Non-governmental organisations (NGOs) have become important actors in the globalised world. They run aid and relief programmes in the poorest countries, support international institutions (like the United Nations), or are watchdogs of them (for example watchdogs of the Bretton Woods institutions). In doing so, NGOs naturally work permanently with state-agencies and it is probably hard to find an NGO which is totally free of any governmental support (in financial, logistical or informative matters). Thus, there are strong NGO-government connections on a daily-work basis. NGOs run multiple attempts to contribute to the resolution of conflicts on all political levels. They bring together people on the grass-root level, they try to influence high officials through public pressure and they organise conferences and discussions with members and consultants of the concerned parties. The latter approach is analysed in this study. But how do NGOs influence the level of official international relations? To which degree can NGOs improve the relations of two conflicted parties, especially when the conflict is protracted and severe? The aim of this book is to define the preconditions of successful NGO mediation, to measure the NGO influence as an ‘antecedent condition’ for successful mediation, and to exhibit its limits. The underlying assumption is that conflict resolution is more likely if NGO mediation supports this attempt. This approach can be labelled as an ‘assumption of constant effect’ since the focus is on understanding the NGOs influence on international conflict resolution.

Textprobe: International conflict mediations: In international politics, there are several important factors which are given and not changeable for third-parties: The meaning of a given conflict to the interests of the regional superior powers and their impact the involvement of neighbouring states and their interests in the conflict and their support of various parties to the conflict the ruling parties and their opinion of how to resolve the conflict as well as their oppositional parties and, illegal groups which might benefit from the state of conflict. All these actors critically influence the possibilities of third-parties, just to name the most relevant. This study takes these influences which have originated outside of the conflict as granted and analyses only the variables directly connected to the third-party attempt. The outside influences were regarded as important and were considered in the evaluation of a conflict. But since this study is focused on the possibilities of the third-party influence, in particular the possibilities of NGOs, the variables analysed were about the issues as follows: character of the conflict, involvement of the third-party, secrecy during the third-party mediation, their funding, the participation of the adversaries, backing of the adversaries’ governments, and the success of the mediation attempt. There are differences in the character of conflicts or the timing and kind of mediation. Other influences include the degree of secrecy in the mediation attempts. Common to all third-party mediation attempts is the neutrality of the third-party thus, it is not a direct party to the crisis. Participants: As already mentioned above in the section ‘arguing vs. bargaining”, most scholars emphasise the need to include all concerned groups to a conflict in a mediation attempt. Although the participation of so-called ‘spoilers” in a problem-solving workshop causes certain problems for a successful outcome, there is no alternative to doing so. If a workshop shall produce a solution for a conflict that is acceptable for all concerned groups, such a solution will hardly be found if not all groups participate. Furthermore, if the excluded groups do matter, because they represent an important amount of those concerned, or posses the forces (military, financial or other forms of protest) to prevent an agreement from implementation, they will probably do so, especially if they feel that their concerns have not been respected in the mediation process. Therefore, not only the leading groups of the adversary parties but also opponent representatives must participate in problem-solving workshops. Only the presentation and implementation of concurring arguments, in some cases arguments diametrically opposed to the aim of the workshop, guarantee that the outcome has a realistic chance to be acceptable to a majority of the people concerned. Putnam introduces the model of two-level games: ‘The politics of many international negotiations can usefully be conceived as a two-level game. At the national level, domestic groups pursue their interests by pressuring the government to adopt favorable policies, and politicians seek power by constructing coalitions among those groups. At the international level, national governments seek to maximize their own ability to satisfy domestic pressures, while minimizing the adverse consequences of foreign developments’. Putnam distinguishes between the international level of negotiation and the national level of ratification where the agreement can still be refused to be implemented. Reaching a ‘win-set’, what is defined as all possible agreements made with the adversary (international) can also be accepted (win a majority) at the national level, is the task for finding a solution which is implementable. If only like-minded participants from both adversary parties construct a solution for a given conflict, the probability that such a solution, developed in isolation from diverging opinions, will not succeed in the aftermaths is high. Janis, who introduces the term of ‘groupthink’ mentions as possible shortcomings ‘overoptimism, lack of vigilance, and sloganistic thinking about the weakness and immorality of out-groups’. Therefore, the participants of a workshop are ideally not only the leader of the adversary groups but also divergent positions within each of the adversary groups. Often it is possible to distinguish between ‘moderate’ and ‘hard-liner’ positions to a conflict or the representatives of these positions can be labelled as ‘dovish’ and ‘hawkish’, respectively. It must be defined for each conflict what the characteristics of such labels mean exactly, but generally, an ideal workshop consists of ‘dovish’ as well as ‘hawkish’ participants from each adversary group.

• international conflict resolution

• track-II diplomacy

• non-governmental organisations

• third-party mediation

• politics

Tilman Pradt, geboren 1979, studierte Politikwissenschaften am Otto-Suhr-Institut der Freien Universität Berlin. Der Schwerpunkt seiner Studien lag auf den Internationalen Beziehungen, besonders die Analyse von komplizierten internationalen Konflikten und Möglichkeiten inoffizieller Diplomatie faszinierten ihn. Praktika in NGOs führten ihn zum Thema seiner Diplomarbeit in der er die Möglichkeiten von Nichtregierungsorganisationen als Mediatoren in internationalen Konflikten untersuchte.