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Theory Meets Reality:
Negotiation and Mediation in Mali
Sanda Kaufman & Eric Blanchot
Editors’ Note: Do the theories and best practices now widely understood among negotiators actually hold up, when exposed to a culture and setting very different from those in which they originated? The authors track Blanchot’s experiences in a Francophone African country, and find evidence that when given such a cultural stress test, some of our field’s most cherished theories do not help. It is even possible that standard approaches and remedies, applied in the wrong place, may cause active harm.
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It is both naïve and arrogant, and often a recipe for failure, to rely almost exclusively on the views of those who flatter us and appear to most resemble ourselves.
Lakhdar Brahimi and Salman Ahmed (2008)
-----
In The Better Angels of Our Nature, Steven Pinker (2011) claimed that humanity is on a long-term path of decreasing violence, as measured (using historical data) by the number of victims of violent conflicts relative to the size of the affected populations. Counterintuitively, by this measure even the 20th century’s two world wars do not buck this trend. However, as journalists know, numbers impact our perceptions far less than stories of individual suffering.1 Moreover, war images from around the world make vivid to news watchers almost in real time the suffering of victims in conflicts far away,2 who would be surprised by Pinker’s contention.
The United Nations (UN), various countries and NGOs intervene as peace and reconciliation brokers (as well as for political and economic reasons) in inter- and intra-state, ethnic, tribal and other conflicts around the world (e.g., Bercovitch 1991; Bertram 1995; Fowler 1999; Bersagel 2008). They justify to their publics the considerable expenditures in terms of stopping the suffering of innocent victims of violence. They are guided by beliefs about what is right and what works to achieve peace. One such belief is that all disputes can and should be resolved only through negotiations, as UN leaders, Western diplomats, and the media frequently assert. However, even a cursory glance at history from its dawn to our times fails to find evidence for this broadly-held belief.3 Rather, until the recent past, negotiations were held after one side had prevailed in armed conflict.
Nevertheless, Western countries are placing their resources where their belief is (see e.g. Heldt and Wallenstein 2011). They attempt to stop armed conflicts before a victor emerges, and then encourage and assist truce or peace negotiations, undaunted by the typically brief respites thus obtained.
Interventions follow guidelines (e.g., UN Guidance for Effective Mediation) which closely track negotiation theory prescriptions and best practices developed mostly in the United States. These are taught in mediation training. Interveners—mediators, facilitators and advisers—bring these prescriptions along with their experience to countries in crisis. They are expected to train feuding parties and help them become effective negotiators on their own behalf to conclude peace accords. However, when the theoretical rubber hits the practice road, stakeholders and interveners encounter difficulties which, we argue, stem at least partly from differences between the contexts in which the theories evolved and where prescriptions are applied.
Reliably generalizable negotiation theory statements and prescriptions are few. One that should have pride of place is that context matters. In seeming contradiction, the further removed we are from a specific conflict, the more we can discern how theoretical prescriptions apply to it, perhaps more broadly than we would expect. The closer we look, however—as observers or interveners on the ground—the more the ge....
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For full contents please purchase The Negotiator’s Desk Reference.
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References
Abreu, A. 2004. Enhancing Women’s Participation in Electoral Processes in Post-Conflict Countries Experiences from Mozambique. Glen Cove, New York: United Nations Office of the Special Adviser on Gender Issues and Advancement of Women (OSAGI). Available online at http://www.un.org/womenwatch/osagi/meetings/2004/EGMelectoral/EP4-Abreu.PDF.
Bacow, L. S. and M. Wheeler. 2013. Environmental Dispute Resolution. New York: Springer Science & Business Media.
Beber, B. 2010. The (non-) efficacy of multi-party mediation in wars since 1990. Essay written at New York University, August 15. Available online at http://www.operationspaix.net/DATA/DOCUMENT/4628~v~The__Non-_Efficacy_of_Multi-Party_Mediation_in_Wars_Since_1990.pdf.
Bertram, E. 1995. Reinventing Governments: The Promise and Perils of United Nations Peace Building. Journal of Conflict Resolution 39(3): 387-418.
Bercovitch, J. 1991. International mediation and dispute settlement: Evaluating the conditions for successful mediation. Negotiation Journal 7(1): 17-30.
Bersagel, A. G. 2008. Multi-Party Mediation in Intrastate Conflicts: The Norwegian Model in Practice. (Master Thesis). Oslo, Norway: University of Oslo.
Böhmelt, T. 2011. Disaggregating Mediations: The Impact of Multiparty Mediation. British Journal of Political Science 41: 859-881.
Brahimi, L. and S. Ahmed. 2008. In Pursuit of Sustainable Peace: The Seven Deadly Sins of Mediation. Annual Review of Global Peace Operations, 2008: 9-19.
Crocker, C. A., F. O. Hampson and P. Aall (eds). 2005. Grasping the Nettle: Analyzing Cases of Intractable Conflict. Washington, DC: US Institute of Peace Press.
Crocker, C. A., F. O. Hampson and P. Aall (eds). 2001. Turbulent Peace: The Challenges of Managing International Conflict. Washington, DC: United States Institute of Peace Press.
Fowler, M. M. R. 1999. The Increasingly Complicated World of International Mediation. In Herding Cats: Multiparty Mediation in a Complex World, edited by C. A. Crocker, F. O. Hampson and P. Aall et al. eds. Washington, DC: United States Institute of Peace Press.
Heldt, B. and P. Wallensteen. 2011. Peacekeeping Operations: Global Patterns of Intervention and Success, 1948-2004. Sweden: Folke Bernadotte Academy. Available at SSRN 1899505.
Jones, D. M. 1994. Balancing and Bandwagoning in Militarized Interstate Disputes. In Reconstructing Realpolitik, edited by F. W. Wayman and P. F. Dieh. Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press.
Keita, K. 1998. Conflict and Conflict Resolution in the Sahel: The Tuareg Insurgency in Mali. Small Wars & Insurgencies 9(3): 102-128.
Krings, T. 1995. Marginalization and Revolt among the Tuareg in Mali and Niger. GeoJournal 36(1): 57-63.
Lake, D. A. and D. Rothchild. 1996. Containing Fear: The Origins and Management of Ethnic Conflict. International Security 21(2): 41-75.
Lax, D. A. and J. K. Sebenius. 2006. 3d Negotiation: Powerful Tools to Change the Game in your Most Important Deals. Watertown, MA: Harvard Business Review Press.
Manning, P. 2010. The African Diaspora: A History Through Culture. New York: Columbia University Press.
Massey, S., O. Furley and R. May 2006. Multiparty Mediation in the Guinea-Bissau Civil War. Ending Africa’s Civil Wars: Progressing to Peace: 83-98.
Nathan, L. 1999. ‘When Push Comes to Shove’: The Failure of International Mediation in African Civil Wars: Occasional Paper. Track Two 8 #2. Available online at http://reference.sabinet.co.za/sa_epublication_article/track2_v8_n2_a1., last visited on 11.16.2015.
Nicolaisen, J. 1963. Ecology and Culture of the Pastoral Tuareg: With Particular Reference to the Tuareg of Ahaggar and Ayr. Copenhagen: National Museum of Copenhagen.
Nilsson, D. 2006. In the Shadow of Settlement: Multiple Rebel Groups and Precarious Peace. Uppsala, Sweden: Uppsala University.
Nilsson, D. 2008. Partial Peace: Rebel Groups Inside and Outside of Civil War Settlements. Journal of Peace Research 45(4): 479-495.
Nilsson, D. 2010. Turning Weakness into Strength: Military Capabilities, Multiple Rebel Groups and Negotiated Settlements. Conflict Management and Peace Science 27(3): 253-271.
Pinker, S. 2011. The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence has Declined. London, United Kingdom: Penguin Books.
Rasmussen, S. J. 1999. The Slave Narrative in Life History and Myth, and Problems of Ethnographic Representation of the Tuareg Cultural Predicament. Ethnohistory 46(1): 67-108.
Reilly, B., P. Nordlund and E. Newman. 2008. Political Parties in Conflict-Prone Societies: Encouraging Inclusive Politics and Democratic Development. Policy Brief 2: 1-7. Available online at http://archive.unu.edu/publications/briefs/policy-briefs/2008/pb02-08.pdf.
Salih, M. A. M and P. Norlund. 2007. Political Parties in Africa: Challenges for Sustained Multiparty Democracy. Sweden: International IDEAA. Available online at http://www.oozebap.org/biblio/pdf/Africa_report_inlay_final.pdf.
Sebenius, J. K. 2013. Level Two Negotiations: Helping the Other Side Meet Its ‘Behind?the?Table’ Challenges. Negotiation Journal 29(1): 7-21.
Seely, J. C. 2001. A Political Analysis of Decentralisation: Coopting the Tuareg Threat in Mali. The Journal of Modern African Studies 39(3): 499-524.
Susskind, L., R. Mnookin, L. Rozdeiczer and B. Fuller. 2005. What We have Learned about Teaching Multiparty Negotiation. Negotiation Journal 21: 395-408.
United Nations Guidance for Effective Mediation. Available online at http://www.c-r.org/downloads/UN%20Guidance%20for%20Effective%20Mediation.pdf.
Wallensteen, P. 2011. Understanding Conflict Resolution: War, Peace and the Global System. Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE Publications Inc.
Wallensteen, P. and M. Sollenberg. 1995. After the Cold War: Emerging Patterns of Conflict 1989-94. Journal of Peace Research 32(3): 345-360.
Wanis-St. John, J. A. and D. Kew. 2008. Civil Society and Peace Negotiations: Confronting Exclusion. International Negotiation 13: 11-36.
Watkins, M. 1999. Negotiating in a Complex World. Negotiation Journal 15(3): 245-270.
-----
It is both naïve and arrogant, and often a recipe for failure, to rely almost exclusively on the views of those who flatter us and appear to most resemble ourselves.
Lakhdar Brahimi and Salman Ahmed (2008)
-----
In The Better Angels of Our Nature, Steven Pinker (2011) claimed that humanity is on a long-term path of decreasing violence, as measured (using historical data) by the number of victims of violent conflicts relative to the size of the affected populations. Counterintuitively, by this measure even the 20th century’s two world wars do not buck this trend. However, as journalists know, numbers impact our perceptions far less than stories of individual suffering.1 Moreover, war images from around the world make vivid to news watchers almost in real time the suffering of victims in conflicts far away,2 who would be surprised by Pinker’s contention.
The United Nations (UN), various countries and NGOs intervene as peace and reconciliation brokers (as well as for political and economic reasons) in inter- and intra-state, ethnic, tribal and other conflicts around the world (e.g., Bercovitch 1991; Bertram 1995; Fowler 1999; Bersagel 2008). They justify to their publics the considerable expenditures in terms of stopping the suffering of innocent victims of violence. They are guided by beliefs about what is right and what works to achieve peace. One such belief is that all disputes can and should be resolved only through negotiations, as UN leaders, Western diplomats, and the media frequently assert. However, even a cursory glance at history from its dawn to our times fails to find evidence for this broadly-held belief.3 Rather, until the recent past, negotiations were held after one side had prevailed in armed conflict.
Nevertheless, Western countries are placing their resources where their belief is (see e.g. Heldt and Wallenstein 2011). They attempt to stop armed conflicts before a victor emerges, and then encourage and assist truce or peace negotiations, undaunted by the typically brief respites thus obtained.
Interventions follow guidelines (e.g., UN Guidance for Effective Mediation) which closely track negotiation theory prescriptions and best practices developed mostly in the United States. These are taught in mediation training. Interveners—mediators, facilitators and advisers—bring these prescriptions along with their experience to countries in crisis. They are expected to train feuding parties and help them become effective negotiators on their own behalf to conclude peace accords. However, when the theoretical rubber hits the practice road, stakeholders and interveners encounter difficulties which, we argue, stem at least partly from differences between the contexts in which the theories evolved and where prescriptions are applied.
Reliably generalizable negotiation theory statements and prescriptions are few. One that should have pride of place is that context matters. In seeming contradiction, the further removed we are from a specific conflict, the more we can discern how theoretical prescriptions apply to it, perhaps more broadly than we would expect. The closer we look, however—as observers or interveners on the ground—the more the ge....
----
For full contents please purchase The Negotiator’s Desk Reference.
----
References
Abreu, A. 2004. Enhancing Women’s Participation in Electoral Processes in Post-Conflict Countries Experiences from Mozambique. Glen Cove, New York: United Nations Office of the Special Adviser on Gender Issues and Advancement of Women (OSAGI). Available online at http://www.un.org/womenwatch/osagi/meetings/2004/EGMelectoral/EP4-Abreu.PDF.
Bacow, L. S. and M. Wheeler. 2013. Environmental Dispute Resolution. New York: Springer Science & Business Media.
Beber, B. 2010. The (non-) efficacy of multi-party mediation in wars since 1990. Essay written at New York University, August 15. Available online at http://www.operationspaix.net/DATA/DOCUMENT/4628~v~The__Non-_Efficacy_of_Multi-Party_Mediation_in_Wars_Since_1990.pdf.
Bertram, E. 1995. Reinventing Governments: The Promise and Perils of United Nations Peace Building. Journal of Conflict Resolution 39(3): 387-418.
Bercovitch, J. 1991. International mediation and dispute settlement: Evaluating the conditions for successful mediation. Negotiation Journal 7(1): 17-30.
Bersagel, A. G. 2008. Multi-Party Mediation in Intrastate Conflicts: The Norwegian Model in Practice. (Master Thesis). Oslo, Norway: University of Oslo.
Böhmelt, T. 2011. Disaggregating Mediations: The Impact of Multiparty Mediation. British Journal of Political Science 41: 859-881.
Brahimi, L. and S. Ahmed. 2008. In Pursuit of Sustainable Peace: The Seven Deadly Sins of Mediation. Annual Review of Global Peace Operations, 2008: 9-19.
Crocker, C. A., F. O. Hampson and P. Aall (eds). 2005. Grasping the Nettle: Analyzing Cases of Intractable Conflict. Washington, DC: US Institute of Peace Press.
Crocker, C. A., F. O. Hampson and P. Aall (eds). 2001. Turbulent Peace: The Challenges of Managing International Conflict. Washington, DC: United States Institute of Peace Press.
Fowler, M. M. R. 1999. The Increasingly Complicated World of International Mediation. In Herding Cats: Multiparty Mediation in a Complex World, edited by C. A. Crocker, F. O. Hampson and P. Aall et al. eds. Washington, DC: United States Institute of Peace Press.
Heldt, B. and P. Wallensteen. 2011. Peacekeeping Operations: Global Patterns of Intervention and Success, 1948-2004. Sweden: Folke Bernadotte Academy. Available at SSRN 1899505.
Jones, D. M. 1994. Balancing and Bandwagoning in Militarized Interstate Disputes. In Reconstructing Realpolitik, edited by F. W. Wayman and P. F. Dieh. Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press.
Keita, K. 1998. Conflict and Conflict Resolution in the Sahel: The Tuareg Insurgency in Mali. Small Wars & Insurgencies 9(3): 102-128.
Krings, T. 1995. Marginalization and Revolt among the Tuareg in Mali and Niger. GeoJournal 36(1): 57-63.
Lake, D. A. and D. Rothchild. 1996. Containing Fear: The Origins and Management of Ethnic Conflict. International Security 21(2): 41-75.
Lax, D. A. and J. K. Sebenius. 2006. 3d Negotiation: Powerful Tools to Change the Game in your Most Important Deals. Watertown, MA: Harvard Business Review Press.
Manning, P. 2010. The African Diaspora: A History Through Culture. New York: Columbia University Press.
Massey, S., O. Furley and R. May 2006. Multiparty Mediation in the Guinea-Bissau Civil War. Ending Africa’s Civil Wars: Progressing to Peace: 83-98.
Nathan, L. 1999. ‘When Push Comes to Shove’: The Failure of International Mediation in African Civil Wars: Occasional Paper. Track Two 8 #2. Available online at http://reference.sabinet.co.za/sa_epublication_article/track2_v8_n2_a1., last visited on 11.16.2015.
Nicolaisen, J. 1963. Ecology and Culture of the Pastoral Tuareg: With Particular Reference to the Tuareg of Ahaggar and Ayr. Copenhagen: National Museum of Copenhagen.
Nilsson, D. 2006. In the Shadow of Settlement: Multiple Rebel Groups and Precarious Peace. Uppsala, Sweden: Uppsala University.
Nilsson, D. 2008. Partial Peace: Rebel Groups Inside and Outside of Civil War Settlements. Journal of Peace Research 45(4): 479-495.
Nilsson, D. 2010. Turning Weakness into Strength: Military Capabilities, Multiple Rebel Groups and Negotiated Settlements. Conflict Management and Peace Science 27(3): 253-271.
Pinker, S. 2011. The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence has Declined. London, United Kingdom: Penguin Books.
Rasmussen, S. J. 1999. The Slave Narrative in Life History and Myth, and Problems of Ethnographic Representation of the Tuareg Cultural Predicament. Ethnohistory 46(1): 67-108.
Reilly, B., P. Nordlund and E. Newman. 2008. Political Parties in Conflict-Prone Societies: Encouraging Inclusive Politics and Democratic Development. Policy Brief 2: 1-7. Available online at http://archive.unu.edu/publications/briefs/policy-briefs/2008/pb02-08.pdf.
Salih, M. A. M and P. Norlund. 2007. Political Parties in Africa: Challenges for Sustained Multiparty Democracy. Sweden: International IDEAA. Available online at http://www.oozebap.org/biblio/pdf/Africa_report_inlay_final.pdf.
Sebenius, J. K. 2013. Level Two Negotiations: Helping the Other Side Meet Its ‘Behind?the?Table’ Challenges. Negotiation Journal 29(1): 7-21.
Seely, J. C. 2001. A Political Analysis of Decentralisation: Coopting the Tuareg Threat in Mali. The Journal of Modern African Studies 39(3): 499-524.
Susskind, L., R. Mnookin, L. Rozdeiczer and B. Fuller. 2005. What We have Learned about Teaching Multiparty Negotiation. Negotiation Journal 21: 395-408.
United Nations Guidance for Effective Mediation. Available online at http://www.c-r.org/downloads/UN%20Guidance%20for%20Effective%20Mediation.pdf.
Wallensteen, P. 2011. Understanding Conflict Resolution: War, Peace and the Global System. Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE Publications Inc.
Wallensteen, P. and M. Sollenberg. 1995. After the Cold War: Emerging Patterns of Conflict 1989-94. Journal of Peace Research 32(3): 345-360.
Wanis-St. John, J. A. and D. Kew. 2008. Civil Society and Peace Negotiations: Confronting Exclusion. International Negotiation 13: 11-36.
Watkins, M. 1999. Negotiating in a Complex World. Negotiation Journal 15(3): 245-270.