Handbook of Peace and Conflict Studies The fields of peace and conflict studies have grown exponentially since their initiation in Scandinavia about a half century ago by Johan Galtung. They have forged a transdisciplinary and professional identity distinct from .
See Full PDF See Full PDFSecuritization Revisited: Contemporary Applications and Insights
The present chapter explores how different forms of conflict management activities fit with, and enhance, our understanding of desecuritization as a concept and process. By addressing escalating conflicts, conflict management activities aim to affect parties’ antagonistic perceptions of each other and of the issues at stake, and thus minimize the potential of a speech act or other securitizing ‘move’ to elicit or perpetuate a security dilemma between the parties. The chapter will also indicate how these adverse perceptions have a tendency to become self-perpetuating when peacemaking, peacebuilding, or peacekeeping efforts fail. The sense of insecurity and lack of trust are the core aspects that any conflict management activity needs to deal with. Irrespective of the point in the conflict cycle in which a certain activity is undertaken – be it peacemaking, peacekeeping, or peacebuilding – the success of conflict management efforts rests on the ability to provide sufficiently credible commitment by external parties, which can take forms of security guarantees, (promises of) implementation assistance and political cover for the parties to perceive the utility of a mutually acceptable peaceful solution to their problem.
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International Mediation as a Distinct Form of Conflict Management
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International Studies Perspectives
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"Purpose: This study examines the mediation exit option, which is one of the most important tactics available to any third party mediator. Design/methodology/approach: We analyze a crucial intermediary channel between the Irish Republican Army (hereafter IRA) and the British government utilizing unique material from the private papers of the intermediary, Brendan Duddy, including diaries that cover periods of intensive communication, extensive interviews with the intermediary and with participants in this communication on both the British Government and Irish Republican sides as well as recently released official papers from the UK National Archives relating to this communication. Findings: The study reveals how the intermediary channel was used in order to get information, how the third party and the primary parties traded in asymmetries of information; and how the intermediary utilized the information advantage to increase the credibility of his threats of termination. Research limitations/implications: The study outlines an avenue for further research on the termination dynamics of mediation. Practical implications: Understanding the conditions for successfully using the exit-option is vital for policy-makers, in particular for peace diplomacy efforts in other context than the Northern Ireland one. Originality/value: We challenge previous explanations for why threats by mediators to call off further mediation attempts are successful and argue that a mediator can use the parties’ informational dependency on him in order to increase his leverage and push the parties towards settlement."
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Soft Power, Bias and Manipulation of International Organizations in International Mediation
The present study challenges three common assumptions of the international mediation literature. First, it challenges the perception that pure or weak mediators are unable to use manipulative and coercive strategies in the mediation process, but can only resort to facilitating the dialogue and at most formulating a proposal on behalf of the disputants. Secondly, it challenges the perception that only resource-based power can be used to manipulate the process and coerce (and direct) the parties toward mutually acceptable solutions. This misconception is based on the assumption that the expansion of the zone of possible agreement, which is mainly attributed to manip-ulative strategies, can be achieved only by the employment of carrots and sticks which are often inaccessible to pure or weak mediators. Lastly, it shows how this type of leverage can also indicate a particular bias that an apparent pure mediator might have: bias of outcome.
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