Transnational Conflicts
We strive to understand the
transformation of large-scale destructive conflicts
involving non-governmental organizations as well as
governments. We analyze and assess conflict resolution
applications by partisans and by intermediaries at the many
stages of a conflict's course. This includes attention
to Track Two diplomacy, peacekeeping, transitions away from
the use of violence, processes of negotiation and mediation
and the global context of particular conflicts. We
help formulate practices and policies for various actors to
help prevent, limit, reduce, and recover from destructive
conflicts.
Research Projects
Project on Spoilers of Peace (SOP):
A Research Initiative on Intra-state
Conflict and the Dilemmas of Peacemaking-
Project Leaders:Bruce
Dayton, Associate
Director, Moynihan Institute of Global Affairs
and Miriam F. Elman, Associate
Professor, Political Science
The successful de-escalation of violent intrastate
conflicts often requires efforts to defeat, sideline, or
undermine ‘spoilers.’
Spoilers are those partisans that resort to the use
of coercive tactics in an effort to strengthen the hand of
hardliners on each side of the conflict.
By staging spectacular attacks, assassinations, or
other forms of violent expression, spoilers often succeed in
outraging citizens, sidelining moderates, and further
exacerbating the insecurity, fear, and hatred felt on both
sides of the conflict.
Leaders that succumb to the manipulation of spoilers
often hold the representative of the group they are
negotiating with responsible for the actions of its violent
affiliates.
Alternately, spoilers may also use nonviolent methods- such
as pulling out of, or refusing to
join, a government coalition committed to peace making,
thereby prolonging conflict even when the majority of the
population prefers peace.
Whether or not they use force, the tragedy of
spoilers, therefore, is that small groups, often with little
public support, are able to derail peace-efforts which have
taken months or years to cultivate.
This research project proposes to investigate cases
where spoilers have played a significant role in undermining
peace processes and comparing them to cases where potential
spoilers have been marginalized or have moderated over time.
In addition, the project will sponsor a series of
guest speakers who will meet with the research group and
present their latest work in a public session.
On
Thursday, October 15, 2009
Marie-Joëlle Zahar,
Associate Professor of Political Science
Research
Director, Francophone Peace Operations Network Centre for
International Research and Studies
for International Research and Studies
Université de Montréal gave a lecture titled, “Intervening
to Build Peace? Peacebuilding Strategies and Violence in
War-to-Peace Transitions.”
Click
here to view this presentation.
Constructive Transformation: Studying
Cases of Political Incorporation
Civil war and other kinds of violent internal
strife often end only when one side achieves victory over
the other by use of force. Often these victories, if they
come at all, come only after years of violence and
bloodshed. Rarely do they result in the kinds of integrated
socio-economic systems that are crucial to building lasting
peace, especially where ethnic, cultural, or other
identity-based differences are at the heart of the conflict.
There are, however, instances where the parties to such
conflicts decide to constructively engage with each other
through negotiation, third party mediation, or other kinds
of de-escalatory techniques, sometimes alone, sometimes
together, and sometimes with the help of an external
third-party. In these instances, which include the ANC’s
rise to political power in South Africa, the moderation of
the Renamo rebel group in
Mozambique, and the incorporation
of the FMLN into the political process in El Salvador, the
groups that had challenged state actors through violent
means shifted their tactics toward less violent means of
waging their struggle.
The Program
for the Advancement of Research on Conflict and
Collaboration and the Moynihan Institute of Global Affairs
have initiated a project to investigate these ‘constructive
transformations.’ We are interested in
when, why, and how violent opposition movements and those
they are challenging, take steps towards peaceful political
incorporation. We are particularly interested in mapping:
1) the processes and dynamics that lead groups that are
challenging existing power structures to engage in violent
struggle, 2) the processes and dynamics that contribute to
the de-escalation of violent struggle and the participation
of challengers in peaceful political activities, 3) the
dynamics that sustain and nurture this transformation.
To investigate these processes and dynamics we have
developed a comparative case study methodology that can be
applied to a cross section of cases from the recent and
not-so-recent past. The resulting edited volume will provide
a conceptual overview to the process of constructive
transformation, an empirical framework for conducting
analyses of this process, a set of cases that are analyzed
using the framework, and a review of the lessons-learned
from these cases. Our goal is to have a completed manuscript
ready for publication in early 2008.
PARCC Faculty
Research Associates in the Area of Transnational Conflicts
James
Bennett
Thomas
Boudreau
Stuart
Brown
Bruce
Dayton
Gavan
Duffy
Miriam Elman
Louis
Kriesberg
John
Mathiason
Terrell
Northrup
Deborah
Pellow
Robert
Rubinstein
Stuart
Thorson
PARCC Ph.D.
Student Associates in the Area of Transnational Conflicts
Gearoid Millar,
Social Science
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