Is Prevention the Answer? - Ricerca sull'intelligenza artificiale specializzata al MIT

Is Prevention the Answer?

Charles T. Call & Susanna P. Campbell

Astratto: Is prevention the answer to escalating violent conflict? Conflict prevention uses carrots and sticks
to deter future violence. Its power thus rests on the credibility of policy-makers’ commitment to supply the
carrot or stick in a timely manner. Unfortunately, there are several political and bureaucratic barriers
that make this unlikely. Primo, it is difficult for policy-makers to sell preventive actions to their constituen-
cies. In contrast with core security interests (like nuclear warfare), an uptick in violence in a faraway, non-
strategic country provides a less convincing call for action. Secondo, preventive decisions are difficult to make.
Decision-makers are predisposed to avoid making difficult decisions until a crisis breaks out and they are
forced to act. Third, preventive actions are political, not technical, requiring the use of precious political
capital for uncertain outcomes whose success may be invisible (manifest in the absence of violence). Per-
può darsi, if decision-makers are able to overcome these obstacles and make more credible commitments to
conflict prevention, then conflict prevention will become a more credible solution to violent conflict.

Policy-makers around the world are giving re-

newed attention to conflict prevention. Imme-
diately after taking office in 2017, United Nations
Secretary-General António Guterres identified con-
flict prevention as his top priority. Inoltre, In 2017,
the World Bank and the un released a joint report
calling for improved conflict prevention and, In 2015,
three major un reviews and a quadrennial State De-
partment review called for reinvigorated and better-
resourced efforts to prevent violent conflict.1 In 2016,
un Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon lamented the
rise of violent conflict: “We know it is far better to
prevent a fire than to fight a fire after it has started
–yet prevention still does not receive the political at-
tention, commitment and resources that it deserves.
. . . [It] must move up the agenda.”2 Pleas for im-
proved international conflict prevention are not
new. Policy-makers have periodically lamented the
inability of the “international community” to pre-
vent violent conflict for as long as the concept of con-
flict prevention has existed.3

CHARLES T. CALL is Associate
Professor of International Peace
and Conflict Resolution at the
School of International Service
at American University.

SUSANNA P. CAMPBELL is an As-
sistant Professor at the School of
International Service at American
Università.

(*See endnotes for complete contributor
biographies.)

D
o
w
N
o
UN
D
e
D

F
R
o
M
H

T
T

:
/
/

D
io
R
e
C
T
.

io
T
.

e
D
tu
D
UN
e
D
UN
R
T
io
C
e
–
P
D

F
/

1
4
7
1
6
4
1
8
3
1
0
4
4
D
UN
e
D
_
UN
_
0
0
4
7
4
P
D

B
sì
G
tu
e
S
T

o
N
0
7
S
e
P
e
M
B
e
R
2
0
2
3

Several factors help explain the recent
renewed sense of urgency for conflict pre-
vention. The frustrating and expensive wars
in Afghanistan and Iraq failed to achieve
stable peace despite the trillions of dollars
invested, reducing confidence in the entire
postconflict enterprise. The recurrence of
political violence in places like South Su-
dan and the Central African Republic con-
tributed to a sense that un peacekeeping
cannot meet the increasing demands placed
on it. At the same time that policy-makers
have become disenchanted with post-
conflict peace-building, peacekeeping, E
state-building, the need for solutions has
grown. After a period of slow decline at the
end of the Cold War, the number and in-
tensity of violent conflicts have rapidly in-
creased since 2010. Infatti, 2015 saw 101,400
battle deaths, making it the most violent
year since 1945.4 Wars in Syria, Yemen,
and Libya, largely responsible for a global
refugee crisis that warranted a record $23.5 billion in 2017, show the tragedy and enor- mous human cost of failed violence preven- tion.5 One out of every 113 people on earth was forcibly displaced in 2015, both a con- sequence of intrastate war and a risk factor for further escalation.6 The latest calls for conflict prevention thus come as the frequency and price of violence seem to surge. But does conflict prevention work? What can we expect of its renewed focus? Prior calls for conflict prevention in the early 1990s and 2000s did not result in the kind of systematic and well-resourced programs envisioned by advocates. Che cosa, if anything, has changed that might lead us to expect a different out- come at this juncture? We argue that conflict prevention faces significant obstacles in large part because it requires that states and international or- ganizations (ios) take actions that their constituencies may not deem important. Although conflict prevention employs traditional international relations tools– sanctions, incentives, and socialization–it aims to do so before the cost of not taking action is clear, either for the domestic con- stituency or the recipient of the preventive action. Inoltre, the rules of preven- tion are uncertain. At what point in an es- calating conflict can a potential armed ac- tor expect preventive actions to be taken against it? When a state or international organization promises sanctions or incen- tives, will they actually follow through, and when? Given the lack of credibility behind conflict prevention commitments, both at the normative and policy levels, the greatest surprise seems to be that conflict prevention has worked at all. In the 1990s, initial debates over conflict prevention centered on what was being pre- vented. Scholars reminded us that social conflict is a natural part of social life and that violent conflict can even spur positive social change. Given the increase in armed conflict over the past decade, many of these discussions have dissipated as a general con- sensus has emerged that conflict prevention should focus on preventing civil war and mass violence.7 This includes actions to re- duce the risk of emergent violent conflict– before, during, and after larger episodes of violence–that could escalate into more se- vere forms of political violence. If we can agree on what is to be prevented, the next question is how should prevention work? Che cosa, in other words, is the logic of preven- zione? Is there a reason we should think that conflicts can be prevented by intentional efforts? What is the underlying theory of how particular interventions can alter a hypothetical trajectory toward mass orga- nized violence? Like most other tools of international re- lations, the logic of prevention employs a mixture of carrots, sticks, and socialization. The carrots and sticks include the diplomat- ic, military, and economic tools that are normally at the disposal of states, interna- l D o w n o a d e d f r o m h t t p : / / d i r e c t . m i t . / e d u d a e d a r t i c e – p d / l f / / / / / 1 4 7 1 6 4 1 8 3 1 0 4 4 d a e d _ a _ 0 0 4 7 4 p d . f b y g u e s t t o n 0 7 S e p e m b e r 2 0 2 3 65 147 (1) Winter 2018Charles T. Call & Susanna P. Campbell tional organizations, and nongovernmen- tal organizations. States or international or- ganizations aiming to prevent violence use incentives and disincentives like sanctions to influence would-be violent actors to re- frain from using or encouraging violence. The effects of socialization are less overt, but have been built up and drawn on repeat- edly. Resting on a weak but tangible human rights regime, they include shared norms of conduct that condemn atrocities and un- justified attacks on innocents, reinforce ad- herence to constitutional order, incentivize elections and other expressions of “legiti- mate” rule, and articulate a responsibility of states to protect their citizens and embrace some markers of equality and participation. As Francis Fukuyama has pointed out, these norms are slow to emerge and difficult to embed in international institutions.8 How- ever, diplomats and activists draw on these international norms, seeking to shame and induce leaders. They remind potential per- petrators of violence of appropriate roles in the international community through quiet diplomacy, international conferences, pub- lic campaigns, and advocacy efforts, backed by normative regimes that carry sanctions. They are often unable to convince prospec- tive perpetrators that they can meet their needs without resorting to violence. How- ever, norms can constitute the identity and calculations of potentially violent leaders in ways that can be drawn on to mitigate or prevent mass violence. The difference between the logic of con- flict prevention and the use of carrots and sticks in other international security do- mains is that preventing the escalation of violence is usually not within the interven- er’s vital national security interest. Vast se- curity studies scholarship analyzes how states can compel and deter action by other states based on strategic interaction resting on bounded rationality. In contrast to situ- ations in which core security interests (like nuclear warfare) are at stake, a civil war in a faraway, nonstrategic country is less conse- quential and may not affect global security.9 Thus, even though states and international organizations may threaten the use of force or other sanctions to prevent violent behav- ior, these threats generally have much less credibility. Initial discussions of conflict prevention failed to make this distinction, assuming that states deploy the same tools that they had used to prevent interstate war to prevent intrastate war abroad. In addi- zione, the uncertainty of potential escalat- ing violence–as opposed to manifest civil war–makes it even less likely that states will make an initial offer of carrots or sticks But states and international organi- zations have not consistently followed through with their promised sanctions or incentives in conflict prevention. As a result, the credibility of these preventive commitments is uncertain and, così, their ability to elicit changes in behavior is ques- tionable. Each of the three categories of preven- tive actions–operational, strutturale, and systemic–manifest the logic of preven- tion in different ways.10 Operational preven- tion is the most commonly understood form of conflict prevention and describes “mea- sures applicable in the face of impending crisis.”11 Operational prevention usually re- lies on political, military, and robust eco- nomic tools to dissuade potential violent actors or physically stop them from act- ing violently. In the case of civil wars, op- erational conflict prevention usually tar- gets government leaders and the leaders of groups that may initiate or escalate armed violence. Against nonstate leaders, con- flict preventers can threaten military ac- zione, diplomatic isolation, indictments in national or international courts, targeted financial and other sanctions, and other moves aimed at undercutting their mobili- ty or legitimacy. Against governments, they can threaten all of these sticks plus econom- ic sanctions, military intervention, discon- 66 l D o w n o a d e d f r o m h t t p : / / d i r e c t . m i t . / e d u d a e d a r t i c e – p d / l f / / / / / 1 4 7 1 6 4 1 8 3 1 0 4 4 d a e d _ a _ 0 0 4 7 4 p d . f b y g u e s t t o n 0 7 S e p e m b e r 2 0 2 3 Dædalus, the Journal of the American Academy of Arts & SciencesIs Prevention the Answer? tinuation of external loans or aid or trade, and other sundry diplomatic punishment or isolation. External actors can also offer carrots for cooperation in preventing the escalation of violence. They can offer aid, trade incentives, access to markets, military training, civilian technical assistance, In- telligence cooperation, public expressions of support, and diplomatic favors in areas unrelated to the potential conflict. Some of these carrots can be extended to nonstate leaders who threaten violence, including by withholding potential sticks. Of course, incentives may be inade- quate. As with international diplomacy (and human interactions generally), Sopra- tures, threats, and inducements are often insufficient to elicit the desired behavior. Generally, the first effort to dissuade lead- ers from opting for violence consists of “talk”–statements that encourage dia- logue and discourage polarization and vi- olence. Subsequently, external actors may threaten sticks or dangle carrots. The effec- tiveness of these threats or offers rests on the credibility with which they are received and on the likelihood that they will deliver the intended harm or benefit. In the most favorable circumstances for the success of diplomacy, these inducements require high credibility and a high chance of impact that reflect how important they are to the exter- nal actor, how costly or beneficial they will prove to the target, and how much they rep- resent a shared sentiment among other ex- ternal actors that can reinforce them. Trade sanctions, for instance, don’t work if mul- tiple countries increase their trade with the target country rather than helping enforce the sanctions. In spite of the lack of credibility of many conflict prevention threats, we do see rela- tively benign preventive diplomacy work. Even when this diplomacy appears to be solely “talk,” it is rarely devoid of potential carrots or sticks. Consider the international response to unrest in Burkina Faso in 2014, once long-serving President Blaise Com- paoré stepped down in the face of protests that threatened mass violence. When the un Special Envoy flew into Ouagadougou with top officials of the Economic Com- munity of West African States (ecowas) and the African Union (au) the day af- ter Compaoré’s departure, they collec- tively spoke for Burkina Faso’s immediate neighbors, the broader African continent, and the global community. Their joint in- tervention helped to foster a dialogue that eased the crisis and prevented mass vio- lence around the transfer of political pow- er. Such instances of preventive diplomacy do not represent the sort of compelling de- terrence postulated in traditional interna- tional relations literature, as there was no overt or credible threat of force. Structural prevention refers to “measures to ensure that crises do not arise in the first place, or if they do, that they do not recur.”12 Structural prevention relies on the efforts of development and humanitarian actors and is grounded in the concept of structural vi- olence.13 How does the logic of structural prevention differ from operational preven- zione? The rationale of structural prevention is that external efforts can foster national government policies that incentivize inclu- sion and support peaceful conflict resolu- zione, rather than exclusion and ultimately violent conflict. Rather than sticks or car- rots dangled by the international commu- nity, structural prevention involves exter- nal initiatives that forge policies and pro- grams at the national or subnational level that inhibit armed violence and encour- age the equal distribution of resources among different political, ethnic, and re- ligious groups. The assumption is that in- ternational programs and policies, includ- ing especially development assistance and trade openness, can mitigate known risk factors for civil war. Longer-term develop- ment policies can also shape norms such as inclusion, participatory governance, or l D o w n o a d e d f r o m h t t p : / / d i r e c t . m i t . / e d u d a e d a r t i c e – p d / l f / / / / / 1 4 7 1 6 4 1 8 3 1 0 4 4 d a e d _ a _ 0 0 4 7 4 p d . f b y g u e s t t o n 0 7 S e p e m b e r 2 0 2 3 67 147 (1) Winter 2018Charles T. Call & Susanna P. Campbell rights-based institutions. This normative foundation can constitute the identity and calculations of potentially violent leaders. Systemic prevention is defined as “measures to address global risk of conflict that tran- scend particular states.”14 Like structural prevention, systemic prevention reflects an indirect, long-term logic, but with more diffuse actors and targets. Global-level in- equalities, the impact of patriarchal socie- ties and masculinized identities, the legacy of colonialism, the arms trade, transnation- al criminal networks, and the regional-level militarization of society all shape the chanc- es and nature of civil wars. The sticks and carrots of systemic prevention include reg- ulation of harmful global trade networks of arms, people, and transnational drugs, as well as mechanisms of justice like the Inter- national Criminal Court and internation- al aid aimed at enhanced access to a basic livelihood. The transnational human rights regime may induce armed actors to refrain from mass atrocities and warfare. Norms and institutions that reinforce peaceful res- olution of disputes, especially when coher- ing with national traditions and processes, may also help. They may strengthen the likelihood that leaders will not turn to vi- olence and will not expect their opponents to do so either. Ovviamente, such system-level prevention is hard to measure and less like- ly to have a clear, decisive impact on lead- ers’ decisions to turn to violence. If uncertainty and a credibility gap un- dercut conflict prevention’s prospects for success, those prospects are even slimmer due to organizational, bureaucratic, and political considerations. Conflict preven- tion received a good deal of attention in the early 1990s when un Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali highlighted conflict prevention in his landmark An Agenda for Peace and pledged to “remove the sourc- es of danger before violence results.”15 A second wave took place in the early 2000s, emblematized by the call for prevention in Secretary-General Kofi Annan’s report We the Peoples: The Role of the United Nations in the 21st Century: “prevention is the core fea- ture of our efforts to promote human secu- rity.”16 The un responded with efforts to improve its ability to identify early warn- ings and mobilize early action, including the un Interdepartmental Framework for Coordination on Early Warning and Pre- ventive Action, which conducted monthly reviews of potential conflict areas, and the Secretary-General’s Policy Committee.17 A flurry of think tank and academic initia- tives accompanied these efforts, including the seminal report of the Carnegie Com- mission on Preventing Deadly Conflict.18 These early conflict-prevention reforms yielded disappointing results, failing to achieve the hoped-for institutional invest- ment in prevention or related improved performance. Why should we expect the current calls for prevention to elicit better results? While the numerous challenges in conflict-affected countries are well-known, there has been much less discussion of the internal political and organizational factors that make prevention especially difficult. The internal political obstacles to pre- vention are significant. Policy-makers in London, Tokyo, and Washington argue that competing demands on scarce re- sources and the difficulty of justifying prevention make it hard to invest in pre- vention. As Annan’s report We the Peoples stated, “Political leaders find it hard to sell prevention policies abroad to their pub- lic at home, because the costs are palpable and immediate, while the benefits–an un- desirable or tragic future event that does not occur–are more difficult for the lead- ers to convey and the public to grasp.”19 It is thus no surprise that spending on cri- sis response is much greater, with crisis- response spending reaching one hundred times the level of prevention spending by some accounts. 68 l D o w n o a d e d f r o m h t t p : / / d i r e c t . m i t . / e d u d a e d a r t i c e – p d / l f / / / / / 1 4 7 1 6 4 1 8 3 1 0 4 4 d a e d _ a _ 0 0 4 7 4 p d . f b y g u e s t t o n 0 7 S e p e m b e r 2 0 2 3 Dædalus, the Journal of the American Academy of Arts & SciencesIs Prevention the Answer? Inoltre, the changing nature of con- flict and of the international order do not bode well for international cooperation to prevent civil wars. As Bruce Jones and Stephen Stedman have described, grow- ing tensions among the great powers have undermined the ability of the coopera- tive post–Cold War “treatment” for civ- il wars–from international mediation to peacekeeping–to work in places like Syr- ia, Yemen, and Libya. As James Fearon has noted, the growing transnational charac- ter of nonstate actors like isis compli- cates the ability to exercise leverage on the perpetrators of violence and terror- ism in civil wars. Infatti, the new roles of technology and nonstate actors generally require more actors and different incen- tives to avert conflict. And as Stedman and Richard Gowan have indicated, the “treat- ment” of peacekeeping and mediation did not include a commitment to prevention. The crisis of that treatment regime thus calls into further question that ability to forge the cogent external will necessary to make prevention work.20 Political considerations not only impede the ability of external actors to decide to act preventively, but they also plague the implementation of prevention policies. Prevention, by definition, requires chang- es to the status quo inside a country. As political scientist Barnett Rubin has writ- ten, “All prevention is political.”21 Where- as postconflict peace-building often rests on the legitimacy of a peace agreement, prevention of civil wars takes place in the absence of domestic political consensus about the functioning, if not the form, of the country’s political institutions. Exter- nal conflict prevention–whether it occurs pre-, post-, or during civil war–is based on the assessment that a country’s politi- cal institutions are unable to prevent the escalation of violent conflict on their own and that international intervention is nec- essary to change the country’s trajectory. Prevention is thus a highly political act. This is true for operational prevention, but also for structural prevention, which aims to “transform the social, economic, cultur- al, or political sources of conflict,” even if the specific way in which this should be done is hotly debated.22 To change the sta- tus quo of a conflict-prone country, inter- vening organizations have to alter the way that they engage with that country. This type of alteration usually requires that top officials within intervening organizations use their precious political capital for con- flict prevention, instead of using it to ad- dress conflicts that are already raging or other visible and urgent priorities. Così, prevention requires that the intervening organizations engage with the internal politics of the conflict-prone country and that well-placed individuals within these organizations use their precious political capital to do so. Organizational and bureaucratic chal- lenges also plague prevention. It is diffi- cult for decision-makers to decide to take preventive actions. Decision-makers are busy. The higher their position, the busi- er they are. Allo stesso tempo, sensitive pre- vention actions usually require the buy-in of high-level decision-makers.23 To make numerous decisions daily, high-level deci- sion-makers tend to use heuristics, or rules of thumb, based on their past experiences.24 These heuristics help decision-makers save cognitive energy and reduce uncertainty by enabling them to make the same types of decisions they have made in the past, rein- forcing the organization’s standard operat- ing procedures and existing policies.25 In- ternational affairs scholar Lori Gronich has argued that decision-makers avoid com- plexity, delaying decisions that appear to be complex and risky in favor of simple solu- tions to problems about which they have more limited knowledge. Decision-makers are also likely to put off decisions, particularly complex ones, until l D o w n o a d e d f r o m h t t p : / / d i r e c t . m i t . / e d u d a e d a r t i c e – p d / l f / / / / / 1 4 7 1 6 4 1 8 3 1 0 4 4 d a e d _ a _ 0 0 4 7 4 p d . f b y g u e s t t o n 0 7 S e p e m b e r 2 0 2 3 69 147 (1) Winter 2018Charles T. Call & Susanna P. Campbell they have to make them. According to po- litical scientists Graham Allison and Philip Zelikow, “deadlines force issues to the at- tention of incredibly busy players.”26 The tendency of decision-makers to put off de- cisions until the deadline and avoid com- plex problems hinders their ability to man- date preventive actions. Conflict preven- tion rarely has a clear deadline, has little guarantee of success, should be grounded in a complex and detailed analysis of the con- flict context, and usually requires that the external actor alter its current approach to the context. Generating “political will” for conflict prevention thus requires altering the cognitive processes of decision-makers and convincing them that prevention is worth the risk and effort required. Preventive policies, when adopted, are often suboptimal and poorly resourced. Multiple bureaucratic actors within a state or multilateral bureaucracy must reach an agreement, and the final decision is often a “political resultant” of this process.27 It reflects a compromise among a highly di- verse group of actors, often with limited knowledge of the actual country context, and often more concerned with their po- litical relationships than with the particu- lar context. In international organizations and governments alike, this decision-mak- ing process often results in relatively vague policy prescriptions that are implemented in an ad hoc fashion.28 Manifestation in multilateral organizations. Multilateral organizations face addition- al barriers to effective prevention. Like all external actors, they face obstacles to cor- rectly analyzing the local context, progetto- ing good preventive actions, and mounting support for their adoption and implemen- tazione. Even if there is a clear need for pre- ventive action and the types of actions re- quired are relatively obvious, the political, decision-making, and bureaucratic barri- ers outlined above make preventive action both unlikely and difficult. Although these barriers are present in all ios and states en- gaged in preventive action, they are man- ifest in different ways. When preventive policies are made in international organi- zations, they require a general consensus among member states and the concerned bureaucratic units.29 At the same time, several scholars and io staff have claimed that the staff may have more freedom to interpret and implement preventive pol- icies precisely because they are the result of political compromise and the organi- zations’ principals do not closely moni- tor how their staff implements preventive actions.30 There are particular challenges and opportunities that preventive action poses for specific ios, including the Unit- ed Nations, regional organizations, inter- national financial institutions, and states. The United Nations. The United Nations made one of the earliest commitments to conflict prevention. The un’s long experi- ence with conflict prevention offers crucial insights into its importance and viability. As discussed above, for almost twenty-five years, Security Council members, top un officials, and major policy documents have repeatedly declared that the organization should prioritize preventive action. Nev- ertheless, the un continues to allocate the majority of its resources to countries that are in the midst of or recovering from vi- olent conflict, not those facing potential escalation. Per esempio, the peacekeeping budget exceeded $9 billion in 2015, more
than the budgets of the rest of the Secre-
tariat and all other un entities, and is ded-
icated to operations mainly in postconflict
countries.

Prevention puts the un, like other inter-
national organizations, in the peculiar po-
sition of intervening in its bosses’ affairs.
The un is governed by 193 member states
who decide on the mandates that the or-
ganization’s agencies, funds, programs,
and departments pursue and the resourc-
es that they receive. When the un acts pre-

D
o
w
N
o
UN
D
e
D

F
R
o
M
H

T
T

:
/
/

D
io
R
e
C
T
.

io
T
.

e
D
tu
D
UN
e
D
UN
R
T
io
C
e
–
P
D

F
/

1
4
7
1
6
4
1
8
3
1
0
4
4
D
UN
e
D
_
UN
_
0
0
4
7
4
P
D

B
sì
G
tu
e
S
T

o
N
0
7
S
e
P
e
M
B
e
R
2
0
2
3

Dædalus, the Journal of the American Academy of Arts & SciencesIs Prevention the Answer?

ventively, its member states and bureau-
crats are intervening in the internal affairs
of one or more of these member states. Essere-
cause prevention aims to alter the status
quo, this action is inherently invasive. Ac-
cording to one un staff member: “conflict
prevention is like a colonoscopy: both in-
trusive and embarrassing.”31

Member states can easily prohibit the or-
ganization from taking preventive actions,
either through overt protest or by calling
the Secretary-General, expressing outrage,
and telling the un to back off. The Securi-
ty Council must authorize any action tak-
en without the consent of the host govern-
ment, labeling it as a threat to international
(not just national) peace and security and
paid for out of a special, assessed budget.
The Security Council has difficulty mandat-
ing a response to contexts in which thou-
sands of people are being killed, making it
highly unlikely that the Security Council
will mandate substantial preventive actions
in the absence of significant violence. Given
that un peacekeeping is already stretched
beyond its capacity, it is difficult for the un
to justify allocating significant resources to
address less urgent contexts, particularly in
the face of opposition from the host gov-
ernment.

The decision-making and bureaucratic
barriers outlined above apply to the un in
two particular ways.32 First, the high sala-
ries and generous benefits combined with
diffuse and extremely low-level internal ac-
countability incentivize its officials to avoid
high-profile conflicts with other officials
and member states’ missions. For preven-
tive policies, which will never have clear ev-
idence of success or failure, there are even
fewer incentives to enter into conflict with
colleagues or member states. Secondo, more
so than in regional organizations, the dis-
parity in the interpretation of sovereignty
between some countries (especially West-
ern, but others as well) and others (mainly
large, former colonies of the global South)

is very wide. Many states are, Perciò, ex-
tremely focused on avoiding any transgres-
sion from the principle of state sovereignty
that might set a precedent for intervention
(including against their own government).
Consequently, the un often engages in pre-
vention only in the unique circumstances
when the host government permits it, pow-
erful states condone it, and individual bu-
reaucrats have the motivation and knowl-
edge necessary to implement these politi-
cal and highly nuanced actions.

Regional Organizations. Regional organi-
zations (ros), such as the African Union,
North Atlantic Treaty Organization, Eu-
ropean Union, Economic Community of
West African States, and the Organiza-
tion for Security and Co-operation in Eu-
rope (osce), face many of the same politi-
cal, decision-making, and bureaucratic con-
straints as the United Nations. Infatti, ros
such as the au have made a greater commit-
ment to noninterference in the domestic af-
fairs of their member states than the un,
which one would assume makes conflict
prevention more unlikely. Surprisingly, ros
have also embraced certain norms–such as
on departures from democratic order by the
Organization of American States and de-
partures from constitutional order by the
au–that indicate an attenuation of sover-
eignty. Infatti, ros have often demonstrat-
ed a greater capacity to carry out preventive
action than the un. The osce is credited
with some visible conflict prevention suc-
cesses in Eastern Europe and Central Asia.
The au and ecowas spearheaded conflict
prevention efforts in Burundi, Côte d’Ivo-
ire, and Liberia.33 These examples show
that ros can, at times, act much earlier
than the un. In the African cases above, IL
un provided additional resources and sup-
port once the ros demonstrated the value
of preventive action.34

Regional organizations’ greater facility
with conflict prevention may be due to
three factors. Primo, the potential conflicts

D
o
w
N
o
UN
D
e
D

F
R
o
M
H

T
T

:
/
/

D
io
R
e
C
T
.

io
T
.

e
D
tu
D
UN
e
D
UN
R
T
io
C
e
–
P
D

F
/

1
4
7
1
6
4
1
8
3
1
0
4
4
D
UN
e
D
_
UN
_
0
0
4
7
4
P
D

B
sì
G
tu
e
S
T

o
N
0
7
S
e
P
e
M
B
e
R
2
0
2
3

147 (1) Winter 2018Charles T. Call & Susanna P. Campbell

are in their neighborhood. Escalating vio-
lence and displacement threaten to direct-
ly impact the ro’s member states, making
it much easier to mobilize support for pre-
ventive actions. Allo stesso tempo, ros may
already be engaged in the potential conflict
directly or through proxies, leading them
to block preventive action or engage in it
out of their own strategic interests. Either
modo, ro decision-makers may have a much
better grasp of the significance of escalat-
ing violence in a neighboring country, In-
centivizing them to act more quickly to
support or obstruct preventive action rath-
er than letting these decisions languish in
bureaucratic inertia.

Secondo, ros generally enjoy greater le-
gitimacy in their own region than does the
United Nations, Quale, in the past decade,
has been increasingly associated with a
Western agenda.35 This legitimacy trans-
lates into possible greater host-govern-
ment willingness to consent to preventive
actions, although the au’s precipitate deci-
sion (and then reversal) to send a preven-
tive peacekeeping force to Burundi in 2015
belies this trend. Third, ros have small-
er decision-making bodies. Studies of re-
gional organizations show that they may
benefit from a smaller membership, Quale
can more readily lead to decisions among
member states.36 For these reasons, it may
be easier for ros to take preventive actions
than for the un.

International financial institutions. Inter-
national financial institutions (ifis), come
as the World Bank, African Development
Bank, and International Monetary Fund
(imf), also face important political and
institutional obstacles to operational pre-
ventive action. The primary obstacle, how-
ever, is that they do not have a clear man-
date for prevention and have historically
not shaped their operations around it. ifis
are prohibited from engaging in politics, In
spite of a growing acceptance in their poli-
cy documents of the political nature of eco-

nomic development and the negative im-
pact of violence on development. Where-
as the un and ros have made strong policy
commitments to conflict prevention, ifis
have not followed suit. In some cases, come
as in Burundi in the late 1990s, in which a
government experienced a severe crisis of
governance and the main donors pressed
for the ifis to suspend or redirect their
lending and grant programs accordingly,
they have done so, at times via a bumpy
processi. But this is not the norm.

International financial institutions can,
Tuttavia, engage in some measure of struc-
tural prevention, although they have not
framed it as such. The World Bank’s re-
search outputs on conflict in the early 2000s
produced bountiful evidence of the struc-
tural risk factors for civil-war onset, open-
ing the door for greater investment in pro-
grams aimed at reducing state fragility.
These efforts occur primarily through ne-
gotiating and implementing broad develop-
ment frameworks, such as the World Bank’s
Poverty Reduction Strategic Plan (prsp).
The degree to which prsps contain con-
flict-prevention policies depends both on
the willingness of the host government to
embrace them and the desire of the rele-
vant World Bank officials and donors to
support them. IL 2017 joint World Bank/
un report Pathways for Peace and the World
Development Report 2011, which made the
case for investment in fragile and conflict-
affected states, created space for greater
World Bank policy emphasis and spending
on these countries, signifying an important
effort toward structural prevention. The In-
ter-American Development Bank similarly
embarked on new investments in violence
reduction and prevention that it considers
core to its development goals. It is unclear,
Tuttavia, to which degree these policies
have led to concrete changes on the ground.
International financial institutions en-
counter a related political and institution-
al obstacle in their governance boards. IL

D
o
w
N
o
UN
D
e
D

F
R
o
M
H

T
T

:
/
/

D
io
R
e
C
T
.

io
T
.

e
D
tu
D
UN
e
D
UN
R
T
io
C
e
–
P
D

F
/

1
4
7
1
6
4
1
8
3
1
0
4
4
D
UN
e
D
_
UN
_
0
0
4
7
4
P
D

B
sì
G
tu
e
S
T

o
N
0
7
S
e
P
e
M
B
e
R
2
0
2
3

Dædalus, the Journal of the American Academy of Arts & SciencesIs Prevention the Answer?

highest authorities of ifis are the finance
ministers of the main contributing coun-
tries and other countries in the respective
region. The incentives facing finance min-
isters may favor conflict prevention based
on a cost-benefit analysis, but their knowl-
edge base and aversion to risk mitigate
against a proactive engagement with vio-
lent conflict. Additionally, the bottom line
for ifis is “the bottom line”: officials are
predominantly economists whose calcula-
tions are finance-based, and for whom the
weak evidence base for operational pre-
vention is a hurdle. Inoltre, newer
institutions like the Asian Infrastructure
Investment Bank and Brazil’s National De-
velopment Bank offer alternative financ-
ing sources that make coordinated inter-
national strategies difficult. It remains to
be seen whether the fact that peace is now
formally part of the Sustainable Develop-
ment agenda for 2030 might alter ifis’
cost-benefit analysis. Their ample resourc-
es offer a clear comparative advantage over
other multilateral organizations and most
stati, making a strong, conflict-preven-
tion focus potentially powerful.

Manifestation in states. States may hold the
greatest potential for preventive action.
Although beset by their own bureaucrat-
ic politics, they may more quickly deploy
better-resourced and supported preven-
tive actions.37 In multilateral organizations
in which powerful states have inordinate
sway, such as in the World Bank, imf, au, O
ecowas, these states can play a crucial role
in pushing the organization toward preven-
tive action. States, Tuttavia, also face their
own barriers to effective action. Domestic
legislators may be more reticent to support
a possible bilateral action than a multilater-
al one. Given other potential foreign policy
priorities, prevention often falls low on the
priority list, particularly when foreign pol-
icy decision-makers do not believe that es-
calating conflict will have a direct effect on
the state’s national interests.38

States confront an additional hurdle.
Conflict prevention tends to require col-
lective action. Many tools of prevention–
sanctions, coercive diplomacy, condition-
ality on international aid, and political
pressure–are ineffective if other influen-
tial states and ios do not go along. Individ-
ual states may also face domestic backlash
if they act alone. Di conseguenza, even if states
are able to overcome some of the principal-
agent problems that beset ios, they still
encounter similar principal-agent and col-
lective-action problems because of the col-
laborative nature of preventive action. For
these reasons, states tend to engage in con-
flict prevention through ios, primarily the
un or regional organizations.
Given the long-standing and multifaceted

obstacles to effective prevention, how like-
ly is it that the latest calls for conflict pre-
vention will end differently? The scholar-
ly evidence of the effectiveness of opera-
tional prevention is inadequate but shows
promise. Case studies seem to agree that
operational prevention can help allay vi-
olence escalation particularly in cases in
which military troops are deployed, come
as the un mission in Macedonia and the
osce mission in Albania in 1997. Cross-
national studies support this finding, point-
ing to peacekeeping’s crucial role in mitigat-
ing war recurrence. Case studies also point
to the particularly important role of the un
and regional organizations in operational
prevention. States have shown some ability
to prevent conflicts in other states, although
they tend to work in partnership with mul-
tilateral actors. Although we lack system-
atic comparative case reviews and analy-
sis of the conditions under which opera-
tional prevention succeeds or fails, or even
consensus on a measurement of success or
failure, existing scholarship shows that op-
erational prevention does, at times, play a
crucial role in preventing the escalation of
violent conflict.

D
o
w
N
o
UN
D
e
D

F
R
o
M
H

T
T

:
/
/

D
io
R
e
C
T
.

io
T
.

e
D
tu
D
UN
e
D
UN
R
T
io
C
e
–
P
D

F
/

1
4
7
1
6
4
1
8
3
1
0
4
4
D
UN
e
D
_
UN
_
0
0
4
7
4
P
D

B
sì
G
tu
e
S
T

o
N
0
7
S
e
P
e
M
B
e
R
2
0
2
3

147 (1) Winter 2018Charles T. Call & Susanna P. Campbell

In terms of structural and systemic pre-
vention, the strong findings around the con-
ditions that could lead to escalation may be
of little direct use to policy-makers. It can
tell them which conditions may lead to vi-
olence, on average, but cannot tell them the
exact structural and systemic determinants
of violence in a particular country, or which
event is likely to trigger its escalation. IL
variables identified in these studies are me-
dium- and long-term, and their connection
to particular crises and conflicts is remote.
Some policy developments, Tuttavia,
give cause for optimism. In international
organizations and states, there now ex-
ist enhanced early-warning, mediation,
and peace-building support capacities.
The same degree of capacity did not exist
during the 1990s and 2000s, when there
were also significant pushes for improved
conflict prevention. Per esempio, the U.S.
intelligence community has adopted tools
for analysis and forecasting of state fragil-
ity and political instability, including in-
ternal armed conflict and mass atrocities,
which are fed into regular reports to se-
nior decision-makers. Other bilateral gov-
ernments have also invested in improved
early-warning systems. The cadre of io and
state bilateral aid staff, not to mention ex-
ternal contractors, trained in conflict analy-
sis and peace-building is steadily growing,
slowly transforming the knowledge base of
these institutions. Nonetheless, while there
may be increased capacity to analyze con-
flict dynamics and design peace-building
and conflict-mitigation responses, there is
little knowledge about which types of in-
terventions are effective in which contexts.
In other words, while there may be better
warnings, the menu of responses and our
understanding of the conditions for their
effectiveness are still highly inadequate.

In 2005, the United Nations created a Me-
diation Support Unit that deploys experts to
advise mediation efforts and offer special-
ized technical assistance on themes such as

power sharing and security reforms. The un
Secretary-General also established new un
envoys on preventing mass atrocities and
regional conflict prevention. Qualitative ev-
idence points to the effectiveness of these
envoys in helping defuse crises, especial-
ly following coups. The un, donor states,
the World Bank, and the au have created
funds for quick, flexible responses to crises,
including for prevention. There are also in-
creased efforts to support community-level
prevention. National governments and
ngos have created low-tech early-warning
systems that network local groups and lo-
cal police, often through cellphone report-
ing protocols, which have reportedly helped
in preventing violence around anticipated
flash points such as elections.39

Most assessments of conflict prevention
have criticized these types of policy inno-
vations because of their failure to prevent
violent conflict. This maximalist notion of
prevention has been an undercurrent in for-
mal and informal assessments of its effec-
tiveness. Yet given the numerous barriers
facing conflict prevention–commitment
problems, organizational disincentives, Di-
cision-making patterns, and uncertainty
facing any preventive intervention–should
we not adopt another metric for assessing
efforts at conflict prevention? It may be
wiser to identify its occasional successes
rather than focus on its absolute failures.
Given the scale of the challenges, the sur-
prise is that conflict prevention sometimes
succeeds, not that it fails. As with other am-
bitious norms–human rights, humanitari-
an protection, and the responsibility to pro-
tect–the fact that a norm is unachievable
does not mean that it is not worthwhile.
Rather than being futile, calls for more ac-
tion and better organization aimed at pre-
venting violent conflict may embolden a
few policy-makers and bureaucrats to take
on the risk of prevention. The more policy-
makers who act preventively, the more
credible the commitment that they will act

D
o
w
N
o
UN
D
e
D

F
R
o
M
H

T
T

:
/
/

D
io
R
e
C
T
.

io
T
.

e
D
tu
D
UN
e
D
UN
R
T
io
C
e
–
P
D

F
/

1
4
7
1
6
4
1
8
3
1
0
4
4
D
UN
e
D
_
UN
_
0
0
4
7
4
P
D

B
sì
G
tu
e
S
T

o
N
0
7
S
e
P
e
M
B
e
R
2
0
2
3

Dædalus, the Journal of the American Academy of Arts & SciencesIs Prevention the Answer?

in futuro. In other words, the more that
preventive action occurs, the more effective
it is likely to be. If we look at the sea change
in thinking that led to the decriminalization
of marijuana in some U.S. states in recent
years, some of the key ingredients also exist
with regard to conflict prevention: mount-
ing evidence of its utility, a frustration with
the inadequacy of existing policies, and en-

trepreneurial leadership from key political
leaders. Those factors helped produce a
shift in thinking that was unimaginable a
few years earlier and that defied immediate
political calculations. Although we should
not expect conflict prevention to work in
many cases, the few cases in which it may
prevent escalating violence justify an in-
vestment, in spite of the odds.

endnotes
* Contributor Biographies: CHARLES T. CALL is Associate Professor of International Peace and
Conflict Resolution at the School of International Service at American University. He is the
author of Rising Powers and Peacebuilding: Breaking the Mold? (2017) and Why Peace Fails: The Causes
and Prevention of Civil War Recurrence (2012) and the coeditor of Building States to Build Peace (con
Vanessa Wyeth, 2008). He was senior external advisor on the joint un/World Bank report
Pathways to Peace: Inclusive Approaches to Preventing Violent Conflict (2017).
SUSANNA P. CAMPBELL is an Assistant Professor at the School of International Service at
American University. She is the author of Global Governance and Local Peace: Accountability and
Performance in International Peacebuilding (2018) and numerous other publications on the inter-
action between global governance organizations and the microdynamics of conflict and co-
operation in civil wars. She has been awarded several scholarly and policy grants, including
from the United States Institute of Peace, and conducted extensive fieldwork in sub-Saharan
Africa and globally.

1 See The United Nations High-Level Independent Panel on Peace Operations, Uniting Our Strengths
for Peace–Politics, Partnerships and People (New York: The United Nations, 2015); The United
Nations Advisory Group of Experts, The Challenge of Sustaining Peace: Report of the Advisory Group
of Experts for the 2015 Review of the United Nations Peacebuilding Architecture (New York: The United
Nations, 2015); and The United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of
Women, Preventing Conflict, Transforming Justice, and Securing Peace: A Global Study on the Implemen-
tation of the United Nations Security Council Resolution 1325 (New York: The United Nations, 2015).
The U.S. State Department released its Quadrennial Diplomacy and Development Review in
2015. See U.S. Dipartimento di Stato, Enduring Leadership in a Dynamic World, Quadrennial Diploma-
cy and Development Review (Washington, D.C.: The U.S. Dipartimento di Stato, 2015). See also
The World Bank and United Nations, Pathways for Peace: Inclusive Approaches to Preventing Violent
Conflict (Washington, D.C.: The World Bank and United Nations, 2017).

2 United Nations Secretary-General, “Address to the National Defense College of Oman, ‘The
United Nations and Conflict Prevention in a Changing World,’” February 1, 2016, Muscat.
3 Carnegie Commission on Preventing Deadly Conflict, Preventing Deadly Conflict: Final Report

(New York: Carnegie Corporation of New York, 1997).

4 Therése Pettersson and Peter Wallensteen, “Armed Conflicts, 1945–2014,” Journal of Peace Re-

search 52 (4) (2015): 539.

5 United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, Global Humanitarian Over-
view 2017: A Consolidated Appeal to Support People Affected by Disaster and Conflict (New York: United
Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, 2017), http://interactive.unocha
.org/publication/globalhumanitarianoverview/#trends.

6 United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, “Worldwide Displacement Hits All-Time
High as War and Persecution Increase,” June 18, 2015, http://www.unhcr.org/558193896.html.

D
o
w
N
o
UN
D
e
D

F
R
o
M
H

T
T

:
/
/

D
io
R
e
C
T
.

io
T
.

e
D
tu
D
UN
e
D
UN
R
T
io
C
e
–
P
D

F
/

1
4
7
1
6
4
1
8
3
1
0
4
4
D
UN
e
D
_
UN
_
0
0
4
7
4
P
D

B
sì
G
tu
e
S
T

o
N
0
7
S
e
P
e
M
B
e
R
2
0
2
3

147 (1) Winter 2018Charles T. Call & Susanna P. Campbell

See also Sarah Kenyon Lischer, “Global Refugee Crisis: Regional Destabilization & Umano-
itarian Protection,” Dædalus 146 (4) (Autunno 2017).

7 Vedere, Per esempio, The World Bank and United Nations, Pathways for Peace.
8 Francis Fukuyama, “The Last English Civil War,” Dædalus 147 (1) (Inverno 2018).
9 See Stewart Patrick, “Civil Wars & Transnational Threats: Mapping the Terrain, Assessing

the Links,” Dædalus 146 (4) (Autunno 2017).

10 Alexander L. George and Jane E. Holl, The Warning-Response Problem and Missed Opportunities in

Preventive Diplomacy (New York: Carnegie Corporation of New York, 1997).

11 Ibid.
12 Ibid.
13 Johan Galtung, “Violence, Peace, and Peace Research,” Journal of Peace Research 6 (3) (1969):

167–191.

14 United Nations General Assembly, “Progress Report of the Prevention of Armed Conflict,"

a/60/891, Luglio 18, 2006, 5.

15 United Nations Secretary-General, “An Agenda for Peace: Preventive Diplomacy, Peacemaking

and Peace-Keeping,” a/47/277-s/24111, Giugno 17, 1992, para. 15.

16 Kofi A. Annan, We the Peoples: The Role of the United Nations in the 21st Century (New York: United

Nations Department of Public Information, 2000).

17 Susanna P. Campbell and Patrick Meier, “Deciding to Prevent Violent Conflict: Early Warning
and Decision-Making within the United Nations,” paper presented at the International Studies
Association Conference, Chicago, Febbraio 22, 2007.

18 Barnett R. Rubin, Blood on the Doorstep (New York: The Century Foundation Press, 2002); Bruce
Jentleson, ed., Opportunities Missed, Opportunities Seized: Preventive Diplomacy in the Post–Cold War
World (New York: Vogatore & Littlefield, 2000); and Carnegie Commission on Preventing
Deadly Conflict, Preventing Deadly Conflict.

19 Annan, We the Peoples.
20 See Bruce Jones and Stephen John Stedman, “Civil Wars & the Post–Cold War International
Order,” Dædalus 146 (4) (Autunno 2017); James D. Fearon, “Civil War & the Current International
System,” Dædalus 146 (4) (Autunno 2017); and Richard Gowan and Stephen John Stedman, "IL
International Regime for Treating Civil War, 1988–2017,” Dædalus 147 (1) (Inverno 2018).

21 Rubin, Blood on the Doorstep, 131.
22 Ibid., 133.
23 Jerel A. Rosati, “Developing a Systematic Decision-Making Framework: Bureaucratic Politics

in Perspective,” World Politics 33 (2) (1981): 234–252.

24 Lori Helene Gronich, “Expertise and Naïveté in Decision-Making: Theory, History, and the
Trump Administration,” issf Policy Series: America and the World – 2017 and Beyond (Nuovo
York: H-Diplo and Columbia University, 2017).

25 Ibid.
26 Graham Allison and Philip Zelikow, Essence of Decision: Explaining the Cuban Missile Crisis, 2nd ed.

(New York: Longman, 1999), 295.

27 Ibid.; and Rosati, “Developing a Systematic Decision-Making Framework.”
28 Michael Lipson, “Peacekeeping: Organized Hypocrisy?” European Journal of International Rela-
zioni 13 (1) (2007): 5–34; and Michael Lipson, “Performance under Ambiguity: Internazionale
Organization Performance in un Peacekeeping,” Review of International Organizations 5 (3) (2010):
249–284.

D
o
w
N
o
UN
D
e
D

F
R
o
M
H

T
T

:
/
/

D
io
R
e
C
T
.

io
T
.

e
D
tu
D
UN
e
D
UN
R
T
io
C
e
–
P
D

F
/

1
4
7
1
6
4
1
8
3
1
0
4
4
D
UN
e
D
_
UN
_
0
0
4
7
4
P
D

B
sì
G
tu
e
S
T

o
N
0
7
S
e
P
e
M
B
e
R
2
0
2
3

Dædalus, the Journal of the American Academy of Arts & SciencesIs Prevention the Answer?

29 Barbara Koremenos, Charles Lipson, and Duncan Snidal, “The Rational Design of Interna-

tional Institutions,” International Organization 55 (4) (2001): 761–799.

30 Authors’ interview with former high-level un official, Brussels, Marzo 2015.
31 Campbell and Meier, “Deciding to Prevent Violent Conflict," 25.
32 Michael N. Barnett and Martha Finnemore, Rules for the World: International Organizations in Global

Politics (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 2004).

33 Security Council Report, “The United Nations and Regional Organisations,” Update Report

No. 3, settembre 18, 2006.

34 Susanna P. Campbell and Stephanie Hofmann, “Regional Humanitarian Organizations,” in
Handbook on Humanitarian Action, ed. Roger Mac Ginty and Jenny H. Peterson (London: Rout-
ledge, 2015).

35 See Jean-Marie Guéhenno, “The United Nations & Civil Wars,” Dædalus 147 (1) (Inverno 2018).
36 Heidi Hardt, Time to React: The Efficiency of International Organizations in Crisis Response (Oxford:

Oxford University Press, 2014).

37 Morton Halperin and Priscilla Clapp, Bureaucratic Politics and Foreign Policy (Washington, D.C.:

Brookings Institution Press, 2006).

38 See Patrick, “Civil Wars & Transnational Threats.”
39 Patrick Meier, “Marketing Peace Using sms Mobile Advertising: A New Approach to Con-
flict Prevention,” iRevolutions blog, Giugno 11, 2012, https://irevolutions.org/2012/06/11/
peacetxt-marketing-peace/.

D
o
w
N
o
UN
D
e
D

F
R
o
M
H

T
T

:
/
/

D
io
R
e
C
T
.

io
T
.

e
D
tu
D
UN
e
D
UN
R
T
io
C
e
–
P
D

F
/

1
4
7
1
6
4
1
8
3
1
0
4
4
D
UN
e
D
_
UN
_
0
0
4
7
4
P
D

B
sì
G
tu
e
S
T

o
N
0
7
S
e
P
e
M
B
e
R
2
0
2
3

147 (1) Winter 2018Charles T. Call & Susanna P. Campbell
Scarica il pdf