ÐÓ°ÉÂÛ̳

Decolonising Conflict Transformation: Agency, Ideology and Power in the Karabakh Conflict

The driving question is not whether social movements matter in or for social policy, but under which circumstances and due to what factors movements’ ideas and actions influence and inform social policy and broader socio-political processes.

Dr Armine Ishkanian

 

 

Project in the Inequalities, Conflict and Peace theme within the Politics of Inequality research programme 

Since the first Karabakh war ended in 1994, there have been civil society level efforts at peacebuilding, conflict resolution, and conflict transformation. These Track II efforts stood alongside official Track I negotiations and even when the latter stalled, they continued to work. Following the 44-day war in 2020, we began this research project which involved interviews with a range of actors involved in the Karabakh conflict transformation process and discourse analysis of relevant publications and social media posts, to examine the evolution of Track II civil society efforts. Adopting a sociological perspective, we seek to extend the analysis of civil society actors in conflict transformation beyond the usual normative, functionalist analyses to critically consider the agency of actors, the role of ideas and discourses, and the factors which shape how ‘actually existing civil societies’ engage in conflict transformation.

 

People

Lead investigator and co-ordinator at ÐÓ°ÉÂÛ̳:

Dr Armine Ishkanian
Executive Director of the Atlantic Fellows for Social and Economic Equity (AFSEE) programme and Associate Professor in Social Policy

Researchers working on this project: 

Researcher and President, Socioscope NGO

Researcher & Program Director, Socioscope NGO

Researcher & Project Assistant, Socioscope NGO

Aneta Leska
Research Assistant
Email: leskaea@gmail.com

Publications and resources

Abrahamyan, Shushan and Arpy Manusyan (2021) 

Manusyan, Arpy, Margaryan, Nvard, Khalatyan, Mariam and Armine Ishkanian (2020) 

Ishkanian, Armine (2020)  (ÐÓ°ÉÂÛ̳ EUROPP) blog (08 Oct 2020).