Oliver Walton
Biographic Data
| ID | 143807 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Oliver Walton |
| GIVEN NAMES | Oliver |
| FAMILY NAME | Walton |
| SIGNATURE | WALTON O |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Bath |
| ORCID | 0000-0003-4587-226X |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 24 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 83 |
| WORKS AS AUTHOR | 24 |
| WORKS AS EDITOR | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2008 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2025 |
| H-INDEX | 6 |
Understanding the relationship between social welfare and conflict in the Mena region
Introduction to the forum
Fixing the past, mediating the future? Human rights brokers in Nepal and Sri Lanka
In this article we focus on human rights brokerage in Nepal and Sri Lanka – two countries undergoing different kinds of post-war crises, which opened spaces and demands for brokers. We zoom in on the lives of two individuals who became human rights brokers in these turbulent moments of change, and explore their positionalities, roles and effects as brokers. We seek to move beyond simplistic portrayals of such brokers as a dissembling, self-intere…
Challenging and reinforcing the status quo
How and why do civil society organisations (CSOs) engage with service delivery and with what consequences for political change in conflict-affected contexts? Most existing work in this area focuses on specialist NGO service provision, concluding that this remains a relatively apolitical sphere of activity with little relevance for peace and conflict dynamics. By examining the experience of CSOs in three countries in the Middle East and North Afri…
(Re)making the margins
This article examines the dynamics of brokerage surrounding two moments of rupture (the tsunami and the end of the war) in Hambantota, a district in southern Sri Lanka and a key site of frontier development. We contrast the two development assemblages that emerged from these moments, examining how structural transformations shape the dynamics of brokerage, and how brokers mediate the effects of these transformations. By tracing the shifting fortu…
The fragmentation of the security-development nexus
The security-development nexus -the belief that security and development policy goals are closely connected and should be aligned -became a core feature of global peacebuilding policy in the 1990s.Over the last decade, however, the continued relevance of the nexus has been questioned.Drawing on analysis of key policy documents, ministerial speeches, aid flows, and key informant interviews, this article examines how the nexus has been articulated …
Agents of order? Brokerage and empowerment in development and conflict
Over the last two decades, development studies research has shown a renewed interest in the role of brokers (Bierschenk et al., 2002; Fechter & Schwittay, 2019; Lewis & Mosse, 2006). The importance of these brokers is observed for a range of development challenges, including political decentralisation and democratisation (Anwar, 2014; Wood, 2003), managing growing social and cultural diversity (Bilecen & Faist, 2015; Crafter et al., 2015; de Jong…
Counter‐terrorism and humanitarian action
There has been growing awareness in recent years of the wide‐ranging negative impacts that counter‐terrorism measures and sanctions impose on humanitarian action. Drawing on semi‐structured interviews with the staff of international non‐governmental organisations (INGOs), this paper examines these impacts on INGOs based in the United Kingdom. This is a context where a particularly complex array of laws, policies, and regulatory regimes have emerg…
Fixes and Flux
This article examines post-war politics in Nepal and Sri Lanka through the prism of centre-periphery relations, drawing upon and expanding political settlements analysis. We highlight two key features neglected in existing research on political settlements: first, the spatial dimensions of these settlements – particularly the salience of frontier regions in shaping post-war orders. These ‘sensitive spaces’ continue as sites of struggle in the pos…
Rethinking Alcohol and Conflict
Existing research on the relationship between alcohol and conflict has focused on displaced populations and viewed alcohol largely as a driver of post-war social problems such as trauma and violence. We draw on qualitative research in Sri Lanka and Nepal to build a more complex picture of alcohol’s role in post-war societies that is attuned to its political economy dimensions and its politically symbolic role. This article develops a comparative …
Marginal gains
In post-war transitions, how do centre-periphery relations change, and what is the role of actors at the margins of the state in negotiating these changes? This article explores these questions by examining Nepal’s post-war transition following the 2006 Comprehensive Peace Agreement focusing on three borderland districts (Saptari, Bardiya and Dolpa). The article analyses contrasting dynamics in these districts to highlight changes in centre-perip…
Service Delivery, State Legitimacy and Conflict in Arab Countries
This paper addresses the question of how service delivery (SD) affects state legitimacy (SL) and conflict (C) in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region, drawing particularly on frameworks that move beyond a state-centric approach. Focusing on the majority-Arab countries of MENA, the paper aims to: (1) offer a preliminary explanation of the distinctiveness of this region in light of some of the main findings of the introductory paper by th…
Implementing conflict prevention
Conflict prevention has been a long-standing and high-profile international policy goal, and yet in practice international agencies have found it difficult to operationalise, with the structural dimension of conflict prevention proving especially challenging. Drawing on a review of policy documents, parliamentary debates, and key informant interviews, this article uses a detailed case study of the UK government’s structural conflict prevention po…
Beyond disaster framing
This article examines how and why multi-mandate INGOs represent contemporary armed conflicts in particular ways. Based on empirical analysis of NGO communications and interviews with staff, it finds that these organisations typically adopt a two-track approach to representing conflicts. They use mainstream media to present consequence-oriented accounts to the general public, while utilising alternative channels to represent more nuanced depiction…
The Tangled Politics of Postwar Justice in Sri Lanka
It was perhaps naive and overly optimistic to believe that regime change was the answer to a problem that has much deeper structural roots
Understanding Contemporary Challenges to Ingo Legitimacy
In recent years, INGO legitimacy has been subject to growing scrutiny from analysts and practitioners alike. Critics have highlighted a backlash against INGOs in the Global South, a growing mismatch between INGO capacities and contemporary global challenges, and diminishing support for norms such as democracy and human rights that underpin INGOs’ work. Although these problems have attracted significant attention within the academic literature, th…
Mediating the margins
This article explores the political dynamics surrounding the Eastern Provincial Council during Sri Lanka’s post-war transition. We show that decentralisation constituted an intervention in conflict, rather than a solution to it. It creates new institutional arenas to re-negotiate centre-periphery relations, resulting in new forms of political mobilisation. There are crucial spatial dimensions to these contentions: it involves contested territoria…
Framing disputes and organizational legitimation
The ending of the war in Sri Lanka in 2009 led to significant changes in the political strategies pursued by Sri Lankan Tamil diaspora groups in the UK. One contentious feature of these groups' campaigns has been their use of the 'genocide' frame to describe the actions of the Sri Lankan state, which has been predominantly viewed either as a signal of these groups' strategic naivety or as a coded expression of a wider nationalist agenda. In this …
Learning Lessons or Unearthing Truths? Using Evidence to Inform Mediation Policy
This article assesses the potential for evidence-informed policymaking in the field of mediation. It argues that one of the key barriers to evidence-informed policymaking in this area is the disjointed character of the existing literature and finds that methodological and theoretical tensions lie at the heart of policy debates around mediation. While differences in theoretical, epistemological and normative perspectives of the existing research h…
Between War and the Liberal Peace
This article explores the interface between international and local approaches to peacebuilding by analysing the experience of two national NGOs involved in peacebuilding work in Sri Lanka between 2006 and 2008. During this transitional period, Sri Lanka's fragile peace process began to unravel. This analysis uses the lens of NGO legitimacy to reflect on the dilemmas and tensions associated with the liberal peacebuilding project and NGOs' role wi…
Aid, Peacebuilding and the Resurgence of War
A great improvement in the sailor's feeling towards the naval service’
(2010). ‘A great improvement in the sailor's feeling towards the naval service’: Recruiting seamen for the royal navy, 1815–1853. Journal for Maritime Research: Vol. 12, No. 1, pp. 27-57
The Limits of Liberal Peacebuilding? International Engagement in the Sri Lankan Peace Process
This essay explores international engagement in the Sri Lankan peace process between 2002 and 2008. The internationalization of peacebuilding in Sri Lanka is analysed as part of a broader international shift towards a model of ‘liberal peacebuilding’, which involves the simultaneous pursuit of conflict resolution, liberal democracy and market sovereignty. The essay provides a detailed and disaggregated analysis of the various exporters, importers…
Conflict, peacebuilding and NGO legitimacy
This paper explores the growing role of national NGOs in the interventions of western governments in conflict-affected regions. Using three case studies of national NGOs working in Sri Lanka, it focuses on the complex relationships between national NGOs, donors and a range of domestic stakeholders. These relationships involved competing demands, interests and expectations and were characterised by tensions, reversals and trade-offs. The paper arg…
Framing disputes and organizational legitimation
The ending of the war in Sri Lanka in 2009 led to significant changes in the political strategies pursued by Sri Lankan Tamil diaspora groups in the UK. One contentious feature of these groups' campaigns has been their use of the 'genocide' frame to describe the actions of the Sri Lankan state, which has been predominantly viewed either as a signal of these groups' strategic naivety or as a coded expression of a wider nationalist agenda. In this …
Understanding Contemporary Challenges to Ingo Legitimacy
In recent years, INGO legitimacy has been subject to growing scrutiny from analysts and practitioners alike. Critics have highlighted a backlash against INGOs in the Global South, a growing mismatch between INGO capacities and contemporary global challenges, and diminishing support for norms such as democracy and human rights that underpin INGOs’ work. Although these problems have attracted significant attention within the academic literature, th…
Mediating the margins
This article explores the political dynamics surrounding the Eastern Provincial Council during Sri Lanka’s post-war transition. We show that decentralisation constituted an intervention in conflict, rather than a solution to it. It creates new institutional arenas to re-negotiate centre-periphery relations, resulting in new forms of political mobilisation. There are crucial spatial dimensions to these contentions: it involves contested territoria…
The Limits of Liberal Peacebuilding? International Engagement in the Sri Lankan Peace Process
This essay explores international engagement in the Sri Lankan peace process between 2002 and 2008. The internationalization of peacebuilding in Sri Lanka is analysed as part of a broader international shift towards a model of ‘liberal peacebuilding’, which involves the simultaneous pursuit of conflict resolution, liberal democracy and market sovereignty. The essay provides a detailed and disaggregated analysis of the various exporters, importers…
Conflict, peacebuilding and NGO legitimacy
This paper explores the growing role of national NGOs in the interventions of western governments in conflict-affected regions. Using three case studies of national NGOs working in Sri Lanka, it focuses on the complex relationships between national NGOs, donors and a range of domestic stakeholders. These relationships involved competing demands, interests and expectations and were characterised by tensions, reversals and trade-offs. The paper arg…
Marginal gains
In post-war transitions, how do centre-periphery relations change, and what is the role of actors at the margins of the state in negotiating these changes? This article explores these questions by examining Nepal’s post-war transition following the 2006 Comprehensive Peace Agreement focusing on three borderland districts (Saptari, Bardiya and Dolpa). The article analyses contrasting dynamics in these districts to highlight changes in centre-perip…
Agents of order? Brokerage and empowerment in development and conflict
Over the last two decades, development studies research has shown a renewed interest in the role of brokers (Bierschenk et al., 2002; Fechter & Schwittay, 2019; Lewis & Mosse, 2006). The importance of these brokers is observed for a range of development challenges, including political decentralisation and democratisation (Anwar, 2014; Wood, 2003), managing growing social and cultural diversity (Bilecen & Faist, 2015; Crafter et al., 2015; de Jong…
Beyond disaster framing
This article examines how and why multi-mandate INGOs represent contemporary armed conflicts in particular ways. Based on empirical analysis of NGO communications and interviews with staff, it finds that these organisations typically adopt a two-track approach to representing conflicts. They use mainstream media to present consequence-oriented accounts to the general public, while utilising alternative channels to represent more nuanced depiction…
Learning Lessons or Unearthing Truths? Using Evidence to Inform Mediation Policy
This article assesses the potential for evidence-informed policymaking in the field of mediation. It argues that one of the key barriers to evidence-informed policymaking in this area is the disjointed character of the existing literature and finds that methodological and theoretical tensions lie at the heart of policy debates around mediation. While differences in theoretical, epistemological and normative perspectives of the existing research h…
Challenging and reinforcing the status quo
How and why do civil society organisations (CSOs) engage with service delivery and with what consequences for political change in conflict-affected contexts? Most existing work in this area focuses on specialist NGO service provision, concluding that this remains a relatively apolitical sphere of activity with little relevance for peace and conflict dynamics. By examining the experience of CSOs in three countries in the Middle East and North Afri…
Service Delivery, State Legitimacy and Conflict in Arab Countries
This paper addresses the question of how service delivery (SD) affects state legitimacy (SL) and conflict (C) in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region, drawing particularly on frameworks that move beyond a state-centric approach. Focusing on the majority-Arab countries of MENA, the paper aims to: (1) offer a preliminary explanation of the distinctiveness of this region in light of some of the main findings of the introductory paper by th…
Between War and the Liberal Peace
This article explores the interface between international and local approaches to peacebuilding by analysing the experience of two national NGOs involved in peacebuilding work in Sri Lanka between 2006 and 2008. During this transitional period, Sri Lanka's fragile peace process began to unravel. This analysis uses the lens of NGO legitimacy to reflect on the dilemmas and tensions associated with the liberal peacebuilding project and NGOs' role wi…
Aid, Peacebuilding and the Resurgence of War
Conflict, peacebuilding and NGO legitimacy
This paper explores the growing role of national NGOs in the interventions of western governments in conflict-affected regions. Using three case studies of national NGOs working in Sri Lanka, it focuses on the complex relationships between national NGOs, donors and a range of domestic stakeholders. These relationships involved competing demands, interests and expectations and were characterised by tensions, reversals and trade-offs. The paper arg…
The Limits of Liberal Peacebuilding? International Engagement in the Sri Lankan Peace Process
This essay explores international engagement in the Sri Lankan peace process between 2002 and 2008. The internationalization of peacebuilding in Sri Lanka is analysed as part of a broader international shift towards a model of ‘liberal peacebuilding’, which involves the simultaneous pursuit of conflict resolution, liberal democracy and market sovereignty. The essay provides a detailed and disaggregated analysis of the various exporters, importers…
A great improvement in the sailor's feeling towards the naval service’
(2010). ‘A great improvement in the sailor's feeling towards the naval service’: Recruiting seamen for the royal navy, 1815–1853. Journal for Maritime Research: Vol. 12, No. 1, pp. 27-57
Aid, Peacebuilding and the Resurgence of War
Between War and the Liberal Peace
This article explores the interface between international and local approaches to peacebuilding by analysing the experience of two national NGOs involved in peacebuilding work in Sri Lanka between 2006 and 2008. During this transitional period, Sri Lanka's fragile peace process began to unravel. This analysis uses the lens of NGO legitimacy to reflect on the dilemmas and tensions associated with the liberal peacebuilding project and NGOs' role wi…
Learning Lessons or Unearthing Truths? Using Evidence to Inform Mediation Policy
This article assesses the potential for evidence-informed policymaking in the field of mediation. It argues that one of the key barriers to evidence-informed policymaking in this area is the disjointed character of the existing literature and finds that methodological and theoretical tensions lie at the heart of policy debates around mediation. While differences in theoretical, epistemological and normative perspectives of the existing research h…
Framing disputes and organizational legitimation
The ending of the war in Sri Lanka in 2009 led to significant changes in the political strategies pursued by Sri Lankan Tamil diaspora groups in the UK. One contentious feature of these groups' campaigns has been their use of the 'genocide' frame to describe the actions of the Sri Lankan state, which has been predominantly viewed either as a signal of these groups' strategic naivety or as a coded expression of a wider nationalist agenda. In this …
Understanding Contemporary Challenges to Ingo Legitimacy
In recent years, INGO legitimacy has been subject to growing scrutiny from analysts and practitioners alike. Critics have highlighted a backlash against INGOs in the Global South, a growing mismatch between INGO capacities and contemporary global challenges, and diminishing support for norms such as democracy and human rights that underpin INGOs’ work. Although these problems have attracted significant attention within the academic literature, th…
Mediating the margins
This article explores the political dynamics surrounding the Eastern Provincial Council during Sri Lanka’s post-war transition. We show that decentralisation constituted an intervention in conflict, rather than a solution to it. It creates new institutional arenas to re-negotiate centre-periphery relations, resulting in new forms of political mobilisation. There are crucial spatial dimensions to these contentions: it involves contested territoria…
The Tangled Politics of Postwar Justice in Sri Lanka
It was perhaps naive and overly optimistic to believe that regime change was the answer to a problem that has much deeper structural roots
Beyond disaster framing
This article examines how and why multi-mandate INGOs represent contemporary armed conflicts in particular ways. Based on empirical analysis of NGO communications and interviews with staff, it finds that these organisations typically adopt a two-track approach to representing conflicts. They use mainstream media to present consequence-oriented accounts to the general public, while utilising alternative channels to represent more nuanced depiction…
Rethinking Alcohol and Conflict
Existing research on the relationship between alcohol and conflict has focused on displaced populations and viewed alcohol largely as a driver of post-war social problems such as trauma and violence. We draw on qualitative research in Sri Lanka and Nepal to build a more complex picture of alcohol’s role in post-war societies that is attuned to its political economy dimensions and its politically symbolic role. This article develops a comparative …
Marginal gains
In post-war transitions, how do centre-periphery relations change, and what is the role of actors at the margins of the state in negotiating these changes? This article explores these questions by examining Nepal’s post-war transition following the 2006 Comprehensive Peace Agreement focusing on three borderland districts (Saptari, Bardiya and Dolpa). The article analyses contrasting dynamics in these districts to highlight changes in centre-perip…
Service Delivery, State Legitimacy and Conflict in Arab Countries
This paper addresses the question of how service delivery (SD) affects state legitimacy (SL) and conflict (C) in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region, drawing particularly on frameworks that move beyond a state-centric approach. Focusing on the majority-Arab countries of MENA, the paper aims to: (1) offer a preliminary explanation of the distinctiveness of this region in light of some of the main findings of the introductory paper by th…
Implementing conflict prevention
Conflict prevention has been a long-standing and high-profile international policy goal, and yet in practice international agencies have found it difficult to operationalise, with the structural dimension of conflict prevention proving especially challenging. Drawing on a review of policy documents, parliamentary debates, and key informant interviews, this article uses a detailed case study of the UK government’s structural conflict prevention po…
Fixes and Flux
This article examines post-war politics in Nepal and Sri Lanka through the prism of centre-periphery relations, drawing upon and expanding political settlements analysis. We highlight two key features neglected in existing research on political settlements: first, the spatial dimensions of these settlements – particularly the salience of frontier regions in shaping post-war orders. These ‘sensitive spaces’ continue as sites of struggle in the pos…
(Re)making the margins
This article examines the dynamics of brokerage surrounding two moments of rupture (the tsunami and the end of the war) in Hambantota, a district in southern Sri Lanka and a key site of frontier development. We contrast the two development assemblages that emerged from these moments, examining how structural transformations shape the dynamics of brokerage, and how brokers mediate the effects of these transformations. By tracing the shifting fortu…
The fragmentation of the security-development nexus
The security-development nexus -the belief that security and development policy goals are closely connected and should be aligned -became a core feature of global peacebuilding policy in the 1990s.Over the last decade, however, the continued relevance of the nexus has been questioned.Drawing on analysis of key policy documents, ministerial speeches, aid flows, and key informant interviews, this article examines how the nexus has been articulated …
Agents of order? Brokerage and empowerment in development and conflict
Over the last two decades, development studies research has shown a renewed interest in the role of brokers (Bierschenk et al., 2002; Fechter & Schwittay, 2019; Lewis & Mosse, 2006). The importance of these brokers is observed for a range of development challenges, including political decentralisation and democratisation (Anwar, 2014; Wood, 2003), managing growing social and cultural diversity (Bilecen & Faist, 2015; Crafter et al., 2015; de Jong…
Counter‐terrorism and humanitarian action
There has been growing awareness in recent years of the wide‐ranging negative impacts that counter‐terrorism measures and sanctions impose on humanitarian action. Drawing on semi‐structured interviews with the staff of international non‐governmental organisations (INGOs), this paper examines these impacts on INGOs based in the United Kingdom. This is a context where a particularly complex array of laws, policies, and regulatory regimes have emerg…
Challenging and reinforcing the status quo
How and why do civil society organisations (CSOs) engage with service delivery and with what consequences for political change in conflict-affected contexts? Most existing work in this area focuses on specialist NGO service provision, concluding that this remains a relatively apolitical sphere of activity with little relevance for peace and conflict dynamics. By examining the experience of CSOs in three countries in the Middle East and North Afri…
Understanding the relationship between social welfare and conflict in the Mena region
Introduction to the forum
Fixing the past, mediating the future? Human rights brokers in Nepal and Sri Lanka
In this article we focus on human rights brokerage in Nepal and Sri Lanka – two countries undergoing different kinds of post-war crises, which opened spaces and demands for brokers. We zoom in on the lives of two individuals who became human rights brokers in these turbulent moments of change, and explore their positionalities, roles and effects as brokers. We seek to move beyond simplistic portrayals of such brokers as a dissembling, self-intere…
Political science (22 works) · Law (17 works) · Peacebuilding and International Security (15 works) · Sociology (15 works) · Law (14 works) · Politics (14 works) · Economics (12 works) · Political economy (11 works) · Development economics (10 works) · Public Administration (9 works)