Organizational Disruption and Change in Mozambique's Peace Process
Mozambique returned to peace after a brutal civil war, despite imperfect disarmament. Many accounts make some appeal to the motivations of the parties to seek peace as a case of ‘political will’. While these explanations are not false, an approach that looks to the Renamo insurgency's organizational structure can flesh out explanations of how changing attitudes moved the insurgency as well as illuminate points at which outside peacekeepers may find leverage. In particular, the UN mission capitalized on Renamo's difficulties and exploited its military focus and narrow political base by widely dispersing Renamo combatants during demobilization and fostering political party structures. These tactics helped to disrupt Renamo's ability to act as a spoiler.
Mozambique: Cash for All
In Namibia, the need for reintegration came as somewhat of a surprise. Ex-combatant protests jolted the government away from its assumption that reintegration would be spontaneous. In Mozambique, reintegration was on everyone’s mind. What changed in three years, from 1989 to 1992? In short: Angola. In Angola, UNITA denounced election results in the autumn of 1992 and led its rebel forces back to war against the government. Though not the cause of that country’s slide back into conflict, the failure to complete disarmament and demobilization prior to elections, coupled with the lack of any significant reintegration efforts, was widely perceived to have contributed to the re-mobilization of UNITA forces once the party’s leader decided to return to war.1 Policymakers in Mozambique, therefore, were operating in a context in which the failure of Angola loomed large.
The Internet and the Changing Beijing-Taipei Relations: Toward Unification or Fragmentation?
Information and its technologies facilitate the exercise of what has been called “soft power,” a concept that differentiates information from the conventional dimensions of “hard power,” which is mainly associated with military force and economic influence. Soft power, according to Nye, a former Assistant Secretary of Defense of the United States, means that “A country may obtain the outcomes it wants in world politics because other countries want to follow it, admiring its values, emulating its example, aspiring to its level of prosperity and openness. In this sense it is just as important to set the agenda in world politics and attract others as it is to force them to change through the threat or use of military or economic weapons.”1