Glossary

Armed groups: The focus in this volume is on armed groups operating primarily within state borders and engaged in violent attempts to challenge or reform the balance and structures of political and economic power, to avenge perceived past injustices and/or to defend or control resources, territory or institutions for the benefit of a particular ethnic or social group. As such they would share the following characteristics outlined by Pablo Policzer:

• They are challengers to the state's monopoly on coercive force;
• They are not under effective state control; and
• They are capable of preventing, blocking or endangering humanitarian action or a peace process.

Criminal organizations and international terrorist networks such as al-Qaeda are outside the primary focus of this publication.

Conflict resolution: has come to be understood as an umbrella term that refers to several distinct interventions which all aim to help people find peaceful or non-violent responses to conflict and potentially resolving disputes and addressing underlying drivers of violence. These include:

• Conflict Prevention: stopping or averting the occurrence of violence or other destructive responses to conflict through activities intended to address conflictual issues or relations in a society.
• Conflict Management: building the ability of people to work together cooperatively to deal with their conflicts. Conflict management and mitigation is a term that refers to attempts to contain or lessen the impact of violent conflict.
• Conflict Transformation: changing the underlying systems/institutions, attitudes and relationships that underlie violence and building new systems/ institutions, attitudes and relationships that promote constructive methods for dealing with conflict.

Conflict resolution processes: can be used to address conflicts and disputes:

• Negotiation: discussion between two or more people with the purpose of solving a common problem, resolving a dispute and/or planning joint action.
• Dialogue: a process in which participants share and learn about each others beliefs, needs, perceptions and feelings.
• Facilitation: a third party assists the parties in a dialogue process.
• Mediation: a third party (outside the control of any one participant in the negotiation) is given responsibility to manage the process through which the parties to come to an agreement.

Engagement: refers to efforts or activities initiated by either the parties to the conflict or intermediaries to explore, enable, instigate or sustain opportunities for contact (and possibly other conflict resolution processes) with or between the parties.

Intermediary: a person who is engaged in working with or between parties in conflict to help them communicate, discuss and possibly reach agreement relevant to their dispute or conflict. Intermediaries can play a number of roles such as conveying messages back and forth, hosting or convening meetings, facilitating dialogue, providing advice and other support for negotiations, and mediating.

Legitimacy: the degree to which an action, process, actor or institution is perceived as having legal, moral or ethical authority and consequently whether it should be recognized or dealt with. In situations of civil war and insurgency, contested legitimacy may be at the heart of the conflict. Legitimization refers to an action or process that is perceived as granting legal or moral status to another actor or institution.

Peace process: refers to a long-term series of negotiations, dialogue and/or other conflict resolution processes involving the parties to the conflict (e.g. state parties and armed groups) as well as elements of civil society and the international community to define and implement a transition from a state of violent conflict to a state of sustainable peace.

Political dialogue: used in this volume to refer to discussions between parties to a conflict (e.g. a state party and armed group) on the substantive issues in which they have an interest, such as security, governance or democracy, and ways to manage or resolve their conflict or stop the use of military force.

State party: used in this volume to refer to a sovereign government that is a participant in a conflict and possibly a conflict resolution process with an armed group within their borders.

Third party: refers to the status of a person who is not directly affiliated with any of the participants in a conflict and who gets involved to try to help them work out a solution. Most third parties do not have a stake (or at most a minimal stake) in the problems or issues under discussion by the parties. Third parties can be from the international community, non-governmental organizations and from the local country or affected population. While third parties from the affected population certainly have a stake in the outcome of a conflict or the cessation of violence, they qualify as third parties so long as they are not directly involved in the structures of any of the parties to the conflict

Track one and track two processes: track one conflict resolution processes are official mediations or negotiations with the intended outcome of reaching an agreement among the leadership of the combatant parties to end military operations and/or reach a peace accord. Track one actors (governments and inter-governmental bodies like the UN) can impose legal sanctions and provide military and financial assistance. Track two conflict resolution processes tend to involve non-governmental actors or mid-level officials and are not intended to produce official binding commitments, but instead focus more on facilitating contact, relationship building, dialogue, brainstorming and action planning with the parties to a conflict or with non-governmental leaders (such as from business, media, religion, etc.). Often, track one and track two actors are in contact with each other or cooperate to some degree within the context of a peace process.

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