Political leadership, peacemaking, and post-conflict reconciliation: Xanana Gusmão and East Timor

Abstract

How and to what extent can individual leaders affect policy making during and after violent political conflicts? Why are some motivated to prioritize settlement and reconciliation? The article addresses these questions through a case study of Xanana Gusmão, who led the 24-year struggle against Indonesian military occupation in East Timor and became president. It assesses Gusmão's influence on conflict and post-conflict policy takes a trait-based approach to understanding the motivations and capabilities of Gusmão and other ''reconciliation-oriented leaders.'' Overview and theoretical frameworkCivil wars are prevalent, destructive, and often intractable, so the question of factors that promote peacemaking and reconciliation in such conflicts is central to international relations, political psychology, and related fields. Leadership has only recently begun to receive scholarly attention as a factor in negotiated settlement of international and intergroup conflicts (Aronoff, 2014: 2) and has still not been much considered in analyses of reconciliation in the post-conflict period. Political psychologists tend to agree that ''leadership style may have a direct impact on the policy-making process'' and political leaders' individual choices and behaviors reflect ''the interaction among situations, institutions, and individuals'' (Kaarbo, 2001: 95); however, research in political science on causes of war and peacemaking has focused mainly on impersonal structural factors to the virtual exclusion of the level of Leadership 0(0) 1-25 ! The Author(s) 2015 Reprints and permissions: sagepub.co.uk/journalsPermissions.nav

Exploring leaders’ inclusiveness in post-conflict political transitions in East and Southern Africa

“…Finally, Table 3 present four additional types of behaviours that were perceived by both groups of respondents to be representative of inclusive leadership. The ability to restore dignity, encourage unity and fight against revenge was similar to what is expected from reconciliation-oriented leaders in a post-conflict environment (Lieberfeld, 2018).…”

“…Exploring the perceptions of the culture of inclusion was likely to generate subjective views, making the interpretivism approach appropriate. Lieberfeld (2018) supports that the post-conflict context is a highly delicate topic due to the traumatic sufferings endured by people. As such, in-depth semi-structured interviews were deemed more suitable for this sensitive topic.…”

Political leadership for peace processes: Juan Manuel Santos – Between hawk and dove

“…Jervis criticises that Leadership studies focus on negative examples, calling for a more inclusive approach in which positive cases are comprehensively assessed and not treated as individual incomparable cases (2017: 6). Moreover, in line with other contributions in Leadership studies (Lieberfeld, 2018), this article follows Greenstein by claiming that leadership matters when the 'situation is novel, ambiguous, and with no formal rules ' (1992: 110). During an internal armed conflict like the Colombian case, where there is significant intergroup violence, there is notable potential for the leader to make an impact.…”

“…It would also be interesting to find experimental evidence for pragmatism and orientation towards reconciliation as key variables for understanding decision-making in peace scenarios, contributing to recent studies on hawks’ advantage to pursue rapprochement (Mattes and Weeks, 2019). Moreover, this study claims that a policy of reconciliation is not enough (contrarily to Lieberfeld, 2018), which invites further qualitative case comparisons of leaders in peace processes.…”

“…However, there is a wealth of contributions on peace spoilers, defined as actors who try to destroy peace attempts out of personal fears or interests (Newman and Richmond, 2006; Stedman, 1997). There are almost no works on political leaders who engage positively in peace processes (an exception is Lieberfeld, 2018). Peace and conflict scholars have often overlooked the importance of leadership and focused on ‘the moment of ripeness’ to explain the initiation of peace negotiations (Pruitt, 2011; Walch, 2016; Walter, 2002; Zartman, 2001).…”