Intergroup positioning in peace negotiations: The Bangsamoro peace talks in the Philippines.

The present study proposes two distinct yet bidirectionally related forms of legitimation of state violence: those enacted by the government and those enacted by its citizens. We anchor this proposal upon a positioning framework. To demonstrate this conceptualization, we used a mixed methods approach that uses quantitative text mining procedures to supplement a qualitative positioning analysis. We analyzed a corpus of 18,968 words from presidential speeches to represent the government. At the same time, a corpus of 21,763 words from prodrug war Facebook comments to represent the citizens. We built and validated a classification model using support vector machines (SVM), which successfully distinguished between government and citizen utterances with an accuracy of 78.12%. Within the qualitative positioning analysis, we analyzed three storylines for the government and three storylines from the citizens. We show that bidirectional legitimation manifests between unique storylines of the government and citizens that share similar positionings. This study suggests that citizen discourse constructs state violence as acceptable on a different and yet equivalent level to the discourse of government politicians. We recommend for research in sociopolitical fields to shift in focus to comparatively analyze the unique discourses of both citizens and governments for episodes of national violence. Public Significance StatementMoving away from traditional dichotomies of the dominant and the dominated, the study becomes relevant through the introduction of an analytical framework and methodology for peace psychology that emphasizes an equal weight in the power of governments and citizens of a country. The study locates this equality in power within the capability of both governments and citizens to wield discourses in public spaces, with a particular focus on online spaces and social networking sites that are exponentially accessible venues for all forms of discussion. The study and its framework grant the general public the opportunity to scrutinize its specific contributions within online discussions of the political episodes of its nation; particularly the propagation and acceptance of state violence, which is a concept nominally tied to governments.

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Case Of State Violence: Philippine Government’s Adomentioning

confidence: 99%

See 2 more Smart Citations

Legitimizing state violence: A comparative positioning analysis of discourses from the government and citizen supporters of the antidrug operations.

Camacho¹,

Montiel²

2021

“…It is devised to help two conflicting parties reach an official settlement (Gawerc, 2006) or negotiated agreement (Jeong, 2002). The peace talks between the government of the Philippines and the Moro rebel group, Moro Islamic Liberation Front (Baquiano, 2019), illustrate this. Tan-Ilagan (2017) reports that armed encounters between these two conflicting groups have significantly lessened as their peace negotiation nears its end.…”

Section: Structural Violencementioning

confidence: 99%

Unpacking peace and order in Mindanao, Philippines using a peace psychology framework.

Baquiano¹

2022

Self Cite

This study examines the Peace and Order Council mechanisms in selected areas of Mindanao, Philippines using a peace psychology framework that integrates episodes and structures of violence and peace. Fifteen in-depth interviews among members of the Peace and Order Councils were conducted and data were analyzed using thematic analysis. Results show that direct violence in the study areas includes acts of terrorism and criminality, violence brought about by intergroup conflicts and insurgency, and violence done by and against the military and the police, while structural violence involves human rights violation, poverty, inadequate social services, and poor peacebuilding programs. To address direct violence, the Peace and Order Councils implement stricter security system, intensify their intelligence operations, execute martial law, and employ their traditional nonviolent means of managing intergroup conflicts. Their peacebuilding undertakings highlight their engagement in the Mindanao peace process, development endeavors, and inclusivity initiatives. Findings lend support to the potency of the peace psychology framework in elucidating peace and violence and contribute to the development of sustainable peacemaking and peacebuilding strategies. Public Significance StatementThe study uncovers manifestations of episodic and structural violence and peace in select areas in Mindanao, Philippines. Understanding these concepts and their relationship contributes to the development of sustainable peacemaking and peacebuilding strategies that could enhance intergroup relations and result to sustainable communities and satisfaction for basic human needs.

Echo chambers, inside and outside academia.

Moghaddam¹

2019

In his poem The Scholars, the Irish Nobel laureate William Butler Yeats depicted academics as insular and tending to "think what other people think" (Yeats, 1962, p. 71). Of course, those of us who are in academia believe the opposite: We see ourselves as being nonconformists, individuals who do not follow the crowd. We see the worldviews of people outside academia but not ourselves as shaped by echo chambers. But perhaps such rosy assumptions about academia need to be questioned, particularly by psychologists focused on peace and conflict. This is because progress in both research and practice in the domain of peace and conflict requires the ability to be open-minded and to work across different types of boundaries-the opposite of being confined within echo chambers.A critical examination of the history of psychology exposes an unfortunate tendency for many psychologists to do what Yeats described: "think what other people think." This is reflected in the tendency for certain schools of thought, such as behaviorism, to gain dominance for long periods and become the mainstream, even though at a later stage, most psychologists look back and wonder in bewilderment at just how such "obviously wrong" perspectives could have become dominant for so long in their discipline (we must wonder, which perspectives currently dominant in psychology will be regarded as misguided by future generations?). How could a school of psychology that rejects "thinking" as a topic of research have become dominant for about half a century? Part of the answer is in the strength of echo chambers and conformity to group-established norms in the discipline of psychology. Increasing specialization means that echo chambers now involve groups of psychologists with even narrower perspectives and interests, with too little communication across specializations (Moghaddam, 1997). This is the plight of individual psychologists in the age of individualism.The practical challenges facing us in the domains of peace and conflict require broad multidisciplinary perspectives and solutions. We can succeed only by breaking out of rigid specializations and narrow conceptual orthodoxies. This becomes clear when we examine the contributions of those individuals who have succeeded in making the most positive and constructive impact in our field, such as Daniel Bar-Tal, who provides a critical overview of his highly productive life and work (Bar-Tal, 2019). Bar-Tal's (2019) engaging discussion is followed by five major articles, each providing a valuable empirical report. Dunwoody and Plane (2019) provide a highly timely assessment of the role that authoritarianism and outgroup threat have on political party affiliation and support for antidemocratic policies. This is part of an urgent discussion about the rise of authoritarianism in an age of uncertainty (Moghaddam, 2019) and the unexpected threat to democracy in the United States and around the world (I say "unexpected" because until recently, received wisdom was that we have reached "the end of history," with ...