Is Mediation an Effective Method of Reducing Spoiler Terror in Civil War?

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1 1 Is Mediation an Effective Method of Reducing Spoiler Terror in Civil War? Ishita Chowdhury Abstract Previous civil war literature has proposed that spoiler groups are goal driven and therefore certain spoilers with total and intractable goals are impossible to mediate. Empirical evidence has shown; however, even the most extreme spoiler groups at times decide to participate in the peace process and even become a trustworthy member of the process. This paper suggests that spoiler violence can indeed be mediated if mediators take these groups demands and goals into account, and attempt to incorporate them into the peace process. In addition, once mediators must attempt to build mutual trust between the included groups in order to assure them that the settlement is legitimate, so they will not resort to spoiling the peace, and maintain peace in the long run. Introduction Recent civil war literature has given substantial attention to whether or not mediation is an effective method of reducing violence and inducing peace. Mediators generally intervene in order to aid the initiation of a peace process between the two warring parties. Stedman (2001) argues that the two most important environmental sources of failure are the presence of spoilers and neighboring states that oppose the peace agreement and assist the spoilers. With the presence of these spoilers, the peace agreement climate becomes hostile, and unstable, making the agreement of the two parties less likely. Stedman (1990) argues that spoiler groups are goal driven, and whether or not they are negotiable depends on the flexibility of their goals. Contrasting literature; however has argued that goals are not always the determining factor of whether or not spoiler groups are willing to negotiate, and that their willingness to negotiate may shift if their demands are taken into consideration within the peace process. Blaydes and Mayo (2010) support this claim by stating that peace processes that are inclusive of all factions and groups within a society, then spoilers are less likely to emerge. Even if all groups are take part in the negotiation process; however, the chance that they will follow through with the process diligently ultimately depends upon the mutual trust that exists between the parties. Current literature lacks emphasis on the role that mutual trust plays in (1) the agreement of parties to negotiate with each other (2) the implementation of a successful peace agreement as well as (3) the emergence of spoilers. This paper will argue that in order for mediation to be successful in creating enduring peace, mediators must work towards building mutual trust between the two parties. In order to do this mediators must (1) actively engage spoiler groups in the peace process taking their requests into serious consideration and (2) strongly advocate regional neighbors to

2 2 actively support the peace agreement. The concept of mutual trust that exists in the economic field between businesses will be applied to the relations between parties involved in civil war. The purpose of this paper is to produce a viable method of reducing spoiler activity in peace processes. The results of this study will help policy-makers gain a holistic understanding of the circumstances necessary for a successful mediation process in intractable conflicts with the presence of spoilers. Flexibility of Spoilers Stedman (1998) proposes that spoilers erupt once two warring parties have signaled some type of commitment, pact, or have actually signed a peace agreement. The reason spoilers emerge is because rarely do all parties in a civil war have identical goals and preferences. The differences between the groups involved in the peace process can serve as triggers for spoiler violence. Stedman (1998) distinguishes between different types of spoilers relative to their position in the peace process. Inside spoilers are already included in the process, and signal a willingness towards the implementation of a settlement; however, fail to fulfill the key provisions in the agreement. They do this most commonly by delaying the implementation thus making the process last longer. Outside spoilers, use methods of violence such as assassinations, suicide bombing, and massacres, during crucial phases of the peace process in hopes of undermining the process as a whole. Spoilers can also vary by type in relation to their goals in the order of limited, greedy and total. Limited spoilers have limited goals, such as (1) recognition and redress of grievances, (2) a share of power or (3) the exercise of power that is constrained by the constitution or the opposition. Greedy spoilers vary on their degree of intensity based on the costs and risks they face in spoiling. When there is low cost and risk, greedy spoilers have less limited goals, as opposed to when the costs and risks are high, greedy spoilers tend to have more limited goals. Lastly, Stedman (1998) suggests that total spoilers are the most intractable of all spoilers because they are irreconcilably opposed to any compromise or peace. Total spoilers may use deceiving tactics to gain advantage, when in fact their true intentions are to spoil the peace process. Total spoilers harbor radical characteristics and ideologies and most often want to obtain total power through a violent transformation of society. Stedman (1998) proposes that spoiler typology will eventually help mediators devise an appropriate management strategy for different types of spoilers. Zahar (2010) on the other hand argues that spoilers typology is not a very useful tool in guiding mediators towards devising a winning strategy due to the fact that spoilers often shift within these typologies. In other words, Stedman s spoiler typologies offer little explanation for whether or not these types of spoilers are likely to change from being less extreme to more extreme, or the opposite, and if so how this change takes place. Especially in reference to total spoilers, Zahar (2010) argues that empirical evidence shows that extremist spoiler groups have previously shown a willingness negotiate and alter their expectations and goals. This shows that spoiler typologies are not as fixed as previously suggested, and that these groups are flexible in their goals to a certain extent. Attempting to gain an understanding of the nature of spoilers from a less rigid viewpoint allows mediators to be hopeful of possibly bringing these groups to the negotiating table and including them in the peace process. If the goals of even the most intractable spoiler groups have the

3 3 potential to be more flexible in nature, then perhaps spoils to the peace process can be prevented as long as the goals of these groups are taken into consideration. Mutual Trust and Trust-building Parties have been shown to agree to participate in a peace process, sign a peace agreement and later renege. In essence there seems to be a clear gap between a party s willingness to cooperate initially and the likelihood of continued cooperation. Kydd and Walter (2002) propose that extremist groups spoil the peace process in order to exacerbate doubt and foster mistrust between the parties involved. Therefore, even if parties decide initially to cooperate with each other in the peace process, they remain hesitant in offering their complete trust in the opposing party. This implies that a party s willingness to cooperate in the peace process initially is not completely indicative of their actual level of trust in the other parties involved. Sabel (1993) distinguishes between cooperation and trust in that the former is a product of continuous calculation of self interests rather than mutually recognized decisions. Sabel argues that trust generally develops from unplanned events that are most often not initiated with trustbuilding as an end goal. Simply put, trust is a result of repeated and consistent action. In order for group A to trust group B, the actions of group A must follow a consistent and honest pattern. These consistent actions will help in building mutual trust between the two groups. The demands and the requests of the spoiler groups must be seriously taken into account and incorporated into the peace agreement with the intention of implementing these provisions into local rules, laws and regulations. Therefore, in addition to inclusive peace talks on the agenda s of mediators, the building of mutual trust must also follow in due course. Often times, long term cooperation problems emerge when the more powerful group in the peace process decides initially to grant power-sharing agreements; however do not follow through with that promise. The likelihood of cooperation can also decrease with the presence of spoilers that tarnish the trust between the two parties by abruptly interrupting a peace process either through violence (outside spoilers) or through a delay in implementation (inside spoilers) (Stedman 1998). These factors play a role in reducing the likelihood of cooperation by harming the mutual trust between the groups involved. Mutual trust is a key component of the likelihood of groups decision to abide by peace agreements, Kydd and Walter (2002) argue that governments decision on whether or not to fulfill the peace deal is dependent upon their level of trust. They further conclude that terrorist violence stems from a problem of trust between an opposition group and a target government. Even in the event where all factions and groups within a society are present at the negotiating table, whether or not the agreements made will sustain in the long run is largely dependent upon mutual trust. Therefore, in order for peace process to endure, in addition to inclusivity, all parties included must mutually trust the other groups involved. Inclusive Peace Processes Blaydes and DeMayo (2010) argue that peace processes are more likely to breed violence when they only take into account some of the potential parties to a conflict. This exclusivity not

4 4 only encompasses the warring parties but also groups that might oppose the peace if they are not included. They argue that violence eventually stems from groups that are excluded from the peace agreement and fear that they will not benefit from the agreements ultimate outcome. They define an exclusive peace process as one that leaves out one or more of the major parties or potential parties to a conflict, ultimately preventing them from stating their grievances and incorporating them into the peace process. They also conclude that if mediators encourage a peace process with a narrow set of actors, that spoiler violence is likely to be exacerbated by this decision. Therefore, mediators must identify all major potential parties (top 10 political parties) to the conflict at hand, and attempt to include them as an active part of the peace talks, or at least allow them to bring their grievances to the table. Mediators can identify the potential parties by determining which parties have been aggrieved by the peace settlement. Even when aggrieved parties are recognized and brought to the negotiating table, there is still a chance that negotiations may not succeed. The most obvious reason would be because perhaps there are too many parties to appease; however, another factor can hamper the likelihood of negotiations and that is the lack of mutual trust. Increasing the number of parties at the negotiating table does not necessarily increase the amount of trust they have in each other. Therefore mediators must work gradually to build this trust between the groups. Weiss (2003) discusses the strategy of gradualism, which is characterized by a purposeful strategy whereby the mediators attempt to help the parties graduate from a low level of trust to a high level of trust by taking small steps of discussing lighter issues to gradually discussing deeper issues. The success of gradualism lies in the fact that it allows both the parties involved and the mediator to gauge progress at different intervals of the peace process. Credible commitment of regional states A large portion of the literature supports the notion that neighboring/ regional states have a negative effect on peace processes because they can act as a safe haven for spoiler groups by providing them with necessary and practical support. Mutwol (2009) argues that peace agreement failure can be attributed to the behavior of neighboring states. Stedman (2001) contends that spoilers can be much more confident and powerful if they can depend on the support of neighboring states as these states provide them with essential survival tools such as arms, fuel, capital and a place of sanctuary. Regional and neighboring states; however, can also have a positive impact on peace processes by acting as an additional credible third party. Mutwol (2009) shows that peace agreements are much more likely to hold ground if it receives the support of states that would otherwise be sponsoring the spoiler groups. Brown (1999) shows that Nigeria played a significant role in the success of the peace process in Liberia, by providing funding, military, forces and political leadership in order to help the ECOMOG succeed. Nigeria made a credible commitment to ending the violence in Liberia, and they were able to positively impact the peace process. Credible commitments of neighboring states provide a sense of accountability to the parties involved in the peace process, which can influence their decision to remain cooperative with the peace process. Therefore, if mediators invite regional/neighboring states to become signatories of the peace agreement; this should increase the level of trust and security within the parties around the negotiating table due to the additional sense of

5 5 accountability that these states provide. Adding the credible commitment of regional states will ensure an increase in mutual trust between the parties involved in the peace process, making spoiler groups less likely to emerge. Research Design In order to reduce spoiler groups from spoiling the peace, mediators must build mutual trust between the involved parties. Mediators must strive to be inclusive of all major groups within a society and have the presence and support of a regional country. The following hypotheses will tests whether or not the listed provisions will lead to less spoiler activity within a peace process. H1. Peace processes that included just the two warring parties at the negotiation table are likely to have more spoiler violence. H2. Peace processes that include more than the two warring parties are less likely to have spoiler violence. H3. Peace agreements that include at least 2 regional signatories will lead to lower spoiler violence All events of violent activity were obtained from the Global Terrorism database. The dataset provides a list of all events, their respective dates, and the type of violence that took place (for example, hijacking, suicide bombing etc.) The events were then linked to the UCDP peace agreement dataset to determine which events took place during the duration of a respective peace process. The number of violent events that took place during a peace process were then recorded into a fresh dataset with the purposes of testing the proposed hypotheses. This combination is treated as an ordinal dependent variable. The independent variables include (1) number of warring parties at the negotiation tablea. two parties b. more than two parties, and (2) number of signatories in the peace process. The former is measured by determining whether or not additional pyrites were included in the peace process, other than the two main parties. This information is gathered mainly through newspaper articles that provide updated information on what parties are involved in the peace process. The information to measure the latter variable is available in the UCDP peace agreement dataset provides the actual names of people that signed the peace agreement. As a supplement to this information, the number of regional signatories were determined from the given variable. The final result of the tested hypotheses is determined by running a logit regression. Results and Data Analysis TO BE DETERMINED. Conclusion TO BE DETERMINED.

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