Competition and Collaboration in Conflict Resolution
TRANSCEND MEMBERS, 22 May 2017
Dr. Olga A. Vorkunova – TRANSCEND Media Service
22 May 2017 – Peace-building is today central for shaping our human conditions, present and future. It may be that the tense political climate after 2014 was not conducive to the type of peace-building action in the international relations. However, there is a lesson to learn: competition in military affairs as well as in conflict resolution tends to thwart peaceful international understanding and confidence and efforts at positive changes of international affairs. Furthermore, it is mistrust and lack of communication which at base generates security fears, impels the arms race and induces the employment of force instead of political measures to peaceful conflict transformation.
International relations and military planning are still dominated by suspicion, mistrust, fear and hostility. The problem facing humanity is to halt and reverse abnormal military tension, the arms race and militarization. Equally urgent is also to put a stop to the proliferation of nuclear weapons and their systems into highly sensitive and conflict-ridden areas: the Middle East, the Persian Gulf, South Asia.
As a general rule, however, competition in conflict resolution as opposed to growing cooperation is detrimental to expedient functioning of peace process in the interests of security, and further steps towards peaceful transformation.
Cooperation of efforts to reach peace in international and domestic affairs serves the advancement of such values as freedom, togetherness, truth, social justice, human rights, participatory democracy and peace among nations.
Leaders in authoritarian states prove more likely to encourage conflicts whenever they face high constraints on their power and possible replacement. For the rulers of states, introducing violence in governance and different variation in the adoption of violence against their opponents, promotion of external war is a logical way out. Policy aimed at increasing tension outside in such states usually focus on promoting nationalism, glory and global mission.
If we are to ensure international relations and establish stable and lasting peace we shall have to initiate a process of moving from competition to cooperation in peace initiatives. Plans need to be elaborated for interfacing of “national interests” logic to the “common interests” logic.
The magnitude of the tasks ahead needs to be measured in historical terms of a transition from war-prone international relations to a non-violent security and peaceful world. Surely, the need to revert to comprehensive cooperation in conflict resolution is greater than ever.
Recent developments on the international scene and especially the abnormal military tension that now dominated Russian-American relations are witnessed about a distinct feature of the cyclical course of international relations.
The issue of cooperation in the effective post-conflict peace-building is explicitly mentioned as a ‘common interest’ for both democratic and “quasi-democratic” states. The imposition of mistrust on peace initiatives from authoritarian states also has fateful consequences both for the international peace-building environment as well as for the conflict dynamics.
Regarding the challenges deriving from extreme violence, including terrorism, wartime violence and migration has a clear interest in ensuring that these common challenges are addressed. Similarly, a Memorandum on the creation of de-escalation areas in Syria signed on May 4 by Russia, Iran and Turkey in Astana also clearly expresses their interest in playing a greater role in conflict transformation and crisis management.
At the same time, this Memorandum intensively relies on the concept of peace-building and dialogue. However, the idea is not of conflict resolution through immediate agreement between political and armed opposition groups, government and Iranian-backed militia allies. Rather, the underlying rationale is creating conditions for humanitarian access, the return of displaced civilians to their homes and the restoration of damaged infrastructure.
Thus, we are most likely to witness an interesting interplay between the two different strategies: competition and cooperation, supported by different groups of stakeholders in the Middle East, in the near future. Certainly, the interfacing between national interests and common interest-driven consideration within Russian, Iranian and Turkish foreign policy-making and the Western coalition is a new phenomenon, particularly with regard to the peace-initiatives in the Middle East. However, the analytical distinction between the ‘competition logic’ and the ‘cooperation logic’ in peace process may be useful for a better conceptualization of contemporary foreign policy making and its outcome in the short and medium term.
Finally, in terms of IR theory, the analytical distinction between ‘competition logic’ versus ‘cooperation logic’ implies that a realist perspective may be useful to analyze particular aspects of peace coalitions rather than military coalitions. There are no incompatible countries; there are incompatible goals of different actors.
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Dr. Olga A. Vorkunova is a senior researcher at the Primakov Institute of World Economy and International Relations, Russian Academy of Sciences. She is the TRANSCEND International regional convener in Russia and CIS and teaches the TRANSCEND approach at the Moscow State University (Lomonosov). Vorkunova is the director of the Center for Development and Peace Studies FORUM and president of the Russian Academy of Peace. She is a member of the International Peace Research Association-IPRA Governing Council and EUPRA Board.
This article originally appeared on Transcend Media Service (TMS) on 22 May 2017.
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