Abstract
The project investigates how the field of conflict management and resolution (CMR)—a historically Western-dominated system of addressing violent conflict—has been reshaped in the 21st century by the rise of non-Western actors. Triggered by the declining credibility of Western-led interventions in cases like Afghanistan and Iraq, the project focuses on the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region, where countries such as Russia, China, Iran, Turkey, and the UAE have become increasingly assertive in shaping peace and conflict dynamics. The project explores how these non-Western actors are contesting the liberal norms—such as democracy, human rights, and rule of law—that have traditionally guided international interventions. Rather than framing the evolution of CMR as a linear decline or failure of liberal peacebuilding, the project reconceptualizes it as a dynamic site of normative and practical contestation. It aims to develop a new analytical lens to understand how international norms are contested and translated into practices on the ground, such as humanitarian aid, political reforms, and security sector assistance. The central research questions guiding the project are: How does CMR adapt to increased contestation of its norms and practices? Under what conditions does norm contestation translate into contested practices of conflict management and resolution? The objectives of the project are both theoretical and empirical. It seeks to: Identify patterns of convergence, conflict, coexistence, or negotiation between Western and non-Western actors. Map the mechanisms through which norms are contested. Examine how such contestation manifests in actual practices in conflict-affected areas like Libya, Syria, Yemen, and Iraq. To achieve these goals, the project adopts a mixed-method approach. It combines quantitative content analysis of United Nations Security Council debates with qualitative discourse analysis and case study research. This multi-level methodology will link top-down norm contestation with bottom-up implementation practices. Expected results include a new conceptual model of CMR that accounts for both Western and non-Western influences; empirical insights into the evolving roles of regional and global powers in MENA; and policy-relevant findings to inform more inclusive, context-sensitive approaches to conflict resolution. The project also aims to create a reusable open-access dataset of non-Western actors’ official rhetoric and practices related to peacebuilding. Achieved results: Workshop PRIN Conflict management and resolution in the wider Mediterranean", 23 Febbraio 2024 Dipartimento di Scienze Politiche e Sociali, Università di Firenze. Workshop PRIN, "New Frontiers in conflict management and resolution: beyond competition?" Università Orientale di Napoli. 26-27 Maggio 2025. Pubblicazioni Dian, Matteo; Moro, Francesco; Knapp, Andrea; Costantini, Irene, (Il)Liberal peace? P5 approaches to conflict management and resolution, «THE BRITISH JOURNAL OF POLITICS AND INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS», 2026, 28, pp. 1 - 26 [Scientific article] Dian, Matteo; Menegazzi, Silvia, China’s Blueprint for Global Leadership: GSI, GDI, GCI and Xi Jinping's Vision for the International Order, London, Palgrave Macmillan, 2025, pp. 163 . [Research monograph] China, the GSI and the War on Gaza”, for consideration for publication in the Cambridge Review of International Affairs. The article is co-authored by Matteo Dian and Carlotta Mingardi (University of Bologna) Conferenze «The Global Security Initiative and China’s Model of International Order», EISA Conference, Università di Bologna, 26-28 agosto 2025. «China and the Israel-Palestine Conflict» (con Carlotta Mingardi), IPSA 28th World Congress of Political Science, Seoul, 12-16 luglio 2025. – «Illiberal Peace? Western and Non-Western Approaches to Conflict Management and Resolution» (con Francesco Moro e Andrea Knapp), ISA, Chicago, 2-5 maggio 2025. – «The Global Security Initiative and China’s Model of International Order», Convegno annuale SGRI, Università di Parma, 19-21 giugno 2024. – «The Global Security Initiative and China’s Model of International Order», ISA Annual Convention, San Francisco, 3-7 aprile 2024. Pubblicazioni Dian, Matteo; Moro, Francesco; Knapp, Andrea; Costantini, Irene, (Il)Liberal peace? P5 approaches to conflict management and resolution, «THE BRITISH JOURNAL OF POLITICS AND INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS», 2026, 28, pp. 1 - 26 [Scientific article] Pubblicazioni (in progress) Article :“ China, the GSI and the War on Gaza”,?” (with Matteo Dian). for consideration for publication in the Cambridge Review of International Affairs. Article: “Where is the EU? How regional actors and the Arab press view the EU’s response to Israel’s war on Gaza (2023-2025) (With Ruth Hanau Santini, Sofia di Russo) Conferenze Discussant at the Workshop “Conflict management and resolution in the wider Mediterranean”, Università di Firenze, 23 February 2024, Florence, Italy. “China and the Israel-Palestine Conflict: An Alternative Approach to Conflict Management?” (with Matteo Dian) Workshop PRIN, International workshop "New Frontiers in conflict management and resolution: beyond competition?" Naples, 26-27 May 2025, Università Orientale di Napoli, Naples, Italy. “China and the Israel-Palestine Conflict: An Alternative Approach to Conflict Management?” (with Matteo Dian) International Political Science Association (IPSA) 28th World Congress of Political Science, Seoul, South Korea 12-16 July 2025 Seminari 25 Novembre 2024. Participant. “China’s Presence in the Mediterranean and the Protection of its Overseas Interests,” the University of Naples “L’Orientale” and the ChinaMed Project, T.wai – Torino World Affairs Institute The Bologna research unit, led by Principal Investigator Matteo Dian together with Francesco N. Moro and research fellow Carlotta Mingardi, has made substantial progress towards the objectives of the PRIN project "Conflict Management and Resolution in the Wider Mediterranean: Comparing Practices between Western and Non-Western Actors". Over the course of the project, the unit has combined empirical research, dissemination through international workshops and conferences, and peer-reviewed publication, producing a coherent body of work that advances the project's central aim of rethinking conflict management and resolution (CMR) beyond a purely Western-centric framework. A first strand of activity has focused on comparing the conflict management approaches of the five permanent members of the UN Security Council. This work culminated in the article "(Il)Liberal Peace? P5 Approaches to Conflict Management and Resolution", co-authored by Dian with Francesco Moro, Andrea Knapp and Irene Costantini, and published in The British Journal of Politics and International Relations (2026). The article offers an empirically grounded comparison of how Western and non-Western permanent members engage with, contest, or selectively adapt liberal norms of peacebuilding, providing direct evidence for the project's core hypothesis that CMR is best understood not as a linear decline of liberal peacebuilding but as a dynamic field of normative contestation. The article's findings were first presented and refined at the workshop "Conflict Management and Resolution in the Wider Mediterranean" held in Florence on 23 February 2024, and later at the ISA Annual Convention in Chicago in May 2025 under the title "Illiberal Peace? Western and Non-Western Approaches to Conflict Management and Resolution", with Moro and Knapp as co-panellists. A second, closely related strand has examined China's evolving role in Middle Eastern conflict dynamics, with particular attention to the Global Security Initiative (GSI) and its application to the Israel-Palestine conflict. This research trajectory is reflected in Dian's monograph China's Blueprint for Global Leadership: GSI, GDI, GCI and Xi Jinping's Vision for the International Order, co-authored with Silvia Menegazzi and published by Palgrave Macmillan (2025), which situates the GSI within a broader account of China's normative and institutional initiatives on the global stage. Building on this foundation, Dian and Mingardi have developed the article "China, the GSI and the War on Gaza", currently under consideration at the Cambridge Review of International Affairs, which applies an English School framework to assess how China's alternative security discourse is being translated into practice in the context of the Gaza conflict. This paper was presented in preliminary form at the PRIN workshop "New Frontiers in Conflict Management and Resolution: Beyond Competition?" at the Università Orientale di Napoli (26-27 May 2025) and subsequently at the IPSA 28th World Congress of Political Science in Seoul (12-16 July 2025). The unit's findings on the GSI and Chinese conceptions of international order more broadly have also been disseminated at the EISA Conference (Bologna, August 2025), the SGRI annual conference (Parma, June 2024), and the ISA Annual Convention (San Francisco, April 2024), ensuring sustained engagement with the international academic community across the project's duration. Taken together, these outputs demonstrate the Bologna unit's contribution to two of the project's central objectives: mapping the mechanisms through which non-Western actors contest liberal norms of conflict management, and tracing how such contestation is translated into concrete practices in conflict-affected settings, most notably in the Israeli-Palestinian context. The combination of a peer-reviewed journal article, a research monograph, a further article in peer review, and a sustained programme of international conference engagement reflects the unit's success in meeting both the empirical and dissemination goals set out in the original project design.
Project details
Unibo Team Leader: Matteo Dian
Unibo involved Department/s:
Dipartimento di Scienze Politiche e Sociali
Coordinator:
Istituto Universitario Orientale di NAPOLI(Italy)
Total Unibo Contribution: Euro (EUR) 57.740,00
Project Duration in months: 24
Start Date:
28/09/2023
End Date:
28/02/2026
