Andrew Rigby

Humanitarian assistance and conflict management: the view from the non-governmental sector

As part of their efforts to intervene constructively in conflict-affected regions, non-governmental agencies and associated research centres publish different types of literature intended to improve performance. This article provides an overview of this material and assesses its significance for a wider constituency of scholars and policy analysts. The literature falls into three main categories: 1) reviews of issues that agencies must address when seeking constructive modes of intervention; 2) case-studies of particular conflicts; and 3) skills-development and training materials. The great value of the literature to the broader international relations community is the richness of the empirical material presented, and the consequent insights into conflict dynamics that come from the ‘bottom-up/insider-out’ community-level perspectives.

Frontstage and backstage emotion management in civil resistance

Abstract Civil resistance requires significant forms of emotion management by activists. In this paper, we distinguish between the different foci of emotion management carried out frontstage and backstage – the frontstage focus is typically oriented to influencing the emotions of onlookers, opponents and other targets, the backstage focus is typically concerned with managing the emotions of the activists themselves in preparation for their frontstage performances. Of course, in any particular resistance activity the two dimensions of emotion management interact more or less continuously. Activists need to continually engage in impression-management to ensure they are maintaining their display of the appropriate emotions intended to evoke the desired emotional response in the targets of their performance.