ABSTRACT

Development and Conflict in Post-Conflict Systems

My presentation will examine the following words/concepts and the interrelationships between them:
Conflict
Violence
Peace
Change
Development
Transition
Corruption
Threshold of tolerance

I begin by a level of analysis statement:  Conflict can occur because of individuals, groups and inter-group relationships, interstate relations, relations between non-state actors, and relationships rooted in the globalization process. Conflict can be peaceful or violent, and can therefore be constructive or destructive. An important feature of violence is structural violence, as discussed by Johan Galtung. Levels of analysis and kinds of conflict represent two of the variables in my current project.

Another variable is change.  There are many kinds of change, but I choose to focus on various forms of development (political, socio-economic, cultural) as another variable.

There is a considerable literature on transitional systems.  I choose to focus on a kind of transition, namely the transition from authoritarianism to democracy.  More specifically, I will discuss the concept of transition from authoritarianism to democracy in post-conflict societies.

The problems to be examined can then be stated as follows:  After a society experiences serious conflict (violent conflict), the post-conflict path of “development “ may take several forms.  If the post-conflict society moves from authoritarianism to democracy, and from a state-controlled economy to a free market economy, what kind of transition process can be expected?  Will “development” produce more conflict, less conflict, or conflict in different forms? Will this process help produce a functioning civil society? Will the process produce constructive or destructive conflict?

Another focus of the research is conflict transformation.  If the process produces destructive conflict, how can it be managed in such a way that the conflict can be transformed into long-term change that will reduce conflict in the future?  More specifically:  One way to reduce conflict in a transitional system is for the political and soci-economic elites to exercise power on the principle of noblesse oblige.  Such a policy will reduce the sources of structural violence that are likely to develop in transitional systems.  The opposite of this is a political and societal elite that ignores the people and rules for itself (see Socrates on this problem, envisioned over two thousand years ago).
A specific focus of this research is the threshold of tolerance. What level of exploitation will the masses of the people, or specific groups, tolerate before the conflict created in the process turns violent (e.g. revolution)?

Finally:  What is the role of corruption in transitional societies?  We know from the literature that corruption is endemic in many parts of the world, and perhaps particularly in transitional systems.  There is consensus that corruption is a bad thing, basically hindering “development”.  On the other hand, corruption may ameliorate  the problems associated with “change”, at least temporarily, in that it may reduce the likelihood of elites fighting each other for the spoils; after all, if everyone gets a cut, there may be less need to fight about it.  This process, of course, produces massive structural violence, suffered by those who are not part of the spoils system.  What is the threshold of tolerance for those who are being exploited this way?  At what point will they rise up and produce violent conflict?

It is possible that this last part constitutes an impossible task.  There may be too many variables at the individual or group level (perhaps also interstate level) to make the threshold problem researchable.  On the other hand, if some approximate findings may be established, the project may have both academic and policy implications.  The study of the sources of conflict is an academic enterprise, but the search for peace is not; peace workers are practitioners as well as analysts.  If we can find some fairly accurate indicators of the threshold of tolerance, maybe these finds can help rapacious leaders turn to noblesse oblige, if only for the reason of self-preservation.