CMRAI-C1: Perspectives on Conflict Resolution §

Class: IS404 Created Time: September 25, 2021 8:40 AM Database: Evergreen Database Last Edited Time: October 26, 2021 5:03 PM Type: Reading Notes

I. The Anatomy of Conflict Resolution and Management §

• We studies the struggle between government and ethnic minorities
• What are Protracted Conflicts?
• Reconciliation process can repair relations between enemies that normally can’t be done with conventional methods
  • These cases teach us about concepts that are useful for future cases of conflicts

1. Perspectives on Conflict Resolution §

Societal Conflicts §

• Conflicts comes from differences followed by intense violence between multiple parties over

  • scarcity
  • value incompatabilities
  • failure to manage antagonistic relations

  Ex: South Africa institutionalized differences between groups and have good relations

• Sociatal conflicts are all institutionalized: employment relations, poor quality of services, claims over property ownership among neighbors, or opposition to development projects.

  Ex: Switzerland and Netherland differend groups are represented institutionally

Large Scale Conflicts §

• In large scale conflicts, economic disparities, and political oppressions there are mitigation mechanisms from institutions such as
  • UN
  • African Union
  • Other Regional Organizations
• How to make adversaries patch up relations?
  • Negotiated agreement > violent tactics
  • Violent party can be persuades through verbal arguments
  • removing misinformation of adversary
  • minimizing incompatibility between the two
• We will learn about phenomenons such as group dynamics, identity differences, structural adjustments, power asymmetry
• Hard conflicts to transform are made from
  • a deep rooted history of animosities
  • institutionalization of dominant relations
  • difficulties in changing an entrenched system of exploitation and suppression
• How does ‘processes and strategies to transform conflict’ of Part 1 differ from ‘forms of conflict settlement and resolution’ of part 2?

Multiple facets of conflict §

1. Incompatible economic and political interests over resources and other interests create conflicts

   • A competitive struggle often arises from a situation where each party’s aspirations cannot be fulfilled simultaneously

   💡 Ex: The discovery of oil, uranium and other minerals in Morocco, Nigeria, and Sudan has resulted in government attempts to tightly control ethnic minorities along with the refusal of fair sharing of incomes from mineral exploitation. → Rebels → violent government retaliation → genocide…

   • Without agreeable decision-­making rules and accepted norms on the conduct of behavior
     • Groups objectives becomes destroy the enemy

2. Power struggle is inevitably involved when each group attempts to impose its own language, religious or social values on other groups which have their own unique traditions and histories.

3. dealing with extremist terrorist groups such as al-­Qaeda:

   • Some wants incompatible goals with the world
   • Doesn’t have motivation of obtaining specific, tangible, negotiable objectives
   • But want broad, ideological doctrines which seek the total destruction of an enemy society

4. a Zero-Sum struggle makes it so a power-based contest is the only way to determine a winner when a contentious competition turns into an unregulated fight.

   • What does a regulated fight mean? Rule of war? Institutional Negotiation?

   The more a party wants its goal, the more intense efforts the party is likely to make

5. emotional threat generates the fear of losing what one values, a sense of insecurity creates loyalty to one’s own group and hatred toward rival groups

   • attack against pride, identity, and security

6. The institutionalization of negative interactions from many years of accumulated hostilities: violence shaping mundane aspects of society

   • People are trained to live with violence in their day-to-day life
   • Political and Intellectual agendas put into public domain
   • education system to justify ideologies and movies mobilized in the conflict
   • soldiers inherit past sacrifices, symbolism, ideologies of past fighters that fuels current fighters in-spite of huge costs

As differences are not regarded as reconcilable, it is difficult to moderate or change one’s behavior that is deemed necessary for bringing the fight to an end

Conflict settlement versus resolution §

• Many conflicts come from unsatisfactory social relations rather than miscommunication

• Where do mutually agreeable goals come from?

  • When two opposing group have the same interest or the same endpoint

• Mutually acceptable solution: from a collaborative search for strategies to put an end to a struggle

  • jointly analyze interests and needs underneath divisive issues
  • analysis of sources related to the failure of an existing system and a commitment to the establishment of new social relationships based on

    • the guarantee of political opposition

    • free elections

    • power sharing

    • land reform…

  💡 Ex: These measures helped negotiation to end decades of civil wars in El Salvador and Guatemala in the early and mid-­1990s

Resolution strategies vs settlement process §

• Conflict Resolution generally brings about a new framework for coexistence which eliminates the necessities of continued engagement in an uncontrolled fight for domination.

• Settlement Process is a compromise which can be achieved without the removal of deeply entrenched and core contentious issues.

  • To diffuse an imminent crisis for temporary adjustment time while keeping the economic, social, and political status quo

  • Without deep examination into the core reason for conflict after settlement, the conflict can start over again

  💡 Ex: Kenya repeated post-­election violence will continue as long as inter-­tribal rivalry persists in the failure to

  • reduce economic inequity

  • to guarantee more proportionate power sharing deemed to be fair by opposing groups

• Coercive Settlement: one party is forced through fear or threat to change their behavior and strategies under unfavorable circumstances in short-­term acceptance of the outcome that can resurface.

  • An Adversarial Relationship: if not transformed, conflicts can resurface. ex: quest to self-rule
  • Threatened and feared, attitudinal change will not come
  • If there’s a shift in power or opportunity, the dissatisfied party will revolt.

• Peaceful Resolution: without conflict or violence leaves room for exploring strategies for fundamental arrangements on

  • power sharing
  • social integration
  • economic interdependence

Successful conditions for conflict resolution §

In forming a non-zero sum or win-win solution, there are conditions that have to first be met:

• Interests could be negotiated as long as they aren’t basic human needs or survival
• They aren’t value oriented conflicts over freedom and autonomy of controlling own’s fate
  • abortion & church
  • people’s independence
• “Differences over material interests need to be separated from highly emotional and value oriented issues that do not easily succumb to trade”

Structural approaches to conflict resolution §

• Any solution that address only part of the cause of a broad range of causes of the conflict will likely have it arise again

• Unfavorable actions taken by another country could make a state want renegotiation on a previously agreed upon settlement

• Relations building back from being enemies, even after settlement reach, is hard to fix

  • If agreement breaks the parties easily fall back into their conflict relations

• conflict resolution needs to be assessed in ability to enhance a prospect for warring parties to abide by their agreements in terms of

  • outcome: political or economic incentives for laying down arms
  • process: reintegration of the population as well as the return of refugees and rebuilding the economy

• the nature of post-­conflict institutional building is affected by the nature of the means of the struggle: violent or non-violent

• Preventive Management of Conflicts:

  Existing relationships can be renegotiated to eliminate economic disparities and political discrimination which serve as a source of resentment and grievances.

Methods for dealing with conflict §

1. Official Diplomacy Attempts
   • governments can sending special envoys for negotiation
   • international organizations may dispatch fact-­finding missions to investigate cease-­fire or human rights violations
   • good office, conciliation, mediation aimed at diffusing a crisis
2. Unofficial meetings/communications or through intermediaries
3. Negotiations could be used to avoid military confrontations, where adversaries search for mutual solutions that meet the goals of both sides.

   • States may combine threats and coercion with persuasion to break each other’s ridget positions

     governments referred their goodwill gestures or intentions to the other countries’ populace, not government.

   • States come to compromises through trade-­off of different priorities

     • Even as enemies, compromises are less costly than economic sanctions or military actions
4. A third party involvement in contentious conflict can help discovering common interests and help forge mutually satisfying outcomes for both parties (instead of win-lose) through
   • free flow of information
   • open exchange of ideas
5. Arbitration/Adjudication:
   1. International Court of Justice: can handle territorial or other types of disputes between two states
      • tension could generate if a party does not accept the verdict
   2. Minority non-conformity with state institutions, domestic courts, lawyers, and public officials tend to be treated in a superficial way often by disregarding deep grievance attributed to social injustice
   3. Authoritative Third Party: causes a win-lose and generally cannot use emotional contentment or value differences and only fact and legal based factors.
6. Dialogue or other interactive processes of conflict resolution: utilize a collaborative method to explore the root causes of conflict and conditions for satisfying vital needs of adversaries
   • citizen groups can nurturing a climate of trust and even develop proposals to be delivered to their own governments

Themes and agendas §

• this chapter is more of introduction to the concept of Conflict Management
• talks about what the book will cover into later chapters

References §

1. CMRAI - Conflict Management and Resolution An Introduction