Abstract
With the ending of the Cold War, longstanding civil wars such as in Mozambique and Central America finally reached peace settlements, in part through efforts by international third parties. The UN and other entities extended their traditional peacekeeping responsibilities into many more societies formerly at war. Unexpectedly during the 1990’s, despite or because of the lowering of inter-bloc tensions at the end of the Cold War, a series of new intra-state conflicts also emerged, such as in Somalia, Yugoslavia, Tajikistan, Algeria, Sierra Leone, Rwanda, Mexico, and Nepal. Although most international attention is paid to major inter-state crises or wars such as the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the Kashmir confrontation, by far the largest number of violent conflicts over the post-Cold War era have been intra-state in focus. Both the old and new intra-state conflicts have increasingly influenced the diplomacy, development and military policies, and budgets of many states, multilateral institutions, and non-governmental organisations outside the immediate societies affected.
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For example, a comparison was made of politically active pairs of contending ethnic groups within three post-independence states, each of which had “kin-group” supporters in nearby states (Slovakia/Hungary, Macedonia/Yugoslavia, and Kosovo/Yugoslavia). It found that whether their respective political disputes escalated into violence or not depended on the degree and negative values of several domestic and international factors, similar to those listed. The factors were: a) there had been violence or coercion in the past between them; b) the groups differed in multiple societal and cultural respects, and had little everyday interaction; c) they were highly conscious of their respective identities and organised into separate political movements, parties, or governmental machinery; d) an uneasy balance of social power existed between them; e) the dominant government structure permitted little participation by both groups simultaneously (power-sharing), or it was in effect divided between them; f) the incumbent leaders on at least one side were insecure and accentuated the existing ethnic divisions through provocative statements and policies; and g) the countries and societies in which the groups lived had limited diplomatic and economic ties or direct engagement in domestic issues by major international bodies. See Lund 2001.
The idea that conflicts typically evolve through a “life-cycle” or history, implied in the UN Charter’s chapters VT and VII, is developed in: Lund/ Prendergast (1997), also at: <http://www.caii-dc.com/ghai/ghai>). Differing stages of conflict such as emergence, escalation, de-escalation, (re)construction, and reconciliation have been adopted as the organising framework in recent textbooks in the conflict field (see e.g., Kriesberg 1998; Miall 1999).
The first post-Cold War project focused specifically on conflict prevention (as defined below) may have been the Preventive Diplomacy Initiative at the U.S. Institute of Peace (USIP) from 1994–1995, which grew out of a USIP/U.S. State Department Study Group on Preventive Diplomacy from 1993–1994. The topic was subsequently taken up by the Carnegie Commission on Preventing Deadly Conflict and the Center for Preventive Action at the Council of Foreign Relations, from about 1995 to the end of 1999; the Conflict Prevention Network of the Stiftung Wissenschaft und Politik from 1996 to the present, and most recently, the International Peace Academy in New York and the Conflict Prevention Forum at the Wilson Center in Washington, D.C..
ASEAN has also addressed the subject informally through the Asian Regional Forum (ARF), largely under the rubric of inter-state military confidence building measures.
The recent trends are surveyed in Leonhardt (2000, 2000a). An example of such an analytical tool is Lund/Mehler (1999) which was prepared for country desk officers of the European Commission. A primer on conflict analysis and prevention for development practitioners is Lund/Prendergast (1997), also at: <http://www.caii-dc.com/ghai/ghai>.
See the Workshops on Early Warning and Preventive Measures of the United Nations Staff College.
See box 4.3 for an illustrative list of several possible prevention instruments.
Ben Reilly, “Voting is Good, Except When It Guarantees War”, in: Washington Post, 17 October 1999: B2.
The UN Charter refers to many diplomatic preventive measures, especially in Chapter VI. See box 4.3.
A small but growing field of analysis is evaluating the effectiveness of such instruments. Instruments such as mediation, negotiations, and sanctions have received libraries of attention, although not usually from a prevention perspective. A recent book that probes the prevention value of negotiations is by Zartman (2001). But very little has been done on the wide range of other possible preventive measures. Work that has begun to do the latter includes Cortright (1998); Esman (1998); Carment/James (1998); and Reilly/Lund (1998). A forthcoming USAID-funded study under the Greater Horn of Africa Peacebuilding Project at Management Systems International, Inc. (MSI) is evaluating the peace and conflict impacts of peace radio, traditional local-level peace processes, and national “track-two” political dialogues in five countries. Earlier rudimentary efforts to apply various criteria to evaluate the conflict prevention capacities and limits of nineteen diverse prevention policy instruments are found in Lund (1997) and Lund (1998a). The case-studies in eds (1999) and subsequent studies organised and analysed by Mary Anderson and her associates at Collaborating for Development Associates, Inc. are also very relevant here. Some products are putting instrument assessments into forms that can be used by country desk officers and other practitioners. See, e.g., the brief assessments of election observers, human rights observers, and other instruments in Lund/Mehler (1999). A manual of UN “preventive measures” such as fact-finding missions, humanitarian aid, and local community economic development is also being prepared for the Framework Team in the UN Secretariat.
The earliest research of this nature includes Miall (1992); Munuera (1994); and Lund (1996).
This synthesis draws from, among others, Miall (1992); Munuera (1994); Woodward (1995); Lund (1996); Wallensteen (1998); Lund/Rubin/Hara (1998); Väyryrnen et al. (1999); Lund (1999, 2001). Special note should also be made of an outstanding book being written by Barnett Rubin (2001), which includes four case-studies.
For example, empirical studies of the antecedents of “genocide” and “politicide” conflicts suggest that announcements of possible international preventive interventions that in fact do not happen or are halfhearted and largely symbolic may be interpreted by determined combatants as a go-ahead signal to pursue the conflict with impunity through further oppression or aggression.
Where needed to avoid backlash from a threatened but powerful ancient regime, such an approach seeks to keep lines out and open to moderates or other persuadable elites, rather than prematurely stamping them as pariahs and giving them no recourse for shifting their loyalties to join the forces of change. It looks for opportunities for quiet “constructive engagement” with existing regime leaders and their cliques, to point out the “handwriting on the wall” and conjure up historic roles for them as national invigorators. This avoids a sentimental or expressive moralistic approach in favor of an instrumental pragmatic approach. It eschews Manichean “good guys” versus “bad guys” campaigns in favor of tactics that address leaders’ specific political and economic incentives. If necessary because of the prevailing balance of power, it creates opportunities for amnesty or “soft landings” to avoid existing leaders from digging in their heels.
As in Eastern Europe, this may involve offering specific attractive incentives to current or alternative leaders and elites which promise that, if their national policies achieve economic and political reforms, respect minorities, etc. they can hold power by gaining the political support of interest groups and publics who will see benefit from integration.
This guideline thus eschews reinforcing or coddling ethnic minority movements that tend to polarise national politics by boycotting a polity’s elections and declining other opportunities to participate in and thus leaven mainstream political life. It avoids polarising the political conflict to dangerous lengths by siding only with political oppositions in “we versus them” struggles, and thus keeps international support from being a catalyst that provokes violent backlash, unless it is also prepared to protect the innocent victims of repression.
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© 2003 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg
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Lund, M.S. (2003). Prevention of Violent Conflicts: A New Task for Security Policy — Lessons Learned from Successes and Failures for the Mediterranean. In: Brauch, H.G., Liotta, P.H., Marquina, A., Rogers, P.F., Selim, M.ES. (eds) Security and Environment in the Mediterranean. Hexagon Series on Human and Environmental Security and Peace, vol 1. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-55854-2_8
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-55854-2_8
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