Christopher Mitchell - Conflictology

The Nature of Intractable Conflict
Resolution in the Twenty-First Century

Christopher Mitchell
ISBN: 9781137454157
DOI: 10.1057/9781137454157
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The Nature of Intractable Conflict

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The Nature of Intractable
Conflict
Resolution in the Twenty-First Century

Professor of Conflict Analysis and Resolution, George Mason University, Virginia, USA

© Christopher Mitchell 2014
All rights reserved. No reproduction, copy or transmission of this
publication may be made without written permission.
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save with written permission or in accordance with the provisions of the
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in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
First published 2014 by
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FOR
JOANNA, EMILY AND LOIS
whose presence and adventures continue to light up my life

INTRACTABLE –
Not to be manipulated wrought or brought into any desired condition;
not easily treated or dealt with; resisting treatment or effort . . .
Oxford English Dictionary 2nd edition, 1989

Contents
List of Figures and Tables viii

Preface and Acknowledgements ix

1 Compulsion: Natural Born Killers? 1
2 Formation: Sources and Emergence 23
3 Classification: Intractable Conflicts 45
4 Perpetuation: Dynamics and Intractability 63
5 Prevention 81
6 Mitigation 109
7 Regulation: Conflict within Limits 137
8 Institutionalization 158
9 Termination I: Stopping the Violence 186
10 Termination II: Addressing the Issues 213
11 Innovation 243
12 Reconciliation: Ending the Hatred 268
Afterword 292
Notes 294
Bibliography 307
Index 336
vii

Figures and Tables
Figures
2.1 Basic conflict structure 26

2.2 Conflict formation model 39
3.1 An intractability continuum? 61
4.1 Basic conflict structure extended 69
5.1 Conflict formation model 89
7.1 Restraint: Unilateral regulation 139
7.2 Types of non-violent action 143
7.3 Types of regulated system 157
8.1 Types of regulated/institutionalized rule systems 184
9.1 Three basic targets for termination 189
Tables
3.1 Disputes and conflicts 47
viii

Preface and Acknowledgements
Just over 40 years ago, having just completed an unpublishable doctoral

dissertation at University College, London, I decided to try my hand at writ-
ing a textbook for what I thought might well be the beginnings of a new

academic discipline – or at least a new field of study – that was just begin-
ning to emerge in the United States, in Britain and in Scandinavia. In Britain
at that time it was called “conflict research” and in Norway and elsewhere
it was “peace studies”. Some years later, many seemed to have settled on
“conflict analysis and resolution”, and that appeared to me to be a popular
compromise.
At the time I thought that the task I had set myself was fairly difficult, but
in retrospect it seems to have been relatively straightforward. In the early
1970s there were really only two quarterly journals that focused on con-
flict and its resolution as a theme: Journal of Conflict Resolution published in
Ann Arbor and the Peace Research Institute Oslo’s Journal of Peace Research,
although Gandhi Marg dealt well with the topic of non-violence and there
were occasional editions of Journal of Social Issues that took up conflict-
related themes. All in all, it was comparatively easy to keep up with new
work in the field.
When it came to books focused directly on social conflict and its resolu-
tion there were good and bad patches. Louis Kriesberg and Joseph Himes
had recently produced excellent analytical works; there was an enormous
amount of writing about international conflict, mainly from a historical and
realist point of view; there was some interesting work on the sociology of
law; and social psychologists like Ralph White, Mort Deutsch, Dean Pruitt
and Herb Kelman were starting to pursue interesting lines of research con-
cerning cognition, misperception and stereotyping. For inspiration there was
the wonderfully eccentric Kenneth Boulding, the rising star Johan Galtung
and my own professor at University College, John Burton.
At all events I managed to pull together many diverse strands into a coher-
ently organized manuscript which, after some reluctance, Macmillan agreed
to publish, although they rejected my preferred title, Parties in Conflict, in
favour of one which had some chance of selling: The Structure of International
Conflict.
Some 30 years later my editor at Macmillan asked if I could produce a
revised edition of the book, but the field had grown and moved on so much
that I replied that it would need a completely new work in order to do any
kind of justice to the avalanche of new topics that had been included in the
field, new lines of enquiry that had been opened up, new case studies that
had been produced, and new theories that had been proposed and explored.
ix

x Preface and Acknowledgements
It was becoming the era of the handbook or the encyclopedia, written by

many hands (see Deutsch et al, 2006; Bercovitch et al., 2008; Sandole et al
2009; Young, 2010; or Allen Nan et al, 2012).
Having, however, foolishly offered to undertake this task and write a
wholly new version of what I had once imagined might be a textbook,
I began to realize the virtually impossible job that I had set myself. There
were now over 30 quarterly journals that had a just claim to be central to
the field. Some of the older journals had morphed into six issues a year.

Others had started to go online. The variety of sub-fields within the field
was starting to become bewildering and the number of books on key top-
ics had grown exponentially. For example, whereas for the older work I had
searched almost in vain for analytical works on political negotiations and
come up only with Walton and McKersie’s classic A Behavioral Theory of Labor
Negotiation, now there were literally shelves full of works discussing negoti-
ation processes from every angle – political, economic, psychological – as
bargaining, as narrative, as intra-party consensus-building, as an example
of boundary role conflict. The same plethora of material was available for
almost every relevant topic – mediation, conflict prevention, early warning,
R2P, zones of peace and so on.
The present book, therefore, should charitably be seen as an attempt to
make some sense out of the work that has been taking place in the field over
the past almost 40 years – as one person’s “take” on as much of the exploding
field of conflict analysis and resolution as can be comprehended by a single
scholar who has tried to keep abreast of a field that is almost unrecognizable
today compared with what it was in its beginnings. I have tried to do jus-
tice to the many individuals from widely different intellectual backgrounds,
disciplines and cultures who have contributed to conflict analysis and reso-
lution over the years but inevitably much of the book has to be a layman’s
understanding of a field that has become increasingly specialized with every
decade. My own background is as a historian and an international relations
scholar, with some grasp of social psychology. I have no claim to professional
expertise as a lawyer, an anthropologist or a sociologist, and I am certainly
not a primatologist, a palaeo-historian, a neurologist or a biologist – all of
which fields have made significant contributions to the study of conflict and
its resolution in recent years. These days, one just tries to keep up.
The book will probably also seem rather old-fashioned. For one thing,
I make little attempt to include ambitious ideas about “conflict transfor-
mation” in the text. It has always seemed to me that trying to resolve
cases of intractable conflict is difficult enough, in and of itself. I have never
dared to write much about changing a complex phenomenon like an entire
“relationship” between communities currently in a relationship involving
profound enmity, into something radically different. Of course, as I have
written elsewhere (Mitchell 2002), friends, colleagues and partners usually
resolve conflicts much more readily than do adversaries, rivals or enemies,

Preface and Acknowledgements xi
while communities and their leaders are unlikely to establish more posi-
tive relationships in the future if they remain locked into protracted and
intractable conflicts in the present. Both transformation and peacebuilding
depend, surely, upon the prior resolution of intractable conflicts.
Many people have contributed intellectually and practically to this con-
tinuing process of educational updating, but I am more than grateful first to
my colleagues back in Britain: John Groom, Michael Banks, Tony de Reuck,
Peter Willetts, Margot Light, Richard Little, Mark Hoffman, Viv Jabri, Andy

Williams and my friends at Bradford University and Conciliation Resources.
Next, thanks to colleagues old and new at the School for Conflict Analysis
and Resolution at George Mason University, particularly Kevin Avruch, Rich
Rubenstein, Dennis Sandole and to Ron Fisher at American University. Spe-
cial thanks also go to Kevin and Dennis, and to Jannie Botes, Dean Pruitt and
Dan Rothbart, who all read through parts of the manuscript and gave wise
counsel, some of which I was sensible enough to heed, My former students,
many of whom are now my colleagues, have always been a challenge (in the
nicest sense) to ideas I have floated before them and it has been a delight to
be among that company of young scholars learning their trade – but you all
know who you are and that I am indebted to you.
Finally, once again I owe Lois much gratitude for her patience and help
during the long gestation time of this book. Once more, she read through
long drafts, corrected them, advised on what to cut out and what to leave in,
and generally pulled what was a vast, sprawling document into something
resembling coherence. The final result, of course, is mine – warts and all.
Fairfax, Virginia
February 2014

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1
Compulsion
Natural Born Killers?

Before embarking on a work that seeks to answer some questions about why
and how human societies engage in protracted, violent and “intractable”
conflicts, and what might be done about it, it really behoves an author to
pause and consider a question – or a set of questions – that might render the
whole exercise pretty pointless. After all, if – as some authors have implied
or openly argued (for example, Ardrey, 1961; Morris, 1967; Buss, 2005) – the
answers lie buried in “human nature”, in the fact that human beings are
naturally or biologically programmed to be aggressive, to utilize violence, to
organize so as to be able to kill large numbers of their fellow beings, to be
compelled by their “nature” to engage in violence and destruction, then the
analysis of conflict becomes relatively straightforward. It can focus on the
nature of aggressive “drives”, on chemical processes within the brain, on
the role of testosterone in fomenting wars, and on intra-personal tensions
that lead to confrontations and conflict. Within this “natural born killers”
framework, coping strategies logically take the form of therapy, behaviour
modification including channelling of aggression, incarceration of the most
violently aggressive, the pacifying use of drugs and, ultimately, the manifest
forms of deterrence.
1. Nature–nurture revived
Even if one believes in a more benign view of “human nature”, the possibil-
ity of important theoretical and conceptual connections between the study
of human aggressiveness and the study of human conflicts seems obvious.
If human beings are (even if differentially and individually) programmed to
harm others, if our behaviour is controlled (or even significantly influenced)
by inherited “drives” or automatic responses that are “hard wired” into our
biological make-up, then not merely violence between individual members
of our species but wars, civil strife, turf wars between rival urban gangs,
protracted feuds between rival clans, semi-organized football hooliganism
and domestic violence (mainly) perpetrated by the strongest member of a
family are all simply a matter of the arousal, organization and channelling

2 The Nature of Intractable Conflict
of these common aspects of “human nature”. All exist latent, but ready for
mobilization. In other words, we all can and might become natural born
killers.
1.1. Parallel developments

Before revisiting this fundamental argument, however, it should be pointed
out that there is also a historical connection between the systematic study of
aggressive behaviour by humans, or their near relatives, and the study

of human conflicts. Roughly speaking, both grew up together. Just as some
of the pioneers of the scientific and academic study of conflict and conflict
behaviour were trying to develop their field in the 1920s, 1930s and 1940s,
so were some of the early pioneers of the study of human nature. In the
former case, Lewis Richardson (1960) was working on the development of
his arms race models and the statistical analysis of “deadly quarrels” in the
1920s and 1930s, and in the latter decade Quincy Wright began his massive
“Study of War” project at the University of Chicago. Pitirim Sorokin (1957)
had left the Soviet Union for the United States in 1922 to work on social
dynamics, and, a few years later, Kurt Lewin began advocating the need for
practical theorists in the field of conflict analysis (Lewin, 1948).
The inter-war years saw pioneer ethologists such as Konrad Lorenz,
Nikolaas Tinbergen and Irenaus Eibl-Elbesfeldt begin to explore animal
behaviour and to speculate about whether this kind of understanding could
throw some light on the basic nature of the human species. They were then
working on what, in the mid-1930s, one reviewer described as “the stimulat-
ingly chaotic controversy about man’s place – physically, paleaontologically
and behaviourally – among the primates”1 and inevitably there were some
false starts. In 1931 the 28-year-old Solly Zuckerman published his pioneer-
ing study of the behaviour of a baboon colony at London Zoo under the title
of The Social Life of Monkeys and Apes, a work which had an enormous influ-
ence on primate studies for the next 30 years.2 Much of the later criticism
of Zuckerman’s work focused on his tendency to extrapolate general lessons
about primate behaviour largely from his observations of a colony of captive
baboons (a species within which males are far larger than females), where
the imbalance between males and females was originally 90:6 (to which were
later added a further 6 males and 31 females), and where 60 males and 30
females “died” over a number of years. Significantly, the underlying impli-
cation of much of this later criticism was that such lethal behaviour might
not occur in a different, non-captive environment, or with a different male
to female ratio, and furthermore that extrapolating the behaviour to other
primate species required an unjustified leap of logic. In other words, even
among baboons – let alone other primate species – there was nothing innate
or inevitable about what Zuckerman had observed and a changed context
might have produced alternative behaviours.
Of course, one dominant figure in this early period of thinking about
the connection between “basic human nature” and the human practice of

Compulsion: Natural Born Killers? 3
making war was Sigmund Freud, and in the subsequent decades the cor-
respondence between Freud and Einstein on the subject became required
reading for anyone studying the nature of conflict and the origins of war.
The concept of aggressive “drives” that became a focus for much research
and writing by the 1940s and 1950s clearly has a strong Freudian connec-
tion, while the pioneering work on the connection between the frustration
of aspirations, goal-directed behaviour and subsequent aggressive reaction
exemplified by the work of John Dollard and his colleagues (1939) – and

later by Leonard Berkowitz (1962; 1993) – was clearly a reaction to the
Freudian idea of “innate” aggressive drives in human beings. However, per-
haps what brought about the real revolution in this biological approach to
explain all human behaviours and not simply those leading to conflicts and
wars was Crick and Watson’s (see Watson, 1968) revelation of the struc-
ture of DNA and the dynamics of inheritance in the mid-1950s, the same
decade that saw the beginning of strong efforts to have the study of human
conflict and peace established as a respectable and worthwhile academic
discipline.
By the early 1960s, then, the emergence of a group of scholars calling
themselves “conflict” or “peace” researchers had been paralleled by the
growth of a number of fields of study concerned with the overall under-
standing of human behaviour, including behaviour leading to and during
conflicts. Ethologists were starting the widespread study of the behaviour
of animals in captivity but also increasingly in the wild, while those who
specialized in studying the great (and lesser) apes were differentiating them-
selves as “primatologists”. Biologists, psychologists and neurologists were
beginning to expand research on DNA and what this inheritance mecha-
nism meant for human activity. Ethnographers, anthropologists and palaeo-
historians were examining human societies to see what varieties of society
human nature (whatever it might be) could construct. In the early 1960s
these two groups of scholars had begun to talk seriously to one another and
to exchange ideas about why one group’s work mattered to the other. One
anthropologist reviewing a book on aggression actually suggested that the
year 1964/1965 should be called “the International Year of Violence and
Aggression” because of the number of conferences and symposia that were
then being organized (Fox, 1967), although, in contrast to the current sit-
uation, there were as yet no specialist journals and only a few books on
the subject.3 Among the latter was a collection of papers resulting from a
symposium organized by the Institute of Biology in London in 1963, which
naturally contained contributions from zoologists, physiologist and psy-
chologists but also from sociologists, political scientists and international
relations scholars (Carthy & Ebling, 1963). Another pioneering work, the
focus of which pointed to an approach that was to become prominent in the
search for answers over the next four decades, was published by Claire and
Bill Russell in 1968 and entitled Violence, Monkeys and Man (Russell & Russell,
1968). Efforts to learn lessons about the nature of humans by drawing

parallels with the nature of primate cousins – and especially other species –
was to encourage much vehement argument from that point onwards.
1.2. The early debates

Given the centrality of “human aggressiveness” in efforts to explain vio-
lence, conflict and war, but given also the relative absence of systematic and
comparative research into both aggression and conflict, it should not be sur-
prising that the earliest debates about the “fundamental and basic” sources

of conflict should have generated much heat but a bit less light. During the
1960s and 1970s, much of the discussion and debate in the new field of con-
flict and peace research centred on the issue of whether aggressive behaviour
in humans was actually the result of genetic programming and could only
be channelled into non-destructive activities if individual and social con-
flict – and ultimately war – were all to be avoided. A major sub-theme in
the general debate involved asking whether humans were unique in their
destructive, war-making propensities or whether other species engaged in
intra-specific killings4 as opposed to simply killing for food – which did
not count as “aggression” any more than eating a good steak. Another was
whether human aggressiveness – and war – were connected in any way with
a genetically programmed drive to defend a given territory, even allowing
for the fact that “our” (or my) territory that actually needed defence against
intruding “Others” could be culturally or historically defined. A third sub-
theme took a methodological turn and focused on the appropriateness of
transferring insights, ideas and theories from the study of other species
(especially remotely related ones, such as sticklebacks, wolves or fruit flies)
to the explanation of human behaviour. Linked to these issues was the
whole question about the “functionality”5 of aggressive behaviour and vio-
lence – modified by what Konrad Lorenz described as “aggression inhibiting
mechanisms” – for the survival or even flourishing of a particular species.
The issue also involved the statistical probability of carrying through (pre-
sumably via genetic transmission) these inheritable characteristics into the
following generations, which thus – over time – would come to display these
survival-enhancing traits to a greater and greater degree. The last argument
easily linked ideas about human aggression, skills in dominating and adept-
ness in combat with popularized Darwinian ideas about processes of natural
selection, producing a revival of “social Darwinism”, with “survival of the
fittest” being interpreted as the survival of the most effectively aggressive.
The debates and disagreements over such issues during the 1960s and early
1970s took place only partly in specialist circles – in a few quarterly jour-
nals, especially in their review columns – but largely at a more popular level.
To some degree, this occurred because a number of popular and best-selling
books were published at about the same time, bringing the whole issue of
human aggressiveness, violence and territoriality into a public debate in
a way not seen for many years, perhaps since Darwin and Huxley’s time.

Works by Robert Ardrey and Desmond Morris took up what little was known
with any certainty within the scientific community about the links between
human aggression, violence and war, and about recent and tentative find-
ings from ethology, biology and genetics. By extending and extrapolating
from them, the books produced a number of alarming portraits of human
beings as being dominated by preprogrammed tendencies towards violence
and destruction. Works like Morris’s The Naked Ape and Ardrey’s two paper-
backs The Territorial Imperative and African Genesis popularized many of the

ideas contained in somewhat more professional works. Among the latter
were Konrad Lorenz’s On Aggression, based upon his studies of behaviour
among greylag geese that he had domesticated and raised, and wolves and
fish that he had observed; and Anthony Storr’s Human Aggression, based
upon his observations and conclusions from his psychiatric practice over
a number of years.
Given Lorenz’s position of one of the respected founders of animal
behaviour studies, his ideas on intra-specific aggression in On Aggression
(1966) came in for the most attention and the most criticism. This was not
least because of his adoption of the idea of instinctive and inherited aggres-
sive drives shared by most animals and – given that humans were also a
species of animal – also by humans. The basic drives affecting behaviour
were hunger, fear, reproduction and aggression, and Lorenz’s argument that
seemed to have most relevance for the understanding of human conflicts
involved his assertion that while other species had developed over time
effective “aggression inhibitors” that prevented widespread intra-species
killing, humans had changed, socially, so rapidly that they had outstripped
the kind of natural inhibitor – signals of submission that stopped violence –
which worked effectively for other species.
Within the professional community of ethologists and biologists, Lorenz’s
ideas were greeted with less enthusiasm. Particularly scathing of the whole
“natural instinct for aggression” approach was the anthropologist, M.F.
Ashley Montagu, (1968) who, along with others, argued that the very
concept of aggression itself was so ill-defined and open to different inter-
pretation as to be meaningless, and thus a bad tool for analysis.
Other critiques of the “natural aggression” approach revolved around two
main themes. The first was that, whatever the sources of human “harm-
ing behaviour” or “hostile destruction of others” turned out to be, they
were likely to be complex, interactive and context affected. Moreover, their
nature and effects would be made even more complicated by the fact that
human beings had a considerable capacity for learning and a unique capac-
ity for organizing, which was a necessary concomitant for making war as
opposed to bashing someone in a bar. The second theme was that, at the
then state of research, there was simply insufficient knowledge even to begin
to answer questions about what might be termed genetically programmed
and predetermined (“instinctive” if you would) behaviour or about what

was learned, socially determined and culturally specific – and how these two
clusters of factors interacted. Therefore the proper task for ethologists, pri-
matologists, biologists, psychologists and anthropologists was to continue
the detailed search for answers about the nature of “human nature”, and
whether such a thing actually existed.
1.3. The Seville Statement on Violence – and beyond

In spite of the professional and specialist criticism of the popular “natural

and instinctive aggression” approach, the idea that human genetic, biolog-
ical and physiological make-up must have some impact – and possibly a
major impact – on human behaviour (not just at the individual but also at
a social level) remained, and remains a persuasive one. Its cruder version
linking human biology inevitably to organized violence through prepro-
grammed drives remained fairly widespread through the 1970s and early
1980s.6 This persistence eventually led to a professional attempt to lay the
“man as an instinctive killer” ghost finally to rest by developing a sum-
mary of what ongoing research had actually revealed about war, conflict,
violence, aggression and their connection – or lack of connection – with
human nature.
In May 1986, the UN’s International Year Of Peace, following a UNESCO-
sponsored colloquium on “Brain and Aggression” in Seville, a group of
specialists from a variety of disciplines related to the study of human and
animal behaviour drafted a statement attempting to summarize the then
consensual position on linkages between human biology, aggression and
war, and to lay to rest the common, popular belief that war was a part of
human nature. Those drafting the Seville Statement on Violence included
ethologists, specialists in animal behaviour, psychologists, anthropologists
and biochemists.
The lead in drafting the statement was taken by Dr David Adams, a psy-
chologist at Wesleyan University specializing in brain mechanisms underly-
ing aggressive behaviour. He may have been responsible for the challenging
tone of the statement, which some of the signatories later seem to have
regretted, but he presumably wished to make a clear and unambiguous
statement that no one could misunderstand or misinterpret. Each of the
five propositions making it up starts with the phrase “It is scientifically
incorrect”.7 The first disputes the idea that humans have inherited a ten-
dency to make war from our animal ancestors, and the third challenges
the idea that, throughout human evolution, there has been a tendency
to preserve those who employ aggression to achieve status or a dominant
position within their group. The second proposition attacks the idea that
war or any other form of violent behaviour is genetically programmed into
“human nature”, arguing that genes only provide a “developmental poten-
tial that can be actualized only in conjunction with the ecological and social
environment”. The statement’s fourth proposition argues that humans do

not have a “violent brain” but rather a neural apparatus that “filters stimuli”
before determining what an appropriate reaction might be – and, by impli-
cation, this could well be non-aggressive depending on circumstances and
could vary, depending on an individual’s socialization. The final proposition
states flatly that it is scientifically incorrect to assert that “war is caused by
“instinct” or any single motivation” and the statement ends by concluding
that “biology does not condemn humanity to war”.
The statement was greeted with widespread approval, especially within

the conflict and peace research communities that had long argued against
the image of human beings as ineradicably wedded to violence and war.
However, a number of specialists working in fields directly implicated in
some of the statement’s assertions, most particularly sociobiologists who had
been energized by the publication of E.O. Wilson’s new synthesis of ideas
and the biological bases of social behaviour (1975), took issue with it on a
number of grounds. One common criticism was that it started by setting
up straw men, and that no one then working professionally in any field
connected with what one critic called “an evolutionary perspective” would
possibly hold the beliefs attributed to the statement’s ostensible target of
“biologically pessimistic straw scientists” (Beroldi, 1992). Others argued that,
while biologists had perhaps overemphasized competition and aggression in
the past, more recent studies of primates, for example, had discovered other
common patterns of behaviour, such as reconciliation and cooperation, that
made “built-in behaviour” a far more complex and environment-dependent
phenomenon (de Waal, 1992). The anthropologist Robin Fox was even more
scathing, calling the statement “a shop worn denunciation of ideas that no
one ever really had in the first place” (Fox, 1988 p.4).
All of this may have been true, of course, and contemporary evolution-
ary scientists in the 1980s might have been appalled at the idea that all or
any of them believed that “war is caused by instinct”. However, this does
not seem to have been equally the case for political leaders and even rea-
sonably well-educated members of general publics. Really, it was the myths
held within these circles, and the misunderstanding and misuse of findings
from research, that the statement was designed to undermine. In many ways
the statement could well be regarded as a somewhat belated response to the
popularity of the idea of man as a biologically programmed, aggressive and
territory-defending animal set out in the Ardrey, Morris and Lorenz works of
the late 1960s. It represented the replacement of an attitude among serious
researchers of “Nobody can take this seriously!” with a slightly more realistic
one of “We should really do something to correct these misapprehensions
about what we have found.”
Some of the professional furore over the statement also seems to have
arisen at least partly because some people working on lines of research
that seemed to run contrary to the propositions making up the statement
would see their work undervalued, denigrated or even stopped altogether.

Gerald Beroldi voiced this concern most strongly in the early 1990s, argu-
ing that the probable effects of the statement – and similar efforts – would
be to “stifle human evolutionary research and researchers” and to “cast
a shadow of social and scientific unrespectability on work done from an
evolutionary perspective in any discipline”, even if this had not been the
intention of those signing it. In actual fact, the sheer volume of subsequent
work in all of the various sub-fields of evolutionary science that has taken
place since 1986 seems to have laid that fear to rest, as many new lines of

research have opened up into the issues addressed by the statement, as well
as older ones continuing. Beroldi’s worry about a “tendency of some inter-
est groups to attempt to limit research . . . and scholarly dialogue that they
believe contradicts their world view” seems to have been an over-reaction.
More importantly than the above concerns, some of the reactions to the
statement seemed to show that, at least within some scientific fields, the
question of the (possibly biological, genetic and physiological) sources of
aggression, violence and war had not been finally settled and much more
work needed to be done. Even a harsh critic such as Beroldi could accept
that each of the five Seville propositions contained “much that most evolu-
tionary scientists would agree with” but later warn against the statement’s
argument that “denies any possibility that humankind’s evolutionary biol-
ogy might affect contemporary war-making and violent behaviour” and
then ask “Does our evolutionary biology and, therefore, our genes play no
role?” The next 25 years were to see a large number of research projects
attempting to answer the question about the extent to which evolutionary
biology did play a role in violent behaviour and war-making. This basically
involved an endeavour to be clear about what it was that evolutionary sci-
ence and other disciplines were trying to explain – individual or collective
aggression by humans and others, violent behaviour within species, conflict
among humans and their near relatives, or war as something carried out by
human beings (and possibly only by human beings). Could research take us
beyond the somewhat vague and non-specific assertion in the Seville State-
ment that genes “provide a developmental potential that can be actualized
only in conjunction with the ecological and social environment”? How is
such a potential actually “actualized” in different environments – and why?
If, then, the authors of the Seville Statement had hoped that their con-
sensus document would settle the debate about the biological bases of
aggression and war once and for all, clearly this kind of question doomed
these hopes to disappointment. Not surprisingly, debate, research and inves-
tigation continued across a broad front over the 1980s, the 1990s and on into
the new millennium. The work clarified many issues and threw some light
on many of the points that remained in contention. For one thing, there was
the question of what people were seeking to explain. Aggressive behaviour
by human individuals or by families, groups or communities? Organized
warfare as a uniquely human activity or observed analogues in other species?
The relative importance of inherited genetic structures, or the physiology of

the brain compared with cultural and environmental factors in explaining

human behaviour – and especially violent behaviour? The likely mecha-
nisms by which particular behaviour patterns were passed down through
the ages (if, indeed, they were) to the present generations? The justification
for using primate “cousins” to explain human behaviour?
Fairly early on, a consensus emerged successfully about the issue of
“aggression”. As early as 1968, Kenneth Moyer had suggested a taxonomy
of seven types of “aggression” that proved very influential in subsequent

studies of aggressive behaviour. In many ways, the key distinctions involved
those between the following:
inter-specific aggression, which included predator attacks on prey and

aggression produced as a reaction to a threat (as when mothers reacted
to a threat to their offspring or when attempts to flee from a threat were
thwarted);
intra-specific aggression, which could take the form of territorial defence
against conspecific intruders, inter-male aggression caused by competi-
tion for scarce resources, or irritable aggression induced by frustration
and directed against some available target, not necessarily the source of
the frustration.8
Oversimplifying somewhat, by the 1990s these distinctions had coalesced

around the idea that there were two broad categories of aggression that
could be observed in many species, including humans. These were “affec-
tive aggression” (sometimes called “retaliatory” or “hostile aggression”)
which might, indeed, need to be explained by reference to some genetic
or neurological factors, and “instrumental aggression” (also known as “goal-
oriented” or “predatory aggression”), which logically could be explained (or
largely explained) by reference to contextual and cultural factors and to a
species’ ability to imitate and to learn.
Another, tentative consensus that emerged in the post-Seville period was
about the utility of making as clear a distinction as possible between individ-
ual human aggression and large-scale conflict and wars, and a rather more
shaky acceptance of the probability that the one might have very little to
do with the other. There were two lines of argument that seemed to sup-
port a conclusion that broke at least any direct link between wars, civil wars
and organized mass violence on the one hand, and individual aggressiveness
on the other. The first of these was that large-scale social conflicts require
organization, communication, the mobilization of combatants into fight-
ing units, and their training in the use of increasingly complex weaponry
designed to kill at a distance. Increasingly it became possible for humans to
kill each other – often in large numbers – without the requirement of being
bigger, stronger, fitter and bolder than those who were the targets of one’s
weapons – machine guns, long-range artillery or weapons dropped or fired
from above. Dropping incendiary bomb or sending off a guided missile did

not usually rely on any form of individual human aggression, but more usu-
ally involved overcoming fear and panic on the one hand and imagination
on the other.
The second and rather neglected line of argument about the distinction
between individual aggression and war arose from the undoubted fact that
most combatants in modern war have to be trained – and trained hard –
to kill others. Much of military training is designed to overcome an aver-
sion to such killing, which seems to be shared across cultures and has to

be overcome if armies are to function effectively. Indeed, this appears to be
a wonderful example of a cultural and social environment where deliber-
ate efforts are made to get individual members of a (military) community
to learn a particular pattern of behaviour – to inflict maximum harm on
others – and yet, in many cases, the environment (training, indoctrina-
tion, peer pressure and even risk to one’s own survival) fails to produce
the required result. One evidence of this last is the number of infantry sol-
diers who, in past wars, could not bring themselves to shoot at visible and
threatening enemies.9
This is a somewhat surprising finding in the light of all the “man
the aggressive warrior” assumptions, and has given rise to another quasi-
academic sub-discipline which goes by the ugly name of “killology”. This
is designed to understand the phenomenon of the unwillingness to kill,
even on a battlefield and among heavily trained and indoctrinated military
personnel – and presumably to find ways by which this regrettable (from a
military viewpoint) tendency might be overcome. One leading researcher in
this field, David Grossman, talks about there being “a force within man that
will cause men to rebel against killing, even at the risk of their own lives”
(Grossman, 1995).
If many soldiers are trained to kill but, when it comes to the point, fre-
quently cannot do so then this seems to argue strongly against the existence
of some preprogrammed, universally shared aggressive drive, trait, instinct
or genetically determined predisposition to inflict harm. As many have
argued, if wars are “instinctive”, how come we need to train men to over-
come a natural aversion to killing? Paradoxically, the refusal of many trained
soldiers to actually kill also argues against the overwhelming influence of
culture and environment in inevitably developing socially approved and
rewarded habits of using violence – that is, against the effects of environ-
mental factors exemplified by drill, training and inculcation into a warrior
culture. It may even suggest that humans are, by nature, conditioned against
the use of violence, and that this is such a strong element in that nature
that, in many individuals, it can resist all social efforts to break it down.
However, this has not been a position that has been strongly argued in the
research concerned with historically inherited traits, which has been another
dominant theme in the study of human aggression and war in the decades
post-Seville.

2. Inheritance, sociobiology and the “natural selection”

of violent traits
Whatever the fundamental, originating sources of individual or of orga-

nized violence, one line of post-Seville thinking and research took up one
of Darwin’s basic ideas and examined arguments to the effect that, through-
out the millennia of human prehistory, the exigencies of survival, especially
as hunter-gatherers, favoured the survival of the individuals – and hence

probably of the gene pools – best equipped to thrive in what was undoubt-
edly a harsh and demanding environment. Initially it seemed reasonable to
hold that, in such circumstances, “fitness” for survival involved abilities to
coerce others, to employ violence when necessary and to defend dominant
leadership roles when these had been achieved. Hence individuals whose
nature and behaviour emphasized such abilities would survive more fre-
quently than those who didn’t, and pass on these traits to their offspring
and successors.
2.1. Selection for survival

Even this superficial outline indicates that this line of thought was very
much part of the sociobiology “revolution” that occurred in the mid-1970s
with the publication of Edward Wilson’s major study (1975), which became
a huge source of intellectual controversy from the 1980s onwards. One
central contention of sociobiology is that much human (social) behaviour
is determined – at least partly – by biological make-up interacting with
social and cultural contexts, and that over (a great deal of) time, cer-
tain traits – aggressiveness, for example, or alternatively altruism – become
more widespread through a “winnowing out” process that favours certain
patterns of genetic inheritance. Individual beings (human and animal) pos-
sessing, perhaps fortuitously, these adaptive gene combinations survive in
statistically larger numbers than those that don’t – and pass on these use-
ful survival traits to the next generation, especially if the traits involve
an ability to pass on one’s genetic inheritance through increased sexual
opportunity.
Quite apart from its specific impact on thinking about human violence
and war, the initial reformulation of sociobiology as applied to humans and
advanced during the 1970s set off a universal storm of controversy. General
criticisms took a number of forms, chief among them being that the bulk
of modern human behaviour is socially and culturally determined. If the
genetic make-up of human beings – the genetic inheritance leading to both
physical and behavioural traits shared by individuals, especially those with
high survival rates – does, actually, produce such observably varied results,
depending on environmental pressures on different groups and individuals,
then even the existence of such commonly shared traits is not much use as
an explanatory variable.

As far as the passing on over millennia of functional “traits for survival”,

leading gradually to a dominance in humans of widely shared genetic pre-
dispositions for violence, aggressiveness and – ultimately – organized warfare
is concerned, some post- Seville works have taken up this idea and elabo-
rated it, while others have rejected it wholeheartedly. One controversy has
revolved around the issue of whether violence, aggressiveness and a will-
ingness to kill are necessarily those genetically inherited traits that have
enhanced survivability and thus been carried down through the generations

making up the human family tree. On the one hand, Richard Wrangham
and Dale Petersen have argued that this type of behaviour confers an evolu-
tionary advantage on some humans (as well as the modern-day chimpanzees
that they have studied) especially in environments where food and space are
in limited supply. Hence it is likely that a willingness to be violent and to kill
are the key survival traits that come to be genetically inherited. A detailed
version of the basic argument can be found in their book, Demonic Males
(Wrangham & Peterson, 1996), which argues that combative and aggressive
males are favoured through natural selection, as such traits enable those pos-
sessing them to dominate their society and obtain larger shares of goods –
and of sexual opportunities for passing on these traits to future generations.
2.2. Long-term survival skills

On the other hand, other researchers have argued that survival during
“human” beings’ long prehistory as hunter-gatherers (which some argue has
lasted for 2 million years10 while others hold it to be a time period of a mere
50,000 years) depends much more on quite different adaptive behaviours,
and it is these that get passed down through generations and survive as long
as they provide effective means through which their practitioners survive.
The anthropologist Douglas Fry has argued that when one studies existing
bands of nomadic hunter-gatherers, there is little evidence for the argument
that it is the strong and aggressive who come to dominate the band, and
obtain the greatest share of resources and status, as well as enjoying increased
opportunities to pass on their genetic inheritance with females – what might
be termed the “man the hunter” or “man the warrior” models.
For one thing, modern hunter-gather bands studied by many
anthropologists11 tend to be highly egalitarian, open and flexible as regards
membership, not organized into exclusive kinship networks, adverse to
killing and violence, more than willing to share (food, water and a few arti-
facts) with other band members (and even with other bands in times of
hardship), and possessing ingenious, ritualized ways of dealing with inter-
personal conflicts when these arise, as they inevitably do (Fry, 2007). This
is not to say that disputes, conflicts and aggressive behaviour never occur
in such bands, but simply that aggression and violence do not seem to be
the adaptive traits that have proved particularly effective in enabling the
bands themselves or individuals within them to survive, in modern times

but also – if the analogy is apt – during the 38,000 years that our direct
ancestors lived in roughly similar social organizations. More important seem
to have been traits such as forming alliances,12 bonding with fellow mem-
bers of a group, cooperating and tolerating. Moreover, successful leadership –
if such exists – within small and peripatetic groups would seem to depend
far more on the ability to persuade, to plan ahead, to act as a peacemaker
in quarrels, rather than on muscular development or abilities to threaten,
coerce or fight.

If the basic idea of inherited biological traits has any validity, then, Fry
argues, these are the traits that are much more likely to have survived and
been passed on, because they are the traits that enabled groups of hunter-
gatherers to survive for a very long time.13 Within such a view of functional
and adaptive behaviours leading to inherited traits, altruism can play a
much more central role than aggressiveness, and reconcilers become at least
as important as warriors or bullies. Fry quotes his old anthropology pro-
fessor, Elman Service, to the effect that “in simple hunter-gatherer bands,
leadership is weak and based on charisma, not authority. Everybody knows
everybody else . . . Generosity is highly valued. And when it comes to ‘war-
fare’, hunter-gatherer bands engage in little more than . . . feuds and Saturday
night brawls” (Fry, 2007 p.103).
In actual fact, there is a fair amount of anthropological evidence to the
effect that, at least in hunter-gatherer bands, highly aggressive and violent
individuals are frequently regarded as a menace (which should evince no
surprise from anyone who has suffered such behaviour in small decision-
making groups, such as faculty boards, selection committees or school
playgrounds). Both Fry and fellow anthropologist Christopher Boehm (2001;
2010) argue that a typical response, once talk, humour, avoidance, social
disapproval or friendly peacemaking efforts have failed, is often ostracism,
ejection from the band or – in extreme cases – a death sentence carried
out on the disturber of the peace, but carried out on behalf of the entire
band. If this is the not infrequent fate of the overly aggressive and the
violent, it becomes a little difficult to argue that these are clearly the func-
tionally adaptive, genetically inheritable traits that have been passed down
from generation to generation because of their positive impact on long-term
survivability.
All of the above can appear quite remote from the issues involved in pro-
tracted and intractable conflicts in the twenty-first century, and how they
originate and develop. The major point to be emphasized, however, is that
even if it is the case that certain genetic or neurological traits have grad-
ually become more and more prevalent in human beings – and especially
in male human beings – because of their positive effects on human surviv-
ability over the many centuries during which the predominant “way of life”
of humans took place in small, nomadic hunter-gatherer communities, it
is by no means certain that these inheritable traits necessarily involved a

capacity for violence, a tendency towards interpersonal aggression and the

development of organized, mass killing, otherwise known as “war”. If this
is an accurate description of human evolution during this initial 35–40
millennia, and if (as scholars such as Lawrence Keeley (1996) suggest) this
pattern changed with the establishment of settled agriculture, territoriality,
and the growth of “states” (with the accompanying development of divi-
sion of labour, hierarchy and warrior specialization), then that very change
itself argues against the existence of an inflexible “human nature”, inevitably

driven to respond to conflicts through organized and lethal violence solely
or even largely because of that nature.
Furthermore, it is not quite clear whether even researchers who adopt the
“functionality of violence” or “aggressiveness is the best way of ensuring
your genes survive over the ages” approach believe that these genetically
inherited traits are so dominant as to make violence, conflict and warfare
constant and inevitable in any and every human society. Richard Wrangham
has expressed the view that chimpanzees and humans both have an “instru-
mental” view about when to use violence and when to avoid it – both can
overcome the propensity to use violence when they calculate that its use
will not achieve the desired results or lead to defeat. Chimpanzees fight
“when they think they can get away with it but they don’t when they can’t”.
This actually sounds much like Kenneth Moyer’s concept of “instrumental
aggression”. The introduction of a “rational calculus” element into primate
aggressiveness throws further doubt onto arguments about an inevitably
activated, biological basis for violence. Even Stephen LeBlanc (1999), who
argues that violence and warfare have been a feature of all past human soci-
eties and who takes a highly pessimistic view of human prehistory, is on
record as saying that, given a change in ecological or cultural circumstances,
even the most violent and war-prone societies can change, which at least
implies that biologically inherited traits can be overcome.
2.3. Genetic and neurological findings

Whether as a species we have, over the ages, inherited survival traits that
predispose us in general towards cooperative behaviour, sharing, egalitar-
ianism, avoidance of organized violence and the development of com-
plex peacemaking techniques rather than towards violence, aggressivity
and dominance, evidence still remains that at least some early humans
were capable of aggressive responses that might well lead to killing. Cer-
tainly present-day humans can and frequently do respond to situations of
conflict through aggression and violence. Hence, the issue of individual
aggressiveness remains from the past and well into the present, so that the
question has to be asked again about whether at least some members of
our species possess certain genetic programmes or neurological processes
that push them towards indulging in killing behaviour – given the right
(external or internal) stimuli. This is a question that underlies another line
of research – the neurological bases of behaviour – that has been expansively

undertaken since the time of the Seville Statement, which has popularly and
misleadingly been characterized as the search for “an aggression gene”.
One of the more interesting recent findings from this mass of genetic and
neurological research into the topic is that, in many species, it seems that
the brain can learn about itself – and adapt. For example, much has been
learned in recent years about neurological reactions to “the Other” and how
these can alter depending upon familiarity with “the dear enemy” (Fisher,
1954). This line of research has found, for example, that species that “natu-

rally” use aggression to defend their own territory can and do modify their
behaviour when they recognize the intruder as a neighbour rather than a
complete stranger (See Jaeger, 1981; Temeles, 1994; Rosell & Bjorkoyli, 2003;
Husak & Fox, 2003). The work indicates again that not only can the brain
learn about itself but, in several species, it can also modify its own internal
processes. Robert Sapolsky, Professor of Neurological Sciences at Stanford,
has emphasized the apparent flexibility of the amygdala – the structure of
the human brain that plays a key role in arousing and linking fear and
aggression. The amygdala normally becomes aroused and ready for action
when human subjects are experimentally presented with a face from a differ-
ent race, even when the presentation is subliminal. However, the activation
does not occur with those who already have much experience with people
from a different race, or when experimental subjects have previously been
conditioned to think of people as individuals rather than as members of a
group. Sapolsky’s conclusion is that humans “may be hard wired to get edgy
around the Other, but our views on who falls into that category are decidedly
malleable” (2006, p.119).
The lessons that can be learned from research into the genetic and neu-
rological bases of human behaviour are not necessarily conclusive but do
suggest that major parts of the Seville Statement remain valid. If human
nature and its neurological underpinnings are more flexible than previously
thought, then the reasons and remedies for human conflict – and espe-
cially violent protracted conflicts – can be sought outside humans’ “basic,
unchangeable nature”, or at least in the interactions between that nature
(whatever “it” is) and its social and cultural context.
However, one last line of post-Seville research needs to be considered
before any firm or even tentative conclusions about this relationship can be
drawn, and this involves efforts to learn about the nature of human nature
from near relatives.
3. Learning from cousins
I noted earlier that some of the very early work on CAR was paralleled by an
interest in the behaviour of humans’ close relatives, non-human primates.
Partly this interest existed for its own sake but also because of the belief
that parallels between human and primate behaviour might turn out to be
functionally or even causally similar, and at least might help to throw some

light on human aggression and even war. In the period after the issuing of
the Seville Statement, work on understanding the sources of behaviour of
humans’ primate cousins has increased exponentially, and has produced a
new discipline – primatology – and a huge body of findings about aggres-
sion, violence, conflict and conflict resolution among apes and monkeys,
and increasingly among other species.
Of course, the central issue remains regarding the extent to which findings
about modern non-human primates can throw light on human behaviour,

both individual and societal, and on what justification there might be for
making assertions about “human” nature on the basis of findings about
“primate” nature. The old criticism that was leveled against Robert Ardrey,
among others, still has to be faced. Given that, between 6 and 8 million
years ago, humans as an evolutionary species split away from the devel-
opmental line that led towards modern-day non-human primates, such as
chimpanzees and baboons, what justification can be offered for taking find-
ings from one modern species to another, even if it can be argued (a) that
both shared a remote ancestor, several million years ago or (b) that humans
and (for example) chimpanzees share 98% of the same genetic make-up?
It seems far more justifiable to try to learn about what we may have inher-
ited, genetically speaking, from human hunter-gatherer ancestors of a mere
30,000 years ago by studying modern-day hunter-gatherers than to try to
learn about modern human behaviour from other modern, socially living
primates on the grounds that we share some kind of genetic inheritance
from hypothesized common ancestors 6 million years ago – about whom we
know almost nothing.
Even leaving that tricky issue on one side, the findings from the huge
research efforts into the behaviour of our cousins remain somewhat con-
fusing and controversial in themselves. This is especially so as far as
chimpanzees living “in the wild” are concerned. In general, during the
early years of study, chimpanzees were regarded as being peaceful and non-
aggressive, and in her 1968 study, Jane Goodall witnessed very few violent
attacks on one another by the chimps that she was studying in Gombe. Later
observation and research by Goodall (1971) and a variety of other primatol-
ogists substantially modified this picture, however. Quite apart from their
propensity to hunt and kill for meat, the chimps being studied developed a
reputation for being aggressive and indulging frequently in inter-individual
violence, often leading to bloodshed within the group. Moreover, violence
of the (larger) males towards females was observed to occur quite frequently.
Chimps were later recorded by Goodall as organizing themselves into what
have been described as cooperative “border patrols” that search along the
borders of their own range and attack neighbouring males “even to the point
of killing off other groups entirely” (Sapolsky, 2006 p.111). This picture of
aggressive and violent chimp cousins was completed by Richard Wrangham
and Dale Petersen who claimed that

one of the least variable of all chimpanzee behaviors is the intense com-
petition between males, the violent aggression they use against strangers
and their willingness to maim and kill those who frustrate their goals.
As a picture of chimpanzee society settles, it now includes infanticide,
rape and regular battering of females by males . . .
(1997 p.108)
On the other hand, Margaret Power (1991) offered an early, major critique

of the numerous studies carried out at the two sites in Tanzania, Gombe and
Mahale, especially in the later stages of those studies. She argued that the
whole range of strategies employed in artificially feeding bands of chimps
(and baboons) has resulted in radically changed behaviour among them – at
least changes from the kind of peaceable, cooperative behaviour that char-
acterizes chimpanzee bands, living genuinely “in the wild” as open-range
foragers, unaffected by humans. According to Power, the aggressive and vio-
lent behaviour and the hierarchical social structure observed among chimps
at Gombe and Mahale can be seen as based in the frustrations and competi-
tion arising from the artificial feeding strategies practised on the chimps by
the observers. Earlier, more unstructured observations of chimps who were
not being fed revealed a very different, cooperative and egalitarian social
structure, mirrored by observations of human hunter-gatherer bands in their
own “natural” condition. Whatever the outcome of this debate, all involved
appear to agree that the actual behaviour of the chimps being observed did
change markedly once feeding stations and patterns had been established –
in Gombe post-1968 and a few years later in Mahale. This suggests strongly
that the chimps do possess an ability to change their behaviour and adapt to
different circumstances, in this case becoming more frustrated, competitive
and aggressive when faced with an environment of scarcity, uncertainty and
imposed rivalry.
Moreover, other primatologists have described a quite different pattern
of behaviour in another closely connected species – smaller and much less
violent primates known as bonobos that live in the region of the rain-
forests of the River Congo basin within the Democratic Republic of the
Congo. Compared with chimpanzees and other larger primates, bonobo
society appears to be highly egalitarian; lacking in male alliances formed
to attain privilege, power or status; female-dominated; and characterized by
frequent – and almost indiscriminate – sex with multiple partners. Food
is shared, with preference being given to females, reconciliation following
quarrels is widespread and effective, while peaceful and cooperative encoun-
ters between different bonobo troops are in direct contrast with the usual
violence that follows when chimp communities come into contact with one
another.
A variety of explanations have been suggested for this huge contrast
between chimpanzee and bonobo behaviour. Size and other physical

differences between bonobo males and females are much less than they are
between chimpanzees, which may be one reason for the much lower level
of male–female violence in bonobo society. Another suggestion, made by
Gottfried Hohmann and Barbara Fruth of the Max Planck Institute (2003),
is that the bonobo diet (mainly vegetarian, although some meat is eaten)
is plentiful, easily obtained and high in easily digested nutrients. This envi-
ronmental factor means that there is little need to compete over food or to
hunt for meat. Moreover, unlike the typical chimpanzee diet which contains

indigestible chemicals such as tannins, little time has to be spent preparing
food, so that feeding time for bonobos becomes a non-competitive, social
activity. Besides not having to compete over food or use it as a bait to attract
females, the relatively easy availability of sex among bonobo troops removes
another reason for competition over females and the potential for violence
between males that characterize chimpanzees troops.14
All of these suggestions boil down to the argument that chimps and
bonobos behave differently because of the fact that they have adapted to
very different environments and that the explanation of the peacefulness
of the bonobos is a result of the easy availability of scarce goods, the lack
of which leads the “notoriously violent” chimps to behave much more
aggressively.
However, another primatologist, Frans de Waal, who has studied chimps
and bonobos in both the wild and in captivity, disagrees, holding that
chimps and bonobos “under exactly the same captive conditions behave
in totally different ways” (see Kaplan, 2006 p.2). Sapolsky has also noted
that some recent research has indicated that bonobos possess a genetic
component that makes “affiliative behaviour” (behaviour that promotes
group cohesion) more pleasurable to male bonobos, while chimpanzees lack
this component (Sapolsky p.107). Once again, the whole issue of whether
bonobos are peaceful and non-violent while chimps are aggressive and vio-
lent because of their environment or their “basic nature” – or both – still
seems open to debate.
Some evidence from recent studies of primate behaviour does seem to
indicate that, whatever “the basic nature” of primate cousins might be, it
does permit both learning and behavioural adaptation to different envi-
ronments, at least to some degree. One of the features of bonobo society,
for example, seems to be the way in which peacemaking and reconciling
behaviours help to keep violence at a minimum and enable group cohesive-
ness to be maintained in the long run. This clearly seems to be one crucial
factor in the survivability and hence the evolution of primate species. More-
over, bonobos seem able to pass on pacific behaviour patterns – perhaps even
attitudes – from one generation to another, so that learning takes place inter-
generationally. In both bonobos and chimps, peacemaking (in the latter case
carried out through the post-conflict grooming of rivals by a third – usually
an elderly female – member of the troop) seems to be clearly an acquired
social skill rather than an instinct.

More unexpectedly, the transfer of (peaceable) behaviour patterns has

been observed between different species, as well as within members of the
same primate “society”. An example of this was observed in an experiment
carried out by de Waal and Johanowicz in the early 1990s in which they
“brought up” young rhesus monkeys – a normally aggressive species with
low levels of reconciliation – together with close relatives (stumptail mon-
keys) which are highly conciliatory. Subsequent observations of the rhesus
monkeys showed that those exposed to their reconciling cousins were far

more likely (by a factor of 3 or 4) to practice reconciling behaviour than
their fellows who had never been in contact with stumptails (de Waal &
Johanowicz, 1993). In other words, the rhesus monkeys in the experi-
ment learned reconciling behaviour from their cousins in the mixed society,
adapted the principle of reconciliation to their own species-typical methods,
and carried that learned behavioural practice back into their own unmixed
society for future use.
In other cases, both individuals and communities of primates have been
able to learn about a new environment very quickly, adapt their behaviour
to the new set of circumstances and preserve the resultant, adaptive com-
munity culture over time, even when the membership of the commu-
nity changed quite radically. An early example of individual learning was
observed in the 1970s by Hans Kummer, a primatologist working with two
very different baboon communities in Ethiopia. When individuals from one
community were introduced as members of the other, Kummer reports15 that
it took about an hour for each individual, but different, primate to over-
come – presumably – millennia of genetic differences and a lifetime of social
conditioning to learn that the old way of coping with a threat did not work
and to adopt the appropriate, very different but “troop-relevant” defensive
behaviour.
Learning, adaptation to changed conditions with changed behaviour and
the persistence of the new behaviour is illustrated by a case recorded by
Robert Sapolsky involving troops of baboons in Kenya. One troop had the
misfortune to live near the garbage dump of a tourist lodge, which pro-
vided an easily available, varied and ultimately dangerous food source and
which rapidly attracted the attention and then the invasion of aggressive
males from another nearby – “Forest” – troop. When tuberculosis from
contaminated meat broke out among the original baboon troop, it rapidly
killed off the members of that troop plus the toughest, most aggressive, least
socially involved members of the Forest troop that had been involved in the
invasion of the dump and the fighting over available, and ultimately fatal,
garbage. What was left in the Forest troop was a predominance of females
and a number of less pugnacious males. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the levels
of conflict within the troop dropped considerably. Hierarchies still existed
but in a much looser form with higher-status individuals rarely harass-
ing subordinates and affiliative behaviours increasing markedly.16 Much
more surprisingly, this unusual culture persisted over time – for more than

20 years – even when new adult males joined the troop after the epidemic
and none of the original low-aggression/high-affiliation males were still
around.17 What seems to have occurred was the creation of a new “culture”
in the troop which persisted over time because new young males, entering
the troop with customary high levels of aggression and low levels of affil-
iation, were quickly acculturated into the norms of the troop. Newcomers
rapidly ended up learning acceptable forms of behaviour through a process
that Sapolsky describes as being immersed in a different culture that “simply

emerges, facilitated by the actions of the resident members” (2006 p.117),
rather than being deliberately taught.
All of the observations of primate behaviour discussed above lead back to
the conclusion that if it is justifiable to derive lessons from the behaviour
of primate cousins about the nature of human nature, a central lesson has
to revolve around the idea of “malleability”. Regarding the “if”, as we learn
more about primate behaviour, the less distance there seems to be between
human beings and other primate species, although many researchers have
warned about the dangers of drawing instant parallels between complex
social behaviour (for example, the human potential for making war) and pri-
mate behaviour (for example, in forming coalitions for dominance, defence
or territorial aggression). Frans de Waal has argued that at least some pri-
mates have what he calls “the building blocks of moral behaviour” and has
observed both that prior grooming among chimpanzees has increased the
likelihood of future food-sharing and that capuchin monkeys tend to share
food with others that have already shared with them. Similarly, researchers
at the University of Zurich have observed that pairs of macaques that had
previously learned to cooperate to obtain food reconciled after quarrels more
readily than others that had no history of cooperation, or anticipated need
to cooperate in the future (Cords & Thurnheer, 1993).
If this suggests the potential for the development of a sense of obligation
or for anticipated future rewards in exchange for current sharing,18 other
observations have led to the hypothesis that at least some primates pos-
sess, or are able to develop, a rough sense of fairness or even justice. In one
famous experiment, Sarah Brosnan and Frans de Waal (2003) first rewarded
pairs of capuchin monkeys with (low-value) cucumber or (high-value) grapes
depending upon appropriate responses. The researchers then violated the
capuchins’ established expectations by only providing the anticipated high-
value reward to one of the pair, the other receiving the low-value reward
for the same response. The slighted capuchins – some sense of their concep-
tion of “fairness” being outraged – then tended to reject the cucumber and
eventually refused to participate at all when their “partner” was seen to be
receiving a greater reward for an equal effort. The violation of expectation of
“fairness” is something that seems to produce negative reactions in humans,
capuchins and possibly other primates.
All of this places a big question mark over the argument that primate
nature is genetically dominated, fixed and unchangeable – males being

constantly “demonic” or exhibiting any other fixed and inevitable pattern

of behaviour. If that is true for primate nature then how much more so is
it true for human beings? If any malleability or flexibility can be observed
in primate species as well as in human beings, then it does throw doubt
on Richard Dawkins’ conclusion at the very end of The Selfish Gene to the
effect that “We alone on earth can rebel against the tyranny of the selfish
replicators”. Many of the examples cited in Section 3 seem to show other
(primate) species learning, adapting and hence rebelling against genetic

determinism.
4. Conclusions
Much of the work discussed in the previous sections does, unfortunately,

throw some question marks over details of the Seville Statement and raises
again the question of the extent to which human behaviour – especially
violent, aggressive and warlike behaviour – is the result of genetic or neu-
rological factors that, at the very least, play some role in explaining human
actions and responses. The fact is that much behaviour of humans, as well
as of near and some distant cousins, varies, depending on context and envi-
ronment. For example, the built-in “readiness for aggression” process in the
amygdala can be overcome [turned off or short-circuited] through familiar-
ity with particular external stimuli or by learning to modify one’s concept
of “the Other”, which suggests that many genetic and neurological aspects
of “human nature” are not fixed but are (at least to some extent) modifi-
able, depending upon the nature of external stimuli and the environment
within which a stimulus arises. As Robert Sapolsky suggests, arguing that the
original “nature versus nurture” debate is silly: “The action of genes is com-
pletely intertwined with the environment in which they function; in a sense
it is pointless to even discuss what gene X does, and we should consider only
what gene X does in environment Y” (2006 pp.111–112).
And yet, the fact that human beings can learn, change, adapt and respond
differently to different environments surely cannot be limitless. Both human
and primate nature may be “malleable” but probably not infinitely so.
Female baboons may be able to adapt their responses to a threat from a
male in a very short time but no matter what the environmental threat nei-
ther male nor female baboons can suddenly sprout wings – or decide to seize
a large club and threaten a threatener – in order to make their escape from
a pursuing leopard, irrespective of the culture of their home troop. This is
obviously an extreme example but it does raise the issue of how malleable
baboon nature is, and, by extension, how flexible human nature might prove
to be. If human beings are not genetically or neurologically “hard wired” so
that aggressive responses are absolutely predetermined – which clearly seems
to be the case – then how plastic or flexible or malleable are their responses.
Apparently human behaviour is not completely random and there must be
some limits on the variability of aggressive and other responses.

If one can envisage some kind of notional continuum for human

responses to environmental stimuli which ranges from some which are
(notionally) wholly determined to others which are (notionally) infinitely
flexible, most behaviours must lie somewhere between these two (notional)
extremes. Individual sexual arousal may depend on the particular object of
desire, and this can be highly variable, but the nature of the arousal itself
does not seem to be similarly variable. In such environments, humans do
not turn blue in the face or find their hair standing on end or their finger

nails elongating, no matter what the local culture might be. There is a range
of responses to such situations but not an infinite range. Similarly, when in a
situation of intense frustration, individuals may vary in their abilities to con-
trol their rising anger and in the way they react to being highly frustrated,
but again these reactions are not infinitely variable and they do demonstrate
patterns and regularities (although these are likely to be culturally affected).
Along these lines, Frans de Waal approvingly quotes the words of Edward
Wilson to the effect that human biology holds us “on a leash” and will only
allow us to stray a certain distance from who we are (de Waal, 2010 p.22).
He goes on to say that “we must consider our biological leash when deciding
what kind of society we want to build” and might have added that this is
especially so when we are trying to deal with humans in conflict with one
another.
At present, then, all of this seems to leave us in a situation where “human
nature” is best regarded as an interaction between genetic structures and
neurological processes which lead to a “readiness” or a capability to respond
in certain ways to stimuli from an environment. The readiness can be mod-
ified through learning (involving past experience) through cultural norms
and patterns of acceptable behaviour, all of which can modify – at least
to some degree – the neurological reactions in basically the same man-
ner that other species can modify their reaction to trespass by recognized
neighbours.19
The key question about how flexible “human nature” might prove to be
in various situations and environments thus remains a matter for careful
investigation. It remains a particularly important question to be answered
in situations of humans possessing goals that are mutually incompatible
and highly salient – in other words, in situations of intense and intractable
conflicts. What we do know about human flexibility does strongly suggest,
however, that “human nature” in such circumstances does not inevitably
compel those involved towards aggression, violence and death. My own feel-
ing is that, while some of its terms may need modifying to take account
of what recent research tells us about what our genetic make-up and neu-
rological processes prevent us from doing, the main provisions of the
Seville Statement on Violence remain a good basis on which to begin an
investigation of conflict among humans, and its (possible) resolution.

2
Formation
Sources and Emergence

1. Preliminaries
The discussion in the opening chapter led to the belief that there were no
innate biological or neurological reasons for human primates, either as indi-
viduals or en masse, to indulge in conflict, violent or otherwise. Rather,
reasons had to be sought in the complex interaction between particular
environmental circumstances and the arousal of likely human reactions –
biological and behavioural – to those circumstances. In other words, in any
effort to grasp the underlying reasons for human conflict, the focus has to
be on both human propensities and specific circumstances.
Given, then, that there has to be some starting point in any discussion
of the whole “nature of human conflict”, even before we move on to the
issue of certain conflicts’ “intractability”, a useful point might begin with
questions about how and why conflicts actually arise between human indi-
viduals, groups and communities. What are the sources of human conflict if
the simple answer is not “human nature”? What causes humans to engage
in disputes, rivalries, opposition, clashes, fights and wars?
The fact that we can begin by using this variety of terms as synonyms
for our key concept indicates that there is a prior problem, however. What,
exactly, are we talking about when we use the term “conflict” and what sorts
of phenomenon are covered by that word?
1.1. Definitions
As with any serious analysis, then, discussion of the field of conflict analysis
must inevitably begin with a definition. What is a conflict – and what isn’t?1
Actually, like all definitional questions, this one really asks: Which of
the phenomena in the world “out there” that we can observe and dis-
tinguish from one another shall we decide to label “conflict”? Hence that
world divides into those things that we call conflicts and the huge number
of others that we don’t – cows, cars, continents, confidence, cooperation,
competition.
23

As an example, take the industrial psychologist Ross Stagner’s early

attempt (1967) at clear labelling, which is not untypical of subsequent efforts
to deal with this initial, definitional problem:
Conflict is a situation in which . . . [two] human beings desire goals which

they perceive as being obtainable by one or other but not both . . .
A second version from a political science viewpoint comes from Oliver

Ramsbottom and his colleagues from their admirable volume on contem-
porary conflict resolution. They succinctly define conflict as
the pursuit of incompatible goals by different groups . . .

(2005 p.27)
What these definitions share and what therefore seems key to these con-
ceptualizations of the nature of a conflict is the idea that the defining
characteristic of a conflict – or of “being in conflict” or of a “relationship
of conflict” – is the existence of a “goal incompatibility”, although in real
life this can often assume the outward and immediate form of one or other
of the adversaries perceiving a major threat to highly valued goods – material
goods, symbolic goods, or (in extreme cases) one’s very survival or existence.
If many of the accepted definitions of “a conflict” posit that a defining
characteristic of such a phenomenon is the existence of incompatible goals
between parties (individuals, groups, communities, countries) then it fol-
lows that these goal incompatibilities (the issues in conflict) must have some
origins – or sources – and must have emerged (at some time or other) into
the consciousness of those involved.
In other words, any conflict must have been formed from some sources,
so that (a) the subject of “conflict formation” must be a central one in the
field, and (b) some theories must exist about conflict origins (the causes of
conflict). Inevitably, such theories will be influential in suggesting ways of
solving (or resolving) conflicts. Once one is convinced about the causes of a
conflict, remedial action logically involves removing those causes or, at least,
modifying them in some manner so that the effects of the conflict are less
undesirable.
1.2. Conflict over the nature of conflict

Some other preliminary points need to be made about goal incompatibili-
ties and the “issues” in conflict. The first is that it is quite possible (and is,
indeed, the case in many conflicts) for those involved to have very different
conceptions of what the conflict is actually “about” – of what the key goal
incompatibilities are.
Sometimes this difference is simply tactical – each would derive significant
advantages from having its view of the issues in conflict accepted by the

Formation: Sources and Emergence 25
other side and by other relevant parties. However, sometimes the difference
is quite genuine and the adversaries genuinely believe the conflict to be
about quite different things. One key question therefore is: What sort of
a conflict do we have either when one party denies that a conflict actually
exists or when both disagree over whether the issues have been properly
defined or characterized? Who defines/decides whether there actually is a
conflict? One of the parties? All of the parties? Third-party outsiders? This
is by no means simply an irrelevant, academic issue thought up by profes-

sors to torture students. The practicalities of coping with, or attempting to
resolve, a conflict are much more difficult if adversaries cannot even come to
some basic consensus over what the conflict is “really” about – as they often
can’t. Achieving some minimal level of agreement about the precise issues
in conflict that need to be resolved is often the first and most difficult task
for anyone seeking a durable solution.
2. Formation: The structure of a conflict
If one begins from the key analytical distinction between being in con-
flict with, and having feelings of hostility, fear, mistrust and dislike about,
another, one confronts an immediate dilemma. It can happen that individ-
uals and groups in conflict do not possess highly negative feelings about
others with whom they confront goal incompatibilities, even if these are
salient and important, but this seems to be rare. Normally, adversaries in a
conflict come to distrust, fear and frequently hate those who oppose them,
making the attainment of their goals more difficult. These feelings inevitably
present a major obstacle to the search for a peaceful resolution. Surely, then,
these attitudes and emotions also form a central part of any “conflict” and
have to be factored in to any basic analysis of intractable conflict.
One way of dealing with this seeming paradox is to follow the sugges-
tion of Johan Galtung (1969; 1998) regarding the structure of any conflict
and to think of it as a formation that consists of three linked elements or
dimensions. All of these are present, especially in an intractable conflict,
even though the precise form each takes can be very different from case to
case. The first of these clearly has to be situational and involves the exis-
tence of goal incompatibilities, the issues in conflict – what the conflict is
actually about2 The second dimension is attitudinal and includes the variety
of emotional and perceptual conditions that typically affect human indi-
viduals and groups when they find themselves in situations of salient goal
incompatibility – what people feel and believe about themselves and about
the adversary when in a conflict. The third, and usually most obvious, is a
behavioural dimension – what people do to each other in a conflict.
As I argued many years ago (Mitchell, 1981 pp.15–20), the three dimen-
sions are closely linked and interact over time to produce a constantly
changing system of which one key feature is its dynamism. What adversaries

do to one another affects the underlying situation of goal incompatibility –

new goals arise that often involve punishing the other for costs and damage
incurred, demonstrating resolve to possible future adversaries, recovering
compensation for losses suffered or capitalizing on success by expanding
minimum objectives. Similarly, actions and strategies can affect attitudes, as
when coercion and violence increase hostility, when threats received pro-
duce intransigence or when an unexpected olive branch creates cognitive
dissonance within its recipient.

In a similar fashion there are often typical interactions between the
attitudes of parties in conflict and their resultant behaviour. The dehuman-
ization of an adversary permits actions that would be unthinkable without
the belief that “these people” – the Other – are not really people at all or,
at least, are somehow less than “us” and unworthy of equal consideration.
Increased mistrust of the adversary leads to defensive (and sometimes coun-
terproductive) actions based upon a total disbelief in the other’s statements
and claims. “Their” lies justify “our” deceptions.
Equally, changes in both behaviour and attitudes can lead to alterations
in the third dimension of the conflict formation, the goal incompatibilities
that sparked off the processes in the first place. Sacrifices can increase the
perceived value of goals in dispute and make other goals seem less salient –
a process explored in more detail in Chapter 4. Apart from changing goal
hierarchies, the dynamics of a conflict can introduce entirely new goals into
the situation and these can lead, in turn, to associated changes in behaviour
by one or all of the parties involved in the struggle. Efforts by one side to
involve allies or patrons into the struggle can lead the other side to adopt the
goal of keeping outsiders out and to devising strategies to achieve this new
goal. The disruption of planned elections can become a major goal should
the other side introduce this as a strategy to enhance its own support.
To summarize, the structure of a conflict can best be conceptualized as
a formation consisting of three basic dimensions that interact with and
change one another over time. This triadic formation is by now a famil-
iar one but it has stood the test of time since it was first introduced in the
1960s (Galtung, 1969; Mitchell, 1981), at least in a heuristic or utilitarian
sense (Figure 2.1):
Issues
Behaviour Attitudes
Figure 2.1 Basic conflict structure

Unfortunately for simplicity, there is a fourth dimension that is clearly

missing from this basic model of a conflict system. The model is clearly
incomplete without some effort to include an indication that goal incom-
patibilities must arise from somewhere – they do not exist in a vacuum,
appear from nowhere or arise fully formed from the forehead of Jove or the
depths of human depravity. The fourth dimensional question is: Where does
the conflict come from and how does it arise?
In other words, we have to be concerned with ideas about basic sources

or – if you like – the fundamental origins of the central goal incompatibility.
This point therefore places the discussion straight back into the question of
“theories of causation” – of efforts to find answers to the question: What
causes conflict?
3. Approaches to conflict causation
The next question to deal with in any discussion of conflict formation

is: What theories do we have about what causes conflict between human
individuals, groups and communities, and, especially, what causes violent
and intractable conflicts? At a common-sense level there seem to be a flood
of ideas about the sources of human conflict that threaten to overwhelm any
efforts to make a systematic attempt to answer questions about why conflicts
occur (although many such ideas have to do with why conflicts keep going,
become more intense or turn violent). Misunderstanding and miscommuni-
cation, lack of problem-solving skills, existence of threats, low levels of trust,
competition over valued goods, misuse of authority, historic rivalries, depri-
vation, dissatisfaction and discontent – many such explanations fall back,
at some stage, on conflicts arising because of “human nature”. However, as
I implied in Chapter 1, if one explains conflict using human nature one
also has to explain the frequent absence of conflict using the same human
nature. There have to be some other factors present (or absent) to explain
this variability.
One potential way out of this commonsensical confusion is to alter our
original question and ask: What gives rise to the original goal incompatibil-
ities that underlie conflicts? We can leave aside for the moment questions
about why conflicts protract, escalate, turn violent, resist compromise solu-
tions or even – occasionally – fizzle out. To do this it is necessary to make a
clear initial distinction between two basic questions about causation:
1. What started this conflict in the first place – or what were the original
causes of this conflict? (formation)
2. What keeps this conflict going now – or what are the present causes of
this conflict? (perpetuation).

In other words, we would do well to concentrate on the issue of conflict

formation and to leave aside – at least for the moment – the whole question
of conflict perpetuation.
Again, Galtung’s original idea about “contradictions” can provide a start-
ing point with one important addition. While it is clearly the case that many
conflicts start with two (or more) parties pursuing the same scarce goal, oth-
ers seem to begin through parties pursuing widely different but still mutually
incompatible goals. The first produces conflict because the adversaries appar-

ently cannot both have the same valued good, and the second because the
attainment of one party’s goal automatically means that the other cannot
achieve its desired end state.
In the early days of the development of the field of conflict analysis,
this distinction was recognized by contrasting “conflicts of interest” with
“conflicts of value”, the former arising through a consensus of values accom-
panied by some fundamental scarcity, while the latter arose through a
dissensus of values and a resultant incommensurability of desired outcomes.
In one type of case, both children cannot possess the same lollipop. In the
other – to quote an example used by Pruitt and his colleagues (1986; 1994) –
a husband and wife wanting to spend a week’s holiday in quite different
locations cannot both have the week together where both of them desire –
you can’t be in two places at once. At a different social level, in 1982, both
Argentina and Britain had a conflict of interests whereby both desired to
be exclusively “sovereign” over the Falklands/Malvinas Islands. At the same
time, serious contradictions existed in Sudan where the Sudanese Govern-
ment wished to apply sharia law to the whole of Sudanese territory, while
the political leaders of the southern Sudanese people wished, among other
things, to live under a non-Islamic legal system. Both types of underlying
incompatibility have given rise to a range of conflict behaviours and an
equally wide range of negative conflict attitudes.
3.1. The scarcity syndrome and conflict formation

My family has a birdfeeder in the back garden consisting of a long, tubu-
lar plastic reservoir for the bird food, four openings and four perches on
which individual birds can come to feed. When there are more birds around
than perches available there is always some degree of conflict over which
birds have access to the four food ports. Limited access to valued goods and
incompatible goals of being able to feed uninterrupted bring about conflict
behaviour, which is often quite violent, and – if birds do possess emotions
that are parallel to those of humans – undoubted attitudes of resentment
and desires for payback. The conflict is intensified during the winter months
of scarcity of natural resources, as well as on the occasions when I forget to
refill the feeder and the level of seed drops lower in the tube so that there
are only two feeding openings that give access to the resources.

The birdfeeder “model” seems a good illustration of one of the basic sets of
circumstances that produce conflict situations in which there is a scarcity of
desired goods, adversaries wish to obtain the disputed goods for themselves
(or at least continued access thereto), incompatible goals involving posses-
sion and access arise and behaviour to ensure possession (or deny possession
to others) ensues. The lesson is that scarcity, perceived scarcity or anticipated
scarcity give rise to conflict situations, to resultant behaviour and – at least in
the case of human beings – frequently to emotions, cognitions and attitudes

that support and justify the behaviour.3
Given this basic set of assumptions, it is not any surprise that much writ-
ing about the nature of human conflict – and especially intractable social
conflict – revolves around the idea of scarcity. Parties indulge in conflict over
some “good” that is in limited supply which both or all perceive that they
cannot simultaneously own, possess or enjoy – a piece of territory, a mate-
rial resource such as oil, a dominating position which increases “security”,
roles that present the opportunity of making binding decisions for others, or
dominant status positions within a socioeconomic system. As I emphasized
over 30 years ago (1981), scarce “goods” do not always have to be material
but can be positional. A good illustration of this last scarcity is the conflict
over who can occupy influential seats on the UN Security Council, whether
the number of such seats should be increased and whether the privileges of
the five Permanent Members of the Council should – 60 years after the end
of World War II – finally be abolished.
Moreover, “scarcity models” of conflict formation contain implicit or
explicit assumptions about change producing further or more intense con-
flict, either through changes in demand for increasingly salient goods in
dispute (more birds at the feeder during the winter), or because of changes
in availability, usually involving diminishing supply (I fail to keep the feeder
full during the latter part of the week).
Much conflict clearly arises from scarcity, giving rise to goal incompati-
bility, as in the possibly apocryphal story of the two women who came to
King Solomon claiming the very same baby as “theirs” and desiring that the
king should resolve the conflict in a just and equitable manner. This par-
ticular anecdote also makes the point that the circumstances most likely to
give rise to intense and seemingly irresolvable conflicts involve goods that
are not merely scarce but also indivisible, so that solutions of compromise
through division or sharing are not easy to devise – a dilemma I take up in
Chapter 11.
One implication of such examples is that if things change and the desired
good in question becomes even scarcer, the greater the goal incompatibil-
ity and the more likely and the more protracted the conflict. This truism
has been demonstrated yet again by the work of scholars such as Thomas
Homer Dixon (1991; 1994) and some critical others who have been examin-
ing the effects of increasing environmental scarcity in societies in the Third

World, especially in Africa. Their basic argument involves the impact of

environmental degradation (deforestation, desertification via drought, water
pollution or overgrazing caused by population increase) on resource scarcity
and the resultant propensity for intra-clan, inter-tribal and intra-national
conflict, often resulting in violence. Whatever critiques have been made of
Homer Dixon’s original work (see, for example, Kahl & Berejikian, 1992;
Kahl, 2006), most analysts seem to have retained the original idea that
changes in availability of resources and changes in demand arising from

population pressures do create situations in which a likely response is the for-
mation and emergence of intractable conflict. Once started, this can protract
and escalate into self-reinforcing spasms of violence and counterviolence,4
so that conflict perpetuates and the original reasons for it starting up become
buried under new factors that keep it going.
3.2. Incommensurability and conflict formation

In contrast with all of the examples above, the record of conflicts over the
past 30 years seems clearly to have shown that a large number of deep-rooted
and intractable conflicts occur not because human groups, communities or
governments want the same things (regrettably in short supply) but because
they want different things – for themselves but, more importantly, also for
others.
One type of conflict that appears to have become dominant in recent
years involves issues of ethnicity and identity, involving one party’s efforts
to establish and express the right to, and reality of, a separate sense of worth-
while existence, often by establishing a new and independent political unit
and not infrequently by denying the same goal to others. Thus Georgians
achieved independence from the former Soviet Union and for their new
state but denied the similar goals of Abkhazians, Ossetians and (less cer-
tainly) Azarians Adjarans. Catholic nationalists in Northern Ireland fight for
a “united” Ireland and their right to be Irish but reject Protestant Unionists’
right to remain British and part of Britain. Tamils in Sri Lanka carry out a
protracted and bloody conflict to achieve an independent Tamil homeland
but ignore the similar aspirations of Sri Lankan Muslims. The sources of these
and many more conflicts appear to lie in situations where different groups
and communities seek different things and pursue different goals for the
same organization, the same territory or the same society. On the surface, at
least, they do not appear to be over scarcities. At a conceptual level, there
does not seem to be a scarcity of something called “identity”.
“Threats to identity”, whether perceived or very real, appear to under-
lie many of the protracted and intractable ethnolinguistic or ethnopolitical
conflicts that involve death and destruction in the final years of the twenti-
eth and the early years of the twenty-first centuries. In the 1990s, Slovenian,
Croatian, Macedonian and Kosovar goals for an independent existence
which would express their separate identities clashed with Serb goals of

maintaining a Serb-dominated, politically unified Yugoslavia and led to

some of the most violent forms of conflict behaviour seen in Europe since
the 1940s, and to the revival of euphemisms such as “ethnic cleansing”. The
vicious conflict between the Government of Indonesia seeking to preserve
political unity and the local guerrillas in Aceh (northern Sumatra) seeking to
achieve an independent state for their people only took a non-violent turn
in 2004 when a massive tsunami swept the province and physically wrecked
the place, thus making the goal of political independence somewhat less

salient – at least for the time being.
Such examples do help to illustrate the importance of conflicts between
people who seek different goals rather than those which involve possession
of the same scarce goods (although the two are often conflated in real-world
conflicts). Moreover, as the work of scholars such as Ted Gurr (1970; 1993;
2000) emphasizes, there are large numbers of distinctive ethnic groups in the
world whose identities – and even existence – are “at risk” and who may seek
to defend these identities against perceived threats. If the defence of such
ethnic identities involves the pursuit of goals that include the establishment
of separate and independent states, then the contemporary potential for
innumerable conflicts that may turn violent if mismanaged seems consid-
erable. “Balkanization” will become an inadequate descriptor. One positive
response to such a gloomy outlook is a reminder that the assumption that
identities can only fully and properly be expressed via the existence of one’s
own separate state is only a culturally derived assumption, which can be
changed. I will return to this argument in Chapter 11 when discussing the
underlying principles of conflict resolution.
3.3. Existential conflicts: the “Into the Sea” model

If a particularly intractable type of conflict can arise when one community’s
goals of expressing exclusive identity involves the denial of others’ rights
to express their identity differently, then an extreme case of such a conflict
involves a denial of the right of these different “Others” to exist at all. What
happens when the goals of one party are the destruction of the other, the
goals of the second party are simple survival and “the issues in conflict” are
the continued existence of one of the adversaries?
A word of caution is necessary here because a large number of conflicts
take on existential overtones and are portrayed – often by leaders seeking to
maintain support for the continuation of effort and sacrifice – as “a fight for
survival” or a “struggle to preserve our way of life”. As part of the tactic of
frightening followers with a picture of the results of “losing”, leaders often
exaggerate the losses that will ensue through references to the destruction
of the entire community, everyone being ejected from their home territory
never to return, walls being razed, the land salted and the end of every-
thing. It is undoubtedly true that such things occur in rare cases, and one
needs to keep in mind past examples of genocide as one possible, if totally

horrendous, way of “ending” a conflict. (See Catherine Barnes’ work (1999)

for a survey that goes beyond the Holocaust, the Armenian massacres and
Rwanda.) However, more usually, conflicts end in a compromise involving
the loss of some possessions or positions and the abandonment of some
goals – at least pro tem.
A second caution arises over cases which seem to be existential but which
are over some person’s, community’s or government’s behaviour rather than
their continued existence. It is not unusual for conflicts to arise out of

the existence of a particular people in a particular location, which perhaps
constitutes an unacceptable defilement of that location. Most recently the
presence of US troops in Saudi Arabia appears to have generated at least one
issue in the complex conflict between (some) representatives of Islam and
the United States. However, the issues in this – and other – conflicts really
seem to be about presence and location rather than the actual existence of
one of the adversaries.
On the other hand, what of conflicts where the ostensible aim of one
side is to end the existence of the other? What of conflicts that take the
form of crusades (e.g. against the Cathars) or jihads (against the unbelievers)?
What resolutions might be possible in conflicts that are genuinely existen-
tial, where someone’s very existence is seen as a defilement or a threat that
can only be resolved by their destruction? Is this the defining case of an
intractable conflict? The formation of this type of conflict does seem to ren-
der it unique and, once analysed and identified, to challenge the very idea
of conflict resolution. I will raise this issue again when discussing types of
conflict and possible resolution principles.
3.4. Multiple causality

In a textbook that aspires to be theoretical, it is permissible to try to tease
out and isolate various types of causal factor that give rise to social conflicts,
especially deep-rooted and protracted ones. At least for analytical purposes,
it seems justifiable to make distinctions and point to different categories of
phenomena – structural and environmental – that produce goal incompati-
bilities, and associated negative attitudes and coercive behaviour. However,
such conceptual neatness that might be achieved is less justifiable when one
comes to deal with conflicts in the real world, which are invariably much
messier than those that appear in the pages of books.
Looking at almost any social conflict, it often becomes obvious that the
reasons for their being formed in the first place, and prosecuted in the sec-
ond, is usually a mixture of scarcities and incommensurables, even though,
on the surface, individual cases appear to be mainly about one rather than
the other. Intractable social conflicts are usually multicausal, even when
they seem mainly to concern one major type of issue – scarcity – rather
than another. As we enter the second decade of the twenty-first century,
we seem to be facing an endless cluster of intractable intra-state conflicts

that emerge because of the incommensurable goals of different communi-

ties regarding their identity, independence and future, as well as the political
forms that the acceptance of such identity aspirations appears to require.
Geographically, examples of conflicts arising from incommensurable goals
and aspirations stretch from China, Tibet and Tajikistan, through Sri Lanka,
Kashmir and Kosovo, on through the Basque Country, Belgium and North-
ern Ireland and as far as Sudan, Oromia, Nigeria and the indigenous peoples
of Latin America. Many such “ethnopolitical” conflicts emerge, protract and

result in violence – Chechnya, Mexico, Aceh, East Timor. Some, such as
Bosnia and Rwanda, result in “ethnic cleansing” and genocide.
And yet, a second look at such cases might reveal that they are not solely
about minority survival and inter-ethnic rivalries, even in extreme cases that
seem to involve the existence or extermination of whole communities. Even
in intractable conflicts that appear to arise solely from the desire of one
community to be wholly rid of the presence of another, and the latter’s
not unnatural desire to survive, other causal factors are often at play. For
example, consider the conflict in Rwanda, which started to form even before
the Belgian colonial rule came to an end in 1962 and climaxed in April
1994 with the massacre of around 800,000 Tutsis (“cockroaches” according
to Hutu extremists broadcasting encouragement to murder throughout that
time), often by their Hutu neighbours. This genocidal conflict is usually por-
trayed as a prime example of a conflict caused by inter-ethnic hatreds and
rivalries, a struggle for dominance and, finally, a strategy of planned and
organized extermination. The Rwandan conflict was about ethnic hatreds
manipulated by political leaders and about Hutus killing Tutsis and subse-
quently fleeing before the advancing Tutsi dominated forces of the Rwandan
Patriotic Front, was it not?
On closer examination, other factors emerge that complicate the straight-
forward “incommensurable ethnic rivalries leading to genocide” analysis.
Start with the fact that many of the soldiers in the Rwandan Patriotic Front
were Hutu. Then recall that the killings also involved a substantial propor-
tion of the small Twa (pigmy) population in Rwanda (1% at most) who
posed no political threat to anybody. Then consider the fact that in some
parts of the north west of Rwanda, where few Tutsis lived or owned land,
the mass killing (about 5% of the local population) largely involved Hutus
killing other Hutus. Admittedly, this figure has to be compared with the 11%
of the Rwandan population killed overall between April and June 1994, but
it is still a puzzling aspect of an increasingly violent conflict that is held to
have emerged because of long-lasting ethnic rivalries, a history of killing and
the ambitions of cynical political leaders.
One attempt to account for this aspect of the Rwandan conflict has been
undertaken by two Belgian economists who were carrying out fieldwork both
before and after the 1994 massacres. Catherine Andre and Jean Philippe
Platteau (1998) analysed patterns of land availability and population growth

in Rwanda in the years leading up to 1994 and concluded that the coun-
try was facing what they describe as a “Malthusian crisis” – a progressive
reduction in the average size of subsistence farms throughout Rwanda to
the point where few of the holdings could support the families who lived
on them.5 Increasingly, Rwandans became divided into the few richer (and
often older) “haves” and the many poor “have nots”, the latter increasingly
including younger Rwandans with absolutely no land of their own, nor any
other off-farm source of income.

From a conflict analysis viewpoint, the situation in Rwanda in the early
1990s, before the violence and massacres of 1994, involved a profound
scarcity of an essential good – cultivable land – with the potential to
result in much conflict over ownership, inheritance and family obligations,
accompanied by increasing crime levels. In fact, as Andre and Platteau
discovered, in the years before the violence of 1994, an increasing num-
ber of serious conflicts in the Kanama commune that they studied were
brought before traditional mediators or, more rarely, before the courts, and
most of these involved disputes over land – between wives and husbands,
fathers and sons, brothers and sisters, uncles and nephews. The end result
before the events of 1994 was that such scarcity conflicts were resulting
in the breakdown of traditional aspects of Rwandan society and the pit-
ting of poor peasants against still poorer peasants, irrespective of any ethnic
affiliations.
Jared Diamond summarizes the situation: “land disputes undermined the
cohesion of Rwandan society’s traditional fabric . . . The system was breaking
down because even the landowners who were richer than other landowners
were still too poor to be able to spare anything for poorer relatives . . . ” (2005
p.323). In Kanama, many victims of the 1994 violence consisted of Hutu,
who were “large” landowners, either elders over 50 or younger Hutu who
had managed to earn enough off-farm income to be able to buy scarce land.
Others were so-called “troublemakers” who were known for being involved
in land disputes and other local conflicts. In this region of Rwanda, ten-
sions between Hutu and Tutsi played no part in bringing about killing.
There were no Tutsi to kill, so the victims were fellow Hutus. To quote
Andre & Platteau, “the 1994 events provided a unique opportunity to set-
tle scores or to reshuffle land properties even among Hutu villagers . . . ”
(1995 p.44?).
To some degree this background picture of chronic and escalating conflict
over land before 1994 helps to provide some ideas about why it is difficult to
regard events in Rwanda simply as an ethnopolitical conflict, solely involv-
ing Hutus against Tutsis.6 Like most complex and protracted conflicts, the
causes were a mixture and involved disputes over scarcities (people wanting
the same good, in this case land) as well as incommensurables (in this case
people wanting an ethnically “pure” community, political control and the
sense of security that it was hoped this might bring).

3.5. Conflict causation: In summary

To go back to my main argument, it may seem vastly oversimple to start by
asserting that conflicts arise either from situations in which people want the
same things that are in short supply or from situations where they seek radi-
cally different things that appear to be incommensurable. However, starting
from simple beginnings often permits later elaborations that assist under-
standing. If we argue that these two versions of basic goal incompatibility
underlie most, if not all, conflicts, then such a starting point can give rise to

useful questions about reasons and remedies for the scarcity and about the
nature of the differences and about possible alternatives.
A simple starting point also enables one to get a better grasp of more
elaborate theories of conflict causation, many of which are based upon
this distinction between consensus (people want, but can’t have, the same
things) and dissensus (people want widely different things). For example,
the four factors that Guy and Heidi Burgess advance as helping to make con-
flicts particularly intractable can be seen as being either versions of scarcity
situations or incommensurability situations. In scarcity situations, parties
become adversaries because of
• high-stakes distributional questions over “who gets what”;

• social status conflicts which arise as people compete for preferred
positions in the social hierarchy.
Alternatively, conflicts can arise from incommensurability situations

where parties become adversaries because they seek different attitudes,
reactions, treatment or behaviours from those which currently exist:
• the presence of fundamental moral conflicts in which one group views

the actions of another as intolerably evil;
• identity conflicts in which individuals or a group of people are denied
respect and recognition on the basis of their individual/group identity.
(Burgess, 1998)
Similarly, it is possible to fit Ted Gurr’s classic theory of relative deprivation

as a cause of “civil strife” into this framework and to argue that this particular
theory is basically about scarcity, epitomized by an inability to close the gap
between achievements and aspirations, or between past achievements and
present rewards, or between one’s own level of rewards and that obtained by
significant others.
The same argument can be made about many other theories that claim
to explain conflict as a struggle over the distribution of some valued but
scarce good. In this category one can find reference group theory – conflicts
over the distribution of scarce resources or status; theories about territorial

imperatives – conflicts over scarce territory providing needed goods or

security (Ardrey, 1967); human needs theory and conflicts over scarce
“satisfiers” (Burton, 1979; Azar, 1990); or numerous theories that involve
struggles over “power” – a commodity that seems, somehow, always to be
scarce or in limited supply and that dominates thinking about international
relations (Schwarzenberger, 1964; Morganthau, 1973; Waltz, 1979).
In contrast, many of the theories about ethnicity and ethnically based
conflicts imply – when they do not state explicitly – that conflicts arise

between different ethnic groups primarily because these particular parties
want very different things, but are convinced that they both cannot simul-
taneously achieve their disparate goals. The southern Sudanese cannot have
a united secular Sudan at the same time as the northern Sudanese manage
to impose sharia law on the whole of the country. The Indonesian Govern-
ment cannot maintain the country’s territorial integrity at the same time as
the Acehnese nationalist movement (GAM) achieves self-determination and
independence for Aceh. Muslim schoolgirls in France cannot legitimately
wear traditional headscarves if the French Government decrees that these
are not part of school uniforms and bans them on pain of punishment.
All of these seem to be examples of conflicts that arise because adversaries
want widely different things which are initially assumed to be logically and
practically incompatible.
A second analytical advantage that can arise through adopting such a
simple idea as the development of incompatible goals being the core expla-
nation for the existence of conflicts is that it highlights the fact that many
ideas about the “sources” of conflict and many “theories” of conflict are not
about the fundamental causes of conflict at all but are about other aspects
of that complex phenomenon. Reviewing the literature on the “sources”
of conflict produces a huge list of such suggested sources, at a host of
different social and analytical levels, ranging from poor communication
and high emotion through unmet basic needs, cultural and social differ-
ences, elite resistance and resource imbalance to lack of negotiating or
problem-solving skills, hopelessness and asymmetry. “Theories of conflict”
are similarly diverse and can deal with explanations about how conflicts
start, but also about why they persist, what structural or psychological effects
they have on the parties involved, how they might be mitigated or why they
repeat over time.
The approach I suggest above makes it easy to discuss what might be
regarded as prime causes in the formation of conflict and to delineate
and distinguish the basic question about conflict causation – What brings
about basic goal incompatibilities in the first place? – from other questions
about factors that intensify, perpetuate and complicate a conflict, and set up
additional obstacles to finding solutions to the basic goal incompatibility.
I would argue that the conclusion has to be that many so-called “theories
of conflict” are not about how conflicts are formed in the first place but take

off from the existence of situations of goal incompatibility and then seek
to explain why the conflict moves towards confrontation, coercion and vio-
lence, or alternatively towards non-violence and institutionalized means of
finding a solution, or possibly towards inactivity, quiescence and acceptance
of the existing distribution of scarce goods.
It might be that, in future, it will become helpful to be more precise in
talking about what aspect of conflict a “theory of conflict” seeks to explain,
and to make a clear distinction between theories of conflict perpetuation

(why do conflicts keep going?) or of conflict mitigation (how would it be
possible to make conflicts less destructive?), as opposed to theories dealing
with conflict causation or formation. I will try to tackle some aspects of these
distinctions in the following chapters.
4. Formation: the emergence of conflicts
The first half of this chapter discusses the idea of conflict formation, assum-
ing that the concept referred to a structure or a delineation of form – what
a conflict consists of, or what its essential elements are. However, a second
and equally valid way of thinking about formation is as an active process
of being formed or of coming into being. In my earlier textbook (Mitchell,
1981 Chapter 3) I talked about this as a process of “emergence” and posited
a linear model that showed a conflict moving through a number of stages
before it reached a pattern of interaction between adversaries that involved
coercion and, ultimately, violence. Usually it is at this particular point of vio-
lence breaking out that most people recognize that a conflict does, in fact,
exist.
Part of my reason for adopting what, in retrospect, seems an unnecessarily
complicated model was that I wished to emphasize the point that conflicts
could remain latent for a long while, and for a variety of reasons connected
with a lack of information or understanding on the part of some individ-
uals, groups or communities about why they were failing to achieve their
well-understood goals; or could be suppressed in cases where people under-
stood full well the reasons for their non-achievement but either (a) refrained
from any action in pursuit of those incompatible goals for fear of damag-
ing an otherwise highly valued relationship or (b) were simply unable to
take any action to achieve those goals because of a major imbalance in key
capabilities (usually oversimplified as a “power asymmetry”) linked to the
anticipated reactions of a stronger, richer and better organized adversary.
The result could be termed “resignation”.
4.1. The basic formation process

The basic argument underlying that linear model still seems valid to me,
however. The process of conflict formation involves the development or
revival of some conscious and salient goals, either by an individual or shared

throughout a group, community, organization or state (or at least shared by

significant members of those sociopolitical entities). It involves a perception
(sometimes inaccurate) that some other group is preventing the achieve-
ment of those goals by its activities, attitudes and beliefs or – in extreme
cases – its existence. It usually also involves the concomitant rise of feelings
of resentment, discontent, frustration and anger, an often intense sense of
injustice and increasing levels of hostility towards those who are perceived
as blocking the achievement of legitimate goals.7

To a large degree, determining when a conflict-formation process is com-
pleted so that a conflict can be said to have “emerged” is fairly arbitrary.
It seems necessary for the goal incompatibility to have been recognized by
at least one, if not both, of the parties to an intractable bilateral conflict,
and by some of the parties on opposite sides of a multiparty dispute. On the
other hand, it seems analytically helpful – rather than strictly necessary – to
posit that part of a conflict-formation process also involves the development
of some cognitions, feelings about and expectations of “the other side”, once
the issues and incompatibilities are “out on the table”. My justification has
to be the pragmatic one that people in a conflict situation do seem to form
initial – and usually negative – impressions about competitors, adversaries
and enemies very quickly, not least because of the very fact that they are in
a relationship of conflict.
But if it is possible to agree that conflict formation as a process involves
the emergence of recognized goal incompatibilities plus the initial forma-
tion of negative attitudes and cognitions, why stop there? Once conflicts
have moved from a latent to an overt stage, and started to develop conflict
attitudes within the adversaries, what next?
Answering this question takes the discussion into the vast region of
conflict dynamics and questions about why, once formed, some conflicts
can follow the path of mutual threat, coercion and violence, while others
become involved in complex, institutionalized procedures in the search for
solutions. Still others can be played out non-violently through processes
of discussion, negotiation and mutual accommodation. The whole range
of possibilities can be illustrated by envisaging a process with a number of
alternative paths that can be taken, either deliberately or through a series
of almost isolated decisions, made or avoided by leaders who are seeking to
achieve goals or fulfil aspirations. A simple model of the dynamics of conflict
formation thus might resemble Figure 2.2 below.
One can always hope that the vast majority of social conflicts do not reach
the end point of the model involving spasms of tit-for-tat and reactive vio-
lence, but enough of them do and these pose real problems for analysts – as
well as for decision-makers in the real world. Many of the central parts of
this book are concerned with issues of conflict dynamics beyond the point
at which conflicts can be said to have “emerged”. However, we need to cover
one last, preliminary aspect of the process by which conflicts initially come

Mobilization Non-violence//
Latent Overt Resignation// Coercion Violence Reactive

conflict conflict violence
Institutionalization//

Adoption
Figure 2.2 Conflict formation model
into being at this point in our introduction. This is the question of “Where
do parties – adversaries, rivals, enemies – come from?”
4.2. Formation of conflicting “parties”: Mobilization and adoption

By definition, conflicts have to be between somebody, either human indi-
viduals in the case of inter-personal conflicts or organized human groups in
the case of social conflict. I want to stress the term “organized” here because
it avoids a great deal of intellectual confusion about whether or not it is use-
ful to talk about “a conflict” existing between categories or collectivities of
people who might not themselves be conscious of the existence of a goal
incompatibility – or even of possessing a shared interest. Generic terms like
“class conflict”, “generational conflict” and “gender conflict” seem to me
to be different conceptions from the specific relationships which involve
incompatible goals, clearly defined adversaries and observable behaviour in
pursuit of those goals which I discuss in this book.
I do not wish to be misunderstood on this point. Clearly there are con-
flicts that could be called, for example, “gender conflicts” either because
they involve issues about gender discrimination, unequal treatment of men
and women or “ceilings” on promotion, or because they involve adversaries
divided on gender lines. However, equally clearly, these conflicts involve
social entities, mobilized and organized as adversaries to achieve certain
goals. The parties to the conflict are a firm’s management, the Association
of University Women or the Countryside Conservation League, and not the
entire category of “men” or “women who have attended universities” or “the
upper middle class”.
Much the same point was made many years ago by Kenneth Boulding
in his pioneering work on the nature and dynamics of conflict (Boulding,
1962). He argued that conflicts were best seen as being between “behaviour
units” – entities that could logically be the subject of a verb of action, at least
in the sense that they acted through the decisions, statements and behaviour

of some representative set of leaders or managers. Thus “The President of

Stanford University denied that . . . ” or “The Government of Ruritania yes-
terday declared an end to . . . ”, but not “All political prisoners in Ruritania
declared today . . . ”.
All very well, but this argument hardly provides a satisfactory answer to
the question: Where do parties – as organized behaviour units – come from?
I want to suggest that there are two possible answers to that query:

Pre-existing parties. The parties exist before the issues in contention arise
and a particular controversial set of goals is adopted and pursued – but
only as one of a number of activities being carried out by the organiza-
tion in question. The most obvious example of such a process is where a
set of goals held by some of its citizens is taken up by a national govern-
ment, which thus becomes embroiled in a conflict with other national
governments that are pursuing contrary goals on behalf of its citizens.
The taking on of an individual’s claim for wrongful dismissal by a trade
union is another example.
Conflict-created parties. The parties actually come into being in order to
achieve the goals in dispute, which become the central – often sole –
rationale for the parties’ continued existence. In such cases, people
become aware of their interests being frustrated, mobilize for action and
organize themselves in the most effective manner to achieve those goals.
Thus the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) emerges as the lead-
ing – and most ruthless – Tamil organization and uses violent behaviour
to achieve an independent Tamil state in Sri Lanka. Building on the
organization – if not the objectives – of the RSPCA, People for the Ethi-
cal Treatment of Animals is organized in Britain to bring an end to the
use of animals in experiments (and eventually brings into being a rival
organization to press for their continuation). A movement to legalise the
medical use of marijuana begins in California and becomes the National
Organisation for the Reform of Marijuana Laws.
At first sight, this duality has the appearance of yet another irrelevant aca-
demic distinction, but I would argue that there are at least three ways in
which the differences between pre-existing, adopting parties and parties that
come into being because of the conflict can become important. The first of
these is simply the proportion of time and energy that the adversaries can
devote to dealing with the conflict, and the effects that an all-consuming
focus on the one hand and sporadic attention on the other might have on
the course of that conflict. For the one side, the conflict becomes the world
and everything is viewed through the lens of how things will affect their
fortunes in the struggle. The likely prevalence of such common psycholog-
ical effects of being in an intense conflict as tunnel vision, black-and-white
thinking, intolerance of ambiguity and internal witch-hunting seems much

greater in parties whose sole existence is bound up in the struggle than it

does in pre-existing parties – at least in the earlier stages of the conflict. For
the other side, the issues and events in that conflict may be important but
form only one of a whole range of issues and problems to be dealt with, some
often involving other salient and intractable conflicts that demand time and
attention.
The second reason for noting the distinction as important is that many
intractable conflicts turn out to be between one adversary that has as its sole

purpose the pursuit of a particular salient goal or set of goals, an activity to
which it owes its existence; and another, where that particular goal set might
merely be one in a large range of activities that it undertakes. For the former
adversary the goal (for example Tamil independence) is its reason for being.
For the latter adversary, its goal (the maintenance of Sri Lankan unity and
territorial integrity) is salient but is only one of a huge number of govern-
mental activities that claim attention, effort and resources. To what extent
does this “asymmetry of salience” contribute towards the intractability of
the conflict? At the least, in the initial stages of the process, it might con-
tribute to one side’s neglect, playing down of and apparent indifference to
the goals and aspirations of the other – and, thus, to the further growth
of discontent, anger and eventual fury of the other side. All of these can
become long-term obstacles to any resolution of the conflict.
A third reason why this distinction between pre-existing and conflict-
created parties might prove important arises once the conflict has reached
the stage at which solutions, possibly involving compromise, are being seri-
ously sought. Pre-existing parties that have adopted the issues in conflict
but possess many other tasks and functions will simply carry on with these
other tasks – possibly with a sigh of relief – once the issues in that conflict
have been settled. Parties that have been created to pursue particular goals
in conflict face a somewhat different situation once success or partial suc-
cess threatens. Either their raison d’etre disappears and they face extinction –
always a disconcerting prospect and one that might in some circumstances
provide an additional reason for carrying on rather than compromising –
or they face the major task of transforming themselves into something
different – probably radically different. What happens to struggle organi-
zations when the time comes to abandon the struggle? How do guerrilla
organizations transform themselves into regional or even national adminis-
trations, or learn the art of wooing an electorate or even accepting an elec-
toral system that might conceivably lead to electoral defeat? It does not seem
illogical to argue that the task of finding a resolution for a conflict involv-
ing an adversary, itself established solely to wage that conflict, is likely to be
more difficult than dealing with parties that have multiple alternative func-
tions and whose continued existence (at least in its present form) are not,
paradoxically, threatened by relative success. Once again, starting a discus-
sion about the origins of the adversaries leads into a whole set of issues to do

with the nature of those involved in a conflict and the way in which the type
of party involved – hierarchical or egalitarian, simple or complex in struc-
ture – is likely to affect the course and outcome of a conflict. The issue will
be taken up again in Chapter 3, which deals with ways of classifying conflict.
4.3. Previous relationships and conflict formation

Clearly, if we are dealing with conflicts that involve at least one side that has
been brought into being for the purpose of waging the conflict, then there

can hardly have been a pre-existing relationship with the other party (or
parties) to the dispute. The relationship currently existing is, by definition,
that of being competitors, adversaries or enemies. In such situations it is
difficult to see that one of the important psychological variables discussed at
length by Pruitt and his colleagues (1986; 2004) – “concern for the Other’s
interests” – is likely to have much of an impact on the course of a conflict,
or its outcome.
However, the situation – and the subsequent relationship – may be quite
different in conflicts that involve pre-existing parties. Of course, there may
be conflicts between parties that have had no past interactions, so that the
contemporary situation of goal incompatibility plays itself out unaffected
by any previous history of exchanges – beneficial, malignant or a mixture of
both. However, this kind of situation seems rare, and more likely are situa-
tions in which pre-existing parties have pre-existing relationships, for better
or worse. Of three possible sets of circumstances in which parties become
involved in conflicts, the one where parties already exist prior to newly
arising issues and thus have a long history of previously salient relations
seems the most complex and interesting. Moreover, this is the set of circum-
stances in which Pruitt et al.’s argument about “concern for the interests of
the Other” – or in some cases, “lack of concern” – becomes relevant. Surely
different levels of “concern” must arise through past interactions and rela-
tionships. Siblings in a quarrel over an inheritance, for example, have a long
history of past interaction. Management and unions have long histories of
conflict, cooperation, negotiations and occasional lock-outs or strikes over
wages and working conditions. Intergovernmental relations usually involve
a complex mix of previous conflict, collaboration, support, opposition and
indifference.
Many parties in many conflicts have long histories of complex and mixed
relationships that seem likely to affect the way in which they cope with
any situations of goal incompatibility and with adversary relationships when
these do emerge. The “degree of concern for the Other” will vary according
to past history.8 Lovers will have such concern to a high degree, one assumes;
those in the process of falling out of love will have much less. Siblings
who have had mainly positive past relationships and a sympathetic regard
for each other are likely to handle inheritance conflicts quite differently
from siblings who have a long history of dispute, antagonism and mistrust.

Governments that have had a history of confrontation over a range of issues

will behave very differently towards one another when new and contentious
issues arise between them than will allies of long standing. In many cases,
of course, the record of previous interactions – collaborative or conflictful, –
will be mixed, but salient dimensions of that prior relationship will clearly
have an impact on the manner in which a new conflict is dealt with. This
will especially be the case if the adversaries have a standard pattern through
which they have dealt with conflicts in the past so that conflicts between

them have become, in some senses, ritualized or routinized.
It should also be acknowledged that we are dealing here with a two-way
pattern of influence. If an existing relationship affects the manner in which
a new conflict will be handled, the course and outcome of that conflict will
inevitably affect the nature of the overall, future relationship between the
parties. Even the best disposed siblings can fall out violently and perma-
nently over an inheritance and cease speaking to one another. Longstanding
adversaries can become less confrontational following successful efforts to
resolve a current dispute, fairly and durably. Winston Churchill’s call for
“In victory, magnanimity” can have the long-run effect of heading off future
situations in which the sole options seem to be victory or defeat. Thus, while
past relationships (and memories) will undoubtedly affect current conflicts,
those conflicts will also change future relationships, for better or worse.
5. Conclusion: The formation of intractable conflicts
In this introductory chapter I have ranged well beyond an initial focus on

the nature of conflict formation, considered, first, in the sense of the basic
structure of any conflict and, second, as the process by which conflicts are
formed and emerge.
Starting off with an attempt to clarify what might be meant by the term
“a conflict”, I moved on from the basic problems of definition to consider a
simple triangular model of conflict structure (situation, behaviour and atti-
tudes), based on the work of Johan Galtung. I argued that this needed to be
supplemented with ideas about how goal incompatibilities arose, and why.
In other words, clear analysis demanded the delineation of some theories of
conflict causation, even if these started with oversimple models based upon
either a scarcity of desired goods or the incommensurability of alternatives
arising from parties holding widely different values, ideologies or – in the
extreme – worldviews.
However, the problem with many recent efforts to develop causal theories
about conflicts seemed to be that they either focused on different explana-
tory “levels” or sought to answer questions to do with what kept conflict
going or what prevented agreed solutions – questions of perpetuation –
rather than with what caused the initial goal incompatibilities in the first
place.

Similar complexities attended efforts to explain how and why conflicts

emerged as they did, as regards both the formation of issues and the for-
mation of parties to pursue those issues. I ended by distinguishing between
previously existing parties that adopted new issues and the achievement of
new goals as part of their function; and parties that arose through processes
of “consciensization”, mobilization and organization in order to pursue new
issues. This led off into a discussion of how the origins of the parties in
conflict might affect the subsequent course and eventual outcome of that

conflict – and the later relationship between the adversaries.
All of this may seem academic in the extreme, as well as being overly
simple, when one is facing the Chechnyas, the Sri Lankas, the Colombias
and the Rwandas of the world, or the conflicts over abortion rights, global
warming, religious fundamentalism or drug-marketing afflicting the early
years of the twenty-first century – many of which seem “intractable”, if not
impossible. My argument for taking time and trouble to tease out and dis-
cuss such issues is simply that a comprehension of basics is necessary if we
are to develop a firm understanding of how and why some conflicts become
so intractable while others do not; what causes some conflicts to turn vio-
lent while others remain relatively peaceful; and what, in theory at least,
might be done to render intractable conflicts amenable to some form of
mitigation or resolution, with the relationships between adversaries and ene-
mies transformed into something less damaging and possible even mutually
beneficial.
Hence, the next chapter takes up a second fundamental issue as part of this
initial effort to clear some of the conceptual undergrowth surrounding the
understanding of conflict and its resolution – that of classification. I have
already alluded to this in the discussion of the distinction between con-
flicts that take place between pre-existing parties or parties created to wage
the conflict; and I implied it by talking about “intractable” conflicts, with
the assumption that there must also exist conflicts which are “tractable”.
In plain English, then, the next chapter tries to deal with the question: What
kinds of conflict are there?

3
Classification
Intractable Conflicts

In Chapter 2 I dealt, in a preliminary way, with two of four fundamental
questions that really have to be answered at the start of any effort to under-
stand some aspect of the social world – in our case the analysis of conflicts,
particularly destructive and intractable conflicts. Like every other system-
atic study, this has to begin by stating clearly two things. First, what is
a conflict – or, rather, what observable phenomena shall we agree to call
“conflicts” as opposed to things we determine we won’t? This inevitably
leads on to discussing, in a somewhat tentative fashion, a second question
focused on conflict formation: Where do conflicts come from – or what do
we think brings them into being? In other words, the first steps have to
do with ideas about conflict definition and conflict formation, and in this
respect studying conflict is no different from studying inflation, economic
“development”, social status, cooperation, gravity, smallpox, swine fever or
schizophrenia.
Two other basic questions arise from efforts to answer these first two. Hav-
ing broadly defined which class of phenomena we will label “conflicts”, one
rapidly comes to recognize that there exist a variety of different types within
this overall category, and that one needs to distinguish these on some basis
or other. Hopefully, this process of conflict classification will then help us
deal with the fourth basic issue – namely, what impact conflicts have on
a range of other phenomena, from relations within families experiencing a
conflict to levels of economic development in the aftermath of a civil war.
Starting with these four basics, it is possible to branch out into a whole
series of related queries and more precise questions, such as: What can one
do about conflict to make it less destructive (always assuming one wishes
to “do” something of this highly optimistic nature)? And what factors con-
tribute most to the successful search for durable solutions to conflicts, such
as those between feuding families? The focus and specificity of the questions
can vary almost ad infinitum, but they all depend, to some degree, on having
successfully answered the first four basic questions in some useful, acceptable
and conclusive manner.
45

I made an initial attempt at answering the first two basic questions in

Chapter 2. In this present chapter I want to try to deal with the question
concerning types of conflict, which implies the need to provide some ideas
about useful classification schemes for our subject. The rest of the book then
deals with the very last questions about effects and remedies before return-
ing to the basics with which it starts. En route, it also tackles a whole host
of supplementary questions that arise from recent efforts to analyse and
find ways of resolving social conflicts, especially those broadly regarded as

“intractable”.
One quite reasonable reaction to the promise of a discussion of classifica-
tion in a book about “intractable” conflicts is: Why bother? Is this not yet
another attempt to keep academics busy by discussing irrelevancies? How-
ever, given that we are attempting to come up with useful ideas about the
phenomenon of “intractability”, we need to find some illuminating way of
categorizing conflicts either into those which are “tractable” compared with
those which clearly are not. Then we could see what other factors might be
frequently associated with this quality of “intractability”.
For example, Dean Pruitt has recently offered some suggestions about
likely differences between those conflicts that are “moderate” and those
which are not:
Research suggests that in more moderate conflicts, negotiation is a pre-

ferred tactic, rather than one that is used after aggressive tactics have
failed. Possible reasons for this include a desire to avoid antagonising the
adversary and a view of the adversary as part of one’s moral community,
both of which are likely to disappear in intractable conflict . . .
(2012 p.5)
For our main purpose, separating conflicts that are “intractable” from
those that are “tractable” (3) involves a central assumption: that the char-
acteristic of “intractability” is not only intrinsically interesting but can also
be explained by investigating what other qualities are associated with the
intractability – or the tractability – of particular social conflicts. Expressed
formally, classification is a necessary precursor to generalization. Practically,
the whole procedure boils down to asking: Which conflicts are “intractable”
and what other characteristics (if any) do these conflicts share that might
help to explain this intractability?
1. Early classification schemes
Early scholars studying social conflicts developed a number of conventional

ways of classifying them, all of which have their uses, but many of which –
by emphasizing obvious but theoretically trivial distinctions – actually

Classification: Intractable Conflicts 47
prevent the development of useful general theories. In the early days of the
field there was a tendency to focus on simple dichotomies that contrasted
one type of conflict with another in very general terms. The result was the
development of a number of classification schemes that took the form of
“ideal types” which contrasted broad, all-encompassing categories separated
by a large number of attributes, on all of which individual conflicts were
held to differ. Thus, as noted previously in Chapter 2, writers contrasted
conflicts of interest with conflicts of value, or noted major distinctions

existing between conflicts characterized by “competition” or by “dissensus”
(Aubert, 1963). Such dichotomous classifications often involved contrasting
not merely the nature of the conflicts being separated but ideas about their
origins, dynamics and bases for settlement, as in John Burton’s contrasting
characterization of “disputes” and “conflicts” as ideal types (Table 3.1):
Table 3.1 Disputes and conflicts
Disputes Conflicts
1. Situation involves Material and negotiable Non-negotiable human needs

interests (for example for identity,
security, etc.)
2. Type of solution Settlement through Resolution involving no
compromise compromise
Fault attribution and No-fault attributed
compensation involved
Integration continues Separation possible
Win–lose structure Win–win structure
3. Means of achieving Power negotiation Problem-solving
solution Elite decision-making Consensus decision-making
Adversarial Interactive
Power mediation Facilitation
Basic status quo kept Resolution via change
Apply process skills Apply analytical skills (search
(training) out options)
4. Underlying Overall social good Values of the parties
epistemological Top-down power elites People power; grassroots
assumptions Empirical, inductive Deductive/abductive
approach approach
Individuals will conform Individuals pursue basic
needs
A second traditional approach to classifying conflicts dichotomously was,

as I noted above, to focus on differences in some key characteristic held to
produce crucially different effects or outcomes. Such schemes either set out

the two categories unambiguously (conflicts were violent or non-violent,

functional or dysfunctional, realistic or unrealistic, zero-sum or non-zero
sum) or simply labelled one important kind of conflict assumed to be cen-
tral to the field, and left out all the others not possessing this key defining
attribute – existential conflicts that were about the ultimate, physical sur-
vival of one or other (or both) of the adversaries (while others weren’t), or
protracted conflicts that continued for a long time (while others didn’t),
or cyclical conflicts that repeated dynamic patterns over time (while others

didn’t and could be classified as linear).
The field has continued to develop and use this form of “ideal type” of clas-
sification in an effort to clarify the differences between various major clusters
of conflicts and the reasons for those differences. From Anatol Rapoport’s
early discussion of the differences between “fights”, “games” and “debates”
(Rapoport, 1960), through Louis Kriesberg’s seminal but neglected catego-
rization of types of interlocking conflict (1980) to Christopher Moore’s elab-
orate, five-fold classification scheme (1986) involving structural, interest,
value, relationship and data conflicts, researchers have used this approach
to help to organize investigations into a complex and highly diverse field
of study. Efforts have also been made to apply this strategy to classify-
ing coping techniques or possible outcomes from conflicts and thence
to work backwards to commonalities that led to differing results. Hence,
and relatively recently, the field has been treated to major disagreements
about the nature of, differences between and reasons for conflict preven-
tion, conflict mitigation, conflict settlement, conflict resolution and conflict
transformation.
Most conventionally, efforts to bring order into the study of social con-
flicts by helpful sub-division into revealing categories has taken the form
of differentiating conflicts according to the “level” in society at which they
have occurred. People seem fairly comfortable with the idea that making
distinctions between “inter-personal” and “inter-group” conflicts will help
to understand both types, although the differences between international
and intra-national conflicts have recently begun to appear less clear-cut and
absolute in the light of cases such as the former Yugoslavia or the Tutsi–Hutu
conflict in Rwanda, Burundi and eastern Congo.
Many of these classification schemes based upon ideal types or key
dichotomies seem ambitious but somewhat unfocused. Given that we are
currently interested in the whole topic of intractability, a central need has to
be for classification schemes that help to throw some light on why certain
types of conflict are intractable – or, at least, more intractable than other
types. Hence we need to ask – it usually being the case that most classifi-
cation schemes are based upon some pre-existing hunch about important
features of what is being categorized – whether any of these early efforts
to categorize social conflicts concerned themselves with possible explana-
tions for intractability. In effect, it does seem possible to discern a number of

suggestions as to why certain factors result in higher levels of intractability

than others. These ideas fall into five broad approaches – or “hunches” –
proposing that conflicts are protracted and intractable because of:
• the nature of the issues involved;

• the structure and nature of the parties involved;
• the nature of relationships between the parties;
• the complexity of the conflict system involved;

• the dynamics involved in the conflict.1
In the second type of classificatory criteria, I include the “structure” as

well as the “nature” of the parties involved because it seems to me that
simply classifying conflict as between “individuals” or between “commu-
nities” tends to obscure the likelihood that labelling parties in conflict
as “similar” entities discourages examining interesting differences in their
attributes which might have major effects on the manner in which their
conflict is played out or solutions sought. For example, a conflict between
a trade union and a family-owned business organization with a single
plant may well be classifiable as an inter-organizational conflict but is
probably very different from one between the trade union and a multi-
national conglomerate. The whole process of classifying on the basis of
the “adversaries” involved needs a much more extensive discussion than
it usually receives. I will follow up this “party-based” approach to clas-
sification a little later and present some suggestions about less familiar
but possibly more interesting ways of dividing cases of conflict in a man-
ner that leads to a greater understanding of their nature and dynamics.
However, it is first necessary to deal with the not unreasonable “hunch”
that intractability is largely associated with the nature of the issues in
contention.
2. Intractability and the issues in conflict
It seems only common sense to start with the proposition that the
intractability of a conflict is associated with how important are the issues
in contention to the parties involved. Unimportant goals and aspirations
are easily abandoned or traded whereas “matters of life and death” are, by
definition, things to be defended no matter what the sacrifice or how strong
the opposition might appear. The central idea of “issue salience” summarizes
this connection to intractability and at one extreme – the continued exis-
tence of one or other adversary – provides a limiting case of a conflict that
is perhaps best described as insoluble or even impossible, rather than merely
intractable. However, beyond this extreme example, what can be said about
types of issue that are generally found to be difficult, rather than impossible,
to resolve?

It was fairly common in the early days of the development of conflict anal-
ysis to make a sharp distinction between conflicts of interest and conflicts
of value, and to hold that these were so different from one another in terms
of origins, formation, dynamics and the availability of possible solutions
that explanations for one conflict type would be of little use in under-
standing and finding solutions for the other (see Aubert, 1963; Druckman &
Zechmeister, 1970; 1973). Value conflicts were held to be about fundamental
beliefs, about right and wrong, and about non-negotiable goals and aspi-

rations that sprang from unassailable and unalterable value positions at
the very core of a community’s being. Later, an almost equally high level
of issue salience began to be attributed to communities that experienced
major threats to their sense of identity and continuity – the Basques in
northern Spain, the Kosovars in former Yugoslavia, and native Americans
in Canada and in the Andes region. In terms that I introduced in Chapter 2,
conflicts over incommensurables often seemed to be more intractable than
conflicts over scarcities, although other factors could make the latter equally
protracted and resistant to a solution.
Much of the early literature on mediation implied that there were a variety
of types of issue over which individuals, communities or nations could well
conflict and which represented various levels of issue salience and hence
different degrees of intractability. Issues involving contention over facts,
evidence and interpretation were often hard to resolve but by no means
impossible. Differences over strategies and means of achieving agreed or
complementary goals provided major obstacles but could be overcome. Con-
tentions over scarce goods or other interests might be resolved by trading or
sharing, although this might depend on the availability of the good and its
salience. On the other hand, conflicts over values, ideologies and principles
were more difficult to deal with peacefully, while conflicts over continued
existence of one or the other party surely presented a situation that could be
characterized as utterly irresolvable.
Clearly, then, intractability was closely linked to issue salience. But was
this the sole reason for the fact that some conflict continued for an inor-
dinate length of time, resisting all efforts to bring them to an end? Other
approaches to explaining this phenomenon suggested that alternative – or
at least supplementary – influences were at work.
3. Intractability and the parties in conflict
In fact, the most familiar way of classifying social conflicts has frequently
been to develop a taxonomy based on the type of “party” involved, although
this simply transfers the problem to one of coming up with a taxonomy
of types of party. The usual way of dealing with that problem has been
to look at who or what are involved as enemies, antagonists or adver-
saries and take that as the categorization criterion. Hence much of the

early literature of conflict analysis talks about inter-personal, inter-group,

inter-communal or inter-state conflict. This approach is familiar and feels
comfortable for most people. It is also by no means a pointless way of
classifying conflicts, although it does present intellectual barriers to cross-
level comparison between, say, inter-group and inter-community conflicts.
Commonsensically, the kind of parties involved will make a difference to
the way in which conflicts are conducted and the way in which they can or
can’t easily be resolved or managed.2

On the other hand, there are many unconventional approaches to the
“type of party involved” principle which promise to lead to interesting sug-
gestions about how conflicts either play themselves out or protract and
appear to be insoluble. Examples of such alternative approaches to classi-
fication involve, for example, differentiating according to past history and
current intra-party structure.
3.1. Prior existence and purpose

One interesting question is whether the “parties” existed as such before the
issues in conflict arose, or whether they developed because of the issues
emerging – that is, in order to pursue particular goals and interests opposed
by others. As I noted in the previous chapter, there seem to be at least two
basic situations. Conflicts involve one or other of the following:
• Specially created, single issue-developed parties – e.g. SANE/Freeze move-

ment or the campaign to stop DisneyWorld coming to Manassas in
Virginia in the 1990s – where the sole purpose of the party – a “struggle”
organisation – was to conduct (and win) a conflict;
• Multi-issue parties, which already exist for a variety of purposes but which
take up new issues and become involved in new conflicts as these arise –
for example, trade union organizations, such as the United Autoworkers
and PATCO, or government agencies such as the Bureau of Indian Affairs.
On the one hand it also seems likely that some single-issue organizations
that emerge to pursue one particular set of goals can then find that they grow
and take on new issues, thus becoming involved in a range of new activities.
On the other, there is an important question for parties whose raison d’etre
is the struggle itself. This concerns the extent to which the ending of the
conflict is likely to result also in the demise of the party, and how this will
be contemplated by leaders and by rank-and-file members. How might a
party’s willingness to compromise and “settle for less” be affected by the
fact that the issues in conflict are that organization’s sole “purpose in life”,
and how do such consideration’s affect a conflict’s intractability? Raising
the question does emphasize the importance of thinking about how single-
issue, “struggle” organizations, such as the IRA, ETA or the Armenian Grey

Wolves, might need to be provided with an alternative set of activities if

their intransigence is not to produce intractability.
3.2. Structure and cohesion

It is frequently useful in beginning an analysis to classify parties (and hence
conflicts) according to some interesting structural quality that those parties
possess (or don’t possess). This might help to explain how a conflict begins,
protracts and becomes intractable. Of course, it is always difficult to tell

what might be “interesting” attributes beforehand on a priori grounds, but
sometimes it is worth looking at unconventional taxonomies. For example,
parties obviously differ according to the following criteria.
3.2.1. Boundary clarity

Roughly speaking, this can be indicated by the ease with which one can
tell who is and who is not a member of the party. One can sub-divide this
concept further into:
Visibility – the degree to which the boundary is obvious to members of

the society within which the parties exist, and especially to the adver-
saries themselves. Identifying clearly who is “on our side”, who is trying
to stay neutral and who is a member of the “enemy” often affects the
level and extent of viciousness with which a conflict comes to be waged
and hence the relative difficulty of achieving a solution and subsequent
reconciliation.
Permeability – the ease with which individuals can move from one party to
another, the ability for outsiders to join, or the level of actual or potential
cross-boundary interaction, all of which seem likely to affect the range
of solutions that might be available to end the conflict. In many cases,
where a party’s boundaries are impermeable, solutions of integration are
unlikely to be sustainable, however much one side may desire such an
outcome. Hence solutions of separation have to be explored.
Comprehensiveness – the degree to which members’ lives are affected by
their membership of the particular party that becomes enmeshed in a
conflict. The threat to a family or a clan is likely to elicit a very differ-
ent response from members than a threat to a sports club or a place of
employment.
Clearly, the level of boundary clarity between parties will affect the range
of possible solutions to a conflict, especially if solutions involving sep-
aration or autonomy as opposed to integration or absorption are being
considered.

Several writers have also suggested that parties involved in a conflict that
are clearly and tightly bounded, with clear and impermeable boundaries, can
concentrate all of their energy and attention on that conflict, whereas parties
that are not tightly bounded experience significant additional problems of
recruitment, mobilization and maintenance of support and organization. All
of these may help to explain why conflicts between tightly bounded parties
can become so intense and intractable.

3.2.2. Internal cohesion
The level of cohesion or integration indicates whether a party consists of
a relatively unified or homogenous unit, or one that is profoundly divided
internally, or simply not well organized. Recall that parties can be
coalitions or alliances of separate units – for example, a wartime alliance

or a temporary alignment of trade unions;
factionalised single units that are ostensibly one organisation but actually
a set of temporarily united but basically rival factions;
unified single units where the organisation or group is not characterised
by major internal divisions.
It seems likely that the level of integration of a party will affect its
behaviour in a conflict in many ways – for example, its ability to nego-
tiate and then successfully implement a settlement with its adversary.
As Fred Ikle (1975) has pointed out, making peace with an adversary is
always a highly divisive and controversial decision, and intra-party cleav-
ages over whether and when to adopt such a strategy are likely to be
reopened (or often created) between those who wish to carry on the strug-
gle and those who wish to come to a negotiated compromise. The former
have entered the conflict-resolution literature as “spoilers” (Stedman, 1997;
Darby, 2001), while the others are “pragmatists” – both highly value-loaded
terms.
When a number of these characteristics overlap and reinforce one another,
they seem likely to have a major impact on the origins, longevity and likely
outcome of a conflict. It has often been argued that the main differences
between inter-state and other forms of social conflict arise because
• states controlled by their governments are usually tightly bounded and

(relatively) impermeable (membership is clearly determined, interaction
with outsiders is controlled and channelled, and the state affects many
aspects of its members’ lives);

• governments are multi-issue existent parties par excellence so that they

become, willy nilly, involved in many conflicts through protecting or for-
warding the interests of many sectors of their population and not just all
of their members;
• states have a high degree of specialisation (foreign offices, executive
branches, armed forces, etc.) and hierarchy;
• governments can usually mobilise support for national policy (with little
trouble) through specialist agencies designed for the task;

• state members usually obtain much of their identity through “national”
membership, which makes it easy to mobilise members against any
outside threat to that identity.
Louis Kriesberg once commented that governments are “ready made”

adversaries (1973), but other social entities – sects, ethnolinguistic commu-
nities living in remote regions, clandestine groups – share at least some of
these qualities.
4. Intractability and the relationship between parties
The idea of using the relationship between the parties in a conflict as a

factor leading to high intractability seems, initially, bizarre. The very fact
that individuals, communities or countries are in a conflict, and espe-
cially in an intractable conflict, makes their relationship, by definition,
one of being rivals, adversaries or enemies. Moreover, much recent dis-
cussion of conflict resolution involves asking how best to transform that
relationship.
However, the question of relationships between conflicting parties turns
out to be somewhat more complex than simply accepting that parties
in conflict are currently related to one another through enmity. For one
thing, it is important to ask what these adversaries’ previous relationship
might have been, prior to the formation of this particular conflict, and
how this might affect (a) the conflict, (b) potentially successful conflict-
resolution strategies that might be attempted and (c) possible relationships,
post-conflict.
For another, it is probably relevant to start with an assumption that it is
quite possible for social entities to be in a relationship with one another that
combines conflict over certain issues with cooperation over others – that
is, the parties are in a mixed relationship of conflict and cooperation, with
interesting interactions between the two types.
Third, there is the question of whether the adversaries are inevitably
in a continuing relationship, whether it is a conflictual one or not, or
whether their only contacts and interactions arise because of the con-
flict, and when the conflict stops so do their other contacts. Lastly, unless
one is trying to understand an unusually isolated conflict, the parties

are likely to be in relationships with parties other than their adversary,

and this network of relationships is likely to play at least some part
in determining the course of the conflict and the possibilities for its
resolution.
4.1. Previous relationships

One key question about parties involved in a conflict, even one that is pro-
tracted, intractable and violent, is simply: Has it always been like this? The

answer can frequently be “No”. Friends fall out; allies find themselves on
opposing sides, countries that have enjoyed cordial relations, cooperative
enterprises and mutually beneficial exchanges suddenly find themselves at
odds – or even at war – over territory (Argentina and Britain in 1982 over the
Falkland Islands) or fishing rights (Britain and Iceland in the “Cod Wars”) or
one another’s behaviour vis-à-vis other conflicts (the United States and “old
Europe” over the invasion of Iraq).
Analytically, the question then changes to asking what effects previously
friendly or cooperative relationships might have on some current situation
of goal incompatibility, probably accompanied by not a little frustration and
maybe a sense of betrayal. One common-sense hypothesis would be that,
up to a point, previously positive relationships should facilitate the search
for a solution for the issues in the early stages of the conflict. (No ratio-
nal decision-makers would wish to destroy a beneficial relationship without
weighing up the relative advantages of continuing to compromise versus
continuing to insist.) However, beyond that point it may become very dif-
ficult indeed to resolve the conflict and restore the relationship. Former
friends, former colleagues and former lovers frequently become the worst of
enemies (and stay that way), although it is open to question whether such
a prior, positive history produces greater obstacles to conflict resolution than
its opposite – protracted relations of hostility, suspicion, conflict and lack of
cooperation.
To return to the issue of classification, however, this approach suggests
that one potentially useful way of classifying conflicts is to distinguish
between those parties that, in the past, have had friendly and cooperative
relations (Canada and the United States) and those that have had a his-
tory of rivalry, hostility and frequent disputes (Germany and France from
1870 to 1950; Iran and the United States since 1979). A third category in
such a scheme would be those that have had a mixed prior history – some
cooperation, some conflicts (Britain and Ireland during “the Troubles” in
Northern Ireland from 1968 to 1998). A fourth category involves those that
have had no history of continuous contacts or interactions at all, but some-
how find themselves in a situation of conflict (possibly exemplified by a
colonial settlement process or invasions by “barbarian” outsiders). Classify-
ing thus may help to begin explaining why certain conflicts protract and
others do not.

4.2. Continuing relationships

Conflicts and their outcomes are very likely to differ depending upon
whether the parties’ central relationship is the conflict or whether they have
other relationships that will continue once the conflict has been settled.
Some writers in the field have talked about “isolated” or “interdependent”
parties to describe this phenomenon, but this continuation idea is similar.
Some conflicts involve parties that have ongoing relationships that must
resume once the conflict is over (management and unions in an industrial

dispute, for example) or may resume in a different form (such as divorc-
ing parents); while other conflicts involve parties whose only relationship
is their conflict, so that when this is settled they will be virtually isolated
again from one another (a feud between nomadic tribes over access to
water).
The point is that the knowledge that a relationship will need to be
resumed after a conflict will obviously have some effect on the way a conflict
is played out and, hence, the kind of solution sought – although nobody has
systematically thought this one through yet.
In much recent literature, this question has taken the form of asking
whether the adversaries have an “ongoing relationship” (for example, fami-
lies or working partners) or whether they are relative or complete strangers
(such as participants in rival claims over a motor accident). Similarly, rival
groups may be completely independent of one another apart from their con-
flict (gangs in inner-city areas); or embedded in a larger organization that
requires that they maintain an interdependent relationship within the orga-
nization (for example, conflicting departments in a firm, or rival factions
within a trade union branch). Some theorists have argued that conflicts are
very different depending upon whether they involve independent adver-
saries or parties that operate within an overarching organizational structure,
but the field awaits a systematic exploration of what form these differences
are likely to take.
5. Intractability and the structure of the system
It seems rarely to have been the case that conflicts between two parties
are so socially isolated that it makes much sense to characterize them as
“bilateral” conflicts, no matter how analytically convenient this might seem.
Focusing simply on the relationship between the adversaries ignores the
fact that others are always involved and are related in some manner to
those adversaries – as supporters, suppliers, critics, coat-holders, interme-
diaries, referees, judges or enforcers of limits. This is undoubtedly true in
disputes between individuals. In marital disputes, children, family mem-
bers and others are involved, so that family systems theory has become
necessary background knowledge for any third party seeking an intermedi-
ary role. It is also true at the other end of the scale in apparently isolated

conflicts between ethnolinguistic communities and between states. The

first Sudanese civil war (1960–1972) between the northern government of
Khartoum and southern insurgents of the Sudan People’s Liberation Move-
ment, which for most of its length was known as “the unknown civil
war”, also involved neighbouring countries and border communities, as
well as Israeli arms suppliers and international oil companies. Similarly,
the start of the civil war in Sri Lanka, although relatively separated from
mainstream regional and global conflicts, rapidly involved Tamil commu-

nities and regional governments in south India and, eventually, the Indian
Government which sent in a fairly unsuccessful peacekeeping force and sub-
sequently saw one of its prime ministers assassinated by a Tamil member of
the LTTE.
5.1. Overlapping and interconnected systems

I briefly mentioned Louis Kriesberg’s (1980) ideas about interconnected con-
flicts above, and it is clear that his ideas complement an approach that
involves conceptualizing conflicts as consisting of complex, multilateral sys-
tems centred on a core of adversaries and their relationships.3 Apart from
the converging or nested conflicts, two of the other conflict types suggested
by Kriesberg seem to be relevant to our discussion of conflict systems –
superimposed conflicts and concurrent conflicts.
In the superimposed type of conflict there exists one central set of issues
in dispute between adversaries, but their rivalry is carried across to other are-
nas and is fought out over a number of different issues within a number of
different systems. Members of the rival parties take up adversarial positions
whenever they come into contact, have to make decisions or make any kind
of policy choice. Thus the whole range of conflicts is conducted in differ-
ent arenas by the same adversaries, one central and original but the others
related, if peripheral.
In an alternative approach, Kriesberg’s conception of a concurrent inter-
connection focuses on linkages that involve one party that is involved in a
number of different conflicts over different issues with different adversaries.
This is hardly an unusual situation as long as the parties in question are
not single-issue organizations established solely to “fight out” a single issue
with one another, but rather are what I have previously termed “pre-existing,
multi-issue” parties, typically governments. Kriesberg himself gives the clear
example from the early 1960s when the Egyptian Government was simul-
taneously engaged in a major conflict with Israel, while at the same time it
was a key party to the Yemeni civil war. However, this kind of situation of
a party being involved in concurrent conflicts – “side fights” in Kriesberg’s
term – is hardly unusual. The United States has been a party to many sep-
arate but concurrent conflicts – and thus the linkage sub-system for many
interconnected conflict systems – not least those currently involving Iraq,
Afghanistan, Iran and the left-wing insurgents in Colombia, to name but a

few. Trade unions, community associations and business organizations are

frequently party to concurrent conflicts with different adversaries. One cru-
cial question is how being involved in a large number of concurrent conflicts
affects parties’ behaviour in particular conflicts that are somehow linked – or
perceived as being linked – to others, and how such a situation impacts the
first party’s ability to cope successfully (whatever that means) with that com-
plex relationship. This particular intellectual puzzle has become something
of a pressing practical dilemma as the early twenty-first century sees the

governments of the major international actors, such as Russia, the United
States or the People’s Republic of China becoming enmeshed in a series
of conflicts, or “wars”, through their association with some contentious
issue.
5.2. Symmetric and asymmetric systems

One particularly influential aspect of the analysis of conflict “systems” that
has begun to capture the attention of scholars concerns imbalances within
each system, although these are more usually discussed as involving cases of
“asymmetric conflict”. The existence and effects of significant asymmetries
between parties to some conflicts (usually oversimplified by using the term
“power imbalances”) has increasingly become the subject of much debate
among theorists and practitioners of conflict resolution. Discussion either
takes a normative form of asking whether it is ever right to attempt to medi-
ate between parties that are grossly asymmetric or whether a third party
should, first, try to equalize the parties in some key way; or a theoretical
form, which asks: What are the results of mediating in conflicts which are
asymmetric, or what effects will equalizing the parties have? The first intel-
lectual task, however, before one speculates about the effects of asymmetry,
is to decide exactly what is meant by that term.4
Asymmetric conflicts might be most helpfully described as conflicts
between parties that are greatly imbalanced or widely dissimilar in their
resources and characteristics. Perhaps the first most famously recorded
instance of an asymmetric conflict is that between David and Goliath, with
Goliath’s strength and skill with hand-held weapons being offset by David’s
abilities in the use of relatively long-range missiles. Another revealing histor-
ical example might well be the long drawn-out war between revolutionary
and Napoleonic France and Britain at the turn of the nineteenth century,
described by a contemporary as a contest between an elephant and a whale.
In reality, then, it is the parties themselves, their relationship and hence
the conflict system of which they form part that are asymmetric rather than
the clashing interests, goals or issues that are the core of a conflict – although
it might be justifiable to use the term in cases where the salience of the
issues themselves is very different for the individuals, groups or communities
involved. In the latter situation, it seems logical to propose that it might not
be too difficult to find some solution that satisfies both the party which
holds the issues to be hugely important and its adversary, which doesn’t.

Equally tractable might be a conflict in which the issues in contention are a

matter of some indifference to both adversaries. In contrast, the whole point
about what we normally call “intractable asymmetric conflicts” is that they
are, very often, actually highly symmetric, at least in the salience that the
adversaries attribute to the issues in conflict, as well as in the value that they
assign to achieving their own goals by winning.
In the past, much of the literature of conflict analysis acknowledged the
existence of major asymmetries in many conflicts but then went on to

discuss and theorize about conflicts in general as though they take place
between (roughly) equal parties. In actuality, many conflicts clearly take
place between entities that are grossly unequal – as regards size, status,
resources, political influence, level of commitment to goals in conflict,
willingness to sacrifice in order to achieve those goals and many other
qualities and characteristics. The list of possible differences is endless.
Compare conflicts between individuals and large organizations (the Inland
Revenue Service); or between legal governments and “rebels”; or between
large and small states; or between the government of a country (with all
the resources of the state at its disposal) and a small local company. All
types of asymmetry will affect the course of the conflict and the likely
outcome.5
These examples suggest that, while there is a variety of ways in which con-
flicts can be asymmetric or “unbalanced”, one key kind of asymmetry can
be that based on the kind of parties directly involved as adversaries. Indi-
viduals can be in contention with communities within which they live or
with organizations within which they work. Groups or “factions” can be at
odds with the larger institutions to which they formally belong. Indigenous
communities or whole provincial populations can be in revolt against the
state authorities of the country in which they live. All of these represent dif-
ferent sub-categories of asymmetric conflict systems, and each seems likely
to present different dynamics that need to be understood and taken into
account, especially when any search for acceptable solutions consistently
breaks down.
Unfortunately, the idea of asymmetry turns out to be more complicated
the more one examines it. Even those conflict systems that seem to be sym-
metric in the sense that they involve ostensibly similar adversaries – as when
individual clashes with individual, or group with group or community with
community – can conceal major asymmetries of a different type. Is a conflict
between a rich, powerful and socially prestigious individual and one with
no money, status or influence “symmetric” merely because it is between
two individuals, or one between a rich, powerful and government-backed
organization and a second organization lacking all those qualities?6
What this all boils down to is that there are an almost infinite number
of ways of defining asymmetry in general and the effects of different kinds
of asymmetry, as well as the connections between asymmetries and the out-
come of conflict. Take, for example, the internal structure of the adversaries,

never mind whether they are groups, communities or organizations. Recall

our previous comments about degrees of integration of parties in conflict,
and consider the possible differences in the course and outcome of two
conflicts:
• one is between two unified and well-integrated parties;
• one is between a unified party and a party that is split internally into rival
factions or sub-groups.

At the very least, there seem likely to be major differences in the time
taken within each party to reach an agreed decision about goals, or about
an agreed negotiating position or about responding to a peace feeler from
an adversary. A priori, differences between the level of internal unity within
adversaries would seem to be an important type of asymmetry for explaining
the degree of intractability of a conflict, but the question that this implies is:
What are the important asymmetries for explaining how conflicts are likely
to play themselves out and the difficulty of bringing them to an end? Clearly,
different structures of conflict systems produce different dynamics but, at
the moment, we do not seem able to go much further than this kind of
less-than-helpful generalization. How divided or factionalized does a party
to a conflict have to be before efforts to conclude an implementable agree-
ment are almost certain to be pointless? Can high levels of commitment
to shared goals offset an adversary’s marked superiority of resources and
lead to a protracted struggle? To what extent might the asymmetries in the
means of coercion available to antagonists contribute to the intractability of
a conflict?
At this point I merely want to note how such questions – by raising issues
of “How much?” – inevitably move the discussion from matters of classifi-
cation in the direction of measurement. This implies that the last stage of
any discussion of classification necessarily involves issues of how intense a
conflict might be, and how the intensity of any conflict is both indicated
(at least in part) by its being protracted and is an explanation (of sorts) for
why it has become intractable.
6. Conclusion: Back to intractability
Much of the above material simply surveys conventional attempts to cat-

egorize conflicts in a manner which enables an analyst to develop this or
that theory about the underlying dynamics of a conflict and the range of
solutions that might be sought if the situation becomes too damaging and
destructive. However, the focus of this book is on the general question of
“intractable” conflicts – those which, irrespective of what kind of parties are
involved or the social environment in which they occur, continue for a long
time and resist efforts to resolve them.

Scholars in the field have, over the years, used a variety of terms to try
to encapsulate succinctly the key characteristics of this class of conflicts,
aside from simple longevity. They have come up with a variety of labels.
We have already encountered the idea of value dissensus, or “conflicts of
value”, which are (somehow) differentiated from “conflicts of interest”.
Burton (1987) and his followers (Coate & Rosati, 1988; Avruch & Mitchell,
2013) tend to employ the terms “protracted and deep-rooted” when they
do not simply talk about conflicts that are long lasting and non-negotiable.

As we noted in Chapter 2, Guy and Heidi Burgess (1996) have stuck with
the term “intractable” conflicts for disputes that resist solution, sub-dividing
these into three categories which involve (a) deep-rooted value differences,
(b) very high-stakes distributional problems or (c) “pecking order” conflicts.
Most recently, Oliver Ramsbotham (2010) has introduced the concept of
“radical disagreements” to describe conflicts that revolve around issues that
seem literally impossible to resolve.
What all of these concepts have in common, apart from the fact that the
conflicts thus labelled go on for a very long time and never seem to go away
completely, is that they appear, at least at first sight, to involve inherent
contradictions (logical or empirical or both), or aspirations and goals that
are wholly incommensurable (parties confront a dilemma of distributing a
good that is indivisible or filling a position that is unsharable), or arise from
“worldviews”, ideologies and values systems that simply do not allow for
alternative outcomes to those dictated by the beliefs of the party holding
them. Mix in the difficulties caused by the kinds of conflict dynamics that
I discuss in the next chapters, and the practical reasons for the perpetuation
of a conflict become depressingly easy to understand.
In Chapter 2 I argued that the reasons for the formation and emer-
gence of conflict situations might simply be because of scarcity on the
one hand (people wanting similar things that were in short supply) or
“incommensurability” on the other (people wanting radically different
things which precluded others from gaining what they wanted). This still
seems to be a good starting point, even though it strongly resembles the old
dichotomy between conflicts of interest and conflicts of value. On the other
hand, and avoiding the claim that incommensurable conflicts are inevitably
and always more intractable than scarcity conflicts, it would seem helpful if
we could devise a continuum of intractability7 which runs between extreme
tractability and extreme intractability, a notional scale that might look like
Figure 3.1:
Intractability
>..................................................................>
Low High
Figure 3.1 An intractability continuum?

From our discussion so far it seems that the most fruitful basis for such
a desirable – if currently mythical – scale would be the nature of the issues
that are in contention between the adversaries. However, it might well turn
out to be the case that a major cause of intractability should be sought in
one area that I have mentioned but so far neglected – namely, in some of
the dynamics that occur once a conflict has started up and is well under
way. I will return to the question of “issue salience”, “intractability” and
intractable conflict in later chapters.

4
Perpetuation
Dynamics and Intractability1

1. Introduction
In the previous chapter I discussed the whole matter of classifying the var-
ious types of conflict that would be encountered in a study of CAR, with
some attention being paid to the various kinds of “intractable” conflict that
had been waged in the past and which were continuing to afflict the world
of the early twenty-first century. Summarizing the argument so far, I found
that social conflicts could be “intractable” in a number of ways and for a
variety of reasons. An “intractable” conflict could
• focus on scarcities and appear to involve a limited number of possible

solutions, all of a zero-sum nature;
• involve goals or aspirations that are practically unobtainable, at least for
the time being;
• involve goals and aspirations that are logically incompatible and non-
substitutable;
• involve goods that are indivisible and which defy compromise or substi-
tution;
• involve goals that concern the continued existence of one or both of the
main adversaries.
Quite apart from the intractability of the issues that lie at the core of a social
conflict, other factors, some of them structural, others relational, could con-
tribute to the protraction of a conflict and to the difficulty of finding any
solution. In many cases the relationships between adversaries could have
become so complicated and intertwined as to present a complex, multiparty
and multi-issue system that defied any kind of sustainable and acceptable
solution. In others, the conflict could involve parties that were so internally
divided that they found it difficult to alter strategies and find alternative
courses of action that could, somehow, bring an end to violence.
63

All of the above involve factors that have to do with positions, goals, aspi-
rations and issues, but it may be that other kinds of intractability arise from
the dynamics of the conflict itself – that is, from the way it can change over
time so as to make it even more resistant to solution. Expressed succinctly,
this argument proposes that the perpetuation of a particular social conflict
can be attributed, at least to some degree, to inherent dynamics which make
it highly intractable, quite irrespective of the issues that lie at the root of the
contention. This leads inevitably to the question of what kinds of change

operate in this apparently malign fashion, perpetuating a conflict or even
exacerbating it.
I should note at this point that we seem to have come full circle back
to the distinction made in Chapter 2 between factors that cause a conflict
to start up in the first place (to conflict formation) and factors that cause
a conflict to continue over time (to conflict perpetuation). This distinc-
tion is undoubtedly some help in focusing the present discussion, lest we
get lost in a generalized journey around the whole issue of the connection
between conflict and change.2 By keeping in mind the difference between
asking what changes might initially lead to a conflict breaking out and what
changes might help to keep a conflict going, it should be possible to tease
out some general relationships between change and conflict formation and
change and conflict perpetuation. At least the latter could then throw further
light on these dynamical aspects of intractability.
I feel strongly that an enquiry that starts off asking about the general
nature of the relationship between change and intractable conflict seems
doomed to irrelevance from the beginning,3 so an initial step must be to
focus the discussion a little better. If we are trying to develop an under-
standing of a complex phenomenon such as protracted social conflict, and
its relationship to the even more complex phenomenon of change, then
there are at least four aspects of the general enquiry that need to engage our
attention:
• change which produces new conflicts (conflict formation);

• change which exacerbates or intensifies an existing conflict (conflict
perpetuation or exacerbation);
• change which reduces conflict or makes it less intense (conflict mitiga-
tion);
• change which produces (or assists in the development of) settlements or
solutions (conflict resolution or transformation).4
I intend to leave aside issues of conflict mitigation and resolution until

later in the book and, although I return briefly to the issue of conflict
formation below, this current chapter concentrates mainly on the dynam-
ics of perpetuation. Paradoxically, this will involve a need to understand

Perpetuation: Dynamics and Intractability 65
factors that act against benign change – that is, change that moves a conflict
towards some resolution. As the label “intractable conflict” suggests, many
complex and deep-rooted social conflicts seem, empirically, to reach some
kind of “plateau” in their development. The adversaries become trapped
into a pattern of interaction – usually involving the exchange of violent
or coercive behaviours – that seems dynamic yet oddly stable. My colleague,
Dennis Sandole, has pointed out (Sandole, 1999) that the reason for many
conflicts continuing becomes less a matter of the original goal incompatibil-

ities and more a matter of becoming trapped in an extended action–reaction
sequence, in which today’s behaviour by one side is a response to yesterday’s
by the adversary. The conflict continues today because the conflict was there
yesterday, rather in the manner of the classical feud between the Montagues
and the Capulets.
Systems analysts are familiar with the concept of “dynamic stability”, and
there are enough examples of such a pattern of interaction in protracted and
intractable social conflicts to justify an urgent need to understand the rea-
sons for this conflict perpetuation and to ask questions about the obstacles to
benign change, once a conflict has reached the stage of a reactive exchange
of blows, malevolence and other bads. Some of the literature on “spoilers”
(Stedman, 1997; Darby, 2001) makes a start at answering fundamental ques-
tions about obstacles to change in the direction of conflict resolution but the
following questions remain: What are some of the obstacles to change that
themselves need changing before a protracted conflict can begin to move
towards a resolution, and who might be able to bring about needed changes
and how?
The argument seems to have come round yet another full circle, so that
any examination of change appears also to necessitate at least some enquiry
into the nature and impact of obstacles to change, particularly in their role
of preventing those involved in a conflict from moving towards a solution
and perhaps a change in their relationship. I will come back to this issue of
obstacles later in this chapter, but first I will return briefly to the kinds of
change that seem to lead to conflict starting up, rather than those factors
that prevent change from leading to a conflict’s end.
2. Conflict formation redux: The role of change
Most analysts who write about the causes or the sources of social conflict
agree that change, particularly extensive and sudden change, has the capac-
ity to create conflict, although whether a conflict protracts and turns violent
depends upon a host of other variables.
2.1. Change, deprivation and instability

Writing in the 1960s, Mancur Olsen pointed out that economic development
might actually produce instability and conflict rather than contentment and

stability, partly because the “goods” from growth would almost certainly be
maldistributed, as would the “bads”. Many individuals and groups, includ-
ing some that had previously been salient and influential, would become
marginalized through such change (Olsen, 1963). Change would thus fre-
quently be associated with scarcity, discontent and rivalry, leading to conflict
and sometimes to violence. It might well be that this last could be avoided
if the change were to be gradual and well managed (arrangements made for
redundant workers or newly landless peasants to find alternative roles and

resources), but social “cushions” seemed rare in the 1960s and – with the
sudden and extensive changes brought about through the globalization of
market capitalism – they appear even rarer today. It is noticeable, however,
that even in the 1960s and 1970s, analysts were linking change with conflict
and arguing that conflict avoidance (an early precursor of long-term conflict
prevention) was a matter of managing change effectively.5
Underlying Olsen’s ideas, and those of many others who wrote about the
formation or emergence of conflict situations, was the inescapable observa-
tion that change tends to create winners and losers, and that the latter are
hardly likely to be happy with this result. Olsen’s extension of this argu-
ment involved pointing out that “winners” too might be discontented if
they did not feel that they had won enough, relative to others, or if the costs
of winning on one dimension (economic prosperity) meant losing on oth-
ers (status, personal security, social integration or cultural identity). It seems
reasonable to extend this approach to the relationship between change and
conflict formation a little further by arguing that, while it is undoubtedly
true that actual change creates winners and losers,
• past change might also create restorers who wish to return to the sta-
tus quo or some golden age (late eighteenth-century French aristocrats
wishing to turn back the clock on royal financial reforms), and acceler-
ators who want even greater change, as soon as possible, to complete
the reform or to catch up with some comparison group (French rad-
ical thinkers and activists in the 1770s, bent on turning reform into
revolution);
• anticipated change might create supporters calling for desired change
immediately, and resisters seeking to block the changes threatening their
resources, status or political influence.
It is possible to see many of these assumptions underpinning the ideas

of more formal theorists of conflict formation. In much of Johan Galtung’s
early work, for example (1965; 1971), the ideas of status disequilibrium and
of changing hierarchies of “top dogs” and “bottom dogs” as sources of con-
flict imply that rapid change on any one of the key dimensions of power,
status and wealth “enjoyed” by different individuals and social groups could

lead to further efforts to achieve a satisfactory balance among all three.

Inevitably, this would lead to still further efforts to change, thence to con-
flict with those resisting such change and perhaps to the beginnings of one
of Dennis Sandole’s self-perpetuating cycles (1999).
Similarly, some writers focus on the process of social comparison, and on
reference groups as a source both of social stability and of potential discon-
tent and resultant violence (Urry, 2011). In many cases a change in those
groups with whom one compares one’s own lot in life frequently seems

to involve some (much) more fortunate than ourselves. At the individual
level, this process of comparison often leads to a sense of injustice and an
increase in anger and discontent so that situations of goal incompatibil-
ity arise and latent conflicts emerge, later to become violent. Other writers
have even applied such analysis to inter-community and inter-state relations
(Agyeman-Duah, 1991; Omelicheva, 2009).
Parallel themes involving change leading to conflict formation can be seen
in Ted Gurr’s classic on civil strife and protracted, intra-state conflict, Why
Men Rebel (1970). Whether situations of high levels of discontent come about
through improvements postponed or “revolutions of rising expectations”,
the central feature of all of these models involves change and the contri-
bution of various types of change to conflict formation. How rapidly the
change has to take place in order to escalate a situation of goal incompati-
bility into a process involving protest and violence will obviously vary from
situation to situation. However, the central fact remains that anyone seek-
ing the sources of conflict formation would be well advised to look for prior
change, often disturbing a long-accepted social hierarchy, as a driving force.
2.2. Changes in scarcity – and abundance

Even if one adopts a relatively unsophisticated approach to the process of
conflict formation, the centrality of change certainly remains at the heart
of many explanations. As I noted earlier, much writing about the nature
of intractable social conflicts revolves around the idea of scarcity. Parties
indulge in conflict over some good that is in limited supply and which
all perceive that they cannot simultaneously possess or enjoy – a piece
of territory, a material resource such as oil, a dominating position which
increases “security”, roles that present the opportunity of making binding
decisions for others. “Scarcity models” of conflict formation contain implicit
or explicit assumptions about change producing further or more intense
conflict, either through changes in demand for increasingly salient goods in
dispute, or because of changes in availability, usually involving diminishing
supply. Much conflict clearly arises because of Kenneth Boulding’s famous
“Duchess’s Law”, from Alice in Wonderland: “The more there is of yours, the
less there is of mine” (1962, p.190).
This process of diminishing resources leading to more intense conflict has,
in recent years, become the focus for much analysis and disputation among

scholars studying the effects of increasing scarcity in societies in what used

to be called the Third World. Some work has focused on diminishing supply,
or a decrease in availability accompanied by an increase in demand for that
particular commodity. Warnings about “water wars” in the near future, in
contrast with “fossil fuel” wars (Starr, 1991; Gleick, 1993), are examples of
this intellectual trend.
Others have returned to Olsen’s original idea and pointed out that even
changes in abundance can give rise to conflicts.6 Clearly the sudden intro-

duction of an abundant supply of goods can lead to conflict over who gets
most of what, when and how, although how similar the results of such a
change in the abundance of “goods” are to those brought about by a sud-
den introduction of large numbers of “bads” remains a matter for systematic
investigation.
3. Change that generates conflict
It would be possible to continue ad infinitum with an abstract discussion of

the relationship between change and conflict formation, but this chapter
is attempting to produce some general lessons rather than a stream of
anecdotes. What seems to have emerged from the ideas discussed so far
is that many of them suggest – indirectly at least – that there are three
aspects of the general phenomenon of “change” that are important in its
conflict-generating effects:
• the nature of the change;

• the intensity of the change;
• the rapidity of the change.
Returning to the intellectual strategy of advancing by proposing questions

that seem answerable (at least in principle), we thus confront the following
queries:
• What is the nature of the change that gives rise to goal incompatibility?
• How rapidly has the change come about?
• How extensive is the change that confronts those affected?
Simplifying somewhat, if we are seeking a connection between change and

conflict formation, one basic question is: What kinds of change are there and
change in what?
A relatively easy way of answering the “change in what?” question would
be to list examples of change that appear to have had some impact on the
formation of an intractable conflict – the death of key leaders, the total col-
lapse of political systems such as the Somali Republic, the discovery of large
supplies of some valued and contested good, a sudden use of violence to

attack another. Unfortunately, this inductive approach makes it hard to pick

out commonalities that would help in the construction of a typology of
change – as well as taking up a great deal of space – so a deductive approach
seems to offer an alternative, at least at the start of any classification process.
3.1. Change in the structure of a conflict

One approach is to take up once again our Galtungian model of a conflict’s
structure and use this to begin to illuminate the question of what can change

in the basic structure of any or all conflicts. Recall that the model involves
four components, linked in the fashion shown in Figure 4.1.
The model suggests that conflict situations arise in societies because of
some mismatch between social values and the social structure of that soci-
ety, particularly the distribution of political, economic and social “goods”.
The formation of a situation of goal incompatibility (a conflict situation)
gives rise to adversaries’ behaviour in order to achieve their (apparently
incompatible) goals, plus a related set of perceptions and attitudes about
themselves, the Other(s) and “third” parties affected by, or affecting, the rela-
tionship of conflict. As noted earlier, all four components interact over time
and are changed through this interaction: behaviour affects attitudes (being
the target of violence profoundly affects the psychological state of those
attacked, and usually causes them to retaliate); attitudes change behaviour
(dehumanization of the Other produces willingness to escalate violence and
thus intensifies efforts to harm); and both affect the situation and the under-
lying social structure (what is in dispute often gets harmed in some way, or
even destroyed).
Using this model to help to categorize types of change thus leads to
the possibility of change in all four components of this structural model.
Are we dealing with change in underlying structures or values? Is there
a change in the goals producing the conflict situation in the first place?
Is the change simply one consisting of an increase in violence, a lessen-
ing of hostile rhetoric or the offer of some olive branch? Has there been a
Sources
Distribution of goods and bads, etc.
Issues
Incompatible goals and positions
Behaviour Attitudes
Figure 4.1 Basic conflict structure extended

diminution of mistrust on both sides that is sufficient to allow some cau-

tious “talks about talks” to take place? Such examples illuminate four types
of change – in underlying structure, in situation, in behaviour and in atti-
tudes – that are important to understand the dynamics of protracted and
intractable social conflicts. All are potential changes that will impact the for-
mation of intractable conflicts – as well as their mitigation or resolution –
in a variety of (often dimly understood) ways. I will return to using this
approach to understanding the effects of change later in this chapter.

3.2. Key qualities of change
In our discussion of change and conflict formation carried out so far, there
were several clues as to how one might begin to develop a useful typology of
change itself to help in thinking about its impact in generating conflicts.
Many writers have talked about the different effects of sudden, as opposed
to gradual, change, while many years ago Michael Handel wrote revealingly
about the impact of unanticipated change in his investigation of the politics
and strategy of “surprise” (1981). Other scholars have tackled the issue of the
size of the change (how intensive and how extensive), in general arguing
that it is almost always more difficult to adjust to massive as opposed to
minor changes, with the implication that intensive and extensive changes
are more likely to be resisted than adjusted to (Burton, 1966).
At present it is possible to suggest a number of characteristics of change
that seem likely to have an impact on either the formation and emergence
of a deep-rooted, intractable conflict or on the continuation of one that is
ongoing and protracted – perhaps protracted because it has developed a resis-
tance to change. It seems plausible to propose that changes characterized by
the following qualities are likely to have the most effect on the formation of
protracted conflicts:
major changes – large in scope and intensity;

sudden changes – taking place abruptly;
unexpected changes – with no prior indication, warning or time to prepare;
rapid changes – taking place over a short time period;
irreversible changes – with no way of returning to the status quo.
Many propositions that have been unsystematically derived from ideas

about these five types of change appear to have an initial plausibility, if noth-
ing else. Major changes appear to be more likely to produce more massive
reactions than minor ones, although many years ago Karl Deutsch (1966)
argued that systems in certain, unstable conditions could be pushed into a
major change process by the simple input of information at a crucial point
in that system.7 Much of the literature on crises and crisis behaviour pro-
duced in the 1970s started with the idea that a major, unexpected threat to
core values, appearing suddenly and with little time available for thoughtful

reaction, produced recognizable and repetitive patterns of individual and

organizational behaviour, as well as standard profiles of interaction between
threatener and threatened (see McClelland, 1961; Hermann, 1972; Holsti
et al., 1980).
In the case of irreversibility, there are studies that indicate that, at a num-
ber of social levels, a change from which there is no return can have a major,
lasting impact compared with a change that can be rapidly reversed at low
cost. There are major differences between having a temporary ceasefire in

place and a truce that involves the stockpiling of weapons under third-party
supervision. Historically, Caesar could not have pretended that he – and
his armies – had not crossed the Rubicon. President Sadat’s visit to Israel
in 1977 could only have such a major effect on relations between Israel,
Egypt and the Arab world precisely because there was no way of subsequently
denying that the visit had (a) occurred and thus (b) publicly and formally
acknowledged the existence of Israel as another member of the international
community of states. None of these examples could be denied or reversed.
One of the weaknesses of this present argument is that, theoretically, there
are an almost infinite number of ways in which “changes” can be described
and characterized. The five qualities suggested above represent one plausible
answer to the question: What kinds of change are important for understand-
ing the formation and later exacerbation of conflicts? Until we have some
unambiguous evidence that persistently links major, sudden, unexpected,
rapid and irreversible changes with producing intractable conflicts, we will
be no nearer to any general theory of conflict and change. However, some
generalizations and guidelines might be obtainable by examining commonly
observed change processes in protracted conflicts, partly as a preliminary to
asking why protracted conflicts actually fail to change but remain locked in
a repetitive action–reaction dynamic.
4. The dynamics of continuity: Perpetuation and exacerbation
Leaving aside for the moment the question of what sorts of change lead
to conflict formation, a conflict analyst confronts queries about what alters
within the conflict system itself, so that one can talk clearly about a conflict
clearly intensifying. What is the nature of change that makes a conflict more
intense and intractable, and what contributes to a conflict’s perpetuation?
4.1. “Escalation” as a basic

One way in which the topic of intensification has been discussed in the
literature on conflict dynamics has been to use the very broad concept of
escalation to try to deal with the issue of change within a conflict system.8
In the 1960s and 1970s, it was common for scholars to talk about an esca-
lation “ladder” and to discuss the “rungs” or thresholds on that ladder, as

though climbing upwards towards mutual destruction could be reversed sim-

ply by recrossing the same thresholds in a “downwards” direction. (One
stopped bombing Haiphong harbour, for example, as a de-escalatory move
that was supposed to elicit a positive countermove by the government that
was the target of the bombing.) This whole approach ignored one of the
basic types of change in the conflict structure that we discussed earlier,
which linked the behaviour of one side to the perceptions and emotions
of the other. One implication of this relationship was that increasing coer-

cion on the Other, or crossing some culturally significant threshold (for
example, “first blood”), often profoundly changed the attitudes of those
Others in a more belligerent direction. The almost inevitable result was a
counterescalation on their part, (“making them pay”).
This “ladder” model’s indiscriminate use also tended to obscure the fact
that a variety of change processes could be involved in making the conflict
more “intense”, or taking it to “a higher level”. Moreover, some of these
processes made it much more difficult to reverse direction and bring about
change that could lead towards a resolution.
Disaggregating the various processes that make up this broad concept of
escalation, six major types of change seem to occur frequently in intractable
conflicts, making them more “intense” or exacerbating them once they have
emerged. Understandably, one of the changes that always occurs in con-
flicts at some stage is an intensification of each of the adversary’s behaviours
directed at the Others, and intended to make them abandon their goals and
allow the first party to win. Usually, this process involves an increase in
coercive actions that impose costs on the adversary. Ultimately it involves
violence and physical harm. In this narrow sense, the use of the term “esca-
lation” for this particular process seems more than justified. Furthermore,
the process can often involve thresholds (use of threats, cost-imposing coer-
cion, physical violence) which, once crossed, fundamentally change the
basic nature of the conflict.
4.2. Other, intensifying dynamics

If the label “escalation” is most usefully applied to changes in the intensity
and frequency of coercive and violent behaviour directed at the other party,
what other changes might be involved in the intensification of protracted
conflicts?
At least five other common dynamics seem to be involved in such intensi-
fication processes: mobilization, enlargement, polarization, dissociation and
entrapment. The first of these – mobilization – refers to the process whereby
intra-party changes take place once a group, community or nation finds
itself facing a protracting conflict with another, so that time, effort and
resources are devoted to the conflict and the various ways (frequently coer-
cive) being employed to find “an acceptable solution” – defined, at least in
the early stages, as one that enables aspirations to be achieved and interests

defended. Too often, this process ultimately arrives at a point of deciding

that the only way of attaining one’s goals is “all out war” against the adver-
sary. This can then involve a mobilization of resources, the sacrifice of which
in the course of the struggle often comes to outweigh the value of the goals
that were originally sought. One other aspect of mobilization – as Pruitt
and Kim point out in their own study of conflict dynamics (2004) – is the
frequent change in the balance of decision-making power within embat-
tled parties. This often results in much more influence accruing to those in

charge of the instruments of coercion at the expense of those in charge of
alternative conflict-managing mechanisms. (Ministries of “defence” rather
than foreign ministries make policy, while warriors – or aspiring warriors –
replace diplomats in planning councils.)
An equally conflict-intensifying process involves the – sometimes gradual,
sometimes rapid – “widening” of the conflict in two distinct senses. First,
through a process of enlargement, many conflicts “pull in” other parties to
the conflict. These can become embroiled either through a practice of ally-
seeking on the part of the main adversaries, or by deliberate intervention in
order to support one side or the other, to pursue interests of one’s own on
another’s territory, to maintain a local position of advantage or to indulge in
“proxy wars”. Whatever the objectives or the means by which enlargement
occurs, the end result is to make the conflict more complex (more, often
widely different, interests become involved). Thus change in the direction
of resolution becomes much more difficult.
Something similar can be said about the process of polarization, a conflict-
exacerbating dynamic which involves an extension of the issues on which
adversaries come to confront one another, way beyond the initial goal clash
that led to the formation of the conflict in the first place. There are both
psychological and behavioural aspects of this dynamic, and they are inter-
twined in a complex fashion. However, the upshot is that, in many conflicts,
adversaries come to perceive and believe that they are in opposition to one
another over a wider and wider set of issues, which process causes them to
“line up” against one another on more and more occasions. The crucial fac-
tor in this dynamic becomes that of countering the positions that the Other
takes, rather than any intrinsic merits of the reverse position. Inter-family
feuds display elements of this dynamic at work, as do longstanding political
rivalries and ideological divisions. In international conflicts, this dynamic
can lead to the existence of massive and long-lasting “confrontations” or
“cold wars” such as that involving the United States and the USSR between
1945 and 1990, or between Athens and Sparta in the classical world. Again,
the process adds further ostensible goal incompatibilities to the conflict and
tends to make any move towards a more positive relationship much more
difficult.
Prospects for resolution are hardly helped by the fourth dynamic that
appears in many protracted conflicts, by which the conflict becomes

characterized by a marked decrease in contact between the adversaries as the

conflict proceeds. As with polarization, there are two aspects to the dynamic
of dissociation. The first involves a declining frequency of physical contacts
between the adversaries. In many cases they simply avoid one another and
those meetings that do take place become formal and ritualized, often con-
fined to the exchange of mutual accusations and protests. The opportunities
for exploring the dilemma that they all confront, the range of future sce-
narios likely to transpire and alternatives that might be mutually beneficial

become rare and then disappear altogether, to be replaced by recriminations
and a “dialogue of the deaf”.
This characterization already implies the second aspect of dissociation: a
narrowing and coarsening of communication that takes place as the conflict
protracts. This dynamic includes the practical closing of communication
channels; the psychological avoidance of information that runs counter
to the negative images of the adversary that inevitably develop; and the
reactive devaluation of any information that runs counter to what one
“knows” about one’s adversary, oneself and one’s situation, especially if the
information derives from the enemy (Ross, 1995).
The results of the dynamics of dissociation play a major role in acceler-
ating the last common dynamic of protracted conflicts: entrapment. This
process can lead adversaries into a position where they have sacrificed time,
effort, resources and lives well beyond any value that others might consider
could accrue from actually “winning”, yet they persist in the continuation
of the conflict on the grounds that “There is no alternative.” Entrapment is
a process by which parties in a conflict (and especially their leaders) become
trapped into a course of action that involves continuing or intensifying the
conflict with, apparently, no chance of changing policy or “backing away”.
There are many reasons for this entrapping dynamic, some of which have
to do with “saving face”, not losing intra-party influence or position, or not
admitting to an often very costly mistake in policy-making. Equally impor-
tant are factors such as wishing to recover “sunk costs”, minimizing losses
by going on to “win” – no matter what additional future costs might be
involved – or simply not being able to see any alternative.
The details of how adversaries manage to entrap themselves into a posi-
tion where there seems to be no alternative but to continue are usually
specific to each conflict. However, one useful model (Mitchell, 1991) frames
the process as a series of entrapping stages, starting with the first that lures
adversaries into a conflict relationship because, for both sets of leaders, suc-
cess seems highly beneficial, very likely and relatively costless. At a second
stage, an additional factor – punishing the adversary for its very opposi-
tion – also enters into leaders’ calculations. Once it becomes apparent – as
it usually does – that costs are substantial and mounting while the vision
of an easy, rapid victory recedes, leaders tend to increase their investment
in the pursuit of success, partly in order to justify the resources already

invested through the initial policy choices. Eventually, as costs and sacrifices
continue to mount, sometimes way beyond any likely value to be gained
from eventual success, the justification for continuing becomes centred on
the belief that the final achievement of success is now absolutely neces-
sary in order to offset at least some of the past sacrifices made and costs
endured, especially by rank-and-file followers. Finally, leaders do start to seek
a way out of their entrapment as a recognition of continuing future costs
relative to available resources, and the diminishing prospects for success

begin to sink in, and “the bitter end” looms. The final stage of “relin-
quishing goals” is a painful and difficult one, so escape from entrapment
is never easy. The whole dynamic is thus a complex one, but its major
effect on any party thus entrapped is usually the growing difficulty in
changing from what Zartman (1989) describes as a “winning” to a “nego-
tiating mentality”, and hence it increases the likely perpetuation of the
conflict.
To summarize, then, I have suggested a rough and ready framework for
analysing at least some of the key dynamics that keep a conflict going and
make it thoroughly resistant to any easy or “rational” solution. At a theo-
retical level, the six dynamics each influence the course of a conflict and
help to explain the high degree of intractability as well as the likely pro-
traction of any conflict at any social level – inter-personal, inter-communal
and international. At a practical level, a combination of these six dynamics
seems likely to render efforts to mitigate or resolve many conflicts a difficult
business and to justify applying the label “intractable”, irrespective of how
incommensurable or salient are the goals of the adversaries or the intensity
of the hostility that one side feels for the other:
Conflict perpetuating dynamics

• escalation
• mobilization
• polarization
• enlargement
• dissociation
• entrapment
Theoretically speaking, establishing this list of “key dynamics” that help to

explain conflict perpetuation should also lead to some ideas about benign
dynamics that make mitigation or resolution at least a little simpler. How-
ever, practically speaking we need to consider a further complicating set of
factors that contribute to keeping a conflict going. We need to recall the
question with which we started this section and consider some of the prac-
tical obstacles to change that interfere with the search for a solution again,
in spite of best efforts to end it.

5. Obstacles to mitigating change
In the literature of conflict dynamics there are frequent references to “malign

conflict spirals” (for an early example, see Deutsch, 1973) but very little that
systematically deals with means of arresting or reversing them. Clearly there
are dynamics and other phenomena that encourage conflict perpetuation
and act as obstacles to change. There is a literature that suggests what these
obstacles might be, but in a highly piecemeal fashion, ranging from sug-

gestions that the greater the costs incurred in pursuing a goal, the more
highly people value that goal – what Kenneth Boulding calls “the sacrifice
principle” – to Peter Marris’ generalization that almost everyone is psycho-
logically resistant to change (Marris, 1974) or Louise Diamond’s interesting
but unexplored concept of a “conflict habituated” society (Diamond, 1997).
5.1. Four basic obstacles

One fruitful way of laying out a systematic framework for dealing with this
general issue of obstacles to change in protracted conflicts might be to adopt
the standpoint of the leaders of adversary parties in such a conflict and
to ask:
Confronting the option of continuing [or even escalating] the conflict,

or changing to a more conciliatory stance that seeks a nonviolent resolu-
tion, but involves the abandonment of the previous strategy, what factors
frequently militate against such a change?
Adapting an approach first suggested by organization theorists Barry Staw

and Jerry Ross (1987), four categories of obstacles to change can be suggested:
• policy determinants
• psychological determinants
• social determinants
• political determinants
The first cluster of factors militating against change involve the nature of
the conflict itself, and focus mainly on the centrality of the issues involved
and the value ascribed to gaining the goals in contention. In Staw and Ross’s
terms, we are talking about a project that involves a large pay-off and a per-
ceived “infeasability of alternatives”, especially in the many cases in which
conflicts become perceived as involving existential issues (for example, the
physical survival of the community, or the creation of a distinct national
political system via separation); or core identity issues (such as the freedom
to practice a religion unencumbered, or the recognition of the existence of “a
people”, with their own culture and language). If intractable conflicts were
not about such salient issues, then they would hardly protract in the first
place. Hence the idea of high “issue salience” becomes central.

Furthermore, intractable conflicts also tend to involve situations which

have a high “long-term investment” characteristic, which helps to keep
them going. Rewards only come at the very end of the struggle through
“victory”. Hence the investment nature of the conflict itself becomes a rea-
son for not changing until ultimate success. To employ an analogy, one does
not gain the benefits from building a bridge until the structure is finally
completed, and in some respects engaging in conflict is somewhat like build-
ing a bridge. One only achieves the eventual benefits from engaging at the

very end when your side has “won” – that is, gained whatever it was that
was being fought over. As with building a bridge, the costs arrive first and
the main benefits only arrive when the structure is finally completed – a
powerful reason for continuing to the very end. Who needs half a bridge?
Likewise, investment in struggle to a halfway point seems to be a sacrifice for
absolutely nothing, especially when no alternatives to struggle seem feasible.
If factors to do with the nature of conflict itself often militate against
changing course, a number of common psychological factors reinforce a ten-
dency not to change. These include a leadership group’s responsibility for
the “investment” in the struggle – the costs, the sacrifices, the lost resources,
opportunities and lives – that cannot be lightly abandoned without feel-
ings of responsibility and guilt for having originally advocated the course
of action leading to such sacrifices in the first place.9 They also include the
claims that leaders have made about achieving success in the conflict, and
the number of occasions each leader has publicly endorsed the policy and
called for “necessary sacrifices” in order to achieve what are characterized
as “shared, salient and – sometimes – sacred” goals. Another psychological
factor is often the degree to which such individual leaders – and their follow-
ers – have had drummed into them positive models of “perseverance” and of
persistence, leading to successful “turnarounds” and ultimately to success.
Many of these ideas are usually subsumed under the title of “mispercep-
tion and miscalculation”, a blanket term which actually covers a variety of
psychological and sociopsychological factors, These include a widespread
tendency of people to link costs and sacrifices both with the value of the
goals for which sacrifices have been made and the likelihood of achieving
them, together with a number of factors to do with self-justification, avoid-
ing acknowledgement of responsibility, denial of the (possible increasing)
evidence for stalemate or failure, and the different ways in which prospect
theory tells us that people evaluate gains, losses and the resultant willing-
ness to take further risks (Kahneman & Tversky, 1979). All of these seem to
be factors making for perpetuation rather than change.
Again, another set of social factors can also act as obstacles to chang-
ing course once a group, community or nation is thoroughly embroiled
in a conflict. Some of these link to and reinforce the effects of psycholog-
ical influences. Many are subsumed under the blanket label of “face saving”
and are particularly powerful when a leader or group of leaders become so
thoroughly identified with a course of action that abandonment becomes

virtually unthinkable. Thus, further costly investments in, and commitment

to, a strategy become a symbol of the original correctness of that policy as
well as a signal to followers and others of determination to “see it through”
rather than admit error and responsibility by a change of course. This ten-
dency to carry on can be, and often is, reinforced by social norms that
support consistency rather than flexibility, steadfastness rather than learning
from experience, and willingness to sacrifice for the cause rather than accept-
ing that the time has come to cut one’s losses. In many societies, honour is

paid to “heroes” – who then become models – who have held fast in the face
of adversity and sacrificed for the cause, rather than compromised.10 In such
cultures, withdrawal is generally viewed negatively as a sign of weakness,
while unwillingness (or inability) to change course is a sign of strength.
Finally, there are a number of what might best be termed “political” factors
arising from the internal structure of each adversary that can and frequently
do present obstacles to changing course in the midst of a conflict. At the very
least, the factor of internal rivalry and challenges to the existing leadership
need to be taken into account. As Staw and Ross emphasize, “job insecu-
rity” is frequently a factor militating against appearing to admit to mistakes
by changing a policy that has long been espoused. However, even relatively
secure leaders need to be careful of alienating supporters, giving opportu-
nities to rivals and generally diminishing their internal support. Leaders of
parties involved in protracted and violent conflicts have not infrequently
“lost their jobs” through assassinations, coups and mass protests, as well as
through intra-governmental and electoral defections. Hence, anticipation of
such possibilities can act as a major deterrent to considerations of major pol-
icy change. As Ikle reminds us again (1971), nothing arouses contention and
furious opposition so much as a decision to end a war, and the same appears
true of many other protracted conflicts in which major sacrifices have been
made in the light of seductive promises of future success.
Furthermore, nowhere are the political obstacles likely to be more immov-
able than in cases where the very purpose of the entity involved has been
the prosecution of, and success in, the struggle. In such cases, the possible
ending of the conflict may involve the disappearance of an organization
or a movement – or at least a difficult transformation into something quite
different, needing different skills and leadership qualities and hence a down-
grading of the influence of existing leaders. The more the survival and even
existence of the organization is tied to success in the conflict, the greater will
be the unwillingness to consider a major change in strategy.
5.2. Entrapment as a barrier to change

Apart from the Staw–Ross model, many of the above obstacles have been
discussed at one time or another in the literature on entrapment, which
also addresses psychological aspects of this dynamic (sacrifices changing the
original goals in conflict to that of making the enemy pay, and the extent

of existing sacrifices diminishing the evaluation of anticipated sacrifices);

economic aspects (the wish and need to reclaim or justify “sunk costs”);
and political aspects (a threatening intra-party opposition ready to point
out and exploit shortcoming in leaders’ repeated public commitments to
carry on to “the bitter end”). The overall impression from historical cases
and from existing theories is one of the existence of immense obstacles
to changing strategies away from coercion and violence towards something
more conciliatory.

However, it is undoubtedly also the case that such changes do take place,
and obstacles are overcome or removed. Just as entrapment processes cross
key intensifying thresholds – as when the need to reclaim past “investments”
becomes a stronger motivation than that of achieving original goals – so
parties and their leaders come to mitigating thresholds, and other factors
or evaluations become psychologically dominant. These can involve a time
when past costs come to be reframed as “unacceptable losses” rather than
“investments”, or when possible future costs become more certain and hence
insupportable. Conflict behaviours do change, interaction patterns alter, and
even the most protracted and intractable conflicts can be moved towards a
resolution.
To anticipate later arguments, the discussion above hints at strategies
that might be adopted to help leaders who are caught in a protracted
and intractable conflict change course to abandon coercion and search
for a durable and mutually satisfactory solution by non-violent means.
In Chapter 9 I will return to talking about possible strategies to terminate
intractable conflicts by changing leaders, minds, behaviours or structures.
6. Conclusion
The focus of this chapter has actually turned out to be on the relation-
ship between what might be termed “malign” change and the formation
and then perpetuation of intractable conflicts. A final argument stressed the
dynamics that keep a conflict going rather than those that helped to bring
it into being, although the two processes are clearly linked so strongly to
one another that it is very hard to separate them. The main point is that,
having emerged from a set of circumstances in which different groups, com-
munities or nations find that they possess mutually incompatible goals, a
number of common dynamics help to perpetuate and in many cases to
exacerbate that conflict. The conflict is likely to pass through a number of
stages, none of which are conducive to altering the adversaries’ strategies in
a less coercive or violent direction. Intractable conflicts have a tendency to
escalate and grow more violent, to enlarge by involving others, to polarize
relations between the adversaries, to involve the rival parties in more and
more contentious confrontations, and to entrap leaders and followers in a
course of action from which there seems to be no easy escape. Moreover,

while theoretically it seems as though there should be a way of escaping

the influence of such dynamics, often the obstacles to achieving a reversal
away from further coercion, damage, sacrifice and loss seem formidable and
daunting – if not insurmountable.
Arriving at this point, therefore, raises the question of whether anything
can be done to prevent emerging conflicts from becoming intractable in the
first place and, if that cannot be achieved, what can be done to make them
less harmful by mitigating their destructive effects or – more optimistically –

by terminating them, however intractable they seem to be when at their
height. In other words, what might be done (a) to stop conflicts protract-
ing and becoming intractable, or (b) to reduce the amount of damage they
threaten to produce through their prosecution to a bitter end or, in the last
resort, (c) to bring them to an end without actually making them worse.
Much of the remainder of this work, therefore, has to try to deal with topics
such as conflict prevention, conflict mitigation and conflict termination.

5
Prevention

One relatively recent development in thinking about processes for “coping”
with conflicts has been a renewed interest in the idea of conflict prevention,
linked at the international level to the practice of preventive diplomacy.1
Both of these conceptions arise from the basic, but not particularly startling,
idea that it would be easier – and better – for societies not to have to undergo
the worst aspects of violent and protracted conflicts if remedies could be
found for them early on, well before dynamic processes have escalated into
violent behaviour, attitudes and positions have hardened, feelings of hos-
tility have become entrenched and mistrust has deepened. Once goals have
changed to include either deriving compensation for losses already sustained
or punishing the adversary for past “crimes” and aggressions, then a conflict
has truly become intractable.
Initially, thinking about ways of preventing goal incompatibilities result-
ing in coercive and then violent behaviour tended to be undertaken under
the label of “conflict avoidance”, but that rapidly came to have connota-
tions of conflicts being ignored, papered over or “swept under the carpet”.
In the 1980s the Australian scholar John Burton wrote on the subject of
“proactive prevention”, using the label “provention” and causing numerous
problems for spell-check programs on personal computers (Burton, 1990).
The study of how to “prevent” conflicts really took off after the need for
preventive diplomacy had been emphasized at the international level by the
then-UN Secretary General, Boutros Boutros Ghali,2 and following the publi-
cation of Michael Lund’s pioneering study of the nature and practicalities of
conflict prevention (Lund, 1996). The latter led to a major intellectual debate
between Lund and Stephen Stedman (1995), the latter arguing, among other
things, that “preventive diplomacy” could simply lead to early rather than
later involvement in disaster.
Whatever the merits of the rival arguments about the effectiveness or
practicality of conflict prevention, Stedman’s argument that its study and
attempted practice had become a “bandwagon” was clearly accurate. The
volume of literature on the subject was already becoming so overwhelming
81

by the end of that decade that it became difficult to disentangle what was
meant by the term. Perhaps more importantly, it was not at all clear what
were the theoretical and empirical justifications for holding that it was an
effective and relatively low-cost way of coping with – or, at least, “head-
ing off” – violent and protracted conflicts. Did early prevention – or any
prevention – always have major advantages over permitting conflicts to play
themselves out, reach the stage of mutually damaging violence and then try
to find some solution for the problem?

At this later point in time, over a decade after Lund’s initial volume was
published, it has become difficult to sort out what is not conflict preven-
tion, the term having been applied to a vast range of activities aimed at
coping with conflicts in some way, shape or form. Struggling with this
problem, writers such as Mohammed Omar Maundi (2003) quoted Lund’s
own definition of conflict prevention as “any structural or intercessory
means to keep . . . tensions and disputes from escalating into significant vio-
lence . . . to strengthen the capabilities of potential parties to violent conflicts
for resolving such disputes peacefully, and to . . . reduce the underlying prob-
lems that produce those issues and disputes”. He added in John Cockell’s
implication (2003) that prevention “should be applicable in various con-
figurations to all phases of conflict escalation from low-intensity societal
tensions through to post conflict peace-building” (2003 p.328). Elsewhere,
included in techniques of conflict “prevention” have been such processes as
mediation, arbitration, preventive deployment of troops, fact-finding, nego-
tiation, quiet diplomacy, humanitarian intervention, democracy-building,
post-conflict elections, long-term economic development, police reform,
restorative justice and truth and reconciliation processes – an increasing
list, indicating that, within a decade, the idea of conflict prevention had
become a total conceptual mess. In fact, it is certainly not the case, as David
Carment and Albrecht Schnabel argued at one point (2003 p.1), that we face
a “concept in search of a policy”. Rather, “conflict prevention” has come to
represent a range of diverse policies, lumped together under a convenient
label. Moreover, the literature on conflict prevention has become riddled
with ambiguities, inconsistencies and contradictions. Wenger and Mockli
actually describe it as “a comprehensive umbrella concept” that is “indepen-
dent of a fixed chronology and can be applied at any stage throughout the
(conflict) cycle”(2003 p.33) – which hardly seems helpful.
Given the confusion surrounding the term, the complexity of related argu-
ments about effectiveness, and the vastness of the literature about conflict
prevention, it is necessary to return to some first principles and to ask a few
basic questions about the concept and its underlying theory, before turning
to the empirical record about successes, problems and failures. There seem
to be three questions that might help to tease out some fundamentals about
conflict prevention:

Prevention 83
• What, exactly, are you trying to prevent?

• How do you intend to go about preventing it?
• What success have you had in using this approach?3
1. What are we trying to prevent?
I want to argue at this point that the term “conflict prevention” has become,
at least to some degree, a misleading one, especially if one looks at the actual

historical cases where people argue that “conflict prevention” strategies have
been employed. In post-modernist terms (my apologies), the concept needs
to be thoroughly “deconstructed” or at least made more precise, so that we
can answer the query about what is being prevented.
That conflict researchers and practitioners implicitly acknowledge this
need is evidenced by the fact that many frequently find it necessary to
qualify the term by including some adjective as a descriptor which limits
the otherwise indefinite scope of the concept. Thus the Carnegie Endow-
ment Commission’s large-scale study of ways of dealing with intractable
conflicts in their early stages was entitled “Preventing Deadly Conflicts”
(Carnegie Commission, 1997), which implies that the thing to be prevented
was the “deadliness” rather than the existence of the conflict. Michael Lund’s
pioneering work itself is entitled “Preventing Violent Conflict”. It is this
theme of preventing violence that runs like a thread through much of the
literature on conflict prevention and which may form a sound basis for
operationalizing the concept.
1.1. Violence prevention: Four approaches

In at least one basic sense, then, when people advocate conflict prevention
or preventive diplomacy, they are actually advocating measures to stop a
conflict crossing a behavioural threshold into violence – or, at least, into
widespread, organized and continuing violence. The principle strategy seems
to have been to erect some kind of barrier that will make it more difficult
for direct violence to be employed, or to set in place some process whereby
violence between adversaries will be diffused, diverted or deterred.4
Given the case that a great deal of recent thinking and action about pre-
vention has been aimed at preventing conflicts from becoming violent, it
might be more accurate to stop talking about conflict prevention and instead
to talk about violence prevention and especially about those aspects of con-
flict dynamics that involve dampening down the likelihood that adversaries
will resort – or resort once again – to arms. It is in this, admittedly narrow,
sense of the term that some writers have criticized both the idea and the
practice of conflict prevention as resembling a fire brigade that (at best) has
a list of places subject to fire hazards but waits until just after the building
catches fire and then roars up to douse the flames – hopefully before the

building is wholly destroyed. Where in this scenario, one might ask, is the
fire prevention officer?
To be fair, even brief scrutiny of recent conflict-prevention literature
shows that there is much more to the idea than a simple fire brigade
model. For example, even if we were to start with the most basic conflict-
prevention idea – that the main objective is to prevent the employment or
re-employment of violence and its attendant destruction – at least four vari-
ants of preventive strategies have been employed in different conflicts over

the last two decades:
• escalation prevention – actions to prevent conflict behaviour from becom-

ing more intense;
• enlargement prevention – actions to make sure that the conflict and its
related violence do not spread to include other areas or other parties;5
• re-ignition or relapse prevention – relevant when some kind of a cessation of
ongoing combat has been arranged, talks may be taking place, and efforts
need to be made to prevent the violence from starting up yet again;6
• repetition prevention – long-term strategies that seek to ensure that almost
exactly the same conflict (involving roughly the same issues and par-
ties, or at least their direct descendents) does not break out into renewed
violence at some time in the future.
Although differing somewhat in their strategies and the circumstances in

which they are applied, all of these strategies have one central thing in com-
mon: they are all aimed at affecting the behaviour of parties involved in a
conflict and confining the behaviours of those parties within certain lim-
its that are deemed “acceptable” according to some outside standards, but
essentially (well) short of violence.
1.2. Preventing things from getting worse

At this point, however, it becomes necessary to deal with the first of the
major conceptual ambiguities surrounding the everyday use of the term
“conflict prevention”, and to admit that even the fourfold interpretation
of its meaning outlined above is essentially a very narrow one. In con-
trast, many people have come to use the term in the broad sense of taking
action to restore calm and security, and the abandonment of violence once
it has already started. On many occasions, practical people – aid work-
ers, personnel in development or humanitarian organizations, members of
peacekeeping forces, intermediaries of all types – concerned with “doing
something” about an ongoing, violent conflict have talked about “conflict-
prevention measures” when they seek to affect the manner in which an
already violent conflict is waged. Activities that attempt to limit the nature of
weapons used, the range of “legitimate” targets of violence, the destructive-
ness of combat, the use of child soldiers and the ill-treatment of internally

Prevention 85
displaced persons (IDPs) have often all been described as a form of conflict
“prevention”.
Indeed, there is a convincing case for counting such activity as intensifi-
cation prevention, which becomes relevant once widespread violence is, in
fact, taking place and efforts have to be made to bring about its limitation
(protection of civilian non-combatants, establishment of safe refugee camps,
monitoring of humanitarian law practices) or, better still, its abandonment
(establishing local ceasefires, or general truces).

Moreover, this broad use of the term “conflict prevention” to include
efforts to ensure that conflicts do not become “worse” can also be seen as
a matter of establishing some thresholds or limits, this time on the man-
ner in which an already violent conflict can be waged. Certain people are
illegitimate targets of violence, particular behaviours (the use of chemical
weapons) are universally unacceptable, specific actions – even if undertaken
at the height of mutual violence – are criminal. In Raimo Vayrynen’s words,
what we might call “intensification prevention” involves action based on
the principle that “there are limits and thresholds of actions that cannot
be tolerated for political, legal or ethical reasons” (2000 p.10). Some have
regarded this form of conflict prevention as truly involving the prevention
of total barbarism.
More recently, however, both practitioners and theorists have begun to
use the term “conflict mitigation” or “amelioration” to describe this form
of reaction to violent conflicts which basically involves an effort to limit
behaviour even in a violent conflict to that deemed acceptable according to
some general standards of behaviour. It is not the case, even in the most
intractable, protracted and salient conflict, that “anything goes”. Conflict
mitigation seeks to ensure that certain political, military, legal or ethical
thresholds are not crossed by adversaries, even though the prevention of
violence has failed, deadly conflict is the order of the day, widespread armed
combat is taking place and the situation calls for some activity to moderate
the worst effects of that combat. At its simplest, a strategy of conflict miti-
gation can take the form of Red Cross supervision of refugee camps. At the
other extreme it can involve military efforts to prevent “ethnic cleansing” or
genocide. The distinction between mitigation and prevention is thus some-
what vague, but it seems to me a useful one, and so I discuss this latter range
of methods for ameliorating the worst effects of conflict in greater detail in
Chapter 6.
1.3. “Light” versus “deep” prevention

Conceptually distinguishing between mitigating actions to stop a violent
conflict becoming worse and preventive actions to stop the conflict actually
becoming violent in the first place can only really clear up one of the concep-
tual ambiguities plaguing the term as it is commonly being used. Prevention
of escalation, enlargement and re-ignition are by no means the whole of

conflict prevention as currently understood, and taking intellectual refuge

in such a narrow approach to defining the nature of conflict prevention flies
in the face of much thinking – and doing – over recent decades.
Hence a second ambiguity. Increasingly, since the mid-1990s, the term has
come to be used to include a very different approach to the whole business of
“preventing” conflicts, one that has the ambition of heading off conflicts by
tackling the sources that are held to give rise to them in the first place. Hugh
Miall and others have begun the practice of referring to “deep” or struc-

tural conflict prevention, as opposed to the “light” or operational prevention
represented by efforts to confine conflict behaviour within non-violent lim-
its (Miall, 2000; Ramsbotham et al., 2005). Others have used expressions
such as “long-term” versus “short-term” conflict prevention, “strategical”
versus “tactical” prevention, or “structural” compared with “operational”
prevention.7
Moreover, it has become fairly common to argue that short-term oper-
ational conflict prevention has to be regarded, at best, as a palliative in
contrast with approaches that seek to remove the reasons for the violence as
opposed merely to heading it off. Not surprisingly, much recent literature on
conflict prevention has become closely associated with writings about secu-
rity, development, democracy, political reform, human rights and, finally,
“peacebuilding”.
But what are the central elements of this “deep”, long-term, structural
conflict prevention, aside from the ambitious objective of removing the
underlying reasons for conflicts arising in the first place? If one takes the
idea of activities preventing conflicts from arising too literally, the implica-
tion has to be that these are efforts to stop goal incompatibilities coming into
being – which seems a tall order. Some years ago I optimistically suggested
that a working definition of conflict “avoidance” (as it was then known)
could be:
Planned, purposeful and pre-emptive action to avoid the development of

incompatible or mutually exclusive goals, with their potential for later
animosity, coercion and violence.
Leaving aside, for the moment, the question of whether this was a realistic
and practical strategy, such a formulation clearly covered only some of the
practices that are discussed currently under the heading of “long-term” pre-
vention. Theoretically it seems unarguable that if many conflict situations
arise because of some scarcity, then one way of heading off the development
of goal incompatibilities is the provision of more of the scarce good – hence
the argument that successful economic development can be a basic means
of preventing conflict formation. Similarly, if goal incompatibilities arise
over the distribution of scarce resources, then an increase in the availabil-
ity of these resources may help to remove such incompatibilities, provided

Prevention 87
that the new supplies of the scarce good are used to reduce the imbalance.
In this framework, strategies of long-term conflict prevention clearly need to
involve the provision of development assistance, skills training, infrastruc-
ture improvement and wealth creation aimed particularly at groups that are
likely to possess or develop salient goals that clash with those of others in a
society. However, these resources need to be directed in such a way as not to
(a) create other conflicts with those not receiving similar help and (b) dam-
age or offend existing value systems that are held by recipients. Again, this

seems a tall order, but perhaps not completely impossible.
One implication of this argument is that, at the very least, our tentative
definition of conflict prevention needs amending to take into account that
prevention, at least in its long-term form, is aimed not simply – and, some
would say, unrealistically – at preventing the development of incompati-
ble goals, but also at preventing the pursuit of those goals by “undesirable”
means. This would at least link it more closely with short-term, tactical con-
flict prevention and make it more realistic. Hence conflict prevention could
now be viewed as
Planned, purposeful and pre-emptive action to avoid the development

of incompatible or mutually exclusive goals with their potential for later
animosity, coercion and violence and to avoid the pursuit of those goals
through destructive and violent means.
Unfortunately, once one gets beyond the idea that “proper” long-term
conflict prevention must be confined to preventing incompatible goals aris-
ing and incorporates the idea that the concept also includes preventing
violent ways of pursuing those goals, a whole Pandora’s Box of possibili-
ties for long-term conflict prevention is opened up and conflict-prevention
strategies take off in all directions.
I do not want to minimize the importance of such strategies as creating
super-ordinate goals (Sherif, 1966) or the establishment of free and fair elec-
toral systems, but I do want to raise the question of whether they should
really be termed methods for long-term, structural conflict prevention and
whether it would be better to consider them examples of other ways of
coping with an existing conflict, rather than preventing something. For
example, the idea of helping to develop super-ordinate goals seems to me
to say little about preventing conflicts from arising and being pursued, but
something very interesting and useful about increasing the likely costs of
that pursuit. Similarly, setting up cross-cutting linkages via organizations
that involve members from both sides of a major social divide who do
share some common interests or a common purpose is not a strategy for
preventing conflicts from arising and being pursued. Rather, it is one for
dampening down the intensity with which such conflicts might be pursued
for fear of disrupting the interests of the groups that cut across salient major

cleavage underlying the conflicting goals. The point was clearly made by
Georg Simmel, the originator of the theory.
Many other “preventive” strategies also seem to have less to do with
long-term conflict prevention and more to do with helping groups and
communities to deal with conflict in a non-violent manner once conflicts,
disputes and confrontations have arisen. Conflict resolution training, for
example, might help people to deal peacefully with conflicts once they arise.
Electoral systems are ritualized ways of dealing with conflicts over power and

political office. Police and judicial systems are institutional ways of deterring
crime and conflict. My own view is that these and many other long-term
prevention strategies are best viewed not as prevention measures per se but
as ways of providing options and costing alternatives, once a conflict has
formed, emerged and is being pursued. In other words, they can, once again,
be better analysed as forms of conflict institutionalization, which is discussed
in more detail in Chapter 8.
But perhaps this argument can be made more clearly by examining
conflict-prevention strategies in two other ways. The first of these involves
returning to the idea of a conflict as a process that proceeds through a num-
ber of identifiable stages and asking the question: At what point in a conflict
process can prevention – in this case of the conflict moving to some new
stage – best take place? I tackle this next and subsequently use Galtung’s
triangular model of conflict structure to ask what it is about a particular
dimension of conflict that we are trying to prevent.
2. When: At what point are we trying to prevent something?
The discussion above started from the point that one version of conflict pre-
vention involves a strategy of preventing incompatible goals arising in the
first place – that is, prevention at the initial stage of basic conflict forma-
tion. Later, the argument was modified to, more realistically, talking about
preventing the pursuit of mutually incompatible goals through “undesir-
able”, violent means, and about some of the methods by which this might
be avoided. However, suppose that conflicts do emerge through a number
of identifiable stages that offer opportunities for preventive measures to
stop the conflict moving to the next stage. Within such a framework, what
might these stages be and what might be measures to prevent a conflict from
moving from Stage A to Stage B and thence to Stage C?
In Chapter 2 I suggested that the emergence of a conflict, in fact, went
through a number of stages which started with the existence and recognition
of a goal incompatibility, at which point the conflict could be said to emerge
from a latent to an overt stage. It could then pass (often very rapidly) into
a stage where people either mobilized around the contested issues and then
organized to pursued their goals or had these goals taken up by an existing
organization (or, at least, the leaders of such an organization who saw an

Prevention 89
opportunity to capitalize on resulting grievances)which then put time, effort

and resources into achieving the goals, or, alternatively, heaved a sigh of
regret and decided not to pursue these particular goals after all, because the
costs of so doing, perhaps in terms of ruptured relationships, would be too
heavy.
Extending this idea of what might be termed the “life cycle” of a con-
flict, the next stage seemed to involve some decisions about the appropriate
means of pursuit. I suggest that these fall, very broadly, into three categories

of conflict behaviour – coercion, non-violent tactics or institutionalized
processes – some combination of which might be used either simultane-
ously or sequentially. With the frequent failure of these to achieve desired
goals, the next stage usually involves crossing a threshold into violence.
Given that this is usually met by counterviolence – if this has not already
been employed – the process can then escalate into the final stage of “reac-
tive violence” in which the conflict continues less because of the original
goal incompatibility and more because of the death, destruction and hurt
experienced in the previous time period.
This whole process can be described graphically though the model intro-
duced in Chapter 2 (Figure 5.1).
The next question asks what forms of conflict prevention are appropri-
ate and likely to be successful at the various conflict stages, given that such
strategies must either aim at (a) preventing a particular conflict from mov-
ing out of one stage into another or (b) ensuring when they do continue
through to some next stage(s) that they pursue – via the least destructive
means possible – their increasingly salient goals. I have already discussed
Prevention Mitigation
Mobilization Non-violence//
Latent Overt Resignation// Coercion Violence Reactive

conflict conflict violence
Institutionalization//
Adoption
Figure 5.1 Conflict formation model

some of the difficulties of preventing the initial formation of goal incompat-

ibilities, so that it seems most likely that, empirically, conflict-prevention
strategies will mostly come into play when the conflict becomes overt
and has moved on to the mobilization or adoption stages. While it seems
unlikely that anyone can successfully prevent issues in conflict either from
being adopted by an existing, multifunctional organization (for example,
a political party) or from being taken up by a newly created body set up
specifically to achieve those goals (such as a mass protest movement, a

pressure group, a clandestine guerrilla organization, or all three), histor-
ically it seems often to have been the case that dominant parties, faced
with a challenge to their power, possessions and privileges, seek to pre-
vent their adversary from organizing in any way, shape or form to achieve
their goals. For example, the early history of the trade union movement
in many countries shows how owners, employers and governments sought,
by a variety of methods often involving violence, to prevent those catego-
rized as “the labour force” from organizing on their own behalf. Similarly,
the white minority government in Rhodesia spent much time and effort
in the late 1950s and early 1960s banning, imprisoning and otherwise
suppressing African nationalists in order to stop them creating their own
political organizations and parties. The end result in the latter case – and in
many other cases – was that those denied the option of easy mobilization
into organizations that might pursue their goals non-violently or through
institutional channels gradually took up arms as the ultimate option and
moved into the stages of coercion and violence, inevitably to be met with
heightened counterviolence. The record of conflicts between unions and
management, owners and labourers is more mixed. Some cases involved
non-violence – strikes, lock-outs, boycotts and sit-ins. Others became mini-
wars between armed strikers, armed strike-breakers and armed government
agents.
A large number of historical examples of the development of conflicts
seems to suggest that a strategy of “conflict prevention” at the mobilization
or adoption stage should avoid strenuous efforts to prevent those holding
incompatible goals from mobilizing and organizing. Such efforts seem most
likely to prove highly counterproductive, even in the short term. Rather,
“preventive” actions should aim at discouraging potential adversaries from
creating – or being adopted by – organizations that are likely to take the
path of violence too easily. At this point, conflict prevention might well aim
at encouraging the likelihood that the issues would be taken up by organi-
zations that recognize each others’ right to continued existence, accept their
right to represent and seem committed to non-violent or institutionalized
means of achieving goals. To a large degree, the recent insistence on includ-
ing electoral reforms and elections as a part of many peace processes can be
viewed as an example of the application of what might be termed the prin-
ciple of “preventing by providing better options”. Unfortunately, this idea is

Prevention 91
usually implemented at the end of a period of confrontation, violence and

death, which makes success – even success in preventing re-ignition – rather
problematical.8
The idea of providing options also seems to be an important prevention
strategy once parties have mobilized and clearly become “adversaries” seek-
ing to achieve (ostensibly) incompatible goals. At this point the practice of
prevention becomes much closer to prevention tactics, which are defined as
“operational” or “short term”, and were much touted and actually practised

in the 1990s and early 2000s. The underlying idea consists of making it less
likely that violent means of pursuing goals will be taken up as an imme-
diate strategy for goal achievement. Many recent cases seem to show that
preventive work can be carried out well before a crisis threatens, adversaries
are on the brink of massive violence and something akin to a “war in sight”
situation exists.9
Conflicts do not usually move immediately from an emergent stage to a
pre-violence crisis, so that in most cases of protracted conflict there surely
are pre-crisis periods that permit activities that are aimed less at prevent-
ing goal incompatibilities from arising (it is usually much too late for that
anyway) and more at helping to construct acceptable, non-violent and pos-
sibly non-adversarial avenues for resolving existing differences. Apart, then,
from long-term policies to remove the basic reasons for goal incompatibil-
ities arising in the first place and short-term actions to head off imminent
violence, an overall prevention strategy must surely include efforts that com-
bine actions to make the adoption of violence and counterviolence by the
adversaries less desirable (more costly, more risky and less certain of success)
and alternative but less disruptive options more desirable (less costly, less
risky and more likely to achieve at least a large number of salient goals). This
surely argues for medium-term prevention efforts as a third, distinct and rec-
ognizable type of conflict-prevention, with its own objectives, methods and
advantages.
In fact, a study by the International Peace Academy (IPAC), while warning
about the assumption that real-world conflicts and related preventive activi-
ties fall neatly into identifiable stages, talks extensively about there being, in
many conflicts, a second stage between the emergence of the conflict from
being “potential” but well before some trigger pushes adversaries’ behaviour
into mutual, massive violence (Sriram & Wermester, 2003). This IPAC model
is only intended to be heuristic and to help thinking clearly and systemat-
ically about preventive remedies. It actually posits five stages, consisting of
potential conflict, gestation of conflict, a trigger event that mobilizes people
for violence, conflict escalation and a post-conflict stage. Leaving aside the
last two stages, which I would argue call for strategies that are more usually
discussed as conflict resolution – or, nowadays, as conflict transformation –
the first stage seems to be clearly associated with the task of “long-term,
structural prevention” and the third with short-term, operational activities.

The concept of a gestation stage seems a very useful amendment to the usual
simple choice of prevention either by affecting underlying conditions or by
coping with immediate crisis behaviours (ibid pp.21–29).
Sriram and Wermester suggest a comprehensive list of characteristics –
much beyond mobilization or adoption around salient goals – for their ges-
tation stage of a protracted conflict, as well as a more detailed list of possible
medium-term preventive actions. Gestation involves signs of increased ten-
sion and of growing rifts between groups or communities, and between

communities and political authorities, who often represent one, dominant
community. The existence of the six kinds of conflict-exacerbation dynam-
ics I discussed earlier becomes more obvious; rhetoric becomes more hostile,
polarization occurs, communication breaks down, intransigence increases,
and support for “extremist” organizations and leaders grows. Later in the
gestation stage, sporadic and low-intensity violence or repression can occur.
Things are generally perceived as “going to hell in a handcart”.
In the real world of protracted and intractable conflict, of course, it is
unlikely that there will be a clear-cut threshold at which a potential conflict
can be seen to have entered a gestation phase. Donald Rothschild (2003
pp.47–49) suggests some indicators that can show that a potential con-
flict is moving from a “dormant” to a “confrontational” situation. Some
of these are broadly conceived, such as “when groups coalesce around cer-
tain grievances and these grievances are voiced by leaders in an organised
manner”; when “groups and issues have become more clearly defined and
the various parties make concerted demands for political and economic
resources”; or when “polarisation increases and a hardening of attitudes
became evident” (ibid p.47–48). Others are more definite, including spo-
radic incidents of violence; population movements or flight, especially by
the vulnerable; importation and stockpiling of weapons; increasing criticism
or mutual denigration; and the severing of cross-party ties and relationships.
Preventive measures in such conditions differ from those which seem
appropriate for longer-term structural conflict prevention, while short-term
operational prevention measures appear somewhat premature. Early on,
efforts to channel conflicts into institutional processes for managing ten-
sions or dealing with goal incompatibilities – courts of enquiry, proposals
for legislative or electoral reforms, or changed access to education, eco-
nomic resources and opportunities or political office – can be encouraged
or enabled through the provision of ideas, venues and resources. Later,
when tensions have risen, more informal and non-adversarial processes
can be encouraged – dialogues, informal meetings of “elder statesmen” or
wise men (and women), legislative or analytical conferences, commissions
of enquiry, bridge-building within civil society to achieve supra-ordinate
goals, or assisting non-partisan media to present a balanced picture of
events and relationships. Later still, and when coercion and countercoercion
become features of the conflict, preventive measures can involve assistance

Prevention 93
in providing mutual security, the establishment of rumour and crisis control

mechanisms, or preventive arms control and disarmament.
The discussion undertaken above indicates that it might be helpful to con-
tinue to argue that the essential characteristic of conflict prevention – as
opposed to conflict mitigation – is that it seeks to head off the outbreak of
intense and organized violence in a particular society (a) by trying to remove
the basic causes of the initial goal incompatibility, (b) by preventing the
development (gestation or incubation) of existing incompatibilities in the

direction of massive violence and (c) by acting to separate or provide mutual
security for parties when they are on the brink or in the midst of massive
violence; or to insulate a society or country from the spilling over of exist-
ing violence from another, nearby society. Even with this narrowed view of
conflict prevention, however, there remains yet another common ambigu-
ity with regard to the current, common use of the term. This is when it is
applied to situations where widespread and intensive violence has already
occurred, sometimes over a long period of time; when a truce and some-
times a “settlement” has been achieved, often through a fragile and tenuous
agreement. In such cases it is a relapse into widespread violence that is to be
prevented, rather than the initial outbreak of death and destruction.
3. Preventing re-ignition and repetition
In circumstances in which the original conflict-prevention strategies have

failed to head off the use of mutual violence – frequently intense and pro-
tracted violence – but it has proved possible to stop that violence, at least
temporarily, then a somewhat different task confronts “preventers”. Ensur-
ing that the violence does not start up again is often a more difficult task
than stopping violence in the first place. For one thing the adversaries are
often organized and poised for further violence. They have suffered damage,
loss and death, often on a large scale, which frequently makes the desire
to “even the score” salient and powerful. Mistrust, hostility and frustration
abound, while many of the escalatory and entrapment dynamics described
in Chapter 4 come into play.
On the other hand, exhaustion and lack of success – or reduced antici-
pation of final victory (the famous “hurting stalemate”) – may offset such
negative factors and make the undermining of any ceasefire or period for
negotiation less attractive, at least to intra-party factions that genuinely
seek a way out of the conflict and do not make up the ranks of “spoil-
ers”. Nonetheless, truces, ceasefires and peace agreements do break down
and violence resumes, as exemplified by the 13 ceasefires attempted between
Slovenian, Croatian and Serb/Yugoslav forces in the former Yugoslavia
between June 1991 and April 1992 (see Smith, 1995 Appendices). At the very
least, such breakdowns signal a clear failure of preventive processes designed
to avoid short-term re-ignition of the conflict.

There are, unfortunately, a large number of recent examples of conflicts

that have relapsed into violence, sometimes in spite of strenuous, medium-
term efforts by the adversaries themselves but also by outside “preventers”
to keep negotiation processes going or to avoid the breakdown of a nego-
tiated agreement. The most obvious is the conflict between the Israelis and
Palestinians, which goes through periodic episodes of negotiations before
breakdown and reversion to military and terrorist violence. There are many
other examples, however. In Northern Ireland, the fragile truce established

in 1994 between the IRA, the unionist paramilitaries and the British Gov-
ernment broke down two years later and violence resumed, despite the fact
that formal negotiations over the future of Northern Ireland continued, even
after the breakdown of the ceasefire. In 2002 the unilateral truce declared by
the Basque secessionist organization, ETA, ended in further violence after the
Spanish Government in Madrid failed to respond, save through intensified
efforts to destroy its violence-prone adversary.
Each example of the failure of re-ignition prevention offers some spe-
cific clues as to why, in each instance, the conflict was taken up again
and violence resumed. A great deal of recent thought and analysis has been
devoted to this whole problem of preventing violence from restarting, espe-
cially once an actual agreement has been reached and the adversaries enter
into what has become commonly known as a “post-conflict, peacebuilding”
stage. Regrettably, much of this work seems to have been based upon a
fundamental misapprehension, because in the immediate – and often the
medium-term – aftermath of violence cut short by an agreement, the par-
ties are not in a post-conflict stage at all. The conflict – often in the form of
the original goal incompatibilities plus some new ones developed as a result
of the protracted violence – is still there. At best, the adversaries are in a
post-violence or post-agreement period.
At least until the terms of the agreement have been fulfilled – and
sometimes not even then – those involved will remain in this post-
agreement stage. Whether a resumption of the violence can be prevented
usually depends on the effectiveness, first, of short-term measures which, as
Rothschild succinctly points out, focus on security and confidence-building;
and, second, on longer-term measures which focus on institution-building
as a means of thoroughly resolving the parties’ fundamental goal incompati-
bilities. This argument suggests that it might be helpful to make a distinction
between efforts to prevent short-term re-ignition, involving basically the
same actors, and longer-term efforts to prevent repetition, involving actors
from future generations, or even direct descendents organized in completely
new institutions, taking up the old issues once again.10
3.1. Preventing the conflict from re-igniting

In the short run, then, the success of re-ignition prevention turns on a range
of issues that have to do with ensuring that the immediate post-violence

Prevention 95
period produces – for a large majority of those involved – a safer, less

threatening and more hopeful environment than existed prior to the peace
agreement. This can often be difficult because, in general, people tend to
have unfulfillable expectations about what conditions will be like after peace
has broken out. Measures have to be taken rapidly, successfully and obvi-
ously in a wide variety of arenas that have to do not merely with returning
things to “normal” but actively demonstrating that, for enough people, both
leaders and followers, past sacrifices and endeavours have somehow been

“worth it”. In terms of providing alternatives to continuing the violence,
re-ignition preventive measures have to include
• the provision of alternative means of livelihood for many who are used
only to combat as a way of providing resources, status and occasional
riches;
• the provision of similar resources and services for returning refugees
and IDPs, which can often involve issues of title to land and prop-
erty if the conflict resulted in significant flight and resettlement
processes;
• the successful re-integration of both combatants and refugees with mem-
bers of civil society who have often spent some considerable time being
fought over, and who will thus have developed an understandable resent-
ment against those doing the fighting in the past, but are now seeking
re-integration;
• some assuaging of the feelings of many people that they have been the
victims of human rights violations, atrocities and war crimes.
Preventive measures that involve providing even minimally attractive

alternatives to violence as a way of life are usually difficult to arrange,
especially if the original violence has been widespread, destructive and
long-lasting. However, short-term measures for preventing re-ignition usu-
ally involve a second crucial dimension – providing security, both generally
throughout the society and specifically for former combatants, whose safety
frequently appears to have been placed in the hands of mistrusted and
unforgiving former enemies. This provides an undeniable incentive to retain
weapons as a last resort for self-defence. In the face of such dilemmas, the
short-term prevention of re-ignition demands certain basic essentials if it is
to be successful:
• an effective disarmament and demobilization process which does not

leave the disarmed vulnerable to later retaliation;
• setting up a reliable and transparent verification system that has the overt
function of monitoring the behaviour of the adversaries to ensure that the
terms of the agreement are being kept;

• the rapid reform of the security services (police and army) so that they
become an impartial national service and not the enforcement arm of
one or other community;
• an amnesty for and release of political prisoners (and kidnapped persons),
save for those accused of atrocities;
• the reform of the judicial system to insulate it from as much political
pressure as is possible;
• an effective demining process to make travel and use of land safe and

secure;
• an education, training and rehabilitation programme for child soldiers to
give them a future.
3.2. Preventing long-term repetition

At this stage in the argument, the point has to be reiterated that all of the
above are essentially measures to prevent a ceasefire or a peace process from
breaking down in the short term – that is, in the period immediately fol-
lowing the cessation of violence or the signing of an agreement. Whether
the same conflict over the same basic issues starts up again at a much later
time – after a year or after a decade – will depend upon a number of fac-
tors which I discuss more fully later, but which basically revolve around the
question of whether the agreement ending the conflict and its implemen-
tation provide a potentially durable solution to the issues that underlay the
conflict at its emergence. In other words, does the agreement begin to fully
resolve the conflict or does it temporarily “paper over” major goal incompat-
ibilities or simply provide a breathing space within which a lasting solution
could be sought? The 1919 peace agreement at Versailles between the Allies
and the Central Powers simply failed to deal with the underlying causes of
the European conflicts of 1914–1918 and paved the way for a renewal of
the conflict in 1939. The six peace agreements signed between Guatemala’s
ARENA (Alianza Republicana Nacionalista) Government and the radical
alliance, the URNG (Unidad Revolucionaria Nacional Guatemalteca), in
1996 provided for a potentially far-reaching reconstruction of Guatemalan
society and the addressing of most of the issues underlying the civil war in
that country. Sadly, the next ten years saw a failure to implement most of
these provisions.
As a final comment on the issue of re-ignition prevention, it is necessary
to point out that, as with other aspects of conflict prevention, in addition
to there being a short-term approach to ideas about re-ignition prevention,
there are longer-term aspects involved.
Current literature on conflict prevention has, in fact, begun to dis-
cuss a long-term, structural approach to prevent conflicts from starting up
again. The prevention literature has become increasingly sympathetic to the
argument that the conception of “re-ignition prevention” really ought to
take into account efforts to make sure that longer-term conflicts do not

Prevention 97
repeat – maybe 20 or even 50 years later – because of a failure to try to

remove the underlying causes of the original conflict or to try to alter firmly
embedded stereotypes, prejudices, fears and hostile images or beliefs, held
by one generation and passed on to others.11
Measures that can be taken to try to ensure that conflicts never start up
again and that have recently been touted as forms of long-term conflict
prevention are many and varied. They include arranging for and monitor-
ing reformed electoral systems, encouraging changing recruitment patterns

to national institutions (police, civil service, judiciary, universities) in the
direction of greater diversity reflecting existing socio-economic and ethno-
linguistic sectors, monitoring human rights public commitment and actual
performance of reform, educating for a culture of peace as opposed to vio-
lence, and promoting cooperative activities and institutions across major
divides. If these activities do, indeed, deal with some of the original issues
that gave rise to the conflict – and then the violence – in the first place, then
they can justifiably be regarded as preventing a conflict from re-igniting in
the long term.
That this approach is becoming more frequently used can be seen by
examining a number of recent peace agreements which (far from being sim-
ple compromises whereby the adversaries obtain some of their goals but by
no means all) attempt to prevent the recurrence of a conflict by directly
addressing and seeking to remove the sources of the initial goal incompat-
ibility. Obviously, this is extremely difficult, as exemplified by the peace
accords to end the civil war in both El Salvador and Guatemala, where a
peace settlement was concluded and its stability depended upon a large-
scale, rapid increase in scarce goods, such as cultivable land, jobs, food,
water, education, health care and houses.12 Some analytical attention is
now being paid to the role of post-violence aid and economic develop-
ment in ensuring the sustainability of peace processes in countries such as
El Salvador, Nicaragua, Mozambique, South Africa and Guatemala (see, for
example, the lists contained in Rothschild, 2003 p.47 and in Sriram and
Wermester, ibid pp.21–27).
Unfortunately, this set of ideas runs the danger of introducing yet another
conceptual ambiguity about conflict prevention, as many long-term mea-
sures that are advocated as means of avoiding previously violent conflicts
starting up all over again appear to merge – conceptually at least – into simi-
lar efforts finally to settle, resolve or transform the conflict. Is the difference
simply the stage at which these efforts are attempted – “resolution” before
violence, “prevention” after – or is this a difference that makes no differ-
ence? Surely the conundrum arises because of the current tendency to use
conflict prevention as a catch-all.
The whole question of when a conflict has been resolved for good, rather
than simply settled pro tem – and the differences between long-term conflict
prevention and conflict resolution – is taken up again in chapters 10 and 11.

4. How? Methods of prevention
The penultimate question that inevitably arises in any discussion of con-

flict prevention is: How do you do it? Let us leave aside for the moment
the issue of who the “you” might be, and which persons, organizations or
governments – preventers – have the greatest hope of preventing the worst
effects of intractable conflicts over salient goals. Answering the question
about tactics and strategies involves first determining whether it refers to

long-term structural or short-term crisis prevention, or to some intermediate
gestation or mobilization stage in between the emergence of structures and
beliefs that are the source of goal incompatibilities and some short-term cri-
sis or trigger that tips an increasingly hostile and coercion-prone relationship
into violence.
4.1. Long-term, “structural” prevention strategies

In the first case, attention has been focused on how conflicts, perhaps based
on scarcities, might be headed off through the linking of development strate-
gies to conflict prevention, so that there is at least the prospect that the
scarcity in question will shortly be overcome by the production of “more”.
Variations of this particular strategy have been followed in situations where
efforts are being made to prevent goal incompatibilities from arising in the
first place, or intensifying as the scarcity increasingly becomes larger or more
salient.
Cases involving significant and long-lived ethnic tensions, discrimination
of a minority religious group by a majority, the likelihood of major, sudden
scarcities caused by drought or flood, systematic violation of human rights
on a large scale, or the previous existence of a salient conflict temporar-
ily settled but imperfectly resolved are examples of situations which can be
monitored so that timely action might, theoretically, be undertaken because
time is available. Since the 1990s (and in some cases well before) a number
of projects have sought to provide reliable, systematic data on the existence
and status of such “conflicts waiting to erupt”, and to provide policy-makers
with information about structural sources of conflict – economic, political
and cultural – so that preventive reform and restructuring can be encour-
aged. Such projects enable analysts to provide “early” warnings along the
lines of “If nothing is done about relations between the dominant alphas
and the dominated minority of betas, then sooner or later a major explo-
sion will take place”. The key phrase in such statements is “sooner or later”,
which is inevitably a rather imprecise guide to the nature and timing of
successful preventive action. Minorities might be at risk, as Ted Gurr empha-
sized several decades ago, but at what point the risks come to involve death,
destruction and possibly genocide is less easy to forecast.
However, much work has recently been carried out on the whole idea
of linking development projects to long-term conflict prevention, and to

Prevention 99
the practicalities of building a conflict-prevention element into develop-

ment programmes (see Carpenter, 2008). In general there seems to be an
increasing tendency for those advocating conflict-prevention measures to
concentrate on the longer term, with measures that go beyond the alle-
viation of poverty and the provision of technical support or generalized
capacity-building. Sriram and Wermester (ibid p.22), for example, argue
that conflict-prevention measures in this sense need to include promoting
good governance, peace education, reform of the overall “security” sector,

the promotion of human rights, helping regional and international eco-
nomic integration, and the overall strengthening of civil society. Their list
of preventive measures is not untypical of many others seeking to deal
with conflict in its early, emergent stages. This approach is very much in
contrast with more conventional proposals about tactics for heading off vio-
lent conflict in the short term, when the aim is often simply to dampen
down the likelihood of widespread violence and to buy time for some
conflict-resolution processes to deal with an imminent confrontation.
4.2. Short-term, crisis measures: “early warning”?

In the case of short-term, “light” or tactical conflict prevention, much
more has been written, probably because recent years have seen an increas-
ing number of practical examples of tactical conflict-prevention efforts in
action. Such situations as Kosovo and Macedonia in the former Yugoslavia
(Vayrynen, 2000), Namibia in southern Africa and the Ethiopia–Eritrea
conflict in north east Africa have all provided examples of efforts to pre-
vent a menacing protracted conflict from crossing the threshold that lies
between polarization, hostility or low-level coercion on the one hand and
widespread, systematic violence on the other. These and other cases suggest
that there are at least five components involved in the process of short-
term conflict prevention: (a) detection, (b) forecast, (c) revelation, (d) action
and (e) prevention, this last being viewed as an end state, when the feared
violence, massacre or genocide has been headed off.
The first two components have been explored in the extensive literature
on early warning (see, for example, Davies & Gurr, 1998), a process which, as
noted above, has been approached within two broad frameworks. The first
has already been discussed and seeks to provide information about situations
where structural conditions exist for the development of an intractable and
violent conflict. These have yet to approach a flashpoint but they may do
so in the future. Thus warnings about significant ethnolinguistic cleavages
between Indian and Fijian communities on Fiji and about growing inter-
communal hostility there were plentiful from the 1960s onwards, as were
forecasts about the violence-generating potential of latent conflicts between
settlers and the indigenous people in East Timor during the 1990s.
Unfortunately, as Marrack Goulding, the UN Under Secretary General for
Political Affairs notes, such warnings about conflict-generating structures are

of little help in anticipating the sudden crises or rapid increases in tension

that push chronic, intractable conflicts over the threshold into widespread
violence. Goulding notes that potential short-term conflict preventers – such
as the UN or the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe – are
seldom called upon to take preventive action over conflicts that are wholly
unanticipated or unforeseen. Rather, warning is needed early enough about
the short-term processes that push relationships between adversaries from
conditions of tension and mistrust across the threshold into overt mass

violence – or even about trigger events that are likely to ignite such lethal
short-term processes, such as the death of a key leader (the shooting down of
the plane carrying Rwanda’s Hutu President), the carrying out of a provoca-
tive symbolic action (Ariel Sharon’s visit to the western wall, the bombing of
the golden mosque in Baghdad), or numerous – usually accidental – military
confrontations, ranging from the Wal Wal incident in 1934 to the Greek
Turkish confrontation over the Imia/Kardak islet in 1996.13
In fact, a great deal of early warning literature does try to grapple with
the issue of detecting and forecasting the imminence of a crisis that could
spill over into massive, organized violence. How does one gather crucial
information, sort through it and then come to the conclusion that a cri-
sis is imminent? This task would seem difficult enough, given the vast mass
of information increasingly available on a global basis. The record of such
early warning projects such as Forum on Early Warning and Early Response
(FEWER) and the Conflict Early Warning System of the US Social Science
Research Council gives some indication of the nature and size of the task
involved.14 Even if the “detection” part of early warning presents major
difficulties, this is relatively straightforward compared with the “forecast”
component, which arises from theoretical questions of what, exactly, is one
looking for as an indicator that, in country X or region Y, “imminent trouble
is brewing”. Given that detection is a matter of collecting “crucial” informa-
tion, what are the criteria, what are the underlying theories that determine
that some data are crucial while others can be discounted as “noise”? It may
be that troops moving up to a border or into a recalcitrant province is a
clear and crucial indicator, or the closing down of newspapers, or the arrest
of opposition leaders, but, while these may be warnings, they are hardly
“early”. Hutus importing thousands of pangas into Rwanda might have been
a clear warning of violence to come, but how likely was it that this could
have been detected in time?
A further problem arises with the revelation component. If an effec-
tive early warning mechanism is actually in place, to whom should the
impending crisis be revealed in the hope that action will be taken? Which
organizations can find the time to take notice of the early warnings provided,
take rapid decisions about a planned and coherent reaction, issue credible
warnings, mobilize resources and, if necessary, take action – all within a rel-
atively short space of time? At least in many cities and countries there is

Prevention 101
a permanent fire brigade on duty, and there is not a perennial problem of

organizing, equipping and paying for a new firefighting force every time a
new fire seems likely to break out. In many recent situations, the need for
early action has itself been prevented by the absence of resources – includ-
ing time – the tardiness of decision-making and the lack of interest on
the part of governments and inter-governmental organizations. Alexander
George (1997; 2000) makes this a central point of his studies of preventive
diplomacy, arguing that the problem

is not lack of early warning, but the fact that governments often ignore
an incipient crisis or take a passive attitude towards it until it escalates
into deadly struggle or a major catastrophe . . . the problem is not that
governments don’t know, it’s that they don’t act! . . .
(2000 p.16)
Revealing the imminence of major violence to ponderous and unwilling

political entities – even if it proves possible to engage their attention in the
first place – does not seem likely to result in very effective short-term conflict
prevention, as Rwanda all too tragically revealed.
Even if forecasting, detecting and revealing an imminent violent conflict
works, there remains this last, crucial question about the prevention process:
What do preventers do? What are effective means of preventing adversaries
from crossing the key threshold between warnings, threats or low-level coer-
cive action into organized, purposeful violence? In one sense, the question
becomes increasingly pressing when the potential enemies are large, power-
ful and well armed. In another, it becomes equally urgent when one side is
dominant, well armed and able to inflict horrendous damage on the others,
as in situations such as East Timor, Rwanda, Darfur in the Sudan or in Pres-
ident Assad’s Syria. Using “preventive diplomacy” – even if it seems often
to be invoked at the last moment – in a positive sense implies that some
government, group of governments or group of organizations attempts to
dampen down the situation by offering alternative means of pursuing the
goals in conflict – further talks, brokered by a helpful third party, a face sav-
ing way out of a possibly undesired confrontation, a delay that will enable
a pro-discussion faction to use outside allies in their intra-party struggle for
influence on decisions. Preventive diplomacy can offer channels of commu-
nication if these have been severed or broken down, as they often have,
or the possibility of some desired good or resource in exchange for further
restraint.
At the very least, positive preventive diplomacy can bring the conflict and
its attendant problems and grievances to the attention of the world, and
end the sense of neglect and indifference that parties involved in many
localized and intractable conflicts frequently experience, either advanta-
geously or otherwise. Marrack Goulding makes a strong argument that even

the establishment and despatch of a UN “goodwill” or “fact-finding mis-

sion” can, in and of itself, have the effect of easing tensions and offering
alternatives:
a mission . . . is a public act that tells the parties to the conflict that
international concern has been aroused by their failure to resolve their
dispute peaceably and that may, therefore, induce them to handle it
more responsibly. At the same time, the decision conveys the message

that international help is available if the parties want to take advantage
of it . . .
(Goulding, 1996 p.148)
At best, preventive diplomacy can offer clear and worthwhile incentives

not to use force and violence by providing rewards for this abstention as
well as alternative means of achieving salient goals.
In contrast, short-term conflict prevention can, in its negative aspects, lead
towards actions that involve threats, negative sanctions and increased vio-
lence. If preventive diplomacy in its positive form fails to make any impact
on the adversaries’ commitment to using violence if deemed necessary, then
the preventers often find themselves in a situation that necessitates some
form of preventive deployment – that is, the use of some type of force that
may involve punishment or the threat of punishment.15 Typically, the pro-
cess usually evolves through a number of stages, although not every case
involves the same pattern of actions:
• exhortations – encouragement to the adversaries to pursue their conflict

through peaceful means and to avoid the threat or use of violence;
• warnings – resolutions passed by international institutions condemn-
ing the possible use of force by adversaries and mentioning adverse
consequences should violence ensue;
• threats – statements about consequences that will follow if the warnings
are ignored;
• sanctions – putting in place restrictions on travel, arms embargoes,
freezing of assets, trade sanctions and so on;
• enforcement – the deployment of military means to bring about the
adversaries’ abandonment of violence.
Conceptually, such preventive reactions start by involving some form of

deterrence (or if violence has actually broken out, negative compellence)16
in order to stop a crucial threshold being crossed. The issue then becomes
one of finding a credible threat that will deter the adversaries. This being
the case, all of the difficulties of making any credible deterrent threat come
into play. A first step of “drawing a line in the sand” – or in any other type
of terrain – by interposing, for example, a trip-wire force along a boundary,

Prevention 103
around a “safe” or “protected” zone, or among a refugee or IDP population

or a threatened community, will usually only be effective if the sanctions
for breaking that trip wire are credible and impose unacceptably high costs.
(This implies the need for a larger – or more dangerous – back-up force than
any of the adversaries can muster and one that is willing to become involved
in action that is highly likely to turn violent.) The situation then becomes
a complex one of peace enforcement, where it is not improbable that the
conflict will become a three-sided struggle involving the adversaries and the

erstwhile preventers. I return to this whole topic of enforcing the peace in
Chapter 9, but here only observe with Raimo Varynen that “early prevention
of violence by coercive means is seldom successful. It tends to harden the sit-
uation, elicit counter reactions and lead to the further escalation of violence;
or, at a minimum, contribute to seething resentment . . . ” (ibid p.18).
The whole dilemma then becomes one that is focused on the legitimacy
and practicality of the threat or use of force (aka violence) by some third
parties in order to delay or prevent the use of violence by those who are
involved in the conflict. The dilemma of this type of short-term conflict pre-
vention is summarized by Steve Bell’s despairing cartoon in the Guardian of
30 August 1995, which shows a UN soldier in the former Yugoslavia contem-
plating the aftermath of a civilian massacre there. Behind the piled bodies
on the pavement, on the damaged and smouldering wall is written: “Don’t
just stand there – bomb something.”
If this kind of situation involving “too late for anything but reactive, com-
pellent violence” is to be avoided, then a major need exists for a really
effective early warning system that allows time for preventers to organize
and implement initiatives in good time, rather than at the very last minute.
Effective early prevention requires a number of indicators that do not merely
manifest themselves one or two weeks before the violence threshold is
crossed, but act in such a way as to allow sufficient time for decisions to
be taken, actions planned and warnings issued. This brings the discussion
back to the need for a set of reliable mid-term early warning indicators.
4.3. Medium-term prevention: Encouraging alternatives,

providing options
It seems unarguable that effective long-term conflict prevention does require
data about conflict generating structures. However, it equally needs some
indications that long term adversarial relations are moving towards some
confrontation that is highly likely to turn violent unless initiatives are
undertaken to defuse the situation and divert the escalation process. In other
words, if structural warnings are not urgent enough – and crisis warnings
of tensions and triggers come too late – what is required are warning sig-
nals about the gestation period – especially the later stages of gestation –
which would give preventers time to mobilize, organize and act, as well as
to suggest strategies that are relatively low cost.

I have already noted some of the characteristics of such gestation periods –

increased polarization between and mobilization within adversary leader-
ships, higher levels of hostile rhetoric, limiting and coarsening of com-
munication between adversaries, sporadic violence and increased inflow of
armaments. All of these indicators can, of themselves, serve as warnings of
the likely outbreak of organized violence which needs to be headed off.
Unfortunately, many revealing indicators are nuanced and difficult to dis-
cern by outsiders, other than practised local observers, which accounts for

the often unanticipated changes that can act as final triggers for violence –
the growth of frustration among apparently quiescent groups, the emergence
of previously little-known leaders or organizations, or the undermining of
traditional conflict-management mechanisms that kept violence in check in
the past.
However, in themselves, these indicators can suggest needed conflict-
prevention initiatives as well as allowing time – if noted and reacted to
appropriately – for preventive actions to be taken. Dialogues and con-
versations can be arranged between adversaries that have found formal
negotiations difficult (either because of status imbalances – “governments”
do not negotiate with “rebels” – or because of a sheer lack of negotiating
skills); practical bridge-building projects can be suggested and supported;
clarifications of misperceptions can be undertaken through quiet diplomacy
via reopened communication channels; inflammatory rhetoric can be toned
down and reassurances made public; conciliatory gestures can be discussed
and implemented; intimidatory processes can be put on hold; local crisis-
control mechanisms can be put in place; and regional arms races can be
dampened down. If necessary, relatively inexpensive resources might be
made available to reassure people who perceive threats to safety and secu-
rity (police, peace observers, accompaniers and human rights monitors)
or threats to possessions and property (land title registrars, legal advisers
and local development consultants). Conflict prevention, if tackled early
enough, does not necessarily have to involve large numbers of heavily armed
troops, massive intervention into every aspect of local life or huge expense.
In that sense, many of the arguments of those advocating the relevance of
conflict prevention appear to be convincing, provided that initiatives are
implemented before hostilities and tensions have risen to the point where
toleration and cooperation over shared goals seem to have been lost beyond
recovery.
5. Evaluation
Much of the discussion in this chapter has been about the nature of con-
flict prevention and about some of the theories that underpin its practice.
However, sooner or later conceptual and theoretical issues have to give
way to matters of utility and the historical record. Some evaluation of the

Prevention 105
effectiveness of efforts to prevent conflict has to take place. Hence our last
question becomes: Where has conflict prevention been a success?
There are, unfortunately, a number of major problems when it comes to
evaluating the effectiveness of conflict-prevention measures, one of which
is conceptual and the others practical and empirical. I have already touched
upon the logical problem – that the basic measure of “success” in conflict
prevention is that something does not happen. Thus the absence of some
phenomenon – in its most modest version, an absence of widespread and

organized violence in the pursuit of conflicting goals – can be taken to indi-
cate that prevention has “worked”. Practically speaking, this seems to be an
extreme form of the problem of justifiably attributing cause (or even influ-
ence) in complex, multivariable social systems that are replete with feedback
loops. If it is difficult to trace clear patterns of influence on things that do
happen, then it seems likely to be even more difficult to delineate undeni-
able reasons for things not happening. Conclusive evaluation of preventive
effectiveness does not seem impossible but it does seem very difficult.
The second problem attending efforts to evaluate conflict prevention
arises from another ambiguity that was discussed in some detail above. This
is the fact that people have used the term “conflict prevention” to cover a
multitude of very different activities with very different goals. To make the
point yet again, how can one begin to investigate the relative success of
initiatives that have such a huge range of things that they are trying to pre-
vent? As I noted above, long-term structural prevention aims at such things
as avoiding the widening of major ethnic or socioeconomic cleavages, the
development of superordinate goals, the avoidance of the inequitable dis-
tribution of goods (or bads), the growth of a “them” and “us” psychology
and so on. Medium-term prevention aims at avoiding the mobilization of
intra-party biases, the polarization of potential adversaries, the increased use
of hostile rhetoric and the start of a mutually antagonistic arming process.
Short-term, tactical prevention aims at stopping the use, reuse or geographi-
cal spreading of organized, purposeful violence. Given this variety of things
to be prevented, it does not seem unlikely that there will be cases where
violence has been prevented, so that there has been success at this level.
However, deep cleavages and widespread hostility, fear and mistrust remain
firmly entrenched within the adversaries, so that – at a different level –
prevention has been a resounding failure.
This particular problem thus boils down to the familiar argument that
there are, currently, multiple meanings of the term “conflict prevention”
which inevitably imply multiple objectives and hence multiple standards
by which to judge success. One conceptual solution would be to return
to Michael Lund’s original suggestion regarding the “conceptual core” of
preventive diplomacy and to regard conflict prevention as being solely con-
cerned with “keeping peaceable disputes from escalating unmanageably into
sustained levels of violence and significant armed force” (Lund, 1996 p.37),

although this core idea can embrace the three types of prevention: of ini-
tial violence, of geographical spread of violence and of renewal of violence.
Other activities focused on coping with conflicts could then be dealt with
as examples of conflict management, of conflict mitigation, of the institu-
tionalization of conflict, of conflict resolution or of conflict transformation.
Moreover, this limited view of the “prevention” concept would help in the
evaluation of the effectiveness of conflict prevention in practice and might
then lead to some indications of what preventive measures might work and

in what circumstances.
Limiting the use of the term “conflict prevention” might also help one to
cope with the third problem of producing some “balance sheet” by which
the success or otherwise of preventive efforts could be judged. At the present
moment, the sheer number and variety of “cases” of conflict prevention pre-
sented for inspection and evaluation are daunting, to say the least. Some
of these examples of conflict prevention – or preventive diplomacy – in
action are presented as successes. Among these are Estonia, Latvia and Russia,
Macedonia-Serbia, Ukraine-Russia, Slovakia-Hungary and Burundi, although
one writer makes the important point that only rarely has violence been
headed off in a “war-torn” region characterized by widespread violent con-
flict where the spillover of violence was both a major danger and a distinct
possibility (Ackermann, 2000 p.3). Other cases are presented as resound-
ing failures for conflict prevention, the most obvious being Fiji, East Timor,
Rwanda and the conflicts in the former Yugoslavia, where thousands of peo-
ple were killed in the originally “peaceable disputes” that escalated into
shockingly widespread, organized killings.
Even if one takes this kind of “lowest common denominator” approach to
conflict prevention, the nature of success can remain elusive. What is one to
make of the efforts to prevent widespread violence and war in the case of the
conflict between Iraq and Kuwait in 1990, or of initiatives to prevent North
Korea acquiring nuclear capabilities. Both are discussed by Raimo Vayrynen
(2000) as examples of conflict prevention. Were these obvious failures? Was
the subsequent US/British air effort made to protect the Kurdish population
of northern Iraq from violence by the Iraqi army a successful example of con-
flict prevention, or not, given the large-scale attack by the Iraqi military on
these Kurdish areas in 1996? Initial efforts to prevent violent conflict spread-
ing into Kosovo from the rest of Yugoslavia seem to have been a failure (ibid
p.36), but efforts to eject Serbian forces and to end the violence eventually
“worked”, although at the expense of an exodus of civilian Serbs from the
region.
The fourth problem for anyone trying to come up with a judgement about
where and when conflict prevention has actually prevented what it set out to
prevent arises from a recognition that the recent historical record might not
offer even a remotely fair test of theories of conflict prevention. This problem
has two aspects. The first is that everyone agrees that, to be effective, tactical

Prevention 107
preventive actions should take place early in the development of a conflict,

well before the threshold of violence is even being approached by the adver-
saries. Clearly, however, this has very rarely happened. Vayrynen argues that
this is because governments have, until recently, had a marked reluctance
to violate the principle of sovereignty when intra-state disputes occur, or
to commit resources to conflict-prevention measures when their own vital
interests are not involved (ibid p.15). Similarly, international organizations
have a parallel reluctance to commit scarce time and effort to anticipatory

decision-making about conflicts that might escalate into violence at some
time in the future – but might not – plus a lack of their own deployable
resources to deal with imminent crises in a timely fashion. Procrastination
is a constant. Therefore, according to Vayrynen, “preventive action often
becomes possible only after violence has broken out” (ibid p.15). But the
question now becomes: If it is virtually impossible for preventive measures to
be attempted (at least in a practical sense) in time, what is the point of argu-
ing in the first place that this is one way of effectively coping with intractable
conflicts? Where does that leave the prospects for a theory of conflict preven-
tion or for efforts to evaluate the effectiveness of conflict-prevention actions
if the latter are inevitably undertaken too late?
The other aspect of the problem of using the recent historical record to
evaluate the effectiveness of conflict-prevention measures is that it seems to
be the case that conflicts that do escalate into intense and horrific violence
might too easily be seen as failures of conflict prevention. The argument
seems to be that conflict prevention seeks to stop conflicts becoming vio-
lent; conflict X became horrifically violent, therefore conflict prevention
did not work. If the absence of violence automatically means that conflict
prevention worked, does the presence of violence automatically mean that
it failed? It may be that, on some occasions, conflict-prevention measures
were not even tried, so that certain cases where violence occurred repre-
sent not a failure of preventive measures but a failure even to try them.
As Alice Ackermann notes, “There is a qualitative difference between fail-
ing at preventive action and failing to take any action at all” (2000 p.23).
In any fair evaluation of conflict prevention, it is important to distinguish
between two types of failure: cases where prevention was tried without effect
(Kosovo or East Timor) and cases where it was not tried at all (Rwanda).
This whole argument tends to become conflated with another that has to
do with “missed opportunities” (Jentleson, 1999). The problem with argu-
ing that conflict prevention failed in situation X and violence ensued is that
one is now attributing (at least partially) the presence of one phenomenon
(violence) to the absence of another (conflict-prevention initiatives).17
The last problem involved in making any evaluations about when and
where conflict-prevention initiatives have been successful – or not – involves
once more the question of time. How long should the effects of “success-
ful” prevention last – for ten months, for ten years, forever? If it proves

possible to prevent imminent violence from breaking out through some

form of short-term, operational preventive diplomacy, yet the potential for
such remains latent for the foreseeable future, is this successful, relatively
successful or a failure? If it proves to be possible to prevent the re-ignition
of inter-communal violence for ten years – for example, on the island of
Cyprus between the inter-community violence of 1963–1964 and the Greek
Cypriot coup/Turkish invasion of 1974 – what level of success does this rep-
resent? What might look like preventive success at one point in time can

rapidly turn into a failure sometime later, as violence engulfs an apparently
stable situation. The time difference can be very short (such as the renewal
of violence in Sierra Leone after a very brief ceasefire between the govern-
ment forces and the Revolutionary United Front) or very long (the renewal
of the civil war between northerners and southerners in the Sudan, after ten
years of peace following the 1972 Addis Ababa Agreement). Such consid-
erations make any evaluation of conflict-prevention initiatives difficult and
uncertain, but some effort at assessment – even interim assessment – remains
necessary.
If the idea of preventing conflicts from arising in the first place seems
impossible and the idea of preventing them becoming violent, spilling over
into other places, or starting up again is difficult to put into practice, what
other approaches are there to coping with intractable and complex conflicts
that often turn violent and destructive? As I noted earlier in this chapter – at
least in passing – one common practice in many historical periods (including
the current era) has been to accept that conflicts will inevitably arise, but
either to try to mitigate the worst effects of any violence that results from the
underlying goal incompatibility, or to try to institutionalize the conflict by
providing means and methods by which it can be conducted without resort
to violence, death and destruction. The next two chapters therefore focus
first on the nature and variety of conflict-mitigation strategies, and then on
efforts to institutionalize conflicts – that is, to conduct conflict within rules.

6
Mitigation

Disciplines or fields of study – whichever description best applies to CAR –
can grow in a number of different ways. One of these is a process by
which, as the world itself changes, new problems are encountered, calling
for new explanations and new solutions – the dynamics of state collapse, the
spread of nuclear weapons or the rise of transnational terrorism. Another is
through the formulation and testing of new theories to explain old puzzles –
prospect theory or entrapment theory to help to explain the difficulties of
de-escalating an intractable conflict. A third involves a recognition of the
failure of existing theories in satisfactorily explaining contemporary events
or processes – the inadequacy of traditional power theories to explain the
successful resistance of an ostensibly weak Vietnamese nationalist move-
ment against the apparently overwhelming coercive capacity of the United
States.
Yet another means of growth tends to be less dramatic than those men-
tioned above, as it involves a recognition of some intellectual commonalities
or conceptual linkages between fairly familiar, even commonplace, ideas –
in our case, about conflicts and how to cope with them. Something along
these lines has actually been happening for the past decades in the field
of CAR, during which time a whole set of previously disparate and uncon-
nected ideas and practices have been grouped together, analysed as examples
of one single category of “conflict-coping” methods that involve a number
of core principles and underlying assumption, and given the overall label of
“conflict mitigation”. The term has now become a familiar one in the field
and is enshrined in the titles of a number of organizations – for example,
the United States Agency for International Development’s (USAID’s) Office
of Conflict Management and Mitigation – whose main tasks involve “doing
something” about intractable, protracted and violent conflicts, especially the
growing number of violent intra-state struggles that developed during the
late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries.
Part of the problem of getting a clear picture of the essential nature – as
well as the outer limits – of the phenomena that have come to be included
109

in the category of conflict “mitigation” practices is the very variety and

apparent dissimilarity of ideas and activities that are so labelled. These seem
to include activities running from providing development assistance and
undertaking humanitarian interventions to channelling behaviour in pur-
suit of competing goals into electoral rather than violent channels. With
such a variety of mitigation ideas and practices, it is very difficult to see the
wood for the trees.
In spite of this apparent intellectual and classificatory chaos, I want to

suggest that there is at least one principle underlying all of these initia-
tives, efforts and practices, in spite of their obvious differences. They are
all efforts to make protracted, violent and intractable conflict less damaging
to someone, somewhere, somehow. This leads to the basic principle link-
ing such different activities as persuading combatants to eschew land mines
as a weapon or arranging for essential medical supplies to be distributed
generally within a disputed region.
1. Mitigation: An initial paradox
This approach immediately points up a paradox at the heart of all

conflict-mitigation efforts, especially when these are directed at protracted
and intractable conflict. The whole point about using coercion, violence
and destruction as a strategy in such conflicts is to make that violence and
destruction so intense as to shorten and ultimately “win” the conflict, espe-
cially a war. “War is hell,” as Union General William Tecumseh Sherman
once remarked, asserting on a previous occasion when writing to the Mayor
and Councilmen of Atlanta that “War is cruelty and you cannot refine it . . . ”.
He put this doctrine into effect on his March through the southern states
of the Confederacy, wrecking, burning and pillaging. His response to any
efforts to make his strategy less destructive can only be imagined.
But the paradox of conflict mitigation is still there. What sense is there to
restraint in war – or even in protracted intra-state conflict? In the short term,
perhaps the only answer is reciprocity.1 If “we” observe norms about not tor-
turing prisoners, it increases the likelihood (but not to the point of certainty)
that “they” will observe similar limitations regarding our own people.
In the longer term – although it is usually difficult to think in the longer
term in the midst of a violent struggle – one key influence would seem to be
whether the adversaries will have to maintain some relatively close relation-
ship in the aftermath of the conflict, and what that future relationship is per-
ceived to be. One initial hunch about protracted intra-state conflicts would
be that if the future envisaged includes separation, then there will be less
call for restraint and reciprocity. If it involves some form of interdependence
continuing into the future, then restraint now might bring benefits later.
It should hardly be surprising, then, that the existence of this “restraint
paradox” at the heart of any theory about conflict mitigation results in

Mitigation 111
enormous practical problems in pursuing one or other of the many ver-

sions of conflict mitigation – of allowing or supporting efforts (often by
outsiders) to ameliorate at least some of the effects of one’s own violent con-
flict behaviour. What is surprising, however, is the growth of such efforts
during the past decades and the determination of many individuals and
organizations to make intractable conflict less destructive, at least for some
people, in some places and over as much time as proves possible. I start with
practices that attempt to put certain places or people “off limits” to the more

extreme forms of coercion and violence that usually form an integral part of
protracted conflicts.
2. Space, time and persons
In most societies throughout history there seem to have been attempts to

limit the destructive effects of conflict, as well as efforts to establish some
kind of limiting norms, or “rules of the game”, even in conflicts between
whole societies or communities. Whatever form these mitigating approaches
have taken, and whatever level of success they have enjoyed, their main
function has usually been to prevent an already violent conflict escalating
into wholly uncontrolled death, destruction and mayhem, with the dan-
ger that this will totally destroy the existing social fabric and bring about
the collapse of the society in question. Historically, even in societies where
security from injury depends largely upon a recognized and accepted ethic
of vengeance by one’s kin, there have been many customary practices that
limit the completely unbridled operation of that principle. Often, a violent
reaction to some injury can only take place once certain procedures have
been observed or conditions fulfilled.
However, seeking some commonalities among the varied and complex
patterns of mitigating approaches that have been used over the centuries
is far from easy. What does the Anglo-Saxon practice of a 40-day period
free from attack granted to individual offenders forced to abjure the realm
have in common with the Somali dia system of compensation for injuries
inflicted? Are the practices of religious sanctuary in medieval Europe similar
in any way to the establishment in the United States of “sanctuary churches”
for Central Americans fleeing civil wars in their own countries during the
1980s?
At the risk of oversimplifying greatly, many of the approaches to conflict
mitigation used throughout recorded history fall into three broad categories,
all of which share this central objective of limiting some of the effects
of coercion, violence and destruction that result from intractable conflicts.
These consist of approaches that seek to
• establish places that are immune to some of the most destructive effects
of violence;

• establish times during which the practices of violence – or at least some

of them – will be suspended;
• protect certain individuals or categories of persons from the worst effects
of violence.
Distinguishing these three mitigating strategies analytically is reasonably

straightforward but most societies have established, at least on a temporary
basis, norms, customs or accepted practices that involve some combination

of all three approaches. In many cases, places that are held to be off limits
to attack or plunder also contain persons who are – according to some norm
or custom – inviolable and allegedly safe from assault. In contrast, contem-
porary efforts to make children in war zones safe from attack, recruitment
and kidnapping are focused on children per se, irrespective of their location.
Mitigation efforts can take on a variety of forms. Analytically, the question
then becomes: What is initially being protected – a place, some people or
some things for a period of time?
2.1. Safe spaces: Sanctuary and security

The difficulty of picking out commonalities amid the huge variety of forms
of mitigation is immediately apparent when one considers the diverse efforts
to limit or ameliorate the effects of a conflict within some geographical area –
that is, by creating a space within which something damaging is prohibited,
at least in principle. At one level, this practice can take the form of uni-
laterally declaring specific buildings off limits to violence or immune from
attack, as in the case of the three Peace Sanctuary Churches in Colombia,
established by Lutheran World Relief under the title “Sal y Luz”. Such decla-
rations attempt to offer spaces that are safe from attack by local combatants.
In many other situations there have been efforts to persuade combatants to
agree to avoid damaging all churches, or schools, clinics and hospitals as a
category of “non-targets”, rather than just specific examples.
Examples of efforts to mitigate conflict across a broader area are equally
common. The practice of declaring towns, municipalities or whole regions
to be neutral “zones of peace” can be exemplified most recently by places
such as Naga City or Sagada in the Philippines, Usulatan in El Salvador or
the entire region of Eastern Antioquia in Colombia. Certain “safe areas” are
often set aside as part of a negotiated peace process, so that combatants –
particularly clandestine guerrilla forces – can emerge from hiding, concen-
trate and start the process of disarmament and demobilization, safe from
attack or harassment by their erstwhile adversaries. Taking in a still wider
area are efforts to declare whole continents or seas “zones of peace”, such
as the Latin American Nuclear Free Zone, the Indian Ocean Zone of Peace
or proposals to declare the South China Seas a zone of peace in an effort to
pre-empt the escalation of conflicts over natural resources there.

Mitigation 113
In many ways, these contemporary approaches to establishing some place

or space which mitigates, in some manner, the unrestrained prosecution of
a conflict merely echoes practices that have been used throughout recorded
history. Churches and other sacred buildings were used as sanctuaries in the
classical and medieval eras. Ancient Israel had set aside a number of “cities
of refuge” within which offenders could seek temporary safety from family
vengeance.
Simply mentioning the variety of recent and historical attempts to cre-

ate spaces in which conflicts could not be fought in any manner deemed
appropriate by the adversaries raises the question of whether these examples
have anything at all in common. For example, one helpful question might
concern the extent of the space affected.2
At the very least, the question of whether one is seeking to understand
the effectiveness of a specific, single building, a class of building, a village,
town or city, a province, a country, a continent or an ocean must make
some difference to any hope of developing theories about mitigation. More
importantly, another key question has to concern differences between what
can and cannot take place within the boundaries of the area affected, or what
the restraints are that are being placed on adversaries within the boundaries
of the zone in question.
In many cases, the answer involves broad prohibitions on any use of vio-
lence against individuals, the community or property actually within the
space designated as a refuge, a peace zone, a protected area, a sanctuary,
a safe corridor or a neutral zone. More modestly, some spaces have clearly
been established simply to keep out weapons, either in general or specific
kinds of weapon. Both the Latin American Nuclear Free Zone and the Indian
Ocean Zones of Peace have been set up to ensure that nuclear weapons are
not brought into the spaces making up those zones.
Perhaps the most interesting question concerns the whole issue of what
factors help to make it more likely that combatants will observe the limita-
tions on behaviour imposed within the zone. Why should adversaries take
the restraints seriously?
One obvious answer to this question is that a key influence is often the
fear of future sanctions to anyone breaking norms or customs that pro-
tect the space or violating the boundaries of the zone. Historically, many
sanctuaries and safe spaces have been under the protection of gods, so that
the anticipated sanctions are supernatural and the protection afforded those
within the safe space arises from a fear of the protectors’ reactions – loss of
favour of the gods, retaliation through natural disasters or damage to one’s
immortal soul. Secular sanctions range from violators experiencing expres-
sions of disapproval (protest, shaming and loss of prestige or material costs
imposed by outraged outsiders, which may take the form of severing eco-
nomic relationships – banning trade, freezing assets, or implementing travel
bans) to reacting through military assaults (for example, air strikes by the

United States and Britain in response to violations of no-fly zones in Iraq

during the last months of 1998).3
None of these sanctions has ever been completely effective, of course.
The collapse of the UN Protected Zones in Bosnia during the so-called
War of Yugoslav Disintegration in the early 1990s presents a stark warn-
ing about the huge difficulties of mitigating intense violence at the height
of any civil war merely by the threat of counterviolence. However, even
relatively minor sanctions, such as fear of disapproval (especially by allies

and supporters), has been known to provide some protection. As many of
the organizations – Peace Brigades International, Christian Peace Teams, Pax
Christi – that arrange protective accompaniment for individuals and com-
munities under threat from violence have pointed out, no government likes
to be confronted with clear evidence of illegitimate violence perpetrated by
its own agents against its own citizens or of its own inability to protect its
citizens from the illegal depredations of others on its own territory. Shame
can sometimes be an effective sanction.
A second common explanation for combatants “going along” with mitiga-
tion approaches, whether these involve space or not, is based on underlying
considerations of reciprocity. Within this framework, restraint by one party
becomes a rational option because it calls forth similar or equally valuable
restraints on the part of the adversary. What might be termed “equivalent
mitigation” involves more or less equal behaviour by both sides. One party
does not execute the other’s prisoners because to do so would lead to the
execution of one’s own combatants should they be captured. In some cases,
hospitals or clinics can become inviolable spaces either because they treat
the sick and wounded from all of the adversaries or because refraining from
attacking clinics, hospitals and ambulances under the other’s control will
result in a similar restraint towards “our” clinics, hospital or vehicles. Com-
mensurate mitigation (or equally valued restraint) can involve behaviour in
one sphere of activity being balanced by different but equivalently valued
restraint in another. For example, in the late 1990s, one of the local mayors
in the Colombian departamento of Valle arranged a tacit agreement with the
local guerrillas of the Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias del Colombia (FARC),
whereby the latter agreed to refrain from attacking local police or campesinos
in exchange for having their desired projects – new roads and other public
works – implemented by the mayor’s local administration.
On closer examination, there seem to be two rationales involved in this
kind of mitigation approach. The first involves limitation on behaviour
towards spaces or sanctuaries clearly forming part of the territory of the
adversary in the expectation (sometimes based upon tacit understandings,
sometimes on actual negotiated agreements) that similar limitations will be
exercised regarding similar spaces within the territory of the party initiating
the restraint. Thus mosques could be made immune from attack in exchange
for a similar limitation regarding churches. Schools serving one community

Mitigation 115
in a combat zone could be “off limits” to violence as long as schools serving

the other community are treated similarly.
The second approach involves the adversaries all exercising restraint with
respect to particular buildings, areas or communities because doing so
enables the latter to continue to provide benefits to the combatants who are
exercising such restraint or to their adherents and supporters. For example,
anthropologist W.H. Lewis writes of feuding families or tribes in Morocco
who treat local markets as neutral places, immune from violence, where

members of rival clans and factions can conduct their buying and selling
free from the threat of violence that would inevitably accompany encounters
elsewhere. Markets thus become safe spaces because violation would destroy
behavioural and material goods and opportunities valued by all sides. Simi-
larly, in the mid-1970s, rival paramilitaries in Northern Ireland worked out
an informal arrangement whereby Post Offices – representing “the British
State” to the nationalists but essential to both communities as banks, a
source of pension payments, repositories for savings, places to obtain a vari-
ety of licences and permits, plus many other key services – became off limits
to inter-communal violence and remained so for a number of years.
The general lesson suggested by these examples is that mitigation initia-
tives that seek to establish a space that is safe from violence and assault are
most likely to succeed through a combination of offering continuing ben-
efits to combatants with an understanding that the continuation of such
benefits depends upon mutual restraint by those combatants. In turn, this
implies at least some clearly understood limits and tacit understandings,
together with careful, internal control of potentially maverick individuals
or factions.
2.2. Time out of war

Very similar cautions have to be kept in mind for every and any other
approach to mitigating conflict, not merely those that seek to establish safe
spaces or territorially based sanctuaries. “Success” depends very much on
each initiative being able to justify the type of mitigation being called for
from combatants, and also on those advocating the mitigating initiative
making a case for these restraints.
This general rule applies equally to a second type of mitigating initiative –
those that seek to modify the behaviour of, or obtain restraint from, armed
actors during a specified time period. One of the earliest examples of this
type of temporal mitigation strategy on record is the temporary moratorium
on hostilities practised in classical Greece around the time of the Olympic
Games.4 Much more recently, the World Health Organization has tried to
initiate a Humanitarian Ceasefire Project which aims to persuade combatants
to stop fighting temporarily and allow a variety of health and immunization
programmes to be carried out in combat zones. Even more ambitiously, in
2001 the UN General Assembly passed a resolution making 21st September

each year an International Day of Peace during which it is hoped that the
entire world will observe a full day of “global ceasefire and non-violence”,
while spiritual and religious institutions organize 24-hour vigils for peace.
Perhaps the most ambitious and possibly the least unsuccessful example
of the generalized form of temporal mitigation initiative was the attempt in
Western Europe during the middle and late medieval era to establish a “Truce
of God”. The initiative began in regions of modern France, far from the frag-
ile jurisdiction of the ruling Capetians and in places where central authority

had almost completely fragmented – Aquitaine, Burgundy and Languedoc.
The era and the regions were characterized by private wars, feuds, banditry
and the impotence of distant secular authorities to maintain any kind of
peace and security across wide swathes of territory. In such circumstances,
the Catholic Church tried to use its authority and the threat of excommu-
nication to limit, at least, the widespread violence and destruction then
prevalent. The Church did this first by promulgating measures to protect cer-
tain classes of people through what became known as the “Peace of God”,
and then by trying to limit the times when violence between combatants
would be legitimate.
Unfortunately there is ample evidence that local nobles engaging in pri-
vate warfare would ignore invitations to come to a council or, if they came,
would decline to make any commitment or – if they did swear an oath to
respect the terms of the truce – would promptly break their promise and
later, when it suited them, renew it. The sanctions available to those seeking
to enforce the truce were limited and often unenforceable (Cowdrey, 1970;
Head & Landes, 1992).
2.3. Protected persons

The practicalities of restraint become especially difficult – and possibly
most difficult to implement – when the restraint has to apply to categories
of people rather than places, which are usually much more recognizable,
unchanging and immovable than people; or time periods which can fre-
quently be ambiguous. (Does a “Christmas Truce” begin on Christmas Eve
and how long does it last?) Nonetheless, through much of history, efforts
have been made by widely different societies to set aside particular kinds of
people from the effects of combat and violence and to provide them with
immunity from attack, although, as Hugo Slim (2003) points out, through-
out recorded history such efforts have frequently failed to provide much
practical protection for those who are theoretically “off limits” to violence.5
However, varied attempts to mitigate the violent effects of conflict have
persisted, usually based upon principles of non-involvement (or less fre-
quently on some form of “innocence”). Occasionally there seem to have
been pragmatic reasons allied to others. For example, I noted how, through
the “Peace of God” which started in the Auverne at the end of the tenth
century, the Catholic Church attempted to protect throughout medieval

Mitigation 117
Christendom not merely Church property and clerics – at least those who
were not actually bearing arms – but also women and children. By the
thirteenth century, canon law had extended the idea of protection much
further.
In spite of some variation across different societies of the kinds of individ-
uals historically deemed to be immune to violence, some common principles
can be discerned for making distinctions between those who could be
attacked and those who shouldn’t. Leaving aside for the moment the chival-

ric principle of “charity” as a basis for distinguishing combatants from
non-combatants, in many societies the status of “non-combatant” seems to
have been granted, at last notionally, to individuals in conflict zones largely
on functional grounds. As James Johnson (1971) points out, this discrimina-
tion could historically take one of two forms. Either protected persons were
non-combatants because of the unwarlike functions that they performed
in society which were clearly different from those performed by warriors,
or they were in principle immune because of their undoubted inability to
carry out combat in the first place. Thus many categories of individuals in
conflicts zones were protected through what might be termed their posi-
tive functions. Commonly, priests prayed, doctors healed, students studied,
emissaries carried messages – all occupations that were very distant from
warfare. Alternatively, immunity arose from persons’ negative functions –
women, children, the old, the sick and the blind literally could not bear
arms because they lacked the strength, the equipment or the training. For
certain persons, both criteria could apply. Johnson points out (p.155) that
priests in Western Christendom were strictly forbidden by canon law to take
up arms and participate as combatants.6
Interestingly enough, during the medieval period in Europe, two of the
most frequent categories of “non-combatant” persons to whom restraint
amid warfare had to be exhibited were the poor and the peasants, often,
in the latter case, on the grounds that “their labour is for all men”. This
was particularly the case in Western Christendom following the breakup of
the Carolingian Empire and the ensuing decline of public order. The prin-
ciple of restraint throughout the medieval period reinforced the pragmatic
idea that one should not decimate the local labour force, anymore than one
should disrupt trade by attacking merchants and their goods, or interfere
with pilgrims going about their journey.
However, a fresh problem arose when the local labour force came to be
regarded by one of the adversaries as a major asset, strengthening “the other
side”. Hence any claim to immunity from attack actually operated indirectly
against the long-term possibility of victory. This certainly came to be the case
in Western Christendom during the later Middle Ages, as secular authorities
extended their rule throughout their realm and increased their practical abil-
ities to maintain social peace within that realm against lawless brigands and
plunderers. “Private wars” may have been outlawed but, increasingly, wars

between rulers came to involve those economic, societal and human bases
that enabled kings, princes, dukes and electors to make war. In such cir-
cumstances, as Christopher Allmand has argued (1999 pp.258–266), while
non-combatants – especially peasants – might not have become a “legiti-
mate target” (as long as they offered no resistance), their property, which
sustained an adversary’s ability to make war successfully, certainly had.
The theoretical distinction between non-combatant civilians and the
property of those civilians (which indirectly provided support for enemy

combatants) thus began to be established by the later medieval period.
The belief opened a long road that starts with the deliberate destruction
of the other side’s agrarian resources (including, rather than excluding, the
peasantry who work the fields); continues with Sherman’s “March to the
Sea” during which his army burned and destroyed everything in its path –
buildings, crops, railways and homes; proceeds through counterinsurgency
warfare exemplified by British scorched-earth tactics against Boer farmers
and their families in South African at the turn of the nineteenth century;
and arrives at “total war” and the area bombings of entire cities in the
mid-twentieth century.
The fact that people regarded as, somehow, “outside” the conflict in one
situation could become thoroughly embroiled in the fighting and move from
“innocent bystanders” to “legitimate targets” in another emphasizes once
again both the fragility of restraint and the tension between humanitarian
principles and the struggle for a quick, victorious ending to the conflict.7
It also raises again the question that runs through all conflict mitigation
endeavours: Why should the combatants agree to limitations on action or
to practising restraint on their untrammelled prosecution of the conflict?
One line of thought is that the restraints in question serve some useful
function for the adversaries or, at the very least, do not put them at any
disadvantage.
One can clearly see this pragmatic rule of thumb at work in the case of
some categories of protected persons whose inviolability provides benefits
that outweigh any cost that might accrue to their adversaries. For example,
note the role of heralds or envoys in diverse societies, starting with clas-
sical Greece and continuing through to the high Middle Ages in Western
Europe and beyond. In these and other societies, the need for some represen-
tative, able to carry messages between rulers safely and free from attack, was
recognized as a basic necessity for relatively peaceful coexistence or even,
in some cases, for the proper conduct of conflict. Hence in many places
there was repeated a pattern of the development of a class of inviolable,
protected messengers, immune from attack, whose immunity partly derived
from the fact that in their persons they directly represented their ruler, but
also on the pragmatic grounds that the safety and hence the effectiveness
of “our” messenger depended largely on the safety of “theirs”: do unto their
representatives as you would have them do unto yours.8

Mitigation 119
Similar levels of inviolability afforded some envoys, diplomatic represen-

tatives or official emissaries also arose in many other societies, often – at
least partly – from the fact that they performed useful functions for all sides
in any conflict and also facilitated more peaceful interactions through their
untrammelled presence and activities. Moreover, these functions could not
be performed unless the individuals concerned were granted immunity from
assault or imprisonment, while principles of reciprocity guaranteed that, at
the very least, they would be safe while exercising their function. The whole

system of diplomatic immunity and the inviolability of embassies developed
over a considerable historical period and, starting from pragmatic – often ad
hoc – arrangements. It provides an excellent example of how norms and
practices become codified into rules and laws, so I return to this process
of conflict institutionalization later. A similar process, at an earlier stage,
can be observed in contemporary efforts to convert a number of informal,
although widespread, norms into a code of conduct and thence into accept-
able rules and then accepted laws regarding the treatment of children by
armed combatants, especially in situations of protracted civil war.9
2.4. Intercession and healing

In many societies, two other categories of individual have commonly been
held to be immune from attack even in the most violent and protracted con-
flict, although for somewhat different reasons. Many traditions have held at
least some categories of holy individuals – priests, monks and nuns, mis-
sionaries, shamans, clergy of all descriptions – to be apart from the conflicts
of normal secular society, and hence off limits to violence. In a somewhat
different fashion, doctors and nurses, as well as the places where they work,
have often been accorded positions notionally “outside” the combat, even
though they may physically be close to the actual practice of violence and
thoroughly embroiled in trying to mitigate some of its results.
Of course, the immunity of clergy is always somewhat dependent upon
the combatants’ continued perception that such individuals themselves
remain outside the conflict, otherwise the norm of immunity is unlikely
to be observed. Protests by Buddhist monks against the military regime in
Burma during 1987/1988 and in 2007 with monks leading huge marches
during the so-called Saffron Revolution were met with repression and
violence by the Burmese security forces. Initially, even a military junta char-
acterized by its extreme brutality seemed to be reluctant to use its full range
of repressive tactics against the sangha, but ultimately people were killed,
monasteries closed down and over 1,000 monks detained in Rangoon alone,
many being abused and tortured while in captivity. Even in contemporary
Burma, with its reputation for religiosity, being a monk appeared to confer
no special immunity (see Human Rights Watch, 2009).
The crucial factor in helping to determine whether the norm of ecclesi-
astical immunity is observed is whether the persons in question seem to

abandon their accepted task of intercession with God, or the gods, on behalf
of everyone more or less equally, and take up a position in the conflict that
favours one side over the other. From the local priests in Colombia who
adopted ideas from liberation theology and spoke, worked and organized on
behalf of poor campesinos in their struggle against local landowners, to the
militant Shiite imans in Iraq calling for jihad against unbelievers and apos-
tates, many ecclesiastical figures have taken up positions that completely
undermined any claim to immunity from violence based upon impartial-

ity or spirituality. Many assaults in Latin America took the lives of priests
who had been working with local grassroots communities, resisting guer-
rillas, paramilitaries and drug traffickers, or who had been opposing the
encroachment of developers in places such as Colombia, Brazil, Guatemala
or El Salvador.
Nonetheless, fragile as the protection afforded by “the cloth” may be, it
still seems to have some residual deterrent effect. There are often symbolic
and reputational costs associated with not respecting norms about doing no
harm to spiritual figures. In El Salvador, the 1980 assassination of Archbishop
Oscar Romero while he celebrated mass still had some power to shock soci-
ety, perhaps in much the same way as did the murder by royal assassins of
Archbishop Thomas à Becket in Canterbury Cathedral in 1170.
Many other societies and religions have also attempted to make religious
leaders and property immune from attack during violent conflicts. In the
Hindu tradition, and especially in its offshoots of Buddhism and Jainism, the
doctrine of ahimsa involves avoiding injury to any living creature, although
the warrior caste of Ksatrias are exempted from this strict ban on killing in
their role as defenders of Hindu society. For Buddhists, such a ban tends
historically to have taken the practical form of avoiding harm to monks
and nuns, although both Hindu and Buddhist religious leaders have, on
many occasions, advocated the use of violence against people from compet-
ing religions – most recently when Buddhist leaders in Sri Lanka advocated
the violent expulsion of Hindu Tamils from the island. However, in both
religious traditions there are strong norms against harming “the religious”
within any society.
The principle of the inviolability of the religious is echoed in many parts of
Islamic doctrine, which enjoins Muslims never to kill women, children, the
elderly or the disabled intentionally, and specifically singles out monks and
nuns. However, if non-combatants were accidentally killed during attacks
on military objectives, the moral blame for this rested on those on the
other side who deliberately placed civilians “in harm’s way” – versions of
the “human shields” and “collateral damage” arguments advanced centuries
before our own.
The similar principle of excluding the religious, among others, from harm
in time of war can be found among early Islamic military leaders. The first
Caliph, Abu Bakr, on despatching a military expedition, gave his troops ten
rules of proper conduct, the last of which was more than firm in its tone:

Mitigation 121
You are likely to pass by people who have devoted their lives to monastic
services; leave them alone . . . .
(Quoted in Abu Nimer p.242)
Even Islamic holy wars were not intended to be “total wars” involving
indiscriminate killings or scorched earth policies, whatever corruptions of
Muslim doctrines are currently advanced as justifications by the likes of Al
Qaeda or the Taliban.

Somewhat different considerations attend efforts to render medical per-
sonnel immune from attack, although the pragmatic value of not attacking
doctors whose services you and yours may need in the not-too-distant future
seems fairly obvious. The idea of protecting healers from attack, even in
the midst of battle, seems to be very much rooted in nineteenth-century
European reactions to the horrors of warfare and the treatment of – or lack
of it for – the wounded. The basis for establishing medical personnel as
protected and non-targeted persons needs some consideration at this point,
however. This leads into a broader discussion of the protection from violence
of other institutions whose primary role is itself one of trying to mitigate
some of the destructive effects of conflict and violence.
At one level, the reasons for making medical personnel immune to vio-
lence as much as possible appears reasonably straightforward. Doctors and
their aides – nurses, ambulance drivers, stretcher-bearers, hospital cooks and
cleaners – are by their callings all involved in treating wounds and disease
and saving lives on as impartial a basis as circumstances permit. In ideal
circumstances, medical personnel treat to the best of their abilities all who
need medical services, irrespective of where they come from and whose side
they are on – wounded police or wounded guerrilla, paramilitaries, civilians
or insurgents harmed to the point of death by land mines, injured infantry
from both sides of the line. The formula seems quite straightforward: med-
ical services for any in need, in exchange for immunity from violence for
those providing the services, including the places where the latter work –
hospitals, aid stations, clinics and pharmacies.
However, another framework makes the question of impartiality more
complex and the position of medical personnel caught up in any conflict
more ambiguous. This dilemma is most obvious in the case of medical ser-
vices that are part of an organized military (or even paramilitary) force,
whose major function is to repair combatants from “our” side so that they
can return to the fight and take up arms again. Hence, while the medical help
so that fighters can recover is theoretically offered impartially, the actual
impact of medical success in healing is to strengthen that party to a vio-
lent conflict that has the most effective medical services. As Michael Gross
(2007 p.719) has written, there is no compelling moral reason to distinguish
between a doctor and a tank driver, even though this distinction may be
made by convention. Both are functionally part of strengthening the combat
capability of their own side.

This line of argument also raises another dilemma associated with the idea
of medical personnel’s impartiality and hospitals’ claims to be neutral and
inviolable space. The wounded, hopefully, recover and some can then return
to combat. If a hospital contains injured combatants from both sides being
impartially treated, then both sides will have to face the question: Why wait
to risk facing such fully recovered adversaries in future fighting? Why accept
that an enemy’s being wounded and under treatment by protected medical
personnel in a so-called inviolable hospital somehow renders that individual

also immune from pre-emptive “neutralization”. This is a special dilemma
in intra-state asymmetric conflicts such as civil wars or insurgencies and
for doctors or hospitals called upon to treat wounded insurgents, injured
guerrillas “on the run” or members of a rebel army fighting for secession.
Hence the stories about troops from one side invading hospitals and killing
wounded members of the other side, or doctors being instructed not to pro-
vide medical services to anyone deemed guilty of rebellion, treason or efforts
to overthrow “legitimate” authority.
For reasons that clearly have to do with the impact of their activities on
the fortunes of adversaries, the protective cloak around medical personnel is
always a tattered one, and impartial treatment of the sick and injured can
often turn out to have partial effects on the overall struggle. It seems unar-
guable that medical personnel claiming immunity because of impartiality
can be on conceptually shaky ground, leaving aside the horrendous practical
problems of maintaining this status and having it recognized and effective
in the midst of protracted and violent conflict. Moreover, similar problems
increasingly affect other kinds of people who try to work impartially in con-
flict zones attempting to bring relief to local people caught up in the combat
and to mitigate some of the effects of widespread violence through various
types of humanitarian relief.10
3. Mitigation of impacts: Relief and humanitarian intervention
While efforts to mitigate further effects of conflict on wounded adversaries –

often temporary absentees from the violent struggle – are likely to affect
directly the fortunes of the combatant parties, humanitarian efforts by out-
siders to mitigate the effects of conflict on civilian non-combatants in a
population being fought over in a civil war seem, at first sight, to be less
controversial. At least such efforts appear much less likely to affect the final
outcome of the conflict – or do they?
Humanitarian intervention, or efforts to provide “relief” for those suffer-
ing from the effects of widespread violence and destruction in which they
are victims rather than protagonists, has become a pre-eminent form of con-
flict mitigation at the end of the twentieth and beginning of the twenty-first
centuries. In many protracted and violent conflicts, huge but often frustrat-
ingly inadequate efforts are made by outside organizations to mitigate the

Mitigation 123
suffering of populations caught up in widespread and continuing violence

and to deal with the problems of the displaced, the homeless, the sick and
the starving. Organizations engaged in what some have rather disdainfully
called “the humanitarian enterprise” or the work of the “multibillion dollar
juggernaut” range from global institutions such as the UN and its agencies
(chiefly the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, the UN Children’s Fund,
the UN Development Programme and the UN Department for Humanitar-
ian Affairs) and the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent

Societies, through nationally based relief agencies (the Swedish International
Development Cooperation Agency, USAID and SwissPeace) and faith-based
organizations (Church World Service and Catholic Relief Services) to spe-
cialist non-governmental organizations (NGOs), such as Oxfam, Save the
Children or Médecins Sans Frontières. Since the end of World War II, the
numbers have increased almost exponentially, and in one oft-quoted figure,
the UN Development Programme estimates that there are currently around
37,000 non-governmental aid and relief organizations worldwide. One con-
temporary estimate claims that over 1,000 relief organizations are attracted
to every fresh humanitarian disaster, whether natural or man-made, while
double that number are currently involved in Afghanistan.
Hardly surprisingly, any effort to categorize the various forms of conflict
mitigation undertaken by humanitarian organizations is a daunting task.
There are a huge number of institutions that play a role in efforts to lessen
the damage done to some populations through the latters’, often involun-
tary, involvement in protracted and violent conflict, as victims or, worse still,
as targets.
Anyone seeking to understand the underlying nature of humanitarian
intervention as one complex form of conflict mitigation is thus confronted
with a bewildering array of organizations and activities, all focused on the
task of making violent conflict less hellish for some of those involved, and
all facing strategic as well as operational dilemmas. One analytical puzzle
involves the nature and purpose of various types of humanitarian relief as
people seek to achieve the overall objective of mitigating intractable and
violent conflicts. A second is the reaction of combatants to the existence
of such agents and strategies of conflict mitigation. Much of contemporary
humanitarian relief work is carried out with the grudging approval of the
conflicting parties. Equally, it can be undertaken in the face of barely dis-
guised disapproval from one or other adversary, who can and do set up a
variety of obstacles to the tasks of mitigation. A third puzzle involves the
indirect impact of humanitarian aid on aspects of an intractable conflict
other than ameliorating its effects on “the innocent”.
3.1. Forms of humanitarian relief

Since at least the middle of the nineteenth century, outside help for those
suffering from the results of prolonged and intractable conflict has been

offered for a variety of reasons. Distressed communities have been helped

on the grounds of an existing relationship between helpers and those being
helped – shared religions, cultural or historical linkages, common origins –
or simply because of a common humanity that occasionally verges on cos-
mopolitanism – extreme suffering, undeserved persecution, indiscriminate
and widespread violence, massacre and genocide. These different motiva-
tions partly account for the huge variety of short-term mitigating activities
that can be observed in action, even if one only focuses on the period

after World War II and makes a clear distinction between humanitarian as
opposed to development aid.
This variety is reflected in the heterogeneous donors of humanitarian
aid – both intergovernmental and private – as well as the recipients. On the
one hand, transfers can originate from organizations based on religious or
national communities (the Lutheran World Service, the Catholic Relief Ser-
vices, the Society of Friends, the Jewish National Fund or Islamic Relief),
while others can be specifically targeted at parallel national or religious
communities as recipients (the Armenia Tree Fund, the Save Darfur Coali-
tion, the Africa Wildlife Foundation, and the numerous Syrian and Lebanese
organizations that have responded to the post-2012 crisis in that region).
Other organizations can target regions or continents (Africare and the
Rainforest Action Network). Still others provide aid to any community suf-
fering from the effects of violence (for example, universal institutions such
as OXFAM, CARE, Mercy Corps, UNFICYP, Save the Children, or Médecins
Sans Frontières, set up during the Nigerian Civil War (1969–1971) as a result
of the apparent helplessness of the International Committee of the Red Cross
and whose target community thus became anyone suffering sickness, disease
or injury in a violent environment). The list and variety of aid givers and aid
recipients is long and complicated.
The same can be said about the form that aid takes and the variety of the
“goods” that are transferred from donor to recipients living in a warzone,
The most obvious type of “humanitarian” aid offered to distressed commu-
nities has traditionally taken the form of needed emergency supplies, usually
in the form of food and medicines. (The parallel is often drawn to disaster
relief when some natural catastrophe breaks down and destroys the normal
network of producers and consumers and leaves a community destitute and
frequently on the verge of starvation.) To a large degree, the kind of aid
needed by a population that has been adversely affected by the violence and
destruction caused by combatants locked in an intractable conflict runs from
immediate needs to fend off disease and starvation to longer-term help in lit-
erally rebuilding a shattered society should the violence abate and peace ever
break out. What is needed, at least in the short term, is usually the outside
provision of four basic types of rapid assistance: supplies, shelter, services
and security.

Mitigation 125
Some mitigation efforts do focus on the immediate provision of sup-

plies (of food and medical supplies to communities facing starvation and
disease) – for example, to relief camps in the Congo for Hutu refugees
fleeing Rwanda in the 1990s, or initiatives to get supplies to communi-
ties in southern Sudan through Operation Lifeline Sudan in the late1980s
(Peterson, 2000; Rigalo & Morrison, 2007) Others focus on rebuilding shat-
tered dwellings, villages or towns or providing needed medical, educational
or administrative services for societies where the ranks of local doctors,

nurses, technicians, teachers and administrators have been decimated by the
prolonged fighting.
While the provision of short- and medium-term food and medical sup-
plies, shelter and services, is hardly an easy set of tasks, the major problem
for mitigating organizations in the aftermath of a protracted conflict often
involves dealing with a level of chronic insecurity throughout the whole
of a society. The provision of even minimal security for people who have
either been viciously fighting one another for considerable periods of time,
or been the civilian victims of insurgency and counterinsurgency campaigns,
often presents a baffling dilemma for outsiders attempting to prevent local
conflicts from re-igniting, even temporarily. The post-agreement security sit-
uation is complex in the best of circumstances but relations between former
enemies in the immediate aftermath of violence are usually characterized
by fear, mistrust and a mutual sense of vulnerability. Hence the situation
remains highly volatile for all of those involved – former combatants; rival
ethnic, linguistic or religious groups; and returning IDPs and refugees –
but especially for forces charged with providing safety and protection for
all. Practical tasks frequently involve policing and keeping the local peace
throughout a country, dealing with armed banditry and crime, training a
trusted police force which somehow can effectively represent the social divi-
sions within the country, and – longer term – helping to construct a durable
and fair legal system for a fundamentally divided society.
The almost insoluble security dilemmas facing outsiders in a post-violence
or post-agreement situation can be well illustrated by recalling the record
of both the NATO-led, UN-approved Kosovo Peace Implementation Force
(KFOR) and the UN Mission in Kosovo (UNMIK) following the NATO bomb-
ing campaign of 1999 and the withdrawal from Kosovan territory of the Serb
forces controlled by the government in Belgrade (Judah, 2008). The tasks of
the military force, KFOR, were originally focused on preventing the return
of Serbian military forces to Kosovo, the disarming of the Kosovo Libera-
tion Army (KLA) and the prevention of human rights violations throughout
Kosovo. However, it rapidly became obvious that an even more difficult
task was going to prevent continued violence between the Albanian and
Serb communities living in the province, especially as the only clandes-
tinely armed and organized force in Kosovo in the early days of KFOR

remained the KLA. The situation was made more volatile by the estimated
800,000 Albanian refugees pouring back into Kosovo bent on returning to
their property and in no mood for immediate reconciliation with their Serb
neighbours. In such circumstances it was hardly surprising that the country
polarized into ethnic enclaves, violent inter-communal clashes took place
(the worst occurring in 2004 in the divided town of Mitrovica), large num-
bers of Serbian Kosovars, estimated at around 100,000 people, fled in their
turn and an undermanned KFOR was unable to provide much in terms of

security to members of any community or to reduce the mutual levels of
shared fear, especially during the last months of 1999 and the first of 2000.
The Kosovo case might well illustrate the complex relationship between
short-term conflict mitigation efforts and achieving long-term conflict reso-
lution, as well as some of the dangers of keeping adversaries at arms length
in order to avoid further violence. Given the way in which international
action in this case also seems to have helped one side in the original struggle
to achieve its objective of independence for Kosovo, the example also raises
questions about the effects of successful mitigation: Who benefits from the
supply of humanitarian supplies and services, and what impacts do the latter
have? At a more abstract level, one can also ask: On what ethical, legal and
practical bases are mitigating goods provided and, most controversially, to
whose ultimate advantage?
3.2. Mitigation, humanitarian relief and doing no harm

To try to examine the justifications for the practice of humanitarian aid in
a limited space and a short timespan is really to attempt the impossible, but
one question that has arisen from the approach which centres on worthy
efforts at conflict mitigation needs to be addressed in a little detail. This is
the dilemma concerning the impact of humanitarian aid in actually exacer-
bating or perpetuating the conflict rather than mitigating or shortening it.
As one contemporary observer has written,
When international assistance is given in the context of a violent conflict,

it becomes a part of that context and thus also of the conflict . . .
(Anderson, 1999 p.145)
In the case of humanitarian aid as a form of intervention, what impacts,

benevolent or malign, is this likely to have on the course of the con-
flict? Over the past 20 years, this has become a central issue for donors
and relief organizations, at least since the dilemmas for aid organizations
were revealed in the mainly Hutu refugee camps in the border areas of the
Democratic Republic of the Congo. Here, international non-governmental
organizations found themselves supporting the revival, rearmament and
reorganization of the very Hutu forces that were responsible for the Rwandan

Mitigation 127
genocide. The main academic challenge was posed by analysts and practi-
tioners working together in the Humanitarianism and War project at Brown
University, who questioned the then dominant assumption that relief to
mitigate the suffering caused by widespread, intractable intra-state con-
flicts was an unambiguously positive strategy (see, among others, Weiss
& Minear, 1993). This work emphasized that even the most ostensibly
neutral and even-handed of humanitarian assistance could have the unin-
tended result of making the conflict worse, overall – unless those providing

the aid were cautious about how the aid was provided, when, where and
to whom.
One of the best products of this discussion remains Mary Anderson’s suc-
cinct and sensible Do No Harm; How Aid Can support Peace – or War (1999), in
which she outlines some of the major dilemmas of aid provision but also sug-
gests practical ways in which these might be overcome. Her work is broadly
conceived, arguing that “aid can inadvertently support those that, in a given
instance, are actively involved in and pursuing warfare” (ibid p.31), and
she asks how aid might best be provided in order to reinforce institutions,
organizations (and individuals) working within the context of an intractable
conflict which remain “pro-peace”.
Aside from doing no harm in the short term, Anderson lays out some pos-
itive longer-term goals for appropriate aid-giving: (a) supporting the ability
of people to hold their leaders accountable, (b) supporting the abilities of
people to act and think in non-war rather than warlike ways and (c) leaving
behind a civil society that has been strengthened rather than weakened by
its interactions with aid (ibid p.51).
For our purposes, however, we are concerned with two rather more limited
issues. The first is whether humanitarian assistance does serve to mitigate
the effects of an intractable interstate conflict. Does international humani-
tarian assistance make the effects of intractable, violent intra-state conflict
less appalling for at least some people? Clearly the answer to this question is
that it does, even if the effects are often limited and precarious. For civilian
refugees – from Hutus fleeing Rwanda in 1994 to Syrian Sunnis fleeing their
own military in 2013 – international provision of refuge and relief supplies
was essential to survival. For innumerable IDPs in southern Sudan during
1989–1990, the success of Operation Lifeline Sudan in negotiating corridors
of tranquility with combatants in order to deliver medical supplies and tens
of thousands of tons of relief food to starving civilians was the difference
between life and death (Peterson, 2000).
However, the second question that needs to be asked from a CAR view-
point is somewhat more complex: In what ways might international human-
itarian assistance help to prolong or to exacerbate an intractable conflict, and
what might be done to avoid – or perhaps to mitigate – these effects?
The whole process of providing aid in a conflict situation involves altering
the context for the conflict at least in the sense of increasing the amount of

some “good” available for distribution, as well as an opportunity to conflict

over the nature of that distribution. There are, for example, many instances
of resources going to one community or one ethnic group rather than to
another, thus widening local divisions between communities, whatever the
pressing claims and however needy the former might have been in the eyes
of donors.
Quite apart from the potentially exacerbating effects of apparently one-
sided aid distribution, Anderson suggests five factors which can result in the

prolongation of an intractable conflict, although at the same time she sug-
gests means by which the aid can have the opposite effect of strengthening
pro-peace tendencies within the divided society:
Aid supplies can be “appropriated”, “taxed” or simply stolen by com-

batants, and used as resources to enable violence to continue. In some
situations goods can be stolen and used by combatants – fighters feed
first – or stolen and sold to increase the budget for arms, or stolen and
redistributed to supporters of one of the adversaries.
Aid can adversely affect local markets by reducing local production and
trade patterns and at times breaking off interdependencies that cut across
and modify the divisions between adversaries
Aid can obviate the need for combatant groups and their leaders to take
responsibility for the welfare of local populations under their control
Aid can substitute for local resources and free up such resources for the
continuation of the struggle.
Aid can confer legitimacy and status on leaders and groups with whom
negotiations have to be conducted in order to arrange aid distribution.
Local aid administration systems can be staffed in a one sided way so
that jobs are seen as “goods” being unfairly distributed thus increasing
divisions and tensions.
All of these factors can become conflict-exacerbating rather than conflict-

mitigating influences, thus making a conflict even more intractable. So can
the symbolic messages that are conveyed by the manner in which aid is dis-
tributed or donor organizations structure their relations with combatants,
local communities and one another. As Anderson, Minear and other writ-
ers have pointed out, the manner in which assistance is delivered “on the
ground” to local communities, quite apart from the amount, nature and
distribution of the aid itself, will determine whether the most humanitar-
ian of outside aid is perceived positively or negatively by local recipients,
bystanders, adversaries or combatants. For example, the recruitment of local
staff by the organization can emphasize balance and fairness through the

Mitigation 129
employment of suitably qualified personnel from different local communi-

ties, as well as demonstrating the ability of individual adversaries to work
together on common tasks involving super-ordinate goals.
Faced with such criticisms, the international aid community has
responded by agreeing some guidelines for its activities and for tightening
up coordination in order to bring some order into aid initiatives. The aid
community has produced the Paris Declaration on Aid Effectiveness (2004)
and the subsequent Accra Agenda for Action in 2008. However, there have

clearly been problems in putting these principles into action in the field.
Even such stalwart defenders of humanitarian aid as the British Humanitar-
ian Policy Group of the Overseas Development Institute agree that “more
needs to be done” (Foley, 2010 p.2).
On the other hand, there have been some arguments to the effect that
even having to work through local combatant organizations and their lead-
ers can have a positive side, as on occasions it may be possible to involve
local commanders in the interests and issues of civil society, and to achieve
some level of recognition that there are ways of gaining local support and
legitimacy other than through military power and armed coercion.11 This
co-option of military leaders into the business of caring for civilian welfare
could become one step on the road from being a warrior to becoming a
civilian administrator or even a political leader.
One last practical problem for aid organizations is the whole issue of secu-
rity, both for aid personnel themselves and for the supplies and resources
that they are trying to bring to affected populations. In many past cases the
response of aid organizations has been to employ armed guards and body-
guards from local combatants. In many situations it has appeared that theft
and threats can only be deterred by the presence of guards and weapons,
so their employment is something forced on aid providers and on donor
organizations. There is a constant debate going on about this as a strategy
commonly employed by some aid organizations operating in a conflict zone,
especially given the increased incidence of attacks on aid material and aid
workers (see Fast, 2014). Some have argued that the provision of armed secu-
rity is the only possible option in environments where many carry guns and
fighting is endemic. Others argue that reliance on guards and guns sends the
wrong symbolic message to the local community:
it is impossible to adopt the modes of warfare without reinforcing their

legitimacy
(Anderson p.56)
This whole debate returns us once more to the issue of arms, this time in
a much broader context. The next section deals with efforts to mitigate con-
flict and to reduce violence through limiting the availability of the means
for causing death, and destruction.

4. Weapons control: Limiting the wherewithall
The final cluster of mitigation activities to be noted before turning, in our

next chapter, to a discussion of efforts to regulate conflicts within some for-
mal structure of rules involves a variety of initiatives to limit the nature,
supply and use of weapons that can be employed in combat. At one extreme
these efforts involve attempts to limit actual use of certain kinds of weapon
in particular circumstances or against particular opponents.12 Others involve

limiting the availability of certain weapons to particular groups or parties in
conflict through banning the distribution of, or trade in, those weapons.
At the other extreme, strategies could take the form of the complete elimi-
nation of certain kinds of weapon, deemed too dangerous, indiscriminate or
inhumane for anyone at all to possess, or to use.
Cynically, one can view many such strategies as either efforts by
combatant parties that possessed a crucially advantageous weapon to pre-
vent others from acquiring that weapon and thus equalizing the struggle.
Certainly, as Adrienne Mayor (2003) points out, many efforts to arrange lim-
itations on the use of “unfair” weapons historically took the form of a victor
imposing a ban on weapons that had advantaged a defeated adversary in
the past, as when the Romans at the end of the Second Punic War in 201
BC confiscated all of Carthage’s war elephants and, in the ensuing peace
treaty, banned Carthage’s future possession of such dangerous weapons of
war. This ban seems to have been as successful as the Allies’ efforts to pre-
vent Germany from re-acquiring its own submarine fleet or an air force after
the latter’s defeat in World War I.
However, it is also possible to view many initiatives aimed at controlling
the employment of certain types of arms as ways of trying to mitigate the
effects of violence and destruction on civilian non-combatant populations
or (more controversially) on the rival combatants themselves – and to do
this through agreement rather than imposition.
4.1. Varieties of weapons control

Unfortunately for simplicity, there exists yet again tremendous variation
within different cultures and at different historical periods regarding the
kinds of weapon disapproved of, considered as “taboo” or even notionally
banned. Weapons taboos are highly “situation specific”.
Going beyond the general principle that all such efforts shared the objec-
tive of mitigating the effects of particular weapons by banning their avail-
ability, possession or use, “weapons control” practices or policies throughout
history come in a huge variety of forms. Some weapons-control tactics
involved banning – or controlling – the development and manufacture of
certain weapons. Others involved prohibiting their possession, at least by
certain classes of people. Still others consisted of rule sets designed to pre-
vent the (indiscriminate) distribution of certain types of weapon through

Mitigation 131
trade or what today would be termed “technology transfer”. Finally, many

cultures have attempted to develop rules that prohibited the actual use of
certain types of weapon, or at least limit them to being used against specific
targets, human and otherwise.
Equally varied have been strategies for controlling weaponry. Until the
middle of the nineteenth century, when the process of codifying and for-
malizing the traditional practices and customs of combat really got under
way, there were few efforts at organizing limitations by an authoritative third

party or by mutual agreements among potential adversaries.
Occasionally, temporary deals were struck between rival military leaders –
treatment of wounded, burial and honouring of fallen warriors – and some-
times these grew into honoured customs, but observance usually depended
upon the influence of individual leaders, while restraint was (sometimes)
observed because a particular culture characterized such actions (or inac-
tions) as “the done thing”. Rarely, however, did these deals involve weapons.
Throughout most of recorded history, cultural restraints have been the
main strategy used to control what weapons might properly be used in
combat and war, the sanctions being disapproval and dishonour – plus the
danger of retaliation by the other side if norms of reciprocity were violated –
rather than any form of punishment for not “doing the right thing”. After
all, who was available to make the judgement about codes being violated
and to impose the punishment?
4.2. Banning firearms

The exception to this widespread pattern of “cultures of customary restraint”
were the many historical examples of rulers trying to control the possession
and use of weaponry among subjects within their realm – the historical strat-
egy of limiting the possession of weapons that can still be seen today in the
contemporary struggle over gun control in the United States. This strategy
of limiting the possession, and hence the use, of weapons domestically can
best be illustrated by the efforts of monarchs and other rulers in Europe in
the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries to limit their subjects’ posses-
sion of firearms, once these became both available and effective. Noel Perrin
(1979) notes the efforts of the English King, Henry VIII, to prevent firearms
from falling into the hands of the common people by having acts of Parlia-
ment passed (1523 and later in 1533) that made it illegal for anyone with an
income of less than £100 a year to possess firearms, the punishment being a
fine of £10 – a year’s wages for a master craftsman (ibid pp.47–48).
Unfortunately for these early efforts at domestic gun control, other factors
prevented their being effective. In England, the royal wish to ensure that
guns were not widely held came up against royal wishes to provide a suc-
cessful defence of the realm (the gun laws did not apply to people living in
fortified towns seven miles from the sea or from the Scottish border) and to
make England a pre-eminent military power. The gun laws were repealed in

1543 when war was declared against France, restored when peace returned,
and then repealed again when the wars resumed in 1557,
Efforts to control the manufacture and ultimately the use of firearms were
more successful in Japan, which provides one of the rare examples of the
general abandonment of a weapon after it had been successfully adopted
into the arsenals of potential adversaries. However, it had clearly not, in the
Japanese case, been absorbed into the local culture. Perrin has described how
firearms (initially matchlocks) first came into Japan in the mid-sixteenth

century, rapidly became fully adopted into the Japanese way of warfare and
equally rapidly became locally manufactured in large numbers, thanks to
superior Japanese skills in metallurgy and the manufacture of weapons and
armour, Firearms were then just as rapidly abandoned, so that by 1853, when
Commodore Perry’s own heavily armed expedition first visited Japan and
the country again began to open itself up to Western influences, guns were
almost completely unknown.
Perrin explains the process by which Japan “gave up the gun” as being the
result of a combination of factors, chief among them the influence of a large
traditional warrior class (between 7% and 10% of the Japanese population
belonged to the two warrior classes of samurai, compared with a maximum
of about 1% in European countries). This class thoroughly disapproved of
the use of firearms as downgrading their traditional skills and status as war-
riors. Moreover, the traditional weapons of the samurai, especially the sword,
had taken on a status and an overwhelming cultural and aesthetic value
which lasted well into the mid-twentieth century. This meant that swords
were seen in Japanese culture not merely as weapons but as works of art and
as status symbols, par excellence. Hence swords were prized as rewards, and
at the start of the seventeenth century they were even presented as such to
four master gunsmiths in recognition of their skills (ibid p.39).
Moreover, at the start of the seventeenth century, the first of the Tokugawa
shoguns began the clan’s consolidation of control over the whole of Japan.
As part of this process, they started to centralize the manufacture of guns
and powder in two places: Nagahama and Sakai. At the same time, Lord
Tokugawa Iesayu insisted that all orders for guns had to be cleared in the
Japanese capital through a powerful commissioner for guns. By the 1610s
the commissioner was clearing no orders that did not come from the central
government and a few years later the government’s monopoly on arms man-
ufacture was well established. Thereafter a series of gradual cutbacks began
to reduce the number of guns produced at both centres and, as demand
lessened, gunsmiths were kept (relatively) happy by being paid an annual
salary – whether they made guns or not. By the end of the seventeenth
century, the few remaining gunsmiths were kept busy repairing existing
matchlocks, which tended to become merely ceremonial objects. The last
major battle in Japan in which guns played any serious role took place in
1637 at Satsuma (ibid pp.65–67).

Mitigation 133
4.3. Banning death from a distance

Efforts to control – or even ban – the manufacture, trading, possession and
use of guns provide the paradigm case of weapons control in the early mod-
ern and modern eras, but initiatives to limit the use of weapons pre-date
these efforts by many centuries and have been applied to a huge variety of
“means” of harming others. In general, efforts were made to ban particular
weapons because they were characterized as unfair (usually by other com-
batants who did not have them), and undermined the necessity for “true

warriors” to undergo the rigorous training for battle that created the skills
needed for survival. In many cultures, members of the warrior class were
supposed to meet on a level playing field and triumph, face to face, through
superior skills and abilities. (The fact that this set of values tended to give a
major advantage to the big, the swift and the strong seemed to be taken as
a given.) Thus anything that undermined these values encouraged efforts at
limitation.
The dilemma can clearly be seen in frequent attempts across many cultures
to ban missile weapons, which did away with the need for their posses-
sors to run the risk of meeting face to face with someone larger, stronger
and better trained – and enabled even the largest and best trained to be
killed from a distance. Such weapons also seemed particularly “danger-
ous” because they often threatened to overturn social hierarchies and the
established dominance of particular elites (professional warriors) by allow-
ing relatively untrained “inferiors” to kill off those who were used to being
dominant in combat, which often seemed an additional reason for banning
the weapon in question. To a large degree, this reasoning helps to explain
the treatment of archers – and later arquebusiers – during the late Middle
Ages and early modern period in Western Christendom. Captured crossbow-
men and, later, longbowmen were frequently executed on the battlefield by
irate members of the chivalric order, merely for the crime of using relatively
simple weapons that could penetrate protective armour from a distance.
At the end of the fifteenth century, Pierre du Terrail, the Chevalier Bayard
“sans peur et sans rapproche”, frequently had captured crossbowmen – as
well as handgunners – summarily executed, and he was hardly alone in this
practice.13
On the other hand, this belief that certain weapons were unfair and
should be taboo posed an even more profound dilemma. Rules of the game
that signified that certain weapons and their use were unacceptable always
came up against the fact that these weapons were usually also extremely
effective should one wish to triumph on the battlefield and not merely
on the battlefield but in conducting – or resisting – long drawn-out sieges
or campaigns of attrition. What Adrienne Mayor (2003) has characterized
as the clash between waging righteous warfare and waging ruthless (but
probably successful) warfare has often produced two sets of values, one of

which encouraged “fighting fair” according to traditions of justice and hon-

our, and a rival set that valued craft, intelligent trickery and the supreme
objective of winning by any means whatsoever. Elites from many histori-
cal cultures have attempted to balance these two contradictory principles
and have come up with codes that involve compromises, and nuances that
indicate what is acceptable combat behavior and what is not. Should arrows
be used? An agreement between the adversaries during the Lelantine Wars
around 700 BC clearly recorded that they should not, being the means of

cowardly ambush. The hero Odysseus, as much admired for his cunning
as for his valour, also employed poisoned arrows, but these were forbid-
den in one military code from ancient India, The Laws of Manu (500–150
BC), while another – Kautilya’s Arthashastra (fourth century BC) – took the
opposite position and detailed numerous recipes for poisons and toxins, plus
recommendations for their use.
In analysing this righteous v. ruthless dilemma, Adrienne Mayor (2003)
has investigated the history of biological, chemical and fire weapons in clas-
sical times, all of which have been stigmatized as “unfair” or “immoral”
weapons at certain times and in certain cultures while being used – often
effectively – in other circumstances. Her studies have shown how venomous
reptiles and insects, poisons and diseases, deadly gases and incendiary
devices, were all used by peoples at war in the classical world and even
before, and how these tended to be stigmatized as immoral and cowardly,
usually by those who had suffered from their use. In many cases, these
weapons were stigmatized on the grounds that only “uncivilized” peoples
used them, but this often resulted in an informal guideline which justified
their use against the uncivilized, who anyway fought “unfairly”.14
One common argument involved the rather puzzling idea that a weapon
should be avoided or banned on the grounds that it was “cruel or inhu-
mane”. Given that most lethal weapons are designed to end the life of an
adversary – or many adversaries – and to do this as rapidly and effectively as
possible, this seems to be a curious viewpoint. However, the bizarre distinc-
tion here seems to be between death and dying. On the one hand, all lethal
weapons – the swords, spears, lances, battleaxes, muskets, rifles, artillery
and guided missiles of conventional, “righteous” warfare – are intended to
kill (and some to kill in large numbers). On the other hand, they are also
intended to kill rapidly and effectively. However, the deliberately intended
result of other weapons – fire, disease, poisons, gases – is a death which is
agonizing and often long drawn-out, and which intensifies suffering. It is
this extended pain that makes certain weapons “cruel or inhumane” and –
unless possessed exclusively by one side and not the other – a candidate for
avoidance or banning.15
The dilemma – and the ambiguity – regarding the use of particular types
of unfair weapon can be seen most clearly in historical attitudes towards

Mitigation 135
the use of poisoned weapons, such as arrows or edged weapons. Undoubt-

edly, poisoning such weapons increases their lethality and the knowledge
that one’s adversaries – the Scythians, for example – possess and use such
weapons clearly increases their deterrent effect. However, even in classical
times the use of poisons or poisoned weapons was stigmatized as uncivilized
and treacherous, no matter how often it actually occurred or was encour-
aged by some writers and practised by some rulers. Humanity and taboo
enter into even in the most unexpected places. The wholly ruthless treatise

on war, the Arthasastra, written for the Indian King Chandragupta in the
fourth century BC by his adviser, Kautilya, is full of advice about treach-
ery, secret weapons and deception, as well as the development and use of
toxic weapons – without any qualms at all. However, it also exhorts victors
to spare the wounded and the vanquished and, more interestingly, to avoid
harm to non-combatants.
5. Conclusion: The nature and limits of “restraint”
One unarguable conclusion from this survey of conflict-mitigation practices,

both historical and contemporary, is that mitigation efforts can take on a
variety of forms, taboos and limitations on behaviour.
A second is that conflict-mitigation strategies overlap in many ways with
attempts to prevent conflict from restarting or “spilling over” to involve oth-
ers, so one has to ask again: Where does mitigation end and the prevention
of violence begin?
A third conclusion is that it might be helpful to make a distinction
between limitations on behaviour in the midst of conflicts that are the result
on self-imposed rules about what is and what is not permissible, and limita-
tions that are the result of obedience – however reluctant – to some external
factors. These last often operate through feared sanctions, even if they take
the rather weak form of social disapproval or the stronger sanctions of a fully
fledged legal system involving penalties for infringing the rules.
The distinction between individually imposed restraint and externally
enforced constraint is frequently difficult to draw in practice. Were members
of Christendom’s feudal elite who did manage to adhere to the limitations
of the chivalric code as “the right thing to do” actually restraining them-
selves from pursuing untrammelled mayhem or were they being constrained
by those traditions, by the fear of adverse public opinion, by the effects of
anticipated reciprocity from others, or by the potential sanctions that could
be imposed on those who transgressed the “rules of the game”?
Similar questions can be asked about all and any mitigating practices rang-
ing from guerrilla movements announcing lists of legitimate targets (and by
implication, indicating others that are, for them, illegitimate) to many of
the foundations of international law founded upon the “rules and customs”

of civilized nations. I return again to this issue of self-imposed restraint as

opposed to externally imposed constraint in the next chapter.
The issue is further complicated by another feature that emerges from even
a superficial, comparative account of the dynamics of mitigation practices
through the ages. This is that many, if not most, demonstrate a common
pattern of development over time. This involves the initial establishment
of some informal rules of behaviour, which frequently arise from single,
symbolic examples that are then repeated on other occasions, or serve as

models for others in similar situations – the treatment of the dead and the
injured following a particular battle, the use of particular symbols to signify
a request for a truce or a parley, or the establishment of a particular type of
space as off limits for violence. Sometimes, such informal, repeated instances
become generalized and widespread throughout a society and come to be
accepted norms of behaviour by which adversaries and their actions are
judged as right and proper, or worthy of the sanctions of contempt and
dishonour. At a certain point, customs are written down and systematized
to become accepted rule sets or codes of conduct. Later still, under pressure
for modification and change, these codes can move towards becoming a sys-
tem of laws, with means and mechanisms for making and changing rules,
for evaluating whether behaviour conforms to those rules and for sanction-
ing violations of those rule. In other words, “gentlemen’s agreements” or
accepted customs, or individually agreed restraints become, through a pro-
cess of routine, ritual and codification, institutionalized as a set of laws about
when conflicts can properly be waged and how it is proper to wage them.
Part of the problem with this process is that it tends to be socially
“messy”, especially during the transition from the stage of informal norms
and accepted but auto-interpreted codes to the stage of a full-blown legal
regime. Moreover, it is certainly not linear in structure. On the other hand,
efforts to regulate or institutionalize the conduct of conflict seem to be such
a universal phenomenon as to justify a closer and more detailed look in the
next chapters.

7
Regulation
Conflict within Limits

At the conclusion of the last chapter, I emphasized that the most imme-
diate impression one gains from reviewing the range of conflict-mitigation
practices is the sheer variety of activities that come under the heading of
“mitigation”. However, anyone not put off by the heterogeneous nature of
all of these activities will notice that there is, indeed, a common thread
running through all of them, from efforts to establish spaces, times and cat-
egories of people that are free from violence, to day-to-day action to bring
relief supplies to civilians in warzones. To reiterate, all are intended to place
some limits on what parties in even the most intractable conflicts can do as
a result of being in a relationship of conflict.
As I noted at the start of Chapter 6, mitigation efforts are, at base, an
attempt to get away from the philosophy that, even in prolonged, intractable
conflict and during combat, “anything goes” and there are absolutely no
limits to how a party in such a conflict can behave towards the adversary,
its supporters or patrons, and anyone else unfortunate enough to get in the
way of “winning”. The whole idea underlying efforts to mitigate conflict is
that there are limits on behaviour.
As such, conflict mitigation can be regarded as part of a much larger
process, observable in virtually all societies – the processes of coping with
conflicts by establishing a framework of rules within which conflicts should
be waged. Frequently, such rule sets or “systems” become complex in the
extreme. They can cover a variety of issues besides the question of per-
mitted – or prohibited – behaviours once a conflict has become overt.
Indeed, it seems safe to argue that every society throughout recorded his-
tory has developed some system of “rules” for coping with the conflicts
that inevitably arise when people live together in conditions of scarcity and
mutual misapprehension.
1. Rule systems and restraints
Many societies exhibit major variations on this common and recogniz-

able dynamic. This involves particular mitigating practices – honouring the
137

enemy’s dead, recognizing symbols of neutrality, agreeing that certain spaces

(or persons) are to be kept outside the violence, becoming more and more
common until such regular practices become routine – a custom, or even
a ritual. The customs become more and more widely accepted and create
a set of social norms which distinguish “the done thing” from behaviour
which deserves criticism, contempt and, finally, sanction – “the not-done
thing”. In some cases, and at some point, these norms and customs can
become gathered together and written down – “codified” – as the beginnings

of “the laws and customs of conflict”.1 Such codes can go on to become the
basis for an increasingly complex legal system, with means for modifying
and elaborating the rule sets contained in the original codes, for judging
whether infringements have occurred, and for sanctioning such infringe-
ments. In many highly organized societies, the end point of this process is
the establishment of some formal means of agreeing what the rules should
be and how this should be decided – “rules about making the rules”, or
a system for passing “laws” via legislation and a legislating body. In other
less organized societies – including the modern international system of
“sovereign and independent states” – the rule systems remain a matter of
accepted custom or of (often painfully) agreed limitations.
This varied process of trying to place conflicts within a framework of rules
is perhaps best viewed as the “regulation” or, more elaborately, the “institu-
tionalization” of conflict.2 Depending upon the stage of the process, it can
cover practices which run from limitations that members of a society accept
simply as right and proper, through behaviours that have been followed
through generations and have become internalized and habitual, to fully
fledged systems of laws governing conflicts, which involve “courts, codes,
constables and constitutions”, in the words of one pioneering anthropol-
ogist, Lucy Mair.3 Roughly speaking, then, this chapter focuses on these
less formal limitations through which some protracted conflicts in some
societies become “regulated”, while Chapter 8 deals with more formal rule
sets and their attendant social structures and processes that have become
“institutionalized”.
Many kinds of rule systems exist, and their variety can be confusing.
At one extreme are fully fledged legal systems with legislatures, courts,
judges and other third parties concerned with making and enforcing “the
rules”. Other systems lack third parties altogether and, moreover, seem to
lack even semi-formal procedures or institutions for agreeing what “the
rules of the game” actually are. As Janice Stein noted many years ago
when discussing international rule systems as “regimes”, these can exist
and survive “across most policy issues in international relations despite the
absence of institutionalized and formal procedures” (1985 p.15). They often
work by establishing a pattern of repetitive behaviour, which can gener-
ate stable expectations, including some which anticipate possible rebuke or
retaliation.

Regulation: Conflict within Limits 139
I will return to the ideas of repetitive behaviour later in this chapter, and to
the nature of regimes in the next, but at this point I want to emphasize that
one type of “rule system without a third party” involves limits which are
self-imposed. Some systems are based on self-restraint – that is, they involve
the unilateral determination of what the limitations are and whom they
affect. Furthermore, being largely self-imposed, keeping to the rules does not
depend on outside sanctions, nor does their observance depend completely
upon reciprocity. In short, they do not depend upon mutual agreement or an

outside “umpire” for their observance. Restraint can be seen as arising from
the internal value system of one of the adversaries involved in the conflict,
rather than being the result of external imposition or constraint (Figure 7.1).
Type Limitations How How How Examples

Affecting devised supervised sanctioned
Self-limiting Own Unilaterally Unilaterally, Undermining Non-violent
restraint behaviour but often own values civil rights
only before an an and moral campaign;
audience position pacifism
Figure 7.1 Restraint: Unilateral regulation
It is, of course, extremely difficult to make a clear distinction between

limits which are observed because of social pressure and abstentions that are
deliberately chosen and then observed by persons in a conflict, come what
may. Pacifists may be the most obvious examples of people who rationally
choose to abjure certain forms of behaviour in a conflict, no matter what the
cost to themselves and others. The case of those who espouse non-violence
presents a more complicated example of restraint.
2. Self-limiting restraint: Non-violence and beyond
Once again it is the case that the literature in a sub-field of conflict analysis
and resolution – in this case non-violence or non-violent direct action –
turns out to be vast and complicated. Much of it is focused on a cen-
tral debate among the proponents and practitioners of non-violence. This
involves asking whether the approach should involve the requirement of
adopting non-violence as the central idea underpinning a whole way of life,
based upon fundamental moral principles and imperatives – what might be
termed a “non-violence as principle” approach. Against this moralist posi-
tion are those who argue that non-violence is simply a technique or strategy
to be adopted in many conflicts because it is, at base, a more effective and
less damaging strategy all round than any other. Those holding such views –
the pragmatists of non-violence – argue that it is a particularly effective way
of successfully bringing about change in highly asymmetric conflicts. It can

most often be used effectively by the weaker party who are invariably the
ones who get killed off in large numbers during any conflict which turns
to violence. Critics of this stance argue that removing the moral dimen-
sion merely reduces non-violent behaviour to another means of coercing an
adversary and loses some of the basic aspects of “genuine” non-violence –
respect or even love for the adversary, a willingness to suffer oneself rather
than impose suffering, a belief that even the most intransigent oppressor can
be converted because all possess a central core of morality that recognizes

“the good” and can pursue it.
2.1. The essence of non-violence?

Exploration of the essential characteristics of non-violence becomes even
more of a problem when one reviews what behaviours have, historically,
been undertaken as part of the strategy. Clearly, an unwillingness to use
physical violence directly against an adversary, plus a willingness to suf-
fer violence oneself without retaliation, are central ideas in any version of
non-violence. No physical violence should be used against anyone or any-
thing. However, even here there seem to be important differences among
non-violent practitioners. Some proponents of the strategy have argued
that, while physical violence against people is out of the question, violence
against things – against property – is not. Hence, for example, the attacks
against corporate property in Seattle following the World Trade Organiza-
tion summit there in 2000 were a justified part of “non-violent” protest.
Corporate property (as opposed to personal property) is a legitimate tar-
get for violence.4 Within this school of thought, “property destruction is
not violence unless it kills or injures human beings in the process” (Orosco
p.263).
Comprehensive listings of examples of non-violent tactics reveal a parallel
ambiguity regarding what can constitute non-violent “protest and persua-
sion”. In Gene Sharp’s magisterial study of the politics of non-violent action
(1973), he lists 198 separate and distinct tactics available to practitioners
of non-violence. These range from protest letters and critical press articles
through organized vigils, hauntings, teach-ins and boycotts to the with-
drawal of labour, sit-ins and – in the extreme – the setting up and operating
of alternative “governmental” agencies. The essential principle for Sharp
is that all of these tactics are means of refusing to consent to the exis-
tence or the exercise of the adversary’s “power” and, by using such tactics,
undermining it.
However, in an earlier study, Johan Galtung (1965) pointed out that the
vast majority of recommended or practised “non-violent” tactics are “neg-
ative” in that they can be highly costly to the target. They attempt to
influence that target by imposing costs of some variety – material, finan-
cial, reputational or temporal – in order to influence the (usually dominant)
party to change its behaviour in the desired direction. Only rarely do the
proponents and practitioners of non-violence try to use what Galtung terms

“positive non-violent tactics”, which proffer benefits to encourage desired or

to stop undesired behaviour. Moreover, Galtung makes the point that even
ostensibly non-lethal tactics can result in bodily damage and even death to
the targets. Blockades and boycotts, although touted as alternatives to phys-
ical attack, can result in widespread illness, hunger, starvation and death, as
the Germans found to their cost in the post-war period after the November
1918 Armistice ending the actual fighting. The difference was simply a mat-
ter of the timing and the cause of what turned out to be numerous civilian

deaths.
Moreover, how does one deal with the possibility of “non-physical” vio-
lence which does harm of a different sort to the target. Non-violence may
seek to avoid the possibility of bringing “suffering” to the adversary (and
alternatively being willing to accept suffering on oneself), but suffering can
take many forms other than physical pain, injury or death. Is the best argu-
ment for “non-violent” action simply that it will cause less suffering than
actual physical violence, and how do we make such calculation?
2.2. Types of non-violence

Efforts to categorize types of non-violence present equal difficulties. In his
study of non-violence in civil defence, Sharp (in Roberts (ed.), 1967) talks
about three different approaches to using non-violence to undercut an
adversary’s ability to operate:
• non-violent protest, which tends to be symbolic and intended to draw

attention to the existence of a conflict, an injustice or a movement of
dissent;
• non-violent non-cooperation, which involves actions which seriously
undermine an adversary’s ability to continue to operate as normal the
systems of dominance and oppression;
• non-violent intervention, which involves direct challenges to those
essential parts of the governmental system under the control of the
adversary.
Oddly enough, one of the most useful classification schemes for non-
violence can be found in an article by William Marty, who is certainly no
fan of some of the more extreme claims of non-violence as being morally
based and practically effective (Marty, 1971). As a preliminary to what he
describes as an attack on the absolutist position on non-violence, he sug-
gests that there are basically three forms of non-violence, the first of which
is passive and the other two actively resistant:
• non-resisting non-violence, of which pacifism is the main exemplar;

• persuasive non-violence, which attempts to defeat an adversary by per-
suading them of the immorality or impracticality of their current actions,
thus causing them to stop;

• coercive non-violence, which causes the adversary to give up by bringing

non-violent “pressure” to bear upon an oppressor or an occupier.
Marty’s classification scheme is at least clear in its insistence that “non-

violence” may, indeed, abandon direct physical (and, at the extreme, lethal)
damage as a means of bringing pressure to change on adversaries. However,
it certainly does not abandon coercion in the sense of imposing costs on
the Other. Moreover, examination of various non-violent campaigns shows

clearly that the strategy coerces in two ways – through dislocation of some-
thing that currently confers benefit on the Other, or through initiation of
something that imposes some degree of cost. The first involves refusing
to continue to undertake normal activities or normal interactions with the
adversary, as when a rent strike or a boycott is initiated, or when a systematic
campaign of working as slowly as possible takes place, or when a campaign
of “sending to Coventry” brings about a complete unwillingness even to
communicate with an adversary.
Of the 198 non-violent tactics mentioned in Sharp’s study (1973), the
large majority take on this form of non-violent coercion via cessation.
In the world of action, the strategy of what Patricia Parkman (1988) has
termed “the civic strike” seems the best exemplar of this form of non-violent
coercion, an initiative which she defines as “the collective suspension of
normal activities by people of diverse social groups united by a common
political objective” (ibid p.1). As in the insurrection that brought down
Salvadorean strongman Maximiliano Hernandez Martinez in May 1944, this
strategy involves members of all the key sectors of civil society and of gov-
ernment agencies temporarily withdrawing their services from the state until
a widely supported end – in this case the resignation of a President seeking an
illegal fourth term – has been achieved. In El Salvador in 1944, this initiative
involved the complete shutdown of Salvadorean society, especially in the
capital, San Salvador, when doctors and nurses, lawyers and judges, transport
workers, airline staff, postal, telegraph and wireless workers, schoolteach-
ers and students, civil servants and local shopkeepers and merchants, plus
many more citizens, all stayed away from work, initially avoided massive
street demonstrations but followed the slogan “Let no one give the gov-
ernment any cooperation”. Ultimately, after key cabinet ministers had also
withdrawn by tendering their resignations, the President himself resigned
and left the country (Parkman, 1988).
The second form of non-violent, coercive behaviour involves initiating
fresh, often unconventional patterns of activity that impose new forms of
costs on the Other, which can take both material and non-material forms.
Non-violent coercion via initiation can, indeed, take many forms, impos-
ing new costs in ways that range from minor embarrassments, as when
elites are publicly exposed as not following guidelines that they themselves
have laid down, to profound material losses, as when blocking or slowing

communications results in the late (or even non-) delivery of promised

goods.5
Initially, it seems possible to frame non-violent strategies as falling under
one of five basic headings, depending to some degree upon the form sug-
gested by practitioners’ underlying values and philosophy about what is and
what is not permitted (Figure 7.2).

Non-violence
Non-resisting Persuading Coercing
Dislocation Initiation
Figure 7.2 Types of non-violent action
Apart from debate and discussion of what form non-violent action should
or does take, much of the literature on the topic focuses on the issue of
the circumstances in which non-violence can be effective. Some writers
echo Hannah Arendt to the effect that, against a Hitler or a Stalin, such a
strategy is doomed to bloody failure. Others, such as Ralph Summy (1994),
counter that, even faced with an extremely ruthless opponent, non-violence
has worked, at least as a conflict-mitigation strategy. To repeat Kenneth
Boulding’s words, “What exists is possible” and successful non-violent cam-
paigns have certainly existed throughout history and on into twenty-first
century.
For the purposes of this chapter, however, each and every one of the types
of non-violent strategies that we have mentioned share a common feature
that makes them unusual – possibly unique – in a survey of “conflicts within
rules”, as well as in the study of rule systems within which some conflicts
come to be waged. The most obvious of these is that all non-violent tac-
tics are examples of what might be termed “self-limiting restraint”. In other
words, the rules of non-violence, whatever form they take, limit conflict
behaviour but they are limitations that are devised by one side, unilaterally
and they only directly affect that side’s conduct in the conflict. Whether
the party adopting a non-violent strategy simply excludes actual physical
harm to its adversaries, or (at the other extreme) whether it excludes a much
wider range of behaviours or an almost infinite number of potential tar-
gets, these limitations are self-chosen and self-imposed. They do not depend
upon the existence of some externally developed “rules of the game” or
upon prior agreements with an adversary or upon some shared norm of reci-
procity. It is hoped that the reactions of “the Other” will be affected by one’s
own restraint, but this can in no way be guaranteed, and neither can the

reactions of other “third parties”. Whatever the exact form it takes, non-
violence is at base a type of regulated conflict behaviour that is self-limiting,
only directly affects one’s own behaviour, devised and carried out unilater-
ally, sanctioned by the violation of one’s own values and moral position and
is, finally, self supervised – although many practitioners have admitted that
it is most effective if carried out in front of an influential audience.
3. Constraint, routine and regulation

It can easily be recognized that, both in the contemporary era and through-
out history, the practice of non-violence presents an unusual example of
self-imposed rule observance which I have called “restraints”. This clearly
contrasts with the more numerous examples of limitations in conflict that
are mutually agreed upon or the result of some anticipated sanctions arising
from the existence of a overarching set of imposed and agreed rules, which
can be termed “constraints”.
Examples of constraints are much more available and familiar, if even
more heterogeneous, taking up – as they do – diverse forms from one society
to another. The following sections in this chapter present examples of efforts
to regulate and ultimately institutionalize conflicts which illustrate various
approaches to setting increasingly formal limits on conflicts at a variety of
levels in different societies. Each example of a type of regulation illustrates
the widely varied form which the three basic components of a rules system
intended to cope with intense, intractable conflicts can take – the nature
of the rules themselves, the nature of the rules systems’ supporting insti-
tutions and the means by which the rules are monitored, maintained and
enforced.
However, it should be kept in mind that any of the practices discussed
below have in common the objective of limiting the disruptive effects of
a situation in which often powerful adversaries possess important – and
apparently mutually incompatible – goals and are prepared to go to many
lengths to achieve them, unless somehow constrained. All represent efforts
to impose external limits on all of the parties involved in a conflict, rather
than relying upon self-limitation by one of the parties involved.
3.1. Regulating intra-society combat

From the later years of the sixteenth century until the first decade of the
eighteenth century, violent, mass battles would regularly take place on
certain bridges connecting the central islands making up the Republic of
Venice. The “parties” in this continuing series of conflicts and confronta-
tions were the largely working-class inhabitants of two regions around the
central Venetian lagoon: the Nicolotti to the north and north west and
the Castellani to the south and south east (Davis, 1994). These violent
confrontations, known locally as the guerra di pugni or “war of the fists”,

took place in certain well-defined locales (specific arched bridges that joined
together the territories of the rival factions and which, because of their
configuration and height, dominated the surrounding area). They often
involved hundreds of fighters (all seeking honour and repute as successful
local champions) as well as thousands of spectators, and they were ini-
tially permitted, even encouraged, by the Venetian authorities who saw such
battaglioni (little battles) as an alternative to worse disorders.
In their heyday, the pugni seem to have been both violent but highly con-

strained, and an excellent example of regulated conflicts that took place
within well-understood behavioural boundaries limiting what might take
place between the adversaries. Because of the nature of the battlefield (nar-
row bridges where only single or a few fighters could directly encounter
one another), violence and injury were somewhat limited (although people
could be killed in very large-scale, long drawn-out encounters). This feature
was reinforced by the fact the fighting took place with fists or, in the early
years of the sixteenth century, sticks. In the case of encounters between indi-
vidual champions (and even in the larger battles between rival squads), the
battles were regulated by respected padrini from both sides, who stopped
individual contests – for example, when blood was first drawn – or in larger
battles controlled and directed the forces of their “side” and, when necessary,
accepted defeat. The latter was usually signified by the definite and final loss
of control of the bridge at the centre of the battle.
I mention the example of the Venetian “war of the fists”, as it seems to
illustrate very neatly one form of the regulation of conflict in which the
limitations on what might occur become generally, if informally, accepted
by the adversaries as the understood “rules of the game”, and the conflict
itself becomes routinized or even takes on some aspect of a ritual. In the case
of the guerra di pugni, the limits affected
• where violence might properly occur – the bridges which crossed the
canals that divided Venice into separate parishes;
• changes to the bridge to make it an appropriate “field of battle” – clearing
floating debris from the waters beneath the bridge, appropriately placed
straw bales to minimize injuries through falling; removal of surface mud
that would make footholds slippery;
• the weapons that might properly be used – fists, which took over from an
earlier period when sticks and shields had been employed, and words;
• how combatants should be properly dressed during an individual combat
(a mostre) or a group assault (a frotte) – for example, gloves were acceptable
but specially reinforced gloves were not;
• what signified a victory for one side or the other – in a mostre, either
drawing blood or knocking the opponent off the bridge into the canal
below, and in a frotte the coming of night or the undeniable occupation
and control of the commanding heights of the bridge by one side’s forces.

As with all routinized or ritualized conflict, a key question is what factors

contributed to the adversaries accepting the limitations that were involved
in the rituals. One obvious answer is that participation in the guerra was a
way for individuals and sub-factions to gain status, reputation and honour,
which would have been lost through a failure to obey the rules of the mostre
or battaglioni. Individuals who, in the heat of combat, would pick up stones
or suddenly produce knives were increasingly seen as unfit to participate in
the pugni and would find themselves marginalized among their own faction,

lose the protection of patrician patrons and become more liable to be picked
up by the Venetian authorities as “undesirables”. Robert Davis notes the ten-
dency of the local chronicler of the ritual battle of the bridges to evaluate the
behaviour of individual combatants – or of fighting squads and whole fac-
tions – as “discreet and honorable” and “customary and appropriate” on the
one hand, or “failing to win admiration” or “dishonest and not practiced
at the bridges” on the other (Davis p.48). He notes that clearly there was a
whole “system of worker values” influencing behaviour at the bridges and –
as with many ritualized conflicts – these produced “unwritten cultural rules”
for the war of the fists. (ibid p.49)
Again, as with many forms of ritualization, the rules and the ritual itself
began to break down under the pressure of social change. For one thing,
elite and even popular support in Venice began to dwindle after the heyday
of the pugni in the 1670s and 1680s, and, as the seventeenth century drew
to a close, other sources of honour, respect and reputation could be found.
(In Venice, the regatta already existed as a forum for contest, rivalry and the
achievement of honours.) For another, one of the issues that never became
rule bound was the question of how many fighters and how many squads
the Nicolotti and Castellani could bring to each confrontation. Hence both
factions continued increasingly to strive to bring as many as possible in order
to overwhelm the other. Moreover, as the seventeenth century progressed,
more and more of the Castellani – workers in the shipyards, the fleet and the
arsenal – began to be sent away to become involved in the defence of the
Venetian Empire in the eastern Mediterranean, so that the balance of pop-
ulation and hence of available forces shifted conclusively in favour of the
Nicolotti. As the stakes grew higher and the likelihood of success shifted,
there was an increasing tendency for the “rules of the game” to be ignored
in the search for winning, so that both sides would come to the site of
any confrontation accompanied by boatloads of weapons. A final battaglioni
in September 1705 degenerated into a huge, armed riot which continued
even while the church of San Girolamo burned to the ground. After this the
Venetian Council of Ten banned the guerra di pugni for good. This example
of ritualized, factional conflict finally vanished, although other examples
from the same period in Italy – the Palio in Siena, for example – survived as
sporting contests.

3.2. Routines and limits

The “war of the fists” in late Renaissance Venice illustrates two common,
although not necessarily universal, elements that are often features of rule
systems that attempt to control conflicts – namely routine and ritual. Both
can play a key role in bringing some order into what might otherwise take
the form of unstructured, chaotic and damaging violence arising from indi-
viduals, groups or communities developing non-negotiable, incompatible
goals within a society and, as a consequence, ending up by destroying it.

In the case of the seventeenth-century pugni, most of Venetian society had,
over a long period of time, become habituated to the regular confronta-
tions between the Nicoletti and the Castellani, which took place at particular
locations, during a particular season, following a particular set of accepted
formats (the mostre or the frotte), and which had accepted means of deter-
mining winners and losers. Until things began to get out of hand at the start
of the eighteenth century, the Venetian authorities were prepared to tolerate
such routinized expressions of rivalry and hostility between working-class
factions, as they were seen as acting as substitutes for uncontrolled brawls
and unrestrained riots.
Analysts of many forms of human conflict, quite apart from that within
Italian city states, have noted a tendency for even intense conflicts to start
out initially as involving unrestrained combat, with no limits on coercion
and violence but, through a process of repetition, to “routinize” themselves,
so that limitations become habitual, unilaterally recognized and then gen-
erally accepted. Often this is a preliminary to a stage of codification and,
ultimately, legalization. Sociologists such as Joseph Himes (1980) – and par-
ticularly industrial sociologists – have long argued that the routinization of
conflict takes place particularly when
• adversaries have been in continuous interaction – that is, in a stable

relationship – with one another over a long period of time;
• their overall relationship contains within it elements of both conflict and
cooperation;
• there is a high expectation that the relationship will continue beyond
any stage at which the conflictful elements seem to dominate.
Many ethnographers have also emphasized the importance of this “antici-

pation of continuity” in developing routines, rituals and rule systems which
limits the potentially destructive effects of unfettered conflicts. Typical of
such comments is one by Ben Fred-Mensah writing about the crucial need
to settle conflicts and to abide by the terms of settlement among the Buem
peoples of northern Ghana. The need is “motivated by the fact that mem-
bers of the community are invariably in on-going social and economic

relationships, and must necessarily deal with one another in the future”
(Fred-Mensah, 200 p.34).
It seems important to add that it would also be crucial that the long-term
relationship involves – overall and over time – a recognized level of mutual
benefit and that this outweighs any short-term advantages that might be
gained from breaking away from the routine. Moreover, as the routinized
practices become established, there also often grows among the adversaries
a feeling that such practices are not merely normal but also “proper”.

These features can often be observed in the histories of industrial conflict
in a large number of countries, where built-in goal incompatibilities between
“hands” and “heads”, workers and owners, labour and management have
led to repetitive episodes of confrontation and conflict. Often, in the early
stages of industrialization and the establishment of large productive units,
these conflicts start out as wholly uncontrolled and unlimited, then gradu-
ally become routinized and regulated. The relationship ends in a final stage
when conflicts have become thoroughly institutionalized with relevant leg-
islation and codified laws passed by national legislatures. As many industrial
sociologists have observed, this process takes place basically because both
sides come to recognize that they are in a relationship that will continue
even when a particular conflict episode comes to an end and that both, usu-
ally, have the overarching goal of preventing a particular conflict becoming
too damaging to the overall structure within which both exist and work.
This knowledge, again usually, affects both the nature of the conflict and
the manner in which it is conducted. As Robert Dubin once commented,
the parties in an industrial conflict “can only deal with each other. Their
relations are continuous and continuously conflictual. Routine relations can
only develop out of continuous interaction” (Dubin, 1957 pp.179–199).
It is always possible to exaggerate the influence of routine, or even of
legal codes, in limiting what tactics are used during an episode of conflict
once particular thresholds – in industrial conflicts the actual calling of a
strike, the imposition of a lock-out, the firing of union officials – have been
crossed. On the other hand, traces of “routinization” can be found even in
the most violent and deep-rooted conflicts, where the continuing relation-
ship is unlikely to be regarded as beneficial, even if it is inescapable. In such
cases, routinized behaviour is more a matter of patterns that emerge through
almost unthinking habit, rather than through conscious limitation.
For example, some early observers of Protestant and Catholic mob “con-
frontations” on the streets of Belfast in Northern Ireland during the outset
of “the Troubles” in the late 1960s noted that these particular episodes of
communal conflict behaviour followed almost fixed patterns (Darby, 1986).
Crowds gathered. Insults were exchanged at long range. Rival crowds faced
one another along narrowly defined fronts (usually the width of a particular
street or at some key road junction on the border of rival neighbourhoods).
Menacing surges took place. Bricks and other missiles were thrown and a

few minor scuffles broke out on the periphery. The crowds then dispersed
without much harm having been done, but with honour satisfied.
The striking thing for many observers was that it seemed clear that some
kind of limitations on behaviour had grown up simply through repetition.
A pattern of communal confrontation had become routinized and, in some
sense, “normal”. The pattern could easily have been disrupted by the substi-
tution of guns for bricks or by moving along a few streets, “outflanking” the
other side and attacking the other crowd from the rear. However, at least in

the early stages of community confrontation in 1968, this was never done,
although shortly thereafter the whole pattern of violence in the Province
changed and escalated.
In many ways these routinized confrontations and clashes on the streets of
Belfast bear a strong resemblance to the kind of routinized warfare described
by Marvin Harris as taking place between the Maring people of the New
Guinea highlands (1989 pp.62–64). In this latter case, following the uproot-
ing of a symbolic peace tree and the holding of a feast – partially intended
to recruit allies – the belligerent clan and their adversaries agree on a site
for combat, take turns to clear the field of undergrowth and agree on a
day for the first encounter. After the opposing forces are arrayed at a bow-
shot distance at either end of the cleared space, large wooden shields are
set up and individual warriors pop up periodically, avoiding arrow show-
ers, to yell insults at the other side. Efforts are made to end the conflict
once anyone is seriously injured, which may not occur until the adversaries
close with one another using axes and spears. Once someone is killed there
is a truce and fighting often ends at that point. On other occasions, the
war is resumed until one side weakens and retreats, at which point rou-
tine becomes replaced with rout and the victorious clan burns the other’s
settlements, destroys its crops, makes off with its wealth in the form of
pigs and thereupon returns home to plant another peace tree, signify-
ing the start of a another period of peace. The routinized cycle has been
completed.
4. Routine, ritualization and rule systems
Examples of modern industrial conflicts, confrontations in the New Guinea

highlands and the Venetian “war of the fists” can all be seen as efforts to
produce limits on how conflicts are waged. Each can be seen as containing
strong elements of routinization. On the other hand, some sociologists have
talked about conflicts in their social milieu as coming to contain a great deal
of “ritual”, implying a somewhat different process for limiting conflict than
the simple growth of acceptable habits.
Used more precisely, the process of ritualization does seem to differ some-
what from the “routinization” of conflicts, although there are undoubtedly
elements of overlap between the two concepts. (The difference is perhaps

more apparent than real, and arises from the fact that the routinization
seems to be used mainly to describe industrial conflict, while ritualization
tends to be used by anthropologists to explain different ways in which
conflicts are limited in what used to be called “simple societies”.)
One possible way of differentiating the two processes is to confine the
use of the term “routinization” simply to those accepted and habitual prac-
tices used in waging a conflict that have been found to prevent that conflict
from degenerating into uncontrolled and limitless violence. As observers

like Robert Dubin have emphasized, routinized conflict can, in fact, involve
large elements of imposed coercion – a strike is hardly costless for either
side. At another social level, the routine of breaking off diplomatic rela-
tions as a form of conflict behaviour imposes costs in the form of problems
attending trade and travel. The action also resembles a strike in being
a warning about how seriously one country regards a particular issue in
conflict. At base, then, routinization essentially involves the habitual pursu-
ing of objectives through particular forms of behaviour that are damaging
but not too damaging, while eschewing others that would be too dis-
ruptive of the cooperative side of “antagonistic cooperation”. It implies
selecting from a range of possible ways of coercing an adversary with a
limited number of standard behaviours that are regularly used in such
circumstances.
In contrast, ritualization might best be thought of as substituting one form
of behaviour for others which could, normally, be used in a conflict, rather
than selecting a limited number from those available.6 Like routinization,
ritualization is a means of preventing the use of extreme or widespread
violence in a conflict, whether this occurs between individuals, groups or
communities, but it is frequently characterized by substitution, symbols and
ceremony. At base, ritual is substituted, not selected, behaviour. It replaces
unlimited coercion and unrestrained violence either by symbolic behaviour
that can both “stand in” for physical coercion and violence (as well as deter-
mining the outcome of the conflict) or by processes which – by modifying
the form of violence undertaken – “channel” the physical coercion into
highly restrained, rule-bound and ceremonial forms.
4.1. Rituals as symbolic substitution

Examples of both types of ritualization can be found in many societies,
and studies by anthropologists and ethnographers have particularly shown
how symbolic and ceremonial contests are in widespread use as meth-
ods of settling quarrels or feuds between individuals, families and factions.
In all societies, even the least structured and hierarchical, conflicts can arise
over the ownership or utilization of resources or over personal insults or
physical injury. Hence, recognized rules of conduct need to be developed
in order to minimize the potential disruption of highly interdependent
societies.

Such generality means that ritualized conflict, based on what might be

termed “symbolic substitution”, can take on a huge variety of forms and
practices depending upon what symbolic acts substitute for coercion and
violence, and what substituted skills contribute to settling the conflict, deter-
mining who wins and who loses, and what are the rewards for winning
and the costs of losing. For example, the indigenous Santa Martan people of
Colombia settle their conflicts by striking a stick against a rock rather than
one another. For some Inuit peoples, inter-individual conflict often takes the

form of a ritualized exchange of insults to the accompaniment of drumming
and backed by a chorus. The winner is the person whose insults are judged
the most witty, apposite and deadly by reference to the reactions of the audi-
ence. This implies that the advantage in such ritualized conflicts lies with the
poetically witty, rather than with the physically strong – or the most experi-
enced and skillful fighter as would be the case if more conventional means
of “duelling” were to be employed.
4.2. Rituals as modified combat

Different rituals vary in the amount of what might be termed “reduced
lethality” that the rules permit. Many years ago the ethnographer Radcliffe
Brown mentioned an Australian tribe in which the offended person was per-
mitted by custom and public opinion to throw a certain number of spears –
or boomerangs – at the offender or in other cases to spear him in the thigh,
after which the former might no longer harbour ill feelings against the lat-
ter (1965 p.533) Napoleon Chagnon reports on chest pounding, and axe or
machete and club duelling among the Yanomamo, the “fierce people” of
Venezuela. Each of these procedures is hardly non-violent but takes place
according to stringent and well-understood rules (taking turns to deliver
and receive blows, using only the flat sides of machetes). Chagnon argues
that this ritualized violence provides an alternative to killing and that much
of the Yanomano fighting is “kept innocuous by these rules, so that the
concerned parties do not have to resort to drastic means to resolve their
differences”(Chagnon, 1968 p.118). Similarly, the Nuer of southern Sudan
traditionally prohibited the use of lethal weapons in conflicts that took place
within “home” compounds, but in a feud between more distant settlements
(in both a geographical and genealogical sense), lethal weapons and killings
were allowed (Evans-Pritchard, 1940).
At the level of inter-individual conflict, processes of ritualization through
modifying violence to socially approved levels and methods frequently
develop in the direction of ceremonial duels, as with the Yanomamo. Here,
behaviour is highly constrained, partly with the aim of limiting the damage
to society that would be caused by unconstrained assault, and partly with the
aim of making the combat more equal. As Galtung (1965) has pointed out,
many societies have developed this particular form of “conflict within rules”
for individuals, although in most the process is available only to members

of certain elite classes. An exception to this last limitation was the Icelandic
practice of holmgang, a ritualized way of settling inter-individual conflicts
over property, inheritance, theft, slander and seduction. Holmgang was a
form of ritualized combat used in early medieval Iceland – roughly from
the end of the ninth century to the start of the eleventh – but, unlike many
duelling systems, it was open to all free individuals, irrespective of class or
social standing (Radford, 1989).
The rules of holmgang were stringent and well understood through oral tra-

dition, although apparently never codified. The adversaries faced each other,
armed with swords of equal length, on a cloak 90 inches square. The person
challenged was allowed to have the first blow, after which they alternated in
striking at one another. Each was to have three shields, with someone else
to hold a shield in front of him.
As commentators on Icelandic history have observed, the whole procedure
was cumbersome but clearly aimed at reducing the likely cost of unregulated
combat between adversaries. It actually decreased the risk of serious personal
injury or death while providing a means of conclusively settling an inter-
individual dispute and avoiding the pursuit of blood vengeance which could
easily lead to a feud. It confined the conflict to two individuals and regulated
the harm that could be done, avoiding what one analyst has called “the
far reaching slaughter of kinsmen which characterized feud proceedings”
(Jones, 1933 p.205). Holmgang thus provides an excellent example of a rule
system based on the principle of modifying combat procedures until they
took on a ritualized form that confined both the personal and social damage
that could result from unconstrained behaviour in a conflict situation.
5. Feuds, rules and rituals
There remains a question, however, of whether there might be an important

distinction on the one hand between feuds, however bloody or protracted,
and on the other utterly unconstrained or unrestrained violence within a
society. Are feuds opportunities for absolutely any form of behaviour that
resulted in harm to the others, unless kept within bounds by superior author-
ity backed by sanctions, as in the Verona of the Montagues and Capulets?
Or are they another example of conflicts in which behaviour was con-
strained by some recognized and, usually if not invariably, obeyed rules of
conduct?7
To some degree this core question about the nature and “functionality”
of feuds has been obscured by the general tendency to use the term “feud”
to describe any long drawn-out dispute, whether it involves violence or not,
and especially those that take place within a family or a small, intercon-
nected community. This “common language” use of the term for any conflict
that lasts thus makes for much imprecision, emphasizes the need for a clear

definition and distracts from the issue of the effects – and the effectiveness –
of such attempts to place conflict and likely violence within a set of rules or
norms. Of all the efforts to produce a clear definition of “feud”, the anthro-
pologist Keith Otterbein’s characterization (2002) seems clean and practical.
According to Otterbein, the essential elements are:
• kinship groups are involved;

• homicides take place;

• the killings occur as revenge for “injustice” (duty, honour, righteous or
legitimate are terms associated with the process);
• three or more alternating killings or acts of violence occur;
• these acts of violence occur within a political entity – for example, a tribe,
nation or country.
While there is some agreement on the essential characteristics of feuds,

on the issue of the feud’s effectiveness in limiting violence as far as degree
and (especially) duration are concerned, even professional anthropologists
differ significantly. While most are agreed that some rules are involved in
even the most violent feuding, the answer about the nature and extent of
the limitations depends, to some degree, on the way in which individual
analysts define “feud”.8 In his summary article on the subject, Otterbein
insists that “Feuding can be carried out according to a large body of culturally
defined rules”.
We are left with a somewhat ambiguous situation. On the one hand,
there is a huge amount of evidence to support the view that feuds in many
societies do, in fact, take place within well understood rule sets that adver-
saries are expected to observe. W.H. Lewis, writing about traditional clan
feuding in Morocco, states firmly that the conflict “followed certain fixed
rules which were ignored . . . only infrequently for fear of sullying the rep-
utations and honor of the clan itself” (Lewis, 1961 p.44). Among what he
calls these “guides for right conduct” were prohibitions on waging warfare
in marketplaces, molesting women in places of prayer, and violating certain
kinds of truces and paroles.9 He argues that in Moroccan clan feuding, “the
‘rules of the game’ were closely observed and transgressed only with the
greatest of trepidation” (ibid p.45).
While these and most other accounts of feuding agree that feuds did
usually take place within a well-understood and frequently observed set of
rules – in many cases amounting to a code10 – in contrast there is much
less agreement about (a) whether feuding traditions also contained means
of ending a dispute or whether feuds were, by their nature, open-ended
and inevitably involved continuous retaliation, and (b) whether the prac-
tice of feuding in general was really effective in limiting disruption within
the feuding society.

On the first issue, disagreement arises over whether the rule set could
ever enable feuds to come to an end (that is, were they interminable or
intractable and hence non-resolvable?) rather than about whether they lim-
ited what feuding adversaries can actually do during a feud. Emrys Peters
seems to feel that feuding might be subject to behavioural limits but, being
also impossible to bring to an end, would continue the interaction pattern
of violent offence, retaliation and counter-retaliation over time and without
cessation:

since feud is competition for preferential access to natural resources, as
long as these resources are scarce and competition continues, the pattern
of feuding stays . . .
(Peters, 1975 p.xxii)
In contrast, Christopher Boehm (1987) is firmly of the view that feuding

involves two core characteristics: “the deliberate limitation of conflict and
a deliberate attempt to resolve the conflict . . . ”. In the case of traditional
feuds among Montenegrin tribes he argues that there were numerous oppor-
tunities for adversaries to back down or seek a settlement. Three common
means consisted of truces, monetary compensation and third party inter-
vention – in the Montenegrin case by the “Court of Good Men”. Similarly,
Keith Otterbein argues that feuds were not inevitably interminable, although
they were often most difficult to resolve. However, they could often be
ended through apology and the payment of compensation (Otterbein, 1994
pp.140–141).
Possibly this disagreement arises from approaching the issue of end-
ing feuds from different starting points. It may well be that the practice
of feuding (or other forms of resolving conflicts violently or even non-
violently) is inevitable, or highly likely, in conditions of scarcity. This would
certainly fit in with the scarcity model of conflict formation presented in
Chapter 2. On the other hand, it may equally be the case that a society’s
set of rules within which individual feuds are conducted contains elaborate,
practical and effective provisions for ending a particular feud, so that the
tit-for-tat, retaliatory violence and killing between those specific adversaries
comes to an end.
On the issue of whether feuds actually contributed to less rather than
more social disruption, there is equal disagreement. Clearly, the tradition
of feuding may have limited the nature and level of violence on the one
hand but on the other it usually involved a widening circle of kin in a
search for blood revenge. Some of those writing about the feud in early
medieval Iceland are in no doubt about the positive and socially valued
functions of the practice. According to Jesse Byock, “The dominant concern
of this society . . . to channel violence into accepted patterns of feud and to

regulate conflict” (ibid, p.1). This leads to Byock’s later assertion that “the
peculiarly Icelandic way in which feud operated was a vital rather than a
destructive force within the medieval community” (ibid p.23). Other ana-
lysts have ascribed the conflict dampening effects of feuds to the fact that
potential group liability for wrongs would lead relatives to possess a continu-
ing and lively interest in their kinfolks’ affairs, and especially in taking steps
to ensure that they did not become indirectly and inadvertently involved
as targets of violence through the acts of brothers, cousins, wives and even

parents (Miller p.198).
The possibility that a feuding tradition could also contain the means for
terminating the resultant spiral of violence is certainly supported by current
major efforts to end contemporary blood feuds in post-communist Albania.
Here the use of those aspects of the traditional set of rules for conduct
known as kanun can enable contemporary feuds to be brought to an end.
Since recent Albanian governments have begun to take seriously the revival
of blood feuding, efforts have been made through volunteer mediators and
the Committee for National Reconciliation (CNR) to arrange truces between
individuals and families caught up in modern blood feuds – and frequently
living in hiding. The CNR reports that every year more than 100 new blood
feuds are being reported, but also that more and more families are choosing
to forgive and to reconcile through the efforts of CNR mediators. The pro-
cesses used are partly based upon the traditions of the kanun (for example,
a family seeking forgiveness from its adversaries must wait until a year has
passed since the killing), and partly based upon modern adaptations (rec-
onciling families face each other and sign an agreement ending the feud,
a ceremony which is also recorded on videotape (White, 24 June 2008)).
In changed circumstances, it seems that feuds are not wholly intractable and
do permit settlement, and possibly resolution, of the underlying conflict.
In passing, the revival of the tradition of blood feud in present-day Albania
seems strange until one recognizes that this is not an isolated case. In many
parts of the world there are examples of the revival of traditional means
of “settling” conflicts that involve “self-help” and a reversion to violence
and feuding – perhaps involving traditional methods of actually ending
the feud – as a method of repayment for injury and the achievement of a
kind of “rough justice”. For example, there are reports of continuing blood
feuds and killings – known as “rido” – among Muslim communities on
Mindanao, adding to the death and destruction caused by separatist move-
ments fighting the Filipino Government there. Feuding continues between
Kurdish clans in northern Iraq, complicating the already complex problems
of maintaining a fragile peace in the region. Across the border in south east
Turkey, where the activities of Kurdish separatists almost resulted in a similar
breakdown of social order, there has also been a revival of the tradition of
blood feud.

What all these cases have in common seems to be that they occur when
more “modern” processes for settling intra-societal disputes – court proce-
dures involving laws and judges, the passing and enforcing of legislation,
country-wide arbitration procedures backed by the force of law – have bro-
ken down and the society has reverted to almost a pre-modern condition
where no central authority or law-enforcement mechanism exists. Individ-
uals, families and communities thus face a situation where remedies have
to be taken into their own hands and rule systems devised, or revived, that

enable conflicts to be limited and even settled, so that the society does not
collapse into total anarchy.
6. Rules, rituals and customary constraint
All of the examples I have discussed so far (apart from unilaterally imple-
mented non-violence) represent at least the beginnings of some society’s
efforts to devise a set of limitations without which conflict that might oth-
erwise get “out of hand” and destroy important elements of that society.
At a later stage in development, the rule set might well become part of a
more formal system, with rules about making new rules plus institutions for
debating, establishing, interpreting and enforcing the resulting limitations
on behaviour.
In other words, the systems mentioned above fall somewhere between the
self-imposed limitation, represented by pacifism, non-violence or policies
which exempt “the innocent” from attack, and full-blown legal systems that
involve laws, judges, police, criminals and punishment. While there are ele-
ments of self-restraint in all the examples mentioned above – internalized
values about right conduct and not violating customary limits – the addi-
tional constraints imposed by such systems come from outside particular
individuals or groups engaged in a conflict and focused on acceptable ways
to win.
However, such systems clearly are different from formal legal systems.
They surely need to be differentiated both from rule sets involving
limitations that are purely self-imposed and from those societies where those
in conflict have no options but to obey clear legal rules or be accused of
breaking some law or other and becoming subject to inevitable sanctions.
Rule systems that depend on “agreed” constraint, as well as those that
involve “conventional” constraint, fall somewhere between highly informal
systems of self-limiting restraint and fully fledged legal systems, but they
do represent efforts to regulate what otherwise might become unlimited
conflict – and they can be effective (Figure 7.3).
Hence I would argue that, while agreed constraint and conventional con-
straint systems fall well short of what Western scholars regard as “the majesty
of the law”, nonetheless they need to be taken seriously as efforts to cope
with intractable conflicts and are a form of regulation that, while it might

Type Limitations How How How Examples

Affecting devised supervised sanctioned
1. Self limiting Own Unilaterally Unilaterally Undermining Non-

restraint behaviour only but often in own values violent civil
before an and moral rights
audience position campaign
2. Agreed Interdependent Bilateral tacit Bilaterally Adversary Limited

constraint behaviour of or formal will retaliate war

both parties in agreement and break
specific rules in turn
conflict
3. Conventional Behaviour of Development Bilaterally Retaliation Ritualized

constraint all parties in of traditional plus plus conflict in
that type of norms via outsiders as structured tribal
conflict socialization sanctioners social societies
plus informal disapproval
codes of
conduct
Figure 7.3 Types of regulated system
fall short of formal institutionalization, can help to make even violent, pro-
tracted and intractable conflicts less horrific. They may even be regarded as
a “way station” en route to the kind of global legal system for dealing with
international conflicts that are envisaged, for example, by world federalists
and similar idealists.

8
Institutionalization

At first sight it may seem bizarre to be comparing examples of rule sets as
a means of limiting conflicts in societies as distant in time and space as
medieval Iceland, twentieth-century West Africa and contemporary China
or Turkey. The rules and limitations themselves and the societies which
developed them all seem wholly different from one another and surely
incomparable. However, I would argue that there are some similarities
between, for example, Iceland in its immediate post-settlement, “heroic” era
and contemporary examples of “collapsed (or ineffectual) states”. These can
justify a comparison of the efforts of people in those societies to bring some
order into their lives. Such efforts aim to limit the destructive effects of con-
flicts that inevitably arise in situations of scarcity, competition, threats and
fear, plus the absence of centralized authority, of any means of impartially
determining acceptable outcomes from disputes, and of trustworthy secu-
rity services. In all of these societies, such absences give rise to – admittedly
highly varied – efforts to construct some pragmatic and acceptable “rules of
the game” to cope with the existence of an anarchical environment. Just
as there was “no law west of the Pecos”, to misquote a saying from the
nineteenth-century US frontier, so the absence of an acceptable, formal sys-
tem of law-making, law interpretation and law application in many societies
led frequently to the development of some accepted informal rules, based –
perhaps shakily – on pragmatism, consensus and restraint. The existence
of such routine or ritualized rule sets as a means of confining otherwise
unrestrained combat can be seen as a common feature in pre-state soci-
eties, in societies where the reach of the state is tenuous and limited, and
in situations where the state has virtually fallen apart.
In many respects, a pre-state society, with its need for some rules, at
least, for limiting the destructive effects of conflicts, combat and violence,
also resembles the historical and contemporary condition of “international”
society. There, the absence of any central authority, of any conventional
law-making and law-enforcing body, and of reliance upon individual states’
untrammelled “self-help” in situations of conflict, has also led to the
158

Institutionalization 159
development of agreed and (sometimes) accepted “rules of the game” as far

as conducting and settling conflicts is concerned. Lacking a central author-
ity and any means for codifying, legislating and especially imposing rules,
the members of international society have had, over the centuries, to devise
means of envisaging, negotiating, agreeing and practising rule sets about the
“proper” conduct of all types of relationship. All are ultimately based on
consensus but frequently start with the growth of patterns of regular or rou-
tine behaviour. Nowhere has this been so difficult as in developing rules for

international conflict that limit the destructive effects of wars and civil wars.
1. “Regimes” and regularized interaction
The above argument returns us to the topic of “regimes”. In many ways,

“international society” can be viewed as the prime example of a society
with no formal legislative system, yet one which, in the past and concur-
rently, attempts to agree – and most recently to impose – rules of conduct
on people and parties in conflict. Historically, since at least the sixteenth
and seventeenth centuries, many scholars and statesmen have attempted to
develop “laws” about when and in what circumstances armed violence could
be used, and what limitations should be imposed on the nature of behaviour
during wartime. Such efforts led to distinguishing two great, non-legislative
sources of international rules regarding warfare: the customs of “civilized”
societies, and treaties and agreements regarding conduct of, and in, wars.
I discuss some of aspects of these rule systems below, but at this point
I wish to mention briefly a third possibility for limiting behaviour in con-
flicts, which lies somewhere between the existence of long-established, rec-
ognized and influential “customs” and the existence of formal documents,
treaties or resolutions signifying agreed limitations between adversaries and
combatants. This is the idea of an international “regime”, a conception
that became the subject of much debate and research among international
relations scholars – and some practitioners – during the 1970s, 1980s and
1990s, and which still influences the study of international society today.
The development of regime theory was a response to some of the major
changes in international society following the decline in intensity of the
Cold War – greater influence of transnational actors, more durable efforts at
international cooperation, and increasingly widespread acknowledgement
of the existence of influential “rules of the game”, especially in the realm of
international economic relations.
One of the big questions for regime theorists, about which much ink has
been spilled, was whether a regime necessarily involved some formal orga-
nization, specially set up in order to make explicit the rules and to enforce
them when necessary (see, among others, Krasner, 1983; Rittberger, 1993;
Hasenclever et al., 1997). One helpful distinction that resulted from efforts
to answer this question was between formal and informal regimes. Another

question was whether being part of a regime involved anything more than
pursuing short-term calculations of interest, and whether the principle of
reciprocity – held to underpin the existence of regimes – was enough to off-
set the costs of regime membership to those who suffered losses or enjoyed
minimal rewards.
If regimes do “constrain and regularize the behavior of partici-
pants . . . determine which activities are legitimized or condemned, and influ-
ence whether, when and how conflicts are resolved” (Puchala & Hopkins

p.62), then clearly they are relevant to the whole method of coping with
conflict through imposing, or agreeing, rules. However, it is necessary to be
cautious as regards what kinds of conflict this type of rule system might
be effective in constraining. Can a regime be observed to have any effect –
or even exist – in circumstances of existential conflict, or even where
highly salient identity goals are involved? Much of the literature on regimes
describes successful regimes that operate where there are clear mutual gains
to be obtained from cooperation and following the rules – economic man-
agement, disease control, international finance – and where levels of conflict
are less than intense. Rarely do regimes seem to involve agreed limitations
on what international relations scholars define as “high” politics, or pro-
tracted and violent conflicts and the means by which these are waged. The
closest that regime theory comes to such issue areas is when theorists dis-
cuss “security” regimes and whether it is possible to distinguish such clusters
of principles, norms, rules and decision processes applied to wars and civil
strife, or even weapons systems and their use.1
2. Codes and constraints on behaviour in war
In Chapter 7 I touched briefly upon a number of efforts in classical, medieval

and early modern times that did attempt to establish some norms or rules
through which some of the most indiscriminately destructive effects of war
might be limited, without actually arguing that any of these actually estab-
lished a recognized and even partially effective rule set or regime for conflicts
within “international society”. What might be termed “modern” efforts to
systematize and codify rules concerned with ius in bello only started up
again internationally in the middle of the nineteenth century, when the
results of industrialized slaughter in the battlefield forced themselves onto
the attention of a nascent “international opinion” and a feeling surfaced
that something, however marginal, could and should be done to mitigate
the horrors of nineteenth-century warfare.
2.1. Nineteenth-century moves towards institutionalizing

international conflict
Ironically, the same war that produced General Sherman’s doctrine of “all
out war to end things quickly” mentioned in Chapter 6 also helped to

produce an increasing sense that it was not the case that there should be
absolutely no limitations in combat and restarted a search for the nature of
those limitations and the means for ensuring that they were observed. One
(if not the) major result of this renewed interest in limiting the increasing
slaughter of nineteenth-century, industrialized warfare was the widespread
interest in the code of conduct authored by, and named after the German-
American jurist, Francis Lieber, and issued by President Lincoln to Union
forces at the start of the American Civil War in 1863. The Lieber Code –

“Old Hundred” as it was colloquially known after its formal title of “Gen-
eral Orders No 100” – was lengthy, detailed and comprehensive. It became
the source of many subsequent draft proposals – and actual agreements or
codes – produced during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries,
all aimed at placing international combat within limits, of some sort.
Lieber himself always insisted that the key source of many of the ideas
in his Code was the past practices of nations, or “the common law of
war”, and that this “consists like all international law of precedents, that
is, things done, gravely and thoroughly discussed and recommending
themselves . . . by the reasons of justice found in the case” (Lieber, 1861).
2.2. The start of “the Geneva tradition”

The same year in which Lieber’s Code was being adopted by the US Gov-
ernment saw the convening in Geneva, Switzerland, of a small conference
that was to pioneer the institutionalization and extension of humanitarian
practices on the battlefield. Again this was largely the result of an expe-
rience with industrialized warfare. The initiative for the meeting and the
subsequent Convention came from the Austro-Italian-French War of 1859,
when the Swiss businessman Henri Dunant happened upon the battlefield
at Solferino and, appalled by the neglect of wounded soldiers on both sides
once they had become hors de combat, determined to establish an organiza-
tion to ensure care for the wounded and humane treatment of prisoners. The
Conference resulted in the establishment of such an organization, with the
red cross adopted as its easily recognizable symbol. It also led, a year later,
to an international conference which produced the first Geneva Conven-
tion of 1864, another pioneering attempt to codify and implement limits on
behaviour in international warfare, particularly with regard to the treatment
of the wounded and of prisoners.
The founding of the International Red Cross (and later the Red Crescent)
organization involved the first step in what turned out to be a long process
by which fragile norms and tentative practices were gradually systematized,
codified and eventually fully institutionalized through their official transfor-
mation via international conventions. The Geneva Convention of 1864 has
been described as “the first multilateral humanitarian treaty” (Best, 1994
p.18). With the straightforward intention of “ameliorating the condition
of the wounded”, it set out four simple principles, involving immunity

from destruction of “establishments” for treating the wounded, for impartial

treatment of all wounded combatants and for measures for the protection
and recognition of civilians engaged in aiding wounded on the battlefield.
This pattern of concluding formal agreements that codified the practice of
humanitarian behaviour in the midst of increasingly destructive wars was
carried on by the Geneva Conventions of 1906, which dealt with wounded,
sick and shipwrecked members of armed forces at sea, and then by the 1929
Geneva Convention on the treatment of prisoners of war.

It does not appear too much of an exaggeration to argue that these pio-
neering agreements created what might be termed a continuous “Geneva
Tradition” in establishing and extending rule sets for humanitarian con-
duct on the battlefield.2 This tradition was based, as A.P.V. Rogers notes,
on the four basic and continuing principles of humanity, proportional-
ity and distinction modified by dictates of military necessity (Rogers, 1996
Chapter 1).
Following the horrors of World War II, another intensive international
effort was made to clarify and consolidate international agreements – and,
it was hoped, to ensure conforming behaviour – about the treatment of
wounded, prisoners and civilian populations. This was done in 1949 by
extending the humanitarian rules of this Geneva tradition via four new
Geneva Conventions. The first three of these Conventions were efforts to
extend and update the rule sets regarding the treatment of wounded combat-
ants at sea and on land, and to clarify and extend rules about the treatment
of prisoners of war. In other words they were efforts to modernize the
previous Conventions of 1864, 1906 and 1929.
By contrast, the Fourth Convention resulted from a recognition of the
fact that World War II had shown that “international combat” had changed
markedly, even since World War I. In the latter, the number of civilians
harmed and even killed as a result of the violence had been relatively small –
one for approximately every ten soldiers killed on the battlefield. In World
War II, with its prolonged occupations, resistance to those occupations,
deliberate targeting of certain categories of civilians, and indiscriminate
bombing of civilian areas, a civilian had been killed for every soldier who had
died in combat. The Fourth Convention thus aimed to provide some protec-
tion for civilians – “the innocent” – during international wars by establishing
limitations with regard to what could be done to civilians in warzones or
under occupation. Recalling some of the atrocities perpetrated on civilians
in occupied territories by German and Japanese conquerors, the Conven-
tion set out to make these “protected persons” safe from extermination,
execution, torture, slave labour, “scientific” experimentation and collective
punishment – all of which were specifically forbidden anyway under the
more general requirements of International Customary Law.
Ironically, just as works describing and extolling the norms and rules of
chivalry were being written and published at the very time when the rules

increasingly becoming impractical and were falling into disuse, so the post-
World War II codification and extension of the Geneva rule set took place
at the same time as there developed an increasing chorus of voices arguing
that the Geneva framework was out of date, asymmetrically handicapping,
unreflective of conflicts in the real world and in need of wholesale restruc-
turing. Events since 1950, when the Conventions first came into force,
revealed a clear tendency for agreed and accepted codes of conduct that limit
behaviour in wars to lag behind both the behaviour and the technology used

in combat.
Moreover, rules and customs that were devised to cope with problems of
inter-state conflict seemed to become somewhat irrelevant in the face of
the changing nature of “international” conflict and combat itself. As has
frequently been pointed out, since the 1950s – especially since the end-
ing of the Cold War and the break up of the Soviet Union – organized
violence involving rival states as combatants has become increasingly rare,
but the incidence of intra-state violence has increased geometrically. Ini-
tially, this tended to take the form of efforts by peoples within the European
colonial empires to achieve their independence, and during the late 1950s
and the 1960s more and more anti-colonial struggles took place as peoples
used violence to achieve their “right of self determination”. Subsequently,
a huge number of basically similar conflicts emerged within states, as peo-
ples unwilling to accept their place in a country dominated by others – Ibos
in Nigeria, Kurds in Turkey and Iraq, Basques in Spain and France, Somalis
in Kenya and Ethiopia, the hill peoples in Burma (the list is endless) –
adopted violence as a means of achieving their independence. According to
the Uppsala University’s Conflict Data Program, the maximum annual num-
ber of “classical” inter-state wars for the years 1989–2008 was two, a figure
which is increased to seven if one includes intra-state wars that attracted
major external interventions. During the same, post-Cold War time period,
the number of ongoing violent intra-state conflicts varied between a max-
imum of 51 in 1991 and a minimum of 25 in 2003 (Harbom & Sundberg,
2008 p.17).
As the twenty-first century unfolds, international society has been strug-
gling to find means of limiting violent behaviour in civil wars, insurgencies,
separatist struggles, guerrilla wars and revolutionary conflicts through the
extension of International Humanitarian Law (IHL). All of these types
of conflict are highly asymmetrical, and often involve conflicts between
insurgents and an incumbent government in control of a state apparatus.
They are thus largely “intra-state”, although many have a tendency to spill
over into neighbouring regions and, most recently, to become increasingly
globalized.
From the point of view of developing some acceptable and agreed limita-
tions regarding how those involved in such struggles behave, the asymmetric
nature of the adversaries poses an immediate problem. State authorities can

sign conventions with other state authorities and at least pay lip service to
their observation of agreed upon rules. However, it is well nigh impossi-
ble to envisage a situation where it will be easy for a government to forge
an agreement with a rival non-state actor or become a party to some gen-
eral agreement involving both other “sovereign” governments and insurgent
organizations. Moreover, given the disaggregated nature of most guerrilla
movements, separatist organizations, resistance groups, national liberation
movements or any body which claims to represent better than the existing

government even a portion of the citizens of a country, the practical and
legalistic barriers to the development of an agreed rule set for waging the
conflict seem overwhelming. How might one construct a rule set between
governments and rebels, state authorities and guerrillas, colonizers and col-
onized, tyrants and freedom fighters? What rules could be constructed for
“armed conflict not of an international character”?
2.3. Rules for intra-state armed conflicts: AP1 and AP2

The difficulties of creating some effective rule system for such conflicts are
exemplified by two things: first, by efforts to legitimize and afford pro-
tection to all combatants. This can be very difficult as usually insurgents
are regarded (and treated) simply as criminals, terrorists or bandits by state
authorities, especially as regards those involved in anti-colonial struggles as
members of “national liberation” movements during the 1960s and early
1970s; second, by the obstacles that had to be overcome in adding two
new (Additional) Protocols to the 1949 Geneva Conventions. These finally
emerged after four long years of debate that took place at the Geneva con-
ference on human rights/law from 1974 to 1977. In fact, the first Additional
Protocol (AP1) could justifiably be regarded as a further extension of tra-
ditional IHL as it largely affected the treatment of civilians caught up in
combat zones or occupied territories, when these were the result of “old-
fashioned” inter-state armed conflicts. It was certainly the case that AP1
struggled with the continuing dilemma of who was an “innocent civilian”
rather than a “combatant”3 or even a “legitimate target” as a result of that
individual making a direct and often valuable contribution to one side’s
ability to wage the conflict. Articles 51 and 54 of the Protocol outlaw “indis-
criminate” attacks on civilian populations and on sources of food, water and
other “material needs for survival”. Other articles banned the use of weapons
that caused “superfluous injury or unnecessary suffering” and also the use of
new technologies, such as biological weapons and land mines, that could
not be targeted with any certainty – whose “scope of destruction could not
be limited”.
Increasingly, however, it became obvious that trying to provide protection
for civilians caught up in conventional international armed conflict was not
going to be the major problem for the last half of the twentieth century
or the first decades of the twenty-first. Rather, the world was entering an

era of increased and increasingly violent intra-state conflict, for which some
efforts at limitation were urgently needed. Some of the previous attempts to
provide rules within which “irregular forces” could legitimately operate (and
thus claim protection against simply being treated as criminals) had concen-
trated upon the recognizability of those forces – wearing identifying clothing
or carrying weapons “openly” – and this kind of rule might have worked
for international conflicts in which guerrilla forces worked “behind enemy
lines”. But the case of the franc-tireurs of the Franco-Prussian war of 1870–

1871 had reintroduced the dilemma of who was a legitimate combatant –
as opposed to simply a bandit – and how did you recognize one, a dilemma
which World War II intensified globally with regard to such organizations as
the maquis in France, the partisans in Northern Italy, Marshall Tito’s resis-
tance forces in Yugoslavia, the guerrilla organizations in the Philippines and
numerous partisan bands in occupied Poland and the Soviet Union. AP1
attempted to clarify this “irregular” aspect of international combat once
again by stating that legitimate guerrilla forces – those at least notionally
to be awarded combatant and hence prisoner-of-war status if captured –
had to be under the command of a central authority and recognizable as
combatants at least while preparing for, or during, an actual attack. How-
ever, AP1 said nothing about the obligations of guerrilla forces under IHL
beyond the implication, reflected in general Article 3 of the 1949 Conven-
tions, that the same rules were to apply to them as applied to regular military
combatants.
It was partly this latter tangle that AP2 sought to clarify, being entitled
Additional Protocol . . . Relating to the Protection of Victims of Non-
International Conflicts. AP2 thus became the first of a number of both
formal and informal efforts over the past 30 years to develop rule sets that
apply to conflicts taking place within the territory of “sovereign” states –
sovereignty, of course, being the major obstacle to getting general agree-
ment to the drafting, signing, implementation and enforcement of any such
rule set. That any effective agreement of such a code proved overwhelmingly
difficult for the participants in the 1974–1977 Geneva talks is indicated by
the two provisions of Article 1 of AP2. The first of these insists that any dis-
sident armed forces, or other organized armed group to which the relevant
provisions of AP2 can apply, must be under responsible command but must
also “exercise such control over part of its (i.e. the state’s) territory as to
enable them to carry out sustained and concerted military operations and to
implement this Protocol”. There have been cases in which guerrilla organi-
zations have managed to fulfil the latter condition – the FARC in Colombia,
the Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front in El Salvador and possibly
Sendero Luminoso in Peru – but the fate of the maquis units in southern
France in 1944 or even of Tito’s partisans in Yugoslavia in the same year indi-
cate that controlling territory is not a normal, or particularly safe, situation
for any guerrilla organization. The phrase “sitting ducks” comes to mind.

Moreover, the second paragraph of Article 1 states clearly that the pro-
visions of AP2 shall not apply to situations of internal disturbance and
tensions, such as “riots, isolated and sporadic acts of violence and other
acts of a similar nature as not being armed conflicts”. Nowhere is it made
clear who shall determine what are and are not “sporadic acts of violence”
as opposed to “an armed conflict”. However, but this seems an open invita-
tion for any government to deny that an actual “armed conflict” is taking
place on its territory, thus avoiding the necessity to treat armed dissidents as

anything other than criminals and bandits to whom the provisions of IHL
do not apply – which is precisely the strategy adopted by Colombian Presi-
dent Alvaro Uribe’s government towards the guerrillas of the FARC and the
ELN (Ejercito de Liberacion Nacional) between 2002 and 2010.
Be that as it may, AP2 does attempt to lay down some limits on what
guerrilla forces and those fighting them may and may not “legally” do and,
more particularly, what may be done to them. As far as the civilian pop-
ulation goes – that is, those being fought over and who “do not take a
direct part . . . in hostilities” – AP2 states clearly that they should in all cir-
cumstances be treated humanely and that they should not be the objects
of attack. Specifically, they should not be subject to murder, torture, mutila-
tion, collective punishment, hostage-taking, terrorism, slavery or “pillage”.
Moreover, communities cannot be displaced save for their own protection
or when “imperative military conditions” so demand. Article 18.1 states
unequivocally that civilians “shall not be compelled to leave their own
territory for reasons connected with the conflict”. There are specific provi-
sions to protect children – nobody under 15 should be recruited into the
armed forces or allowed to take part in hostilities. The Protocol affords
sick, wounded and shipwrecked combatants the same protections as are
afforded to those involved in international conflicts and has a variety of
protections for “persons whose liberty has been restricted” – the interned or
detained.
The history of any intra-state armed conflict over the past 30 years since
the Protocols were formulated shows the miniscule extent to which they
have been obeyed by governments – even those who have signed and rati-
fied the Protocols – and guerrillas alike. Applying IHL to intra-state conflicts,
as exemplified by the terms of AP2, has proved problematic and uncertain,
given that, until very recently, there were no systematic mechanisms for dis-
cerning and determining breaches of IHL, bringing malefactors to an IHL
court and punishing the guilty. Nevertheless, there is growing recognition
that there now exists a more or less agreed rule set that seeks to establish lim-
its on combatants’ behaviour in violent intra-state conflict, and an increased
awareness that it is no longer the case that “anything goes” in such struggles
This seems, at least, to be starting to develop an uneasy feeling among some
leaders that they may be called upon to account for their conduct at some
point in the future.4

3. Codes and regimes for controlling weaponry
One of the continuing historical themes of efforts to “humanize” warfare,

or to mitigate the effects of violence on combatants and civilians alike, has
been the efforts at “weapons control”. These were defined as measures to
agree what weapons are acceptable in wars (and even civil wars), and which
are so inhumane that they needed to be banned by all members of “civilized
society”, whether the ban involved the production, trading, preparation or

actual use of the weapons in question. In that discussion, the point was
frequently made that only very rarely do those armed with such weapons
exercise unilateral restraint, either by refraining from their use or by aban-
doning them completely. The unilateral Japanese decision to abandon the
production and use of firearms during the seventeenth, eighteenth and nine-
teenth centuries CE provides one unusual example. A more recent example
of a society abandoning weapons that it already possessed was the Ukrainian
Government’s decision, following the breakup of the Soviet Union, to return
over 1,900 nuclear warheads to Russia, to give up nuclear weapons and to
become a nuclear disarmed state.
Such unilateral examples do throw some doubt on the generally held con-
tention that governments and other leaders never, under any circumstances,
unilaterally give up advantageous weapons once they have them. However,
it is true that efforts to control or banish certain types of weapon in recent
times have tended to be multilateral, while there are hopeful indications
that possessors of the weapons in question can be persuaded to give them
up, whatever advantages possession seems to confer. The 1997 treaty ban-
ning land mines tends to show the limited truth of the observation that
international law only bans useless weapons.
A number of such multilateral processes have recently followed the insti-
tutionalizing pattern that I outlined earlier, with initiatives going through
a number of long-term stages culminating in efforts to negotiate agreed
“codes” and to establish institutions to monitor and enforce the terms of
these codes. Each process usually turns out to have a long history.
Modern efforts to institutionalize the non-use of inhumane weapons
really started up again in the middle of the nineteenth century. The first of
what was to become a stream of international efforts to ban by formal treaty
the use of particularly horrible weapons, first from international and then,
increasingly, from intra-state conflicts, was the St Petersburg Declaration of
1868. By this treaty, 19 governments sought to ban from the battlefield the
use of small explosive projectiles – under 400 g (4 oz) in weight – on the
grounds that these were unnecessary (a normal bullet would incapacitate an
enemy combatant equally effectively) as well as being inhumane. As these
weapons had yet to be generally deployed among the armies of the then
industrialized nations, it proved relatively easy to agree on their banish-
ment. Moreover, the Declaration tended to support the hypothesis that it

is much easier to ban weapons that no one yet possesses but which may be
scientifically possible – or on the point of development – than to get rid of
weapons already in general use. The same argument could be made about
the late twentieth-century banning of the use and transfer of blinding laser
weapons, that were not yet developed but are scientifically feasible.
From the St Petersburg Declaration onwards, extensive efforts were under-
taken throughout the nineteenth and twentieth centuries to craft agree-
ments that would control the production, stockpiling, trading and use of a

large variety of weapons deemed to be inhumane and indiscriminate. Many
of these efforts were based upon generally agreed norms that emerged from
discussions at St Petersburg, and these informed many later attempts to get
rid of a variety of weapons and to limit how adversaries waged war:
. . . the only legitimate object which States should endeavour to accom-

plish during war is to weaken the military forces of the enemy;
. . . for this purpose it is sufficient to disable the greatest possible number
of men;
. . . this object would be exceeded by the employment of arms which
uselessly aggravate the sufferings of disabled men or render their death
inevitable.
. . . the employment of such arms would, therefore, be contrary to the laws
of humanity . . .
(Maresca & Maslen p.10)
Starting with the Brussels Declaration of 1874 – which, although never rat-
ified, sought to ban the use of poison or poisoned weapons – governments
grappled with the application of these and other underlying principles in the
establishment of what, in the twentieth century, became known as IHL, and
to deal with the problem that the agreed rules of weapons limitation were
always struggling to catch up with technological “advances”, which made
any agreed rule sets obsolete. In the Hague Conventions of 1899 and 1907,
for example, signatory governments banned the use of dum dum bullets,
the firing of explosive projectiles from balloons and the use of projectiles
that diffused asphyxiating or “deleterious” gases – only to find that, by
1918, aeronautical technology had reached the stage of enabling the long-
range bombing of cities, while the widespread use of poison gas by all sides
was justified as not being “illegal” because it was disseminated from static,
ground-based containers rather than from missile weapons.
Following the widespread revulsion over the use of poison gas in the
1914–1918 war, governments – and increasingly NGOs such as the League
of Nations Union involved in efforts to get rid of inhumane weapons –
worked through the League of Nations to broaden the prohibition on gas

warfare. The 1925 Geneva Protocol on Poisonous and Asphyxiating Gas,

which came into effect three years later, represents the first of a line of
twentieth-century treaties that sought to deal with technological advances in
“chemical and biological” warfare, presciently attempting to ban the use of
biological weapons before these had actually been much developed as one of
the side-effects of modern scientific research. The extent to which this and
other international agreements of the inter-war years actually constrained
the weapons used and behaviour of the combatants in future conflicts is

open to interpretation and much doubt. The Geneva Protocol was never
intended to cover intra-state conflicts, while the number of countries that
reserved the right to retaliate in kind should they become the victims of
chemical or biological weapons made it, for all practical purposes, a “no-first-
use” agreement. The Italian use of poison gas on Ethiopian targets during
the 1935–1936 colonial war in the Horn of Africa and its aftermath showed
that opportunist leaders could always ignore agreed commitments yet go
unpunished. Moreover, the effects of such legal constraints on the non-use
of chemical weapons during World War II is also open to debate. Certainly,
everyone expected gas to be used throughout that war, and there is a great
deal of unchallengeable evidence that both the Allies and the Axis continued
their development of chemical as well as biological weapons ready for use –
presumably should the other side use them first. However, the fact remains
that nobody did use chlorine, phosgene, mustard gas, tabun or sarin in bat-
tle, nor were biological or disease weapons deployed or used extensively,
no matter how close defeat loomed.5 This, perhaps, indicates that at least
some effective lip service was being paid to these international agreements
by the combatants. On the other hand, that war did see the development of
a new range of horrendous weaponry – napalm, area bombing, indiscrimi-
nate long-range missiles, nuclear weapons – that presented huge challenges
to anyone seeking to constrain behaviour in inter-state conflict within any
set of norms or principles, especially those evolved 80 years before in St.
Petersburg in 1868.
3.1. Contemporary constraints on chemical and biological weapons

However, efforts to constrain the development, stockpiling, trade and use
of the increasing range of “inhumane” weapons through the application
of “the norms of civilized people” and through means of consensual agree-
ment did continue – and, indeed, accelerated – after World War II. Prominent
among such processes were increased efforts to ban nuclear weapons (or at
least keep them in as few, “responsible” hands as possible), to rid the world
of chemical and biological weapons and to ban the use of land mines.6
The control of nuclear weapons through a dual process of restraint by
those not in the original nuclear “club” and constraint by global mutual
agreements is hardly a success story, although the process does illustrate the
difficulties of limiting the production and possession of nuclear technology

and weaponry. The Cold War ensured that, early on, the Soviet Union and
Britain would follow the lead of the United States in developing their own
nuclear weapons. Others aspiring to “nuclear power” status – France and
China – rapidly followed, while governments involved in protracted con-
frontations and convinced that doctrines of nuclear deterrence would work
as well for them as it had for the nuclear super-powers also declined to take
part in non-proliferation efforts or formal agreements – India and Pakistan,
Israel and Iran, and apartheid South Africa. On the other hand, a few regions

of the world were, by agreement, designated nuclear-free zones, – Latin
America, Antarctica, the South Pacific, Central America, the sea bed and
outer space. Individual countries declared that they would not “go nuclear”
while NGOs attempted to ensure that, for example, energy sources that were
not dependent on nuclear fission would be found, or that nuclear-powered
ships would not be allowed into national waters or ports. However, in spite
of such efforts, the record on nuclear weapons limitation during the Cold
War era and then subsequently is not a cause for congratulation.
If the record of efforts to control the possession and proliferation of
nuclear weapons between 1945 and 1990 and then in the post-Cold War
world is tortuous, that concerning attempts to limit the possession – and
even the use – of chemical and biological weapons is even more so, although
both do seem to follow the pattern of clarifying norms and then seeking to
codify and agree a system of rules and limitations.
In effect, the 1960s and the 1970s did see a major revival of international
interest in controlling the possession and use of chemical, and especially
biological, weaponry. For a number of years the international community
searched for a way of strengthening or replacing the old 1925 Geneva Pro-
tocol. During the 1960s, especially in the United States and Britain, public
pressure from prominent individuals (from scientists to bishops) and critical
organizations in civil society mounted, particularly as a result of the United
State’s frequent use of “non-lethal”, incapacitating gases and herbicides in
Vietnam and in South East Asia (Wright, 2002). Under considerable domes-
tic and international pressure (in 1966 the Hungarian delegation to the UN
introduced a draft resolution condemning the United States for violating
the 1925 Protocol), the US Government seized its least costly option and
in 1969 unilaterally announced that it was giving up all means of waging
biological warfare, as well as adopting a no-first-use policy regarding lethal
and “incapacitating” chemical weapons. Three years after this admittedly
low-cost US initiative, and as the culmination of a long period involving
bilateral discussions, international conferences, multilateral debates in the
UN’s Eighteen Nation Disarmament Committee and varied consultations,
the United States, Britain and the Soviet Union became the first signatories
of an international treaty agreeing to ban, for the first time, the production
of an entire category of weapons – the 1972 Convention on the Prohi-
bition of the Development and Stockpiling of Bacteriological and Toxic

Weapons. As a symbol of what might be done through the conversion of

developing international norms into a legally binding treaty, the Biological
Weapons Convention (BWC) seems impressive, but perhaps equally impor-
tant were some of the painful, practical lessons that were later learned from
the shortcomings of the Convention. Although eventually over 160 states
became party to the treaty, several that had the capacity to develop bio-
logical weapons remained outside its provisions. Moreover, the agreement
established no mechanism for verification in order to monitor compliance

or to sanction non-compliance. This made cheating easy, a problem that
was highlighted when it became evident in the 1980s that the Soviet Union
had systematically violated most of the treaty’s articles through a massive,
secret programme to develop an overwhelming capability for biological war-
fare during the 1970s and 1980s (Rimmington, 2002). It was only following
glasnost, perestroika and the collapse of the USSR that this programme was
revealed and finally, one hopes, abandoned.
International efforts to develop an effective, universal and binding verifi-
cation process for the BWC started up again in the 1990s, but these efforts
hit a major snag in 2001 when a draft protocol on verification was presented
to the Fifth BWC Review Conference. The then US Government of George
W. Bush determined that the protocol’s provisions for inspection and ver-
ification would interfere with “legitimate” US commercial and bio-defence
activity – given that BWC provisions applied to commercial parties as well
as national governments. Moreover, in the aftermath of the 11 September
attacks on the United States launched by Al Qaeda, the US Government
had become obsessed by the dangers of bioterrorism by non-state actors
and this, together with the Bush administration’s well-demonstrated antipa-
thy to multilateral efforts at weapons control (and much else), led to the
failure of the Fifth Review Conference even to be able to produce a Final
Declaration – as well as to a sense that this particular arms-control regime
might have run its useful course. While this extreme outcome was avoided
by some adroit diplomacy at the Sixth Review Conference in 2006, the Con-
ference carefully avoided the issue of verification and compliance in favour
of encouraging the goals of universalism and better national level implemen-
tation. According to one commentator, the Review Conference “succeeded”
in the sense of “clearing away the debris left over from the dissensions of
the past, mostly by not referring to the past” (Sims, 2009 p.68). Hence major
improvements in this particular aspect of international weapons control will
have to await the future.
From the 1970s, the regime for controlling the use of chemical – as
opposed to biological – weapons (both usually mischaracterized as “weapons
of mass destruction”) followed a somewhat different path from that which
focused on bio-weapons. It was not until 1980 that the UN Committee
on Disarmament (UNCD) started serious work on preparing a draft treaty
on chemical weapons. Work on the issue continued in a variety of arenas

throughout the 1980s as the two super-powers attempted to overcome their

mutual suspicions and President Reagan and Secretary Gorbachev tried to
establish a bilateral relationship that would lead to a credible level of work-
ing trust. The work took on a greater sense of urgency when Iraq began
using chemical weapons in the Gulf War with Iran. Initially the Iraqis used
tear gas to incapacitate Iranian forces, but from 1983 onwards they increas-
ingly used mustard gas, and then tabun and sarin, to offset the imbalance in
the numbers of combatants. Eventually the Iraqi Government began using

nerve gases against its own Kurdish population in the north of the coun-
try. Clearly what international norms existed against the use of poison gases
were rapidly eroding.
In January 1989 nearly 150 nations met in Paris at a Conference designed
to restore and reaffirm respect for the principles underlying the 1925 Geneva
Protocol’s ban on chemical weapons, and the same year saw a flurry of exhor-
tations and unilateral declarations about renouncing or banning chemical
weapons. The invasion of Kuwait and subsequent defeat of Iraq in the First
Gulf War (1990–1991) gave the UN the opportunity to establish a system
for rigorously monitoring the elimination of “weapons of mass destruction”
from Iraq through the UN Special Commission. In September of 1992 the
UNCD finally agreed a draft Chemical Weapons Convention and the fol-
lowing January 130 governments, including the United States and Russia,
signed the measure, which included provisions for banning the develop-
ment, production, acquisition, transfer, stockpiling and use of chemical and
toxin weapons, and for the destruction of all stocks of, and facilities for
the production of, such weapons. Unlike the BWC, the Chemical Weapons
Convention (CWC) uniquely included a complex verification system which
involved strict reporting requirements and regular inspections, as well as
on-site and “challenge” inspections. It also established its own independent
agency – the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons – to
monitor compliance with the convention.7 The Treaty was to come into
force 180 days after the 65th signatory ratified the agreement – an event
which took place in October 1996 when Hungary deposited the instrument
of ratification with the UN.
In spite of the improved measures for monitoring states’ compliance with
the new agreement, several problems with the CWC have revealed them-
selves over the last decade-and-a-half, quite apart from the familiar problem
of achieving universality (several countries remain non-signatories) and the
emergence of the new threat of the use of chemical weapons by “non-state
actors”.8
One issue is that, while most facilities for producing chemical weapons
appear to have been deactivated and in many cases dismantled, states have
been slow to destroy stockpiles of chemical weapons, deadlines have almost
universally been missed and extensions generally requested – although it
seems doubtful, in many cases, whether the 100% destruction of stocks

demanded by the agreement will be achieved, certainly by 2012. More-

over, the technology of “non-lethal”, incapacitating weapons used for “riot
control” has proceeded apace and is becoming seen as an essential part of
national arsenals for dealing with “terrorist” threats, among other uses. The
line between a chemical weapon, banned by the convention, and an inca-
pacitating agent used domestically (and possibly internationally) is rapidly
becoming blurred.
A similar problem has arisen over technological changes in the chemicals

industry, most particularly over the fact that many chemicals that can be
used for weapons also have common commercial uses. Increasingly, facil-
ities for producing chemicals for civil use can easily be converted for the
production of chemical weapons or their precursors. This “potential for dual
use” problem seems likely to arise over any efforts to ban whole categories
of weapon, although it seems likely to be less of a problem where “weapons
control” regimes are aimed very specifically at banning particular, individual
weapons. This may be the case with efforts to ban anti-personnel (AP) land
mines and cluster munitions, which offer interesting contrasts to the slow,
consensus-building approach to agreement about a regime for chemical and
biological weapons.
3.2. A regime for land mines

If the road to establishing a rule set for chemical and biological weapons
began in the 1900s and proved long, difficult and problematical, that involv-
ing efforts to remove AP mines from the battlefield – and its post-conflict
aftermath – proved, at least in its final stages, surprisingly short and success-
ful (although whether the international agreement to ban this weapon will
prove to be robust and durable over time remains to be seen.) Originally the
movement to ban AP mines started from an increasing public realization that
these weapons continued to harm people – civilians as well as military – long
after the reason for their having been laid in the first place had become part
of a distant history, confined to diminishing memory.9 For example, many
of the minefields laid in Egypt and Libya during World War II continued to
claim victims there well into the start of the twenty-first century.
These simple but lethal weapons had become standard parts of the arsenals
of state armed forces as well as of insurgent guerrillas, and in the second
half of the twentieth century were produced, sold and laid in their millions
until over 70 countries were having to cope with mined regions. By the start
of the 1990s it was estimated that over 25,000 people – mostly civilians –
were being injured every year by AP mines, many of them the remnants of
long-settled wars.
Efforts to control the use of land mines had begun with the International
Committee of the Red Cross in the 1970s on the grounds that the weapons
were, by definition, unable to discriminate between combatant and civil-
ian and that their effects were long-lasting, continuing for years after they

were first laid (see Maresca & Maslen, 2000). Little was achieved over the
next two decades but, increasingly, NGOs working in mine-affected coun-
tries and with mine victims became more and more aware that parts of the
world – often those least capable of coping with the problems – were fac-
ing a “mine epidemic”. Especially affected were NGOs working to repair the
injuries resulting from mine explosions, some of which decided that the only
remedy for the ills that they were trying to treat had to involve a total ban
of the weapon. In October 1992, six such NGOs launched the International

Campaign to Ban Landmines (ICBL), which ultimately became a global net-
work including 1,200 other NGOs, all united in an effort to ban all AP mines
completely.
Initially, encouraged by the fact that certain governments such as the
United States, Italy and France were beginning to take unilateral action on
the problem of controlling at least the export of AP mines, the ICBL and
its allies concentrated on using formal diplomatic processes and institutions
to raise public awareness and to move towards a total ban. However, the
first strategy of calling for and then influencing a Review Conference for
the Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons turned out to be wholly
abortive. The process of slow, inter-governmental consensus-building based
on incremental changes to an existing arrangement embodied in a treaty
proved to be a recipe for producing what one pair of activist/authors has
described as a weakening of “the already horribly weak CCW landmine
protocol” (Williams & Goose, 1998 pp.32–33).
Something different was clearly needed and was supplied by the Canadian
Government, one of the increasingly large group of small and middle powers
that supported the idea of a total ban on AP mines. First, in October 1996,
the Canadians hosted in Ottawa a conference entitled Towards a Global Ban
on Anti-Personnel Mines attended by 50 governments that had pledged to
support a total ban on AP mines, together with 24 observer governments and
numerous NGOs, international governmental organizations and UN agen-
cies. Second, in his closing remarks to the conference, the Canadian Foreign
Minister, Lloyd Axworthy, challenged the participants to return to Ottawa a
year later, in December 1997, to sign an agreement which would totally ban
the production. stockpiling, trade and use of AP landmines.
What became known as “the Ottawa Process”, which finally led to
the completion of an international treaty that did, indeed, produce that
ambitious result, has been well described and analysed elsewhere (see, for
example, Cameron et al., 1998; Maresca & Maslen, 2000; Maslen, 2004;
Williams Jodie & Stephen Goose, 2008). In spite of much opposition, includ-
ing efforts to have the whole process sent from the fast-track – if unofficial –
Ottawa Process to the glacially slow track of the UNCD, plus attempts
by President Clinton’s US Government to pressure a range of small and
even medium countries not to sign the final treaty, the Ottawa Conven-
tion on the Prohibition of the Use, Stockpiling, Production, and Transfer

of Anti-Personnel Mines and their Destruction was signed by 121 states on

4th December 1997 and came into force in March 1999, six months after it
had been formally ratified by the 40th state member – Burkina Faso. It was,
as commentators noted, the fastest-ever ratification of an international
treaty.
One aspect of the movement’s success has been the fact that even coun-
tries that are not signatories to the Ottawa Convention have unilaterally
taken steps to conform to some of its principles, indicating that a clear

international norm is at least in the process of being created and generally
recognized in a remarkably short space of time. For example, the United
States has produced no AP mines since 1997 and has increased consid-
erably its funding for mine action, while India, Pakistan and Nepal (all
non-signatories) have agreed to stop laying AP mines, leaving only Russia
and Myanmar in the category of states that continue to lay mines.
As was pointed out at the time when the Convention was signed, its provi-
sions only apply to governments while the vast majority of violent conflicts
in the world of the twenty-first century are conflicts within states, involving
incumbents – who might well be bound by the provisions of the Convention
regarding the use of AP mines – and insurgents who, by their very nature, are
not. Even in such cases, however, the effects of a generally recognized norm
of “civilized” behaviour – part of a developing IHL – can be seen, and much
time and effort have been put into persuading insurgent organizations to
adhere to a level of self-imposed restraint on using AP mines which parallels
the international ban. The activities of organizations such as Geneva Call,10
in attempting to persuade insurgents fighting against a government that it
is in their long-term interests not to use AP mines (and that they would find
advantages in signing a deed of commitment not to use such weapons), are
often successful. Insurgents can appreciate the argument that laying such
weapons frequently harms the very people on whose behalf they claim to
be fighting, even though they often argue that mines are one of the few
weapons that they have which can counter the armoured personnel vehi-
cles, helicopter gun-ships, overall firepower and overwhelming numbers of
combatants fighting for incumbents.
After the apparent success of the worldwide campaign to get govern-
ments to agree to ban AP mines, there was much discussion about whether
the Ottawa Process offered a new model for achieving broad international
agreements whereby emerging norms could be translated directly into inter-
national law via treaty. The debate took place on two levels. The first
discussed whether the changes brought about by the ending of the Cold
War had ushered in a new environment in which some form of new world
legal order founded upon humanitarian principles could be established as
an antidote to the regime that had historically been based on doctrines
of exclusivist domestic sovereignty. Could “the international community”
intervene in order to protect ethnic minorities from being “cleansed”,

religious minorities from being persecuted, individuals from being tortured,

communities from being driven from their homes to become IDPs, or less
lethal issues such as key elections being “rigged”? Or was “the international
community” simply an excuse for powerful governments now claiming the
right to interfere in the domestic affairs of weaker countries whenever their
interests seemed threatened? This debate swirled around the establishment
and activities of a new International Criminal Court (ICC), which was estab-
lished at the end of the twentieth century and which seemed to assume that

there existed a widespread consensus about what were international crimi-
nal actions and who could be held responsible for their occurrence and thus
be tried as an international criminal.
4. Crossing the line: International criminality
Discussing the various historical efforts to establish and institutionalize rules

for international (and increasingly intra-national) conflict – persons who
shall not be harmed, weapons that will not be used, occasions when violence
is (or is not) justified – often causes irritation to “real” lawyers, who fre-
quently ask: Where is the process for making and changing the law, and who
are the persons charged with interpreting and, most importantly, enforcing
this “law”? Questions can, of course, always be raised about the nature and
status of “international” law, about the “legalness” of IHL or human rights
law, and about whether anything that rests so precariously on consensus
and appears to be broken so frequently as the agreed rules about, for exam-
ple, producing, storing and using chemical or biological weapons can really
be defined as “law”.
This seems particularly to be the case with international rules that seek to
define and limit the circumstances in which violence can be used “legally”
and war employed as an instrument of policy. By the twentieth century, and
particularly after World War I, many efforts had been made to outlaw war
completely, but by mid-century and after another world war, the best that
could be attempted was limiting “legal” wars to those carried out either in
self-defence or at the behest of the UN. Given that the UN was an organi-
zation customarily so disunited as to make any agreed use of military force
somewhat unlikely – at least until the era of “liberal interventionism” and
coalition assaults on Serbia and Iraq in the 1990s – any idea that military self-
help could be easily converted into the international police force envisaged
by the Allied powers in 1945 seemed optimistic, to say the least. The possibil-
ity of an international police force enforcing universally agreed prohibitions
on “aggressive” international violence seemed to become even more remote
at the start of the twenty-first century with the apparent US adoption of
a doctrine of pre-emptive, “preventive” war, giving governments a “legal
right” to strike at others on the suspicion that the latter intended harm at
some time in the future.

However, as Aryeh Neier, the founder of Human Rights Watch, has pointed
out (Neier, 2002), the second half of the twentieth century did witness at
least two brief periods in which significant international efforts were made to
criminalize the indiscriminate and uncontrolled use of force, both between
sovereign states and – even more importantly – within states. These both
involved efforts to establish the nature of “war crimes” for which individuals
could be tried and punished.
The first of these periods immediately followed the end of World War

II and involved the international criminal tribunals in Nuremberg and
Tokyo, the designation of certain actions as “crimes against humanity” and
the adoption of the 1948 Genocide Convention, together with the three
Geneva Conventions of the following year. The second followed the con-
flicts in the former Yugoslavia and the Rwanda genocide in the early 1990s,
and saw another series of international war crimes trials (some dealing with
acts undertaken in intra-state conflicts), the first prosecutions and convic-
tions for genocide, and the subsequent adoption of a treaty establishing a
permanent ICC.
4.1. The Nuremburg legacy

There is undoubtedly some justification in the argument that the victors
of World War II were on rather shaky legal ground in trying Axis leaders at
Nuremberg and in Tokyo for conspiring to wage “aggressive” or illegal war in
the 1930s and early 1940s. However, it is undoubtedly from the trials of the
mid-1940s – and the Nuremberg trials especially – that one can date serious
efforts to define the nature of international “crimes”, to assign responsibil-
ity for criminal acts to individual persons even when operating as agents of
traditionally “sovereign” states, and to set up international mechanisms for
investigating, prosecuting and punishing those responsible for such activi-
ties. The Nuremberg and Tokyo trials have subsequently been criticized as
“victors’ justice” and “retrospective law”, and there is truth in both accu-
sations. As Professor James Crawford, a member of the UN’s International
Law Commission responsible for composing the draft Statute for an ICC
later noted, “when the Nuremberg Charter was adopted in 1945, there was
little by way of a set of international criminal laws appropriate for applica-
tion by an international war crimes tribunal” (2003 p.117). It was argued
even at the time that charging defendants with the crimes of “waging an
aggressive war” and committing “war crimes” together with “crimes against
humanity” (including genocide) was to invent crimes retrospectively and
to try defendants on the basis of rules not in existence when the acts were
committed.
However, as with the feelings and attitudes dominant in the aftermath
of the slaughters carried out in the former Yugoslavia and in Rwanda,
the actions of the Third Reich and its officials were universally felt to be
so appalling that some form of legal evaluation – and retribution – was

completely necessary, whether this was invented after the time or not. More-
over, the behaviour of the Nazi officials who could be put on trial involved
not merely their international actions – attacks on Czechoslovakia, Poland,
Norway, Denmark, Yugoslavia, Greece and the Soviet Union – but also their
“domestic” policies, involving the treatment of their own populations (gyp-
sies, Jews, homosexuals, communists, dissidents), traditionally viewed as an
internal matter, solely the business of the “sovereign state”. Clearly, in late
1945, something had to be done. The contemporary answer can be found in

the declaration of the Nuremburg Tribunal itself:
Crimes against international law are committed by men, not by abstract

entities and only by punishing individuals who commit such crimes can
the provisions of international law be enforced . . .
In this way, the Nuremberg Charter of the International Military Tribunal

was designed at least partly to give expression to the feeling that, while there
may have been “no clearly articulated international rule of law prohibiting
the most serious crimes such as genocide, torture or the disappearance of
people” (Sands p.82), there should have been. Hence the Tribunal asserted
its right to have jurisdiction over crimes against humanity, war crimes and
crimes against peace, and in doing so it effectively set down the begin-
nings of a criminal code and opened the way for the trial and, in some
cases, the sentencing of major war criminals at both Nuremberg and Tokyo.
In the words of historian Richard Overy (2003 p.7), who unambiguously
called the trial a political act rather than an exercise in law, “the central
purpose of the Tribunal was not to conform to existing principles of inter-
national law but to establish new rules of international conduct and agreed
boundaries in the violation of human rights” (ibid p.23).
If the Nuremberg and Tokyo trials were a significant milestone on the
road towards establishing a system of rules and related institutions to deal
with international criminality, then the subsequent journey towards an ICC
proved a slow one. There was a flurry of activity in the later 1940s, with the
UN General Assembly’s December 1946 (non-binding) resolution endorsing
the principles underlying the Nuremberg Charter and the 1948 Genocide
Convention, both of which mentioned the possibility of establishing some
form of permanent court. I have already discussed at length the 1949 Geneva
Conventions, the later APs, and their efforts to establish some clearer rules
of conduct during times of war and civil war. However, the search for con-
sensus on the nature of war crimes, crimes against humanity and crimes
against peace – and for an international legal institution capable of interpret-
ing and enforcing resultant laws – was yet another victim of the Cold War.
In James Crawford’s words, it “went underground for a prolonged period
only to come back to life after the Cold War in a very different legal and
political environment” (p.112).

4.2. The post-Cold War period: Rwanda and Yugoslavia

The “very different legal and political environment” of the post-Cold War
era involved a variety of different elements, quite apart from the end-
ing of the superpower confrontation itself. Quite contrary to the hopes
of a more peaceful, less dangerous world, the mid-1990s saw the emer-
gence and re-emergence of large numbers of violent “internal” conflicts
which defied the peacekeeping efforts of the UN and, frequently, the peace-
enforcing efforts of NATO, the United States and other militarily capable

governments. Among the many examples of protracted intra-state conflicts
that produced an increasing catalogue of horrors, atrocities and potentially
“criminal” acts – Liberia, Chechnya, Sudan, Colombia, Sierra Leone, East
Timor, Azerbaijan, Sri Lanka, Angola, the Congo, Georgia and Uganda –
two stand out because of their effects on formal moves to establish an
international body to deal with war crimes.
The war in the former Yugoslavia, which reintroduced the world to the
problem of genocide through the process of “ethnic cleansing” in Bosnia,
Croatia and Serbia, and the organized massacre of Tutsis and others within
Rwanda, during which the “international community” revealed both its lack
of community feeling and its impotence, both led to Nuremberg-like pro-
cesses each involving an ad hoc court. These were belatedly set up to try
individual leaders and particularly brutal, individual perpetrators for war
crimes carried out in both countries. The Hague Tribunals – the Interna-
tional Criminal Tribunal for the former-Yugoslavia (ICTY), set up in 1993,
and the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR), set up a year
later – both resembled Nuremberg in a number of respects. For one thing,
they were established after the defeat of the leaders accused of perpetrating
the alleged crimes or after their ousting from formal political office and their
surrender of power. For another, the tribunals both faced difficult issues of
who, from the very many possible defendants involved in atrocities, should
actually be put on trial for criminal acts. They were different in that they
were both set up and set in motion by a genuine international effort through
the UN, rather than by the victors of a protracted struggle who had made it
their final business to put their erstwhile adversaries on trial. Moreover, in
neither case could the accused argue, as some had at Nuremberg, that they
were being tried under laws that did not exist when their allegedly criminal
actions were undertaken (see Roper & Barria, 2006). By the middle of the
1990s the nature of war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide was
much more clearly understood than in 1945.
4.3. The International Criminal Court

While the war crimes trials for Rwanda and for Yugoslavia were important
for precedents that were set, it would be inaccurate to argue that they were
crucial in restarting international interest and efforts to establish a genuinely

international institution – a world court – to deal with criminal behaviour

in and out of war (see Schiff, 2008; Paris, 2009). The process was revived
in 1989 when the delegation to the UN General Assembly from Trinidad
and Tobago requested that a draft plan should be drawn up for a perma-
nent criminal court, most particularly to put international drug dealers and
traffickers on trial. The idea was clearly well received and the UN Interna-
tional Law Commission was charged with producing a draft of a statute
setting up an international court to investigate, try and punish perpetra-

tors of international crimes. The resultant Draft Statute of 1994 became the
basis for subsequent discussions of a UN Preparatory Commission, set up
at least partly because the ICTY and ICTR had emphasized the need for a
permanent international body to replace the ad hoc-ery of the early 1990s.
It took the Commission almost four years of tricky diplomacy to produce
the draft of what became the 1998 Rome Statute of the International Crim-
inal Court, but the extent of the changes in “the international political and
legal environment” is reflected in the fact that the Statute was discussed,
amended and accepted with considerable rapidity. It was formally adopted
by the conference in July 1998, while the Court itself actually came into exis-
tence on 1 July 2002, the first judges and the prosecutor being appointed the
following year.
However, it rapidly became clear that the ICC was not going to be able
simply to “set up shop” and proceed with its task, even though the task
would be confined to allegedly criminal events that happened after its foun-
dation in July 2002. In the words of one commentator, the ICC “as a new
institution had to be able to cope, all at once, with all the practical prob-
lems of successful investigation, prosecution, trial and punishment of very
serious crimes”. Moreover, “National criminal justice systems have evolved
over many years and have the advantages of a territorial base, a police force,
a prosecution service with executive power goals, etc. By contract, the ICC
would be a territorially disembodied criminal court, lacking independent
executive powers” (Crawford p.113).
At least five problems immediately became apparent. The first involved the
huge extent of the problem of “international criminality” and the relatively
low level of resources available to deal with the problem. By the end of Octo-
ber 2007 the ICC had received over 2,800 complaints about alleged crimes
in 139 countries, including several that focused on the invasion of Iraq by
the “Coalition of the Willing”. Efforts to limit the universe of cases by the
ICC Prosecutor, Luis Moreno Ocampo, focused on distinguishing between
potentially criminal conduct during the conflict, which the Court could deal
with, and the decision to engage in armed conflict, which lay outside its
mandate – at least until the international community can agree on what
constituted the crime of “aggression”. In effect, by the start of 2010, the ICC
had only opened investigations into five cases, all in Africa. This has, not
surprisingly, opened the Court up to charges of neo-colonial bias. The cases

involve charges of criminal behaviour in Uganda, in the Democratic Repub-

lic of the Congo, in the Central African Republic, in Sudan and in Kenya.
Even so, it seems clear that the number of potential cases on international
criminality is likely to prove to be a major strain on the capability of the ICC
to deliver justice rapidly, efficiently and non-controversially.
Allied to this first problem of which cases to take up was the second issue
of who to prosecute. There are two aspects to this. The first is exemplified by
the list of individuals actually being investigated or under indictment by the

Court. It is relatively easy for monsters such as Joseph Kony and the Lord’s
Resistance Army leadership to be charged with crimes committed in Uganda
and elsewhere, or for other militia leaders – for example, of the Union of
Congolese Patriots – to be indicted and even arrested for war crimes or crimes
against humanity under an ICC warrant. Arresting rebels once their protec-
tive barriers have been eroded or removed is relatively easy.11 It is much more
difficult to arrest former high state officials, even after they have left or lost
office, as the cases of Slobodan Milosevicz and Radovan Karadzic illustrate. It
is supremely difficult even to begin formal proceedings against State officials
while they are still in office, especially in a country that is a non-signatory
to the Rome Statute, as the case of President Omar el Bashir of Sudan shows.
Leaders of countries are understandably reluctant to see fellow presidents
and prime ministers put on trial for crimes committed within their own or
other people’s countries. The same treatment may happen to them, and in
many cases it probably should.
The second aspect of this “Who should be indicted and for what?” puz-
zle has been a dilemma ever since the Nuremberg and Tokyo trials, as
it raises questions of responsibility and complicity. Much recent thinking
about international crimes has focused less on those clearly responsible for
perpetrating actual brutality – murder, rape, torture, mutilation – where the
doctrine of “superior orders” is no longer held to be a defence. Rather, atten-
tion has switched to the leadership that has planned, ordered, encouraged
or even allowed the commission of such actions. It has also focused on those
who might not have actually carried out such actions but who have “sup-
ported” those who have – or even on those who have “been complicit”
through silence or failure to take action to stop atrocities.
The whole issue of complicity has been a live one since the prosecutors’
dilemma at Nuremberg of who, among the vast number of active Nazi Party
members and supporters, should be put on trial for war crimes. If Hjalmar
Schacht, Hitler’s former economics minister, could find himself in the dock
at Nuremberg, did this mean that all and any members of a government
were responsible for actions by that government deemed “criminal”? Clearly,
those actually lopping off hands during the Sierra Leone civil war were
behaving as criminals, but those lobbying for the Revolutionary United
Front interests outside the country? There seem to be no clear answers as
to how far “complicity” or “involvement in war crimes” extends.

The third major dilemma for the ICC involves what to do about state
parties that have not signed or ratified the Rome Statute, but whose individ-
ual citizens may have committed crimes or atrocities on the territory of a
state that has.12 This would not be such a problem if non-members did not
include some of the major powers in the present international system, such
as China, India and the United States, together with other opt-outs, such
as Iraq, Israel and Libya. In the case of the United States, the Bush admin-
istration overturned President Clinton’s last-minute adherence to the Rome

Statute in 2002 and pursued a vigorous policy designed to protect any US cit-
izens from having to appear as a defendant before the ICC facing “malicious
or politically motivated” prosecution – in spite of the fact that the United
States would have first right to try such a case though its own legal system.
Until recently, the US Government undertook a widespread policy of con-
cluding bilateral agreements with other countries – especially those many
susceptible to US pressure – to the effect that both countries would never
send their citizens to face criminal proceedings before the ICC. However,
under the Obama administration there have been signs that US support for
the Court might be undergoing some kind of revival, at least “when it works
in our interest”, in the words of the US Ambassador at Large for War Crimes,
Stephen Rapp, expressing his country’s support for current Court actions in
Africa – a clear case of having your cake and eating it.
The fourth major problem for the ICC lies in the fact that, unlike national
legal systems, it has no enforcement capability of its own, either to capture
those whom it has indicted and for whom it has issued an arrest warrant, or
to bring about action on the part of even a member government where there
is no desire to take action on its behalf in particular cases. In other words,
the ICC’s enforcement capability is borrowed as well as uncertain.
Lastly, the ICC faces the whole issue of whether its actions – or indeed its
existence – might serve as a deterrent to achieving peace in situations where
the threat of future ICC indictment might make it more difficult for leaders
of rebel movements (or even governments) to conclude any peace agree-
ment not involving a believable arrangement for immunity for past actions.
At an abstract level, this appears to be another example of the clash likely
between the search for “justice” and the search for “peace” – or, at the very
least, an end to violence and the continuing perpetration of those atrocities
that, within a justice framework, deserve indictment and punishment. What
if the threat of a future trial prolongs a struggle because some leaders see no
way of achieving immunity from ICC prosecution? Can peacemaking and
reconciliation processes proceed successfully in the absence of a believable
means of granting an amnesty to human rights abusers, to war criminals or
to leaders whose regimes have carried out atrocities, systematically and con-
tinually? Suppose that the leaders of the Valkyrie conspiracy had successfully
carried out their plan in 1944 to assassinate Hitler, take over the government
of the Third Reich and offer peace to the Allies. Would there have been war

crimes trials in Nuremberg subsequently? Or internal German trials of the

previous Nazi leadership? Or would World War II have continued, with its
toll of 5,000 casualties or more each day?
Someone – usually those being fought over – might have to bear the costs
of the search for international justice, and it may be that making it easier
for leaders (however evil or deserving punishment) to step aside and to con-
template a safe future “in retirement” could be a less costly way of ending
a conflict and stopping the commission of yet more international crimes.

In the words of one Czech politician arguing against ratification of the ICC
Statute, “the ICC, as a deterrent, will in our view only mean the worst dic-
tators will try to retain power at all costs” (Benda, 2002). Viewed from the
other side, are insurgent leaders more or less likely to end their violence if
they face the strong possibility of their adversary’s granting of an amnesty
being later set aside and their being subsequently arrested and tried once
they have signed a “peace” agreement.
There seem to be no easy solutions to these five dilemmas facing the ICC.
However, for the student of efforts to provide a framework of rules and lim-
its on behaviour in inter-state and intra-state conflicts, the ICC represents
perhaps the high water mark of attempts to go beyond simply codifying
common practices of civilized nations, signing (temporary) treaties that limit
violence between adversaries, or generally agreeing what is and what is not
permissible in the treatment of the enemy. Whether this initiative at institu-
tionalizing a rule system is the last word seems unlikely, but at the moment
the crucial questions seem to revolve around how successful the Court – and
the divided international community – will be in resolving these five central
dilemmas.
5. Conclusion: Forms of institutialization revisited
The difficulties facing the new ICC, especially those involving the estab-
lishment of a consensus about who actually deserves to be classified as an
international criminal and those involving how and when action can be
taken against them without diminishing the prospects for achieving an end
to the conflict, seem to have brought us full circle in our discussion of the
kinds of rules that might be devised for a chaotic and heterogeneous society
such as exists globally in the twenty-first century.
I am reminded of a public lecture once given by one of my professors many
years ago, the title of which was “The Misery and Grandeur of International
Law”. The title does indicate that, at least compared with most forms of
domestic law devised to cope with conflicts within states, the “rules of the
game” for international conflict have – as a system – only achieved a rather
unsatisfactory level as regards the methods of devising the rules, applying
them consistently and ensuring conformity with judgements made by those
charged with interpreting exiting rules.

In terms of the framework we have been using to examine forms of rule

systems, international society does seem to have moved beyond the stage
of “Conventional Constraint”, but not much beyond. We can say that it
has reached a point at which it might be helpful to posit a fourth stage
of “Enacted Constraint” in which there are well-known and widely, but
not wholly, accepted limitations on the behaviour of parties who become
involved in conflicts, where conventional practices have been consolidated
into conventions and formal agreements, and where institutions have been

created to both clarify and extend this rule system and to attempt to enforce
its provisions, often through some decentralized system using capability
borrowed from key members of the system.
Hardly surprisingly, this stage does fall short of the final stage of insti-
tutionalization, where a full-blown legal systems exists, where rules about
conflicts are devised by a rule-making body that claims to represent the
Type Limitations How devised How How Examples

Affecting supervised sanctioned
1. Self limiting Own Unilaterally Unilaterally Undermining Non-violent
restraint behaviour only but often in own values civil rights
front of an and moral campaign
audience position
2. Agreed Interdependent Bilateral tacit Bilaterally Adversary will Limited war
constraint behaviour of or formal retaliate and
both parties in agreement break rules in
specific turn
conflict
3. Conventional Behaviour of Development Bilaterally plus Retaliation Ritualized
constraint all parties in of traditional outsiders as plus conflict in
that type of norms via sanctioners structured tribal societies
conflict socialization social
plus informal disapproval
codes of
conduct
4. En-Acted Ditto Conventional Ditto – plus Collective but
Constraint practices often [often] some [often] some
consolidated accusation or third-party as
into a code of prosecution sanctioner or
conduct enforcer
perhaps
legislated in
parts
5. Imposed Ditto Imposed Third-party Third-party as Functioning
Constraint practices and prosecution enforcement legal system
limitations via and evaluation agency of courts
an outside judges and
legislative police
process
Figure 8.1 Types of regulated/institutionalized rule systems

general interests of the community at large (but frequently doesn’t), where

the rules about conflict are supported by an elaborate structure for interpret-
ing and applying limitations and where there exist institutions charged with
applying sanctions for violations of the rules. This final stage of “Imposed
Constraint” completes our five-stage categorization of ideal types of rule
systems, but necessitates a word of caution that one should not assume
that (a) there is some kind of natural progression between each stage or
(b) that one of the initial stages is necessarily “inferior” to the later stages.

Frequently, societies – depending upon their structure, culture and charac-
teristics – operate quite happily with a rule system that seems to lack some
of the features of other, more elaborate systems. Rule systems usually fit the
societies in which they operate, and when they cease to fit – as in the case of
the rules for conflict in twentieth-century global society – then efforts will be
made to devise a more appropriate system. This seems to be precisely what
is going on in contemporary global society (Figure 8.1).
One final question about all of the various rule systems that we have dis-
cussed in this chapter is, of course, whether they simply make conflicts less
destructive while they are going on, or whether they help to bring conflicts
to an end. In turn, this raises the question of what is meant by ending or “ter-
minating” a conflict, as opposed to merely stopping the violence or ensuring
that the conflict is conducted within some clear limits or by argumentation
within a court seeking to end the conflict by rendering a binding and final
judgement. I now turn to this whole area of conflict termination.

9
Termination I
Stopping the Violence

If one recalls that a feature of legal processes often seems to be the inter-
minable number of appeals against verdicts that carry on the contest to
“higher” and “higher” courts, it is reasonable to ask whether conflicts within
rules ever genuinely come to an end. The question is also pertinent if one
also recalls that many conflicts without any rules at all seem to start up
again, many generations after a previous spasm of violence.1 Old rivalries
and enmities seem to be played out by entirely new generations of adver-
saries, frequently with even greater vehemence and venom than the last
time round. In the 1990s, for example, the War of Yugoslav Disintegration
seemed simply to be playing out once again inter-ethnic hostilities and vio-
lence that had occurred in that part of the Balkans in the 1940s, while the
latter were symptoms of long fought-out historic rivalries between Orthodox
Serbs, Catholic Croats and Slovenians, Muslim Bosniacs and Kosovars.2
Can “the same” conflict involve wholly different generations at widely
separated points of time? Was World War II in Europe simply the same
conflict as World War I, with some different participants – and many more
victims? Did the Frenchmen who were killed around the Ardennes in 1940
represent a different “party” to a different “conflict” from those who were
killed at Verdun in 1916 – or from those who fought and died at Sedan with
the Emperor Napoleon III in 1870? Is this what we mean by intractable con-
flicts? Posing these questions presents the challenge of saying what exactly
is meant by claiming that a conflict is terminated, once and for all. What
do we mean when we claim that a conflict is ended? To use terms familiar
to students of conflict analysis, we need to be clear about what precisely we
mean by saying that any conflict is fully and finally terminated, resolved or
transformed.
Yet again, these questions plunge one into definitional issues and a dis-
cussion of language, frameworks and concepts, but they are, in fact, key
questions for the field of CAR. After all, the previous chapters have simply
suggested ways in which conflicts can be contained, made less damaging
to the less involved, or placed within some rule set which puts limits of
186

Termination I: Stopping the Violence 187
the destructiveness of combatant behavior during the violent stages of a

conflict that protracts. In other words, their focus has been on managing
intractable conflicts. They have really skirted round the central question of
how such conflicts can be brought to an end – if ever – and what exactly this
means. This is not merely a matter of semantics, unfortunately. For good or
ill, this conundrum can’t be avoided, so the final chapters of this book will
try to unravel the puzzle, make some useful distinctions and provide some
practical guidelines for action.

1. Termination: Ending what?
Can a conflict, then, finally be ended, and what might be practical bench-
marks that this goal has been achieved? Surely there are means other than
one party to a conflict destroying its adversaries utterly so that the latter
no longer exists to carry on the dispute? Kill all of the men, sell all of the
women and children into slavery, destroy the city and salt the fields. The
long drawn-out conflict between Rome and Carthage was clearly terminated
by these means, and Roman leaders could feel satisfied that there would be
no repeat of the struggle for their descendants. However, such a solution
to the conflict seems a rare occurrence, and even the unconditional surren-
der imposed by the Allies on Germany in 1945 did not involve the complete
destruction of the German state and its people. Even the permanent oblitera-
tion of independent political entities may turn out to be less permanent than
the obliterators might like to think. Consider the disappearance and later
re-appearance of Poland or the Baltic states, Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia,
and so on.
1.1. Transferred, latent and revived conflicts

If a “Carthaginian” termination is a rarity, then can an argument be made to
the effect that conflicts never really end; they simply “go underground” for
a period, only to re-emerge later in the same guise – or even in a somewhat
different form? Are not many of the conflicts that we observe today simply
a replaying of old disputes with changed slogans and new weapons?
Start with the observation that even the straightforward involvement of
exactly the same party – or even the same set of individual adversaries – in a
dispute later in time is not necessarily a sign that the previous conflict has,
somehow, transferred itself into a later arena, thus making it a renewal of
that previous conflict. How and when can we safely say that we are facing
a distinctly new and different conflict? The crucial point here is that while
the same parties, or even the same people, can be involved as adversaries,
this is not enough for anyone to define the interaction as a renewal of “the
same” conflict – even if residues of mistrust, hostility or dehumanization
carry over in people’s minds from a previous conflict, which they frequently
do. The central question here revolves around the core issues over which

the adversaries are struggling. Given that we may be dealing with a situation
involving the same parties, what makes it a “different” conflict are the dif-
ferent issues and interests at stake. If conflicts are to be seen and treated as
“different from one another”, then the one characteristic that truly makes
them different is surely the nature of the issues in the conflict. (The other
one is the matter of whether different parties are involved in the struggle.)
As I pointed out in Chapter 3, the clearest ways of defining and classifying
social conflicts involves, first, questions about the issues and, second, ques-

tions about the parties involved. Within this framework, it is basically the
issues that define “a conflict”. The two fundamental questions about any
conflict remain: (a) who are the parties and (b) what are the issues?
Does this help in answering the question about when a conflict is thor-
oughly terminated or resolved, as opposed to temporarily settled or simply
pushed into a dormant or latent state and being likely to revive? I would
argue that genuinely and comprehensively ending a conflict involves more
than simply stopping a particular pattern of coercive or violent behaviour;
or of altering – to a significant degree – the negative feelings and stereotypes
held of one another by adversaries. Conflict termination must also involve
successfully addressing the issues in contention, however difficult, and find-
ing some solution to the contradictions that underlie the coercion and the
hostility. This implies that the issues in contention have to be addressed in
such a way that they no longer give rise to important and contradictory goals
that must be pursued. A solution has been found or devised that is genuinely
“win-win”. Of course, this is usually an impossibly ideal standard but at least
it provides a benchmark for measuring just how successful and durable a
solution is likely to be. Moreover, it focuses our attention on one aspect
of a conflict that is often neglected as too difficult to be tackled by any real-
world peace process – what the conflict is “about” rather than how it is being
conducted and how it might best be mitigated, channelled or contained.
1.2. Termination: A triple challenge

A more pragmatic approach to this whole conundrum of “termination” is to
accept the argument that attempting to end a conflict, thoroughly and for
good, involves operating at three levels, and while a process aimed at final
“termination” may achieve its aims at one level, it may have little effect on
others – at least for the time being. But all three levels are needed.
In Chapter 2 I introduced the idea that conflicts could usefully be regarded
as possessing a trilateral structure which could be illustrated through a model
that was initially developed by Johan Galtung and which I used analytically
in a previous work (Mitchell, 1981). The conflict “situation” – that is, the
goal incompatibilities that gave rise to the “issues” at the centre of the con-
flict – formed, of course, a key component of this model. However, equal
weight was given to the psychological aspects of any conflict – “attitudes”
and emotions – as well as the more obvious tactics and strategies employed

by the adversaries in order to achieve their goals and get what they want
(Figure 9.1).
Sources
Issues

Behaviour Attitudes
Figure 9.1 Three basic targets for termination
Re-introducing this model enables me to deal in a disaggregated fashion

with the conundrum of when a conflict is terminated, for now there are
three possible answers depending on which of the components of a conflict
one considers. A conflict is finally and fully terminated
• when the coercive and violent behaviour finally finishes and there is no
likelihood that it will start up again;
• when the issues in dispute no longer exist as the basis for further
contention between the parties;
• when the negative and hostile attitudes between the adversaries (or
a substantial, and crucial, number of individuals within those parties)
disappear.
In plain English, this approach amounts to an argument that if one wishes

to “terminate” a conflict fully and finally, even an intractable conflict, then
it is necessary to end the violence and coercion, change the feelings of hos-
tility, mistrust and enmity that typically afflict adversaries and, above all,
remove the basic causes of the conflict by producing a resolution of the
issues that lie at the core of the dispute. This is a tall order, but one that
emphasizes again the fact that many of the strategies discussed thus far in
this work focus on just one component of a particular conflict, namely the
behaviour. Conflict prevention, conflict mitigation and conflict institution-
alization are all strategies that attempt to replace particular destructive forms
of behaviour, but only to do this.
On the other hand, many in the field would argue that the idea of fully
terminating or resolving an intractable conflict hardly goes far enough in try-
ing to bring about a situation of overall peace (Curle, 1971; Lederach, 1997).
What is required is a strategy of conflict “transformation” which goes well
beyond a focus on any particular conflict and attempts to alter the entire
relationship between the enemies. This necessitates a permanent change in

structures, behaviours, inequalities, attitudes, beliefs, expectations, patterns

of exchange, dependencies, communities’ relative status and much more
(Vayrynen, 1991). Long term, I would agree that a wholly peaceful society,
region or world order would need all of these changes, but I would also argue
that, first, intractable conflicts would have to be ended between existing ene-
mies. Only then might it be possible for those communities or nations to
start work on becoming partners, colleagues or, finally, friends so that their
relationship can be said to be genuinely “transformed”.

2. Terminating unacceptable behaviour
The idea of “ending” an intractable conflict returns us inevitably to our

discussion of conflict prevention in Chapter 5. There I spent much time
discussing various efforts to prevent conflict situations escalating from sus-
picion through hostility to coercion and violence. However, one also has
to face the question of what strategies might be available in order to end
violence once it has actually occurred. This is inevitably a difficult task,
given the likelihood that many people have spent a protracted time suffer-
ing from the destructive effects of that violence. In this sense, “terminating”
a protracted and hence intractable conflict properly starts with trying to end
violence permanently, at least as a preliminary to dealing with the under-
lying causes of a conflict. One major assumption underlying this strategy is
that, if behaviour in conflict can be changed and channelled into some less
destructive course of action – persuasion, negotiation, litigation or legisla-
tion – then it will be easier to terminate fully through a successful resolution.
The many examples of “frozen” conflicts – such as in Cyprus, in Kashmir and
over the Falkland Islands – do, however, raise many questions about the ease
with which this carry-over will take place.
Within this as a basis, the key question obviously becomes how one stops
the employment of force and violence in the first place. As F.H. Hinsley
(1963) once emphasized, the historical record, particularly since the end of
World War I, suggests that underlying many of these efforts is a principle
that turns out to be a variant of the theory of deterrence. The use of force
and violence can, in a last resort, be ended by the application of superior
force. Thus the common counter to the unacceptable use of force turns out
to be the use of far greater but somehow acceptable force. In essence, the
argument is also founded on the existence of the sovereign nation state, the
centralization of power therein and the use of a legal, legitimate and popu-
larly supported “police force” in order to keep the peace and either deter or
detain wrong-doers.
2.1. Enforcing the peace

Calls for such an “international police force” to operate along the lines of
domestic police have a long history, although it seems plain that many

of those calling for such a force had in mind a somewhat idealized model
of a force, benevolently presiding over an integrated, homogeneous and
fundamentally pacific society containing a few wrong-doing criminals who
needed to be “kept in line” (Mitchell, 1976). Questions about whose inter-
ests a police force (or a collection of “security” forces) actually protected
or represented, – especially in divided societies such as Northern Ireland or
Guatemala, or the south of the United States during the civil rights era –
tended to be glossed over, as did issues of who controlled and directed such

forces or whom they suppressed in their role as keepers of “the peace”. What
Chadwick Alger (1963) once referred to as this “domestic analogy” tended
to dominate thinking about actual or proposed “forces to keep the peace”
for many decades during the twentieth century, especially in countries with
a relatively homogenous population where the main functions of the police
involved maintaining a peace that was taken for granted as “normal”.
This vision of the police as friendly peace officers, protecting the bulk
of the citizenry from the depredations of a few criminals and misfits, as
opposed to a fundamentally coercive force, occasionally took something of
a knock. For example, this happened in the 1970s when the bulk of the
population on “mainland” Britain began to realize that the Royal Ulster
Constabulary in Northern Ireland was a sectarian force whose main task was
to maintain order in the Province by suppressing protest from the Catholic
Nationalist minority. However, by the end of the 1980s, even the general
image of their police held by the British middle class had altered somewhat
from that of a “bobby on a bicycle”. Many people began to recognize that
this ideal of an unarmed force of peacekeepers depended on a high level
of social consensus, the absence of serious divisions – ethnic, religious or
class – within the society, and a high level of generally shared prosperity, as
much as on a culture which obeyed the law, eschewed violence and avoided
confrontation. In other words, the image was more appropriate for an “inte-
grated”, as opposed to a “divided”, society. Nonetheless, this “domestic
analogy” and the related image of a force that kept the peace by maintain-
ing “law and order” and deterring or capturing a small number of potential
miscreants continued to be powerful. It remained very influential in think-
ing about remedies for international lawlessness during the whole of the late
nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, especially after the experience of
World War I.
The outbreak of that war in 1914 intensified previously marginalized peace
efforts and, as the war progressed and became more damaging, much public
opinion swung against concern to preserve the independence and freedom
to act of “independent, sovereign” states and more towards the idea that, if
state sovereignty led to such slaughter and destruction as occurred between
1914 and 1918, then something should be done to curtail this freedom to
smash, maim and kill. The war thus gave an impetus to many existing orga-
nizations that were advocating a changed international system of states and

helped to establish others. One of the more influential groups on both sides
of the Atlantic was the coterie of intellectuals around the former British
ambassador to the United States, Lord Bryce, who in 1917 was writing that
“Nothing will be adequate which does not provide for some moral and mil-
itary force to keep peace”, although he added that he was not hopeful that
this could be attained.
All of this activity, together with the increased awareness of the horrors
of industrialized warfare, helped to ensure that some efforts would be made

by independent governments in the post-1918 world to establish an effective
system to discourage the practice of violence as a legitimate means of coping
with intractable, inter-state conflict. Alternative methods for deciding inter-
national disputes and for dealing with the “issues” were established under
the League of Nations, mainly by treating this as fundamentally a legal prob-
lem. Proponents of the new internationalism, led by President Woodrow
Wilson, by General Jan Christian Smuts and by Lord Robert Cecil, also built
into the League Covenant what was hoped would be a means of preventing
the use of international violence to settle disputes.
However, the officials and political figures planning the new League could
not escape the central dilemma that had plagued all who had dreamed
about, advocated or written about ending international violence. What
should be done about “aggressors” who refused to abide by any new inter-
national rule system and insisted on retaining their sovereign freedom to
act solely in their own interests, up to and including the employment of
coercive, mass violence?
The actual League of Nations provisions for making sure that aggressors
would be kept in check and “the peace” preserved have been heavily criti-
cized as impractical and inevitably unsuccessful (see, for example, Hinsley,
1963 Chapter 14; Williams, 1998 Chapter 6). Even if we reverse our basic
order of importance, ignore the League’s record from the 1920s for termi-
nating conflicts by dealing successfully with underlying issues and focus on
the League’s efforts to deter the use of unacceptable violence, examples from
the 1930s, such as the Japanese invasion of Manchuria, the Italian attack
on Ethiopia and the German invasions of Czechoslovakia in 1938 and 1939,
can hardly be counted as anything but failures. Where was the international
police force at such times? As many commentators have pointed out, the
Covenant left too many loopholes that enabled governments to opt out
of the actual use of force when the time came for enforcement. With-
out a League army, deterrent force always had to be (and continues to be)
“borrowed”, and when governments were reluctant to lend, the idea of an
international police force to keep the peace was stillborn. As Lord Grey the
former British Foreign Secretary had expressed it, governments had proved
unwilling to face some “inconvenient obligations” towards other countries
that were attacked, even to the extent of imposing economic sanctions well
short of force (see Williams, 1998 p.32).

2.2. The United Nations: Peace enforcement and peacekeeping

Some 25 years later, following the League’s failure to deal with the prob-
lem of constructing a regime which dealt with the violence arising from the
numerous, intractable conflicts left over from World War I, the collapse of
three empires and the refusal of numerous aspiring nationalisms to be con-
fined within the boundaries of an existing state system, the victor powers
in 1945 faced a very similar dilemma: the use of international military force
to keep the peace and defend a post-war settlement. On this occasion, the

suggested solution – at least for a time – was a continuation of the “Grand
Alliance” which had defeated the Axis powers. Rather than a League army,
which would, in the last resort, enforce a peace so desperately won, the coer-
cive force for keeping that peace would be borrowed from the five permanent
members of the UN Security Council and used only with the agreement of
these five governments.
Sadly, the system’s fundamental precondition for success – the continued
unity of the victors – rapidly proved to be a delusion and the scheme broke
down over the emergence of Soviet–US rivalry and the onset of the Cold War.
Issues such as the size of the planned UN deterrent force, its composition
and whether it should consist of a standing force or national contingents
“on standby” proved to be impossible to agree.
In the event, the only time when the UN’s peace-enforcing regime acted at
all as was intended was in 1950 with the outbreak of the war on the Korean
peninsula with the fortunate (or unfortunate, depending on one’s point of
view) absence of the Soviet delegates, then boycotting UN Security Council
meetings over the latter’s refusal to replace the representatives of Nationalist
China with delegates from Beijing. The Korean War was therefore fought
between, on the one hand, a UN force led by the United States and its allies
and clients, and on the other an ally (North Korea) of one of the other five
permanent members of the UN Security Council, plus another ally (China).
It was a struggle which ended in a stalemate that exists to this day. It was
certainly not a good precedent for peace enforcement by the UN and it was
to be almost 40 years before that strategy was tried again.
Given the rather obvious failure of the UN’s anticipated peace-
enforcement arrangements via a Great Power police force under the control
of the UN Security Council, it was clear that an alternative process had to
be invented so that the UN could make some effort to maintain the peace
and, at least, to manage some post-war conflicts. The models offered by a
UN observer mission in Kashmir (UN Military Observer Group in India &
Pakistan in 1948) and by the 1949 UN mission in Palestine, together with
the 1950 “Uniting for Peace” Resolution in the General Assembly, suggested
that, under certain fairly specific circumstances, small military forces under
UN control could be deployed to help to limit violence and prevent a conflict
from re igniting. Thus the “first generation” of (mainly UN) peacekeeping

came into being under Chapter 6 of the UN Charter. The development was
encouraged by the second UN Secretary General, Dag Hammarskjold, and
a group of neutralist inclined, medium-sized countries – Canada, Ireland,
Finland, India and Sweden among others – willing to contribute soldiers
(and sometimes police) on an ad hoc basis to peacekeeping missions as they
arose.
For the next 30 years a small number of peacekeeping missions were
launched, mostly by the UN but also occasionally by regional organizations,

such as the Arab League (a barrier force on the border between Kuwait and
Iraq in 1960), the Organisation of African Unity (in Chad in 1981) and later
the Economic Commission of West African States (in Liberia in 1990). Most
of these operated under generally accepted “rules” of the new peacekeeping
game:
• Consent – the force had to be requested by the main combatant parties

and the force’s mandate negotiated and agreed.
• Neutrality – the force was there following the establishment of some truce
or ceasefire, to help in the search for a permanent settlement, and it was
to remain neutral and impartial at all times.
• Low enforcement capability – the force was either to be unarmed or to
possess only those arms as to enable it to defend itself if attacked.
It can be seen that “traditional” peacekeeping was very far removed from
the idea of peace enforcement and was more in the tradition of a domes-
tic police force’s role as “peacemakers” rather than as “law enforcers” or
even “thief takers” (Cain, 1973). As late as the mid-1980s it could be simply
described by the Canadian scholar Henry Wiseman as “the use of military
personnel to monitor and supervise a cease fire between belligerents”. This
certainly makes clear that a “peace” had to exist before the peacekeepers were
emplaced, so that their task was to make sure that it continued to hold while
the political climate “became more conducive to diplomatic negotiations
and possible settlement through direct diplomacy”(1987 p.3).
Commenting on the qualities needed by an “impartial soldier” on such a
peacekeeping mission, British Brigadier Michael Harbottle, one of the earliest
and most thoughtful field commanders involved in this first generation of
peacekeeping missions, commented that
in the sphere of United Nations peacekeeping, commonsense, patience

and an understanding of people and their point of view is every bit as
important as intelligence, while professionalism is on another kind –
the uninhibited professionalism of the amateur, using his common-
sense, patience, understanding and sympathy to prevent a war starting
or re-starting. This form of professionalism is not found in textbooks or
taught at military staff colleges . . .
(Harbottle, 1970 pp.191–192)

2.3. “Generations”
All of this seemed to change drastically in the early 1990s, and commen-
tators began writing about second- or even third- generation peacekeeping,
at which point peacekeeping became so ambiguous in nature and so varied
in practice that even its current meaning remains a matter for dispute and
debate.
For one thing, the use of the term “generation” can be misleading in that it
gives the impression of an alternative peacekeeping model starting to be used

after a specific date and for a clear time period. For another, throughout the
1990s and 2000s, “traditional” observer missions continued to be mandated
(for example, the UN Observer Mission in Liberia between 1993 and 1997),
barrier forces put in place following a truce or a peace agreement (the UN
Mission in Ethiopia and Eritrea between 2000 and 2008), and transitional
law and order forces employed administratively during post-agreement peri-
ods (the UN Transitional Administration in East Timor between 1999 and
2002).
On the other hand, it was clear that what had become known as “first-
generation” peacekeeping increasingly became viewed as inadequate to deal
with some of the complexities of managing intra-state violence, which
became more and more prevalent from the 1990s onwards. Those who adopt
a “generational” framework can, with some justice, point to the symbolic
fact that there was a clear ten-year gap between the deployment of a tradi-
tional peacekeeping force into the Lebanese civil war in 1978 and the next
innovative UN-mandated initiative in Namibia in 1988. During the 1990s,
“complex emergencies” seemed to become more frequent from that time on3
and the search for an effective but also a justifiable UN role in the new era
became pressing.
Hence, as the Cold War faded into history, it became increasingly evident
that the UN – and the international community – was facing new and more
challenging world as regards controlling organized violence. Peacekeeping
alone was not enough. As far as international peacekeeping was concerned,
the 1990s proved to be a decade of thinking and experimentation, with new
lessons to be learned, together with a revival of some persistent dilemmas
that presented themselves in at least three different ways. Oversimplifying
somewhat, debate raged fiercely around issues of (a) peacekeeping’s orga-
nization and financing, (b) its justification, with the latter becoming acute
once again over (c) the question of the use of force to “keep the peace”,
and what exactly was meant by this last concept. Did this necessarily also
involve what Tom Schelling (1966) had described as compellence as well as
deterrence?
The three key instances during the 1990s of what notoriously became
widely – if perhaps unfairly – known as the UN’s three “failures” in its
peacekeeping role involved two missions in Africa and one in Europe. Each
revealed in a dramatic form some of the weaknesses of early post-Cold War
peacekeeping.

In Somalia, two UN peacekeeping missions (UN Operations in Somalia –

UNOSOM I from April to December 1992 and UNOSOM II from March 1993
to March 1995) were handicapped from the start by the country’s absence of
any recognized central government. The failure of either initiative to bring
about any form of peace among the warring factions or to be able to protect
its own peacekeepers from assault, capture and disarmament – and ulti-
mately to be effective in capturing and punishing the factions responsible
for those original assaults – led to serious doubts about the future effec-

tiveness of UN peace forces. Could they hope to impose any form of local
security and order unless present in overwhelming numbers – a somewhat
improbable scenario, given the increasing reluctance of UN members to lend
substantial national military forces to the Organization?
The second case occurred during the wars that characterized the break-
up of Yugoslavia between 1991 and 1995. The travails of UN missions in
that country have been well documented (see Glenny, 1996; Maass, 1996;
Rieff, 1996), but the actual events that threw serious doubts onto the idea
of an effective UN peace – imposing capacity involved the failure of the UN
established “safe zones” in Bosnia. The model for this strategy in the for-
mer Yugoslavia was clearly the set of six safe havens, established in Iraq
during 1991 and protected by over 8,000 US, French and British troops,
plus much air strike capability – none of these involved any form of per-
mission from Baghdad – in the aftermath of Iraq’s defeat in the First Gulf
War.4 Efforts to establish similar protected areas in Srebrenica, Gorazde,
Bihac, Tuzla, Zepa and Sarajevo in the former Yugoslavia with insufficient
UN forces not backed up by effective air strike capabilities were completely
unsuccessful and appeared to symbolize the overall failure of UN efforts to
keep the peace in a disintegrating country, where there was little peace to
be kept.
The third example of ineffective post-Cold War peacekeeping during the
1990s occurred in Rwanda, where the efforts of a small and undermanned
UN mission to prevent the genocide of well over half a million mainly Tutsi
victims at the hands of their Hutu “neighbours” (see Dalliere, 2004) seemed
to represent both the indifference of much of the international community
and the impotence of the UN in imposing any form of order, or guarantee-
ing any level of security in such one-sided conflicts, especially those possibly
involving “ethnic cleansing” or genocide. The aftermath of the Rwandan
failure involved the driving into exile of the Hutu leaders and many of the
Hutu majority in Rwanda, the continuation of the conflict in the border
areas of the country and the eventual incorporation of the Hutu–Tutsi con-
flict into the chaotic interlocking conflicts in the Congo and the Great Lakes
region. All of this seemed to some to be a return of the region and the UN
to the early 1960s, with none of the dilemmas that had confronted the then
UN Secretary-General Hammarskjold, and the UN Operation in the Congo
(ONUC) being anywhere near solved.

2.4. A civilian approach: Accompaniment and revelation

Paradoxically, while traditional “top-down” peacekeeping practices were
being sorely tried and found wanting, alternative lines of thought about
how to keep the peace amid intractable conflict were being explored at more
or less the same time. One idea for an alternative form of peacekeeping –
international but also civilian, unarmed and non-violent – derived from a
number of sources. First, the scheme was a reaction to the conventional
wisdom about the effectiveness of placing soldiers trained for war into a pro-

tracted and violent conflict with the basic aim of preventing further violence
and of paving the way for peacemaking initiatives. Second, it was partly
derived from the Gandhian idea of a peoples’ peace army – Shanti Sena – that
would confront the forces of oppression and the users of violence with the
weapons of non-violence and civil disobedience. This, it was argued, would
divert the struggle into a more peaceful form. Third, it was also a reaction
to the paradox of attempting to bring an end to violent behaviour in a con-
flict by putting in place the potentiality for more extensive counterviolence.
Lastly, it partially derived from an extension of the need to protect innocent
individuals – at least “innocent” in the sense that they were not using vio-
lence to advance their goals in the struggle but were behaving within the
limits of the law.
The idea that civilian NGOs could play a part in limiting the use of vio-
lence and preserving human freedoms even in the midst of protracted and
violent conflicts started to take hold in the mid-1980s. The central idea was
that civilian peacekeeping could be used to focus global attention on the
plight of individuals and organizations seeking to produce change and main-
tain human rights in the middle of protracted conflicts. The main tactic
was the physical presence of international volunteers, willing to accompany
local people under threat of violence, often from state agencies but also
from insurgent guerrillas and local militias. Quite apart from the symbol-
ism of outsiders accompanying local leaders or organizations under threat,
the actual presence of members of an international humanitarian organi-
zation could serve as a deterrent to anyone thinking of infringing basic
human rights or breaking IHL with impunity. This would especially be so
if the accompaniers also possessed global links to business organizations,
diplomatic representatives, national governments, aid organizations, inter-
national celebrities and media, together with the means of disseminating
details of any human rights violations rapidly, widely and to the detriment
of those who were committing such violations. The assumption was that
these factors could act as a major deterrent to the use of at least some of the
violence which characterized protracted and intractable struggles.
International non-violent civilian protective accompaniment (NVCPA)
thus started from very small beginnings in the 1980s with the idea that
civilian as opposed to military peacekeeping could make a contribution
to diminishing violence (Schweitzer, 2012 pp.7–17). In the early 1980s,

two pioneering organizations began field experiments. In 1983, Witness

for Peace began working in Nicaragua, which was then under attack from
US-sponsored “contras” that had been established to try to undermine
the Sandanista regime that had previously overthrown the dictatorship of
Anastasio Somoza. Peace Brigades International (PBI), founded in 1981 by
11 non-violent Quaker activists, was established as a human rights orga-
nization and launched its first accompanying initiatives in Guatemala in
1983, following these up in the later 1980s with accompaniment teams

in El Salvador and Sri Lanka. Other organizations, most with a religious
background, followed suit and put in place accompanying teams in a
variety of countries that were suffering from protracted conflict. Among
the best known, Christian Peace Teams (CPT), founded in 1986, estab-
lished a continuous presence in Palestine from 1993 onwards and by
2005 had experience of running NVCPA in over 12 different locations,
including three First Nation sites in the United States and Canada. (Coy,
2012 p.9). Others include the Fellowship of Reconciliation (FoR), which
has been active in accompaniment in Colombia since the late 1990s,
and the Nonviolent Peaceforce, which was established at an inaugural
conference in New Delhi in 2002, and since then has worked in Sri
Lanka with later missions in South Sudan, the Philippines and the south
Caucasus.
The record of each of these organizations has been a varied one and
to some degree each one’s success has been affected by a factor that they
all share. The common factor which has occasioned some internal heart-
searching and external criticism (see Coy, 2011) has been the fact that most
accompaniment teams have consisted predominantly of white Europeans or
North Americans, with the occasional presence of volunteers from Australia
and New Zealand. The absence of people from Africa, Asia, Latin America
or the Middle East, both in the field and in managerial positions, has led to
concerns that the whole civilian peacekeeping movement can be seen as a
racist or neo-colonial enterprise. This is a dilemma that PBI, CPT, FoR and
the other Western, church-based organizations have yet to solve.
To at least some degree, the philosophy of non-violent protective accom-
paniment seems to echo Woodrow Wilson’s historical belief that wars could
be deterred by international public opinion (see Mahoney & Eguren, 1997).
However, surely any government would rather not face diplomatic pressure
to act against its associated perpetrators of kidnappings, imprisonment with-
out trial, and judicial murders, or the possible withdrawal of aid, decline
in tourism, or adverse media coverage, especially if these problems origi-
nated from a respectable and impartial humanitarian NGO working with its
local citizens. “Civilian peacekeeping” may on occasion, therefore, produce
results that can supplement or even replace the efforts of more traditional
international peacemaking organizations, especially as the latter have also
been undergoing major reforms over the last 25 years.

3. Beyond violence
A second innovative line of thinking about peacekeeping reform started to

arise in the 1980s, and accelerated during the 1990s, partly because of the
three prominent mission failures – Somalia, Yugoslavia and Rwanda. With
the prevailing sense of unease, it is hardly surprising that serious intellectual
efforts did take place to try to hammer out some new principles on which
genuinely effective international peacekeeping could be re-organized. Con-

ceptually at least, a major turning point seemed to come in 1992, with the
UN Secretary General’s publishing of the policy document, An Agenda for
Peace, together with its follow-up three years later, Supplement to an Agenda
for Peace (1995). This initial Report was clearly based on the idea that tradi-
tional and consensual peacekeeping alone and in isolation was not enough.
Among the many innovations proposed or implied by this first document
was its introduction of the idea of peacebuilding to accompany peacekeeping
and peacemaking. Other new ideas included the deployment of “preventive
forces” in certain volatile regions, well before the outbreak of actual hostil-
ities; the use of demilitarized zones as part of such preventive deployment;
the setting up of a reserve fund for potential peacekeeping; and prior training
for potential peacekeepers, together with the prepositioning of equipment
for use on peacekeeping missions (Mays, 2011 p.53). Older, more familiar
themes included a call for a standing UN army with an accepted enforcement
capacity.
All of this was accompanied by an often unnoticed modification of tra-
ditional peacekeeping doctrine in paragraph 20 of the Agenda, which noted
that peacekeeping “is the deployment of a United Nations presence in the
field hitherto with the consent of all the parties . . . ” (Boutros-Ghali, 1992;
emphasis added). Although this modification was removed from the Supple-
ment, it once again raised the old issue of whether a peacekeeping mission
invariably needed the consent of combatants – and, by implication, whether
“the peace” could or should be “enforced”.
The misfortunes of UNOSOM I and II, of the UN-protected zones in
Bosnia, and of the UN mission in Rwanda, contrasted with the hopes
expressed in the Secretary General’s Agenda for Peace. They each clearly called
for modifications of clearly failing peacekeeping practice. By the end of
the 1990s this had resulted in yet another document, the Brahimi Report
(2000), which was intended to avoid such mission failures as had occurred
in the 1990s. This was the work of a Panel appointed by UN Secretary
General Kofi Annan and it addressed directly some of the practical require-
ments for future twenty-first-century “peace-support” operations and dealt
with some of the shortcomings that had been revealed by recent UN mis-
sions, such as those in Somalia, Sierra Leone, Rwanda, Bosnia, Kosovo and
the Congo. Its recommendations included approval for the idea of con-
flict prevention, for the earmarking of adequate funds for all aspects and

all stages of peace operations, and for the establishment of a centralized

“early warning” system that would enable the rapid deployment of enough
peacekeepers in a preventive mode. Moreover, the Report insisted that, once
deployed, UN peacekeepers should always “be capable of defending them-
selves, other mission components and the mission’s mandate” with “robust
rules of engagement against those who would renege on their commitments
to a peace accord or otherwise seek to undermine it by violence”. It should be
noted, however, that the Report still paid lip service to the assumption that

the peacekeepers were there to help to maintain a peace that had already
been agreed, if reluctantly, by local adversaries.
Both An Agenda for Peace and the later Brahimi Report have been anal-
ysed and criticized ad infinitum (for example, see Roberts, 1993; Ryan, 1998;
2000). Hence it is only necessary here to say that both documents became,
indeed, important intellectual foundations for the development of a new
era of peace operations and initiatives that wholly expanded the range of
actions that international “peacekeeping” missions have undertaken from
the 1990s to the present time. Franke and Warnecke in their survey of UN
peace missions note that, whereas only 18 UN peacekeeping missions were
initiated during the entire 44-year period from 1946 to 1990, in the decade
of 1990–2000 alone a total of 36 new missions were launched and that –
in the first flush of enthusiasm and optimism of the post-Cold War world –
15 new peacekeeping operations were actually launched between 1990 and
1993. Some even had the enthusiastic support of the United States. Franke
and Warnecke (2009) calculate that there have been at least 69 UN peace
missions since the end of the Cold War.
Even the language used to describe such operations has changed radically
over the last 20 years, and it is now more usual to talk of “peace support
operations” rather than simply “peacekeeping”, as UN and other initiatives
have expanded to involve activities that go far beyond simply preventing
the outbreak or recurrence of violence. The overall aim, according to Franke
and Warnecke, involves creating “conditions for sustainable peace in war-
torn societies” (ibid p.407), which is a huge difference from monitoring a
ceasefire, arranging a process of mutual disarmament or patrolling an agreed
ceasefire line. In practical terms, even the early days of this new era involved
complex support operations. These included trying to stop actual fighting in
the former Yugoslavia, deterring military interventions in Macedonia, pro-
tecting IDP camps in Chad, supervising the handover of power in East Timor,
monitoring referenda in Western Sahara, reforming the police and security
forces in El Salvador, Guatemala and Haiti, and supervising much of the civil
and security administration in Kosovo.
In an effort to help to understand post-Cold War peacekeeping, some writ-
ers have categorized contemporary peace support operations as falling into
four broad sectors: security and public order; justice and reconciliation; gov-
ernance and participation; and social and economic well-being (Francke &

Warnecke, 2009 p.408). Simply listing these tasks gives some idea of the
central fact that contemporary “peacekeeping” involves far more than just
trying to maintain the peace – in the sense of an absence of violence – so
that the use of a wholly new language is thoroughly justified. The enormous
expansion of peacekeeping tasks is reflected in the widely varying mandates
handed over to forces “in the field”. These forces can vary in numbers from
a few dozen to many thousands of soldiers, police and accompanying civil-
ians. They can range from small advisory missions, through larger, “single

issue” missions temporarily charged with limited tasks, such as observing
elections or supervising refugee return, or even larger missions, where the
transitional governance of a whole territory is needed in the absence of a
functioning local or national government.
Mentioning these areas of activity shows clearly the magnitude of the
tasks currently undertaken by international organizations involved in “peace
support” activities. It helps to understand how these interact with, and in
many cases engulf, tasks of development, governance, humanitarian relief
and even state-building. All of this expansion has led some commentators to
raise the problem of over-reach, over-ambition and under-resourcing (see, in
this instance, Roberts, 1993; Pugh, 1995; Ryan, 2000). In particular, Jennifer
Hazen in her article “Can Peacekeepers be Peace-Builders?” (2007) has raised
what seems to me to be the key issue about this multiplicity of tasks cur-
rently dumped on the shoulders of – mainly military – personnel, as well as
the question of how, amid all of the heterogeneous demands being made of
peacebuilding missions, one can go about evaluating their “success”.
On this issue, Hazen points to the profound difference between the
demands of the minimalist objective of conflict management in the sense
of preventing further violence and “creating the security conditions under
which peace-building activities can take place” (Hazen p.323); and the max-
imalist one that requires conflict resolution and eliminating the need for
further violence by removing the underlying sources of the conflict. The lat-
ter aim involves – among other major structural and psychological changes –
the development, at the very least, of durable mechanisms for non-violent
conflict resolution. Clearly, this requirement goes well beyond the estab-
lishment of electoral systems that produce winners and losers in the quest
for political office, or of judicial systems for determining winners and losers
from legal proceedings.
I will return to this question of “success” below, but at this point I merely
wish to raise two issues. The first is to emphasize that, whereas traditional
peacekeeping clearly aimed at altering just one aspect of our analytical model
(the behavioural component), contemporary peace support operations are
obviously far more ambitious and seek to change radically all three compo-
nents (behavioural, psychological and substantive), as well as the underlying
structural sources that produce intractable issues that underlie the violence.
The second is that, in cases like the former Yugoslavia, Iraq, Somalia and

Sierra Leone, as well as more recently in the Sudan, Libya and Syria, the
familiar dilemmas associated with peace enforcement have returned in a
very immediate and practical form.
3.1. Peace enforcement redux

Whether one is examining efforts to terminate inter-state or intra-state vio-
lence, or focuses on first-, second-, third- or even “fourth-” generation peace
operations, one crucial question always arises. What happens when there is

no peace to be kept, no truce to observe, no ceasefire to monitor, no troop
disengagement or disarmament to arrange or oversee and no social, politi-
cal or security construction to supervise? What happens if massive violence
continues? What then?
Clearly, such a question had arisen for both traditional and the immediate
post-Cold War peacekeeping operations and it is equally relevant for today’s
peace-support missions. It is closely related to the basic conundrum posed
earlier in our discussion about peace enforcement. When and under what
circumstances are outsiders – the international community (whatever that
might mean), or a consortium of “the powers”, or neighbours in a region
affected by a threat to their own peace and security – justified in using mili-
tary force to terminate dangerous and destabilizing violence arising from an
intractable conflict?
Even in the early days of traditional peacekeeping there was one rea-
sonably clear answer to the question about when the use of force might
be justified, and this was when the threat of violence was directed at the
peacekeepers themselves. The use of weapons in self-defence has always
been permissible as a last resort, although some experienced first-generation
peacekeepers have often argued against carrying even side arms into the
field, on the grounds that, in some circumstances, this could lead to awkward
situations in which local armed actors might demand that peacekeepers
surrender their weapons.
Other operational circumstances could pose related problems, as when any
type of peacekeeping force charged with the protection of civilians – or of
relief materials intended for civilians – might have a choice between aban-
doning their charges and leaving them to their fate, or threatening (and
perhaps using) force against the source of the danger. In an early example,
in July 1966 such a choice confronted SWEDBATT (the Swedish Battalion),
who interposed themselves successfully between the Turkish Cypriot com-
munity in Melousha and the besieging Greek Cypriot National Guard. This
was a success in contrast with the fate of the Bosniac civilians in Sbrenica
when the protection of unsupported Dutch peacekeepers proved to be insuf-
ficient to deter the Serbian military and over 8,000 Bosniac men were taken
away and murdered by Serb forces.
However, at another level entirely, there has been almost a revolution in
the attitude among at least some members of “the international community”

regarding the use of force to stop or prevent large-scale, intra-state vio-

lence. Originally, in the world of post-World War II, the doctrine of state
sovereignty, written into Article 2 (7) of the UN Charter, protected govern-
ments (and other combatants) from any interference in “domestic” affairs,
no matter how violent these might become. The only exceptions to this
rule arose when an intra-state conflict was likely to produce an interna-
tional “threat to peace and security”, in which case the UN Security Council
could act – or not act as was mainly the case during the Cold War. National

sovereignty and non-interference in the domestic affairs of the state were
dominant ideas, no matter what an Idi Amin, an Agosto Pinochet, an
Emperor Bokasa or a Pol Pot might actually do to some of the citizens of
their state. This remained so until the early 1990s, when a number of con-
flicts arose that brought about an astonishingly rapid change in the doctrine
of non-interference through international military action via the UN.
The first sign that major changes were imminent, and a new norm might
be considered, came about as early as 1991 when the UN began to con-
front the issue of what might need to be done in a post-Cold War world,
when a government was committing, or threatening to commit, monstrous
human rights violations against some of its own people. The first indica-
tion of the likelihood that the UN might be prepared to act, and even to
use force, within the territory of one of its members without that govern-
ment’s consent occurred in the aftermath of the first Gulf War, when the
Iraqi regime seemed quite prepared to unleash its military forces, yet again,
against the Kurdish community in the north of Iraq. The UN Security Coun-
cil passed Resolution 688 that condemned Iraqi mistreatment of its own
Kurdish community and ordered Iraq to permit humanitarian assistance to
reach the Kurds. Moreover, the Resolution was interpreted as also permitting
the establishment of a “safe area” and a no-fly zone over Iraqi Kurdistan.
Such actions were initially justified on the grounds that the mass exodus of
Kurds into neighbouring Turkey and Iran increased the chances of inter-state
conflict and thus did, indeed, constitute a “threat to international peace and
security”.
Shortly thereafter, however, it was not even felt necessary to use this ratio-
nale in the case of the human rights crisis within Somalia (1992) or in
Haiti (1994). In both examples the implication of UN reactions was that
an internal humanitarian crisis could, in and of itself, be interpreted as a
threat to international peace that justified UN Security Council action under
Chapter 7 of the Charter.
This process of abandoning the principles of not violating domestic
sovereignty, and avoiding the necessity to obtain official and formal consent
(plus the ignoring of Article 2 (7) of the Charter), was made even clearer in
the case of the internal slaughter of Tutsis by the Hutu majority in Rwanda
in November 1994. Such massive human rights abuses, even when taking
place initially within the boundaries of a sovereign member of the UN, were,

rather belatedly for many Rwandans, taken to justify UN actions, even to the
point of
• the use of UN forces to protect the delivery of humanitarian assis-

tance (and subsequently to punish local fighters attacking lightly armed
traditional UN peacekeepers) as in the case of Somalia;
• the dispatch of a UN force to secure the “return” of democratic govern-
ment, as in the case of Haiti;

• the establishment of international tribunals to try those responsible for
intra-state genocide, as in the case of Rwanda.
Thus, within just over three years, the UN had – with much caution on
the part of some of its formerly colonized or intervened-upon members,
such as China, India and Russia – entertained the possibility of a new intel-
lectual basis, a new norm, regarding the Organization’s authority to act in
response to major human rights abuses taking place within the boundaries
of its members. The immediate post-Cold War period saw a major debate
develop about when, and for what reasons, peace enforcement by the UN
was justified.
By the end of the 1990s, the advocates of what came to be called human-
itarian intervention were arguing strenuously for a change in the UN’s
underlying doctrine and practice – for a new set of rules. The new approach
would be one which justified uninvited and forceful intervention into
domestic situations that involved violent conflict, threats to minorities and
potentially massive human rights abuses. In a practical sense, the UN and
other regional organizations, plus a number of well-armed regional states
or coalitions, were practising various forms of enforcement in the 1990s,
well ahead of the formulation or acceptance of any coherent justifying doc-
trine. Katharina Coleman in her study (2007) of the legitimizing role of
mandates from universal, or even region-wide, organizations has argued
that 16 peace-enforcement operations actually took place between 1990
and 2000. Sometimes these were undertaken by alliances such as NATO,
while the majority were often grouped around a leading country, such as
the United States, Russia, Italy or France (but on occasions led by regionally
significant countries, such as Nigeria, Australia or South Africa). Most were
legitimized by mandates from the Southern African Development Commu-
nity (SADC), the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS),
the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) or the UN.
The official formulation of this revolutionary norm that international
force might justifiably be used to keep and help to build internal peace,
without even the consent of a national government or of a prior agree-
ment between combatants, was put forward formally at the start of the new
millennium in the Report of the International Commission on Interven-
tion and State Sovereignty (ICISS) of December 2001. The ICISS had been

established as a reaction to Secretary General Kofi Annan’s challenge in his

Report to the 2000 Millenium Assembly, in which he strongly suggested
that the international community should establish a new consensus about
when forceful outside intervention into intra-state conflicts could be under-
taken, under whose authority and how. The Canadian Government under
the leadership of Foreign Minister Lloyd Axworthy, took up this challenge
and established the ICISS under the joint chairmanship of Gareth Evans, the
former Australian Foreign Minister, and Mohammed Sahnoun, the veteran

Algerian diplomat.
At the core of the eventual ICISS Report was the principle that the interna-
tional community, through the UN, had a residual “responsibility to protect”
people, a principle that over-rode that of state sovereignty and domestic
jurisdiction. This was especially so when what was needed was a people’s
protection against their own government, which was clearly failing in its
own, primary, protective responsibilities. The Report (2001) was somewhat
cautious in the application of any right of intervention, noting that military
intervention could only be used as a last resort, when all other preventive
means had been thoroughly exhausted and when there was “a reasonable
chance of success in halting or averting the suffering” (ICISS Report p.vii).
Normally it should take place under the authority of the UN Security Council
or, failing that, the General Assembly under the Uniting for Peace Resolution
or an appropriate regional organization. It was clear, moreover, that the pro-
cess of intervention should not be used lightly but action was always deemed
justifiable in order to “protect in conscience shocking situations, crying out
for action” (ICISS Report p.xiii).
These and other limitations on the responsibility to protect (R2P) were
clearly put into the Report as safeguards against its employment in cases
where mass atrocity – a conscience shocking situation – was not involved.
However, the dilemma about whose conscience had to be shocked, and
especially about what, remained ambiguous. This was made evident by the
debate in 2008 about whether outside intervention could take place when
the Sudanese Government-sponsored, armed and directed militia were let
loose on the people of Darfur, resulting in massive numbers of Darfurians
fleeing to refugee camps.
Whatever its ambiguities or shortcomings, the ICISS Report was unani-
mously adopted by the UN General Assembly at the 2005 World Summit,
and R2P, with its possibilities for enforcement action, became an – admit-
tedly often contested – basis for peace support operations in the first decade
of the twenty-first century. It seemed that an intellectual justification for
using force to try to keep the peace within member countries of the UN
had at least been considered and sketched out, although accompanied by
much doubt and criticism by those who feared that it might eventually lead
to new efforts at imperial control. However, finding an intellectual justifi-
cation for using uninvited outside force to impose domestic order in cases
of humanitarian crises or violent internal conflict was one thing. It proved

far more difficult to find practical ways of doing so successfully, and there
remained a great deal of confusion about the basic requirements of effec-
tive peace-enforcement operations, and how these might differ from good,
old-fashioned intervention by well-armed global or regional actors.
3.2. Subcontracting peace enforcement

Returning to the practicalities of peace enforcement or to the capacity for
implementing a subsequently enunciated international R2P doctrine, one of

the recommendations that was contained in the Brahimi Report was that UN
peacekeeping missions should always be provided with appropriate military
capacities to carry out their mandate and thus should avoid misfortunes such
as befell the UN Mission in Sierra Leone (UNAMSIL) or in Somalia. How-
ever, calling for peacekeeping forces that were capable of a “robust response”
was one thing; finding the troops necessary to provide such a capacity was
another.
For a while, in the mid-1990s, there was a brief revival of interest in the
idea of establishing a permanent, professional UN “Legion” (See Conetta &
Knight, 1995; Kaysen & Rathjens, 1996) which would avoid at least some
of the delays to a rapid UN response inherent even in the earmarking of
national troop units under UN Standby Arrangements. Such a force – a Per-
manent Volunteer Military Force – could, it was argued, be specially trained
for the multifarious demands of new-generation peace operations (Kinloch,
1996) but be available to the UN Security Council for use in creating the
security conditions that would enable other institutions to carry out longer
term peacebuilding tasks. However, this idea foundered yet again amid famil-
iar doubts about the composition, financing, control and utilization of such
a force. The international community was not yet ready to accept the danger
of international “mercenaries” wearing blue helmets.
A second approach emerged from reflections on the experiences of some
post-Cold War peace-enforcing missions that had taken place virtually out-
side the auspices of the UN Security Council during the 1990s, starting
with the Nigerian-led intervention into the civil war in Liberia in 1990
and the Russian-led mission into Tajikistan in 1993. Both of these missions
were ostensibly undertaken under the auspices of a regional organization –
ECOWAS in the case of Liberia and the Commonwealth of Independent
States in the case of Tajikistan.5 At least in their original stages, these efforts
at peace enforcement took place with, at best, only the most tenuous con-
nections to the UN, but they suggested a variety of ways – under the informal
heading of “subcontracting” – in which available force could be used in
order to achieve an end to the newly defined “threats to peace and security”
represented by violent internal conflicts.
A variety of different ways of organizing non-UN-sponsored peace enforce-
ment or humanitarian interventions in the 1990s, and the practice con-
tinued on into the first decade of the new century. Each could be seen

as an attempt to resolve the dilemma of matching a fragile international

consensus about what situations justify forceful outside intervention with
the asymmetric availability of the military means of enforcing an equally
fragile peace within many members of “the international community”. Too
easily, they could also be seen as shading imperceptibly into forms of inter-
national military aggression covered over by a cloak of legitimacy provided
by some real or implied mandate of an international organization. Is the
current mission in Afghanistan different from the Soviet intervention into

that country only in that it is carried out by the NATO alliance rather than
by the Soviet Government? Were the NATO forces flying ground-attack mis-
sions over Libya simply to act as air cover for one side in a Libyan civil
war? Is the existence of a “coalition of the willing” a sufficient basis for
launching a peace-enforcement mission to overthrow a tyrannical regime,
an unelected government or a set of authorities headed by an indicted war
criminal? Debates around such issues persist as “peace support” operations
continue to use force or the threat of force.
4. Effective peacebuilding?
Academics and others who write about peacekeeping currently confront

many dilemmas in their efforts to bring at least some intellectual order
to the analysis of contemporary peace-support operations. Whatever the
outcome of these debates, the central, practical question remains: Does
peacekeeping – or peace support – work? From the viewpoint of this present
study, the query involves, at least, the basic issue of whether inter/intra-
national peacekeeping has a similar impact on the behavioural dimension of
a protracted, intractable conflict as domestic policing is supposed to have on
domestic conflicts. Does it stop, deflect, deter or prevent the continuing use
of violence, and what else should it, or can it, do? How successful has it been?
Until recently the evidence for or against the effectiveness of peacekeeping
has been anecdotal at best and partisan at worst, largely because of the very
small universe of cases which has really only permitted anecdotal analy-
sis. However, since the early 1990s, as I noted above, the sheer number
of cases where peacekeepers have been employed has expanded this uni-
verse and allowed some comparisons and even some statistical studies to
be made, among them Virginia Fortna’s excellent work (2008) and the pio-
neering study by Barbara Walter, and Jack Snyder (1999). However, the sheer
expansion of the tasks heaped upon each peace-support operation makes an
evaluation of “success” very difficult, save on a case-by-case basis.
One way of dealing with these dilemmas is to approach the issue of suc-
cess and effectiveness by using a minimalist criterion as a baseline and then
adding other criteria to indicate how the definition of “success” changes
depending on whether a mission falls into a traditional peacekeeping cat-
egory or an increasingly complex set of peace-support categories. Adapting

Fortna’s criteria (2008 pp. 101–102) to some degree, one could ask whether
a particular peace missions was successful in what might be termed negative
peacekeeping by
• preventing further violence;

• monitoring truces to make surprise attack less likely;
• disarming, cantoning, demobilizing and perhaps re-inserting combat-
ants;

• providing local, on-the-spot mediation;
• providing incentives for compliance with existing truce or peace agree-
ments.
In many cases these criteria, if fulfilled, could well be the appropriate mea-
sures of peacekeeping success, while in other peace-support cases, success
would demand having an impact on other aspects of the society benefiting
from peacekeeping, so that various degrees of positive peacekeeping – almost
resembling full-blown conflict resolution – could involve
• facilitating communication between adversaries;

• providing stability and local law and order to enable resumption of
normal life;
• providing a monitoring service for any subsequent political or economic
agreements;
• providing alternatives for a return to violence, especially in the event of
any violation of agreements;
• helping to transform military groups into political organizations;
• providing resources to support the use of moderate force within adver-
saries in order to deal with intra-party conflicts;
• influencing public opinion to support reforms;
• reconstructing political institutions in line with local cultures;
• developing effective, accepted and utilized conflict-resolution mecha-
nisms.
The question of “success” becomes particularly confusing, especially when

considered from the viewpoint of those benefiting from peacekeeping –
the local people who are, according to the peacekeepers’ mandate, being
looked after and protected by the outside force. While the violence contin-
ues, combatants are not likely to be well disposed to UN or any other form
of peacekeeping, although Beatrice Pouligny (2006 pp.117–118) points out
that their reception of the force depends on whether they have achieved
an advantage in a continuing conflict or look like losing it, in which case
a peacekeeping force can offer a breathing space. In situations where some
kind of settlement of the violence has actually been achieved, Pouligny’s

work emphasizes that the issue of success of peace-support operations

becomes even more complicated, especially when looked at through the
eyes of members of the local, previously warring society. Any interven-
ing force that becomes involved in complex, peace-support operations
has usually been set major goals that require intervention in the com-
plicated and intricate relationships that arise within any society (at both
the elite and grassroots levels) in the transition from mass violence to
some kind of peace. Such operations inevitably involve the peace force

interacting with many kinds of local processes and actors, and not just
the simple categories of incumbents and insurgents, security forces and
rebels, centralizers and separatists, or even winners and losers. For one
thing, the combatant organizations tend to be divided, and, once a cessa-
tion of the violence has occurred and a peacekeeping force inserted, splits
between the military and the political leaderships, or between “insiders”
acting within the country and “outsiders” operating in exile, develop or
widen.
If this problem of factionalism and rivalry exists at the national leadership
level, where most peacemaking and peacebuilding efforts tend to be con-
centrated, the situation can be even more complicated for the peacekeepers
at the grassroots level. There, local military units in the field are likely
to find themselves trying to deal not just with rival combatants but with
“local authorities”, who can consist of factional representatives, (former)
combatants, religious leaders, intellectuals, respected elders, local mayors or
administrators, IDP representatives, the remnants of national police forces,
and a range of economic leaders running from local landowners and business
leaders through landless campesinos to squatters, smugglers and shanty-town
dwellers. All of these will be interested in the restoration of a “law and order”
that protects their own lives and interests.
Beatrice Pouligny’s studies of peacebuilding – and even relatively straight-
forward peacekeeping – at this microlevel suggest some answers that are
disturbing, and in some ways echo some of my own doubts expressed many
years ago (Mitchell, 1976) about the ability of external military forces to ful-
fill any of the policing and security functions of a locally knowledgeable,
domestic police force. Her summary conclusions about the local impacts of
international peacekeeping or peace-support operations are contained in a
cautionary chapter, ominously sub-titled “How the UN Pretends to Achieve
Peace”. In this she draws general lessons from a number of very different
local reactions to the impacts of UN efforts at the grassroots level, as regards
the law and order functions on international military units as well as efforts
to create a locally effective police force. Pouligny argues persuasively that
to be effective, police work requires proximity to local communities,

which UN civpols, by definition, do not have . . .
(ibid p.251)

In real police work, Pouligny argues:
Much is played out in day-to-day life, in a work of proximity and small

gestures, seemingly insignificant, which will nonetheless make it possible
or not to build relations of confidence. From that point of view, appar-
ently insignificant details like getting out of your car, walking in the side
streets of poorer districts, not being content with just “passing by” all
have symbolic value . . .

(ibid p.252)
This whole debate goes back, of course, to whether there is much local-
ized peace to be kept in the first place, and what opportunity there might
be for such “small gestures” and “relationship building” to operate, say, in
Mogadishu following the overthrow of Siyad Barre in 1991 or in Sarajevo in
1992. As far as local security and stability are concerned, we are back to the
whole dilemma of peace “enforcement” once again.
Another way of approaching “success” involves peace-support missions
where a major task for the peace force is “democratization” – the establish-
ment of a new and stable system of governance to replace the previously
divisive system that contributed to the intractable conflict in the first place.
In many recent cases the success of this aspect of peacebuilding has come
down to the holding of “free and fair” elections for a national government.
A strong note of caution is to be found in much of the work of Terrence
Lyons dealing with the connections between a sustainable peace and the
construction of durable democratic political structures (Lyons, 2009). He
warns that, empirically, it may be that some “foundational” elections have
at least started up a process of democratization (El Salvador, South Africa,
Mozambique), but others (Angola, Liberia) have merely sparked off another
round of violent conflict. His argument is that the “success” of peace-support
operations has to be evaluated in terms of the effectiveness of activities
before the “foundational” election, rather than in the holding of the elec-
tion itself: “It is not primarily the events on Election Day, but rather the
processes leading up to the election and the kinds of incentives and oppor-
tunities developed to encourage warring factions to shift their strategies from
violence to electoral politics . . . ” (2009 p.92).
This is not to say that holding an initial election and the establishment of
a “freely elected” government is not a major achievement, as well as being a
tentative symbol that a peacebuilding process can be deemed something of a
success. However, such short-term successes have to be set against the dura-
bility of such processes. In many cases, judgement about success in each case
needs to be modified depending on subsequent electoral processes, and this
is especially the case in countries where profound social divisions exist and
raise questions about elections as a conflict-resolution process, and about
whether the achievement of “liberal democracy” through elections should

really be regarded as a sign of a peacebuilding success and a signal that a

peacebuilding mission should be wound up.
5. Conclusion
Overall, both Terrence Lyons’ studies and Beatrice Pouligny’s work on the
local reactions of those subject to peacekeeping warn of the need to evaluate
each peacebuilding operation on its own terms, especially as far as its impact

on local grassroots people are concerned. In contrast, Virginia Fortna’s com-
parative study goes back to the macrolevel and to the broad issue of “overall”
success by asking a question about what peacekeeping has actually achieved,
and then focusing on the firm establishment of a non-violent settlement and
on its subsequent durability.
Fortna is unequivocal in her argument that peacekeeping “works”, in the
sense that her data indicate that, all other things being equal, more durable
outcomes are achieved more frequently in cases where a peacekeeping force
is involved in coping with an intractable conflict, compared with those cases
in which they are not. Moreover, she argues that peacekeepers can have
a direct military effect in deterring a return to violence, even when they
are actually weaker than the rival combatants. They can act as a trip wire
that, once broken, could give rise to a more “robust” assault from other out-
side forces (Fortna pp.170–171). Even traditional peacekeepers can alter the
incentive structures facing adversaries by linking the force in the field to out-
side patrons, reinforcers or aid givers, who might condition future economic
aid on current compliance with the terms of the original truce.
However, Fortna is also honest enough to recognize that even third-
generation, “robust” peacekeeping is not “a cure-all” (ibid p.174). In effect,
her use of that phrase returns to the original idea that there are three basic
elements – the “all” to be cured – that need to be considered when ask-
ing whether an intractable conflict is definitely terminated. We began with
the idea that peacekeeping, at its core, was originally aimed mainly at the
behavioural element. However, while it may never have originally been
intended to be a permanent cure for all three elements of an intractable
and protracted conflict, in recent decades it has slowly morphed into a prac-
tice that aims at doing just that – or, at least, at making some contribution
to changing structures, dealing with issues and altering attitudes, as well
as changing behavior. The current confusions and disagreements about the
nature of peacekeeping or peace-support operations make it very difficult to
sort out clear answers even to questions about what sort of behavior is, hope-
fully, being terminated as part of an effort to bring a deep-rooted, violent
conflict finally to an end.
What started as an attempt to elucidate efforts to deal with one aspect –
the behavioural – of our triangular model seems to have led our discussion
into a maze from which there is small prospect of immediate exit. One of

the few certain things about the current understanding of third-generation,

post-Cold War, multilateral, robust or positive peacekeeping is that it has
developed into a practice that seeks to affect not merely behaviour but also
the structural sources of conflict, the underlying issues in conflict and the
psychological processes that enable people to continue to fight, harm and
kill one another. This seems clearly revealed in analyses that talk about the
peacemaking aspects of the peacebuilding role, which I take to mean those
activities that directly address the issues which underlay the apparent need

for violence in the first place. In practice, however, even third-generation
peace-support operations seem rarely able to spare much time and effort to
deal with this second dimension of conflict – one which that must, surely,
be involved in any final “termination”. We need to ask what means exist
for dealing with this dimension of underlying issues that fuel intractable
conflicts. Only then can we move on to consider the attitudinal and psy-
chological dimensions that, long term, keep enmities going and hamper the
transformation of a conflict into some more positive relationship.

10
Termination II
Addressing the Issues

Chapter 9 started to consider the whole issue of ending a conflict “once and
for all”, but immediately confronted the problem that while particularly vio-
lent forms of behaviour could cease, this might do nothing to affect the way
in which individuals and communities thought and felt about one another.
It might also do less than nothing to influence the issues that gave rise to
the conflict in the first place. Moreover, even if adversaries could, indeed, be
brought to a state in which they had abandoned strategies of violence and
coercion – or even felt reconciled to past antagonisms – and were prepared to
coexist with one another, the contradictions and contradictory goals which
led to the violent behaviour could remain in place, unresolved and ready to
lead back to further antagonisms and future harmful behaviour that would
start up the cycle once again.
1. Resolution: Core elements
The central element in any search for a durable solution – a “genuine reso-
lution” – of a conflict must therefore involve dealing with the underlying
issues and contradictions that gave rise to the conflict in the first place.
If these remain unaddressed or glossed over, then agreements to abjure
violence, or even efforts to bring about forgiveness and reconciliation, are
unlikely to prevent the conflict from re-igniting at some time in the future,
perhaps even generations later. Dealing successfully with the issues that are
central to a conflict thus presents the crucial challenge of conflict resolution,
both practically and theoretically. The undoubted fact that many conflicts
are, indeed, “deep-rooted “ – intractable and resistant to efforts to end them
over long periods of time – has led many to argue that some are essentially
“irresolvable”. The best that one can do is learn to live with them while try-
ing to control or mitigate their worst excesses, to channel behaviour into
acceptable forms, and to moderate hatreds and antagonisms. Undoubtedly,
many social and political conflicts do protract and recur. Those who argue
that they do so because efforts to end them have failed through inadequate
213

or misapplied procedures – through bad timing, faulty strategies, clumsy

interventions or “lack of will” – are still faced with the possibility that some
types of conflict are, inherently and by their nature, impossible to resolve,
at least in any final sense. After all, the vast majority of intractable con-
flicts arise because important goals and values – principles that people feel
strongly about – are involved and will not be compromised. On the other
hand, many conflicts that initially seemed impossible to resolve eventually
lent themselves to solutions – for example, the unity of all Ireland or security

from German invasion. The question becomes: Which conflicts are merely
“difficult” and which are thoroughly, finally and absolutely “insoluble”.
1.1. The question of intensity

At this point we need to return to the issue of intensity, which was first raised
in Chapter 3. To repeat the obvious, conflicts almost always protract because
the goals being sought are of considerable importance to those pursuing
them. Large numbers of people do not take up arms or employ violence over
trivialities. People are seldom prepared to kill over matters that are peripheral
to their lives. Conflicts go on for a long time mainly because of what they
are about – or what the adversaries manage to convince themselves that they
are about – the justifiable pursuit of essential goals and the defence of core
values.
Perhaps for pragmatic thinkers these intractable disputes make no sense.
Disputes should somehow be soluble. Rational decision-makers should be
able to find rational solutions through rational calculations about interest
and about the relative costs and benefits of alternative courses of action.
In contrast to this ostensibly sensible approach, deep-rooted conflicts are
intractable essentially because they arise from needs, interests and goals that
cannot be bargained about or compromised in any fundamental way. What
is at stake for those involved is too important. Nationalists in Northern
Ireland cannot abandon the goal of a united Ireland, while Unionists cannot
give up their goal of remaining British as a part of the United Kingdom.
The question of intensity has to involve the salience of the issues over
which the conflict originated and the degree to which these are so impor-
tant as to be perceived as genuinely non-negotiable by those involved in the
struggle. To start with, Burton’s dichotomous approach: Which issues give
rise to disputes and which to conflicts? Clearly, some issues are “core” while
some appear to be “peripheral”. People will fight if their continued existence
seems threatened, but rarely fight – in a literal, physical sense – to keep their
jobs. (I except the occasional individuals who shoots up his former office to
protest dismissal.) Under normal circumstances, people “tighten their belts”
rather than “take up arms” to maintain their standard of living.
The whole point about what we might term “issue salience” as shorthand
for the intensity with which particular issues matter to the group or com-
munity involved is that the “intractability” of any conflict is, at base, related

Termination II: Addressing the Issues 215
to this elusive variable. Conflicts might be hard to resolve if behaviour has

been intensely damaging and costly, and if the related feelings have become
intensely hostile and intransigent. However, they appear to be impossible to
resolve if the underlying issues involved are mutually salient to the adver-
saries – as well as appearing inherently unsharable, indivisible and without
acceptable alternatives or substitutes.
1.2. Underlying causes versus reasons for continuing

Here I should recall Dennis Sandole’s distinction between the original causes
of a conflict starting up in the first place and the causes for its continuing,
a distinction that also implies that “dealing with the issues” involves the
necessity of confronting issues at two levels:
• those conditions and contradictions that led to the outbreak of hostilities

in the first place;
• those issues that have arisen through the behaviour of the adversaries in
their pursuit of success through coercion, threats and violence.
Often, this second set of issues that arise from the adversarial dynamics
of the conflict can become central issues at later stages of a conflict –
destruction of cherished possessions, ill-treatment of prisoners or civil-
ians, retention of conquered territory, confiscation or misuse of valued
property, widespread “crimes against humanity”, failure to fulfill agreed
commitments, violation of long-standing norms. In a large number of cases
these can (at least on the surface) actually replace the original sources of
the conflict, become the goals for which people continue to fight and thus
have to be resolved before any effort is made to deal with the original issues.
The centrality of issues can change. The civil war in Sri Lanka between 1973
and 2009 started as a quest for fairer treatment for the Tamil minority and
ended as a (failed) effort to establish an independent Tamil state within the
northern and eastern regions of the island.
All and any of these subsequent contradictions (and many others) can
become key issues at later stages of a protracted conflict. Formally speaking,
fresh issues arising can result in new goals which appear to be increas-
ingly important and thus become salient on the preference orderings of
one or other of the adversaries. They act as further obstacles to any efforts
at a durable resolution, as well as fresh reasons for the conflict continu-
ing. Unfortunately, even if it proves possible in particular cases to negotiate
acceptable solutions to such “derived” issues, at the end there would remain
the basic incompatible goals that gave rise to new, derived issues – and
these would still need to be addressed if any durable resolution were to be
achieved.
With the above arguments in mind, the question of why conflicts fail to
terminate (when reasonably objective outsiders might well conclude that

the costs of continuing far outweigh the values even of “winning”) becomes
more than a little complicated. On the one hand is the argument that the
original issues that were the source of the conflict were both salient and cen-
tral to the parties involved. On the other is the idea that conflicts develop
dynamics of their own which throw up new issues that then become impor-
tant and provide additional reasons for continuing the struggle. Conflicts
thus appear as more or less “intractable” depending on the degree of diffi-
culty that they present in dealing successfully with both (a) the contentious

issues that arise during the course of the conflict besides (b) the original,
underlying contradictions – in other words, with the conflict’s overall “issue
intractability” on these two levels.
However, even if we start with the central idea that, initially, all intractable
and enduring conflicts at least begin with adversaries possessing salient,
important and incompatible goals, some conflicts can last for a very long
time simply through the workings of conflict dynamics. Perhaps the most
important of these is likely to involve developing further issues which then
harden positions and prove almost as difficult to resolve as the original goal
incompatibilities. Such conflicts can defy successful termination for a very
long time, even when solutions to the original issues become available or
can – with a little effort – be devised through careful analysis. It is worthwhile
discussing these factors in a little more detail.
2. Terminating prolonged conflicts
Many years ago, Morton Deutsch (1973) introduced the concept of “malign”
conflict spirals into the theoretical literature of the field, which innovation
drew some needed attention to the influence of conflict dynamics them-
selves as one reason for conflicts continuing and getting more destructive.
At one level, this idea focused attention on a number of common processes
that rendered it extremely difficult to find a solution that ended a conflict
once and for all. In Chapter 4 I characterized these malign factors as con-
sisting of six fundamental processes that could be recognized in almost any
deep-rooted and protracted conflict, and which contributed to the conflict’s
perpetuation.
Conflict perpetuating dynamics

escalation
mobilization
polarization
enlargement
dissociation
entrapment
As each of these processes develops, it becomes more and more difficult

for adversaries to focus on the goals that were originally salient, and equally

difficult to reverse the voyage away from a durable resolution. As parties

mobilize themselves for prolonged combat – resources are invested in the
means of coercion, people recruited from civilian to military roles, war-
riors replace economists or diplomats as advisers – resolution (save though
some elusive victory) becomes more remote. As leaders become progressively
entrapped by their own psychology, rhetoric and actions – desire to salvage
reputation and retain office, need to recover sunk costs, efforts to justify
as “correct” the original policy choices – opportunities to re-evaluate realis-

tic future courses of action become fewer. Theoretically, what is needed to
avoid further protraction involves alternative processes being put in place
to reverse trends towards mutual destruction. Unfortunately, this is easier
said than done, as might well be recalled from the various efforts at conflict
mitigation.
While, logically speaking, the changes necessary for moving a conflict
away from increasing protraction and towards some kind of durable reso-
lution should be clear, this is usually only the case at an intellectual level.
If there are six basic dynamics that change a conflict in the direction of
greater intensity (exacerbate it, in other words), then the reversal of each of
these dynamics should move the conflict at least some way towards a reso-
lution – towards being “ripe for resolution” in Zartman’s phrase (1989). For
example, if the process of the escalation of coercion and violence increases
the intensity of a conflict, as well as its resistance to anyone finding a solu-
tion, then a process of de-escalation – of substituting benefit-conferring
actions for harmful and damaging ones – should bring about some change
in the opposite direction.
A similar argument can be made for each of the conflict-perpetuating
dynamics. In principle to set the stage for, and contribute to, a suc-
cessful conflict-resolution process, changes amounting to a reversal of
each of the exacerbating dynamics need to be made. Other parties and
interests that have become involved in the original conflict need to be
disentangled (disengagement). Contacts (appropriately managed) need to
be restored. Inter-party communication channels need to be reopened
and the resultant communication made at least more nuanced and com-
plicated than the simple exchange of accusations and justifications (re-
communication). Each party’s underlying needs and interests need to be
reviewed to see what crucial goal incompatibilities still lie at the heart of
the conflict. The practice of opposing for the sake of opposition needs
to be abandoned, while contacts and exchanges (appropriately structured
and shaped) need to be restored and isolation ended (amalgamation or
de-isolation). Intra-party decision-making needs to be rebalanced to allow
for the input of ideas from those whose immediate task is not tomor-
row’s defence against violence or the short-term implementation of coun-
tercoercion measures (de-mobilization or demilitarization). Finally, ways
have to be found to reverse entrapment processes and to enable pol-
icy decisions to be made with an eye to realistic future opportunities

and limitations, rather than past aims, promises, investments and sacri-
fices (decommitment).
In summary, for each dynamic that exacerbates and perpetuates conflict
there should be another which ameliorates it and undermines the many
tendencies towards protraction:
Conflict-perpetuating Conflict-mitigating

dynamics dynamics
Escalation De-escalation
Mobilization Demobilization
Polarization Amalgamation
Enlargement Disengagement
Dissociation Recommunication
Entrapment Decommitment
Pragmatically, it often turns out to be the case that sources of a particu-

lar level of intractability can be found in the behavioural dynamics of the
conflict itself, one of which is the tendency of many conflicts to change
what they are, on the surface, “about”. Many obstacles to ending a con-
flict for good involve factors such as leaders trying to “save face”, not being
seen as over-willing to compromise, facing the difficulty of getting out of
oft-repeated commitments, seeking to retain office, dealing with intra-party
rivalries, or countering the influence of outsiders with their own interests
in perpetuation. These tend to be extremely difficult factors to deal with,
at least in a practical sense, but they do not make a conflict absolutely and
finally irresolvable.
The starting point for considering solutions to intractability might thus be
to recall that conflicts can be viewed as “intractable” in two rather different
ways, and for two different but self-reinforcing sets of reasons. The first of
these might be termed “process intractability”, which involves dynamic fac-
tors that contribute to a conflict’s overall intractability. Process intractability
can arise in three ways. A conflict may have
• developed into such a complex, multi-party, multi-issue system of inter-

locking sub-conflicts as to defy simple compromise solutions, at least
until one sub-system becomes dominant and can start to be settled or
resolved;
• given rise to extreme perpetuating dynamics which resist efforts at
reversal so that continuing the struggle seems the only course of action
open to those involved;
• given rise to such feelings of fear, mistrust and hatred (and to the subse-
quent development of a cluster of derived issues) that the complete defeat
of the Other has become an over-riding goal.

In all of the above cases, the difficulty of finding a solution to the

conflict might very well originate in the initial goal incompatibility but it
is intensified by the behaviour of the adversaries, the misperceptions, hostil-
ities and suspicions that arise from this behaviour, and the complex structure
of interests, coalitions and cross-cutting aspirations that produce formidable
barriers to any likely termination. There is no denying the difficulty of find-
ing solutions to such conflicts, but the core issues may not turn out to be
utterly insoluble in the long run.

This can be contrasted with conflicts that involve issues that are them-
selves intractable in some inherent manner so that a conflict protracts on
the basis of “issue” reasons – in other words, because the underlying con-
tradictions are incommensurable or seem irresolvable. The whole conflict
can appear inherently “insoluble” because of what it is about, and this other
source of intractability can take one of several different forms. A conflict may
• be over goods or positions that are in limited supply (at least in the short
term) or that appear to have a limited number of “satisfiers”, each of
which is unacceptable to one of the adversaries (incompatibles);
• focus on goals that appear to involve a dispute over goods that cannot be
divided or shared out (indivisibles);
• involve “radical disagreements” derived from contrasting ideologies or
from worldviews that preclude any possible agreement even on what the
conflict is about or what solutions might reasonably be contemplated; it
may therefore involve goals or aspirations that are non-substitutable or
both logically unobtainable (incommensurables);
• focus on goals that involve the continued existence of one or other party
(existentials).
These latter types of “intractability” clearly do not arise from either the
dynamics of a conflict or the complex structure of the conflict system, but
from the nature of the issues that are initially involved in the struggle. They
might usefully be termed examples of “issue intractability” as opposed to
“process intractability”, and I would argue that they make a search for res-
olutions much more difficult than either the task of the unravelling of a
complicated set of relationships among interlinked adversaries or a change
in inter-party tactics or perceptions.
As a thought experiment, it might be helpful to envisage a scale of issue
intractability, perhaps in the form of a scalogram. One extreme would be
occupied by conflicts that appear likely to end with the complete destruc-
tion of one side or the other, which seem to offer the paradigm case
of “issue intractability”. Others that concern goals that are pragmatically
unobtainable – at least for the time being –seem somewhat less likely to
defy ultimate resolution and thus lie towards the more tractable end of our
notional scale. However, whatever the degree of intractability, I would argue

in each case that there may be a variety of ways in which solutions can be
found, even for conflicts that lie towards the extreme end of our scale.
3. Terminating different types of intractable conflict
Within the CAR field, efforts to develop some ideas about the nature
of, and conducive conditions for, durable solutions to conflicts involv-
ing intractable issues have been going on for some time. Most prominent

are works by Dean Pruitt and his colleagues as a search for “integrative
outcomes” (Pruitt, 1981; Pruitt & Lewis, 1975; Pruitt & Carnevale, 1982;
Carnevale, 2006). In an early article, Pruitt and Lewis (1975) suggested that,
in negotiations to end intractable dyadic conflicts, there were five possible
strategies that could lead to solutions which could be termed “integrative”.
These were alternatives to “distributive” solutions, which relied on com-
promise and the sharing out of contested “goods”.1 The five strategies
he suggested were “expanding the pie”, non-specific compensation, cost-
cutting, log-rolling and bridging. Of these, three involved the need for
the provision of more goods besides those in contention between the par-
ties directly involved. One involved diminishing the costs being suffered
from coercive strategies and the fifth involved a reliance on “creativity”
in order to find a solution that lay – conceptually at least – beyond the
boundary of conventional thinking and was genuinely “innovative” or
“unconventional”. Pruitt’s list is a useful starting point for considering pos-
sible solutions to intractable social conflicts, although we have to confront
the question of whether it would prove possible to match his five types of
solution to the seven kind of intractable conflict that I listed in the previous
section, three being matters of process intractability and four involving issue
intractability.
Put simply, given that we are dealing with a variety of “classes” of conflict
involving at least seven different types of intractability – three process and
four issue –, are there possibilities for ending all or any of them in some
final form which does not “simply” involve ending violence and dimin-
ishing hatred? Since the 1920s, many pioneering conflict analysts have
grappled with this question in one way or another. For example, in her
original formulation, Mary Parker Follett described an integrative solution
as one in which “both desires have found a place, that neither side has
had to sacrifice anything . . . ” (1940 p.32). Dean Pruitt has talked of agree-
ments that are creatively produced and “give greater collective value to the
parties . . . ” (1981). But can such solutions really be achieved in conflicts
where the core issues involve not merely scarcities or shares of a limited
supply of “goods” but logical or empirical contradictions – where, for exam-
ple, the adversaries are facing a situation in which the gain of one side
through “winning” results inevitably in a direct loss to the other. Are there
any possible resolutions to conflicts over indivisibles? In the real world of

conflicts, what “resolution” can be attempted in situations such as the con-

flict over the Falklands/Malvinas islands, possessed by Britain but claimed
by Argentina; or over Jerusalem, formally incorporated into Israel as its cap-
ital but claimed – at least in part – by the Palestinian people as the future
capital of their future state? What “resolution” might be possible in situa-
tions where a conflict is about ethnic identity in which the leaders of one
community require another to abandon its own identity and conform to the
values, beliefs and characteristics of the first? What has conflict research to

say about holy wars or crusades?
Each of these different types of conflict situation seems to demand a dif-
ferent type of answer to the question: “How might this be ended in an
acceptable and hence durable arrangement?”
3.1. Terminating conflicts involving scarcity: solutions of expansion

Many intractable conflicts occur because of shortages or scarcity. There sim-
ply isn’t enough of a highly desired good to go around, so that the issues
in conflict come to concern distribution, often expressed in terms of equity
and rights, as well as issues of exclusion or possession. Pastoral nomads and
sedentary farmers come into conflict over limited water supplies, which may
involve overall amounts or means of access – or both. Logging companies
conflict with indigenous people seeking to preserve the natural environment
which provides the latter with food and other means of sustaining their way
of life. One of the many issues sparking off the protracted “Troubles” in
Northern Ireland from the mid-1960s was the one-sided distribution of lim-
ited amounts of public housing in the province. Currently the governments
of Sudan and South Sudan are engaged in often violent conflict over the
extraction of oil from fields in a disputed border area. All of these disputes
can be fitted into the scarcity model discussed in Chapter 2.
At a theoretical level, this kind of conflict can be terminated in a straight-
forward manner by increasing the supply of the scarce good so that compet-
ing demands are met. In such cases, the “satisfiers” involved should simply
be more of the good in dispute, unless issues of securing future supplies, or of
status and injured pride, have become involved. I could try to avoid conflicts
over my bird feeder by increasing the amount of bird seed available, either
by adding other feeders or, at a pinch, by punching in new feeding ports to
the existing feeder. There are a whole range of what might be termed solu-
tions of expansion available – what Pruitt originally described as “expanding
the pie” – at least given the commitment of appropriate time and effort to
the enterprise. Productivity deals between management and unions provide
one common and practical example of such solutions (providing time and
the ability to wait for future benefits are factored into the relationship), as
does the development of methods for increasing available water supply in
desert conditions by a variety of often simple techniques for storing water
when the rains come.2

However, while technology might be able to terminate or avoid some con-

flict over scarce goods by solutions of expansion, other goods that become
the focus of intractable and protracted conflicts are often in strictly lim-
ited supply. In other situations, the expansion of goods – cultivable land, for
example – might be so costly as to prohibit this strategy as an expansive solu-
tion. Clearing rainforest might be possible and economically feasible (if one
ignores long-term environmental impacts), but pushing back the North Sea
to increase the amount of cultivable Dutch polder may cost so much that it

can only be a solution in unusual circumstances.
3.2. Coping with scarcity: Solutions of substitution

The basis of a second type of solution is that durability can be achieved by
one of the adversaries offering to the other goods that make up for the latter’s
failure to obtain all the goods in contention. The adversary, or some third
party, supplies goods that the less successful party values as a substitute for
those they have failed to gain through either coercion or negotiation. Pruitt
refers to this type of outcome as “non-specific compensation” and it is the
case that this kind of outcome is usually discussed in much of the conflict-
resolution literature under the title “compensation”, even though I have
come to prefer the term “substitution”.
There exists a vast literature on the topic of compensation for loss, dam-
age or injury sustained during the course of one’s work through accidents or
misadventure. This is quite apart from the recent upsurge of writings about
compensation for damage to people and property sustained during a con-
flict, when human rights violations have taken place through the actions of
one or other – or often both – adversaries. In this last area, “compensation”
is defined as “Money paid to extinguish a state’s legal obligation by the pay-
ment of monetary damages to those whose human rights have been violated
under international law” (Conde, 1999), and there is an increasing tendency
to expand the range of types of damage to be repaired via post-conflict, com-
pensatory action. Compensation is currently not merely being advocated for
injury to people and property but also as being appropriate in the case of
damage to the environment (see, for example, Low & Hodgkinson, 1994–
1995). Increasingly, in this version of compensation, the aim seems to be, in
Conde’s words,
to wipe out all the consequences of an illegal act and re-establish the
situation which would . . . . have existed had the act not been committed,
or payment of a sum equal to the value of such a restitution . . .
(1999 p.40)
However, the question remains: What have the different versions of “com-
pensation” to do with solutions of substitution as a strategy of conflict
resolution and durable peacemaking? Using the “half a loaf is better than

no bread” metaphor, what, if anything, can compensate one side in a pro-

tracted conflict for not getting the other half of the loaf for which it has
been struggling and sacrificing, often for a very long time? In brief, what can
substitute for not getting what they were fighting for?
One common answer to such questions is that one form of compensa-
tion arising from a peace agreement is the fact that the adversaries are
no longer suffering the losses, damage and destruction being inflicted on
them by the other side. Part of the so-called “peace dividend” is “nega-

tive” peace itself – no longer having to bear the costs imposed by the other,
and being given at least the opportunity to reconstruct and rebuild. This
may, in some cases, bring in aid, assistance and investment to carry out
this renovation. Now, of course, it seems hardly likely that those involved
will regard this as much compensation for the effort that they have been
expending to attain the goals they have been fighting for – the “loaf” in con-
tention. However, much research into entrapment processes and the stages
through which a protracted conflict passes does seem to show that the orig-
inal “loaf” which was the reason for entering the conflict in the first place
becomes much less salient as time extends and levels of sacrifice increase.
Once parties have reached a stage in which “loss minimization” becomes
a dominant goal for leaders and war weariness affects followers, then the
achievement of a cessation of costly violence can become some compensa-
tion for exiting from an increasingly intolerable situation. This can be so
even if it involves accepting the loss of much of the loaf that seemed so
important in the initial stages of the dispute. This situation offers at least
one example of the ability of human beings – leaders and followers – to alter
goals and values over time, in itself a potent and important resolutionary
process.
On the other hand, and given that “compensation” which (in Peyton
Young’s terms) involves one party getting the good – or much of the loaf –
and supplying the other with “alternative goods”, we still have not really
answered two questions:
• What can be obtained in exchange for not getting all that you have
fought, sacrificed and suffered for?
• What can compensate for not achieving all of your goals, or what can
you get in exchange for the other half of the loaf that is worthwhile?
In some cases it may be that avoiding further damage or loss may be a

sufficient answer to these questions, but to some degree the answer must
depend on the size of the gap between a party’s original goals and aspira-
tions, and what might be on offer from a negotiated settlement. What did
the Basque Nationalists – moderates and extremists – not get in the 1979 set-
tlement with the Madrid Government? How salient was the political unity

of the Indian sub-continent to the leaders of the Congress Party in 1947,

compared with the final achievement of independence from the British?
What did the leaders of the African National Congress give up during their
negotiations with the white, Nationalist government in South Africa in the
early years of the 1990s? In very many cases the “half a loaf” to be sacrificed
in any peace agreement seems a very large portion indeed, so that something
beyond a cessation of coercion and violence seems necessary. But what form
can this take?

One suggestion is that solutions that include substantial elements of com-
pensation for one side called upon to sacrifice major aspirations usually
involve the offer of some similar good – of comparable value – but located
somewhere else. One example of such a strategy might well be the arrange-
ment that was worked out between Israel and Egypt over the forward Israeli
air bases in Sinai, which were removed as part of the area’s return to Egyptian
sovereignty but replaced (together with advanced early warning systems) by
equivalent bases on Israeli (pre-1967) territory. The arrangement involved
Israeli sacrifices of territory and security being replaced by “goods” of a
roughly equivalent value, but located somewhere else.
Two lessons that might well be learned from such an example are, first,
that solutions of substitution are usually difficult to arrange because it
is hard to find equivalent goods that may offer genuine compensation
for abandoning aspirations and sacrifices; and, second, that the crucial
factor in the process is the evaluation of the alternative goods on offer
by the recipient. In other words, the perception of genuine compensa-
tion depends upon how the goods on offer are evaluated by the potential
recipient, not the potential donor. Naturally, the same may be true in settle-
ments that involve sharing through some form of division of the goods in
contention.
4. Sharing: Solutions of division and distribution
If the possibility of substituting other goods for those in contention is not

available, and expanding the supply of what is being fought over turns out
to be impossible, then most efforts at terminating a conflict in what is hoped
(by some at least) is a final manner involve some form of division or sharing.
By the time much effort, energy, resources and, frequently, lives have been
expended in the pursuit of “essential” goals (that over time often come to be
seen as less than essential), many of the adversaries come to believe in some
version of “half a loaf is better than no bread at all”.3
Often, stalemate or exhaustion lead the adversaries towards a negoti-
ated ending of the conflict, the terms of which – as well as the manner
through which it is achieved – are likely to determine its durability and,
ultimately, whether the settlement “resolves” the conflict. There are at least
two intertwined questions involved here:

• What is at issue and in what proportion is it going to be distributed

among competing claims?
• By what process is the distribution to be determined, and what might
be the linkage between the perceived fairness of the distribution and the
durability of the arrangement?
4.1. Partition: dividing everything

Given that our theme is the ending of intractable conflicts for good, and
that a large part of the intractability must surely lie in the nature of what is
being fought over, then a key question is: What might need to be shared in
any durable, peaceful solution-land, oil, access, ownership, status, security
power? In extreme cases, where the issue is whether or not to divide a coun-
try into two separate entities, the answer to the question “What needs to be
shared?” seems to be “Everything!” In the case of the partition of India and
Pakistan in 1948, not only was the territory of British India shared (and – less
formally and in a far less organized and peaceful manner, – the population of
the country) but also government funds, infrastructure, material goods, rail-
ways, military supplies and equipment and, eventually, water supplies from
rivers flowing through both countries.
Similar but less intense problems seem to have attended the division of
the Soviet Union into its constituent republics after 1992. For one thing, for
over 70 years the Soviet economy had been treated as a single, integrated –
and planned – entity. Hence the splitting away of so many independent
Republics – Georgia, Azerbaijan, Armenia, the Central Asian states and the
Baltic republics – presented real problems of “sharing out” economic goods
and led to some highly intractable disputes.
However, some other divisions (Norway and Sweden in 1906, the Czech
and Slovak Republics in the so-called “velvet divorce” of 1993, and Ethiopia
and Eritrea later in the same year) appear to have been less disruptive, but
all have faced some problems of agreeing on a peaceful distribution of assets
from a previously integrated society – on some basis or another.
Some literature from conflict research has examined the practice of parti-
tion or secession as a method of peaceful conflict resolution (for example,
Schaeffer, 1990; Kaufman, 1996). The work has looked into questions such
as whether this process can finally resolve underlying territorial disputes,
or whether the dispute merely transforms itself into a possibly violent,
inter-state conflict continuing at the international level (Byman, 1997).
Do residual issues such as divided ethnic minorities, coveted resources only
partially achieved, or symbolically meaningful sites still in the territory of
others inevitably lead to continuing friction or to escalating violence?4
Jaroslav Tir (2003; 2006), who has recently investigated the whole issue of
partitions and their aftermath in some detail, produces statistical evidence
that shows, sadly, that the historical record of partition as a final conflict

resolutionary method is not a good one. Even if one takes the absence of
subsequent violence between the successor countries (inelegantly termed the
“rump” and the “secessionist”) as an indicator that the partition has been
“successful” – that is, peaceful and durable – only 11% of the cases in Tir’s
data set can be seen as remotely successful. The conflicts remain unresolved,
but Tir also finds that these continuing conflicts rarely rise to the level of
extreme violence in the form of open warfare, such as occurred between
Ethiopia and Eritrea only five years after separation. However, when they

do, the violence can be extreme. Tir argues that both outcomes of either
subsequent durability or chronic instability and violence demonstrate the
intractability of the original differences. He suggests that remedies might
be sought in redrawing the boundaries between the two entities so that
goods especially valued by one side (for example, “ethnic brethren”) can
be placed on the appropriate side of the new dividing line; and that this
operation should be carried out well before the eruption of violence.5 This
may indeed help but it hardly rescues partition as an acceptable strategy for
conflict resolution.
4.2. Sharing out political power

In less extreme cases, where total separation is not contemplated and
compromise can be achieved, solutions can be negotiated that arrive at
some agreed distribution of the goods at issue. This seems to be possi-
ble even in apparently intractable intra-state conflicts. In past decades,
many scholars did tend to argue that either/or solutions of complete suc-
cess or complete failure were the only likely outcomes from what was
then termed “civil strife” (see, for example, Eckstein, 1964 or Rosenau
(1964) or Modelski (1964). Secessionist forces won and a new country
(Bangladesh) appeared; or governments won and a potential new country
(Biafra or Tamil Elam) vanished. In other protracted struggles, insurgents
won (Libya) and took over the government of the country, or incumbents
won (Peru) and drove the remnants of the insurgency underground or into
exile. However, in more recent times, a large number of settlements involv-
ing some form of power-sharing has shown that “half a loaf” solutions
are possible (and perhaps durable), even when such apparently intractable
issues as political, ethnic or religious dominance of political structures are
involved.
A number of scholars have examined the whole idea of solutions which
share something previously in dispute within a country and have shown that
many of these power-sharing efforts actually involve various distributions of
different types of mutually valued “goods” – territorial, political, economic
and military, although the initial emphasis tends to be on political power-
sharing (Hartzell & Hoddie, 2003; 2008; Binningsbo, 2013; Binningsbo &
Rustad, 2012). While it is the case that intractable, intra-state conflicts often
move into an extreme, violent stage in which the struggle is defined as

between adversaries seeking absolute power and authority over the entire
territory of the state, they can often end up – and be ended – in a solution
that involves providing more limited decision-making rights and capacities,
either within the entire country or with somewhat more extensive powers
over a limited portion of the national territory. Recent literature on power-
sharing tends to treat this approach to sharing decision-making capacity as
being two separate and distinct phenomena under the labels of “political”
or “territorial” power-sharing, but to my eyes they have much in common

and they overlap in many respects.
In both, the adversaries’ initial goal of total political control (that is,
power) over total national territory can be reconceptualised in such a way
as to allow either for a sharing of control over different aspects of polity,
economy or society for the whole society, or an almost complete range of
powers but over a limited portion of national territory. The key question
about political power-sharing is what, exactly, are the powers (access to and
influence upon what kinds of issue) that are to be shared and how are they to
be distributed. Any agreement to end a conflict that contains provisions for
sharing out political influence must determine who gets what and where in
terms of decisions that will affect either the whole polity or some territorially
defined part of it.
For example, in the territorially defined Basque country, the powers that
have been distrusted to the regional government involve rights to take
decisions about a whole range of issues from relations with the European
parliament, levying local duties and taxes, economic policy and planning
and the region’s financial contribution to the central government in Madrid,
as well as extensive powers to deal with regional educational and cultural
issues.
On the question of which of these “works” in the sense of resolving an
intractable conflict and establishing a durable peace, the evidence is mixed.
There are examples of peace agreements concluded between extremely hos-
tile and mistrustful adversaries that have worked (in Mozambique, for exam-
ple). On the other hand, similar power-sharing deals have been concluded
between equally hostile parties and have almost immediately collapsed (see
the interesting comparative study by Markus Kornprobst, 2002). Among sta-
tistical studies, Barbara Walter (2002) has argued that external support in
monitoring and, if necessary, sanctioning the implementation of power-
sharing deals is important. Matthew Hoddie and Caroline Hartzell (2003)
have suggested that deals involving both political and territorial power-
sharing, combined with provisions for military power-sharing, offer the best
chance of a durable peace.
The connection between power-sharing arrangements and the durability
of peace agreements is currently under analysis by scholars who use both
statistical and case study methods. For example, Hoddie and Hartzell in
their study of 38 intra-state conflicts that ended in a negotiated settlement

between 1945 and 1998 did find that in just over half of them (53%)
some form of extensive power-sharing reduced the likelihood that the set-
tlement would fall apart. Other researchers have taken a different line of
enquiry, arguing that substantial support from the international community,
especially in the form of providing security forces and security guarantees
(together with the rapid demilitarization of society) are key to the durabil-
ity of agreements (Stedman, 2001; Walter, 2002). Virginia Fortna (2003) has
focused on the clarity and precision of the agreements themselves, arguing

that clear compliance with clear terms can help to create trust on all sides
and foster continuing cooperation. The theme has been expanded by Jacob
Bercovitch and Leah Simpson (2010), who use three case studies (Angola, Sri
Lanka and Sierra Leone) to illustrate factors in the overall implementation
process which influence whether peace agreements will collapse or survive.
At present, the jury is still out on whether or how the dividing of political
power is a successful means of resolving a conflict.
4.3. Sharing out responsibility for security

While the most obvious aspects of power-sharing are those involving such
political factors as coalition governments, reserving of key cabinet posts
(and top administrative positions) on a proportional basis, some principle
of proportionality within an electoral system or the allocation of resources
according to planned and agreed criteria, an equally important good to be
shared in any power-sharing arrangement involves the responsibility for,
and control of, security – or in an alternative view, the diminishing of a sense
of post-agreement insecurity. The literature of “post-conflict” peacebuilding
tends to treat this as a third type of power-sharing and talks about this aspect
of the overall phenomenon as the (re)distribution of “military power” (see
Walter, 2002; Jarstad & Nilsson, 2008).
At one level this might be achieved through the assigning of top security
roles within the police and military in a balanced fashion so that no group
or community comes to dominate the state institutions that are responsi-
ble for providing public order and safety. At the national level, generals and
police chiefs are appointed from a variety of political, ethnic or religious
backgrounds. Similarly, at a non-elite level, members of the local security ser-
vices are recruited and promoted to ensure a representative balance within
each force. One of the provisions of the Good Friday (Belfast) Agreement that
brought an end to the violence in Northern Ireland was that the Royal Ulster
Constabulary, previously an almost entirely Unionist and Protestant force,
should be replaced by a Northern Ireland Police Service whose membership
should more accurately reflect the sectarian balance within the Province.
In the immediate aftermath of the violence, such a balance can be hard to
achieve, although the transfer of armed combatants from both sides straight
into a unified security services is a common strategy. This can also deal with
the problem of what to do with large numbers of the armed unemployed.

One variant of this strategy of sharing security services is to create a region-

ally based security force, recruited and serving locally, whose composition
will reassure local communities that they are not simply to be at the mercy
of erstwhile enemies serving in a “national” police or military. Part of the
short-lived but relatively successful peace achieved for ten years between the
Government of the Sudan and Joseph Lagu’s South Sudan Liberation Move-
ment (SSLM) in the south of the country involved the recruitment of SSLM
combatants into formal units of the Sudanese military or the forestry ser-

vice, with the strict proviso that these units would only serve in the south
of Sudan.6
4.4. Sharing out material resources

Similar forms of sharing out can easily be visualized for economic goods and
resources in dispute between intransigent adversaries. Such arrangements
might, at least in theory, allow them to escape from their “whole loaf or
nothing” mind set. Oil revenues can be shared, and exploration rights can be
distributed among competitors in a way that gives all of them some access to
potential material wealth without the costs of litigation or worse. The whole
idea of power-sharing does not have to be confined to political access and
influence but can also embrace the division of economic “goods”, including
taxes, trade impostes and other funding streams. Such an arrangement for
sharing is usually constructed most easily on a territorial basis, although it
is possible to arrange for a tax system that falls differentially on differently
distributed groups or communities.
Again, the post-1979 economic arrangements between the national gov-
ernment of Spain and the regional government in the Basque country
provide one example of such a division of economic goods. As part of
the post-Franco policy of developing limited regional autonomy within a
notionally unified Spain, especially in parts of the country such as Catalonia
and Galicia, as well as the Basque country, various “economic agreements”
were worked out between Madrid and Vitoria-Gasteiz, whereby the regional
and local authorities took on responsibility for administrative and social ser-
vices, such as education, health and care of the aged, in return for the right to
collect and administer public taxation, the amounts depending on their own
budgetary requirements. Annual negotiations took place over the amount
of taxation that should be paid into central state funds in Madrid, while
regional authorities were able to apply directly for European Union funding
for regional development schemes. Similar efforts to divide up economic and
financial issues on a regional or territorial basis can be seen in places like the
Aland Islands and Flanders.
The importance of agreeing a solution that involved some form of gen-
uine sharing – of redistributing the goods that had been at the centre of
the conflict from the beginning – was emphasized by the work of Roland
Paris in his studies of 11 international peacebuilding processes that took

place during the period 1989–1998 and were variations on the theme of
ending conflicts through “liberalization” (Paris, 1997; 2004). All were thus
based on the twin themes of political “democratization” (what I termed
power distribution above) and economic “marketization”, the latter intend-
ing to deal with the economic bases of each conflict by lifting restrictions on
capitalist enterprise, selling off (aka “privatizing”) state-owned enterprises,
encouraging outside investment and dismantling “inefficient” government
safety nets and subsidies, thus accelerating economic growth and “lifting

all boats”. Unfortunately, but not surprisingly, Paris found that in several
cases that he studied, both strategies could end up making it more, rather
than less, likely that conflicts would re-ignite, In particular, the economic
“liberalization” strategies imposed by the World Bank, the International
Monetary Fund and in some cases the Inter-American Development Bank
exacerbated the unequal distribution of economic resources which had led
to the conflict in the first place, and actually increased the gulf between
the wealthy elite and the mass of the poor. The record of the 1990s as
regards conflict termination through the operation of markets was not a
good one.
Since then, a substantial literature, much of it involving quantitative
analysis, has grown up around the whole issue of changing the distribu-
tion of economic goods as a means of resolving conflict and especially
in creating a durable peace at the end of a protracted conflict (Walter,
2004; Le Billon & Nicholls, 2007). Using recently completed data sets on
either peace agreements or the termination of conflicts through incumbent
or insurgent victory, scholars from the CAR community in Scandanavia
and the United States have analysed the relationship between “wealth-
sharing” (one of Harzell and Hoddie’s four types of positive redistribution
of goods) and the durability of peace settlements in cases of intra-state
conflicts between 1946 and 2006 (see Matte & Savun, 2009; Binningsbo,
2012; Lujala & Rustad, 2012; Rustad & Binningsbo, 2012). Several stud-
ies concentrate upon the effectiveness of sharing economic resources as a
means of post-war resolution, One of the most impressive of these is a
study by Helga Binningsbo and Siri Rustad (2013), which examines not only
wealth-sharing as an integral part of peace agreements but similar strate-
gies as part of government reform strategy, which could well be regarded as
an aspect of conflict “prevention”. The authors find that out of 254 cases
analysed, only roughly 10% contain deliberate efforts to share wealth as a
means of bringing about conflict resolution in the form of a durable peace,
about half of which (13) succeeded while the other half (12) broke down
in renewed violence. They conclude that policy-makers seeking a formula
for a durable peace “must recognize that there is no general empirical rela-
tionship between wealth sharing policies and post-conflict peace duration”
(p.558) and advise that other factors in the settlement may be of greater
moment.

4.5. Sharing cultural “space”

While it is easy to visualize economic or material goods as divisible, it is
somewhat more difficult to think similarly about “sharing out” less tangible
goods, such as recognition, status or respect. The division or distribution of
“cultural goods” as a means of terminating an intractable conflict involves
a leap of the imagination. This is true, even if at least one major aspect of a
conflict can involve issues of separate cultures, with adversaries struggling to
achieve very different outcomes – often involving the defence and survival

of very different ways of life, systems of belief or objects of veneration.
Much recent experience has shown, however, that what might broadly be
termed “cultural” issues and differences are very much part of intractable
conflicts and have to be confronted in negotiated efforts to terminate such
complex disputes. The sharing of space for “culture” in any peace process is
unlikely to resemble very closely the division of territory or of income from
taxation. However, the secure establishment of separate cultures for distinct
communities within a society, unthreatened by others and by other poten-
tially dominant cultures, does have some aspects of sharing out. In this case
we are talking about dividing the people of a country or a community into
ethnic, religious or linguistic categories by some means,7 so that each cul-
tural group or community can enjoy agreed and recognized rights to behave
and believe in ways that are different from other cultural groups or commu-
nities. The termination strategy of recognizing cultural divisions within a
country that has been split further apart by violence and mistrust, and then
negotiating a solution based on distributing rights to be different for each
community, is becoming increasingly common. It is often discussed as a
version of power-sharing that involves a form of national cultural autonomy
(NCA).
Many of the most recent efforts to resolve intractable intra-state conflicts –
at least partially – involve re-recognizing that so-called nation states usually
contained people who, in fact, are divided into distinct and separate commu-
nities sharing a similar culture. These cultural communities therefore might
need to be placated by arrangements that preserve and protect valued aspects
of that culture. The core problem in many cases arises from the fact that such
culturally different communities do not live conveniently concentrated on a
definable block of territory with clear boundaries but are dispersed and inter-
mingled in a geographically complex fashion, thus constituting what have
been termed “non-territorial” nations.
This is hardly a new problem, of course, and it is not surprising that one
of the first groups of writers to confront this problem seriously were active
in Austria and eastern Europe at the end of the nineteenth century. Most
influential on recent thinking has been the revival of interest in the work of
a number of so-called Austro-Marxist scholars, most notably Otto Bauer, Karl
Renner and the Zionist scholar Vladimir Medem, all of whom were exercised

about the problems of the multinational empire within which they lived
and the difficulties of reconciling the principles of social democracy with
the aspirations of rival nationalisms (see the collected writings in Bottomore
& Goode, 1978). These writers and several contemporaries put forward the
idea of non-territorial autonomy for communities that shared a common
culture and self-image but were not concentrated into an exclusive territory.
At a political level, the idea involved a non-territorial association joining
together geographically separated members of the same “nation”.

The concept of NCA was heavily criticized by Bolshevik writers, such as
Lenin and most particularly Stalin, who wrote the standard Soviet treatise
on “the national question” (1913). The NCA idea revolved around a two-tier
system of state governance, with the lower tier based upon “nations” that
were geographically dispersed throughout the state but which could be rep-
resented at the national level by “councils” with governing powers over the
dispersed nation, at least for “cultural” issues. Cultural autonomy enjoyed a
brief experimental life in places such as the independent Ukrainian People’s
Republic between 1917 and 1920, and in countries such as Estonia or Latvia
in the inter-war years. However, the Soviet leaders’ hostility to the scheme
doomed it to denigration and neglect. This lasted until the 1990s, when
the collapse of the Soviet Union revived debate about the nature of durable
autonomy within multi-ethnic and multinational states and refocused dis-
cussion about cultural autonomy as a component of conflict prevention or
resolution.
In the West, writers such as Nimni (2005) and Bowring (2002; 2008) have
revived interest in the writing and ideas of Bauer, Renner and Medem. Iron-
ically, new structures of governance involving different forms of autonomy
for non-territorial nations were established in the Russian Federation fol-
lowing the breakup of the Soviet Union – often with the not-so-covert aim
of protecting the position of Russian minorities living amid non-Russian
majorities (for example, in Tatarstan). Measures to establish cultural auton-
omy as a protection for minorities have been also introduced in Hungary and
the Ukraine, and reintroduced in the Baltic Republics of Latvia, Lithuania
and Estonia (Smith & Cordell, 2008; Hannum, 2011).
While the majority of these initiatives were not directly a part of efforts to
terminate violent and intractable conflicts, some elements of cultural auton-
omy can be seen in several recent conflict-resolution processes. The ability
to speak, write and publish in one’s own language has become a feature
of many settlements, as has the right to be educated in a separate edu-
cation system. Rights to form political associations and to have positions
reserved for members of national minorities in national, regional and local
councils, or within state administrative organs, are frequently written into
law. Protection for religious rights and for national-cultural traditions have
been incorporated into laws on national minorities, while national symbols
and national holidays are also formally recognized in such legislation. More

difficult are the rules against denigration or criticism of national minori-

ties, or against the uttering of racial or ethnic slurs among members of
majorities.8
5. “FAIR” shares
With each of these types of good available for division and distribution in an
intractable conflict, there are a whole variety of ways in which they could,

theoretically, be distributed in any settlement process and a whole variety of
principles upon which some distribution could be arranged. I have already
mentioned that it would be perfectly possible to envisage a distribution
based simply upon who has the upper hand in the struggle. The power-
ful with great coercive potential might easily obtain 99% of the loaf, but
this seems unlikely to be regarded as a “fair” division by anyone else, and
makes probable the likelihood of future renegotiation (or re-ignition of the
violence) when circumstances change.
Instances of “solutions” that use acceptable and generally recognized prin-
ciples to award all of the goods in contention to one of the adversaries are by
no means rare. Courts produce such solutions every day of the week. How-
ever, the discontent of adversaries who lose out and the tendency for appeals
to be made, and remade, do indicate that these one-sided awards may be
solutions but they are hardly resolutions, especially in highly intractable
conflicts that involve salient values and goals. All-or-nothing solutions may
be “fair” according to some underlying principle but in the wider world
they seem unlikely to be durable. What might a fairer, more durable solu-
tion for intractable social conflicts look like and to what extent would it
depend on its being based on some acceptable method of division and
distribution?
One starting point might be to assume that durable solutions could be
based – at least to some extent – on the principle of equality. A fair and thus
durable solution of division for an intractable conflict could be based upon
a sharing out of goods (and bads) that meant that the adversaries obtain
roughly the same amount – at least in terms of value, given that rivals can
value the same thing very differently.
However, solutions of equal division are not often available in intractable
conflicts, which frequently involve goods that seem inherently – or prac-
tically – indivisible. Theoretically, it might seem possible to divide the
Falkland Islands into two halves with West Falklands going to Argentina as
Las Malvinas and East Falklands staying under the sovereignty of Britain as
the Falkland Island Dependency. Kashmir’s actual condition of being divided
into a Pakistan half and an Indian half could be accepted and regularized by
an international treaty. Both ideas seem unlikely to resolve the conflicts over
these two territorial “goods”, however. Division, no matter how equal, does
not seem to be a solution that is likely to last very long.

Moreover, other solutions that may prove more durable do not appear
to be based on the principle of equality at all, but more on equity or on
accepted inequality. If one factors need into the “fairness” equation, then
it seems unarguable that many intractable conflicts feature a relationship
between parties whose needs are very unequal and very different. Should
the most needy be favoured in any division that is proposed as a solution?
Against this you have the argument that solutions to intractable con-
flicts should be based “fairly” upon, or at least take account of, input –

that is, relative contribution to the creation and maintenance of the good
in contention. Those putting in most get the largest share out.
More commonly, many solutions have been based on the principle of pro-
portionality, which usually takes into consideration the numbers of people
involved on the rival sides of any conflicts, so that when the time comes
to divide up the good in question the division is based on the different size
of the adversaries. I mentioned above the formula worked out for the distri-
bution of funds and debts between India and Pakistan on independence in
1947 – 17.5% of available funds for Pakistan and the remainder for India,
offset by India taking on 82.5% of the country’s existing debt, the remain-
der accruing to Pakistan (Collins & LaPierre, 1975 pp.213–214). These figures
were in proportion to the relative populations of the two newly independent
countries, but everything else was split on an equal basis: 50:50 (half of the
Raj’s band instruments to India and half to Pakistan; 50% of the books in
university libraries to Pakistan and 50% to India).
Almost all of the above examples tackle the issue of the “fairness” of any
division according to some external criterion or set of principles. However,
it can be argued that in most real-world conflicts, what is “fair” lies in the
perceptions and evaluations of the parties involved. What matters is the per-
ceived fairness of any distribution, and this can depend upon a huge number
of factors, most of which are internal to the leaders of parties in conflict and
to their followers. Perceived proportionality (two communities on Cyprus,
therefore fairness involves 50:50 distribution for the Turkish Cypriots), per-
ceived contributions or sacrifices, or perceived equitability are likely to be
the things most affecting the durability of any solution. Steven Brams, who
has written extensively with Alan Taylor about the concept of fairness, how
to measure it and how to carry out “fair division” in both theoretical and
practical terms, has come closest to dealing with these two aspects of this
tricky idea (Brams & Taylor, 1996). He argues that “fairness” of any process
of division should involve at least five criteria. Solutions should be
• proportional – that is, whereby each of the adversaries thinks that they
have “received a portion that has a size or value of 1/N . . . ” (ibid p.244);
• efficient – that is, there is no other way of allocating the goods in
contention that is better for one party and as good for all of the others;
• equitable – that is, each adversary thinks that the portion of the goods
in contention that their side has received is worth the same in terms of

their evaluation as the portion that the other side received in terms of the
latter’s valuation;
• envy free – that is, all of the parties think that they have received a share
that is at least tied for the largest or tied for the most valuable and hence
do not envy any of the others who have shared in the distribution (ibid
p.241);
• non-manipulable – whereby none of the parties involved has the ability,
through knowing the preferences of the others and by exploiting that

knowledge, to obtain a larger share of the goods in contention that could
be obtained in the absence of that knowledge (ibid p.243).
Probably the most interesting and useful of Brams and Taylor’s fairness cri-
teria involves, first, the idea of the necessity for a settlement to be perceived
as equitable by all sides, as this assumes that all of those involved will feel
that they have achieved the same as the others in terms of their own values,
although it often seems to be the case that it is part of human nature to
want to emerge from a negotiation process at least “one up” on a disliked
and mistrusted adversary.
The other key concept for explaining the durability of some settlement is
surely the idea that parties go away from the process not feeling that the
other side has done better from the settlement than they have. A general
absence of envy on the part of all parties involved, widely shared within
those usually large, complex and often internally divided parties, would
seem to be crucial for the durability of any settlement, although very dif-
ficult to achieve. An overall absence of envy hardly seems to characterize
those who have participated in many negotiated settlements in recent years.
The discontent over the distribution of goods and values in settlements, such
as the Dayton Accord about the future of the former Yugoslavia, the Belfast
Agreement about the future of Northern Ireland, or the Taif Agreement to
end the civil war in Lebanon, is indicated by the activities of violent spoil-
ers in each case. Perhaps the best that can be aimed for are settlements that
appear “sort of” fair in the eyes of a substantial majority of those involved.
However, even this modest objective might be hard to attain in the case of
conflicts over what appear to be indivisible goods.
6. The issue of indivisibility
One of the first points usually made about protracted conflicts over
“indivisibles” is that often the good in contention is only indivisible because
it is perceived, defined or labelled as such. It is quite true that some objects
in contention are not open to solutions by a process of physical division.
There is a profound difference between dividing a piece of cheese in dispute
and dividing a cat or an electric kettle. Hence, at least one of a number of
possible types of “indivisible” conflict is over goods that are incapable of
being physically split into two or more pieces. As Cecilia Albin originally

pointed out, this kind of indivisible good would have its value completely
destroyed if it were to be divided (Albin, 1991). The paradigm case of this
kind of indivisible at the centre of a conflict is probably the Biblical case of
King Solomon having to decide which of two women claiming possession
of a young baby was truly the mother, and putting the issue to the test by
suggesting physically dividing the baby into equal shares. At least it seems
to be the example that everyone finds it necessary to mention.

6.1. “Indivisibility” as socially constructed
While it is true that physically dividing something up “fairly” can’t realisti-
cally be done in certain cases without utterly ruining the good in dispute –
the baby at the centre of the Biblical dispute, for example – other schol-
ars have argued that, quite apart from somewhat rare cases of “inherent
indivisibility”, there is at least one other major type of “indivisible” that
lies at the centre of many other intractable political and socioeconomic dis-
putes. In such cases, as Ron Hassner (2003) expresses it, indivisibility is held
to be created by the actors themselves and is the result of their own con-
struction of identity, or of strongly held preferences or aspirations. Pierre du
Toit echoes this distinction and talks about the difference between, on the
one hand, goods “that cannot be split physically into parts” and, on the
other, about “concerns that cannot be compromised on” (1995). Perhaps
it would be useful and accurate to label the latter as “socially constructed”
indivisibility.
Many authors have taken the position that it is something within the
adversaries themselves that renders the good or issue in contention “indi-
visible” and hence unnegotiable. Many years ago the psychologist Ralph
White (1969; 1970) introduced the idea of a “territorial self image” to help
to explain why people were willing to fight and die in defence of pieces of
territory with which they were wholly unacquainted but with which they
had been taught to identify as part of their national territory and which as a
result become an extension, or a significant part, of ”themselves”. In many
parts of the world, White argued, there were geographical spaces in which
rival and exclusive self-images overlapped and formed one source of poten-
tial, and often violent conflict between those possessing such incompatible
images: Alsace-Lorraine, Northern Ireland/Ulster, Northern Spain/Euskadi
and Kosovo/Greater Serbia.
More recently, Jaroslav Tir (2006) in his discussion of secession as a
method of resolving domestic territorial conflicts has pointed out that dis-
putes can be over territory that is valued in different ways and with different
degrees of importance. On the one hand, conflicts can be over territory
that has tangible value, in the sense that the land can provide a variety of
ways to enhance security, or contains economic resources (mines, industrial
plant, raw materials, water or oil resources) which are valuable in themselves.
In contrast, conflicts can take place over territory that has intangible value

attached to it, which often makes the conflict harder to resolve through
any strategy of sharing. Tir suggests that intangible value can take a vari-
ety of forms, chief among which arise from the territory being of great
religious significance, or being considered the ancestral homeland, or con-
taining numbers of “ethic brethren” who must be rescued and incorporated
into the motherland. In an echo of Ralph White’s approach, Tir argues
that in many such situations, intangibly valued land becomes integral to
national identity and is therefore widely perceived as “personal, indivisible

and un-substitutable”, so that high levels of emotional attachment to this
territory can persist over long periods of time and conflicts can re-ignite
even after a period of peace (Tir, 2006 p.314).
Other contemporary scholars have argued that goods and issues come
to be viewed as indivisible for purely political reasons, but over time the
perceptions harden and it becomes more and more difficult even to think
of possibilities involving dividing, sharing or replacing the good in ques-
tion (Toft, 2002/2003). In many civil wars the preservation of an indivisible
national unity or territorial integrity becomes a bedrock principle of a
national government’s strategy – irrespective of the very fact that the exis-
tence of the insurgency itself challenges the reality of such “unity” (see Toft,
2003; Walter, 1997). In such cases the concept of indivisibility has to be
maintained, at least partly for a demonstration effect aimed at possible future
secessionist challenges, but over time the issue of maintaining an undivided
and undividable nation takes on a life of its own.
Given that many cases of indivisibility can turn out, on examination, to be
socially constructed – what some have described as “actor oriented” rather
that “inherent” in the nature of the good or the issue in dispute – this surely
means that the problem of issue-intractability is not overwhelming and it
can be overcome, at least in theory. If we are not dealing with “goods whose
value is destroyed if they are divided” (Brams & Taylor, 1996 fn,51 p.100)
then some compromise solutions should, in principle, be possible – although
this is not to argue that the task of agreeing on one will be easy. While in
many conflicts, finding an acceptable and durable solution to apparently
indivisible issues may be difficult or unpopular, it is not literally impossible.
Territory can be divided, time can be shared, oranges can be split and used
for different purposes. As in the case of facing what I have previously termed
a “scarcity” conflict, possibilities need to be explored for either (a) sharing
the time available for enjoying or using the scarce object (alternate days
of looking after the baby in King Solomon’s case) or (b) performing differ-
ent functions with the scarce object without interfering with one another
(using a plot of land to grow seasonal vegetables or African palm oil while
making arrangements for the others to be able to honour the spirits of their
ancestors who inhabit that land, or to pass through en route to needed water
resources). Jerusalem may be perceived as “indivisible” by both Israelis and
some Palestinians but there is no inherent reason why the same city cannot

function as the capital of two states in ways that works administratively

and ceremonially, while continuing to honour both people’s long historical
association with the place.9
6.2. Territorial sovereignty as a divisible

One familiar example of a dispute that appears to be over something that
is wholly indivisible and hence is held to be highly intractable is one said
to involve “sovereignty”, such as the conflict between Britain and Argentina

over the Falklands/Malvinas islands mentioned above. But is “sovereignty”
an indivisible good and in scarce or limited supply? If one views this abstract
term as involving exclusive right to exercise control over absolutely every-
thing within a given chunk of territory, then, clearly, one cannot share
sovereignty. A less rigid and exclusive definition of the term, however, would
enable sovereignty to be divided and distributed in a variety of functional
ways – a landlord’s sovereignty over selling or retaining a piece territory, a
council’s sovereignty over some of the people living there, an international
court’s sovereignty over the commission of crimes against humanity per-
formed on that territory. One can even take a wholly different position and
talk about sharing absolute sovereignty on a temporal basis. This happens
in Andorra, where France and Spain take turns in being sovereign over the
bishopric and in being responsible for the territory’s governance.
Empirically there are numerous modern examples of what may be termed
“circumscribed sovereignty” to set against the original sixteenth-century
doctrine of absolute or exclusive sovereignty, which was designed to prevent
outsiders from interfering in the internal affairs of the local prince or rul-
ing family. Egypt’s sovereignty over the Sinai peninsula was restored by the
1979 Camp David Accords but it was limited in respect of the carrying out
of military activities on that part of Egyptian territory and it allowed Israel
some residual rights over the oil found in the (non-Israeli) territory. Austrian
sovereign independence was restored in 1956, but it was circumscribed by
agreed provisions which ensured that Austria was to remain permanently
non-aligned, a condition which severely limited Austria’s subsequent foreign
policy options. These examples may be viewed as “exceptions” to the gen-
eral rule about absolute and exclusive state sovereignty, but as the exceptions
multiply they at least throw doubt upon the idea that the only solution to
international disputes over territory must involve exclusive ownership and
absolute control by one country.
Along this line of thinking, the economist Peyton Young has suggested
a comprehensive list of ways in which socially constructed but ostensibly
“indivisible” goods can, in practice, be divided or even shared out (Young,
1995). His list contains some ideas – such as physical division, awarding the
disputed good to one party on the basis of some objective criterion, using
a lottery to decide possession or the actual destruction of the good so that

none of the adversaries achieves possession – that seem more than likely
to lead subsequently to much more intense conflict over the distribution.
However, it also suggests a number of surprisingly sensible ways of divid-
ing indivisibles that might produce a solution that is both acceptable and
durable – holding in common; rotating possession; compensation in other
goods for the party failing to get possession of the disputed indivisible; and
obtaining payment from the sale of the good so that the resultant medium
of exchange (usually cash) is divisible and can be shared out. Many of these

might well be used for international conflicts where “indivisible” sovereignty
is an issue.
Young’s most interesting suggestion is his last, where he talks about the
idea of “unbundling” the disputed indivisible into a number of attributes
that can then be translated into a variety of “rights” over the good in ques-
tion. The existence of a number of separate rights associated with a socially
constructed indivisible good – as opposed to the right to do absolutely every-
thing and anything – clearly make this a situation where different rights can
be shared out among adversaries making claims on the good in question.
One could envisage a solution for a city where “undivided sovereignty” is
in dispute that starts with a discussion about who might have the right
to maintain law, order and security, who has the right to run a governing
administration from within the city bounds, who has the right to organize
parades and ceremonial celebrations, who has the right to sell and supply
potable water, who has the right to levy taxes on property, who has the right
to collect sales tax or taxes on vehicles, or who is responsible for the upkeep
of public parks?.10 As Young points out, once indivisible goods and issues
have been “unbundled” in this manner and a set of separable rights distin-
guished, the whole debate can move over into issues of equity and who has
the most convincing claim to be the one to exercise a particular right over
this particular territory, this community or this inheritance.
6.3. Solutions of innovative division

If Peyton Young’s analysis seems too complex for practical use, then some-
thing simpler might be more appropriate which does not depend upon
complex arguments about rights and their distribution. Conceptually, as
opposed to empirically, it might be more helpful to distinguish among goods
that may at first appear to be indivisible:
• Spatially or geographically, in the sense that splitting them physically may

destroy them utterly (a cat), or ruin their worth (a clock) or end their
ability to function properly as a unit (a computer screen, or an integrated
city with a unified system for delivering clean water or with an electricity
grid supplying all city districts);

However such goods may be divisible in at least two other senses:
• temporally, in the sense that different people can use the same good in
much the same way but at different times;
• functionally, in that different people can use the same good in different
ways or for different purposes at the same time.

There are numerous examples of the same good being used by different
people for different purposes at different times of the year. Sports grounds
can be used for different sports in the winter or the summer, as long as their
use at one time or another does not damage them in such a way as to prevent
the alternative use in the following time period (and the costs of restoring
the ground to its usable state for both activities are fairly distributed). Land
can be used for growing crops during one period and for grazing during
another. Temporal divisibility can always be tricky to arrange but if the alter-
native is constant and violent struggle to establish exclusive use, sharing
over time may seem to be an acceptable alternative. Solomon’s baby could
have been looked after jointly or on alternate days by the rival claimants.
Similarly, using the same good differently or for different purposes can
achieve functional divisibility. The multiple use of buildings is a common
example of such a situation. The well-known “Ugli Orange” exercise that is
used to challenge students who are asked to find a peaceful resolution to a
dispute over a single and therefore scarce fruit is the classic case of functional
divisibility, with one adversary needing the juice for a drink while the other
needs the skin and pulp to flavour a dish. A single, prominent geographical
feature (a hill or a pass) can be regarded by one community as a place to
collect taxes on incoming goods and by another as a place to monitor the
vaccination of animals belonging to nomadic pastoralists, or as a site for
an early warning system by a third community. Different “goods” can have
different and often complementary functions for different peoples, so that
the possibility of functional divisibility is always worth exploring as the basis
for a solution to an apparently intractable conflict. The key question in such
cases is: What do you want it for?
All that the above arguments emphasize is that one should not simply
abandon all thought when confronted with forms of intractability that
involve goods in dispute which seem to be fundamentally non-distributable,
save as a handful of junk or as a set of unusable parts of a destroyed whole.
Solutions of “sharing” do not necessarily have to involve physical division
and distribution, which may be possible in terms of territory or cheese but
seem out of the question when babies, cats or cities are concerned. Socially
constructed “indivisibles” may lend themselves to sharing in a variety of
ways, and their intractability may arise from limitations of imagination or
creativity rather than being inherent in their nature.

6.4. Goods, issues and inherent indivisibility

However, do similar arguments about possible solutions of division always
apply in cases which involve goods which are by their own nature “inher-
ently” indivisible? Do they apply where the social construction of a good in
contention is so fixed and inflexible as to defy any form of sharing, even in
theory? Are there conflicts where the obstacle is not simply that “the actors
do not possess the skills to redefine issues”, as Ron Hassner (2003) warns,
but where one is dealing with goods or issues which are absolutely and

inherently unsharable and which defy any and all of the kinds of solution
discussed above?
At first sight Hassner seems to be one of those scholars who are return-
ing to the idea of inherent indivisibility of issues in order to account
for the intractability of many twenty-first-century conflicts – especially
those involving fundamental religious beliefs – but he insists that his is a
phenomenological approach to the idea of indivisibility:
it focuses not on the objective characteristics of a good or issue but on its

qualities as perceived by the parties to a dispute . . .
(ibid p.5)
In fact, Hassner’s interesting work on, for example, conflicts over sacred
spaces seems to fall halfway between those who start from the idea that
indivisibility is a socially constructed attribute assigned post facto to issues
that become (for political, social and cultural reasons) defined as indivisible
and integrated, and those that argue that some conflicts occur over goods
or issues which are, by their very nature, utterly indivisible. According to
Hassner, some indivisible issues share three necessary characteristics that
appear to be uncontestable to the parties to the conflict:
• integrity – the parties hold that the issue cannot be parcelled out or sub-
divided without significantly diminishing its value;
• boundaries – the parties must mean the same thing when they refer to the
issue that they are bargaining over, which implies that the boundaries
around the good should be clear and unambiguous, as well as such that
set off the good from its environment;
• non-fungibility – the parties must believe that the issue cannot be sub-
stituted for or exchanged for something of equal value; what the good
contains, or what takes place there, has to be unique and cannot take
place anywhere else.
(Hassner, 2003 pp.12–13)
This phenomenological view of indivisibility does have the advantage of

providing a yardstick by which to anticipate what kinds of issue are likely to

underpin the development of highly intractable conflicts. However, it also

raises the question about how difficult it might be in individual cases for
the parties – or at least some of them – to redefine or reperceive the key
characteristics of the issues/goods in dispute and thus make the conflict less
intractable (and what factors are likely to affect the ease or difficulty of so
doing.) Hassner’s focus on conflicts over sacred spaces provides numerous
examples of one type of intractable conflict where altering historical percep-
tions – inherited over centuries in some cases – becomes almost impossible,

so there is little chance for alternative and more flexible perceptions to
develop. On the other hand, other types of less intractable conflict do sug-
gest that the very fact that this is a phenomenological approach surely allows
for changes over time in the perceptions of integrity, boundary inflexibil-
ity and fungibility by the parties – or, at least, some individuals or factions
within them. One can envisage changes in perceptions of differing degrees
of each of the three characteristics. This alone suggests the possibility of
solutions for at least some of such conflicts.
7. Linkage
However, at this point it is necessary to confront those cases of intractable

conflict that seem to present absolute dilemmas that defy, even theoretically,
the search for solutions via expanding, sharing or finding compensations, or
finding some compromise over difficult but not irresolvable issues. Conflicts
over things that one or both parties have defined – at least for the present –
as indivisible are difficult enough to cope with but do offer some long-term
hope. What about conflicts that seem inherently and absolutely insoluble?

11
Innovation

1. Introduction: Terminating “insolubles”
If we are to complete our discussion of various types of intractable con-

flict, we cannot stop at the point where our main analysis has been focused
on incompatible demands for, or aspirations to achieve, goods that are in
limited supply or wholly integrated goods that cannot be divided – fairly
or unfairly – among adversaries. In any full exploration of “intractability”,
we have finally to cope with situations where the adversaries have either
(a) taken up quite contrary positions that only appear to permit a winner
and a loser1 or (b) are aiming for a completely different result, the achieve-
ment of which will make it impossible for the adversary to achieve their own
favoured outcome. In these cases we seem to face wholly incommensurable
goals and maybe a genuinely “zero-sum” situation.
In such circumstances we have to deal with types of intractability that
arise from incommensurable or even existential contradictions, so that what
I have termed “solutions of division” or “solutions of substitution” are not
possible, while “solutions of expansion” (increasing the supply of scarce
goods through cooperation) are irrelevant. In some types of intractable
conflict, solutions based on sharing appear to be out of the question as
both sides want exactly the same goal, want it immediately and, more-
over, will accept no form of substitute. In others, the adversaries are not
fundamentally in conflict over scarcity issues at all but instead want mutu-
ally exclusive or “incommensurable” outcomes that have little to do with
the way in which any goods or bads are distributed. We need finally, then,
to consider those conflicts which are not merely intractable because they
are protracted or because they confront scarcities. Rather, they seem to
be utterly insoluble, even in the long term, because of core theoretical,
physical, logical and cosmological contradictions that defy resolution – as
when two people simultaneously seek to occupy the same physical space,
or to consume exactly the same resources for the same purposes, or want
mutually opposed outcomes, the achievement of one rendering the other
243

an (apparent) impossibility. Such situations require what I term “solutions

of creativity”.
2. Solutions of creativity
One way, possibly the only way, in which a resolution of this kind of an
ostensibly irresolvable conflict appears to be possible is through some form
of creativity – which enables those involved to think about their situation

and relationship within a radically different framework to that within which
they are trapped and which condemns them to rivalry and antagonism. This
kind of “outside the box” thinking that leads to innovation and a fresh con-
sideration of alternatives is, of course, much easier to talk about than to
undertake, especially in circumstances where it necessarily involves interact-
ing intellectually with a mistrusted and disliked adversary. Nor is it always
the case that an innovative reframing of the circumstances leading to the
basic goals’ incompatibility will suggest alternative ways out of the parties’
mutual dilemma. However, in situations involving what appear to be wholly
incommensurable objectives, creative thinking is a necessary, if perhaps not
a sufficient, precursor to devising a durable solution.
I should be clear that I am not here simply suggesting the creation of addi-
tional goods that can then be distributed among the adversaries in some
mutually satisfactory fashion (see Walton and McKersie’s (1965) approach),
although this is one way in which some intractable conflicts might be
settled. Many cases of highly intractable conflicts require thinking that is
wholly innovative, and can produce solutions or outcomes that are novel,
interesting and valuable, to paraphrase ideas from Herbert Simon (2000).
Tatsushi Arai, in his recent admirable survey of 16 examples of creativity
in resolving intractable conflicts, also emphasizes the quality of “unconven-
tionality” as essential to creativity but insists that this must be combined
with the quality of viability – practical effectiveness – so as not to appear
impractically utopian to those involved in a protracted struggle (Arai, 2009
p.2). Others have suggested various techniques (popularized as “brainstorm-
ing”) that can be used in innovative thinking – analogizing (Spector, 1995),
lateral thinking (De Bono, 1985), reframing (McCartney, 2007; Druckman
et al., 1991) – but the actual process of creative thinking remains a topic
much in need of systematic exploration.
2.1. Irresolvables, integrative solutions and bridging

In the fields of CAR and social psychology the idea of integrative strate-
gies and outcomes was mainly taken up by Dean Pruitt and his colleagues
(Pruitt & Lewis, 1975; Pruitt & Carnevale, 1982; Pruitt & Kim, 2004), while
Peter Carnevale has created an interesting “circumplex” model which sug-
gests various types of creativity and matches them with different conflict
types (2006 p.419) Both have discussed the strategy of “bridging”, which

Innovation 245
involves adversaries trading concessions, although these trades are based

not upon the positions, goods or goals immediately in dispute but on the
basis of the interests underlying them. Bridging strategies depend upon the
process of reframing the issues in contention by persuading adversaries to
examine their own interests that underlie their current bargaining posi-
tions and also to understand the interests that underlie the positions of the
other side.
In an interesting more recent paper on bridging strategies, Jeffrey

Leowenstein and his colleagues (2011) have distinguished between latent
and manifest interests and argue that part of a successful bridging strategy
involves making latent interests clear and manifest to those operating on
them – frequently unconsciously. Doing this can enable adversaries to rec-
ognize that positions based on underlying interests can be altered, yet those
interests themselves will still be preserved, even when an original bargaining
position is abandoned.
In considering strategies of reframing and bridging, we do seem to have
made a start at delineating ways of developing solutions to even highly
intractable conflicts which are essentially creative and might offer some ways
of resolving even the most intractable, incommensurable conflicts. This type
of creativity is very different from the simple sharing out of goods in con-
tention or the swopping of concessions whereby adversaries compensate
each other for lower-value losses with higher-value gains. Moreover, bridg-
ing seems fundamentally different from other integrative methods (as in
cost-cutting or log-rolling) and to involve genuinely creative (“out of the
box” thinking as an answer to intractability). The Ugli Orange exercise that
I outlined previously provides the classic illustration of this creative strategy
of bridging and reframing at the level of an inter-personal – and admit-
tedly fairly trivial – conflict, while others have been derived from studies
of conflicts and bargaining processes within organizations (see, for exam-
ple, Dunnette, 1976; Rahim, 1992). Familiar empirical examples date from
Follett’s own work (1940), including a resolution of the “Dairymen’s League
dispute” between two producers of dairy products whose bargaining position
was that they should be first to unload their product at a creamery platform,
but were able to resolve the dispute on the basis of their underlying interest
in not having to wait to unload their product. Some entertaining Biblical
cases are discussed by Steven Brams and Alan Taylor in two of their books
(Brams & Taylor, 1999; Brams, 1999) while there is a considerable litera-
ture on integrative strategies and solutions in the field of management and
business studies (see, for example, Kersten, 2001; McNary & Gitlow, 2002).
In contrast to the use of integrative ideas in helping to resolve manage-
rial or organizational conflicts, there have been only a limited number of
analyses carried out of cases of intractable and complex sociopolitical con-
flicts where bridging strategies have been employed, either consciously or
pragmatically.

In Nimet Beriker-Atiyas and Tijen Demirel-Pegg’s analysis of the 1995

Dayton Accords (2001) many of the issues involved in this complex settle-
ment were tackled by some type of integrative strategy, sometimes whereby
mediators delved into the interests underlying Bosniac-Muslim and Bosnian
Serbs’ bargaining positions and suggested solutions that were innovatively
different from the rigid bargaining positions that constrained a search for
acceptable solutions. For example, one of the most contentious issues in
the conflict between the Bosniac authorities and Serb leaders was over the

structure of political authority within the state of Bosnia-Herzegovina. The
Serb bargaining position at the start of the Dayton process was that they
absolutely required guaranteed equal rights and status with the Bosniac
majority, while the Bosniac goal was to prevent the minority Serbs from
blocking the functioning of the federal government on the basis of hav-
ing recognized equal rights with the majority. The interests underlying
these two bargaining positions were not hard to understand. The minor-
ity Serb community, having failed to achieve either full independence or
safe integration into the neighbouring Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, basi-
cally needed to prevent the suppression of their community by the Muslim
majority in Bosnia. On the other hand, Bosniac leaders wished to facili-
tate the re-integration of the Bosniac and Serbian areas of their country
into a viable and recognized political entity – a functioning republic –
and to obviate the future possibility of Serbian secessionism. With these
underlying interests in mind, it proved possible to arrange the details of
political structures and workable decision-making processes that, by bal-
ancing representation within a collective presidency and in an elected
national assembly, satisfied the interests of the Serbs in being protected from
majority domination yet also, for the Bosniac-Muslim majority, ensured
a continued unity for a Republic of Bosnia-Herzegovina with a function-
ing government. The arrangement also minimized the possibility of Serb
secession.
The existence of a minority veto, offset by admittedly complex but
still functioning administrative arrangements (plus an abandonment of
secessionist claims by the minority), produced a bridging solution to that
particular issue in contention between the Bosniac and the Serb commu-
nities in post-war Bosnia. The authors also make the point that, in such a
complex negotiation, it is possible to distinguish elements of a solution that
were, indeed, integrative but others that were essentially distributive.
On the other hand, while ideas about integrative bargaining strategies
and integrative outcomes go some way down the road to creative reso-
lution and provide some hope for dealing with intractable conflict over
incommensurables, many questions remain about the theoretical underpin-
nings of such approaches. Is reframing on the basis of underlying interests
enough to enable resolution? Where do latent and manifest interests come
from and what forms do they take?

Innovation 247
2.2. Creativity, irresolvables and basic human needs

One of the most hopeful lines of thought on how to deal with this type
of intractability is offered by the work of John Burton and his adaption of
the theory of basic human needs to the problems of resolving intractable
conflicts (Burton, 1987; 1990; Burton & Dukes, 1990). Earlier I mentioned
that Burton insisted that the label “conflict” should only be applied to these
intractable situations that involved fundamental and deep-rooted interests
that could not be compromised or bargained about, while others more sus-

ceptible to bargaining processes and compromises involving division should
be treated as relatively resolvable “disputes”. But how might it be possible to
resolve deep-rooted “conflicts” that were, indeed, intractable because they
were based on fundamental interests and resultant goals which seemed to
be proof against such straightforward remedies involving compromise?
Burton’s answer to this was to go back to the idea of the widespread (pos-
sibly universal) existence of a number of basic sociocultural “needs”, which
he viewed as being shared by all individuals and hence all communities.
However, the manner in which these basic needs manifested themselves
was always subject to national and cultural variations, thus leading to dif-
fering – and often clashing – aspirations, public positions, objectives and
aspirations, and thence to protracted and deep-rooted conflicts. If everyone
possessed a need for a sense of “security”, for opportunities to establish one’s
“identity”, or for an acceptable level of “recognition” of worth and of dig-
nity from others, then the frustration of those needs or interference with an
individual or community’s search for their satisfaction did, indeed, under-
lie the existence of deep-rooted and intractable “conflicts”. This would be
highly resistant to surrender or even compromise. Burton’s next argument
posited the likely existence of a range of alternative “satisfiers” for those
needs – often culturally derived – and the possibility that conflicts over par-
ticular satisfiers could be resolved by considering different ways in which
the frustration of those needs could be overcome. “Security is not in lim-
ited supply,” he would argue. In other words, rather than satisfying a need
for security through building up a dominating military position, that need
might well be satisfied by the removal of a sense of threat and the recog-
nition of others as partners or even fellow beings who also required their
own sense of security. In short, recognition that human individuals and
communities sought to fulfil the same basic needs, plus a realization that
there existed more than one way of satisfying those needs, could, in itself,
lead to non-threatening ways of resolving conflicts that were based on those
needs.
Within this human needs framework, too often conflicts arose because
individuals or communities fell victim to what might be called the “single
satisfier” syndrome – the widespread belief that there was one, and only
one way of achieving satisfaction of a need for a sense of security or for

a satisfactory sense of identity, or for others’ recognition of one’s own (or

one’s community’s) worthiness. In reality, Burton argued, there were many
different ways of satisfying these fundamental needs. Hence, the task of con-
flict resolution was to discover alternatives which did not lead to conflict – to
ideas concerning mutual security, where the sense of security of one commu-
nity was not achieved at the expense of diminishing that sense in others, or
where one nation’s sense of worthy identity did not automatically diminish
others’ sense of their own respected identity.

Burton’s arguments do create a sense of optimism, even about highly
intractable conflicts, and enable one to consider the possibility of there being
not one but several possible solutions, however difficult it might be to con-
vince embattled parties of their existence. If there are several different ways
of establishing a satisfactory sense of “identity”, for example, then surely
some of these do not have to present threats to the identity of other individ-
uals or communities. It is possible to find empirical evidence for this variety
of satisfiers by contrasting the different ways in which people throughout
history have created their sense of identity to their own satisfaction. To take
two extreme contrasts, compare the German sense of national identity under
the Third Reich with the different sense of identity existing in contempo-
rary Costa Rica. On the one hand, you have a presumably satisfying sense
of identity based on dominance by a master race over other, inferior races,
on respect for military virtues and a warrior ethos, on a strong sense of past
injustice and non-recognition by others, on incomplete national territory,
on exclusive membership of the volk, and on the necessity of employing
destructive force – all backed up by Wagnerian myths, the cult of leadership,
militaristic symbols and orchestrated Nuremburg rallies. On the other hand,
you find an intense sense of pride in an identity which involves preserv-
ing the natural environment, the complete absence of a military, controlled
development, a roughly egalitarian distribution of national wealth, a history
of democratic participation in politics since at least 1948, a recognized role
as a regional peacemaker, and an inclusive attitude towards others from the
hemisphere. The Third Reich’s most remembered slogan was Ein volk, ein
Reich, ein Fuhrer. The Costa Rican slogan is Pura vida.
My point here is that these two very different sets of ideas, structures, sym-
bols and processes represent very different alternatives to establishing a sense
of national identity, and if there are alternative satisfiers that are available
for answering a need for “identity”, then there are likely to be alternative
ways of satisfying other needs. Indeed, the contrast could have been drawn
between the German identity in the Third Reich and the contemporary
German identity within the Federal Republic. The existence of shared needs
does not produce zero-sum conflicts as the former are not about scarcity.
There is always a range of alternative satisfiers that could be available to help
to resolve even the most deep-rooted and intractable of conflicts. At least at

Innovation 249
the level of underlying needs, then, it is possible to envisage resolutions that

make conflicts less intractable than they might previously appear to be.
In some respects, Burton’s approach to intractable conflicts resembles the
last of the five integrative strategies analysed by Pruitt and his colleagues,
although it goes a lot further into the general and abstract. His main inno-
vation involved linking the idea of surface goals and underlying interests
to a limited number of fundamental human needs. These are shared by all
humans, even if they can take on an often bewildering variety of forms as

they are affected by different cultures and histories, as well as by circum-
stances in contemporary societies. What is seen as a satisfier in one culture –
payment of compensation in the form of valuable grazing animals plus a
ceremonial apology – may be quite inadequate in another, where only blood
revenge is deemed appropriate. “Satisfiers” are all culturally influenced if not
determined.
2.3. Irresolvables and change: Altered preference orderings

While an approach to resolving apparently intractable conflicts through a
search for alternative satisfiers for a number of core human needs is, at least
in theory, a promising long-term strategy, there are other approaches that
also give some hope that all is not hopeless. “Intractable” can mean “very
difficult” rather than “totally impossible”.
One promising line of thought is to recall the undoubted fact that, over
time, things can change and even human beings themselves can learn – and
also change. Hence it is often possible to encounter situations in which the
preference ordering of the original set of goals initiating the conflict can alter
over time, sometimes quite radically. After all, Henry of Navarre came to the
conclusion that he was willing to abandon his Huguenot faith publicly in
order to obtain the French Crown, so that Paris became worth a mass. Issue
salience should always be regarded as dynamic.
Furthermore, human beings do not just want to achieve one thing, but
whole clusters of different goals and outcomes that can be structured, infor-
mally, into rough preference orderings which can also change radically over
time. Things that at one point seemed hugely important to certain indi-
viduals, to a community or to a nation can diminish in importance and
desirability compared with other things that were once of peripheral inter-
est but become increasingly salient. New goals can be added to the set being
pursued, old ambitions drop out of consideration or, at least, find their way
towards the bottom of an individual or group preference ordering.2
This process of changed issue salience can be particularly important in pro-
tracted conflicts, as new generations of leaders come to power over time and
bring in new and different ambitions for their group, community or nation.
It is sometimes the case that the same set of leaders can learn and change
over time, so that goals that once seemed worth making huge sacrifices for –
in terms of foregoing other goals – now seem less worthwhile in terms of

their opportunity costs. In contemporary England, for example, few people

are prepared to die in defence of the truth of the doctrine of consubstanti-
ation, whereas in the fourteenth century not a few Lollards were burned at
the stake for continuing to avow this heresy.
Some of the dynamic aspects of conflicts and of people in conflict, high-
lighting one aspect of the theory of entrapment, deals (perhaps indirectly)
with the process of changing goals over the course of a conflict (Mitchell,
1991). Many conflicts go through four broad stages, each characterized by

the dominance of different types of goal. The initial stage when a party
enters into a relationship of conflict with others is usually dominated by the
expectation that highly valued goals can be achieved at a reasonable cost, in
spite of the opposition of others who are seeking contradictory goals. This
stage is followed by one in which a major element involves a growing sense
of anger and hostility towards those frustrating the attainment of the desired
goals, in spite of all of the resources committed to their attainment and the
rising costs of continuing. Hence the goal of successfully achieving the val-
ued good and justifying past sacrifice becomes reinforced – and in some cases
largely replaced – by the goal of defeating the adversaries or at least making
them pay for their hostile intransigence. The third stage occurs when the
sacrifices being made in order to continue the pursuit of the original goals
are increasingly recognized, but the only way of offsetting these is finally
to achieve success in attaining what is being fought over. Final success, at
least, will help to make up for some of the sacrifices made and the losses
incurred. The final stage is one in which leaders’ visions become dominated
by recognition of the probable future costs of continuing the struggle and
the decrease in available resources to continue. Leaders may then seek to cut
losses by abandoning the increasingly costly goal of “success”, almost at any
price.
This four-stage model can seem a little simplistic, especially because it pro-
vides little guidance about the tipping points or thresholds at which one
phase ends and another begins, or the empirical indicators that a major
change has occurred in the nature of the goals dominating a party’s reasons
for continuing the struggle. However, it does enable one to begin consid-
ering the possibility that goals, goal hierarchies and preference ordering do
change in the course of a conflict, so that the opportunities for a negoti-
ated settlement or even a durable solution can come and go, depending
upon which goals predominate in the minds of leaders, elites and their
followers.
One rather formal approach to the process of goal change and the impor-
tance of altered preferences in conflict resolution might be based on Thomas
Saaty’s Analytical Hierarchy Process, which specifically deals with the inter-
action of rival goal sets in efforts to develop solutions to complex conflicts
(Saaty & Alexander 1989; Saaty 2001). Saaty’s central idea is that it is pos-
sible to order the goals of rival parties into complex hierarchies and by

Innovation 251
weighting the various goals or options, and then factoring in the perceived
probabilities of their attainment, to arrive at some optimal – and peaceful –
solution for the parties involved. It is impossible to do justice to the com-
plexity of Saaty’s formal, analytical approach in a brief description, but the
technique has been applied successfully to many conflicts within organi-
zations. It seems to work especially well in conflicts where the adversaries
share an overarching set of values that informs and limits (to some degree)
their willingness to employ extreme forms of coercion or violence. Saaty

and Alexander have also suggested how the approach might be applied to
protracted and intractable sociopolitical conflicts, such as those afflicting
Northern Ireland or Israel/Palestine, although the successful use of such
a technique in the absence of shared, overarching values has yet to be
conclusively demonstrated.
Saaty and his colleagues’ central idea of analysing conflicts from the view-
point of rival preference orderings for goals, options and outcomes can form
a good starting point in any search for a durable solution. However, his work
and those of his followers says very little about the dynamism of prefer-
ence orderings suggested by entrapment, commitment or prospect theories.
Why do adversaries change their evaluations of what they have been disput-
ing or fighting over, and become willing to abandon goals that are held as
supremely important and worth sacrificing for at one point in time? What
factors bring about a major change in preference orderings that might permit
a peaceful settlement or a durable resolution?
We might look for clues in the ending of any number of protracted and
intractable conflict in which a solution has been achieved among adversaries
whose leaders have led a prolonged struggle but then abandoned or modified
the goals for which much has been sacrificed. Even in the conflict-ridden
twentieth century, there are numerous examples of key leaders abandoning
cherished goals when the costs of their continued pursuit became clear or
imminent. In 1947, for example, the leaders of the Congress Party in India,
faced with the prospect of massive inter-communal violence, gave up their
long-cherished goal of a united, independent India and settled for a separate
independence for Pakistan and India.
Between 1990 and 1993, a similar process of change can be observed in
South Africa among both Nationalist and ANC leaderships as the country
slipped towards chaos and anarchy during the 1980s. For Nelson Mandela
and his colleagues, the prospect of taking over an economically wrecked
country (the “wasteland scenario”) altered the value that they had attached
to taking over absolute political and economic power, and ruling untram-
melled by concessions made to the previously dominant white minority.
On the other side, the Afrikaaner leadership became more and more willing
to abandon the policy of apartheid and of minority Afrikaaner dominance,
as the value of ensuring their economic position rose to the top of their value
hierarchy (see Sparks, 1995; Harvey, 2001).

That at least some of the key leaders involved in both the protracted con-
flicts in India and in South Africa should at some point begin to change
their minds and alter the value hierarchies that underlay policy options
should really occasion no surprise. Even though we know very little about
what factors are unfailingly influential in bringing about such a reshuf-
fling of interests, goals and objectives, it is undeniable that leaders, advisers
and activists do learn and do change. Hence, as I mentioned earlier, things
that once seemed of paramount importance and worth almost any sacrifice

diminish in salience over time and are replaced by other objectives and eval-
uations. The world is full of abandoned military bases that were once deemed
essential for national security. Who in Paris today regards Ho Chi Min city
and Hanoi as anything more than tourist destinations? The value of British
military control over the Suez Canal seems to have diminished greatly for
Britain’s leaders in the period since 1956. Throughout most of Europe, the
values that underpinned high respect for a successful military career seem to
have been much eroded. These different types of change can offer hope that,
at least over time, apparently insoluble conflicts might lend themselves to a
sustainable resolution.
3. Incommensurables: Radical disagreements

and conflicting worldviews
It is clearly the case that people, communities and even nations can change
their beliefs, values and goals over time. What seems vital in one period
can appear insignificant at a later date, although this change can take a
very long time. But suppose that such change in issue salience is not pos-
sible in the foreseeable future, and that adversaries firmly believe that the
achievement of their “legitimate” goals, even in the face of an adversary’s
strong opposition, is justified or more importantly, absolutely essential.
Suppose, moreover, that the adversaries are seeking widely different goals,
the achievement of one of which will make it certain that the other will
fail to gain what they want – and feel they deserve. Suppose, finally,
that the adversaries each adhere to a belief system that makes meaning-
ful dialogue and minimal understanding – let alone a solution – seem
completely impossible and unethical. This particular type of intractability
has a variety of labels attached to it – “deep value conflict”, “radical dis-
agreement”, “worldview conflict”. Whatever the name used, such conflicts
do present a formidable range of conceptual, theoretical and eventually
practical problems for anyone arguing about possibilities for resolution.
As an example of this kind of intractable conflict, my colleague Kevin
Avruch sketched out a scenario several years ago that clearly encapsulates
the central dilemma of such situations:
A couple, each deeply religious, but coming from very different religious
traditions, has a child. Religion is extremely important to both of them,

Innovation 253
and while each “respects” the tradition of the other, a decision must be
made as to which tradition the child will be affiliated with and raised in.
How do they go about negotiating this?
(Avruch, 2006 p.578)
As an example of an intractable conflict, this clearly is not amenable to

solutions of division that would be satisfactory to both parents or, in more
formal terms, would “maximize their joint value”, let alone that of the

child. Dividing the child’s time between one week as (for example) a Protes-
tant (tradition X) and the next as a Catholic (tradition Y) hardly seems the
solution. “Expanding the pie” by having another child and raising one in
tradition X and the other in tradition Y seems equally unlikely to be either
acceptable to the parents or particularly durable. Raising the child in a com-
pletely different tradition to either of the parents (as a Buddhist, for example)
hardly seems “resolutionary”. In the face of strongly held but rival beliefs,
unamenable to argument or fact, it seems unlikely that either parent will
change their issue salience very much, however long one waits. Perhaps a
solution might be sought by a bridging strategy of seeking deeper underlying
interests shared by both parents, such as not wishing to destroy completely
the child’s mental stability by constant bickering about religious issues dur-
ing his or her upbringing. This might enable the parents to arrive at some
form of truce, but the chances do not seem all that good. Finally, one won-
ders which of Burton’s basic human needs might offer a practical solution
to the issue of raising the child in such a way that their parents’ basic needs
would be satisfied. What alternative satisfiers of which needs are available?
This form of intractability seems to defy all approaches to finding a durable
resolution (save possibly the application of power to enforce a one-sided
settlement).
This particular scenario represents a whole class of intractable conflicts
that occur when adversaries want radically different things, the achieve-
ment of one set of goals automatically ensuring the non-attainability of
the other set. At a sociopolitical level, these intractable conflicts become
particularly relevant when the issues arise from the adversaries possessing
completely different cosmologies which, in turn, not only produce goals
that are mutually exclusive but often seem to make any kind of meaning-
ful communication about solutions, or anything else, impossible. Conflict
about land and land use are typically couched in such forbiddingly insolu-
ble terms and particularly when the traditional values of indigenous peoples
come to be opposed to the goals and values of modernizing, Western
societies.
I should be clear that at this point I am not talking about the innumer-
able conflicts that arise in many countries over questions of land ownership
and use. These are difficult enough to handle in and of themselves but, ana-
lytically, they involve dividing a “good” (land) whether one side wants to
use the good for traditional subsistence farming using traditional methods

or for growing a single cash crop for export. At one level the conflict –
vicious and one-sided though it is – between the indigenous Nasa people,
living on resualdos in Cauca and Huila departments in Colombia, and large
landowners wishing to grow more sugar cane for fuel (and further enrich-
ment), involves issues arising from adversaries wanting the same good,
although for different purposes. The contention could, theoretically at least,
be satisfied in multiple ways. The Nasa, who claim (with some justifica-
tion) to be the original inhabitants of the region, are under pressure from

the rising population and shortage of land, exacerbated by the failure of
the Colombian state authorities to hand over approximately a third of the
land in Cauca promised as part of a settlement concluded following a mas-
sacre in 1991 and a natural disaster in 1994. The large landowners wish to
extend their holdings of land to increase the monocultural production of
sugar cane for biofuels or, in a few cases, cocaine for the drug trade. This
is clearly a complicated and often violent clash between preserving a tra-
ditional way of life, on the one hand, and advancing twenty-first-century,
“free market” capitalism on the other, but some solutions seem theoretically
possible.
3.1. Incommensurable views about “land”

However, there are yet more intractable issues involved in this and simi-
lar situations which involve different and ostensibly opposed views of the
world, including – among other factors – the very nature and purpose of, for
example, “land”, as well as how it can properly be used, if it can be “used”
at all. How does “land” fit into a cosmology that in no way resembles the
worldview based on rational, individualistic, capitalistic exploitation for eco-
nomic gain? For a start, in the case of the Colombian Nasa (and many other
indigenous peoples), ownership of the land is vested in the community, not
in individuals. Hence the idea of an individual owning a piece of land – and
thus being able to sell it off – is difficult to conceive.
This wholly different views about the nature of land often underlies many
of the modern intractable conflicts that develop in countries where indige-
nous peoples confront modern transnational corporations – often mining
conglomerates – seeking to “develop” land for commercial purposes which
will harm or destroy the manner in which the land has previously been used.
This kind of intractability is well illustrated by the struggle going on since
2005 between the Embera indigenous people, who live in a remote region
on the borders of the Choco and Antioquia departamentos in Colombia, and
the Muriel Mining Corporation, partly owned by the mining giant Rio Tinto.
A proposed open-cast mine in the area would destroy much of the traditional
livelihood of local communities (which includes a substantial proportion of
Afro Colombians), as well as destroying the traditional culture of the Embera,
which is closely intertwined with beliefs about spirits that inhabit the forest,
as well as its flora and fauna. So far the conflict has been handled through

Innovation 255
arguments in various courts, judicial decisions and appeals (see ABColombia,

2010).
In this and in many other intractable conflicts, the original, core issues
arise because, at least on one side, land is not something one simply treats as
a separate commodity to be exploited or exchanged (and often exhausted)
in the service of some humans who temporarily inhabit its surface. For
many indigenous peoples, land is viewed as part of a complex web of rela-
tionships involving humans, who are themselves merely one form in a

process of continuous being, and who have to keep these other forms in
mind during their own time as humans. This dilemma is especially intense
when local cosmologies hold that the human soul never dies but trans-
migrates into other forms which remain, locally, as spirits incorporated in
natural phenomena – rivers, mountains, plants, animals or the earth itself.
In this way, many natural objects (things or places) become more than them-
selves and hence much more important to protect and preserve. In some
cases, land becomes sacred and its defence against harm becomes a duty.
In others, natural objects take on a spiritual significance that makes their
simple economic worth as goods something well outside the ken of local
indigenous communities, just as the apparently irrational resistance to any
form of “development” is beyond the understanding of Western-educated
outsiders.
If local people believe that the spirits of their ancestors inhabit local trees
or sacred groves nearby, the efforts of outside logging companies, given legal
rights to exploit “timber resources” to increase the supply of building mate-
rials by the national government in a distant capital, are highly likely to give
rise to an intractable conflict. This will usually be characterized by mutual
incomprehension on both sides, and an inability even to start searching for
a resolution, given the perception that no solutions exist given the utterly
different cosmologies of the two sides There seems little room for solutions
of division, expansion or substitution, even if such concepts have meaning
within one or other cosmology.
Some writers have tried to square this circle. Robert Akoto, for example,
argues that most indigenous cosmologies contain three fundamental beliefs
which govern community behaviour:
• a belief in the immortality of the soul, which does not die but transmi-
grates to other forms after the stage of human life ends; thus human life
is simply one stage of continuous existence and always a preparation for
what is to come;
• a fatalistic belief in the inability of humans to influence what will,
inevitably, happen, in its own time;
• a belief in the continuing influence – benign and malign – of ancestors
whose continued existence can and will affect the fortunes of the living;
ancestors and their physical abodes have to be considered sacred.

From this threefold basis, Akoto derives a list of typical cultural

manifestations that arise among many indigenous people, and attempts to
show which are likely to be malleable and those which might be completely
resistant to any change. Among the latter he lists:
• the intractability of ancestor worship with its efforts to achieve at least

peaceful coexistence between the (unseen) cosmic forces of the phys-
ical world of nature, which in turn can affect healing and spiritual

contentment;
• traditional cultural activities which have a heavy spiritual content –
festivals, funerals, harvest days or anniversaries, religious celebrations;
• issues relating to family and community ties, which can involve life and
life-cycle sustenance.
Some of the other manifestations, Akoto argues, are open to negotiation

and change, and these include issues relating to hunting and farming, time
concepts and regard for nature, artifacts, special sites and natural/historical
structures. He notes that in many indigenous communities, cultural her-
itage is not static but can be seen to have altered in the quite recent past,
partly as a result of contact with other cultures, natural disasters and the
spread of scientific information. Sacred objects can be moved to another site
and, with the appropriate accompanying rituals, can remain sacred. Tradi-
tional lifestyles (for example, hunting) can be changed in such a way that
the new is approved by ancestors. Akoto notes that, in Ghana, the diver-
sion of sacred rivers and streams and the building on sacred sites have
been allowed without friction “after libations and other rituals have been
performed” (Akoto p.4).
For me, Akoto’s work indicates that some apparently intractable conflicts
that emerge from different worldviews may not be as intractable as they first
seem, and that worldviews, being dynamic in themselves, may turn out to
be susceptible to changing issue salience in the short run as well as the long.
The link between indigenous cosmologies and wholly intractable conflicts
may thus not be as unbreakable as some have argued.
3.2. Radical disagreements

This kind of intractability has been attracting more and more scholarly
attention in recent years. Much has been written, at an intellectual and theo-
retical level, to test out the possibilities of ending such apparently insoluble
conflicts where one side or the other pursues goals that arise from wholly
different worldviews or from value systems that fail to allow for any differ-
ences or even doubts. Guy and Heidi Burgess’s Beyond Intractability Project
offers a number of approaches that try to deal with this intellectual prob-
lem, with particular reference to environmental conflicts (see, for example
Gray et al., 2003; Kaufman et al., 2013). Susan Allen Nan has used a similar

Innovation 257
approach to reframing ethnopolitical conflicts in the Caucasus (2011). Most

recently, Oliver Ramsbotham (2010; Ramsbotham et al., 2012) has consid-
ered the problem of what might be done about such apparently irresolvable
conflicts, characterizing the category as involving “radical disagreements”,
which he defines as centring on “fiercely contested political incompatibil-
ities”. The cases that Ramsbotham uses to exemplify such contestations
range from intra-family debates about the upbringing of children – which
echo Kevin Avruch’s scenario mentioned above – to the protracted con-

flict between Israelis and Palestinians over political control and institutions
in Israel/Palestine, the fierce struggle to overthrow the apartheid regime in
South Africa, and the long drawn-out civil war in Sri Lanka where the LTTE
fought to the death to try to establish a separate and independent Tamil
Elam while the Sinhalese dominated government fought equally brutally to
maintain the political unity of Sri Lanka.
Disappointed with the failure of conventional conflict resolution pro-
cesses – “dialogues for mutual understanding” (2010 p.2) – to find any
durable solution to these and many other protracted conflicts, Ramsbotham
suggests that a first step towards ending them could well be to take seriously,
rather than dismissing or avoiding, the terms of the “agonistic dialogue” that
characterizes the relationship between the enemies involved. It is this “lin-
guistic intractability” that lies at the heart of the irresolvability.3 Rather than
pursuing a conventional “peace dialogue”, which tries to avoid the ongo-
ing oppositional debate, Ramsbotham proposes an interesting and complex
process which he terms Strategic Engagement of Discourses (SED), whereby
the “enemies” – a term he favours over “adversaries” – separately indulge in
an effort to resolve differences between moderates and extremists within
their ranks, not with the aim of developing mutual understanding with
the other side but with the aim of enhancing their own prospects of “win-
ning” the struggle – of “maximizing their chances of success”. The upshot
is likely to be a clearer understanding of the issues at stake in the strug-
gle but a continuation of a profound goal incompatibility between the two
(now much more coherent) sides. However, as Ramsbotham argues, another
aspect of a successful SED process is likely to be that a majority of those
that he terms “extremist of ends” (those in Northern Ireland wholeheart-
edly supporting, for example, either a unified Ireland on the one hand or a
continuing, unchallenged future as part of Britain on the other) will have
converted those that are “extremists of means” in the direction of moder-
ation, non-violence, patience and long-term perspective.4 As he notes, in
Northern Ireland, neither the Sinn Fein leaders nor those of the Democratic
Unioist Party have given up their respective strategic goals for the future
of the Province, even following the 1998 Belfast Agreement for peace and
power-sharing.
However, I do not wish to focus on SED as an innovative and practical
conflict-resolution mechanism at this point but rather on Ramsbotham’s

central idea of “linguistic intractability”, and to ask in what sense conflicts

characterized by such agonistic dialogue or presented as “radical disagree-
ments” are fully and fundamentally intractable. Is the Israeli/Palestinian
conflict basically irresolvable? Clearly it is complex, difficult, frustrating,
characterized by rival narratives that appear to arise from wholly incom-
parable worldviews, rife with evidence of lies, bad faith, betrayal, broken
promises and profound misunderstandings, as well as being protracted and
likely to remain so. But is it (and others like it) completely impossible and

are the disagreements between Israeli Jews and Palestinian Arabs so radical
that, even in theory, there are no possible solutions?
My own feeling is that things may not be so bad, and I base this on some
of the implications of Ramsbotham’s writings about radical disagreements,
rather than the fact that other apparently radical disagreements from the
past have proved to be amenable to solutions – in the end. My point is
that when the author comes to talk about SED processes at the second level
(Inter-Party Strategic Engagement), the intra-party debate between moder-
ates and extremists within Israel and Palestine having produced a refined
understanding of positions, tactics and goals, this level can involve an inter-
action between both sides’ underlying “national project” which both are
seeking to promote. At other points, mention is made of a similar concept
of “overall strategic ends” which have to be kept in mind, so that evalua-
tions can be made about what might constitute a threat or provide a benefit
to these longer-term interests. To me this sounds very much like Fisher and
Ury’s idea about important interests that underlie surface bargaining posi-
tions, or Pruitt’s interests and values that are the reasons for the negotiating
positions being adopted, or Zartman’s framework “formula” which must be
negotiated before details can be discussed, or the ostensible issues that have
to be related to values and then needs in Burton’s deep-rooted conflicts.
For Israelis, surely the basic and maybe over-riding value – the “national
project” – that underlies all of the linguistic intractability, the superficial
manoeuvrings and the intransigence over details is the continued existence
and viability of a Jewish-dominated state. For Palestinians, the long-term,
strategic end of all of the “extremists of ends” is surely the creation of an
independent and viable Palestinian state. Maybe not.
But whatever these underlying “projects” and “ends” turn out to be, there
are a whole variety of ways in which these might be achieved, together
with a whole variety of other goods and values that could be retained,
put on hold, abandoned as unrealistic, postponed, sacrificed or changed.
My conclusion is that for many of the political cases of radical disagree-
ments, while the disagreements may be profound, the gaps between one
side’s position and the other’s position very large, the narratives unrecog-
nizable to the other side, and the search for a durable solution fraught with
dead ends and frustrations, they are not fully, fundamentally and finally
insoluble.

Innovation 259
3.3. Contradictory cosmologies

However, this may not be the case with other types of conflict which
Ramsbotham discusses in his innovative work, and there do seem to be
some conflicts which are so radically and logically opposed that they per-
mit no mutually satisfactory resolution, even at a theoretical level. These
conflicts seem literally impossible because, logically, they only permit two
possible outcomes, and if one is accepted or implemented the other must be
rejected and avoided. In plain language we are dealing here with either/or

situations, and these present the most profound dilemma for conflict reso-
lution. To return to Kevin Avruch’s scenario, one can bring up a child as a
Catholic or as a Protestant, but not both. One can be a supporter of the death
penalty or firmly against it, but not both – nor can one adopt some halfway
position or be a supporter on some days of the week but an opponent on the
others. In dichotomous situations, only one of two solutions seems possible,
each of which negates the other.
Extreme examples of apparently irresolvable conflicts often arise when
traditional communities, whose entire cosmology clashes with contempo-
rary sets of ideas and values, have faced very real conflicts over ways of
life or use of resources. In the nineteenth century, the hunting cultures of
the Plains Indians on “the sea of grass” in North America were destroyed
when confronted by others whose cosmology involved the exploitation of
those plains through a philosophy of what C.B. McPherson (1962) later
described as “possessive individualism”. Similar intractable conflicts arose
throughout that century and earlier when colonial powers came into con-
tact with traditional communities defending a wholly different conception
of how to live and what to live for. Many more recent examples of this par-
ticular form of intractability can be found throughout the last part of the
twentieth century, and on into the twenty-first. There seems to be a possi-
bility that there is an increasing incidence of conflicts involving profound
intractability caused by clashing values, even within the most “modern” of
modern societies. In many of these, communities with firmly held spiritual
values come into conflict with the demands of a more-or-less secular state.
Frequently, the results of this clash involve profound misunderstandings on
both sides, who see each other as an incomprehensible but dangerous source
of threat, plus displaying a total inability even to agree about the nature of
the issues in dispute, let alone how they might reach a solution – or even
what “a solution” might look like. Sometimes, as in the case of the Peo-
ples Temple in Jonestown, the Aun Shinrikyo movement in Japan, or the
MOVE dispute in Philadelphia, the conflict ends in tragedy. For example,
the dispute between the millenarian community of MOVE and officials of
the City of Philadelphia started with a local neighbourhood dispute over
clashing lifestyles. It escalated into an armed confrontation and ended with
the City police bombing and burning down the entire block containing the
MOVE compound, resulting in the death of many members of the MOVE

community (Assefa & Wahrhaftig, 1990; Wagner-Pacifici, 1994). The chief

lessons from the MOVE conflict were surely the difficulties caused when one
side assumes a superior legitimacy derived from legal authority, while the
other denies both the legitimacy itself and the basis of that legitimacy by
claiming equal status and rights. Things become especially difficult when
one party to such conflicts assumes that the problem is one of enforcing
accepted and generally recognized laws, while the other party sees itself
as obeying “higher” laws which take precedence over, and in many cases

negate, the demands and laws of the other side. One side defines the others
as criminals while the other refuses the first any right to make such judge-
ments. MOVE denied the authority of the City in much the same way as
the IRA denied the legitimacy of the British State to make rules for Northern
Ireland, or ETA denied the right of the government in Madrid to make poli-
cies, even including unilateral concessions, about the whole of the Basque
country.
Jane Docherty, in her groundbreaking study of the conflict between the
US Federal Government (in the form of the FBI and the Bureau of Alco-
hol, Tobacco and Firearms (ATF)) and the Branch Davidian community in
Waco, Texas, characterizes such conflicts as involving “unconventional reli-
gious groups”, especially new religious movements, and as being intractable
clashes of worldviews (2001; Seul, 1999). Her definition of “worldviews” and
the process of perceiving the world and themselves through lenses provided
by religious/secular beliefs – “worldviewing” in her terms – bears a strong
relationship to what we have previously discussed as “cosmologies” or others
have called “cognitive maps” (Axelrod, 1976) or “images” (Boulding, 1956).
The whole point about dealing with conflicts that arise between groups
and communities holding incommensurate beliefs about both the natural
world and the sacred order is that they are an extreme case of intractability
because those involved find it impossible to agree about the issues in con-
tention between them. Docherty points out that the world of the Branch
Davidian community and that of the secular authorities (the FBI and the
ATF) confronting them were so fundamentally different – and the goals and
aspirations that both sides were seeking were so mutually incomprehensi-
ble – that vast amounts of time were needed for any peaceful resolution
of the stand-off to be possible. To outsiders, the worldview and hence the
behaviour of the Branch Davidians seemed wholly irrational and easily dis-
missed as delusional. However, Docherty emphasizes that it is equally the
case that the federal authorities were themselves operating within another
framework of assumptions – secular, rationalist, centred on bargaining as
an acceptable process, focused on legal rules and norms, and assuming the
authority of the state – that could equally be seen as an alternative world-
view, although the dominant one within US society. The federal authority’s
assumption that the Branch Davidians lived in the United States and were
thus subject to the laws of that country was not shared by the community,

Innovation 261
whose members were always subject to another, higher law which was the
one to be followed should the two systems clash. In Docherty’s words,
There was no confusion about whether or not the Branch Davidians

granted the federal government the authority to regulate their lives; they
did not.
(2001 p.223)

This clash of assumptions lay at the heart of the tragedy.
Jayne Docherty’s work on the Branch Davidians conflict highlights one
of the core characteristics of many worldview conflicts or radical disagree-
ments; that they involve one or more parties whose goals, aspirations and
interests derive from profound religious convictions that are absolute and
unshakeable. The sub-title of Docherty’s book, “When the Parties bring their
Gods to the Negotiating Table”, highlights a major dilemma for anyone seek-
ing a resolution of this kind of intractable conflict. In many cases, the search
for a solution hits the brick wall of “It is God’s will” or “We cannot go against
God’s commands” or “Allah has forbidden such actions”. In such a situation,
conflict resolution finds itself dealing with revelation rather than rationality,
however flawed the latter might be, and it has to work within the framework
established by interpretations of this or that sacred text which parties to a
conflict deem to be the word of one or other god. In searching for principles
on which some form of resolution might be constructed, Docherty suggests
that one might be that appropriate solutions will
not require community members to abandon the sacred knowledge

around which their lives are organised . . . nor will they require the com-
munity to abandon or alter their identity nor give up their ontological or
epistemological commitments . . .
(ibid p. 284)
These are undoubtedly good principles, but one still has to deal with situ-
ations in which an unconventional religious community has broken some
secular law and is being pursued through the courts on the basis of laws that
it refuses to recognize. Once again, this clash between law enforcement and
conflict resolution is exemplified in the MOVE case, where agreements par-
tially concluded to resolve the conflict were undermined by the insistence
of some of those involved to carry on with the existing legal proceedings in
the local courts which MOVE refused to recognize as legitimate.
The difficulty of finding a solution to a conflict taking place between
parties with quite separate or more usually non-overlapping worldviews
seems formidable. The task is not helped by the fundamental contradiction
between those who hold to the necessity for a law-enforcement approach
as opposed to one focused on conflict resolution. However, some hope is

offered by those writers who quite properly point out that unconventional
religious communities strongly holding worldviews well outside the main-
stream are not all the same. Jean Rosenfeld, for example, has suggested that
millenarian communities can be classified as roughly falling into three types,
one of which is simply awaiting the final cosmic struggle between the forces
of light and darkness while they “watch and wait”, and a second which sim-
ply withdraws from society to form its own small enclave, modelled on an
interpretation of the millenarian kingdom to come. Only the third type,

which sees itself as the “Hand of God”, working to bring about social col-
lapse and renewal through violence, seems likely to present major problems
for itself and for mainstream society (Rosenfeld, 2000 p.349).
With both Rosenfeld’s (2000) and Carol Wessinger’s (2000) typologies, it
seems that conflicts involving at least two types of millennial movement or
community might not present examples of complete intractability. Difficul-
ties will undoubtedly arise when the revelations on which intra-community
behaviour are based cut across the norms and practices tolerated within the
surrounding society, so that community members “break the law”. How-
ever, as Docherty has pointed out, infringements often concern social norms
involving bringing up children, marriage arrangements, possession of vari-
ous types of firearms, relations with law-enforcement officials, taxes, service
to the state and so on. In many cases solutions can be, and have been, negoti-
ated so that some religious communities have been enabled to “live quiet in
the land”, to quote one of the historical aims of the Mennonite community.
There remains the question of the revolutionary communities whose rev-
elation and resultant worldview calls on the community to transform the
world in line with the wishes of a god, by persuasion and preaching if pos-
sible but if necessary by violence. This being the god’s will, we are back to
the dilemma of finding a peaceful and durable solution to conflicts involv-
ing at least one of the parties that has a divine mandate to achieve its goals
at whatever cost, perhaps with a reward in the afterlife. We seem to have
arrived back at impossible conflicts that, in some sense, have to do with
someone’s continued existence.
4. Existential conflicts: Crusades, jihads,

final solutions and genocides
While genuinely radical disagreements seem to be the extreme case of

“intractability”, another form of contention might offer a yet more extreme
version of the problem. These conflicts involve the continued existence of
one of the parties – often the weaker one – so that the struggle is often char-
acterized as an “existential” conflict, in which the loser ceases to exist in any
way, shape or form. The fate of the Carthaginians following their defeat by
Rome might well be one example, or of the Melians after their one-sided
confrontation with the Athenians. Classical times seem to have been full of

Innovation 263
these ultimately intractable conflicts, in which defeat meant the kind of fate
that overtook Troy and the Trojans.
On the other hand, the twentieth century has surely provided enough
appalling examples of one-sided struggles in which the aim of at least some
on the stronger side has been the complete and utter destruction of the
other community, society or nation. Nazi efforts to destroy the Jews and
gypsies of Europe is a prime example, and, even if contention about the
appropriate label continues to this day, the massacre of the Armenians

by the Ottomans in 1915 provides another extreme case of existential
intractability. Apart from these and other examples, the twentieth century
has even provided the term “genocide” to describe these one-sided, exis-
tential conflicts that seem to defy any form of resolution, save escape or
resistance. As the twenty-first century opens, the revival of the concept
of jihad – holy war against all unbelievers – among some in the Islamic
world, together with often facile references to “the Crusades”, has raised
at least the possibility that we might be in for a wave of wars of exter-
mination that could make the “ethnic cleansings” of the 1990s look tame
by comparison (see Krain, 1997 and the subsequent literature on genocide
prevention).
However, at the risk of appearing naive or Pollyanna-ish, I want to exam-
ine the nature and structure of some of these “ultimately intractable”
conflicts to see whether there are any which offer some hope of a resolution,
or at least some mitigation, and whether conflicts, often too easily labelled
“existential”, are, indeed, about the continued existence of one adversary or
the other and what this might imply.
My first point is that many conflicts that have been characterized by
large-scale killings, rapes, tortures and other “crimes against humanity” were
not initially caused by these atrocities, although this behaviour is the quite
understandable cause of the conflict continuing. The original massacres in
Rwanda were the cause of the re-invasion of the country by mainly Tutsi
forces that took their revenge on the Hutu perpetrators, many of whom fled
and in turn carried on the struggle and the killing from refugee camps in the
eastern Congo. Coping with the many, many intractable conflicts that have
witnessed massive killing and widespread destruction really involves deal-
ing with two sets of problems – the killings themselves as an issue but also
the underlying reasons for the killings starting in the first place. This may
seem to be a distinction without a difference, particularly to those who have
suffered or died, but the death and destruction caused initially by the pur-
suit of other goals can often become the reason for continuation, given that
successful retaliation takes top priority in the preference hierarchy of the
injured party. Analytically speaking, and at the risk of sounding totally cold-
blooded, the initial suffering caused in intense and violent conflict might
be seen as “collateral damage” from the pursuit of some other (presumably
highly important) goals.

This argument can be illustrated by considering the case of the Crusades

and the Crusaders in the medieval world, often portrayed as the paradigm
case of an absolute conflict between Christendom and Islam. No one can
deny the ruthlessness with which the religiously inspired Christian armies
of, for example, the First Crusade dealt with their Islamic adversaries. The
record of the slaughters carried out once towns under siege were taken,
culminating in the capture of Jerusalem, speaks for itself. However, my
point is that the original object of that Crusade was not to eliminate the

whole Islamic population of the region – to carry out an eleventh-century
genocide – but to recapture the holy places in Palestine from the rule of
unbelievers, and to restore them to the governance of Christian princes.
In reality, while this may have been the official goal of some of the leaders of
the First Crusade, the actual goals of many others – and of their followers –
involved the carving out of new fiefs for landless knights from a West where
such goods were in increasingly short supply. The First Crusade was not a war
of extermination but a conflict over territory and governance, intractable
and viciously cruel in itself but not existential, inevitable or irresolvable.
The fact that Muslims, Christians and Jews could live relatively peacefully
in the same society is shown by the history of al Andalus (Muslim Spain)
between the start of the eighth century and the middle of the eleventh –
the so-called “Golden Age” of the Emirate of Cordoba. The fact that Cru-
sades for territory and power could take place between co-religionists is
evidenced by the Fourth Crusade, which ended with the sacking of Christian
Constantinople by the Christian crusaders, encouraged by the Christian
Venetians seeking commercial dominance in the Eastern Mediterranean.
The crusades in Eastern Europe led by the Teutonic knights were hardly
motivated by the idea of exterminating believers in Islam, or even unbe-
lievers in Christianity. Ironically, the only Crusade that seems to have been
launched with the aim of destroying a whole community was one of the
very last, launched in the early thirteenth century and intended to wipe out
the Albigensian heretics of south western France. For this Christian sect the
struggle was indeed about survival, and the threat that they faced was not
just to their way of life but to their lives, plain and simple. This may be one
of the best – by which, paradoxically, I mean the worst – illustrations of an
existential conflict, in which one of the parties failed to survive.
In a similar way, the various jihads declared – often, apparently, by individ-
uals quite unqualified to issue such a call to arms within the Islamic world –
are usually portrayed as involving all-out wars against the unbelievers of
the West. However, on closer examination, many of them are calls for con-
flict with somewhat more limited aims. The issues are different from those
that would be involved in efforts to exterminate all who do not share the
true faith throughout the world – all 5.5 billion of them.5 Some jihads are
declared against unbelievers who are polluting the territory of Saudi Arabia,
which is regarded as sacred by true believers. Others involve retaliation for

Innovation 265
wrongs inflicted on true believers by agents of Western governments, par-

ticularly the United States and the former colonial powers. Still others have
the longer-term aim of restoring the Islamic rule of the Caliphate over the
lands traditionally forming part of that historical polity, while many others
are simply anti-Israeli.
What seems to emerge from these examples of conflicts called “existen-
tial” is that the existences being challenged can take on different forms and
degrees, so that the conflicts that arise from different goals can turn out to

be less absolutely about “existence” than they first appear.
I suggest that it is possible to start with the absolute version of an existen-
tial conflict, a category that does, indeed, involve the aim of the complete
physical destruction of a named and delimited adversary. This type of con-
flict involves absolute goals (genocide) and arises because the very existence
of the adversary, anywhere and in any form, is an unbearable pollution,
hence they must all be removed or destroyed at whatever cost.
However, it is also possible that other types of “existence” are involved in
certain situations, so that the goals involved can turn out to be less abso-
lute and not entirely incapable of some form of resolution that does not
involve the extermination of an adversary. For example, another kind of
conflict that is frequently termed “existential” arises from a profound sense
of outrage occasioned by the inappropriate existence of people in a particu-
lar geographical site, often one which – as Ron Hassner (2009) points out –
is regarded as sacred by another group. Are such conflicts genuinely about
one group’s “existence” in the sense of being, or rather about where they
exist. At the worst, there is a conflict because the very existence of an adver-
sary while they are occupying this territory is unbearable and they must be
removed – or exterminated.
This mind set can, of course, be used to remove a population from territory
that it is “inappropriately” or “illegitimately” occupying (thus ethnic cleans-
ing); or to return “settler” populations to their country of origin (irrespective
of whether they have actually been in, or ever even seen, that country); or
to exchange a population for another, more desirable group or community
(that is, population exchange); or to organize some similar cruelty. However,
it does not necessarily have to involve genocide.
Reviewing different types of “existential” conflict and the solutions that
are possible as alternatives to genocidal killing, the outlook still appears
pretty bleak. Genocide is hardly to be recommended, but “alternatives”, such
as religious conversion, “transfer of population”, abandonment of a way of
life, or learning a completely new way of making a living must seem only
marginally better. Moreover, given that most people’s identity is thoroughly
bound up with their beliefs, way of life, profession and sense of place, these
are not going to be easily abandoned and many people, perhaps a major-
ity, will fight to defend their continued “existence”. I have merely gone
through the exercise of laying out the various meanings that people seem to

attach to the idea of “existential conflict” in order to see if there are alterative
meanings to the absolute use of the term.
I would, however, argue that the whole issue of existential conflicts and
their intractability should immediately raise the question: Existence as what?
This should focus attention on the possibility of at least some alternatives, as
well as on the difficulties attendant on the kind of changes being demanded.
Are we talking about existence as a living being or existence as a Seventh Day
Adventist, or existence as a successful farmer producing coca, tobacco, palm

oil for fuel or food for local consumption?6 How about existence as an arms
supplier or existence as the legal occupants of a portion of an indigenous
burial ground? Nobody argues that altering one’s existence in any of these
forms is easy and some are impossible – but only some. As in many other
situations, there seem to be degrees of intractability and some forms allow
for solutions that may be hard and painful but are not wholly impossible.
Others, of course, do not.
5. Conclusion
Although much of what I have argued above undoubtedly seems naive and
overly optimistic to many, I would still claim that many intractable conflicts
can turn out, on closer examination, to be extremely difficult to resolve
rather than being wholly insoluble. Perhaps one should remain optimistic
and not become too entrapped in conventional thinking when confronted
with conflicts between historical enemies, such as Tajiks and Pathans, Israelis
and Palestinians, Nuer and Dinka, or Croats and Serbs. Contrast these with
equally hostile historical relations which once existed between French and
Germans, English and Welsh, Finns and Swedes, or Afrikaaners and Zulus,
and compare the latter with those currently existing at the start of the cur-
rent century. Surely these show that long-term relationships of conflict can
be changed. More difficult seem to be incommensurable conflicts between
pro-life and anti-abortion supporters, or between advocates of the death
penalty and abolitionists, or between supporters of multicultural tolerance
and racial purists. All such disputes seem only to allow an all-or-nothing
outcome in favour of one side or the other. Even in this type of conflict,
however, it might be possible to investigate the interests underlying publicly
espoused positions and to find some way in which the confrontation could
be reframed so as to allow progress towards some acceptable and durable
solution.
Finally, terminating intractable conflicts inevitably takes some time and
this is especially so when one considers the third, psychological dimension
of such a, normally protracted, confrontation. Even if it is possible to find
some solution which deals in a creative and mutually satisfactory way with
the highly salient issues that have been in contention between the rival
parties, it is almost inevitable that the final barrier to a new, more positive

Innovation 267
relationship between old enemies will be the shared memories of past hurts
and wrongs, the residual suspicions and mistrust that inevitably linger and
often remain widespread, even for generations; as well as the feelings of gen-
eral injustice and having been individually and profoundly wronged that
result from involvement in a prolonged conflict. Unless attitudes, emotions
and opinions change and enemies become reconciled to one another, it is
hard to argue that any conflict, tractable or intractable, has finally been
terminated.

12
Reconciliation
Ending the Hatred

Much recent scholarship in the conflict-resolution field has become focused
on the question of what happens, psychologically, when an intractable con-
flict nears its end and inter-party violence is at least abated. The focus in this
analysis is less on how it is possible to end overt conflict and its accompa-
nying violence through some negotiated or mediated agreement, and more
on how to ensure that an agreement is kept and previous enemies learn
to live together – or at least to tolerate one another. What makes agree-
ments durable, apart from their success in resolving core issues? What can
be done to change deep-seated attitudes of resentment, fear, mistrust, anger
and hostility to something less damaging? Can one ever change negative
and stereotyped images of “the Others” into something more positive that
enables at least a basic level of cooperation? Most importantly, how is it pos-
sible to achieve reconciliation between former enemies, and what is meant
by “reconciliation”?1
1. Short-term conciliation
Some might argue at this point that the whole issue of reconciliation is mis-
conceived or, at least, highly premature. The more important issue is how
enemies can, psychologically, get to the point of changing their minds, so
that they will minimally trust each other to search jointly for a solution.
After all, one important feature of intractable conflicts is that they usually
call forth the most malign of perceptual and emotional responses in both
leaders and followers on all sides. Until these perceptual barriers are over-
come, there will be little movement on anyone’s part towards an ending of
violence and coercion, let alone towards long-term arrangements to coexist
peacefully.
“Changing people’s minds” seems likely to be a most problematical and
long drawn-out process, especially when the challenge is to change the
minds of large numbers – the followers, mass public opinion, the “street” –
although it is hardly an easy task to change the minds of key leaders or
268

Reconciliation: Ending the Hatred 269
their advisers. However, the great thing to bear in mind when faced with
intractable belief systems or apparently closed minds (Rokeach, 1960) is that
people do learn and change, especially if placed in an appropriate setting
that encourages alteration. The difficulty, of course, is that conflicts are quite
the worst environment for bringing about significant changes in aspirations,
goals, interests and underlying beliefs. In such circumstances, the predomi-
nant idea is that it is the other side that has to learn, and that hurting them
is the best way of bringing about such learning. The lesson that there may,

indeed, be alternatives to coercion, violence and eventual victory is one that
is particularly difficult to absorb when one is oneself on the receiving end of
the Other’s effort to make one learn through coercion.
The whole issue of how to change the minds of key leaders and opinion-
makers has recently become part of a general interest in narrative theory
and ways in which adversaries’ internal descriptions of the conflict – the
issues, the stakeholders, the past, the options available – can be so different
as to present major obstacles to any productive change. Clashing narratives
or worldviews even within the same society produce dialogues of the deaf,
resulting often in mutual incomprehension and sometimes in tragedies,
such as resulted from the siege at Waco (Docherty, 2001) or, in an earlier
era, the MOVE confrontation in Philadelphia (Assefa & Wahrhaftig, 1990).
One hopeful strategy for dealing with adversaries who currently hold
wholly contradictory views about their situation and about their rela-
tionship involves the careful use of “reframing”, which Clem McCartney
defines as “a learning process that involves a subject critically reflecting on
and then adapting assumptions in the framework they currently espouse”
(McCartney, 2007 p.3). Introducing adversaries to such a process can involve
what might be termed both “strategic” reframing and “tactical” reframing.
One aspect of the process could consist of “subjects” re-examining their
beliefs about fault or blame – “Something bad has happened and it must be
someone’s fault!” – in the light of their own life experiences of complexity
or multiple causality.
In the context of reframing and narrative, writers on conflict resolution
and transformation from the 1970s onwards talked about redefining a con-
flict from a confrontation to be won to a problem to be solved. More recent
writings have fleshed out to a large degree both the central idea and the
practicalities of the process (Docherty, 2004; Miller, 2005). Theoretically, one
crucial change that reframing can bring about is altering the conception of
the nature of “self-interest”, perhaps by introducing conceptions of time or
by expanding the idea of who might become involved in “the self”.
Changing people’s minds is intimately linked to changing their behaviour,
although which change comes first is something of a matter for debate
among social psychologists. A common-sense approach would hold that
until a change has taken place in the cognitions, evaluations or goals of
people in conflict, behavioural change is highly unlikely. On the other hand,

some commitment theorists have argued that it is a change in behaviour that

leads, through a process of habituation, to new attitudes and beliefs (Kiesler,
1971). Whatever the direction of the causal arrow, the salient and publicly
obvious nature of the behavioural component of a protracted and violent
conflict usually makes changing adversaries’ behaviour the initial objective
of any conflict-resolution process. Conciliatory gestures are sought and, per-
haps, conveyed, communications channels opened, ceasefires and truces
suggested and negotiated, and “talks about talks” are initiated (Mitchell,

2000). This kind of change often takes centre stage in initial resolution
efforts.
A more difficult issue is the whole question of whether it is possible to
“change the minds”, and behaviour, of whole communities or societies, and
whether such change can be brought about from the top down or whether it
has to originate at the grassroots level. Interest in the “top-down” approach
to change during the 1990s and 2000s took the form of widespread efforts to
promote a “culture of peace” in many societies, particularly those that were
suffering from protracted strife and violence. The movement actually began
in the mid-1980s with the spread of ideas from the Seville Statement on Vio-
lence and the 1986 Yamoussoukro Conference, which called for a new, more
positive vision of peace throughout the world. It gathered strength through-
out the 1990s, being adopted by UNESCO and by the UN General Assembly
at the end of that decade. In 2001 the movement launched a Decade of Peace
under the auspices of UNESCO and by the decade’s midpoint over 700 NGOs
were reporting on peace-related activities to do with education, democratic
participation, sustainable development, tolerance, gender equality, human
rights, disarmament and the free flow of information.
Local change towards conflict mitigation, management and resolution was
also widespread during the last decade of the twentieth century and the first
of the twenty-first century. In Colombia, for example, many of the local
peace communities, attempting to become neutral in the struggle between
guerrillas, paramilitaries and state security forces, adopted practices resem-
bling Galtungian ideas of positive peace. While aiming to preserve security
from external violence, many communities – Sonson, Samaniego, Mogotes
and San Jose de Apartado – also aimed to create a peace culture within their
community, to abolish violence against women and children, and to limit
the use of alcohol (Rojas, 2007).
2. Long-term reconciliation
Many obstacles to changing peoples’ minds in the short term are also
relevant in the longer term, when the complex question of how to rec-
oncile enemies and adversaries – at least to the point where they can live
together without violence – becomes central to the durability of a post-
agreement period. Over the last 20 years the conflict-resolution field has

seen a great deal of attention devoted to the issue of “post-agreement”

peacebuilding, acknowledging that many “peace” agreements leave hostile
attitudes and emotions unchanged, quite apart from the inequalities and
perceived inequities that gave rise to the conflict situation in the first place.
Often the investigation focuses on the immediately practical problem of
creating at least a passive coexistence in the post-agreement period:
• demobilizing and disarming combatants and returning them to some

form of civilian life in the “new society”, said to be created by the ending
of violence;
• rebuilding and reconstructing those parts of society that have been
smashed flat during the struggle;
• rehabilitating the maimed, injured and traumatized;
• arranging the return of the displaced and the refugees from the places
where they have sought sanctuary.
At both a national and a local level, these immediate tasks often appear,
necessarily, to precede the task of establishing minimally positive relation-
ships between those who, shortly before, were trying to injure or kill one
another. Alone, this would be a formidable list of post-agreement tasks, and
the fact that many so-called “final” peace agreements quickly break down is
an indication of how difficult it is to achieve even these tasks successfully.2
Writing in 2010, Hewitt et al. note that, of the 39 conflicts that became active
in the period 2000–2010, some 31 were “re-ignitions” of conflicts that had
been dormant for over a year and only 8 were entirely “new”, involving new
adversaries with new issues (Hewitt et al., 2010).
The longer-term task of reconciling former enemies, especially those who
continue to live in close proximity within a single polity, presents even more
intractable problems if resentments are not to continue to smoulder, hatreds
to remain as barriers to cooperative interactions, contempt, mistrust and
dehumanization to continue to flourish, and a keen sense of mutual injustice
to prepare rival groups or communities to resume the struggle, even genera-
tions later. These problems become particularly relevant in those intractable
intra-state conflicts where atrocities and gross human rights violations have
occurred – in some cases almost routinely. Hence practical efforts to deal in
the long term with these “barriers” to complete conflict termination have
been much analysed of late.
At base this third aspect of conflict “termination” involves cognitions,
feelings and emotions, and in some sense is the reverse of psychologi-
cal states and processes that enable the dehumanization of the enemy
prior to his destruction. Ronald Fisher (2001) has written comprehensively
about this attitudinal aspect of reconciliation, emphasizing that it is nec-
essary for members of both adversaries to undergo changes that are firstly
cognitive – which make their view of the other’s motives, constraints and

actions more complex, leading to processes of reperception, reattribution

and re-evaluation of the Other’s past acts during the conflict. These cogni-
tive changes involving “reappraisal and re-humanization” can then open
the door to affective reconciliation and thus become “prerequisites to later
affective and behavioural changes” (Fisher, 2001 pp.33, 34).
We need to ask questions about the “rehumanization” of adversaries,
and how this might best be achieved, at least in the medium term and
among enough people (leaders and followers) to make a post-agreement

period shade into a genuinely peaceful, absence-of-conflict situation. The
key dilemma is how to achieve this objective of lasting reconciliation fol-
lowing a period of protracted and damaging violence, when adversaries
have all suffered from each others’ actions, and many have lost irreplaceable
things of value – property, peace of mind, a sense of security, and, above all,
loved ones and lives. What can be done in such an aftermath to restore and
recompense so that the conflict is unlikely to re-ignite?
Optimistically, it seems clear that reconciliation can happen even in the
worst cases. Against all odds, violence-free coexistence did become a pos-
sibility for the vast majority of war-weary Europeans following World War
II. Might this also be a possibility between Unionists and Nationalists in
Northern Ireland; Georgians and Ossetians in the former Soviet Union; or
Amharas, Tigreans and Oromos in Ethiopia.3
2.1. Reconciliation: Basic elements

Recent discussion about all of these issues has taken place around this
basic concept of long-term “reconciliation”. Initially it seems important,
therefore, to make a preliminary distinction between reconciliation between
individuals who are enemies and reconciliation between large communities
or whole nations.
The distinction between individual and collective reconciliation is an
important one. Even if it is, indeed, possible to talk about reconciled indi-
viduals having achieved mutual changes in their beliefs about, attitudes
towards and finally behaviours involving one another, transferring such
changes to the macrolevel of “a community” involves making judgements
about how many members of this community have to experience such
changes, to what degree and how comprehensively. It involves the ques-
tion of whether changes have simply occurred at an elite level or whether
such views and feelings are widely distributed throughout the whole com-
munity or country, and whether antagonistic feelings remain strongly held
among a minority which remains capable of wrecking the new “reconciled”
relationship. It may even be that well-meaning efforts to promote reconcilia-
tion at the individual level can backfire, resulting in increasing antagonisms
throughout society. This was a worry expressed by some observers in South
Africa even in the early days of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission
there.

Moreover, in both individual and collective cases, much recent discussion

about reconciliation has been overlain with ideas drawn, first, from psy-
chotherapies that strongly support the concept of “healing” and, second,
from theologies that focus positively upon processes such as “forgiveness”
and “restoring relationships”. The latter influence has been so marked as to
have given rise to a backlash, taking the form of a critically reactive literature,
recognizing, and in part justifying, the continuation of anger, “resentment”
and a search for retribution (see particularly Brudholm, 2008; Mac Ginty &

Williams, 2009, especially Chapter 4). This whole debate has linked up the
search for a general “theory of reconciliation” with ideas about the nature of
“coexistence”, “toleration” and “integration”.
2.2. Reconciliation as a process

Each of these terms turns out, unfortunately, to be either ambiguous or
contested, which makes answering a key question about how best to rec-
oncile erstwhile adversaries even more difficult to answer. For a start, there
are a variety of views about the nature of “reconciliation”, particularly as
to whether it can best be regarded as a process that goes through a number
of stages towards completion, or whether it should best be considered an
end state that can be achieved via any number of alternative paths. If it is
the former, then the next questions are: What are these stages and to what
extent are they absolutely necessary precursors to enabling former enemies
to live together without further violence? Or are they simply unconnected
moves that contribute, to a greater or lesser degree, to producing such an
outcome?
Ronald Fisher does see reconciliation as a staged process, involving four
“essential” elements, starting with acknowledgement of transgressions and
continuing with apologies for these, forgiveness for the transgressions and
assurances that such acts will not occur again in the future (2001 p.28). Both
Fisher and Joseph Montville argue that a joint, mutual reflection on “the
past” needs to take place to begin the reconciliation process, Montville via a
“walk through history” and Fisher by a series of workshops involving partici-
pants in a process of Interactive Conflict Resolution. By such means, motives
for past harmful actions can be explored, stereotypes modified, assumptions
about essential and unchangeable malevolence examined and the effects of
one’s own action on the other’s decisions considered.4
2.3. Reconciliation as an end state

On the other hand, if we treat reconciliation as an end state to be achieved
by virtually any appropriate means, then we need to be sure about what it
looks like and what – apart from an absence of any renewal of widespread
violence – are unambiguous signs that efforts to achieve it have suc-
ceeded. From one viewpoint, Herbert Kelman sees reconciliation simply
as “a change in each party’s identity at least to the extent of removing

negation of the other as a central component of each party’s own identity

and accommodating the identity of the other” (Kelman, 2004). However,
even this approach again raises the two questions about how many people
within, say, an ethnic community have to experience this change of self-
identity for collective as opposed to individual reconciliation to be achieved,
and what might be the behavioural manifestations of this change that
enable it to be recognized without carrying through widespread attitudinal
testing – increased levels of trusting behaviour, increased bilingualism, joint

cooperative enterprises?
In a more complex fashion, Louis Kriesberg argues that reconciliation
exists when adversaries have been able to “put aside” feelings of hate, fear
and loathing, perceptions of the other as dangerous and sub-human, as
well as desires for revenge and retribution. At the very least, argues a third
analyst, adversaries would have to “abandon pathological hatred for one
another” and be brought together “to work and live side by side, peacefully,
towards the achievement of a common goal” – namely, the achievement of
a sustainable peace (Nelson, 1969 p.16).
2.4. Degrees of reconciliation

Part of the problem with regarding reconciliation as an end state is that
many who write about the topic end up with their own version of a rec-
onciled relationship, which basically takes the form characterized by an
absence of violence and a minimum of antagonistic emotions. Clearly, it
is possible to have different degrees of reconciliation involving more or
less positive feelings and emotions, greater or lesser levels of cooperation,
or more or less widespread examples of helpful interactions. Annemarie
Devereux and Lisa Kent (2008 pp.180–181) suggest a number of indicators
that are helpful in evaluating the impact of positive processes on levels
of reconciliation, starting with short-term factors, such as the absence of
retaliatory actions against previous enemies (assaults, confiscations, dis-
missals), successful reintegration of perpetrators into their communities,
and effective rehabilitation of victims and survivors of human rights vio-
lations. Longer-term indicators would involve major institutional changes,
such as the firm establishment of open electoral systems, impartial judi-
cial procedures, trusted security services and widespread conflict-resolution
procedures.
More optimistically, achieving a situation of a fully integrated, homoge-
nous community seems to be a goal for the very long term, possibly
involving decades or even centuries of positive interaction, so the most that
might be achievable in the medium term between erstwhile enemies – espe-
cially those with a long history of enmity – might be some form of wary
integration. Helpful in this regard is Karl Deutsch’s old idea of a “security
community” (Deutschet al., 1957), within which

dependable expectations of peace and peaceful change prevail, as attested

by the absence of any substantial, specific preparations for any large scale
warfare within it . . .
(Deutsch, 1968 p.193)
In the 1950s and 1960s, Deutsch and several other scholars (for example,
Haas, 1957; Etzioni, 1965; Lindberg, 1965) spent much effort analysing and
disagreeing about the nature of, and conditions for, the formation of such

entities. However, most seemed to be in agreement that, apart from a grow-
ing sense of identity and common interests among the people involved, the
central feature of such communities (the Nordic countries, for example) was
a situation “where the policy makers . . . and their societies in general cease
to contemplate the possibility of mutual warfare and . . . where the two or
more states cease to allocate resources for building military resources aimed
at each other” (Holsti, 1967 p.479). Writing 60 years after this group of theo-
rists, the historian James Sheehan talks about the transformation of modern
Europe from an arena of inter-state as well as internal violence into what he
calls a single “civilian state”, which has indeed entered a post-heroic age and
created ways of handling conflicts that make the threat of an aggressive war
virtually unthinkable (2008 pp.223–224).
With these differences in mind, Devereux and Kent, while discussing the
effectiveness of many contemporary “reconciliation” processes, warn that
In the field of reconciliation, one could take a short term perspective and
look at whether a commission succeeded in averting immediately retal-
iatory measures against former opposed camps. One could seek to carry
out research on attitudinal changes amongst participants in the process
One could also look at the medium impact in terms of changes instituted
within particular communities. For example in considering “reception”,
the extent of reintegration of perpetrators into communities and the
extent of rehabilitation of victims of human rights abuses . . .
(2008 p.180)
A strategy of adopting a cautiously multidimensional approach to the issue

of the nature of “reconciliation” therefore seems sensible. It would also make
it possible to ask questions systematically about the factors that are likely to
lead to different degrees of reconciliation between communities that have
fought each other over long periods of time, or through several bouts of
protracted violence. Clearly, in most cases of protracted and intractable con-
flict, the most that might be hoped for would be the achievement, at least
initially, of some level of “coexistence”, whereby violence stops, arms lev-
els diminish, physical reconstruction of social and economic infrastructure
takes place, and some cooperation occurs – although the extent to which

this minimal level of reconciliation is sustainable in the long run must be

open to some doubt.
3. Disarmament, demobilization and reconstruction
The most immediate task following the ending of major social violence
is to try to return to some kind of “normality”, and this involves strate-
gies to demilitarize the society, and to restore the physical and economic

infrastructure to something like working order. The first set of tasks custom-
arily involves disarming and demobilizing former combatants and, in many
cases, this has meant the return of large numbers of combatants to some
kind of civilian life. The second usually includes rebuilding factories, farms,
roads, bridges, housing, schools and hospitals; resettling disrupted popula-
tions, making entire regions safe by demining them; and putting people
back to work – what people at the end of World War II called “post-war
reconstruction”.5
Similar tasks are involved in ending the intra-state conflicts that typify
the last decades of the twentieth century and the first of the twenty-first
century, encapsulated by the phrase “DDRR” – Disarmament, Demobiliza-
tion, Re-insertion and Reconstruction. The main difference between the end
of World War II and the end of violence in places such as Sierra Leone,
Guatemala, Georgia and countless other countries is that, with rare excep-
tions, a compromise agreement has been concluded and the combatant
adversaries have to learn to live with one another as some kind of neighbours
within the same polity and society that they started from, and which some
of them were trying, violently, to leave.
There are some examples that demonstrate that it is possible even for the
complete victors in an intra-state war to combine reconciliation with recon-
struction once the violence has abated. An interesting early example of this
can be seen in Nigeria at the end of one of the first of Africa’s post-colonial
wars of national unity. The efforts of the Nigerian Federal Military Govern-
ment (FMG) at the end of that civil war with the breakaway Biafran regime
were focused on restoring cooperative relations with their erstwhile adver-
saries, at the same time as the victorious leaders went about reconstructing
the country. FMG policy was based on what became known as the 3Rs of
“rehabilitation, reconstruction and reconciliation” – and on the subsequent
National Development Plan – announced (apparently almost “off the cuff”)
by the then head of the FMG, General Yakubu Gowon, in the immediate
aftermath of the Biafran surrender. Gowon advanced the strategy on the
grounds that the three-year war had been a “disagreement between broth-
ers” (Ojeleye, 2010 p.1). Hence the task was now to create an “atmosphere
conducive” to resettling the displaced, reuniting families, rebuilding phys-
ical facilities, and placing demobilized armed forces personnel in gainful
employment in civilian life (ibid p.76). Specifically, this policy of “No victor,

no vanquished” meant that even early on the Government presented safe-

conduct certificates to officers from the rebel Biafran army and announced
that all “secessionists” who were members of the Eastern Nigerian Public
Service should return to their state governments to be re-employed. Arrange-
ments that were made for the reinstatement of former members of the
Federal Civil Service included salary increases and back payments.
The success of the Nigerian post-war efforts to reintegrate Biafrans into
the mainstream of Nigerian political, social and economic life has been the

subject of much debate over the last 40 years. At the time, the efforts were
seen as an unprecedented example of a creative reconciliation policy and
many analysts have pointed out that, in contrast with many other cases
of a cessation of hostilities, the Nigerian example has shown no signs of a
relapse – there has been no renewal of the Nigerian–Biafran struggle. On the
other hand, many tensions still exist and while members of the Igbo elite
may have found a place back in the mainstream of Nigerian life, there is
some evidence that they encounter a “glass ceiling” to their advancement
into the upper reaches of the Federal Government.
The Nigerian example reinforces the argument that there is more to
“reconciliation” than simply collecting arms, rebuilding infrastructure and
finding jobs for those previously involved in combat or in supporting roles
for combatants. One aspect of this involves the apparently universal need for
a truthful record of the past, and especially a revelation of crimes or human
rights violations perpetrated during the violence and suffering endured by
victims during the period of combat.
4. The role of truth in reconciliation
The importance of “setting the record straight” as part of a post-war

peacebuilding process has become more and more recognized over recent
decades with the emergence of many processes devoted to “truth – and
reconciliation”.6 These range from historical efforts to obtain a complete and
accurate record of past (mainly governmental) atrocities in Argentina, Chile,
El Salvador and Guatemala, through the justly famous South African Truth
and Reconciliation Commission (TRC), to many lesser known examples,
ranging from Timor Leste’s Reception, Truth and Reconciliation Commis-
sion, which investigated human rights violations there between 1975 and
1999, to the abortive efforts of the Turkish-Armenian Reconciliation Com-
mission, meeting between 2001 and 2004 (Mooradian, 2004) and intended
to agree about the nature of the events in the Ottoman Empire in 1915,
when large numbers of Armenians living there were massacred by Ottoman
forces.
The fact that some of these initiatives do explicitly link the concepts of
truth-telling on the one hand and reconciliation on the other shows clearly
that there is a contemporary assumption that achieving reconciliation

between erstwhile adversaries depends on revealing “the truth” about the

preceding conflict in all its aspects.
4.1. Truth as a road to reconciliation

The arguments in support of this assumption are worth examining carefully
because the literature on truth commissions and their effects is varied and
contains some material which argues that revelations about what happened,
and why, during past violence can make reconciliation between past ene-

mies more rather than less difficult. One positive argument is that for many
victims of abuse, violence and torture, having their experience revealed,
acknowledged and recorded as “truth” produces at least some sense of per-
sonal healing which might enable them, eventually, to tolerate and work
with those indirectly, or sometimes directly, responsible for the injury and
suffering. Another argument is that the survivors of a community that has
suffered violence and extreme human rights violations have to know, finally
and irrevocably, what happened to loved ones who have “been disappeared”
by the other side during the struggle and whose fate remains a disturbing
mystery. Knowing the truth about the fate of fathers, daughters, sons, wives,
husbands, friends or colleagues can, it has been strongly argued, bring at
least a sense of closure and perhaps some comfort to those who had no con-
temporary knowledge of what actually happened during the past struggle.
Hence the process of making an unassailable record of who was injured or
killed, by whom and in what circumstances becomes a necessary part of a
long-term reconciliation process.
In contrast, doubts about the effectiveness of truth-telling in contribut-
ing to reconciliation inevitably arise when the truth itself approaches the
unbearable. Are those who are related to victims – are any observers learning
about events – likely to respond to the truth about those flung out of heli-
copters during Argentina’s “dirty war” by feeling like reconciling? Has the
comprehensive and Catholic Church organized report on the atrocities per-
petrated by the Guatemalan army on the remote, indigenous communities
of the country’s north east made reconciliation any easier, especially when
former military officers continue to justify, and even deny details of, that
very strategy of scorched earth and calculated massacre?
One of the problems with “even-handed” efforts to reveal the truth about
atrocities committed, by both sides, during a violent phase of any intractable
conflict is that those controlling or making up the state security forces
usually have greater capacity and opportunity to commit human rights vio-
lations and crimes against humanity. Thus they have potentially more to
lose if the truth about the past subsequently comes to light. This asymmetric
capacity for abuse usually means that, in any situation involving a com-
promise settlement, a transitional regime and an agreement to “get at” the
truth, one side often has more to hide than the other. In such circumstances,
the process of making a truthful record can become a not too subtle way of

condemning a past regime without any acknowledgement of the capacity

of the other side to commit similar, if perhaps less extensive or pervasive,
harms. A typical post-agreement situation often raises the whole issue of
evenhandedness and who gets to establish, and appoint investigators to, a
truth commission. To a large degree, this will depend on whether the settle-
ment is one between clear winners and losers, or between adversaries who
have reached some kind of stand-off, resulting in a negotiated compromise.7

4.2. The issue of amnesty
In any post-agreement circumstances, a key question becomes: What can be
offered to the suspected perpetrators of vile acts that will make them willing
to talk truthfully about what happened? In many cases, best exemplified
by the South African TRC, the answer is that, in return for the truth (and
proper remorse), a commitment not to punish perpetrators for past misdeeds
can be offered. Amnesties can prove tricky, however. In Argentina, shortly
before elections, the disgraced military government signed a “self-amnesty”
law granting a blanket immunity for all subversive and countersubversive
acts and crimes between 25 May 1973 and 17 June 1982. In Chile, eight
years after seizing power in 1973, the military junta under General Augusto
Pinochet passed a law blocking prosecution for any crimes committed by
the government between 1973 and 1978. As continuing head of the military,
Pinochet also threatened that “if any of his men were touched, the rule of
law would end . . . !”
The whole issue of providing an amnesty for perpetrators of horrors
and for human rights violators is fraught with controversy. Should a post-
agreement society tolerate a blanket amnesty or only amnesties granted
on an individual, case-by-case basis? If the amnesty is to be conditional,
what should the conditions be? Again, in the South African case, the newly
elected legislature that set up the TRC determined that amnesty would
only be granted for actions that were “political” rather than simply crim-
inal, and that those seeking amnesty should only be granted it if they
were deemed to have publicly revealed the entire truth about their part
in past events.8 This South African process has thus been characterized as
“exchanging justice for truth”, and in some cases heavily criticized for so
doing (see, for example, Brudholm, 2008 and the essay by Gutmann &
Thompson in Rotberg & Thompson, 2000). However, Charles Villa-Vicencio,
the National Research Director of the TRC, has argued that the TRC’s con-
ditional amnesty policy provided “just enough” justice at least in the sense
of providing information so that “no South African can ever deny knowl-
edge of past atrocities or deny that they happened” (WACC 2002). Some
people involved in the South African process have made the point that
conditional amnesty policy does involve a type of punishment: “the public
censure of those responsible for gross violations happened only through this
amnesty process. The censure of one’s fellow citizens . . . and of generations

to come is a form of justice that . . . is as severe as languishing in prison”

(Ntseba, 2000 p.164). This is not, however, the position adopted among
others by the family of Steve Biko or by many in post-agreement South
Africa.
Whatever the truth of such a claim, a pragmatic consensus does seem to
be emerging about the impact of TRCs, namely that some truth commissions
(properly set up and conducted) can help to avoid the perpetuation of the
conflict, and the survival of widespread, negative attitudes, at least in an

extreme form. Supporters of the truth and reconciliation approach pose the
question: What would South Africa look like without the TRC? This is a
question that could be asked about East Timor, Sierra Leone, Liberia and
other countries where even a flawed truth and reconciliation process has
been applied and substituted for processes that could have ranged from war
crimes trials to simply doing nothing – forgiving and forgetting.
To a large degree the impact of a truth commission on reconciliation
depends upon the kind of process which is allowed to take place. Analysts
discussing this question have pointed to a number of factors that can con-
tribute to the relative success of a process that seeks to link truth with a
general sense of reconciliation – local planning and control of the process
(no outsiders); openness and transparency; ability to grant amnesty but on
conditions; a mandate to investigate all alleged human rights violations
committed by whomever; and the right to pass over intransigent cases to
a parallel judicial process. These do seem likely to be the minimum con-
ditions necessary for a truth and reconciliation process that makes at least
some contribution to long-term reconciliation.
5. Acknowledgement, remorse and apology
Apart from some process which “sets the record straight”, it seems (initially)
easy to pick out two wholly necessary elements in the process of changing a
relationship from one of enmity to something that at least involves tolera-
tion and, perhaps, the beginnings of cooperation. The first of these involves
some form of acknowledgement by one or other party to the conflict of some
responsibility for what has occurred, and for concomitant damage and loss
that has been suffered by all concerned – including the other side. Theoreti-
cally, and bearing in mind what we know about multiple causality, this may
not seem much to acknowledge, nor something that would be very difficult
to accomplish. However, part of the dynamics of most intractable conflicts
involves constant efforts by the adversaries to pin the whole blame for the
start of the conflict and its escalation into coercion and violence onto the
other. The rhetoric of fault and who is responsible for the situation focuses
entirely on the other, and efforts are constantly made to argue that “We had
no choice” or that “We were simply reacting to the circumstances created by
the other.”

The second and probably more significant of these two elements – at least
in a “normal” peacemaking sequence – involves making an apology for past
wrongs, although practically speaking there are many variants of such con-
fessions of fault, and attendant requests for some degree of forgiveness and
future cooperation. One can admit to past “mistakes”, offer explanations for
having inflicted past harms, refer to past circumstances that forced one into
a position where harmful acts seemed inescapable, express contrition about
having had to carry out the harmful actions, or offer assurances that some-

thing similar will never happen again. All such declarations seem less likely
to elicit a positive response than a sincere expression of regret and remorse
for harmful actions from a past which cannot be changed, offered voluntar-
ily and as an admission that the other’s version of events, hurt and loss is
somewhat accurate.
However, even at the individual level, it is often the case that the distinc-
tion that Ronald Fisher emphasizes between acknowledgement and apology
is an important one, given that adversaries frequently find it impossible to
apologize directly to an enemy – to admit mea culpa – for a conflictful past
in which both sides have inflicted harm usually, as they see it, as a justifiable
reaction to the harmful acts of the other. Fisher’s point is that, in intense,
intractable and protracted conflict, the most that can be expected from any
party to such conflict – at least as an initial move towards reconciliation –
is an acknowledgement of some responsibility for the destruction wrought
and the harm done. As many have pointed out, one of the first signs that
those involved have a desire to terminate a conflict and perhaps to move
towards a negotiated solution and a different relationship often involves a
change in the rhetoric which admits that all is not the fault of the other,
and that some responsibility for past events is shared. The road to apology
often lies in statements to the effect that “It is partly my fault” – that is, an
acknowledgement of some responsibility.
While acknowledgement of responsibility for the past – inevitably includ-
ing past wrongs – may be a first step towards talks, some form of agreement
and the final ending of violence, initial steps towards genuine, long-term rec-
onciliation between adversaries must involve a sincere and credible apology
for perpetrating past wrongs. The question is: What constitutes a “sincere”
or genuine apology, and what qualities help to ensure its credibility?
Nicholas Tavuchis, in his pioneering analysis of the nature of apology,
argues that a genuine apology from perpetrators abandons all attempts at
justification for past actions and, avoiding explanations that refer to past
incapacity, ignorance or reactions to coercion, simply admits that they were
wrong. If, according to Tavuchis, not offering any excuses or explanations is
an essential characteristic of a genuinely sincere apology, and is thus likely to
enhance its credibility in the eyes of the recipient of the apology, what other
characteristics are likely to reinforce this impact? As we saw in the case of the
South African TRC, one of the essential requirements for perpetrators to be

granted amnesty for admitted offences and wrongdoing was a clear sense of
remorse for these past actions. While the historical application of this prin-
ciple to individual perpetrators often seemed to lack some rigour, it seemed
clear that real and demonstrated sorrow for past acts played an important
part in observers’ feelings that apologies and statements of responsibility
were genuine and represented a real change of heart on the part of those
facing charges before the Commission.
Tavuchis poses the query: “is authentic apologetic discourse restricted to

only one mode of speech whose moving force and vital center is sorrow?”
(1991 p.104). In many cases the answer seems to be “Yes”, although there is
some debate among those who write about the theory of apology regarding
the central importance of regret and remorse on the part of perpetrators (see,
for example, Wilson, 1988; Pettigrove, 2004). The central requirements set
out in the case of an “authentic” apology, or even the central place of sorrow
and remorse in determining how sincere an apology might be, raise some
immediate problems when we move from initiatives involving individuals
apologizing for harm inflicted on other individuals, to apologies involving
collectives, such as corporations, ethnic communities or nations – that is, in
cases which Tavuchis refers to as “the Many apologizing to the Many” (ibid
p.98).
The first problem about collective apologies made on behalf of some col-
lective entity is the issue of who can believably make such an apology as a
“voice” that truly represents the entity in question and who will be perceived
as someone who legitimately expresses widespread regret, remorse plus a
wish to make up for damage inflicted on the other. There are at least two
key aspects to this problem. The first involves the question of the existence
of a consensus supporting the need to apologize, and whether or not there
remains a substantial minority that either sees no need for any apology or
feels that, in protracted conflicts, inflicted harm is a two-way street – hence,
harm suffered “all round” offsets the necessity for any one-sided expression
of regret.
Consider the fraught issue of the dropping of the two atomic bombs on
Japan which finally brought World War II to an end. Should the United
States apologize to Japan for the approximately 150,000 civilians killed by
these two attacks on the Japanese mainland. These actions were the cul-
mination of an appalling and brutal struggle, the continuation of which
would have resulted in far more casualties and which started when the
Japanese military seized parts of China in the early 1930s, resulting in
literally hundreds of thousands of deaths over that decade? Even today, opin-
ion in the United States remains thoroughly divided on this issue, so who
would such an hypothetical apology actually represent? 50% of the current
US population? 30%? 75%?
The second aspect arises from the nature of collectivities and the hypothe-
sized requirement for credibility of regret and remorse. At least at the level of

an individual apology, an “authentic”, “genuine” or “sincere” apology must

be one in which the apologizer actually feels sorrow and remorse. However,
it seems that corporations, communities and nations are not usually seen as
entities that are actually capable of feeling remorse or sorrow, although indi-
vidual members of that collectivity, including leaders and spokespersons,
may do so, or not, as the case may be. Does this mean that this particular
criterion has to be abandoned in the case of collective apologies? Several
writers, Travuchis among them, seem to think so and have argued that the

main function of collective apologies is less to do with conveying remorse
and more to do with making a record of the wrong committed. This argu-
ment does seem to return us to the leading importance of establishing a
truthful, accurate record as a prerequisite for eventual reconciliation, which
we discussed in our previous section.
A third problem – and this is one which is clearly also shared by individ-
ual apologizers – involves the fact that collectivities and their representatives
face the dilemma that an apology offered on behalf of the nation, com-
munity or corporation becomes an admission of responsibility and hence
of liability, it thus becomes a major deterrent to any one person taking
on the responsibility of speaking apologetically for their collectivity, save
in the most general and ambiguous terms, which inevitably diminish the
credibility and hence the impact of the statement as far as the victim is
concerned.
If this is the case, then are there any other factors that can make up for this
lack and increase the credibility and hence the impact of apologies from one
collectivity to the other, given that it seems unlikely that collective sorrow
can play much of a part in increasing credibility? Travuchis argues that col-
lective apologies need to be formal and official, in the sense that they need
to be made by individuals in senior positions acting in their official capacity
and not as private individuals. They also need to be publicly made and “on
the record” in the sense of being part of some official document of record, so
that there is no possibility of future retraction or denial. It also helps if the
pressure for the apology arises from sources within the party that has com-
mitted the transgression, and that a sense of this being “the right thing to
do” according to their own standards of honour and morality plays a major
role in bringing about the formal act.
Nick Smith refers to this kind of apology as a “value declaring apology”.
This can separate an apologizer’s direct personal involvement in, and blame
for, a wrong (possibly committed far in the past, such as slavery) from an
admission that the collectivity failed to keep to its own values in the past,
plus a commitment that it will do so in the future. As Smith characterizes
this type of apology, he asserts that “this should not have happened, this
should never happen again” (2008 p.148). He argues that a representative
offering some form of value-declaring apology may be able to ease some of
the continuing hurt by providing a continuing reminder of responsibility

and of a continuing duty to care for the injured victims and devastated com-
munities that remain, as well as articulating values and recognizing that they
have been violated.
An illustration of these principles arises from the action of the US Govern-
ment in its apology to the members of the Japanese-American community
who had been interned during the domestic panic of World War II. The
official legislation making the apology, acknowledging the “grave injus-
tice” committed to citizens and resident aliens, and arranging for symbolic

financial compensation was passed by both Houses of Congress and signed
into law by President Ronald Reagan in August 1988. Commenting on
the bill, Reagan significantly noted that no payment could make up for
the years and property that the victims had lost through their detention,
but that “What was most important in the bill has less to do with prop-
erty than with honor. For here we admit wrong” (Travuchis p.107). The
comment was apposite for a number of reasons, not least because it empha-
sized the symbolic aspects of the action and recognized that the $20,000
compensation went very little way towards being equivalent compensation
for losses suffered by the Japanese-Americans during their three-and-a-half
years in captivity. The example also, then, brings us to the issue of repara-
tions, restoration and compensation, and their role in the whole process of
reconciliation.
6. Restoration, restitution and reparation
One final way of altering relationships in a more positive direction is

to return what was taken or to restore whatever was destroyed during
the violence – or, at least, to repair what was damaged. Hence, restora-
tion and reparation often become key elements in rebuilding relationships
between former adversaries and ultimately in ending feelings of unforgiv-
ing hostility on all sides. As was implied above, one of the most positive
aspects of the situation in Nigeria, post-Biafra, was the willingness of the
victorious Federal Government to restore many Biafrans to their previous
places in the government or the military, and to return their abandoned
property in other regions of the country. In contrast, several writers have
criticized the South African process for having fallen short on this essen-
tial part of reconciliation – the state’s provision of adequate reparations
for the over 18,000 victims who came forward to tell their stories to the
TRC. Among such critics, Brendan Hamber has written to emphasize the
importance of reparations as a form of compensation for past suffering
(1999), and to argue that government neglect of the TRC’s recommen-
dations of this issue negated an implicit truth and reconciliation deal
whereby victims and survivors gave up their right to prosecute perpetrators
in exchange for a chance to tell their stories publicly, plus the promise of
reparation (2000).

6.1. Repairing the irreparable

Unfortunately, in protracted, intractable and violent conflicts, restoring
things to what they were before is frequently difficult, if not impossible.
At first sight, restoring things taken from their original owners – providing
that the “things” are in something like their original condition – appears
fairly straightforward, but even this action becomes problematical on closer
examination. If the original plunderers are still in possession of the prop-
erty in question, then it should be a straightforward matter to restore the

property to the original owners. If land is illegally seized by force during a
protracted conflict, then future coexistence clearly indicates that the land
should be returned by those responsible for the seizure. But do the same
principles apply to land legitimately nationalized and redistributed to oth-
ers by a previous government? Moreover, how “original” were the original
owners and how did they acquire the land in the first place – purchase,
conquest, inheritance, legally registering first ownership, as gifts from rul-
ing royalty? Large swathes of land in rural Colombia have, over the years,
been cleared for cultivation by campesinos who have then seen that land
taken over by others who have the ability and the legal resources to regis-
ter a formal title. In eastern Europe, the post-World War II socialist regimes
nationalized much property without compensation to the elites who then
owned the bulk of national resources but whose descendants later claimed
restitution of nationalized property. What should be restored to whom in
such cases?
At another level entirely, as Donald Shriver (1998) and many others have
pointed out, death is final and lives lost in combat, through criminal activ-
ities, during a massacre or as a result of a genocide, cannot be “restored”,
nor can the feelings of those left behind to mourn be easily repaired. Repara-
tion from perpetrators to victims at an individual level is hard enough, and
Shriver and others have emphasized that repentance and genuine remorse
on the part of individual perpetrators can only be one part of a complex
inter-personal process which must involve, at the least, someone who has
inflicted harm on another actually doing something in order to “make up”
for the damage. But can a torturer, for example, restore a victim’s shattered
health – even the latter’s physical let alone mental health – in the after-
math of a protracted incumbent–insurgent struggle during which they have
tortured, as they see it, in defence of those incumbents?
At the collective level, things can be even more complicated, and
restitution and reparation can easily be seen by those required to provide
them as not very well disguised forms of vengeance. The “reparations”
imposed on Germany at the end of World War I as a symbol of German
responsibility for that war,9 plus the fact that the fighting in the west
wrecked much of French and Belgian industrial capacity, hardly contributed
to reconciliation between the two leading nations in the inter-war years.

The example suggests that one characteristic of effective reparations – in the

sense that they have the desired effect of pacifying the wronged and estab-
lishing a more positive relationship – is that some transfer is made as at least
a semi-voluntary gesture, and not one extracted under threat.
In many ways, such criteria help to explain why monetary compensation
for loss is, in many cases, regarded as insultingly insufficient,10 although
one should never ignore the symbolic significance of having an injury or a
loss publicly acknowledged by a compensatory award of cash. The loss of

money – even a great deal of money – can hardly be seen as the equivalent
of a loss of life, limb, freedom, time, status or reputation.
The whole issue of reparation via compensation for loss is extremely sen-
sitive and dependent on both time and culture, with few if any universal
guidelines. Efforts by the destroyer to rebuild what has been destroyed often
seem effective, as when previous enemies send across construction workers
to effect repairs on what they had previously damaged; or where bridges
are literally rebuilt with resources, sometimes including labour, supplied by
those who smashed the bridges in the first place.
But what can be really effective in situations where what has been
destroyed cannot be repaired or rebuilt, and especially in cases where the
extent of the damage or the degree of harm inflicted is so widespread and
involves so many people that repair, or even compensation, at this social
level presents a gargantuan task to the destroyer? As far as the individual
case is concerned, the extreme example involves individual killing and death
(although profound physical injury and systematic torture come pretty
close). At this individual level, the question has to be faced as to whether
there are actions the results of which are fundamentally not repairable.
Hence, they are, in an absolute sense, unexpiatable – even if they might
be forgivable. What can even a genuinely remorseful torturer offer a former
victim that will, in some sense, “make up” for what the latter has suffered?11
One answer (leaving aside the question of who the “you” might be) is that if
you can’t repair, you can compensate. But what if the offence is killing and
there is nobody around to be directly compensated? What forms of compen-
sation are regarded as sufficiently “equivalent” to lead on to inter-individual
reconciliation, or even just to coexistence?
At the social level, the issue of reparation leading to coexistence becomes
yet more complicated and raises equally tough questions about equivalence.
Something like 900,000 Tutsis were murdered during the 1997 genocide in
Rwanda. Some 6 million Jews and countless other prisoners of the Nazis –
gypsies, gays, communists, Soviet prisoners of war, “undesirables” – were
murdered in the Holocaust. Does this mean that 6 million Germans – those
associated in some way with “the Final Solution” – should equivalently be
put to death. Or 900,000 Hutus? If not, what appropriate compensation can
be offered to those who survived (and to those related to those who didn’t)
before coexistence and some level of reconciliation can be achieved? Leaving

aside any moral issues (if one can), what are the characteristics of effective
social compensation in such cases?
Given the degree of loss frequently suffered by victims and survivors, it is
likely to be the case that anything offered in reparation will in no way be
equivalent. Hence, to some extent, there will need to be an element of sym-
bolism in all of these offers, whether financial, material or donated effort.
This element seems crucial, however, and deserves further analysis.

6.2. The importance of symbols
Many individual survivors and victims involved in truth and reconciliation
processes have commented that the existence of a process that enables their
stories to be heard publicly and their suffering to be acknowledged officially
has helped them, finally, to come to terms with their past and what they
have been through. The symbolic importance of the setting up of a truth
and reconciliation system has established for many an important acknowl-
edgement of their restored worth as members of a different society, and this
has been a neglected but beneficial aspect of the whole process. The symbolic
aspects of truth and reconciliation processes are thus one example of the key
role that symbols play in a process of reparation and eventual reconciliation.
One symbolic strategy for providing some reparation thus involves offi-
cial acknowledgement, expressions of regret and of determination to pre-
vent repetition. Monuments and memorials appear to help. Days set aside
annually for remembrance are important. Named awards and scholarships
contribute. Official visits to the sites of atrocities, such as Dachau or
Buchenwald, seem to make some difference. All of these “official” actions,
while not entirely costless, appear to make a difference that goes beyond any
requirement of equivalence for losses suffered.
As with apologies, who performs the symbolic act and how often appears
to be as important as the nature of the act itself, especially at the collec-
tive level. Acts unasked for but volunteered seem to have a powerful effect
on recipient’s perceptions and feelings. In Kameradschaft, G.W. Pabst’s great
silent film from the early 1930s German rescue teams from a neighbouring
town spontaneously cross the international border with France to help out,
following a major disaster in the nearby French coal field. Real-life parallels
can perhaps be found in August and September 1999, with first Greek and
then Turkish spontaneous relief and rescue efforts, including rescue teams,
going to each others’ aid following major sequential earthquakes in the two
countries.
Many important symbolic acts can turn upon a single word. For white
South Africans, the African National Congress government’s decision to
retain the name of “Springboks” for the (then all-white) South African rugby
team turned out to be an important symbol of reconciliation and national
unity in that sports-centred society. As a contrast, the efforts of the Armenian
Government and Armenian diasporas to have the word “genocide” formally

and officially applied to the fate of those Armenians unfortunate enough

to be living (and, in over a million cases, dying) in Turkey during 1915
are almost without precedent. Words matter in post-agreement societies,
perhaps even more than they matter elsewhere.
6.3. Reparations and the survival of “resentment”

However, in all such cases we would do well to remember the warning
about the justification for continuing resentment (or ressentiment) sounded

by Jean Amery (1966/1999) and by Vladimir Jankelevitch (1996), and well
summarized by Thomas Brudholm:
nothing will undo or cancel out what happened. Therefore, trials, any
kind of reparations including apologies, monuments, restitution of prop-
erty and memorial days – no response will be adequate, except the strict
undoing of the past events. Absurdly, ressentiment keeps demanding that
impossibility . . .
(2008 p.108)
Fortunately for conflict-resolution efforts, certain things appear to go some

way to reducing resentments (and even ressentiment), both in individual
cases and at the social level, and to enable communities and nations to coex-
ist, to cooperate and perhaps even to reconcile as one generation passes from
the scene and is replaced by others. The German Government’s compen-
satory payments to Israelis have set an important precedent in this regard,
as have actions such as US President Clinton’s public apology for US inac-
tion to the people of Rwanda and the revival of interest in, and action about,
returning Jewish property “appropriated” by the Nazis to the descendants of
the original owners (O’Donnell, 2012; Dean et al., 2007), plus recent efforts
to reclaim wealth “acquired” by African dictators, such as Presidents Mobutu
and Abacha, from secretive Swiss banks.
7. Reconciliation and the search for justice
The final issue involved in our discussion of “reconciliation” as a central

aspect of ending conflicts for good is to do with where, in all of this talk
of truth, restoration, coexistence and cooperation, is the idea of “justice”,
and the need to be agreed about what is necessary for the construction of a
minimally “just” post-agreement society.
Implied in all of the previous arguments is a central intellectual conun-
drum about the nature of justice and the clash between two basic approaches
to this central idea – justice as retribution and justice as restoration. On the
one hand are those who hold that true justice involves punishment for
wrongdoing and that, to be genuine, justice must involve two central
aspects. On the one hand, it should involve a rebalancing of some sort

between victims and he perpetrators of the wrong. However, in addition

and more importantly, true justice must involve a rebalancing between per-
petrators and society at large, represented by the state. “Settling accounts”
means that accounts must finally balance and perpetrators must pay.
Against this is the tradition that justice involves some form of restora-
tion of relationships between perpetrators, victims and society, so that the
rebuilding of social harmony is seen as more important than carrying out
retribution for wrongdoing. Of course, the rebuilding of social harmony is

especially difficult in societies that have been traumatized by a protracted
and violent social conflict – Lebanon, Bosnia, East Timor, Sierra Leone and
Peru – the list appears endless. Thus the problem of transitional justice in
such societies seems initially insoluble, as a choice has to be made between
trials and punishment, on the one hand, and impunity, forgetting and
(perhaps) forgiving, on the other.
In the fragile circumstances of most post-agreement societies, the first
option appears often to be so dangerous that forgiving and forgetting seem
the only wise choice. After all, in post-agreement Chile the leaders of the
military regime had ostensibly handed over political power to civilians, but
General Pinochet retained control of the Chilean military as the major part
of an insurance strategy.
In circumstances like these, typical of fragile post-agreement societies,
those who urge an alternative approach via restorative justice seem to have
a convincing argument which gets around the stark dilemma of potentially
destabilizing retribution or unjust ignoring and impunity. Restorative jus-
tice does offer a way of balancing to some degree the needs of past victims
for some form of accounting with the need for a post-agreement society for
not perpetuating the cycle of violence and counterviolence. This is always
ready to re-ignite in societies that inevitably still remain profoundly divided,
at least in the short term. However, a real dilemma for those advocating
restorative as opposed to retributive justice is summed up by Teresa Phelps
in her consideration of language and truth commissions:
While there seems to be a human drive for getting something back, what
that something is may not be self-evident. What, then, constitutes appro-
priate retribution that is emotionally satisfying to the victim, fair to the
perpetrator and not destructive to the society that enacts it in situations
in which violent retribution by the state is not possible or wise . . . Is justice
necessarily a proportional act of vengeance . . . ?
(Phelps, 2004 p.39)
The nature of the “something” that can be used to “settle accounts”, “get
even”, “restore a balance” and produce a shared sense of justice can always
vary, according to local culture and even to post-agreement circumstances.
However, our discussion in this chapter does provide some indication of

what this “something” might need to look like and what its characteristics
might involve:
• a public and official audience for accounts and explanations of past

events;
• an official acknowledgement of wrongs inflicted and suffered, and a
lasting memorialization of that suffering;
• an apology by perpetrators and also one on behalf of society by promi-

nent figures;
• an amnesty for past wrongdoing but one that is conditional on specified
present and future actions;
• a restoration of that which was taken or, if this is not possible, compen-
sation, not based simply on lex talionis but in an appropriate medium;
• a promise that society will not allow this past to occur again;
• a future that is better than what was and, at a minimum, secures safety
and an absence of violence for all.
Even in theory, this list of concomitants for achieving some level of

restorative justice seems wildly ambitious. Perhaps it should simply serve
as an idealized benchmark that post-agreement incumbents might aspire to
if they really wish to develop a reconciled population in which, at the least,
hatred and fear are minimized, and coexistence and cooperation are pos-
sible. As I remarked earlier, if at least some of these “somethings” were
feasible in Europe in the wake of World War II then they are not necessarily
unattainable elsewhere.
8. Conclusion: Towards transformation?
The final question, of course, is whether all or any of the activities sketched
out above, supposed to lead (via apology, acceptance of responsibility, com-
pensation and the achievement of at least some form of justice) to some
degree of reconciliation, will be enough to reach this goal. Can these strate-
gies result in any genuine and lasting reconciliation between enemies, both
at leadership and grassroots levels and, by moderating the feelings and the
fears that the conflict will have generated, permit wary coexistence and
cooperation to take place? Conflicts consist of behaviour, issues and atti-
tudes, and unless all three of these aspects are resolved there seems little
chance of any deep-rooted and intractable conflict finally being terminated.
I would argue that only when this situation has been achieved – when
all three dimensions of the conflict have been satisfactorily tackled for all
involved parties – can one start to think seriously about possibilities for
transforming the overall relationship between the groups, communities or
nations that have been involved in this or that intractable conflict over
salient issues. “Conflict resolution” really makes very strong demands. In the

short term, it requires an end to the employment of violence and coercion,

and an abandonment of force as the means of “settling” a conflict. In the
medium term, it requires the establishment of some set of actions, processes
or conditions which deal with the issues that underlie the apparent need to
employ violence to achieve goals in the first place. Lastly, and in the long
term, it requires a major change of attitudes, cognitions and emotions on the
part of sufficient numbers on the opposite sides of the dispute so as to enable
future cooperation to take place on almost a routine basis. Only at this point,

when the hatred has abated, can the conflict be characterized as genuinely
terminated or “resolved”, and one can begin to look for further opportuni-
ties for cooperation so that the overall relationship between the erstwhile
enemies can be further transformed into something quite different.

Afterword
The last three chapters have discussed a variety of ways of trying to deal with a range
of issues and emotions which – to me at least – lie at the heart of any conflict’s

intractability. I began with the argument that to end a conflict “for good and all”
it was necessary to find a solution to the goal incompatibility that was the gene-
sis, the starting point, for difficult, protracted, deep-rooted or intractable conflicts –
whatever label one chose to attach to conflicts that proved to be highly resistant to
resolution. Two chapters discussed different types of intractability, starting with the
possibility that the complex dynamics of adversaries’ behaviour and accompanying
attitudinal changes that took place as the conflict protracted – process reasons – were,
in themselves, the reason for it becoming increasingly difficult to find some durable
and acceptable solution. I then tried to show how the search for solutions in conflicts
over scarcities, ostensibly indivisible goods, incommensurable belief systems and even
“existences” were not quite as hopeless, at least in theory, as they might often appear.
“At least in theory”. This is a major caveat, because the last thing I want to sug-
gest is that, in practical terms, searching for some durable solution to protracted
and intractable conflicts is simple and straightforward. As anyone who has ever been
involved in such a search, either as a “third party” outsider or as a participant in
a complex and deep-rooted conflict, knows all too well, the obstacles to success
are numerous, powerful and daunting. This is sadly true, even if the source of the
intractability arises mainly from the continuing dynamics of the conflict – those
behavioural and psychological processes which feed on and perpetuate themselves,
even across whole generations. In the middle chapters of this book I discussed various
ways in which means of coping with [or at least mitigating] the effects of such conflicts
have been developed over the years, so that protracted conflicts do not result in the
complete collapse of the societies within which they occur. However, I have to admit
that that these institutions and rule systems are fragile defences when intense conflicts
arise over salient issues between groups, communities or nations. At best, mitigating
strategies, such as separating combatants from non-combatants and providing security
for the latter, arranging relief for civilians; establishing “rule of the game” for waging
conflict, providing peacekeeping forces that do not become repressive, preventing the
use of particularly horrible weapons – all are valuable in themselves but only go a
little way towards keeping intractable conflicts within some limits. As I have argued
throughout this work, although admirable, these approaches only scratch the surface
of the intractability dilemma.
When we turn to the whole issue of finding a durable solution to intractable
conflicts, the prospects become even more uncertain. In the book’s final chapters
I suggested the possibility of finding or constructing solutions to various types of
intractable conflict, ranging from those that involve issues over scarcity to those
which appear to involve the continued existence of one side or the other. In some
historical cases, but admittedly not others, agreements have been worked out and
provided durable solutions to even the most apparently intractable of situations.
Sometimes, solutions of expansion, worked out over time, have succeeded. In oth-
ers, compensation or substitutions have satisfied the embattled adversaries. In still
292

Afterword 293
others, revelation of, and focus on, underlying interests have enabled leaders to
construct mutually satisfactory exits from apparently hopeless situations of high
issue salience and absolute goal incompatibility. On rare occasions, even strug-
gles to the death apparently involving the continued existence of a group, com-
munity or nation have been found to be resolvable and allowed the continued
existence of those threatened, at least in a modified form or within a changed
environment.
However, I have to confess that for every successful example of conflict resolu-
tion there are at least a dozen examples of failure – or, at least, limited success.

The protracted conflict rolls intractably onwards – available for others to try to
devise an acceptable and durable solution. The example of the Israeli-Palestinian
conflict and its succession of failed peacemakers and peace processes is ever present
to remind us about the practical difficulties of developing resolutions for highly
intractable conflicts. On the other hand, there are counterexamples of conflicts
that were, at times, thought to be wholly intractable, and yet one recalls the end-
ing of the struggle over apartheid in South Africa and of the transformation of
the protracted community conflict in Northern Ireland. Both offer more hope-
ful examples of the possibility of success in other, equally intractable conflicts.
They call to mind Kenneth Boulding’s old dictum: “If something exists, then it is
possible.”
Boulding, of course, was talking about “peace” in general, but it would be quite
appropriate to imagine that he was also talking about the existence of effective meth-
ods for understanding and then preventing, mitigating, containing or resolving even
the most intractable of conflicts,. At the moment perhaps the best that can be said
about the actual practice of conflict analysis and resolution is that it still offers hope
in the worst of circumstances. Metaphorically, conflict researchers might best be seen
as people helping to hold open Pandora’s Box and allowing hope to escape into the
daunting world of intractable conflicts.
November 2013

Notes
1 Compulsion: Natural Born Killers?

1. In G.S. Miller’s review (p.472) of Zuckerman’s second book on primate behaviour,
Functional Affinities of Man, Monkeys and Apes.

2. Some scholars have argued that the impact of this work was wholly misleading.
For example, see the Introduction by Ashley Montagu in Power (1991 p.xiv).
3. The contemporary situation is far different. A recent Google search of the term
“human aggression” used in book titles revealed 792 entries.
4. The insistence that a human being (especially “man”) is unique and not remotely
like any other creature undoubtedly arises from a variety of religious traditions
that set human beings apart from the rest of “creation”.
5. See the writings of sociologist Lewis Coser (1956).
6. One study undertaken during the mid-1980s found that around 40% of American
university students believed that war was intrinsic to human nature.
7. Adams perhaps wanted to avoid saying straight out that “It is wrong”, but he was
taken to task by at least one critic for not employing the scientifically respectable
formula of “not demonstrated” (see Beroldi, 1992).
8. Threats could emanate both from other species trying to eat or harm offspring
and from conspecific members of a group or colony that are acting in such a way
as to pose a threat.
9. David Grossman recalls that a major study of US combat infantrymen in World
War II found that only 15%–20% of riflemen directly engaged in combat would
fire their weapon at the enemy (Grossman, 2010 pp.36–37).
10. The exact length of “prehistorical” time depends upon whether one includes the
era of Homo erectus – about 2 million years before the present (BP) – or begins
with their successors, modern Homo sapiens, who were hunter-gatherers between
approximately 50,000 and 12,000 BP, the first date from which settled agriculture
has been identified.
11. Fry very carefully distinguishes between “nomadic” hunter-gatherer bands
(which, he argues, are those most akin to the kind of social organization
within which most human beings lived for at least 35 millennia), “settled”
hunter-gatherers (who possessed a territory) and “equestrian” hunter-gatherers
(a relatively recent innovation).
12. Wrangham and Petersen seem to agree that the ability to form alliances is an
important – and biologically generated – tendency, arising from the need for
males to protect their social status vis-à-vis other males (Wrangham & Peterson,
1996).
13. At a crude level, it might be argued that, given that another potential model of
our historic ancestors might be “man the hunted”, the ability to run like mad
when so required might be a much more adaptive form of behaviour to be passed
on (genetically) to one’s successors than the ability to beat up one’s fellows to
achieve a leadership position.
14. Frans de Waal notes that in bonobos there are much longer periods during which
females signal a readiness for sex compared with the very much more limited
time span among female chimps (Kaplan, 2006 p.3).
294

Notes 295
15. Among hamadryas baboons, the only way for a female to avoid injury is
to approach the dominant male, but for a savannah female the way of
avoiding harm is to run away. Neither tactic works if used with the other
species.
16. Saposky has observed several examples of the Forest troop males grooming each
other, which he describes as “behaviour nearly as unprecedented as baboons
sprouting wings” (Saposky ibid p.115).
17. While female baboons remain with their birth troop, young males at pubescence
leave their birth troop and become low-status members of other baboon

troops. Through this mechanism, at one point in time all of the male mem-
bers of the Forest troop were newcomers that had joined the troop well
after all their aggressive predecessors had been “winnowed out” through
tuberculosis.
18. de Waal has argued that a capacity for cooperation, mutual aid and reconciling to
enable cooperation to continue are important evolutionary and survival mecha-
nisms and that reconciliation “ensures the continuation of cooperation among
parties with partially conflicting interests” (de Waal, 2000 p.589).
19. de Waal suggests that one important way in which human beings can be flexi-
ble and change within the bounds set by their “nature” is in their definition of
“the Other”. Thus, by widening their “circle of concern”, it becomes possible to
lessen the range of “targets” for fear and hostility by including a wider and wider
circle of those whom we identify as “Us”, and who therefore require ethical and
sympathetic treatment (see de Waal, 2010 pp.22–23).
2 Formation: Sources and Emergence

1. Johan Galtung’s warning is an apposite one. “The statement ‘this is a conflict’
should always be taken as an hypothesis – not as something obvious, even trivial,
about which consensus is easily obtained . . . ” (Galtung, 1998 p.70).
2. Galtung uses the term “contradictions” to signify the existence of incompatible
goals between different adversaries, but also uses the word for situations in which
the same individual (or presumably group or community) wants things that cannot
be obtained either logically or empirically.
3. Simple scarcity can only be seen as one starting point for conflicts arising. Once one
introduces some concept of “fairness” into the situation then issues of comparison,
maldistribution, imbalance and hierarchy not justified by social values become
relevant.
4. The role of increasing scarcity in conflict formation is normally taken to involve
a decrease in availability, perhaps accompanied by an increase in desire for that
particular commodity. Warnings about “water wars” in the near future (Starr, 1991;
Gleick, 1993) are examples of the intellectual use of scarcity models.
5. Andre & Platteau describe Rwandan farms as “very large” if they exceeded more
than 2.5 acres and others as “very small” if they were less than 0.06 acres. However,
they remind readers that these terms (large/small) are relative and that the larger
farms tended increasingly to have to support larger families as more and more
children were forced to stay at home with their parents. Jared Diamond comments
that in Montana in the past a 40-acre farm was considered just about big enough
to support a family (2005 p.321).
6. Diamond quotes a (Tutsi) survivor interviewed by Gerard Prunier summarizing the
events by saying: “The people whose children had to walk barefoot to school killed
the people who could buy shoes for theirs . . . ” (2005 p.328).

296 Notes
7. In line with Dollard’s theory of frustration-aggression (1939), the process usually

involves the directing of those attitudes and feelings onto those perceived as the
cause of the failure and frustration, but sometimes can result in the feelings being
channelled (or deliberately directed) towards another group through a process of
“scapegoating”.
8. Pruitt et al. treat this as a continuous variable such that one party to a conflict can
exhibit absolutely no concern for the interests of the other, or such a high level of
concern that its only option is a strategy of self-abnegation.

3 Classification: Intractable Conflicts
1. The first and last of these “hunches” are clearly connected to two of the key dimen-
sions of the structural model of a conflict that I introduced in Chapter 2. This
model suggested that all conflicts, whatever degree of intractability they revealed,
could helpfully be viewed as consisting, at the most fundamental level, of three
interlocking and interacting components – a situation of goal incompatibility (the
issues), resultant behaviour, and associated attitudes and beliefs about the conflict,
adversary and themselves.
The model could be used as a basis for gauging the intractability of a conflict
in a threefold sense, contrasting conflicts exhibiting an intense issue salience, a
high level of mutual hostility, and a great deal of coercion and violence between
the adversaries with conflicts where issues are peripheral, hostilities muted and
behaviour non-violent.
2. For example, attitudes, emotions, forms of behaviour and decisions about com-
promising – and hence about intractability – are all likely to be very different
depending on whether one is dealing with a conflict between parties that are
(a) small and egalitarian, so that all individuals are involved more or less equally, all
are affected similarly, all share costs and benefits, and all share in decision-making –
for example, the MOVE group in Philadelphia in1985; or (b) large, hierarchically
organized and functionally differentiated, at least into leaders who take decisions,
and followers who implement them and are affected by the results, with participa-
tion, investment, influence, and costs and benefits distributed differentially – for
example, the city authorities and services in Philadelphia, who were confronting
MOVE (see Assefa & Wahrhaftig, 1990).
3. Apart from converging conflicts, Kriesberg’s categorization of interlocking conflicts
involves serial conflicts (nested in time), which recur between the same adversaries
at different points in time; superimposed conflicts, which involve incompatibilities
over one set of issues being increased at a later date as new issues become involved;
and cross-cutting, internal and concurrent conflicts. (1980 pp.100–101).
4. I have discussed the nature and key dimensions of asymmetry in an article in
Zartman and Kremenyuk (1995).
5. If the imbalance is too great then frequently the smaller, weaker party merely does
nothing.
6. A contrasting problem involves apparently asymmetric conflicts that may, in fact,
be more symmetric in some dimensions than first appears. For example, some con-
flicts between the government of a state and a minority community conceal the
fact that the conflict is between two communities – a majority and a minority –
one of which controls the state and hence the country in which the conflict
occurs. Consider the government of Rhodesia actually representing the minority
white community between 1964 and 1980, or the government in Northern Ireland

Notes 297
between 1921 and 1972, which, in effect, represented the interests and goals of the
Unionist majority community.
7. Even a simple scalogram would be a start to resolving this problem regarding
degrees of intractability.
4 Perpetuation: Dynamics and Intractability

1. An early version of this chapter appeared in David Bloomfield, Martina Fischer &
Beatrix Schmelzle (eds.) Social Change and Conflict Transformation Berghof Hand-

book Dialogue Series #5.
2. One of my more perceptive students once remarked that it would be much easier
to understand conflicts if they would only stop moving around so much – a com-
ment I took to signal that she had grasped the fact that conflicts were essentially
dynamic phenomena. However, it seemed important for her and the rest of the
class to recognize that the dynamics were not random.
3. The literature dealing systematically with the connections between change and
conflict is hardly extensive, and that dealing directly with precise relation-
ships between change and conflict resolution is even more sparse. Exceptions
to this generalization include works by Rosenau (1990), Holsti et al. (1980) and
Thomas & Bennis (1972).
4. There has been much debate in the field about the inadequacy of the term “res-
olution” to include the fundamental changes deemed necessary to end a conflict
once and for all. As I have argued elsewhere (Mitchell, 2002), the original inter-
pretation of the term “conflict resolution” certainly involved a process which
recognized the possible need for far-reaching structural changes and changes in
relationships as part of any durable solution, so I prefer to retain this term rather
than adopt the currently fashionable one of “conflict transformation”.
5. A popular collection of papers dealing with conflict in organizations from this era
was entitled Management of Conflict and Change by John M. Thomas and Warren
G. Bennis (Harmondsworth, England and Baltimore Maryland: Penguin Books,
1972).
6. For example, in the 1990s the reforming government of President Fidel Ramos in
the Philippines provided large amounts of funding for some small communities,
by declaring seven of the local, grassroots zones of peace to be “Special Develop-
ment Areas”. However, it proved very difficult for some of the seven communities
to use these expanded and suddenly granted resources in an appropriate manner.
Internal conflicts over the use of the resources broke out, factions formed and the
sudden availability of funds became a source of conflict formation that seemed as
disrupting as sudden scarcity might have been (Lee, 2000).
7. This argument led John Burton (1969) to conclude that an infusion of “rele-
vant” knowledge at a crucial decision-making level through a problem-solving
process could result in the initiation of a major, lasting conflict-resolution
process.
8. Allied to ideas about escalation were others that dealt with de-escalation, in which
the latter were often regarded as some kind of mirror image of the former (see
Mitchell, 1999).
9. One reason it seemed so difficult for the British prime minister, Tony Blair, to
admit – probably even to himself – that there is a causal connection between
terrorist bombings in London and unequivocal British support for US policy on
Iraq is that to make such a connection would lead to Blair himself – and his

298 Notes
unpopular policies – bearing at least some of the responsibility for the death and
destruction in London – let alone in Baghdad.
10. Thus some Israelis view the suicides of Masada as heroes rather than as negotiat-
ing incompetents.
5 Prevention
1. As Oliver Ramsbotham and his colleagues point out (2005 p.106), in the ini-
tial 1957 issue of the Journal of Conflict Resolution, both Kenneth Boulding and

Quincy Wright argued for the establishment of systems to give early warning of
impending, destructive conflicts – and hence for early action.
2. The Secretary General’s report defined preventive diplomacy quite broadly as
“action to prevent disputes between parties, to prevent existing disputes from
escalating into conflicts and to limit the spread of the latter when they occur”
(Boutros Ghali, 1992 p.16).
3. Another important query asks whether one should always – or ever – try to
prevent a conflict, and on what grounds. It is too easy to fall into the trap
of attributing only negative connotations to “being in conflict” or to the idea
of conflict itself. One neglected tradition in the field holds that conflicts can
have many positive benefits for the society in which they take place and even
for those who are directly involved. Issues arise rather than being suppressed
or ignored, information is sought and broadcast, common interests are discov-
ered or constructed, creativity is challenged, long-term stability can be created
and a sense of unity might emerge. These potentially beneficial results of social
conflict were originally highlighted by Georg Simmel (1908) over a 100 years
ago, re-iterated in the middle of the twentieth century by Lewis Coser (1956)
and taken up recently by Louis Kriesberg’s work on constructive conflict res-
olution (2003). Moreover, what should happen when one confronts conflicts
which emerge from asymmetric relationships of inequality and inequity, or
situations involving perceived (in many cases unarguable) injustice? Should
the struggle against apartheid have been prevented from taking place? Should
the conflict over civil rights in the United States have – somehow – been
avoided?
4. Those familiar with Johan Galtung’s work on the various forms of violence will
recognize that this ignores the whole issue of structural or cultural violence.
5. Raimo Vayrynen makes a similar distinction between what he terms “vertical
escalation” and “horizontal escalation”, the latter being concerned with the ter-
ritorial containment of the conflict and with methods to avoid “geographical
spillover” (2000 p.13).
6. Strategies here can involve such activities as stockpiling and safeguarding
weapons, creating secure zones for combatants at a distance from one another,
monitoring and defusing truce violations, and preparing combatants for return
and reinsertion.
7. One of the practical problems with implementing long-term, strategic conflict-
prevention strategies arises from the observation that the lives of governments,
political leaders and other managers tend to be short, and focused on the imme-
diate future, so that managing short-term crises becomes the dominant mode of
coping with conflicts.
8. The problem with electoral processes at the end of a period of very violent conflict
is that it often does not appear to be a “better” option for gaining one’s goals,

Notes 299
especially if the electoral system chosen is likely to produce winners and losers
through relatively static voting power.
9. In April 1875 the German Chancellor, Otto von Bismarck, deliberately manu-
factured an international crisis between the newly established German Empire
and recently defeated France in order to put pressure on the French Gov-
ernment. He did this partly by organizing a press campaign in Germany
under the slogan “Is War in Sight?” It actually wasn’t – at least on that
occasion.
10. It seems to be a matter of choice as to whether one characterizes the genocide

in Rwanda in 1994 as a case of failed violence prevention or as failed re-
ignition prevention. In support of the latter argument, it might be emphasized
that Hutu-Tutsi massacres took place regularly, starting around independence
in 1962 and recurring in 1973, 1991 and again in 1992. So much for early
warning.
11. Long-term, strategic forms of conflict prevention practised in Macedonia to head
off further violence include efforts to change ethnocentric perceptions and one-
sided views of recent “history” among younger members of the Macedonian and
Albanian communities (Petroska-Beska & Najcevska, 2004).
12. The idea of increasing the supply of scarce goods seems to break down when
a conflict is over who occupies scarce – and influential – decision-making roles
(that is, who gets to govern?) However, decision-making roles that have influ-
ence over locally relevant and salient issues can always be increased through
a strategy of political decentralization and the establishment of autonomous
regions.
13. During the nineteenth century, as A.J.P. Taylor remarks, government orders to
stop the export of horses was often a clear and reliable indicator that a crisis,
in which military action would play a major part, was fast approaching. (Taylor,
1954 p.225).
14. Many of the same problems were revealed in the 1970s, when, as a
result of the Cuban Missile Crisis, much time and effort was devoted to
analysing international crises in an attempt to forecast when these would
occur.
15. This is acknowledged by many decision-makers. Stedman (1995 p.17) quotes War-
ren Christopher’s comment on Bosnia to the effect that “An early and forceful
signal might well have deterred much of the aggression, bloodshed and ethnic
cleansing”.
16. Contrast the, admittedly feeble and intermittent, effort to prevent Iraq from
invading Kuwait in the first place (deterrence) with the much more sustained,
but ultimately equally unsuccessful, efforts to force them to end the occupation
and withdraw (negative compellence).
17. Sriram and Wermester, who take a broad view of the range of activities that con-
stitute conflict prevention, make the unarguable point that, in evaluating success
or failure, the goals of particular preventive strategies always have to be taken
into account (2003 p.29).
6 Mitigation
1. In many circumstances, even during desperate existential conflict, adversaries
refrain from particular actions simply on moral grounds and in order to maintain
self-imposed standards of what constitutes “civilized behaviour”.

300 Notes
2. Almost equally important to questions of size are issues of how clear are the
boundaries round any space declared “off limits” to forms of violence, types of
weapon, categories of person or kinds of material good (for example, drug-free
zones).
3. Often the fear of sanctions is the crucial factor that preserves the safe space safely.
Many Christian missionary compounds were able to survive as safe havens during
the civil wars in China partly because of Chinese fears that the punitive expedi-
tions organized by outside powers following the Boxer Rebellion would simply
return (see Hancock and Mitchell, 2007; and Quale, 1957).

4. In recent years there have been some efforts to revive this practice for the modern
Olympics. In 1999 the Greek Government, hosts for the 2004 Games in Athens,
and the International Olympic Committee established the International Olympic
Truce Centre to advocate for a 16-day general truce on combat during the time of
the Games.
5. While it is certainly the case that the twentieth century saw a huge swing in
the balance between civilian and military casualties from wars and civil wars,
with civilians more and more being targeted as the century progressed, civilian
suffering during warfare is hardly unprecedented. See, for example, accounts of
the Napoleonic Wars, particularly in Spain and Portugal.
6. Over time, and as the technology of killing has changed, it has become more than
possible for women and children to participate directly in warfare by “bearing
arms” and being rapidly trained in their use. Women soldiers are now common-
place on the battlefield, and children participate in guerrilla wars as anything
from lookouts and message carriers to fighters, jailers and executioners.
7. The whole issue of who were and who were not “legitimate targets” was revived in
a very practical fashion in many of the protracted and asymmetric ethnopolitical
struggles of the second half of the twentieth century and in places as far apart
as Israel, Northern Ireland, Spain, Sri Lanka, Colombia and many countries in
Africa. In such struggles, far from confining attacks to those actually bearing arms
openly, many combatants have argued that it is legitimate to attack any who play
supporting roles to the fighters in the struggle. In Northern Ireland, for example,
this has included workmen who repair army barracks and caterers who supply
meals to security forces (see Darby, 1994).
8. The principle of inviolability certainly held good in classical India. Frey and Frey
(1999) quote from the Mahabharata to the effect that “a king who slays an envoy
will sink into hell with all his ministers”.
9. Historically, the inviolability of children has been one of the more enduring
aspects of what Peter Singer (2005) has described as “the law of the innocents”,
while Alcinda Honwana notes that “All societies aim to protect children from
war and danger not only because parents instinctively protect their offsprings
but because generational succession guarantees the continuity of society” (2006
p.45). In recent decades, however, this seems to have broken down completely,
especially in protracted ethnopolitical conflicts where “the battlefield” can be
anywhere, and can involve violent adolescents, stoned to the eyeballs, carrying
Uzis or Kalashnikovs and willing to use such weapons against absolutely anyone
who provides the smallest opportunity.
10. Part of the ambiguity of medical workers’ position in the midst of a violent
conflict arises from the fact that the vast majority of them still stick to their
commitment to treat the sick and wounded irrespective of the latter’s status as
being one of “us” or one of “them”. Doctors from one army rarely refuse to treat
wounded from the adversary’s army, although they may treat wounded from their

Notes 301
own side first. This is where Gross’s parallel between a doctor and a tank driver
breaks down. The doctor’s skills and services are available to all sides, irrespective
of the latters’ loyalties or position; the services of a tank driver – or a platoon
leader or a bomber pilot or a guerrilla comandante – are only available to one side
of the conflict.
11. Some combatant groups do not need to make this journey. For example, the FARC
in Colombia has traditionally run an alternative state in some of the areas in
Colombia where it has established firm control.
12. There were notable differences in medieval rule sets for “chivalric” conduct

depending upon whether one’s adversaries were Christians or infidels.
13. It is interesting to speculate what the Chevalier would have said about the
method of semi-selective assassination carried out by Israel and now the United
States from hundreds – in some cases thousands – of miles away by people sit-
ting comfortably in front of screens and consoles and controlling unmanned
“Predator” drones armed with “Hellfire” missiles, flying (often illegally) over
distant lands, such as Pakistan or Afghanistan.
14. When the British took over Iraq in the 1920s and were faced with armed oppo-
sition from the Kurdish tribes in the north of that country, the then Colonial
Secretary suggested using poison gas to pacify these “turbulent tribes”. When con-
fronted with protests from local administrators, Winston Churchill discounted
such “squeamish-ness about the use of gas . . . against uncivilized tribes” (Simons,
1994).
15. Many writers have pointed out that maintaining the one-sided possession of, or
knowledge about, a particularly devastating weapon was well nigh impossible for
any length of time. Robert O’Connell (1996 p.419) warns that “today’s secret
weapons had the nasty habit of becoming tomorrow’s universal threat”.
7 Regulation: Conflict within Limits

1. An early example of this process of codification was Count Ramon Berenguer of
Catalonia’s eleventh-century The Usages of Barcelona, one of the first efforts to
collect customs and practices regarding the adjudication of disputes and offences
developed in Western Christendom during the so-called “dark ages”, following
the collapse of the Roman Empire and its complex and sophisticated legal system.
2. For interesting analyses of “institutionalized” conflict resolution, see Galtung
(1965) and also Dahrendorf’s (1959) classic mid-century analysis of class conflict
and how it has been “regulated”.
3. The sociologist Amatai Etzioni (1964) has described conflicts that do take place
within some framework of rules as “encapsulated” conflicts.
4. Quoted by Jose Antonio Orosco in Cesar Chavez and Principled Nonviolent Strategy.
Orosco goes on to say that “from the standpoint of Neumann and the anar-
chists, those who disparage property destruction as a form of civil disobedience
fetishize property rights. Absolutists fail to appreciate how the production of
property rights in our world systematically violates human rights”, quoted in
Robert L. Holmes and Barry L. Gan (eds.) pp.263–264.
5. Sharp (1970) summarizes these efforts by talking about “methods of protest,
noncooperation and interventions in which the actionists without employing
physical violence, refuse to do certain things which they are expected or required
to do or do certain things that they are not expected or are forbidden to do”
(p.31).

302 Notes
6. The sociologist Lewis Coser makes a distinction between two forms of ritual-
izaton, one of which takes the form of substitute behaviour (displacement of
means) while the other involves the selection of alternative targets for the action
(displacement of objects (Coser, 1956 pp.41–44)).
7. Lewis lists a number of common causes for feuds developing in pre-protectorate
Morocco: water rights, which area to be used as pasture, trespass on holy ground,
slights and insults, assaults upon women and enhanced reputation (Lewis, ibid
p.44).
8. Christopher Boehm defines a feud – in contrast to a duel, a raid and war –

as “deliberately limited and carefully counted killing in revenge for a previous
homicide, which takes place between two groups on the basis of specific rules
for killing, pacification and compensation” (1987 p.194). Feuds seem to be the
paradigm case of protracted and intractable conflicts.
9. Otterbein notes that different cultures possessed varied rules about who were
“legitimate” targets for revenge in any feud: (a) anyone in the wrongdoer’s kin
group; (b) the wrongdoer (if possible) – otherwise selected members of the kin
group; or (c) the wrongdoer only.
10. Boehm identifies ten distinctive features of feuds: rules, score-keeping, turn-
taking, a need for honour, notions of dominance, notions of controlled retali-
ation, cross-cutting social ties that retard feuding, a means to avoid warfare, the
difficulty of resolution and impossible avoidance where the population density is
high (1984 pp.218–219).
8 Institutionalization
1. In 1993, Harald Muller identified the existence of four “security regimes”, three
of which had to do with nuclear weapons and nuclear war and seemed mainly
to involve formal treaties and agreements. The exception was “the European
military order”, which included seminars, mutual visits, a crisis-control centre
and mutual promises of the unilateral reduction of short-range nuclear weapons
(Muller p.361).
2. Present-day international law setting limits on what, morally and legally, may or
may not be undertaken in the course of violent armed conflict has grown from
two main sources. One tradition can be labelled the “Law of Geneva”, which
broadly seeks to protect the victims of war from its worst effects, while the sec-
ond, – best entitled the “Law of the Hague” – historically attempts to set limits
on the conduct of hostilities.
3. It also tried to cope with the issue of who was a “lawful combatant” in a guerrilla
struggle by modifying the traditional rule that guerrillas at all times should be
clearly identifiable (usually by carrying arms “openly”) and stipulating only that
clear identification was necessary “while engaged in an attack or in a military
operation preparatory to an attack”.
4. All quotations in this section are taken from the text of AP1 and AP2, published
on line by the International Committee of the Red Cross at http://www.icrc.org/
ihl.nsf.
5. The major exception to this statement was the development and testing of biolog-
ical weapons by the Japanese Kwangtung Army in Harbin, northern China, where
the notorious Unit 731 studied and tested a large number of lethal pathogens on
over 3,000 Chinese “subjects” (Harris, 1999; Zou Yunhua, 2002).

Notes 303
6. Other major efforts to set up regimes to control or ban various types of weapon
have involved cluster bombs (see Borrie, 2008); and a widespread but somewhat
disjointed campaign to control the burgeoning trade in small arms, which one
source estimates to be have worth $5 billion in the first decade of the twenty-first
century (see articles in the annual Small Arms Survey).
7. For a legal analysis of the Treaty and its verification system, plus a discussion of
its “correction function” – what can be done about violations – see Myjer (2001,
especially pp.122–125).
8. As early as 1995, sarin gas had been used in an effort to kill three Japanese judges

and, more notoriously, in an attack on the Tokyo subway by Japanese members
of the millenarian sect, Aum Shinrikyo.
9. In the words of Susan Walker of Handicap International, “War is war and
innocent people have to die – but not 50 years after the war.”
10. Geneva Call is a Swiss-based NGO which attempts to involve armed non-state
actors in the implementation of the provisions of IHL, specifically those involved
in banning the use of AP mines.
11. Some observers of Uganda have argued that government forces have behaved
equally brutally in the north of the country in their treatment of ethnic groups
seen as supportive of the LRA. However, the Government is the party that has
brought the case to the ICC, not the insurgents.
12. Israel, Sudan and the United States originally signed on to the Rome Statute but
later “unsigned” themselves, in spite of the fact that it is clearly the case that,
even with state parties that have signed and ratified the Statute, the ICC can only
act if the authorities in that state have themselves failed to use their own legal
systems to investigate, prosecute and, if necessary, punish their own perpetrators.
9 Termination I: Stopping the Violence

1. Recent research by Collier et al. (2008) indicates that roughly 40% of so-called
“post-conflict” countries return to warfare within a decade after their conflict is
supposed to have ended.
2. Graham Blewitt (2008 pp.41–42) provides an account of the investigations of the
Australian Special Investigations Unit (SIU) into World War II criminals from the
former Yugoslavia living undisturbed in that country. The SIU discovered that
many young Australians in their early 20s and with family but no personal con-
nections to that struggle did indeed go to Croatia, Serbia and Bosnia to join various
paramilitary groups which then participated in some of the bloodiest atrocities car-
ried out during that war, acts seen by the perpetrators as “justice and vengeance”
for crimes committed long ago.
3. Another event that might be said to have ushered the UN into an era of “multina-
tional” peacekeeping was the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, which meant
the outbreak of such latent conflicts as those in the Caucasus, in Central Asia and
in the Baltic Republics.
4. These were also supported by effective “no-fly” zones over Kurdistan in the
north and the Shiite areas in the south of Iraq, all as part of Operation Provide
Comfort – not formally a UN operation but possibly justified by Security Council
Resolution 688.
5. In the case of the NATO intervention in Kosovo in March 1999, NATO leaders
argued that previous UN Resolutions 1199 and 1203 expressing “grave concern”
about the situation in Kosovo legitimized subsequent action.

304 Notes
10 Termination II: Addressing the Issues

1. The original idea about “integrative” as opposed to “distributive” solutions arose
from the work and writings of Mary Parker Follett in the 1920s, but it came to
prominence in Walton and McKersie’s pioneering work on labour negotiations
(1965).
2. Note that Mary Parker Follett’s famous creative solution to the conflict
between dairymen seeking to be the first to unload at the depot was, at
base, a solution of expansion, the conflict being resolved by the creation

of a larger platform at which both parties could unload their goods at the
same time.
3. Of course, if the conflict has been protracted and destructive, what is being fought
over may eventually be in such a state that its value is somewhat diminished, even
if one side manages to gain most or even all of it – the loaf may have become
uneatable.
4. Real-world partitions can also involve various forms of compensation, both local
and national, which emphasizes the fact that many durable solutions combine
elements of several strategies. In the case of the “velvet divorce” between Slovakia
and the Czech Republic, the negotiated redrawing of boundaries between the
two countries involved both the exchange of particular villages and elements of
compensation for local people.
5. Tir notes that the tendency has been to simply accept internal admin-
istrative lines as given and to make them the new international bound-
aries between the rump and the successor state with little regard to what
might be termed ethnopolitical realities on the ground. Prior adjustment,
he argues, might obviate some of the conflicts that are likely to arise
post-partition.
6. It was Sudanese President Nimiery’s ill-advised decision to move some of these
southern units into the north of the country in 1982 that contributed to the
breakdown of the 1972 Addis Ababa Agreement and the re-ignition of the
Sudanese civil war.
7. Some Austrian Marxist writers, who discussed the concept of “cultural
autonomy” in a multiracial empire, suggested that every individual should
be given the choice of joining a particular cultural community and that
membership should not necessarily be determined by ascribed character-
istics, such as race, religion or language. See Karl Renner’s writings, for
example.
8. This strategy has been the subject of fierce debate recently, one side arguing that it
simply recognizes and solidifies differences that can rapidly become the source of
further conflict, and the other arguing that the alternative to recognizing cultural
differences and arranging a society around them is continuing and escalating
conflict.
9. In many cases, what does seem to be in limited supply is creative imagination,
although to be in a protracted conflict and thus in a relationship characterized by
hostility, threat and mistrust is to be in a situation which usually militates against
much creative thinking.
10. In the long term, it might be beneficial for the world of conflicts over sovereignty
if the whole conception of exclusive and exclusionary possessive “sovereignty”
were to be replaced with something like “stewardship”.

Notes 305
11 Innovation
1. Returning to the Ugli Orange exercise, the situation is posited in such a way as to
show the possibility of win–win solutions, as the orange can be divided function-
ally between two people, one of whom wants the juice for drinking and the other
the skin for flavouring. But supposing both parties want all of the juice, are not
content with half and don’t care at all about the skin or the pulp – or about the
other party?
2. This process is rather different from one in which the parties’ way of evaluating

the good in dispute remains the same but the good itself becomes “objectively”
worth less and less, partly because of the actions of the adversaries in pursuing
exclusive possession. The “inheritance” fought over in Dickens’ fictional legal case
of Jarndyce v. Jarndyce gradually diminished in value until it was completely eaten
up by legal fees. This Bleak House scenario is probably not confined to fiction.
3. According to Ramsbotham, radical disagreement is “the chief linguistic manifes-
tation of intractable conflict . . . a key element in its intractability” (2010 p.1) Such
disagreements are “conflicts of belief taken in its broadest sense” (ibid p.7).
4. Ramsbotham makes the telling point that the issues in very many intractable
conflicts do not disappear with some peace agreement. They remain and are subse-
quently “fought out” by other means – through elections, protest campaigns, court
cases, efforts to convert public opinion and so on. This “fact of continuation”
renders fairly meaningless such terms as “post-conflict” peacebuilding or “post-
conflict” reconciliation. In many real-world cases the behaviour and the arena have
changed but not the goals being sought.
5. The US Government estimates that the overall world population is currently just
over 7 billion, of which approximately 1.5 billion are followers of Islam.
6. In the United States and in Colombia, the respective national governments have
of late been involved in campaigns to make farmers and campesinos switch from
growing one profitable crop – tobacco in the United States and coca in Colombia –
to growing an alternative, if less profitable, substitute. One could look at these
conflicts as existential in the limited sense of ending the existence of a class of
people – tobacco farmers or coca growers. The key question in such cases becomes:
Existence as what?
12 Reconciliation: Ending the Hatred

1. A clear answer to this question is made more difficult by the fact that analysts
have made a distinction between “reconciliation” as a process, whereby a person,
community or nation becomes reconciled about what happened to it in the vio-
lent, perhaps atrocity-laden, past; and “reconciliation” between adversaries who
need to reconcile with one another in spite of the atrocities that they may have
mutually inflicted in their pasts.
2. The last 30 years and beyond are littered with the remains of peace agreements
that “failed” in the sense that the violence reignited in the aftermath of the
agreement that was negotiated. In some cases, violence started up again very
shortly after the adversaries had signed a “peace” agreement, as in the Sierra
Leone civil war, where three peace agreements between the government and the
Revolutionary United Front broke down almost immediately.
3. One should not become too enthusiastic about the European experience,
however. As Keith Lowe’s recent study (2012) reminds us, the continent in

306 Notes
the immediate aftermath of World War II, from 1945 to at least 1950, was
characterized by bloodshed, vengeance, payback and massive ethnic cleansing.
4. However, as Mac Ginty and Williams point out, “history” can prove to be a
conflict-intensifying factor. What happens, they ask, where there are “contested
memories” and no agreement about whose narrative of the past will be generally
accepted (2009 pp.109–112)?
5. A much easier but by no means simple task for parts of the world that have not
been smashed flat by combat or bombing – for example, the United States in
1945. In countries where this has, indeed, occurred, the first and overwhelmingly

important task would normally be to provide people with a sense of minimal
security.
6. At the start of the millennium, Avruch and Vejarano (2001) noted in their survey
that the 20-year period between 1973 and 1994 had seen the establishment of
over 20 truth commissions and commissions of enquiry in post-agreement set-
tings around the world, mostly in Asia, Africa and Latin America. A later count
by Amnesty International for the period between 1974 and 2007 put the total of
truth commissions at 32 in 28 countries.
7. The Chilean National Commission on Truth and Reconciliation, for example, was
composed of leading members of both old and new regimes, while the Histori-
cal Clarification Committee in Guatemala consisted of a German chair and two
Guatemalan nationals, one approved by each of the main adversaries.
8. Archbishop Tutu’s hope that South Africa’s perpetrators will also receive “forgive-
ness” seems a little optimistic, although not completely beyond the bounds of
possibility.
9. Major – and festering – German resentment was fuelled by the infamous “war
guilt” clause (Article 231) of the Treaty of Versailles. The final instalment of
the reparations payment imposed on Germany by that Treaty was paid by the
German Federal Republic on Sunday 3 October 2010 (report in the New Zealand
Herald, Thursday 30 September 2010).
10. As the widow of Dean Jones, one of the 29 miners killed in 2010 in the Massey
Energy’s “Big Branch” mine disaster, expressed it, “You can’t put a dollar amount
on my husband!” (Quaker Action p.3)
11. This question forms the theme of Ariel Dorfman’s play Death and the Maiden.

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Index
Abacha, President Sani, 288 Alger, Chadwick, 191

A’Becket, Archbishop Thomas, 120 Algeria, influence on ICISS Report, 205
Abu Bakr, Caliph, 3 Alianza Republicana Nacionalista (ARENA)
Accra Agenda for Action, 129 peace agreement in El Salvador, 96

Aceh–conflict in Indonesia, 31, 33, 36 Allen Nan, Susan, 256–7
Ackerman, Alice, 107 Allmand, Christopher, 118
acknowledgement al Qaeda, 121, 171
of responsibility for past events, 280 altruism, as a survival mechanism, 13
of a wrong, 284 American Civil War, 119
Adams, David, 6, 294 Amery, Jean, 288
Addis Ababa Agreement 1972, 108 Amin, President Idi, 203
Afghanistan–NATO intervention amnesty
in, 207 conditional as part of justice, 280
African National Congress (ANC) for past human rights violation, 279
avoiding “wasteland” scenario, 251 post-agreement phase and, 96
retaining symbolic name of in search for justice, 280
“Springboks”, 287 Amnesty International-survey of
sacrifices for agreement with TRCs, 306
Nationalists, 224 amygdale
see also South Africa links to sense of fear and
African Wildlife Foundation, 124 aggression, 15
Africare, 124 overcoming activation of, 21
Afro-Colombians, 254 analogizing, form of creative
Agenda for Peace, 199 thinking, 244
aggressive behaviour Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP),
biological drives underlying, 5–6 250–1
genetic links to, 14–15 Anderson, Mary, “do no harm”, 126–9
in humans, 1 Andorra, shared sovereignty over, 218
inhibitors of, 4 Andre, Catherine, land crisis in Rwanda,
links to amygdale, 12–13 33–4, 295
links to warfare, 8–10 Anglo Saxons, traditional limits on
meaning of, 8–10 violence, 111
Akoto, Robert, 255 Angola
al Andalus, example of peaceful collapse of power sharing
coexistence, 264 agreement, 227
Aland Islands, regional autonomy criminal acts during civil war, 179
of, 230 elections produced re-ignition in, 210
Albania, revival of feuding, 155 Annan, UN Secretary General Kofi, 199,
al Bashir, President Omar, 181 204–5
Albigensian Crusade anti-colonial conflicts increased in 1950s
against Cathars, 32 and 1960s, 163
rare example of existential anti-personnel mines, see landmines
conflict, 264 apology, role in reconciliation process,
Albin, Cecilia, 236 280–4
336

Index 337
Arab-Israeli conflict Azerbaijan

Egyptian involvement in, 57 human rights violations in civil
return of Sinai to Egypt, 238 war, 179
Arab League, provision of peacekeeping secession from Soviet
force to Kuwait, 194 Union, 225
Arai, Tatsushi, 244
archers, executed by military leaders, 133 baboons
Ardrey, Robert, 5, 7, 16 evolving culture within
Arendt, Hannah, 143 troops, 20

Argentina learning between generations, 19
end of “dirty war”, 278 balkanisation, 31
blanket amnesty for military, 279 Baltic republics
see also Falklands/Malvinas Conflict re-appearance after 1990, 187
Armenia Bangladesh, successful secession, 226
failure over reconciliation Barnes, Catherine, 32
initiative, 277 Barre, President Siyad, 210
inguistic conflict over “genocide”, basic human needs
287–8 links latent interests to underlying
Armenian Grey Wolves, a single issue needs, 249
struggle party, 51–2 range of satisfiers for each, 247
Armenian Tree Fund, 124 satisfiers for the need for identity,
Ashley Montague, M.F., 5, 294 247–8
asymmetric conflicts, definition, source of latent interests, 245
58–9 see also human needs theory
asymmetry Basque conflict, 50, 94, 163, 223,
ability to suppress conflicts, 90 227, 229
capacity to survive success, 41 Bayard, Le Chevalier, 133, 301
classifying types of, 59 Belfast (“Good Friday”) Agreement,
degrees of, 60 228, 235
goal salience and, 58 Belgium, regional policies in
impact on intractability, 59 Flanders, 230
power and, 59 Bell, Steve, cartoon of peace-keeping
atrocities, human rights violations in force in Bosnia, 103
intra-state conflicts, 271 Berenger, Count Raymond of |
Aun Shinrikyo Catalonia, 301
attacks in Tokyo subway, 303 Berenger, Jacob, 228
Japanese millenarian movement, 259 Beriker-Atiyas, Nimet, 246
Australia Beroldi, Gerald, 8
leading role in peacekeeping force in Biafra, see Nigeria
East Timor, 204 Big Branch Mine, disaster at, 306
Australian Special Investigation Unit Bihac, UN Protected Zone, 196
(ASIU), 303 Biko, Steve, family unwilling to support
Austro-Italian War 1859, 161 TRC, 280
Austro-Marxist scholars, and problems of Binningsbo, Helga, 230
nationalism, 232 Bismarck, Otto von, 299
Avruch, Kevin, 252–3, 257, Blair, Prime Minister Tony, 298
259, 306 “Bleak House” scenario, 305
Axworthy, Foreign Minister Lloyd, blood revenge, a conflict perpetuating
174, 205 norm, 152, 154

338 Index
Boehm, Christopher Central African Republic ICC charges

definition of feud, 302 against, 181
feuds as conflict limiting Chad, 24
processes, 154 Chagnon, Napoleon, 151
study of inherited traits, 13 Chandragupta, King, 135
Boer war, farmers in, 118 change
Bokasa, “Emperor” Jean Bedel, 203 changing levels of deprivation, 65
bonobos human ability to change, 21
contrasts with chimpanzees, 17 limits on malleability, 22

environmental effects on making winners and losers, 66
behaviour, 18 malign and benign effects, 80–2
long periods of sexual activity, 294–5 obstacles to positive change, 76–9
Bosnia, see Yugoslavia a source of conflict formation and
Boulding, Kenneth, 39, 67, 76, 143, perpetuation, 64
293, 298 Chechnya, 179
Boxer rebellion, 300 chemical & biological weapons control
Brahmi Report, 200 banning poison gas, 168–9
Brams, Steven, 234, 245 Biological Weapons Convention
Branch Davidians, see Waco, siege of (BWC) 1972, 170
bridging strategies, 245 Chemical Weapons Convention,
Britain, see United Kingdom general problems with, 173
Brudholm, Thomas, study of lasting dual use dilemma, 173
resentments, 288 Geneva Protocol 1925, 168–9
Brussels Declaration 1874, 168 initiatives post-World War II, 170
Bryce, Lord, 192 Japanese experiments in Harbin, 303
Burgess, Guy & Heidi, 35, 61, 256 problems of bio-terrorism, 170
Burkina Faso, 175 Soviet violations of BWC, 171
Burma/Myanmar, 119, 175 children
Burton, John W., 47, 61, 81, 214, 247–9, immune from attack, 112
253, 297 inviolability a universal principle, 300
Burundi, 106 participation as combatants, 300
Bush, President George W., 182 traditional inviolability breaking
Bycock, Jesse, 154 down, 116
child soldiers, 96
Camp David Accords, 238 Chile
Canada, 18, 55, 174, 194, 205 National Commission on Truth and
canon law, protecting clerics, women & Reconciliation, 277, 279,
children, 117 289, 306
CARE, humanitarian aid NGO, 124 see also Pinochet, General Agosto
Carnegie Endowment for International chimpanzees
Peace, 83 aggression among, 16–17
Carnevale, Peter, and bridging strategies, changing behaviour, 17
244–5 female sexuality, of, 294
Carthaginian peace, 187, 262 Gombe Reserve, 16
Castellani, participants in war of the wild living, 17
fists, 144, 146 China, Peoples’ Republic of, 31, 58,
Catholic Relief Services (CRS), 123–4 182, 204
Caucasus, and collapse of the Soviet chivalry, code of, 301
Union, 303 Christian Missions, compounds as
Cecil, Lord Robert, 192 sanctuaries in China, 300

Index 339
Christian Peace Teams (CPT), 114, 198 latent or manifest, 98

Christopher, Secretary of State multiple causality of, 32–3
Warren, 299 origins of, 24
Churchill, Winston S., 43, 301 remedies for, 45
Church World Service (CWS), 123 research into, 1, 3
circumplex model, 244 systems, 56–8
civic strike traditional typologies of, 48
in El Salvador, 142
triadic structure of, 25–7, 68–9, 188–9,
a non-violent tactic, 142 290–1

civilian accompaniment (NVCPA)
value conflicts, 50
critique of, 198
conflict dynamics, see dynamics of
effectiveness, 198
conflict
form of peacekeeping, 197
conflict mitigation, 109–36, 217–8
ideas underlying, 197–8
conflict perpetuation, 28, 37, 63–80, 216
organisations practising, 198
civilian casualties, 300 conflict prevention, 81–108, 298
civilian state, final level of European conflict transformation, 189–90
reconciliation, 275 Congo, Democratic Republic of, 17, 48,
Clinton, President Bill 125–6, 179, 181, 196, 199
apology to people of Rwanda, 288 Congress Party, abandonment of goal of
adherence to ICC treaty, 182 united India, 223–4
efforts to undermine Ottawa consensus, 35, 159
Agreement, 174 constraints
closed minds, 269 externally imposed, 11–4
codification, 137–8 influence of American Civil War, 160
see also routine; Geneva Tradition Lieber Code, 161
Cod Wars, conflict between UK and Nineteenth Century sources of, 158
Iceland, 53 three types of constraint, 184–5
co-existence, minimal level of through routine and ritual, 147
reconciliation, 275 contested memories, as a conflict
cognitive maps, 260 intensifying factor, 306
Cold War, 73, 159, 163, 170, 193 Coser, Lewis, 294, 298, 302
Coleman, Katharina, 204
cosmologies, clashing, 253–6, 259–61
Colombia, 44, 57, 112, 114, 120, 151,
Costa Rica, contemporary sense of
165–6, 179, 199, 254, 270, 285, 305
identity, 248
commitment theory, 270
Crawford, James, 177
Commonwealth of Independent States
creativity
(CIS), 204, 206
compensation, 284–7 creative thinking, 244–7
conflict conflict militates against 304
arising from incompatibilities, 23 environmental reframing and
avoidance of, 81, 86 bridging, 245
beneficial effects from, 298 essential elements, unconventionality,
competing definition of, 24 viability, 273–4
cyclical, 48 “outside the box” thinking, 244
early warning systems and, 100 sole possible solution for
formation, 24, 27–8, 37–9, 44, 95 incommensurable conflicts, 244
“habituated” systems, 76 crimes against humanity, after Wold
investment characteristic of, 77 War II, 182–3
irresolvable issues in, 213 Croatia, see Yugoslavia

340 Index
Crusades division of economic goods, 229–31

attack on co-religionists in Fourth Dixon, Thomas Homer, 29–30
Crusade, 265 DNA, structure of, 2
against Cathars in France, 264 Docherty, Jane, 260–1
motivations of participants in First Dollard, John, work on aggression,
Crusade, 264 3, 294
Cuban Missile Crisis, subsequent efforts Dorfman, Ariel, author of Death and the
at forecasting, 299 Maiden, 306
cultural space, a good to be shared, Dubin, Robert, 148, 150

231–2 duchess’s Law, 67
Culture of Peace, 270 Dunant, Henri, founder of Red
Cyprus, 108, 190, 201 Cross, 161
Czechoslovakia durability of settlement, 268, 270
arguments against ICC mandate, 183 dynamics of conflict
German invasion of, 192 causes of continuing, 216
Czech/Slovak division, the “velvet links to intractability, 63–5
divorce”, 304 malign and benign spirals, 216–17
types of perpetuating dynamics, 75,
Dahrendorf, Ralf, 301 216–18
Dairymen’s League dispute, 245, 304 source of protraction, 218
Darfur, 101, 205 dynamic stability, 65
Dawkins, Richard, 21
Dayton Accord East Timor, 33, 99, 101, 106, 107, 179,
ending war in Yugoslavia, 235 195, 200, 277, 280, 289
example of integrative strategies, 246 Economic Commission of West African
De Bono, Edward, 244 States (ECOWAS)
Decade of Peace, 270 legitimising role, 204
de-mining, 96 mission to Liberia, 206
Demirel-Pegg, Tijen, 246 peacekeeping role, 194
demonstration effect, 237 early warning indicators
deterrence Conflict Early Warning System, 100
a form of conflict coping, 1 FEWER, 100
Deutsch, Karl W., 70, 274–5 need for mid-term warning, 103
Deutsch, Morton, align and benign horse exports as 19th Century
spirals, 76, 216 indicator, 299
Devereux, Ann Marie, 274 problem of obtaining action, 100–1
De Waal, Frans, 18, 19, 20, 294–5 proposals in Brahimi Report, 200
Diamond, Jared, 34, 295 Eibl-Elbesfeldt, Irenus, 2
Diamond, Louise, conflict habituated Einstein, Albert, correspondence with
systems, 96 Sigmund Freud, 3
diplomatic immunity, 119 Ejercito de Liberacion Nacional (ELN) in
disarmament, demobilisation, Colombia, 166
reinsertion and rehabilitation El Salvador, 97, 112, 120, 142, 165, 198,
(DDRR), 95, 271, 276 200, 210, 277
displacement, of means and of Embera people in Colombia, 254
objects, 302 encapsulated conflict, 301
dissensus enlargement
contrast with competition, 47 a perpetuating dynamic, 72
underlying conflict, 35 prevention and, 84
dissociation, a perpetuating dynamic, 72 entrapment, 72, 73–75, 217

Index 341
environmental degradation, as a source fire brigade model, 83, 100

of conflict, 30 Fisher, Roger, “Getting to Yes”, 258
equality Fisher, Ronald J.
other principles; equity, contribution, acknowledgement of
proportionality, 214–5 responsibility, 281
principle of fair division, 213 on reconciliation, 271
escalation workshop process for reconciling, 273
ladder model, 72 Flanders, haring national resources, 230
a perpetuating dynamic, 71–2 Follett, Mary Parker, innovative

prevention of, 84 solutions, 220
Estonia, 106, 187, 232 “forgive and forget”, 289
Ethiopia/Eritrea, 19, 99, 163, 169, formula-detail negotiations, 258
195, 226 Fortna, Virginia, 207, 211–12, 228
“ethnic cleansing” as genocide in Fox, Robin, 3, 7
Rwanda, 33 France
Etzioni, Amatai, 301 conflict over Muslim head scarves, 36
European Union, regional economic nuclear status, 174
policies and Basque Country, 229 peacekeeping role, 204
Euskadi Ta Askatasuna (ETA) in Spain, Franco-German relations 1970–1950, 55
51, 98 Franco-Prussian War 1870, 186
Evans, Ambassador Gareth, 205 Fred-Mensah, Ben, 147
existential conflicts, 48–9, 50, 262–5, 305 Frente Farabundo Marti de Liberacion
“expanding the pie”, 253 (FMNL), control of territory, 165
extremism, of ends and means, 257–8 Freud, Sigmund, correspondence with
Albert Einstein, 3
face saving, 74, 77–8 “frozen” conflicts, 190
fair division, 233–5 Fry, Douglas, 12–13, 294
”fairness” as a constructed Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de
phenomenon, 234–5 Colombia (FARC)
Falklands/Malvinas Conflict control of territory, 165
Argentine-UK relations and, 28, 55 local agreements with civil
longevity of, 190 authorities, 114
possible fair division, 233 running an alternative state, 301
rival sovereignty claims, 238
zero-sum nature, 221 Galtung, Johan26–8, 38, 43, 66, 140,
Fellowship of Reconciliation (FoR), 198 151, 188, 295,298, 301, 306
feuds Gandhi, Mohandas, idea for a civilians
contemporary revival in Albania and army, 197
Montenegro, 155 Geneva Call, 175, 303
definitions of, 152–3 Geneva Convention, Additional
disputes over functionality, 153 Protocols 1 and 2
Morocco, 65 defining legitimate combatants, 165
never ending processes, 153 difficulties of agreeing, 164
role in avoiding endless violence, 155 failure to clarify an armed conflict, 166
FEWER, early warning system, 100 protection of civilians, 166
Fiji Geneva Protocol on poison gas, 1925,
early warning of Fijian/Indian 168–70
conflict, 99 Geneva Tradition
failure of prevention, 106 Conventions 1864, 1908, 1929, 161–2
Finland, 194 Fourth Convention 1949, 163

342 Index
Genocide, 262–6 Handel, Michael, 70

see also existential conflicts Harbottle, Brigadier General
Genocide Convention 1948, 177–8 Michael, 194
Georgia, 30, 179, 225, 276 Harris, Marvin, 149
Germany Hartzell, Caroline, 227–8
involvement in three similar wars Hassner, Ron, 2a36, 241, 265
1870–1945, 186 hatred, link with fear and
sense of identity under Third Reich resentment, 268
and Federal Govt, 248–9 Hazen, Jennifer, 201

gestation stage of a conflict Henry of Navarre, 249
links with mobilisation & polarisation Henry VIII, King, banning firearms in
processes, 104 England, 131
need for clear indicators, 103 heralds, role as envoys, 118
preventive measures during, 96–8 Hinsley, F.H., 190
Ghali, Boutros Boutros UN Secretary Hoddie, Matthew, 227–8
General, 81 Hohmann, Gottfried, 18
Ghana holmgang, ritualised conflict in Iceland,
Beum people in, 147 151–2
moving sacred objects of indigenous Holocaust, 286–7
people, 256 Homer-Dixon, Thomas, 29–30
Goodall, Jane, 16 Honwana, Alcinda, 300
Gorazde, UN protected zone, 196 human brain, as a self-learning entity,
Gorbachev, Premier Mikhail, 172 14–15
Goulding, Marrack, 99, 101 humanitarian action, 161–3
Gowon, General Yakubu, 276 see also Geneva Tradition
Greece humanitarian intervention
symbolic rescue efforts after dealing with human rights abuse, 205
earthquakes, 287 new norms for UN intervention, 204
Turkish intervention in Cyprus opposed to doctrine of exclusive
1974, 108 sovereignty, 205
Greek-Cypriot National Guard -, 202 “Humanitarianism and War”
Grey, Lord, 192 project, 127
Grossman, David, 10, 294 humanitarian relief, chief form of
Gross, Michael, 121 conflict mitigation, 122–8
Guatemala, 96–7, 191, 198, 276, human nature
277, 306 basic source of war, 21
Guerra di pugni, ritualised conflict in issue of flexibility, 21
Venice, 144–7 possibilities of change, 22
Gulf Wars human needs theory, 36
“first” war over Kuwait, 172 Human Rights Watch, 177
between Iraq and Iran, use of poison Hungary, 172
gas, 172 hunter gatherers, qualities aiding
Gurr, Ted R., 31, 35, 67, 98 survival, 12–13
hurting stalemate, 93
Hague Conventions 1899 and 1907, Hutus, refugees in Congo, 125–7
168, 302
Haiti UN intervention in, 203, 205 Iceland, see holmgang
Hamber, Brendan, 284 identity
Hammarskjold, UN Secretary General alternative ways of satisfying, 247–8
Dag, 194, 196 balkanization and, 31

Index 343
threats to, 30–1, 50, 248 International Criminal Court (ICC),

zero sum nature of, 63 179–83, 303
Ikle, Fred C., 53, 78 International Criminal Tribunal for the
Imia/Kardak islet, Greco-Turkish former-Yugoslavia (ICTY), 179–80
confrontation over, 100 International Criminal Tribunal for
immunity Rwanda (ICTR), 179–80
clergy and diplomats, 119 International Day of Peace, UN
fragility of, 121 Resolution in 2000, 115–6
of healers, 121–3, 300–1 International Federation of Red Cross

peasants and workers, 122 and Red Crescent Societies
in religious traditions, 119–21 foundation of, 161
impartiality, of medical personnel, 121 International Humanitarian Law (IHL),
incommensurable goals 163–5, 176–9, 302
form of intractable conflict, 30, international law
31, 243 absence of mechanisms for deterring
Indian Ocean Zone of Peace, 112 breakdown, 166
India/Pakistan, 170, 173, 182, 193–4, fragility of, 177
204, 234, 251, 300 liberal interventionism and, 176
indivisibility of objectives, 220, use to regulate warfare, 176–9
235–42 International Monetary Fund (IMF), 230
innocent bystanders, become “legitimate International Olympic Truce Centre, 300
targets”, 117–8 International Peace Academy, 91
innovation, see creativity international police force
insecurity dilemma allies conception in 1945, 191
chronic sense of insecurity, 125 always reliant on borrowed power, 192
effective DDRR processes, 95 based on a domestic model and
post agreement and retention of myth, 191
weapons, 95 origins, 190–3
institutionalisation, of conflict permanent, professional force, 206
behaviour, 138 International Year of Peace, 6
integrative strategies and outcomes intractability
applied to socio-political conflicts, 245 arising from dynamic factors, 292
different from distributive issue intractability and, 219
solutions, 220 issues as central to, 49–51
five basic types of solution, 220–1 linked to issue salience, 50
producing durable outcomes, 221–2 notional measurement of,
Interactive Conflict Resolution (ICR), 60–1, 219
means of reconciliation, 273 prior relationship between adversaries
Inter-American Development Bank, 230 and, 54–6
interests process intractability, 218–9
contrast with values, 247 reasons for studying, 46
latent and manifest, 245 scarcity and, 221
origins of basic human needs, 247 theories about reasons for, 49
preserved by changing position, 247–8 triadic strategy for resolution, 292
Internally Displaced Persons two types of, 218–20
(IDPs), 84–5, 103 type of adversary as source of, 49
see also refugees intra-specific killing, 4
International Commission on intra-state conflicts
Intervention and State Sovereignty dilemma of being a legitimate
(ICISS), 204–5 combatant, 164

344 Index
intra-state conflicts – continued role of punishment for

prevalence of, post 1970s, 163 wrongdoing, 290
rules for conduct in, 164–7 transitional justice, 289–90
Inuit peoples, 151
Iran, 55, 170, 172 Karadzic, Radovan, 181
Iraq, 106, 163, 172, 176, 182, 201 Kashmir, actual division of, 233–4
Irish Republican Army Kautilya’s “Arthashastra”, 134–5
single issue struggle party, 51 Keeley, Lawrence, 14
Islamic Relief, 124 Kelman, Herbert C., changing parties’

Israel-Palestine, 94, 170,182, 224–51, identity, 273
258, 266, 298, 303 Kent, Lisa, 274
issues Kenya, Somalis in, 106, 163, 181, 187
need to deal with in termination, 188 killology, study of unwillingness to kill,
will perpetuate after agreement, 305 10, 11
issue salience Kony, Joseph, and the Lord’s Resistance
altering range of issues, 215 Army, 181, 303
basically non-static, 249 Korean War, 193
central to intractability, 49 Kosovo, 50
changes not possible in radical Albanian refugees in, 126
disagreements, 252 failure to prevent violence, 107
changing preference orderings and, Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA)
250, 287 and, 125
continued existence as priority, 219 Mitrovica, 126
intensity of conflict linked to, 214 Serbian Kosovars, 126
links to asymmetry, 58–60 short term preventive measures in, 99
see also Yugoslavia
policy determinants and, 76
Kosovo Peace Implementation Force
Italy, 174, 204
(KFOR), 125–6
Kriesberg, Louis, 45, 54, 57, 274,
Jankelevitch, Vladimir, advocate for 296, 298
continuing resentment, 288 Kummer, Hans, 19
Japan Kurdistan
experiments with biological communities in north Iraq and
weapons, 303 Turkey, 155
successful banning of firearms, First Gulf War and, 203
132, 167 protective no-fly zone over Iraq
Jerusalem region, 107, 303
perceived as indivisible, 238 use of chemical weapons on, post
zero-sum conflict over, 221 Iraq-Kuwait war, 172
Jewish National Fund, 124 Kuwait
Jihad, 264–5 Arab League barrier force in, 194
job insecurity, factor in perpetuation, 78 First Gulf War and, 172
justice
absent in search for reconciliation, “lack of will”, a vacuous concept, 214
288–90 landmines
alternative approaches; retribution or campaign to ban anti-personnel
restoration, 288 mines, 173–6
necessary qualities, 289 Ottawa Conference, 174
question of impunity, 289 Ottawa Convention to Ban mines
restorative justice, 290 1997, 167, 174

Index 345
“Ottawa Process” as a model, 303 Macedonia

World War II minefields still long term prevention in, 106
active, 173 short term prevention, 99
latent conflicts see also Yugoslavia
dormant issues, 189 Mair, Lucy, 138
revival of old issues, 188 Major, Adrienne, 130, 133–40
frozen conflicts, 190 Manchuria, Japanese invasion of, 192
Latin America Nuclear Free Zone, 112 Mandela, Nelson, 251
Latvia, conflict with Russia, 106, Manu, Laws of, 134

187, 232 Marris, Peter, 76
League of Nations, record of inter-war Martinez, President Maximilian
peacemaking, 192 Hernandez, 142
LeBlanc, Stephen, 14 Marty, William, 141
legitimate targets Masada, suicides at, 298
Boer war and civilians, 118 Maundi, Mohammed Omar, 82
civilians protected via IHL, 136–7
McCarthy, Clem, 269
lawful combatants and protection, 302
McPherson, C.B., 259
property during early Medieval
Medecins sans Frontieres, 123–4
period, 118
medical workers’ impartiality, 301
protracted intra-state conflicts
Melos, dispute with Athens, 262
and, 300
Melousha, siege of, 202
during Sherman’s March tithe Sea, 118
Mercy Corps, 124
Leowenstein, Jeffrey, 245
Lewin, Kurt, 2 Miall, Hugh, 86
Lewis, W.H., 115, 153, 302 millenarian movements
liberation theology, 120 problems presented by, 262
Liberation Tigers of Tamil Elam (LTTE) three basic types, 262
assassination of Indian Prime Millenium Assembly, 205
Minister, 40 Milosevicz, Slobodan, 181
formation of organisation, 51 Minear, Larry, 128
Liberia, 33–4, 179, 195, 210, 280, 300 mobilisation
Libya, 97, 178, 182, 201, 226 efforts to prevent, 90
Lieber, Francis, 161 indicator of underlying problems,
limitations on conflict behaviour 72–3
customary or agreed, 138 perpetuating dynamic, 72
permitted or prohibited, 137 Mobutu Sese Seko, President of
via routine or ritual, 147–52 Congo/Zaire, 288
Lincoln, President Abraham, and the Mogadishu, lack of opportunities for
Lieber Code, 161 peacebuilding, 210
linguistic intractability, 257 Mogotes, Colombian peace
local peace communities, in community, 220
Colombia, 220 Montville, Joseph, a walk through
Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) in Uganda, history, 273
181, 303 Moore, Christopher, 48
Lorenz, Konrad, 2, 5, 7 Morocco, clan feuding in, 115, 153, 302
Lowe Keith, 306 Morris, Desmond, 5, 7
Lund, Michael, 81–2, 105–6 MOVE Conflict in Philadelphia,
Lutheran World Service, 112 259–61, 296
Lyons, Terrence, 210–11 Moyer, Kenneth, 9, 14

346 Index
Mozambique conflict precedent not law enforcement, 175

durability of agreement to end, 97 problem of complicity in crimes, 178
elections starting long-term war crimes trials, 177–8
peace-making, 210
Obama administration, 182
Namibia Ocampo, Luis Moreno, first ICC
peace-keeping force in, 195 Prosecutor, 180
preventive efforts in, 99 O’Connell, Robert, 301
Napoleonic wars, civilian suffering Odysseus, 134

in, 300 Olsen, Mancur, negative effects of
narrative theory, 269 change, 65–8
Nasa people in Colombia Olympic Games
communal ownership of modern efforts to establish general
land, 254 truce during, 300
conflict over land, 254 time of truce in classical era, 115
national cultural autonomy (NCA), “operational” conflict prevention, 85–8
231–2, 304 Operation Lifeline Sudan, 125, 127
negative compellence, and short term Organisation of African Unity (OAU),
prevention, 102 and peacekeeping forces, 194
negative feelings, long term survival Organisation of Security & Cooperation
of, 273 in Europe (OSCE), 100
Nicaragua, 97, 198 Orosco, Jose Antonio, 301
Nicolotti, participants in war of the fist, Others
144, 146 concern for interests of, 42
Nigeria, 33, 123, 163, 204, 206, 226, denial of right to exist, 31
276–7, 284 efforts to achieve learning about, 26
Nimiery, President Jaffar, 304 flexible definition of, 295
non-violence, 139–43 inclusive identity of, 274
Non-Violent Civilian Protective influenced through non-violent
Accompaniment (NVCPA), 197–8 tactics, 143
Nonviolent Peace Force, 198 intruding on territory, 4
North Atlantic Treaty Organisation modifying conception of, 21, 26
(NATO) negative images of, 268
Afghan and Libyan interventions, 207 neighbours as intruders, 15
failed peace enforcement efforts, 179 pinning blame on, 280
Kosovo intervention, 304 reconciling with, 268
lead organisation in Kosovo mission, re-evaluation of Other’s past actions,
125–6 271–2
Northern Ireland conflict, 30, 33, 55, re-humanisation of, 272
93–4, 115, 148, 191, 214, 221, Ottawa Conference, 1996
228, 235, 251, 257, 293, 297 on anti-personnel mines, 174
North Korea, 100 Convention, 174–5
Norway “Ottawa Process”, 176
independence in 1905, 225 Otterbein, Keith, 152, 154, 302
invaded by Nazis, 1940, 178 Overseas Development Institute
nuclear free zones, 112, 170 (ODI), 129
Nuremberg Overy, Richard, 178
charter of the International Military
Tribunal, 181 Pabst, G.W., German film director, 287
issue of who to prosecute, 177 Palio, annual race in Siena, 186

Index 347
Paris Declaration on Aid Pinochet, General Agosto

Effectiveness, 129 amnesty and, 279
Paris, Roland, 230 retains control of Chilean military, 289
parties to conflict treatment of own citizens while in
as a basis for classification, 51 power, 203
behaviour units, 39–40 Plains Indians, destruction of way of
interlocking concern for the Other, 42 life, 259
involved in a continuous, future Platteau, Philippe, 33, 295
relationship, 54–6 poison gas, 168–9, 172

levels of internal cohesion, 53–4 Poland, 165, 187
nature/structure influencing polarisation
interests, 50 indicator of underlying conflict, 72
participating in old or new perpetuating dynamic, 72
conflicts, 187 policing, 191–2
pre-existing or conflict created, 40 Pol Pot, mistreatment of Cambodian
in a previous relationship, 42–3 people, 203
partition, various cases, 225 positive peace, 270
Pax Christi, and protective post-conflict stage
accompaniment, 114 post-agreement peace building, 271–2
peace agreements really post-violence, 94
conditions for durability, 227–8 Pouligny, Beatrice, 208–10
durability of, 270–1 power
failures in last 30 years, 305 asymmetry and, 37
no longer merely compromises, 99 conflict over distribution of, 36
power sharing as central part, 227 countered by refusing consent, 140
Peace Brigades International Power, Margaret, 17
civilian peace-keeping power sharing
organisation, 198 Basque power sharing, 227
protective accompaniment and, 114 mixed results, 226–7
“peace dividend”, 223 Mozambique arrangements, 226
peace enforcement in secessionist conflicts, 227
absence of any peace to enforce, 210 as a solution, 226–8
change in doctrine of sovereign territorial or functional, 227
inviolability, 204–5 preference ordering
failure of peacekeeping effort, 103 four stage model of change, 250
finding the necessary capacity, 205–6 modifying goals and goal
under non-UN auspices, 206 hierarchies, 251
use of force to protect peace-keepers, problem of reasons for changes in
civilians etc, 211 ordering, 252
Peace of God, 116 radical change over time, 249
peasants preventive deployment, 102
as non-combatants, 117 preventive diplomacy, 81–2
economic assets but immune from primate behaviour
attack, 117 fairness among, 20
People for the Ethical Treatment of learning transmitted to new
Animals (PETA), 40 generations, 19
permeability, of parties’ boundaries, 52 malleable, 20–21
Peru, 165, 289 moral behaviour among, 20–1
Phelps, Teresa, 289 parallels with humans, 15, 16, 20
Philippines, 112, 155, 198 pioneering studies, 2

348 Index
primate behaviour – continued theological basis, 273

possibilities for change, 18 use of TRCs to achieve, 277
primatology as a discipline, 23 reference group theory, 67, 135
protective accompaniment, 114 reframing
“provention”, Burton on proactive altering concepts of self interest, 269
prevention, 81 two basic types, 244
Pruitt, Dean G., 28, 42, 46, 73, 220–1, refugees, 85, 95, 103, 123, 125, 126, 127,
244, 295 201, 205, 263
Prunier, Gerard, 295 regime theory

Punic Wars based on reciprocity, 160
banning weapons after, 130 a form of constraint, 138
final termination, 187 re-humanisation, of the Other, 272
parallel with post-Versailles re-ignition
arrangements, 130 cases of in last decade, 271
long term, 82, 96–8
Radcliffe-Brown, Alfred R., 151 methods currently employed to
radical disagreement prevent, 97
an agonistic dialogue, 252 prevention of, 84
category of conflicts, 47 relapse prevention, 91–6
linguistic intractability and, 257 re-integration of combatants
nature and examples of, 252–9 part of peacebuilding, 271
not fundamentally insoluble, 258 preventing re-ignition, 95
underlying intractable conflicts, 219 remorse, necessary quality in
Rainforest Action Network, 124 apology, 282
Ramos, President Fidel, 297 reparations, 284–8
Ramsbotham, Oliver, 61, 257, 305 resentment, justification, and persistence
Rapoport, Anatol, 48 of, 273
Rapp, Ambassador Stephen, 182 “Responsibility to Protect” (R4P)
reactive devaluation, 74 case of Darfur, 206
reactive violence, 38, 89 new doctrine justifying intervention,
Reagan, President Ronald 206–7
apology to Japanese US citizens, 284 resources for implementing, 207
relations with Soviet Premier restraint
Gorbachev, 172 in actions towards children, 300
reciprocity different from constraint, 135–6, 139
mutual benefits provided, 114 exercised unilaterally, 135
principle informing moderation, 110 fragility of, 117
underlain by mutual restraint, 115 nature of, 135–6
reconciliation non-violence an example of, 139
among individuals and paradox of, 110–11
communities, 272 self-limiting action, 143
forgiveness and, 273 retribution, call for, 273
between former enemies, 271 Revolutionary United Front (RUF), war
indicators on, 274 crimes in Sierra Leone, 181
links with healing, 273 Rhodesia/Zimbabwe
as process or end state, 272–4 conflict over independence, 296
resulting in a durable resolution, suppression of nationalist
292–3 movement, 90
search for a general theory, 273 Richardson, Lewis Fry, 2
stages of, 273 “rido”, clan feuding in Mindanao, 155

Index 349
righteous v ruthless warfare, historical Rwanda, 32–4, 44, 48, 100, 101, 106,
dilemma, 134 127,177, 179,196, 199, 203, 263,
“ripe for resolution”, 217 286, 295,299
ritual
among Inuit and Santa Marta Saaty, Thomas L., 250
indigenous peoples, 151 sacrifice principle, 76
among Yanomano and Nuer, 151 sacrifices involved in peace agreements,
characteristics of, 150 223–4
displacement of means or of Sadat, President Anwar, 71

objects, 302 Saffron Revolution in Burma, 119
Icelandic society and, 151–2 Sahnoun, Ambassador Mohammed, 205
role in resolution, 12 Samaniego, peace community in
symbolic substitution for unlimited Colombia, 220
violence, 150–2 sanctions, via non-violence, 144
Romero, Archbishop Oscar, assassination sanctuary, 111–15
of, 120 sanctuary churches
Rosenfeld, Jean, 262 general security from violence, 112
Ross, Jerry, obstacles to changing course, in USA for refugees from Central
76–8 America, 111
Rothschild, Donald, 94 Sal y Luz in Colombia, 112
routine Sandole, Dennis, 65, 76, 215
norms and customs, 136 Sane-Freeze Movement, 51
process of regular behaviour San Jose de Apartado, peace community
patterns, 156 in Colombia, 220
routinization of conflict Santa Marta people in Colombia, 151
conditions for, 147 Sapolsky, Robert, 15, 18, 121, 214
examples of confrontations in Sarajevo, failed UN Protected zone, 196
Northern Ireland, 148 satisfiers
existence of long-term alternative mays of fulfilling, 246
relationships, 147 basic needs and, 246
in industrial relations, 148 culturally influenced, 249
routinized warfare in New Guinea, 149 limited availability, 219
Royal Ulster Constabulary single satisfier syndrome, 249
changed to Northern Ireland Police Satsuma, Battle of, 132
Service, 228–9 Saudi Arabia, 264
as a sectarian force, 191 Save the Children, 123–4
rules and rule systems Save Darfur Children, 123
affected by social change, 146 scarcity
based on consensus, 159 change and, 67–8
conditions for development, 158 distribution and, 221
distinguished from formal legal fairness and, 295
systems, 156–7 feuding and, 154
framework for behaviour in involving equity issues, 221
conflicts, 137 through environmental changes, 29
nature of basic aspects, 144 as a source of conflict, 28–30
rules about making rules, 138 Schacht , Dr. Hjalmar, 181
using in international society, 183 Scythians, use of poisoned weapons, 135
Russell, Bill and Claire, 3 security
Russia, 58, 106, 175, 204, 206 need for a sense of, post violence, 306
Rustad, Siri, 230 post-agreement problems, 228

350 Index
security – continued Sonson, peace community in

restoration of, 84 Colombia, 270
shared for success, post agreement, Sorokin, Pitirim, 2
228–9 South Africa, 97, 170, 204, 210, 234,
south Sudan, post-1972, 229 251, 277, 279–80, 284, 287, 291, 306
security community South China seas, proposed as a zone of
absence of any threat of war, 275 peace, 112
Deutsch’s conception, 274 Southern Africa Development
final result of reconciliation, 275 Community (SADC)

Sendero Luminoso, control of peace-keeping role, 204
territory, 165 sovereignty
“Sending to Coventry”, a non-violent as an indivisible or shareable
sanction, 142 good, 238
Seville Statement on Violence, 6–9, circumscribed, 238
15–16, 22, 270 over Sinai, 238
shaming, as a deterrent, 114 possible to substitute with
Shanti Sena, People’s Peace Army, 197 “stewardship”, 305
Sharon, Ariel, visit to Temple restoration of Austrian
Mount, 100 sovereignty, 238
Sharp, Gene, 140–1, 302 rule not to violate, 203
Sheehan, James, 275 state sovereignty as an obstacle to
peace enforcement, 203
Sherman, General William Tecumseh,
110, 118, 160 Soviet Union, 73, 165, 171, 173,
232, 303
Shriver, Donald, 285
spoilers
Sierra Leone, 108, 179, 181, 199, 201,
continuing conflicts and, 53
206, 228, 276, 280, 289
obstacles to change, 65
Simmel, Georg, 88, 298
Srebrenica
Simon, Herbert, 244
massacre of Bosniacs, 202
Simpson, Leah, 228
UN Protected Zone, 196
Singer, Peter, 300
Sri Lanka, 30, 33, 40–41, 44, 57, 179,
Slim, Hugo, 116
215, 228
Slovakia-Hungary, conflict between, 107
St Petersburg Declaration 1868, 167–8
Smith, Nick, 283 Stagner, Ross, 24
Smuts, General Jan Christian, 192 status disequilibrium, a source if
Social Darwinism, 4 conflict, 66
Society of Friends, 124 Staw, Barry, on obstacles to changing
sociobiology, new synthesis, 7, 11 course, 76–8
Solomon, judgement in conflict over a steadfastness, as a perpetuating social
baby, 237 norm, 78
solutions Stedman, Stephen, 81
acceptability to recipient, 222 Stein, Janice, 138
as compensation, 222 Storr, Anthony, 5
of creativity, 220 Strategic Engagement of Discourse
of division and sharing, 224–30 process (SED), 257–8
of expansion, 221–2 structural or long-term conflict
integrative v distributive, 220 prevention
original idea by Follett, 304 as “deep” prevention, 86
of substitution, 222–4 overly ambitious, 86–7
Somalia, 68, 163, 196, 199, 201 preventing goal incompatibility, 87

Index 351
struggle organisations, 40–1, 78 need for a truthful record of Other

Sudan, 28, 33, 36, 57, 101, 108, 127, past, 277
151, 179,181, 198, 201, 205, 221, negative results of, 277
229, 266,303, 304 qualities for success, 280
Suez Canal, now peripheral to British range of TRCs in first decade, 277
interests, 252 in South Africa, 277
super-ordinate goals, as a prevention Turkey
strategy, 87–8 Armenia and, 277, 288
survival Exodus of Iraqi Kurds into, 203

human traits enabling, 11–14 Greece and, 287
of hunter-gatherer bands, 21 Revival of feud in Kurdish regions, 155
sustainability, of peace processes, 97 Turkish Cypriot community, 202
SWEDBATT, use of protective force in Tutu, Archbishop Desmond, and
Cyprus, 202 forgiveness, 306
Sweden, 194 Tuzla, UN Protected Zone, 196
Swedish International Development
Agency (SIDA), 123 Uganda
SwissPeace, 123 case against LRA, 181
symbolic substitution, 150 and the ICC, 303
Syria, 101, 127, 201 Ugli Orange exercise, 240, 245, 305
Ukraine
Taif Agreement, ending Lebanese civil abandonment of nuclear weapons, 167
war, 235 conflict with Russia, 106
Tajikistan, 206, 266 UN Committee on Disarmament,
Taliban, 121 170–1
Tamil Elam, failure of secessionist unconditional surrender, imposed on
movement, 226 Germany 1945, 187
Tavuchis, Nicholas, 281, 282–4 United Nations (UN), 100, 102
Taylor, A.J.P., 299 UN Department of Humanitarian
termination, 187–9 Affairs, 123
territorial self-image, 236–7 UN Development Programme, 123
threats to identity, 30–1 UNESCO, 6, 270
Tinbergen, Nikolaas, 2 UNHCR, 123
Tir, Jaroslav, 225, 236–7 UNICEF, 123
Tokugawa shogunate, control of firearms United Kingdom, 55, 58, 118,
in Japan, 132 131–2, 191
Tokyo War Crimes trials, 177–8, 181 UN General Assembly, 115, 178,
trade unions as conflict parties, 51 180, 270
Trinidad and Tobago, initiative at the Unidad Revolucionaria Nacional
UN, 180 Guatemalteca (URNG), 96
Troy, fate of, 263 UN International Law Committee, 180
Truce of God, church efforts to limit United Nations Standby
times for combat, 116 Arrangements, 206
trust, minimal level necessary to begin United States of America, 55, 58, 73,
peace process, 268 109, 111, 131, 170–1, 174, 176, 179,
Truth and Reconciliation Commissions, 182, 198, 204,303, 305
(TRC) Uniting for Peace resolution, 193
alternatives to, 280 UN Security Council, 29, 193
in Argentina, 279 Uppsala University Conflict Date
in Chile, 279 programme, 163

352 Index
Uribe, President Alvaro, 166 weapons control

Ury, William, author of “Getting to banning inhumane weapons, 167
Yes”, 258 bans on cluster bombs and trade in
small arms, 303
bans on missile weapons, 133–5
Valkyrie conspiracy, 182–3
cultural restraints, 132
values
difficulty of keeping new weapons for
contrast with interests, 49
one side, 301
issue salience and, 50
firearms bans in Tudor England, 131–2

Vayrynen, Raimo, 103, 106–7, 298
gun control in USA, 131
Vejarano, Beatriz, 306
Japanese abandonment of firearms,
vengeance, ethic of, limitations on in
132
feuding, 111
nuclear free zones, 170
Venice, Republic of, 144–7
nuclear weapons and, 169–70
Versailles peace agreements
St Petersburg Declaration, 167–8
failure to resolve original contentious
through institutional processes, 167
issues, 46
variegated types of control, 130
German resentment of “war guilt”
Wessinger, Carol, 262
clause, 306
Western Sahara, 200
Vicencio, Charles Villa, on South African
TRC, 279 White, Ralph K., 236–7
Vietnam War, success of insurgency, 109 Wilson, E.O., 7, 11, 22
violence Wilson, President Woodrow, 192
changes after settlement, 14 win-lose conflicts
ending basic to termination, 189 incommensurable contradictions and,
243–4
in hunter gatherer bands, 14
instrumental use of, 14 win-win solutions, 188, 305
links with conflict and war, 15 Wiseman, Henry, 194
violence prevention Witness for Peace, work in
Nicaragua, 198
central to “conflict” prevention, 83
women
through providing alternatives, 91–3
participation as combatants, 300
visibility, of boundaries around
adversaries, 52 traditions of immunity, 117
World Bank (IBRD), 230
World Health Organisation (WHO)
Waco, siege of, 260, 262, 269 project on Humanitarian
Walker, Susan, on land mine deaths, 303 Ceasefires, 115
Walter, Barbara, 207, 227 world population estimate, 305
Wal Wal Incident, 100 World Trade Organisation (WTO), 140
war crimes world-view conflicts, 61, 252–62
following Rwandan genocide & ethnic World War I
cleansing in Yugoslavia, 177 continuing use of blockade on
post-World War II trials, 178 Germany after 1918, 141
victors’ justice, 179 effect on subsequent search for an
see also Nuremberg international police force, 191–2
War of the Fists, see Guerra di pugni German resentment of war guilt
water wars, 68, 295 clause, 306
Watson, James work on DNA with issue of German reparations, 285
Crick, 3 precursor of World War II, 186

Index 353
World War II Yamoussoukro Conference, 270

controversy over use of nuclear Yanomamo in South America, see ritual
weapons, 282 Yemen, Egyptian intervention in civil
extensions to IHL in aftermath, 163 war, 57
German compensation payments to Young, Peyton, 223, 238–9
Israel, 288 Yugoslavia, 30, 48, 50, 93, 99, 106,107,
long term reconciliation post-war, 272 125–6, 154, 165, 176–7, 178, 186,
non-use of chemical weapons 196, 199–200, 201, 246, 266
during, 169 see also Croatia; Serbia; Bosnia;

Slovenia; Kosovo
post-war reconstruction, 276
repeat of World War I, 186
Zartman, I William, 75, 258
resistance movements in, 165
Zepa, UN Protected Zone, 196
symbolism of visits to concentration zero sum conflicts, 293
camp sites, 287 zones of peace
unconditional surrender and, 187 local zones in Colombia, El Salvador
US apology for interning Japanese (Usulatan) and Philippines, 112
citizens, 284 see also Mogotes, Samaniego; San Jose
violence continuing in aftermath, 306 de Apartado; Sonson
Wrangham, Richard, 12, 17, 294 Zuckerman, Sir Solly, criticism of
Wright, Quincy, 2, 298 pioneering studies, 2

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Christopher Mitchell - Conflictology

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The Nature of Intractable Conflict

Resolution in the Twenty-First Century

Please respect intellectual property rights

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10.1057/9781137454157 - The Nature of Intractable Conflict, Christopher Mitchell

10.1057/9781137454157 - The Nature of Intractable Conflict, Christopher Mitchell

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10.1057/9781137454157 - The Nature of Intractable Conflict, Christopher Mitchell

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10.1057/9781137454157 - The Nature of Intractable Conflict, Christopher Mitchell

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10.1057/9781137454157 - The Nature of Intractable Conflict, Christopher Mitchell

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10.1057/9781137454157 - The Nature of Intractable Conflict, Christopher Mitchell

List of Figures and Tables viii

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2.1 Basic conflict structure 26

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3.1 Disputes and conflicts 47

10.1057/9781137454157 - The Nature of Intractable Conflict, Christopher Mitchell

Just over 40 years ago, having just completed an unpublishable doctoral

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10.1057/9781137454157 - The Nature of Intractable Conflict, Christopher Mitchell

It was becoming the era of the handbook or the encyclopedia, written by

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10.1057/9781137454157 - The Nature of Intractable Conflict, Christopher Mitchell

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10.1057/9781137454157 - The Nature of Intractable Conflict, Christopher Mitchell

1.1. Parallel developments

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1.2. The early debates

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10.1057/9781137454157 - The Nature of Intractable Conflict, Christopher Mitchell

1.3. The Seville Statement on Violence – and beyond

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the brain compared with cultural and environmental factors in explaining

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inter-specific aggression, which included predator attacks on prey and

Oversimplifying somewhat, by the 1990s these distinctions had coalesced

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2. Inheritance, sociobiology and the “natural selection”

Whatever the fundamental, originating sources of individual or of orga-

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2.1. Selection for survival

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As far as the passing on over millennia of functional “traits for survival”,

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2.2. Long-term survival skills