Conflict Resolution In

International Relations
Introduction

Dr Lucy Paterson
[email protected]

Image: https://www.bu.edu/pardeeschool/2021/12/02/garcevic-discusses-conflict-resolution-and-negotiations-with-fletcher-school-students/
Overview

• Overview of the Course

Introduction to:
• The Concept of Conflict, Peace and Conflict Resolution
• Terms and Definitions
• Approaches and Theories

• Exam and Presentation skills

 Lecture Schedule and Sample Case Studies
• Lecture 1: Introduction to Conflict Resolution, Overview and Concepts
• Lecture 2: Theories and Frameworks for Understanding Contemporary WWII
Conflict Panama and the arrest of General Noriega
• Lecture 3: Types of Conflict: Conflict between states, Conflict in Civil Wars, Vietnam war
Conflict in State formation
Indochina – 1954 / 1974
• Lecture 4: Actors in Conflict Resolution - Case Study: Sri Lankan Peace India Pakistan
Process
North Korea / South Korea
• Lecture 5: Methods of Managing Conflicts 1 – Conflict Prevention
Camp David Accords: Israel Egypt
• Lecture 6: Methods of Managing Conflicts 2 – Peacekeeping, Coercion and
Enforcement, Case Study: Bosnia Israeli Palestine
Georgia and South Ossetia
• Lecture 7: Methods of Managing Conflicts 3 – Mediation
Ukraine and Russia 2014
• Lecture 8: Methods of Managing Conflicts 4 – Peace-building, Case Study:
Colombia WW1 1918 Treaty of Versailles
• Lecture 9: 21st Century Challenges 1 – Reconciliation, Culture, religion and North and South Korea
Conflict resolution, Case Study: South Africa and Somaliland Cyprus and Turkey
• Lecture 10: 21st Century challenges 2 – Climate and Energy Resource USSR and Afghanistan
Challenges Sudanese civil war conflict and DDR programme
• Lecture 11: 21st Century challenges 3 – Media and Conflict Resolution
Concept of Conflict

3 Components of ‘Conflict’:

• Incompatibility
• Scarcity and limited resources
• Action
• No just violent action – needs
change in incompatibility to stop
action
• Actors
Concept of Conflict
Definition:
Social situation in which a minimum of
two parties strive to acquire at the
same moment in time an available set
of scarce resources.
(Wallensteen)

‘Pursuit of incompatible goals by

different groups’
(Ramsbotham, Woodhouse and Miall)
Conflict Typology
1) Interstate: Gulf War 1991

• Non-Interstate:
2) Revolution / ideology – Iran;
Afghanistan
- Aims to change the nature of
government
3) Identity / Secession – Sri Lanka;
Bosnia
- relative status of communities
4) Economic / resource – Angola;
- aims to seize or retain state power or
resources
Actors

All those engaged in or being

affected by a conflict
• States
• Paramilitaries
• Political Insurgents
• Civilians
• Institutions Photo: Juan Pablo Bello, SIG
Armed Conflicts in 2021

Sipri Yearbook 2022

Terms and Definitions
Armed Conflict: Where both
parties resort to the use of force.
Many definitions of the thresholds
of this use of force
Violent Conflict or Deadly
Conflict: Includes one-sided
violence such as genocide, and
criminality
Structural Violence: exploitative
social relations that cause
unnecessary suffering
John Galtung
Definition of Conflict Resolution

Situation where conflicting

parties enter into an agreement
that solves their central
incompatibilities, accept each
other’s continued existence as
parties and cease all violent
action against each other.
Peter Wallensteen Understanding Conflict Resolution. 5th Edition.
Sage Pub, 2019. Print

• Is this situation ‘peace’?

Concept of Peace

John Galtung

• Negative Peace

• Positive Peace
Frozen Conflicts
• Situation where there is no active conflict, BUT no peace treaty or
satisfactory political framework – Negative Peace.
• Conflict can restart – instability and insecurity.
• Eg the demilitarised zone of N/S Korea
• Neither side will concede or are able to gain leverage

Conflict resolution and Frozen Conflicts:

• Diplomatic and military aspects of the deadlock – politically deliberate
status with hidden agendas; 3rd party mediation influence.
• Challenger- hopes for a better future and to entrench territory
• Defender – doesn’t want to concede, wants to win through international leverage.
 Types of Conflict Termination
• Peacemaking: by warring parties, form of an agreement,
Which order do you think that these implemented by ending the fighting then followed through
should come in? in other respects.
• Starting point for ending a conflict
• Basis for a new relationship.
• Peace agreement
• Peace agreement is a process: begins before the
• Victory agreement is signed and continues after the ink has dried.
• Cease-fire
• Peace agreement is not necessarily the end of the conflict –
• Withdrawal may not be or only partially implemented.
• Same is true for victory and other outcomes.
• Information on peace agreements needs to be complimented via
other outcomes of conflict terminations such as
• situations where there has been no fighting for a period of time –
• cease fires;
• unilateral withdrawals etc.
• Most endings of conflicts are negotiated processes – even
victories.
Peace Agreements

• Northern Ireland Good Friday

Agreement 1998
• Bosnian Dayton Agreement 1995
• Ukraine Minsk Agreement 2014
• Colombia Cartagena Accords
2016
Terms and Definitions
Peacebuilding: Underpins the work of peacemaking
and peacekeeping
- Cultural
- Structural
Peacemaking: moving towards settlement of armed
conflict. Parties are induced to reach agreement
voluntarily.
Peacekeeping: (traditionally with the consent of
parties). Intervention of international armed forces
to separate the belligerents. Also associated with the
civil tasks of such as monitoring, policing and
supporting humanitarian intervention.
Peace enforcement: imposition of a settlement by
powerful 3rd party
Peacemaking: Conflict Resolution

• What the parties should discuss

• How they may agree
• How agreements can be turned into reality
• How settlements can be made durable and free new generations
from repeat wars
• What can be learned for conflict prevention
• Allowing for just aspirations to develop without systematic violence
Conflict Endings
Crucial ways to end a war
• Meet standards of justice
• Ensure physical security for
opposing sides.
• Compensate for sufferings
• Finding shared grounds upon which
to start a new relationship
• Both sides have to view the
agreement as theirs
• Take responsibility for
implementation – even under new
conditions
Case Study: End of the Cold War
• Negotiations of arms control and
disarmament.
• Agreements banning nuclear
weapons tests,
• Restricting production of missiles,
• Eliminating categories of
weaponary.

However, basic distrust meant that

other forms of war were allowed –
reduction of weaponary had limited
value in conflict resolution. Political https://www.reuters.com/world/obituary-gorbachev-ended-cold-war-presided-over-soviet-collapse-2022-08-30/

interests were primary.

Limits of Conflict Resolution

• Privileges for the armed parties

at the expense of others in
society
• Issues of crimes committed
during a war
• Partial disarmament
History of the field of Conflict Resolution
• Security studies
• Peace research
• Conflict Resolution

• Started field of study in the 1950’s 1960’s. Height of the Cold War.
• Applying approaches that were evolving in industrial relations and community
mediation to civil and international conflicts.
• 1980’s began to make a difference.
• South Africa (Centre for Intergroup Studies); Middle East (workshops in Northern
Ireland); Northern Ireland (responsibility of local government).
• End of Cold War – UN could play its part?
• In the 1990’s different internal and ethnic conflicts
• Reflected the breakdown of state structures, economies and whole societies.
• In Africa mercenaries fed by criminal international networks and international aid.
• International statesmen and organisations began to turn to Conflict
resolution to use some practical approaches for roles in conflict Image source: pixabay.com
prevention
• World Bank, IMF, OSCE and OAU
• Non political NGOs now began to link their expertise to Conflict Resolution
approaches.
History of the field of Conflict Resolution
• Criticisms of Conflict resolution after the high hopes of the 1990s:
• Difficulties in the interventions of Bosnia (1992-1995); Somalia 1993. Impact of
globalisation and the provision of cheap weaponry; generation of shadow economies
• The Collapse of the Israeli- Palestinian ‘Oslo’ peace process in 2000 with the launch of
the second Intifada
• 9/11 followed by the Global War on terror with the global jihadist reaction.

• How to counter rogue and failed states, transborder crime, proliferation

of WMD and fanatical ideologues of terrorism?

• Realist criticism of the ineffectiveness of soft power and view the

coercion is the ultimate measure
• Marxist criticism of the naivety of the approach that violence is
inevitable
• Non-Western criticisms
Theories and Frameworks

• Conflict Dynamics

• Needs Based origins

• Rational Strategic Calculations

Conflict Escalation and De-Escalation

Ramsbotham, O., Miall, H., & Woodhouse, T. (2016). Contemporary conflict resolution (4th Edition). Polity.p.15
 Conflict Resolution Terms and Definitions

Conflict Settlement: Settling the political aspects of the

conflict as a precursor to ending violence
Conflict Containment: Peacekeeping and war limitation –
geographical constraint, mitigation and alleviation of
intensity.
Conflict Management: can be general or limited to the
settlement and containment of conflict
Conflict resolution: deep-rooted sources of conflict are
addressed and transformed – the structure of the conflict
has changed
Conflict Transformation: Deepest level of conflict
Image: REUTERS/Romeo Ranoco
https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2018/11/we-need-to-understand-more-about-the-role-of-women-as-peacekeepers-here-s-why resolution with a transformation of the institutions and
discourses and relationships that reproduce violence.
The Hourglass Model

Ramsbotham, O., Miall, H., & Woodhouse, T. (2016). Contemporary conflict resolution (4th Edition). Polity.p.16
 His main merit, thus, was shifting the attention from the in-
dividual or the group to the relation as the key factor of con-
flict work. By doing so, his model became a groundbreaking
initiator of the transition from mechanistic to systemic

Lederach’s Pyramid thinking in peace and conflict studies, which was crucial for
the development of transrational peace research. The origi-
nal version of Lederach’s pyramid looked as follows:

Figure 2: Lederach’s pyramid, original version (Lederach, 1997, p. 39)

LEDERACH, John Paul (1997). Building peace: sustain- able reconciliation in divided societies. Washington: United States of Peace Press

JOURNAL OF CONFLICTOLOGY, Volume 5, Issue 2 (2014) ISSN 2013-8857 49

Student Contributions and Assessmentssessments

• Readings

• Presentations

• Exam
Academic IR Reading Skills
Don’t relax!!

Origin of your reading is very important

• Date of the paper
• Background of the Author
• Publication – academic or not
• YouTube!!

• ‘Lens’ of reading – have the research question in front of

you
• Critical Analysis

• Reading twice
• Speed reading - follow with highlights
• Summarise / Quotes
Presentation and Exam Questions

• Concepts
• (Theory)
• Argument
• Structure
• Case Study
Understanding
Exam Question:
How have International Organisations contributed to the global governance in the
issues areas of Peace and Security. Critically analyse how effective the
organisations have been in this issue area.

• Unpack the exam question

• Argument that answers the question
• Critical Analysis
What makes a good Argument?

• Persuades the reader

• Good structure
• Well supported by the literature
• Well expressed narrative
• Answers the question
• Critical Analysis / Evaluation / Discussion / Compare
Introduction

• Context

• Terminology – from the title, use throughout the essay / presentation

• Structure – This essay will first demonstrate… then …. Next it will….

• Thesis – This essay seeks to argue….

• Definitions of key terms

Structure
Argument
• Signpost your argument throughout the body of the essay
• Use the same terminology throughout to aid the reader

References
• Use good references (primary / secondary) to support your argument and illustrations (NO Wikipedia)
• Use the core readings from the course as well as wider readings
• Your argument should be a synthesis of academic sources put together in an original way
• Use the reference guidelines provided by the University

Paragraph Structure: Point – Evidence – Analysis (PEA)

Critical Analysis
• Always link your descriptions back to the exam question / argument
Conclusion

• No new ideas

• Summarise your arguments

• Emphasise the important themes and answer the exam question.

Presentation
• Choose a topic that interests you!

• Research some good sources

• Academic articles
• Balanced media – Economist, FT
• Good think tanks

• Include footnotes

• Does not have to be more than 10 minutes.

Conclusion
Overview of the Course Next Week:
Evolution of Conflict Studies and
Introduction to: Theories
• The Concept of Conflict
Resolution
• Terms and Definitions
• Approaches and Theories

• Exam and Presentation skills