Conflict Management Toolkit | Approaches | Introduction

Overview

There are many ways in which conflict management definitions and concepts could be organized, which in turn also will influence the way it is practiced. The different Conflict management tasks will be easier to perform if definitions are broad and inclusive, focusing on the specific problems in a conflict that need to be addressed, rather than trying to organize every policy into perfectly worded definitions or assigning them to specific actors. The table below provides a helpful point of departure for an overview of how the five different approaches are played out in practice. We have chosen to look at the five "phases" in terms of the problem that needs to be addressed, the actors who can perform the intervention, the tasks that need to be carried out, and the target group of those actions. By using functional rather than theoretical definitions, theory and practice are brought closer together.

By asking what is being performed, why it is being performed, who is performing it and who it targets, the distinction between the five different concepts becomes more logical. Even if an attempt at Conflict Prevention usually takes place prior to rebuilding war-shattered institutions (Statebuilding), one perspective does not preclude the other, and frequently they need to interact. Whereas Peacekeeping missions target the warriors and are generally performed by Peacekeeping forces, Peacemaking is diplomatic and focuses on the political elite. Peacebuilding, which is a multipurpose task, is often performed by local or regional Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs), such as churches or civic groups. It is concerned with healing and reconciliation and primarily targets the grassroots level of society. Statebuilding deals with restructuring society’s institutions, requiring close cooperation with the governing elite.

Target Groups and Problems

When referring to the population groups that the different conflict management activities focus on we talk about Target Groups. However, in a war-torn society, these groups are not just the focus of externally led activities but they are also often involved as local actors in reconciliation and peacemaking on their own. Although dividing a population into separate groups for analysis is somewhat superficial, it is helpful for understanding the challenges and tasks facing conflict management today. We have chosen to use a simple three-part division of a population created by the peace scholar John Paul Lederach. Lederach divides a population into a top, middle-range and grassroots level, and he illustrates this division as a three-leveled triangle with a small elite or leadership community at the top, a slightly larger community of middle-range leaders, and a larger grass roots community at the bottom:

• The Elite: The top leadership is represented by military/political leaders with high visibility, is usually led by a highly visible, single personality.
• The Middle Range: The middle-range leadership is made up of respected "elders," academics, intellectuals, and leaders of non-governmental organizations (usually large international agencies), who generally have to rely on persuasion and advice in order to influence change in matters of war and peace.
• The Grassroots: The grassroots community makes up the bulk of the population in a conflict and is often the group that has taken the heaviest casualties from the conflict. Grassroots leaders have very little power to change top-level political decisions but are central in providing the infrastructure for building participation at a local level. The grassroots leadership consists of local activists and elders, leaders of indigenous NGOs, health officials, refugee leaders, etc. These leaders are vital for creating participatory civil societies in post-conflict situations.

The structure of Lederach's society implies that communication has to function not only on a horizontally between the adversaries engaged in peacemaking, but also vertically, between these different levels of decision-making within the home community. Ideas and proposals that emerge from a "top-down" perspective have no foundation in a society if they don’t bring up the grievances and problems that are experienced by the population. Each level of a society needs to accept and embrace peace in order for an agreement to be negotiated and implemented effectively. However, these different groups often have very different needs, depending on their exposure to violence or their role in the conflict. Whereas the grassroots population may need healing from trauma, relief operations or empowerment programs, the leadership elite needs to be encouraged to look beyond entrenched values towards common goals and visions. Often, by empowering and encouraging the middle range leadership to explore options and pursue reconciliation initiatives, they can act as catalysts for both the leadership and the grassroots to accept change. The middle-range leadership often serves as a communication link between the other two levels, making sure that top-down peace programs "trickle down" or that bottom-up initiatives are heeded by the leadership. The successful management of a destructive conflict thus requires work to "undo" the destruction of conflict on all levels of a society in order to achieve peace.

Actors and Tasks

The actors engaged in conflict management and peacemaking can be internal or external, international, regional or local. Ideally, societies deal with conflict by exposing it to the political process, where competitive politics substitutes for direct violent confrontations. However, in circumstances where states are either weak or collapsing or where a participatory political system is absent, external actors may need to be deployed to carry out some of the conflict management activities. Exactly who carries out the activities is not imperative, as long as they property address the challenges that stand in the way of peace. However, due to this problem-based approach, there is also a risk of different actors doing overlapping activities without proper coordination.

The goal of any external intervention is in some ways to "make itself redundant," by training and capacitating internal and local actors to manage and prevent conflict situations independently without external help. The extent of external support needed will therefore vary in each case depending on the severity of a conflict, the degree of collapse of a society and the extent to which human and social capital is available. External actors therefore have a vital role to play in terms of supplying the capability needed for creating a viable political environment. The tasks that are carried out can be everything from funding local peace initiatives to taking over the administration of a country during its transition.

Here are some examples of actors and tasks involved in the conflict management process:

Diplomacy as Conflict Management

Conflict management activities carried out by foreign government representatives are usually referred to as diplomacy. Since the time of Machiavelli, diplomats have become known as the official link of communication between states and in the past diplomacy was often the forum where the decisions on war and peace were ultimately taken. In their capacity as foreign emissaries, diplomats today in embassies around the world handle everything from cultural relations to trade and politics. The use of the term diplomacy can therefore be both vague and misleading, especially if one is referring only to official political relations between states in matters of war and peace. Because of this confusion the literature has come to distinguish between track I & Track II diplomacy, where Track I represents the official relations between states conducted by elite representatives, and track II refers to unofficial communications between lower level officials, academics or intellectuals, whose communications can potentially lead to higher-level communications in the future (a good example is the Oslo Process between Israel and the Palestinians).

First Track, First Tier, or Track I Diplomacy, as it can be called, is therefore the interaction between official state actors or elites that represent each party to a conflict. It also often involves diplomats or officials of other states - partisan or non-partisan - in the capacity of facilitators or mediators. However, Track I diplomacy refers not only to the actors themselves but also to the processes used in conflict management. Usually Track I diplomacy is overt, using open channels and with full knowledge of all parties involved, including their consent and authorization. In order for Track I diplomacy to be worthwhile, diplomats have to have the capacity to offer credible and non-retractable commitments and concessions. It is therefore expected that Track I diplomats either have full decision-making capability or stand in close contact with those individuals at the center of power whose consent is needed for any agreement to be accepted.

Track I diplomacy has been used to determine rules for warfare and conditions of defeat. Yet, in the past fifty years, the face of diplomacy has changed. More international contact and the development of relations with states also means more ministries, agencies, and other organizations working under the auspices of official authority. This can be seen in regional organizations becoming increasingly involved in international affairs and with them new types of Track I diplomacy. More agencies and organizations are able to participate in international relations yet at the same time, with the loss of concentration in representation, there is more availability for representatives to be present in all stages of conflict

Second Track, Second tier, or Track II Diplomacy is the interaction between lower-level actors in a conflict. As with Track I diplomacy, this refers not only to the actors themselves but also to the methods used during Peacemaking. Track II diplomacy provides supplemental and parallel functions to help foster relations at various levels in support of Track I efforts. Often times it seeks to carry out the mandates of Track I diplomacy but through more covert and subtle means, through secret channels or lower-level official talks. The means and efforts of the Track II diplomat extend beyond Peacemaking into the Conflict Prevention and Peacebuilding stages of conflict.

In recent years, a new level of diplomacy has emerged. Track One-and-a-half Diplomacy refers to situations when official representatives give authority to non-state actors to participate, negotiate and act on behalf of the state actors. Track one-and-a-half diplomacy occurred when St. Egidio, an Italian Catholic NGO, mediated talks between the two warring parties in Mozambique. The NGO was given authority by each party to negotiate on their behalf and successfully mediated a peace agreement.

Empowering Local Actors

External actors can do a good job of managing a conflict through peacekeeping or peace enforcement, but there is unlikely to be true conflict resolution and transformation without the involvement and commitment of local actors. Communication therefore needs to go in three directions during a peace process: internally-externally between leaders of the local parties and foreign sponsors or guarantors; vertically, between the leaderships of the antagonistic parties; and horizontally, between the top leadership and the lower echelons of both societies. A peace process implemented by a foreign sponsor that lacks the vertical and horizontal elements is unlikely to properly address the real grievances of the parties involved and may therefore fail to take root in local society. On the other hand, former enemies are often unable to produce enough trust and reconciliation on their own to be capable of implementing a peace process without the help of outsiders to guarantee their security. . Local leadership thus has to be empowered on each level of diplomacy in order for agreements to not be imposed from the top-down. Each leadership group has different tasks and responsibilities:

• The Elite: The top leadership mainly focuses on high-level negotiations over cease-fires or peace agreements. Members of the elite either have the ability to make policy related changes, or are in close contact with those leaders who have such decision-making capacity. In order for a peace process to "fly" with those groups who have suffered and fought in a conflict, elites have to make sure that their constituents’ most important grievances are addressed through the negotiations and that change - although slow - is visible on the ground.
• The Middle Range Leadership: They focus on such issues as the coordination of training in conflict resolution, the implementation of peace commissions, as well as problem-solving workshops. The Middle Range leadership can often serve as a back channel to top-level negotiators by engaging themselves in Explorative, or Track II diplomacy. Because intellectuals and academics lack the public pressure exerted on the political leadership, they are often free to be more creative in searching for new options or alternatives. Because their decisions were not binding, the small group of Arab and Israeli intellectuals who lay the groundwork for the Oslo agreement were able to be much more flexible than those officials who were negotiating in the parallel Washington process. When higher-level government officials became involved, much of the facts had already been laid out on the table and previously unthinkable options had been explored.
• The Grassroots: These leaders often have to carry the heaviest load of all the three groups, in that they are faced with the largest target group, but with the least resources and capabilities in terms of political decision-making. Tasks include grassroots training, prejudice reduction, and socio-psychological work in reducing post-conflict trauma of the many victims of violence. In short, the grassroots activists are imperative for creating local peace and reconciliation between groups, but are often unable to do so without top-down or foreign/external assistance.

For societies with little prior experience with representative government, the peace process itself can be a good starting point for practicing increased citizen participation required for future Statebuilding. Local actors can often carry out much of the administrative activities of foreign sponsors and donors (such as humanitarian aid or development assistance), while requiring less of the training. They are valuable for providing local access to target groups and for identifying real needs and grievances both in preventive conflict situations and in the stages of post-conflict reconstruction. Local actors on all levels also have a growing role during Evaluation and assessment of conflict management activities, where money spent on the right causes may be critical for the success or failure of a peace agreement.

There are thus important choices facing the external parties when investing in a peace process, so as to follow the principle of "doing no harm". Grassroots are easily swayed by demagogic or religious leaders who often use the manipulation of public sentiments as a means in their struggle for power and popularity. As economic and social conditions in a society worsen, be it because of the ongoing conflict or because of internal political mismanagement, it is always very practical to put the blame on the enemy group. External parties have to be careful not empower the "wrong" local elites in such a struggle. Looking back at the breakdown of federal Yugoslavia, many analysts put the blame entirely on Milosevic and the Serbian civilian/military elites who used "ethnic rallying" to bolster their own power. Susan Woodward claims that had the international community taken early and decisive steps to support the federal government of Prime Minister Markovic economically and politically, the catastrophe that followed may have been averted.

However, outside parties and sponsors also have to make sure not to leave out important players from the process if these players are vital for the implementation of an agreement. Outliers or extremist groups who are barred from negotiations or who opt out because their demands are not met by an agreement, often feel that they have nothing to loose from spoiling the process through extremist acts or terrorism. In some cases the most extreme groups from either side of a conflict end up in an "unholy alliance" that opposes a peace process, thus in a way projecting their own expectations of non-compliance on to the enemy.