Terrorists at the Table by Jonathan Powell

Author:Jonathan Powell
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: St. Martin's Publishing Group
Published: 2015-05-13T00:00:00+00:00

Eight

Why Do Some Negotiations Succeed and Others Fail?

Peace is a question of will. All conflicts can be settled, and there are no excuses for allowing them to become eternal.

—Martti Ahtisaari

It is far easier to start a negotiation than it is to end one successfully. Armed groups may be inclined to open a peace process because of the legitimacy and publicity it bestows, but they generally move by consensus and would rather talk indefinitely than face up to the difficult compromises necessary to reach an agreement. They often prefer the airplane to circle endlessly rather than land. Finding a way to conclude successfully is the holy grail for negotiators.

Why do some talks conclude successfully (like those in South Africa, Mozambique, El Salvador, Northern Ireland, and with the M-19 in Colombia) and others fail (like those in Sri Lanka, the first attempt at Aceh, and the talks with the FARC at Caguán)? Audrey Cronin argues that the factors that determine success or failure include “the nature of the organisation (with hierarchical groups having an advantage over groups that cannot control their members’ actions); the nature of the leadership (groups with a strong leader having an advantage over those that are decentralised); and the nature of public support for the cause (where groups with constituencies who tire of violence are more likely to compromise).”

While all of these have an influence on success or failure, the key factor is the ability to close a deal: Can the two sides be pushed into an endgame and into making difficult decisions? One way of forcing a decision is to set a deadline, but establishing one that people really believe in is not always so easy. After his election in May 1997, Tony Blair set a deadline of one year to conclude the negotiations on the future of Northern Ireland. He did so because in our analysis John Major’s failure to make rapid progress after the IRA cease-fire in 1994 had tipped them back into violence. Republicans felt they were being “messed around” and no matter how long they waited, they would never be included in the all-party peace talks. We, by contrast, made it clear to the Republicans, through the Irish government, that if they renewed the cease-fire, we would rapidly bring them into the talks, and the talks would be rapidly concluded. As the end date approached in 1998, we were told that the deadline was dangerous and it would be far safer just to forget about it. Tony Blair decided to stick to it anyway, and after three days and nights of intensive negotiations we secured an agreement on Good Friday. On that occasion the deadline worked as intended.

Subsequently, however, we set a series of deadlines for the full implementation of the Good Friday Agreement, but they were arbitrary and not anchored to any real-world event, and we rolled through them one after another without any immediate consequences for the parties. As a result our deadlines lost credibility with both sides, who increasingly came to ignore them.

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