CDSn4001:
Conflict
Analysis
Conflict resolution
December 9, 2024
Miriam Matejova, PhD
Agenda
• How do we end wars? How should we
end wars?
• What is the future of war and war
prevention?
Conflict resolution
• Why do we
study causes of
conflict?
• How do we
bring on peace?
Achieving negative peace
• Peacemaking
• Efforts to bring the conflict parties to a peace settlement – through
negotiations, mediation, etc.
• Peacekeeping
• Deployment of peacekeeping forces to separate and monitor the
conflict parties
• Peace enforcement
• The use of force or threat of force, which will force the states or
groups to stop fighting.
Achieving positive peace
•Peacebuilding
•Focus on social, political and economic structures
that cause conflict
•Goal is to build a constructive relationship
between conflict parties to prevent the return of
violence.
•Many different strategies: partition,
powersharing, cooptation, atď.
Credible commitment theory
• Parties don’t reach cooperative solutions,
because they can’t commit themselves
credibly to act (in advance) in agreed ways.
– Actor’s promise to behave cooperatively might not
be believed by others if promises cannot be
enforced.
– Actors make promises but have no intention of
upholding them, or
– An actor may sincerely want to promise to
cooperate, but in the future, it may be rational to
break a promise if an opportunity arises.
How to make commitments credible?
• Make reneging on the agreement costly by
raising the political costs of defection
– Audience costs – sovereign states raise their
audience costs if they want to increase the
credibility of their commitments
Discussion
• What’s the difference between ending
international vs civil wars?
• Peacekeeping: good or evil? Needed or not?
• The ethics of war: What is the future war likely
to look like? Who is likely to be affected the
most?