HOW TO MEDIATE INTRACTABLE CONFLICTS

Effective mediation in intractable cases is about good strategy. Designing a good mediation strategy in any conflict, intractable or not, involves first and foremost conducting a thorough analysis of the history and nature of the conflict: parties, power balances among the parties, issues, positions and interests, sources of leverage, the external context, potential entry points.

Mediated interventions must be attuned to the specific dynamics or phases of conflicts. During the course of a conflict, the nature of the conflict may change in terms of the level of violence, the willingness of affected constituencies to seek a negotiated way out of the conflict, the degree to which perceptions are hardened (or are immutable), the degree to which “external” regional or global players are engaged in the conflict, and the level of weariness of the affected populace with continued violence. Given these changing conditions, different bargaining and negotiation strategies may be called for at different phases or stages of these conflicts. For instance, if a conflict is escalating and shows dangers of spilling over its traditional boundaries, third-party intervention may focus on controlling or preventing the conflict from further escala­tion.

It often takes a special kind of leadership to take advantage of the opportunities that emerge due to a shift in the tectonic plates of the global (or regional) geopolitical system or a change in the local landscape. The search for peace is not an automatic reaction to a change; in fact, there usually is a great resistance to change among the current leaders of the conflict. Consequently, an important role that third parties play is to mentor new leaders and foster the emergence of new elites that are more open to the idea of negotiated settlement. This new leadership may be even more necessary to the implementation stage, as it is very rare that a “struggle politician” can make the transition from military leader to advocate of reconciliation.

At the same time, mediators must continue to work with the existing leadership, helping it to come to terms with the enormous personal, political, and social risks that moving toward peace entails. Ending intractable conflicts demands a quantum leap in terms of leader­ship requirements, both for the warring parties and for the mediator. Here, it is important that a wide range of outside institutions support the mediation process. Tangible support in the form of incentives to the parties to settle— for instance, promises of trade, aid, and other material resources—would be very helpful in these circumstances.

Good mediation strategy also has to be complemented by effective mediation tactics. When a negotiation process has gone stale or reached a dead end, mediators may have to change their negotiating tactics. In these circumstances, mediators typically have to secure new sources of leverage over the parties or change the perceptions about the costs and benefits of those who have become too comfortable with the status quo. They sometimes have to reframe issues and create (or identify) new options for parties who are stuck in a rut.

Creating and implementing a careful plan is essential to the effectiveness of all outside interventions into conflicts, whether they have gone on for years or for just a few months. However, intractable conflicts also require the mediator to deal with the outcomes of the conflict’s duration, especially in cases in which there have been multiple efforts to resolve it. Intractable conflicts suffer from negotiation roadblocks and discredited solu­tions. If parties have engaged in negotiation at various times over a long conflict—as was the case in the North-South conflict in Sudan— it is likely that the parties have considered a variety of possible resolutions. The mediator has to deal with the parties’ assumptions that they already know everything the other side has to offer, and therefore talks are a waste of time. A salient solution to the conflict may no longer be available if it has already been tried on the parties once or more and has become discredited because of its failure to help parties reach a negotiated settlement. Here, the challenge for the mediator is not so much of trying to invent something new as it is to resurrect discredited formulas and/or to keep them alive for the time when the parties are serious about getting back to the negotiating table.

Intractable conflicts tend to take over the societies they affect. They permeate all societal institutions—politics, economics, the media, religion, education—and dominate the political and social discourse. No one escapes from their impact, even in conflicts where the level of violence is low, as was the case in Northern Ireland, or confined to specific areas, as in Sri Lanka. The conflict shapes the way that people see their world and often determines the borders of that world. In any conflict, dealing with the “other,” is always an issue. Enmity, particularly once violence has broken out, is difficult to turn to any other kind of relationship, which is the reason that arriving at reconciliation may take decades. But in the case of intractable conflicts, that enmity enters deep into people’s daily lives. And it is often augmented by isolation, as channels for communication are cut off. The Turkish and Greek Cypriots were cut off from each other for 29 years, until the borders were opened in 2003. Israelis and Palestinians are now separated by a wall. Even in Northern Ireland, where Catholics and Protestants shared territory, they lived in carefully segregated neighborhoods and sent their children to separate schools.

This level of infiltration provides the mediator with a set of challenges that is difficult to meet alone. The mediator is often most effective in creating and nurturing the negotiating space between the warring parties, identifying issues and possible areas of agreement. Reaching out throughout society will take the cooperation of the combatants’ leadership, and will take collaboration among all of the institutions that can play a construc­tive role in changing popular attitudes—civil society, the news media, prominent figures, the arts. In order to reach out to these sectors, mediators in intractable conflicts need to work with third-party institutions that have access to them, like development agencies and international NGOs. These third-party organizations need to work together to form a constituency for peace in the larger society, as discussed by Saunders in this volume, so that if and when political leaders reach a settlement, it is not overturned by a society that has been excluded from the process.