International Conflict Resolution After the Cold War (2000) / Chapter Skim
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Conflict Resolution in a Changing World
Conflict Resolution in a Changing World
Pages 1-37
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From page 1... ...
Old patterns have come unstuck, and if new patterns are emerging, it is still too soon to define them clearly. The list of potentially epoch-making changes is familiar by now: the end of an era of bipolarity, a new wave of democratization, increasing globalization of information and economic power, more frequent efforts at international coordination of security policy, a rash of sometimes-violent expressions of claims to rights based on cultural identity, and a redefinition of sovereignty that imposes on states new responsibilities to their citizens and the world community.
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They include the delayed international military responses to genocide in Rwanda, ethnic cleansing in Bosnia, and repression in East Timor; the unprecedented military response of NATO to repression in Kosovo; the establishment and enforcement of no-fly zones in Iraq; and the use of economic sanctions against South Africa and Yugoslavia. Threatened or enacted coups d'etat against democratically established governments have also sometimes been treated as international conflicts, as in Haiti.
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TRADITIONAL AND EMERGING STRATEGIES FOR INTERNATIONAL CONFLICT RESOLUTION The major practices of international conflict management during the Cold War period the practices of traditional diplomacy reflected the state system dominant in world politics for centuries. It made sense to treat international conflict as occurring between nation states that acted in a unitary fashion on the basis of stable and discrete national interests rooted in geopolitics, natural resources, and other enduring features of countries.
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Such negotiations could proceed because it was possible to identify shared interests that cut across or partially overrode the conflicting ones.3 The traditional diplomatic strategies of influence were refined and elaborated greatly during the Cold War period. They continue to be relevant in the post-Cold War world, although their application is sometimes a bit different now (see Chapters 3 through 6~.
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Certain intergroup conflicts, particularly those associated with the politics of identity, are seen as having significant perceptual and emotional elements that can be transformed by carefully organized intergroup processes so as to allow reconciliation and the recognition of new possibilities for solution. TABLE 1.1 Strategies and Tools for Conflict Resolution Strategy Tools that Feature the Strategy Power politics Conflict transformation Structural prevention Normative change NOTE: These strategies and tools are often used in combination; moreover, the conceptual distinctions among them are sometimes blurred in use.
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The so-called truth commissions in South Africa and some Latin American countries use a strategy of conflict transformation when they work to construct a shared understanding of history that can be a basis for emotional reconciliation, tension reduction, and the creation of a more cooperative political climate (see Chapter 9~. A second previously underutilized strategy for conflict resolution is sometimes called structural prevention to distinguish it from "operational prevention," which involves dealing with immediate crises likely to erupt quickly into deadly violence.4 Structural prevention involves creating organizations or institutionalized systems of laws and rules that establish and strengthen nonviolent channels for adjudicating intergroup disputes, accommodating conflicting interests, and transforming conflicts by finding common ground.
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Continuing dialogue about the tension in international law between the norm of noninterference on the one hand and those of human rights and self-determination of peoples on the other may be leading toward a new international consensus on how to provide for the rights of minorities.5 Within the OSCE, for example, norms seem to be emerging that under certain conditions favor working out autonomy arrangements in preference to secession or submergence of minorities within unitary state structures (see Chapter 14~. And the growing international acceptance of norms of democratic decision making are making it more legitimate for states, international donors, and NGOs to support struc
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, providing training in informal dispute resolution techniques, and supporting various institutions of civil society that participate in democratic debate. They have contributed to structural prevention by advising on constitutional design and the rule of law, monitoring elections, and delivering information on other countries' experiences with particular structural prevention techniques (e.g., Chapter 11, written by two staff members of the International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance, summarizes knowledge on some constitutional design issues)
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A provisional answer comes from the results of a previous investigation by a National Research Council committee that reviewed the state of knowledge relevant to preventing major international conflict, including nuclear war. Between 1985 and 1987 this group commissioned 14 comprehensive review articles covering major areas of knowledge about international conflict (National Research Council, 1989, 1991, 1993~.
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For most of the conflict resolution techniques that involve conflict transformation, structural prevention, and normative change, there is no systematic body of past knowledge from the previous era that is directly relevant to current needs.7 Practitioners' experience in implementing these techniques has not been seriously applied to postCold War conditions, and international relations scholarship did not pay much attention to them in the past. Therefore, careful examination of what is known about the effectiveness of these techniques is particularly needed at this time.
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. This book gives detailed attention to several nontraditional conflict resolution techniques in order to shed light on the potential for using techniques that employ the strategies of conflict transformation, structural prevention, and normative change as part of the toolbox of international conflict resolution.
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provides a conceptual model of a strategy of conflict management. It presumes that the target of a deterrent threat is rational and thus, if well informed, can make a reasonably accurate calculation of the costs and risks associated with each possible response to the threat, and it prescribes the characteristics of threats that are effective with rational actors.
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Developing Knowledge The contributors to this volume have attempted to develop the first three kinds of knowledge described above: general conceptual models of conflict situations, knowledge about the conditions favoring the success of particular conflict resolution techniques, and knowledge about the causal processes that lead them to succeed or fail. In doing this they have had to grapple with other important but difficult issues: defining success
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The results of their efforts have been sets of propositions or empirically based hypotheses about the conditions and mechanisms by which particular efforts at international conflict resolution yield results that can be considered successful. Uses of Generic Knowledge It is our hope and expectation that the knowledge developed by the contributors will be of practical value.
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We hope that this sort of interaction between researchers and practitioners will, over time, improve mutual respect for and understanding of the kinds of knowledge that direct experience and systematic analysis taken together can provide. Bridging the gap between scholarship and practice remains an overriding challenge for international conflict resolution (George, 1993~.
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They conclude that a systematic approach based on social scientific concepts and techniques can produce useful generalizations about which techniques work under which conditions and thus raise the level of understanding available to conflict resolution practitioners. The main challenges of evaluation defined in Chapter 2 concern developing analytical concepts, selecting cases for analysis, measuring outcomes and the factors affecting them, and making inferences about cause and effect.
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This classification is artificial in some cases because some conflict resolution approaches employ more than one of these strategies. For example, truth commissions may promote conflict transformation while also recommending structural prevention measures.
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In this situation the authors suggest that U.S. officials make demands clear and urgent, make demonstration of military power incontrovertible, and make the threat sufficiently credible and potent to persuade the adversary to accept the demands.
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The main pattern he identifies is "a paradoxical one of greater target state vulnerability to the potential coercive potency of sanctions on the one hand but more problematic political viability on the other." He traces this "vulnerability-viability paradox" to three major systemic changes the end of Cold War bipolarity, economic globalization, and greater global democratization. These trends increase vulnerability because of reduced geopolitical incentives for great powers to protect target states against other powers, the greater economic openness of virtually all economies, and increased political openings for target state domestic elites hurt by sanctions to serve as "transmission belts" and pressure their governments for policy change.
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He also cautions strongly against turning to sanctions as a "default option" and stresses the need to integrate them into a wellformulated influence strategy that may include other coercive measures as well as positive incentives. In Chapter 5, Stephen Stedman addresses the problem of dealing with "spoilers" in peace processes local actors who attempt to disrupt efforts to terminate conflicts.
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Unlike the other substantive chapters in this book, Zartman's is primarily an elaboration of a theory as the basis for an empirical analysis of the effectiveness of a conflict resolution technique. Ripeness focuses attention on the timing rather than the substance of proposals for conflict settlement.
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Conflict Transformation Chapters 7 through 10 discuss conflict resolution techniques that rely heavily on the strategy of conflict transformation. Chapters 7 and 8 focus on unofficial efforts by citizens outside government who use organized processes of dialogue, analysis, and the like to change conflictual relationships.
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The experience of 30 years has produced a significant track record for interactive conflict resolution. According to Saunders, the work of citizens outside government in a multilevel peace process is increasingly fruitful as one moves across a spectrum from quasi-official situationsthose in which the primary task is to develop analysis of conflict not available to government, provide a channel of communication where none exists, or find a particular solution to a problem in negotiation to those situations where the main task is to analyze the dynamics of relationships and design ways to work in the body politic to change them.
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Rouhana suggests that workshops may contribute through their exploratory function, their innovative function, their capacity to legitimate discussion among adversaries, by accumulating public support over time, by clarifying what can and what cannot be agreed, and by preparing the terrain for political action. Rouhana examines how the effects of interactive conflict resolution may relate to the dynamics of conflict, proposes ways to conceptualize these effects, and examines how the impact of these processes on the dynamics of conflict can be assessed.
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These include the extent to which the commission reaches out to all victims, provides for their security and psychological support, holds hearings in public, makes efforts to be fair in its process and its report, and invites the participation of all segments of society, including perpetrators. Third, a truth commission's report may lead to the adoption of reforms to mitigate conflicts and protect rights that is, truth seeking may resolve conflict through mechanisms of structural prevention.
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the old regime is no longer strongly supported or feared. These conclusions imply that international support for strong truth commissions, civil society organizations, and domestic institutions for peaceful conflict management can all contribute to peace making in transitional countries.
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Structural Prevention Chapters 11 through 13 discuss conflict resolution techniques that rely primarily on the strategy of structural prevention: creating organizations or institutions that are intended to direct social conflict into nonviolent channels. In Chapter 11, Ben Reilly and Andrew Reynolds consider
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It finds that the appropriate electoral system design depends on factors specific to the country, including "the way and degree to which ethnicity is politicized, the degree of conflict, and the demographic and geographic distribution of ethnic groups. In addition, the electoral system that is most appropriate for initially ending internal conflict may not be the best one for long-term conflict management." The chapter notes that electoral systems are often chosen by historical accident (e.g., adopting the system of a colonizing country)
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In Chapter 12, Yash Ghai considers autonomy as a strategy for conflict management. He defines a variety of autonomy arrangements "that allow ethnic or other groups claiming a distinct identity to exercise direct control over affairs of special concern to them while allowing a larger entity to exercise those powers which cover common interests." The chapter documents the great variety of possible autonomy arrangements a fact that creates broad opportunities for negotiation and compromise.
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In terms of the social and political consequences of autonomy arrangements, Ghai finds that such arrangements typically begin as asymmetric, establishing special arrangements with the state for only certain regions or communities. Typically, national governments that grant meaningful autonomy feel pressure to offer similar opportunities to other regions, with the result that successful autonomy arrangements tend toward symmetry.
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For international actors Laitin suggests that language policies that are unfair do not justify international intervention on the grounds of incipient violent conflict. Normative Change Several studies in this book conclude that the success of international conflict resolution techniques as varied as economic sanctions, truth commissions, and autonomy depends on international support.
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SOME RECURRING THEMES Although the studies in this volume cover widely diverse topics in international conflict resolution, a few themes arise repeatedly. It is worth noting
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, conflict transformation (see Chapters 9 and 10 on truth commissions and humanitarian relief activities) , structural prevention (Chapter 12 on autonomy arrangements)
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The studies of structural prevention recurrently emphasize the importance of involvement of a spectrum of local actors in institutional design. This theme appears in the studies of electoral design, autonomy, and truth commissions (Chapters 11, 12, and 9)
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For example, although truth commissions do not engage in operational prevention, not everything they do is structural prevention in our usage. When they recommend modifications in the national judiciary or policing systems to prevent future human rights abuses, they are recommending structural prevention in this narrower sense.
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Fisher, R.J. 1997 Interactive Conflict Resolution.
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Committee on International Conflict and Cooperation. New York: Oxford University Press.
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