Contemporary Conflict Resolution The prevention, management and transformation of deadly conflicts SECOND EDITION Oliver Ramsbotham, 4 Tom Woodhouse and “enPreface ‘We produced the first edition of this book in order to provide a compre- hensive account of the way in which conflict resolution emerged as a field of academic enquiry and how it might be utilized in the effort to manage postCold War conflict peacefully. Since the book was published, the conflict landscape has continued to change dynami- cally. Conflict resolution, conflict prevention and post-conflict peace- building techniques and policies have become familiar in the mandates and objectives of a wide range of international organiza tions and projects in recent years. Indeed, this has been so prevalent that critics have suggested that the effect of this mainstreaming of the conflict resolution agenda has been to re-enforce existing global power structures. and to stabilize international relations in favour of the powerful. At the same time, new conflict challenges have emerged in the post-11 September 2001 environment where wars on terror have preoccupied policy-makers and public debate In this second edition of the book we have attempted to respond to these issues in two main ways. First, we have aimed ftoréclaim:texms_ stich as conflict resolution and conflict transformation, or conflict prevention and post-conflict peacebuilding, from those who in our ‘view misuse them, by explaining clearly how they are understood ‘within the conflict resolution tradition, As in the case of ppeals to freedom and democracy, we argue that those who invoke these concepts should ensure that their purposes and actions are consonant with them ~ or else stop using such language. We suggest that peace and conflict research is part of an emancipatory discourse and prac- tice which is making a valuable and defining contribution to emerg- ing norms of democratic, just and equitable systems of global gover: nance, We argue that conflict resolution has a Tole’to play in the Fadical negotiation of these norms, so that international conflict management is grounded in the needs of those who are the victims of conflict and who are frequently marginalized from conventional Power structures, Second, we have tried to engage constructively with the radicalagenda of critical theorists and others, who claim that conflict resolu. gn is incapable of serving a truly emancipatory purpose of this Kind because i€1$ Timited to ‘problem-solving’ that takes the world as it finds it and seeks to do né more than manage existing structures, In our view this is a misleading caricature of conflict resolution. We aim to show how transformation in the interest of emancipation has been integral to conflict resolution from the start. Our central argument ig? that the main thrust of critical thinking is illuminating, exciting and entirely in tune with the conflict resolution tradition. But we also think that so far the various critical approaches become abruptly less impressive, ifnot entirely silent, when it comes to suggesting specific remedies or practical directions ahead. So our second purpose in the book is to bridge this gap by looking carefully at current practice from a conflict resolution perspective with a view to defining the key steps hatneed to be taken if decisive progress i to be niade Tnthedinenoy sketched out in critical theory, Part is a thorough updating of the first edition of the book. Part I 's an entirely new addition which aims to define what we cll ‘cosmo- Politan conflict resolution’ and which we see as the main task for the next generation OF conttict resolvers. ‘We want to acknowledge the help of many people in the task of revis ing this book. Most of all, the example of those who founded the field Provided much of the inspiration for what we have attempted here. The more we have studied the work of people such as Blise and Kenneth Boulding, of Adam Curle, Johan Galtung, John Burton, and ‘many other pioneers, the more we realized how wise and prescient they were, We would also like to thank our colleagues, and especially our students, at the Centre for Conflict Resolution, Department of Peace Studies, at the University of Bradford, and at the Richardson Institute at the University of Lancaster. They have brought a wealth of experience from all parts of the world to our universities and we have Jearned from them at least as much as we have imparted. We hope that this book will provide some help to them as they return to their communities and proceed with the work of ridding the world of the scourge of war.uewarree og 1- Introduction to Conflict Resolution: Concepts and Definitions : is 2%, pF 'N this second edition of our book we bring the survey of the conflict Tresstution field up to date at the beginning of the twenty-first century. Contlict FesolUTiOMJas a defined specialist field has come of age in the post-Cold War era, It has also come face to face with funda » some of which have come into even. sharper | focus since the first edition of this book. Asa defined field of study\conflict resolutio} started in the 1950s and 1960s. This was at the height of the Cold War, when the development ‘of nuclear weapons and the conflict between the superpowers seemed to threaten human survival. A. group of pioneers from different discip- lines saw the value of ftud cOnMMci\as a general phenc domestic politics, between individuals. They saw the potential of applying approaches that were evolving in ind relations and community mediation Settings to conflicts in general, including civil and international conflicts, Ahandful of people in North America and Europe began to establish A_ETOUPY to develop these new ideas. They were not taken very seriously. The international relations profession had its own cat- Sgoties for understanding internationa flict, and did not welcome the interlopers. Nor was the combination of analys implicit in the new ideas easy to reconcile with taditi institutions or the traditions of practitioners such as polCod od CONTEMPORARY CONFLICT RESOLUTION Nevertheless, the new ideas attracted interest, and the field began grow and spread. Scholarly journals in conflict resolution we created. Institutions to study the field were established, and the number rapidly increased. The field developed its qwn subdivisior with different groups studying international crises, internal wa: social conflicts and approaches ranging from negotiation and med tion to experimental games. . By the{{9805} conflict resolution ideas were increasingly making difference in real conflicts. In South Africa, for example, the Centre f Intergroup Studies was applying the approaches that had emerged the field to the developing confrontation between apartheid and i challengers, with impressive results. In the Middle East, a pea process was getting under way in which negotiators on both sides he gained experience both of each other and of conflict resolutic through {problem-solving workshops] In Northern Ireland, grou) inspired Wie new approach had set up comimluntty retations initi tives that were not only reaching across community divides but wei also becoming an accepted responsibility of local government. In wa tom regions of Africa and South-East Asia, development workers an humanitarian agencies were seeing The need to take account « conflict arid conflict resolution as an integral part of their activities “By the Closing years-uf the Cold War, the climate for conflict res: lution was changing radically. With relations between the superpos grs improving, the ideological and military competition that ha fuelled many regional conflicts was fading away. Protracted region: conflicts in Southern Africa, Central America, and East Asia move towards settlements. It seemed that the UN could return to play th role its founders expected.__ The dissolution of the{ Soviet Union) brought to a close the lon period in which a single Witernational conflict dominated the inte ea ] MITC 9.u lian anproaché-Thed| came the shock ofthe desiruction of th themes will be carried through the rest of the MCRITICA = Our girst set of exemplified by\David Sheareds analysis of resolution consensus-promoting strategy, based on impartial medi- Aneel ‘conflict resolution in Sierra Leone’ (1997), question whether a conflict aie | * s~ckwe ec, ation and negotiation by the international community, is appropriate ~ rag 4g, incases ‘where war is fuelled by Yggged] rather than ‘grievance" (Berdal i < a «and Malone, eds, 2000). ‘Warlord insurgencies’ or dambased cximina} wafias driven by econo MOTE are wall mr ire unlikely to be amenable ta resolution by consent and negotiation. Indeed, pursuit of mediated settlements and the bringing in of anita id can have the unintended effect ofprolonging the confiicand feeding the warring factions, with civilia ations suffering most. Targeted military action, oh the other tamdts$aid to be much more likely to have the effect of foreshortening the conflict by persuading those losing ground to accept a settlement = a¥ demonstrated in Bosnia in 1995. This is a variant of the traditional realist criticism of conflict resolu: tion, in which international politics is seen as a struggle between antagonistic and irreconcilable groups with power and coercion as the only ultimate currency, and ‘soft power’ approaches of conflict reso. lution dismissed as ineffective and dangerous. The essence of our response to this criticism is that in the Kinds of conflict prevalent Pfu Since the end of the Cold War a ‘quick military fix’is rarely possible 7, _, Moreover, as exemplified particilarly in chapters 6 and'S-WieTe we ath describe how military force has been used by international intervenees in response to conflicts of this kind, its function has been to create Political space for a postwar reconstruction process defined largely in 2 } Nef aeebr. Our second set of critics, exemplified in Mark Duffiaidls paper” ‘Evaluating conflict resolution’ (1997; also see 2001), argue that, far regu pociel ftom contemporary internal wars being aberrant, irrational and non- SOS™ productive phenomena, they represent ‘the emergence of entirely new P P he emergence of entirely newtypes of social formation adapted for survival on the margins of the global economy’ (p. 100). Instead of recognizing this, however, the most powerful economies and governments treat these wars as local symptoms of local failures, and therefore expect ‘behavioural and. attitidial change’ in those countries. The discipliiary norms of jance’ are imposed ftom outside. Conflict resolution, described by Duffield as a “socio-psychological mode!’, together with aid and human development programmes, is seen to have been ai pted indo ls enerprise -uoed oan ingrumentot pacinestion in Unruly border territories so. that existing -POWe? structures can continue to control the global system. This is a variant of the trad. itional Marxist criticism, which sees ‘liberal’ conflict resolution as naive and thearSiically critical, since it attempts to reconcile Inter. Ets that shod Rot be reconciled, fails to take sides ie opened aa ‘unjlist_struggles, and lacks an analysis within a properly global perspective of the forces of exploitation and oppression, We will engage with this substantial critique throughout the rest of this book, arguing that what is criticized is a caricature of conflict resolution, not conflict resolution itself, and that from the beginning the field incorporated the imperative of structural change in asymmetric conflict situations ~ albeit no doubt not in a classic Marxist manner. In general, in response to both of these criticisms, whereas realist theory and most Marxist theory sees violence as unavoidable and inte gal to the nature of conflict. such terminisl i ejected in conflict resolution. Here there are always seen to be other options, and direct viglence is regarded as an avoidable consequence of human choice. Our third set of critics, exemplified inPaul Salers ‘Gridqueotwest. 3 [7 oe oe em.conflict resolution from a non-western perspective’ (1993; see also | “P74 5 Salem, ed., 1997), argue that the ‘western’ assumptions on which —*=22*+“_ conflict resolution rests are not applicable universally. Salem ques- ; tons Some of the “hidden assumptions in the western approach to ~ Syfiesy, p— conflict resolution’ ffoi aH AFIT-MUSIIMY pERSpECtive and suggests _C% Plane that they are not shared in other parts of the world. These are ceam, ples of a wider ‘cul ue’ that has been much dicussed in the conflict resolution field in recent years and will be looked at again, Particularly in chapter 15. In response to these and other criticisms, this book argues that, on the deyeloping tradition of thinking about conflict and cOnflict resolution is all the more relgyant as the fixed structures of sovereignty and governance break dawn. All over the world, societies are facing sizesses from population growth, structural change in the World economy, migratign ino cities environmental degradation and rapid social change. Societies with institutions, rules or norms for managing conflict and wellestablished Uaditions of sovermanes are