Document Library

Democracy and Deep-Rooted Conflict: Options for Negotiators

Author: P Harris and B Reilly
Date: 1998
Size: 22 pages (116 KB)

Access full text: available online

Summary

How do we get an agreement at the negotiating table that will deliver a sustainable and peaceful outcome to a violent conflict? This handbook, by the International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance (IDEA), offers practical advice to negotiators and politicians to assist them in creating durable solutions to long-term violent conflicts. It suggests that the process of negotiation, and the agreed outcomes, need to be structured so as to maximise the prospects of democracy taking root in the post-conflict period.

The nature of violent conflict has changed in recent decades, both in subject matter and form. There has been a trend away from traditional inter-state conflict and towards intra-state conflict. Whereas most violent conflicts during the twentieth century were between states, most major conflicts during the 1990s took place within states. Whilst the nature of conflicts has shifted, the methods of managing them have changed little.

There cannot be a single design for resolving conflict across a variety of situations. Options are needed for constructing solutions, helping to focus attention on the core issues, providing examples and lessons from other contexts and assisting creativity in solution building. Furthermore:

• Peaceful management of domestic conflicts needs to build sustainable internal political structures, rather than structures designed and implemented by external actors.
• The internal political organisation of a state is more important in managing conflicts today than in the past.
• There is now a greater focus on the role of domestic political actors engaged in a deep-rooted conflict.
• Traditional approaches often fail to address the needs and interests that fuel conflicts, resulting in attempts to impose unsuitable solutions in inappropriate ways.

There is a need for better tools to address the new context of intra-state conflict. The end game of violent conflict is perhaps the most difficult phase of transformation in a difficult process. In that phase, parties need two overall aids:

• An effective and appropriate dialogue process to facilitate their negotiations.
• To negotiate a sustainable settlement by putting in place effective and appropriate democratic structures and political institutions.

Access full text: available online

Source: Harris, P., and Reilly, B., 1998, ‘Overview’ in ‘Democracy and Deep-Rooted Conflict: Options for Negotiators’, International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance, Stockholm
Author: International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance, http://www.idea.int/