|
|
|
Harry Mika
|
|
|
|
 Professor
Central Michigan University, Department of Sociology, Anthropology
and Social Work
Paramilitary Roles in Transitional Justice
United States
|
 |
|
Harry Mika is Professor of Sociology at Central Michigan
University, and Senior Research Fellow in the School of
Law, Queens University of Belfast (Northern Ireland). He
teaches primarily in the areas of social justice, child
welfare, and conflict transformation. An applied researcher
and practitioner, he has worked closely with more than seventy-five
community-based justice initiatives in the United States
and abroad, on program design, implementation and evaluation
themes.
Since 1997, Harry Mika has been extensively involved with
the development of alternatives to paramilitary punishment
violence in Loyalist and Republican working class areas
of Northern Ireland (The Atlantic Philanthropies N.I.).
The extension of this work is the basis of NCS activities
for 2003. His other recent and ongoing practice and research
includes an appraisal of victim participation in restorative
justice policy and practice in the U.S. (Open Society Institute),
developing indigenous justice program evaluation expertise
in Northern Ireland (American Sociological Association),
and a comprehensive assessment of the field of community
mediation in the U.S. (Hewlett Foundation).
Harry Mika earned his Ph.D. at Michigan State University
(1981) and has been the recipient of numerous teaching,
research and service awards, including fellowships from
the National Institute for Mental Health (Yale University),
and the Centre for Studies and Research in International
Law and Relations (Hague Academy of International Law, The
Netherlands).
Selected Publications:
"A Restorative Framework for Community Justice Practice."
In: K. McEvoy and T. Newburn (Eds.), Conflict Resolution
and Restorative Justice. Palgrave, 2003: 167-182. (With
H. Zehr.)
"Evaluation as Peacebuilding? Transformative Values,
Processes and Outcomes." Contemporary Justice Review,
5, 2002: 339-349.
"Restorative Justice and the Critique of Informalism
in Northern Ireland." The British Journal of Criminology,
42, 2002: 534-562. (With K. McEvoy.)
Taking Victims and their Advocates Seriously: A Listening
Project (Mennonite Central Committee U.S.)., 2002. (Co-author.)
|
 |
|
Paramilitary Roles in Transitional Justice
Where the broad sweep of peacekeeping activities
in transitional conflict settings generally seek to minimize
the combatant role and demobilize paramilitary organizations,
an alternative peacebuilding framework considers
former combatants not as mere targets or objects of intervention,
but as agents of societal regeneration. This research includes
intensive case studies in Northern Ireland (ongoing) and
South Africa (proposed) of community activists, paramilitary
organizations, ex-prisoner groups and associations, and
ex-combatants engaged in community-based justice pursuits,
within transitional conflict settings. There are two distinct
but interrelated research activities, the study of dynamics
of paramilitary policing and punishment violence, threat
and exclusion in working class urban communities and rural
areas, and exploration of the bases of participation and
leadership of ex-combatants (politically motivated ex-prisoners)
in community justice regeneration.
Contemporary political discourse, academic work of the
"terrorist" genre, and widely held public sentiments
give little quarter to the possibilities of productive and
integral roles of active and former paramilitary group members
in peacebuilding processes. For many, it appears counter-intuitive
to suggest that paramilitary groups and ex-combatants might
themselves manage and reduce internal community conflict
and play a role in regenerating local communities.
Such sentiments are largely unsupported empirically, and
they tend to undermine a plausible opportunity for addressing
sectarian conflict at the community level. The evidence
of the importance of prisoner and combatant roles along
the long road of societal transformation from violence to
peace is seemingly irrefutable: in-depth consultation with
prisoners on the terms and conditions of paramilitary cease-fires
and decommissioning, participation of former combatants
in peace negotiations, and involvement of former prisoners
in political parties and elective office are but a few contemporary
illustrations. Further, there is mounting evidence that
paramilitary groups are able themselves to manage transitions
to peace (that is, reducing and eliminating punishment responses),
and further, ex-combatants are able to leverage significant
levels of local respect, skills, and commitment to cause
and community, to the ends of justice innovation and community
development. On the other hand, State and statutory interventions
in marginalized and alienated working class communities,
lacking as they often do requisite legitimacy and credibility
in those communities, tend to exacerbate the very basis
of protracted sectarian and ethnic conflict and erode fragile
peacebuilding processes and potential.
|
|
|
| |
 |
 |
 |
| NCS Scholars, Midterm Meeting, Mexico. |
 |
NCS Scholars Lori Leonard and Seggane Musisi during first Global Health Summer Course Meeting.
|
|
|
| |
|
| |
| Conferences & Workshops Calendar |
| |
|
|
|
| |
|
|
 |
| |
|
|
|
