international system as anarchic (i.e. as lacking a decision-making and binding overarching authority beyond the state-level). Despite their good intentions, external general acceptance and partial success, the potential of the organizations and institutions analyzed here is also ultimately challenged by nation states, who seem to prefer circumventing such intervention tools to be able to interact instead with each other via officialdiplomacy or by making singular and autonomous decisions to maximize their power and sovereignty.

This article is about the novel role of the Unión de Naciones Suramericanas (South American Nations Union) - UNASUR as a peacekeeper in the SouthAmerican region. It begins with an overview of UNASUR, its history, legal framework, and its mandate related to peacekeeping activities. Then, the efforts for regional integration and peacekeeping are addressed, with an explanation of the different frameworks backing those intents and the new peacemaking body known as UNASUR. Examples of political conflict are outlined, namely those in Bolivia and Venezuela, and the ways in which the novel intervention of UNASUR deescalated the violence. After providing a brief description of South American history, its recent conflicts, and a review of some applicable conflict causation theories, the article concludes with a theoretical explanation of the role of UNASUR and its intervention for building peace in the region. This leads to questions and suggestions about how the work of UNASUR can be protected and enhanced to benefit the creation and maintenance of harmonious relationships within South American states.

After a historic agreement was reached, between the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) and Sinn Fein (SF), Power-sharing government resumed in Northern Ireland in 2007. Both political parties committed themselves to peaceful, democratic and consensual self-government in Northern Ireland. This was the first time that Northern Ireland was to be run by a government in which all the main nationalist (nationalists want Northern Ireland to be reunited with the rest of Ireland) and unionist (unionists want Northern Ireland to remain part of the United Kingdom) parties were to agree to serve together. Forty years of civil strife and conflict are over. There is now political stability; nonetheless, the peace process has not brought about the positive changes which many had expected. This article looks at the pressing issue of reconciliation in Northern Ireland; it is not the intention of this article to solely blame one ideological tradition, community, or political party.

A public reading of the book of Esther is a ritual performed annually during the Jewish festival of Purim, a post-pentateuchal celebration that commemoratesa largely fictitious event. This event is described in Esther in vivid and comedic detail. It is the tale of an anti-Semitic plot instigated against diasporic Jews living in 5th-3rd c. Persia. Queen Esther hides her identity as a Jew, and with her uncle Mordechai, outwits the villain, Haman, and ultimately saves her people from destruction. Celebrants of the festival traditionally drown out the name of Haman with noisemakers, symbolically wiping out real enemies. While the book of Esther has been read publicly for over 2000 years, the comedic elements are largely forgotten, as is the ancient Mediterranean context. Instead the book is read against the backdrop of the Holocaust, the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, and real acts of terror against European Jewish synagogues. The original context of the book ought to be retaught and interpretations of Esther that overtly condemn violence should be embraced by all segments of the Jewish community.

This paper presents qualitative data gleaned from four New York City elementary classrooms and focuses on how teachers attempt, each in their own distinct way, to create educational cultures of peace. Here, classroom vignettes are reconstructed from two months of observational and interview data with attention to how teacher beliefs on peaceful co-existence manifest in the playing field of a child’s subject formation. Drawing from Judith Butler’s concept of subjectification, this study asks: what conditions of possibility do teachers conceive of when thinking about peace in their classrooms? Findings show that teachers create conditions that emerge from their particular theories about children and understandings of peace. The four classrooms presented in this paper suggest to students in four different ways that peace is emergent from and located within specific relationships: namely that between the self and others; the self and law; the self and society; and, finally, within oneself.

Joel Spring’s proposal, for a human rights education and an education in human rights, based on the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights, assumes an autonomous, rational subject that is endowed with rights; which owns rights. We can think of two standpoints that are unsatisfied or offended by this construction of justice around individual humans: poststructuralists and deep ecologists. Inspired by Spring’s project, we have been considering a mindful education and an education in mindfulness as a “universally applicable” education that does not require a rational subject.

This article attempts to articulate an understanding of the Augustinian value of Caritas as a call for Augustinian Institutions of Higher Education to promote justice and equity in the world. The author grounds this definition of Caritas by incorporating three primary concepts of Catholic Social Teaching: the dignity of the human person, concern for the common good and a preferential option for the poor and marginalized in society. The article attempts to apply this definition of the value of Augustinian Caritas to the ways in which a concern for social justice and equity is promoted and practiced in an undergraduate teacher preparation program in an Augustinian educational institution.

This article provides a review of sociology student’s reflection papers discussing their service-learning hours with the College Brides Walk (CBW). CBW is a campus-community collaboration in its fifth year. Based in South Florida, the initiative is intended to help raise awareness about domestic and dating violence and to inspire a community response. It is designed as a form of Human Rights Education (HRE). Student papers show that most gained knowledge of sociological concepts and theories as well as personal insights through their participation. Many also expressed desire for continued effort with this or related initiatives. Despite these positive findings, the paper shows that there are significant differences in how students connect their service to course material and gaps in students’ ability to articulate what has been learned. Recommendations for organizers and others involved in similar campaigns are provided.

This article analyzes the movement seeking to improve labor and human rights protections for domestic workers in the U.S. Drawing on theoretical formulations from the social movement literature, the article develops a theoretically informed account of the ways in which the movement was effective in engaging domestic workers and securing a number of political and legislative victories in recent years. I argue that organizing efforts that provide members of marginalized groups, such as domestic workers, opportunities to meet and interact and that focus on leadership development and empowerment can help create an oppositional consciousness and a group perspective among group members and increase their level of political engagement. I demonstrate that this was the case for the domestic worker movement in the U.S. This case study provides an example of how social movements can provide representation to marginalized groups and bring about progressive change in social policy.

In this essay I defend a politics of reconciliation as a means of addressing conflict in the hopes of realizing a legitimate ethical-political reality, which is one based in a common and explicit trust. The ideal guiding this model of reconciliation is the affordance of peaceful and reciprocal meaning making or dialogical relations; that is, I understand reconciliation to be both the formation of the conditions of the possibility of cooperative meaning making, insofar as it involves the creation of the secure conditions needed to reestablish basic forms of trust between conflicting persons, and eventually the cooperative meaning making itself that leads to deeper forms of trust such as friendship or solidarity. Insofar as trust is crucial to the health of a democratic political system, a politics of reconciliation is needed in realizing this fundamental relationship, and this politic requires the enactment of a permanent reconciliatory apparatus.

Post-communist Eastern and Central Europe has witnessed a rise in ethnonationalism. The struggle of identity formation has often involved a re/turn to traditional, or even fundamentalist, religious practices that are authoritarian and patriarchal. Faith communities within such a sway often undermine the organs of society that ideally in a democracy negotiate between the government and the citizenry, the domain of civil society.Since the end of the civil war of 1992-1995, Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH) has struggled under the constraints of the Dayton Peace Agreement, which institutionalized a tri-partite government along ethno-national lines. Today this country lags behind every successor state of Yugoslavia (measured by GDP per capita), and political instability continues to thwart hopes for EU ascension. A civil society that fosters a critical citizenry offers hope for support of constitutional amendments that would recreate and support a functioning multiethnic state. Despite the common association of faith communities and ethno-nationalism, some work, usually “on the ground,” to create a civil society that engages both the political and religious hierarchies.The representatives of faith communities considered here, in BiH and Croatia, who must maintain a lower profile politically, receive, consequently, less attention in the international arena. Yet, their work provides crucial support for European integration and open societies in the region and deserves special attention now, when the threat to their work is on the rise.

The purpose of this article is, firstly, to expose the basic assumption in Hannah Arendt’s The Jewish Writings, and, secondly, to discuss her critique of Jewish life and the Zionist entity—later the Jewish state—in Palestine. As I will suggest, her basic assumption is that politics can exist only as a dynamic process, as an interplay between different players with different worldviews and interests. Thus, politics cannot be reduced to a state of inertia, what Arendt calls “inalterable substance.” According to Arendt, adherence to such inertia leads to the destruction of politics and the loss of any chance to conduct a normal and fully productive life. As it turned out, the Zionist movement was fixed from its very inception in a state of inertia and thus introduced into its own definition a permanent antagonism toward other nations. As a result, Israel is in a permanent state of war and conflict, in danger of being annihilated, in a perpetual arms race, and is degenerating into a modern Sparta. The nation-state is an embodiment of the state of inertia. Arendt believes that it is only by adopting a federal system instead of a nation-state system that the Zionist enterprise could turn into a dynamic political process and a place where one can conduct a productive and fruitful life. I will firstly present Arendt’s main claims and then criticize them, pointing at the merits and fl aws in her thesis.

Rutilio Grande, S.J. was the first priest assassinated in El Salvador on March 12, 1977. He was targeted for his work with the poor as he applied Vatican II and the Medellín conference to his own reality in El Salvador. Grande’s progressive, creative and ultimately transformative ministry with the rural poor was aided by the UCA Jesuits with whom he partnered. Through his pastoral strategy of listening to communities, using the social sciences to understand their reality and embracing a pedagogy of conscientization, Grande challenged traditional pastoral strategies in El Salvador by collaborating with the UCA Jesuits. Ultimately, these commitments to helping Grande organize and educate rural agricultural workers contributed to government persecution and their eventual death at the hands of the Salvadoran military.