Towards an Inclusive Conception of Best Practices in Peace and Conflict Initiatives: The Case of the South Caucasus

Abstract

The field of peace and conflict studies has been maturing over the past few decades, not least thanks to the continual epistemological contestation between its philosophy and methodology. As a consequence, the methods of conflict resolution practice have been evolving. Dominated by realist approaches of conflict management during the Cold War, the field in the 1990s relied heavily on neo-liberal theories of economic interdependence, democracy building, and interest-based negotiations that can bring win-win outcomes. By the late 2000s, as the constructivist paradigm and critical theory started gaining ground in academia, the conceptual conversation shifted toward the possibilities of building inclusive societies and achieving structural and cultural peace via conflict transformation, rather than resolution, as the respective methodology.

Healing dialogue: Can the techniques and practices of Track Two diplomacy play a role in resolving public health conflicts?

“…11 What successful peace processes look like is notoriously difficult to define. This question has recently been complicated further by a "normative turn" in Track Two literature 12 that seeks to understand how Track Two can engender greater inclusion 13 and local ownership. 14 This imperative for greater inclusion has largely focused on how to meaningfully include civil society in formal peace negotiations 15 for more effective outcomes.…”

Toward a Normative Turn in Track Two Diplomacy? A Review of the Literature

“…While scholars have focused on how mediators promote such norms (Vuković 2020), the situations and dilemmas where norms and values clash (Kraus et al 2019), and case studies on the spread and diffusion of specific norms (Zahar 2012; Pring 2017; Hellmüller 2019b), analysis of the role of norms per se is still emerging in Track Two literature. There is dedicated scholarship on the ideational parameters of conducting Track Two diplomacy in the Asia‐Pacific region (Job 2003; Acharya 2014), given the strongly held normative frameworks of quiet diplomacy and nonintervention in the region (Ramcharan 2000), but more broadly framed scholarship around norms of inclusivity and local ownership (Çuhadar and Paffenholz 2019; Allen 2020; Gamaghelyan 2020) urge further research into these themes.…”

“…These modalities reflect a large paradigm shift in conflict resolution literature in which Track Two has become more professionalized, more dynamic, and more normative (Hellmüller, Palmiano Federer, and Zeller 2015; Turner and Wählisch 2021) as mounting empirical evidence points to the benefits of civil society inclusion (Nilsson 2012; Krause, Krause, and Bränfors 2018). Based on recent calls for Track Two scholars to look at how more inclusive peacemaking affects Track Two (Çuhadar and Paffenholz 2019; Gamaghelyan 2020; Jones 2020), this article asks how paradigm shifts, in particular this recent “normative turn” toward inclusivity in conflict resolution (Donais and McCandless 2017; Hellmüller, Pring, and Richmond 2020), are reflected in Track Two scholarship. Aside from a few notable exceptions focusing on the strong regional normative frameworks in the Asia Pacific region (Job 2003; Capie 2010; Acharya 2014), the impact of the inclusivity norm in Track Two literature has not been examined systematically, and there is a need to take stock of these new developments.…”