1 What is international conflict management?
This chapter provides a cursory review of international conflict management, both as a concept and in application. It begins by introducing a basic operational definition and outlining the historical evolution of conflict management in conjunction with, and as a means for, the provision of collective security. Attention is then directed toward situating the concept in relation to ongoing debates concerning the intellectual position and wider implications of conflict management.
Defining international conflict management
Of all the phenomena ripe for inquiry in the study of international relations, the collective employment of armed violence is undoubtedly the most pervasive and enduring. International conflict is simply a form of social conflict, and bears all the hallmarks thereof. Such conflicts arise from a mutual recognition of competing or incompatible material interests and basic values. Furthermore, most conflicts in the social realm are dynamic rather than static in nature, and evolve in accordance with interactions between and among the aggrieved parties. The particular form of social conflict of concern here (international conflict) is distinguishable from other forms only due to the parties involved. Over the great expanse of human history conflicts have been waged between states, within states, and by NSAs irrespective of states.
Nearly as enduring as conflict are considerations of how third parties can manage, contain, and limit these evolving social conflicts between actors in the international arena. Attempts at conflict management, though not as pervasive (or as widely chronicled) as conflict, are every bit as instrumental and worthy of our attention. This has much to do with the implications of these efforts. Attempts at managing, containing, and limiting the use of armed violence by third parties can have positive, even transformative, outcomes, in the form of order, stability, and even peace. At the same time, ill-conceived, inappropriate, poorly timed, or half-hearted efforts at conflict management can worsen a conflict, generating even more danger, destruction, and death for even more people. Given these two possible trajectories, the real-world stakes associated with international conflict management are clearly high.
What is international conflict management?
As the title suggests, this text is expressly concerned with the practice of conflict management in response to contemporary international conflicts. In that particular context, conflict management is best understood as any effort to control or contain an ongoing conflict between politically motivated actors operating at the state or sub-state level, typically through the involvement of a third party (Burton and Dukes, 1990). Conflict management is centrally concerned with making an ongoing conflict less damaging to the parties directly engaged in it. Conflict management also often originates from a concern on the part of a third party with containing the conflictâs damaging and destabilizing effects to other semi-involved or non-involved parties (horizontal escalation) as well as containing the conflictâs ascent up the ladder of violent goals and implements (vertical escalation). Finally, conflict management operates from the premise that the escalation or intensification of a conflict is not inevitable. Rather, the goal of conflict management is to deny âvictoryâ to the aggressor(s), or perhaps more accurately, to deny the utility of aggression.
Conflict management approaches are those utilized when the prospects for conflict resolution seem far-off, but the dynamics of the conflict demand that something be done to contain it (Von Hippel and Clarke, 1999). In cases where the escalation or intensification of a conflict seems likely in the absence of any overarching governing authority, third parties can stem the tide of escalation or intensification in numerous ways. At the most general level, third parties employ an array of approaches when seeking to manage international conflicts. Two leading scholars of international conflict management have grouped these approaches into four broad categories (Bercovitch and Regan, 2004). These approaches, defined by a mix of actor objectives and means employed, are:
- threat-based (including the use and/or threat of force and other tools to compel other parties);
- deterrence-based (including the use and/or threat of force, and various instruments of coercive diplomacy to deter other parties);
- adjudicatory (including legal, extra-legal, and normative institutions and approaches to craft, and reach legal settlements with other parties); and
- accommodationist (including traditional and non-traditional diplomatic means to broker agreement with other parties).
These categories mirror the ways in which parties to a particular conflict typically approach the dispute at the heart of that conflict. Threat-based and deterrence-based approaches correspond most clearly with the threat and/or use of âhardâ (coercive) power in the pursuit of interest, with the main difference being the objective sought. Adjudicatory approaches rely heavily on the recognition of, and appeal to, a system of norms and rights and a legal architecture arrayed around them. Finally, approaches predicated on accommodation emphasize the utility of âsoftâ (persuasive) power as a means to pursue interests. Each of these approaches, whether in relation to conflict or its management, carries with it different ramifications and consequences, entails different cost, demands different resources, and may succeed (or fail) under different circumstances.
What international conflict management is not
The study of international conflict management can be confusing. A chief source of confusion is the imprecision in the lexicon used to describe various mechanisms for dealing with conflict. Terms such as conflict resolution, termination, transformation, and settlement are sometimes used interchangeably with conflict management (and with one another) by commentators and even scholars. These misrepresentations work against an accurate understanding of what conflict management is (and isnât), while also oversimplifying the wide array of concepts and approaches to containing violence â the fundamental and defining objective of conflict management.
Perhaps the most prominent area for imprecision and, as a result, confusion comes with respect to the relationship between conflict management and conflict resolution. As noted above, conflict management refers to the efforts of third parties in concert with disputants to limit the spread or escalation of a conflict, to minimize suffering, and to create an environment for interaction without resorting to violence. As a result, conflict management is entirely distinct from conflict resolution on a basic conceptual plane. Whereas conflict resolution seeks to promote reconciliation at the basic level of a conflict by resolving the underlying grievances at the heart of a particular dispute to the satisfaction of all parties involved, conflict management remains closer to the surface. As such, conflict management is far less ambitious in its objectives than conflict resolution, which seeks to transform the personal values, cultural practices, and social and political rules and institutions sustaining a conflict.
Conflict management practices and practitioners shy away from such far-reaching endeavors, focusing on containing conflict as a precursor to settling a dispute, rather than full-fledged conflict resolution. Conflict management is therefore far more likely to accept the notion that a particular conflict is too complex, deeply embedded, and intractable to be resolved at a particular juncture. The focal point of conflict management efforts thereby become management of the deleterious effects of a conflict rather than resolution of its underlying causes. Accordingly, the objectives of conflict management, while limited, tend to be feasible and widely applicable.
Conflict management and collective security
Outlining the historical trajectory of international conflict management leading up to the contemporary (post-Cold War) period is a somewhat daunting proposition. Conflict management as defined in this book is a relatively new introduction to international political life. Active efforts by third parties to limit inter- and intra-state conflicts and contain their negative effects are largely, though not exclusively, twentieth-century phenomena. That being said, the underlying impetus behind conflict management is the pursuit of collective security, which has a longer track record worth investigating in order to gain purchase on the emergence of international conflict management (see Box 1.1).
Box 1.1 What is collective security?
Collective security is based on three core ideas: first, that armed aggression is an unacceptable form of international political behavior; second, that an act of aggression directed against any one member in good standing in the international system should be construed as a breach of security and an act of aggression directed against all parties; and third, that the provision of security (including the prevention and reversal of acts of aggression) is the duty of all actors in the international system. To this end, as Baylis (2001:264) points out:
collective security involves a recognition by states that (1) they must renounce the use of military force to alter the status quo, and agree instead to settle their disputes peacefully; (2) they must broaden their conception of the national interest to take account of the interests of the international community as a whole; and (3) they must overcome the fear which dominates world politics and learn to trust one another.
The communitarian strain at the heart of collective security is what distinguishes collective security systems from alliances. Whereas the latter are usually precipitated by a common external threat, they remain self-regarding in both interest and action. Collective security systems, on the other hand, are defined by shared and other-regarding interests and actions, particularly regarding the obligation of all to join in a collective response to aggression and other threats to security.
Conflict management and collective security share a common point of origin in the preservation and observance of certain norms governing the behavior and interactions among states and other actors on the world stage. The most notable of these shared norms is the undesirability of using armed conflict as a means for settling disputes, as well as the appeal of collective responses to limit threats to security and order posed by armed conflict. Given the extent to which the tools of conflict management have been utilized as a means to the end of collective security today, it is worth reviewing the origins and evolution of collective security and its nexus with conflict management at several crucial junctures in history.
Early antecedents
The impetus to manage conflicts and limit their effects is evident even in the tentative collective security arrangements of antiquity. Ancient China was home to some mixed experiments in cooperative leagues of independent states in the seventh and sixth centuries BC, in which limiting warfare and its deleterious effects was a primary objective; the dissolution of these proved a precursor to a long period of bitter warfare. Elements of collective security and conflict management were also present in the Pan-Hellenist leagues of classical Greece. From their origins as military alliances born of convenience, these arrangements evolved to a point where the most powerful actors were entrusted with the responsibility for the maintenance of order, in return for some executive powers and privileges conferred by weaker members of the coalition.
While amassing ever-increasing sums of wealth and power was undoubtedly the chief objective, it is also clear that imperial Rome (as well as some of its chief subordinate units) undertook policing and enforcement action against disloyal subject nations as well as against external enemies in order to maintain Pax Romana. Later, the institutionalized alliances of Renaissance Italy (crafted by the ruling reggimento of Venice, Florence, Bologna, Perugia, Siena, and others beginning in 1415), like the League of Venice (1495) and the wider Holy League arranged by Pope Pius V (1571) that followed, provided mechanisms for harnessing armed conflict for the purposes of the collective (in the latter two cases, for defense against outside enemies) while otherwise attempting to limit its use.
The Concert of Europe
One of the most successful and enduring efforts at creating an inter-state system for the provision of collective security was the Concert of Europe. Strictly speaking, the Concert of Europe describes a period of non-war between the great powers of Europe that entailed from 1815 to 1854. However, the Concert of Europeâs significance and legacy were much broader, as it helped undergird a prevailing order in Europe that persisted for the most part until the Franco-Prussian war of 1870â1871 and the outbreak of World War I in 1914. Said order was defined by a notable and unusually broad conception of self-interest among the great powers, translated primarily into a shared commitment to upholding that order, at least within the immediate (European) theater.
The Concert itself traced its origins to the wake of the Treaties of Westphalia (1648), which cemented the political and legal primacy of the state, and set into motion the wheels of a state-based order predicated on a hierarchy of power and reserving the right of armed force to raison dâetat (âreason of stateâ). Like the Roman empire, the primary incentive of the Concertâs architects (the leading powers of Europe at the outset of the nineteenth century) was the preservation of order so as to allow for the pursuit of self-interest, principally exploitative pursuits outside the continent. Nonetheless, a number of ad hoc enforcement operations designed to contain potential conflicts and other destabilizing events and practices were undertaken by the European great powers, whether singly or jointly. This included campaigns against slave traders and pirates, as well as missions designed to stabilize and pacify peripheral areas such as the Balkans, Lebanon, and Cyprus throughout the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.
The League of Nations
World War I shattered the Concert of Europe both in theory as well as reality, underscoring the problems inherent in basing even the most limited of collective security ventures solely on the self-interest of great powers. One of the most important problems posed by such an arrangement was the under-provision of conflict management in the face of flagrant acts of aggression that undermined international peace and security. Simply, conflict management efforts were only provided when they conferred advantages on one or more of the great powers, and typically in relation to weaker actors. With organized violence remaining a prominent and unrestricted tool of statecraft for use by the dominant actors in the Concert, it was hardly a surprise when the entire system collapsed amidst imperial rivalry and alliance obligations.
The first institutionalized attempt at constructing a collective security system predicated on international conflict management came in the form of the League of Nations in 1919. The massive devastation of World War I served as a chief pretext to the founding of the League, but so too did recognition that the alliance structures canvassing Europe in the years leading up to the war were insufficient for limiting the outbreak, recurrence, or destructive results of conflict so as to preserve any kind of stable and peaceable order. The League sought to remedy this situation by broadening its membership (and by extension, the commitment to conflict management) beyond Europeâs borders.
At this juncture in history, with the introduction of Wilsonâs Fourteen Points following The Hague conventions of 1899 and 1907, the idea that conflict could be managed and its effects limited was ascendant. Accordingly, the practice of conflict management was ascribed to the League of Nations as a core function. This is evident in examining the Leagueâs Covenant, which went so far as to embrace even an early take on peace enforcement (among other approaches to managing conflict) by specifying the possibility of using military force on behalf of the League to uphold the provisions of the Covenant (Article 16.2). Among these provisions were declarations establishing peace and security as a concern to all members of the League (Article 11.1), and defining an act of war by any member of the League as an act of war against all (Article 16.1).
In the early days of the League, it carried out its collective security responsibilities rather effectively, albeit through more limited applications of conflict management. Prominent illustrations include the peacekeeping/policing role granted to deployments of forces to the Saar valley, the âfree cityâ of Danzig, and Upper Silesia. As any student of world history knows, the emergence of more significant challenges to the collective security and conflict management capabilities of the League paved the way for the or...
