Drum Café 2010 Peace Festival 20 -21
Kenya Institute of
Education, Nairobi
Boaz Adhengo
Research Consultant, Creative Economy Studies
Fellow: American Biographical
Institute
Senior Fellow: Eco Ethics International Union
Tel: 0733 867644
Email : boaz.adhengo@aku.edu
What is Conflict Management
n
Conflict
management refers to the long term management of intractable conflicts. It is
the label for the variety of ways by which people handle grievances – standing
up for what they consider to be right and against what they consider to be
wrong
Common
Conflict Management Strategies
Conflict is not just about simple
inaptness but is often connected to a previous issue. However, there is a menu
of strategies we can chose from when in conflict situations
Forcing – using formal authority or other power that you posses to
satisfy your concerns without regard to the concerns of the party that you are
in conflict with.
Accommodating – allowing the other party to satisfy their concerns while
neglecting your own.
Avoiding – not paying attention to the conflict and not taking any
action to resolve it.
Compromising – attempting to resolve a conflict by identifying a
solution that is partially satisfactory to both parties, but completely
satisfactory to neither.
Collaborating – cooperating with the other party to understand their
concerns and expressing your own concerns in an effort to find mutually and
completely satisfactory solution (win – win).
Origins
History and current experience shows that
so deep are pains of most of the conflicts experienced in Africa
that the popular individualized and rationalistic approaches to healing and
transformation simply lack the language and resources to solidly address the
challenge of holistic peaceful transformation. Arts approaches provide an
accessible language, compelling processes that affirm everyone’s creativity and
above all, an inclusive space that enables healing, genuine dialogue and
transformation to happen particularly where the violent conflicts and pains are
experienced by masses of people.
The carnage that followed Kenya’s disputed election in late
2007 shocked the world. An exceptional
country once considered an oasis of peace and stability in a troubled region
had degenerated into disorder, chaos and ferocious violence. Its exceptionalism
was in many ways a myth.
The failure of the election was merely a trigger for events that would
have taken place at some point in the future. There had been an overwhelming
sense of exclusion and alienation among large sections of the populace, thus,
the youth saw the violence as moment of unity and empowerment, making them
unregrettable for their violent actions.
The road to success
Fixing Kenya is not
about building more roads, hospitals and schools. It is about returning some
semblance of confidence in the Kenyan state and imbuing the population with a
sense of nationhood.
The
2007 post election conflict management innovation was motivated by pro –social
team atmosphere as manifested in team identity, the team’s capacity to maximize
the potential gains of task conflict.
Strategy
Conflict processes are determined both by the larger geopolitical
context and the domestic political structure. Because parties have to appeal to
both their domestic and international constituencies, cross cutting alliances
between the two levels become crucial to the settlement of a civil insurgency.
Yet current studies tend to examine either international or domestic factors;
each level of analysis is studied in isolation.
Such an approach neglects the fact that conflict actors often engage in
‘double – edged diplomacy’
Specifically it was
hypothesized:
Integrating
would predict innovation
Team
identity would be positively related to integrating, and that integrating would
mediate the positive relationship between team identity and team innovation.
Task
conflict would be positively related to integrating whereas relationship
conflict would negatively relate to integrating.
African Dilemma
In
African countries where insurgencies co-exist with stable, democratic
institutions, external intervention is more beneficial if it works with
existing institutions in building trust and affecting change.
Because it does not challenge the reputation
concerns of the government, non-coercive intervention, such as mediation, can
play a more constructive role than military or other forms of high impact
action.
Focus ?
The
arguments of this paper are a significant shift from existing literature that
tends to focus on conflicts in failed, anarchic states where coercive
international intervention becomes necessary (e.g. Somalia).
It
argues that conflict management can be homegrown, nurtured and people oriented,
given the construction and cooperative management accorded by the public
preference at any one time.
