Step 3
Design the Process
Track II peacemaking includes a vast array of processes, any number of which can be useful in different situations. Several are most commonly used as a preliminary to track I peacemaking. These include training, intergroup dialogues, interactive conflict resolution (also called problem-solving workshops), and public peace and tolerance education. These processes are also often useful if they are undertaken simultaneously with track I negotiations as they can help bring broader segments of society into alignment with those efforts.
Track II actors can also sometimes help track I actors surmount obstacles. For instance, track II can provide needed training to some track I participants who do not have the necessary skil s or knowledge to negotiate effectively.
In the process of drawing up a new constitution in Iraq after the American invasion, U.S. officials knew from participating in UN meetings that Sunni leaders were opposed to a federal system. The Americans suspected, however, that the Sunnis did not ful y understand the concept of federalism. U.S. officials therefore initiated a series of dialogues to discuss what a federal system in Iraq might mean in practice and how it could be implemented. This learning process helped pave the way for more successful negotiations.
Participants in dialogues or problem-solving workshops can develop new approaches to sticking points that can then be integrated into the track I negotiations. This happened a lot in the Tajik “sustained dialogue” (see the feature box “Circum-negotiation” on page 21). It also happened in the talks that led to the Oslo Accords between Israel and the Palestinians—though it is argued in that case that, for the Oslo Accords to have been successful y implemented, much more such work was needed to pave the way for their acceptance. When continued after the culmination of a track I negotiation effort, similar processes can be used to hammer out remaining disputes and build support for the agreement among the general public and among mid-level leaders who were not involved in the official negotiations.
Choose the Best Process
The choice of process is dependent on a number of factors, the most important of which are the needs that one has identified, together with one’s knowledge, availability, resources, and skil s. Care must be taken to become involved only in interventions in which one has
➤ the skil s and cultural knowledge necessary to provide the needed activity competently;
➤ sufficient knowledge about the culture to discern what processes and approaches are likely to be relevant and appropriate;
➤ the resources needed to do the work; and
➤ an indication that local people will be receptive to your efforts, such as a local request for help, an indication of local interest, or signs of willingness among local actors to col aborate in your efforts.
If all these criteria are met, then track II intervenors typical y choose among the following options: training, dialogue, interactive conflict resolution, public peace education, and joint projects.
Training
Training is a short-term process that teaches participants about new approaches to their conflict and/or about conflict resolution more general y. It can take place in a wide variety of settings, for diverse purposes, and with different audiences.
A common form of intervention, training helps people learn the skil s they will need to
➤ analyze their conflict effectively;
➤ identify their underlying relationships, interests, values, and needs;
➤ identify ways to improve their relationships and obtain their interests and needs while supporting their own values—through processes such as negotiation, mediation, and interactive problem solving;
➤ assess the benefits and costs of each approach;
➤ implement the chosen approach or approaches (e.g., by acquiring
effective negotiation skil s); and
➤ evaluate—and fine tune—the approaches implemented.
If the training brings together participants from both (or all) sides of a conflict, the training may resemble a problem-solving workshop. If the training involves both sides but focuses on psychological issues, it may resemble an intergroup dialogue or trauma-healing program (though such dialogues and programs tend to pay less attention to specific outcomes than a training would).
If only one side is present, the intervention remains more clearly a training, but it can have positive effects on the conflict overall if one side becomes more skilled in (and/or more willing to engage in) negotiating or relationship building after taking the training. Like so many other interventions, however, scale is often a major issue—how will training a few people have a greater, society-wide impact?
One response to this question is to adopt a “train-the-trainer” approach in which experts (either outsiders or local experts) train others to become conflict resolution trainers (or facilitators, mediators, etc.). These kinds of trainings will look very different, depending on whether the trainer adopts a prescriptive or an elicitive approach. In the prescriptive approach, the trainer’s goal is to provide a particular approach to the topic (be it conflict analysis, negotiation, mediation, or dialogue)—a recipe, in essence, or a set of steps to be followed. In elicitive trainings, the trainer takes more of a back seat—asking questions to draw out the participants’ own knowledge, but letting them take the lead to design their own training and allowing (and encouraging) them to develop their own approaches to their problems as much as possible.
The timing and location of the training and the identity of the trainers will also have a substantial impact on the conduct and consequences of the training. Training done very quickly (say, in a session lasting one day or one week) by outside trainers who come in quickly, deliver “canned” knowledge, and then leave shortly thereafter may be evaluated well by the participants but is unlikely to have a lasting impact because participants will promptly revert to their previous practices. When training is done by people who have been involved in the conflict locale (as either insiders or visitors) for some time, however, the trainers are more likely to understand the complexities and nuances of the conflict history and current situation, as well as the local culture. This enables them to design a training that is both substantively and emotional y appropriate for the participants.
Training that is spread out over a long period of time—or has opportunities for “refreshers”—is also likely to be more effective than a one-time event. When people are exposed to ideas quickly and then sent back to their normal routines, they find it difficult to implement new behaviors for long. The pressure of time, habitual responses, and social pressure tend to cause people to revert to their old approaches. But if one goes “home,” tries to implement new ideas, and then comes back to the training to discuss what happened with the trainers and other trainees, effective behavioral change over the longer term is much more likely to occur.
Outsiders who cannot be present in the training location for a significant period of time should consider partnering with a local person or organization. Locals can help outside trainers design the training so that it is cultural y appropriate and it addresses the actual needs and situation on the ground. Locals can also be present as advisers after the training to answer follow-up questions and maintain an ongoing dialogue or network with participants from past trainings.
Dialogue
The term “dialogue” is used in many different ways, but in the peacemaking context it general y means bringing conflicted parties together with a facilitator to improve interpersonal relationships, understandings, and trust, and sometimes (but not always) to engage in an analysis of the conflict situation and potential paths toward its transformation or resolution. The primary goal of dialogue is to improve relationships, not to negotiate a settlement or a peace agreement.
Some dialogues are one-time events, while others are long-term efforts that involve a series of meetings spread over months, years, or even decades.
An early, well-known example of what has come to be known as “sustained dialogue” was the U.S.-Soviet Dartmouth Conference which brought together American and Soviet citizens for informal discussions annual y for more than thirty years of the Cold War. The participants were not serving government officials, but most had close ties to their governments or were otherwise influential members of their societies. By breaking down mistrust and encouraging the exchange of opinions, information, and ideas that were fed into track I Soviet-American negotiations, the Dartmouth Conference contributed to several policy breakthroughs in fields such as arms control.12 The Dartmouth Conference also gave birth to some very successful spin-off activities, including the Inter-Tajikistan Dialogue that began in 1993 during the very deadly Tajik civil war. This track II effort paral eled the track I process, was instrumental in bringing the war to an end, and continued after the peace agreement was signed to assist with implementation.
A sustained dialogue or “public peace process” first invites participants to explore the nature of their relationship, then helps them work to improve that relationship, and final y—in some cases—moves them into a process of problem solving of their substantive differences.
Interactive Conflict Resolution
Interactive conflict resolution (ICR)—also cal ed “control ed communication,” “analytical problem solving,” and “problem-solving workshops,” among other terms—consists of small group discussions between mid- or relatively high-level unofficial representatives of conflicting parties that are involved in long-lasting, destructive identity conflicts. The workshops are facilitated by “scholar-practitioners”—academics who have one foot in academia and the other in practice. Hence, they have a deep understanding not only of conflict dynamics and processes in general but also of the people and issues involved in the particular conflict. They also have a solid knowledge of and capability with facilitation processes, which makes them effective at moving the parties from an initial very hostile and guarded stance toward each other and the issues, to a more open, col aborative, and creative approach that al ows for the development of innovative solutions to mutual problems.
Most ICR practitioners see scale-up (or “transfer”)13 as the key goal of this process. While it is wel documented that ICR workshops like dialogues help break down intergroup hostility and stereotypes, improve interpersonal relationships, and foster improved interpersonal understanding among the participants themselves, this is not the ultimate goal of these workshops. Rather, the ultimate goal is to transfer that change into the track I process so that it has a much broader, society-wide effect.
Transfer can take place in three ways:
➤ Influential participants such as writers and journalists, scholars, church and community group leaders, and activists can directly present ideas that come out of the workshops to their larger constituencies, students, followers, and readers. They can also present these ideas to intermediary organizations such as research and policy institutes and think tanks, which can develop and disseminate the ideas further.
➤ Some ICR participants serve as advisers to individuals engaged in track I negotiations. As such, they can insert ideas and suggest changes in outlook developed in the ICR process to those engaged in the track I process.
➤ Some ICR participants themselves go on to become representatives in the track I process, and can thereby bring the ideas and thought processes into the track I discussions even more directly than an adviser could do. Thus, unlike dialogues, which often do not have transfer mechanisms built into their process, scale-up is an inherent part of ICR, indeed, its primary goal.
Despite the difference in their ultimate goals, many of the procedural elements of dialogue and ICR are very similar, though ICR usual y focuses more on scholarly conflict analysis and identification of underlying needs and interests—at least at the beginning. (Once such topics are covered, workshops may move into more traditional negotiation or problem- solving efforts.) Also, ICR is general y carried out in a series of workshops, not just one. Dialogue may be sequential, though one-time events are not uncommon. Each ICR workshop usual y runs three to seven days, and workshops tend to be held several times a year. Like dialogues, ICR workshops are usual y held in neutral, informal settings—often a quiet university campus or a retreat where the participants can relax yet focus intensely on the people and the task at hand without interruptions.
ICR processes tend to work best in identity-based conflicts where major interests and needs, such as identity and security, are at stake; where disputants see integration, not separation, as their goal; and where asymmetries of power between the parties are relatively modest.14
However, ICR has been effective in situations that do not match these criteria. It has, for instance, been used extensively in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
A leader of this effort has been Harvard professor of social psychology Herbert Kelman. Kelman’s first ICR, or “problem-solving workshop” as he cal ed them, was held between Israelis and Palestinians in 1971. This was fol owed by hundreds of workshops in the1970s, 1980s, and 1990s. Like most problem-solving workshops, most of Kelman’s involved what Lederach refers to as “mid-level leaders”15—political y involved and influential, yet unofficial members of opposing sides. Kelman describes his participants as “parliamentarians, leaders and activists of political parties or political movements, journalists, editors, directors, of think tanks,” and political y active scholars.16
A continuing workshop with highly influential Israelis and Palestinians met over a three-year period, from 1990 to 1993, ending just before the announcement of the Oslo agreement. Although ultimately those accords did not hold, the relationships built and the substantive solutions developed in those workshops are widely credited with making the Oslo Accord possible. Kelman himself asserts that there were three ways that his problem-solving workshops contributed to and made Oslo possible. These were: (1) the development of “cadres” of people knowledgeable about and able to effectively communicate and negotiate with the other side; (2) the sharing of information and the development of new, substantive ideas that were then fed into the official negotiations; and (3) the “fostering of a political atmosphere that made the parties open to a new relationship.”
Analyses of the reasons why Oslo did not hold are many, but faulting the track II input is not one of them. Lamenting that it did not go far enough to engage a larger segment of the population, thereby creating a larger “peace constituency,” however, is. Kelman and his protégés are also continuing their long legacy of holding such workshops in the hopes that they eventual y can lead to another round of successful negotiations. However, Kelman cautions much of the past learning has been lost and will have to be rediscovered by a new cadre of mid-level leaders.17
Public Peace Education
Another commonly employed track II process is public peace education. Whether conducted in formal or informal venues, in face-to-face meetings, or through the media, and whether targeted at children or adults or both, most peace education programs seek to create enlarged constituencies for peace.
The basic notion underlying this process is that the incidence and effectiveness of both track I and II efforts rise with the number of people who hold positive (or at least neutral) views of “the other,” who understand that col aborative approaches to problem solving are likely to work better than confrontational or violent approaches, and who understand basic conflict resolution principles, including nonviolent communication and negotiation skil s.
Topics addressed may include philosophical and practical issues such as intergroup relations (e.g., stereotypes, discrimination, and tolerance), civil and human rights, conflict management, and international relations. The educational approaches used vary even more than the topics—lessons about “the other” may be integrated into children’s regular lessons in school or they may be taught in stand-alone workshops. Workshop participants may be drawn from a single group (such as a particular church or community) or several groups. And participants may interact only with other members of their own side in the conflict, or be brought together with individuals from the other side, thereby presenting the opportunity for participants to build friendships and mutual understanding across the lines of the conflict.
Peace or tolerance education can also be promulgated through the Media.
The NGO Search for Common Ground, for example, has created and aired radio soap operas in twelve countries. These soap operas, which have attracted large audiences (one soap opera was listened to by no less than 80 percent of Burundians), tell the stories of ordinary people interacting in their daily lives with people on the other side of the conflict. They depict a nonadversarial, cooperative, tolerant approach to “the other” and give their listeners intel ectual knowledge about constructive approaches to conflict while also giving that knowledge an emotional charge. As Susan Mel on, executive director of Search for Common Ground, commented in 2006: “We try to pass messages about dialogue and peacebuilding through ways that aren’t just didactic or scholastic or intel ectual. Rather, they address people’s interests, and are fun, and are motivating. . . . It has enabled people to talk about issues in a less confrontational way, in a more col aborative way about a huge array of issues.” 18
Another approach to peace education is that taken by the NGO Seeds of Peace, which brings teenagers from all sides of violent conflicts together to spend several weeks at a camp in the countryside in the northeast of the United States.The youngsters live and work together, breaking down stereotypes they have of one another, building friendships, and learning conflict resolution skil s. “Our mission,” the organization explains, “is to empower leaders of the next generation. Treaties are negotiated by governments. Peace is made by people. Seeds of Peace is doing what no government can. It is sowing the seeds of peace among the next generation of leaders. It is educating them to develop empathy, respect, and confidence. It is equipping them with communication and negotiation skil s. It is enabling them to see the human face of their enemies. By empowering them to emerge as tomorrow’s leaders, Seeds of Peace is working to forge the personal relationships so critical to peacemaking and reconciliation.”19 Teaching integrative negotiation and peer mediation as a means of constructively resolving conflicts is often seen as beneficial, at least at the individual level.
Like dialogues and ICR workshops, peace education efforts face two
chal enges. One is developing attitudinal changes that can be sustained once participants return to their usual environments; this chal enge is especial y pronounced in the case of the Seeds of Peace program, which takes youngsters thousands of miles from their homes, but it also exists even in the case of workshops, which also constitute a departure from the participants’ normal routines. The second challenge is the problem of scale-up—transferring attitudinal changes to a broader segment of society. There are no tried and true solutions to these problems, though a variety of approaches have been tried. One approach to the maintenance problem is to help participants keep in contact with each other via email or Internet chat rooms after they go back to their home environments. Another is to create alumni groups of people who have been trained, to maintain long-term support. Efforts to scale-up these processes involve simply implementing programs as widely as possible and using mass venues (such as radio) to reinforce lessons taught on a smal er scale—in schools, for instance.
Joint Projects
Joint projects are, to some degree, another form of peace education. Such projects invite people from all sides of a conflict to come together in a physical y and psychological y safe setting to accomplish a joint goal. Although the project may not seem safe psychological y at the beginning, organizers typical y work with the participants to help them feel comfortable with everyone involved, slowly building trust across conflict lines. Among the numerous and varied examples that could be cited are a bilingual school in Galilee in which Arab and Jewish children are co-taught by Arab and Jewish teachers (in this case, clearly an example of peace education); a project to rebuild Albanian mosques in Kosovo involving Jews, Protestants, Serb Orthodox, and Albanian Muslims, all former enemies; and a program in Burundi that organizes soccer games
with teams composed of both Hutus and Tutsis.
Joint projects typical y seek to achieve one or more of three objectives:
➤ To construct specific structures, organizations, relationships, and institutions that will be useful to those on both sides of a conflict.
➤ To spur grassroots reconciliation and conflict transformation that can spread to society as a whole.
➤ To create symbols of peace and cooperation (e.g., a jointly constructed house or school) that will impress the wider society.
When opposing groups come into contact in a safe setting and work col aboratively to achieve common goals, the results are often improved intergroup understanding—in essence, peace education—at least among the participants. Trust and cooperative relations are also often improved, especial y when competitive situations are avoided and interaction goes beyond superficial exchanges.
There are dangers involved in such projects, however, that planners should be careful to avoid. One is to overreach—to take on a project that is too difficult (political y, social y, logistical y, technical y, or financial y). When joint projects fail to achieve their goals, participants tend to blame the failure on the other group, thus reinforcing the notion that the other group is at fault for the conflict. Failures also breed cynicism, fostering the impression that any effort to work with the other side is doomed to lead nowhere.
In 1998, a joint Israeli-Palestinian production of the children’s television program Sesame Street was launched in an effort to teach tolerance and intergroup understanding to preschoolers and their parents. Seventy half-hour shows were created, each with an Arabic and a Hebrew segment. Very popular initial y, the program became more difficult to produce after the second Intifada started, and audiences became much less receptive as well. “We’ve realized that a goal of friendship was beyond realism, given where things are now,” explained one of the producers in 2002.20 The program ended that year because the Palestinian producers argued that it was pointless to air a program promoting tolerance before a peace agreement was attained. The program was reinstated, however, in 2004, when relations had improved enough to make people wil ing to take the risk to try it once again. This time, however, there were three separate programs—one in Israel, one in the occupied territories, and a third produced in Jordan. All worked to promote tolerance and mutual understanding, but each program is produced separately—there are no shared segments and no joint production.21
Another risk, even of successful projects, is lack of local ownership and commitment. Joint projects are often conceived and directed by outside NGOs, not by the disputants themselves. Even if the disputants are willing to participate in such a venture, they may not develop a sense of ownership or pride in the project; when the NGO leaves the area, hopes that the locals will take over and continue the effort are dashed, because the locals see the project as belonging to the NGO, whose departure effectively signals the end of the effort. (Their departure may also signal an end of funding when the funding is provided by non-local organizations.) Although NGO involvement is often necessary to get joint projects off the ground, efforts should be made to have as much local involvement, direction, and funding—and as little NGO involvement, direction, and funding—as possible. Projects that are seen as local y owned and operated are much more likely to continue than ones that are seen as “foreign.” Another problem with external funding is that the recipients can become so focused on making the funder happy that they lose sight of local interests and values, thereby creating a project that is essential y “foreign,” even though it is carried out by local people.
While joint projects should seek to foster local ownership, they should strive to avoid replicating the local dynamics of the conflict. One way of succumbing to this latter danger is to design projects that reflect the asymmetrical resources (of money, time, skil s, or physical resources) of the parties to the conflict. Replicating the power imbalance of the larger conflict within the microcosm of the project engenders hostility, distrust, and tension—not the trust, understanding, and teamwork that the project’s designer hoped for.
Decide How to Implement the Process
After a particular process has been selected, choices must be made about how to implement it. Factors to consider at the planning stage include venue, participants, partners, and intervention philosophy.
Choose a Suitable Venue
Although appropriate venues vary depending on the process to be used, for dialogues, workshops, or trainings a venue should usual y be relatively easy for al participants to reach yet be sufficiently geographical y remote that they wil feel outside their normal locale—and hence away from normal activities, day-to-day pressures, and interruptions. Participants should be able to focus entirely on the event and the people involved in the event—not on outside distractions. A setting such as a university or a retreat—located in a neutral area if both sides are participating—encourages people to think creatively and more openly about relationships and issues. For dialogues and ICR workshops, the setting needs to be private so discussions can be both undisturbed and confidential.
For all processes, the venue needs to be physical y safe, in terms of both geographic location and physical structures. It needs to be affordable and accessible; it should not be in a location that one side has difficulty getting to because of border crossings, for instance, or so far away that key people cannot afford the cost of traveling to the venue. The facility should be flexible (in terms of room setup and use), comfortable, and—when possible, some facilitators suggest—inspirational (e.g., in a beautiful setting or a place of historical or spiritual significance to both sides). A venue that has recreational opportunities as wel as comfortable meeting spaces al ows for informal relationship building. When formal discussions get bogged down, more fruitful discussion can often occur during a walk in the woods or a sporting event (preferably one with cross- group teams). Meals, too, offer a chance to relax and build relationships in a way that formal meetings do not so a venue should have onsite catering facilities (able to serve cultural y appropriate foods).
Select Participants
Deciding which group, and which individuals within those groups, should participate is sometimes tricky. If the aim of the process it to achieve significant progress in relationship building or substantive idea generation across groups in conflict, it is usual y desirable to have all the conflicting groups present—even ones that would not be welcome in official processes because they are considered illegitimate (for i