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This chapter examines the considerations weighed by armed actors in responding to civilian demands in three Colombian peace territories, where residents have engaged in civil resistance against armed violence and negotiated with armed actors to reduce such violence. It does so mainly on the basis of data from fieldwork, including interviews with former or current members of armed groups who operated in the areas under study, and other actors. We find that armed actors weighed political, security, economic and normative considerations when faced with civilian demands and that the armed actors’ relative dependence on civilians regarding these four aspects influenced these actors’ responses.

In acknowledgment of the demands of studying state secrecy, this chapter asks how novel possibilities for knowing can be fashioned. It does so in relation to the place of secrecy within international diplomatic and security negotiations associated with humanitarian disarmament. A conversational account is given regarding how “cluster bombs” become subject to a major international ban in 2008. Tensions, uncertainties, and contradictions associated with knowing and conveying matters that cannot be wholly known or conveyed are worked through. With these moves, a form of writing is sought that sensitizes readers to how absences figure within debates about social problems and the study of those debates, as well as how ignorance born out of secrecy helps secure an understanding of the world. Uncertainties, no-go areas, and blind spots are looked to as analytical and practical resources.

This chapter will look at how peace-entrepreneurs are crucial in conflict and post-conflict environments to address peace challenges, and how the use of ITC can scale up the outputs of peace-oriented business in a particular region. Indeed, when technology is used effectively it can amplify voices for peace and empower local communities and entrepreneurs looking for alternatives to violence through a market-oriented business approach. The chapter will also argue that a peace-driven local business network can be as powerful as the post-conflict international aid typically provided by international donors. The chapter will focus in particular on an analysis of the PeaceStartup initiative developed in Colombia. This initiative is aimed at promoting peace-entrepreneurs through a co-innovation process among relevant actors based on a specific methodology grounded in traditional Silicon Valley start-up weekends.

This chapter examines how international human rights law is shaping the politics of immigration. It argues that migrant human rights are neither conceptually nor practically incompatible with an international order premised upon state territorial sovereignty, and that the specific aesthetics of the contemporary international human rights system, namely its formalistic and legalistic tendencies, has facilitated its integration with a realm of policymaking traditionally reserved to state discretion. An exploration of two areas in the emerging field of migrant human rights traces the multi-scalar transnational legal processes through which these norms are formulated and internalized.

The chapter analyses Chinese and Russian hybrid warfare and their strategies. Although still under debate, it is increasingly recognised that both countries integrate and apply hybrid warfare in their strategic thinking. In doing so, they are able to increase their sphere of influence, promote authoritarian regimes and weaken democracies. It is therefore vital that we better understand their strategies in order to identify and bring to light the processes that encourage today’s rise of nationalism and populism, withdrawal from international organisations and an overall distrust in the global institutional order. Approaching the puzzle from current weaknesses in the EU and the United States, the chapter proposes a framework to analyse Chinese and Russian hybrid warfare. The chapter demonstrates that Western liberal democracies are not only unprepared for these new forms of warfare, but appear unwilling to take the necessary measures. In doing so, these countries leave the door open for (further) destabilisation and a risk of increased domestic polarisation.

This chapter critically examines the causes and effects of continuous poverty in two sub-Saharan African (SSA) countries, despite various poverty alleviation strategies adopted by each country. It reveals the theoretical framework and the accompanying set of programmatic and policy tools for poverty alleviation in SSA.

Hungary has been part of NATO's peacekeeping project in Afghanistan since 2003 and currently has more than 240 soldiers in the International Security and Assistance Force (ISAF), NATO's first mission outside the Euro-Atlantic area. Hungary officially took over the Provincial Reconstruction Team (PRT) in Baghlan Province from October 2006, and currently we have the 5th rotation of the Hungarian PRT in Afghanistan. The Hungarian unit serves in conjunction with representatives of several other nations.

Hungarian participation in NATO's UN-mandated peace support operation in Afghanistan has raised many questions not only in the field of operations, but also at home (mainly in the context of civil–military relations). Many of the Hungarian PRT-related challenges seem to be connected to the difficulties of proper management of civil–military interface, civil–military partnership and cooperation process, and financial backing of the mission.

Well-coordinated, multidimensional proactive and reactive responses to the conflict, and a comprehensive security sector transformation and reform can be vital to consolidate peaceful relations in Afghanistan; may help to win the “hearts and minds” of the local population; can help to establish security and provide improvement to Bahlan province; and might contribute to the success of the whole peacekeeping and post-conflict peace-building process in Afghanistan.