Lawyering Peace

In all but the rarest circumstances, the world's deadly conflicts are ended not through outright victory, but through a series of negotiations. Not all of these negotiations, however, yield a durable peace. To successfully mitigate conflict drivers, the parties in conflict must address a number of puzzles, such as whether and how to share and/or re-establish a state's monopoly of force, reallocate the ownership and management of natural resources, modify the state structure, or provide for a path toward external self-determination. Successfully resolving these puzzles requires the parties to navigate a number of conundrums and make choices and design mechanisms that are appropriate to the particular context of the conflict, and which are most likely to lead to a durable peace. Lawyering Peace aims to help future negotiators build better and more durable peace agreements through a rigorous examination of how other parties have resolved these puzzles and associated conundrums.

The Intractability of Islamist Insurgencies: Islamist Rebels and the Recurrence of Civil War

There is a large research field focusing on the recurrence of civil wars, yet this literature has omitted to seriously consider religious dimensions and ideational features of armed conflicts. To address this gap, we provide the first global study exploring whether, and why, Islamist civil wars—armed conflicts fought over self-proclaimed Islamist aspirations—are more or less likely to recur compared to other conflicts. We argue that civil wars fought over Islamist claims are more likely to relapse because the ideational features of these conflicts increase the uncertainty regarding the capabilities of the warring actors in terms of the extent and nature of transnational support that may be forthcoming, for rebels as well as the government. In line with our argument, we find that Islamist civil wars are significantly less likely to be terminated and more likely to recur once ended. Thus, our results demonstrate that Islamist civil wars represent a particular challenge with regard to the goal of achieving durable peace.

Conditioning Constructs: A Psychological Theory of International Negotiated Cooperation

Political psychology and social constructivism exist in an “ideational alliance” against realism; however, both have overlooked behavioral conditioning, the basis of animal learning. Through six stages situated in international negotiation behaviors, the theory of Conditioning Constructs shows how behavioral conditioning can take parties from specific to diffuse reciprocity, rationalist to constructivist cooperation, and crisis to durable peace. In stages 1, 2 and 3, parties use negotiated agreements to exit prisoner’s dilemmas, continuously reinforce cooperation during agreement implementation, and satiate to rewards as initial implementation finalizes. In stages 4, 5 and 6, parties receive fresh rewards with new negotiations, undergo intermittent reinforcement with periodic agreements thereafter, and finally attribute cooperative behavior to actor constructs. Conditioning Constructs demonstrates that agency is possible in socially constructed structures through willful participation in conditioning through negotiation; and that, while Anatol Rapoport’s tit-for-tat strategy is suited to initial cooperation, intermittent reinforcement better preserves late-stage cooperation.

Arnold J. Toynbee, the Colonial Question, and ‘Peaceful Change’

While most scholarship on appeasement focuses on its later stages in Europe – culminating in the Munich Agreement – policymakers and public intellectuals throughout the early and mid-1930s were exercised by appeasement in a different context. These prominent Britons, concerned by increasing international tensions and conscious of the resentments engendered by having a globe-spanning empire, sought to contrive some way to appease the revisionist powers without betraying their liberal internationalist principles or harming British national interests. At the center of these debates was Arnold J. Toynbee, director of studies at Chatham House. A devoted liberal internationalist, Toynbee was convinced that a durable peace could be built on appeasement in the context of ‘the colonial question’. This version of appeasement claimed that German interests and honour could be satisfied by finding some way to return Germany to Africa as an imperial power. But the debates over ‘the colonial question’ revealed the extent to which British and German conceptions of the issue diverged. They also demonstrated the inability of liberal internationalists to reconcile their commitment to changing an unsatisfactory status quo with their commitment to preventing the forceful revision of that same status quo; ‘peaceful change’ was therefore elusive.

The Facets of Transitional Justice and 'Red Terror' Mass Trials of Derg Officials in Post-1991 Ethiopia: Reassessing its Achievements and Pitfalls

At the end of the state perpetrated largescale violence, two important puzzling questions need to be addressed by post-conflict states. The first one chiefly concern how to ensure accountability or fight impunity, and the second is concerned with how to transform a society wrecked by prolonged conflicts into a durable peace in a non-violent means (Jarstad & Sisk, 2008). One such effort to deal with these questions was implementation of a transitional justice measures which evolved to encompass broader themes in addition to criminal accountability and it has shown a considerable relevance and expansion since the end of Cold War. After the demise of Marxist military junta of Derg regime in 1991, the Transitional Government of Ethiopia attempted to respond to the Derg-era atrocities of Red Terror through the establishment of Special Prosecution Office (SPO) in 1992. Ethiopia’s SPO undertook one of the most extensive criminal investigations after Nuremburg trials by its own resources and domestic tribunals and the mass trials lasted for nearly two decades. However, the assessment about its significance for domestic political transformation and its legacy remained largely untold. The aim of this paper is to make a critical review of available works on the ‘red terror trials’ and reconsider its achievements and pitfalls and to interrogate as to whether it can still provide important lessons for today’s reality. By critically reviewing available literatures and official reports, the paper found that the efforts of Red Terror trials partly succeeded in ending impunity, averting tendency of summary executions and revenge killings, and in eliciting some ‘truths. However, the measure was affected by severe limitations including the adopting the narrower model of transitional justice measures chiefly focusing on criminal prosecutions, and also questioned legitimacy of trials amidst human rights violations by the new regime itself. These limitations coupled with other factors constrained the capacity of the Derg’s Red Terror trials so that it remained short of being translated into a lasting legacy in terms of meaningful political transformation.

Ukraine’s Security Problem: in Search for a solution

Independent Ukraine will soon turn 30, but the country in the heart of Europe cannot boast a predictable and stable security position. The conflict with Russia after the regime change in 2014 proved, that a prolonged conventional war in Europe is still a probability. In order to install a durable peace, the all-European security arrangement shall have no low-profile security positions of those European countries, which do not enjoy membership in military unions. The Cold-war legacy of perception of security as a divisible notion is a contradiction to the idea of security for Europe. As long as there are divergences in the level of security, there would be a temptation to test the opponent’s readiness and strength on the territory of a weaker country. This is what happened in Georgia in 2008 and has been happening in Ukraine since 2014. In search for a solution, a special attention shall be paid to the issues of status and perception of security. For a small power, which is not a member of a military bloc, it is existential to follow an approach of collective security, not collective defence. Perception of security as indivisible supposes prioritising intensive engagement of the UN and the OSCE. Ukraine as a small power shall also enhance its security position through implementation of decent democratic procedures and true market reforms. These measures have a potential to create global economic linkages through integration of Ukraine’s economy to the global capitalist system not as a supplier of raw materials, but on parity basis.

Experiencias psicosociales en la transición hacia la paz profunda en Colombia

The chapters in this book show a reflection on some challenges faced by the psychosociological research with a view to the accompaniment, support and even orientation of the processes and psychosocial dynamics of peace building. It is inspired by the set of works included here, but not based on them exclusively or as a priority; rather, it seeks to offer a set of criteria for critical reflection in a unique historical moment by the advocacy opportunities that open up for the improvement of psychosociological research. In turn, it is expected to encourage new reflective practices that contribute to increase the relevance and pertinence of this type of research, to choose fruitful paths both for the definition of research programs and crucial curricular decisions for the advanced training of new generations of professionals who contribute to the coming years to this fundamental challenge of building real and durable peace in Colombia. The book is a contribution to epistemological, methodological, and ethical reflections at a historical and political crucial time for the country, in which unfortunately the desire for peace in rural Colombia is not materialized yet. But, even during vicissitudes and promises for having a stable and lasting peace, psychosociological knowledge becomes meaningful and more relevant.