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Conflict diplomacy—political de-bordering strategies in intrastate conflicts

Konflikt Diplomatie – Politische Entgrenzungsstrategien in innerstaatlichen Konflikten

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Abstract

While some intrastate conflicts receive political attention by International Organizations (IOs), others do not. When and under what conditions do IOs pay attention to intrastate conflicts? This paper argues that political attention of IOs towards conflicts is influenced by developments on the micro level (group level)—namely by the establishment of de-bordering strategies by rebel groups. I argue that rebel groups are active agents in elevating the conflict into the world political system by de-bordering the conflict politically. Based on modern systems theory, I developed a theoretical model that distinguishes between a functional, territorial, and symbolic de-bordering of intrastate conflicts. I use descriptive statistics to show in how many conflicts that ended between 1989 and 2006 rebel groups have used de-bordering strategies, and in which cases IOs granted international attention to rebels. The results show that 63% of the rebels in the analyzed conflicts had used de-bordering strategies. In 65% of those cases, IOs responded to the rebels, thereby awarding political attention. This study highlights the importance to take different de-bordering strategies of rebels and the international attention of IOs into account to identify linkages between the micro and macro level in conflict situations. To understand this pattern in more detail, the analysis is followed by an illustrative case study on the de-bordering of the conflict between the Turkish government and the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK).

Zusammenfassung

Unter welchen Bedingungen erhalten innerstaatliche Konflikte Aufmerksamkeit von IOs? Das vorliegende Papier argumentiert, dass politische Aufmerksamkeit von IOs gegenüber einem Konflikt von Entwicklungen auf dem Mikrolevel (Gruppenebene) abhängig ist – nämlich dem Aufbau von Entgrenzungsstrategien durch Rebellengruppen. Rebellengruppen tragen durch politische Entgrenzungsstrategien selbst aktiv dazu bei, den Konflikt im weltpolitischen System anschlussfähig zu machen. Zur Analyse entwickele ich ein theoretisches Modell, das auf systemtheoretischen und konflikttheoretischen Annahmen basiert und unterscheide zwischen einer funktionalen, symbolischen und territorialen Entgrenzung von Konflikten. Neue Daten für alle Konflikte, die zwischen 1989 und 2006 endeten, zeigen, dass Rebellengruppen in 63 % der Konflikte Entgrenzungsstrategien genutzt haben und dass IOs in 65 % der Fälle politische Aufmerksamkeit geschenkt haben. Die Ergebnisse unterstreichen die Relevanz von Strukturen zwischen Mikro- und Makrolevel in Konfliktsituationen. Die deskriptive statistische Auswertung wird durch eine illustrative Fallstudie zur Entgrenzung des Konfliktes zwischen der Türkischen Regierung und der Kurdischen Arbeiterpartei (PKK) ergänzt.

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Notes

  1. I thank Rhianna Vonk for her excellent assistance with the coding process, the participants at the German Association for Peace and Conflict Studies (AFK) Conference 2018 in Berlin for the discussion of my paper and the two anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments and suggestions. Special thanks to Roos van der Haer, Johannes Vüllers, and Nils Weidmann for putting together this special issue and their valuable comments on earlier drafts of this paper.

  2. The concepts “rebel groups” and “non-state conflict parties” are used interchangeably.

  3. Compared to rebels, most states already conduct institutionalized relations to IOs in form of representatives in the IO, embassies, or other forms of diplomatic relations.

  4. There are violent ways as in the case of cross-border fighting, border disputes, or safe havens in neighbouring states (Vasquez 1995; Vasquez and Henehan 2001). But there are also plenty of non-violent ways. These include resource-driven border contestations like transnational smuggling, drug trafficking, or financial or logistical cross-border bonds (Gleditsch 2007), as well as political processes, like the setting-up of political outlets, both in the home countries and abroad, in order to attract (international) support and recognition. Moreover, borders are contested by the intervention of external actors (Gleditsch 2009; Gleditsch and Beardsley 2007; Regan 2002).

  5. With 32% of all cases mediated by organizations, the UN is the leading entity in mediation processes, followed by organizations such as the Intergovernmental Authority on Development, the EU, and the Organization of African Unity (DeRouen Jr. et al. 2011, p. 665).

  6. While not every rebel group decides to govern a group of civilians, “a surprisingly large number of rebel groups engage in some sort of governance, ranging from creating minimal regulation and informal taxation to forming popular assemblies, elaborate bureaucracies, schools, courts, and health clinics” (Arjona et al. 2015, p. 1).

  7. “International and/or transnational institutions have authority when the direct and indirect addressees recognize, in principal or in practice, that an institution can make competent judgments and decisions that come with the ambition to be binding at least for some members of the global governance system” (Zürn et al. 2012, p. 70).

  8. Usually, the nation-state harmonizes and integrates the territorial (state borders), symbolic (national identity), and functional borders (political system) discursively and institutionally (Bonacker 2006, p. 82).

  9. For more information about the nature of the non-state armed actor, I referred to the Non-State Actors dataset by Cunningham et al. (2013), which includes data on the state-rebel dyad and additional information on the organizations involved in conflict dynamics.

  10. http://www.srilankaguardian.org/2008/03/ltte-propaganda-nitharsanam-unit.html, last access 15.07.2019.

  11. An international dimension characterizes the conflict due to the hideouts for the PKK leadership and the establishment of training camps for PKK fighters in neighbouring territories in Syria and Northern Iraq. These cross border operations make the conflict relevant in the neighbouring countries as well: In 1998, Turkey threatened Syria with war if the Syrian regime would continue to support the PKK by providing its leader, Abdullah Öcalan, and its fighters with a safe haven on Syrian territory. Northern Iraq even suffered air strikes by the Turkish army in their attempt to destroy PKK camps on Iraqi territory.

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Correspondence to Mitja Sienknecht.

Appendix

Appendix



Table 2 Intrastate Conflicts that ended between 1989–2006
Table 3 De-bordering Strategies of Rebel Groups (DBS) Dataset: Description of Variables
Table 4 Interviews conducted by the author between 2011–2013

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Sienknecht, M. Conflict diplomacy—political de-bordering strategies in intrastate conflicts. Z Friedens und Konflforsch 8, 183–211 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s42597-019-00017-w

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