The question of whether extraterrestrials exist has driven both the search for extraterrestrial intelligence (SETI) and some attempts of messaging to extraterrestrial intelligence (METI). Nevertheless, no data-driven or theory-based behavioural policy has been suggested. Here we simulate a comprehensive set of human–extraterrestrial strategic interactions, modelled as two-by-two game-theoretic matrices. We examine a sample of possible outcomes by relying on the theory of subjective expected relative similarity (SERS), which takes into account both the expected payoffs and the extent of strategic similarity – the prospects of the opponent making identical choices. Simulation results suggest: focusing messaging efforts on signalling of complete strategic similarity, monitoring potential alien communications for similarity-indicating signals, and using risk-averse decision rules for policy planning and decision-making. The discussion puts forward three guidelines for METI initiatives and addresses the relevance of the findings to human conflict management.

Protected areas are important for wildlife conservation but they are also used by many local communities for livelihood activities. This often leads to conflicts and erodes the tolerance of local people for wildlife, particularly towards carnivores that prey on livestock. To enhance conservation success and improve the social carrying capacity of carnivores, it is essential to understand the factors influencing such conflicts and the attitudes of people interacting with carnivores. We used structured questionnaire surveys to assess the extent of livestock mortality and community responses to common leopards Panthera pardus in Kishtwar National Park, a relatively understudied protected area in the Greater Himalayan region of India. The mountainous Park and its surroundings have historically served as a haven for the local agro-pastoralists and transhumant pastoralists, resulting in complex human–wildlife interactions across the larger landscape. Our results showed that leopards were responsible for high livestock depredation (71 incidents in 2 years), and households with larger livestock holdings experienced a higher predation rate compared to those with smaller livestock holdings. An ordinal logistic regression model revealed that respondents’ age and period of activity in the Park significantly influenced their opinions regarding leopards. Large losses suffered by otherwise low-income households resulted in more negative attitudes towards these predators. Our study indicates that financial compensation for livestock losses is a key factor in improving human–leopard coexistence. A comprehensive, cross-sector collaborative approach would help to improve conflict resolution and promote favourable attitudes towards these predators.

We explore whether including cultural reforms in an intra-state peace accord facilitates its success. We distinguish between accommodationist and integrationist cultural provisions and employ a mixed research method combining negative binomial regression on a data set of all intra-state political agreements concluded between 1989 and 2017, and an in-depth analysis of the 1998 Good Friday Agreement for Northern Ireland. We recognize the important reassuring effect of accommodationist cultural reforms in separatist conflicts. However, we also find that they have an important and hitherto overlooked reputational effect across all conflict types. By enhancing the reputation of negotiating leaders, accommodationist cultural provisions contribute to ending violence by preventing leadership challenges, rebel fragmentation and remobilization across all civil conflicts. By the same logic, and despite the overwhelming emphasis of peace agreements on integrationist cultural initiatives, integrationist cultural reforms problematize leaders' ability to commit to pacts and to ensure compliance among their rank and file.

Democracy assistance, including the promotion of electoral security, is often a central component of contemporary peacekeeping operations. Preventing violence during post-conflict elections is critical for the war-to-democracy transition. Yet little is known about the role of peacekeepers in this effort. To fill this gap, this study provides the first comprehensive sub-national study of peacekeeping effectiveness in reducing the risk of electoral violence. It combines geo-referenced data on peacekeeping deployment across all multidimensional peacekeeping missions in Africa over the past two decades with fine-grained data on electoral violence. The analysis finds a negative association between peacekeeping presence and the risk of electoral violence. The relationship is of a similar magnitude in the pre- and post-election periods. However, the association is more strongly negative for violence perpetrated by non-state actors compared to violence perpetrated by government-affiliated actors. Analyses using two-way fixed-effects models and matching mitigate potential selection biases.

Military mutinies are a serious threat to peace in Africa, as they may be a catalyst for large-scale civil violence. Unlike most studies that solely focus on the causes of military revolts, this article explores both cause and government response by examining a 1992 military sedition in Benin. Relying on interviews and government archives, Codjo uncovers the sources of the revolt and compares two consecutive administrations in their management of the crisis. The main takeaway is that presidential leadership style and antecedents of elite consensus on governance rules are sometimes critical in rallying support for a lasting solution to mutinies.

Italy has developed a long-dated partnership with Mozambique, where it has emerged as an actor committed to norm promotion in the fields of conflict management, debt relief, and sustainable energy cooperation. This paper challenges the dominant interpretation of such a cooperative relationship that emphasizes ideational motivations and focuses, instead, on the role of Italian investors in the sectors of infrastructure and energy and of the Italian economic diplomacy. A favorable institutional and political climate in Italy has channeled investors' demands in the policy process since the independence of Mozambique. The late institutionalization of Italian development policy, the long gestation of the reform of development policy, and the lack of clear-cut borders between the competences of foreign and development cooperation institutions have empowered business groups that shape the investment strategy of the Italian foreign ministry as actors in development policy-making. Finally, convergence of interests between Italian investors and the NGO Sant'Egidio, which ultimately led to a partnership between these actors, has increased the legitimacy of Italian foreign and development policy toward Mozambique, contributing to consolidating Italy as a norm promoter in the country.

Natural resource-related conflicts between local communities and nation states can be extremely destructive. Worldwide, interest is growing in gaining a better understanding of why and how these conflicts originate, particularly in protected areas inhabited by local communities. The literature on local attitudes towards and perceptions of park conservation and park–people conflicts is quite extensive. Studies have examined the socioeconomic and geographical determinants of attitudes to protected areas. However, the role of such determinants in the experience of park–people conflicts has received considerably less attention. Drawing on 601 interviews with people living in or near 15 Colombian national protected areas (NPAs), we examine the socioeconomic and geographical variables that are most influential in people’s experience of conflict related to restricted access to natural resources. We find that the experience of this type of conflict is largely explained by the NPA where a person resides, pursuit of productive activities within the NPA, previous employment in NPA administration, gender and ethnicity. We recommend implementing socially inclusive conservation strategies for conflict prevention and resolution in Colombia’s NPAs, whereby both women and men from different ethnic groups are engaged in design and implementation.

In the aftermath of the June 2010 violence in southern Kyrgyzstan, much scholarly attention has focused on its causes. However, observers have taken little notice of the fact that while such urban areas as Osh, Jalal-Abad, and Bazar-Korgon were caught up in violence, some towns in southern Kyrgyzstan that were close to the conflict sites and had considerable conflict potential had managed to avoid the violence. Thus, while the question, “What were the causes of the June 2010 violence?” is important, we have few answers to the question, “Why did the conflict break out in some places but not others with similar conflict potential?” Located in the theoretical literature on “the local turn” within peacekeeping studies, this article is based on extensive empirical fieldwork to explore the local and micro-level dimensions of peacekeeping. It seeks to understand why and how local leaders and residents in some places in southern Kyrgyzstan managed to prevent the deadly clashes associated with Osh, Jalal-Abad, and Bazar-Korgon. The main focus of the project is on Aravan, a town with a mixed ethnic population where residents managed to avert interethnic clashes during the June 2010 unrest. The answers to the question of why violence did not occur can yield important lessons for conflict management not only for southern Kyrgyzstan, but also for the entire Central Asian region.

When state capacity dissolves, we ordinarily assume that violent conflict will break out, and then spiral towards a high degree of intensity. However, this is not always the case. Rather, on occasion, states suffer a sharp and severe loss of capacity, but little or no collective violence follows. And, on other occasions, violent conflict erupts, but that conflict does not escalate into civil war; rather, it plateaus, and then recedes. This article offers an analytic framework for explaining such variation in the presence, absence, and intensity of violent conflict following a dissolution of state capacity. I argue that the strength of state and societal organs prior to a loss of state capacity shapes the broad trajectory of violence after such a loss. In making that claim, I associate three state-society dynamics before state dissolution with three levels of violent conflict, post-dissolution. Drawing on multi-country fieldwork, I illustrate the proposed framework by presenting three diverse cases of dissolving state capacity and conflict: Georgia (1991–3); Albania (1991–2); and Yemen (2011–13).

The paper explores whether the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) has matured from a weak cooperative arrangement in its early days into a functioning security community by 2016. It first introduces a Deutschian and a constructivist understanding of security communities before examining ASEAN's involvement in the security realm since 1967. The paper claims that the regional body is not yet a security community, partly due to residual mistrust among its members, which undermines ASEAN's ability to address a series of ongoing inter-state disputes in Southeast Asia. While it has contributed to conflict avoidance, the Association has so far failed to conduct conflict resolution in spite of the ASEAN Political and Security Community initiative. The paper concludes that the failure to directly address and ultimately resolve sources of conflict in Southeast Asia has undermined the establishment of a security community in the region.

This paper theorizes that conflict management strategies influence radical settlements in institutional fields. Radical settlements are truces to conflict reached between field constituents that significantly change constituents’ relations and their institutional context. We develop theory on the concept of radical settlements by introducing a typology of conflict management strategies that predicts variance in the likelihood of a radical settlement in institutional fields. We ground this typology within a framework of two key antecedents – ideological salience and field polarization – proposed to influence conflict management strategies. Our paper provides new insights to the literature on conflict and institutional change by shedding new light on the counter-intuitive phenomenon of conflict settlement or cessation as a catalyst for change within institutional fields.

Over the past forty years, there has been a steady rise in the expectation for companies to operate as responsible citizens. Today companies have at their disposal a variety of initiatives, and new levels of accountability have been reached with the advancement of international standards on, among others, corporate responsibility to respect human rights. Against this background, this article provides an overview of the most important guiding tools available on this subject and on how to promote peace and stability when operating in conflict-affected or high-risk areas. The article argues that ongoing stakeholder engagement is a key success factor in meeting the responsibility to respect human rights and that it has to be an integral part of a company's strategy, especially when operating in conflict-affected countries.