The situation is reversed in culturally fragmented local settings, which typically lack the kind of dense social networks or ties that their established counterparts possess, which tend to lead to protracted instability. An example of this might be what Autesserre (2010) described as ”grassroots rivalries over land, resources, and political power motivated widespread vi-olence” that underlie protracted conflicts and violence in eastern the Democratic Republic of Congo. There is no other rational explanation for protracted and inefficient (for the community, at least) conflicts such as these, expect for severe information and commitment problems12, which in turn, stem from low valuation of existing cultural paradigms. Sawyer (2005) describes similar dynamics in the context of postwar Liberia. He remarked that while theporo authority and elders have ”always played a critical role in the transmission of value and knowledge in many rural societies,” the onslaught that some of them suffered during years of conflict has elicited ”a response of withdrawal...from participation in community affairs” and that this in turn has contributed to the erosion of values and knowledge loss, which have exacerbated socioeconomic hardships in communities (151). The phenomenon that Autesserre (2010) and Sawyer (2005) are describing in the communities they study is akin to what Plateau and Abraham (2002) described as ”community imperfections” or the lack of what Bowles and Gintis (2004) called ”problem-solving capacity.”
As discussed, these deficiencies not only hamper cooperation within the group, but also make it difficult to engage in cooperative behaviors with out groups. There are at least two reasons for this. First, the low levels of within-group social cohesion suggest greater potential for opportunistic behaviors that may jeopardize collective interest. This is true when cooperation involves group members only, and it is even more so when outside groups are involved. Second, the presence of opportunists is highly problematic, as they do not worry about the consequences of their actions; so the entire group may be collectively blamed by association with such an opportunist. Hence commitment problems may add another layer of complications. As Fearon and Laitin (1996) put it in their earlier cited example,
”that ’Serb’ may have no individual reputation to worry about protecting in interactions
12See Fearon (1995) for a discussion of ”rational explanations of war,” in general.
with non-Serbs.” This may make credible commitment difficult, as sustained cooperation requires the expectation of reciprocal, positive interactions in the future (I do good for you today, and you will do good for me tomorrow). In short, frequent social transgressions from a group’s opportunistic members undercut its credibility to commit. Yet, as the previous discussion implied, such social instability are actually good for the prospect of change.
People are much more open to alternative social arrangements that might be superior to the status quo (Moore et al. 2003). The only question is which alternative and how to overcome the same collective action problems that prompt people to want to move away from the status quo in the first place and to converge on socially desirable alternative arrangements.
The question here then is: to what extent can peacebuilding strategies (both STs and SPs) help address these cooperation-inhibiting deficiencies in fragmented local settings?
I argue that are appropriate for the unique problems and challenges that these settings face in two ways. First, STs do provide information that the elites may otherwise not have volunteered to to share. This is the basic premise on which rest many of today’s civic education programs or information campaigns, included those provided within the context of peacebuilding operations (Russett and O’Neal 2001). Such information, in turn, can enable people to establish common knowledge about the status quo and to converge their expectations around a new, socially desirable alternative arrangement. STs can also overcome the problem of ”bad information” in a way that local alternatives may not, at least in the sense that the information provided through these strategies is likely to be independent of particularistic agendas of one side or the other. This is not an trivial issue.
The polarizing nature of many civil wars often make it difficult to trust information from the other side.13 Thus it is crucial the the information be provided by a third party arguably benefits from the presumption of impartiality.
But STs do not merely provide information. Perhaps more importantly, they also
pro-13One informant in Cote d’Ivoire explained it in the following way as made the case as to why the United Nations Operation in Cote d’voire (UNOCI) should be in charge of running the entire electoral process, including delivering civic education campaigns: ”There is always the fear that that whatever information the other side provides is not completely accurate or if it is accurate then there may be ulterior motives for providing it.” Author’s interview. Abidjan, October 2011).
vide a forum or space, which enables people to interact from frequently. Such interactions can reveal each other’s preferences. Preference revelation, in turn, can facilitate deliberation and coordination toward socially desired solutions. Unlike established settings where close and frequent social interactions are an everyday routine, in fragmented settings local elites typically do not provide such forum or when they do, discussions are very controlled for members to be able to learn anything meaningful about one another.14 Elites’ tight grip on social life stand in the way of people’s learning about each other’s preference and payoffs, even though they live in close proximity with one another. Thus, by providing a space in which people can actually discuss and deliberate without being censored by the elites, local people in fragmented settings can have the opportunity to learn about each other in a new light.
Finally, STs have the capability of leading, whether directly or indirectly, to improved intergroup cooperation. They can do so indirectly by strengthening the internal dynamics of culturally fragmented local settings, enabling them to better control the opportunistic behaviors of its members and therefore be able to enter into credible commitments with other groups. And they can do so directly by providing members from both groups with relevant information that enables them to aggregate knowledge and converge expectations.
For example, many international NGOs carry out information campaigns and other project activities that specifically seek to generate convergence in expectations at this macro-level (e.g., community A learns more about community B, and both communities come to an understanding that they need to work together for a common purpose). Moreover, since social cohesion in fragmented settings is generated primarily with outside help, there is no reason to expect that strengthening intra-group social cohesion will necessarily lower the group’s propensity to engage in inter-group cooperation, as it seemed to be the case with established cultural settings. The idea here is that since both aspects of social cohesion are promoted simultaneously and primarily with outside help, they will tend to be seen as complementary to each other.
The foregoing arguments implicitly assume that local people in fragmented settings are driven by instrumental considerations. But the predictions are the same even when people
14See chapter four for anecdotal accounts that support this notion.
are being driven by emotional or moral considerations. The claim here is that weaker identification with with the existing cultural paradigm means that STs are less likely to elicit perceptions of cultural threats, which typically come into play in contexts of culturally established settings. Ashforth’s and Mael’s (1989) argument that when confronted with threatening information or behavior intentionally directed at the in-group, ”low identifiers”
typically respond by ”distancing themselves from the group or repenting for its immoral behavior” is applicable in culturally fragmented local settings. In other words, there are no
”shared values” to be threatened by new norms and values being promoted by STs.
If these arguments are correct, we should expect the following hypothesis:
H2a: Status quo-transforming strategies will tend to have positive influence on the like-lihood of fragmented settings to engage in cooperation both within and between groups.
However, there is no reason to expect that SPs will have a similarly positive influence on communities that are culturally fragmented. SPs lack the kind of information mechanisms that are appropriate for severe information asymmetries pervasive in fragmented settings.
In addition, SPs primarily operate indirectly through interactions with local elites, and fragmented settings typically do not have the sort of community dynamics (e.g., higher legitimacy; frequent interactions between the elites and masses) that would enable the mechanisms to work at the level of the constituents. More specifically, what SPs-facilitated interactions do is impart to local leaders (who may not have had previous incentive for peaceful interaction) a great deal of information about other communities. This learning alone, however, does not translate into greater social cohesion within and between groups.
That would require local leaders to pass the newly acquired information along to their respective group members, a transmission also necessary for improvement in intergroup cooperation. In addition, local leaders must be able to make credible commitments (on behalf of their respective groups) for present and future transactions between groups. Local leaders from strong communities have the ability to do both of these things, but local leaders from weak communities do not.
Thus, even when leaders from weak settings interact with peers in other groups, this does not address the two major sources of cooperation problems between the groups. That is, they may not have the capacity to effectively address misperceptions or mistrust their
own group may harbor towards other groups. They may also lack the ability to control the opportunistic behaviors of some of their members. As a result, SPs will have no meaningful influence on fragmented settings to engage in greater intra-group or intergroup cooperation, as stated in the following hypothesis:
H2b: Status quo-preserving strategies will tend to have no influence on the propensity of fragmented settings to engage in intra-group or inter-group cooperation.