Conflict, Governance and Dialogue with Islamist and Jihadi Armed Groups in the Global South
Final conference Project PRIN PNRR NIJAR “Negotiating with Islamist and jihadi armed groups: practices, discourses and mechanisms across Asia and Africa”
Short description
This one-day conference marks the final event of the PRIN PNRR project “Negotiating with Islamist and Jihadi Armed Groups: Practices, Discourses and Mechanisms across Asia and Africa – NIJAR”, funded by the Italian Ministry of University and Research. The conference focuses on presenting and discussing the main findings of the NIJAR project, bringing together scholars and practitioners to explore how different state and non-state actors engage with Islamist and jihadi armed groups in Africa and Asia, and how these forms of engagement shape contemporary security orders.
Panels will examine empirical cases from West Africa, the Sahel, the Horn of Africa, the Middle East and South/Central Asia, with a particular focus on local dialogue initiatives, mediation efforts, and the tensions between negotiation, counter-terrorism and state-building. The conference also showcases the findings of a forthcoming special issue of Third World Quarterly on “After the War on Terror: Dialogue and negotiation with jihadist groups in the Global South.”
A final policy roundtable with representatives from international organisations and NGOs will reflect on the practical dilemmas of “talking to jihadists” and discuss how research insights can inform policy and field practice.
Program
10.00-10.30 Welcome and Introduction – Prof. Francesco Strazzari (PI), Scuola Superiore Sant’Anna and Prof. Martino Diez (co-PI), Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore
10.30-11.30 Keynote Lecture – Prof. Olivier Roy, European University Institute
11.30-12.00 Coffee break
12.00-13.30 Panel I – The Middle East and Asia: Jihadist movements, negotiation and political order
Chair: Simone Tholens, John Cabot University
Jerome Drevon, Geneva Graduate Institute, Can Jihadis Be Engaged and Delisted? The UN 1267 Sanction Regime and HTS, the Former al-Qaeda Affiliate that Rules Syria
Mona Kanwal Sheikh, Sacrificing the Sacred? Failure and success in negotiations with Islamists
Amin Elias, Università Cattolica Milano, The Middle East and Civic Orientations: Between Non-State Jihadist groups and State Building and Citizenship Dynamics
13.30-14.30 Lunch break
14.30-16.00 Panel II – African trajectories of dialogue with jihadist groups
Chair: Theo Blanc, Scuola Superiore Sant’Anna, Alexander Thurston, University of Cincinnati, Analyzing The Enabling Conditions of Mauritania’s Dialogue with Jihadists (online), Laura Berlingozzi, Scuola Superiore Sant’Anna, The return of the local: Dialogues as governance in the Sahelian security order, Vincent Foucher, “Deradicalisation” as a second best to dialogue? The difficulties of “non-kinetic” approaches to the Boko Haram insurgency (online)
16.00-16.15 Coffee Break
16.15 – 18.00 Roundtable discussion: Engaging jihadist armed groups: Policy dilemmas and practical lessons
Chair: Alessandro Banfi, Fondazione Oasis – Moderator: Martino Diez, Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore
Bernardo Venturi, President, Agency for Peacebuilding, Véronique Dudouet, Senior Research Advisor, Berghof Foundation, Francesca Caruso, Senior analyst and conflict mediator, Comunità di Sant’Egidio, Humanitarian Dialogue, TBC
18.00 Concluding remarks – Prof. Francesco Strazzari