Do sanctions, incentives and conditionality support or undermine the peace process? This edition of Accord assesses whether these instruments can persuade conflict parties to engage in peacemaking. Used effectively, these tools can tip the balance towards a settlement by increasing the costs of fighting and rewarding peace. But unless developed as part of a coherent and strategic approach to peacemaking they can be ineffective and have sometimes exacerbated tensions and fuelled conflict. Sanctions, incentives and conditionality must be responsive to parties’ own motivations and support pre-existing conditions for conflict resolution.
Lessons from conflict resolution suggest that parties must ultimately resolve differences themselves. But external actors can use their influence and resources to generate positive incentives or negative pressure towards a negotiated settlement. Competing priorities and approaches by different actors have made conflict resolution more difficult. Incentives, sanctions and conditionality are used as policy tools to achieve various objectives. Unless developed as part of a coherent and strategic approach to peacemaking, these tools can be ineffective.
Failure to apply incentives, sanctions and conditionality effectively can result in, at best, minimal influence and, at worst, exacerbated conflict. Co-ordination of various external interventions is also important, but has proved difficult in practice.
- Incentives, sanctions and conditionality can influence parties to disentangle themselves from costly and ineffective military or political strategies. By contributing resources, they can make practical solutions to seemingly intractable problems possible.
- The proliferation of decision-making bodies and multiplication of policy objectives often combine to generate gridlock. Sometimes, this has the unintended consequence of intensified conflict.
- Sanctions intended to push parties towards the table may instead harden their positions and inhibit dialogue. Incentives may allow parties to benefit and manipulate external actors without seriously engaging in finding a solution.
- External actors may persuade parties to the table before they recognise for themselves the need to negotiate. In this case, the peace process will not be sustainable.
Incentives, sanctions and conditionality have the potential for constructive influence on conflict dynamics. Yet this potential is seldom fulfilled, largely because the requirements of conflict resolution are poorly understood. Recommendations relate to enhancing the effectiveness of external influence:
- External actors need to prioritise support for sustainable peace as their primary goal in a conflict situation and design their strategy to achieve it. This may, in turn, create enabling conditions for achieving other foreign policy goals.
- Sanctions, incentives and conditionality must be responsive to parties’ own motivations and support pre-existing conditions for conflict resolution. These measures should be designed and implemented in ways that help create momentum in the resolution process.
- These actions require a degree of strategic coherence amongst external actors, so mechanisms for coordination are needed. While co-ordination will remain an ongoing struggle, not trying is not an option.
- Improving interventions is not just about better targeting and enforcing of instruments. It also requires a shift in approach away from securing leverage over parties towards generating the basis for a better future.
