Sociocultural influences on conflict resolution and post-war reconstruction - Research Paper Example

A good example is the United States election and especially the 2008 elections that pitted president Obama against senator McCain2. The nation has found itself in a reconstruction program in both Afghanistan and Iraq in the aftermath of its anti-terrorism missions in the said countries. Elsewhere, there have been various peace-building projects, national building programs, political mediations and other post war and conflict reconstruction programs that are being undertaken by international bodies like the United Nations and other regional or supranational agencies.

However, such efforts have not always been smooth and have been met with a lot of challenges both of logistical and ideological nature. The ever-changing global environment that has meant that the approach for conflict resolution and reconstruction has had to be varied has further compounded this situation. A major driver of this dynamism has been the constantly shifting international relations3 in what has been summed up by many scholars and foreign policy analysts as the “clash of civilizations”4.

This paper will closely examine one of the major factors that has influenced post war and conflict reconstruction in the world today – socio cultural constructs. . However, other nation building programs in the world shall also be mentioned for the purposes of providing a clearer picture of how socio cultural factors have been a major influence on post war reconstruction and conflict resolution. Most conflicts in the world have been down to the strategies that have been involved. By looking at the socio-cultural influences on nation building efforts, this paper will enable the appropriate formulation of strategies to tackle the dynamism in the global environment that has been largely pushed by this factor.

With rising clamor for democracy among nations that were formerly communist in nature, there have been numerous conflicts that have come with such adjustments and this has sometimes led to intra and international tensions that have resulted into conflicts. The Afghanistan and Iraq conflicts These two countries have seen a lot of instability that dates back to a century with Afghanistan facing a larger share of this conflict. To begin, the U.S – Iraqi conflict dates back in the year 19905 when the country’s tyrannical forces led an invasion on its neighbor, Kuwait.

The United States was at the forefront of resolving this conflict by demanding an immediate withdrawal of Iraqi troops from the Kuwaiti soil. President George H Bush decided to use military intervention after diplomatic efforts from the United Nations did not bear any fruit and this worked. Regardless of the intervention, internal conditions in the Saddam Hussein led state was worsening. There were concerns by the international community that the regime was oppressing the minority, developing both biological and mechanical weapons among other violations of human rights and