Preventing Ethnic Conflicts

A Proactive Strategy to Stop the Outbreak of Ethnic Violence

Course: The Politics of Ethnic Conflict (IR-456)

AMEER ABDULLAH KHAN

DEPARTMENT OF INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS
FACULTY OF CONTEMPORARY STUDIES
NATIONAL DEFENCE UNIVERSITY PAKISTAN
INCREASED FOCUS
Expansion yet Agreement
• Increasing popularity of conflict popularity approach.
• A widening range of organizations called upon to ‘do’ ethnic conflict prevention.
• Involvement of actors with varying objectives and interests: The corporate sector, NGOs, regional and
multilateral economic and political organizations etc.
• Development practitioners, foreign policy makers, security specialists, civil society and the private sector have
historically approached ethnic conflict prevention from different directions.
• Cooperation and support for extensive research and policy networks led to develop a better understanding of
what conflict prevention entails and how it can be comprehensively applied.
• Resulting in a virtual explosion in toolkits, early warning methodologies, frameworks for impact assessment
and project evaluation, handbooks for practitioners, specialized funding envelopes, and multinational task
forces.

Ameer Abdullah Khan - The Politics of Ethnic Conflict (IR-456)

INCREASED FOCUS
Expansion yet Agreement
• Donor agencies, foreign policy departments, defence departments, regional organizations and international
financial institutions have taken up the need for conflict prevention mainstreaming.
• Structural as well as operational initiatives have been put in place.
• Prevention centres and units within governments and IGOs established.
• Collaborative research projects undertaken.
• Regional organizations have been bolstered financially.
• The private sector has been encouraged to take a more accountable role through the UN-led Global Compact.
• The gap between rhetoric and reality, which loomed large at the century’s end, has been narrowed.
• Does this mean that more effective conflict prevention is now within reach?
• The answer is both yes and no.

Ameer Abdullah Khan - The Politics of Ethnic Conflict (IR-456)

DEFINING CONFLICT PREVENTION
• Conflict prevention entails any structural or interactive means to keep intrastate and interstate tensions and
disputes from escalating into significant violence.
• It also includes the efforts to strengthen the capabilities to resolve such disputes peacefully.
• Also, consists of alleviating the underlying problems that produce them, including forestalling the spread of
hostilities into new places.
• It comes into play both in places where conflicts have not occurred recently and where recent largely
terminated conflicts could recur.
• Depending on how they are applied, it can include the particular methods and means of any policy sector,
whether labelled prevention or not (e.g. sanctions, conditional aid, mediation, structural adjustment,
democratic institution building etc.).
• These activities might be carried out by global, regional, national or local levels by any governmental or non-
governmental actor.

Ameer Abdullah Khan - The Politics of Ethnic Conflict (IR-456)

PREVENTIVE DIPLOMACY VS. CONFLICT PREVENTION

• Kalypso Nicolaïdis (1996) provides a useful conceptual framework for determining how preventive diplomacy
and long-term structural approaches relate.
• Preventive diplomacy is seen as an operational response.
• It is premised on incentive structures provided by outside actors to change specific kinds of undesirable
behaviour.
• Preventive diplomacy is, therefore, targeted and short-term and the preventive action taken relates directly to
changes in conflict escalation and conflict dynamics.
• In this regard outside actors can seek to influence the course of events and try to alter or induce specific
behaviour through coercive and operational threats and deterrents or through less coercive strategies of
persuasion and inducement.

Ameer Abdullah Khan - The Politics of Ethnic Conflict (IR-456)

APPROACHES TO CONFLICT PREVENTION

Conflict Prevention

Structural Operational Transnational

Ameer Abdullah Khan - The Politics of Ethnic Conflict (IR-456)

STRUCTURAL PREVENTION
Linking Underlying and Proximate Causes

Democratization

Governance reform

Economic modernization

Equitable economic and social development

Power-sharing

External development assistance

Macroeconomic assistance & Debt servicing

Ameer Abdullah Khan - The Politics of Ethnic Conflict (IR-456)

STRUCTURAL PREVENTION
a. From Grievances to Greed
• Need to consider the political and economic advantages there are for certain parts of the elite and their client
groups to either incite or sustain ethnic conflict.
• Sometimes, the “greed” of these groups is more important than the “grievances”.
• One can observe a shift from “grievance” to “greed” in the course of conflict.
• The role of Shadow Economy: Emerge to make high profits on the margin of the conflict. Political and other
entrepreneurs benefit from the general insecurity and lack of rule of law to extract precious natural resources
trade.
• Both forms of economy result in a concentration of power and wealth, the destruction of economic assets, and
the impoverishment of vulnerable ethnic minorities.

Ameer Abdullah Khan - The Politics of Ethnic Conflict (IR-456)

STRUCTURAL PREVENTION
b. Conflict Sensitivities & Development Strategies
• Not enough attention has been paid to developing approaches to integrating conflict sensitivity into
development strategies and assistance at the sectoral and community level and to linking this assistance to the
overall conflict analysis of a country or region.

Globally large scale ethnic violence is on decline. But if but horizontal inequalities are increasing then analysis of
these changes is crucial.

• The effects of conditionality, aid impacts and democratization on ethnic conflict also require attention.

Ameer Abdullah Khan - The Politics of Ethnic Conflict (IR-456)

STRUCTURAL PREVENTION
b. Conflict Sensitivities & Development Strategies
• Prevention may take the form of responses to structural factors that may contribute to future and current
conflict.
• However, this assumption is premised on the ability of structural efforts to contribute to equitable economic
and social development among groups, governance reform which includes minority rights, arms control for
groups in conflict, and inclusive security sector reforms that address legitimate minority grievances.
• Structural conflict prevention also includes activities that enhance the selectivity of aid and trade, such as the
use of peace and conflict impact assessments, that contribute to a better understanding of specific groups are
affected.

Ameer Abdullah Khan - The Politics of Ethnic Conflict (IR-456)

STRUCTURAL PREVENTION
c. Conflict Sensitivities & Democratisation
• Elections and regime change, whether legitimate or not, often trigger events for ethnic conflict.
• Though democracy and trade may create peaceful states over the long term, weak ethnically divided states
often have short-term vulnerabilities that make transition to effective democratic governance extremely
problematic, and even destabilizing.
• Any strategy advocating democratization, good governance and economic modernization must take into
account the possibility that such efforts may themselves trigger ethnic conflict and possibly even state failure in
the short term, thereby denying the promise of long-term democratic stability.
• A process of peaceful political development is sometimes more important than holding elections especially
when states have little or no experience in, or history of, democracy.
• Power-sharing failures abound, as illustrated by experiences in Fiji, Sri Lanka, South Africa and Bosnia.
• Political parties are often seen as the key to prevention, but they can become weak, narrow and personalized.

Ameer Abdullah Khan - The Politics of Ethnic Conflict (IR-456)

OPERATIONAL PREVENTION
Components
• Operational conflict prevention measures can be grouped into four sets of hands-on action:

First, political measures such as mediation with muscle, the creation of institutional mechanisms through
regional and international organizations
Second, economic measures such as sanctions
Third, military measures such as preventive peace operations
Fourth, civil society-led initiatives as network building and forums for dialogue.

Ameer Abdullah Khan - The Politics of Ethnic Conflict (IR-456)

OPERATIONAL PREVENTION
a. Political Measures
R2P & Political Measures
• Since the release of the International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty’s report The
Responsibility to Protect (R2P) in 2001, much of the academic and policy discussion relating to ethnic conflicts
in general and genocides in particular has been focused on the tools and mechanisms detailed in the R2P.
• The R2P agenda’s threshold for the direct involvement in identity-based conflicts is fairly high. More attention
has been paid to the R2P’s reactive component and the preventive pillar of the R2P has been largely
overlooked.

Ameer Abdullah Khan - The Politics of Ethnic Conflict (IR-456)

OPERATIONAL PREVENTION
a. Political Measures
R2P & Political Measures
• Instead of tying the R2P and conflict prevention together, the 2005 World Summit shifted its focus on early
warning by fully supporting the office of the Special Adviser on the Prevention of Genocide.
• The Special Adviser’s mandate was defined by the Secretary General to include, inter alia, the collection “of
existing information … on massive and serious violations of human rights and international humanitarian law
of ethnic and racial origin that, if not prevented or halted, might lead to genocide” and to “act as a
mechanism of early warning to the Secretary General, and through him to the Security Council, by bringing to
their attention situations that could potentially result in genocide”

Ameer Abdullah Khan - The Politics of Ethnic Conflict (IR-456)

OPERATIONAL PREVENTION
a. Political Measures
R2P & ROs
• Carment and Fischer conducted an in-depth review of seven regional organizations’ implementation of R2P’s
preventive principles.
• It evaluates regional organizations along six criteria
i. Charter endorsement: to what extent do organizations’ charters reflect preventive principles?
ii. Adherence to the principle of non-interference in member states’ domestic affairs and the recognition
of the principles of different identities.
iii. Capacity-building efforts aiming to strengthen capabilities for the long-term conflict prevention.
iv. Dimensions of preventive diplomacy.
v. Dimensions of conflict management.
vi. Direct preventive engagement.

Ameer Abdullah Khan - The Politics of Ethnic Conflict (IR-456)

OPERATIONAL PREVENTION
a. Political Measures
R2P & ROs

Adherence to the Direct

Charter Capacity Conflict
Organisation Principal of Non Preventive Diplomacy Operational
Endorsement Building Management
Intervention Engagement
The African Union Strong Weak Moderate Moderate Moderate Strong
The Economic Community of
Strong Weak Moderate Moderate Moderate Strong
West African States
Organization for Security and
Moderate Weak Strong Strong Strong Moderate
Co-operation in Europe
European Union Moderate Weak Strong Strong Strong Strong
Association of Southeast
Weak Strong Weak Weak Weak Weak
Asian Nations
Organisation of American
Weak Strong Weak Weak Weak Moderate
States
South Asian Association for
Weak Strong Weak Weak Weak Weak
Regional Cooperation

Ameer Abdullah Khan - The Politics of Ethnic Conflict (IR-456)

OPERATIONAL PREVENTION
b. Economic Measures
• A central element of the UN Charter’s mechanisms for the maintenance of international peace and security is
the use of sanctions as set out in Article 42.
• A variety of sanction mechanisms including arms embargos and individual travel sanctions, the freezing of
financial assets as well sanctions on specific natural resources such as oil and diamonds are available to the
United Nations.
• Economic embargoes imposed by international organizations are the most effective type of coercive conflict
management measure and have a shortening effect on the duration of intrastate conflicts.
• The UN Security Council has frequently reverted to economic sanctions targeted at natural resources to
manage ethnic conflicts.

Ameer Abdullah Khan - The Politics of Ethnic Conflict (IR-456)

OPERATIONAL PREVENTION
c. Military Measures
UN and Armed Prevention
• As early as 1992, the Agenda for Peace directly points to the possibility of preventive military deployment as a
possible strategy for the prevention of increased inter- and intra-state violence.
• Preventive diplomacy, no less than other forms of diplomacy, often needs to be backed by the threat if not the
actual use of force”.
• In 2001, the Secretary General’s report Prevention of Armed Conflict suggested that all peacekeeping
operations contain a preventive component.
• It further clarified that peace operations’ “preventive role has been particularly clear when they have been
deployed before the beginning of an armed internal or international conflict”.
• The lack of political will and operational readiness being the causes most frequently referred to – there are
very few examples of military missions that were deployed prior to the outbreak of ethnic violence.

Ameer Abdullah Khan - The Politics of Ethnic Conflict (IR-456)

OPERATIONAL PREVENTION
c. Military Measures
UN and Armed Prevention

• The United Nations was first able to successfully move from these rhetorical commitments to operational
reality with the deployment of the UN Protection Force (UNPROFOR) and later the UN Preventive Deployment
(UNPREDEP) from March 1995 to February 1999 to Macedonia.
• Through Resolution 795 the Council explicitly highlights the mission’s preventive nature: “concerned about
possible developments which could undermine confidence and stability in the former Yugoslav Republic of
Macedonia or threaten its territory.”
• The mission was thus tasked to monitor and report on activities that could lead to instability in Macedonia.
• UNPREDEP in Macedonia was the first time the United Nations mandated a preventive mission “which aimed
at preventing a first round of fighting”.
• It proved that “despite its location in a war zone, a country can hold on to peace if it receives the help it needs
in time”.

Ameer Abdullah Khan - The Politics of Ethnic Conflict (IR-456)

OPERATIONAL PREVENTION
d. Civil Society Initiatives
Kenya: Concerned Citizens for Peace

• Concerned Citizens for Peace (CCP), a group of five eminent Kenyans. Preventive activities at three levels:
o First, upstream activities aimed at supporting the top-level mediation and dialogue process. The five
members were able to access key national and international politicians and engage them in preventive
action.
o Second, middle-stream efforts supported mid-level public and private institutions and key individual by
mobilizing the government and public institutions as well as the media. For example, using national, regional
and local media, CCP members made public appeals for the cessation of violence.
o Third, downstream activities targeted local-level programmatic actions by key individuals, groups and
institutions to transform local violence, mobilize for change and offer practical support for confidence-
building and healing.
• CCP was able to mobilize an extensive national network of peace resources that made important contributions
to preventing the further escalation of violence.
Ameer Abdullah Khan - The Politics of Ethnic Conflict (IR-456)
OPERATIONAL PREVENTION
d. Civil Society Initiatives
Global CSO Partnership Programme

• In recent years, efforts have been undertaken to establish and strengthen a global network of CSOs working in
the field of preventing ethnic conflict.
• The Global Partnership for the Prevention of Armed Conflict (GPPAC) is made up of nearly 1,000 NGOs working
in the field of conflict prevention.
• GPPAC’s Early Warning Early Response working group seeks to bring together partners working on civil society
based preventive actions.
• By facilitating dialogue and producing action-oriented analysis the working group seeks to enhance the
capacity of CSOs to react to appropriate early warning signals.
• This review of operational mechanism suggests that progress has been made in a variety of areas.
• National, regional and global coalitions need to create and maintain sustainable partnerships in order to foster
long-term preventive action that can produce preventive “success stories.”

Ameer Abdullah Khan - The Politics of Ethnic Conflict (IR-456)

EVALUATING THE OPERATIONAL PREVENTION
d. Civil Society Initiatives
Global CSO Partnership Programme

• In recent years, efforts have been undertaken to establish and strengthen a global network of CSOs working in
the field of preventing ethnic conflict.
• The Global Partnership for the Prevention of Armed Conflict (GPPAC) is made up of nearly 1,000 NGOs working
in the field of conflict prevention.
• GPPAC’s Early Warning Early Response working group seeks to bring together partners working on civil society
based preventive actions.
• By facilitating dialogue and producing action-oriented analysis the working group seeks to enhance the
capacity of CSOs to react to appropriate early warning signals.
• This review of operational mechanism suggests that progress has been made in a variety of areas.
• National, regional and global coalitions need to create and maintain sustainable partnerships in order to foster
long-term preventive action that can produce preventive “success stories.”

Ameer Abdullah Khan - The Politics of Ethnic Conflict (IR-456)

TRANSNATIONAL PREVENTION
Objective

• Prevent international flow of process that contribute towards conflict.

• Design transnational cooperation processes to prevent conflict .
Measures

• Combating organised crimes. (Money laundering, arms trade, human trafficking, piracy, extremist violence)
• Strengthening regional, sub-regional mechanisms
• Migration, climate change, disaster management policies
• Cultural & educational exchanges
• Political missions, special envoys, electoral support.
Time Horizon

• All – Short, Medium and Long Term

Ameer Abdullah Khan - The Politics of Ethnic Conflict (IR-456)

THANK YOU

Ameer Abdullah Khan - The Politics of Ethnic Conflict (IR-456)