Dialogue and Conflict resolution - The potential and limits of dialogue as a tool for conflict resolution
Dialogue is typically hailed as a progressive force fostering mutual understanding and resolving conflicts. Can it really carry such a burden? Does dialogue really resolve conflicts? In this unique volume international experts critically assess the political role of dialogue, addressing its potential and limitations. Bringing fascinating insights to bear they examine the theoretical underpinnings and conceptual boundaries of dialogue as a tool for conflict resolution. Major recent crises such as the Russo-Georgian war in 2008, the conflict between Western powers and Gaddafi’s Libya, arguments over Iran’s nuclear programme, religious tensions in Egypt after the Arab Spring, the Afghan case, the Sudanese experience and the recent Russo-Ukraine conflict are all considered and the conflict resolution attempts discussed. Using these cases the contributors explore in depth the nature of the dialogue between the actors, the extent to which it worked and what determined its impact. Table of Contents 1 Introduction: Dialogue and conflict resolution Pernille Rieker 2 Diplomacy and Dialogue Ole Jacob Sending 3 The dysfunctions of non-party conflict diplomacy Henrik Thune and Frida Nome 4 Dialogue in a World of Emotional Politics Paul Saurette and Henrik Thune 5 What makes dialogue and diplomacy work or not? Russia – Georgia and Russia – Ukraine Jakub M. Godzimirski 6 Nuclear Diplomacy: the Case of Iran Sverre Lodgaard 7 Libya: The promise and pitfalls of diplomacy Målfrid Braut-Hegghammer and Pernille Rieker 8 Peace dialogue, the Afghan case 2001–2014 Michael Semple 9 The attempts of dialogue in Sudan John Ashworth 10 Dialogue as tool for addressing religious tensions: containing the violence, or true conflict resolution? George Fahmi 11 Conclusions Pernille Rieker and Henrik Thune
The BRICS and Coexistence
The grouping consisting of Brazil, Russia, India and China (BRIC) was initially meant to be nothing more than clever investment jargon referring to the largest and most attractive emerging economies. However, these countries identified with the BRIC concept, and started to meet annually as a group in 2008. At their fourth summit in 2011, they added South Africa to become the BRICS. By then the BRICS had fully morphed from investment jargon to a name for a new economic and political grouping that had the potential to challenge the unipolar hegemony of the United States and its Western allies. This work analyses the extent to which the concept of coexistence explains the individual foreign policies of the BRICS countries. The editors define coexistence as a strategy that promotes the establishment of a rule-based system for co-managing the global order. It recognizes that different states may legitimately pursue their own political and economic interests, but they have to do so within the bounds of a rule-based international system that ensures the peaceful coexistence of states. The BRICS and Coexistence addresses the political dimension of the emergence and influence of the BRICS in the international system and will be of interest to students and scholars of Politics, Development and International Relations.
Status and sovereign equality: Small states in multilateral settings
In this chapter, we explore Norwegian UN policy, arguing that it is a central arena for Norwegian efforts to be recognized by others. Our focus on Norwegian UN policy is not an end in itself, but a means to develop a more general argument about status seeking behaviour in a multilateral setting. We argue that status seeking in multilateral settings is distinct from status seeking in other settings, and that this stems from the norms of reciprocity and rulebased cooperation in such settings. Multilateral settings put a premium on behaviour that is in keeping with a commitment to the furtherance and expansion of the rules established by multilateral cooperation and organizations. Certain types of behaviour or role, rather than certain types of resources, can accord status. Norway has specialized in one distinct ‘role’: that of being a team-player, a facilitator – an actor that can be relied upon to take on the burden of doing things in which it has no identifiable direct stake or interest. A case in point is the UN request as to whether Norway could shoulder the responsibility for destroying Syria’s chemical weapons. We conclude the chapter by suggesting that the role developed in multilateral settings has so pervaded Norwegian diplomatic tradition that it is present in bilateral settings as well. We proceed as follows. We first elaborate briefly on the editors’ introduction and highlight how status seeking is reflected in the skills and diplomatic forms that are valued in different settings. We then briefly describe overall Norway’s UN policy, with a few examples of what a status-based reading of this policy can tell us about Norwegian foreign policy, and about multilateralism as a distinct arena for status seeking. Next, we present the specific manifestations of their distinctiveness of multilateral settings, and link this to Norwegian diplomats’ self-understandings and conceptions of what characterizes a good diplomat: the ability to be tapped into what is going on in an effort to present oneself with resources that can be put to good use on issues in which Norway may often not have any distinct or direct stakes. This tendency to stress the role as ‘helper’ is most pronounced in relation to issue-areas where the USA has vital interests, and is less so where less powerful states are concerned. Thus, power differentials play a central role also in multilateral settings, where it matters who is the demandeur for the tasks to be undertaken.