Peace from the Inside: Exploring the Role of the Insider-Partial Mediator

Previous quantitative research on mediation in intrastate and interstate conflicts has highlighted the role of external mediators. This study represents the first effort to systematically explore the role of internal—insider-partial—mediators. We suggest that the insider-partial mediators bring important indigenous resources to a peace process and that they can complement external mediators by mitigating the bargaining problem of information failure. Exploring new data on the occurrence and effect of mediation in unarmed insurrections from 1970–2006, we find that the insider-partial mediators significantly increase the likelihood of negotiated agreements. This applies even after controlling for so-called selection effects, where external mediators are selected, or self-selected, into the most difficult conflict situations, whereas insider-partial mediators are utilized in conflict situations that are less severe; and where insider-partial mediators have a substantially higher frequency of activity in unarmed as compared to armed insurrections. We therefore conclude that the insider-partial mediators play an important and positive role in peacemaking that merits further exploration.     

"Sticking One's Neck Out": Reducing Mistrust in Sri Lanka's Peace Negotiations

Lack of trust has been widely used as an explanation for the failure of peace negotiations. However, we know little about how mistrust can be reduced between belligerents involved in negotiating peace. Why are some confidence‐building strategies more successful than others? For theory‐building purposes, this article explores how a party can send conciliatory signals to the other party that increase trust by exposing itself to three different kinds of political risks. More specifically, it compares the variables that reduced mistrust — or failed to reduce mistrust — during two peace negotiations in Sri Lanka: in 1994–1995 and in 2002. Using a theoretical framework that combines social psychology and rational choice approaches, this article examines the communicative signaling process between the parties. In addition, by drawing out the implications from this argument, we offer some insight into why the peace process in Sri Lanka became politically stalemated in 2003. We also use our comparison of Sri Lanka's peace processes to develop general propositions about the dynamics that can reduce mistrust. The main proposition that remains to be tested empirically is whether obstacles to peace can be transformed into important catalysts for the reduction of mistrust.     

From Aftermath to Peace: Reflections on a Photography of Peace

International Relations (IR) literature on the visual construction of the international does not systematically engage with the visualisation of peace. In this article, I make photographic discourses available to IR scholars interested in the visual construction of the international and invite IR scholars to substantialise these discourses based on their specialist knowledge on war, violence, conflict and peace. I engage with aftermath photography by challenging its almost exclusive focus on war and the legacy of violence. Furthermore, I engage with Fred Ritchin's notion of peace photography and Cynthia Weber's attempts at visualising peace. Problematising claims to universality, generalisability and causality, I emphasise that the relation between images and peace is episodic, not causal; that visions of peace, reflecting specific cultural configurations, cannot claim universal validity; and that peace photography has to move beyond aftermath photography's focus on the legacies of the past. Finally, I briefly look at the work of Joel Meyerowitz and Rineke Dijkstra, the one displaying aftermath as a beginning sustaining power, the other photographically accompanying a person's adaptation to a new, more peaceful environment.     

Negotiating Classroom Process: Lessons from Adult Learning

Learning by doing is standard fare in negotiation courses across disciplines, and techniques such as learning contracts, self-reflective essays, and small-group work are commonly used. In addition, teachers must resist the temptation to "teach the canon" without regard to the needs, interests, and concerns of the students in the room. Learner-centered education requires that teachers build from the beliefs and preconceptions that students bring to the classroom, including their cultural beliefs and norms about conflict resolution, some of which may be at odds with the North American canon. A discussion-based approach to teaching not only engages students more actively in the learning process but also models many of the skills negotiation teachers seek to develop in their student-negotiators.     

Negotiating a democratic order in South Africa: Learning from mediation and industrial relations

Labor law reform in South Africa unintentionally precipitated the rapid growth of a powerful black trade union movement and institutionalized collective bargaining in the 1980s. Despite the political crisis, the Independent Mediation Service of South Africa helped to disseminate the culture and practice of negotiated order, developed in industrial relations, to the broader society and national politics. As a result of the negotiated transition, the new democratic order is characterized by inclusive, consensus-building policy-making processes.He is also a doctoral degree candidate in industrial relations at the Sloan School of Management, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Mass. 02139.     

Conflict Resolution: Lessons from the Dayton Peace Process

The Bosnian War (1992–1995) was one of the most brutal conflicts in Europe since the end of World War II. Thirty‐four cease‐fires failed to produce peace in Bosnia and Herzegovina until the late American diplomat, Richard Holbrooke, brokered one that set the stage for a series of negotiations—starting in the Balkans and ending in Dayton, Ohio. The Dayton peace process finally terminated the Bosnian War. The interplay of military intervention by the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and diplomacy by the United States was remarkable. This article highlights thirteen conflict resolution lessons or “Holbrookeisms” that can be learned from the Dayton peace process. Some aspects of Holbrooke's approach toward the peace process helped him to successfully mediate an end to the Bosnian War, while others contributed toward some of the existing cleavages in today's Bosnian society.     

Negotiating from strength: Arms control and the rhetoric of denial

This essay examines the argument strategy of the Reagan administration and its supporters in response to the INF treaty. By attempting to define the successful completion of the treaty as proof of the validity of “negotiating from strength,” the administration sought to deny the existence of real change within the Soviet Union. This strategy left the administration unable to cope with dramatic arms control proposals later made by the Soviets, trapping the United States in a purely reactive posture.     

Public Opinion as a Domestic Constraint in International Negotiations: Two-Level Games in the Anglo-Irish Peace Process

This article aims to broaden the theoretical foundations of the two-level games approach to understanding international negotiations by considering the conditions under which public opinion can act as a domestic constraint on the ability of international negotiators to reach agreement. In determining the role that public opinion plays, three factors are of central importance: (1) the preferences of the public relative to those of decision makers and other domestic constituents; (2) the intensity of the issue under negotiation; and (3) the power of the public to ratify a potential agreement. Evidence from the last decade of Anglo-Irish negotiations over the future and status of Northern Ireland shows that public opinion acts as a constraint on negotiators when the public has the power to directly ratify an international agreement. When the public's power to ratify an agreement is indirect, the intensity of the issue under negotiation will play a critical role in determining whether public preferences serve as a constraint on decision makers.     

Participatory Communication,Theatre and Peace: Performance as a Tool for Change at the End of Conflict

This article presents insights on a participatory theatre initiative implemented in Kenya, with the aim of understanding the changes that were initiated towards the re-establishment of peace between communities. The project was carried out in the aftermath of the post-election violence that took place in the country between 2007 and 2008. Amani People’s Theatre organised a number of theatre-based activities adopting a participatory approach, which ensured the involvement of community members from different tribes. Participants used the plays to re-enact the events, experienced during the conflict and the issues that still affected their communities as a result of those events, and worked together on finding solutions. The article begins with a literature review on Theatre for Development and its progress towards a more participatory approach. This is followed by an introduction of the project and the context in which it took place. The study design and Theory of Change developed for the analysis are then presented, opening the path to a discussion of the findings generated through that framework. Lastly, final reflections bring to light a number of issues that must be considered when working with participatory theatre in peace interventions.     

Negotiating for Money: Adding a Dose of Reality to Classroom Negotiations

Negotiation and conflict management courses have become increasingly common in business schools around the world. Frequently, these courses employ role plays and simulations to encourage students to try new strategies, tactics, techniques, and behaviors. While these simulations generally are designed to elicit realistic negotiation dynamics, they often lack the full emotional tension inherent in actual negotiations. One possible reason for this reduced tension is that no tangible resources, such as money, are at stake. This article describes an experiment in which MBA students paid a player's fee at the beginning of a negotiation course, and in which each negotiation exercise had an actual dollar value at risk. The article reports some results from this experiment and offers suggestions for instructors who might seek to add a player's fee to their own courses. In general, most students found the experience valuable, as it provided performance benchmarks while focusing their attention more sharply on risks and returns.     

Two Stages of Transition from a Region of War to a Region of Peace: Realist Transition and Liberal Endurance

How do war-prone regions stabilize? This article tests realist, liberal, and constructivist hypotheses against the paradigmatic case of regional peacemaking, Western Europe after World War II. It concludes that none of the three theories perfectly explains the process of Franco-German reconciliation after 75 years of bitter conflict. Instead, the transition to stability occurred in two stages. The first stage, the transition , was driven by realist factors, principally the existence of a common Soviet threat and active American hegemonic participation. In the second stage, however, stability and cooperation were entrenched by liberal mechanisms, notably the institution of democratic political regimes and cooperative international institutions. I thus inductively arrive at the novel theoretical position that realist mechanisms may initially be required to compel regional rivals to put aside their differences, at least temporarily, and cooperate on the grounds of realpolitik, but liberal mechanisms are ultimately useful to sustain and deepen regional peace.     

Negotiating a New Social Contract for Work: An Online,Distributed Approach

A massive open online course (MOOC) entitled “Shaping the Future of Work” (offered through MITx, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's online learning division) has been the context for a multiparty simulation designed to produce classroom negotiation results that will have social impacts. After running the course in the MOOC context three times and in face‐to‐face settings eight times, we noticed that key themes emerged. Participants have brought their own workforce perspectives to their simulation roles as employers, worker representatives, elected officials, and educators. They have called for reciprocal agreements centered on fair treatment and representation in the workplace, improved organizational performance, investments in skills and capabilities, aligned rewards and benefits for workers, and work–life balance in communities. We continue to use the simulation in the classroom and are exploring ways to expand its use. In the meantime, in this article, we discuss how the insights gleaned from this simulation could be used to crystallize and advance a new social contract at a time when the public policies, institutions, and organizational practices governing employment relations have not kept up with the dramatic changes taking place in the workforce, nature of work, and overall economy.     

Inside a News Item: A Dispute Over Framing

Trust in serious journalism is based on our belief in the professionalism of journalistic practice. We expect televisions evening news to select the most significant events of the day and tell them in a fair and accurate manner. Whereas academic research agrees that news value or newsworthiness should be the guiding principle for selectivity, the principle is rarely spelled out in detail. Occasional attempts to infer these values empirically from what gets published or from whats left on the floor conceal the process of negotiation and disagreement that goes on in the newsroom and between professional journalists and the interests of the channels private or public owners. The case study presented here uses inside information that emerged during the course of a public debate following the broadcasting of a news item on Israels Public Television featuring football fans at a victory celebration welcoming Prime Minister Netanyahu with racist shouts. The analysis demonstrates that the same event may evoke several competing frames and thus may be included or dropped, or appear at various spots in the lineup for different reasons. The paper raises the question of whether the authority of the news might not be enhanced on occasion by sharing competing frames with viewers.     

叙利亚大使穆罕默德·瓦迪谈叙利亚与中东和平进程

2008年3月6日,叙利亚驻华大使穆罕默德·海伊尔·瓦迪在中国社会科学院世界经济与政治所作了题为<叙利亚与中东和平进程>的演讲,现将其主要内容归纳如下.