This paper reviews the evidence base that underpins contemporary approaches to the resolution of violent conflict. By means of a systematic literature review the paper explores academic work as well as grey literature that engages with the experiences of the “end-users” of conflict resolution efforts. It finds that current approaches to conflict resolution are often based on weak evidence and normative objectives, and make problematic assumptions with regard to the actors and conflict structures involved, and to the conflict resolution strategies employed. It concludes by highlighting the need to strengthen the evidence base of conflict research if conflict resolution practice is to be brought into line with empirical realities.
Key findings:
While violent conflicts are increasingly complex, networked, and transnational, models of conflict resolution remain inward looking, binary, and state-centric. They often fail to effectively deal with the vulnerabilities and insecurities of the daily lives of people affected by violent conflict. In the last two decades, non-state actors, informal arrangements, and complex security environments have challenged existing conflict resolution approaches.
Despite notable advances that academic literature has made in certain areas of the conflict resolution field, the empirical knowledge base supporting the scholarship has overall been insufficiently robust. In particular, based on the findings from the literature reviewed, there is a need to pursue further research into, and strengthen the evidence base of, three inter-related topics which are under-theorised, poorly-understood, or both. Namely:
- The changing nature of conflict and its diverse origins and manifestations
- The conflict networks that emerge and develop through bargaining in the political marketplace
- The resulting (and often hybrid) governance and authority structures.
Violent conflicts have complex architectures that often extend beyond the most obvious belligerents. Thus, the structure of a particular conflict – the salient configurations of actors and their inter-linkages – presents challenges for peace processes and peacebuilding strategies. The prevalent conflict responses treat conflict actors as atomistic when they are in fact embedded in a variety of social, economic, and security networks that may well transcend national boundaries. The revolving door of fighters going in and out of failed DDR programmes is ample evidence of our inability to capture this complexity effectively in our conflict responses.
There is an emerging consensus that the key to understanding violent conflict is an acknowledgment of the diversity of its forms and origins. Attempts to produce classifications based on neat conceptual boundaries have been unable adequately to represent this diversity. Substantial debates in scholarly literature have dealt with the issue of root causes, motives, and incentives for violent conflict, only to underline their complex, variable, and dynamic nature.
Additional research is needed into how violent conflict is understood by its various protagonists (particularly end-users), the implications for measuring violence, and to formulate more effective responses from the end-user perspective. To better understand what drives armed conflicts, more in-depth empirical evidence is needed on how various actors, at various levels of analysis (from the very local, to the national, to the regional and international), are interconnected in different regional and geopolitical contexts. There is a tendency to ‘pathologise’ local populations and view ordinary people as primarily victims of armed violence. In fact, the evidence of the actual experience of armed violence by the civilian population and various strategies used to cope, resist, or take advantage of ensuing violence and implications in terms of conflict persistence is rather thin.