Serge Loode: Working in complex communities: what peacebuilding can learn from complex systems science
This paper adds to the critical literature on peacebuilding and development by applying a complex systems science perspective to contemporary peacebuilding, development and conflict resolution practice. It describes the communities that peacebuilders intervene in as complex social systems and focuses on the interdependence of actors and the systemic patterns that their interactions create. From this background the paper argues that peacebuilding and development are non-linear processes that cannot be planned with certainty and that successful peacebuilding ought to be an evolutionary process which focuses on building and transforming relationships to rebuild multidimensionality in protracted conflict situations. One way to do this is through intergroup dialogue processes which apply the abstract principles of complex systems science in small-group interaction and can assist in transforming the conflict landscape.
peacebuilding_in_complex_communities__loode_.pdf - 60 kB Albert W. Harris: Population Transfer and the Mediation of Insurgent Conflict
A mediated agreement ending civil war between an insurgent separatist group and the state can occur if the state accepts an agreement in principle that state sponsored population transfer into the insurgent "homeland" territory does not dilute the legitimacy of insurgent claims to the territory. Such an agreement becomes increasingly possible if the insurgents accept an agreement in principle that minority population homogeneity in the contested territory will not be pursued. This does not mean that the insurgents will agree to pursue heterogeneity in the homeland area as a goal. On the occasions where the insurgents will have been engaging in hostile acts toward the "settler" population that has arrived as part of a state sponsored population transfer program, the insurgents see their anti-settler campaign as a means of obtaining self-determination. The state sees the population transfer program as a method of strengthening its claim of territorial integrity. The rate of settler intrusion may reach a level where it becomes contentious. Successful conflict mediation by an intervening party will likely require a recasting of population transfer, so that further settler in-migration would be allowed, with the consent of the insurgents. The mediation would then have to gain an insurgency commitment to end the anti-settler campaign, so that it would be not seen as a threat to the territorial integrity or national sovereignty of the entire state.
ipra_paper_harris.abstract.3.pdf - 125 kB