Conflict Interventions: Peacekeeping, Peacemaking and Peacebuilding

There are three stages of conflict or peace process that we need to understand. These stages have already been discussed in the previous lectures; peacekeeping, peacemaking, and peacebuilding. The stages attempt to explain and describe the dynamics and features of peace process.

Peacekeeping is the most challenging stage because it will be conducted amidst a heated conflict to contain violence and prevent from escalating, to limit intensity, duration, and geographical spread of the conflict, and to push for ceasefire and hopefully for conflict resolution. There are questions of timing, legal, ethics, and who will do the peacekeeping. This should not just be limited to ceasefire and stoppage of conflict but also to humanitarian activities. Peacemaking, on the other hand, is all about communication to know the underlying interests and needs. It includes negotiation, mediation, dialogue and confidence building. Peacebuilding is about reconciliation and repairing of relationships. These 3 stages are in parallel and consonance with conflict management, conflict resolution, and conflict transformation.

In peacemaking, negotiations play an important part. There are 3 types of negotiations; soft, hard, and principled. The soft negotiation sees the goal of the negotiation is agreement because it treats the participants as friends. The hard negotiation sees its goal as victory because it treats the participants as adversaries while the principled negotiation sees its goal as wise outcome reached amicable and efficiently because it treats the participants as problem-solvers.

From the real conflict situations, these theoretical concepts are applied and found to be helpful yet inadequate at times. It only shows that there is much to catch our interest and passion in the field of conflict and peace studies.