Conflict Intervention Research Articles

Editorial

The International Conference held at Maynooth University in September, 2014, Creative Responses to Conflict through Mediation and Restorative Practice, brought together a diverse and outstanding gathering of scholars, practitioners and researchers who offered papers and workshops that represent the breadth and scope of the field of conflict intervention. The presenters described applications of techniques and strategies that reflect the field’s vitality, resourcefulness and imagination. In the winter issue of this Journal, the editors presented articles solicited from conference presenters, and in this second special issue, we present an additional seven pieces from authors, who presented workshops and papers.

Sceptics of the Screen: Irish Perceptions of Online Dispute Resolution

This paper captures current trends in Online Dispute Resolution (ODR) and its potential use in Ireland by analyzing Irish practitioners’ current attitudes and awareness of ODR. Ultimately, this work provides the groundwork for future research into Ireland’s use of ODR. This exploratory research will hopefully guide researchers in understanding ODR’s users and consumption. Data collection came from an online questionnaire sent to practitioners in the field of conflict intervention in Ireland who reported their experiences and perspectives of ODR. One hundred and twenty-four (124) surveys were used in this analysis. These questionnaires produced both quantitative and qualitative data. Approximately 900 people were asked to complete the survey. The author found surveyed participants were skeptical regarding ODR with very few actually using online technologies to aid in resolving disputes. A popular sentiment among participating practitioners felt ODR was not better than face-to-face meetings yet thought it was worth exploring further. Finally, the author found that those who had heard of ODR are more likely to believe they could assist parties in reaching a settlement entirely using video technology.

The Metaphors on International Intervention: A Discourse Analysis of the Sri Lankan English Newspaper Editorials

The metaphors used in the Sri Lankan English newspaper editorials during the peace talk time (2001-2007) commenting on the international intervention in the Sri Lankan ethnic conflict reveal community based ideological and attitudinal positions of the newspapers published in Sri Lanka. Metaphors literally contribute to our understanding of reality. The frames and scripts used for legitimization and de-legitimization of the issues related to international intervention and facilitation in the peace talk, peace process and monitoring the ceasefire bring out certain realities comfortable to certain people, groups or communities. The binary positions projected in the editorial discourse are identified. Discourse constitutes power in constructing ideational, textual and interpersonal constructs which are ideological. It can transmit and even legitimize power in society. During the peace talk time, the editorials are expected to develop constructive discourse on conflict intervention and resolution to make a positive impact on legislative changes but they display ‘ethno-nationalist’ tendencies. The study analyzes whether the media has been a part of the problem or a part of the solution. Since newspaper and editorial discourses are the constructions of journalists and editors of the elites, the biased ideologies are “hidden or subtle in expressions and often revealed in mild forms”. This study takes up selected editorials of the Sri Lankan English newspapers which appeared mainly during the Memorandum of Understanding between the Sri Lankan government and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eezham during that period, to relate the discourse themes with rhetorical and metaphorical features.

Reconstituting Community in Divided Society: Faith-inspired Civil Organizations and the Case of Corrymeela

Faith-inspired civil organizations (FICOs) are growing in recognition for their relational and sustainable approaches and contributions to peacebuilding, especially in areas where religious or cultural identities have complicated contexts of violent conflict. The capacity of FICOs to penetrate the deeper and long-term obstacles to peacebuilding is largely a consequence of their underlying faith-based motivations and methods for intervention. This article explores one particular FICO: the Corrymeela Community, which has played a notable public role in the work of peacebuilding and reconciliation in Northern Ireland. In examing the theological roots and operational character of Corrymeela, this article explores possible answers to three important questions. First, as a Christian-inspired organization emphasizing an ecumenical, interfaith approach to sustainable peace, where does Corrymeela locate its theological understanding of violent conflict and purposeful intervention? Second, how does this theological understanding inform and shape its operational strategies for strategic peacebuilding in Northern Ireland? Finally, in a “post-Troubles” Northern Ireland, what is the way forward for such an organization? How might its work and lessons-learned as a FICO continue to impact Northern Ireland, while at the same time contribute to the convoluted work of reconciliation in other regions confronting religiously-fueled violence?

Selfish third parties act as peacemakers by transforming conflicts and promoting cooperation

The tremendous costs of conflict have made humans resourceful not only at warfare but also at peacemaking. Although third parties have acted as peacemakers since the dawn of history, little is known about voluntary, informal third-party intervention in conflict. Here we introduce the Peacemaker Game, a novel experimental paradigm, to model and study the interdependence between disputants and third parties in conflict. In the game, two disputants choose whether to cooperate or compete and a third party chooses whether or not to intervene in the conflict. Intervention introduces side payments that transform the game disputants are playing; it also introduces risk for the third party by making it vulnerable to disputants' choices. Six experiments revealed three robust effects: (i) The mere possibility of third-party intervention significantly increases cooperation in interpersonal and intergroup conflicts; (ii) reducing the risk to third parties dramatically increases intervention rates, to everyone's benefit; and (iii) disputants' cooperation rates are consistently higher than third parties' intervention rates. These findings explain why, how, and when self-interested third parties facilitate peaceful conflict resolution.

Inverse Approach to the Graph Model for Conflict Resolution

Systems methodologies to model third-party intervention in international conflicts are developed within the framework of the graph model for conflict resolution (GMCR). An inverse GMCR is introduced to utilize the GMCR as a negotiation tool by altering the procedure of the original framework. The methodologies presented give a better understanding of how decision makers (DMs) can be motivated to undertake certain actions within the conflict. Moreover, the inverse GMCR tackles the problem of specifying which preferences for DMs lead to a particular resolution, thereby making it easier for a mediator or other third party to influence the course of the conflict. The methodologies are applied to a real-world dispute, a complex water conflict in the Middle East.

Struggling in the Street and at the Table

Two scholar practitioners of conflict intervention and social movements present case histories of mediated conflicts involving complex choreographies of contention and negotiation. Both processes, while differently structured and facilitated, have led to improvements in the dynamics of identity‐based conflicts in urban communities. The authors raise theoretical questions and propose improvements to practice.

The Arab League and Military Operations: Prospects and Challenges in Syria

The humanitarian crisis in Syria has triggered diverse questions on the role of the international community and regional actors – in particular the Arab League – to assume their responsibility in matters of peace and security. Military interventions in past conflicts show proof that the Arab League has the military and doctrinal capacity to justify and accommodate their deployment in its member states and to contribute to international peace and security as envisaged under the UN Charter. A blueprint on future operationalization of military operations under its flag examines the relevant laws which they have to respect.

Introduction

This special issue of the Journal is devoted to a selection of articles from a number of people who presented papers and workshops at the International Conference held at Maynooth University in September, 2014. The overarching focus of the presentations was expressed in the conference title, Creative Responses to Conflict through Mediation and Restorative Practice. The exceptionally diverse mixture of professionals—presenters and participants—represented a wide range of practitioners, researchers and scholars in the field of conflict transformation. Workshops, presentations and lectures highlighted creative approaches being used in helping to manage and resolve seemingly intractable disputes, build sustainable relationships, move conflict intervention into new areas of practice, and promote competent and ethical practice. Presenters offered ideas that ranged from practice skills for family and commercial mediators to the use of music, drama, art and dance to enable those in conflict to gain fresh perspectives in the search for solutions to their disputes; from reports on research projects examining the applicability and benefits of conflict resolution approaches to reflections on the history and future of the field of conflict intervention; from peacemaking and restorative practices to novel uses of conflict intervention strategies in community policing and dealing with environmental disputes.

Mediation in the World Today: Opportunities and Challenges

This keynote presentation (from Keynote speech from International Conference, September 4-7, 2014, Edward Kennedy Institute International for Conflict Intervention, NUI Maynooth) highlighted the myriad of changes that have impacted on the nature of conflict, and global responses to it, over the past four or five decades and the domination of Western approaches to mediation in different cultural contexts. The presenter offered possible ways of avoiding the pitfalls caused when mediators and trainers unthinkingly impose their norms and values into another country’s dispute response system, regardless of the type and nature of the dispute, including: self-reflexivity - recognising the mediator’s own cultural, political and situational embeddedness; discourse analysis - addressing power by raising awareness of the impact of dominant discourses; cultural fluency - valuing differences and pluralities of identity in order to be client-centred; and thinking in terms of conflict transformation. She also argued that mediators should reject notions of neutrality and operate within a framework of social justice and human rights.

Personality dimensions and their behavioral correlates in wild Virunga mountain gorillas (Gorilla beringei beringei).

Studies of animal personality improve our understanding of individual variation in measures of life history and fitness, such as health and reproductive success. Using a 54 trait personality questionnaire developed for studying great apes and other nonhuman primates, we obtained ratings on 116 wild mountain gorillas (Gorilla beringei beringei) monitored by the Dian Fossey Gorilla Fund's Karisoke Research Center in Rwanda. There were 8 raters who each had more than 1.5 years of working experience with the subjects. Principal component analyses identified 4 personality dimensions with high interrater reliabilities-Dominance, Openness, Sociability, and Proto-Agreeableness-that reflected personality features unique to gorillas and personality features shared with other hominoids. We next examined the associations of these dimensions with independently collected behavioral measures derived from long-term records. Predicted correlations were found between the personality dimensions and corresponding behaviors. For example, Dominance, Openness, Sociability, and Proto-Agreeableness were related to gorilla dominance strength, time spent playing, rates of approaches, and rates of interventions in intragroup conflicts, respectively. These findings enrich the comparative-evolutionary study of personality and provide insights into how species differences in personality are related to ecology, social systems, and life history.

Why the Assurance of Eastern African Standby Force (EASF) on Regional Peace and Security Remains Uncertain

Why the Assurance of Eastern African Standby Force (EASF) on Regional Peace and Security Remains Uncertain Capt. William Oluoch Ligawa Abstract Eastern African Standby Force (EASF) is the regional security mechanism for the Great Lakes Region. The force is mandated with the tasks of conflict intervention in the region, through preventive diplomacy and peace support operations in conflict zones. For African nations are marred with violent conflicts, durable peace continues to be an illusion despite the presence of ongoing peace support operations. In such pacification processes, regional forces are supposed to augment the efforts of other agencies such as the UN and the international community. Consequently questions raised on the suitability of such platforms suggest that regional security mechanisms are the most appropriate tools to counter conflict challenges. However, these forces have not been able to carry out successful peace support operations in conflict zones due to diverse reasons. In this regard, this article assesses challenges hindering the Eastern African Standby Force (EASF) from successfully executing intervention missions in the Great Lakes Region where there have been recurrent violent conflicts in the Post Cold war era. Full Text: PDF DOI: 10.15640/jgpc.v3n2a5

<em>Promoting Peace and Conflict-Sensitive Higher Education in Sub-Saharan Africa</em>

One of the most effective ways universities in war-affected countries can be functionally relevant to the everyday needs and challenges of their immediate environment is by promoting peacebuilding through peace education. This paper explores the role of universities in fostering peace education in diverse post-conflict and conflict-prone countries of sub-Saharan Africa and further investigates the contending models and strategies (notably the Bradford Model and the Centralized Unitary Model) of conflict-sensitive peace education in universities in the countries concerned. It also analyzes the problems associated with promoting peace education in sub-Saharan Africa and recommends policy-relevant measures designed to strengthen the process. The data was generated from secondary sources, as well as a raft of conflict intervention, regional security, and peacebuilding projects of which the researcher took part in countries such as Sierra Leone, Liberia, Rwanda, Burundi, DRC, Kenya, Uganda, Nigeria, and South Sudan.

The roots of strategic failure: The Somalia Syndrome and Al Qaeda’s path to 9/11

This article locates the origins of 9/11 in the increasingly globalized security context of the early post-Cold War period. In particular, it seeks to illuminate the causal connection between the disastrous US-UN humanitarian intervention in Somalia in 1992–1993 and the emergence of a permissive security environment that ultimately made the events of 11 September possible. It is argued here that the Somali crisis was a defining moment for US foreign policy in the post-Cold War era. It generated the ‘Somalia Syndrome’ in Washington – a risk-averse approach to intervention in civil conflicts which, as the terrorist attack on the United States in September 2011 subsequently revealed, had unintended but far-reaching international consequences.

'The Loud Dissenter and its Cautious Partner' - Russia, China, global governance and humanitarian intervention

The global issue of humanitarian intervention has become more pronounced and complicated in recent years due to increasingly diverging views on addressing security crises between the West on one side and Russia and China on the other. Despite their support for the principles of ‘Responsibility to Protect’ (R2P), both Russia and China are wary of Western intervention in internal conflicts after the Cold War and have become increasingly critical of Western-led armed intervention in humanitarian conflicts. Unease in Beijing and Moscow over the multilateral intervention in the 2011 Libyan conflict and their ongoing opposition to Western policies in the Syrian Civil War since 2011 would seem to point to ever more coincidence in their negative views of American and Western intervention policies. A conventional wisdom has thus emerged that there is something akin to a Sino–Russian ‘bloc’, with near-identical policies of discouraging armed intervention within state borders under the aegis of humanitarian intervention or the R2P doctrine, signed in 2005 (2005 World Summit). However, closer examination of Russian and Chinese positions on the Libyan and Syrian conflicts, drawing on normative and identity perspectives, reveals significant differences in how both states address intervention in civil conflicts involving human rights emergencies. Indeed, the Libyan and Syrian cases suggest that the distance between the two states on ‘acceptable’ policies toward international intervention in civil conflicts may actually be increasing. While Russia has assumed the role of the ‘loud dissenter’ in global dialogs on humanitarian intervention, China has opted for the position of a ‘cautious partner’.

External Interventions and Civil War Intensity in South-Central Somalia (1991-2010)

External interventions in conflicts are prescribed to be peace-promoting mechanisms, but their effects seldom de-escalate conflict intensity. Based on the balance of capabilities theory, this paper tests the effects that the type of intervention, military or diplomatic, and the target of the intervention, partisan or neutral, has on conflict intensity. In the case of Somalia, for the period 1991 to 2010, the results suggest that neutral interventions, either military (humanitarian) or diplomatic, can lead to lower conflict intensity, but if partisan and military they lead to higher conflict intensity. If partisan and diplomatic and provided to both sides of the conflict they have no effect on conflict intensity. The conclusion is that peace competes with other objectives of external interventions.

Dissemination and implementation of evidence based, mental health interventions in post conflict, low resource settings.

The burden of mental health problems in (post)conflict low- and middle-income countries (LMIC) is substantial. Despite growing evidence for the effectiveness of selected mental health programs in conflict-affected LMIC and growing policy support, actual uptake and implementation have been slow. A key direction for future research, and a new frontier within science and practice, is Dissemination and Implementation (DI) which directly addresses the movement of evidence-based, effective health care approaches from experimental settings into routine use. This paper outlines some key implementation challenges, and strategies to address these, while implementing evidence-based treatments in conflict-affected LMIC based on the authors' collective experiences. Dissemination and implementation evaluation and research in conflict settings is an essential new research direction. Future DI work in LMIC should include: 1) defining concepts and developing measurement tools, 2) the measurement of DI outcomes for all programming, and 3) the systematic evaluation of specific implementation strategies.

Ravens Intervene in Others’ Bonding Attempts

SummaryThe competition for power in a complex social world is hypothesized to be a driving force in the evolution of intelligence [1]. More specifically, power may be obtained not only by brute force but also by social strategies resembling human politics [2]. Most empirical evidence comes from primate studies that report unprovoked aggression by dominants to maintain power by spreading fear [3] and third-party interventions in conflicts [4, 5, 6]. Coalitionary support has also been described in other animals [7, 8] and is often linked to social bonding [9, 10]. As coalitions can lead to a gain in power [5, 11] and fitness benefits [12], individuals may try to prevent coalitionary support or indirectly prevent others from forming social bonds that might lead to coalitions. Although there is some empirical evidence that coalitionary support can be manipulated [13], little is known about the indirect strategy. We show here that wild ravens (Corvus corax) regularly intervene in affiliative interactions of others even though such interventions are potentially risky and without immediate benefits. Moreover, the identities of both interveners and intervened pairs are not randomly distributed. Ravens with existing ties initiate most interventions, and ravens that are creating new ties are most likely to be the targets of interventions. These patterns are consistent with the idea that interventions function to prevent others from forming alliances and consequently becoming future competitors. We thus show previously undescribed social maneuvers in the struggle for power. These maneuvers are likely to be of importance in other social species as well.

Percepción de los estudiantes para maestro sobre la violencia escolar: una puerta de acceso a la mediación de conflictos en infantil y primaria

En este estudio analizamos la violencia escolar y sus vías de solución desde el punto de vista de los futuros maestros. Se trata de un estudio exploratorio en que un grupo de 29 estudiantes del Grado en Educación Infantil de la Universitat Ramon Llull (Barcelona), tras visualizar la grabación de la paliza propinada recientemente por una alumna de un instituto a otra, manifiestan sus percepciones, experiencias y comprensión del conflicto respondiendo a un cuestionario de respuesta abierta. Los resultados indican que a pesar del rechazo mayoritario a la violencia, prevalece un modelo de paz por la fuerza en que la justicia retributiva ocupa un lugar preeminente. Además, la carencia de recursos para salir del conflicto desde cualquiera de los roles de participación directa (agresora, agredida, observadora) o indirecta (padres, profesores) analizados, mantiene abierto un espacio para el desarrollo de la mediación en tanto que vía preventiva y educativa de intervención frente al conflicto.http://dx.doi.org/10.15304/ie.24.1930

Explaining the (il)legality of Uganda's intervention in the current South Sudan conflict

During the night of 15 December 2013, fighting broke out between factions of the Sudan People's Liberation Army (SPLA) in Juba, the capital of the Republic of South Sudan. The fighting pitted forces loyal to President Salva Kiir against those loyal to former Vice President Riek Machar. Five days later, Uganda sent troops into South Sudan, advancing a number of reasons for intervention, including that it had been invited by the legitimate government of South Sudan to ensure order; it needed to evacuate Ugandan citizens caught up in the fighting; it had been asked by the United Nations Secretary-General to intervene; and that the regional organisation, the Intergovernmental Authority on Development had sanctioned the intervention. As the conflict escalated, Ugandan troops started fighting on the side of forces loyal to Kiir. The underlying reasons for the intervention were clearly economic, but those advanced were legal. This article discusses both sets of reasons and concludes that the economic reasons are more persuasive. Nevertheless, while some of the legal arguments (such as being invited by the legitimate government of South Sudan) can be asserted, others are clearly dubious. In addition, the participation of Ugandan troops in the fighting on the side of the Kiir government renders the intervention illegal.