Democracy and Peace-building: Rethinking the Conventional Wisdom
So along with the blogs and e-mail newsletters which flood my in box every day I am also subscribed to updates from the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars. They have a great project on leadership and building state capacity which has had a number of interesting meetings over the years and whose staff conduct trainings and programs around the world. Recently the Dir of the project - Howard Wolpe - former Congressman and expert on Africa co wrote an article called Democracy and Peace-building: Rethinking the Conventional Wisdom. The lessons he and Steve McDonald cite underpin much of the work I have been doing with ISC. Working in communities which have been divided by ethnic, religious, political, cultural issues requires a focus on building trust, collaborative capacity and a focus on consensus building not political competition. I think we take on one particular piece of the puzzle - helping divided communities achieve results on issues of shared mutual interest in a collaborative way builds their capacity to work together on other more intractable issues.
Unfortunately it is in a Journal which is only available for purchase so I cannot cite the entire article. I have written Mr. Wolpe and asked for permission to post in its entirety. Click here for an excerpt from the paper.
The Four Imperatives of Sustainable Peace and Democracy
While every national conflict has its unique elements, common to all are four key challenges to the building of sustainable peace and democracy in divided societies. Unless these four challenges are effectively addressed, peace and democracy will be at best ephemeral.
First, a way must be found to transform the pervasive zero-sum, winner-take-all mentality that is both the cause and the product of conflict. The leaders of the belligerent parties must come to see collaboration—even with former foes—not as an abstract ideal or as an act of altruism, but rather as a matter of enlightened selfinterest. They must be able to see themselves as emerging stronger and more secure through collaboration with others. Democracy and peace are sustainable only when leaders of a divided society have come to recognize that, whatever their conflicting interests, they share more important commonalities. It is only when they come to see themselves as dependent upon one another, as fundamentally part of the same social and political universe, that they will have the will and the capacity to attack the underlying social and political inequalities that gave rise to their conflict in the first instance.
Second, the relationships and trust among key leaders that have been fractured by their conflict must be restored, so that there can be confidence that agreements will be honoured. This is no easy task, but it is essential to the mutual confidence and predictability required for enduring democratic political discourse. Third, a new consensus must be forged among key leaders on ‘the rules of the game’, i.e., on how power will be shared and organized, and how decisions will be made. For such a consensus to have broad legitimacy, it must be developed in a process that is wholly owned by the leaders themselves and that is inclusive of all key elements of the society. Absent the development of such an inclusive consensus, sustainable peace and democracy are unattainable.
Fourth, the leaders of the formerly belligerent parties need to learn (or relearn) how to hear each others’ concerns and how to express their own views in ways that encourage a search for common ground and for solutions, rather than invite further confrontation and endless blame-throwing. In conflicts—especially violent conflicts – communications between the parties degenerates. Leaders tend to espouse positions and make demands based solely on their own perceptions of their narrowly conceived self-interest. There is little capacity to really ‘hear’ the other or to plough through the rhetoric and bluster of conflict. In the end, sustainable peace and democracy require effective skills of communications and negotiations.
Tags: africa, collaboration, consensus, democracy, peacebuilding
May 4th, 2008 at 12:49 pm
In 2005 I attended a training at the Wilson Center where we tried out the simulation exercise (“SIMSOC”, or simulated society) that Wolpe has used with political leaders in Burundi. Based on my experience at this training, I have a different take on this. I think that what Wolpe developed for the Burundi context is actually an example of a valuable aspect of ‘democracy-building’ or strengthening the societal commitment to consensus-based advocacy and decision-making. ISC should consider adding this or something like it to our tool kit.
SIMSOC was originally developed by William Gamson as a tool to teach sociology students about the dynamics of conflict at the societal level. A detailed description of the simulation can be found in this article by Wolpe about his Burundi program:
http://www.wilsoncenter.org/topics/docs/ACF8CC.pdf
ISC’s approach is a heavily organic approach to change. We support efforts in areas where some stakeholders have already recognized their common interests, and we facilitate civil society efforts to re-frame a particular issue along these lines. But what about societies, or issues, where the opposing views have become so entrenched that this organic approach can’t get a toehold? Post-war Burundi is one example. I would argue that present day Serbia is another.
In these situations, where opposing stakeholders’ views have become so entrenched, and where a zero-sum game approach has become so pervasive, I believe that ISC’s approach, while necessary, is not sufficient to get society as a whole to move past whatever is causing the gridlock. Our support for passionate civil society leaders and their causes may achieve some movement around the edges. But for situations like Serbia, I see real value in pairing this work with something that directly targets the people/mindsets that are causing the blockage in the first place. That’s the role I see for exercises like SIMSOC as used by Howard Wolpe in Burundi (or for the scenario-visioning process work by Adam Kahane, that Enrique is considering for CSAI)
SIMSOC itself is an exercise that makes people step outside of their entrenched relationships and see the dynamics of those relationships from a more detached, analytical perspective. It forces people to appreciate the role of power inequalities in shaping behavior, and to acknowledge the existence of common interests even among adversaries. It’s very powerful and especially useful for conflict/post conflict environments. I think that this simulation tool is very complementary to what ISC does and that it would be great to incorporate it into our approaches. It would expand our versatility/credibility, especially in conflict/post conflict environments. I disagree with the idea that we’ve built upon/moved beyond what his program does–I think that we’ve focused on one application of some of the principles his article emphasizes, and he on others. I’d love for us to find an opportunity to merge the two.