Unpacking the Mystery of Mediation in African Peace ... - Swisspeace

Unpacking the Mystery of Mediation in African Peace Processes
Questions, definitions, and structure: The guiding
question of the study is: What can we learn
about mediation 3 in contemporary peace negotiations
4 in Africa? The conflicts we focus on are
violent, armed conflicts, 5 generally on the intranational
level. The text is broken down into four
sections: First, we look at the conflict background
in order to identify key characteristics of the conflict
at hand and key issues during the negotiations.
Second, we examine the outcome of the
peace process, seeking to see how far the peace
agreement was able to reduce violence and deal
with root causes of the conflict. Third, we focus
on the context, because the question of how the
process fits the context is vital to making sense of
mediation. Fourth, we come to the heart of our
study, which examines the mediation process, especially
focusing on the participants in the process
and the mediators in the negotiations. This
structure allows our analysis to proceed from the
3 “Mediation” refers to the support of peace negotiations by a
third party that is acceptable to the conflict actors. “Facilitative
mediation” is understood to refer to a non-directive form of
mediation, where the mediator mainly facilitates the dialog and
helps to bring the parties together. “Formulative Mediation”
entails listening to the parties, and drafting agreements that are
then presented and adapted by the parties. “Manipulative or directive
mediation” concerns two dimensions: on the micro-level
of the mediator, it entails a directive mediation style, where the
mediator is more assertive than in facilitative mediation,
strongly controlling the process and the framework in which it
takes place. Manipulative mediation, on the other hand, also refers
to the role of external parties using sticks and carrots to induce
the parties to the table, to continue with negotiations, and
to implement what they have agreed. While facilitative and
“Formulative Mediation” help the parties to bridge communication
difficulties and find common ground, manipulative mediation
may change the possible agreements through incentives
and disincentives. Beardsley, Kyle C.; Quinn, David M.;
Biswas, Bidisha; Wilkenfeld, Jonathan, “Mediation Style and
Crisis Outcomes,” in Journal of Conflict Resolution, vol. 50, no.
1 (2006), pp. 58–86. Zartman, William, and Saadia Touval.
“International mediation in the post-cold war era”, in: Chester
A. Crocker and Fen Osler Hampson (with Pamela Aall) (eds.)
Managing global chaos, Washington, D.C.: U.S. Institute of
Peace Press (1996). pp. 445-461.
4 “Negotiations” are defined as a process of joint decisionmaking.
For further definitions and a glossary on mediation,
see: UN Peacemaker Website, available (with registration) at:
(http://peacemaker.unlb.org/glossary.php?p=89); Glossary of
the Conflict Research Consortium, University of Colorado, US,
International Online Training Program On Intractable Conflict,
available online at: (http://www.colorado.edu/conflict/peace/glossary.htm).
5 “Armed conflicts” are generally defined as conflicts resulting in
at least 25 deaths per year. For standard definitions of conflict
and conflict data sets, see the homepage of the Uppsala Conflict
Data Program, available at: (http://www.pcr.uu.se/research/UCDP/index.htm).
10
general level to the particular, as well as to work
backwards from the outcome to identify the
process that led to it. The process–context–
outcome triplet follows the conventions of mainstream
mediation literature. 6 We end with some
concluding theses, focusing on what we can do to
support peace processes in Africa.
Conflict Background and Issues
The selected cases highlight the deadly nature of
contemporary conflicts. The numbers of people
killed ranges from hundreds to thousands (Ivory
Coast, North-Mali/North-Niger, Western Sahara,
Central African Republic, Kenya) to the
hundreds of thousands (Burundi, Northern
Uganda, Somalia, Darfur) to the millions
(Congo, Sudan North South civil war). Most
people are not killed in battle, but indirectly due
to famine and diseases that result from the conflict.
In the second Sudan North South war, for
example, some two million people were killed, yet
only a fraction of these casualties were directly attributable
to battlefield deaths. One estimate even
suggests their number to be as low as 55,500. 7
Before the peace agreement and during peace negotiations,
these countries are “fragile states” –
the state has a limited monopoly on violence, basic
security and services are not provided, the
economy is poor or declining, and there are often
widespread human rights violations. If the peace
agreement is successfully implemented, it slowly
brings about a process of development and stabilization.
In a peace process, the conflict parties come together
to negotiate a peace agreement that seeks
to address both the root causes and the manifest
symptoms of the conflict, thereby aiming to end
the violence and achieve sustainable peace. There
may, however, be political or pragmatic reasons
why the peace process or the ensuing agreement
6 See for example: Bercovitch, Jacob, and Allison Houston. “Why
do they do it like this? An analysis of factors influencing mediation
behavior in international conflicts”, In: Journal of Conflict
Resolution, vol. 44 nr. 2 (2000), 170-202.
7 Bethany Lacina and Nils Petter Gleditsch, “Monitoring Trends
in Global Combat: A New Dataset of Battle Deaths,” European
Journal of Population, no. 21 (2005): pp. 145–66, available at:
(http://www.springerlink.com/content/l826g1412943w55w/ful
ltext.pdf).