Better Together?
Evaluating the Impact of Coordination among Civil Society Groups during Peace Negotiations on the Quality of Peace Agreements
Nathanael Eschmann Master’s Thesis,
Spring 2020
Department of Peace and Conflict Research, Uppsala University Supervisor: Desirée Nilsson
Word Count: 21’605
ii Acknowledgments
The journey of writing this thesis contained ups and downs and ultimately fostered extensive personal growth. I am extremely grateful for the support that I have received from several people.
A massive thanks goes to my supervisor Desirée Nilsson for her relentless support and feedback throughout the whole writing process. I am extremely thankful to my parents for believing and investing in me and to my siblings Tabita, Sarah, Naemi and Micha for their incredible support. To my love Susanne, thank you so much for all your endless encouragements. For valuable feedback on earlier drafts of this thesis and great peer-support I further want to thank Josefin, Jared and Maxine. Lastly, and above all I thank Jesus for being with me every step of the way.
iii Abstract
The study of civil society participation in peace negotiations has become increasingly popular.
Although research has stressed the importance of coordination among civil society groups, no study has so far been conducted that studies the impact coordination among civil society groups can have on the quality of a peace agreement. This thesis aims to fill this gap by asking How does the extent of coordination among civil society groups during peace negotiations impact the quality of a peace agreement? Springing from the premise that civil society groups are aware of underlying conflict causes, this thesis argues that a high extent of civil society groups’ coordination leads to a high- quality peace agreement and that this is particularly so when a civil society actor is facilitating the coordination. By applying the method of structured focused comparison, these hypotheses are tested on Guatemala, El Salvador, and Liberia. The empirical findings do not show support for the hypotheses. A variety of factors were discovered during the analysis that could have hampered the impact of civil society groups’ coordination or could hold alternative explanatory power and thus stress the need for further research.
Keywords: civil society groups, coordination, civil society facilitator, civil war, peace negotiations, peace agreements
iv Table of Content
List of Abbreviations ... vi
List of Figures and Tables ... vii
1. Introduction ... 1
2. Previous Research ... 3
3. Theory ... 9
4. Research Design ... 15
4.1 Method of Structured Focused Comparison ... 15
4.2 Case Selection ... 15
4.2.2 Scope Conditions and Confounding Variables... 16
4.2.3 The Sample of Cases ... 17
4.3 Operationalization of Variables ... 18
4.3.1 Operationalizing the Dependent Variable... 19
4.3.2 Operationalizing the Independent Variables ... 20
4.4 Time Period and Data Sources ... 22
4.5 Structure of Analysis ... 23
5. Guatemala ... 24
5.1 Overview of the Armed Conflict and Peace Process... 24
5.2 Coordination among Civil Society Groups during the Guatemalan Peace Negotiations ... 25
5.3 Within-Case Analysis ... 30
6. El Salvador ... 33
6.1 Overview of the Armed Conflict and Peace Process... 33
6.2 Coordination among Civil Society Groups during the El Salvadoran Peace Negotiations . 34 6.3 Within-Case Analysis ... 38
7. Liberia ... 41
7.1 Overview of the Armed Conflict and Peace Process... 41
7.2 Coordination among Civil Society Groups during the Liberian Peace Negotiations ... 42
7.3 Within-Case Analysis ... 45
8. Comparative Analysis ... 48
8.1 Cross-Case Comparison ... 49
8.2 Supplementary Observations and Alternative Explanations ... 53
8.3 Limitations ... 55
v 9. Conclusion ... 59 10. Bibliography ... 61
vi List of Abbreviations
ANEP ARENA ASC CACIF CNR CPDN
COPMAGUA DNP
ECOWAS FUSADES FMLN IFMC IRCL LNBA LURD
MARWOPNET MODEL
NPFL ONUSAL UN
UNAMG UNIFEM URNG WIPNET
National Association of Private Enterprise Nationalist Republican Alliance
Civil Society Assembly
Agricultural, Commercial, Industrial and Financial Coordinating Committee National Reconciliation Commission
Permanent Committee of the National Dialogue
Coordination of Organizations of Mayan People of Guatemala National Debate for Peace
Economic Community of West African States
Salvadoran Foundation for Economic and Social Development Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front
Inter-Faith Mediation Committee Inter-Religious Council of Liberia Liberian National Bar Association
Liberians United for Reconciliation and Democracy Mano River Women's Peace Network
Movement for Democracy in Liberia National Patriotic Front of Liberia
United Nations Observer Mission in El Salvador United Nations
National Union of Guatemalan Women United Nation Development Fund for Women Guatemalan National Revolutionary Unity The Women in Peacebuilding Network
vii List of Figures and Tables
Figure 1: Theoretical Argument Hypothesis 1 ... 11
Figure 2: Theoretical Argument Hypothesis 2 ... 14
Table 1: Most Similar Case Design ... 16
Table 2: Indicators of Independent and Condition Variable ... 22
Table 3: Summary Indicators Guatemala ... 29
Table 4: Summary Within-Case Analysis in Guatemala ... 33
Table 5: Summary Indicators El Salvador ... 37
Table 6: Summary Within-Case Analysis El Salvador... 40
Table 7: Summary Indicators Liberia ... 45
Table 8: Summary Within-Case Analysis Liberia ... 48
Table 9: Overview Findings Case by Case Analysis ... 49
1 1. Introduction
Extensive research has been conducted in the field of peacebuilding and mediation to examine the significance of civil society participation in peace negotiations. Peacebuilding literature thoroughly discusses the advantages and disadvantages of including civil society in peace negotiations and the various modalities of civil society inclusion (e.g. Paffenholz, Kew, and Wanis-St John 2006;
Zartman 2008; D. Nilsson 2012). Mediation literature developed the typology of an insider-partial mediator, which refers to a mediator coming from within the conflict context (Wehr and Lederach 1991).
Overall, research sheds light on a growing consensus among researchers that the inclusion of civil society in peace negotiations is essential and can, among others, increase the transparency of peace negotiations, strengthen democracy and make peace more durable (Barnes 2005; Lanz 2011; D.
Nilsson 2012). Surprisingly, little is known about the importance of civil society groups’
coordination during peace negotiations. Although studies implicitly assume that coordination is instrumental in guaranteeing the effectiveness of civil society efforts (Barnes 2005; Paffenholz, Kew, and Wanis-St John 2006), no study has so far been conducted that more systematically investigates the impact coordination among civil society groups can have on the quality of a peace agreement. Therefore, this thesis aims to fill this research gap by asking: How does the extent of coordination among civil society groups during peace negotiations impact the quality of a peace agreement?
Hence, this thesis builds on the growing consensus among researchers that underlines the importance of civil society inclusion in peace negotiations and focuses on the dynamics that can develop when civil society groups coordinate their efforts during the peace negotiations.
Investigating whether coordination among civil society groups impacts the quality of a peace agreement is crucial, as a high-quality peace agreement is perceived to be an agreement that captures all underlying conflict causes (Williams et al. 2019, 2). Thus, if coordination leads to the addressing of more conflict issues in the agreement, it should be more actively encouraged.
I hypothesize that a high extent of coordination among civil society groups leads to high-quality peace agreements since civil society groups are connected to society’s needs and therefore capture underlying conflict issues well. In consequence, when civil society groups coordinate tasks and spearhead viewpoints together, their views are more likely included in a peace agreement.
2 Moreover, a second hypothesis is created to test whether the presence of a civil society actor acting as facilitator constitutes a condition variable that magnifies the impact a high extent of coordination among civil society groups can have on the quality of a peace agreement. A civil society facilitator present during civil society groups’ coordination is assumed to be crucial in upholding coordination among a growing number of civil society groups and in forwarding civil society groups’ viewpoints to the negotiation parties.
After first developing the theoretical framework in more detail, I will test the assumed relationship between the extent of civil society groups’ coordination and the quality of a peace agreement by carrying out a comparative analysis of the peace negotiations in El Salvador, Guatemala, and Liberia. The method of structured focused comparison is used to conduct the analysis. Data are gathered from a variety of secondary sources, among others, from reports published by the Centre for Humanitarian Dialogue and Conciliation Resources. The findings stress that coordination took place among a large variety of civil society groups during the Guatemalan and El Salvadoran peace negotiations and particularly among women’s groups throughout the Liberian peace negotiations.
Moreover, civil society actors were found to facilitate coordination both in Guatemala and El Salvador. Nonetheless, no support was found for the hypothesized relationship between the extent of civil society groups’ coordination and the quality of a peace agreement. Several factors are discovered that might have hampered the impact of civil society groups’ coordination efforts and thus underscore the need for future research into these dynamics.
Following this introduction, the next chapter gives insight into previous research in the field of peacebuilding and mediation that focuses on the role of civil society actors during peace negotiations. Moreover, the chapter introduces key concepts such as civil society, transfer, and peace agreements. The third chapter will then present the theoretical framework and hypotheses in more detail. After that, the fourth chapter will portray the research design and highlights the structure of the analysis. Chapters five to seven commence with the presentation of the collected empirical data, and each concludes with a within-case analysis. The comparative analysis in chapter eight compares the findings of the case by case analysis and evaluates to what extent support for the hypotheses can be found across cases. Additionally, the chapter brings to the forefront supplementary factors that hold explanatory power and discusses the empirical and theoretical limitations of the thesis. The conclusion summarizes the purpose and results of this thesis and highlights avenues for future research.
3 2. Previous Research
Before outlining my theoretical argumentation concerning the impact coordination among civil society groups can have during peace negotiations on the quality of a peace agreement, this chapter aims to give an overview of previous research in the field of peacebuilding and mediation that has focused on civil society engagement in peace negotiations. Additionally, the review provides insight into the connectedness of multiple levels of society during peace negotiations and highlights other factors that can influence the quality of peace agreements. Definitions of civil society vary but often share as a common denominator that civil society needs to be regarded as distinct from the state and political arena (D. Nilsson 2012, 246). In this thesis I will use D. Nilsson’s definition of civil society: “…civil society is here seen as separate from the state and political parties, and consists of the wide range of voluntary organizations in society such as religious associations, women’s organizations, human rights groups, and trade unions.” (D. Nilsson 2012, 246).
Peacebuilding research
In the last decades, researchers in the field of peacebuilding started to increasingly examine civil society inclusion in peace negotiations. An extensive overview of peacebuilding theories and civil society can be found in Paffenholz (2010, 43–64). Paffenholz (2006) analyzed the various peacebuilding functions of civil society, in particular those that can accelerate civil society participation in the official negotiations. Multiple researchers found that civil society participation in peace processes can lead to more durable peace (Kew and Wanis-St. John 2008; D. Nilsson 2012). Nilsson (2012), for instance, conducted the first quantitative analysis on the inclusion of civil society actors in peace agreements to evaluate its effect on the durability of peace and discovered that including civil society actors in peace accords makes peace more durable. This finding remained significant even after the author controlled for the deployment of peacekeeping troops and economic development in the country (Id: 262). From a normative perspective, including civil society in peace negotiations is an important step to shape democracy (Lanz 2011;
Bell and O’Rourke 2007). Further, civil society actors can address causes of conflict that go beyond the immediate interests of the warring parties and make the peace negotiations more transparent, which can increase the acceptance of a reached agreement among the wider public (Barnes 2005;
Saunders 1999). Having said that, researchers and practitioners have also highlighted that civil
4 society inclusion can complicate negotiations (Paffenholz, Kew, and Wanis-St John 2006; Zartman 2008; Kew and Wanis-St. John 2008; D. Nilsson 2012; Cunningham 2013). Kew and Wanis-St.
John (2008), for example, underscore that more parties at the negotiation table, can augment interpersonal conflicts and lead to an overload of information.
Paffenholz (2014) suggests moving past the dichotomous debate of including or excluding civil society actors in peace negotiations by focusing on various ways civil society can be included in peace negotiations. She introduces nine models of civil society inclusion characterized by the level of direct involvement in the peace negotiations. Examples are formal, informal, and public consultations but also direct representation and observer status of civil society actors in the official negotiation (Ibid). Cuhadar and Paffenholz (2019, 10) subsequently point out that any ideas, proposals, or other outcomes created in the inclusion modalities can be transferred to the official negotiations or the larger population.
To comprehend how such ideas or proposals are forwarded in peace negotiations, one needs to understand the various levels of actors that can be involved in peace processes. Diamond and McDonald (1996) came up with a multitrack diplomacy concept aiming to create space for a variety of societal actors to interact in a peace process. Similarly, Lederach (1997) developed a pyramid model to illustrate how various actors in society interact in the context of an internal armed conflict.
He divided actors according to three levels. Level 1 involving the “top leadership”, level 2 the
“middle-range leadership” and level 3 the “grassroots leadership”. Nowadays, most researchers refer to the levels as track 1, 1.5, 2, and 3. Track 1 describes discussions among diplomats, high- level governmental or military leaders (see, e.g. Mapendere 2006, 67). Track 2 can be understood as relationship rebuilding efforts among nonofficial but influential actors with the help of unofficial intermediaries (Chigas 2005, 133). American foreign service officer Joseph Montville was the first one that used the “track 2” typology to refer to unofficial dialogues that aim to resolve conflicts (Jones 2015, 9). However, no consensus exists among researchers concerning the definition of track 2. Thus for a more detailed discussion of the track 2 concept, see Jones (2015). Track 1.5 comes close to an official process. The main difference to track 1 is that an involved third party does not stand for any governmental institution and the main difference to track 2 is that actors involved in the conflict resolution process are official representatives of the parties in dispute (Mapendere 2006, 70). Track 3 captures efforts at the grassroots level that aim to rebuild relationships among citizens from various conflict sides (Chigas 2005, 135).
5 A variety of scholars started looking at the transfer that can take place between the different tracks.
Transfer refers to how new ideas and outcomes are forwarded from one track to the other (Cuhadar 2009, 643). Cuhadar (2009, 643) distinguishes between “upwards”, “downwards” and “lateral”
transfer. Upwards transfer consists of the transfer of “effects and outcomes” from the unofficial channel to the official platform of decisionmakers (Ibid).1 As the decisionmakers are the ones deciding the final content of a peace agreement, this thesis mainly centers on the upwards transfer.
Cuhadar (2009, 652) stresses that for the unofficial channel to have a successful impact on the official negotiation outcome, not only the effectiveness of the transfer strategy matters but also whether the negotiation team is open to outsider information and in what sense the leadership prefers the track 2 ideas above others. Moreover, Cuhadar and Paffenholz (2019, 15) stress that future research should look into whether a civil society actor or an official mediator is more effective in transferring information during a transfer process (Cuhadar and Paffenholz 2019, 15).
Mediation research
The overall concept of international mediation can best be grasped by applying the definition of Bercovitch, Anagnoson & Wille, who perceive international mediation to be “… a process of conflict management where the disputants seek the assistance of, or accept an offer of help from, an individual, group, state or organization to settle their conflict…” (1991, 8).
Up until the 1990s, researchers in the field of mediation have not examined the role actors from within a conflict setting (e.g. civil society actors) can play in mediation. However, that changed when Wehr and Lederach (1991) examined the Esquipulas peace process in Central America. Wehr and Lederach (1991) found a different kind of mediator playing a critical role that has not been so far discussed in the mediation literature, namely the so-called “insider-partial mediator”. The main difference to other mediators is that the insider-partial mediator comes from within the conflict context. Thereby, the insider-partial mediator stands out through connectedness and trustful relationships established with conflict parties. The fact that the mediator has to live in the same
1 By lateral transfer Cuhadar refers to the transfer of outcomes to others partaking in dialogue and conflict resolution activities, and downwards transfer refers to the transfer of outcomes to grassroots actors (E. Cuhadar 2004 as cited in Jones 2015, 144).
6 post-negotiation context is a crucial reason why parties are more likely to trust an insider-partial mediator (Wehr and Lederach 1991, 87).
Svensson and Lindgren (2013, 699) emphasize that since the introduction of the insider-partial mediator concept by Wehr and Lederach, research focusing on insider-partial mediators has been scarce. Peacebuilding, rather than mediation research, has more extensively focused on the potential that domestic sources can have in conflict resolution processes. Some examples highlighted by Svensson and Lindgren (2013, 702), include Kriesberg’s (1991; 1996; 2012) expansions on “quasi-mediators”, and the study of Chigas (2005) on unofficial intermediaries in the context of intractable conflict negotiations.2 Further, Paffenholz and Spurk (2006) list facilitation as one of seven functions that civil society can take on in peace processes and highlight that civil society actors can facilitate/mediate between civil society and warring groups, or also in fewer instances between warring parties themselves. Moreover, Mason (2009) highlights characteristics and strengths of insider mediators based on a “lesson-learned” workshop that was held with insider mediators from various countries.
Svensson and Lindgren (2013) build on Wehr and Lederachs’ typology. However, whereas Wehr and Lederach focus on trust as the critical characteristic of an insider-partial mediator, Svensson and Lindgren (2013, 702) are looking at the insider-partial mediator from a bargaining perspective and focus on the ability of such a mediator to carry private information credibly. Insider-partial mediators are often actors with own interests such as business, religious or political actors and not groups with peace as their main interest (Id: 704). The authors use new data to examine the occurrence and the effect of mediation in unarmed insurrection and find that insider-partial mediators significantly increase the chance that an agreement is negotiated in unarmed conflicts (Id: 699). Yet, in extremely escalated conflicts, it is more often an external mediator, that is an actor from a milieu outside the conflict country, who is operating as the official mediator (Id: 700–
701). Svensson and Lindgren (2013, 719) thus hint that future research needs to examine what resources an insider-partial mediator can provide in the context of an armed conflict and whether these resources can complement an external mediator’s peace initiative.
2 More research-examples for instance on “internal religious mediators” and “informal mediation” can be found in Svensson and Lindgren (2013).
7 More recently, Uesugi and Kagawa (2020) have introduced a special type of insider-partial intermediary called “Mid-Space Local Bridge Builders”. The authors understand under Mid-Space Local Bridge Builders, local leaders who can serve as a bridge between officials and the people during peace processes if it is in their interest but can also become spoilers (Id: 46). Because of the ability of such leaders to support or hinder peace processes, Uesugi and Kagawa (2020, 46) refer to those local leaders as “gatekeepers”.
Research on the Quality of Peace Agreements
Researchers examining the quality of peace agreements have identified a variety of factors that influence the quality of a peace agreement. A peace agreement can be defined as a formal contract between all or some warring parties, whose purpose it is to end the armed conflict by addressing at least part of the parties’ incompatibility and establishing procedures for future interactions (Badran 2014, 194). Thereby, many studies assess the quality of a peace agreement based on the durability of peace. Hartzell and Hoddie (2003), for instance, found that an extensive power-sharing arrangement embedded in a peace agreement augments the likelihood that peace prevails. Building on this, Derouen et al. (2009) uncovered that power-sharing provisions which demand a high price of the government, decrease the duration of the agreement. In contrast, less costly provisions for the government, such as military integration and autonomy, positively impact the duration of peace.
Further, Svensson (2009) discovered that biased mediation is more likely to lead to an elaborate peace agreement than neutral mediation. This is so because biased mediators are unwilling to sacrifice an elaborate deal that protects their protégés for the sake of quickly reaching an agreement.
Contrary, neutral mediators’ main goal is for warring parties to end the conflict, and hence, they are less concerned about the specific provisions (Id: 462). In terms of civil society, Bell and O’Rourke (2007) analyzed what kind of functions provisions in a peace agreement provide for civil society organizations involvement, and Nilsson (2012) discovered that the inclusion of civil society actors in peace accords makes peace more durable. However, to the best of my knowledge, no study has so far examined what impact coordination among civil society groups can have on the quality of a peace agreement.
8 Research Gap
The above review brings to the forefront that extensive research has been conducted to examine civil society participation in peace negotiations. The peacebuilding literature has moved from merely discussing the advantages and disadvantages of including civil society groups to different modalities of inclusion. The mediation literature, on the other hand, has developed the typology of a mediator coming from within a conflict context, which among others, can be a civil society actor.
Surprisingly, researchers have to a large degree so far overlooked examining the impact coordination among various civil society groups can have during peace negotiations, particularly on the quality of peace agreements. The coordination literature has mainly focused on “civil- military coordination” in the post-conflict context, coordination between track 1 and track 2, and coordination between nonprofit organizations (Nan and Strimling 2006, 2).
Researchers have either implicitly assumed coordination among civil society groups to matter or only marginally mentioned it. Barnes (2005, 22), for instance, briefly points out that when civil society organizations compete with each other for resources rather than fostering communication, it can undermine coordination and hence lead to less effective, scattered efforts. Similarly, Paffenholz et al. (2006, 70) stress that competitiveness, disorganization, and hostility among civil society groups can hamper coordination, which can cause implementation problems. An exception constitutes the newly released paper of Nilsson, Svensson, Teixeira, Martínez and Ruus (2020), where the authors use coordination as a framework to investigate how civil society led mass actions and elite-driven activities interact in the course of a peace process.
This thesis aims to systematically examine whether civil society groups are more effective in influencing the outcome of peace negotiations when they are coordinating their efforts. I argue that if coordination among civil society groups increases their effectiveness, it should lead to the inclusion of more provisions in the peace agreement important to civil society. As civil society groups are particularly likely to tackle critical underlying causes of conflict (Barnes 2009), the inclusion of more civil society viewpoints in an agreement should positively impact the quality of a peace agreement. In consequence, studying coordination among civil society groups can give crucial insight into how the quality of a peace agreement can be enhanced. Further, contrary to other researchers, I will evaluate the quality of peace agreement independent of the duration of peace as even high-quality agreements can be of short durations due to other external influences
9 (Williams et al. 2019). Lastly, I will examine the role civil society facilitators are taking on during coordination. By doing so this thesis is expanding on research avenues both highlighted in the peacebuilding and mediation literature. I will now introduce my theoretical framework in the next chapter.
3. Theory
This chapter gives an overview of the theory that will guide the analysis. In short, I argue that a high extent of coordination among civil society groups during peace negotiations leads to a high- quality peace agreement, particularly when a civil society actor is acting as facilitator. Thereby the focus is on peace negotiations in an intrastate armed conflict setting. Peace negotiations are
“…bilateral or multilateral negotiations between adversaries involving the leadership or their official representatives, from both or all sides, typically mediated by a third-party” (Anderlini 2004, 18). Relying on the UCDP definition3, intrastate armed conflict is here understood to be a conflict between a government of a state and a non-state actor that leads to a minimum of 25 battle- related deaths in a year (Pettersson, Högbladh, and Öberg 2019). Leaning on Williams et al. (2019, 2) the quality of a peace agreement is defined as the degree to which an agreement highlights all underlying causes of conflict. Thus, a high-quality agreement draws attention to all underlying causes of conflict, whereas a weak agreement does not. In what follows I will outline my theoretical argument in more detail.
Civil society consists of a large variety of actors, such as different religious groups, non- governmental organizations, and business associations (D. Nilsson 2012; Paffenholz, Kew, and Wanis-St John 2006). Every civil society group and organization represents the values and interests of certain sectors of society. Organizations such as human rights organizations represent interests that concern all individuals of a society, whereas other groups focus on interests concerning a smaller sector of the population (Kew and Wanis-St. John 2008). A religious group, for instance, will specifically capture the interests of the particular faith-based community.4 Depending on the society, such a group may represent a majority of the people, but it could also be a minority.
3 A full list of UCDP definition can be found here (30. April 2020): https://www.pcr.uu.se/research/ucdp/definitions/
4 This is not to say that a religious group cannot at times also spearhead needs which matter for the population at large (e.g. social welfare).
10 If civil society organizations are present during peace negotiations in some manner, I reason that the extent to which civil society actors coordinate their efforts matters greatly for the impact they have on the official negotiations and the information included in the peace agreement. More generally, coordination aims to improve the effectiveness of various related efforts among others through the sharing of information and resources, joint planning, and working in collaboration (Nan and Garb 2006, 10). Coordination is in this thesis perceived as high when various civil society groups synchronize their actions and work together in formulating and forwarding civil society viewpoints to the track 1 negotiation. Hence, a high extent of coordination leads civil society groups to move beyond simply sharing information and resources to active collaboration (Strimling 2006, 94; Waters, Hackley, and Woodside 2006, 42).
Coordination among civil society groups can be established, for instance, through a more formal model of civil society inclusion as was the case during the Afghanistan negotiations in 2001 (Paffenholz, Kew, and Wanis-St John 2006) or by civil society actors initiating and upholding coordination more informally, for example, by fostering debates and building networks or alliances (Ricigliano 2003; Nan and Garb 2006). Such informal coordination did, for instance, evolve before the Lomé negotiations in Sierra Leone in 1995, when around 60 civil society groups, among others the “Council of Churches” and the “Women’s Movement for Peace”, established a “National Coordinating Committee for Peace” to generate a unified voice for peace (Bright 2000, 43). The latter example further shows that coordination can go beyond coordination among civil society groups with a similar sectoral focus, e.g. different religious groups and include civil society groups that differ in their sectoral focus.
When civil society actors unite behind certain viewpoints and jointly spearhead those interests, I reason that they are a stronger voice to be reckoned with for three main reasons: Firstly, civil society actors can more convincingly argue that they represent viewpoints important to society at large. Secondly, it follows that civil society actors can organize mass actions (e.g. protests) of greater force if necessary (Paffenholz 2014). Thirdly, coordination allows the civil society groups to more efficiently navigate the kind of information that should be forwarded to the official negotiations. This will enable civil society groups to better prevent the transfer of civil society groups’ interests that are conflicting with each other. Consequently, negotiation parties are targeted more effectively, and overloading the parties with information can be prevented (Kriesberg 1996).
11 Such a united civil society voice will be harder for negotiation parties to dismiss easily. Therefore, I argue that civil society groups’ viewpoints will be more likely included in the peace agreement.
Since each civil society group is capturing the interests of the fraction of society they are representing, each group receives deeper insight into some underlying conflict causes (Barnes 2005; 2009; Saunders 1999). Subsequently, when a variety of civil society groups are spearheading viewpoints together, they are grasping more of the underlying conflict issues. Since the quality of an agreement reflects the extent to which all underlying conflict causes are addressed, I expect the inclusion of civil society groups’ viewpoints in the peace agreements to have a positive impact on the quality of the agreement. Based on the above argumentation, I propose the following hypothesis:
H1: A high extent of coordination among civil society groups during peace negotiations leads to a high-quality peace agreement.
Figure 1: Theoretical Argument Hypothesis 1
A high extent of coordination among civil society groups, leads civil society groups to synchronize tasks and spearhead interests together.
Coordination thus enables civil society groups to pressure negotiation parties more effectively into including civil society viewpoints.
Due to the connection of civil society groups to local needs, the viewpoints capture the underlying causes of conflict well.
Hence, incorporating the viewpoints into the agreement leads to a high- quality peace agreement.
12 The above hypothesis rests on the assumption that coordination among civil society groups per se impacts the quality of a peace agreement regardless of whether an actor is at the center of coordination or not. It assumes that all coordinating civil society actors are equally instrumental in upholding coordination and does not consider that an actor can play a particular crucial role in maintaining the coordination. In what follows, I will develop a further hypothesis that builds on the above hypothesized relationship but factors in the presence of a civil society facilitator as a condition variable5 whose presence is hypothesized to magnify the impact a high extent of civil society groups’ coordination can have on the quality of the peace agreement.
Coordination among a growing number of civil society groups can easily become complex, given the variety of interests held by the groups. Therefore, to secure the efficiency of coordination taking place specifically with a growing number of civil society groups, I argue that it is beneficial if an actor is at the center of the coordination and takes on a facilitator role. I define a facilitator as an actor who builds and obtains bridges of interaction between various civil society groups to share views, needs and any other interest relevant for the resolution of the conflict and mediates between groups with conflicting viewpoints (Bercovitch, Anagnoson, and Wille 1991, 16; Strimling 2006, 93). The actor taking on a facilitatory role will likely be one of the civil society actors coordinating, which means that next to taking on a facilitator function, the actor will also have its own agenda.
This is not necessarily a hindrance as long as the facilitator remains consensus-oriented and does not promote its own agenda above the viewpoints held by other civil society groups.
In some cases, the facilitator can also be an international organization. For instance, a Swiss think- thank and a German one together facilitated the forum established for civil society groups during the Afghanistan negotiations in 2001 (Paffenholz, Kew, and Wanis-St John 2006, 71). Having said that, civil society groups and the negotiation parties might be more reluctant to trust a facilitator from outside the country. It is to an extent also possible that the official mediator is facilitating civil society coordination. This can be done, for example, through individual consultations with groups as was the case in Kenya after the post-electoral violence, where Kofi Annan separately held consultations with various civil society groups (Cuhadar and Paffenholz 2019, 14). However, to
5 A condition variable is a variable that can magnify the relationship between an independent and dependent variable when present and whose absence can reduce the impact the independent variable has on the dependent variable (see e.g. Van Evera 1997, 13).
13 simultaneously facilitate larger coordination endeavors of civil society groups and mediate the official negotiations will likely go beyond the capacity of the official mediator.
The potential inclusion of civil society interests in the peace agreement is conditional on the ability of civil society groups to forward the interests to the official negotiations, the extent to which the negotiation parties are open to outsider information and the degree to which the warring parties prefer the track 2 ideas above others (Cuhadar 2009, 652). Thereby the outcome can be transferred to the official mediator or directly to the negotiation parties. I reason that negotiation parties will be most open to receive and consider civil society viewpoints if the negotiation parties respect the actor at the center of civil society coordination. This is particularly likely if the facilitator is a so- called “insider-partial mediator”, that is, an actor from within the conflict setting who the negotiation parties deem to be trustworthy because of prior mediation services (Wehr and Lederach 1991; Svensson and Lindgren 2013).
Additionally, transfer of viewpoints is most effective if transferred to the negotiation parties in a symmetrical manner, which means, all negotiation parties receive the same information (Cuhadar 2009, 649). I reason that particularly the official mediator can distribute information to the various parties in a symmetrical manner, due to the central position the mediator holds in the official negotiations. Thus, to secure a balanced distribution of civil society viewpoints to the negotiation parties, cooperation between the facilitator of civil society groups’ coordination and the official mediator is beneficial. Based on the above, I propose a second hypothesis:
14 H2: A high extent of coordination among civil society groups during peace negotiations, together with a civil society actor acting as a facilitator, leads to a high-quality peace agreement.
Figure 2: Theoretical Argument Hypothesis 2
In sum, this thesis aims to explore whether a high extent of coordination among civil society groups leads to a high-quality peace agreement and if the presence of a civil society facilitator magnifies the impact. The extent of coordination is considered high if the civil society actors engaged in the peace negotiations are synchronizing their actions and are spearheading interests together.
Important to acknowledge though is, that I do not expect “a high extent of coordination among civil society groups” to be the sole factor explaining variation in the peace agreement’s quality.
Instead, I theorize that it is one component among many that impacts the quality of peace agreements.
A civil society actor acting as facilitator during civil society groups’ coordination, can be instrumental in upholding coordi- nation among a growing number of groups, and…
…conduct shuttle diplomacy between the coordinating civil society groups and the negotiation parties or/and the official mediator.
When the negotiation parties respect the facilitator (e.g. insider-partial mediator), they will be particularly open to receive civil society groups viewpoints.
Incorporating the viewpoints into the agreement leads to a high-quality peace agreement.
15 4. Research Design
4.1 Method of Structured Focused Comparison
The in chapter three developed hypotheses will be tested by applying the so-called method of
“structured focused comparison”. Whereby “structured” highlights that the researcher prepares a set of questions that captures the objective of the study and is guiding the examination of each case (George and Bennett 2005, 67). This approach enables a consistent data collection and thus allows for a systematic comparison of the cases (Ibid). The set of questions that is guiding this study will be explained in the operationalization section further below. “Focused” means that the study concentrates on a specific aspect of a case in accordance with an explicit time span. In other words, the analysis is guaranteed to be focused when guided by a clear research objective (Id: 70). In the here conducted qualitative analysis, the broader phenomena under study are peace negotiations in the context of an intrastate armed conflict. The focus of the study is on coordination among civil society groups during peace negotiations that is presumed to have measurable implications for the quality of a peace agreement.
The format of a comparative case study has been chosen, as this study is guided by the curiosity to explain variation in the quality of peace agreements. Variation cannot be studied by only looking at the quality of one single peace agreement, rather, one needs to compare several peace agreements that vary in their quality. Further, a qualitative design has been chosen over a quantitative design for two main reasons: Firstly, there is not enough data on my independent variable available to conduct a quantitative large n-study, and the time span of this study is too short to collect it.
Secondly, a qualitative design enables me to investigate in depth the extent of coordination among civil society groups.
4.2 Case Selection
For a case study to be able to say anything about a larger population of cases, the study needs to be representative of that very population (Seawright and Gerring 2008, 295). However, in contrast to a large n-study, applying the technique of random sampling in a small n-study, will likely not lead to the selection of a representative sample. Thus, case selection in a qualitative study is often more purposive (Seawright and Gerring 2008, 295).
16 To select comparable cases, the most-similar case design is used to select the cases for the analysis.
The most-similar case design, also known as Mill’s “method of difference”, implies that selected cases vary in terms of the outcome of interest while a variety of factors that could have impacted the outcome, except for the variable of interest, are hold constant (Gerring 2006, 131). To ensure that peace agreements differ in their quality, cases will be selected based on variation in the dependent variable, which means one very strong agreement, one moderately strong agreement, and one moderately week agreement are chosen for the analysis.
Case Extent of coordination among civil society groups
(Independent Variable)
Other explanatory variables
Outcome: Quality of peace agreement (Dependent Variable)
A ? 1 Moderately weak
B ? 1 Moderately strong
C ? 1 Very strong
Table 1: Most Similar Case Design
4.2.2 Scope Conditions and Confounding Variables
Cases will be selected using the UCDP Peace Agreement Dataset Version 19.16 , which includes peace agreements for armed conflicts that have been ongoing between 1975 and 2018 (Harbom, Högbladh, and Wallensteen 2006; Pettersson, Högbladh, and Öberg 2019). The most-similar case design requires that factors, other than the independent variable, which could influence the outcome are hold constant by making sure that the selected cases do not differ regarding those aspects (Gerring 2006, 131). The focus of this thesis is, therefore, on intrastate armed conflicts. Further, to analyze whether an insider-partial mediator becomes a facilitator of coordination among civil society groups when a mediator from outside the conflict country (external mediator) takes over the official negotiations, all selected peace agreements focus on peace negotiations where an external mediator was the official mediator.
6 The UCDP Peace Agreement Dataset Version 19.1 is available here (30. April 2020): https://ucdp.uu.se/downloads/
17 To guarantee that the incompatibility is not influencing the results, the main conflict issue addressed in the peace agreements should be about government control. Further, the focus of this study is on peace agreements signed after the end of the Cold War as there will likely be more available data. Only peace agreements signed before the end of 2005 can be selected for the analysis as Williams et al.’s (2019) study was limited to peace agreements signed between 1975 and 2005, and thus the strength scores only exist for those agreements. Additionally, the authors highlight that more comprehensive peace agreements are dealing with more primary issues of the conflict and will as a result be stronger (Id: 9). To control for this, cases will be selected that are all classified as “full peace agreement” in the UCDP Peace Agreement Dataset (Harbom, Högbladh, and Wallensteen 2006; Pettersson, Högbladh, and Öberg 2019). A full peace agreement is defined as
“…an accord where at least one dyad agrees to settle the whole incompatibility.” (Harbom, Högbladh, and Wallensteen 2006, 622).
4.2.3 The Sample of Cases
After narrowing down the list of peace agreements following the criteria mentioned above, the strength measurement of Williams et al. (2019) was added to the remaining 26 peace agreements.7 The strength measurement will be explained in more detail in chapter 4.3.1. Since the distance between the strength scores does not follow a linear logic, the agreements needed to be further divided based on the quartile they fall in, in order to assess their strength. None of the agreements were part of the 1st quartile.
Civil society coordination can vary but civil society needs to be present in the peace negotiation in some manner in order to be able to study the phenomena of interest. This has been assessed by relying on an overview of civil society involvement in peace negotiations provided by Kew and Wanis-St. John (2008, 26–27). Based on civil society presence in the peace negotiations, Guatemala (1994 - 1996), El Salvador (1990 - 1992) and Liberia (2003) are chosen as cases for the analysis. “The Agreement on Firm and Lasting Peace” (Guatemala) was selected as an agreement of the 2nd quartile and is categorized as “moderately weak”, “The Chapultepec Peace Agreement”
(El Salvador) was chosen as an agreement bordering the 3rd and 4th quartile and is classified as
7 The estimates for the full prob.csv are available here (06. May 2020): https://github.com/jayrobwilliams/Peace- Agreement-Strength/tree/master/Estimates
18
“moderately strong”8, “The Accra Peace Agreement” (Liberia) was selected as an agreement of the 4th quartile and is categorized as “very strong”.
Based on the UCDP Peace Agreement Dataset (Harbom, Högbladh, and Wallensteen 2006;
Pettersson, Högbladh, and Öberg 2019), the following can be said about the three cases: All countries experienced an intrastate conflict where the main incompatibility was about government control. In all three cases, full peace agreements were signed, and an external mediator was the official mediator during the peace negotiations.
Concerning generalizability, this thesis looks at countries that experienced an intrastate armed conflict and pursued peace negotiations to resolve the incompatibility. Henceforth, peace negotiations are the unit of analysis in this study. The case selection needs to be further discussed from the standpoint of external and internal validity. External validity refers to the extent a sample is representative of a larger population of cases. Internal validity, on the other hand, refers to the level of certainty one can have regarding a causal relationship (Gerring 2006, 43). Usually, single case studies or small n-studies have higher internal validity than cross-case studies, and large n- studies and the latter have a higher external validity (Ibid). I perceive external validity in this study to be higher than in a single case study, particularly as the analysis explores cases both across similar and different cultural contexts. Yet, the qualitative nature of the design does not allow to control for confounding variables in the same manner as large n-studies, which impacts the external validity. As the study examines three cases more in-depth, one should be able to determine with more certainty whether a causal relationship exists. In other words, in line with Gerring (2006, 43), internal validity is perceived to be high.
4.3 Operationalization of Variables
In the following two subchapters I will outline how the dependent and independent variables are operationalized. Operationalization refers to the process of developing empirically observable indicators for theoretical concepts (Powner 2015, 49). It is crucial that indicators fulfill two criteria.
Firstly, indicators need to be valid which means they capture the intended concept. Secondly,
8Technically El Salvador is part of the 4th quartile with a value of ≈0.77, however it is sufficiently far apart from Liberia with a value of ≈0.94 and can thus be categorized as moderately strong.
19 indicators need to be reliable, which means that when different individuals use the same indicators to assess information, they will retrieve the same data (Powner 2015, 138).
4.3.1 Operationalizing the Dependent Variable
For the assessment of the peace agreement quality, I rely on the peace agreement strength measurement of Williams et al. (2019). In this thesis, the words “strength” and “quality” are used interchangeably to refer to the quality of a peace agreement. Williams et al.’s (2019) study is chosen, as it provides information on the strength of a large number of peace agreements.
Additionally, it is the first study that uses more than two provisions to assess the strength of a peace agreement systematically. Williams et al. (2019) emphasize that the strength of a peace agreement should not be determined based on the peace agreement duration, as even strong agreements can fail to last based on other factors. The authors introduce a “latent variable approach” to measure the strength of a peace agreement independent of its duration in a civil war context. Whereby the authors define peace agreement strength as “…the degree to which a negotiated settlement addresses parties’ potential grievance by encoding specific provisions” (Williams et al. 2019, 2).
A strong agreement should highlight all underlying causes of conflict, whereas a weak agreement will not. Williams et al. (2019, 2) use the observable provisions to measure to what extent the concerns of the conflict parties are met in the peace agreement. Thereby their full probability model takes into account that not all provisions are equally representative of a peace agreement’s strength and thus, weights provisions differentially (Id: 9). This means that the strength scores of two peace agreements with the same amount of provisions can vary (Id: 10).
The authors outline that previous research has focused on specific provisions (e.g. Hartzell and Hoddie 2003; Werner and Yuen 2005) or have calculated a peace agreement’s strength by using an additive index (e.g. Fortna 2003). More recently, Badran (2014) used the method of “common factor analysis” to determine the impact of a peace agreement’s design quality on the durability of peace. Since Williams et al.’s (2019) measurement goes beyond looking at single provisions or applying an additive index, and weights provisions contribution to a peace agreement’s strength in a differentiated manner, I view it as the currently most advanced measurement in terms of evaluating the strength of a peace agreement.
20 4.3.2 Operationalizing the Independent Variables
A set of indicators and questions will be outlined here that makes it possible to measure the extent of coordination among civil society groups and whether a civil society facilitator was present. The independent variable of hypothesis 1 is measured as a continuous variable rather than a dichotomous one. Whether coordination among civil society groups leads to a high-quality peace agreement is not determined by the simple presence or absence of some coordination but by the extent of it. Hence, indicators need to be in place to establish whether the extent of coordination among civil society groups is high or low.
I will evaluate the extent of coordination among civil society groups based on three parameters, each assessed by a set of questions. The first one is examining the general degree of coordination among civil society groups enabled through the inclusion modalities proposed by Paffenholz (2014). The second one is evaluating the breadth of coordination among civil society groups. The third parameter examines the degree to which the groups represent the population at large.
1. The framework of civil society inclusion in peace negotiations (Paffenholz 2014, 10)
• Was there a formal or informal model of civil society inclusion in place that empowered a general degree of coordination?
o An “official consultative forum”, that takes place simultaneously to official negotiations and is approved both by the mediator and the main decision-makers.
o An “informal consultative forum”, which differs from an official consultative forum in that not all stakeholders approve it.
o A “high-level civil society initiative”, that uses a problem-solving approach and runs parallel to official negotiations.
2. Breadth of Coordination
• To what extent did civil society groups create new joint organizations or networks?
• To what degree did civil society groups synchronize their actions, e.g. by splitting responsibilities, and/or roles?
• Did civil society groups agree on a set of joint viewpoints?
o If yes, did civil society groups produce a joint outcome such as a written declaration, or public statement?
21 3. Civil society groups’ representativeness of the population at large
• To what extent was the coordination open to all civil society groups?
• To what degree do the civil society groups vary in their sectoral focus (e.g. religious, economic, etc.)?
• To what extent were civil society groups able to mobilize people to participate in demonstrations or other mass actions?
The condition variable introduced in hypothesis 2 is measured as a dichotomous variable. I will evaluate whether a civil society facilitator was at the center of civil society coordination and interacted with the official mediator and/or negotiation parties based on the below parameter.
1. Presence of a civil society facilitator
• Was a civil society actor at the center of coordination among various civil society groups?
o Did the civil society actor establish the coordination?
o Did the civil society actor foster interaction between the groups?
o Did the actor mediate between civil society groups with conflicting viewpoints?
• Did the facilitator communicate the civil society groups’ viewpoints to the official mediator and the negotiation parties?
• If yes, was the facilitator an insider-partial mediator?
o Did the facilitator previously engage in mediating talks between the warring parties?
o Did negotiation parties refer to the mediator as “respectful”, “trustworthy” or any other words indicating confidence in the facilitator?
Table 2 shows the indicators used to empirically measure whether the extent of coordination among civil society groups was high and whether a civil society facilitator was present.
22 Research Question: How does the extent of coordination among civil society groups during peace negotiations impact the quality of a peace agreement?
A high extent of coordination among civil society groups Indicators - Formal/informal civil society consultative forums
- Creation of joint organizations or/and alliances
- Synchronization of tasks (e.g. by dividing responsibilities, roles) - Civil society groups spearhead viewpoints together
- Coordinating civil society groups represent a variety of viewpoints hold by the population
- Creation of joint documents and/or other joint outcomes
Presence of a civil society facilitator
Indicators - A civil society actor is at the center of civil society groups’ coordination - The actor mediates between coordinating civil society groups and
strengthens the information flow
- The actor communicates civil society groups’ interests to the official mediator and negotiation parties
- Insider-partial mediator if the actor has mediated between the warring parties before
Table 2: Indicators of Independent and Condition Variable
4.4 Time Period and Data Sources
The focus of the analysis lies in the thorough examination of coordination among civil society groups during peace negotiations. Hence, the opening of official peace negotiations that lead to the signing of the above-mentioned peace agreements, build the starting point for each case examination, and consequently, the signing of the peace agreements mark the end of the analysis.
The broader peace process will, however, be kept in mind to be aware of previous civil society groups’ coordination endeavors. Moreover, coordination active among civil society groups during peace negotiations might already be set in place before the start of the official peace negotiations.
23 In such instances, a glance beyond the period under study becomes necessary to get a full picture of the coordination.
To investigate my hypotheses, this thesis will rely on a variety of secondary sources, in particularly reports generated by organizations such as the Centre for Humanitarian Dialogue, and Conciliation Resources and previously conducted case studies by researchers and research institutes such as the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies. The distance of the non- governmental organizations and research institutes to the cases under examination should guarantee that the provided information is reasonably objective. A restriction in regard to the data that can be used poses language. Data need to be available in English or German. Due to the current international situation related to the coronavirus (Covid-19), access to data is largely limited to sources available online. Although this poses a restriction, the manifold online sources nevertheless guarantee a diverse analysis. The strategy of source triangulation is used to verify data whenever possible.
4.5 Structure of Analysis
The empirical analysis is divided into three main parts. The data of each case is presented and assessed separately in the first part of the analysis (see Chapters 5 to 7). It starts with the examination of the Guatemala peace negotiations, which resulted in a moderately weak peace agreement. Thereafter follows the examination of the El Salvador peace negotiations, which resulted in a moderately strong peace agreement and ends with the analysis of the peace negotiations in Liberia that led to a very strong peace agreement. Each case study commences with a brief background section to enhance understanding of the conflict and the peace negotiations. In the next step, the data are presented, whereby the above-established set of questions guides the data presentation. This structured approach is vital to enable a later comparison between the cases (George and Bennett 2005, 67). A table at the end of the data presentation section summarizes the main findings. In the last section of each case study follows the within-case analysis to determine the extent of coordination among civil society groups and to assess whether a case-specific correlation between the coordination of civil society groups and the quality of the peace agreement can be identified. A table once again summarizes the findings.
24 The second part of the analysis constitutes the comparative analysis (see Chapter 8). The comparative analysis focuses on comparing the empirical findings across cases. The aim is to identify whether any case-specific correlations between the independent and dependent variables also hold across cases. In other words, the aim is to examine whether I find support across my cases that a high extent of coordination among civil society groups led to high-quality peace agreements and that this was particularly so when a facilitator was present. Additionally, any surprising variation between the cases will also be underlined. The last part of the analysis (see Chapters 8.2
& 8.3) focuses on additional observations that need to be discussed based on my research design, as well as alternative explanations that could explain the variation in the peace agreement quality.
Further, shortcomings in terms of the theoretical argument, data collection, and the research design will also be discussed. Thereafter the analysis ends, and the following conclusion summarizes the purpose and findings of the thesis, its contribution to the field of research, and underscores opportunities for future research.
5. Guatemala
5.1 Overview of the Armed Conflict and Peace Process
The peace agreement signed in 1996 ended the 36 years-long armed conflict between the government forces and the guerrilla movement “Guatemalan National Revolutionary Unity”
(URNG)9. Whereas violence was mainly directed at the various guerilla groups and government forces at the beginning of the conflict, starting in the 1970s, the government counterinsurgency campaign started using indiscriminate violence against civilians on a larger scale until the mid- 1980s. This campaign included the targeting of civil society organizations such as teachers’ and human rights organizations. When the civil war ended, about 200’000 people had been killed or vanished (IHEID 2017; R. Brett 2017).
The cornerstone for the peace process was laid in the 1980s when Venezuela, Mexico, Panama, and Colombia (Contadora group) jointly instigated a process aiming to end the civil wars in Guatemala, El Salvador, and Nicaragua. This led to the Esquipula I (1986) and Esquipula II (1987) agreements (IHEID 2017; Krznaric 1999). In 1989, the National Dialogue, which was specified in
9 In Spanish - Unidad Nacional Revolucionaria Guatemalteca
25 Esquipula II, was put into effect in Guatemala. For the first time 47 organizations, among others trade unions and human rights organizations, were allowed to participate in the discussion concerning the underlying conflict issues. Having said that, URNG was not included in the National Dialogue, which ultimately limited its impact. Beginning in 1990, the URNG started being engaged in a series of discussions called Oslo talks with various civil society groups and political parties (Krznaric 1999). In 1991, the first secret direct talks between the government and URNG led to the signing of an 11-point agenda for peace negotiations called “Mexico Accord”. However, the talks reached an impasse and did not resume until 1994 when the United Nations (UN) took over as the official mediator. The renewed peace negotiations started with the signing of the “Framework Accord for the Renewal of the Negotiation Process between the Government of Guatemala and the URNG” and ended with the signing of the “Agreement on Firm and Lasting Peace” in 1996 (Krznaric 1999). “The Agreement brings into effect all the previous agreements encompassing military, political, social, economic and environmental issues and binds them into a comprehensive nationwide agenda for peace” (“Agreement on Firm and Lasting Peace” 1996).
5.2 Coordination among Civil Society Groups during the Guatemalan Peace Negotiations This subchapter presents the data concerning coordination among civil society groups during the Guatemalan peace negotiations. The analysis of the data follows in the next subchapter.
The Civil Society Assembly
When the government of Guatemala and the URNG decided in 1994 to revive the peace negotiations under UN auspice, it was decided that the meetings would take place in private between the negotiation parties. As a direct consequence, civil society groups had no observer status, not to mention direct representation in the official negotiations. The so-called “Group of Friends” (Colombia, Mexico, Norway, Spain, the United States, and Venezuela) witnessed the agreements and supported the UN mediation effort. Jeau Arnault, Special Representative of the UN Secretary-General, was the designated mediator (Alvarez 2002a, 49).
Civil society groups received, however, a more formal role through the establishment of the “Civil Society Assembly” (ASC)10. The ASC was open to all non-governmental sectors that could prove
10 In Spanish - Asamblea de la Sociedad Civil
26 their “legitimacy, representativity and legality” (Krznaric 1999, 4). The responsibilities of the ASC were threefold:
Firstly, the ASC was commissioned to write consensus documents regarding points 2 to 7 recorded in the Mexico Accord11. The themes aimed to capture the underlying causes of conflict in Guatemala and include the following: “(ii) strengthening of civil society and the function of the army in a democratic society, (iii) the identity and rights of indigenous people, (iv) constitutional reform and electoral regime, (v) socioeconomic aspects, (vi) the agrarian situation, (vii) and resettlement of the population displaced by the internal conflict”(Krznaric 1999, 5).
Secondly, it was the responsibility of the ASC to present the documents to the parties participating in the official negotiations. The documents were understood as recommendations and not as binding. Thirdly, the ASC had the opportunity to reassure the accords once the negotiation parties signed them but had no veto power (Krznaric 1999, 5).
In terms of the variety of civil society groups views included in the ASC, the Framework Accord named six sectors that should participate in the ASC, which included among other religious groups, trade unions, and political parties12. After some debate, five additional sectors became part of the ASC, among them were women’s organizations and human rights groups (Alvarez 2002a, 50). This extension of the ASC, however, led to the withdrawal of the “Agricultural, Commercial, Industrial and Financial Coordinating Committee” (CACIF)13 that perceived the new sectors to include unrepresentative, “façade” organizations (Alvarez 2002a, 50; R. Brett 2017, 56). CACIF started to interact with the negotiation parties, the UN mediator, and Groups of Friends independently from the ASC and was successful in blocking any major socio-economic and agrarian reform proposals forwarded by the ASC and UN (Alvarez 2002a, 50; Krznaric 1999, 7 & 12).
Most civil society organizations that participate in the ASC were dependent on private foreign aid assistance. This monetary support was crucial for organizations to be able to travel and meet for the discussions of the proposals (Biekart 1999, 271).
11 The Mexico Accord was signed after the URNG and the Guatemalan government participated in direct talks for the first time in 1991 (Krznaric 1999, 4).
12 Since political parties are viewed to be distinct from civil society groups in this thesis (D. Nilsson 2012), the ASC should, henceforth, not be strictly viewed as a forum that solely collected voices of civil society groups.
13 In Spanish - Comité Coordinador de Asociaciones Agrícolas, Comerciales, Industriales y Financieras
