Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Figures and Tables
- List of Abbreviations
- Acknowledgements
- Dedication
- 1 Introduction
- 2 Understanding and Rethinking ‘Conflict Resolution’: A Conceptual and Theoretical Framework
- 3 Conflict and Peace: History of the Northern Irish and Turkey’s Kurdish Peace Processes
- 4 Backchannel Communications: Talking to the Enemy Behind the Scenes
- 5 Peace and Conflict Resolution Organisations: Catalysts for Peace?
- 6 Official Negotiations: The Long, Narrow Road to Peace
- 7 Conclusion
- Appendix: Index of Interviews
- Bibliography
- Index
2 - Understanding and Rethinking ‘Conflict Resolution’: A Conceptual and Theoretical Framework
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 18 November 2022
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Figures and Tables
- List of Abbreviations
- Acknowledgements
- Dedication
- 1 Introduction
- 2 Understanding and Rethinking ‘Conflict Resolution’: A Conceptual and Theoretical Framework
- 3 Conflict and Peace: History of the Northern Irish and Turkey’s Kurdish Peace Processes
- 4 Backchannel Communications: Talking to the Enemy Behind the Scenes
- 5 Peace and Conflict Resolution Organisations: Catalysts for Peace?
- 6 Official Negotiations: The Long, Narrow Road to Peace
- 7 Conclusion
- Appendix: Index of Interviews
- Bibliography
- Index
Summary
By peace, we mean the capacity to transform conflict with empathy and creativity, without violence; this is a never-ending process … By without violence, we mean that this process should avoid any threat or use of direct violence that hurts and harms.
Conflict resolution is a ‘vibrant, interdisciplinary field where theory and practice pace real-world events’. Conflict resolution theory seeks to understand and support practical interventions. conflict resolution is a multilateral process which addresses both state-level and group-level aspirations behind political violence. Hence, this process is relevant to explore solutions to ethno-nationalist violence between states and sub-state armed groups. In this context, conflict resolution theory differs from realism because of the realist approach's overemphasis on conflicts between states.
In this chapter, I focus on two interrelated arguments. Firstly, that conflict resolution efforts of states, sub-state groups and third parties provide a framework for ending ethno-nationalist violence. Secondly, that conflict resolution as a process develops an understanding of non-violent resolution efforts during the pre-negotiation and negotiation stages. This chapter aims to justify the theoretical foundations of the book. It outlines how the characteristics of conflict resolution approaches adapted in this book produce a convenient framework for analysing non-violent resolution attempts. These two arguments provide a comprehensive theoretical background for analysing the Northern Irish and Turkey's Kurdish conflicts. Within a specific context, the ethno-nationalist conflicts in Northern Ireland and Turkey, as well as the claims of the British and Turkish governments on the one hand, and the republican and pro-Kurdish movements on the other, can be emphasised in relation to efforts to reach a peace settlement. It underlines the importance of two directions for understanding this infl uence: a particular time period in which states and armed groups can be directed from an armed struggle to political or non-violent disputes, and a particular level of approaches which uncover the relationships between conflicting parties and an independent third party in terms of peace attempts.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Peace Processes in Northern Ireland and TurkeyRethinking Conflict Resolution, pp. 24 - 71Publisher: Edinburgh University PressPrint publication year: 2020