Contemporary peace processes in developing countries are commonly elite-focused and use developmental interventions to depoliticise contentious issues and achieve negotiated peace pacts. These characteristics raise concerns regarding the links between development and peace and regarding the means and prospects of reworking state/society-relations in a democratic direction. The objective of the project is to address these concerns through a comparative analysis of conflict resolution and democratisation in Aceh and Sri Lanka after the 2004 tsunami disaster. This comparison, based on contextualised case studies, will have a threefold focus on (1) the interface between post-tsunami reconstruction/development and conflict resolution; (2) the political transformation of state and non-state stakeholders in the conflict resolution processes; and (3) the political dynamics of human rights-based democratisation in the context of initiatives for reconstruction and conflict resolution.
Funded by The Norwegian research council (1 August 2006 — 31 July 2009)
Other participants
PhD candidate Gyda Marås Sindre, Department of Political Science, University of Oslo, Norway
Institutional research partners
Demos, Centre for Human Rights Studies, Jakarta, Indonesia Social Scientists' Association of Sri Lanka, Colombo, Sri Lanka