ࡱ>   5@ 0Y bjbj22 'XX  T tgtgtgiln qphr4rr0s;;;$R   ~0;Hr0s өA3A3A3^ 0s 0sA3A3 A3a3qx @ $0sq Mtgr ~0&,$  $`;5j&A3m);;; dpK3" p BRIDGE THE KNOWLEDGE ACTION GAP! THE AUTHORITATIVE STATEMENT ON HOW TO REDUCE POLITICAL VIOLENCE Benjamin C. Hoffman TABLE OF CONTENTS Acknowledgements PART 1. INTRODUCTION 1 1. ON WHAT AUTHORITY? 2 2. SYNOPSIS OF WHAT WORKS TO REDUCE POLITICAL VIOLENCE 6 A Definition of Political Violence 6 Key Findings 6 Major Concerns 8 Key Assertions 9 Formula for Effectiveness 9 Direct Implications 10 For Peaceworkers 11 For Scholars 11 For Policy Advisors 11 For Donors 12 For Politicians 12 For the Public 13 For the Media 13 PART II: THE FINDINGS 14 3. WE KNOW ENOUGH NOW 16 Where, When and What has Worked 21 Countries With Major Political Violence 24 The Knowledge-Action Gap 25 4. A CONVERGENCE OF VIEWS ON WHAT WORKS 27 On the Causes and Dynamics of Political Violence 27 On What Works to Prevent Political Violence 31 A Framework to Prevent Political Violence 36 On How to Make Mediated Peace Agreements Sustainable 37 Mialls Framework for Successful Settlements 42 On Post-violence Peacebuilding 42 Lunds Framework for Post-violence Peacebuilding 43 5. WILL ANYONE SAY WHAT IS NOT EFFECTIVE? 46 Significant Concerns 47 6. WHY WHAT WORKS, DOESNT 49 8 Big Concerns 49 1. The Nature of the Beast 50 2. The Wrong Objective 50 3. The Political Naivety of Conflict Resolution 52 4. Inadequate Conflict Analysis 54 5. Conflict Resolutions Failure to Communicate Effectively 55 6. Inadequate Coordination of Effort 60 7. Institutional Shortcomings 61 8. United States Unilateralism 62 The Womens Perspective The Concern that Isnt 64 PART III: THE ASSERTIONS 66 7. BRIDGE THE KNOWLEDGE-ACTION GAP! 68 Nine Major Obstacles 70 Formula for Effectiveness 71 Establish Violence Reduction as the Objective 71 Know What Works 72 Educate for Violence Reduction 72 Organize to Do What Works 73 Evaluate Performance 74 8. ACTIONS TO REDUCE POLITICAL VIOLENCE 75 1. Organize Immediately for Continuous Learning 75 a). The International Academy for the Reduction of Political Violence 75 b). Evaluate Performance 76 c). Educate Professional Practitioners 77 2. Collaborate Now to Reduce Political Violence 77 a). Violence Prevention 77 b). Mediation to End Warfare 77 c). Post-violence Peacebuilding 77 d). Lobby for the Reduction of Political Violence 78 3. Fund for Effectiveness 79 ENDNOTES 80 SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY 89 Acknowledgements I would gratefully like to acknowledge the support, contributions and professional assistance that made this study possible. First and foremost, many thanks to Mr. Milton Lauenstein who provided financial support for me to conduct the study as a Senior Fellow at the Fletcher School, Tufts University. More than this, Milt was spiritually and intellectually engaged in the study throughout. He challenged me to determine what works to reduce political violence and to make the study practical, specifying actions that might be taken now to reduce violence. I will forever be grateful for Milts challenges in the name of peace. I would like to thank Professor Eileen Babbitt for welcoming me back to Fletcher, where I had graduated years ago. Eileen understood and supported my efforts to produce a report that was short, sound, and practical. Her colleagues at Fletcher, Ellen Lutz, Hurst Hannum, and Jay Herlihy provided additional support and made the Fellowship a most rewarding experience. While a great amount of documentary research built the base for my study, the heart of it was the interviews I conducted with twenty-one authorities in the fields of conflict resolution and peacebuilding. They gave candid assessments and helped me sharpen my focus on practical actions to reduce political violence. I thank them much for their time, confidence, wisdom and generosity. Several colleagues reviewed the report at different stages. I would like to thank Dr. Mary-Wynne Ashford and Mr. Richard Price at the University of Victoria, Ms. Elizabeth Weinreb, Columbia School of Journalism, and Mr. Jeff Mapendere, The Carter Center. My research assistants were Ms. Amanda Kim, The Fletcher School, who carried out financial analysis, quickly and thoroughly; Ms. Sally Gates, who researched the womens perspective and provided copy editing; and my son and close associate, Mr. Evan Hoffman, whose professional assistance was matched with the same passion I have for ending violence. Last, but not least, I must thank my wife, Ann, not only for her never-ending support of my work but because she re-directed early drafts of the text away from an academic voice to make it action-oriented. And, as with most other projects, she provided technical assistance in word processing. PART I. INTRODUCTION 1. ON WHAT AUTHORITY? The goal of this study is to provide practical ideas that will result in a significant reduction in political violence. To provide practical ideas, I have tried to determine from among all those activities in peace work and conflict resolution, what works, what is not effective, and what is needed. I have entitled my report Bridge the Knowledge-Action Gap! to emphasize the urgent need for those in the field of conflict resolution to find the means by which they can compel action that will indeed reduce violence and bring more peace into the world. I assert that there is enough technical knowledge now to significantly reduce political violence. Conflict resolution practitioners, however, must learn the art of making a compelling argument for peace. They must obtain political commitment to action. And then they must take coordinated action on the basis of best practice. The field of conflict resolution must organize to do this, to deliver effective services, and to learn as it goes forward. Otherwise, all we can hope for is incremental reductions in violence; indeed, the level and severity of political violence may get worse. For some reason it seems that I have always been swimming at the deep end in the pool of human relations - the violent end of the pool. I have been a prison guard, a correctional administrator, a parole officer, a therapist working with men who abuse women, a mediator positioned between the Roman Catholic Church and men who were abused by Christian religious, a mediator between governments and oppressed people, a mediator between warring states, and between states and rebels. After a full thirty years of work dedicated to the reduction of violence, to the search for justice and peace, I wanted to stand back and make a comprehensive assessment of efforts to reduce violence. Trained at one time to negotiate with prison hostage takers, then as a mediator, my experiences in conducting peacebuilding work in war zones had led me to confess that I no longer practiced mediation as it is taught in mainstream institutions. The sacred liturgy is that mediators are neutral; they have no decision-making authority; they are non-directive, they should not offer solutions to the parties in dispute; they do not negotiate with the parties; and they are impartial with respect to the outcome of the mediation. The world I inhabit is a world where coercive power is a central element, where the mediator is active in driving for an agreement because the goal of peace is itself the prime motivator. I am not impartial with respect to the outcome. I am partial to peace. Indeed, I discovered throughout a decade of work in the peacebuilding trenches, from Bosnia to Indonesia, that I was breaking all the rules of mediation in the pursuit of peace. As the CEO of an institute that trained mediators, I felt compelled to confess. I confessed that I violated the basic tenets of mediation. I negotiated with the parties whose conflict I was trying to mediate; I urged them to take the path to peace. I offered solutions when they were stuck. I was directive, ensuring each side had a good chance to express its grievances. I did all these things that mediators are typically taught not to do. I noted at the time of my confession that many people who had been motivated by the goal of social justice had also put their faith in mediation. Rather than making a compelling case for human rights, or expending their efforts on building more equitable and just societies, they chose to place themselves between opposing sides and contending views. They had given up their role as advocate and had shifted to that of mediator. They, like I, wanted to be peacemakers. They, like I, chose the field of conflict resolution. We would not take sides; instead, we would offer a set of facilitative skills, hoping to bring about a just solution, that which was negotiated by the parties with our assistance. Some of us emphasized the dictum trust the process, believing in the power of facilitative techniques. Yet I sensed a level of frustration among mediators. Their services were not being used often enough. Mediation was being relegated to a touchy-feely process suitable for easier disputes. Often the more powerful party in a dispute declined invitations to seek a resolution through mediation, preferring to prevail in other ways. When they did come to the mediation table, they continued to dominate, playing power games at the table and away from it between mediation sessions. Facilitative mediation was not able to compensate for power asymmetries. Furthermore, I had learned that nonviolent conflict resolution training, a veritable phenomenon sweeping across Eastern Europe after the collapse of the Soviet Union, was inadequate in countries which now exhibited sharp ethnic cleavages and clear discrimination of some groups by others. Structural violence, whether the denial of minority language rights, or in the harsh form of exclusion from opportunities and basic services, including shelter and water, cannot be ameliorated only by acquiring interpersonal communication skills and techniques which require good-faith negotiations to resolve conflicts. Huge power imbalances must be corrected substantively for justice to be felt. I had begun to doubt the working assumptions of the young field of conflict resolution. Recently, as Director of the Conflict Resolution Program at The Carter Center, I was privileged to act as President Carters personal representative in a number of cases of emerging violence and full scale wars. We were intent on bringing an end to the brutal nineteen year old civil war in Sudan. To do this I concentrated my efforts in Sudan and Uganda. President Carter had mediated the Nairobi Agreement in 1999, a peace accord between Uganda and Sudan. My job was to lead efforts to implement it. We saw it as a building block for peace in Sudan and in the region, generally. Among other tasks, I mediated talks between Uganda and Sudan at the political, humanitarian and security levels. We had also hoped to help bring an end to the war in northern Uganda between the Lords Resistance Army and the Government of Uganda. That insurgency was a factor in the Sudanese civil war and it was a blight on the Acholi people in northern Uganda. After four years of effort, I was personally able to witness the ongoing success of the Nairobi Agreement: Sudan and Uganda are on much better terms. The Carter Center was also effective in playing a role to bring the warring sides in Sudan to the table for peace talks. But we failed in our efforts to end the war in northern Uganda. It has now become a humanitarian nightmare. Of course, even the successes may erode, as peace in that region is a very fragile thing. But two out of three cases of having been effective in reducing violence is a notable accomplishment. One might think that conflict resolution, and mediation in particular, are faring well. Yet my own sense was that to end a war one must bring the warring parties kicking and screaming to peace. Transforming power from violent to peaceful forms is not an easy thing. And I had begun to feel, overall, after thirty years, that the goal of a significant reduction of violence in the world is a pipe dream. I needed to undertake this study to come to some resolution in my own heart and mind. I was not prepared to spend forever on it either. I wanted to cut to the chase. If there are useful and new things that can be said now on how to reduce the incidence and severity of political violence, I wanted to find them out and get them into circulation. The study began with a literature review of a broad body of thought on the subjects of war and peace, with a focus on existing large-scale evaluations and lessons learned studies on the effectiveness of conflict resolution and peacebuilding. Once this information was synthesized, a discussion paper was produced. That paper was used as a background document for conducting interviews with leading authorities in conflict prevention, mediation, and post-violence peacebuilding. To identify who I should interview I established a set of categories that would represent the range of expertise needed to build a solid, contemporary body of findings upon which assertions could be made with confidence. I wanted to talk to leading scholars, practitioners, policy advisors, political actors who work for peace in the world, and people who fund peace and conflict resolution activities. And I wanted to ask each of them pointed questions that I had developed over the course of my background research. The key questions posed to these authorities were: Do you agree that there is a knowledge-action gap in the field of conflict resolution? That is, practitioners know enough technically, now, to be more effective in reducing the incidence and severity of political violence, but the challenge is to put that technical knowledge in motion. Given that there is policy on prevention at the key organizations (i.e., the UN and regional bodies) and some well established early warning mechanisms, what really is needed to make prevention of violent conflict a viable option? Credible scholars argue that the incidence and severity of political violence is on a downward trend. Do you agree? Do you predict further significant reductions in armed warfare? Why, or why not? It has been proposed that the field of conflict resolution needs an independent, integrated interdisciplinary theory to guide it. Do you agree? Is this a pressing concern? You know all of the conflict resolution tools and techniques, and how they are used in various situations. Are any of these simply not effective? What does work? If you were able to shape the direction of the field of conflict resolution to make it more effective in reducing political violence in the world, in what way would you direct it? Most of the people I interviewed were also challenged with other questions, tailored to their particular expertise and professional experience. All were told that they would not be quoted, so as to encourage maximum candor and to enable me to write a composite view. It is upon the basis of these various methods of inquiry that I assert that this is the authoritative statement on what works to reduce political violence. It is from these authorities that I identified major concerns facing the field and gleaned insights about what is needed to bridge the gap between existing knowledge and action to reduce violence. Im sure that none of the people I interviewed, all of whom gave so generously, will agree with everything they find here. I do hope, however, that each will see her or his contribution to a composite view of what works to reduce political violence. The twenty-one authorities who were interviewed are: Ms. Mary B. Anderson, The Collaborative for Development Action Inc. Mr. Andrew Carl, Director, Conciliation Resources President Jimmy Carter, Nobel Peace Laureate Ambassador Alan Goulty, UK Special Representative for Sudan Ms. Melanie Greenberg, Visiting Scholar, Johns Hopkins School for Advanced International Studies Dr. Fen O. Hampson, Director, The Norman Paterson School of International Affairs Dr. Judith Herman, Clinical Professor of Psychiatry, Harvard Medical School Dr. Mark Hoffman, Lecturer in International Relations, Dean of Undergraduate Studies, London School of Economics Dr. Louis Kriesberg, Maxwell Professor Emeritus of Social Conflict Studies, Syracuse University Lieutenant Colonel David Last, PhD., Professor, Royal Military College of Canada Mr. David Lord, Coordinator, Canadian Peacebuilding Coordinating Committee Dr. Edward Luck, Director, The Center on International Organization, Columbia University Dr. Alastair McPhail, Head of the Sudan Unit , FCO/DFID, UK Mr. Joseph Montville, Senior Associate, Center for Strategic and International Studies Dr. J. Stephen Morrison, Director, Africa Program, CSIS Sir Kieran Prendergast, Under-Secretary-General for Political Affairs of the United Nations Dr. Gordon Smith, Executive Director, Centre for Global Studies, University of Victoria Ms. Patricia Smith Melton, Executive Director, PEACE X PEACE Mr. Charles R. Snyder, Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary for African Affairs, Department of State Dr. Necla Tschirgi, Vice President, International Peace Academy Dr. Sarah Harder President, National Peace Foundation, Washington, D.C. 2. SYNOPSIS OF WHAT WORKS TO REDUCE POLITICAL VIOLENCE I present here a synopsis of the findings of my research and the interviews I held with leading authorities. Their assessments, views, and prescriptions informed my goal of presenting practical ideas that can be implemented now to reduce political violence. At the end of the text I set forth a number of initiatives which can be taken by key conflict resolution and peacebuilding organizations, including the US Institute of Peace; the Washington-based Alliance for International Conflict Prevention and Resolution; The Carter Center; the Canadian Peacebuilding Coordinating Committee; the European Platform for Conflict Prevention; the Reducing Political Violence Action Group and private foundations that provide funding for conflict resolution and peace work. The implications for different readers are specified here. A Definition of Political Violence Political Violence is both direct violence (the use of force) and structural violence (institutional, policy and procedural practices which exclude, injure, and perpetuate injustice on people) used by states and groups to achieve their objectives. Key Findings Evaluation of conflict resolution and peacebuilding activities is weak, but a defensible assessment of the field is possible. Violent political conflict is on a downward trend. The trend is short, some 5 years; nevertheless: from 90-99 there was an average of 26 wars per year, in 2000, there were 25; in 2001 there were 24, and in 2002 there were 21. New international policies to contain internal wars are evolving; international actors have in the past decade engaged more frequently and directly in prevention. There is a convergence of views on the causes and dynamics of political violence, on what works to prevent political violence, on how to make mediated peace agreements sustainable, and on post-violence peacebuilding. Political actors responsible to intervene, that is the UN Security Council, regional organizations, and state actors do not act often enough, early enough, or for long enough in cases of political violence. 925 Billion dollars per annum is spent on war efforts throughout the world and 80 Billion dollars on peace efforts. That is, for every $1 Million spent to reduce political violence, $11.4 Million are spent on waging it. Between 1945 and 1990 the UN peacekeeping budget, at its height, was only 0.3 % of global military expenditures. Prevention works. Arguably it is more cost-effective than peacekeepers and war. The effectiveness of violence prevention can be improved through better risk assessment; and both diplomatic and security options must be part of strategic planning from the outset. Mediation has been used in as few as 10% of the cases of civil war between 1900 and 1989. It is, however, becoming more popular. The process aspects of mediation are well known and appear to be executed reasonably well by different mediators. Nevertheless, too many mediated peace agreements break down. Mediated peace agreements break down because they are orphaned by the international community; and it has been speculated that they break down because the underlying issues in dispute were not appropriately dealt with by the mediators. What these underlying issues are is open to study. There is controversy over whether the need to address deep historical wounds is one of these; indeed, that it is the profound underlying issue relating to sustainability. Post-violence peacebuilding is effective to a level approaching 50% of the cases. Technical knowledge of how to go about post-violence peacebuilding exists (the elements and their order). Coordinated activity on the ground needs improvement. Conflict analysis should be improved so that it is ongoing, more comprehensive and directive of needed program changes; and the skills of peacebuilding workers should be improved. I give prevention a pass grade; Track I mediation a fail; and post-violence peacebuilding a qualified pass. The authorities I interviewed were more tentative, but optimistic overall. The glass of effectiveness is seen as half full. The clear finding on what works is that tailor-made interventions are required in each case. Multi-level, multi-actor, comprehensive, integrated interventions are prescribed. There is a reluctance to say, explicitly, what is not effective. Some of this reluctance relates to the complexity and idiosyncrasy of political violence. Virtually all conflict resolution activities may work in certain cases: it depends. Two conflict resolution activities found not to be effective in the direct reduction of violence are training in nonviolent conflict resolution for grassroots people in war zones; and informal dialogue processes that do not have the potential of direct impact on the conflict. The skills obtained in training are often not transferred to political actors instrumental in the conflict and capable of having an impact on peace. Likewise, Track Two dialogues that have the wrong participants and/or lack linkages to elites and potential high-level peace processes are not directly effective. The womens perspective is absent in current discussion as is the engagement of women in all aspects of conflict resolution and peacebuilding. The gains of conflict resolution activities in making the world are being eroded by the USAs unilateralist approach to foreign policy. Major Concerns Taken together, there are 9 Major Concerns facing the field of conflict resolution and peacebuilding: 1. The nature of the beast the legitimacy of violence remains a parameter working against peace; 2. The wrong objective there is a misplaced emphasis on the resolution of conflict for those who wish to reduce violence in the world; 3. The political naivety of conflict resolution practitioners many peace and conflict resolution workers are both soft-hearted and soft-headed , and therefore less effective in the hard-nosed world of political violence; 4. Inadequate conflict analysis conflict resolution and peacebuilding practitioners fail to analyze conflict in a comprehensive, sophisticated, and timely way, thereby impairing risk assessment, intervention and program design, and course correction as conflict dynamics change; 5. Conflict resolutions failure to communicate effectively lacking good analysis and political skills, including peace advocacy skills and tools, conflict resolution practitioners fail to mobilize political actors, war lords and potential peace lords, to take action leading to peace; 6. Inadequate coordination of effort interventions suffer for lack of integrated, multi-level, multi-actor collaboration; the field is not organized to plan, work and learn together; 7. Institutional shortcomings despite policy and some mechanisms to prevent violence there are serious structural flaws in the UN and its regional organizations that impede the creation of the needed political will to take action; 8. United States unilateralism - the escalating US-led war on terror is narrowing the space for the resolution of political violence through integrated, measured responses under the auspices of the UN and other multilateral bodies. As the space narrows, and the use of violence as the tool of choice increases, violence in general is likely to rise. That which is feared most will be created by the current reaction to fear. 9. The failure to engage women in peacemaking - just as their voice is not heard in the chambers of power, their perspective would have gone un-remarked here except for a deliberate effort to determine whether and how women can contribute to a significant reduction in political violence. Key Assertions Conflict resolution practitioners know enough, now, to be more effective in reducing the incidence and severity of political violence. There is a knowledge-action gap. The gap is between a) having the technical knowledge ( imperfect as it is, but sufficient to be useful) and b) getting more political actors (those who care and those who dont) to act on that knowledge. Knowing the it of conflict resolution is inadequate to having it applied. The task is at another level. It is a political task, not a conflict resolution technique or knowledge deficiency task per se. It is a task of moving leaders to act. The impasse, the gap itself, is lack of political will. The knowledge-action gap must be bridged to improve the record of violence reduction. How to create the will to prevent killing , to stop it when it has started, and to build sustainable societies in the aftermath of violence is the crucial challenge for the field now. Assembling and putting the best knowledge of what works into the hands of results-oriented people is part of the answer. How to make leaders who care but have competing demands move a back-burner issue to the front-burner is another part of the answer. How to get leaders who dont care to care, and to act on that is a major part of the answer. How to get organizations which do care and are active to work together more effectively is yet another part of the answer. The skills and capacity required now to increase the effectiveness of conflict resolution by bridging the gap include political advocacy and organizational collaboration to insist that knowledge be acted upon. The gap must be bridged in specific cases, and across the universe of cases. Conflict resolution practice has come of age, technically, but is underutilized. Practitioners are politically naive and must act now to strengthen their abilities to get traction. Formula for Effectiveness Taken together, these assertions produce a Formula for Effectiveness: 1. Establish Violence Reduction as the Objective - The goal is peace; the prime objective to achieve peace should be the reduction of violence. While there are many paths to take, various disciplines, methods and techniques to be applied, a passionate commitment to reduce violence will sharpen the focus of the enormous effort currently being expended on conflict resolution and peace work. It will help set priorities among competing needs, help align effort, and help measure results. 2. Know What Works - Knowledge of what works should be known by any responsible person or organization that sets out to do conflict resolution and peace work. Failure to know what works obviously lessens effectiveness; action based on lack of knowledge may make things worse, adding unnecessary costs in lives and resources; it undermines the credibility of the field. 3. Educate for Violence Reduction - There is need for a more politically realistic curriculum in Applied Peacemaking that focuses on the objective of reducing violence to achieve the goal of peace. 4. Organize to do What Works - There are some umbrella organizations such as the Washington-based Alliance for International Conflict Prevention and Resolution, the European Platform for the Prevention of Conflict, and the Canadian Peacebuilding Coordinating Committee. With facilitation provided by these types of coordinating bodies, funding proposals could be mounted jointly and comparative advantage emphasized in the division of labor. Improvements could be made immediately in the areas of risk assessment and formation of small collaborative teams that work together to advocate for action in identified cases, pressing the UN Security Council and appropriate regional entities to act, and working in concert with credible actors including nongovernmental organizations based in the country in question. 5. Evaluate Performance - A culture of systematizing the generation of knowledge, of educating practitioners on the basis of empirically tested best practices, of performance review, and of continuous learning does not exist in the field of conflict resolution and peacebuilding. Many of the elements needed to build that culture and give form and substance to it do exist. The time has come to make it happen Direct Implications In the last section of this text I propose a number of initiatives which may taken now to implement the formula for effectiveness. To do this, I call upon the following organizations: The Carter Center; the Washington-based Alliance for International Conflict Prevention and Resolution; the Canadian Peacebuilding Coordinating Committee; the European Platform for Conflict Prevention; the US Institute of Peace; the Reducing Political Violence Action Group and private foundations. In addition to these initiatives, here are some of the direct implications of this study for individuals: For Peaceworkers Switch your emphasis from resolving conflict to reducing violence. Improve your political violence analysis skills now. Conduct analytically sound, well-informed political violence risk assessments. Begin all preventive action early. Design coordinated, multilateral and multidimensional violence reduction activities based on sound analysis that addresses the underlying structural causes of violence. Keep security options on the table as part of a comprehensive strategy of violence reduction. Place more emphasis on including women in all aspects of violence reduction. Focus on obtaining political commitment to action. Acquire peace advocacy skills. Make compelling arguments for peace. Keep intervention plans flexible as there are no fixed scenarios of political and military engagement. Be prepared to remain engaged for long periods of time. Include an evaluation component in your work. For Scholars Develop new political violence analysis tools that lead to achievable violence reduction actions. Conduct research on how to influence political actors to take action to reduce violence. Conduct research on how crucial to sustainable peace is the issue of deeply held grievances. Conduct research to identify core competencies required to be effective in violence reduction. Conduct research to clarify the role and place of violence prevention activities and development work. Design new curriculum grounded in best practices and methods to educate and train professional conflict resolution and peacebuilding practitioners. For Policy Advisors Place your emphasis on Violence Reduction. Engage the expertise of conflict resolution and peacebuilding practitioners in your policy development work. Design policy that is informed by research; clearly articulated; and capable of being implemented. Know that the use of force will be necessary in certain cases. Develop policies that are multilateral and multidimensional; including a womens perspective. Ensure that prevention projects address the underlying structural causes of direct violence. Design policies options that include long-term engagement. Design policies that are flexible as there are no fixed scenarios of political and military engagement. Increase institutional capacity to handle more cases earlier, and for longer periods. For Donors Fund activities that have an emphasis on Violence Reduction; not Conflict Resolution. Place special priority on funding activities introduced early to prevent political violence. Ensure that the prevention projects you fund address the underlying structural causes of direct violence. Fund integrated multilateral and multidimensional activities that: are designed on sound analysis, include a security component; include the womens perspective; and have an evaluation component. Be prepared for long-term commitment of resources. Publish and distribute successes and failures. For Politicians Demonstrate leadership in breaking the legitimacy of violence and the stubborn belief that it is inevitable. Emphasize to your constituency that political objectives can usually be effectively achieved with nonviolent methods. Appeal to the public for support which will increase your capacity to address violence at home and abroad. Work multilaterally and within the law to reduce political violence. Choose to act more often, earlier, and for longer to better achieve the objective of reducing political violence. Keep military options on the table, not as separate strategies, but as part of the comprehensive strategy of engagement. Be prepared for long-term engagement and commitment of resources. For the Public Take actions to reduce the legitimacy and glorification of violence. Say No to illegitimate uses of violence. Refuse to accept that violence is inevitable in human relations. Support society to build skills and mechanisms for the nonviolent resolution of conflict. Keep pressure on governments and leaders to have them intervene in cases of violent conflict. Accept and support the legitimate use of force as a tool to stop violence so that peace may be built. Put your financial and moral support behind long-term involvement when it is needed. For the Media Take training in the analysis of violence. Report on political violence in a responsible, informative, accurate, and balanced way. Test that your reporting of the story: Was more responsible because you: Provided a neutral forum for all sides involved Used inquiry to attack the problem, not the people Avoided simplistic representations of heroes and villains Reported areas of agreement as well as disagreement Maintained coverage by monitoring events through to conclusion and doing follow-up Was more informative because you: Used information in an accurate and balanced way Obtained views from all the parties involved Used metaphors that fit, rather than escalatory or de-escalatory language Reported it as it is Enriched readers understanding because you: Identified the interests, values, objectives and limitations involved Used questioning techniques that encouraged explanation and disclosure Broadened the perspective from which the story could be viewed, probing for possible solutions. PART II: THE FINDINGS 3. WE KNOW ENOUGH NOW There is enough known now to guide more effective planning and execution of efforts in conflict resolution and peacebuilding. It is possible to reduce the levels of political violence in the world. The technical know-how exists. In fact, in Gurr and Hampson, and especially in Lunds and Paris most recent work, whether the goal is to prevent violence, to stop the killing once it has broken out, or to re-build a war-torn society, there is a relatively high degree of specificity of who should do what, when, and how. That is, there is a convergence of views on what causes political violence, of what steps might be taken by governmental and nongovernmental actors to prevent it, of how the process of mediating peace accords should proceed and what should be included in the agreements, and of what steps need to be taken in what sequence to stabilize and re-build a war-torn society. The goal, however, of being able to state categorically that a given intervention technique or another is certain to work in every case remains illusive. In fact, one of the clear findings is that tailor-made interventions are required in each case. It is nevertheless implicit within that assertion that certain activities in prevention, mediation, and post-violence peacebuilding do indeed work. This study will show that a perennial problem, the lack of political will, hobbles the effectiveness of well-meaning and competent people who strive to reduce political violence in the world. Peace activists and conflict resolution workers must confront and overcome hard-hitting criticisms if they are to bridge the gap between knowledge and effective action. Improved analysis of conflict is greatly needed, political forces impeding peace efforts must be addressed with new realism, skills and vigor. Efforts to prevent political violence, to mediate an end to it, and to re-build war-torn societies must be more integrated, nuanced, and sustained. Despite it shortcomings, conflict resolution as a field of study and practice is judged to be of value; indeed, it is coming of age. Good intentions and technical know-how, however, are insufficient to the challenges it faces. It can not afford to not be dismissed as being soft-hearted and soft-headed. It functions in the world of politics often filled with actors who calculate the advantages of violence and peace in very narrow self-interested terms. Efforts to reduce political violence can neither be nave nor unprofessional. While the research findings reported here give reason for hope, and the practical measures which may be taken now to reduce the levels of political violence in the world point the way forward, a profound matter remains. Virtually all the people interviewed raised grave concerns about terrorism, and with it, the sense that violence is increasing. More pointedly, many take issue with the US administrations response to terrorism, with the current US policy of unilateralism. The gains of conflict resolution are being eroded through this approach. The space for multilateral interventions sanctioned by the UN is narrowing. A course correction is needed in Washington to bolster the successful reduction in levels of political violence in the world, an empirical fact based on data up to 9/11. But what is meant by the term political violence? What has worked to reduce it? For practical purposes, I view political violence as the product of factors, and actors. That is, objective conditions and peoples reactions to them combine to produce violence. Technically speaking, direct violence, that is, open hostility and killing are likely to occur when structural factors combine with more proximate, triggering factors. An example of a triggering factor is a flawed election process coming at a time when a certain group who has been marginalized within a state is looking to the election as a means by which it can enter the mainstream and have a voice in government. The flawed election triggers violence as a structural deficiency remains uncorrected. Another example of a trigger is the emergence of a leader who mobilizes a sense of grievance among an ethnic group, animating political conflict and inflaming violence. The leader mobilizes discontent on the basis of real or perceived grievance. These grievances are found in structural factors, such as economic marginalization, lack of minority rights, and so forth. Asking precisely what works? to reduce political violence may seem preposterous given the complexity and scale of it. In any year, on average, there are some 20 to 30 wars being fought. Nine hundred and twenty five billion dollars US are spent annually for the purpose of killing one another in various forms of political violence. Eighty billion dollars US are spent annually for peace. That is, for every $1 million spent to reduce political violence, nearly $12 million are spent on waging it. Between 1945 and 1990 the UN peacekeeping budget, at its height, was only 0.3% of global military expenditures. Total military (arms) expenditure is 1 trillion USD annually and the five permanent members of the UN Security Council are engaged in 85% of this weapons trade. Those responsible for peace provide the guns for war. The resource imbalance is not encouraging, and there is no indication that it will improve. The image of putting a tiny finger in a dyke to hold back a flood of violence easily comes to mind. It is tempting to run from the question, but as the saying goes, we can not hide. Violence is on the public agenda now perhaps more so than during the Cold War, if for no other reason than the fact that all of humanity has been touched by the events of 9/11 and the unclear but ever-present threat of terrorism. At the same time, after a full decade of introducing a great variety of conflict resolution services to prevent violence, to help stop the killing once it had started, and to re-build war-torn societies, a number of constituencies have begun to ask what works? Reflective practitioners, and individuals and institutions that fund their efforts have become more focused on the assessment of effectiveness: Does training people in nonviolent conflict resolution really make a difference to the intensity and duration of violence? Are informal dialogues between representatives of warring factions helpful in de-escalating hostilities and building the basis for peace? Is the use of force effective? If so, when; and how much is necessary? Does formal mediation provided by third parties result in sustainable peace agreements? Is a significant reduction in the amount of political violence in the world possible, based on what is known to be effective? These questions could take the inquiry into philosophical depths that go well beyond the intent and scope of this study. We could get immersed in important perennial questions about the nature of war and peace, whether human beings are inherently violent, the nature of the state and the international state system, and so forth. Naturally, these questions do have an impact here. My goal, however, was to come to grips, succinctly, with questions whose answers will help the reader who has a professional interest in reducing political violence, now. Indeed, I struggled with the question itself. Is the real task to reduce violence or is it to build peace? This is more than a question of semantics. The question has implications for the targets and timing of prevention efforts and for the nature and level of third party intervention when open hostility has appeared, and what is done after it has been arrested. Ones overall orientation does make a difference. For example, those involved in conflict resolution and peace work can simplistically be divided into two groups. There are those who work for peace, justice and development; and those who work to prevent, contain, and resolve open hostility, direct violence, and war. Arguably, for the first group the goal is to create conditions of sustainable and just peace that which has been characterized by Johan Galtung as positive peace. This is more than the absence of open hostility, which Galtung calls negative peace. This positive peace orientation requires a broad and long-term perspective. It aspires to the elimination of violence altogether to the realization of peace writ large through the removal of social-political and economic structures of violence. It has a language and methods of its own. Its representatives are human rights advocates, peace activists, development experts, and some conflict resolution practitioners. Peacekeepers, diplomats engaged in preventive diplomacy, and third party mediators tend to have a sharper, shorter-term focus. They enter the picture when violence is about to break out, or more likely already has. They strive to stabilize the environment, to make more immediately attainable adjustments in the situation so that killing is averted or minimized. They may mediate peace accords that do or do not have the ingredients of a sustainable peace. It turns out that there is some convergence of these orientations, although significant issues remain when decisions must be made about taking action: the what, who, when and how questions come more clearly into focus. Measuring success is obviously also a very different matter depending on the overall orientation. On the one extreme, can we measure when positive peace is achieved? On the other, is it enough to measure death tolls? For some, peace is a work-in-progress as humanity struggles toward justice for all; for others, stopping the killing and building a practical system of political governance that enables a society to function in relative peace is a respectable achievement. In either case, measuring success remains a challenge. Evaluation of effectiveness of conflict resolution and peace work is in an early stage of development and much remains to be done to improve it. What is measured, when it is measured, how it is measured, and what is done with the results are all at issue. The inadequacy of evaluation in the peace and conflict resolution field makes it difficult to assert what works and what is not effective. Important questions become very difficult to answer with any degree of certainty. For example, what does one mean by works? Is it enough to delay violence and hope that circumstances change to avert it altogether; is it enough to reduce the number of persons killed had action not been taken? Is it enough to forge some sort of peace agreement that may break down in two, five or perhaps ten years because it lacks the ingredients required to produce a sustainable peace? Must efforts in peace and conflict resolution produce a sustainable, just peace where both direct and structural violence are removed before it can be said that the effort worked? There is also the question of generalizability of what works. Does what works work in all cases? Or can we say that something definitely does not work, that it is a waste of money, time, and effort? Introducing the goal of achieving a significant reduction in violence further taxes existing methods of measurement. How much of a reduction is significant? A defensible assessment of the field is nevertheless possible. There is a large body of research in this field, lessons learned exercises in peacekeeping and peacebuilding, and some evidence of more structured program evaluation. This knowledge can be assembled and assessed. It can also contribute to practice on the ground, now. Indeed, apart from community-based peacebuilding efforts, where analysis is weak, it can be argued that research and evaluation and theoretical models are beginning to influence policy formation, risk assessment and early warning practices, and the analysis of conflict in specific cases of political violence. Virtually everyone I interviewed agrees that effort to prevent political violence should begin early; although I believe it is necessary to distinguish between deep structural work associated with development and more near-term efforts to avert violence in a case which has been identified at risk. Prevention is recognized as a political activity as it intervenes in the internal working of a state but I maintain that it should not be confused with development per se. Violence prevention interventions, although structural in nature, should therefore be discrete and they should be undertaken relatively early; that is, earlier than the current practice of one or two years before the predicted outbreak of direct violence. A pragmatic consideration is the cost-effectiveness of any activity. As the former OSCE High Commissioner for National Minorities, Max van der Stoel, has argued, peacekeepers are less costly than war, and prevention is less costly than peacekeepers. That may be a correct working assumption. I say may because prevention efforts directed at building the conditions of positive peace, of removing the structural and systemic factors that might lead to direct violence could be very costly. There is no body of evidence to support the assertion that prevention is cost-effective, despite the intuitive sense that it really must be. Prevention must be less costly than war, especially if it is understood to be relatively near-term activities that are directed initially at the triggers, so as to remove the conditions necessary for political violence to become manifest. Then development-type peacebuilding may begin. Once the killing has begun and international efforts do commence, however, structural factors come into focus. It is not enough to do only those things that stop the killing, but also those things that will prevent its recurrence. The general consensus is that the underlying structural causes must be addressed to prevent the recurrence of direct violence. By addressing them, the conditions necessary for political violence are removed, and arguably, the potential emergence of triggers, the conditions sufficient, will be neutralized. For example, those leaders who would otherwise arise to mobilize discontent no longer appear on the scene, or are ineffective if they do. So it is that peacebuilders, often active after the period of open hostility, do those things that members of the peace, human rights, and development communities would wish to have done long before direct violence had ever broken out. Their orientation, services, and skills, applied in a post conflict phase are to build peace rather than reduce direct violence. Indeed, it is evident that those who have worked to restore peace in war-torn societies have raised the issue of the importance of prevention in the first instance, bringing them more closely into alignment with the orientation of the front-enders, the builders of positive peace. Thus, the peace, development, and conflict resolution communities are merging to some extent, but a synthetic theory and integrated practice on the ground lag behind. There is no consensus among the authorities on what grade one should give to prevention, mediation, and post-violence peacebuilding. That is, whether each of prevention, mediation and post-violence peacebuilding should be given a pass or a fail. My assertion, based on my research findings, is that I would give prevention a pass, mediation a fail, and post-violence peacebuilding a pass. This met with some challenge from the authorities. Notwithstanding the common remark that it is virtually impossible to prove that prevention works, because you cannot prove a counterfactual, prevention is considered difficult to grade if one holds the view that grievance is at the root of violent political conflict: near-term efforts to remove triggers and proximate causes are thought to be inadequate in the long-term. It therefore stands to reason that time becomes a key variable in assessing whether prevention worked. Things change, and what arguably was prevented today may or may not be related to violence which emerges in three, five or ten years hence. If mediation deserves a fail because mediated peace agreements break down, then perhaps it is not mediation that has failed but the real problem is failure of the international community to remain engaged. And if post-violence peacebuilding gets a pass it is only just a pass as the record is mixed. Indeed, it is because peacebuilding only barely passes that mediation is seen, in part, to do so poorly. Obviously, complexity (and the lack of rigorous evaluation) hampers unqualified judgment. For many of the authorities interviewed, the overwhelming concern is that those responsible, primarily states, and particularly the UN Security Council, do not choose to act often enough, early enough, or for long enough to better achieve the objective of reducing political violence. The disproportionate amount of funding directed to war efforts as compared to peace efforts reflects a systemic bias, producing a bitter reality for millions of innocent people caught up in violence. It also hobbles those who want to make the policy of prevention a reality rather than an empty slogan. When peace accords are reached through mediation, they are often orphaned. Indeed, a number of key characteristics of the international state system have been identified as both causes of political violence and also reasons why violence is only selectively (and often inadequately) addressed by states. They are: state self-interest; the anarchic nature of the international state system; the preserve of states to act violently; the absence of an overarching international political authority; and the absence of enforcement capacity at the UN. These parameters are profound: they clearly shape the prospects for reducing, significantly, the amount of political violence. They may condemn humanity to perpetual violence. Most of the authorities I interviewed, however, remain hopeful. Professionals, committed peacemakers, virtually all believe that progress is being made toward the objective of reducing political violence. The empirical evidence listed below supports their perception. There is a short-term downward trend in the incidence and severity of political violence, despite conventional wisdom to the contrary. This reflects success in prevention and intervention. Many of the authorities stated that terrorism and the USAs recent unilateralism are very disturbing: political violence may be escalating after 9/11 and its new forms present serious new challenges. The following list nevertheless illustrates full or partial success in conflict resolution and peacebuilding. The cases are concrete examples that various violence reduction efforts preventive diplomacy, negotiation, mediation - in most cases taken over years with the assistance of third parties, can produce peace or conditions suggestive of peace. And those who helped reduce violence and establish peace in each of them deserve proper credit. The list attests to the fact that political violence can indeed be reduced. Where, When and What Has Worked Zimbabwe: 1980. A successful peace agreement was implemented chiefly by the United Kingdom. Nicaragua: 1987-1995. A 3-staged peace process that led to a peaceful outcome. The first stage had five Central American presidents reach agreements on peace steps; the second stage was a political settlement; and the final stage was a series of disarmament and demobilization accords. The process involved the United Nations; OAS; Canada; European and Latin American countries and Jimmy Carters Council of Freely Elected Heads of State. India-Darjeeling: 1988. The Grokhas had waged guerrilla war against the central government for a number of years then riots began in 1979 and tension continued until The Accord of Darjeeling was signed in 1988. This accord provided for an autonomous Grokha district around Darjeeling. Lebanon: 1990. Syrian power interests compensated for the difficulties encountered in implementing a partially successful peace agreement. The agreement was negotiated without foreign mediators. Syria was the key implementer. Liberia: 1990-1998. Great or regional power was a contributing factor in achieving the Abuja II Agreement. The key implementer was the Economic Community of West African States Cease-Fire Monitoring group led by Nigeria. Yemen: 1990. North and South Yemen agreed to form a unified Republic of Yemen, thereby ending twenty years of tension, border disputes, civil wars, tribal conflicts, and ideological differences. Cambodia: 1991. The permanent members (P-5) of the UN Security Council intervened in Cambodia by active mediation that resulted in the Paris Conference. This resulted in a peace agreement with a temporary ceasefire, political stability, and a return to economic growth. Mozambique: 1992. A General Peace Agreement resulted in consolidation of peace, demobilization and reintegration of soldiers, creation and training of a new and unified army, repatriation and resettlement of refugees, holding of free and fair elections the result of which was accepted by all parties, and establishment of a genuinely democratic system. El Salvador: 1992. Civil war broke out in El Salvador in 1980 after a coup. The UN intervened on request of the parties in 1990. By 1992 a peace agreement was signed in Mexico City, resulting in cease-fire, troop demobilization, military reform, disarming of paramilitary units, and creation of a national civil police force. India-Tripura: 1993. The Memorandum of Settlement resulted in the end of hostilities between rebels and the government. Palestine-Israel: 1993. The quasi-informal backchannel mediation of the Oslo channel conducted, sponsored, and hosted by the Norwegians provided a breakthrough in the mid-East peace process. It did not result in an agreement, but laid the groundwork and opened the door to direct talks between the parties. Abkhazia: 1993. Conflict broke out in 1989 between Georgians and ethnic Abkhaz. UN-sponsored talks led to a ceasefire in 1993 and later an agreement to deploy a peacekeeping force in 1994. In 1998 full-scale war almost broke out; and at present there is a tenuous peace. Haiti: 1994. The Carter-Nunn-Powell Mediation resulted in resignation of Cedras and return of Aristide who was ousted from power in a coup in 1993. There was a peaceful military takeover of Haiti by a multinational force, human rights abuses decreased, and political repression ended. Gabon: 1994. An Accord de Paris was signed in 1994 after serious riots broke out in response to a fraudulent election. South Africa: 1994. The parties created and signed a National Peace Accord on political reform with only a minimum of outside intervention and no formal external mediation process. North Korea: 1994. Tensions between the USA and North Korea were de-escalated through the private diplomacy of former President Jimmy Carter and The Carter Center. Bosnia: 1995. The Dayton Agreement resulted in formation of a single Bosnian state, demonstrating a basis for the eventual end of the war by introducing force with diplomacy. Croatia: 1995. Croatia signed the Dayton agreement. Then in 1995 it signed the Erdut Agreement with the Serbs to allow for elections and then in 1996 it signed the Agreement on the Normalization of Relations with the FYR that allowed for independence, sovereignty, equality of states, mutual recognition, and cooperation. Ecuador-Peru: 1995. After a border dispute the Declaracion de Paz de Itamaraty was signed. Then in 1998 The Act Presdencial de Brasilia was signed to build on earlier agreements and establish a series of accords and memoranda related to border issues. Guatemala: 1996. A civil war began in 1960 and continued until the Agreement on a Firm and Lasting Peace was signed in 1996. This agreement triggered implementation of a series of previous agreements and bound them together into an agenda for peace. Lebanon: 1996. The US negotiated a Lebanon-Israel ceasefire and creation of a monitoring group. Tajikistan: 1997. A comprehensive peace agreement was reached and a national reconciliation commission was formed to oversee the implementation of the peace agreement through a transitional period. Nonofficial dialogue provided an impetus for formal negotiations leading to a peace agreement. Namibia-Angola: 1998. Settlement resulted in Namibian independence. Cuban forces withdrew from Angola, South Africa withdrew from Namibia and Angola. Violence and polarized confrontation were removed by political settlement. Ireland: 1998. The Good Friday Agreement, negotiated with international assistance led by former US Senator George Mitchell, resulted in an agreement endorsed by referenda, and elections to the local assembly were successfully held. Congo (Brazzaville): 1999. A ceasefire agreement, known as the Agreement of Cessation of Hostilities, was reached between the government and the rebels. East TimorIndonesia: 1999. The Dili Peace Accord resulted in the cessation of hostilities and a referendum to decide if East Timor would choose special autonomy within the Unitary State of the Republic of Indonesia. East Timor became an independent state. Western Sahara-Morocco: 1999. The Saharawi Peoples Liberation Army launched a series of guerrilla attacks against Mauritania and Morocco until the UN proposed a truce, followed by a referendum that was scheduled for 1992. The referendum was stalled until UN Special Envoy James Baker brokered an agreement to reschedule it. The Crimea: 2000. Interethnic conflict resolved peacefully through preventive efforts with participation by the UN, OSCE, and nongovernmental organizations. Fiji: 2001. A non-violent political transition in a post-coup environment with participation of Commonwealth representatives and nongovernmental organizations. Venezuela: 2003, The UN, OAS and The Carter Center are successfully managing a potentially violent challenge to President Chavez. All of these cases give reason for joy. They demonstrate that where there is a will, and skill, a way to peace may be found. For peace to endure the will and the skill must be sustained. For some of these cases also demonstrate that success is sometimes only partial; and regression into violence is possible. Peace itself is not a static thing, but a condition of being in relationship without recourse to violence. This list gives us hope that peace can be achieved in even the most violent settings. The following countries, however, are currently embroiled in major political violence. The list is too long; and it does not convey the human suffering and loss to humanity that each case entails. Despite the noted successes, there is no room for complacency. Countries With Major Political Violence Algeria Angola Burundi Democratic Republic of Congo Eritrea-Ethiopia Rwanda Sierra Leone Somalia Sudan Colombia Peru Afghanistan India India-Pakistan Indonesia Myanmar Philippines Sri Lanka Russia Iran Iraq Israel Turkey Can the list be shorted, intentionally, and significantly? Is enough known about the science and art of conflict resolution and peacebuilding to make a difference? The short answer is yes. There is an emerging consensus on several key elements related to what works. Consensus is emerging on the causes and dynamics of political violence; on how to prevent it; on how to make mediated peace agreements sustainable; and how to do post-violence peacebuilding. This convergence of views, found in the literature and among the authorities interviewed, enables me to assert that enough technical knowledge in conflict resolution and peace work is known now to improve the record of violence reduction. The glass of effectiveness is half full. Yet, there is a knowledge action-gap. This can be described, simplistically, as follows: The Knowledge-Action Gap With respect to VIOLENCE PREVENTION Knowledge stipulates that action be taken relatively early on the basis of an assessment of risk to alter proximate and structural factors likely to cause political violence; Whereas at present, action is not taken often enough, early enough or for long enough. With respect to MEDIATION TO END ARMED WARFARE Knowledge stipulates that the warring parties should be convened, by using force if necessary to stop the killing, to assist them to negotiate a sustainable peace agreement by addressing the root causes of the violence; Whereas at present, mediation is notably underutilized and when peace agreements have been reached, many break down. With respect to POST-VIOLENCE PEACEBUILDING Knowledge stipulates that long-term multi-level support be provided to build the capacity to express and resolve conflicts nonviolently and to achieve conditions supportive of peace; Whereas at present, efforts have not been sustained, many agreements have been orphaned by the international community and peace has eroded. This gap between knowledge and action is serious. In order to look at practical ways in which this gap may be bridged, we need to be clear about what is, and what is not effective. This study summarizes the answers to these questions. Then I identify eight major concerns the authorities have which contribute to the gap between existing violence-reduction knowledge and appropriate actions. I offer a ninth concern, conspicuous by its absence in my interviews with the authorities. Then I offer general prescriptions on how bridge the gap. Finally, I provide a list of practical actions that can be taken immediately to improve the effectiveness of efforts to reduce political violence. These actions are directed at key organizations active in conflict resolution and peacebuilding, including: The US Institute of Peace; the Washington-based Alliance for International Conflict Prevention and Resolution; the Canadian Peacebuilding Coordinating Committee; the European Platform for Conflict Prevention; The Carter Center; and private foundations which fund conflict resolution and peacebuilding activities. The actions called for can be taken now within present resource levels. 4. A CONVERGENCE OF VIEWS Consensus would be too strong a word. But the degree of convergence of views I found in the literature and among the authorities I interviewed is remarkable. Of course, there were some strong dissenting views, most notably on three issues: overall orientation to the task at hand (working for peace writ large versus working to reduce direct violence); on prevention (early deep structural interventions versus relatively near-term proximate interventions); and on sustainable peace (the salience of healing historical wounds). On so many technical know-how questions, however, when the discussion is stripped down to pragmatics, a notable convergence of views is evident. This convergence is presented here. On the Causes and Dynamics of Political Violence First, what is meant by political violence? From my review of the literature I described political violence to the authorities as follows. Political violence is associated with political conflict the perception of incompatible political goals and interests. This is related to perceived threats and failed expectations. Political violence has two principal forms: direct and structural. Two or more parties are in conflict over political goals. This political conflict may include direct violent responses, that is: various forms of armed conflict and behavior intended to do injury to others in the pursuit of political objectives. Direct violence may also be the result of structural violence. Structural violence is embedded violence. It is found in the social, political and economic systems governing the relationships of people. When those structures serve the political objectives of some and leave others to experience their reality as oppressive, that is structural violence. In that way, perceived violence begets violence. For the purposes of this study I chose to focus on direct forms of political violence. Concerned with killing, I asked this operational question: what works to reduce armed warfare? That is, what works to prevent open hostility and killing? Once war has broken out, can it be stopped? When a peace agreement is signed, how effective are efforts to prevent the recurrence of war? Are there things that should be done in specific ways so that violence is reduced more effectively? Are there some things being done that are simply not effective? To the extent that there is a science of conflict resolution one would naturally expect that the causes of political violence would be known, and that the activities undertaken would be prescribed on the basis of case-specific analysis, diagnostics, and prognostications. As we will see, this science is developing. There is considerable grasp by scholars and scholar-practitioners of the classification, the causes, and the dynamics of political violence. Understanding political violence and how to address it is often described in the literature and by the authorities interviewed as an exercise analogous to understanding and treating disease. Efforts to categorize violent political conflicts are deemed useful, just as are efforts to categorize and name certain types of disease. While it is unlikely that all disease will be eliminated, some types may be. So too with certain types of political violence. And clearly, just as certain individuals at risk of a specific disease may be able to prevent it, so too may a certain case of war be prevented. When prevention fails, just as invasive medical interventions are possible to arrest the disease, and recovery programs may be designed so that the patient does not fall victim to the illness again, so too with specific cases of political violence. The medical analogy however, has met with some concern. Questions are raised about what is symptom and what is cause; and whether a medical model can truly apply to political phenomenon. Furthermore, is a focus on conflict itself rather than on violence appropriate? This is a subject to which we will return. In any event, conflict resolution scholars place considerable emphasis on the causes and dynamics of conflict when they address the subject of political violence. The causes of political conflict range from broad causal factors to subtle appreciation of more localized factors deemed relevant in specific cases. The broad causal factors, it might be argued, contribute to political violence writ large. They are those things that tend to cause political violence in general throughout the world. Whereas more localized psychological, social, political and economic causes provide for fine-tuned analysis in specific cases. Among the broad casual factors are characteristics of the international state system, a global culture of violence, and the belief that violence is inevitable. Peace scholars and deep structuralists maintain that a culture of violence pervades the world with ever increasing influence. The culture of violence, that which supports and legitimates violence of all sorts, is associated with the manufacture of consent. Publics are persuaded by adversaries that using violence to resolve a political conflict is necessary and appropriate. The legitimacy of violence cannot be underestimated as a cause for war; violences legitimacy is itself bolstered by a stubborn belief that violence is inevitable. In addition to these broad causal factors that give rise to the use of violence in cases of political conflict, more case-specific factors have been identified as potential causes. These tend to be taken into account by analysts and practitioners of conflict resolution. As we will learn, however, the absence of thorough and disciplined analysis across the practice of conflict resolution is a serious impediment to effectiveness in reducing violence. The local, case-specific causal factors are: insecurity, inequality, private incentives, and perceptions. These factors operate together in various combinations to cause or exacerbate political conflict. As Gardiner so apply summed it up: In other words, conflict emerges from a combination of underlying insecurity and inequality, colored by perceptions and acted upon by individuals with private incentives. Thus, neither underlying conditions nor human mobilizing actions alone are sufficient explanations, but rather both are necessary to describe the incidence of intrastate conflict.  There is debate among analysts about which factors are more salient. One of the current debates is described as the greed versus grievance debate. One the one hand, political violence is said to be caused most saliently by a peoples sense of grievance associated with feelings of marginalization, neglect, injustice - the deep structural perspective. On the other hand, it is the predatory drives of leaders and the economic means of waging war that are considered to be the salient causes of political conflict. If one of these two contending views prevails, it may have a major impact on what should be done to prevent war, and how to intervene when violence has broken out. The predatory thesis might direct effort towards removing the handful of key economic factors associated with civil war perpetrated by rebels. It could also lead in the direction of efforts to buy-off predators - including the option of providing them with amnesty, or methods intended to neutralize them (perhaps by violent means), or to arrest, convict, and punish predators. The greed and grievance views converge, however, in what is required for post-violence peacebuilding. That is, the structural causes will have to be addressed as even predators give voice to grievances perceived or felt by their followers. Removing the predator alone will not be sufficient to achieve sustainable peace. It is fair to say that the various disciplines that concern themselves with political violence, including anthropology, sociology, psychology, political science, international relations, international political economics, conflict studies, peace studies, and security studies have contributed to a diagnostically useful understanding of what causes political violence. They provide helpful insight into what causes political violence, both generally, and in specific cases. There is also a relative abundance of activities that may be listed as efforts to prevent political violence, to stop the killing, and then to re-build war-torn societies so that they do not return to a condition of violence. Those activities that are provided by official representatives of organizations such as the UN and involve official representatives of the warring sides are known, collectively, as Track I conflict resolution and peacebuilding activities. Those activities that are provided by nonstate actors and involve people from the warring sides who are not in an official capacity are called Track II activities. These activities are sometimes prescribed as responses to the causes of conflict; that is, they correspond to either broad causal factors or more local, case-specific factors. Conflict resolution and peacebuilding activities are also associated in practice with what are generally held to be the dynamics of political conflict. This dynamic is popularly described as the life cycle of a political conflict. The life cycle of political conflict has three phases: a latent phase when it has not yet become manifest open hostility and armed warfare have not broken out; an active phase marked by open hostility and which may escalate to armed warfare; and a post-violence phase. A simple depiction of the cycle with two axes, Time and Level of Intensity is as follows: CONFLICT LIFE CYCLE  SHAPE \* MERGEFORMAT  INTENSITY TIME The popular conceptualization of conflict as a cycle has met with some criticism. Describing the dynamic of political conflict as a cycle which rises, once triggered, from a stage of latency, through time to elevated stages of contending behaviors and manifest violence, and then to fall through de-escalation and toward resolution is not altogether adequate. It has been criticized as too unilinear; it doesnt really depict what happens in reality as complex political conflicts are multilinear; conflicts change over time; and they may never be fully resolved. They might more usefully be described as spirals rather than cycles.  So, types of specific political conflicts have been identified, causes seem to be generally agreed, and particular responses that may address the causes have been identified as well. Thus, the analytical elements of a science of conflict resolution as applied to political violence exist. Furthermore, the dynamics of conflict are also beginning to be understood. Sophistication is lacking here, however, when it comes to pragmatics. That is, predicting that a given political conflict will indeed turn violent, that it will move from latency to a manifest hostility is not a perfect science. Neither can it be predicted that a certain type of conflict resolution activity is certain to produce specific results. There is no guarantee that violence will be prevented or reduced or that peace will endure. Nevertheless, with less than a fully predictive science to guide them, conflict resolution and peace practitioners press on in their efforts to prevent political violence, to bring about peace where fighting has broken out, and to help rebuild war-torn societies. In doing this, whether they are official representatives of states, or work for the UN or regional organizations, or are employees of nongovernmental organizations or private citizens, they offer many services. The various activities described as conflict resolution and peacebuilding are undertaken during different phases of the cycle of conflict, although some are carried out throughout the whole cycle. Indeed, in just one effort to describe the activities that may be undertaken across the spectrum of conflict, no less than seventy-two different types of activities can be identified. In this example, these activities correspond to three categories provided as the causes of conflict: Systemic factors that cause conflict, such as anarchy in the international state system; Causal factors associated with states and societies, such as state collapse and religious extremism; and Leadership and human agency factors, such as bad leaders and spoilers. Among the seventy-two different activities are: power balancing, alliances and alignments; rapid reaction force, military protectorates, arms embargoes; diplomatic engagement, negotiated understandings; financial aid; minority rights protection; administrative and political protectorates; constitutional and electoral reforms; civil society and institution building; rule of law; back channels, dialogue, mediation; truth commissions, reconciliation, and reconstruction. There is no shortage of well-intended activities in the field of conflict resolution. But, what works? On What Works to Prevent Political Violence Violent political conflicts are not inevitable. Indeed, the good news is that violent political conflict is on a downward trend. For the decade of 1990 to 1999 there was an average of 26 wars per year. In 2000, there were 25; in 2001 there were 24; and in 2002 there were 21. Admittedly, this trend is short-term, some five years in duration. And it might be argued that it is not the direct result of preventive activities; that is, it is idiosyncratic, unreliable, neither attributable to dedicated efforts to reduce political violence, nor indicative of real know-how in the area of prevention, and certainly not predictive of future levels of violence in the world. According to Gurr, however, the downward trend is not an accident. In fact, he suggests we are witnessing the evolution of new international policies to contain internal warfare. Both the norms and practices of international response to internal war changed during the 1990s. Norms that prescribed international responsibility for managing internal wars were asserted more forcefully, reinforcing the perception . . . that internal wars posed a greater security threat than heretofore. And international actors did in fact engage more frequently and directly in preventive diplomacy, negotiated settlements of internal wars, and collective peacekeeping, peace enforcement, and humanitarian intervention. The net effect of international engagement is evident in the trends depicted at the outset of this chapter. Numerous internal wars have been contained or settled, as a less obvious, unknowably large number of other conflict situations has been defused short of open warfare.  (underline added) Gurr argues that principles of good practice in how to manage violent conflict have emerged. The UN and other regional organizations have policy on prevention. There have been dedicated efforts to reduce political violence. There is a range of tools available, from preventive diplomacy to the use of force in conformity with international law. Three factors supportive of prevention identified by Gurr are summarized here: Implementing International Norms About Individual and Group Rights. Standard-setting texts specify individual political rights and minorities cultural, economic, and political rights that the international community is obliged, in principle, to implement. Among them are the International Bill of Human Rights as well as agreements signed by member states of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) in the early 1990s. These texts are not binding, but they provide the legal basis for a political program that includes proactive advocacy of individual and group rights by individual states, regional organizations, NGOs and minority groups themselves. Promoting Institutions for Democratic Power-Sharing Democratic institutions are the preferred domestic means for protecting group rights in heterogeneous societies and for pursuing political programs to redress inequalities. Within the context of democratic institutions, mutual accommodation is the optimal strategy for managing conflict between challenging groups that claim separate identities and interests. These preferences are both normative and practical. Normatively, the leading states in the international community operate on democratic principles and strongly support the establishment and continuation of democratic institutions elsewhere. International Engagement in Containing Internal Wars The emergent norm is that international and regional organizations, and individual states, have responsibilities to mediate internal wars and to engage, using force if necessary, to check gross violations of human rights. . . . The UN Security Council has authorized fifty-two peacekeeping operations during the past half-century, fifteen of them current, and most of these aimed at containing armed conflicts within states. . . . (although) . . . There is little chance that an international cavalry will ride to the rescue of rebellious Chechens, Uighers, or Kashmiris. . . . .The principle of international engagement is and will continue to be constrained by realist considerations. . . . One further step in the evolution of international doctrine of engagement is acceptance of the principle that when authority and security have collapsed, multilateral force can be used to maintain international protectorates while civil governance is reestablished. In effect, this has happened in Kosovo and East Timor, but it is too soon to suggest that the precedents establish a general principle. . . . In fact political and military engagement has been sustained, more often than not, in most internationalized civil conflicts of the 1990s. Gurr also offers some of the major lessons for prevention learned thus far: The most effective strategies of engagement are usually those that are applied early, before the onset of armed conflict or gross violations of human rights. Prevention by political and diplomatic means is less costly than coercive intervention and reconstruction. The point is widely recognized by policymakers, observers, and scholars but not yet consistently acted upon. The problem is twofold. One issue is the lack of reliable and convincing risk assessments about crises that lie more than a year or two away. The second is that UN and major power policymakers focus most of their limited political and material resources on responding to immediate crises. The most effective kinds of engagement are both multilateral and multidimensional. The multilateral principle is well established with regard to peacekeeping and peace enforcement operations. Less widely recognized is the principle that effective engagement requires collaborative planning among interested states to design strategies that integrate diplomatic, political, economic, and military moves. Strategies should be designed with fallback objectives. The first objective is to forestall violent conflict in high-risk situations. When prevention fails (or is not attempted), the second-best objective is to induce the warring parties to negotiate an end to conflict. If efforts to induce settlement fail, plan three should be to contain spillovers from armed conflict into neighboring states. Plan four is a peace enforcement mission, worth consideration where humanitarian costs and security threats are high. Successful peace enforcement missions, as suggested at several points above, presuppose a high degree of resolve (or political will) on the part of states that lead such missions and a long-term commitment of resources. Military options should always be on the table, not as separate strategies but as part of the metastrategy of engagement. The options range from coercive deterrence, to rescue and training missions, to peacekeeping and peace enforcement, to air and ground warfare. . . . There are no fixed scenarios of political and military engagement. There is always the risk that policymakers will learn the wrong lessons from a particular success or failure, using it as a simple guide about what (not) to do next time. Next time in fact is likely to differ significantly from last time. . . .  The major impediment to prevention, however, as Gurr has noted, is realist considerations. It is not lack of know-how. Yes, there have been mistakes and there will be mistakes when it comes to intervening in violent situations. The fact that virtually all organs of the UN have adopted a policy of prevention, however, has not altered the criticism that action is not taken often enough, early enough and for long enough to prevent violence. Why? Is the major impediment to prevention a resource issue? Those interviewed say, yes, partly. They also point to the lack of quality risk assessment and the failure of peace activists to make compelling arguments that action must be taken. The conflict resolution community is not effective in its advocacy for peace. Political leaders whose commitment is needed to avert a war are not persuaded sufficiently to take action. Those close to political actors, the policymakers, government advisors and bureaucrats working inside the state system also underline the issue of capacity and competing demands. They note that political actors operating on behalf of a state have only so much capacity to change the world from a violent to more peaceful one. Whether you are the Minister of Foreign Affairs in London or Oslo, or the Secretary of State in Washington, you will be able to attend only to a handful of cases. This is the reality even in a superpower. For example, in the US State Department the various assistant undersecretaries of state may come to office with a personal mission to achieve three major accomplishments during their four year term. One of these may be to help end a war, or prevent one from breaking out. Other priorities may be trade relations, establishing alliances, and so forth. Then there will inevitably be a crisis, most likely taking attention and resources away from their initial peace agenda. If one assumes that there are five assistant undersecretaries of state in the US State Department, that means that human capacity in that great state would allow efforts to be dedicated to some 15 major initiatives over a four year period, 5 of which might be to reduce violence. The impact of a crisis, or of the US being engaged directly in war itself, can easily be imagined. Most of the 5 peace initiatives of which again only 2 or 3 would have the Secretary of States personal attention - would be relegated to a back-burner. There, lower level staff would keep an eye on them and do what they could to keep any one of them from turning into a crisis. This limited capacity scenario is presently exacerbated by the war on terror, homeland defence, and full scale US engagement in Afghanistan and Iraq. Many good intentions to reduce political violence are therefore relegated to a back burner. So a pragmatic answer to why action is not taken often enough, early enough, or for long enough is capacity. Yet, some authorities insist that it can not be argued that there are insufficient resources available to states and to the UN to act more often. Yes, those who advocate action in a particular case must choose their cases well, and they must target state actors who are likely to be responsive. But the authorities agree: the real reason for inaction is a lack of political will. Therefore, both practical and realist considerations have a profound impact on the violence prevention agenda. What country that is a permanent member of the UN Security Council, which is responsible for international security, is going to be very concerned about the struggle for democracy in Myanmar or an insurgency in northern Uganda? None, unless it is compelled to do so. Most political leaders are content to put a difficult decision off to another day, hoping it will go away or clarify in some manner to make taking a decision more palatable. It is not difficult to see how any government would adopt a policy of prevention but a practice of benign ignorance until push came to shove. This conundrum points to the need to be more clear about what prevention is, and when it is appropriate to engage in it. Deep structuralists will argue that the work of transforming a culture of violence to a culture of peace, of removing structural violence that gives rise to direct violence, is the profound agenda. The authorities I interviewed are less inclined. They agree that at some point development assistance is just that, development assistance. Development is a long term, deep structural endeavor to raise the standard of living and prospects of people in less advantaged nations. It serves the peace agenda. But it is not violence prevention, per se. Prevention must be regarded and offered as a discrete set of activities intended to avert violent political conflict on the basis of an assessment of risk of violence. When the UN or a regional organization does decide to put resources into prevention, as the OSCE, the OAS, and others have, technical know-how exists. Prevention can work. Zellner, focusing on just one conflict prevention mechanism, the OSCEs High Commissioner on National Minorities, asserts that: Many observers regard the HCNM as the success story of the OSCE. . . . the high commissioner is an example par excellence of both a highly effective and cost-effective institution for conflict prevention. Zellner credits the HCNM with having been active in fifteen countries, quietly, behind the scenes, making recommendations, being very effective. A similar account can be given to former US President Jimmy Carter, and a number of nongovernmental organizations would claim to have been effective in the task of violence prevention. There is a convergence of views on how to prevent political violence.   SHAPE \* MERGEFORMAT  On How to Make Mediated Peace Agreements Sustainable Mediation is generally defined as various forms of third party assisted negotiation. While mediation may be used as a preventive technique, introduced early, my examination of its effectiveness is as a tool to settle political conflicts when they have reached a stage of open hostility, including armed warfare. I focus on relatively formal efforts which engage official representatives of warring sides in negotiation talks. Is mediation used often enough in cases of war? Is it conducted effectively? Most importantly, what works to make mediated peace agreements sustainable? The record shows that from 1900 to 1989 mediation was used in as few as 10% of the cases of civil war. Bercovitch, a leading authority on international mediation, nevertheless asserts that negotiations and mediations are at last beginning to emerge as the most appropriate responses to conflict in its myriad forms and to the challenge of building a more peaceful world. The challenge of sustainability is a serious issue, however: a disturbing number of the agreements that are reached are not honored. There are fewer questions about the process of mediation; that is, the technical mechanics of conducting a mediation are well documented and have largely been absorbed by those who practice it. That does not mean it is an easy task or that more knowledge is not required to improve the process with a view to achieving sustainable peace agreements.  Greenberg and Bartons examination of the use of mediation and arbitration in twelve cases of contemporary deadly conflict provides deep insight into the mediation process. Their contribution to technical knowledge about what makes a good mediation process is reviewed here. Nine of the twelve case studies fall well within our focus on political conflict that has become openly violent, in some cases lethal (Abkhazia, Bosnia, Cambodia, Croatia, El Salvador, Northern Ireland, Rwanda, South Africa, and West Bank/Occupied Territories). The major insights into the mediation process are: Almost all the recent conflicts involve issues that during the Cold War would have been regarded as purely internal matters in which the participation of the international community would not have been welcome. A mediators effort through the use of positive or negative leverage such as incentives and sanctions, including military force to impose an agreement on the parties, generally work only in the short term and do not lend themselves well to durable agreements and long-term reconciliation. The United Nations played an important role in most of the cases studied, by providing the mediator, the forum, or implementing institutions necessary to the mediation effort, and has generally been far more successful than regional organizations in bringing resolution to protracted conflicts. The value added by the mediator was usually procedural rather than substantive, and the mediators most important contribution was frequently to provide a procedural or substantive framework within which negotiations could take place. Thus, the impartiality of the mediator was the characteristic most prized by the parties to the conflict. The international law norms of sovereignty and self-determination can be mutually exclusive and are often bluntly defined; they frequently created a primary barrier to achieving agreement. Although multiple channels of negotiation and shuttle diplomacy are useful and frequently required, face-to-face discussions between the actual parties - and the accompanying human interplay almost always proved essential to an ultimately successful negotiation. Of particular importance at this time, however, is the distinction Greenberg and Barton make between process and results. They remark: . . . one is impressed by the number of examples in which an apparently successful negotiation was, in fact, a failure at resolving the underlying dispute and resulted in significant backsliding on the ground: the Oslo Accords and the West Bank, Cambodia, the Arusha Accords and Rwanda, the Dayton accords and Bosnia. (underline added) Yet, they temper this judgment as follows: In making any such an evaluation of a negotiation, it is important to consider the differing meanings that can be given to success and failure. Stalling disaster for a period is often valuable. In light of the real uncertainties of the world . . . one never knows how much worse things would have been were there no agreement. So while their review gives a thumbs up to the degree of facility with which the mediation process is conducted, the long-term results are much more disconcerting. That is why I am moved to say mediation has failed. Pressing issues pertain to the timing of mediation, the relationship of mediation and the use of force, ensuring that crucial issues in dispute are addressed, and providing sufficient long-term support to make the mediated peace agreement sustainable. The timing of mediation in the life cycle of the conflict has implications for: the number of potential entry points (low level violence provides a large number of entry points vs high level of violence provides few entry points); the various types of barriers to entry; the opportunity for the mediator to exercise procedural control (which is influential in the success of a settlement); the correct combination of unified and coordinated third party assistance (sequenced multiparty initiatives vs simultaneous activities); as well as the nature of the mediator (NGO, scholar-practitioner, etc.).  Getting the timing right is not an easy matter, however. Bercovitchs advice is that the most propitious phase to initiate mediation at least of the formal kind is about half-way through the life cycle of the conflict, and certainly after the parties own conflict management efforts have failed. He also remarks that it is helpful when both sides in the conflict request the mediation and the level of violence is lower. The concept of ripeness is implied in Bercovitchs statement about timing. Zartmans concept of ripeness, associated with a mutually hurting stalemate is very powerful, and controversial. Taken fully on board, the idea that a conflict is not ripe for resolution until the parties have reached a mutually hurting stalemate would consign all would-be peacemakers to sitting on the sidelines waiting for the call as warring groups kill one another until that time that they reach sufficiently high levels of pain without hope of prevailing on the battle field. Only then might they be prepared to talk their way to peace. But when has the conflict reached the half-way point? Conflicts wax and wane, they are multi-dimensional, they tend to spill over into neighboring states, and what fuels them are not necessarily only the interests and resources coming from the parties themselves. Virtually every dispute is nested in a complex set of actors, internal variables, and geopolitical pushes and pulls. To be fair, Zartmans concept of a mutually hurting stalemate should not be interpreted over simplistically and thereby consign mediators to passivity when the role of perception is critical. As Touval and Zartman remark: Mediators can manipulate stalemates and crisis: they can use them and they can make them. If there is a recognized impending danger, mediators can use it as a warning and as an unpleasant alternative to a negotiated settlement. And if they (the parties) do not agree that a crisis exists, mediators can work to implant a common perception that it or a mutually hurting stalemate does exist. They go on to note It would be preferable if the need for a ripe moment could be combined with the desirability of treating conflict early, as sought in preventive diplomacy. To do this, mediators need to develop a perception of stalemate at a low level of conflict, or to develop a sense of responsibility on the part of a government to head off an impending conflict, or to develop an awareness of an opportunity for a better outcome made available through mediation. There are few examples, as yet, of mediators using such tactics successfully.  The need for a multi-level, multi-actor approach is indicated by these real-life conditions. That is, efforts can be made to ripen a conflict, inducements to talk can be offered, less formal processes of dialogue designed to move the warring sides to formal peace talks may be required, and force may be used to arrest the violence and to create a window for mediation. It is clear that a strategy of intervention in a violent conflict must consider both diplomatic and military tools. Mediation may therefore accompany the use of force, it may call for peacekeepers to stabilize the environment, or it may include arrangements for peacekeepers to enforce a peace agreement that has been negotiated through mediation. Helpfully, the international community is now more comfortable with UN Chapter VII interventions and is no longer compelled to wait for consent to intervene in serious humanitarian crises; and recent efforts to shift to a policy of responsibility to protect augur well. This does not mean that a peace agreement cannot be mediated without the use of force. Indeed a number have, and some have been accomplished without demanding that the parties themselves agree to a cease fire as a first step. Rather, as Crocker notes A final strategic lesson from past cases of intervention is that the most successful ones were based on understanding the connection between military power and diplomatic strategy. Diplomatic intervention in the realm of peacemaking is seldom effective, unless it either reflects an underlying balance of forces or is backed by certain elements of power and leverage capable of affecting that balance. (Underline added). Hampson helps to clarify the linkages between use of force and diplomacy. In his chapter Why Orphaned Peace Settlements are More Prone to Failure he writes: When should third parties use force to stabilize the political process and bring those elements that are intent on wrecking the peace process into line? There is no easy answer to this question. For each case when third-party force failed to achieve political aims (Somalia) one can also point to instances where, arguably, if force had been used early in the conflict and in a decisive fashion, tragedy might have been prevented (Rwanda).  Military intervention without diplomatic objectives and a means to achieve these is ineffective; and mediation that does not address the root cause of a conflict is likewise ineffective. This applies equally to cases when the cause of violence is said to be the political entrepreneurialism of a leader who activates ethnic identity as a ploy to set one group against others, or to a predatory rebel who likewise puts grievances forward as a guise for purely predacious motives. Sustainability of peace agreements reached by mediation, however, remains a challenge. As Hampson notes: Outside interventions are typically more effective when third parties entrench and institutionalize their role in the peacemaking and peacebuilding process . . .This means that third parties must have enough resources and resolve to remain fully engaged in the negotiation leading up to the settlement and through the subsequent peace-building process. Settlements that fail have generally been orphaned, because third parties either failed to remain fully engaged in implementing the settlement or were unable to muster the requisite level of resources, both economic and political, to build the foundations for a secure settlement.  There is sympathy among those interviewed for the speculation that agreements break down because the mediators failed to have the parties address some of the difficult underlying issues in dispute. The authorities agreed that sometimes mediators will gloss over tough issues in their pursuit of an agreement. For example, an issue such as the role of rebel troops in a new peacetime armed forces may be agreed in principle but important technical details may be deferred, unhelpfully, to the implementation phase. Likewise, important power-sharing arrangements may be given inadequate treatment. More controversial is how crucial to sustainable peace is the issue of deeply held grievances. Specifically, what is the salience to long term peace of healing historical wounds relating to ethnic identity, recognition, and legitimacy in the social and political makeup of a country? What is adequate in addressing them? And if left inadequately addressed, are they a crucial cause of the breakdown of peace agreements? It seems clear that these are a large part of what are generally called the root causes of a conflict, although the manner to address them in a political accord and the way in which healing and reconciliation are to be achieved in any particular case seems to defy general prescriptions. Perhaps because this issue is so deep-seated and personal, it will always require particular remedies. More research is clearly required here. Repeatedly, the authorities emphasized the need for coordinated, comprehensive action by third parties striving to mediate a peace agreement. They also agree that it is imperative that outsiders remain engaged to help make the agreed peace sustainable. Miall, Rathsbotham, and Woodhouse offer a prescription in support of sustainable peace: In line with the necessity of a broad view, conflict resolution should concern itself not only with the issues that divide the main parties, but also with the social, psychological, and political changes that are necessary to address the root causes, the intraparty conflicts that may inhibit acceptance of any settlement, the context that affects the incentives of the parties, and the social and institutional capacity that determines whether a settlement can be made acceptable and workable. In other words, a multitrack approach is necessary, relying on interventions by different actors at different levels. Lund, and Kaplan, and Paris, however, emphasize the vulnerability of war-torn societies that are brought to some degree of stability through outside efforts, when those efforts actually impose unsustainable change on the state. Change itself can overwhelm the peace being constructed. A strong hand executing a political and economic strategy is needed to help stabilize and guide a society to peace. Without that, reversals are quite possible. The cure can set the patient backward. Bercovitch declares that mediation cannot be successful in each and every conflict. Wall, Druckman, and Diehl quoted in Bercovitch, state that seldom is any intense conflict - in peacekeeping or civilian sectors totally resolved by mediation. Rather, it tends to improve; it does not escalate; or it diminishes over the long run.  So, is there a general prescription for effective mediation? Miall, Rathsbotham and Woodhouse are quite specific about the elements of effective mediation, although they note that generalization is treacherous.   SHAPE \* MERGEFORMAT   Enough is known to improve the record of mediated peace agreements. Clearly, however, a piece of paper signed by warring parties and witnessed by the mediator is just the beginning. Long-term, effective post-violence peacebuilding becomes critical to violence reduction. On Post-violence Peacebuilding Lund reports that a number of comparative studies of peace agreements suggest that the record has been quite mixed. Yet his overall conclusion is more optimistic. In addition to noting Hampsons work, reported earlier, he cites the work of Sambanis and Doyle: In the most comprehensive survey of post-conflict peacebuilding, Sambanis and Doyle look at 124 cases of civil war since 1945 to determine how many ended in peace and through what means. . . . they find . . . a success rate of about 43%. That is, in 53 of the124 cases there was an absence of major or lower-level violence, and sovereignty was not contested two years after the end of the war. He summarizes as follows: All in all, the cross-sectional and case study research briefly reviewed above hardly provides a ringing endorsement of the post-conflict peacebuilding done so far, but it does indicate that relatively effective peacebuilding has been implemented and can have positive results, at least in terms of some effectiveness criteria. But it is only under certain conditions, and through applying various powerful means of influence, that peacebuilding can achieve the beginnings of sustainable peace. While the research does not give peacebuilding a high rating, it also shows how and where peacebuilding can get results when done in a strategic way and by consulting guidelines that policy research on similar cases provides. Lund specifies that there is no simple, single blueprint to be applied in all situations, but that there are policy-relevant guidelines. Lunds Framework for Post-violence Peacebuilding Assess the degree of difficulty of the conflict situation on the ground before deciding whether to commit to it, thus setting realistic situation-specific goals. This entails doing solid political, economic, social, and institutional analysis and consultation with relevant stakeholders, on an ongoing basis. Before initiating operations, establish a national plan or strategy that defines and gets agreement on end-goals and clear, explicit, and prioritized interim objectives for achieving them, along with benchmarks for assessing progress. At the same time, maintain flexibility, do contingency planning that looks to revising the strategy, and stay open to innovative risk-taking. Match what can be accomplished to the resources available. For example, UN missions should be clear to the Security Council if their marching orders realistically cannot be implemented. Create policy mechanisms or procedures that ensure that such planning and coordination occurs among the several essential parties, such as the UN, the World Bank, and the national government, and that establishes an optimal but feasible unity of command on the ground. These procedures should involve frequent meetings among these relevant organizations. Avoid donor competition by setting up coordination conferences. Maintain political support from major powers and international coalitions. Establish finite but appropriate periods as the time limits for missions, but expect to be committed for a number of years. Having noted that these guidelines are about process or procedures for planning and decisionmaking (how things are done against what specifically is done in what circumstance) he does indeed offer substantive recommendations; that is, a compilation of what kinds of action should be taken and approximately when during the peace process. The major points provided by Lund are: Generally, get a real ceasefire before tackling other tasks. Specific incentives may be needed initially to entice the most powerful contending political leaders to support the peace process and to dissuade any to become spoilers. But avoid relying solely on negotiating power-sharing and elite compacts as the only means for creating a functioning government and sustaining peace, for their tendency may be to simply divide up a countrys spoils. Support is also needed to strengthen national policies and institutions early on, through establishing a state budget, budget support, civil service policies, and a tax system, so that a functioning sovereign government with financial, legal and administrative institutions can deploy resources to the public and act as a counterpart to the international community. The state apparatus must be strong enough to act as the venue and channels through which potential conflicts are prevented from escalating, even among the victors of a war. Policies and structures are needed to manage a countrys lootable natural resources and major forms of illegal commerce, and controls are needed over humanitarian aid so they do not become used to supply armed movements. There is also a need for some provisional central political decisionmaking structure that constitutes the government and provides leadership, but this entity should include new leaders and be subject to some interim representative process, although elections are not necessarily required. If the parties are not thus motivated, peacekeepers must employ more forceful measures to deter conflict and compel the parties to restrain the use of force. Concentrate resources early into demobilization and inducing armies to transform themselves into political parties and into security sector reform. Substantial resources are needed to ensure civil security and to enforce anticorruption laws and control crime by strengthening the police and judicial system. Consider using police instead of armies as early as possible for maintaining public security. Building up local capacity to monitor gross human rights violations appears to be a particularly cost-effective measure. Look beyond military operations early on to facilitate broader goals such as building institutions and developing human and social capital, such as through revitalizing the organizations and institutions of civil society, many of which have survived the war. Adjust the pace of implementing activities to the capacity of domestic institutions to handle the tasks and the economy to absorb the resources. Surges of outside money can distort the labor market and cause resentments. For example, introduce reconstruction funds gradually if warlords would otherwise capture them. Modulate the aid flow so that too much is not provided in the first years and too little in the later years. Special reserve funds may foster this. Focus resources on reconciling the major contending ethnic or other political groups with competing interests who could be mobilized to collective action. Do not expect economic development to occur quickly. Address the interests of neighboring governments in the conflict country and of diasporas, so they support the peace process, or at least do not subvert it. Empirical research in post-conflict peacebuilding, like research applied to the other phases of political violence, has produced a workable set of procedural and substantive guidelines. The level of knowledge does not amount to detailed prescriptions; indeed, the nature of political violence renders rigid prescriptions impractical. Post-violence peacebuilding, we see, is not about removing conflict from societies and states. It is directed at addressing the root causes of political violence, and assisting societies that are war-torn to build something new. The cycle of conflict does not in reality cycle a full revolution to return to where it began. And resolution of conflict, described as the attainment of the fully felt political and psychological resolve of those matters initially in discord, is a work in progress. A peace agreement that ignores the deep-rooted causes will not be effective in reducing violence. A peace agreement that strives to address those causes and is abandoned in implementation will not be effective in reducing violence. It can be seen that there is notable agreement on causes and responses to political violence. There is less agreement, however, on what is not effective in reducing political violence. 5. WILL ANYONE SAY WHAT IS NOT EFFECTIVE? It is remarkable how difficult it was to have the authorities, even the most hard-nosed among them, declare that a particular conflict resolution activity or technique is not effective. The literature review had raised questions about the effectiveness of certain types of conflict resolution training and informal Track II dialogue processes. Only when I identified these apparently ineffective activities did those interviewed seem prepared to address the issue of what is not effective in reducing political violence. Common perambulatory remarks included assertions that the complex nature of political conflict makes it difficult to draw causal connections: causality is multivariate, there is nothing deterministic about political violence. And evaluation is in a poor state of affairs, so we really cant say with any degree of certainty that a particular activity is not effective. So, I would ask: all these measures, from nonviolent conflict resolution training, to peace camps in the USA where Israeli and Palestinian children meet to learn about one another and overcome negative stereotypes so as to build the basis of peaceful relations, to various unofficial processes of contact and dialogue between people from both sides of a war divide may be effective? The response? They may. Provocatively, I would prompt: they may be, but they may also not be. They may be a waste of time and effort. They may hold out false promises for people caught up in war. Only then were some of the authorities I interviewed prepared to say that they had real questions about some activities, especially various forms of dialogue and conflict resolution training: They questioned the effectiveness of providing nonviolent conflict resolution training to grass roots people in situations of violent political conflict. Structural violence and the actions of belligerents can not be finessed away; these soft skills dont transfer to the war-mongers. This training might help in advance of open hostility when the recipients are likely to have a direct impact on the course of the conflict; and they are certainly necessary skills to provide to people when re-building a war-torn society and developing the capacity in that society to express and resolve conflicts nonviolently. But there are reservations about their effectiveness. Indeed, the Confronting War booklet, written on the basis of numerous case studies and extensive consultation with peacebuilders, makes the strong assertion that conflict resolution tools and techniques that focus on effecting change at the individual/personal level that never translate into socio-political actions turn out simply not to be effective. It is not so much that such activities and programs directed at that level cannot be effective if they have strategic linkages to the socio-political sphere but experience shows that they very often simply sit there, disconnected from that level. They may make some individuals better off (know more, be more thoughtful, be more nonviolent) but they do nothing, at all, to stop overall violence or build peace. The authorities also questioned informal, Track II dialogues that are not more intentionally tied to peace processes involving elites; those which do not have participants who can influence elites are of questionable effectiveness. Again, Confronting War reinforces this criticism. Conflict resolution and peacebuilding practitioners have the techniques for conducting dialogues, doing training in consensus-building processes, establishing peace groups and so-forth, but lack the ability to discern whether and when to provide these services. They do not know how to analyze what is driving the conflict (in any particular context) and then to develop a reasonable, bold and effective strategy that addresses the drivers. When the conversation moved away from efforts to identify specific conflict resolution and peacebuilding techniques that are not effective, the reluctance was gone. The inadequacy of evaluation was treated by the authorities as a given. Instead, with considerable urgency, a number of significant concerns relating to the ineffectiveness of conflict resolution and peacebuilding activities were identified. Significant Concerns: Inadequate Conflict Analysis. The Political Naivety of Conflict Resolution Practitioners. Conflict Resolution Failure to Communicate Effectively. Inadequate Coordination of Effort. Institutional Shortcomings. United States Unilateralism. Failure to conduct adequate conflict analysis, that which one would assume is the peacemakers stock-in-trade, is a shocking shortcoming. That conflict resolution practitioners are politically nave likewise seems counter-intuitive. After all, their job is to reduce political violence. As practitioners whose greatest contributions to peace are negotiation and mediation and nonviolent conflict resolution all of which are anchored in communication skills that these practitioners fail to communicate effectively is also a remarkable shortcoming. If efforts to reduce political violence are ineffective because analysis is inadequate, practitioners are nave, and they do not communicate well, is it little wonder that there is no coordination of effort? That there are institutional shortcomings is not surprising inasmuch as that concern seems to be perennial in almost every field of endeavor. Somehow, policy never gets acted upon the way it should; resources are almost always inadequate; organizational behavior is always peculiar, and so-forth. Yet, ubiquitous as it may be, this concern has been registered as a serious impediment to effectiveness in reducing political violence. So has the present foreign policy of the USA. It is described by a number of authorities as unilateralist, a set-back for the gains made by the field of conflict resolution, and counter-productive to reducing political violence in the world. On balance, poor analysis, inadequate coordination, and a failure to collaborate so that the comparative advantage of various actors engaged in conflict resolution and peacebuilding is maximized may be the greatest impediment to effectiveness. Each of these is addressed in depth in the next chapter, Why What Works, Doesnt. 6. WHY WHAT WORKS, DOESNT 8 Big Concerns The glass of effectiveness, as we have noted, is half full; but it is also half empty. The record is 50/50 a mere pass. Yet I claim there is sufficient knowledge now to improve the record, that the field of conflict resolution has come of age, technically. Scholars, and scholar-practitioners are especially knowledgeable about what should be done by whom, when, and how to prevent political violence, to mediate an end to armed warfare, and to re-build a war-torn society. But that knowledge is underutilized. Indeed, one of the authorities interviewed suggested that theory was running ahead of practice. That is, not even those things that are known to be effective are being given a chance. More advances in theory development is not a pressing concern. On the basis of what is known now, the record of reducing political violence in the world should be better. That is not to say that there is no need for more research and evaluation, theoretical breakthroughs, and a finer grasp of technical competencies. On the contrary, responsible practitioners and any respectable profession will always strive for improvements. In an area as important as mass violence and the pursuit of peace, these challenges are all the more important. Work on them is necessary and honorable. Some identifiable things, however, stand in the way of converting knowledge into effective action. There has to be an explanation for why what works, doesnt. Six major concerns have been identified by those interviewed. These concerns make knowledge of what works to reduce political violence less effective than it should be. I add two more: the nature of the beast, and the wrong objective. I include these here, in my findings, because they were sub-textual in my interviews with the authorities. That is, we talked all around them. I got the point, and have now named them. They are two more significant concerns relating to the effectiveness of efforts to reduce political violence. So these are the Big 8 reasons why what works, doesnt: 1. The nature of the beast; 2. The wrong objective; 3. The Political Naivety of Conflict Resolution Practitioners; 4. Inadequate Conflict Analysis; 5. Conflict Resolutions Failure to Communicate Effectively; 6. Inadequate Coordination of Effort; 7. Institutional Shortcomings; 8. United States Unilateralism. 1. The Nature of the Beast The international state system is anarchic. There is no overarching political authority with enforcement powers. State leaders are responsible for pursuing state interests. In this pursuit, the use of force is their prerogative. Violence is the final arbiter in matters of the state. Furthermore, violence is often glorified; at the very least, many are resigned to it. That there will be another war is never really contested. That is, there is a habit that accepts war as legitimate and there are many people associated with war-making that are viewed as respectable, including weapons manufacturers. In fact, 85% of the weapons trade in the world is conducted by actors from the five permanent member states of the UN Security Council. Those who are responsible for making peace provide the arms to wage war.  The world is also becoming increasingly fragmented and less orderly. The capacity for mass violence has extended beyond the state to rebels who believe that violence is the only means of achieving their objectives, to some predators for whom violence is way of life, and to terrorists for whom violence is their stock in trade. The legitimacy of violence is the nature of the beast. This is my assessment of the biggest obstacle to a significant reduction in political violence. Virtually everyone I interviewed implicitly acknowledged that it is the box within which efforts to reduce political violence must be undertaken. It is a fixed parameter, being chipped away in very tiny bits by those who try to strengthen the UNs enforcement capacity; by those who try to bring rule of law to the jungle of violent political conflict; and by those who strive to transform a global culture of violence into a culture of peace. For now, however, it is reality. The task of reducing political violence is thus considerably surreal. That is, there will be times when the legitimate use of force is necessary to arrest the illegitimate use of it. Although using it illegitimately is embedded within present reality. Under these conditions a clear and focused objective, pursued with deliberate effort, is a paramount requisite for success in reducing the incidence and severity of violence. 2. The Wrong Objective The field is called Conflict Resolution. Conflict, however, is not the enemy. Violence is. The objective of reducing violence is different from the objective of resolving conflict. Furthermore, the notion that all political violence can be addressed by the use of nonviolent means seems preposterous, given the nature of the beast. The legal use of force will be necessary in certain cases. Whether conflict can, or indeed, should be fully resolved is another question. After all, conflict can draw attention to an injustice and to less serious differences of opinion or approach. Resolving the conflict may not even be the appropriate goal. Rather, correcting the injustice or accepting another point of view may be required. My concern is that placing the emphasis on conflict (the conflict cycle, conflict prevention, conflict resolution, and post-conflict peacebuilding) does a disservice to the objective of reducing violence. With an emphasis on conflict, the word violent is an adjective, used to describe a phase of conflict. It should be more helpful to think and talk in terms of violence as a noun. Then the focus would be on preventing violence, stopping violence, and post-violence recovery. Fully mature, peaceful democracies clearly have plenty of conflict in them. But they manage to get through most of the conflict without recourse to violence. They have the means by which conflict is expressed and resolved nonviolently. It follows that building that capacity in all societies is a credible objective. Yet, it should never be forgotten that these states have some form of enforcement, rule of law. Violence is not permitted within them, except by authorized agents of the state. In the international sphere, a focus on conflict its prevention and resolution - makes it easier to say that since all conflict will never be prevented, therefore all violence will never be prevented. This is precisely because violence is twinned with conflict in this context. If the emphasis were placed on violence, rather than conflict, the imperative of interdicting it would become more profound. The obstacles to doing so would become more clear. The