PREVENTING MASS GROUP VIOLENCE

Approximately seventy actual or emerging ethnic, nationalist, territorial, and religious conflicts exist throughout the world today. In their intensity and number, they have the potential to threaten world peace and have left international organizations struggling to find effective ways of responding.

To address the looming threats to world peace posed by mass intergroup violence and to advance new ideas toward the prevention and resolution of deadly strife, the Corporation in 1994 established the Carnegie Commission on Preventing Deadly Conflict. Corporation president emeritus David A. Hamburg and former U.S. secretary of state Cyrus R. Vance are cochairs; political scientist Jane E. Holl is executive director.

The commission members — sixteen international scholars and policy practitioners — have met quarterly over three years, pursuing three main avenues of inquiry. First, they have determined what differentiates the deadly conflicts of the 1990s, both between and, more commonly, within states, from those of other periods in history. They have also identified the roles that international institutions, regional organizations, individual states, and ad hoc coalitions can play in preventing mass violence. Finally, they have considered what blend of political, military, economic, social, and other tools are, or should be, at the disposal of these institutions.

The commission's work is expected to result in eight commercially published books and twenty-five reports. The final report, Preventing Deadly Conflict, was released in December 1997. As part of an extensive two-year outreach program, individual commissioners are delivering the report to their respective parliaments and are making presentations to the editorial boards of major international newspapers and to international conferences.

The mission of the Council on Foreign Relations' Center for Preventive Action is to enhance prospects for resolving interstate and intrastate conflicts before they escalate to violence. Working groups of experts in several disciplines conduct case studies of preventive action by visiting areas of conflict and producing reports on mitigating steps that might be taken. Studies are under way in Burundi, Nigeria, the South Balkans, and the Fergana Valley in Central Asia. Through an annual conference, the series Preventive Action Reports, and a library, the center serves as a clearinghouse of information on groups working to prevent and resolve conflict. Funding also comes from the Twentieth Century Fund.

Scholars at the Center for International Relations at the University of California, Los Angeles, are studying the economic and normative requirements for creating "encompassing coalitions," which comprise various states that are united by the intent to prevent deadly conflict. In analyzing cases from Asia, Europe, and South America, the researchers are assessing the role of economic incentives and of status incentives — for example, membership in a prestigious international organization. They are also exploring the communication and institutionalization of such norms as military and defense transparency in altering the behavior of states. Findings will be presented in published materials, briefings for policymakers, and outreach programs for students and others.

The National Endowment for Democracy is a nonpartisan grantmaking agency established in 1983 by U.S. Congressional mandate. Through a resource center, the Journal of Democracy, and a visiting fellows program, the endowment's International Forum for Democratic Studies serves as a center for analyses of the theory and practice of democratic transition and consolidation worldwide and as a clearinghouse for information about democratization. Meetings in 1997 and 1998, funded also by the Smith Richardson and the Lynde and Harry Bradley foundations, address the future of democracy, the creation of organizations that provide democratic assistance, ways of combating abuses of power, and roles for local governments in promoting democracy.

Senior scholars at the Institute for Foreign Policy Analysis and the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University are studying how major multilateral institutions are collectively adapting to the security challenges of the post-Cold War era. They are analyzing the European Union, NATO, and the P-8 (the seven major industrial democracies and Russia) and their responses to terrorism, narcotics trafficking, and international crime; irredentism and interethnic violence; and threats from economic insecurity in states on Europe's periphery and beyond. Their recommendations will figure in debates over the U.S. Senate's ratification of nato expansion.

Several subregional organizations in Eastern and Central Europe were founded in the early 1990s to promote economic and social cooperation. In 1996 the Institute for EastWest Studies launched a comparative study of the groups' potential for enhancing European security. The institute is continuing this work by advising the European Union, the West European Union, the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, and nato on their evolving subregional policies. The aim is to explore ways in which three of Europe's conflict-prone areas — the western part of the former Soviet Union, its southern tier, and the former Yugoslavia — can cooperate with each other and attain closer integration with Europe.

In 1993 the United Nations Institute for Training and Research, in cooperation with the International Peace Academy, created the Fellowship Programme in Peacemaking and Preventive Diplomacy. The program teaches mediators and diplomats how to analyze international disputes, understand international negotiation, and practice negotiating and mediating skills. Components include a two-week core course of study and research, including fieldwork, on specific cases. Thirty-five men and women participated in 1997. Additional funding comes from the governments of Austria and Switzerland and the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation.

The Voice of America (VOA), a branch of the United States Information Agency, in 1995 launched a conflict resolution initiative to reach 100 million listeners in fifty-two languages. More than 200 stories with conflict resolution themes have been broadcast in countries where violent conflict has erupted or is likely to occur. A core conflict resolution series in the Balkans, Central Asia, and South Asia explores multilateral efforts to combat hatred and the role of political and religious elites in promoting or preventing violence. These analyses will be complemented by reporting from journalists working on the ground. VOA held a conference in October 1997 to examine further the role of radio in conflict.

Since 1994 Valerie J. Bunce of Cornell University and Shibley Telhami, now at the University of Maryland at College Park, have analyzed the interaction between domestic and international politics in ethnic and nationalist conflict. Two books and two workshops will complete their work. One book will pursue the hypothesis that U.S. foreign policy increasingly reflects grassroots politics. A second book will compare the breakup of Czechoslovakia, the Soviet Union, and Yugoslavia and will examine the reasons why the first two were peaceful while the third was accompanied by mass violence. One workshop will consider interethnic relations and domestic stability; the other will deal with ethnicity and foreign policy in the Middle East.

Conflict Management Group is an international organization that offers governments and nongovernmental organizations training and consultations in negotiation and conflict resolution. The group's Project on Ethnic Conflict Management in the Former Soviet Union incorporates the electronic Network on Ethnological Monitoring and Early Warning of Conflict, which links twenty-eight regular users over thirty-three sites in the successor states. The project's Hague Initiative brings together regional political and ethnic leaders from Russia, Ukraine, Moldova, and Georgia to discuss the relationship between central and regional governments. Further funding comes from public and private sources.

Hundreds of nongovernmental organizations are engaged in projects to promote democracy and prevent deadly conflict in the former Soviet Union. Researchers at Columbia University's Institute of War and Peace Studies and its Harriman Institute have launched a project to assess the effectiveness of these activities. At a May 1997 conference, experts and practitioners produced guidelines for evaluating strategies for democratization and conflict prevention. Project team members are now conducting field research to determine the effectiveness of ngo projects, and their underlying strategies, in the successor states. The results of the studies will be published in reports, journal articles, and a book.

In 1996 Partners for Democratic Change, which pursues grassroots solutions to ethnic, national minority, and religious conflicts in Central and Eastern Europe, created ethnic conciliation commissions in Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Hungary, and Slovakia. The commissions are permanent institutions where groups may address social, economic, and political concerns that lie behind intergroup conflict. Their members are local leaders trained by the Partners' field offices in negotiation and mediation. Commissioners build caseloads by giving presentations at community meetings and by developing referrals from minority leaders, police, and the courts. Support also comes from the Charles Stewart Mott Foundation.

When the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, prospects for peace among Kazakstan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Turkmenistan seemed dim. Yet, except for the civil war in Tajikistan, Central Asian stability is growing. The Center for Political and Strategic Studies, formerly the Center for Post-Soviet Studies, is comparing the region's transition from Soviet rule with that of the Transcaucasian nations of Georgia, Azerbaijan, and Armenia, where severe tensions remain. Through meetings with regional experts and by examining published sources, scholars are studying religion, political change, nationalism, language, and the legacy of Soviet military intervention. They are also analyzing types of regional cooperation that have worked in Central Asia but not in the Transcaucasus.

In 1995 the Center for International Development and Conflict Management at the University of Maryland launched its Partners in Conflict project, which has recruited and trained eight scholars from Georgia, Armenia, and Azerbaijan. After taking courses in conflict resolution, democracy, and human rights, the scholars have returned home to set up conflict management centers, publish articles, and speak on radio programs. They communicate with each other through electronic mail and have access to other conflict resolution networks. The center, also funded by the Winston Foundation, will assess their activities and present the results in three working papers.

The Joint Working Group on Israeli-Palestinian Relations, convened under the auspices of Harvard University's Program on International Conflict Analysis and Resolution, has a membership of politically and intellectually influential Israelis and Palestinians. The group addresses such issues in the Mideast peace process as Jewish settlements in the West Bank and Gaza, Palestinian refugees, and the interim agreement signed by Israel and the Palestinian Liberation Organization. Deliberations and research lead to working papers for scholars and policymakers. The efforts are an example of Track II diplomacy, which provides a forum for examining problems and options that official negotiators might be constrained from exploring openly.

During the Cold War, the strategic contest between the superpowers marginalized the United Nations' role in maintaining global security. In the 1990s, in contrast, the UN has led attempts to resolve several international crises— the collapse of governance in Somalia, the breakup of the former Yugoslavia, threats to democratization in Haiti, and genocide in Rwanda. It has also addressed nonproliferation and economic development. Yale University scholars are researching Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali's public and nonpublic documents and his reports to the Security Council. Selections that explain the legal and political transformation of world affairs will be published in two volumes. The UN's publication fund also provides support.

Search for Common Ground, which works to prevent mass violence around the world, has a field office in Macedonia that aims to help the former Yugoslav republic resolve its ethnic disputes peacefully. Staff members of the Macedonia project conduct conflict resolution training for law students and, as part of a plan to introduce a conflict resolution curriculum in the nation's schools, mediation training for teachers. A fellowship program operated with New York University's Center for War, Peace, and the News Media brings together radio journalists for collaborative cross-ethnic investigative reporting. Additional funding comes from the Soros Foundation and bilateral and multilateral sources.

Since 1964 a United Nations peacekeeping force in Cyprus has served as a buffer between the Turkish Cypriot north and the Greek Cypriot south. The Institute for Multi-Track Diplomacy has led a consortium of nongovernmental organizations in training Greek and Turkish Cypriots in conflict resolution. Its study group of journalists, politicians, educators, business people, and other opinion leaders and decision makers from both communities is analyzing conflicts once considered intractable — including those in South Africa and the Middle EastCand will draw conclusions that might be applied to the conflict in Cyprus.

Two programs organized by Harvard University's John F. Kennedy School of Government promote dialogue between Russian and U.S. officials. A program for general officers of the Russian Federation, also funded by the U.S. Department of Defense, offers contacts and workshops on economic, political, and foreign policy issues at a time when morale in Russia's armed forces is low and resources are limited. A program of lectures on political party formation, budgeting, and lawmaking helps members of the Russian Duma better understand democratic governance. The Russian participants give presentations as well, on economic and security issues.

The mandate of Harvard University's Strengthening Democratic Institutions Project is to conduct research and provide technical assistance in the Soviet successor states as they struggle to make the transition to sustainable democracy, free-market economies, and cooperative international relations. In addition to Russian democratization, the project's current focus is on Russian security and on ethnic conflict in the new states. The aims of these three strands, respectively, are to bring expertise to bear on issues of privatization, democratization, denuclearization, constitutional and legal reform, and conflict prevention; to enhance Western understanding of current issues in Russian security; and to formulate prescriptions for action by international organizations in preventing ethnic conflict in the new states.

In 1986 Dick Clark, former U.S. senator and a senior fellow at the Aspen Institute, launched a series of bipartisan conferences and smaller meetings for congressional leaders on relations between the United States and the Soviet Union. Following the end of the Cold War, the project evolved to include U.S. policy toward the successor states and the new democracies of Eastern Europe. The aim is to help members of Congress bridge the gap between the scholarly analysis of foreign policy issues and the political realities of dealing with these issues as an elected official. Participants also include parliamentarians from Russia, Ukraine, and nations in Western and Eastern Europe.

The Aspen Strategy Group, a standing committee of the Aspen Institute, has launched a program that enables the United States and Russia to address contentious security-policy issues before they become critical. In partnership with the Moscow-based Council on Foreign and Defense Policy, the group is organizing a team of U.S. and Russian private citizens with expertise in foreign and security policy. Members will discuss obstacles to international weapons-control agreements, the safety of U.S. and Russian inventories of nuclear weapons and fissile materials, and third-country issues in U.S.-Russian relations. Reports of the meetings will be issued in English and Russian and made available on line.

Since 1994 Corporation funds have enabled rand to collaborate with two independent Russian research centers that produce analyses for policymakers in Moscow and the regional capitals. The Center for Ethnopolitical and Regional Research analyzes sociopolitical changes in the Russian republics and the likely impact of these changes on relations among the republics. The Center for Demography and Human Ecology monitors and forecasts demographic trends in Russia. rand scholars assist both centers by offering training in research methodology and by conducting joint studies and briefing central and regional policymakers on the results. Published reports and proceedings of summary conferences are issued in Russian and English.

Some observers argue that Russia is on a path to social disorder, institutional disintegration, and economic ruin. Others point to an emerging middle class and viable new institutions as positive counterweights to instability. University of California scholars Victoria E. Bonnell and George W. Breslauer are leading an examination of current trends and the strengths and weaknesses in Russia's major institutions and sectors. The study encompasses the state of legal reform, the military, economic elites, organized crime, public opinion, and nationalism. A multiauthored volume will consider several possible outcomes of the economic and political transformations under way.

The Council on Foreign Relations' East-West Project studies the effects of domestic developments in the former Soviet bloc countries on relations with the West. Four books of essays are being produced. Two volumes — analyses of Russia's foreign policy and of the potential for conflict created by cross-border movements of Hungarians, Russians, Serbs, and Albanians — continue the project's focus on Europe. Two volumes consider, respectively, the future of China and the fate of India's founding principles of secularism, socialism, democracy, and nonalignment. All four books are being written for journalists, policymakers, academics, and interested citizens.

New York University's Center for War, Peace, and the News Media, in association with the Moscow-based Institute for USA and Canada Studies, established the Russian-American Press and Information Center (RAPIC) in 1992. RAPIC, also supported by other foundations, U.S. federal agencies, and U.S. and Russian corporations, operates in six regional offices in Russia. Through briefings, seminars, publications, and training, it helps journalists cover elections, market economics, and ethnic conflicts. RAPIC also addresses issues facing journalists and media managers, including financial management, codes of ethics, and new broadcast technologies.

The International Laboratory VEGA was established with Corporation assistance to develop the telecommunications infrastructure of Russian research institutes. Its main aim is to enhance collaboration and information exchange among scientists and other scholars within the successor states and abroad. The laboratory also works with staff of the Network on Ethnological Monitoring and Early Warning of Conflict, overseeing operational needs, training users, and ensuring access to the Internet. Since 1993 VEGA has been a project of the International Research and Exchanges Board, which has offices in Moscow.

The Financial Services Volunteer Corps brings U.S. business leaders to Russia and other former Soviet states to consult on the creation of viable market economies. Serving on a pro bono basis, these bankers, lawyers, accountants, and other professionals draft regulations, train bank managers, advise policymakers, and help develop financial services. The corps is continuing its efforts to strengthen the capabilities of the central banks and to assist parliaments in creating workable regulatory environments for national economies. It is also extending its work to the private sector and to regional centers in Russia and in other states. Other funders include the U.S. Agency for International Development and the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.

Under Communist regimes of Eastern and Central Europe, women parliamentarians existed but never acquired influence or power. Today, women in the former Eastern bloc countries find their concerns neglected in policymaking. Harvard University's Project Liberty encourages women's organizations in North America and abroad to form transatlantic networks. It also teaches women in various professions the skills needed to become effectively engaged in politics. Workshops cover the differing models of democracy; equal opportunity legislation, family policies, and affirmative action; coalition building; and dealing with the media. Support also comes from the European Union.

Brown University's Thomas J. Watson Jr. Institute for International Studies and the Mershon Center at Ohio State University are holding two 1998 conferences on the end of the Cold War. Policymakers of the period and Russian and U.S. scholars will evaluate historical materials from the archives of both countries and examine competing explanations for the end of the Cold War. These include the West's "victory" through unrelenting military pressure on the Soviet Union; an increasingly costly arms race; and Mikhail Gorbachev's ideas about the economy and national security. Two books, written by American and Russian scholars, will analyze the explanations for and lessons of the Cold War and its resolution.

The Program on New Approaches to Russian Security, based at Harvard University's Davis Center for Russian Studies and the Center for International Affairs, encourages innovative analyses of the societal, economic, and political forces that will ultimately shape Russia's national security interests. Through conferences and workshops in the United States and Russia, the program is developing a network of young scholars from both countries. They will initially address two topics: the role of the military in Russian security and Russia's security linkages with international and regional institutions. Working papers and policy briefs will be disseminated to scholars and policy analysts in the United States and beyond.

Since 1990 scholars at the Brookings Institution have been developing a program of research and leadership education to explore the concept of cooperative security as a guiding principle for the postBCold War world. They have defined cooperative security as a formal reliance on collaboration rather than confrontation between countries and the creation of political, economic, and security relationships that protect the integrity of borders and that provide transparency, mutual reassurance, safeguards, and means of verification to allies and former adversaries alike.

Brookings team members are now exploring ways that the United States could lead efforts to improve standards for the security and control of nuclear weapons and materials and to pursue an international arrangement for the clear, comprehensive accounting of weapons and fissionable material. They are also considering how to bring Russia and China into an inclusive international security arrangement. Finally, they are analyzing Brookings' recent case studies on unresolved conflicts in the Balkans, Sudan, and Somalia and on the contrasting outcome in South Africa. The aim is to advance an understanding of the characteristics of effective intervention in civil conflicts and further develop strategies for preventive action. As part of their research, they are using the Internet to conduct a worldwide dialogue among a group of institutes on relationships between security, economic development, social equity, and environmental issues.

Stanford University's Center for International Security and Arms Control works at the intersection of science, technology, public policy, and international security. The efforts of its resident team — former policymakers, academics in a range of disciplines, and conflict resolution and prevention specialists — are augmented by a group of visiting fellows. Since the center's founding in 1983 to study the danger of nuclear war, security in northeast Asia, and the U.S.-Soviet relationship, it has adapted to new security challenges.

Since 1995 scholars at Harvard University's Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs have been developing broad new concepts of international security and formulating policy recommendations on security issues. The center has published two books in the past year: one examining the security measures used to guard Russian nuclear materials and one summarizing the implications of internal conflicts for the international community. The research is being extended in three areas, the results of which will be produced in books, articles, and monographs and brought to the attention of U.S. policymakers.

The Defense and Arms Control Studies Program at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology enables some sixty social and physical scientists to apply technological perspectives to policy analysis. The program's working groups of faculty members, visiting scholars, and graduate students are now conducting four projects.

William J. Perry, former secretary of defense, and Ashton B. Carter, former assistant secretary of defense for international security policy, articulated a post-Cold War strategy known as preventive defense. The objective is to draw the security leaders of other countries into mutually beneficial and durable cooperative security relationships. Mechanisms for doing so include the development of regular consultations among defense leaders and specialists and the promotion of a shared body of practical experience among military establishments that creates new precedents and patterns for joint action.

Women in International Security is a membership organization dedicated to strengthening opportunities for women working in international security studies and related fields. It has created a network of women professionals around the world, organized workshops on media relations, and cultivated resources to support women seeking professional employment and career advancement. Planned activities include the promotion of information exchange among women at the senior-career stage, policy fellowships and skills-building workshops for midcareer women, and a summer symposium for graduate students and mentoring activities for younger women. Additional funders are the Ford Foundation and Citibank.

The Newly Independent States Nonproliferation Project is an undertaking of the Monterey Institute's Center for Nonproliferation Studies. The center is developing a cadre of nonproliferation specialists in the successor states who can strengthen their countries' nonproliferation and export control policies. Beyond offering training to scholars, journalists, and policymakers, the center links working groups with nonproliferation institutes around the world, publishes a journal, and tracks data on the smuggling of nuclear materials and the brain drain of nuclear expertise from the successor states. Funding also comes from U.S. government agencies, other foundations, and database usage fees and publication subscriptions.

The Institute for Defense and Disarmament Studies' Arms and Security Project has analyzed postBCold War trends in global arms industries and the impact of advanced conventional weapons on international security. The project's international team of scholars has addressed the continued deployment, production, and export of combat aircraft by industrialized and developing nations. In a new annual publication, Arms and Security, the institute is surveying global armament trends and likely policy choices in arms control, describing how current arms export policies undermine security. It is advancing ideas on new forms of international cooperation to curb arms sales.

Since the early 1990s, researchers at Stanford University's Center for International Security and Arms Control have studied and assisted Russian efforts to convert part of its defense industry to peacetime uses. The project is focusing on three aspects of this transformation: cooperative ventures with U.S. companies; the prospects for military-oriented research and development firms; and the effects that privatization, corporate governance, market structure, and state financial support for manufacturing firms are having on defense conversion. Findings from the research will be presented in a book on Russia's attempts to restructure and transform its defense sector. The Eurasia Foundation also provides support.

The Committee on International Security and Arms Control (CISAC) of the National Academy of Sciences draws together scientific and technical specialists to work toward common solutions of security and defense problems. In discussions with scientists in China, cisac is addressing Asian-Pacific security, the future of nuclear weapons policy, and issues involving the proliferation of nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons. It is meeting with scientists from Ukraine to address energy and security, missile proliferation, and that country's participation in international arms control efforts. Funding also comes from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation.

The Atlantic Council's Further Reins on Nuclear Arms project aims to create international consensus on ways to reduce the nuclear threat. It holds consultations and produces policy papers for government officials, military and business leaders, diplomats, scholars, and journalists in this country and abroad. The council's Future of Ukrainian-American Relations project, which is also supported by other foundations, holds exchanges for policymakers from the two nations. Among the goals are to sharpen U.S. interest in Ukraine and introduce Ukrainian leaders to economic and military policy alternatives. Recommendations are circulated to governmental and nongovernmental leaders in Ukraine and the United States.

The Wisconsin Project on Nuclear Arms Control tracks international sales of ballistic missile and nuclear weapons technologies. It also monitors legislation and regulations to control the export of these technologies. Each month the project's electronic bulletin Risk Report examines the nuclear, chemical, or missile program of a different country and presents an unclassified list of weapons buyers there that are linked to the spread of weapons of mass destruction. The objective is to help exporters make informed, responsible sales decisions. Additional support for the project comes from other foundations and from subscription sales of Risk Report.

The aim of the Media and Security Project of the Fund for Peace is to strengthen media coverage of international security issues. The project's on- and off-the-record gatherings bring print journalists, editors, television correspondents, producers, and bureau chiefs together for discussions and briefings with military and national security experts and representatives of the departments of State and Defense. Through a new fellowship program, each year a minority graduate student from the School of Media and Public Affairs at George Washington University works with the project to gain exposure to the field of international security journalism. The Ford, W. Alton Jones, and Robert R. McCormick Tribune foundations provide further support.

At the time of his death in 1996, Corporation scholar-in-residence McGeorge Bundy was writing a book on his role, as national security advisor to Presidents Kennedy and Johnson, in formulating policy on Vietnam. He intended the book for a broad audience. The Corporation is enabling Gordon Goldstein, Bundy's collaborator in the project, to draw on the public record of Bundy's writings and on unpublished materials to complete an edited volume that will come as close as possible to the volume Bundy envisaged. The materials will be reviewed by members of Bundy's family and by experts selected in consultation with Yale University Press, which will publish the book.