Inleiding in conflictanalyse en -management (MANCI49)
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Radboud Universiteit Nijmegen (RU)
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Managing Conflict in a World Adrift
Summary of the literature of the course Introduction to Conflict Analysis & Management including articles and the book Managing Conflict in a World Adrift by C. Crocker
Inleiding in conflictanalyse en -management (MANCI49)
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Samenvatting Inleiding conflictanalyse en -management
Boek: Managing conflict in a world adrift door Crocker
Artikelen
Lecture 2: Historische en geografische trends in oorlog en conflict
1. Chapter 1: Conflict management in a world adrift
Characteristics evolving international environment
Schools and their views on this evolution
4 anticipated conflict types
How is conflict management field adjusting to the changing challenges
Central challenge our time is not global terrorism, but global political awakening and its
turbulence = big socially & politically radicalizing, demanded change relation ruler and ruled.
Revolts were part of a shift in regional power dynamics and then to the people. Central
factors:
Impact demographic pressures
Increasing societal awareness that alternatives to humiliating status quo are possible
Technological drivers of this awareness by communications media
Transitional democracies highlight gap between good governance and state institutions, and
the inability of governments to accommodate interests of emerging civil society.
Today’s conflict managers are in a situation like a drifting ship, not knowing where they end.
Challenges to exploring geographic & cultural limits of this drifting ship:
How widespread is “demonstration effect” (people in one place act as example)?
What is the nature of the relationship between political change and violent conflict?
Will conflict management be able to keep up with emerging systemic & societal changes with
all new elements (new actors, new actions, new authorities)?
Today’s conflicts are local internal is the usual observation, but neighbors often play a role.
1. Are we in the midst of a global political shift where the power moves from central
institutions to smaller distributed unions?
2. What is the nature between political change and outbreak of conflict?
3. What are the consequences for conflict management?
Different Schools & perspectives:
1. Realist school
World is entering a period of increased instability, with more interstate conflict because
emerging economies and shifting within the international system.
2. Liberal school
More stability in the international system than one thinks. All big states have too much at
stake. Globalization creates a more peaceful world. Embracing democracy around the world is
,key. International institutions exert a stabilizing effect on international system & behavior.
More widely diffused power.
3. Constructivist school
Believe that changes in the distribution of material power are not yet determined. Greater
powers are ascribed to institutions. Rules and practices of diplomacy and international law are
important. The world is not necessarily becoming more peaceful. Maintaining social order by
rules etc. Power more distributed.
4. Environmentalists
Focuses on resource scarcity and broader environmental factors as drivers of conflict.
Triggers of conflict: population growth, climate change, environmental degradation.
Competition for resources conflict. Climate change will lead to social and environmental
tensions. Fractured systems (regional and global systems).
Conflict types:
1. Conflict over legitimacy (emergent)
2. Conflict arising from weak states ( vacuum authority, humanitarian crisis, political
collapse)
3. Existential Conflicts (threats to the existence of one group due to actions of another
group, zero-sum)
4. Major interstate conflict
Conflict trends are reversible.
Challenges conflict management:
Diffusion of strategy: Conflict prevention
Strengthening governance & development of democracy (liberal school)
realists: misplaced faith as national security dilemmas are drivers of conflict, not confidence
building measures.
Constructivists: old patterns die hard and require well integrated change.
Environmentalists: Better manage consequences social & economic disruption
prevention should not be an automatic response to the outbreak of conflict.
Critics: Conflict prevention places stability over change.
In the conflict types, conflict prevention is useful when no one is really in charge.
Conflict prevention and its implementation needs a situation dependent response, it is only a
partial response to the fast changes in the conflict environment.
Diffusion of Responsibility
International system is one of fractured governance and diffused authority, and a wide set of
instruments is needed to deal with challenges.
Regional states and security organizations assert their role as gatekeepers of international
action regional role conflict management
Conflict management and the role of diffusion of power & authority:
, Conscious outsourcing action by powerful states & global bodies
Demands by local/regional actors to be the primary gatekeepers of conflict
management practices.
Result of laissez faire attitude “Do what they must” in own interest
Market based power diffusion, willing buyers and sellers of conflict management
services meet.
2. Article: In Defense of New wars
News wars: wars in the era of globalization (in areas with weakened authorities because of
opening up to the world).
Differences old & new in terms of:
Actors:
Old: wars fought by regular armed forces of states
New: varying combinations of networks of state & non-state actors (jihadists, warlords, armed
forces etc.)
Goals:
Old: Fought for geo-political interests or ideology.
New: in the name of identity (ethnic, religious or tribal), identity politics is associated with
communication technologies and constructed through war (aim of war, not instrument, as was
in old)
Methods:
Old: battle was decisive encounter.
New: Battles are rare, territory is captured through control of population (political means).
Example: population displacement.
Forms of Finance
Old: financed by states (taxation)
New: private finance, new wars are sometimes motivated by economic gain
In old wars each side tried to win, new wars tend to spread and recur as each side gains from
violence rather than ‘winning’. Old wars = state building new wars = dismantling of
state.
Are new wars new?
Term new is to exclude old assumptions about nature of war, to change way it is investigated.
There is a tendency to impose a stereotype war (last 2 centuries Europe) of two parties with
legitimate interests = ‘Old wars’ solution is negotiation or victory
The new wars theory is about the changing character of organized violence and about the
interrelated characteristics of this violence.
New forms of communication play a big role. Most conflicts nowadays are local, global
connections are more extensive. Communications are also a tool of war (spread fear/panic).
Globalization has not led to the death of the state but to its transformation.
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