Simulation of Peace-Building - Demands for modeling external strategies with computer-tools

The following lines try to outlay what the term post-conflict peace-building means, what it has become and what the demands are to simulate such an process with a computer-tool.

The Development of the concept and a standard of knowledge

The change in the pattern of UN peace-missions started in the end of the 1980’s when the end of the blockade of the Security Council led to new UN peace-missions after a 10 years break (Drews, 2001).  The first of the new missions was Angola 1988, which still followed the patterns of conventional peace-keeping missions, which mainly means the demarcation and separation of the warring parties. The United Nations Technical Assistance Group (UNTAG) in Namibia, which worked from 1989 till 1990, is generally considered as the first mission which left this paradigm (Drews, 2001).

The new element was in the first place the enforcement of free and fair elections. To fulfill this demand, the United Nation were involved in the repatriation of refugees, registration of voters, they allocated election information and for the first time established own police forces to keep the public order during the elections. In the following years missions took place in the classical pattern as well as in the new one like Nicaragua, Haiti, Morocco and El Salvador. A further core-element besides the democratization and the establishment of human rights and a rule of law turned out to be the demobilization of the warring parties.

In 1992 after the first of the so called second generation of peace building missions were already accomplished, and some of them like Namibia even to a high degree of success, Boutros Boutos-Ghali adopted the practical concept into his agenda for peace, named it post-conflict peace-building and embedded it into the prior UN measures:

“Preventive diplomacy seeks to resolve disputes before violence breaks out; peacemaking and peace-keeping are required to halt conflicts and preserve peace once it is attained. If successful, they strengthen the opportunity for post-conflict peace-building, which can prevent the recurrence of violence among nations and peoples.”[1]

He defines the concept as follows and gives an overview over measures used to build peace:

“[…] comprehensive efforts to identify and support structures which will tend to consolidate peace and advance a sense of confidence and well-being among people. Through agreements ending civil strife, these may include disarming the previously warring parties and the restoration of order, the custody and possible destruction of weapons, repatriating refugees, advisory and training support for security personnel, monitoring elections, advancing efforts to protect human rights, reforming or strengthening governmental institutions and promoting formal and informal processes of political participation.”[2]

The concept was influenced by the scientific discourse in the following years. Theoretical perspectives as the “positive peace” or the “sustainable development” paradigms were discussed and influencial for the further development (Miall, et al. 1999).  At the latest with Lederachs book from 1997 the need for integrative bottom-up approaches were showed. In nowadays the concept is – especially inside the UN - also used to describe efforts in countries and regions before the occurrence of a violent conflict e.g. before the escalation, which let us come to the conclusion  that it lost discriminatory power in regard with the concept of prevention.

Post-conflict peace-building is to be seen as a complex, multidimensional, but in the core genuine political process of the transformation from conflict into peace.  And one has to consider that there is no coherent integrative definition.

Lessons Learned

Evaluating the success and failure of peace-building missions of the last 15 years is of course highly dependent on the definition of peace-building. Roland Paris for example includes in his comprehensive study for the years 1989 to 1999 only missions which took place after an escalated conflict (Paris, 2005).[3] Others also include the processes and transformations in countries as Northern Ireland or Palestine in post-conflict peace-building (Ferdowsi/Matthies 2003).

As examples for successful peace-building are normally seen the deployment and progress in Namibia, Mozambique and Timor Leste, where democratization succeeded and where a relapse of violence could have been avoided. But there are even voices doubting the success of those missions (Schneckener, 2005).  Partial success can be attested to the peace-building efforts in Northern Ireland, Bosnia, Cambodia, Vietnam, Nicaragua, El Salvador, and Guatemala. But it seems all things considered difficult to finally survey those missions with not keeping up with a time horizon of 15 or 20 years, so that it may to early to assess the outcomes of such missions. In contrast to this is it much easier to detect the failures of peace-building: The repeated relapse into escalated violence in Palestine and Angola shows the pattern of failure in the peace-building efforts of the international community. .

The Evaluation and research on these and other missions in recent publication yielded in a lot of consolidated findings about peace-building. In the first place a missing coordination and coherence is seen in past as well as ongoing missions. To design peace-building missions more effectively, missions should be central coordinated (Schneckener, 2005). Such a coordination task could be possibly fulfilled by the new UN peace-building commission of the United Nations, but it is to early to know if this commission which isn’t constituted yet will be another wash-out of the UN-System or will become a functioning organ.

Another important cognition is, that the missions should be well fitted into the regional context in which they take place: regional hegemonies and organisations has to be taken into account to win them as possible stakeholders of the process and to avoid new conflicts arising from the failure of factoring their interests into the implementation of the peace-building policies (Keating/ Knight, 2004).  Some Authors also underline the need for evaluations, which are gauging the impact of peace-building measures on the desired end state of the mission. In Bosnia and in the Kosovo for example the long-lasting peace-building efforts produced an economy which is highly dependent on the International Organisation and NGOs respectively and to their donation money. The structure of the economy is due to this very fragile and not as it is wanted to be from the donating countries. Such counterproductive side effects off measures should always be recognised.

Another point is the correct appraisal as well as determination of the time dimension of peace-building-missions (Lit.). There must be a clear separation into short-, middle and long-term aims and activities. Short-term measures, as the maintenance of security or a primary supply with food, have a strong intersection with the traditional peace-keeping and humanitarian aid, whereas a broad reconciliation and the establishment of a culture of peace are reached by long-term actions as e.g. development cooperation (Miall et al.). A promising operation has to be provided with sufficient funds as well as with international attention over an ample period. The loss of  attention and funding due to new arising international conflicts  has consistently undermined or even foiled the success of peace-building missions in the past (Knight, S. 273).

Furthermore the research has identified some general patterns which the transformation process should follow to be successful: The new order of society has to be based upon a broad consensus and the principle of inclusion (Ferdowsi/Matthies, 2003). It has to be designed in a wise, that Elites and powers with the ability to mobilize masses could not see their advantage in the use of force, but should foster the peace process by pure rationalism. Of special importance are the spoilers of the peace process. These – as e.g. the warlords in Afghanistan or African countries – are on the one hand obstacles in the peace process; on the other hand a sustainable peace can often hardly be reached against them.

Thus the spoilers constitute a quandary, because the peace process neither progress with nor without them. Such dilemmas are typical for peace-building; they arise from its basic structure: an intervention into an escalated violent conflict which should be in the end just starting the potential of the society to develop self-help mechanisms.  But the necessity to intervene shows already the limitation to overcome home grown problems. Other dilemmas which are observed in the peace-building process and which has to be dealt with are the question of how democratic the democratization should be and to which degree cultural particularities should be included if they contradict the logic of peace-building.

Peace-building is prosecuted by different actors in different mission-types. Besides the named – the United Nations and the NATO – there are further International Organisations as e.g. EU the OSCE or ASEAN. Furthermore there are single states profiled in the field as the United States, Canada, Norway or Japan. In addition to the legal international bodies there are lots of NGOs operative, which are – contrary to the former – in a position to act at eye level with local groups and new developing state institutions (Keating/Knight). On the other hand there are criticisms because of their lack of accountability, there failure to come along with military actors and their tendency to bypass local organisations and structures.

These actors agitating in different mission types which vary from simple consultation over specialised missions, like peace-building offices, with limited resources and specialised goals, to multidimensional missions like in Afghanistan, Bosnia or Kosovo.  Depending on the mission type and on the preferences the particular actors can choose different measures to reach his aims. Those are usually classified into four sectors: the security and military sector, the political-institutional sector, the socio-economic sector and finally the psycho-social sector.  Such classification has to be seen as an analytical help, but it is obvious, that the measures are not always to fit in only one category and also that they are highly dependent on other measures from other categories.

The military and security sector combines measures which tend to a reformation of the security sector and the establishment of a state's monopoly on legitimate violence.  Of capital importance are the demobilisation, disarmament and reintegration of the former combatants, which are often put together in so called DDR programmes. It also includes measures to reform and consolidate all security forces - the military, police and border police respectively. A long-term perspective is the (re-) establishment of a culture of peace instead a culture of war.

In the political and institutional sector there are actions taken to erect a constitution, to (re-)built functioning state institutions and to establish a system of democratic participation.  Furthermore the strengthening of basic, human and minority rights as well as the freedom of press are belonging to this sector.  

The rebuilding of a prospering economy, among others through the transformation of existing informal economies, forms the core of the social-economic sector. Thereto comes the recovery of the physical infrastructure, the reactivation of the agriculture and the establishment of social systems, e.g. for education, healthcare and poverty reduction and last but not least the tackling of ecological problems and relics as e.g. contaminated freshwater.

The measures combined in the psycho-social sector aiming the fulfilment of the very difficult task of psychological post processing, that means the overcoming of hate and distrust, the initiation of a long-ranging process of healing and finally a sustainable reconciliation. These measures can vary from the establishment of peace commissions, over conflict resolution centres, cultural exchanges to civilian fact finding missions (Reychler).

In the latest research there have been identified four ideal types of external peace-building strategies, which the different actors are embarking on - contingent on their aims and priorities: The liberalization-first, security-first, institutionalisation-first and the civil-society-first strategy (Schneckener, 2005). None of  which is of course to be found in a pure form in real life, you will always find mixed strategies, nevertheless such a differentiation seem expedient.  These strategies distinguish from each other by different emphases in selecting and combining measures. The liberalization-first strategy is identifiable through early elections and a fast privatisation of the economy, while the security-first strategy is clearly preferring measures from the first sector and has and great emphasis on the peace-keeping and the security sector reform. The institutional-first strategy is aligned to a structural reformation and establishment of stabile state institution before elections take place, whereas the civil-society strategy favours bottom-up approaches, acting on the assumption that a culture of peace and a sustainable reconciliation can only arise from a faultless civil society.

Operationalisation

Of the above one can see that peace-building is not just a theoretical concept, but furthermore describes a multidimensional process to change the societal structures in war torn countries so that existing as well as new arising conflicts are carried out in a civil manner.

Now it should be tried to sum up the core findings which are made above by transforming them into presumptions, which represent the main structure of the peace-building and consolidation process and which will make a comparison an appraisal of the GAMMA software and its potentials possible. All outcomes are put together in table 1.

(1) The main axiom must be that a comprehensive change of conflict patterns, the forms of conflict carry out and societal structures is possible by peace-building measures of external actors. If this axiom is not considered to be true, peace-building efforts and intervention of external actors will not make sense - under the normative perception, that external actors are interested in the wealth of the country they are intervening in.

(2) In addition also a self-sustaining peace, that means a state in which societies carry out there internal as well as external conflicts in a civil manner, must be not only conceivable but also viable and that it will under certain circumstances arise and self-stabilize.

(3) The extraneous cause mustn’t be implemented in a wise that it gets an essential part of the new structure, but should rather initiate a process which ends in the sustainable peace described under (2).

(4) Thus a successful consolidation of peace can be realised under certain prerequisites – depending amongst others on the fulfilment of the demands described above – as for example seen in Namibia, Mozambique or East Timor. It is commensurable by the following factors: a arising sustainable peace, a rootage of the “culture of peace” in the society, a functioning civil society, which is free from self-destructive ethnical, cultural or religious tensions, a participation of broad levels of the population in political processes, a prospering economy which had marginalized the informal and illegal economies and a level of independence, which makes the presence of external troops or actors unnecessary.

(5) It was assessed, that exact planning and central coordination advances the chance of successful peace-building. Especially the civil-military coordination and the coherence of the executed measures play an important role.

(6) It shall be understood from two reasons that peace-building needs a certain degree of security: First is the end of violence and escalated conflict the starting point and premise for the peace-building process, normally manifested by a peace treaty or an armistice. And second the measures of peace-building can only be executed in a safe environment. 

(7) Each peace-building mission should be adapted to the regional and cultural particularities in regard to the selected measures. (8) And furthermore must the time frame – regarding the planning and the financial accoutrement – be geared toward a sustainable success.

(9) Some of the measures taken to advance the situation and to start the consolidation process can be seen from former missions, others must be developed for the special needs of the ongoing missions

(10) Different actors inside peace-building processes have been identified. There external strategies could have been ascribed to four ideal types

(11) Due to the complex interdependent structure of the process, peace-building provokes dilemmas and aim conflicts. These can not be solved in a full sense, but have to be beard in mind by every step.

 Literature

1.   Boutros-Ghali, B., An Agenda for Peace: Preventive diplomacy, peacemaking and peace-keeping. Report of the Secretary-General, 31 January 1992, A/47/277 - S/24111, im Internet: http://www.un.org/Docs/SG/agpeace.html, last access: 25.05.2006.

2.      Drews, C., Post-conflict peace building, Baden-Baden 2001. Miall, H., Ramsbotham, O. and Woodhouse, T., Contemporary Conflict Resolution. The prevention, management and transformation of deadly conflicts, Oxford 1999.

3.      Ferdowsi, M. and Matthies, V. (Ed.), Den Frieden gewinnen, Ulm 2003.

4.      Gilbert, N., Troitzsch, K., Simulation for the Social Scientist, Philadelphia 1999.

5.      Jeong, H.-W., Peacebuilding in postconflict Societies: Strategy and process, Boulder 2005.

6.      Keating, T. and Knight, W. (Ed.), Building Sustainable Peace, Edmonton, 2004.

7.      Knight, W., Conclusion. Peacebuilding Theory and Praxis, in: Keating, T. and Knight, W. (Ed.), Building Sustainable Peace, Edmonton, 2004 P. 355-382 f.

8.      Lederach, J. P., Building Peace: Sustainable Reconciliation in Divided Societies, Washington 1997.

9.      Miall, H., Ramsbotham O. and Woodhouse, T., Contemporary Conflict Resolution. The prevention, management and transformation of deadly conflicts, Oxford 1999.

10.  Paris, R., At war's end: building peace after civil conflict, Cambridge 2005.

11.  Reychler, L. and Pfaffenholz,T., Peace Building: A Field Guide, Boulder 2001.

12.  Schnabel, A. and Ehrhart, H.-G. (Ed.), Security sector reform and post-conflict Peacebuilding, Tokyo 2005.

13.  Schneckener, U., Frieden Machen: Peacebuilding and peacebuilder, in: Die Friedens-Warte, Nr. 80 (2005) 1-2, P. 17-39.

14.  Zeigler, B. et al., Theory of Modeling and Simulation, San Diego 2000.