From Promise to Practice: Strengthening UN Capacities for the Prevention of Conflict 9781685855239

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From Promise t o Practice

A project of the International Peace Academy

From Promise to Practice STRENGTHENING U N CAPACITIES FOR THE PREVENTION OF VIOLENT CONFLICT

EDITED BY

Chandra Lekha Sriram Karin Wermester

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LYN N E RIENNER

PUBLISHERS

B O U L D E R L O N D O N

Published in the United States of America in 2003 by Lynne Rienner Publishers, Inc. 1800 30th Street, Boulder, Colorado 80301 www.rienner.com and in the United Kingdom by Lynne Rienner Publishers, Inc. 3 Henrietta Street, Covent Garden, London WC2E 8LU © 2003 by the International Peace Academy, Inc. All rights reserved by the publisher Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Sriram, Chandra Lekha, 1971— From promise to practice : strengthening UN capacities for the prevention of violent conflict / Chandra Lekha Sriram and Karin Wermester, editors, p. cm. "A project of the International Peace Academy." Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 1-58826-135-2 (alk. paper) — ISBN 1-58826-112-3 (pbk.: alk. paper) 1. United Nations. 2. Conflict management. 3. Peacekeeping forces. I. Wermester, Karin. n. International Peace Academy. III. Title. JZ6368.S68 2003 341.5—dc21 2002036827 British Cataloguing in Publication Data A Cataloguing in Publication record for this book is available from the British Library. Printed and bound in the United States of America The paper used in this publication meets the requirements 0 0 ) of the American National Standard for Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials Z39.48-1992. 5

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Contents

Foreword, David M. Malone Acknowledgments

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1 Introduction Chandra Lekha Sriram

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Part 1

Theoretical Challenges, Operational Opportunities

2 From Risk to Response: Phases of Conflict, Phases of Conflict Prevention Chandra Lekha Sriram with Karin Wermester

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3 Third-Party Incentives and the Phases of Conflict Prevention Donald Rothchild

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Part 2

Lessons from the Field: Managing the Gestation of Conflict

4 Quiet Diplomacy and Recurring "Ethnic Clashes" in Kenya Stephen Brown

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5 Zanzibar: A Multilevel Analysis of Conflict Prevention Paul J. Kaiser 6 Fiji: Peacemaking in a Multiethnic State Ralph R. Premdas

Part 3

Lessons f r o m t h e Field: A n t i c i p a t i n g t h e Triggers o f V i o l e n c e

7 Javakheti, Georgia: Why Conflict Prevention? Anna Matveeva 8 East Timor: The Path to Self-Determination Tamrat Samuel

Part 4

Lessons f r o m t h e Field: Preventing Escalation or Resurgence

9 Colombia: International Involvement in Protracted Peacemaking Marc W. Chernick 10 Tajikistan: Bad Peace Agreements and Prolonged Civil Conflict Kathleen Collins 11 Liberia: Legacies and Leaders George Klay Kieh Jr. 12 Preventing Conflict Escalation in Burundi Mohammed Omar Maundi

Part 5

O p t i o n s f o r t h e Future

13 Insights from the Cases: Opportunities and Challenges for Preventive Actors Chandra Lekha Sriram

CONTENTS

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14 From Promise to Practice? Conflict Prevention at the UN Karin Wermester

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List of Acronyms Selected Bibliography The Contributors Index About the Book

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Foreword David M. Mahne

President, International Peace Academy

This volume of case studies and policy recommendations in conflict prevention comes as a part of a three-year research and policy project by the International Peace Academy (IPA), From Promise to Practice: Strengthening UN Capacities for the Prevention of Violent Conflict. The project seeks to identify opportunities to strengthen the conflict prevention capacity within the UN system, with an emphasis on structural prevention, in particular development and capacity-building. We hope readers of this volume will learn as much from the cases as we have. In the course of this project, we have come to understand how important, in conflict prevention, is the notion of partnership—between the UN, relevant regional organizations, key nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) with useful local networks, and experts (academic and otherwise) who can help steer international actors away from those many mistakes born of ignorance. Recent "lessons learned" exercises make clear that knowledge and analytical capacities within key governments and international agencies have failed to keep pace with the growing complexity of international and internal transactions and also with the emerging understanding of the need for "specificity" in international efforts to prevent deadly conflict. Cookie-cutter solutions generally fail. Carefully crafted strategies aware and respectful of divergent political cultures, economic patterns, and societal structures stand a better chance. But they require much greater, concerted effort. All of IPA's research aims to inform decisionmaking at the policy level and to encourage the strengthening of institutional capacities to address preconflict, conflict, and postconflict situations in the UN system, within

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regional organizations and arrangements, and within key governments, including those of the countries most affected and their neighbors. The research project examines nine country cases where preventive actions have been taken, drawing upon experiences of the UN, regional organizations, bilateral actors, and NGOs. The project was informed throughout by insights provided by expert academics and practitioners, in particular from key experts within the UN system. The case studies, written by a diverse set of country experts, seek to identify what tools and strategies for conflict prevention are best suited to respond to specific risks and challenges in conflictprone countries and regions. This research effort is itself an integral part of the broader project, which seeks, through analysis and policy-oriented networking, to examine key issues in conflict prevention. The project has examined the role of local actors and of regional actors in relation to the UN in conflict prevention, and the work of intergovernmental UN bodies in peacebuilding. These cases point to the importance not only of context-specific preventive strategies, but also of comprehensive strategies. In particular, they make clear the linked nature of development and security issues, and the fact that neither "pillar" can be addressed in a vacuum. Rather, development strategies must be sensitive to their impact on the potential for conflict, and can be designed to better aid in preventing conflict and conflict escalation. Similarly, strategies oriented toward security issues are an integral part of stable development. The importance of building the capacity of national governments to peacefully manage conflict is a constant theme in the volume—many cases involve weak or unstable states struggling to control what in more established states would be normal social conflict. At the same time, the volume makes clear just how difficult it is for actors in the development domain to directly address more explicitly political "security" issues. Development actors, in the UN and the international financial institutions, as well as bilateral donors, are increasingly engaged in activities that seek to prevent conflict; the cases make clear the challenges they face as well as illustrate their myriad options. The research would not have been possible but for the generous funding of six government donors to the project as a whole. These donors, who have given generously not just of funds but also of insights and advice, are Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Portugal, Sweden, and the United Kingdom.

Acknowledgments

This volume was developed and commissioned under the auspices of the IPA's three-year prevention project, From Promise to Practice: Strengthening UN Capacities for the Prevention of Violent Conflict. The project works closely with actors across the UN system—member states, departments and agencies of the UN, and field staff, as well as a wide variety of expert practitioners and research NGOs. The project also works closely with the other research and policy projects here at the IPA. It is closely linked to the IPA's other thematic and regional projects that examine policy challenges in conflict zones. The project has drawn upon the expertise of the Africa Program on nascent conflict limitation capacities, in particular its ongoing examination of subregional organizations across the continent. It has also benefited from the work developed by the UN, NATO, and Other Regional Actors Program on the operational roles of a host of regional organizations and their relations with the UN. It has drawn extensively on the groundbreaking work of the Economic Agendas in Civil Wars Program in refining understanding about the causes and dynamics of many contemporary conflicts. It has also been informed by work of the Transitional Administrations Program on steps taken by the international community to foster lasting peace in societies emerging from conflict. As such, it is a truly collaborative endeavor, having benefited from the wisdom and insights of innumerable experts. Any acknowledgments are thus not comprehensive. However, the editors would like to thank in particular those who gave support and intellectual gravitas to the project throughout. At the IPA these include David Malone, John Hirsch, Adekeye Adebajo, and Necla Tschirgi. Particular thanks are due to Karen Ballentine, who was a helpful critic and commentator throughout this process, and to Zoe Nielsen, who worked editoxi

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rial wonders in the eleventh hour. Support from outside the IPA was invaluable—the expert committee on research design was particularly useful in ensuring that our work began on the right track. The editors would like to thank that committee: Claude Bruderlein, George Downs, Michèle Griffin, Mark Hoffman, Rick Hooper, Michael Lund, Andrew Mack, Laila Manji, Connie Peck, Barnett Rubin, Jack Snyder, and Stephen John Stedman. Special thanks are due to Donald Rothchild, who in addition to writing an excellent analysis of third-party incentives for the volume has been an invaluable source of advice and support. Each article benefited greatly from the insights and criticisms of the anonymous expert UN and academic reviewers. Nevertheless, any errors are, of course, attributable to us. We would like to thank those who helped in ushering the book to press— Katia Papagianni, who helped to edit and rationalize the volume; our excellent publications coordinator, Cyrus Samii, who ensured a smooth transmission to press; and, of course, the wonderful staff at Lynne Rienner. Finally, though of great importance, this research could not have been carried out without the generous financial support of our donors, identified in the foreword. We are very grateful not only for their funding, but also for their active involvement in our programming. —Chandra Lekha Sriram and Karin Wermester

From Promise t o Practice

1 Introduction Chandra Lekha Sriram

Conflict prevention is a central goal of the UN system, but it also constitutes one of the UN's greatest challenges. A great deal of research over the past few years has sought to demonstrate the virtues of conflict prevention and to identify how it can better be operationalized. This volume examines concrete experiences in structural conflict prevention and challenges for development actors in conflict-prone situations. The authors seek to contribute to the improvement of preventive practice in the UN system and beyond through a close examination of nine country cases. The studies here build on a foundation established in From Reaction to Conflict Prevention: Opportunities for the UN System,1 which compiled analytic work addressing contemporary issues and debates in conflict prevention and provided a conceptual framework for thinking about preventive practice. Through the use of specific country cases, the current volume seeks to test some of the key concepts developed in the earlier book. The cases examined are representative of the broad scope of preventive action, which is expanding not only geographically into new regions, but also in terms of approaches deployed. These cases look at efforts in Kenya, Fiji, Tanzania (Zanzibar), Tajikistan, Burundi, Georgia (Javakheti), East Timor, Liberia, and Colombia. Key lessons can be drawn from each case on appropriate strategies and tools for responding to specific challenges, on the complementary roles of operational and structural prevention, and with regard to who ought to be acting when. The theory and practice of conflict prevention have tended to be guided by the distinction between structural prevention—activities undertaken to address the root causes of conflict—and operational, or direct, prevention— activities undertaken to reduce or eliminate the immediate manifestations of 1

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violence. This distinction has reflected the traditional separation of development activities and actors on the one hand, and security activities and actors on the other. However, the case studies in this volume suggest that structural and operational prevention have complementary roles to play throughout the various phases of conflict. Too often, one is emphasized at the expense of the other, compromising the overall effectiveness of conflict prevention efforts. Structural prevention efforts that address underlying causes of conflict ranging from poverty and inequality to flawed institutions will rarely succeed unless proximate causes of conflict, such as savvy leaders' mobilization of grievances of the populace to provoke violence, are targeted as well. Thus the range of tools and strategies available for conflict prevention reflects the complex mix of political, economic, social, cultural, institutional, and environmental factors that coalesce to form violent conflict complexes that frequently transcend state boundaries. There is a need for a holistic approach to prevention, one that addresses the linkages between development and security and recognizes the nexus of the two. In this context, the chapters that follow consider theoretical challenges, operational opportunities, lessons from the field, and options for the future.

Theoretical Challenges, Operational Opportunities In Chapter 2, Chandra Lekha Sriram and Karin Wermester elaborate upon the method and rationale for the volume, as well as upon lessons learned from a structured comparison of the cases. The brief survey addresses key issues in the study and practice of conflict prevention and presents the phases of prevention analytical framework used in developing the cases. The key insight drawn from this examination is recognition of the so-called developmentsecurity nexus, and of the importance of an integrated strategy, particularly a strategy that does not generate artificial distinctions between security and economic challenges. In Chapter 3, Donald Rothchild further articulates the strategies available to preventive actors. He elaborates upon the range of useful incentives that may be deployed in response to specific threats to peace and stability, as well as the ways in which options narrow and the costs of acting preventively increase as the risks or levels of violence increase.

Lessons from the Field: Clusters of Challenges Each country or region facing real or potential violent conflict emerges from a political, historical, military, and cultural context that poses unique threats and challenges for preventive actors. Nevertheless, lessons learned in one sit-

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uation may frequently be of relevance in others. The commonalities among clusters of cases were the types of risks and challenges faced by the countries and by the external actors seeking to engage in conflict prevention. The case studies are arranged in this volume accordingly. The cases in Part 2, collected as "Managing the Gestation of Conflict," were characterized by low-level violence and response, indicating that there was some structural risk of conflict, and that potential flash points had begun to appear. In the cases in Part 3, "Anticipating the Triggers of Violence," the potential for violence, if not yet the actuality of it, was much greater. In these instances the challenge was to anticipate the sources of mobilization and the triggers for wide-scale violence. In Part 4, "Preventing Escalation or Resurgence," the cases posed the challenge of responding to conflict already under way, with the multiple tasks of making peace, preventing the escalation of violence, or engaging in peacebuilding to prevent the resurgence of violence. Managing the Gestation of Conflict In Chapter 4, Stephen Brown discusses the rising violence in Kenya and the dilemmas and challenges faced by potential preventive actors. The violent clashes have been depicted by the government as "ethnic clashes," though strong evidence suggests that the ruling party is responsible for inciting the violence. For the most part, donors and the international community have not officially recognized the role of the ruling party and government in inciting the violence, thus hampering ad hoc efforts to forestall violence. Kenya offers an illustration of the classic "donors' dilemma"—if international actors seek to publicly criticize the violence, they risk losing access to the nation. The UN is not alone in facing this dilemma; most actors in Kenya do not include conflict prevention in the description of their work, and do not publicly or directly confront the government on its role in the violence. The strategies that have been deployed by international actors in Kenya, therefore, have not been well designed for conflict prevention, although they have included important measures such as monitoring, humanitarian assistance, and dialogue with the government. Such continued "quiet diplomacy" appears to have been insufficient in the absence of the threat of more serious repercussions for the government. In Chapter 5, Paul J. Kaiser describes sporadically recurring attempts at conflict mediation in Zanzibar, a part of the state of Tanzania, in response to electoral irregularities and attendant conflict. In response to several incidents of election-related disputes followed by political violence, numerous donors have cut aid to Zanzibar, leaving donors little leverage in mediation efforts. The Commonwealth Secretariat was involved in more sustained mediation efforts, resulting in two agreements: Muafaka 1, which was never implemented, and Muafaka 2, emphasizing electoral and judicial reform, which has

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INTRODUCTION

yet to be implemented. The UN did remain in the country, monitoring elections through the UN Development Programme (UNDP) and seeking to engage the government while avoiding using explicitly preventive language. As with Kenya, the experience of the international community in Tanzania/ Zanzibar illustrates the donors' dilemma and makes clear the difficulty of influencing a state after the withdrawal of aid. Nonetheless, the commonwealth as an institution has demonstrated some utility as a broker. In Chapter 6, Ralph R. Premdas addresses the ethnic tension, electoral crises, and coups that have taken place in Fiji, and discusses the international community's efforts to defuse the potential for conflict there. Fiji is a multiethnic state, with the majority almost evenly split between ethnic Fijians and Indians. The constitution and the historical legacy of colonialism have created and enshrined a number of political and economic distinctions between the two communities, and suspicion between them is now deeply entrenched. Two coups over the past two decades are of particular note—one in 1987, which overthrew an ethnically Fijian coalition government that was supported by Indian voters, and one in 2000, which overthrew an ethnically Indian elected prime minister. In each instance, the diplomatic response of the international community was strong, but whether the policies were tailored to effective conflict prevention is less clear. Strong diplomatic condemnation, including expulsion from the Commonwealth, attended the coups, though trade sanctions were not imposed. In the case of the second coup, the instigators themselves were removed by the military, and the supreme court stepped in to declare the need for new elections. The two coups and the threat of wider conflict appear to have been defused in different ways—while the 1987 coupmakers appear to have been responsive to international economic and diplomatic pressure, the instigators of the 2000 coup were more resistant to international pressure, and ultimately were displaced from within the country. Anticipating the Triggers of Violence In Chapter 7, Anna Matveeva addresses the myriad international efforts to prevent conflict in the Javakheti region of Georgia, where no conflict has yet occurred. These efforts stem from concern that Javakheti might follow the paths of South Ossetia and Abkhazia in seeking to secede from the central government. The common ingredients for secessionism can be found in Javakheti: an ethnic minority in a compact region on the borders of a kin state (Armenia), and cultural and physical isolation from the rest of the country. There is also a good deal of mythmaking taking place, with the perception that the neighboring Turks, and Meshkhetian Muslims being repatriated largely from Azerbaijan, pose a threat. While these facts alone may not be sufficient to provoke secessionism or conflict, there is great fear that the likely removal of Russian troops could create an economic and security vacuum that could

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serve as a catalyst for conflict. Javakheti has thus received a great deal of attention by international nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) and increasingly by the UN, the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), and the EU. However, most of that attention has been couched in terms of development rather than conflict prevention, apparently out of a desire to avoid upsetting the Georgian authorities. Preventive actors view the problem of Javakheti in disparate ways—as a regional governance problem resulting from the weakness of the Georgian state, as an ethnic problem, or as an economic underdevelopment problem. Most efforts are too new for their effectiveness to be ascertained definitively; the concern remains that strategies addressing only ethnic or economic issues will fail to deal with a serious structural problem—the weak Georgian state. In Chapter 8, Tamrat Samuel discusses the challenges faced in East Timor by the UN and others seeking to prevent violence in the run-up to and aftermath of the Timorese independence referendum in August 1999. As is now well known, a wave of violence by prointegration paramilitaries supported by the Indonesian military followed the popular consultation, resulting in mass killings and hundreds of thousands of refugees. The risk of violence was foreseeable, and the international community took measures of preventive diplomacy. However, the Indonesian government's insistence on maintaining control over security, enshrined in the agreements of May 5, 1999, which established the referendum process, limited the UN's options. Real political constraints and limited will to act forcefully also greatly limited the UN's scope for preventive action. The primary tool available to the international community—diplomatic and political pressure—was insufficient to deter the violence, although it was utilized at the highest level. Though member states may have lacked the political will to act militarily, there was no real test of will; the UN Security Council was never asked to authorize military action. In the absence of more forceful statements backed by a genuine threat of the use of force, the Indonesian military apparently felt safe in disregarding diplomatic warnings. Preventing Escalation or Resurgence In Chapter 9, Marc Chernick focuses on Colombia, describing the history of the conflict and both prospects for and obstacles to peace. The war in Colombia has now endured for half a century, resulting in millions of internally displaced persons and serious human rights violations and facilitating dramatic growth in drug cultivation and trafficking. The protagonists, the government and the two major guerrilla groups (Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia [FARC] and Ejército de Liberación Nacional [ELN]), have increasingly been confronted by right-wing paramilitaries with ties to the military, drug traffickers, and others. The government and major guerrilla groups have

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INTRODUCTION

repeatedly sought to end the conflict. Their efforts were intentionally pursued without the aid of international mediation, as the government viewed the civil war as an internal question. International efforts to promote peace have increased in recent years, though they have been limited in part by differing conceptions of the goal. U.S. "preventive" strategy, through "Plan Colombia," is primarily concerned with drug interdiction, while EU policy has emphasized human rights, the peace process, and institutional development. Negotiations with the two rebel groups proceed on separate tracks, complicating the process of reaching an agreement. In the late 1990s, the UN became more involved, but the international community will continue to be limited in its efforts so long as neither side, government or guerrilla, accepts a formal international mediation role. In Chapter 10, Kathleen Collins examines the risk of renewed conflict in Tajikistan, where the key cause of conflict is not ethnic but structural. Tajikistan emerged from Soviet rule with weak institutions and a weak national identity, but strong clan identifications, and rapid "decolonization" sped state failure. Violent protests by opposition groups turned into violent skirmishes, and with the defection of a key military unit, civil war broke out. Numerous opposition groups came together under the banner of the United Tajik Opposition (UTO), but other armed groups also proliferated. Initially, Russia, the regional hegemon, limited international involvement, and by the time international action took place, the conflict had significantly escalated. Russia, Iran, and Pakistan each pursued narrow national agendas in their involvement in Tajikistan, and promoted negotiation out of concern over regional instability. The June 1997 peace agreement was imposed by external actors, in particular Russia and Iran, with the support of the UN. It was flawed, however, institutionalizing domestic political inequalities among the nation's regions and excluding numerous clans and factions. Potential sources of instability in Tajikistan—domestic imbalances of power, regional instability, and economic decline—remain the greatest challenges for preventive actors in that country. The conflict in Afghanistan also seems likely to further affect Tajikistan and the subregion. In Chapter 11, George Klay Kieh Jr. describes the historical roots of the conflict in Liberia and considers regional peacekeeping efforts and the enduring conflict today. Though the Liberian conflict has its roots in ethnic divisions, it is by no means a purely ethnic conflict, but one driven also by inequality and manipulative, predatory leaders who seek control of natural resources. The chapter examines the civil war that began in December 1989 with an armed insurgency led by Charles Taylor, as well as the war that reemerged a decade later. Regional dimensions are central to both the causes of the Liberian conflict and the responses to it. Foday Sankoh of Sierra Leone provided support to Taylor, who has returned the favor. And while the UN and the Organization of African Unity (OAU) have lacked the will or capacity to act, the

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threat of instability to the subregion prompted the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) to intervene with a military observer group (ECOMOG). Clearly, ECOWAS took the lead; the OAU did appoint a special representative, and the UN eventually established a mission there, but one with a limited mandate. International actors mediated numerous accords but did not seriously punish Taylor's defection. While the conflict formally ended in 1997, resulting in democratic elections won by Taylor, the peace was never consolidated, allowing for a return to conflict in parts of the nation. Recent international efforts have focused less on the internal conflict than on Taylor's capacity to destabilize the subregion, and on the sale of the so-called blood diamonds that continue to provide him revenue. These efforts have been incomplete because they do not address another key source of revenue, timber. In Chapter 12, Mohammed Omar Maundi describes the ethnic divides, violence, and attempts at mediation and negotiation in Burundi. The military's political dominance and competition for political power and scarce economic resources between the ethnic Tutsi and Hutu groups contributed significantly to continuing cycles of violence in the country. Each ethnic group had its own political party and military counterpart, and extreme ethnic mythmaking on each side generated paranoia and "preemptive" violence. The Tutsis dominated political power, including the presidency, until the elections of 1993 when a Hutu was elected. A coup followed, and violence broke out. The OAU and UN response was limited; they were unable to send a military force despite a request by the legitimate government in exile. A number of NGOs engaged in more active roles. In particular, the Mwalimu Nyerere Foundation took the lead, supporting Nyerere himself as an "international facilitator" to lead negotiation efforts on behalf of the region, the OAU, and the UN. At the same time, sanctions have had mixed results, further isolating Burundi and undermining negotiations and Nyerere's standing as a facilitator, but ultimately forcing some concessions. A peace agreement was reached in August 2000, but did not stop the fighting; Maundi contends, however, that the very process of drawing nineteen parties to the negotiating table and reaching an agreement constitutes a nominal success.

Options for the Future In Chapter 13, Chandra Lekha Sriram seeks to integrate the lessons for preventive action that can be drawn from these disparate cases. While the cases clearly demonstrate the importance of context-sensitivity in developing preventive strategy, some lessons can be drawn across cases, with implications for the future. A central lesson is that preventive actors must maintain a delicate balance in the mode and intensity of preventive action in which they engage. At times,

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quiet diplomacy may prove quite useful. Explicit preventive strategies or strongly worded diplomacy may simply offend the target state rather than persuade it to behave differently. Diplomacy can be too quiet, however; failure to address the potential or actual conflict at all does not serve preventive ends and may discredit external actors. Similarly, aid suspension and other sanctions may well be important tools, providing leverage over governments, but must also be carefully tailored to affect the appropriate target. The judicious use of sanctions may be strategically valuable, but once employed, preventive actors may lose their diplomatic leverage. If utilized, sanctions must be reasonably comprehensive, lest wide holes in the sanctions net diminish their impact upon the target. There is a balance to be struck in the nature of preventive action as well. The cases demonstrate the need to engage in structural prevention, addressing root causes such as poverty, weak state capacity, inequality, and ethnic tensions, while dealing with more proximate causes such as humanitarian, political, and economic crises. Resource scarcity may dictate that humanitarian crises are addressed, for example, but underlying structural problems are not. Such band-aid solutions will not serve to prevent the next crisis or engender positive peace, and international actors may lose credibility by focusing on such operational prevention. By the same token, funneling resources solely into structural prevention while turning a blind eye to escalating tensions and conflict is also a poor strategy. A balanced solution would, not surprisingly, pursue both paths simultaneously. The UN has a unique capacity to facilitate peace processes. They will need to be backed, however, by the credible threat of stronger political, military, or economic action in response to violations of agreements. This requires a stronger degree of political will on the part of member states, as expressed through the Security Council, than currently appears to exist in many cases. Regional arrangements may sometimes fill the breach, but they too may lack the resources to respond to violations of agreements. Powerful interested states may be most effective in achieving solutions to crises, but at a cost— the agreements may be skewed toward the interests of those powerful states. Such balancing acts are complicated, and preventive action is constrained by limited resources. Dramatic successes are hard to find—prevention must be seen as incremental and cumulative. As Donald Rothchild reminds us in his contribution to this volume, "Cease-fires and peace agreements that last for limited periods but offer an opportunity to create an enduring relationship can be viewed as part of a larger dialectic leading to a peaceful outcome" (pp. 61-62). So too with other features of preventive strategy—small steps in structural prevention may eventually engender stability, while measures to address current instability may avert immediate conflict, providing the space for more comprehensive peacebuilding.

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One finds throughout this volume illustrations of the linkages between preventive strategies and development and, more broadly, between security and development. In the concluding chapter, Karin Wermester surveys recent initiatives within the UN system intended to enable better, and better-coordinated, preventive action, and addresses the ways in which the traditional distinction between security and development ought to be, and increasingly is, broken down within the UN.

Note 1. Fen Osier Hampson and David M. Malone, eds., From Reaction to Conflict Prevention: Opportunities for the UN System (Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner, 2002).

PART 1 Theoretical Challenges, Operational Opportunities

2 From Risk to Response: Phases of Conflict, Phases of Conflict Prevention Chandra Lekha Sriram with Karin Wermester The nine case studies examined in this volume cover a broad range of challenges for preventive actors in the UN and beyond. While in some the risks of conflict are reasonably low, in others conflict has already reached significant levels, or has abated, and peacebuilding with an eye to preventing future conflict is essential. This project examined the cases through an analytical framework that presented five "phases of potential conflict and prevention." These phases were developed as a heuristic device to help in the categorization and analysis of strategies, even as the overall lesson and purpose of the book is to overcome rigid categories and press for more holistic strategies that do away with simplistic distinctions between development and security. This chapter elaborates upon the design of the research and analysis, and discusses the linkages among the five phases and the different country experiences. It first articulates the rationale for the analytical approach, and then the five categories of potential conflict and prevention. At the same time, it aims to question comfortable assumptions about prevention by formalizing the hypothesis that while phases matter, we might be making incorrect assumptions about who acts and how they act at various phases. This chapter ultimately questions the separation of conflict and conflict prevention into distinct phases except as an analytic tool. The purpose, rather, is to use the analytical device to more clearly identify the content of the problem, or the risks and challenges entailed by each phase of potential or actual conflict, and the content of the response (the phase of prevention, specifically the strategies and tools deployed). The final purpose is to assess whether the substantive responses address the risks and challenges present in a given situation.

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THEORETICAL CHALLENGES, OPERATIONAL OPPORTUNITIES

Context: Practice and Problems of Preventive Action We analyze the efficacy of actors, tools, and strategies in preventive action along the dimension of phases for two reasons. First, the UN system and its departments and agencies often act in sequential, somewhat disjointed phases, according to an agency- or department-specific understanding of the trajectories of conflicts. Second, there is a presumption that phases of conflict map to particular strategies to be deployed by designated departments and agencies, which are conceived narrowly as "development" or "security" actors. However, it is rarely convincingly demonstrated why this ought to be the case, and how different strategies and actors should relate with each other for the more effective implementation of policy. UN practice in prevention, as it developed in the 1990s, has made these distinctions in ways that were perhaps necessary at the time, but worth examining and moving beyond today. The UN's Operating Routines Phases of prevention matter because the UN itself, or rather its component departments and agencies, conceptualize semi-compartmentalized roles in prevention. Development and humanitarian actors view their roles (and are in turn viewed by others) in very different ways than security actors do; there are often said to be "stovepipes" in the system creating artificial separation between them. Moreover, they have in the past operated on entirely separate tracks as a result of bureaucratic rivalry between departments, different mandates, little consultation and information sharing between departments and agencies at both senior and working levels, and radically different funding processes and mechanisms and corresponding constraints. The Framework Team for Coordination, an interagency and interdepartmental entity composed of an everexpanding number of departments, funds, and programs (including the World Bank), has begun to address these coordination problems on the topic of conflict prevention.1 Similarly, the so-called Brookings process has been developed to ease the problems of transition between humanitarian operations and development work in postconflict societies.2 However, artificial compartmentalization, which prevails despite coordination efforts, has potentially dangerous consequences by rendering hand-offs between actors—or coordination where they overlap—sloppy, incomplete, or simply nonexistent.3 The Literature: Building on Conventional Wisdom It is also the case that much of the literature investigates different preventive efforts in segmented or sequential fashion. When preventive actions fail, it is often asserted that the efforts were simply "too little, too late." The result is the expectation that timing per se—acting early or late—is the real issue.

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However, more sophisticated literature recognizes that while this is frequently a fundamental problem in deploying preventive action, such an assessment may be too simplistic. Instead, what matters is whether or not the response is tailored to match the actual challenge or risk. Early deployment with insufficient resources is one problem; late deployment with sufficient resources is another. What matters, then, is not that action took place too late, but rather that, given when the action took place, the resources deployed were insufficient, inappropriate, or even counterproductive. It will be worthwhile to turn to the extant literature to survey the assertions that have been made with regard to the conditions under which preventive actions will be most effective, and to the actions that are appropriate in the different phases of potential and actual conflict. Coordinated but late efforts. It may be that efforts at preventing conflict are reasonably targeted and coordinated, but simply come too late to be sufficient. Alternatively, it may be that steps that would have been appropriate earlier simply cannot be expected to work at a later point. For example, analysts have noted that Burundi received an extraordinary amount of international attention, but that violence still escalated. International action came only after the murder of the president and widespread massacres—it included, according to one analysis, mediation, sanctions, peacekeeping, humanitarian assistance, economic aid, track-two diplomacy, and democracy projects.4 Given that we know that these efforts in many senses "failed," can we identify why? Was it because they were too little or too late, or because they were not designed to address the challenge? Timely but uncoordinated or counterproductive efforts. It is conceivable that the international community (or at the least one or two key actors) might identify a potential conflict and seek to head it off, but simply coordinate badly, choose measures that work at cross-purposes, or even choose measures that backfire.5 International actors may fail to act coherently because they are driven by separate agendas. This was the case, as argued by Bruce D. Jones, in Rwanda—a veritable "laboratory for intervention experiments": divergent political aims compounded by general indifference as to the outcome by regional and international powers and organizations created the conditions under which spoilers of the Arusha peace process were able to thrive and ultimately plan and execute mass genocide.6 Alternatively, efforts may fall victim to bad planning—in Burundi, it has been argued, the failure to reform the security institutions made the internationally supervised elections a dangerous step.7 Causes not amenable to outside action. Certain long-term causes, according to some analysts, are not particularly amenable to outside influ-

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THEORETICAL CHALLENGES, OPERATIONAL OPPORTUNITIES

ence—these are framed as "received legacies and socioeconomic conditions."8 These cases warrant further inquiry, since they suggest that many efforts at structural prevention will be ineffective. Alternatively, it might also be argued that certain crises will not be amenable to outside mediation or other involvement once a certain threshold of violence and retaliation has been crossed. Thus it may be the case that early preventive action to address poor governance or horizontal inequality, or late preventive action once leaders have mobilized hostile groups against each other, might fail.

Strategies of Prevention: Linking Development and Security The conventional assumption is often that development strategies, ranging from poverty alleviation to supporting good governance to the more recent focus on security-sector reform, should take place where there is a potential for destructive conflict but where the violence threshold has not been crossed, or the conflict has begun to subside. Conversely, it is often thought that security strategies are best placed to address a crisis or a conflict to be managed. However, such bright-line distinctions may be easily overdrawn. Instead, it may be the case that strategies falling under both rubrics are effective at all points in the conflict cycle, albeit to varying degrees. In order to examine this possibility, it will be important to ascertain the role and relative importance of development and security strategies at various phases of conflict, the relative efficacy of each, and the degree to which the two types of strategies are and could be better coordinated. Strategies or Modes of Prevention Many actors may develop and deploy prevention strategies—in isolation— without extensive consultation with other actors. Moreover, more often than not, what are conventionally seen as distinct substantive sectors map to their own departments, agencies, and bureaucratic machinery: security actors and development actors. They each in turn deploy different types of strategies. During the Cold War, this reflected what was viewed as the separation between areas of "high" and "low" politics. However, since the end of the Cold War, attention has turned to the complex and protracted intrastate wars that, relative to interstate wars, have taken on greater policy importance. These are frequently characterized by state failure or collapse, and come with (or, more often than not, are precipitated by) a host of attendant economic, social, and political crises. As a result, the distinction between security and developmental concerns has become increasingly blurred.

FROM RISK TO RESPONSE

17

The problem is that a very difficult, lengthy, and complicated process is needed to reform existing bureaucracies, departments, agencies, and mindsets to reflect these ever-changing circumstances. At the UN, initiatives such as the Framework Team and other coordination mechanisms are welcome, but may only mask the deeper substantive and bureaucratic divisions that remain deeply entrenched. There, "political/security actors"—the Security Council, Special Representatives of the Secretary-General (SRSGs), the Department of Political Affairs (DPA), the Department of Peacekeeping Operations (DPKO), friends or contact groups of member states, and member states themselves— are primarily, if not exclusively, responsible for preventive diplomacy, peacekeeping, and peace enforcement. On the other hand, "development/humanitarian actors"—the UN Development Programme (UNDP), the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), the Department of Economic and Social Affairs (DESA), the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (UNHCHR), the World Food Program (WFP), the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), the World Health Organization (WHO), the UN Children's Fund (UNICEF), the International Organization for Migration (IOM), the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), the Department of Disarmament Affairs (DDA), the UN Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM), the UN Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), the UN Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD), regional economic commissions, and the General Assembly—deploy development, governance, humanitarian, human rights, and refugee initiatives, often in conjunction with a host of regional and international nongovernmental organizations (NGOs). Structural Prevention Structural prevention is defined in the Carnegie Commission's report as comprising strategies "to address the root causes of deadly conflict, so as to ensure that crises do not arise in the first place, or that, if they do, they do not recur."9 Such strategies run the gamut from international and local legal and dispute resolution mechanisms, to addressing basic development needs such as poverty, horizontal inequality, education, and human rights, to rebuilding societies riven by conflict. Implicitly, structural prevention is seen as being most effective when deployed "early" and over the "long term." Emphasis is placed on the importance of economic development in creating conditions that inhibit potential causes of conflict; it is frequently thought that such initiatives are implemented both well before conflict commences and after conflict erupts, to promote stability. Success of structural prevention, which remains a matter of some dispute, requires correctly identifying not only the root causes of a conflict but also the appropriate strategies to address these root causes.

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THEORETICAL CHALLENGES, OPERATIONAL OPPORTUNITIES

However, it is not useful either heuristically or practically to attach an unclear notion of timing to what is in fact a strategy addressing country-specific conditions that may coalesce into violent conflict. First, when is "early" in the life cycle of a conflict, and how can we know it when we see it? In fact, artificially marrying timing and strategy in this manner suggests only that structural prevention will never be effective if it should be deployed "early"—since it is precisely when conflict has not erupted, but signs of instability are burgeoning, that such strategies are most needed but least likely to be acted upon. Security Actors, Preventive Diplomacy, and Beyond By contrast, the Carnegie Commission defines operational prevention as those strategies that are best deployed when violence is imminent.10 Operational prevention may include a variety of political-military measures such as preventive diplomacy, observer missions, more forceful measures such as military deployments, and economic measures such as sanctions. The implications of presuming, from the separation of structural and operational prevention, that the separation of development and security strategies necessarily follows, are twofold. The result may be first a belief that the two types of strategies and actors overlap neither conceptually nor practically, and second, as a corollary, that they deploy sequentially and at different time periods. In particular, development actors are seen to be most useful in addressing the root causes of conflict through long-term structural prevention initiatives that deployed at the beginning or end of the conflict's so-called life cycle. On the other hand, security actors are primarily engaged during the mobilization, peak, and immediate aftermath of conflict to address the proximate causes of violence.11 However, closer examination may reveal that these are precisely the constraints that hamper the adoption of an integrated and hopefully more effective approach to conflict prevention. Instead it is possible that security actors have roles to play in situations where it is traditionally thought that developmental actors are the only relevant ones—in structural prevention and in postconflict peacebuilding. At the very least this is a topic that deserves further inquiry. What seems more obvious is that there is a need for security actors to take into consideration the efforts of development actors—whether they have been conceived as acting preventively or not—in the formulation of their response and vice versa. This would mitigate the potential for inadvertent consequences that arise when strategy is developed and deployed in isolation, and which in the case of potential or actual violence can actually exacerbate tensions rather than mitigate them. In addition, significant thought should be given to the transition, if indeed sequential efforts are the best option in a given situation, and to strategic coordination, between development actors and security actors as conflict escalates and deescalates.

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Beyond Stovepipes: Integrated Preventive Action This series of case studies helps us to examine, challenge, and offer refinements to the conventional practice of prevention, which often relies on this artificial separation of prevention and development. Though such practice has been questioned by many scholars and practitioners, standard bureaucratic operating procedures mean that preventive strategy is still insufficiently integrated. Preventive strategies often appear to rely upon a presumption that development actors (and to a lesser degree other nonsecurity actors such as humanitarian and human rights actors) have a significant role to play in the arenas of structural prevention and peacebuilding, but do not possess the appropriate tools to address the proximate causes of violence. Diplomacy and security actors are seen to have a primary and near exclusive role in operational prevention, with little importance in structural prevention and only slightly more in peacebuilding. A corollary to this claim is that structural prevention initiatives, and the corresponding strategies and actors, are most effective at the "beginning" and the "end" of what is sometimes conceptualized as the conflict life cycle, whereas operational prevention and the corresponding strategies and actors are most effective during the escalation, peak, and immediate aftermath of a conflict. However, a more holistic approach to conflict prevention suggests the need for closer scrutiny of the relationships between phases of conflict and potential conflict, strategies and actors. While development and security actors have in the past operated on parallel tracks, it may in fact be the case that they both have greater or lesser roles to play in tandem throughout all phases of conflict, and that at the very least their efforts could be better coordinated. We treat conflict not in terms of a life cycle or a continuum, which assumes a certain linearity or predictability of sequencing, but rather phases, which may occur in any order and frequently overlap. Even the phases themselves are described only then to be challenged; their ultimate purpose is to assist us in identifying the content of the problem and the content of the response, and to attempt to assess, and offer refinements for, preventive strategy. Refining Preventive Action: Examining Practice Through Phases At the core of efforts to refine the practice of conflict prevention is the adage "an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure."12 Studies have increasingly refined this claim, drawing attention to the differences between endemic problems in society (poor governance, stratification) that may form the bases for conflict and crises where violent conflict has already begun or is clearly imminent. Michael Lund, for example, characterizes phases ranging from less potential conflict to more potential conflict or actual conflict as durable peace,

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THEORETICAL CHALLENGES, OPERATIONAL OPPORTUNITIES

stable peace, unstable peace, crisis, and war. He attempts to identify as well which types of prevention are deployed in particular stages of conflict.13 While phases of conflict and potential conflict do not track perfectly to phases of prevention, they too encompass a spectrum: structural prevention, peacetime diplomacy, postconflict peacebuilding, preventive diplomacy, crisis diplomacy, peacekeeping, peacemaking, and peace enforcement. We seek here to sharpen these insights, developing clearer lessons about what sorts of preventive action are the most appropriate in particular phases of conflict, who the lead actors can and should be, and what tools are most efficacious for the UN system in particular. Phases of Preventive Action The case studies in this volume will be examined in terms of the "phase" of the potential or actual conflict, and the forms of preventive action appropriate to particular phases. Just as the phases of potential and actual conflict are not linear or cyclical, neither are the phases of preventive action. The phases are rather broad categorizations that help to define sets of challenges and potential responses to those challenges. All impending or recently initiated conflicts are not identical, just as all preventive efforts are not the same. Potential conflict may be identified (and prevented before it materializes) by examining long-term structural problems, particularly absolute and relative deprivation and political inequalities based on race, ethnicity, religion, and the like; these may be addressed by long-term structural initiatives including targeted development projects. Alternatively, potential flash points may be addressed through early preventive measures, such as NGO or track-two initiatives, or low-profile diplomatic initiatives. If tensions have begun to erupt, crisis management efforts may be mobilized, entailing sanctions, concerted diplomatic initiatives, and military missions. Where conflict has broken out, there may be mediation and negotiation efforts to stem the conflict, efforts to limit adverse humanitarian impact, and even intervention. Conflict may recur following peace agreements or cease-fires, and a range of postconflict peacebuilding efforts may help avoid this. While many of these efforts fall properly under the rubric of peace implementation, clearly they are closely linked to prevention. In fact, most if not all UN activities in the arena of structural prevention actually take place in the postconflict setting. What we hope to learn by taking this approach is something more than simply the difficulties that conflict prevention faces at different phases. We hope to draw some clear lessons of policy relevance that cast light on useful entry points and strategies in response to specific types of challenges. The five phases, however, are not meant to be rigid categories, but only heuristic devices. They often exist simultaneously, and different countries

FROM RISK TO RESPONSE

21

experience them in a variety of sequences. The phases are meant simply to formalize our intuitions and observations about two things—the content of the risk or problem, and the content of the preventive response. The phases describe the different types of challenges that countries might face, as well as the range of preventive responses that the international community generally has access to, rather than a neat linear-chronological continuum. Table 2.1 illustrates this approach in greater detail. For our purposes, while recognizing that there can be no "bright-line" distinction between phases of conflict, it is useful to create a spectrum of categories for analytical purposes. These phases of conflict will then be linked, again with the recognition that these are somewhat artificial distinctions, to relevant phases, actors, strategies, and tools for preventive action.

The Content of the Problem, the Content of the Response The content of the problem comprises more than simply the "causes of conflict"—it entails a recognition of the potential causes, and an informed assessment of the degree of risk, the type of conflict likely to result, and an understanding of the likely pathways to conflict. Similarly, the content of the response comprises tools, strategies, and actors in interaction. The analysis of response requires a reasonable sense of the goals to be achieved (and whose goals they are), and an assessment of whether the response addresses the real challenges or the intermediate goals.

Phases of Conflict Potential conflict This phase is characterized by the presence of underlying conditions of stress due, inter alia, to absolute deprivation and poverty; relative deprivation of resources based on a variety of factors, such as ethnic, religious, or racial differences; weak state capacity to manage tensions; and power inequalities or other differential status levels based on ethnic, religious, or racial differences. Such stresses may exist in every society, yet in the absence of a mobilizing factor such situations might fester for some time before exploding into conflict or might not erupt at all. The phase of potential conflict, for our purposes, will be characterized by the presence of one or more of these conditions, while the mobilizing factors for conflict may as yet be unclear. At this phase, as becomes clearer in the case studies, donors and humanitarian actors, frequently the sole actors on the ground, may be constrained to emphasize development projects or humanitarian tasks. These actors may be unable, for political reasons, to publicly articulate the potential risks of conflict, much less respond to them.

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