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This study aims to explore the role of rebel group legitimacy and ideology in durable peace (DP) following peace agreements to end civil wars. It builds on earlier research showing that justice and civil society involvement are critical in achieving DP. This study adds the impacts of rebel group activities and support on DP. Activities include service delivery and mobilization. Support is gauged with outcomes of presidential and parliamentary elections held following peace agreements.

Five data sets were used to measure the key variables: DP, inclusive commissions (IC), legitimacy symmetry (electoral outcomes), service delivery and ideological mobilization. A measure of rebel group integration in the political system was also constructed. Impacts of the integration, legitimacy and ideology variables were assessed with a hierarchical regression model (HRM). This study begins with a base model drawn from earlier research showing the key predictors were procedural justice (PJ) and IC. The authors ask about the extent to which the rebel group variables contribute additional variance to the prediction of DP.

The main contributors to the prediction of DP were PJ, IC and integration in the political system. None of the legitimacy or mobilization variables added significant variance to the prediction. Only one of the mobilization variables, forced recruitment, was significant. The decision to integrate into the political system following the agreement did not mediate the relationship between PJ in the negotiation process and DP. Results of a factor analysis showed that DP, PJ, IC and integration formed a cluster with strong loadings on the first factor.

The negative results for the legitimacy and mobilization variables may not be the last word on rebel group influences. Lack of support for the key hypotheses spurs attempts to discover other sources that contribute to the survival of rebel group actors in the political system and, in turn, to DP.

The issues raised by this study contribute to debates about ways to attain peaceful relations among competing groups following a civil war. It appears that attention to factors inside and around the negotiation process (PJ, ICs and conversion) may be more important than rebel group activities outside of these processes. The results call attention, in particular, to the important role played by political integration. From a policy perspective, it would be useful to develop levers for encouraging rebel groups to emerge as political actors in the post-agreement environment.

Developing measures of the symmetry of rebel group legitimacy and integration in the context of a comparative case study are the primary original contributions of this study. Furthermore, the mode of analysis (HRM) is novel in this literature. This approach builds on and extends the earlier research on factors influencing DP.

The purpose of this paper is to explore how vulnerable refugee children's education can be supported in the first asylum country during a long-term, complex crisis. More specifically, the authors examine the impact of a remedial education (RE) program on academically challenged Syrian refugees' sustained learning and well-being in Jordan during a protracted emergency.

Using the 2012 United Nations human security framework, the authors analyze the quantitative results of program evaluation, supplemented by qualitative surveys and stakeholder interviews that asked about the aspirations of refugee children and their guardians, their school experience and the refugee–host community relationship.

The authors' data suggest that the program enhanced targeted Syrians' protection and empowerment. Their increased sense of safety and improved academic performance and learning motivation were likely owing to child-friendly classroom management and pedagogies that facilitated interactive and differentiated learning. Their human security was further strengthened when they learned with Jordanian children who experienced similar academic challenges and with teachers sympathetic to their plight. Meanwhile, a human security framework calls for humanitarian agencies' strategic engagement with local partners to ensure refugees' learning continuity.

Refugee education studies in first asylum countries are rare. Even rarer are studies focusing on academically low-achieving refugees with full consideration of the protracted and complex nature of a crisis. This study suggests effective measures to increase their human security while calling for humanitarian aid organizations to use long-term thinking.

This paper aims to interrogate the accountabilities of the foreign companies which have directly invested in the Iraqi oil and gas industry.

Using both qualitative and quantitative methodologies, the authors first map the stakeholder accountabilities (qualitative) of foreign oil and gas companies and second, the authors seek to demonstrate quantitatively – through structural break tests and publicly available sustainability reports – whether these companies have accounted for their environmental and social impacts both to Iraqi people and to the global community.

The authors find that the Western democratic values embedded in stakeholder theory, in terms of sustainability, do not hold the same meaning in cultural contexts where conceptions and application of Western democratic values are deeply problematic. This paper identifies a crucial problem in the global oil supply chain and problematises the application of traditional theoretical approaches in the context of the Iraqi oil and gas industry.

Implications of this study include the refocus of attention onto the local and global environmental impacts of the Iraqi oil and gas industry by foreign direct investments. Such a refocus highlights the reasons and ways that decision makers should accommodate these less salient stakeholders.

The primary contribution is the critique of the lack of environmental accountability of foreign direct investment companies in the Iraqi oil and gas industry. The authors also make theoretical and methodological contributions via the problematisation of the cultural bias inherent in traditional stakeholder theories, and by introducing a quantitative method to evaluate the accountabilities of companies.

The transcript takes you on a journey of the book mapping vulnerability and the developments thereafter.

The transcript and video was developed in the context of a United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNDRR) project on the History of DRR.

This interview highlights how DRR is central to conflict settings as well.

The interview provides reflections on DRR in conflict settings.

This study employs the social ecology model to comprehensively explore the complex challenges young Black men face in South Africa and aims to highlight the importance of collaboration in addressing these multifaceted issues.

A multidisciplinary approach combines insights from sociology, education and the health literature with regard to government reports and academic data, and provides a holistic analysis of challenges faced by young Black men. Furthermore, it emphasises formal and informal learning, social and environmental influences and health disparities.

Young Black men in South Africa encounter complex challenges throughout their developmental journey, including limited family support, educational barriers, financial constraints, societal expectations and health disparities. Therefore, collaboration among stakeholders is essential for creating an equitable and inclusive environment that supports their development.

This research provides a comprehensive understanding of the challenges faced by young Black men in South Africa by emphasising the interconnectedness of informal education, economic empowerment and healthcare. Future research should focus on longitudinal studies, cultural influences and international comparisons, informing evidence-based interventions for a more equitable society.

New public management (NPM) has transformed the public sector auditing context, although in quite different ways. Further, investigations into NPM’s impact on public sector auditors and audit institutions have been largely unconnected, with the exception of the critical examination of performance audits. We investigate the question of how public sector auditors’ roles and activities have changed as a result of NPM and later reforms.

We examine and synthesise public sector audit research examining reforms since the year 2000. The research presented considers changes to external and internal public sector audits as well as the development of public sector audit institutions – known as supreme audit institutions (SAIs).

Considerable changes have occurred. Many were influenced by NPM, but others have evolved from the eco-system of accounting, auditing and public sector management. External auditors have responded to an increase in demand for accountability. Additional management and governance techniques have been introduced from the private sector, such as internal auditing and audit committees. NPM has also led to conflicting trends, particularly when governments introduced competition to public sector auditing by contracting out but then chose to centralise to improve accountability. There is also greater international influence now through bodies like the International Organisation of Supreme Audit Institutions (INTOSAI) and similar regional bodies.

NPM reforms and the eco-system have impacted public sector auditing. Sustainability reporting is emerging as an area requiring more auditing attention; auditors also need to continue to develop better ways to communicate with citizens. Further, research into auditing in non-Western nations and emerging technologies is also required, especially where it provides learnings around more valuable audit practices. Empirical evidence is required of the strengths and weaknesses of SAIs’ structural variety.

This underscores individual and social implications for how mental disorders and mental well-being are constructed, conceived of and treated. Further, this paper aims to examine positive psychology’s role in supporting the advancement of a broader systemic and contextual approach to mental health. With that aim, this paper connects data on mental health and well-being with peace studies to describe the systems of value and social ecologies underpinning mental disorders, using public happiness/Felicitas Publica as a possible framework to enhance public mental health while intervening at the local level (Bruni and Zamagni, 2007; Marujo and Neto, 2013, 2014, 2016, 2017, 2021; Marujo et al., 2019).

Theoretical foundations and data on positive peace and mental well-being are described with the intention to propose a systemic, contextual, relational, communitarian, economic and sociopolitical perspective of well-being that goes beyond individual bodies and/or brains and, instead, views mental disorder and mental health as social currency (Beck, 2020).

The interventions using dialogic, conversational and community approaches are a possible path to promote peace, mental health and public happiness.

Examining the interplay between the fields of positive psychology, mental health and cultures of peace, this work contributes to the broadening of research and subsequent intervention topics through transdisciplinary approaches while reinforcing the role of systemic and social determinants and complementing the prevalent medical model and intraindividual perspective of mental health and well-being.

Adopting positive psychology to address mental health through public happiness concepts and interventions opens opportunities to respond to the ebb and flow of social challenges and life-giving opportunities. Therefore, the paper intends to articulate actor-related, relational, structural and cultural dimensions while moving away from discrete technocratic and individual models and pays attention to the way their implementations are aligned with both individual and social needs.

The work offers an inclusive, equalitarian, politically sensitive approach to positive mental health and positive psychology, bringing forward a structural transformation and human rights-based approach perspective while rethinking the type of social and political solutions to mental health issues.

Creating a critically constructive debate vis-à-vis the fluidity and complexity of the social world, the paper examines mental health and positive psychology simultaneously from a “hardware” (institutions, infrastructures, services, systems, etc.) and a “software” (i.e. individuals and community/societal relations).

The primacy of commerce in livelihood security cannot be overstated. However, in a rural context defined by involuntary socio-ecological displacement, commerce can assume a sociologically distinct character, with far-reaching implications. Based on first-hand encounters with victims of the devastating 2014 flood in Tokwe-Mukorsi, Zimbabwe, this paper analyses how the processes of “recreating” village markets in the resettlement site of Chingwizi impacted the victims’ experiences of resource provisioning and livelihood security.

Qualitative data were collected through 10 in-depth interviews, 10 key informant interviews and two focus group discussions, five years into the flood victims’ resettlement in Chingwizi. The data analysis focused on the dynamics around the recreation of village markets, and the consequences of this on the household economic standing of the resettled flood victims.

The paper reveals how the formation of village markets in Chingwizi was influenced not primarily by the ethno-commercial and ethno-economic impulses reminiscent of life in their ancestral home but mostly by new, disruptive dynamics and challenges unique to the resettlement site. The paper elucidates the constellation of factors that, together, exacerbated the flood victims’ overall socio-economic dislocation and disadvantage.

The study provides a systematic understanding of the dynamics of ethno-commerce, particularly on the evolution of village market activities and livelihoods, among Zimbabwe’s Chingwizi community over a period of five years into their resettlement. It brings to the fore, the often ignored, but significant nuances that 'village market' formation and livelihoods recreation takes in a resettlement context.

The peer review history for this article is available at: https://publons.com/publon/10.1108/IJSE-09-2023-0682

This study aims to deepen the understanding of the challenges and implications entailed by deploying mobile clinics in conflict zones to reach populations affected by violence and cut off from health-care services.

This research combines an integrated literature review and an instrumental case study. The literature review comprises two targeted reviews to provide insights: one on conflict zones and one on mobile clinics. The case study describes the process and challenges faced throughout a mobile clinic deployment during and after the Iraq War. The data was gathered using mixed methods over a two-year period (2017–2018).

Armed conflicts directly impact the populations’ health and access to health care. Mobile clinic deployments are often used and recommended to provide health-care access to vulnerable populations cut off from health-care services. However, there is a dearth of peer-reviewed literature documenting decision support tools for mobile clinic deployments.

This study highlights the gaps in the literature and provides direction for future research to support the development of valuable insights and decision support tools for practitioners.