Addressing UN Sustainable Development Goal 16: Peace, Justice and Strong Institutions, the books and journal articles we publish in this area focus on the impact of vast power differentials and the issues that need to be addressed as a threat to human rights and international security, including conflict-based migration and political instability.
Our aim is to publish innovative research that supports finding ways to protect groups that can be an easy target for violence and discrimination.
Bristol University Press and Policy Press are signed up to the UN SDG Publishers Compact. In Conflict, security and peace, we aim to address the following goal:
Conflict, Security and Peace
You are looking at 1 - 6 of 6 items for :
- Type: Journal Article x
- Type: Book x
- Political Analysis and Methods x
Since the early 2010s, academic and policy debates about the interlinkages between climate and security have expanded and deepened. Climate is now widely acknowledged to magnify security risks especially in conflict or post-conflict contexts. This relationship is viewed as complex, dynamic and indirect, involving a wide range of intermediate variables. However, this discussion – and hence, related policy efforts – have tended to occur at highly aggregate levels of analysis, especially national, regional and global ones. Instead, this paper addresses climate-sensitive peacebuilding at the local level. What does local climate-sensitive peacebuilding look like on the ground? What are the promising areas for research and policy responses in fragile and conflict-affected settings? After offering a broad overview of climate-sensitive peacebuilding, we focus on the case of Afghanistan, drawing on specific examples that were in place prior to the 2021 return to power of the Taliban. We find that the traditional Western approach in the country – top-down, focused on hard security rather than human security and highly state-centric – tends to ignore the impacts of climate change. In addition, the dominant security paradigm overlooks the potential of local peacebuilding initiatives that address adaptation and resilience. We argue that climate-sensitive peacebuilding offers a bottom-up alternative to addressing the intersection of these risks in conflict-affected settings.
Using detailed insights from those with first-hand experience of conducting research in areas of international intervention and conflict, this handbook provides essential practical guidance for researchers and students embarking on fieldwork in violent, repressive and closed contexts.
Contributors detail their own experiences from areas including the Congo, Sudan, Yemen, Bosnia and Herzegovina and Myanmar, inviting readers into their reflections on mistakes and hard-learned lessons. Divided into sections on issues of control and confusion, security and risk, distance and closeness and sex and sensitivity, they look at how to negotiate complex grey areas and raise important questions that intervention researchers need to consider before, during and after their time on the ground.
Drawing on the insights of some of the world’s leading authorities in public policy analysis, this important book offers a distinct and critical showcase of emerging forms of discovery for policy-making. Chapter by chapter this expert group of social scientists showcase their chosen method or approach, showing the context, the method’s key features and how it can be applied in practice, including the scope and limitations of its application and value to policy makers. Arguing that it is not just econometric analysis, cost benefit or surveys that can do policy work, the contributors demonstrate a range of other methods that can provide evidenced-based policy insights and how they can help facilitate progressive policy outcomes. The book will be ideal for upper level undergraduate students as well as Public Policy post-graduates, and can be used as the basis of an intensive learning experience for policy makers.
This book provides a timely and novel contribution to understanding and enhancing evidence use. It builds on and complements the popular and best-selling “What Works?: Evidence-based policy and practice in public services" (Davies, Nutley and Smith, Policy Press, 2000), by drawing together current knowledge about how research gets used and how this can be encouraged and improved. In particular, the authors explore various multidiscipliary frameworks for understanding the research use agenda; consider how research use and the impact of research can be assessed; summarise the empirical evidence from the education, health care, social care and criminal justice fields about how research is used and how this can be improved and draw out practical issues that need to be addressed if research is to have greater impact on public services. “Using evidence" is important reading for university and government researchers, research funding bodies, public service managers and professionals, and students of public policy and management. It will also prove an invaluable guide for anyone involved in the implementation of evidence-based policy and practice.
People who work in planning, management and service delivery in the public sector need to know how policy is translated into practice, what is happening, and whether a policy works. “Policy analysis for practice" introduces students and practitioners to the concepts, methods and techniques required to undertake the analysis and review of policy and its implementation. Focusing on developing understanding and skills for a growing area of practice, it combines material from public and social administration with examples and application to social policy and the social services. The book looks at ways to understand and analyse the main stages of the policy process: developing strategies, identifying aims, examining the situation, choosing methods, implementation and service delivery, and evaluating outcomes. It stresses throughout the role of policy analysis as a political, and not just a technical, activity. “Policy analysis for practice" is an original, thought-provoking text with a strong applied focus. It offers systematic, accessible coverage of wide-ranging literature, application to practical circumstances and the needs of people in the field and a direct relationship to vocational work in the management and administration of social services. It will be invaluable for students and practitioners in public policy, social policy and public sector management, in fields including central and local government, health and social care and the voluntary sector.
