Paulina Pospieszna

Introducing the Civil Wars Mediation (CWM) dataset

Mediation is one of the few mechanisms the international community can deploy that will affect civil wars. This article introduces the dataset on mediation in civil wars – termed the Civil War Mediation (CWM) dataset. This is the first dataset to focus solely on civil war mediation. These data contribute to the present state of quantitative research on mediation in three important respects: the data are collected for the period of 1946–2004, are organized by mediation cases and by civil war episode, and provide detailed information about mediation incidences. The article first presents a few variables included in the dataset that are motivated by theoretical arguments from the literature. After a presentation of summary statistics, attention is turned to using the CWM data to explore the determinants of mediation. Mediation is shown to be a function of war type (territorial and internationalized wars are more likely to be mediated), war duration (the longer the war the higher the probability of mediation), supply-side factors (the number of democracies in the world and the global polity average), and stratum (subsequent wars are less likely to be mediated). Battle-related deaths also seem to increase the chances of mediation, though the relationship is only weakly significant. The article concludes with suggestions for future research that can benefit from the dataset.

Democracy Assistance from the Third Wave: Polish Engagement in Belarus and Ukraine

The role of Western NGOs in the transition of postcommunist nations to democracy has been well documented. In this study, Paulina Pospieszna follows a different trajectory, examining the role of a former aid recipient (Poland), newly democratic itself, and its efforts to aid democratic transitions in the neighbouring states of Belarus and Ukraine. Belarus is widely regarded as the most authoritarian state in the region, while Ukraine is witnessing a slow, if often troubled, democratic consolidation. Each state presents a different set of challenges to outside agencies. As Pospieszna shows, Poland is uniquely positioned to offer effective counsel on the transition to democracy. With similarities of language and culture, and a shared history, combined with strong civic activism and success within the European Union, Polands regional policies have successfully combined its need for security and a motivation to spread democracy as primary concerns. Pospieszna details the founding, internal workings, goals, and methods of Polands aid programmes. She then compares the relative degrees of success of each in Belarus and Ukraine and documents the work yet to be done. As her theoretical basis, Pospieszna analyses current thinking on the methods and effectiveness of NGOs in transitions to democracy, particularly U.S.- and European-led aid efforts. She then views the applicability of these methods to the case of Poland and its aid recipients. Overwhelmingly, Pospieszna finds the greatest success in developmental programmes targeting civil society--workers, intellectuals, teachers, students, and other NGO actors. Through extensive interviews with government administrators and NGO workers in Poland and the United States, coupled with archival research, Pospieszna assembles an original perspective on the mitigation of the postcommunist divide. Her work will serve as a model for students and scholars of states in transition, and it provides an overview of both successful and unsuccessful strategies employed by NGOs in democracy assistance.

The Relationship between Human Rights and Disaster Risk Reduction Revisited: Bringing the Legal Perspective into the Discussion

This paper explores the link between human rights and disaster risk reduction. We revisit the notion of a human rights-based approach in the context of natural disasters, analyzing how this concept may contribute to greater accountability and empowerment of those involved in disaster risk reduction. To better understand the processes of empowering rights holders and holding duty bearers into account we adopt legal analytical lenses. By doing so we review four country case studies and their main regulations on disaster risk reduction, taking into account the extent to which they adopt a human rights-based approach. We argue that countries whose legal frameworks allow for community engagement point towards greater community empowerment. Similarly, countries whose legal provisions make possible for holding States accountable for their underperformance in disaster situations suggest greater levels of accountability. We also consider key international human rights instruments binding the four case studies in order to analyze whether and to what extent international human rights obligations may support advocacy and accountability in disaster risk reduction. Based on the analysis of these case studies we consider that empowerment and accountability processes in drr can reinforce each other, and that human rights may contribute to progress in these areas.

Democracy assistance and women's political empowerment in post-conflict countries †

Democracy promoters around the world cling to the hope that assistance given to civil society organizations decreases the risk of civil war and will lead to democracy in post-conflict societies. A particularly promising segment of civil society in peacebuilding is women. Inspired by Welzel and Ingleharts “human empowerment: path to democracy” this study places democracy assistance to women in a broader mechanism which forms a theoretical foundation of this study. The case of Bosnia and Herzegovina and the authors insights from the fieldwork demonstrate that in order to assess the impact of democracy assistance on womens political empowerment the comprehensive womens political empowerment mechanism should be employed. The statistical examination, however, reveals that womens political activism is largely the function of legal empowerment and a countrys political and socio-economic characteristics. The study also shows the limitations of current impact evaluation methodologies, and suggests better evaluation tools.

When recipients become donors: Polish democracy assistance in Belarus and Ukraine

The Polish government funds NGO democracy-assistance programs in Belarus and Ukraine, recognizing that it is in Polands interest that its neighbors should develop in positive directions, that Poland has a moral obligation to help others as it was helped, and that Polands own successful post-communist transition lends authority and expertise to its efforts in support of democratization and development.

Civil War Mediation and Rebel Use of Violence Against Civilians

Violence against civilians is portrayed as an antecedent of civil war, a cause, or both. Civil war creates opportune environments for planning and carrying out these acts that in turn can have detrimental effects on peace processes. Since not all civil war factions will see peace as beneficial, some actors may use violence to undermine the peace talks. The rebels may use indiscriminate violence to demonstrate their ability to exact costs on the government thus forcing the latter to negotiate. This article focuses upon acts of violence committed by rebel groups during mediated peace process. The central hypothesis is that violence against civilians increases the probability of mediation that in turn increases the prospects for violence. Using all civil war episodes from 1970 to 2008 as observations results from bivariate probit analysis endogenizing the choice of mediation bear out this theoretical argument.