Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-tf8b9 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-25T13:41:04.593Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Distributive justice and the durability of peace agreements

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  13 July 2010

Abstract

This study explores the relationship between principles of distributive justice (DJ) and the durability of negotiated agreements. Sixteen peace agreements negotiated during the early 1990s were coded for the centrality of each of four principles of DJ – equality, proportionality, compensation, and need – to the core terms of the agreement. The agreements were also assessed on scales of implementation and durability over a five-year period. Another variable included in the analysis was the difficulty of the conflict environment. These data were used to evaluate three sets of hypotheses: the relationship between DJ and durability, the role of the conflict environment, and types of DJ principles. The results obtained from both statistical and focused-comparison analyses indicate that DJ moderates the relationship between conflict environments and outcomes: when principles of justice are central to an agreement, the negative effects of difficult conflict environments are reduced; when principles are not central, the negative effects of difficulty are heightened. These relationships are accounted for primarily by one of the four DJ principles – equality. Implications of these findings are discussed along with a number of ideas for further research.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © British International Studies Association 2010

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1 Iklé, Fred C., How Nations Negotiate (New York: Harper & Row, 1964)Google Scholar .

2 Deutsch, Morton, ‘Equity, Equality and Need: What Determines Which Value Will Be Used as the Basis of Distributive Justice?', Journal of Social Issues, 31:3 (1975), pp. 137–50CrossRefGoogle Scholar .

3 Konovsky, Mary A., ‘Understanding Procedural Justice and Its Impact on Business Organizations’, Journal of Management, 26:3 (2000), pp. 489511CrossRefGoogle Scholar .

4 Albin, Cecilia, Justice and Fairness in International Negotiation (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001)Google Scholar ; Albin, Cecilia, ‘The Role of Fairness in Negotiation’, Negotiation Journal, 9: 3 (1993), pp. 223244Google Scholar ; Zartman, I. William and Kremenyuk, Victor A. (eds), Peace versus Justice: Negotiating Forward- and Backward-Looking Outcomes (Lanham,Maryland: Rowman & Littlefield, 2005)Google Scholar .

5 Zartman and Kremenyuk, Peace versus Justice.

6 Konovsky, ‘Understanding Procedural Justice and Its Impact on Business Organizations’; Buchanan, R., ‘Perpetual Peace or Perpetual Process: Global Civil Society and Cosmopolitan Legality at the World Trade Organization’, Leiden Journal of International Law, 16 (2003), pp. 673699CrossRefGoogle Scholar .

7 Albin, Justice and Fairness in International Negotiation.

8 Our decision to take this approach is not meant to preclude the importance of perceptions in justice decisions. Indeed, useful research on justice has been reported from a psychological perspective. (See Mikula, G. and Wenzel, M., ‘Justice and Social Conflicts’, International Journal of Psychology, 35:2 (2000), pp. 126135Google Scholar ; and Deutsch, Morton, Distributive Justice: A Social-Psychological Perspective (New Haven CT: Yale University Press, 1985)Google Scholar . However, the focus of this study on past peace agreements does limit the extent to which perceptions and opinions can be assessed. Simply put, the actors are not available for interviews and few provide first-person documentation of their experiences. Thus, our analyses reveal general patterns that would be further amplified by data on perceptions.

9 Fortna, V. Page, Peace Time: Cease-Fire Agreements and the Durability of Peace (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2004)Google Scholar ; D. Nilsson, ‘In the Shadow of Settlement: Multiple Rebel Groups and Precarious Peace’, Doctoral dissertation, Uppsala University, Uppsala, Sweden (2006).

11 Stedman, Stephen, Rothchild, Donald and Cousens, Elizabeth (eds), Ending Civil Wars: The Implementation of Peace Agreements (Boulder, Colorado and London: Lynne Rienner Publishers, 2002)Google Scholar .

12 Paris, Roland, At War's End: Building Peace After Civil Conflict (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004)CrossRefGoogle Scholar .

13 Albin, Justice and Fairness in International Negotiation, p. 38.

14 Ibid., pp. 81–96.

15 Rothchild, Donald, ‘Settlement terms and postagreement stability’, in Stedman, Stephen, Rothchild, Donald and Cousens, Elizabeth (eds), Ending Civil Wars: The Implementation of Peace Agreements (Boulder, Colorado and London: Lynne Rienner Publishers, 2002)Google Scholar .

16 Bell, C., Peace Agreements and Human Rights (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004)Google Scholar .

17 Zartman and Kremenyuk, Peace versus Justice.

18 See, for example, Konovsky, Mary A. and Pugh, S. D., ‘Citizenship Behavior and Social Exchange’, Academy of Management Journal, 37 (1994), pp. 656669CrossRefGoogle Scholar .

19 Hartzell, C. and Hoddie, M., Crafting Peace: Power-Sharing Institutions and the Negotiated Settlement of Civil Wars (University Park, PA.: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2007)Google Scholar ; Hartzell, C. and Hoddie, M., ‘Institutionalizing Peace: Power Sharing and Post Civil War Conflict Management’, American Journal of Political Science, 47 (2003), pp. 318332Google Scholar .

20 Sundberg, A. Jarstad and R., ‘Peace by pact: Data on the implementation of peace agreements’, in Swain, A., Ramses, A. and Ojendal, J. (eds), Globalization and Challenges to Building Peace (London: Anthem Press, 2007)Google Scholar .

21 Snyder, Jack and Vinjamuri, L., ‘Trials and Errors: Principle and Pragmatism in Strategies of International Justice’, International Security, 28 (2003/4), pp. 544Google Scholar ; Putnam, T., ‘Human rights and sustainable peace’, in Stedman, Stephen, Rothchild, Donald and Cousens, Elizabeth (eds), Ending Civil Wars: The Implementation of Peace Agreements (Boulder, Colorado and London: Lynne Rienner Publishers, 2002)Google Scholar ; Bazerman, Max and Neale, Margaret, ‘The role of fairness considerations and relationships in a judgment perspective of negotiations’, in Arrow, Kenneth, Mnookin, Robert, Ross, Lee, Tversky, Amos and Wilson, R. (eds), Barriers to Conflict Resolution (New York: W. W. Norton, 1995)Google Scholar ; Zartman and Kremenyuk, Peace versus Justice.

22 Snyder and Vinjamuri, Trials and Errors, p. 2.

23 For example, see Druckman, Daniel, Broome, Benjamin and Korper, Susan, ‘Value Differences and Conflict Resolution: Facilitation or Delinking?’, Journal of Conflict Resolution, 32 (1988), pp. 489510CrossRefGoogle Scholar .

24 Druckman, Daniel and Green, Justin, ‘Playing two games: Internal negotiations in the Philippines’, in Zartman, I. William (ed.), Elusive Peace: Negotiating an End to Civil Wars (Washington DC.: Brookings, 1995)Google Scholar .

25 Druckman and Green, ‘Playing two games’.

26 Bazerman and Neale, ‘The role of fairness considerations’, p. 89.

27 Zartman and Kremenyuk, Peace versus Justice.

28 Leventhal, Gerald S., Karuza, J. and Fry, W. R., ‘Beyond fairness: A theory of allocation preferences’, in Mikula, G. (ed.), Justice and Social Interaction (New York: Springer Verlag. 1980)Google Scholar .

29 Lewicki, Roy J., Litterer, J. A., Minton, J. W. and Sanders, D. M., Negotiation (2nd Edition) (Burr Ridge IL.: Irwin, 1994)Google Scholar .

30 Downs, George and Stedman, Stephen J., ‘Evaluation issues in peace implementation’, in Stedman, Stephen, Rothchild, Donald and Cousens, Elizabeth (eds), Ending Civil Wars: The Implementation of Peace Agreements (Boulder, Colorado and London: Lynne Rienner Publishers, 2002)Google Scholar .

31 Lyons, Daniel Druckman and Terrence, ‘Negotiation processes and post-settlement relations: Comparing Nagorno-Karabakh with Mozambique’, in Zartman, I. William and Kremenyuk, Victor A. (eds), Peace vs. Justice: Forward and Backward Looking Outcomes in Negotiation (Lanham MD.: Rowman & Littlefield, 2005)Google Scholar .

32 Mooradian, Moorad and Druckman, Daniel, ‘Hurting Stalemate or Mediation? The Conflict over Nagorno-Karabakh, 1990–1995’, Journal of Peace Research, 36 (1999), pp. 709727CrossRefGoogle Scholar .

33 Trust is regarded as a variable or construct that intervenes between the conflict environment and the durability of agreements. As noted in fn. 8 above, measurements of perceptions are beyond the scope of this study. Thus, it is not included in the above hypotheses.

34 See Albin, Justice and Fairness in International Negotiation.

35 Schelling, Thomas C., ‘Bargaining, Communication, and Limited War’, Journal of Conflict Resolution, 1 (1957), pp. 1936CrossRefGoogle Scholar .

36 Deutsch, Morton, ‘Equity, Equality and Need: What Determines which Value will Be Used as the Basis of Distributive Justice?’, Journal of Social Issues, 31 (1975), pp. 137150CrossRefGoogle Scholar .

37 See also Rawls, John, ‘Justice as Fairness’, Philosophical Review, 67 (1958), pp. 164194CrossRefGoogle Scholar .

38 Uslaner, Eric, Corruption, Inequality, and the Rule of Law (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008)CrossRefGoogle Scholar .

39 Albin, Justice and Fairness in International Negotiation.

40 Rothchild, Donald, ‘Settlement terms and postagreement stability’, in Stedman, Stephen, Rothchild, Donald and Cousens, Elizabeth (eds), Ending Civil Wars: The Implementation of Peace Agreements (Boulder, Colorado and London: Lynne Rienner Publishers, 2002)Google Scholar .

41 Zartman and Kremenyuk, Peace versus Justice.

42 Rothman, Jay, Resolving Identity-based Conflict in Nations, Organizations, and Communities (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1997)Google Scholar ; Rothman, Jay, ‘Negotiation as Consolidation: Prenegotiation in the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict’, The Jerusalem Journal of International Relations, 13 (1991), pp. 2244Google Scholar .

43 Zartman, I. William, ‘Negotiating forward and backward-looking outcomes’, in Zartman, I. William and Kremenyuk, Victor A. (eds), Peace versus Justice. Negotiating Forward- and Backward-Looking Outcomes (Lanham, Maryland: Rowman & Littlefield, 2005)Google Scholar .

44 Druckman and Lyons, ‘Negotiation processes and post-settlement relations’.

45 Zartman, ‘Negotiating forward and backward-looking outcomes’.

46 Albin, Justice and Fairness in International Negotiation.

47 Equivalent distances between the steps from marginal to highly significant are based on the assumption that increments in significance are matters of degree; in this scale the increments are .25. The larger distance between the codes for marginally significant and no principles (1 scale step) is based on the assumption that inclusion of any principles is qualitatively distinct from no inclusion.

48 In addition, ratings done by experts were compared to those provided by students in a graduate programme on diplomacy. The cases were Cambodia and Bosnia. The same justice score of 5 was assigned to Cambodia; the experts assigned a justice score of 5 while the students gave a score of 4 to Bosnia.

49 Downs and Stedman, Evaluation issues in peace implementation.

50 These codes were used in order to maintain consistency with the other variables coded by Downs and Stedman and used in our correlational analyses. An independent check on the Downs-Stedman implementation codes by the authors revealed disagreements in only two of the 16 cases. These anomalies are discussed below.

51 Other types of agreements may require different time spans. For example, multilateral environmental agreements often specify complex conditions for implementation – some provisions may take more time to kick in than others. However, there is a trade off between the length of the implementation period examined and the amount of information needed to track adherence by each of the parties.

52 The experts were Ramses Amer (Cambodia) and James Goodby (Bosnia). See Downs and Stedman, ‘Evaluation issues in peace implementation’.

53 Paris, At War's End: Building Peace After Civil Conflict.

54 Somalia is another case where many justice principles are included in an agreement that did not endure. This may however be accounted for by a very difficult conflict environment. Further, the documentation on the implementation period in Somalia is less detailed than for Rwanda. For these reasons, the Somalia coding remains in tact.

55 Paris, At War's End: Building Peace After Civil Conflict.

56 For discussions of the strengths and weaknesses of Sobel and related statistical tests for mediation effects, see Baron, R. M. and Kenny, D. A., ‘The Moderator-Mediator Variable Distinction in Social-Psychological Research: Conceptual, Strategic, and Statistical Considerations’, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 51 (1986), pp. 11731182Google Scholar ; and MacKinnon, D. P., Lockwood, C. M., Hoffman, J. M., West, S. G. and Sheets, V., ‘Estimating Mediated Effects in Prevention Studies’, Evaluation Review, 23 (2002), pp. 418444Google Scholar . For calculation procedures with SPSS and SAS, see Preacher, K. J. and Hayes, A. F., ‘SPSS and SAS Procedures for Estimating IndirectEffects in Simple Mediation Models’, Behavior Research Methods, Instruments, & Computers, 36 (2004), pp. 717731Google Scholar .

57 For more on the relative strengths and weaknesses of these methods, see George, Alexander L. and Bennett, Andrew, Case Studies and Theory Development in the Social Sciences (Cambridge MA.: MIT Press, 2005)Google Scholar ; and Druckman, Daniel, Doing Research: Methods of Inquiry for Conflict Analysis (Thousand Oaks CA.: Sage, 2005)Google Scholar , ch. 7.

58 Note that this scale differs from the one used in the quantitative analyses. It contains only four categories: highly significant, important, marginal, none. The change was made to account for differences in the familiarity of the respective coders with the cases and concepts. The distinctions were less fine for the students who participated in the small-n focused-comparison study than for the more experienced coders of the complete set of agreements.

59 Correlations were also computed with the 16 cases, including Rwanda and the original implementation code for El Salvador. Similar results were obtained. However, as noted earlier, the correlation between DJ and implementation was lower, both when controlling and not controlling for difficulty of the conflict environment.

60 The correlation between number of justice principles and the measure of centrality of the principles is strong (.59). Number of principles also correlates significantly with implementation (r = .65). However, when the centrality variable is removed by partial correlation, the relationship between number of principles and durability drops to borderline significance (.48). Although not interchangeable with the centrality variable, number of principles is part of a cluster of correlated variables that includes centrality, implementation, and difficulty. The former three variables load positively while the fourth variable (difficulty) loads negatively on the same factor. This factor accounts for two-thirds of the explained variation in the analysis.

61 Similar results were obtained from a regression analysis. A significant main effect was obtained for difficulty, a borderline effect for justice (p < .10) and a borderline interaction between difficulty and justice. The interaction bolsters our interpretation of a modest moderating effect of justice on the relationship between difficulty and outcomes.

62 The related samples tests are based on the assumption that the four principles are multiple (correlated) measures of the same construct. An independent samples test is based on the assumption that the measures are uncorrelated. None of the six correlations among the four types of principles approach significance; they range from .03 to .40. A one-way ANOVA for independent samples was also calculated showing similar results: F = 7, 3 df, p < .0001. Tukey post hoc multiple comparisons showed that equality was more central to the agreements than proportionality (p < .0001), compensation (p < .081), and need (p < .066).

63 The borderline finding is impressive given the challenge of attaining a significant z with a small number of cases.

64 Paris, At War's End: Building Peace After Civil Conflict (source used by the coders).

65 Deutsch, Distributive Justice: A Social-Psychological Perspective.

66 Lewicki, Litterer, Minton and Sanders, Negotiation (2nd Edition).

67 Uslaner, Corruption, Inequality, and the Rule of Law.

68 See also Jarstad and Sundberg, ‘Peace by pact’.

69 Hartzell and Hoddie, Crafting Peace.

70 Elster, Jon, ‘The psychology of democracy in America’, in The Great Ideas Today (Chicago: Encyclopedia Britannica, 1994), p. 108Google Scholar .

71 Sources include the cases discussed by the contributed chapters in Stedman et al., Ending Civil Wars, and in Paris, At War's End.

72 Hume, Cameron, Ending Mozambique's War (Washington DC: US Institute of Peace Press, 1995)Google Scholar .

73 Raszelenberg, P., The Cambodia Conflict: Search for a Settlement, 1979–1991: An Analytical Chronology (Hamburg, Germany: Institute of Asian Affairs, 1995)Google Scholar .

74 See Druckman, Doing Research, ch. 6 for the procedures; see Druckman, Cynthia Irmer and Daniel, ‘Explaining negotiation outcomes: Process or context?’, Negotiation and Conflict Management Research, 2 (2009), pp. 209235Google Scholar for an application to peace negotiations.

75 Hollander-Blumoff, Rebecca and Tyler, Tom R., ‘Procedural Justice in Negotiation: Procedural Fairness, Outcome Acceptance, and Integrative Potential’, Law & Social Inquiry, 33 (2008), pp. 473500CrossRefGoogle Scholar .

76 For example, Mikula and Wenzel, ‘Justice and Social Conflicts’.

77 Cameron, Maxwell A. and Tomlin, Brian W., The Making of NAFTA: How the Deal was Done (Ithaca, NY.: Cornell University Press, 2000)Google Scholar . See also the ten trade cases analysed in Druckman for turning points in the negotiation process. (Druckman, Daniel, ‘Turning Points in International Negotiation: A Comparative Analysis’, Journal of Conflict Resolution, 45 (2001), pp. 519544Google Scholar ). These cases can also be used to evaluate the justice-durability hypothesis.

78 See Keohane, Robert, ‘Reciprocity in International Relations’, International Organization, 40 (1986), pp. 128CrossRefGoogle Scholar .