Conflict Resolution Or Transformation? an Analysis of The
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
International Negotiation 6: 303–329, 2001. 303 © 2002 Kluwer Law International. Printed in the Netherlands. Conflict Resolution or Transformation? An Analysis of the South African and Mozambican Political Settlements ROBERT B. LLOYD∗ Center for International Studies and Languages, Pepperdine University, 24255 Pacific Coast Highway, Malibu, CA 90263 USA (E-mail: [email protected]) Abstract. How much conflict must be resolved for a political settlement and its imple- mentation to be successful? This article argues that a political settlement must satisfy the combatants’ expectations regarding the resolution of the causes of the conflict. How deeply do these causes need to be resolved for the parties to be satisfied? To answer this question two concepts are introduced: the immediate and underlying causes of a conflict. Immediate causes (grievances) are specific, concrete policies that provoke some subset of a state’s population to rebel against the government. Underlying causes are diverging interests that led to the introduction of these policies that caused the grievances. This article examines the political settlements in South Africa and Mozambique that terminated armed hostilities, overcame the conflict, and opened the door to normal politics. The research indicates that in both cases the political settlement satisfactorily resolved the immediate causes of the conflict. There was greater dissatisfaction in South Africa because the political settlement did not resolve the underlying causes of the conflict. A major reason for this dissatisfaction was that although the electoral outcome gave the ANC strong popular support, the political settlement limited its ability to grapple with root causes. In Mozambique, fears of reigniting another protracted armed confrontation and the close electoral outcome dissuaded either side from addressing the underlying causes of the conflict. Keywords: conflict resolution, conflict transformation, expectations, grievances, immediate causes, root causes, satisfaction A major topic of dispute in the field of conflict resolution is how a negotiated political settlement successfully overcomes a conflict in internationalized civil disputes. Much effort in the field towards understanding what makes the parties to a conflict settle their differences and then stick to their agreements has focused on such factors as the role of third-party mediation, the “ripeness” of the conflict, the constraints and opportunities imposed by the international system, and the (devil is in the) details of the actual agreement ∗ Robert B. Lloyd is Assistant Professor of International Relations and Director of the Center for International Studies and Languages at Pepperdine University in Malibu, California. He received his Ph.D. from The Johns Hopkins University’s Paul Nitze School of Advanced International Studies in Washington, D.C. He lived and worked in Africa for five years with an international nongovernmental organization prior to his doctoral studies. 304 ROBERT B. LLOYD This debate over “success” relates to an even deeper question. How much resolution is sufficient for a conflict to be placed on the “conflict-free” side of the ledger? Hampson (1996: 23) argues that, at a minimum, a successful settlement includes ending violence, abiding by the terms of the agreements, and establishing institutions to resolve conflict on an ongoing basis. This definition provides a minimum threshold to a successful settlement, but does not stipulate either how much resolution is necessary to arrive at this lowest limit, if this lowest level is sustainable in the long run, or what constitutes the upper limit.1 The discussion of the boundaries of a successful settlement is more than simply theoretical. At stake is the practical question of whether negotiations should focus on the conflict’s immediate or root causes. Conflict resolu- tion researchers have been divided on precisely this issue (see Kriesberg 1997: 64). Two schools of thought exist, reflecting different disciplinary assumptions and methodological approaches. The first approach, often called the Social-Psychological, argues that conflict resolution should focus on the root causes, and not simply treat its visible symptoms. John Burton (1990), for example, insists that to ignore underlying causes, which include basic human needs, dooms settlements to break down. Lederach (1995: 14–19) argues that a conflict must be trans- formed. A conflict will essentially disappear, he asserts, only after the needs and interests of the parties in conflict are legitimized and the relationships are restructured towards increased equality and justice. Kelman argues for the inclusion of psychological factors such as fear in the generation and escala- tion of conflict (Kelman 1997). Finally, many researchers with this approach explicitly critique the emphasis by international relations scholars on the role of power in conflict resolution (e.g. Avruch 1998: 23–56). Negotiations, they think, should be directed toward the most radical of resolutions, “replac- ing conflict with positive relationships, such as satisfaction, cooperation, empathy, and interdependence between parties” (Zartman 1997: 11). An alternative approach, in the political realist tradition of interna- tional relations (see, for example, Morgenthau 1948; Waltz 1979), contends that violent conflict has often resulted from the desire of states to main- tain, defend, and extend their interests in an international environment that possesses at best a weak overarching legal system to resolve disputes. Given this international environment, states employ power to achieve their goals, which at times has resulted in violent inter- and intrastate conflicts. There- fore, the use and abuse of sovereign power and the existence of power asymmetry between contending parties are built directly into the conflict resolution process (Zartman, Deng et al. 1996). With respect to the psycho- logical dynamics of conflict resolution, the realist responds that human needs CONFLICT RESOLUTION OR TRANSFORMATION? 305 are insatiable and changeable, but divergent interests are more clearly deter- mined and negotiated (Zartman 1997: 13). Negotiations, according to analysts such as Touval and Zartman, will be more fruitful if they are directed toward agreement on specific issues rather than root causes. These two approaches to conflict resolution may be reconciled in part by sequencing the steps in the process of resolving the conflict.2 Negotiations may first focus on specific and concrete grievances, leaving the more difficult and deeper issues for later. An example of this approach was the Dayton Accords that ended the fighting in Bosnia. Richard Holbrooke, the Amer- ican negotiator, was criticized for not having dealt with the root problems of the Bosnian crisis. Nevertheless, the Dayton Accords stopped the fighting, lowered the number of fatalities, and enabled attention to be turned to the deeper, structural aspects of the conflict. Two objections, however, may be raised to this incremental approach. First, failure to address root causes early in the negotiating process may actually undermine progress in tackling immediate grievances. Second, once the conflict is off the television screen there may be little incentive for third parties to resolve the underlying causes of the conflict. Either way, failure to resolve the underlying grievances might lead to renewed fighting. Both approaches agree that the goal of a negotiated political settlement is to move the disputing parties steadily from the battleground to the ballot box, eventually arriving at “normal politics” – an ongoing institutional method of resolving intrastate political conflict through negotiation and compromise. This article examines the role of grievances, satisfaction,andexpectations to answer the question of how deeply the negotiations should aim to resolve the conflict and thus lay the basis for normal politics. Incorporating expectations into the conflict resolution process allows one method of understanding how much conflict resolution is enough. Licklider (1999: 27) argues that the one of the keys to a successful settlement “seems to be what the parties expect to happen in the future.” By examining the political settlements in Mozambique and South Africa this article shows how expectations affected both the extent to which the conflict was resolved and the stability of the post-settlement phase of the conflict. Grievances and Satisfaction Grievances are the most readily apparent causes of a conflict. A grievance is a cause of distress that is felt to justify complaints or resistance. Grievances may be immediate (also called precipitating). These grievances are concrete and specific, and must be present for a conflict to arise. While immediate grievances are specific injustices, root causes, in contrast, refer to the struggle 306 ROBERT B. LLOYD for power among competing groups to counteract perceived or actual threats to group interests. A competitive struggle for power may or may not lead to grievances – it depends upon how it is handled. If a party perceives this competition as unjust, then it will attempt to right the wrong. The resolution of the conflict then depends ultimately on the parties’ satisfaction that the causes of a conflict have been resolved. The concept of satisfaction is the key to understanding the resolution of an armed conflict. Since negotiation necessarily requires compromise, then a negotiated political settlement inevitably means that some or all of the underlying causes of a conflict are left untouched. If