By Kasia Houghton, Doctoral Researcher, School of International Relations, University of St Andrews
“Ceasefires, prisoner exchanges, and aid provisions are more frequently
the aim of agreements, rather than political transformation. As such, this
reinforces the trend towards negative, rather than positive, peace, which
freezes rather than comprehensively resolves conflicts.”
The University of St Andrews welcomed a policy-orientated expert workshop hosted by the Scottish Council on Global Affairs and the PeaceRep Consortium on the nature of conflict and peacemaking in the era of global fragmentation on 19 and 20 September.
Experts from Scottish universities—including the Universities of Edinburgh, Stirling and St Andrews—presented their cutting-edge research on conflict dynamics, peacemaking, and peacebuilding to an esteemed group of research and policy analysts from the UK and Scottish Parliaments and Governments.
The workshop called on experts and civil servants supporting UK and Scottish policymakers to think collaboratively about how the UK could and should approach peacemaking and peacebuilding policy in an era wherein the number of peace actors is increasing, congesting and diversifying peace processes.
Challenges faced when providing support on conflict & peacemaking
The workshop kickstarted with a framing session led by Mateja Peter (University of St Andrews) encouraging knowledge exchange on how parliamentary select committees and other policy teams engage with innovative research and some of their priorities and challenges in supporting policy formulation in the fields of peacemaking and peacebuilding.
The main priorities included understanding the extent to which certain peacemaking and peacebuilding tools were universally effective, and how to effectively support the localisation of peacemaking and peacebuilding efforts.
Some of the main challenges facing policy specialists were balancing the need to gather in-depth case-specific knowledge with an understanding of broader trends in global conflicts and peace processes, as well as providing advice on how best to engage in effective peacemaking and peacebuilding for high-profile cases where there is much public and media scrutiny.
During these discussions, researchers and policy specialists discussed the difficulties in measuring the success of peace processes, highlighting how democratisation, which has frequently been used as a measure of stability and peace, is misleading in some contemporary efforts. Similarly, the workshop attendees discussed how the normative “guardrails” on military intervention appeared to be shifting, as well as the types of actors engaging in this type of conflict management strategy.
Data for peace
To highlight some of the publicly available data on peacemaking and peacebuilding, Sanja Badanjak (University of Edinburgh) presented the PA-X Analytics Universe, highlighting: the extensive Peace Agreements Dataset, which includes both international, national-level, and local agreements; and the PA-X Tracker, which compiles data from multiple sources to inform about peace implementation and how agreements and processes may affect a plethora of (economic, political, conflict, and peace) indicators; PA-X Gender and PeaceFem; the actor-based dataset, PAA-X; the amnesties dataset (ACPA); and the COVID Ceasefires Tracker.
The session encouraged the workshop participants to think about how violence and peace are measured and how different questions and data may lead to varied answers. To highlight how important it is not only to utilise data to understand case-specific and broader trends in conflicts and peace processes, this session emphasised the need to understand what datasets measure, how they measure it, and, therefore, how data need to be interpreted.
Using the case of the African continent, the presentation noted an increase in agreements in the recent period, but indicated that these were not comprehensive peace agreements, but rather local agreements that did not usually feed into national-level reconciliation or political processes. Instead, these peace agreements were geared more towards conflict management rather than transformation. Ceasefires, prisoner exchanges, and aid provisions are more frequently the aim of agreements, rather than political transformation. As such, this reinforces the trend towards negative, rather than positive, peace, which freezes rather than comprehensively resolves conflicts. This trend is becoming ever more salient globally.
What it also highlights is that agreements and conflicts are part of a larger conflict system or network that connects community-level conflicts, with national and international conflicts and rivalries. This differs somewhat from the conflicts of the 1990s and 2000s which were fought more often at the national-level and where there was greater space for UN coordination and UNSC involvement.
More recently, we have witnessed fragmentation not only of the international system, but also of conflicts and peace processes, creating a peacemaking and peacebuilding marketplace. Even though peace processes have never been linear, they have become increasingly less so with fragmentation, which begs the question of whether peace actors need to revise the benchmarks and indicators of peace. Indeed, this fragmentation should not just be considered a challenge to the UK and other actors in their efforts to promote peace. Rather, there can be opportunities in this fragmentation, as the case-specific presentations emphasised during the workshop.
Case study approach: Myanmar and Syria
Expert-led sessions about oft-forgotten ongoing conflicts in Myanmar (led by Monalisa Adhikari from University of Stirling and Matteo Fumagalli from University of St Andrews) and Syria (led by Juline Beaujouan from University of Edinburgh and Kasia Houghton from University of St Andrews) highlighted the difficulties the UK and other Western states and IGOs face when trying to engage local actors in peacemaking and peacebuilding.
Importantly, these presentations underscored how much of the conflict management, peacebuilding, peacemaking, and humanitarian operations are carried out or managed by local actors, which are in some cases proscribed by the UK and other international entities. In other cases, local actors, which are some of the most effective providers of aid and development initiatives, are unable to access the necessary training or contact with donors to become partners in peacebuilding and humanitarian projects. This is particularly important considering the push to localise UK peacemaking and peacebuilding initiatives, as these groups are so often the gatekeepers of such a process.
In-depth case specific knowledge is essential to understanding the complexity of fragmented conflict, peacemaking, and peacebuilding. In both country-cases, the states, as we see them on a map, are carved up by various internal conflicts—and peace processes—that have been shaped by external interventions. Both cases exhibit multiple conflicts among a plethora of actors that do not share one set of demands. Rather, there are myriad actors fighting for different causes and interests. Some territory is, consequently, not controlled by what can be described as the central government, leading to a state of fragmented sovereignty.
It was importantly noted that in both cases, the incumbent regime is not on the brink of collapse, but rather has experienced defeats, nor is the state failing or collapsing, but rather both governance and statehood are fragmented. This brings up questions of the representation and recognition of governments and people by other states and at international organisations. Furthermore, in both country cases, the so-called central government does not control parts or all of its borderlands, providing opportunities for the UK and other actors to capitalise on local, grassroots, and bottom-up approaches to peacebuilding, development, and humanitarianism.
The presentation on Syria emphasised the role of education, highlighting that a whole generation has been born into the conflict and are now being influenced by the curricula devised by the various governing entities in Syria’s regions. Some of these entities are keen to collaborate with the international community but lack the bureaucratic know-how and access to donors and partners. In Myanmar, as in Syria, the line is blurred between local peace and conflict actors, and a greater recognition of this concomitant to a more flexible approach to local partner engagement may present an opening for future UK peace engagement in the country.
The presentations explored the West’s engagement in levying sanctions on Myanmar and Syria, contributing to their isolation and exacerbating the plight of the conflict-stricken populations.
China and Russia as alternative conflict managers?
In recent years, Western actors have also been less engaged in peacemaking and peacebuilding in many conflicts around the world, opening space for actors such as Russia and China to become more heavily involved in these processes. During a roundtable discussion, which was open to students of the University of St Andrews, Mateja Peter and Sanja Badanjak presented key highlights from a collaborative study on Russia and China as signatories in peace agreements, discussing a trend where Russia increasingly signs peace agreements in areas where it is also military engaged (Syria, Libya, the Central African Republic, countries of the former Soviet Union).
This challenges the idea of peacemakers as impartial actors. Their findings were contextualised by case study experts Monalisa Adhikari, Kasia Houghton and Maija Paasiaro (Executive Director at the John Smith Trust).
In Myanmar, China has played a peacemaker role, but has engaged little in conflict transformation, instead brokering deals that call for cessation of hostilities and the protection of Chinese interests. Locals see China as interventionist and have called for Western initiatives to counter. ASEAN has taken the lead on a nationwide peace process, to which the West has deferred, but lacks the institutional peacemaking capacity to effectively perform this role, an area that the UK could support. In Syria, especially after Russia’s military intervention in September 2015, Russia has been the most prominent “peace” actor, using violence to force opposition groups and local leaders into surrender agreements with the regime.
The predominant international peace process is also led by Russia, which legitimises its local approach to bolstering the Syrian regime. Meanwhile the UN-led peace process is stalled. These examples of Russian and Chinese peacemaking and peacebuilding were further explored alongside additional cases from the Caucasus and Central Asia, which were presented by Maija Paasiaro, who heads the John Smith Trust, an NGO supporting young leaders in these regions.
The event was a big success with the St Andrews staff and student newsletter reporting it as “standing room only” and participants praising fantastic questions from students.
Where does this leave the UK?
The workshop was rounded off with final discussion led by Kristen Harkness (University of St Andrews) and Mateja Peter, encouraging the workshop participants to think outside of traditional binaries and dichotomies, such as: pragmatic versus principled peacemaking and peacebuilding; local versus national peace processes; single-case approaches versus global approaches; and reactive versus sustained approaches to peace.
The comments highlighted that the UK has primarily been involved in signing comprehensive peace agreements. However, given that these are on the decline, where does that leave the UK’s approach to global peacemaking and peacebuilding? The discussion also emphasised that given the UK’s principled approach to global peace, largely founded on liberal and democratic ideals, it can engage with specific types of actors, whereas states that have a more pragmatic approach are better able to engage with a broad plethora of local actors, shaping the nature of the emerging peace.
Similarly, democratic processes and public and media scrutiny common in the UK may incentivise less risk taking. But at what point does the risk of not acting become too great, especially as other actors, such as Russia and China, become more assertive in conflict and peace settings? Policy-orientated discussions highlighted the need to balance these issues to promote the UK’s effectiveness as a contemporary peace actor.
