While the UN began engaging in peacekeeping operations soon after its establishment, it was not until 1999 that it took up a comprehensive mandate to build peace, for the first time. The peace building mission to Timor Leste can be seen both as part of a gradual expansion of the peace building mandate and also as a leap into much greater responsibility for creating sustainable peace. 1 Of the many lessons that might be learned from the UN role in Timor Leste , some of them addressed further in the chapters that follow, perhaps the most obvious, yet the most important, is the duration and extent of the UN involvement. The UN had varying levels of involvement from the time the conflict began, in 1975, on through to the crisis of 2006, when it returned to help ensure the survival of the peace that it had helped create. The role varied widely, from providing a platform for discussion during the conflict, to sending in observers to monitor voting in a referendum on independence, to mediation efforts to bring about an end of conflict, to a large and expensive peace building mission after independence, and finally to the return to Timor Leste of a smaller mission to ensure peace. Of particular note, the big budget, full sovereignty, institution-building approach faltered in creating an enduring peace, as conflict soon returned, only to require further efforts. Indeed what stands out here is not the durability of peace, but rather the durability of conflict, ever present, ever threatening, such that it requires continuous management, even in the aftermath of UN best practice peace building.
The development of the UNâs role in peace building has been closely linked to the Asia-Pacific. First in Cambodia , then in Timor, the UN took on greatly expanded mandates. Furthermore, peacekeeping forces for regional missions have been drawn largely from Asia-Pacific nations, including Australia, New Zealand and smaller contingents from East and Southeast Asian nations. Thus, the Asia-Pacific Region, both through its conflicts and its participation in resolving those conflicts and building peace, has held a pivotal role in peace building and more particularly in the focus on creating a more enduring peace. Furthermore, as DeRouen et al. (2009) have noted, conflict in the region tends to be of longer duration and is more difficult to mediate and resolve than in other regions of the world. In addition, they argue, conflicts frequently recur, although on the positive side, each recurrence tends to produce a longer peace. In this volume, we thus set out to explore theories of conflict and peace building, using case studies from the Asia-Pacific Region.
We will argue that in both theory and practice, peace building assumes a contingent approach to conflict, one that assumes that getting state and economic institutions right will create peace. This focus on institutions means that studies of peace building are all too often divorced from the study of the conflict and the conflict resolution that preceded it. And the focus of peace building has been on building institutions, rather than developing mechanisms designed to manage inherent conflict. While this contingent approach has practical advantages when a primary goal is to meet mission parameters and depart as expeditiously as possible, it comes at the expense of creating systems and mechanisms more capable of dealing with future conflict.
In this book, we seek to shift attention to the inherency of conflict, the constant danger of re-emergence and the need to establish mechanisms to resolve it. Thus, we argue that the central focus of peace building should not be state-building per se, nor transformation of a single conflict, but rather the creation of effective mechanisms for peaceful resolution of both past and newly emerging conflicts. To do so, it is important to consider the entire process of creating peace, to consider the linkages between conflict, resolution and post-conflict peace building, rather than focus only on the period of institution-building and conflict transformation. We thus proceed here by considering the nature of conflict, then turn to conflict resolution , before turning to the building and sustaining of an enduring peace. We draw on a range of literature, with a particular debt to the chapters in this book, which helped to provide a shape to the discussion that follows.
Conflict
In an early attempt to summarise the literature on conflict, Harry Eckstein (1980) succinctly outlined some of the central features and theories of conflict, in a way that continues to be crucial to debates on peace building today. Eckstein noted that studies of conflict generally either treat it as contingent , that is to say, as the result of inadequacy, error or misfortune, or as inherent , that is to say conflict is likely or certain to happen at times in any system, and must be managed and prevented (Eckstein 1980: 138â139). For contingent conflict theory, when conflict erupts, it must be because of a failing of institutional structures that had previously proven successful. The failure may be due to an erosion of the efficacy of the structures, or due to changes in the society around the structures, so that they no longer are effective in the new societal context. Thus, the cause, and the solution, can be found in the breakdown of effective institutions, and in restoring effectiveness to those institutions. For inherent conflict theory, potential conflict is always present in any political system. It breaks out when actors see the potential to gain power or resources, judge that the best means to gain that benefit is through conflict, and decide that the benefit is worth the cost of conflict. Thus, the focus is not on institutions and their efficacy, but rather on actors and their calculations. And the means of preventing conflict is to develop methods of conflict management that decrease the costs of discussion, bargaining and negotiation while increasing the costs of conflict. In that way, actors become less likely to choose conflict to achieve their ends. In dividing the literature into these two strands of contingent and inherent models of conflict, Eckstein assigned the âfamilyâ of relative deprivation theories to contingent models, the âfamilyâ of collective action theories to inherent models. We can thus get a better understanding of contingent and inherent approaches by looking more closely at relative deprivation and collective action .
Contingent Conflict and Relative Deprivation Theories. For Eckstein , the central concept in contingent conflict theories is relative deprivation , broadly defined. Relative deprivation comes about when political and economic systems distribute resources in ways that are perceived to be inequitable, a failure of institutional structures. Relative deprivation theories are based most directly on the work of Ted Gurr , Why Men Rebel. For Gurr , conflict is ultimately the result of frustration, which occurs when âvalue capabilitiesâ fail to meet âvalue expectations,â or put more simply, delivery of valued âgoods and conditionsâ does not meet expectations. Frustration, when politicised and with certain additional stimuli, most notably normative and utilitarian justifications, and opportunity, turns to aggression. Eckstein defined relative deprivation quite broadly and added a wide range of theories to this family, including the elite theory of Mosca (The Ruling Class, 1939 [o.d. 1896]) and Pareto (Mind and Society, 1963 [o.d. 1916]), on the grounds that they are concerned with the relative deprivation felt by counter-elites, and Huntington (Political Order in Changing Societies, 1968), in whose model, Eckstein argued, violence comes about when political institutions are unable to meet expectations for participation by new actors in times of rapid change. He also added Wolf (Peasant Wars of the Twentieth Century, 1969), and Johnson (Revolutionary Change, 1966), whose approach, Eckstein argued, is that the system breaks down due to rapid change, leading to frustrations. This focus on systems breaking down when they fail to deliver, creating grievances , has been central to much of the literature, especially on ethnic conflict. Writing many years later, Edward Azar (1986, 1990) focused on grievances as the fundamental cause of ethnic conflict, although he considered both relative deprivation (termed âdistributive injusticeâ) and absolute deprivation. He argued that:
the source of protracted social conflict is the denial of those elements required of all people and societies, and whose pursuit is a compelling need in all. These are security , distinctive identity, social recognition of identity and effective participationâŚthe real source of conflict is the denial of these human needs that are common to all, and whose pursuit is an ontological drive in all. (Azar 1986: 29)
In short, for those whose work falls within the bounds of the contingent conflict model, violence is fundamentally a result of deficiencies in institutions. These deficiencies create grievances , based on a feeling of being deprived of what one deserves, which are politicised by those who become movement leaders. This focus on politicised grievances remained central to some analyses of conflict, especially analyses of ethnic conflict. Esman (1994), for example, in his widely used summary of the literature, Ethnic Politics (pp. 29â30), argued that the positive incentives that form the basis of many inherent conflict theories, on their own, are not sufficient to mobilise a group to conflict. He also contended that relative deprivation alone is insufficient to create mobilisation; only when grievances are escalated to the level where they create serious threats to the ethnic group will members mobilise for the survival of the community .
One last point should be made with regard to contingent conflict theories: such analyses are heavily biased towards preserving the status quo. In characterising conflict as contingent , as the result of an accident or a breakdown, the status quo is made to be the normal and desired state of affairs. Thus, any violence or inequities that already exist in the status quo are essentially accepted as legitimate (Nardin 1980: 461â489). For this reason, it is useful to study not just conflict, but the absence of conflict, to ascertain what violence may exist in an outwardly peaceful system.
Inherent Conflict: Collective Action Theories. Where Eckstein has relative deprivation as the central concept in contingent conflict theories, he sees collective action as the central concept of inherent conflict theories. Inherent conflict theories assume that conflict is a strategy always available to political actors, should they choose to use it. Conflict develops when an actor mobilises others in pursuit of collective gain. Collective action theories are based most directly on the work of Charles Tilly (From Mobilization to Revolution, 1978). For Tilly , argues Eckstein (1980: 147), violence is a strategy employed by competitors for power and resources in the polity, chosen from among other strategies, as a result of a âtactical calculationâ (a rational choice). Violence is thus inherent in all political systems at all times and is a move in a political game. As with relative deprivation , a tactical calculation alone is insufficient, claimed Tilly , and there are additional stimuli needed: for the violence to become collective, actors must develop shared interests, resources and at least some form of network or organisation. An opportunity for success is also essential. Eckstein includes mobilisation theory, political process theory, political contention theory and strategic-interaction theory in this category, noting in particular, the much earlier work of John Stuart Mills and Marx and the work of Hirschman (Exit, Voice, and Loyalty, 1970), who developed the term ârepertoireâ for the range of strategies available to movement leaders, with conflictual strategies forming a part of that repertoire. Where the relative deprivation family of theor...