PGT (LLM) RESEARCH PROJECT PROPOSAL FORM

Journal of Law and Society, 2000

This course addresses the broad phenomenon of political violence encompassing: processes of individual and collective radicalization, civil war dynamics, communal violence, armed movements' consolidation and rebel governance, and the role of the state in exacerbating or diminishing conflictual dynamics. Building on relationally informed social movement studies, it will discuss phenomena as distinct as the significance of mental illness in radicalisation, the role of friendship in mobilization, the IRA's urban mobilization, state violence and torture in Turkey and Tamil Tiger state building efforts in Sri Lanka and much more. It can be roughly divided into three overlapping focuses: a) Radicalization – relational dynamics which lead to a progression from non-violent activism to the endorsement and/or use of violence at the individual and collective levels. b) Armed conflict and Insurgent movement emergence and consolidation – under which structural conditions do groups turn to violence and how do they survive? c) Rebel Governance – the broader repertoire of insurgent contention, what importance should be attributed to the non-armed actions (service provision, revolutionary courts etc.) of insurgent groups The objective of this course is to obtain a general understanding of political violence, when it emerges and which forms it takes? At the end of the course students will have a strong familiarity with literature on violence from the areas of social movement studies, the field of terrorism and the literature on civil wars. The course will draw heavily on the conflicts on which I have most expertise; the conflict between the PKK and the Turkish state, in Ireland and in Colombia. It will however draw in historical and contemporary examples from across the globe. The research findings of a recent research consortium (PRIME) of which I was a member, on Lone Actor Extremism will also be featured. Students are strongly encouraged to apply the theoretical debates covered in the course to conflicts or case studies of their own interest that are not directly featured in the syllabus.

2018

Almost three quarters of a century ago, the human community proclaimed a bold and revolutionary vision of the future. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights of 1948 asserted that every person on the planet has certain fundamental rights that every society should aspire to their realization equally, cannot be doubted. Notwithstanding The Declaration, the perils of algorithmic power reveal that states who routinely abuse human rights will have to uphold them to remain legitimate to their digital citizenry where they theoretically draw their power from. The caveat is any system of concepts that claim to be universal must contain critical elements in its fabric that are indubitably common to all humans. Pundits have asked whether African laws that derive from colonial masters and notion of rights that stem from the Magna Carta and ‘democracies’ that treated blacks inhumanly as the Declaration came into force, do embrace the rights of all humans. Is it bound to be bigotry and obligated to fail because those societies whose conception of rights are not accommodated will take it as an imposition from other cultures? For instance, does the Declaration have African roots, if not; should Africa see it as as alien idea that is imposed from without? In addressing these questions, the article defines resilient rights as unique adaptive strategies of peoples that lead to self-empowered and sustainable livelihoods, which are critical for freedom from fear and freedom from want – one of the most basic human rights. It discusses the emergence of resilient rights inherent in community governance dynamics that have been relegated to the dignity of incipient archaism by vocal non-state human rights agencies and advocacy groups. Resilient rights ideology and agency relate to complexes of ideas, beliefs, goals and issues that can come into co-operative play or competitive contestation amidst the full range of significant participants and their activities for realising self-empowerment and hence self-contained rights. Key words: resilient rights, human rights, international humanitarian law,

Studies in Conflict & Terrorism, 2009

This article explores the Ulster Volunteer Force's (UVF) decision in May 2007 to abandon its campaign of “armed resistance” and pursue “a non-military, civilianized, role” in Northern Ireland. It does so by analyzing the UVF's actions in light of the academic literature on strategic terrorism. The central argument advanced in the article is that the UVF's decision to put its weapons “beyond reach” and re-structure its organization along civilian lines is (a) internally consistent with its stated policy of countering “violent nationalism,” (b) symptomatic of the transformation in the sociopolitical context since the 1994 paramilitary cease-fires, and (c) the logical outworking of the group's lack of popular legitimacy among its core Protestant working-class support-base. The article concludes with an assessment of the risks and possible dividends that the end of UVF terrorism holds for the Northern Ireland peace process.

The Political Quarterly, 2001

Comments from my LSE colleague Dr Julia Black were very helpful. Shelley Deane and Simone Lewis were assiduous with research assistance. All named can be held responsible for improvements. Only Professor McGarry shares full responsibility for the views expressed.

1981

The decade of the 1960s, in particular the second half of it, is frequently described as radical, largely because of the movements which grew to prominence in this time, and their legacies. Perhaps it is possible to say almost anything about an age, and therefore fruitless to make the attempt, especially since time has yet to exert the fullness of its discriminating influence. But certainly much of an identifiable nature seemed to be happening in these years. And a discussion of the Northern Ireland Question would be incomplete without brief reference to the international milieu at the time it reappeared. Although the decade of the 1960s was heralded by the lure of Camelot and the challenge of the New Frontier, its history, more often than not, records the failure of noble aspirations and of peaceful evolution as against violent revolution. If the '60s saw the age of Martin Luther King and the potential of non-violent protest, they also saw his assassination and the rise of Eldridge Cleaver, Stokely Carmichael, and the Black Panthers. It was a time when Woodstock was eclipsed by Altamont, the 'days of rage' and Kent State. An era of protest, assertiveness, and revolution had dawned to live but briefly, but its dimension, for all of its short life span, was international. In the United States the President succumbed, in large part, to protests against a war he could not end. In France, what is now delicately called 'the events of May' (1968) shattered the monarchic authority of De Gaulle and, momentarily, brought the country to a standstill. In China the Red Guards staged a revolution from which the country has still to fully recover.

This chapter provides an overview of academic literature on the gender politics of wartime resistance and liberation struggles, discussing key thematic issues and introducing major theoretical concepts that have been developed in the field. The first section looks at the gendered discourses which are used to mobilize women to take part in resistance struggles, and the roles women are typically encouraged to play in them. The second section surveys processes of post-war acknowledgement and reflects on the ways of assessing the consequences of women’s participation in liberation struggles for their social and political position. Next the problem of women’s marginalization in public memory and historiography of liberation struggles is briefly presented. The chapter concludes with a discussion about how feminist studies of resistance and liberation struggles have influenced discussions in the field of ethics, producing four major approaches to political violence

2021

The course examines major theories, cases, and issues of human rights and transitional justice in armed conflicts. Such cases of armed conflicts and human rights and transitional justice issues include wars and other violent conflicts in Bosnia, Colombia, Kosovo, Sierra Leone, Iraq, and Ukraine, truth reconciliation commissions, international tribunals, and the International Criminal Court. A research project on armed conflicts, human rights, and transitional justice topic.

2006

One of the often-overlooked areas in the otherwise vibrant field of World War II historical research is the study of motivations of resistance groups that formed throughout the world in response to occupation by the primary Axis powers-Germany, Italy, and Japan. In response, millions of civilians worldwide took up arms in anti-Axis resistance. Indeed, the harshness and intrusive quality of the Axis occupation, carried out to achieve dominance and control, worked against the occupation forces by creating a sea of opposition. Since resistance occurred in all occupied countries, encompassing a diverse political, religious, social, and cultural community the question arises, did this widely varying group of people all choose resistance based on common motivations that cut across all differences? In examining this topic, this paper approaches anti-Axis resistance motivations from a world history perspective through selection of four case study countries-France, Yugoslavia, Burma, and the Philippines. One key to resistance was the amount of coercive or aggressive force used by the occupation to exert control, termed here as intensity of occupation; meaning, the higher the intensity, the more likely resistance was to occur. Yet if motivations related only to the intensity of occupation, resistance would be a variable as the occupation itself. Thus, while intensity of v occupation is part of the key to understanding resistance motivations, other, more fundamental themes also play important roles. Therefore, this paper argues that resisters made their choices based on concepts of human dignity and identity that the experience of occupation sharpened. Severe attacks on these shared and possibly universal concepts, at the individual and collective level, created a sustained resistance response. Indeed, although intensity is important, repeated attacks on dignity and identity are the very foundation of all resistance motivations. In an ever-expanding world of global connections and human interaction, the study of resistance from a world history perspective is critical. For that reason, this study rests on the assumption that a comparative and thematic study of resistance as a worldwide phenomenon is the most fruitful approach rather than reliance on a narrow national perspective that might obscure its global significance. vi TABLE OF CONTENTS