Mareike Schomerus – författare

Violent conflict and its aftermath are pressing problems, particularly for international development initiatives. However, the results of development in conflict contexts have generally been disappointing and their preventative potential thus questionable. Available Open Access, Lives Amid Violence argues that this is because practitioners adhere to a mental model that emphasises linearity, certainty, and causality, assuming that violence is best addressed through work plans that deliver state-building, stabilisation and services. Based on ten years of multi-method research from, in, and on conflict-affected countries, this book challenges this approach.Drawing on a significant collaborative body of scholarship, this work puts forward original and generalizable conclusions about how lives amid violence persist, offering an invitation to abandon restricting mental models and to embrace creative ways of thinking and working. These include paying attention to the long-term effects of conflict on individual behaviour and decision-making, the social realities of economic life, the role service delivery plays in negotiations between citizens and states, and to creating meaningful relationships. Transformation also requires reflection and therefore the book concludes with constructive suggestions on how to practice these insights to better support those whose lives are shaped by violence.More details are available at www.transformingdevelopment.orgThe ebook editions of this book are available open access under a CC BY-NC-ND 3.0 licence on bloomsburycollections.com.

Violent conflict and its aftermath are pressing problems, particularly for international development initiatives. However, the results of development in conflict contexts have generally been disappointing and their preventative potential thus questionable. Available Open Access, Lives Amid Violence argues that this is because practitioners adhere to a mental model that emphasises linearity, certainty, and causality, assuming that violence is best addressed through work plans that deliver state-building, stabilisation and services. Based on ten years of multi-method research from, in, and on conflict-affected countries, this book challenges this approach.Drawing on a significant collaborative body of scholarship, this work puts forward original and generalizable conclusions about how lives amid violence persist, offering an invitation to abandon restricting mental models and to embrace creative ways of thinking and working. These include paying attention to the long-term effects of conflict on individual behaviour and decision-making, the social realities of economic life, the role service delivery plays in negotiations between citizens and states, and to creating meaningful relationships. Transformation also requires reflection and therefore the book concludes with constructive suggestions on how to practice these insights to better support those whose lives are shaped by violence.More details are available at www.transformingdevelopment.orgThe ebook editions of this book are available open access under a CC BY-NC-ND 3.0 licence on bloomsburycollections.com.

The Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) is one of Africa's most notorious armed rebel groups, having operated across Uganda, South Sudan, Sudan, the Central African Republic and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. When they entered the Juba Peace Talks with the Ugandan Government in 2006, the peace deal seemed like a gift to fighters who had for years barely been surviving in Central Africa's jungles. Yet the talks failed. Why? Based on exclusive interviews with LRA fighters and their notorious leader Joseph Kony, Mareike Schomerus provides insights into how the LRA experienced the Juba Talks, revealing developing dynamics and deep distrust within a conflict system and how these became entrenched through the peace negotiations. In so doing, Schomerus offers an explanation as to why current approaches to ending armed violence not only fail but how they actively contribute to their own failure, and calls for a new approach to contemporary peacemaking.

The Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) is one of Africa's most notorious armed rebel groups, having operated across Uganda, South Sudan, Sudan, the Central African Republic and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. When they entered the Juba Peace Talks with the Ugandan Government in 2006, the peace deal seemed like a gift to fighters who had for years barely been surviving in Central Africa's jungles. Yet the talks failed. Why? Based on exclusive interviews with LRA fighters and their notorious leader Joseph Kony, Mareike Schomerus provides insights into how the LRA experienced the Juba Talks, revealing developing dynamics and deep distrust within a conflict system and how these became entrenched through the peace negotiations. In so doing, Schomerus offers an explanation as to why current approaches to ending armed violence not only fail but how they actively contribute to their own failure, and calls for a new approach to contemporary peacemaking.

This textbook offers the definitive guide to starting your research project in Politics and IR. It shows how methods come alive when applied to real political dilemmas and offers an accessible framework to help make intentional and considered choices across all stages of research—from formulating a question to selecting a design, collecting data, and analysing results.Rigterink and Schomerus introduce seven core research designs – spanning discourse analysis and ethnography to quasi-experiments and process tracing – through contemporary political topics such as violent conflict, the environment and political protests.What sets this book apart is starting with topics rather than methods, so you’ll learn how to research real-world issues like climate change, inequality, or war, and see how different research designs can help you understand them. It’s also honest about the challenges of research, offering practical strategies to overcome distractions, doubts, and demotivation. Ideal for undergraduate and postgraduate students, this book is as much a practical manual as a conceptual map for navigating the terrain of political research that makes doing research manageable and enjoyable.Anouk S. Rigterink is Associate Professor in Quantitative Comparative Politics, at Durham University, UK. Mareike Schomerus is VP at Busara, a research institute headquartered in Kenya, and a Visiting Lecturer at the University of Chicago Harris School of Public Policy, USA. 

This textbook offers the definitive guide to starting your research project in Politics and IR. It shows how methods come alive when applied to real political dilemmas and offers an accessible framework to help make intentional and considered choices across all stages of research—from formulating a question to selecting a design, collecting data, and analysing results.Rigterink and Schomerus introduce seven core research designs – spanning discourse analysis and ethnography to quasi-experiments and process tracing – through contemporary political topics such as violent conflict, the environment and political protests.What sets this book apart is starting with topics rather than methods, so you’ll learn how to research real-world issues like climate change, inequality, or war, and see how different research designs can help you understand them. It’s also honest about the challenges of research, offering practical strategies to overcome distractions, doubts, and demotivation. Ideal for undergraduate and postgraduate students, this book is as much a practical manual as a conceptual map for navigating the terrain of political research that makes doing research manageable and enjoyable.Anouk S. Rigterink is Associate Professor in Quantitative Comparative Politics, at Durham University, UK. Mareike Schomerus is VP at Busara, a research institute headquartered in Kenya, and a Visiting Lecturer at the University of Chicago Harris School of Public Policy, USA. 

The Lord's Resistance Army is Africa’s most persistent and notorious 'terrorist' group. Led by the mysterious Joseph Kony, it has committed a series of horrific human rights abuses, including massacres and mutilations. Since the mid 1980s, it has abducted tens of thousands of people, including large numbers of children forced to train as fighters. The IC in 2005 issued warrants for Kony and his top commanders, and the United States is backing a military campaign against the group. But the LRA survives, continuing to inspire both fascination and fear.Authoritative but provocative, The Lord’s Resistance Army provides the most comprehensive analysis of the group available. From the roots of the violence to the oppressive responses of the Ugandan government and the failures of the international community, this collection looks at this most brutal of conflicts in fascinating depth, and includes a remarkable first-hand interview with Kony himself.

Secessionism perseveres as a complex political phenomenon in Africa, yet often a more in-depth analysis is overshadowed by the aspirational simplicity of pursuing a new state.