Understanding Contemporary Conflict PDF

Copyright 0 Oliver Ramsbotham. Tom Woodhouse and Hugh Miall 2005 The right of Oliver Ramsbotham. Tom Woodhouse and Hugh Miall to be identified as the Authors of this Work has been asserted in accordance with the UK Copyright. Designs and Patents Act 1988. First published in 2005 by Polity Press R...

Copyright 0 Oliver Ramsbotham. Tom Woodhouse and Hugh Miall 2005 The right of Oliver Ramsbotham. Tom Woodhouse and Hugh Miall to be identified as the Authors of this Work has been asserted in accordance with the UK Copyright. Designs and Patents Act 1988. First published in 2005 by Polity Press Reprinted 2006 Polity Press 65 Bridge Street Cambridge CB2 IUR, UK Polity Press 350 Main Street Malden, MA 02148. USA All rights reserved. Except for the quotation of short passages for the purpose of criticism and review, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted. in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying. recording or otherwise. without the prior permission of the publisher. ISBN: 0-7456-3212-2 ISBN: 0-7456-3213-0(pb) A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library and has been applied for from the Library of Congress. Typeset in 10.5 on 13pt Swift by S e ~ Filmsetting s Ltd. Manchester Printed and bound in Great Britain by MPG Books Ltd. Bodmin, Cornwall For further information on Polity, visit our website: www.polity.co.uk  Understanding Contemporflry Conflict 79 Contextual conflict Conflict Understanding -4 Relational -----+ internal Internal Contemporary Conflict Contextual RgllR 4.1 Internal. relational and contextual theories of conflict apparently irreducible discrepancies between major schools of analy- The historian of great events is always oppressed by the difficulty ,f tracing the silent, subtle influences which in all communities / sis? Using figure 4.1 as a schematic model, it is helpful to see how someof these theories are internal, because they locate the sources of precede and prepare the way for violent outbursts and uprisings. conflict mainly within the nature of the protagonists (e.g.certain etho- I Winston Churchill, 1898 lo@caland anthropological theories), some are relational, because they lool< for sources mainly in relations between conflict parties (e.g. introduced some of the main concepts in conflict resolution H AMNG theory in chapter 1, described the evolution of the field in chapter 2 and looked at the statistical basis for diagnosis in chapter 3, certain theories in behavioural sociology and social psychology), and some are contextual, because they look mainly outside to the condition- ing contexts that structure the conflict and in some versions also we begin our survey of conflict resolution in the early twenty-first generate the conflict parties themselves (e.g. certain neo-realist and century by considering the way in which major armed conflict has Marxist t h e ~ r i e s ). ~ been analysed within the conflict resolution tradition. Adequate This was already evident in the thinking of the European theorists conflict analysis - polernology, to borrow the French terminology - has ofthe early modern period. For Machiavelli, conflict was a result of the from the start been seen as the essential prerequisite for normative human desire for self-preservation and power. For Hobbes, the three conflict resolution. This chapter, therefore, provides the necessary 'principal causes of quarrel' in a state of nature were competition for conceptual basis for those that follow. ! gain, fear of insecurity, and defence of honour. For Hume, the under- lying conditions for human conflict were relative scarcity of resources and limited altruism. For Rousseau, the 'state of war' was born from 'the social state' itself. Moreover, different types of explanation are more often than not In chapter 1 we introduced some well-laown general theories of Politically compromised, whether propounded by conflict protagonists conflict from the conflict resolution tradition. These models are Or by third parties. This was the case during the Cold War3 and is a intended to highlight generic aspects of conflict and conflict resolu- common feature of post-Cold War conflicts. For example, in box 4.1 we tion. At the other end of the spectrum are specific political and histor- ! rnaY note the discrepancy between 'third-party' relational interpreta- ical explanations of particular conflicts. But at the intermediate level, tions of the Northern Ireland conflict such as the 'internal-conflict' between generic models and individual explanations, is it possible to model, and the 'traditional nationalist' and 'traditional unionist' inter- find what Vasquez calls a 'unified theory of conflict' (1995:137), suffi- pretations historically espoused by the main conflict parties. This also I cient to account for the prevailing patterns of post-Cold War conflict Showshow 'neutral' outside views, including academic theories ofvari- with which we are concerned? OUs kinds, can become as politically implicated in the struggle as any It seems unlikely on the face of it that a single all-encompassing others? explanation will be adequate for conflicts of different types in all the Nevertheless, there are explanations of conflict at the intermediate countries that were listed in table 3.1 (see p. 58).Apart from anything else, since the time when systematic studies were first undertaken in / level which offer insight into contemporary conflict and help to it in the context of social and international conditions. Here, the conflict resolution field it has been recognized that there are we Will focus on the late Edward Azar's theory of protracted social CONTEMPORARY CONFLICT RESOLUTION 1 I Understanding Contemporary Conflict changed his emphasis, diagnosing the status of communities within 1 states and the nature of new and weak states as the 'primary locale of The traditional nationalist interpretation: Britain v. lreland The Irish people form a single nation and the fault for keeping Ireland divided lies - 11 P resent and future wars' (1996: vii). This may not seem surprising in with Britain. view of the decline in the relative incidence of interstate as against 2 The traditional unionist interpretation: Southern lreland v. Northern lreland non-interstatewar recorded in annual statistical analyses published in There are two peoples in lreland who have an equal right to self-determination, Protestant (unionist/loyalist) and Catholic (nationalist/republican), and the fault for the lggos, as we saw in the previous chapter. But this trend had been perpetuating the conflict lies with the refusal of nationalists to recognize this. evident long before the 1990% on some accounts reaching back to 3 Marxist interpretations: capitalist v. worker 1945,5 and, although international relations and strategic studies The cause of the conflict lies in the combination of an unresolved imperial legacy and the attempt by a governing capitalist class to keep the working class repressed and divided. analysts may have paid relatively little attention to the international 4 Internal-conflict interpretations: Protestant v. Catholic within Northern lreland of 'ethnic and other forms of communal conflict' during The cause of the conflict lies in the incompatibility between the aspirations of the m 10 the cold War period, a number of scholars in the peace and conflict divided communities in Northern Ireland. research field had long been preoccupied with them in their attempts Source: from Whyte, 1990: 1 13-21 to uncover the sources of what were variously termed 'deep-rooted (Burton, 1987), 'intractable conflicts' (Kriesberg et al., eds, 1989)and 'protracted social conflicts'. conflict (PSC) as an example of conflict resolution analysis from the 1t has become popular in recent years for analysts to relate accounts late 1970s and 1980s. which anticipated much of the current preoccu- of the evolution of modern warfare to accounts of the evolution of the pationwith the domestic social roots of conflict and failures ofgovern- modern state. The key qualitative turning points are seen to have been, ance. We will then bring Azar's ideas up to date by evaluating them in first, the emergence of the so-called sovereign dynastic state in Europe, the light of conflict theories that have come to prominence in the heralded by Machiavelli, Bodin and Hobbes from the sixteenth and years since his death in 1991. seventeenth centuries; second, the coming of the principle of popular sovereignty and national self-determination from the time of the American and French revolutions; and, third, the bipolar stand-off at great power level after 1945. The first is associated with the domestic monopolization and reorganization of military force by sovereigns and its projection outwards to create the relatively formal patterns of Within five years of Azar's death Holsti was writing that wars of the I early modern interstate warfare in place of earlier more sporadic, late twentieth century 'are not about foreign policy, security, honor, or localized and ill-disciplined manifestations of organized violence. The status; they are about statehood, governance, and the role and status Secondheralded the transition to mass national armies and 'total war' of nations and communities within states' (1996: 20-1). It may seem accompanying the first industrial revolution and the romantic move- strange, therefore, that '[ulntil recently, international relations the@ ment and reaching its climax in the First and Second World Wars. rists and strategic studies analysts paid comparatively little attention The advent of nuclear weapons and the military stand-off between to the causes, effects and international implications of ethnic and the Soviet and western blocs rendered major interstate war unviable other forms of communal conflict' (Brown, ed., 1993: vii). By the mid- (with a few exceptions at lower levels).Instead, the prevailing patterns 1990s it had became suddenly fashionable to focus analysis on 'inter- Of armed conflict in the 1950s and 1960sbecame wars of national inde- nal conflicts' (Brown, ed., 1996), 'new wars' (Kaldor and Vashee, edsl pendence associated with decolonization, and those of the 1970s and 1997), 'small wars' (Harding, 1994), 'civil wars' (King, 1997). 'ethnic lg80s were postcolonial civil wars in which the great powers inter- conflicts' (Stavenhagen, 1996),'conflict in post-colonial states' (van de vened as part of a continuing geopolitical struggle for power and Goor et al., eds, 1996) and so on, and for humanitarian and develop- Influence (Howard, 1976;Giddens, 1987; Keegan, 1993).For this reason ment NGOs and international agencies to refer to 'complex human Rice (1988)has called the prevailing pattern of post-1945 wars 'wars of emergencies' or 'complex political emergencies'. But this had not bee* the third kind' (in contrast to the two earlier Clausewitzean phases), a the case during Azar's lifetime. Holsti himself, for example, had term subsequently endorsed by Holsti (1996) and others. These are continued to focus on interstate war in his 1991 study of armed wars in which communities seek to create their own states in wars of conflict between 1648 2 n d ~ Q R Q T+ x r n r n n l x r h ~ 1aac r +hq+ h o had I n....... '-..---I-.-.-.:#.+.-- I-. %2 C O N T E M P O R A R Y C O N F L I C T RESOLUTION - - / Understanding Contenzporary Conflict 83 against domination, exclusion, persecution, or dispossession or lands sought to align measurable features of interstate and related wars and resources, by the post-colonial state' (Holsti, 1996: 27). such as its incidence, frequency, duration, magnitude, severity, inten- I Some detect a further evolution in prevailing patterns of conflict in sirY and costs, with empirically verifiable variables, such as structures the 1990s, as it were a third phase of 'wars of the third kind', namely a (e.g whether the hegemonic system is unipolar, bipolar, multipolar), , pattern of postCold War conflict which is seen to bear little resern. r e l a t l ~ (e.g. n ~ patterns of alliances, distribution of relative capabilities, blance to European wars in the era of the dynastic state or to the 'total of power and power transition, arms races), national wars' of the first half of the twentieth century, if anything resembling attributes (e.g. levels of domestic unrest, types of domestic regime, earlier medieval wars in their lack of differentiation between state and levels Ofeconomic development),and other aspects ofwhat Mansbach society, soldier and civilian, internal and external transactions across and Vascluez (1981) call the 'paths to war' (e.g. the positive expected ( frontiers, war and organized crime (Van Crefeld, 1991).Kaldor charac- utility for decision-makers in initiating h ~ s t i l i t i e s )This. ~ vast enter- terizes these 'new wars' in terms of political goals (no longer the prise has produced mixed result^.^ But is it possible that, in terms of foreign policy interests of states, but the consolidation of new forms of 1 prevailing patterns of post-1945 conflict, most international relations power based on ethnic homogeneity); ideologies (no longer universal and strategic studies experts were looking in the wrong direction? principles such as democracy, fascism or socialism, but tribalist and could it be that, mesmerized by the bipolar stand-off at great power communalist identity politics); forms of mobilization (no longer 1 level, analysts subsumed both decolonizing wars of national liberation conscription or appeals to patriotism, but fear, corruption, religion, I and postcolonial civil wars into traditional Europeanized conceptual magic and the media); external support (no longer superpowers or categories, failing to notice the qualitative change that had taken ex-colonial powers, but diaspora, foreign mercenaries, criminal mafia, place when prevailing patterns of major armed conflict ceased being regional powers); mode of warfare (no longer formal and organized intra-European interstate wars after 1945? And was it only with the campaigns with demarcated front-lines, bases and heavyweapons, but collapse of the Soviet Union that analysts belatedly realized that the fragmented and dispersed, involving paramilitary and criminal 'new' patterns of post-Cold War conflict were in fact not so new, but groups, child soldiers, light weapons, and the use of atrocity, famine, had been prevalent, albeit under different geopolitical conditions, for rape and siege); and the war economy (no longer funded by taxation nearly half a c e n t u w and generated by state mobilization, but sustained by outside emer- We do not want to pronounce on these large questions here, beyond gency assistance and the parallel economy, including unofficial noting that this is the context within which Azar's work should be export of timber and precious metals, drug-trafficlung, criminal evaluated, because he had been arguing for a radical revision of rackets, plunder) (Kaldor and Vashee, eds, 1997: 7-19). In fact, both Kaldor and Holsti follow Rice in suggesting that the ' Prevailing Clausewitzean ideas since the 1970s. He was not alone in doing this, of course. He was heavily indebted to other conflict resolu- key turning point in all this was not so much 1989 or 1990, as 1945. tion theorists, notably John Burton with whom he co-published, For Kaldor. '[slince 1945, there have been very few interstate wars' although we will not try to disentangle credit for contributory ideas (1999:29),while for Holsti: here. We should also be careful about unhistorical assumptions about 'new' features of warfare, which can in most cases be shown to have a The problem is that the Clausewitzean image of war, as well as its theo- retical accoutrements, has become increasingly divorced from the long ancestry (Newrnan, 2004). Nevertheless, throughout this period characteristics and sources of most armed conflicts since 1945. The key there were still 'Clausewitzean' wars going on (between India and question is: given that most wars since 1945 have been within states. of Pakistan. Israel and her neighbours, China and Vietnam, Iraq and what intellectual and policy relevance are concepts and practices Iran). 'mixed civil-international wars' were largely structured by Cold derived from the European and Cold War experiences that diagnosed war geopolitics, and at great power level the two main alliances were or prescribed solutions for the problem of war between states?(1996: Still strenuously preparing for the possibility, if not lilzelihood, of a italics in the original) thoroughly Clausewitzean military encounter, despite the nuclear Does this suggest that the analysis of interstate war, which has Stalemate. It was the latter which largely preoccupied international dominated international relations since 1945, is largely irrelevant relations and strategic studies analysts at the time, so that the recon- post-1945 conflict? Entire tracts of quantitative research over the pas" war decades have been devoted to the search for 'correlates of inter- ' ceptualization of prevailing patterns of conflict offered by Azar and other conflict resolution analysts was hardly noticed in the conven- state war' which might give a clue to its sources and nature. ~ n a l y s ~ ' tional literature.  yict of this lzind. At the time of his last writings in the early 1990s identified more than sixty examples of this 'new type of conflict', politics, political economy Governance State capacity and scales of political repression forms of political accommodation at one end of the spectrum to 'coer relations, International linkages Volume of arms imports etc.; cive repression' or 'instrumental co-option' at the other. In Azar's vieul ~ t r a t e ~studies ic cross-border fomentation given the perceived political and economic costs involved in weak an< fragmented polities and because of the 'winner-take-all' norm 'whic1 still prevails in multicommunal societies', it is much more likely to bt repression than accommodation. Finally, there are the various self work of David Horowitz (1985) and Anthony Smith (1986) in the reinforcing 'built-in mechanisms of conflict' exhaustively studied b~ mid-1980~); we claim only that his approach anticipated many aspects conflict resolution analysts once the malign spiral of conflict escal of what has since become orthodoxy, and that his ideas deserve more ation is triggered. recognition than they have been given. Azar drew on the work of Sumner (1906),Gurr (1970).Mitchell (1981 A further point is worth malung. In terms of 'correlates of war', and others to trace the process by which mutually exclusionarj Azar's ideas were also seen to offer a framework for the analysis of 'experiences, fears and belief systems' generate 'reciprocal negativt prevailing patterns of war, which differed from what was usual when images which perpetuate communal antagonisms and solidifj interstate war was the object of analysis (see the lunds of indicator protracted social conflict'. Antagonistic group histories, exclusion is^ suggested in Esty et al., 1998).Table 4.1 shows the way in which Azar's myths, demonizing propaganda and dehumanizing ideologies serve tc 'preconditions' widened the relevance of different disciplines to the justify discriminatory policies and legitimize atrocities. In thest study of protracted social conflict beyond what had hitherto been circumstances, in a dynamic familiar to students of international rela normal in mainstream international relations, and suggests indica- tions as the 'security dilemma', actions are mutually interpreted ir tively the kinds of correlate that came into view as a result. Such statis- the most threatening light, 'the worst motivations tend to be attrib tical studies of non-interstate war are still in their infancy, and, as uted to the other side', the space for compromise and accommodatior shown in the next section, remain controversial, but Azar's model shrinks and 'proposals for political solutions become rare, and tend tc offered a hopeful beginning. be perceived on all sides as mechanisms for gaining relative power an( control' (Azar, 1990: 15).All of this intensifies further as political crisi! spirals into war, where new vested interests emerge dependent upor the political economy of the war itself, the most violent and u n r u l ~ elements in society appear in leadership roles and criminalit! becomes a political norm. At the limit, disintegration follows. Wit1 In evaluating Azar's theory posthumously, we should of Course sustained attrition, political structures buckle and collapse, a socia remember that the writing on 'new wars' since his death assumes a implosion which subsequently sucks everything else in. lu'0wledge of the post-Cold War world that he did not have. He could Azar saw PSC analysis as an attempt to 'synthesize the realist an[ not have taken account in his published writings of the impact of the structuralist paradigms into a pluralist framework' more suitable fol disintegration of the bipolar world or of Zartman's conclusion that: explaining prevalent patterns of conflict than the more limited alter 'More than anything else, it is the uncertainty following the passing of natives (1991: 95).We are not claiming here that Azar's analysis is the the old order that allows conflict to brealz out with such abandon at last word on the subject, nor that he was alone in pointing to the the end of the millennium' (1997:6).It is possible that Azar might have significance of mobilized identities, exclusionist ideologies, fragile Seen Mearsheimer's 1990 'Back to the Future' article, but, if so, for and authoritarian governance, weak states and disputed sovereignty reasons already given, we can be pretty certain that he would have as chief sources of major armed conflict (we have only to think of the been unimpressed by its nee-realist interpretation. C O N T E M P O R A R Y CONFLICT RESOLUTION Understanding Contemporary Conflict Let us consider four more 'global level7 interpretations that have Is this a comprehensive rejection of Azar's analysis of PSC? We do not become popular since the end of the Cold War and bear ambiguously think so. Duffield's caricature of conflict resolution is just that - a on Azar's theory. caricature. Azar himself would have agreed - indeed, did agree - with Huntington's 'clash of civilizations' hypothesis has recently bec- of the international political economy critique in the form he revived in the wake of the 11September 2001 catastrophe (1996).Son familiar with in the 1980s, seeing the prevalence of PSC in the have interpreted historic Muslim ressentiment against the West in the! Third World as symptomatic of the distortions of postcolonial terms (Lewis, 2002), or pitted tribal fundamentalism (jihad) again and political structures. He did not identify conflict resolu- secular consumerist capitalism (McWorld)(Barber, 2001). Others haT tion solely with 'micro' techniques, such as principled negotiation, been more circumspect (Armstrong, 2001; Shadid, 2002). Althoug facilitative mediation or problem-solving workshops. As Ronald Fisher identity groups play a key role in Azar's ontology, they are not 'tl notes, Azar saw these as important mechanisms for achieving short- broadest level of cultural identity that people have short of that whit term breakthroughs, but emphasized throughout his work that 'long- distinguishes humans from other species', which is how Huntingta term development is essential to address fundamental causes' (1997: defines a civilization (1996: 43). Azar would, we think, have regardc 97)- for Azar, 'peace is development in the broadest sense of the term'. the latter not as a social datum, but as part of the ideological apparat~ In the final chapter of his book Duffield argues for a genuine 'cosmo- likely to be mobilized by political interests. He would also almo politan politics' that upholds international law and the search for certainly have opposed Huntington's policy conclusions for wester participatory 'common values', as against the 'liberal governance' decision-makers. imposition of external norms and rules: Another issue area that Azar did not, so far as we know, forefront j his own analysis is that of 'environmental conflict'. This has becor Rather than searching for better policy or commissioning more more prominent in the literature since his death, but in this case M detailed forms of analysis, the real task is reforming the institutions and networks of global governance to address complexity.... Reform do not see a contradiction with Azar's theory. In assessing the linl would require turning rule-based bureaucracies into adaptive, learn- between population growth, environmental scarcity and f u t u ~ ing and networking organisations.(2001: 264-5) violent conflict, for example, Thomas Homer-Dixon examines the lik lihood of international 'simple scarcity' conflicts over water, forest Azar would simply say 'amen'. The idea of adaptive organization fishing and agricultural land, 'group-identity' conflicts triggered t within a cosmopolitan world society is exactly John Burton's notion of population movements, and 'deprivation' conflicts caused by relati~ 'second order learning', which, as we saw in chapter 2, he regards as depletion of economic resources (1991, 1994). The latter two a] essential for human survival. evidently consonant with Azar's theory. Finally in terms of global-level interpretations, there is the whole A third major strand of conflict analysis in the 1990s and early 200( discourse on 'new wars' in which state decay in some regions has been is more critical of conflict resolution. This is the international polil seen to coincide with the end of Cold War control, rapidly reduced cal economy critique that we mentioned in chapter 1. The central costs and increased availability ofweapons, and a change in tactics and argument is, first, that the 'new wars' in the Third World are not symp- the function of war, no longer aimed so much at decisive military tomatic of local failures in governance, but are a product of the distor- victory as at perpetuating the economic and other gains associated tions of late capitalism, and, second, that the way they are no with the continuance of violence (Keen, 1998; Kaldor, 1999; Reno, managed by donor governments, international financial institution lg99).The emphasis is on the way new wars merge into forms of cross- aid and development agencies, and the United Nations perpetuatt border economic exploitation and criminal networks and are this. Development is seen to have been co-opted into a global securil often by the very measures taken to end them (although we regime that uses conflict resolution and social reconstruction, as we have noted above how many or most of these features are far from new). as the more obvious instruments of international military control, an analysis of what happens once large-scale violence has broken transform target societies in the image of the interveners in order Out. this is a further elaboration ofAzar's understanding that PSCS 'do pacify the unruly periphery and maintain the status quo: 'the conflll not show clear starting and terminating points' and often become self- resolution and post-war reconstruction concerns of liberal governan( Perpetuating, capable of persisting at fluctuating levels for years, could be seen as the "riot control" end of a spectrum encompassing a 'ardly noticed by the analysts of 'great power war' in his day. If the broad range of "global poor relief' activities...' (Duffield, 2001: 9). war' analysis extends to a substantial reinterpretation of the ? C O N T E M P O R A R Y CONFLICT RESOLUTION Understanding Contemporary Conflict 93 \ deeper causes of such wars, however, then this would be much more Characteristic of 'holistic' German explanations for new wars. for significant for Azar's theory. So we will address this separately below such as those of Munlder: when we look at theories about economic incentives for war (p. 95). The predominant cause of internal war, in this line of thinking, is the This short survey of post-cold War global-level conflict analysis erosion of the capability of the state to govern. This can be the result of suggests that, having set aside the neo-realist and 'clash of civiliz- the weakening of the legitimacy of the state or of direct challenges to ations' accounts, Azar would have found little difficulty in accommo- its of the use of force. (2005: 109) dating predictions of future conflict exacerbated by environmental constraints, the global distortions of late capitalism, or the privatiz- we need not linger here, major topic though it is, because this is ation ofviolence and shifting technologies ofwarfare. We now turn to clearly compatible with. if not confirmatory of, Azar's strong emph- three other types of explanation for the prevalence of large-scale ,,is on the key significance of 'governance and the state's role', violence that have become more prominent since Azar's time, at including the importance of perceived legitimacy, in precipitating or regional, state and societal levels. inhibiting the escalation of PSC. It is also in line with Azar's observa- First, we may note those who have focused mainly on cross-border tion that weak postcolonial states in the Third World are particularly contagion and regional security complexes for explanations of the vulnerable. It should be noted, though, that, since Azar thought that prevalence or absence of large-scale violence in 'zones of peace and &highlycentralised political structures are sources of conflict', he war' (Lake and Rothchild, eds, 1997). Others attribute the contrast himself advocated 'appropriate decentralised structures' (1986:33-4). between 'zones of war' and 'zones of peace' to the stability of power mis is at odds with the recommendations of analysts such as Holsti, structures in the various regions. Buzan and his associates, for exam- who advocate, on the contrary, 'the strengthening of states' (1996:xii). ple, studied 'regional security complexes' in the 1980s (that is, groups The discrepancy may not be as stark as at first appears, however, since of states with interconnected security concerns). They found a spec- Holsti agrees with Azar that 'vertical legitimacy' (political consensus trum ranging from regions in turmoil (marked by numerous conflict between governers and governed about the institutional 'rules of formations), through security regimes (where member states remain the game') and 'horizontal legitimacy' (inclusive political community potential threats to each other but have reduced mutual insecurity by in which individuals and groups have equal access to decisions and formal and informal arrangements), to pluralistic security commu- allocations) are what ultimately underpin 'the strength of states' nities (where member states no longer feel that they need to make (1996:82-98). serious provision for a mutual use of force against each other). They Turning to the societal level and what Azar called the 'disarticula- located the main determinants of regional stability in interstate tion between the state and society as a whole', the increased promi- factors: the numbers of state players within a given security complex, nence of nationalism and ethnicity in explanations for war in the the patterns of amity and hostility and the distributions of power 1990s would certainly have caused few problems for Azar (Esman, (Buzan, 1991: ch. 5). Change within a security complex could thus be 2004). These were the kinds of conflict that he had been analysing measured in terms of four quite simple structural parameters: the since the 1970s. For example, neither van Evera's 'Hypotheses on maintenance of the status quo, internal change within the complexl nationalism and war' (1994)nor Lake and Rothchild's 'Containing fear: external boundary change (states entering or leaving the complex)7 the origins and management of ethnic conflict' (1996) contradicts and 'overlay' - the dominant intrusion of an outside power. Since Azar's earlier conclusions. Lake and Rothchild argue that ethnic then, Buzan et al. have offered a more complex model in many WaYS is neither a result of 'ancient hatreds' nor caused by the closer to Azar's ideas.8Here, we suggest, we have an important supple- Sudden'uncorking' of Soviet repression, but that: ment to Azar's model, and perhaps a qualification in those cases like ethnic conflict is most often caused by collective fears of the future. Sierra Leone after 1991 where it may be external fomentation that is AS groups begin to fear for their safety, dangerous and difficult-to- seen as a prime cause of war. This does not, however, contradict the resolve strategic dilemmas arise that contain within them the poten- main body of his work. tial for tremendous violence. AS information failures, problems of credible commitment, and the security dilemma take hold, groups Another cluster of explanations for 'new wars' in the 1990s has come become apprehensive, the state weakens. and conflict becomes more from those who place their main emphasis on the 'crisis of govern- likely. Ethnic activists and political entrepreneurs, operating within ance' precipitated by the impact of globalization on 'state decay' groups. build upon these fears and polarise society. Political memories (Tackson, 1990; Ayoob, 1995). Brzoska explains how this has been and emotions also magnify these anxieties, driving groups further CONTEMPORARY CONFLICT RESOLUTION Understandinn ContrmporarY Conflict apart. Together these between-group and within-group a ~ l a ~ r g i ~ Lu,,trast drawn between greed and grievance has been much softened interactions produce a toxic brew that can explode into murderous by subsequent qualification, to the point where. surprisingly, policy violence. (1996:41) from an 'economic agenda' basis do not differ This is an almost word-for-word replication of Azar's description of the significantly from those suggested by Azar's PSC analysis. For example, 'process dynamics' of PSC escalation. Azar would have added 'state drawing from his joint study with Hoeffler of civil wars between 1965 actions and strategies' (merged by the authors under 'strategic interac. and 1999 (2001: 147), Collier concludes that, in addition to measures tions within groups' and 'confidence-building measures') and the inter. for reducing the risk from an excessive dependence on natural action between these and 'communal actions and strategies'. He would resource exports, 'policies for conflict prevention' should include, also have added an analysis of what he saw as the underlying frustra- first, policies to remedy 'low income and economic decline' and, tions that formed the 'preconditions' for conflict in the first place..,rand, policies to mitigate the dangers of 'ethnic dominance' such as Finally, we reach what has turned out to be the main frontal assault minority rights in the constitution': on Azar's style of PSC analysis in the 1990s - the so-called 'greed versus This can be done by explicitly legislating either group rights or strong grievance' debate (Berdal and Malone, eds, 2000).As a somewhat ironic individual rights.... The scope for this approach depends upon the consequence of the neglect of his work, it is not Azar who is criticized credibility of the checlcs and balances that the state can erect upon by name here, but those who argue in the same way: government power. Usually states are not strong enough for this degree of trust, and so they can usefully be reinforced by international and Many, if not most, current conflicts stem from the failure of political, regional commitments. (Collier. 2001: 158) economic and social institutions to pay sufficient attention to the We have seen how Azar's analysis led to precisely the same policy grievances and perceived needs of significant groups in the population. (Rasmussen et al., eds, 1997: 33) recommendations suggested by his first three PSC 'preconditions': the importance of managing ethnic dominance, countering lack of In contrast to this, analysts such as Collier explicitly deny that 'griev- economic opportunity, and remedying government inability to ance' causes major armed conflicts, and look instead to 'greed' - protect minorities. Collier also stresses the significance of handling 'economic agendas as causes of conflict' (Collier 2000; Collier and the influence of diasporas - Azar's fourth 'precondition' of cross- Hoeffler, 2001).The argument is based on a claim of statistical refuta- border linkages. In fact, when Collier turns to policy recommenda- tion - that indicators of need-deprivation do not correlate closely with tions for 'postconflict peacebuilding', he explicitly reimports the the incidence of armed conflict in comparison with indicators for language of 'grievance' itself, albeit with complex circumlocutions in economic incentives. The 'proxies' used to capture the economic an attempt to presewe a dubious distinction between 'objective' and agenda include: the share of primary commodity exports in GDP, since 'subjective' grievance: these are the most easily lootable assets (diamonds, drugs, timber);the The alternative to continuing the political contest but making the mili- proportion of young males between the ages of 15 and 24 in a society. tary option infeasible is to resolve the political contest itself. This since 'overwhelmingly the people who join rebellions are young men'; requires at a minimum that the grievances be addressed, even if and the average number of years of education that the population has though on average they are not objectively any more serious than those received as a proxy for employability and income-earning opportun- in peaceful societies. If, indeed, group grievance has been manufac- ities outside rebellion and war. These are then compared with 'griev- tured by rebel indoctrination, it can potentially be deflated by political ance' proxies: ethnic or religious hatred, economic (horizontal) gestures. While grievances may need to be addressed objectively, the main purpose of addressing them is probably for their value in chang- inequality, lack of political rights, and government economic compet- ing perceptions. (2001: 159) ence. The conclusion is that 'The results overwhelmingly point to the importance of economic agendas as opposed to grievance': In short, the analysis of economic incentives to violence from natural resource predation is, indeed, a substantial addition to Azar's PSC The combination of large exports of primary commodities, a high analysis, leading as it does to the classification of factional and crimi- proportion of young men, and economic decline drastically increases nalized wars in which political agendas play little part - these are risk. Greed seems more important than grievance. (Collier, 2000: 110) already incorporated into our conflict typology in chapter 3 (see We will not analyse the statistical evidence point by point here, but table 4.2). This may happen in any war as the self-perpetuating logic of will focus instead on Collier's policy conclusions. The original stark h l e n c e taltes hold. ~ uit tcan hardly be seen to replace a PSC approach 6 CONTEMPORARY CONFLICT RESOLUTION - Understanding Contemporary Conflict 97 :ombatant Resource Period st. revenue Level Example / jngola rebels (UNITA) Diamonds 1992-2001 $4-4.2 billion to1 1 Global Geopolitical transition, North-South economic divide, environmental constraints, weapons jierra Leone rebels (RUF) Diamonds 1990s 825-1 25 million, proliferation, ideological contestation.iberia government Timber Late 1990s $100-187 millio~ Regional Clientage patterns, spillover, intervention, cross- judan government Oil Since 1999 8400 million/yea border social demography, diaspora zwanda government Coltan (from Congo) 1999-2000 8250 million total State lfghanistan (Taliban, Opium, lapis Mid-1990s-2001 890-100 million/y~ Social Weak society: cultural divisions, ethnic imbalanc Northern Alliance) lazuli, emeralds Economic Weak economy: poor resource base, relative Iambodia government, Timber deprivation Khmer Rouge Political Weak polity: partisan government, regime jlyanmar government Timber illegitimacy -nlnmhia (FARC rebels) Cocaine Late 1990s $140 million/year Conflict party Group mobilization, intergroup dynamics Elite/individual Exclusionist policies, factional interest, rapacious Yource: Renner, ZOO2 leadership c -= as originally claimed - for example, in the kinds of cases that gave rise to Azar's conclusions such as the conflicts in Northern Ireland, the most helpful framework for locating relevant interpretations and for Spanish Basque country, Chechnya, Sri Lanka or the IsraelilPalestinian specifying appropriate conflict resolution responses. Instead of conflict. Waltz's 1959 'system', 'state' and 'individual' levels (still used by most More telling in this regard would seem to be those studies since the contemporary accounts, such as Crocker et al., eds, 2001: Part I), we end of the Cold War that aim to analyse the complex, varied and recommend a five-level model, comprising two 'international' levels lengthy processes by which incipient ethnopolitical conflicts do or do (global and regional), one 'state' level divided into functional sectors, not escalate towards violence. Here results are exactly consonant with and two 'social' levels (conflict party and elitelindividual).The relative a PSC approach, as exemplified in the work of Azar's fellow scholar emphasis accorded to these levels will shift according to the interpret- from Maryland, Ted Robert Gurr. In one way Gurr confirms Collier's ation being considered or the conflict being analysed (see table 4.3). finding that grievance rarely leads to overt rebellion, but he does so Azar's 'international linkages' can be recognized at global and regional within an interpretative context of 'communal-based protest' that levels, his 'communal content', 'deprivation of needs' and 'governance' exactly mirrors Azar's approach: at state level (social, economic, political sectors), and his 'process dynamics' at conflict party and elitelindividual levels. [Tlhe most common political strategy among the 275 ethnopolitical groups surveyed in the Minorities at Risk studywas not rebellion: it was symbolic and organizational politics.... Equally important, the Global sources of contemporary conflict number of groups using armed violence has been declining after decades of increase. The eruption of ethnic warfare that seized Having loolzed at some of the main global-level theories in the previous observers' attention in the early 1990s was actually the culmination of Section,we will confine ourselves here to noting the synergy between a long-term general trend of increasing communal-based protest and them - another reason why the sources of contemporary conflict are rebellion that began in the 1950s and peaked immediately after the SO difficult to handle. Geopolitical readjustment at the end of the Cold end of the Cold War. (2000:275-6) War ended some conflicts fuelled by superpower rivalry, but precipi- tated others, both along the perimeters of the former Soviet Union and in parts of the world where simplifying bipolar structures were Suddenly removed. This phase may now be coming to an end in the Given the variety and complexity of the main post-Cold War CIDI Balltans (although not in Central Asia and particularly the Causasus). theories indicated above, we will end our survey of conflict analyszo", In its place the three interlocking factors of the North-South divide, offering a modified ' l e ~ e l ~ - ~ f - a n amodel, l ~ s i ~ 'which we thinlc is the environmental constraint and the proliferation of new technologies of CONTEMPORARY CONFLICT RESOLUTION - - Understanding Contemporary Conflict Some 5176 billion worth of weaponry was exported to the Third World p nunl b e r of Tutsi exiles from Rwanda helped President Museveni of Uganda in between 1987 and 1991. Keith Krause (1996) notes three theoretical his Successf~l bid for power, were integrated into the Ugandan army after models of the relation between arms exports and conflict, each of which and subsequently defected with their weapons to the mainly Tutsi-led carries a different policy prescription. Weapon availability can be seen as: da Patriotic Front forces which eventually seized control of Rwanda in (a) an independent variable causing conflict, (b) a dependent variable This led to a consolidation of Tutsi control in Burundi and, in the autumn following conflict, or (c) an interveningvariable acting as a catalyst in conflic 36, to cross-border action in what was then Zaire against the Hutu militia caused by deeper factors. He favours the third alternative. In fact, many posl risible for the 1994 Rwanda massacres who were being sheltered by Cold War conflicts have been fought with small arms rather than heavy lent Mobutu. With enthusiastic backing from the Zairean Tutsi weapons (Boutwell et al., eds, 1995). Moreover, the recipients have ImuIenge, who had been discriminated against by Mobutu's Western increasingly been sub-state groups (Karp, 1994). On one estimate, the tra zairean based regime, this swelled into concerted military support for Laurent in small arms has been worth some $10 billion a year (The Economist, 12 ~ ~ b iinl ahis march on Kinshasa and eventual deposition of Mobutu. This in February 1994: 19-2 1). Indeed, in many cases, as in Rwanda in 1994, the turn had a knock-on effect in Angola by depriving UNITA's Jonas Savimbi of worst massacres have been perpetrated with machetes..a-butu's IVlUl support, and encouraging the sending in of Angolan troops to cor ,go-Brazzaville to help reinstall Denis Sassou-Nguesso as President in October 1997. Meanwhile, similar incursions were beginning to tip the scale in tli e long-standing conflict in Sudan. war are seen to have become more prominent: 'the combination of wealth-poverty disparities and limits to growth is likely to lead to a crisis of unsatisfied expectations within an increasingly informed global majority of the disempowered' (Rogers and Ramsbotham, 1999: 749).Some see, in addition, a global ideological struggle between religious fundamentalism and secular modernity which draws on these tensions and transmutes them into new forms of conflict. Lowering over this is the threat that rogue states, terrorist groups and criminal networlts could gain access to weapons of mass destruction. Regional sources of contemporary conflict The end of the Cold War and the 'regionalization' of world politics have highlighted the importance of the regional level of explanation. AS noted in chapter 3, conflict data show clear regional differences in contemporary conflicts. This confirms those studies that emphasize the importance of overspill from one area to another, or where a common precipitating factor has generated violent conflicts in a vulnerable region; for example: the Great Lakes area of Africa (iden- tity/secession conflicts and refugee movements),West Africa (factional conflicts following the breakdown of postcolonial states), the \ i Caucasus (identitylsecession conflicts following the collapse of the a,./- Soviet Union), Central Asia (identitylsecession and factional conflicts M a 4.1 ~ Regional conflicts in Africa: spill-over effects following the collapse of the Soviet Union). The regional effects are both outwards ('spill-over','contagion', 'diffu- sion') and inwards ('influence', 'interference', 'intervention') (Lalze and refugees, and spill-over into regional politics when neighbouring states Rothchild, eds, 1997) (see box 4.3 and map 4.1). 'Internal' wars have are dragged in or the same people straddle several states. Conversely, external effects on the region through the spread of weaponry? regional instability affects the internal politics of states through economic dislocation, links with terrorism, disruptive floods of Patterns of clientage, the actions of outside governments, cross-border CONTEMPORARY CONFLICT RESOLUTION. Understanding Contemporary Conflict 101 movements of people and ideas, black market activities, criminal revolutionary ideologies such as Islamist and Hindu nationalist networks and the spread of small arms. There are also evident Sources (but also Jewish, Christian and even Buddhist). On the of regional conflict where river basins extend across state boundaries other hand, others again have noted the inadequacy of western preoc- (Gleick,1995),' orwhere a regional mismatch between state borders and ,tions with class and ethnicity in determining the social roots of CUP the distribution of peoples (usually as a result of the perpetuation ,f conflict in parts of the world, such as Africa, where social life 'revolves, former colonial boundaries) lays states open to the destabilizing effects in the first instance, around a medley of more compact organizations, of large-scale population movements (Gurr,1993; Gurr and Harff, 1994) networl~s,groupings, associations, and movements that have evolved over the centuries in response to changing circumstances' (Chazan et al., 1992: 73-103). According to the Commonwealth Secretary- The role of the state General, forty-nine of the fifty-three Commonwealth states are At this point we move from a consideration of contextual factors at ethnically heterogeneous, and, as John Darby notes, given complex international level to structural factors at state level. Wherever its other settlement patterns and the mismatch between state borders and the sources may lie, it is at the level of the state that the critical struggle is distribution of peoples, 'ethnic homogeneity, on past evidence, is in the end played out. Despite predictions of the 'end of the state1 always unattainable' (Darby, 1998: 2). under the twin pressures of globalization and what Falk calls 'the local In the economic sector once again there is some measure of agreement realities of community and sentiment' (1985: 690), the state is never- that protracted conflict tends to be associated with patterns of under- theless seen to remain 'the primary locus of identity for most people' development or uneven development. This is a much discussed topic, (Kennedy, 1993: 134). Clark agrees that the state is still the key with some evidence, first, that, contra certain traditional theories of mediator in the continuously oscillating balance between forces of social and political revolution, there is a correlation between absolute globalization ('increasingly potent international pressures') and frag- levels of economic underdevelopment and violent conflict (Tongman mentation ('the heightened levels of domestic discontent that will and Schmid, 1997; Stewart and Fitzgerald, 2001; Collier et al., 2003);'O inevitably be brought in their wale') (1997: 202). Given the juridical second, that conflict is associated with over-fast or uneven develop- monopoly on sovereignty still formally accorded to the state within ment where modernization disrupts traditional patterns, but does not the current international system, all conflict parties are in the end in as yet deliver adequate or expected rewards - especially where this is any case driven to compete for state control if they want to institute associated with rapid urbanization and population growth with a revolutionary programmes (Type 2 conflict), safeguard communal resulting increase in the relative numbers of untrained and unem- needs (Type 3 conflict), or merely secure factional interests (Type 4 ployed young males (Newman, 1991); and, third, that, even where conflict). Even in 'failed' states this usually still remains the ultimate there are reasonable levels of development in absolute terms, conflict prize for the warring elements. And the same applies to the various may still be generated where there is actual or perceived inequity in forms of contemporary terrorism. Unlike classic interstate wars, or the distribution ofbenefits (Lichbach, 1989).In all three cases mount- lower levels of domestic unrest, therefore, the major deadly conflicts ing discontent offers fertile recruiting ground for ideological extrem- with which this book deals are defined as such through their becom- ism and racial exclusionism. ing integral crises of the state itself, problematically cast as it still is as For many analysts it is the government sector that is the key arena, chief actor on the international stage and chief satisfier of domestic Since social and economic grievances are in the end expressed in needs. It is the interconnection between three sectors here that is Political form. Three main patterns may be discerned here. First, critical - social, economic and political - and, in addition, at a certain Conflictcan become endemic even in established liberal democratic level of escalation two other sectors come into play: law and order* when party pciitics become ascriptively based and one commu- and security. It is useful to bear these in mind when loolung at preven- n i Perceives ~ that state power has been permanently 'captured' by tion (chapter 5) and post-war reconstruction (chapter 8). and is *:herefore driven to challenge the legitimacy of the In the social sector we are concerned with the major types of social 'late in order to change the situation, as in Canada. Belgium. Spain division around which conflict fault lines may develop. In recent years (Basques)or No..-thern Ireland (Lijphart, 1977: Gurr and Harff, 1994: the debate between those who emphasize the 'vertical' (ethnic) roots ch. 5). This has also been a feature in a number of non-western coun- of conflict and those who emphasize the 'horizontal' (class) roots triesl Such as Sri Lanka (Horowitz, 1991). Second, conflict is likely in (Munck, 1986) has been further complicated by the advent of other 'Ountries where authoritarian regimes successfully manipulate the CONTEMPORARY C O N F L I C T RESOLUTION state apparatus in order to cling to power and block political access to all those not part of their own narrow patronage network, eventually. - Understanding Contrinporui-y Con-flict at Lv,._lict Party level. Here Ted Gurr (1993, 1995, 2000) shows how national peoples* regional autonomists. communal contenders, 103 becoming little more than exploitative 'kleptocracies' as in some post. peoples. militant sects. ethnoclasses and other groups Soviet Central Asian and postcolonial African states. Here politics has tend to move from non-violent protest, through violent protest, to indeed become 'zero-sum' and change can only be effected through a rebellion in an uneven escalation that takes many years in direct challenge to the incumbent regime. Third, there is what seems most cases. This is the time-lag that gives major incentives for the to be the growing phenomenon of 'failed' or 'collapsed' states (Helman reactive prevention of violent conflict, as discussed in the next chap- Pter. Goals variously include demands for political access, autonomy, and Ratner, 1992-3; Zartman, ed., 1995; Rotberg, 2004), which, in the absence of adequate means for raising revenue or keeping order, secessionor control, triggered by historical grievances and contempo- succumb to endemic and chaotic violence. In a report on Africa rary against the socio-cultural, economic and political presented to the UN Security Council in April 1998, Secretary-General outlined in the previous section. New threats to security, Kofi Annan concluded: such as those felt by constituent groups in the break-up of former yugoslavia, and new opportunities, often encouraged by similar The nature of political power in many African states, together with the demands elsewhere, will encourage mobilization, and the nature of real and perceived consequences of capturing and maintaining power, is the emergent leadership will often be decisive in determining degrees a ltey source of conflict across the continent. It is frequently the case that political victory assumes a winner-takes-all form with respect to wealth militancy. When it comes to demands for secession, usually the and resources, patronage, and the prestige and prerogatives of office. most explosive issue, a history of past political autonomy, however Where there is insufficient accountability of leaders, lack of trans- long ago, is often critical. parency in regimes. inadequate checks and balances, non-adherence to the rule of law, absence of peaceful means to change or replace leader- ship, or lack of respect for human rights, political control becomes exces- Elites a n d individuals sively important, and the stakes become dangerously high. (Annan, 1998) Turning, finally, to the elitelindividual level, we will not dwell on the Finally, we should note how, at a critical stage in conflict escalation, complex arguments about the relative significance of 'agency' or it is the law and order and security sectors that become increasingly 'structure' in explication of social and political change (itself a lineal prominent. This is the moment when domestic conflict crosses the descendant of earlier debate about the relative roles of 'great men' and Rubicon and becomes a violent struggle for control of the state itself. 'vast impersonal forces' in history). The importance of leadership roles seems self-evident if comparison is made between, say, the effect of The two clear indicators are, first, in the law and order sector when the legal system and the civilian police come to be identified with partic- Slobodan Milosevic and Franjo Tudjman in Yugoslavia, and F. W. de ularist interests and are no longer seen to represent impartial author- Merk and Nelson Mandela in South Africa. For Human Rights Watch, ity, and, second, in the security sector when civil unrest can no longer communal violence is rarely the product of 'deep-seated hatreds' or 'ancient animosities'. as promoted by those with an interest in doing be controlled by non-military means and armed militia emerge. At this SO- and those who like to suggest as a result that they are 'natural stage, as Barry Posen has noted, the 'security dilemma', familiar to processes' about which little can be done: analysts of international relations, now impacts with devastating effect on the inchoate social-stateinternational scene (1993).Once this But the extensive Human Rights Watch field research summarized genie is out of the bottle and armed factions are organized and active, here shows that communal tensions per se are not the immediate it is very difficult to put it back again. Gurr is one of those who has cause of many violent and persistent communal conflicts. While charted what is usually the ten-or-more-year period between the man1- communal tensions are obviously a necessary ingredient of an explo- sive mix, they alone are not sufficient to unleash widespread violence. fest onset of conflict and its escalation to military confrontation - the Rather, time after time the proximate cause of communal violence is crucial window of opportunity for preventive measures. governmental exploitation of communal differences. (Human Rights Watch. 1995: 1-2) Group mobilization a n d inter-party dynamics agrees that the academic literature 'places great emphasis on Haying outlined some of the contextual and structural sources mass-level factors' but is 'weak in understanding the role played contemporary conflict, we move on to consider relational sourceS elites and leaders in instigating violence'. Most major conflicts. in 104 CONTEMPORARY CONFLICT RESOLUTION - - Understanding Contemporary Conflict 105 critical cases),relational change at conflict party level (for example, via communitY relations and reconciliation work), and cultural change at Internally driven Externally driven all levels (for example, via the transformation of discourses and insti- Elite-triggered Bad leaders ( 2 3 ) Bad neighbours (3) tutions which sustain and reproduce violence). It is to these themes Mass-triauered Bad domestic problems (7) Bad neighbourhoods that we now turn. Source: from Brown, ed., 1996: 582, 597. Figures in brackets allocate numbers from Brown's list of 'major adve conflicts' Recommendedreading Berdal and Malone (2000);Brown. ed., (1996);Collier et al. (2003);Duffield (2001); ~aldor(1999/2001);Martin (2003);Reno (1999). his view, are triggered by 'internal, elite-level activities - to put it simply, bad leaders - contrary to what one would gather from review- ing the scholarly literature on the subject' (Brown, ed., 1996: 22-3) (see table 4.4). This chapter has outlined a framework for the analysis of contempo- rary conflict that draws on Edward Azar's account of protracted social conflict, and then updates it via a 'levels of analysis' approach at inter- national, state and sub-state levels. This framework is not a theory of conflict, but a model for locating the chief sources of contemporary conflict. The possibility of a revival of interstate war is by no means ruled out, but more unruly multilevel conflict seems likely to remain the predominant pattern for the immediate future. I Although the theories reviewed in this chapter may seem confus- ingly various, the main conclusion to be taken from it for the rest of I the book is relatively simple. Given the complexity of much contem- porary conflict, attempts at conflict resolution have to be equally comprehensive. Although peacemakers striving to maximize humani- I tarian space and the scope for peace initiatives in the middle of ongo- ing wars (chapter 6) or aiming to bring the violent phase of conflict to an end (chapter 7) usually have to work within quite narrow power constraints, long-term peacebuilders who aspire to prevent violent conflict (chapter 5) or to ensure that settlements are transformed into lasting peace (chapter 8)have to address the deeper sources of conflict. This is clarified in the hourglass model in chapter 1 (figure 1.3).Here is the framework within which conflict resolution would also seek to address threats generated by criminal greed (see chapter 5) an* political terror (see chapter 11). This is likely to involve contextual change at international level (for example, via more equitable and accountable global and regional arrangements), structural change at state level (for example, via appropriate constitutional adaptations and the promotion of good governance - including state-building in