From Wars to Complex Emergencies

Third World Quarterly

From Wars to Complex Political Emergencies: Understanding Conflict and Peace-Building inthe New World DisorderAuthor(s): Jonathan Goodhand and David HulmeReviewed work(s):Source: Third World Quarterly, Vol. 20, No. 1, Complex Political Emergencies (Feb., 1999), pp.13-26Published by: Taylor & Francis, Ltd.Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3993180 .Accessed: 30/10/2011 10:54

Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at .http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp

JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range ofcontent in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new formsof scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected].

Taylor & Francis, Ltd. and Third World Quarterly are collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve andextend access to Third World Quarterly.

http://www.jstor.org

http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=taylorfrancis

http://www.jstor.org/stable/3993180?origin=JSTOR-pdf

http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp

Third World Quarterly, Vol 20, No 1, pp 13-26, 1999 GI CARFAX

From wars to complex political

emergencies: understanding conflict

and peace-building in the new world

disorder

JONATHAN GOODHAND & DAVID HULME

ABSTRACT In recent decades the nature of large-scale violent conflict has fundamentally changed from an era of 'wars' to one that is characterised by complex political emergencies (CPEs). A number of conceptual shifts have occurred in the attempt to better understand the nature of these multiple 'small wars'. Classic analytical frameworks focusing on the relationships between states, military capacities and strategies and international political economy are being put aside for more eclectic frameworks. These draw heavily on social and cultural theory, blend different theoretical elements together to analyse different situations, relate conflict to development and point to the inherent unpredictabil- ity of conflict processes and outcomes. This paper reviews these contemporary approaches to conflict and peacebuilding and comments on their implications for external agencies seeking to resolve conflict.

The years after 1989 saw more military operations in more parts of Europe, Asia and Africa than anyone could remember ... since it was often unclear who was fighting whom and why ... these activities did not fit under any of the classic headings of 'war', international or civil ... the century ended in a global disorder whose nature was unclear.'

It is clear that the shift in patterns of violent conflict from wars between states to conflicts within states, which began around the middle of the twentieth century, has not been reversed by the end of the Cold War. Of the 82 armed conflicts between 1989 and 1992 only three were between states. More than half of these 82 conflicts had been underway for at least a decade.2 The l990s have witnessed a further upsurge in internal ethno-nationalist conflicts that has prompted the intemational community to dramatically increase its humanitarian assistance.3 While death and disablement are a common feature of both classic 'wars' and contemporary 'complex political emergencies' (CPES)4 there has been a horrifying shift in the distribution of suffering and nowadays around 90% of casualties are inflicted on civilians.5 The forced movement of civilian popula-

Jonathan Goodhand can be contacied clo INTRAC, PO Box 563, Oxford OX2 6RZ, UK. David Hulme is based al the Institute for Development Policy and Management, University of Manchester, Crawford House, Precinct Centre, Oxford Road, Manchester M13 9GH, UK.

0143-6597/99/010013-12 $7.00 ?C 1999 Third World Quarterly13


tions because of conflict, as refugees or internally displaced persons, has led to more than 22 million people currently having to flee their home areas.6

Changes in the nature of violent conflict, and the contexts within which it is set, have required changes in the concepts that are used to aid the understanding of contemporary conflict. Analyses that focused on the relationships between states, on military capacities and strategies, on predicting who would win and who would lose and on international political economy have increasingly been replaced by social and cultural analyses that recognise complexity and contingency and that question the feasibility of prediction. This paper reviews contemporary approaches to the understanding of conflict and peacebuilding and highlights the continuing importance of relating the discourse about conflict and peace to the discourse around social and economic development. In its conclusion it argues that new forms of analysis are emerging that are of a different form from those that have previously dominated analysis. They are more eclectic, recognise the need to blend different conceptual elements together in a manner appropriate for each specific CPE. These frameworks help us to appreci- ate that, at the very best, external interventions can only build local capacities that may increase the probability of peace.

Key terms

Before exploring analytical approaches to peace building and conflict resolution it is necessary to establish the meanings that are utilised for a number of key terms in this paper. Inevitably, attempts to specify such terms are fraught with difficulty as they mean different things to different people and are bound up with distinct moral discourses and political positions.7

Conflict

Conflict is a struggle, between individuals or collectivities, over values or claims to status, power and scarce resources in which the aims of the conflicting parties are to assert their values or claims over those of others. Although this term is often used simplistically and negatively, conflating all conflict with physical violence,8 conflict can also be seen as having a positive dimension as 'normal forms of social interaction which may contribute to the maintenance, development, change and overall stability of social entities'.9 From this perspective, conflict 'is only a problem when society cannot represent, manage or resolve its different interests in a productive manner, thus initiating a degenerative or destructive cycle of physical violence'.'0 This is the meaning adopted in this paper. For actors seeking to reduce human suffering or improve the human condition it means that their task is not to prevent conflict (this would be infeasible and often undesirable) but to reduce the likelihood of specific conflicts becoming, or continuing to be, physically violent.

Peace

Peace is commonly conceptualised as the antithesis of war, 'the beating of swords into ploughshares', a situation in which physical violence does not

14

UNDERSTANDING CONFLICT AND PEACE-BUILDING IN THE NEW WORLD DISORDER

occur." However, recent interpretations have extended the meaning beyond this view point of 'negative peace'. For Galtung 'structural violence', which mani- fests itself through structural inequity and the unequal distribution of power, must also be tackled by actions that foster 'positive peace' (ie reduced levels of both physical and structural violence).12 From this perspective peace is not purely about an absence of physical violence but is intimately connected to the analysis and practice of social and economic development. Simplistic dichoto- mies between peace and conflict must be avoided as 'the habitual association of violence with disorder, and peace with the return of order, is an oversimplification'.' 3

Peacebuilding

A growing number of terms are used to refer to conscious interventions to promote peace in conflict situations. Often these are used loosely and only with partial explanation. The UN distinguishes between five main modes of intervention.

* emergency assistance: humanitarian provision to victims in war; * peace-making: political, diplomatic and sometimes military interventions

directed at bringing warring parties to agreement); * peace-keeping provision of peace-keeping military forces, verification (of

elections, of respect for human rights, etc) and other techniques used to monitor compliance with agreements and foster mutual confidence;

* peace-building: the promotion of institutional and socioeconomic measures, at the local or national level, to address the underlying causes of conflict;

* preventative diplomacy (or conflict prevention): political and diplomatic activity to reduce the likelihood of a conflict escalating into physical violence.

The term 'peace-building' has become increasingly common and is often used broadly to mean any activity undertaken with the purpose of preventing, alleviating or resolving violent, or potentially violent, conflict. 'Peace-building is the strategy which most directly tries to reverse the destructive processes that accompany violence. This involves a shift away from the warriors, with whom peace-keepers are mainly concerned, to the attitudes and socio-economic circum- stances of ordinary people. Therefore it tends to concentrate on the context of the conflict rather than on the issues which divide the parties'." Increasingly it is argued that ideas about conflict resolution are unrealistic, because of the limited scope and impact of external interventions in Africa, Asia and Europe in recent years. An alternative term used by the UK's Department for International Development (DFID), for example is 'conflict handling', which encompasses elements of conflict preparedness, prevention and mitigation, but does not extend to conflict resolution.15

However, peace-building is a concept now widely used and expounded by relief and development workers as well as conflict resolution specialists. Several premises underlie peacebuilding as a concept.

15


1. There is an assumption that peace requires social transformation and must be built over time.

2. Peace encompasses economic, social, cultural, political and humanitarian issues; it is something more than the absence of violence, and includes ideas about sustainable development and social justice. 16

3. Peace building is not an event with a precise beginning and end, rather it refers to processes which occur before, during and after violent conflict.

4. Peace building is not a specific activity but a consequence of an activity (defined by its outcome or process).

5. It is based on the premise that societies affected by violent conflict still contain individuals, groups, attitudes and processes that promote peace.'7 Conflicts also generate a 'moral' economy, not just a 'predatory' one. There are instances of civil groups or 'constituencies for peace', as for example in Somaliland, who have helped support and develop a peace process."8 As the term implies, peace is built upon by supporting and nurturing such constituencies within civil society.

Complex political emergencies

The term complex political emergency (CPE) is not an analytical tool but a descriptive category which provides a shorthand expression for many, often dissimilar, conflicts. We use the term to denote conflicts which combine the features listed below.

Contflict within and across state boundaries. CPES are a hybrid form of conflict which is, 'neither purely inter-state conflict, nor confined within the normal institutionalised rules and procedures of domestic conflict management'. 9

Political origins. CPES have political causality. The competition for power and scarce resources is the central dynamic in social conflicts.211 Politics is taken to mean any activities or processes associated with changing or maintaining existing patterns of the distribution of power.

Protracted duration. CPES have enduring features. They are seldom temporary crises after which society returns to 'normal' levels of physical violence (as the previous generation of development theorists and practitioners often assumed).

Social cleavages. Emergencies are embedded in, and are expressions of, existing social, political, economic and cultural structures. They are all-encom- passing, and involve every dimension of society and the lives of the people who are part of them.2' The roots of many CPES lie in relations between enduring identity groups, which do not necessarily correspond with existing nation-state boundaries. Ramsbotham and Woodhead characterise many modern internal conflicts as a prolonged and often violent struggle by communal groups for such

16


basic needs as security, recognition and acceptance, fair access to political institutions and economic participation.22

Predatory socialformations. CPES are often ethno-nationalist in nature, characterised by 'a virulent loyalty to one particular social group, accompanied by equally strong feelings of antipathy towards other social groups living within the same state'.23 Such groups are often mobilised and manipulated by conflict entrepreneurs and political opportunists. CPES are frequently fought by militia forces and other armed groups, with little sense of discipline, a poorly defined chain of command and no discernible political programme.24 Frequently the most violent and unruly elements of society appear in leadership roles and criminality becomes the political norm. In Afghanistan for example, a war economy has developed around the drugs trade, which means that competing war lords now have a strong vested interest in continuing uncertainty and conflict. Peace would disrupt the systems of production and exchange that provide such warlords and their followers with livelihoods.

Understanding conflict and peacebuilding: levels of analysis

There is a variety of different analytical approaches towards understanding CPES and no single explanatory model is capable of capturing the complex reality of their 'rich and unruly experience'. Multiple and interconnected causes are one of the defining features of CPES.

Every conflict is unique, with its own configuration of power, structures, actors and beliefs or grievances. As Richards points out, each conflict needs fine-grained analysis and explanation.25 While, for many studies of CPES the point of departure has been analysis at the international and national levels, there has been an increasing awareness in recent writings of the need to explore processes at the community level. Such 'inside-out' analysis of the roots of conflict has become important for several reasons.

(a) To counterbalance the prevalence of international relations-type approaches to conflict analysis and their emphasis on global and macro-level factors. Such approaches often ignore the interconnectedness of community experience with process and events at national and regional levels. This type of analysis tends to confine itself to the role of decision making by leaders and neglects the crucial role that micro-level social processes play in the legitimisation of violence and conflict.

(b) There is a need for the 'fine-grained' analysis of war, as conflicts have become more varied and locality specific.26 As de Waal notes, in his studies of the CPES in Sudan and Zaire, there has been a decentralisation of warfare with locally specific types of military organisation, the creation of proxy forces and local level innovation in military techniques.27 This points to the need for detailed contextual analysis and an exploration of the local dynamics of CPES, if one is seriously attempting to understand why high levels of physical violence are occurring.

(c) In contemporary conflicts, 'the community' represents the nexus of conflict

17


action. It is at the community level where contending claims for people's 'hearts and minds' are fought and where most of the physical violence and suffering occurs. Today's battlefield is the city or the village, not the field or the beach. Conflict entrepreneurs have a sophisticated understanding of community level dynamics and institutions and exploit this knowledge to achieve their objectives. For potential peace-builders to compete with the claims of conflict entrepreneurs, and build viable constituencies for peace, a detailed understanding of the 'communities' in which they operate is essential.

The analysis of the causes and dynamics of conflict thus demands a framework which integrates both the macro- and micro-level dimensions of conflict. In the sections that follow we highlight some of the key ideas that have significance in contemporary analysis. We adopt an eclectic approach as one of the clear findings of recent research is that no single overarching model of conflict can capture the great variations between different individual conflicts.

Conflict as process

A number of models of conflict view it as an event rather than a process.28 The notion that the 'beginning' and 'end' of a conflict can be identified, as was the situation in classic wars, with official declarations of the times of conflict starting and ceasing, is inappropriate for contemporary CPES. Conflict is a social process in which the original structural tensions are themselves profoundly reshaped by the massive disruptions of CPES. Sri Lanka and Afghanistan are both good examples of how conflicts can mutate, and issues which lead to the emergence of large-scale violence are not necessarily those which cause its intractability or longevity.29 As Tilly argues, 'war is a form of contention which creates new forms of contention'.30 Even when the violence is 'over' continued efforts at peace building will be needed to reduce the likelihood of renewed conflict.

The recognition that conflict is a process has led to ideas from the natural and social sciences (such as chaos theory, the butterfly effect, feedback and adaptive change, non-equilibrium systems and contingency theory) increasingly entering the conflict discourse. Postmodernist, or post-Newtonian approaches to conflict analysis mean recognising that conflict is seen less as the outcome of a predictable linear pattern of causes and effects and more as a result of combinations of contingent factors.31 In conflict there are periods and regions of stability mixed with instability and the boundaries of a conflict are changeable.32 The capacity of agencies seeking to build peace is contingent on them being able to understand and affect the underlying dynamics of conflict. They need to be able to recognise and respond to the 'critical thresholds' in a conflict when alternative options present themselves;33 these may include opportunities to build peace as well as the threat of degeneration into renewed hostilities. They also need to be able to recognise the stabilising points which may emerge from the surrounding chaotic conditions; these may be indigenous institutions within civil society around which a new consensus may emerge.


Political economy perspectives

During the 1980s the domination of neoclassical approaches to economics meant that orthodox economic analysis of CPES viewed them as irrational. 'Economists ... often associate sectarian conflicts with pre-capitalism and expect these to fade away with the development of markets, modem technology and capitalist institutions'!35 Aggregate consumption and production declines, comparative advantages are lost and capital destroyed: why do people behave so inexplica- bly? During this time political economic analysis, and particularly that with Marxist roots, was elbowed out of studies of conflict. However, the l990s have seen a number of writers proposing new ways of understanding conflict from a political economy perspective. Duffield has developed new insights through his analysis of the global processes that contribute to systematic conflict.36 He argues that protracted conflict is symptomatic of new and expanding forms of political economy. Today's conflicts are characterised by long-term and innova- tive adaptations to globalisation, linked to expanding networks of parallel (illegal) and grey (semi-legal) economic activity. To better understand such processes Duffield argues for the need to repoliticise the study of internal war and protracted instability. This work has been complemented by de Waal and Keen who have focused on the internal socioeconomic and political processes underpinning CPES. For these writers conflict is not the irrational breaking down of societies and economies: rather, 'it is the re-ordering of society in particular ways. In wars we see the creation of a new type of political economy, not simply the disruption of the old one'.37

The central contribution of such approaches has been the elaboration of the functions of conflict for different actors. A strict focus on the aggregate economic costs of conflict may make CPES seem irrational but, once the 'black box' of conflict economics is opened up, an analysis of the benefits of war, and how these are distributed, reveals quite different findings. 'There is a careful, deliberate strategy behind much of what appears to be pathological violence'. 38

There is ever-increasing evidence of the benefits of conflict for those who use it to achieve economic objectives. In the Sudan, Keen's research has highlighted the tangible benefits that protagonists derive from fighting.39 In Afghanistan, the conflict not only gives warlords control over opium production and sales but also creates a context in which international attempts to stop narcotics production and marketing can have little impact. Atkinson's work on Liberia provides a detailed account of the war economy and the ways in which different factions have sought to control the country's resources, especially diamonds, by fostering violence and conflict.40 While humanitarian concerns rightly focus on the economic 'losers' in CPES a full understanding of any CPE requires an analysis of the motives, roles and actions of the economic 'winners' of protracted conflict. Conflict entrepreneurs, as well as conflict victims, must be a part of any analytical framework.

A recent focus of political economic approaches has been attempts to extend Sen's work to analyse how conflict modifies the entitlements and coping strategies of conflict victims.41 Entitlement theory marginalised the role of war and violence in its analysis of famine by not recognising the relationship

19


between famine and violations of legality.42 Stewart & FitzGerald has sought to overcome this weakness in the entitlement framework by adding the concept of 'non-entitlement' (acquiring commodities by breaking the law) alongside direct, market and public entitlements.43 Non-entitlements include income gained by raiding, protection rackets, trade in illegal drugs, kidnapping and the diversion of relief supplies. Non-entitlements provide a means of understanding how certain actors and groups find that the costs of war (especially losses of direct, market and public entitlements) can be more than compensated for by the opportunity that conflict creates for increased access to non-entitlements.

Social relations perspectives

While many CPES can be understood as 'resource wars' this approach offers only a partial interpretation of the dynamics of conflict in most cases. Richards points to Sierra Leone as a warning not to disregard the complexity of historical and sociological detail when thinking about post-Cold War conflict.44 Although in a market-driven world economic rationales are always important, we also need to consider to what extent conflict makes sociological sense.45 Hunger for a social identity and maintaining social order in a disintegrating world have long provided the ground in which effective political forces can grow.4 The meanings that people attribute to events, institutions, policies, motives and appeals for political support are as important as the phenomena themselves.47 Anthropolog- ical insights from the likes of Richards,48 Bradbury49 and Allen5" have shadowed the political economy perspectives of Keen, Duffield, de Waal and others over recent years. Richards, for example, argues that the Sierra Leone war is a terror war fought with local cultural resources and thus a culturally informed analysis is essential. Central to this analysis is an understanding of sources of individual identity and how these relate to collective identities-ethnicity, religion, kinship, age and gender thus become central to the analysis of CPES. In the paragraphs that follow we briefly focus on gender, on ideas about local level associational life and on the role of human agency.

Gender

The recognition that gender relations contribute an essential element of analysis has come late to the study of conflict as compared with the study of development. In most work women are rarely mentioned and gender analysis is most marked by its absence. In the last few years, however, writers such as Byrne,5' El Bushra and Lopez52 and Large53 have introduced gender analysis into the conflict discourse. This has illustrated the different ways in which women and men are caught up in struggles over power and resources and the ways in which gender relations may be profoundly altered by conflict. While gender analysis has an economic dimension, for example the economic roles of women and men are often changed in CPES, it also has social and cultural dimensions, for example in the construction and reproduction of the identity of 'warriors'. The latter varies enormously from place to place. In Afghanistan the warrior is invariably male and the roles of women are to be supportive mothers and wives. By

20


contrast, in Sri Lanka the (LTTE) has developed a feared cadre of female fighters and suicide bombers, while the government deploys female soldiers at military- civilian interfaces as part of its 'hearts and minds' tactics.

Studies of gender in CPES have pushed forward our understanding of the many roles of women in conflict. Women are not simply victims, as has commonly been assumed, but are also active agents: this ranges from being effective perpetrators of violence and fearless combatants to being the main force behind initiatives to promote peace.:4 A gendered analysis of conflict offers increased insights into possible entry points for the 'smart relief' that might make the likelihood of peace less distant.55

Mutual Trust, cooperation and social capital

Much recent work has focused on identifying and understanding the roles of grassroots social organisations with a view to providing external support to these more effectively in the future. Anderson and Woodhead explored the capacities and vulnerabilities of communities affected by protracted conflict;50 subsequently Anderson built on this work to see how third party interventions can assist non-conflictual community action during CPES.57 Her work and that of others58 illustrates that, even during the most direly violent situations, 'social assets'-the mutual trust and cooperation within and between families, kin and neighbours- are a crucial resource for survival and offer opportunities for building peace in the future. Only recently, however, has the literature on conflict and peace59 begun to explore the concept of social capital60 that has become a feature of the development studies literature.6' Whether this concept has relevance to the study of conflict, and can provide a framework for understanding the ways in which societies 'fall apart' and/or 'heal' themselves, seems likely to be a focus for research over the next few years.

The concept of social capital entered into thinking about development as a result of Putnam's Making Democracy Work. He argues that networks of civic engagement (active involvement in associational life) are principal determinants of development. For Putnam civic engagement gives rise to social capital-'features of social organisation, such as networks, norms and trust, that facilitate co-ordination and co-operation for mutual benefit'. 62 Putnam argues that such norms and networks constitute endowments of capital for societies. Conversely, 'where norms and networks of civic engagement are lacking the outlook for collective action appears bleak' .63 An important area of contention in the debate about social capital is the question of endowments or constructability. For Putnam social capital is an endowment, the product of long-term historical processes that different societies either have or lack. Others argue that social capital is a latent possibility in most contexts waiting to be brought to life by institutional entrepreneurship.64 Prior endowments of social capital are not the key constraining factor; more critical are the difficulties involved in 'scaling up' micro-level social capital to generate solidarity ties and societal action on a scale that is politically and economically efficacious.65

The issue of the constructability of social capital is particularly germane to the discourse on conflict. One might surmise that societies with substantial endow-

21


ments of social capital have greater civil security and less conflict than those with less social capital. Conversely, a lack of social capital makes conflict more likely, and protracted conflict will undermine and eventually destroy that social capital which previously existed. In Sri Lanka, for example, one might speculate that in the north, the more developed traditions of civic engagement, compared with the east, have generated social capital which has mitigated some of the impacts of the conflict for the population there. In the east, where institutional and social networks have traditionally been less dense, the level of 'social implosion' has been much greater. A key question is whether external intervention can help rebuild social capital and whether a process of 'social compacting' can in turn contribute to a peace-building process. One could certainly construct the case that conflict entrepreneurs systematically use violence to break down social capital by discouraging civic engagement.

Evidently the concept of social capital may provide insights into how communities are affected by and respond to violent conflict. It has already proved useful as it helps us recognise the significance of the way in which economic and political actors interact and organise themselves. However, it is not a concept to be applied uncritically. First, it neglects considerations of power and second, it ignores the fact that the consequences of organisation or social capital can be negative for many members of a society, especially those who are relatively powerless.66 Social capital for some may imply social exclusion for others. It could be argued that the Sri Lankan conflict has generated new forms of social capital within the Tamil population which in turn have fuelled and sustained the war. Perhaps, the term 'anti-social capital' could be applied to forms of engagement and networks which do not accrue endowments of capital for the benefit of society as a whole, but foster factionalism. More exploration is required into the processes which determine whether civic engagement fosters 'pro-social' or 'anti-social' capital. One could hypothesise that anti-social capital can be whipped up by conflict entrepreneurs relatively quickly (by the use of violence to discourage civic engagement) in comparison to the long-term and incremental process of building up social capital.

Human agency, social structure and conflict

Writers on conflict and peace building take quite different positions on the relative roles of individuals and social structures. For political economists, like Duffield, structural factors are of prime importance in understanding conflict; it follows on that conflict resolution will require structural change, often at an international or national scale.67 By contrast, writers from a peace studies background, such as Fisher68 and Mitchell,69 place a much greater emphasis on human agency. Individuals can take the decision to be non-violent and this can diffuse through society.

The relationship between human agency and social structure is at the heart of social theory and is fundamental to the understanding of violent conflict. Jabri has pointed out the relevance of structuration theory as a means of moving beyond the polarity expressed in the structuralist-individualist divide.70 Structu- ration theory posits that every social interaction is both an interaction between

22


individuals and the reproduction of social structures.71 That reproduction may reproduce the social structure in its previous form or may, in a miniscule way, modify some of the pre-existing features of social relations. Thus 'social change is subject to outcomes determined by the aggregate effects of human agency'72 and is not simply the product of the predictable evolution of social structures. From this perspective, conflict is both a setting for social action and a product of such action: existing patterns of violence or non-violence can be modified through individual agency, which in turn is itself shaped by structural and institutional processes.

Thus, the understanding of conflict requires detailed analysis of the relationship between individuals and structural features in CPES to tease out the links between the two. The ways in which social structures shape the identities of individuals, and vice versa, is of prime importance. It is evident that in many contemporary conflicts the individual behaviour and actions of 'conflict entrepreneurs' commonly seeks to reinforce ethnic identities so that ethnic structures become the defining feature for individuals and society. In this way higher levels of violence, or the potential for violence, can be generated. Conversely, 'peace entrepreneurs' (Gandhi is the obvious historical example, although his achievements may have been limited) may seek to diffuse ideas and generate 'social energy'73 which transform social structures and social relations so that the likelihood of peaceableness is increased.

Conclusion

During this century the nature of violent conflict has fundamentally changed and, at the risk of oversimplification, we have moved from an era of 'wars' to one of complex political emergencies. Contemporary conflicts are not events with clear beginnings and ends but are an element of a broader process of social change which is turbulent, discontinuous and the result of combinations of contingent factors. The term CPE provides useful signals about the virtual redundancy of classical conceptual frameworks based on a 'conflict is war' model and the need for new forms of analysis that can deal with the complexity and diversity of contemporary violent conflicts. However, the term CPE iS only a label-one might equally talk about 'miscellaneous political emergencies'- and in itself does not provide tools for analysis. Such frameworks are only evolving at present but will clearly be of a quite different nature than classical frameworks, be they bureaucratic, Marxist or international relations theories. A more eclectic approach is emerging which blends together different conceptual elements (in Uphoff's parlance that is 'both/and' rather than 'either/or'24) appropriate to a specific conflict and which explicitly recognises that attempts at understanding (ie the creation of knowledge) are inseparable from action.

This review indicates that such frameworks will need to be fine-grained, have a full appreciation of the historical roots of conflict, must capture the micro-level dynamics of conflict and peace, will recognise that they are processes not outcomes and could benefit from using ideas about development alongside those of conflict and peace. Conflict has both violent and non-violent dimensions, is inherent in all social relations and can be both a positive and negative force in

23


terms of social change. Improved analysis will be essential if efforts to resolve violent conflicts-especially in their contemporary forms which impose the bulk of suffering on non-combatants and which impoverish the present and future livelihoods of hundreds of millions of people-are to be effective. Such analysis will have a 'political' dimension (examining interstate and state processes), an economic dimension exploring the economic purposes that conflict serves (and looking at 'winners' as well as 'losers') and a sociocultural dimension that recognises the role of cultural resources in conflict. Both human agency and broader structural forces interact to foment the escalation of violence or to build peace.

Contemporary conflicts are not merely complex they are, as Johnston and Clark argued, about agrarian change and rural development, 'messes'.7 They are not specific problems with indentifiable causes that can be fully understood and for which 'solutions' can be generated. At best, understanding will always be partial, contingencies will play havoc with linear notions of cause and effect and predictability will be at low levels. Those who seek to intervene will need to be truly humble and avoid making the exaggerated claims about 'saving lives' and 'bringing peace' that the logframes76 of their financial sponsors often encourage. Competing 'scenarios' about the likely outcomes of intervention are more appropriate than linear forms of analysis complemented by 'assumptions'. The one feature that CPES may share in common is that ultimately their 'resolution' lies with the societies in which they occur. Those external agents who wish to build peace will need to be 'smart' and recognise that, at the very best, they can only help build capacities that increase the likelihood of peace. 'If war has spread from within, making its own cultural sense as it goes, then the search for peace may have to trace similar paths'.77

Notes IE liobsbawm, Age of Extremes. The Short 7wentieth Century 1914-1991, London: Michael Joseph, 1994,

pp 560-562. 2UNDP, Human Development Report 1994, Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 1994, p 47. 3J Borton, 'The upsurge in interest in the "relief-development continuum": what does it mean?', Relief and

Rehabilitation Network, Newsletter, out, September 1994. 4For a discussion of the meaning of complex political emergency see Section 2 of this paper. 5At the beginning of this century, around 90 per cent of war casualties were military. Today, about 90 per

cent are civilian-a disastrous shift in the balance'. UNDP, Human Development Report, p. 47. 6 UN1ICR, The State of the World's Refugees. A Humanitarian Agenda, Oxford University Press, 1998. 7S Baranyi, S Kibble, A Kohen & K O'Neill, 'Making solidarity effective: Northern voluntary organisations

policy advocacy and the promotion of peace in Angola and East Timor', CIIR Discussion Paper, London, 1997.

8 Physical violence may be defined as 'any physical assault on human beings carried out with the intention of causing them harm, pain or suffering'. A Arblaster, 'Violence', in W Outhwaite & T Bottomore (eds) The Blackwell Dictionary of Twentieth Century Social Thought, Oxford: Blackwell, 1993, pp 700-702.

9 L A Coser, 'Conflict', in Outhwaite & Bottomore, The Blackwell Dictionary of Twentieth Century Social Thought, pp. 103-105.

10 M Kapila, Conflict Handling in the Aid Programme, Conflict Unit, Emergency Aid Department (DFID),

version no. 4, London, 1996. R C Ogley, 'Peace', in Outhwaite & Bottomore, The Blackwvell Dictionary of Twentieth Century Social Thought, pp 450-451.

24


12J Galtung, 'Violence and peace', in P Smooker, R Davies & B Munske, A Reader in Peace Studies, Oxford: Pergamon Press, 1990.

3 F Stepputat, 'Post-war Guatemala: encounters at the frontier of the modem state', in B Fredericksen & F Wilson, Livelihood, Identity and Instability, papers, from an international workshop organised by the research programme 'Livelihood, Identity and Organisation in Situations of Instability', Centre For Development Research, Copenhagen, 1997, p. 21.

14 Ryan, cited in K Bush, 'Fitting the Pieces Together: Canadian contributions to the challenge of rebuilding wartom societies', paper presented for the International Development Research Centre, Ottawa, July 1995.

' Kapila, Conflict Handling in the Aid Programme. 16 G McDonald, Peace Building from Below. Alternative Perspectives on Colombia's Peace Process, CIIR

Briefing Paper, London, 1997. 17 M B Anderson, 'Do no harm: supporting local capacities for peace through aid', Collaborative for

Development Action, Local Capacities for Peace Project, 1 996. M Bradbury, 'Development in conflict. Experiences of action aid', Discussion Paper No. 1, Responding to Conflict, London, 1994.

19 0 Ramsbotham & T Woodhead, Humanitarian Intervention in Contemporary Conflict: A Reconceptualisa- tion, Cambridge: Polity Press, 1996. N Lewer & 0 Ramsbotham, 'Something Must Be Done'l Towards an Ethical Framework for Humanitarian Intervention in International Social Conflict, Peace Research Report Number 33, Department of Peace Studies, University of Bradford, 1993.

21 D Eade & S Williams, The Oxfam Handbook of Development and Relief, Oxford: Oxfam (UK and Ireland), 1995.

22 Ramsbotham & Woodhead, Humanitarian Intervention in Contemporary Conflict. 23 JCrisp, The State of the World's Refugees ]995: In Search of Solutions, Oxford: UNIcXROxford University

Press, 1995, p. 110. 24 Ibid. 25 p Richards, Fighting for the Rain Forest: War, Youth and Resources in Sierra Leone, Oxford: James Curry,

1996. 26 J Swift, 'War and development in Africa', IDS Bulletin, 27(3), 1996. 27 A de Waal 'Contemporary warfare in Afiica: changing context, changing strategies', IDS Bulletin, 27(3),

1996. 28 V Reider, in I Smillie, 'Sierra Leone: NGOS in complex emergencies', Ottawa, mimeo, 1996, p 25. 29 V Jabri, Discourses on Violence: Conflict Analysis Reconsidered, Manchester: Manchester University Press,

1996. 30 Tilly, cited in D Keen, 'The political economy of war', in F Stewart (Ed), The Social and Economic Costs

of Conflict in Developing Countries, London: ESCOR, DFID, 1997, p. 25. 31 N Uphoff, Learning from Gal Oya: Possibilities for Participatory Development and Post-Newtonian Social

Science, Ithaca, NY, Cornell University Press, 1992. 32 R Chambers, Whose Reality Counts? Putting the First Last, London: IT Publications, 1997. 33 El Bushra & E Lopez, Development in Conflict: The Gender Dimension, Oxford: Oxfam Research Papers,

1995. 34 Bradbury, 'Development in conflict'. 35 P Bardhan, 'Method in the madness? A political economy analysis of the ethnic conflicts in less developed

countries', World Development, 25(9), 1997, pp 1381-1398. 36 M Duffield, 'Aid policy and post-modem conflict. A critical review', Occasional Paper 19, School of Public

Policy, University of Birmingham, 1998. 3 Keen, 'The political economy of war', p. 7. 38 de Waal, 'Contemporary warfare in Africa'. 39 D Keen, 'The appliance of science? Famine relief and conflict, with special reference to Ireland and Sudan',

Queen Elizabeth liouse, Oxford, 1994. 4() P Atkinson, 'The war economy in Liberia: a political analysis', Relief and Rehabilitation Network Paper,

22, London: ODI, 1997. 41 J Dreze & A Sen, Hunger and Public Action, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1989. 42 Keen, 'The political economy of war'. 43 Stewart, op cit. F Stewart & U FitzGerald, 'Introduction: assessing the economic costs of war', paper

circulated for Queen Elizabeth House Project on Institutions and Development, 23-24 October, Oxford, 1998. 44 Richards, Fighting for the Rain Forest. 41 Ibid. 46 Hlobsbawm, Age of Extremes. 47 Uphoff, Learning from Gal Oya. 48 Richards, Fighting for the Rain Forest. 49 Bradbury, 'Development in conflict'.

25


50 T Allen, In Search of Cool Ground: War, Flight and Homecoming in Northeast Africa, London: UNRISD, 1996.

5 B Byrne, 'Towards a gendered understanding of conflict' IDS Bulletin, 27(3), 1996. 52 El Bushra & Lopez, Development in Conflict. 53 J Large, The Work of Generations. Gender Analysis and Future Policy Directions: Exploratory Thoughts,

a discussion paper for the CODEP Working Group on Gender and Conflict, Oxford, 1995. 54 I Smillie, 'Sierra Leone'. Preliminary material and interim research results were circulated to stimulate

discussion and critical comment. 55 Richards, Fighting for the Rain Forest. 56 M Anderson & J Woodhead, Rising from the Ashes: Development Strategies in Time of Disaster, Boulder,

CO: Westview Press, 1988. 57 Anderson, 'Do no harm'. 58 Stewart, 1997, op cit. 59 J Goodhand & D Hulme, 'NGOS and peace building in complex political emergencies: an introduction',

Working Paper No 1, University of Manchester, IDPM, 1997. 6( R Putnam with R Leonard & R Y Nanett, Making Democracy Work: Civic Traditions in Modern Italy,

Princetown, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1993. 61 P Evans, 'Government action, social capital and development: reviewing the evidence on synergy', World

Development, 24(6), 1996; J Hiarriss & R Pole, 'Missing link or analytically missing? The concept of social capital. An introductory bibliographic essay', Journal of International Development, 9(7), 1997, pp 919-938; D Naryan & A Pritchett 'Cents and sociability: household income and social capital in rural Tanzania', Working Paper, World Bank, Washington DC, 1996; and E Ostram, 'Constituting social capital and collective action', in R Keohane & E Ostram (eds), Local Commons and Global Interdependence, London: Sage, 1995.

62 Putnam, Making Democracy Work. 63 D North, Institutions, Institutional Change and Economic Performance, Cambridge: Cambridge University

Press, 1990. 64 Evans, 'Government action, social capital and development'. 65 Ibid. 66 Hiarriss & Pole, 'Missing link or analytically missing?'. 67 M Duffield, 'The political economy of internal war: asset transfer, complex emergencies and international

aid', in Macrae & Zwi et al., War and Hunger: Rethinking International Responses to Complex Emerg- encies, London: Zed Books, 1994.

68 R Fisher, 'Third party consultation as a method of intergroup conflict resolution', Journal of Conflict Resolution, 27(2), 1983, pp 301-334.

69 C Mitchell, The Structure of International Conflict, London: Macmillan, 1981. 70 Jabri, Discourses on Violence. 71 Anthony Giddens, The Constitution of Society, London: Polity Press, 1984. 72 T Spybey, Social Change, Development and Dependency, London: Polity Press, 1992, p 3. 73 Uphoff, Learning from Gal Oya. 74 Ibid. 75 B Johnston & C Clark, Redesigning Rural Development, Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press,

1982. 76 Many relief and development agencies now require a formal logical framework analysis (LEA) from

'partners' seeking to intervene in CPES. For a general discussion of logframes, see Overseas Development Administration, A Guide to Social Analysis for Projects in Developing Countries, London: iIMSo, 1995.

7 Richards, Fighting for the Rain Forest, p. 3.

26

From Wars to Complex Emergencies

Documents

Transcript of From Wars to Complex Emergencies