Accord incentives, sanctions and conditionality project

Concept paper (June 2006)

Conciliation Resources is a UK-based international NGO working to prevent violence, promote justice and transform conflict into opportunities for development. CR believes that people involved in peace processes – whether as conflict protagonists, intermediaries, policymakers, donors or development/human rights professionals – can learn and draw inspiration from the successes and difficulties of other processes, as well as from reflecting on their own experience. This is the guiding assumption that underpins the work of CR’s Policy Communications and Comparative Learning (PCCL) team and our print and online publication series, Accord: an international review of peace initiatives.

Through collaboration with people directly involved in peacemaking, CR develops documentation and analysis of specific peace processes as well as exploring crosscutting themes. Thematic Accord projects aim to offer a combination of fresh conceptual clarity and detailed practical examples on a theme of core concern to practitioners and policymakers involved in conflict prevention and peacebuilding.

Building on previous work, our next thematic Accord project will address how external interventions influence the behaviour and choices of parties to a conflict. Specifically, it will focus on the use of sanctions, conditionalities and incentives, exploring how these international interventions could achieve a more positive influence on conflict parties’ engagement in a peace process.

With so many interventions criticized for their ineffectiveness or adverse impacts, CR believes that governments want to better understand how their actions might encourage, support, weaken or undermine peace processes, and how they can be coordinated with the actions of others. Local actors and peace practitioners are confronted by the corresponding challenge of understanding how to draw effective support from the international community for peace processes. A number of recent studies are relevant: they have examined the use of international sanctions and incentives (eg Wallensteen 2005), the influence of aid in conflict situations or after civil wars (Uvin 1999 and Boyce 2002 respectively) or in supporting peacemaking and peacebuilding through ‘peace conditionalities’ (Goodhand et al 2005 and forthcoming).

Our project will build on this body of work, focusing on how a spectrum of instruments could be applied constructively to have a positive influence on conflict parties’ engagement in a peace process. We hope that the end results of the project will have a strong focus on practical lessons regarding which instruments and tactics of influence work well – and which ones do not– for all involved in peace processes.

1. Understanding the context of conflict interventions

A group of experts consulted on this project recommended the first challenge must be to seek to understand the context in which sanctions, conditionalities and incentives operate.

The international environment comprises many actors intervening in countries undergoing internal armed conflict. Amongst state actors, foreign policy approaches have become increasingly attuned to the potential threats resulting from internal conflicts; for some years, states have been experimenting with the full range of diplomatic, economic and military tools at their disposal in order to respond to these conflicts. The 2005 Human Security Report identifies a fourfold increase in peacemaking activities between 1990 and 2002, and an elevenfold increase in the number of economic sanctions in place against regimes around the world between 1989 and 2001.

The trend towards more intervention in internal conflicts began with ‘a veritable explosion of conflict prevention, peacemaking and post-conflict peacebuilding activities in the early 1990s’ (Human Security Centre, 2006). There has been a growing and diversifying trend of direct engagement of international actors in peace processes, including through financial and technical support for mediation, facilitation, monitoring missions and mechanisms for the implementation of peace agreements. There has also been increasing recognition among development actors of how international development assistance policies can influence the dynamics of conflict and even facilitate peace processes through ‘peace conditionalities’ related to peacebuilding or reconstruction and rehabilitation programmes. Certain bilateral donors like Norway, Sweden, Switzerland, the Netherlands, Canada and the UK have tried to integrate conflict analysis and peacebuilding strategies into their work.

With the advent of the ‘war on terror,’ the US administration, supported by the UK, has spearheaded a reformulated interventionism, with more direct military interventions, pressure to use development aid to support security priorities, and increased use of coercive and proscriptive measures. These are applied particularly with regard to the participation of nonstate armed groups in conflicts, but also with respect to states judged to be fomenting instability or terrorist activity abroad or to a lesser extent failing to protect their citizens at home.

The institutional response at UN level has been to promote reforms along the lines of the‘Responsibility to Protect,’ which seeks to build consensus on the right of humanitarian intervention. Also, a UN peacebuilding commission has been established to marshal resources at the disposal of the international community to advise and propose integrated strategies for postconflict recovery in countries emerging from conflict.

An appreciation of international trends and discourses must not distract from the important observation that there are always limits to the influence external actors can exert on an internal conflict. These limitations have many origins, but one of the more critical challenges external governments face lies in understanding the complexity of the domestic contexts in which specific armed conflicts occur. The political interaction between the belligerent parties and with other groups is an essential part of the picture. There is often disagreement between them as to what the conflict is about, what constitute the real aspirations of their adversaries, and the potential held by negotiations. This is further complicated by the multi-faceted nature of the actors, both those who might see themselves represented by the government and those who would describe themselves as part of the opposition or insurgency. As conflicts from Afghanistan to northern Uganda demonstrate, there are also often wider regional configurations or nebulous alliances at work. Links between the primary parties and their constituencies, as well as between the parties and informal international networks (such as diasporas) may be difficult to discern. External actors rarely have an adequate grasp of these systemic complexities and the way they shape the dynamics of the conflict – particularly in countries of less strategic interest to them.

2. Supporting positive shifts in the peace process

Clearly, interventions in response to internal armed conflicts form only one dimension of the complex relationships that exist between states, societies and a range of actors in the international community. However, given the breadth and interconnectedness of these issues, the project requires a sharp focus. As CR’s mission is to support people working to transform armed conflict, the focus will be on exploring and identifying any correlations between the use of sanctions, conditionalities and incentives and positive shifts in the parties’ engagement in peace processes.

For the purposes of this project, the term ‘peace process’ will refer primarily to both the formal and informal processes of dialogue and negotiation between the parties that aim to address the armed conflict. In this sense, we will focus on the middle phase of what could be seen as a much broader set of processes, ranging from conflict prevention to post-conflict peacebuilding.

Evidently, peace processes are not a neat package of events beginning with a decision to pursue peace rather than war, and progressing in stages from pre-negotiations to a ceasefire to a comprehensive agreement. Sitting at the table and even signing agreements are not always indicators that there is genuine commitment to a sustainable resolution of the conflict. Parties often engage in talks while continuing to pursue a military strategy, commit violations during the bargaining process, or fail to implement agreements.

For this reason, the project will aim to identify what we are describing as ‘positive shifts’ in the peace process. ‘Positive shifts’ imply changes in the attitudes, behaviour and relationship between the parties. While interpretation of what constitutes a positive shift will be subjective and context-specific, examples could include:

• recognition of the adversary as a legitimate interlocutor
• acknowledgement of the aspirations of opponents (or identification of language that can accommodate differences of aspiration)
• the presentation of a peace plan
• a unilateral or bilateral confidence-building measure, such as a ceasefire, humanitarian agreement
• a modification of a particular demand in recognition of the position of the adversary
• the creation of joint teams / working groups to advance possible solutions to substantive issues or for monitoring aspects of an agreement.
• measures to increase respect for human rights and international humanitarian law
• sustainable improvements to conditions on the ground

CR is interested in understanding how peace processes can bring about positive change, and in identifying the dynamics that encourage parties to engage, change their behaviour, modify their capacities, change the relations between them or influence the environment in which conflict and peacemaking takes place.

A focus on external actors using sanctions, conditionalities and incentives

Many different groups exercise influence on a peace process, including states, international and regional multilateral institutions and non-state actors such as NGOs and religious groups. However, our principal interest is in the external actors who have the capacity to influence the conflict parties through their power to apply sanctions, conditionalities and incentives, such as:

• Multilateral organizations such as the UN, World Bank, OECD, IMF and NATO;
• Regional organizations such as the EU, AU or OAS; and
• External governments.

Among external governments, some are increasingly important. China is becoming a key global player, and its trading and investment power may allow government-parties to internal conflicts to avoid the rules and expectations of more established partners in the international community. Russia’s importance grows as oil and gas resources become more strained. Civil society or media actors may also wield influence and have often mobilized to influence international actors’ utilization of conditionality powers. Their indirect role in influencing conflict parties will have a place in the analysis.

3. Studying the spectrum of instruments

International actors have applied a range of policy instruments to influence parties in conflict affected contexts. The range of instruments, in their modes of operation, could be roughly classified as:

Coercive: measures designed to force the parties to modify their behaviour by making the military, political or economic costs of not doing so unbearable.

Persuasive: measures designed to influence the parties by introducing penalties for bad behaviour or inducements for good behaviour.

Facilitative: instruments that offer support to the parties in their efforts to find a negotiated resolution, such as confidence-building or capacity-building measures and technical support for dialogue and negotiations.

The array of possible instruments within this spectrum is broad, including varieties of positive sanctions or incentives (eg aid for reconstruction and development, access to international organizations, etc) and negative sanctions (eg economic isolation, targeted sanctions such as asset-freezing, terror-listing). Incentives and pressures may be applied in conditional or unconditional manners, and the conditionality may be explicit or implicit. Instruments will vary in whether they have legal force, are backed by resources, or are political/diplomatic statements and gestures designed to stimulate a response. Those on the receiving end of instruments will often be the conflict parties, but domestic constituencies may also be the targets of ‘indirect leverage.’

There are important trends in practice and theory to be aware of. The trend in sanctions has been towards better targeting to minimize their negative side effects. Recent research on aid and conflict has identified the need for more incentivizing ways to influence domestic actors: for example, in some cases the importance of aid has been over-estimated rendering conditionalities largely ineffective. Some have advocated thinking more about positive conditions on aid and gaining influence through policy dialogue (Goodhand et al 2005).

The project is already beginning to map the range of instruments applied in order to understand their correlation with shifts in parties’ engagement. This may help to identify other variables: eg within what type of peace process (eg those with broad-based or narrow participation; externally-led or internally-led) do different incentives/pressures have an impact? Going beyond this, we will reflect on substantive issues such as the unintended consequences of the application of policy instruments by external actors and why they occur. In the cases where external actors are consciously applying tools to influence the behaviour of parties in peace processes, how can they be attentive to:

• When instruments have a radically different effect (positive or negative) than intended. The most obvious examples include incentives that motivate conflict parties to seek further rewards through continued violence. How can interveners avoid rewarding, incentivizing or resourcing violence?
• When instruments appear to have little or no consequence at all on the behaviour of the parties. In many cases where local power dynamics are working in such a way that they become impervious to instruments, eg resistance to allowing ethnic returns has remained high in the former Yugoslavia despite economic incentives to encourage its acceptance.
• When instruments appear to show some desired outcomes, but a number of other side effects. These might include the human costs of punitive measures on the civilian population. There may be further consequences where these are felt unevenly (eg proscriptions on the LTTE, which is both an armed group and a service-provider in the war-torn areas it controls).
• When instruments have one effect in the long-term, but another in the short-term. Some measures may mobilize resistance, despite more positive longer-term impacts.

Through careful analysis of particular examples from practice, the project will attempt to shed light on questions such as the following:

1. What principles and tactical considerations should determine the choice of instruments?
2. How are these instruments perceived by the parties to armed conflicts? How do they influence the ‘push and pull factors’ that determine their decisions about their engagement in peace processes?
3. How can the impact of instruments be measured? How can unintended consequences be predicted, identified or avoided?
4. What determines the effectiveness of the instruments? In what cases do they have traction with the conflict parties?
5. What is the impact of uneven, unpredictable or incomplete implementation?
6. What modes of coordination between external actors and their instruments have been attempted, and what were the results?

4. Key issues

Initial consideration of this theme has identified a number of key cross-cutting issues that the project will need to grapple with:

External actors’ motivations

International actors have a range of motivations guiding their decision to engage, their choice of instruments and the outcomes they try to achieve. Inevitably, motivations will be particular to each actor and the specific context they are engaging with. They are also likely to be complex, and include one or more of the following:

• Geopolitical goals based on national self-interest in all its complexity, including economic and security needs of domestic constituencies;
• Less palpable geopolitical interests around exerting forms of global influence, including the wish to promote political or economic ideologies, or building on historic ties, relationships and spheres of influence;
• Commitments to upholding international law, norms and standards;
• Humanitarianism;
• Peacebuilding agendas.

International engagement is rarely consistent or coherent. Promoting a sustainable peace process may not be the primary consideration in the choice and application of policy instruments: indeed, it is rare to see unambiguous commitment to supporting a peace process. What are the implications of the multiplicity of motivations for the impact of these interventions on the behaviour of the parties?

Asymmetrical relationships

As we explored in Accord issue 16, non-state armed groups pose a particular challenge in an international system of conflict resolution more adept at dealing with states. Many international actors require invitations from the government in order to intervene, which may preclude engagement with non-state groups. Armed groups may display uncertainty about engagement tactics and be receptive to different instruments than states. In the context of the ‘war on terror,’ groups that were regarded as mainstream – though outside the state system – can easily become labelled as ‘terrorist’ and therefore be subject to certain sanctions that may derail peacemaking.

Another challenging kind of ‘non-state’ actor is the de facto independent state, such as Abkhazia, Nagorny Karabakh or Somaliland – unrecognized by the international community at large but with many of the internal attributes of sovereign statehood. Self-determination movements have received very different treatment from the international community (compare Kosovo with Abkhazia).

Consent, ownership and sovereignty

In exploring the legitimate principles for intervention, the project must confront the ethical and practical dilemmas posed by issues of consent, ownership and sovereignty. Questions include: who puts measures in place on whose behalf and under what authority? Who regulates whom in the use of such measures?

Intervening actors can apply measures with or without the consent of all the conflict parties:

• Unilateral action (determined without the consent of either of the conflict parties)
• Bilateral action (determined with the consent of one but not all of the conflict parties)
• Multilateral action (determined with the consent of all the conflict parties)

Can or do the intervening actors make unilateral decisions regarding their activities? Do they seek the consent of all parties for actions, or of only one of the parties? It might be that unilateral action is more possible at the coercive end of the spectrum; multilateral action an imperative at the facilitative end of the spectrum.

The question of consent is closely linked to the issue of ownership of the outcomes of the intervention. How likely is it that the desired outcome (positive shifts in the peace process) is sustainable? To what degree is this linked to the question of consent regarding the intervention? How important is civil society support for the intervention, and how can decisions about international interventions take sufficient account of civil society perspectives in the context concerned? How do external interveners avoid undermining local accountability mechanisms and ownership of peace processes?

Further dilemmas relate to those raised by the UN Secretary General, among others, on changing notions of sovereignty. How can concerns about intervention in the internal political affairs of a sovereign state be balanced against a recognition of the failures of some states to resolve conflicts and protect their populations?

Coordination and complementarity

One of the more obvious questions the project could consider is the degree to which coordination between the range of external actors is a prerequisite for effective intervention:

• Is there any evidence that agreement on the coherent application of a range of policy instruments by different actors (to the extent to which this ever happens) results in the desired behaviour changes?
• Are there occasions when the simultaneous use of carrots and sticks is (a) effective or (b) counter-productive?
• What is the optimum sequencing or timing of particular types of interventions?

Coordination and the coherent or complementary use of policy instruments has been the subject of much work by various institutions. In practice, however, lack of coordination remains a big problem. In Sri Lanka, for example, Japan led the post-conflict development effort while Norway led the peace process: two different states with two different sets of motivations and quite different ways of looking at the world. Exploring practical experiences such as this may offer new insights on the coordination challenge in practice.

5. Project methodology

This section sets out CR’s approach to a project of this sort, as well as identifying steps / key activities in the process.

Approach

CR will:

• engage with groups and institutions addressing these questions and attempt to understand key issues, dilemmas and controversies
• work collaboratively to document examples of interesting and effective practice in this area
• promote findings among a wider international audience of policymakers and practitioners and contribute to the furthering of understanding and debate on these issues.

Accord publications adopt an inclusive approach: it is important to assess the experiences from a range of perspectives, i.e. the external actors, the intended ‘targets’ and others affected by the choice and application of instruments.

Activities

The project will use a comparative case study approach and consist of four main phases:

1. A consultation process to refine the project focus and enhance its relevance
2. An international joint analysis roundtable workshop enabling exchange and reflection among people with direct experience in creating and implementing strategies to address the problem
3. Based on the outcomes of the earlier phases, the commissioning and publication of a thematic edition of Accord: an international review of peace initiatives
4. The development of policy conclusions and implementation of a strategy to influence policy.

Project participants / users

We intend these initiatives to be of benefit to the full range of people directly or indirectly engaged in peacemaking, including government officials, representatives of armed groups, people and institutions playing intermediary roles and civil society peace advocates.

6. Possible case studies

Case studies will be used to explore correlations between the use and impact of particular types of policy instruments and shifts in a peace process. They could include, among others:

• Angola: eg incentives in the peace process; sanctions (arms and diamonds) against UNITA
• Georgia-Abkhazia: the impacts of international choices regarding engagement with Abkhazia; impact of trade restrictions
• Sri Lanka: the impact of peace conditionalities; problems agreeing an aid delivery mechanism
• Israel-Palestine: proscription dilemmas; problems in financing promised incentives
• Sudan: the ICC and other sanctions; pressure on diasporas; the JAM process
• Cyprus: eg the effect of EU enlargement as an incentive – and the general failure of external pressure to get results
• Uganda: the impact of ICC indictments against the Lords Resistance Army on the peace process; the impact of the donor matrix on the government’s approach to the conflict
• Liberia: the impact of targeted sanctions on Charles Taylor’s government and certain businessmen associated with him.

Possible criteria for selection of case studies include:

• the merit of looking at processes where a corner has been turned (ie greater ability for constructive critique of past experience)
• the merit of looking at current contexts challenging policymakers (to be able to throw light on ongoing dilemmas)
• the willingness of the parties involved to engage in honest process of reflection about successes and shortcomings of the interventions
• Variety in range of conflict dynamics, internal and external actors represented
• Relative lack of existing documentation of the process

7. Selected bibliographic resources

Ball, Nicole. Pressing for Peace: Can Aid Induce Reform? Policy Essay Number 6, Washington, D.C.: Overseas Development Council, 1992

Boyce James K. Investing in Peace: Aid and Conditionality after Civil Wars (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002)

Boyce, James K. and Manuel Pastor, Jr. Aid for Peace: Can International Financial Institutions Help Prevent Conflict? World Policy Journal, 15, no. 29 (Summer 1998), pp. 42-49

Cortright, David. The Price of Peace: Incentives and International Conflict Prevention (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc., 1997)

Dorussen, Han. Mixing Carrots with Sticks: Evaluating the Effectiveness of Positive Incentives. Journal of Peace Research, Vol. 38, No. 2 (March 2001): 251-262

Ehrenfield, Daniel; Shira Yael Kogut & Hilary Hove. Aid Conditionality and the Peace Process: An Analysis of Its Implementation. International Journal on World Peace, Vol. 20, 2003

Goodhand, Jonathan and Bart Klem with Dilrukshi Fonseka, S.I. Keethaponcalan, and Shonali Sardesai. Aid, conflict and peacebuilding in Sri Lanka, 2000-2005. Part of the Sri Lanka Strategic Conflict Assessment 2005. Volume 1 of 6. Colombo: Netherlands Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency, The Asia Foundation, Government of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, World Bank, 2005:

Human Security Centre. Human Security Report 2005: war and peace in the 21st century (January 2006)

Rothchild, Donald. Managing ethnic conflict in Africa: pressures and incentives for cooperation (Brookings, 1997)

Uvin, Peter. The Influence of Aid in Situations of Violent Conflict: a synthesis and a commentary on the lessons learned from case studies on the limits and scope for the use of development assistance incentives and disincentives for influencing conflict situations. OECD/DAC Informal Task Force on Conflict, Peace and Development Co-operation. Paris, September 1999:

Wallensteen, Peter & Carina Staibano. International Sanctions: Between Words and Wars in the Global System (Frank Cass, 2005)

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