Bøker av Ralf Bredel

Central to the current development debate is the importance of human welfare in the context of group conflict. When considering ethnic, racial and religious conflict, this debate draws us toward a 'political economy' of conflict. Moreover, notions of an economic paradigm have become prominent when international organizations debate conflict prevention. In looking closer at the political economy of conflict, this publication argues the need to assimilate into our thinking distinct social and ethical economies of conflict prevention. A social economy of conflict prevention considers the interplay of economic with structural and cultural factors in conflict, explaining a much neglected category of conflict, i.e. hidden conflict. The ethical economy of conflict prevention considers implicit ethical statements development practitioners use. From these statements arise ethical paradoxes that influence the evolving economic paradigm, in such way as to contradict one of its intrinsic desires, namely, to restrict conflict prevention strategies to effective technical interventions. Eventually, such narrow focus on technical interventions could identify this evolving paradigm as an 'economical' paradigm. In contrast, a rethinking of the ethical economy of conflict prevention provides a useful tool for international organizations when implementing a human rights-based approach to development and long-term conflict prevention.

After decades of striving to prevent international conflict, major armed conflicts in the 1990s have taken place within national boundaries. After the series of national independence wars in the 1950s and 1960s and frequent geopolitical wars in the 1970s and 1980s, a category of 'wars of the third kind' prevailed. The aim of this book is to consider the root causes of recent internal conflicts, and to develop long-term conflict prevention strategies from here. New insights suggest the central role of politico-economic inequalities in ethnic, religious and cultural conflict. The United Nations system has just started to adjust to this new reality of conflict and make long-term conflict prevention a priority issue on international agendas. Whereas development practitioners should principally conceive their work through a conflict prevention lens, there is a shift in focus to United Nations agencies that deal with the economic characteristics of conflict. The unbroken significance of a sustainable industrial development process in developing countries, may allow the United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO) a particular vantage point and role in the long-term prevention of conflict.