Negotiating Political Violence

Abstract

In virtually every violent conflict efforts are made to negotiate an end to violence but only a minority of violent conflicts are terminated by negotiated settlements. This panel focuses on negotiations aimed at ending violent conflict, whether they succeed or not. It addresses the question of why some negotiations lead to stable, sustainable peace agreements while in other cases negotiations fail to deliver an end to political violence. The panel is concerned in particular with issues of timing, of the importance of sequence and process in shaping the outcome of negotiations and the extent to which struggles over timing take place during negotiation. It is concerned too with the importance of shifts in spatial contexts for negotiation, whether at the level of territorial control by combatants on the ground or the influence of changing geopolitical contexts. Among the questions the panel is concerned with addressing are: What are the dilemmas faced by both incumbents and challengers in attempting to negotiate with parties whose legitimacy they reject? To what extent do negotiations provide an opportunity to build trust or to create even greater mistrust? Do intra-party divisions provide much of the explanation for the way in which negotiations unfold? How important are civil society pressures? How is pressure from the organisational grassroots - from rank and file activists and from state employees - exerted and how decisive is it in shaping the outcome of negotiations? What is the role of mediators and what is the significance of pre-negotiation ‘dialogue’ between parties. What is the political significance of the informational dimension to negotiations aimed at ending political violence? How do parties use negotiations to secure advantage in their armed struggles? We particularly welcome comparative work including papers based on comparative qualitative research, on comparative–historical approaches, on small-N data sets, as well as comparative research mixing different data collection techniques.

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