GVPT 409f –4th Class February 23

What are the factors that contribute to intractability?

• Wars create intractable issues that were not part of the initial conflict (how prisoners were treated, general behavior of armed forces, etc.)

• Geography and geo-politics• In intractable civil conflicts, deep-seated identity and grievance, war profiteering• Stable and tolerable stalemate, comfortable accommodation with persistent warfare

that sustains power bases (Israel-Palestine, N-S Korea?).• Polarized zero-sum notions of identity. See oneself as victim.• Domestic politics can promote intractability. Lack of internal cohesion, especially in

democracies, difficulties in making concessions from weakness domestically.• Predatory warlords who profit from the political economy of violence through arms

sales, smuggling, etc. Collier and greed and grievance argument.• Failure of previous peace efforts – can result in the promotion by the parties of

mutually exclusive basic requirements and preconditions for negotiation.• In long-enduring conflict, overlapping sources of intractability converge to build up a

massive wall of resistance to settlement.

Crocker, Hampson, and Aall - Introduction

• Intractable, protracted, self-sustaining, deep-rooted, product of ancient hatreds. Can grow into global networks and political movements. Terrorism, illegal weapons

proliferation, drug smuggling, force labor, money laundering. • Types of intractable conflicts – intrastate and interstate. Also active and abeyant. • Since 1990, 3rd party intervention increased significantly – see ICB. But track record

not good. Too much intervention creates confusion.

Intractable Conflicts circa 2005

Active Intrastate: Abkhazia-Georgia Active Interstate: Israel-Palestine

Aceh-Indonesia KashmirAfghanistan Ngorno-KarabakhAngola Western SaharaBurmaBurundiColombiaDRCEast TimorGeorgiaLiberiaNepalN. IrelandSierra LeoneSomaliaSouth-Ossetia-GeorgiaSudan

Abeyant Intrastate: Bosnia Abeyant Interstate: Israel-SyriaChechnya N. and S. KoreaCyprus China-TaiwanKosovo

Ted Gurr – Minorities, nationalists and Islamists: Managing Communal Conflict in the 21st Century

• Ethnopolitical Conflict – conflicts in which groups who define themselves using ethnic or national criteria and make claims on behalf of their collective interests against the state or against other political actors. Common decent, shared historical experiences, and valued cultural traits.

• Some seek exit, others access.• How serious is the threat to global security? One in seven people are members of a

minority at risk.• Factors determining mobilization: salience of identity, collective incentives for group

action (discrimination, repression), capacities for group action, opportunities to obtain objectives

• International context of communal action: foreign support, spillover.• Managing communal conflict:

– Recognize and promote group political, cultural, and economic rights– Recognize substate autonomy– Democratic institutions and power sharing to protect group rights– Mutual accommodation– International engagement– Coercive intervention response to gross violations of human rights

MAROB Organizations & Terrorism

• Makes Terrorism less likely– Having a

Democratic ideology

– Organization is only domestically based

• Makes Terrorism more likely– Periodic or constant

State Repression – Organization has

Foreign Support– Organization has

Religious Ideology– Organization has

Separatist Goal– No Democratic

Ideology

Organizations with these factors have more than a 50% chance of using terrorism

Zartman – Analyzing Intractability

• Is intractability permanent or manipulable?• Factors reinforcing intractability once conflict has started: time (protraction), identity

denigration (of the other – to zero sum), profitability, ripeness (no hurting stalemate), solution polarization (extreme Prisoners Dilemma with no evolution to cooperation, and no room for mediation)

• These cases are also embedded in multi-layered sets of relationships, the potential interveners/mediators are biased, and buffer status between major blocs. These latter three more amenable to manipulation and management.

• Special diplomacy needed for intractability. Want to act early in the conflict, and/or when first signs of ripeness appear. Ripeness matter of perception and persuasion. Convince that mutually hurting stalemate exists. Zero sum difficult to deal with. [Explore integrative versus distributive]

• Mediator may be able, even when biased, to formulate agreement that protects interests of the party it favors while providing enough benefits for the other side to gain its acceptance. And disconnect embeddedness (Israel-Egypt, Cyprus).

Bercovitch – Mediation in the Most Resistant Cases

• Ed Azar – protracted conflicts. This book prefers intractable – web of conflictual interactions and hostile perceptions for many years.

• Bercovitch list of characteristics of intractability: long-lasting, conflict through destructive means, long set of unresolved and apparently irreconcilable issues, enmity and deep feelings of hatred, attract many actors and institutions that want to deal with the conflict (but few are successful).

• Zero sum game.• Management methods – unilateral (threats, avoidance, withdrawal), bilateral

(bargaining and negotiation), multilateral (UN peacekeeping, mediation).• Factors affecting mediation:

– Contextual factors – systemic features, nature of conflict, internal characteristics of parties.

– Behavioral factors – mediation identity and rank, strategies (low to high intervention, styles).

Jentleson – Yet Again/Never Again

• While some progress after Rwanda – Kosovo, East Timor, Sierra Leone, - but then came 9/11. Lessons of 1990s:

– What are driving forces of the conflict? Primordialist, or political causality - deliberate and conscious calculations by leaders and groups of the purposes to be served by political violence.

– When should military force be used? Seen as last resort. But Rwanda and Bosnia exposed deep and disturbing contradictions between the limits of the traditional noninterventionist regime and the very norms and values of peace, justice, and humanitarianism. May need anticipatory.

– Why is intervention justified? Issue of sovereignty in the midst of an era when intrastate conflict has come to dominate. So justification of intervention based on 4 factors: just cause in face of dire situation, proportionality of the military means, strong probability of success, and force as last resort although with anticipatory flexibility.

– Who decides on intervention? Security Council deadlock, US/NATO in Kosovo – regional action only requiring that SC be consulted. SC blocked by Russia (worried about Chechnya precedent) and China (worried about Taiwan and Tibet, and oil). Everybody afraid to recognize Kosovo, Spain, Canada.

– How to intervene effectively? Peacekeeping, but also peacemaking and peace-enforcing. Also may take on too many missions. Where does impartiality fit – is it a delusion. Might be quite dysfunctional, depending upon the nature of the conflict and the extent of asymmetry.