What people believe matters. It matters, most crucially, to decisions about how to act. We all must make sense of
Bosnia
Women find innovative ways to build peace in their daily lives, significantly supplementing formal peacebuilding initiatives.
Nearly all nonviolent resistance movements face a common challenge—the temptation to turn to violence, whether among those within the movement or on the part of the government whose policies or behaviors may be the target of the resistance movement.
In this issue, we examine a set of articles with a great deal of regional diversity — two articles focus on peacebuilding or peacekeeping in Africa, one looks at resistance to exclusionary nationalism in Bosnia (Europe), another explores “uncivil society” in Bougainville and Timor-Leste (Asia-Pacific), and, finally, one considers military checkpoints in Iraq (Middle East). These articles heighten our awareness of the complexities and challenges involved in peacebuilding after war. All the more reason to avoid war in the first place.
A student-led movement in Bosnia and Herzegovina successfully defeated a government plan to segregate their school. The contagious nature of nonviolent movements may have contributed to their success.