International Conflict Resolution After the Cold War (2000) / Chapter Skim
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Ripeness: The Hurting Stalemate and Beyond
Ripeness: The Hurting Stalemate and Beyond
Pages 225-250
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From page 225... ...
The other holds that the key to successful conflict resolution lies in the timing of efforts for resolution. Parties resolve their conflict only when they are ready to do so when alternative, usually unilateral, means of achieving a satisfactory result are blocked and the parties find themselves in an uncomfortable and costly predicaments At that point they grab on to proposals that usually have been in the air for a long time and that only now appear attractive.
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From page 226... ...
As the argument proceeds, each discussion is summarized by definitional or hypothetical propositions. RIPENESS THEORY IN PRACTICE The notion of ripeness is critical for policy makers in the post-Cold War era who seek to mediate disputes in the international arena.
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From page 227... ...
It must be seized, either directly by the parties or, if not, through the persuasion of a mediator. Not all ripe moments are so seized and turned into negotiations, hence the importance of specifying the meaning and evidence of ripeness so as to indicate when conflicting or third parties can fruitfully initiate negotiations.
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From page 228... ...
Components of Ripeness Ripeness theory is intended to explain why, and therefore when, parties to a conflict are susceptible to their own or others' efforts to turn the conflict toward resolution through negotiation. The concept of a ripe moment centers on the parties' perception of a mutually hurting stalemate (MHS)
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From page 229... ...
In game theoretical terms it marks the transformation of the situation in the parties' perception from a prisoners' dilemma into a chicken dilemma game (Brains, 1985; Goldstein, 1998~. It is also consistent with prospect theory, currently in focus in international relations, which indicates that people tend to be more risk averse concerning gains than losses of equal magnitude and therefore that sunk costs or investments in conflict escalation tend to push parties into costly deadlocks or MHSs (Kahneman and Tversky, 1979; Bazerman et al., 1985; Stein and Pauly, 1992; Mitchell, 1995~.
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From page 230... ...
. However, the greater the objective evidence, the greater the subjective perception of a stalemate and its pain is likely to be, and this evidence is more likely to come late, when all other courses of action and possibilities of escalation have been exhausted.
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From page 231... ...
Conversely, cases abound in which the absence of this component prevented otherwise promising beginnings to a negotiation. These elements of evidence and indication can be summarized in a proposition: Proposition 4: y the parties' subjective expressions of pain, impass, and inability to bear the costs offurther escalation, related to objective evidence of stalemate, data on numbers and nature of casualties and material
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From page 232... ...
Thereafter, further research questions are needed to find out whether that moment can be prolonged or whether its favorable predispositions can be transferred to the process of negotiation itself (Mooradian and Druckman, 1999~. Researchers would look for evidence, for example, whether the rapidly shifting military balance in the Burundian civil war has given rise to a perception of an MHS by the parties, as well as a sense by authoritative spokesmen for each side that the other is ready to seek a solution to the conflict, or, to the contrary, whether it has reinforced the conclusion that any mediation is bound to fail because one or both parties believes in the possibility or necessity of escalating out of the current impasse to achieve a decisive military victory.
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From page 233... ...
373374~. The American mediation involved building diplomatic moves that paralleled the growing awareness of the parties, observed by the mediator, of the hurting stalemate in which they found themselves.
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The offensive codified the existence of a mutually hurting stalemate. The conflict was ripe for a negotiated solution.
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From page 235... ...
of the Rhodesian negotiations for independence as Zimbabwe takes the concept beyond a single perception into the complexities of internal dynamics. Stedman specifies that some but not all parties must perceive a hurting stalemate, that patrons rather than parties may be the agents of perception, that the military element in each party is the crucial element in perceiving the stalemate, and that the way out is as important an ingredient as the stalemate in that all parties may well see victory in the alternative outcome prepared by negotiation (although some parties will be proven wrong in that perception)
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From page 236... ...
have defined ripeness as the intersection of an insurgency's "calculation that its effective power was increasing while its legitimacy remained constant, and a government calculation that its power was decreasing while its legitimacy remained unchanged." The discussion reaffirms many aspects of MHS its perceptional (calculated) quality, its objective base, its bilateral character, its initiating reference, and its researchable nature but it adds the element of legitimacy, not only constant but high.
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From page 237... ...
have extended the notion of ripeness into the negotiations themselves under the name of "readiness theory." Pruitt starts with the elements that ripeness theory seeks to explain (i.e., motivation to cooperate and requitement toward a way out) and posits them as push and pull factors driving negotiation to its conclusion.
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From page 238... ...
One complication with the notion of a hurting stalemate arises when increased pain increases resistance rather than reducing it. Thus, under some conditions, an MHS does not create an opening for negotiation but makes it more difficult (it must be remembered that, while ripeness is a necessary precondition for negotiation, not all ripeness leads to negotiation.)
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From page 239... ...
hard-liners and irrational types, the former explicitly referring to Nazi Germany and the latter implicitly to Communists, among others. In the current era, cases of resistant reactions to hurting stalemates come particularly from the Middle East, from Iran during the hostage negotiations (Moses, 1996)
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From page 240... ...
Of course, it takes two to make a mutually hurting stalemate, and American lack of interest in negotiation at any time can raise questions about the cultural approach. In sum, there is a resistant reaction, which, whether stemming from perseverance, agent escalation, true belief, or ideological cultures, means that the mechanism of the hurting stalemate in certain conditions may be its own undoing.
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From page 241... ...
Can ripeness be extended in some way to cover the entire process, or does successful conclusion of negotiations require a different explanatory logic? Practitioners and students of conflict management would like to think that there could be a more positive prelude to negotiation and can even point to a few cases of negotiations, mediated or direct, that opened or came to closure without the push of a mutually hurting stalemate but through the pull of an attractive outcome.
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From page 242... ...
The push factor has to be replaced by a pull factor, in the terms of a formula for settlement and prospects of reconciliation that the negotiating parties design during negotiations (see Figure 6.2~. Here the substantive aspect of negotiation in analysis and practice pulls ahead of the procedural approach: the way out takes over from the hurting stalemate.
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From page 243... ...
At this point the substantive literature on negotiation referred to at the beginning finds its place, which can be shown in a proposition: Proposition 6: The perception of a mutually enticing opportunity is a necessary but not a sufficient condition for the continuation of negotiations to the successful conclusion of a conflict. Implications: Positioning and Ripening Crocker (1992:471)
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From page 244... ...
The NATO bombing of Serb positions in Bosnia in 1995 to create a hurting stalemate, or the American arming of Israel during the October war in 1973 or of Morocco (after two years of moratorium) in 1981 to keep those parties in the conflict, among many others, are typical examples of the mediator acting as a manipulator to bring about a stalemate.
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From page 245... ...
But limitations become particularly interesting when they open up the possibilities and alternatives for better analysis and better practice. It is in that hope that this presentation will open fruitful discussions and applications of the use of hurting stalemates and the creation of compelling opportunities.
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From page 246... ...
In Herding Cats: The Management of Complex International Mediation, Chester Crocker, Fen Osler Hampson, and Pamela Aall, eds. Washington, D.C.: United States Institute of Peace.
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Terrence 1997 The Negotiation Process and the Resolution of International Conflicts. Columbia: University of South Carolina.
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American Political Science Review LXXXIX(3~:681-690. Lieberfield, Daniel 1999a Conflict 'ripeness' revisited: The South African and Israeli/Palestinian cases.
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Journal of Peace Research XXXIV(4~:449-466. Sambanis, Nicholas In press Conflict resolution ripeness and spoiler problems in Cyprus.
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From page 250... ...
William, and Touval, Saadia 1997 International mediation in the post-Cold War era. In Managing Global Chaos, Chester Crocker, Fen Osler Hampson, and Pamela Aall, eds.
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