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Suggested Citation:"Front Matter." National Research Council. 2000. International Conflict Resolution After the Cold War. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/9897.
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INTERNATIONAL CONFLICT RESOLUTION AFTER THE COLD WAR

Committee on International Conflict Resolution

Paul C.Stern and Daniel Druckman, Editors

Commission on Behavioral and Social Sciences and Education

National Research Council

NATIONAL ACADEMY PRESS
Washington, D.C.

Suggested Citation:"Front Matter." National Research Council. 2000. International Conflict Resolution After the Cold War. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/9897.
×

NATIONAL ACADEMY PRESS
2101 Constitution Avenue, NW Washington, D.C. 20418

NOTICE: The project that is the subject of this report was approved by the Governing Board of the National Research Council, whose members are drawn from the councils of the National Academy of Sciences, the National Academy of Engineering, and the Institute of Medicine. The members of the committee responsible for the report were chosen for their special competences and with regard for appropriate balance.

This study was supported by Grants No. B6083 and B6728 from the Carnegie Corporation of New York to the National Academy of Sciences. Any opinions, findings, conclusions, or recommendations expressed in this publication are those of the author(s), and the Carnegie Corporation does not take responsibility for any statements or views expressed.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

International conflict resolution after the cold war/Committee on International Conflict Resolution; Paul C.Stern and Daniel Druckman, editors.

p. cm.

Includes bibliographical references.

ISBN 0-309-07027-9 (pbk.)

1. Pacific settlement of international disputes. 2. Mediation, International. I. Stern, Paul C., 1944- II. Druckman, Daniel. III. National Research Council (U.S.). Committee on International Conflict Resolution.

JZ6010 .I57 2000

327.1′7–dc21

00–010212

Additional copies of this report are available from

National Academy Press,
2101 Constitution Avenue, N.W., Lockbox 285, Washington, D.C. 20055; (800) 624–6242 or (202) 334–3313 (in the Washington metropolitan area); Internet, http://www.nap.edu

Printed in the United States of America

Copyright 2000 by the National Academy of Sciences. All rights reserved.

Suggested citation: National Research Council (2000) International Conflict Resolution After the Cold War. Committee on International Conflict Resolution. Paul C. Stern and Daniel Druckman, editors. Commission on Behavioral and Social Sciences and Education. Washington, DC: National Academy Press.

Suggested Citation:"Front Matter." National Research Council. 2000. International Conflict Resolution After the Cold War. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/9897.
×

THE NATIONAL ACADEMIES

National Academy of Sciences

National Academy of Engineering

Institute of Medicine

National Research Council

The National Academy of Sciences is a private, nonprofit, self-perpetuating society of distinguished scholars engaged in scientific and engineering research, dedicated to the furtherance of science and technology and to their use for the general welfare. Upon the authority of the charter granted to it by the Congress in 1863, the Academy has a mandate that requires it to advise the federal government on scientific and technical matters. Dr. Bruce M.Alberts is president of the National Academy of Sciences.

The National Academy of Engineering was established in 1964, under the charter of the National Academy of Sciences, as a parallel organization of outstanding engineers. It is autonomous in its administration and in the selection of its members, sharing with the National Academy of Sciences the responsibility for advising the federal government. The National Academy of Engineering also sponsors engineering programs aimed at meeting national needs, encourages education and research, and recognizes the superior achievements of engineers. Dr. William A.Wulf is president of the National Academy of Engineering.

The Institute of Medicine was established in 1970 by the National Academy of Sciences to secure the services of eminent members of appropriate professions in the examination of policy matters pertaining to the health of the public. The Institute acts under the responsibility given to the National Academy of Sciences by its congressional charter to be an adviser to the federal government and, upon its own initiative, to identify issues of medical care, research, and education. Dr. Kenneth I.Shine is president of the Institute of Medicine.

The National Research Council was organized by the National Academy of Sciences in 1916 to associate the broad community of science and technology with the Academy’s purposes of furthering knowledge and advising the federal government. Functioning in accordance with general policies determined by the Academy, the Council has become the principal operating agency of both the National Academy of Sciences and the National Academy of Engineering in providing services to the government, the public, and the scientific and engineering communities. The Council is administered jointly by both Academies and the Institute of Medicine. Dr. Bruce M.Alberts and Dr. William A.Wulf are chairman and vice chairman, respectively, of the National Research Council.

Suggested Citation:"Front Matter." National Research Council. 2000. International Conflict Resolution After the Cold War. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/9897.
×

COMMITTEE ON INTERNATIONAL CONFLICT RESOLUTION

Alexander L.George (Chair),

Department of Political Science, Stanford University

Juergen Dedring,

Graduate Center, City University of New York

Francis M.Deng,

Brookings Institution, Washington, D.C.

Ronald J.Fisher,

Department of Psychology, Royal Roads University, Victoria, B.C., Canada

James E.Goodby,

Washington, D.C.

Robert H.Mnookin,

School of Law, Harvard University

Raymond Shonholtz,

Partners for Democratic Change, San Francisco

Janice Gross Stein,

Munk Centre of International Studies, University of Toronto

Stanley J.Tambiah,

Department of Anthropology, Harvard University

M.Crawford Young,

Department of Political Science, University of Wisconsin, Madison

I.William Zartman,

School of Advanced International Studies, Johns Hopkins University

Paul C.Stern (Study Director),

National Research Council

Daniel Druckman (Consultant),

George Mason University

Heather Schofield (Senior Project Assistant),

National Research Council

Brian Tobachnick (Project Assistant),

National Research Council

Suggested Citation:"Front Matter." National Research Council. 2000. International Conflict Resolution After the Cold War. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/9897.
×
Suggested Citation:"Front Matter." National Research Council. 2000. International Conflict Resolution After the Cold War. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/9897.
×

4

 

Economic Sanctions and Post-Cold War Conflicts: Challenges for Theory and Policy
Bruce W.Jentleson

 

123

   

Conceptual and Methodological Issues in Sanctions Research,

 

125

   

Analytical Framework: Sanctions as a Coercive Bargaining Strategy,

 

131

   

Sanctions in the Post-Cold War Era: Patterns and Analysis,

 

141

   

Toward a Strategy of “Sanctions Realism”: Challenges for Theory and Policy,

 

161

5

 

Spoiler Problems in Peace Processes
Stephen John Stedman

 

178

   

Spoilers: A Preliminary Typology,

 

180

   

Strategies of Spoiler Management,

 

183

   

Case Studies of Spoiler Management,

 

189

   

Spoiler Management: Evaluating Success and Failure,

 

210

   

Conclusion,

 

219

6

 

Ripeness: The Hurting Stalemate and Beyond
I.William Zartman

 

225

   

Ripeness Theory in Practice,

 

226

   

Ripeness in Action,

 

232

   

Proposed Refinements to the Theory,

 

235

   

Conclusion,

 

245

7

 

Interactive Conflict Resolution: A View for Policy Makers on Making and Building Peace
Harold H.Saunders, with contributions by Louise Diamond, Herbert C.Kelman, John Marks, Joseph V.Montville, and Vamik Volkan

 

251

   

The Multilevel Peace Process,

 

253

   

Interactive Conflict Resolution: What Is It?,

 

255

   

Interactive Conflict Resolution: Principles and Process,

 

259

   

Evaluating Interactive Conflict Resolution,

 

263

   

Snapshots of Interactive Conflict Resolution,

 

267

   

What Have We Learned? The Challenges of Cumulative Experience,

 

290

8

 

Interactive Conflict Resolution: Issues in Theory, Methodology, and Evaluation
Nadim N.Rouhana

 

294

   

Methods and Objectives in Interactive Conflict Resolution,

 

296

Suggested Citation:"Front Matter." National Research Council. 2000. International Conflict Resolution After the Cold War. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/9897.
×
   

Ascertaining that Interactive Conflict Resolution Attains Its Microobjectives,

 

305

   

Does Interactive Conflict Resolution Attain Its Macrogoals?,

 

310

   

Conceptualizing the Impact of Interactive Conflict Resolution: Plausible Effects,

 

312

   

Research and Methodological Issues,

 

318

   

Why the Impact of Interactive Conflict Resolution is Likely to Be Overestimated,

 

324

   

Increasing the Value and Augmenting the Impact of Interactive Conflict Resolution,

 

326

   

Summary and Conclusion,

 

328

9

 

Past Truths, Present Dangers: The Role of Official Truth Seeking in Conflict Resolution and Prevention
Priscilla B.Hayner

 

338

   

The Emergence of Truth Commissions as a Transitional Tool,

 

339

   

Truth Commissions and the Prevention or Resolution of Violent Conflicts,

 

356

   

Gauging Success,

 

368

   

Conclusion,

 

373

10

 

New Challenges to Conflict Resolution: Humanitarian Nongovernmental Organizations in Complex Emergencies
Janice Gross Stein

 

383

   

Complex Humanitarian Emergencies and the New Challenges,

 

385

   

Evidence and Case Selection,

 

390

   

The Critics: Humanitarianism as an Obstacle to Conflict Resolution,

 

390

   

Addressing the Challenge,

 

398

   

Conclusion,

 

411

11

 

Electoral Systems and Conflict in Divided Societies
Ben Reilly and Andrew Reynolds

 

420

   

Introduction,

 

420

   

Developing an Analytical Framework for a Contingent Theory of Electoral System Design,

 

429

   

The World of Electoral Systems,

 

437

   

The Importance of the Process Which Led to the Choice of Electoral System,

 

441

   

Electoral Systems and Conflict Management,

 

446

   

Conclusions,

 

462

   

Advice for Policy Makers,

 

473

Suggested Citation:"Front Matter." National Research Council. 2000. International Conflict Resolution After the Cold War. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/9897.
×

Preface

In 1995 the National Research Council organized the Committee on International Conflict Resolution to respond to a growing need for prevention, management, and resolution of violent conflicts in the international arena; a concern about the changing nature and context of such conflicts in the post-Cold War era; and a need to expand knowledge in the field. The committee’s primary goal was to advance the practice and theory of conflict resolution by using the methods and critical attitude of social science to examine the effectiveness of various approaches that have been advanced for preventing, managing, and resolving international conflicts. Its research agenda was designed in part to complement the work of the Carnegie Corporation of New York’s Commission on Preventing Deadly Conflict, which sponsored a large number of specialized studies and issued its final report in December 1997.

The committee’s work was organized around a central question: How effective are various techniques and concepts for managing, preventing, and resolving conflicts in the international arena? In the early 1990s many observers had begun to wonder to what extent the conventional wisdom about international conflict resolution, developed from practice and scholarship over many decades, was still valid after the passing of the Cold War and global bipolarity. Some had argued that previously underutilized techniques and strategies—such as types of track two diplomacy, the promotion of democracy in divided countries, and the establishment of truth commissions—were particularly well suited for deal-

Suggested Citation:"Front Matter." National Research Council. 2000. International Conflict Resolution After the Cold War. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/9897.
×

ing with the conflicts that were occurring during the early years of the post-Cold War period. Practitioners felt the need for an assessment of such claims, and the committee aimed to help fill this need with respect to selected conflict resolution techniques.

The committee invited a series of chapter-length studies focused on particular approaches to conflict resolution. We wanted each study to address pressing concerns of conflict management practitioners and also to be intellectually rigorous in drawing conclusions. Thus, topics were selected on the basis of three criteria: the perceived need of international conflict resolution practitioners for additional knowledge, the availability of new information and analyses for advancing knowledge, and the likelihood that knowledge or insights to be generated were not already being made available from other projects or research programs.

The committee went to great lengths to bridge a gap that exists between scholarship and practice by involving both scholars and practitioners at each phase of development of its activities. Each study survived a three-stage process of review by practitioners and scholars, designed to enhance its usefulness to both audiences. First, the topics were chosen by consensus of the committee’s members. Both scholars and practitioners served on the committee; the practitioners included individuals with experience working on behalf of national governments, international organizations, and nongovernmental organizations. Second, the authors, who were selected for their knowledge of their topics and their ability to address both practical and analytical issues, presented the ideas for their chapters to seminars for scholars and practitioners selected to represent the audience for the chapter. Each author thus had the benefit of the perspectives of both groups before beginning to write in earnest. Finally, after the author had prepared a complete paper, it was subjected to blind review by three to five reviewers, again including both scholars and practitioners, who judged the draft paper on its practical value and appropriate use of evidence. We believe this effort has resulted in a set of studies that scholars and practitioners will find enlightening and useful.

We strove to achieve the highest-possible quality of analysis by pressing authors to be explicit about definitions of the concepts or techniques they examined, to discuss criteria for judging the effectiveness of each technique, and to evaluate the strength of the evidence supporting their conclusions. We asked them to consider whether their conclusions apply equally across world regions, historical periods, and types of conflict and to assess whether success depends on external conditions, present or past, including the operation of other conflict resolution techniques. Thus, the chapters address critical analytical issues and clarify concepts, as well as try to summarize the lessons of experience.

Suggested Citation:"Front Matter." National Research Council. 2000. International Conflict Resolution After the Cold War. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/9897.
×

There are limits to what can be expected from a volume such as this. Drawing conclusions about the effectiveness of interventions in historical processes is very challenging, for the methodological reasons discussed in Chapter 2. It is also risky in a rapidly changing world. The chapters are current only to their dates of completion—in 1999, in most cases. Moreover, the study is selective. It does not cover the full range of techniques and concepts in use for international conflict resolution and does not draw overall conclusions about international conflict resolution as a field or a practice.

Despite these limits, we believe that the studies in this volume, by virtue of their thorough and critical examination of the relevant evidence, will add appreciably to both practitioners’ and scholars’ understanding. They will enable conflict resolution practitioners in governments, international organizations, nongovernmental organizations, and academic centers to better diagnose conflict situations and make informed choices about whether, when, and how to intervene. We believe these studies will also advance a second goal of the committee, which is to improve the quality of future analytical efforts to understand international conflict and conflict resolution.

We express our appreciation to the Carnegie Corporation of New York for its generous support of the committee’s activities. We also thank the many practitioners and scholars who participated in the committee’s seminars on the topics covered in this book and to those who participated in reviewing papers, whose names are listed separately. Our gratitude goes to Heather Schofield, who managed the logistics of this project from its inception to its near completion, and to Brian Tobachnick, who carried it the rest of the way. We also owe a debt to Barbara Bodling O’Hare, who did the copy editing, and to Eugenia Grohman and Christine McShane, who managed the review and editorial processes.

Finally, we wish to thank the following individuals for their participation in the review of the papers in this volume: Harry Barnes, Carter Center, Atlanta, Georgia; Cynthia Chataway, York University, Toronto, Canada; Thomas Cook, Northwestern University; Chester A.Crocker, Georgetown University; David Crocker, University of Maryland, College Park; Abram de Swaan, Amsterdam School for Social Science Research, Amsterdam, Netherlands; Kimberly Elliott, Institute for International Economics, Washington, D.C. ; Robert Gallucci, Georgetown University; Larry Garber, U.S. Agency for International Development; Ambassador Maynard Glitman, Jeffersonville, Vermont; Richard Herrmann, Ohio State University; Donald Horowitz, Duke University School of Law; Herbert C. Kelman, Harvard University; Russell Leng, Middlebury College; Ambassador Samuel Lewis, McLean, Virginia; David Malone, International Peace Academy, New York, New York; Michael Mastanduno, Dartmouth Col-

Suggested Citation:"Front Matter." National Research Council. 2000. International Conflict Resolution After the Cold War. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/9897.
×

lege; John W.McDonald, Institute for Multi-Track Diplomacy, Washington, D.C.; Stephen Morrison, Center for Strategic and International Studies; Brian Pollins, Ohio State University; Jonathan Pool, Esperantic Studies Foundation, Seattle, Washington; Dean G.Pruitt, State University of New York at Buffalo; Dennis Sandole, George Mason University; Timothy Sisk, University of Denver; Richard Soudriette, International Foundation for Election Systems, Washington, D.C.; Stephen Stedman, Stanford University; Philip Tetlock, Ohio State University; James Wall, University of Missouri, Columbia; Ronald Watts, Queen’s University, Kingston, Ontario, Canada; Thomas G.Weiss, City University of New York Graduate Center; and Aristide Zolberg, New School for Social Research, New York, New York.

Alexander L.George, Chair

Paul C.Stern, Study Director

Committee on International Conflict Resolution

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INTERNATIONAL CONFLICT RESOLUTION AFTER THE COLD WAR

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The end of the Cold War has changed the shape of organized violence in the world and the ways in which governments and others try to set its limits. Even the concept of international conflict is broadening to include ethnic conflicts and other kinds of violence within national borders that may affect international peace and security. What is not yet clear is whether or how these changes alter the way actors on the world scene should deal with conflict:

  • Do the old methods still work?
  • Are there new tools that could work better?
  • How do old and new methods relate to each other?

International Conflict Resolution After the Cold War critically examines evidence on the effectiveness of a dozen approaches to managing or resolving conflict in the world to develop insights for conflict resolution practitioners. It considers recent applications of familiar conflict management strategies, such as the use of threats of force, economic sanctions, and negotiation. It presents the first systematic assessments of the usefulness of some less familiar approaches to conflict resolution, including truth commissions, "engineered" electoral systems, autonomy arrangements, and regional organizations. It also opens up analysis of emerging issues, such as the dilemmas facing humanitarian organizations in complex emergencies. This book offers numerous practical insights and raises key questions for research on conflict resolution in a transforming world system.

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