Linking Dialogue with Power: A Two-level Model of Conflict Resolution

This essay aims to provide a conceptual integration of deliberative, i.e. communicative approaches to conflict transformation with discursive, i.e. systemic analyses of hegemony and power. Underlying the work is the assumption that the recourse to military force and war, as well as the tacit acceptance and legitimation of structural forms of violence is rooted in hegemonic discursive structures that cause public approval, compliance, or at least the lack of dissent to perceptions which render violence a legitimate form of action. In attempting to answer the question of how such hegemonic discourses may be disqualified and replaced by emancipatory counter-discourses of non-violence and peace, a two-level model of conflict resolution is suggested. This model claims to provide an analytical tool for linking intersubjective dialogue with a systemic, and therefore a societal approach to conflict resolution, while at the same time contrasting the limits of solely process-focused conceptions of deliberation. In brief, the two-level model suggests the need to conceptualize conflict transformation as a process that contains the following integrative and interrelated dimensions: 1) the formation of a public sphere as a deliberative space across enemy lines and 2) the transformation of the public discourses of all parties to the conflict. To this end, the work draws amongst others from first and second generation Critical Theorists, most notably that of Jürgen Habermas. However, the two-level model proposed here claims to provide a somewhat more practicable, but also more radical approach to conflict resolution than that which is laid out by Habermas in his discourse ethics. It is more practicable in that it does not simply take the willingness to engage in communication with ‘the other’ as pre-given, and it is more radical in that it complements deliberative processes of an ‘ideal speech situations’ with an approach to ‘selective intolerance’ in favor of non-violence, justice and peace.

Key Words: emancipation, discourse theory, dialogue, critical theory, communication, discourse ethics, enemy-images, selective intolerance, constructivism, philosophy of science, cognitive interests, hegemony, identity 

1.0 Introduction

"If one side now especially stands forth, seizes possession of the crowd, and unfolds itself to the degree that those who are opposed must pull back into a corner and, for that moment, at least, conceal themselves in silence, then one calls this predominance the spirit of the times (Zeitgeist) and indeed, for a period, it will have its way.”[1] – Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

This essay is an attempt to examine on a theoretical-conceptual level how dialogue, as a space to address intergroup conflict, can be connected with a systemic approach of conflict transformation in order to advance an emancipatory state of human existence and overcome violence as a strategy to address conflict.

Underlying the approach is the general assumption that there exists a correlation between distorted, violence- and stereotype-prone shaping of public opinion, and the public inclination to war and violent social behavior. In other words: war (and by extension all dimensions of violence) will be understood to be an intersubjective construction, the initiation of which requires the establishment of society-wide conflict discourses and a common sense that renders it conceivable, legitimate, and reasonable.[2]

Proceeding on these assumptions, this work will try to identify how the use of violence as a means found to be legitimate when dealing with conflict may be challenged. On this, after analyzing processes of distortion and hegemonization of public discourses, the paper will look at possibilities and limits of Jürgen Habermas’s concepts of undistorted communication, deliberation and the establishment of a public sphere as a space where conflicts may be resolved. Recall that ‘public sphere’ is conceived by Habermas to be a space where people can engage in open and rational debate over matters of general concern, and in which “agreement should be secured through the force of the better argument, rather than through any exercise or threat of physical force.”[3]

Examining this concept for its applicability to highly polarized conflict settings, two questions especially come to mind: The first question ponders on the fact of how individual dialogue can effectively be extended to produce societal change, so that the “better argument” is not limited to interpersonal talk but eventually has an effect on the very hegemonic structures within public discourses which socially rationalize and support violence. The second question raises the concern whether in an environment of hegemony and totalization, the sole orientation on the process of non-distorted public communication, which essentially tolerates each and every argument until the “better one” prevails, would inevitably result in non-violence and peace. I will suggest that the procedural concept of the establishment of public sphere must conceptually be complemented with a contentual dimension that creates a society-wide counter-public of peace and, therefore, adds counter-narratives and alternative ideas to the public imaginary.

I will address these questions and concerns within the framework of a two-level model of conflict resolution. This model claims to provide a conceptual structure for linking intersubjective dialogue with a more systemic, i.e. societal approach to conflict resolution, while at the same time contrasting the limits of solely process-focused conceptions of emancipatory discourses by taking note of discussion on repressive tolerance and counter-public.

2.0 The Point of Departure: Constructivism, Cultural Violence and an Emancipatory Cognitive Interest

I want to commence by briefly framing the philosophy of science and introducing some of the concepts that form the scientific context within which the work in hand is embedded. This will provide an idea of the ontological and epistemological backdrop against which the model is conceptualized by the author and may be approached by the reader.

In brief, my work is guided by 1) a constructivist understanding of the social world in general and the legitimation of violence in particular; and 2) is motivated by an emancipatory, cognitive interest.

1) I follow the view that the social world, its actors, structures and processes (ontology) as well as any knowledge we can acquire about it (epistemology), are culturally and historically dependent, i.e. socially constructed. With regards to the work in hand, this means that the eruption of war and the analytical apprehension of it does and can not follow adamant principles of cause and effect. Quite on the contrary, it understands that “like any other social institution, war is socially constructed and consequently partly depends for its persistence on collective ideas about the inevitability of war and its desirability for achieving political gain, riches and glory.[4] Likewise, following the assumption that discursively established norms and rules cause the things people do in that they socially constitute what counts as appropriate behavior and which paths of action can be chosen from[5] the recourse to violence as a means to deal with human/social conflict, is not seen to be an inevitable behavior in certain circumstances but a social fact that only exists as long as human agreement about it exists. This suggests,

"that the initiation of war requires the construction (by agents) of a vast and powerful cultural complex – a society-wide conflict discourse – that makes war possible by rendering it conceivable, legitimate and reasonable; it involves the construction of a new common sense”[6]
The role of language and the discursive processes in the constitution of social reality are of particular significance. In our context,
"discourses are understood to work to define and to enable, and also to silence and to exclude, for example, by limiting and restricting authorities and experts to some groups, but not others, endorsing a certain common sense, but making other modes of categorizing and judging meaningless, impracticable, inadequate or otherwise disqualified.”[7]
Consequently, and this point is essential for the understanding of this work, I take the line that the resort to violence as a (seemingly) adequate strategy to deal with conflicts neither results from the non-availability of other (conflict resolution) strategies nor from the fact that pro-peace, non-violent voices are absent from the public discourse altogether. Much rather, it is understood that the application of violence follows from the hegemonization of the public discourse by voices that accept, proclaim and rationalize violence as a legitimate means to enforce interests against “the other”. Therefore, this approach parallels in a way what Johan Galtung laid out in his article on cultural violence in 1990 as a follow up to his concept of structural violence[8] which he had introduced twenty years earlier.[9] Galtung defines cultural violence “as any aspect of culture that can be used to legitimize violence in its direct or structural form. Symbolic violence built into culture does not kill or maim like direct violence built into the structure. However, it is used to legitimize either or both, as for instance in the theory of a Herrenvolk, or a superior race.[10]

Since in a constructivist reading, such legitimation of violence is always a result from struggles over discursive hegemony and prerogatives of interpretation, the prospects of peace and the rejection of violence, not only in its direct, but also in its structural and cultural dimensions, need to be conceptually grounded in the emancipation of these very conditions. An analytical model for perceiving this task will be laid out below. Likewise, it is the objective of emancipation which motivates my own approach to – critical – social science and peace research. Let me briefly explain this:

2) The acknowledgement that the world is socially constructed does not necessarily imply that it is perceived as prospectively alterable as well. Nor does it point to or provide an evaluation of any direction that such an alteration may take. Therefore, my work is also inspired by an emancipatory cognitive interest in conducting social science. Jürgen Habermas explored the concept of cognitive interests in his work on “Knowledge and Human Interest.”[11] In pursuing a radical epistemology, Habermas makes the point that there is no such thing as absolute or pure knowledge. For Habermas the acquisition of knowledge is always dependent on what we are looking for, on what we intend to know. Pursuing an emancipatory interest in doing social science basically points to the following:

With reference to (institutionalized) power relations, Habermas alludes to the dilemma of ideological delusions, meaning that modes of unjust power relations are covered and unaddressed because individuals have internalized the dominant culture of a society which, at the end of the day, only serves to maintain the rule of the dominant class.[12] That is, certain forms of domination are not visible to its victims and, hence, remain hidden to the hermeneutician, as well. Therefore, Habermas expands the binary division of natural and hermeneutic sciences with the concept of critical sciences, the latter of which follows a distinct emancipatory cognitive interest, “the purpose of an emancipatory science is to free humanity from such misapprehensions – which is to say to free it from self-imposed illusions that serve to hamper its autonomy.”[13] As a result of this, such an emancipatory scientific project must always begin with and continuously be grounded in the process of critical self-reflection as a method to make conscious what previously has been unconscious. Self-reflection, as applied in psychoanalysis and critiques of ideology, is fueled by the human interest in freedom and simultaneously understood to be the very means by which emancipation can be realized, “in the power of self-reflection, knowledge and interest are one.[14]

In an epistemological sense, constructivism as well as self-reflection about implicit and subconscious forms of hegemony and domination, does not stop short of the author of social research and theory. As a matter of fact, this is where the individual enterprise of gaining critical knowledge about the social world begins.[15]

With that in mind, let me now turn to the elucidation of my two-level-model of conflict resolution. I will commence by providing a more in-depth conflict analysis, which examines the legitimation of violence in the public discourse as preceding any actual use of force. After that, I will discuss prospects and limits of a solely process oriented approach to emancipating public discourses as e.g. outlined by Vivienne Jabri or Jürgen Habermas. Thereafter, I will contrast these approaches with my own model of conflict resolution.

3.0 Locating Peace in the Public Discourse.

3.1 A Two-Level Model of Conflict Resolution Conflict Analysis: The Legitimation of Violence in the Public Discourse

In sum, this subchapter will examine how in the public discourse the evolvement of polarizing, exclusionary and conflict-prone linguistic patterns and actions precede and beget the actual use of violence. Since in public discourses, various interpretations of reality are traded against each other and public approval or rejection of the same is generated, they are seen to always incorporate an element of power:
"The dominant discourse determines what accounts as reality in a society. Struggles argued out as struggles for the interpretations of reality are, thus, always struggles for power. The decision over what is allowed to be said, how social experiences are allowed to be labeled, respectively what meaning is conferred to statements, is always a decision of power.”[16]
The following paragraphs will largely be based on Vivienne Jabri’s ‘Discourses on Violence. Conflict Analysis reconsidered.’[17] However, I will complement Jabri’s analyses with other works where these are able to add additional insight.

3.1.1 Language and Action Perpetuating Violence and War

Central to the understanding of Jabri’s concept of violence is the role that language plays in establishing and institutionalizing war as social practice within a social system. In Jabri’s non-positivist perception of it, language does not only bear a cognitive function of explaining the state of affairs in the factual world. Language is not only a medium of exchanging information or creating understanding between interlocutors, but also serves as a mode of domination in that it constructs a version of the factual world and consequently directs action in one way or another. Language generates and reproduces structures, i.e. narratives, metaphors, symbols, signals and terms of exclusion which perpetuate violence and war. Firmly inscribed in the public discourse these linguistic patterns dominate the construction of the social world in a way that serve the interests of the hegemonic group and, by extension, naturalize or reify the existing state of affairs, “negating the mutable, historical character of human society. It is here that modes of discourse and particular social orders are taken for granted.”[18]

Moreover, the domination of the discourse by modes of exclusion, nationhood, military and war is oftentimes less a consequence of overt demonstration of power, which is revealed in specific decisions for violent action. Rather, domination is largely based on hidden, silent forms of power that take over the hegemony in the public discourse by allowing certain symbols and linguistic patterns to prevail while rendering others invisible. War as a legitimate means of state power and constitutive element of collective identity is built on myths, narratives and discursive modes that are “reproduced through every action and utterance which glorifies the nation and/or the military.”[19] Jabri alleges the following example:
"The symbolism which accompanies specific national commemorations which glorify past victories in war may be said cumulatively to reproduce and perpetuate a culture of violence where identity is constituted in terms of adversity, exclusion and violence towards past and present enemies.”[20]
In the run-up to or during actual war, linguistic patterns unfold that manipulate public consciousness by obscuring or belittling the true outcomes of violence. The physician vs. disease metaphoric, for instance, is a popular vehicle for such hidden manipulation. ‘Surgical strikes’ and ‘collateral damage’ during the 1999 NATO bombing of Kosovo, for example, presented the intervention as a medical/surgical operation, a necessary precondition for the cure from illness.[21]

Another means of deception are euphemisms. The use of the word ‘mini-nukes’ for nuclear weapons with the explosive power of the Hiroshima-bomb or of ‘abuse’ instead of ‘torture’ for the interrogation methods in Abu Ghraib are just a few outstanding examples.[22]

Violence and war are not only reproduced and perpetuated by linguistic patterns, narratives and myths but also by (symbolic) actions and practices that overtly or subtly legitimate the use of force. Every decision to go to war does not only result in immediate consequences such as the utilization of military force but also contributes to the reproduction of war as social continuity. Inevitably, this applies to all forms of war, be they preemptive, preventive, offensive, or in the form of a humanitarian intervention. Jabri, for instance, addresses the problem of unintended consequences of human conduct in the context of the just war doctrine, which she identifies as a dominant mode within the discourses on war. The just war doctrine, contrary to its alleged intent to limit the destructive implications of violence, in fact perpetuates, reproduces and institutionalizes it within the social system by conferring legitimacy to its application.

Let me now turn to another aspect in the formation of public opinion that seems to be an important factor in the perpetuation of dominant modes of discourse. It refers to what Elisabeth Noelle-Neumann identified as the ‘Spiral of Silence.'[23]

3.1.2 The Spiral of Silence: Muting Dissent

Based on her extensive empirical work as Director of the Institut für Demoskopie in Allensbach, a leading German institute for public opinion research, Noelle-Neumann came to the conclusion that people have a tendency to utter their opinion only if they believe it to be in conformity with the prevailing majority opinion.[24] In other words, a relatively greater number of those people who are confident of sharing the majority opinion tend to speak up, while those sympathizing with minority positions lean towards silence and keep their opinion for themselves. Noelle-Neumann identifies the human need for belonging, the subsequent fear of isolation and the ability to observe and sense trends in the public discourse in the first place as reasons for this general tendency.[25] Ultimately, the trend to hold back alternative positions cultivates ongoing, self-perpetuating processes within which minority opinions gradually disappear from the screen:
"Observations made in one context spread to another and encourage people to proclaim their view or to swallow them and keep quiet until, in a spiraling process, the one view dominated the public scene and the other disappeared from public awareness as its adherents became mute. This is the process that can be called a ‘spiral of silence.'”[26]
What is of further importance for our own investigation is that, especially in times of (perceived) danger or crisis, this tendency to conformity seems to be amplified. Public opinion exerts an even stronger pressure in the form of psychological sanctions, which – as Noelle-Neumann describes with reference to Edward A. Ross – “begin, perhaps, when people stop greeting someone and end when the ‘dead member drops from the social body.”[27] Highly escalated violent conflict and war, the fear of isolation and concomitant pressures to comply with what is presented as the universal interest of the society, are oftentimes not ‘only’ produced by psychological, but by physical sanctions as well, including danger of life and limb for oneself and loved ones.

Following from her analyses, Noelle-Neumann draws the conclusion that only those who do not fear isolation can change public opinion, because only those dare to “change the music.”[28]

3.2 Intermediate Reflections: Emancipatory Counter-Discourses on Peace

Based on the above, we can understand the legitimation of violence and war as anchored in the public sphere and brought about by the concepts of exclusion and conformity, In Jabri’s reading, a counter-discourse on peace would necessarily have to challenge these very elements by introducing individuality and difference into the public discourse. The essence thereby is that disagreement with dominant discursive patterns must necessarily take on the form of ‘second-order’ disagreement. What is meant by this?

Jabri anticipates such disagreement, which is targeted against the hegemon’s domination of the discourse by engaging in his own argumentation, only offers a forum for portrayal of those arguments that are meant to be disregarded and thus carry forward the very ideologies that provide their base. Consequently, from every conscious notion of disparity follows a rather subconscious, unintended reproduction of exactly those conditions that are supposed to be called into question. Therefore, only by way of ‘second-order’ discourse analysis “can the hegemon’s ‘shared world of meaning’ be delineated as just that, thereby opening the way for the possibility of an entirely independent counter-discourse.”[29] Second-order disagreement aims at deconstructing the underlying reified conceptions of exclusion by de-naturalizing and identifying them as historical contingent, intersubjectively constructed and mutable by individual and social action. In sum, “[h]egemonic discourse must be undermined and exposed as ideology, not taken on its own terms in counter-argument. To do the latter would be to play according to the rules of the hegemon by buying into the illusion of symmetry.[30]

Therefore, grounded in Jürgen Habermas’s discourse ethics, Jabri places the emphasis for establishing a counter-discourse on peace on the fair process of generating alternatives to the existing order rather than on the substantive content of these. Habermas’s concept of the ideal speech situation, thereby, is seen to serve as a critical standard against which actual communication can be measured. Habermas assumes that in an ideal speech situation which ensures free and transparent communication, a shared, inter-subjective consensus could be reached. Such an ideal speech situation is characterized by the following two premises: first, the principal possibility of unhindered and equal participation of all social actors in the discourse and second, the evolvement of un-distorted communication which implies the right to question the underlying validity claims of all utterances put forward by any member participating in the discourse. That is, according to Habermas, in every sincere speech-act, each speaker makes various validity claims when uttering a statement, i.e. a validity claim to truth, normative rightness, and truthfulness.[31] In an ideal speech situation, all participants would at all times commit themselves to justify the validity claims of their speech and actions to others and at the same time have the right to critically question the validity claims of normative and factual statements, actions, and prepositions of their interlocutors. Following from a free and transparent speech situation, hearers would be able to accept or reject criticizable expressions and their underlying validity claims for good reason only and not due to coercion, arbitrary choice or other distortions.[32] Or more specifically, in a context where the validity of an action, statement or preposition is informed by intersubjectively accepted reasons alone and not based on systematical distortions such as external force or power imbalances between the interlocutors, agreements that the social agents reach are grounded solely on the force of the better argument. Underlying this is Habermas’s conceptions of Reason and rationality as being inherently intersubjective, or what he calls ‘communicative’:

"This concept of communicative rationality carries with it connotations based ultimately on the central experience of the unconstrained, unifying, consensus-bringing force of argumentative speech, in which different participants overcome their merely subjective views and, owing to the mutuality of rationally motivated conviction, assure themselves of both the unity of the objective world and the intersubjectivity of their lifeworld.”[33]

Immanent in this is that the ontological presupposition of an objective world is rejected and the unity of the objective world instead rests on shared understanding about it.[34] Communicative reason can be used to reflect upon and challenge the taken-for-granted manifestations of the existing discursive and institutional social order. That way, a counter-discourse of peace will challenge the discursive and institutional continuities that legitimate war and violence as a form of human conduct by disclosing and disempowering dominant modes of discourse and symbolic orders that evolve around notions of exclusion, the denial of contradictions and the naturalization or reification of the present/status quo. That is, when speaking of an emancipatory, transformative discourse on peace, “[t]he accent is upon a procedural framework which enables an interactive questioning of dominant norms and institutions.”[35]

In this regard, the normative value of transparent, undistorted, and coercion-free communication lies not in the immediate answering of questions of what we ought to do, but in the revelation of the conditions under which we as social agents could answer these questions for ourselves.
"The force of the model in conceptualising peace is […] in its capacity to locate a process which allows for the emergence of dialogical relationships. […] The model, therefore, does not provide a substantive definition of the contents of peace, but provides a framework through which war as an institution may be put to question.”[36]

That being said let us now turn to some of the concerns I have on possible limitations of this approach in actual situations of overt conflict. It is my apprehension that Jabri’s suggestions of uncovering the very forces which generate distorted communication and opening space for a discursive process which incorporates critical self-reflection[37] might not be a radical enough approach to a very radical attempt of change.

For one thing, this is due to the above mentioned concerns that under given modes of domination, under conditions of the actually pursued or potentially legitimized use of force and contexts of deeply ingrained cultures of violence, the social actors’ belief in communication as such and their willingness to participate in a discourse in order to resolve conflicts communicatively, cannot be taken as a pre-given. While this may be the case for a number of critical individuals who do not fear to speak up against the dominating opinion, violence and the recourse to weapons was first made possible by either public approval, compliance, coercion, or at least the lack of dissent. For another thing, those forces currently dominating the public discourse and directing the cause of social action most likely have a high interest in the perpetuation of prevailing power-asymmetries.

Another concern along these lines, which I would like to point to is the conception that in the establishment of an ideal speech situation, all arguments may be uttered, discussed, weighed, until the “better argument” reveals itself to everyone involved. Concerning this, I want to refer to an article which was put forward by Herbert Marcuse in 1965. In this article on ‘Repressive Tolerance,'[38] Marcuse argues that tolerance only works in the service of intolerance if the following preconditions for the revelation of truth as a consequence of the tolerating of all views are not given: first, truly negative/oppositional forces in the society do have the possibilities and means to make their voice heard in the public discourse and second, the majority of people is able to make a truly rational and autonomous choice between the multiplicity of choices and viewpoints presented to them under the guise of ‘tolerance.’ Moreover, he claims that if neither of these preconditions is fulfilled and the context is one of repression and totalitarianism, the call for an indiscriminate tolerance and impartiality makes “tolerance an instrument for the continuation of servitude.”[39] Thus, if tolerance is reversed into repression, the rehabilitation of tolerance requires the exertion of selective intolerance:

“But this means that the trend would have to be reversed: they [the people] would have to get information slanted in the opposite direction. For the facts are never given immediately and never accessible immediately; they are established, ‘mediated’ by those who made them; the truth, ‘the whole truth’ surpasses these facts and requires the rupture with their appearance. This rupture–prerequisite and token of all freedom of thought and of speech–cannot be accomplished within the established framework of abstract tolerance and spurious objectivity because these are precisely the factors which precondition the mind against the rupture.”[40]

Obviously, this clearly goes beyond a solely process oriented proceeding as suggested by Jabri or Habermas. Without directly naming it, Marcuse calls for the establishment of a “Gegenöffentlichkeit”, a counter-publicity, which by definition contains a contentual dimension of counter-narratives etc. in order to challenge prevailing hegemonies.

Such an approach cannot be blind to the dilemma of who, under conditions of totalization and one-dimensionality, should be able to transcend this state of mind and society while at the same time being part of it her/himself. Again, I want to borrow from Marcuse who despite of the fact that his own analyses paint a rather doomed picture of bringing about a qualitative change of the existing order, still remained faithful “that forces and tendencies exist which may break this containment and explode the society.”[41] And since the Frankfurt School theorists believed, other than Marx, that these forces can no longer automatically be attributed to the proletariat, Marcuse sets his hope on marginalized groups as such and consequently on any individual who was able to maintain his/ her individuality despite the dominant mechanisms of conformity and social control. Thus, the development of a critical consciousness is at the same time “prerequisite as well as an element of the negating practice.[42] Of particular interest for the topic of the paper in hand is the aspect that Marcuse locates the emancipatory potential not outside but inside the society. The transcendence of the existing order, the rationalization of the current state of affairs begins from within:

“Transcendence beyond the established conditions (of thought and action) presupposes transcendence within these conditions. This negative freedom -i.e. freedom from the oppressive and ideological power of given facts- is the a priori of the historical dialectic; it is the element of choice and decision in and against historical determination.”[42]

For reasons of the above outlined limitations to second-order disagreement and strict process-focused approaches to counter hegemony and emancipation of the public discourse, I suggest that the progression of discursive conflict resolution and critical emancipation can more adequately be conceptualized by breaking it down into two levels. I will do so within the conceptual framework of a two level model which integrates both, processes and content of emancipatory discourse. In so doing, the model also claims to be sensitive to another dilemma which naturally follows from any call for contentual counter-publicity: the dilemma of who should be able to determine what qualifies for what: liberating or repressive practice, human or inhumane doctrine.

3.3 Talking Peace. A two-level Model of Conflict Resolution

3.3.1 Overview and Preliminary Thoughts on the Potentials and Limitations of Establishing an ‘Ideal Speech Situation’ in Violent Conflict

Before giving a more detailed description of every one of the levels, I will begin by providing a brief overview of both. In so doing, the interrelatedness of the two levels will reveal itself more clearly

In consonance with the above, the first level of the model can be described as the formation of a public sphere across conflict lines. However, the approach taken here is more pragmatic than that of Habermas or Jabri in that it does not presuppose the willingness to communicate across the divide as a society-wide pre-given. Hence, it is assumed that it is more likely that the public sphere of this first level is originally established by those critical individuals stemming from all sides of the divide, who critically question and challenge the existing order, the dominating bellicose language and violent engagement of their societies.[44] These social actors are willing to participate in deliberations with members of rival groups so as to identify possibilities of non-violent, communication-based structural transformation of conflict situations and to address conditions of injustice. In so doing, they are able to “perceive possibilities in the world that do not yet exist but which can be realized.”[45] In establishing and strengthening relationships across the lines, the development of other-concern can potentially be enabled and the search for creative solutions to the conflict can be put into motion.

The second level refers to society wide pro-violence discourses among the societies of each of the parties to the conflict. If the legitimation and retreat to violence as strategy to address conflict is, as suggested here, considered to be an intersubjectively constructed product of public discourses that are dominated by bellicose forces, a substantial transformation of these society-wide discourses on all sides of the divide is a necessary condition to the delegitimation of violence. Yet, it is here that I clearly perceive the call for undistorted communication and discourse ethics to reach its limits. It will, thus, be argued in the following that in this second level we need to leave the realm of strict process-orientation. Rather, what is needed is a commitment to ‘selective intolerance,’ a partiality in favor of non-violence and peace in order to contain current patterns of domination and to ensure an input of creativity and alternative ideas into the social imaginary.

On first appearance this demand produces a somewhat totalitarian overtone. However, it is my belief that any suspicion of totalitarianism that may rise from claims for selective tolerance can be substantially averted by the undissolvable interconnectedness of both levels of the model; level one and two do not stand for themselves but are conceptually interwoven and mutually dependent. In level one, the voluntariness of participation and the critical (self-)reflection of its members allow for an approximation to processes of free and undistorted communication, to the compliance with concepts of discourse ethics within which problem-solving strategies and integrative solutions can be developed. It is due to the deliberative process of level one that the contentual outcomes which evolve from it can serve as a real-life critical standard against which the existing order can be measured. But what is more, it is exactly on these contentual concepts of non-violent conflict resolution that the selective intolerance with which to enter the separate discourse spaces of the conflicting parties must be grounded. This must not be apprehended in a universal sense, but as resting in the conscious admittance of the historicity of any idea, concept or social reality. It is as if the social agents meeting in the public sphere of level one were to say: Maybe these ideas and concepts of non-violent conflict resolution and just and peaceful social order are not the end of the story either, but for the time being, they are the best alternative to the status quo that we as a joint community can think of.

Finally, it remains for me to add that the interconnectedness of both levels also runs in the other direction. The outcomes achieved in level two feed back to the workings of level one. The intentional transformation of the respective public spheres of the parties in conflict, grounded on a selective intolerance which is committed to non-violence, peace, and the value of communication as such, will introduce a growing number of people to these ideas and wave alternative ideas into the social imaginary. A greater number of people sympathetic to these concepts, beginning with the value of communication across conflict, will increase the pool of potential voluntary participants in deliberation across the divide. This will in return strengthen and reinforce the process of level one, which I will return to later.

3.3.2 Level One: The Formation of a Public Sphere across the Divide

3.3.2.1 Premises and Preliminary Thoughts

Besides the personal characteristics identified above (like overcoming the potential fear of isolation, critical self-reflection), two necessary preconditions must certainly be fulfilled for an individual being ready to engage in talks with the other side in order to search for joint, non-violent strategies of resolving conflict. These are the belief in the value of communication as such and the willingness to participate in it. Since these two preconditions are so essential to the understanding of this approach, let me add some clarification on what shall be understood by it in our context. Underlying the willingness to communicate, the willingness to engage in the “activity through which people speak to each other, share information, and set up and sustain social relationships,”[46] is not only the principal ability to reconstruct and understand the other’s opinion but essentially also the general readiness to question and revise one’s own opinion.[47] Interrelated therewith is the following: in case of dissenting opinion, the interlocutors do not attempt to use verbal coercion or other forms of overt or subtle manipulation in trying to get the other to behave or think according to one’s own opinion. Instead they implicitly agree on the “gentle, persuasive force of reasons as an alternative to strategic, that is, coercive or manipulative, forms of conflict resolution.”[48]

That being said, it becomes clearer why on the first level – and only on the first level – the formation of a public sphere across the division lines in conflict is a suitable conceptual idea for the resolution of conflict. Rational debate, be it in the form of face-to-face communication, or conducted “through exchange of letters and other written communications, […] mediated by journals, news-papers and electronic forms of communication,”[49] as a means to resolve conflict must remain, in principal, open to everyone. That is, the decisive factor in perceiving the first level of the conflict resolution model as a ‘public sphere across enemy lines’, is not to picture it as an image of the conflict situation as such, but as suspending actually existent power-asymmetries. So, in order not to project actual power-imbalances onto the space of the public sphere, the social actors coming together to discuss matters of general interest do so not in their capacity of being representatives of their respective parties. They come together first and foremost in their “role of human beings pure and simple.”[50]

3.3.2.2 Overall Objectives of Level One

Based on the above illustrated preconditions, two main categories of goals may be met within the first level: first, the establishment and consolidation of relationships and other-concern and second, the disclosure of integrative solutions and rational alternatives to the status quo.

a) Transformation of ‘Self’ and Establishment/Consolidation of Relationships with ‘Other’

In conflict resolution theory, e.g. outlined in the dual-concern model by Pruitt and Kim,[51] other-concern is seen to form a necessary precondition for the decision to apply problem-solving approaches to resolve conflict over other strategies such as yielding, avoiding, or contending. Problem-solving strategies are seen to prepare the ground for the disclosure of creative and integrative outcomes that reconcile the interest of the parties and move beyond the win-loose axis of conflict resolution. In our context, this also refers to outcomes that provide a non-violent (understood as free from direct, structural, and cultural violence) alternative to the status-quo, the imagination of which might require decisive thinking outside the box.

Likewise, in protracted conflicts which are characterized by “long-standing cycles of hostile interaction […] deep-rooted, intense animosity; fear; and severe stereotyping,”[52] mechanical conflict resolution strategies and statist diplomacy that aim solely at a resolution of issues are largely insufficient to lead to sustainable transformation. Hence, the calls for a substantive shift of conflict resolution approaches “toward a frame of reference that focuses on the restoration and rebuilding of relationships”[53] among the community of peace-building theoreticians and practitioners are growing ever louder.

Accordingly, the approach taken here proceeds on the assumption that both, the development of genuine other-concern grounded amongst others on empathy for the other side, as well as the building and consolidating of relationships across enemy lines can be conceptualized with the aid of what has here been pictured as a public-sphere across the divide. To substantiate this allegation, let us examine in some more detail the functions of communication and language-use.

Language as understood by Jürgen Habermas and others is not only a medium to state or convey facts about the world but is used to build social relationships with the interlocutor or one’s audience. That is, language is seen to have a double-structure, persisting of a propositional component (referring to facts in the world) as well as an illocutionary component (invoking social relationships).54 With reference to the validity claims made in a speech act, an utterance can be challenged on the grounds of what it conveys about the world as well as in terms of its illocutionary component. By the same token, if the interlocutors are to reach an agreement, they must do so at both levels:

“a) the level of inter-subjectivity on which speaker and hearer, through illocutionary acts, establish the relations that permit them to come to an understanding with one another, and b) the level of experiences and states-of-affairs about which they want to reach an understanding in the communicative function determined by (a).”[55]

Consequently, the engagement in direct communication with ‘the other’ does not only allow for a debate about the factual world or each other’s opinion on it but also opens space for a (re-)negotiation or establishment of relationships between the debutants and by extension, a substantive transformation of self. This implies that the success of communication also rests on the acceptance of the offer made by the speaker in an illocutionary act:

“This illocutionary success is relevant to the interaction inasmuch as it establishes between speaker and hearer an interpersonal relation that is effective for coordination, that orders scopes of action and sequences of interaction, and that opens up to the hearer possible points of connection by way of general alternatives for action.” [56]

Applied to conflict transformation, this means that in listening to each other’s stories, e.g. statements about the conflict situations, causes and effects of it, beliefs, ideas and evaluations of possible coping measures, interlocutors not only accept or reject these on the basis of the validity claims made with reference to their factual content, but also grounded on the offer of a particular interpersonal relation intended by the speaker. The performative attitude offered by the speaker is susceptible to acceptance or rejection based on the participants’ intersubjective perception of it.

Another aspect interrelated with the above mentioned is the moral concept of recognition as triggering factor for social struggle, collective movements, and conflict.[57] The violation of basic human needs as a root cause of conflict is not only perceived in material categories, but also extended to moral aspects such as mutual respect and recognition.[58] Accordingly, direct encounters with the individualized other, the experience of respect for and recognition of one’s experiences and feelings of grievance and fear, contributes not only to a transformation of the relationship with ‘the other’ but also a transformation of ‘self’. Therefore, deliberation across the divide is a form of shared political action that has a direct impact on the alteration of identities and conflictual behavior:

“For the victims of disrespect […] engaging in political action also has the direct function of tearing them out of the crippling situation of passively endured humiliation and helping them, in turn, on their way to a new, positive relation-to-self.'[59]

It is in this conceptual realm of a public sphere, within which participants engage in undistorted and free communication, that provides the space for the challenging and renegotiation of identities of ‘self’, perceptions of ‘the other’ and of the interlocutors’ relationships vis-à-vis each other. This is due to the illocutionary component of communication by extension also exemplified in symbolic action, that relational empathy and concern for the other can be developed. If the other is no longer perceived to be an evil enemy whose intentions must be mistrusted at all events, but as someone who could be talked to and principally worked with, a whole new horizon of possible solutions to the conflict opens up. Actors can move away from perceptions that any solution which involves gains for ‘the other’ must necessarily result in losses for ‘self.’

b) Disclosing Integrative Solutions and Non-Violent Alternatives to the Status Quo

As has been suggested above, it is within this first level of the conflict resolution model that a procedural element has to be preserved. This assures that alternative ideas about ‘the other’ as well as about possible non-violent strategies and measures to substantially transform the conflict situation are not simply as unjust and simplistic as the persisting ones, again feeding into the perpetuation of conditions of inequality and injustice. Counter-narratives and counter-hegemonic views/ideas about ‘the other’ as well as possible paths to non-violence, and social organization grounded on this process are, hence, seen to assure a more integrative and peaceful historical alternative to the status quo. Therefore, understandings reached here about ‘self’ and ‘other’, about the social and factual world as well as the intersubjective relationships between individuals and the parties as such allow for a maximum of complexity and commonality.

It now remains now for us to ask how the intersubjective process of dialogue and talk and the alternative narratives stemming from this process can be integrated into and eventually impact the systemic transformation of the broader context situation.

3.3.3 Level Two: Transforming the Public Discourse of the Parties in Conflict

3.3.3.1 Overall Objectives of Level Two

a) Delegitimizing Violent Strategies to Address Conflict

Asserting that in violent conflict and war the public discourse is hegemonized by voices and forces that suggest violent action as the most suitable strategy to address persistent conflicts and/or accept it as a structural part of the way society is organized essentially implies the following: a majority of the population either agrees with the view of the dominant forces, or is made to consent to it based on manipulation or indoctrination with war-prone ideologies, or is coerced to comply, or at least remains silent if being of dissenting opinion.[60]

Especially with view on subtle manipulation and the subjugation to skillfully constructed ideologies, frequently involving the instrumentalization of fear or feelings of honor, duty, or self-defense,61 people develop a false consciousness about ‘self’, ‘the other’, and the conflict context of whose contingency they are no longer aware of. As a consequence, deeply internalized ideologies and the construction of exclusionary identities do not render communication across the lines an immediate option and the dismissal of violent strategies a goal worth striving for.

Before that backdrop, second-order critique of discourse and strict process oriented attempts to establish undistorted communication taken by itself may likely fall short of leading to a profound renunciation of violence and war. The above described thinking of Marcuse on repressive tolerance is further elucidative to this effect. If bridging Marcuse’s assumptions with the aforementioned analyses, one can infer that the first precondition presupposed by Marcuse (negative forces in the society can make their voice heard in the public discourse) is undermined by exactly those forms of hegemonization of the public discourse illustrated above. Likewise, the second precondition (the majority of the people are able to make an autonomous choice between the multiplicity of viewpoints presented to them) can hardly be deemed to be fulfilled within the terms of subtle manipulation or contexts of ideology delusion or manipulation that create exclusionary self-identities and distorted images about the other during times of escalated conflict and war.

From the non-fulfillment of these two preconditions alongside a principal hegemony critique follows the need for selective intolerance in favor of communication, non-violence, and peace, if attempting to alter prevailing discourses of violence. A selective intolerance that is, however, freed from its totalitarian overtone by firmly rooting its content in the deliberative process of level one. Hereby, the entering of the public discourse with counter-narratives, -ideas, and -concepts and the availability of these can provide an alternative framework of reference for those individuals trapped in hegemonic ideologies of war or the ‘Spiral of Silence’ and provide fresh and creative input into the process of collective imagination as a whole.

b) Increasing the Readiness to Talk

The unremitting entering of the public discourse with counter-narratives and alternative ideas, may not only slowly but steadily decrease the legitimating of violence as a strategy to resolve conflict but simultaneously increase the readiness among an ever growing number of actors to engage in communication across the divide as more and more people incorporate these ideas in their individual and collective imagination. In this sense, I also want to make a brief recourse to what is described by Chantal Mouffe as the “taming of antagonism”62 into a type of relationship that she calls ‘agonims’ as a conceptual tool to look at this process:

“While antagonism is a we/they relation in which the two sides are enemies who do not share any common ground, agonism is a we/they relation where the conflicting parties, although acknowledging that there is no rational solution to their conflict, nevertheless recognize the legitimacy of their opponents. They are ‘adversaries’ not enemies.'[63]

By the same token, if adversary is no longer carried out in the “register of morality,”[64] constructed according to moral categories of ‘good’ versus ‘evil’, opponents can be defined in political terms, they can be envisaged as an adversary, not as an enemy. With the latter, “the ‘evil them’ no agonistic debate is possible, they must be eradicated.”[65] With the former, however, communication across the lines becomes a serious alternative.

Clearly, ‘taming the antagonism’ is by far not as ambitious an approach as striving for the establishment of a public sphere across the divide. As a matter of fact, Mouffe in her political philosophy rejects the belief in a shared consensus altogether. I would like to take a somewhat different road in asserting that overcoming antagonism it is rather something like a ‘first step’. Therefore, I do not drop the aim as well as social and philosophical possibility of reaching consensus, rather, this is exactly how I picture the second level of the model being again connected to the first. Delegitimizing violence and increasing the readiness to talk across conflict lines is a precondition for keeping the process in motion as it prepares the ground for more people being willing to engage in level one. And once again, it is here that a profound transformation of self, of intersubjective relationships and the disclosure of integrative solutions may become a possibility.

4.0 Concluding Thoughts and Outlook to Future Research

In light of the complexity of immanent and contextual factors contributing to violent conflict, any approach to war and peace necessarily has to take choices in covering some aspects while leaving out others. Depending on the preconditions and assumptions that form the basis of research, the conclusions reached and remedies proposed will vary greatly. In the pairs of theory and praxis, conflict analysis and conflict resolution, the latter are conceptually dependent on the former. Thus, I can only hope that this work was successful in its attempt to cover a large enough piece of the picture so that looking at it proves meaningful in itself. Given the limited scope of this paper, many aspects and questions relevant to the topic could not be addressed and remain open for future research. Two aspects in particular come to one’s mind that I want to briefly outline as follows.

The first one points to a problematic already addressed by Herbert Marcuse, i.e. that the critical forces are “hopelessly dispersed throughout the society […].”[66] In contexts of war and violent conflict, where basic rights such as the freedom of assembly are oftentimes denied and forms of individual communication controlled or censored, this problem becomes especially relevant. A very practical question arising from this is how oppositional forces can connect themselves, how peace-entrepreneurs can form and sustain social networks, first of all amongst themselves but also across the conflict lines. It may be anticipated that modern forms of electronic communication like Facebook, Skype, Twitter or personal blogs can help to alleviate this dilemma. How, to what extent, and under what circumstances, cannot be penetrated here and elaborating on these questions must be suspended to further research.

Related therewith are questions of the pros and cons of third party intervention and the understanding of the intervener’s role. Without elaborating on it much further, the understanding that underlies this work is that third party intervention which wants to be looked on as a legitimate conflict resolution strategy must abandon the realm of coercive power[67] and should be informed by benevolent dispositions rather than interested motives. If at all conducted, intervention must follow the aim of empowering the parties in conflict to search for and find their own solutions, rather than becoming an additional player to the game in aspiring self-serving goals.

In relation with the aforementioned dilemma of the dispersion of the forces of emancipation throughout their respective societies, the empowering function of third parties could include providing support to the peace-entrepreneurs so that they are able to connect with one another. Something along these lines, for instance, happened in the aftermath of the 2009 Iranian election when oppositional forces used proxies, i.e. redirections to foreign servers in order to circumvent national censorships on the internet.[68] The provision of such servers helped the members of the ‘Green Revolution’ to stay connected with one another and the world. Moreover, as has been discussed above, the uttering of minority opinions is oftentimes accompanied with real and subtle dangers to the social actors. Therefore, the latitude for third party agents to intervene might sometimes be broader or less hazardous than for directly involved social actors. Nevertheless, such intervention would have to give up violence as an appropriate or legitimate strategy to positively influence the conflict situation. It would be an intervention not with weapons but words.

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Notes:

[1] Cited in: Noelle-Neumann, 1980/1993, page 137.

[2] Cf. Jackson, 2009, page 180.

[3] Edgar, 2006, page 124.

[4] Adler, 1997, page 346 f.

[5] Cf. Adler, 1997, page 329.

[6] Jackson, 2009, page 180.

[7] Milleken, 1999, page 229.

[8] According to Galtung, violence can be revealed in three distinct forms:[8] We talk of direct violence when situations of conflict pose a direct threat to the wellbeing of a person (like soldiers being killed on the battlefield); structural violence refers to rather indirect outcomes (for example people suffering or dying from not having enough to eat due to the unequal distribution of resources and wealth) and cultural violence eventually directs to the conscious or subconscious justification of the violation of the wellbeing of the other (if for example minority groups are seen and treated as unequal human beings and a deprivation of their rights is publicly justified on this basis).

[9] Galtung, 1990

[10] Galtung, 1990, page 291.

[11] Habermas, Jürgen, 1968/1987, Knowledge and Human Interests. Cambridge: Polity Press.

[12] Cf. Edgar, 2006, page 67.

[13] Edgar, 2006, page 15.

[14] Habermas, 1968/1987, page 314.

[15] There is no denying the fact that I myself took up this piece of work with certain preconditions and preconceptions that I acquired during my own historical constitution as a subject. To be sure, had I lived or studied differently, got to known different teachers and friends, stumbled over different books or attended another round of seminars, I would have most likely directed my attention to other core themes, put my emphasis on other issues or consulted different theories – or even interpreted the same theories differently. Most imprinting for me was certainly the time I had spend as a student at the Institute for Conflict Analysis and Resolution (ICAR) at George Mason University in Virginia, U.S.A. in 2008/09. I was lucky to meet most inspiring teachers who introduced me to theories and practice of Conflict Resolution, Critical Social Theory and continuously encouraged me in critical (self-) reflection. Moreover, I worked as a research assistant to the Center for World Religions, Diplomacy and Conflict Resolution (CRDC) for a while, where I was introduced to highly committed people and peace projects working “across the divide” in the Middle East. I think it was exactly the combination of these experiences, which served as an inducing moment for me to pick up the topic of discourse analysis, ideal speech situations, discourse ethics, and its relation to war and peace once again. I started wondering if what people are doing by meeting across enemy lines and jointly deliberating on each other’ stories, experiences and hopes for their future, could not be looked at as some of the core Habermasian principles taking place in real-world practice. If what was happening in the midst of one of the most protracted conflicts of our days could not be grasped as something like the establishment of a public sphere – of course not within (bourgeois) society, but across enemy-lines.

[16] My translation, in the original: „Der herrschende Diskurs bestimmt, was in einer Gesellschaft als Wirklichkeit zu gelten hat. Daher sind Kämpfe als Kämpfe um Wirklichkeitsbedeutungen immer Machtkämpfe. Die Entscheidung, was gesagt werden darf, wie gesellschaftliche Erfahrungen benannt werden dürfen, bzw. welche Bedeutung das Gesagte hat, ist immer eine Machtentscheidung.“ Busse, 1987, page 61 (cited in: Schallenberger, 1999, page 12.).

[17] Jabri, 1996.

[18] Ibid, page 97.

[19] Ibid, page 139. It so happened that at the time of reading Jabri’s „Discourses on Violence“, I went to the Cherry Blossom Festival in Washington D.C., where a student marching band from Elko High School in Nevada played several songs in honor of various military personnel. As the band played one song for the navy, another one for the marines and so on, present members of the respective military branches were asked to stand up and were applauded by the crowd. I think this is what Jabri refers to when she states that militarism is less a blatant, overt celebration of war, but rather a penetration of military values into all aspects of civilian life.
Cf. Jabri, 1996, page 102.

[20] Jabri, 1996, page 80.

[21] Cf. Loquai, 2007, page 61.

[22] Ibid, page 62.

[23] Noelle-Neumann, Elisabeth. (1980/1993). The Spiral of Silence. Public Opinion – Our Social Skin. Chicago: University Of Chicago Press.

[24] Note that when speaking of majority in this context, the term not necessarily refers to the quantitatively greatest number of people. Rather, it is more of a qualitative concept. Noelle-Neumann, for instance, points to the important role mass media plays in shaping public opinion and in providing a referable language of action. Thereby, she concludes that those whose point of view is not represented by the media are effectively mute.

[25] Cf. Noelle-Neumann, 1980/1993, page 37 et seq.

[26] Ibid, page 5.

[27] Ross, 1901/1969, page 92 (cited in: Noelle-Neumann, 1980/1993, page 95.).

[28] Cf. Noelle-Neumann, 1980/1993, page 138 et seq.

[29] Ramsbotham, Woodhouse, & Miall, 2006, page 297.

[30] Ibid, page 296.

[31] In other approaches to his communication theory, Habermas spoke of the four validity claims also as validity claims to truth, rightness, appropriateness, and comprehensibility. But that shall not concern us here.
Cf. e.g. Habermas, 1981/2004.

[32] Cf. e.g. Habermas, 1981/2004, page 10f.

[33] Habermas, 1981/2004, page 10.

[34] Ibid, page 13.

[35] Jabri, 1996, page 166.

[36] Ibid 166.

[37] Cf. Jabri, 1996, page 163.

[38] Marcuse, Herbert. (1965/n.d.). Repressive Tolerance. Retrived from: http://files.meetup.com/1345107/Repressive%20Tolerance.pdf, last visited June 27, 2010.

[39] Marcuse, 1965/n.d., page 3.

[40] Ibid, page 7.

[41] Kellner, 2002, page xlv.

[42] Marcuse, 1964/2002, page 227.

[43] Ibid, page 227 f.

[44] This is not an abstruse concept, rather, even in the most protracted conflicts of our times there exist individuals and segments of the society that critically question the dominating opinions on ‘the Other’, who reject the prevalent violent strategies to address social conflicts, and who are willing to launch and are, in fact, in many instances already practicing, collaboration across conflict lines. Examples thereof are many, just recall the one mentioned in the introduction of this paper, or consider Benjamin Broome’s work on Cyprus: Broome, 2009, page 184-200.

[45] Kellner, 2002, page xxvii.

[46] Edgar, 2006, page 164.

[47] Cf. Poser, 2001, page 221.

[48] Habermas, 1996/2001, page 4.

[49] Edgar, 2006, page 124.

[50] Habermas, 1962/2001, page 56. Italics in the original.

[51] Pruitt, & Kim, 2004, page 41 ff

[52] Ibid.

[53] Ibid, page 24.

[54] Cf. Edgar, 2006, page 47.

[55] Habermas, 1976, page 225 (cited in: McCarthy, 1981, page 282). Emphasis in the original.

[56] Habermas, 1981/2004, page 296.

[57] Cf., for instance, Honneth, 1995/2008.

[58] Cf., for instance, Burton, 1993.

[59] Ibid.

[60] Cf., for instance, Antonio Gramsci’s concept of hegemony as depicted in his Prison Notebooks: Gramsci, 1971/2008, page 53f.

[61] Cf. for the latter: The Editorial Cell, & Rubenstein, 2010.

[62] Cf. Mouffe, Chantal. (2005/2008). On the Political. New York: Routledge.

[63] Mouffe, 2005/2008, page 20.

[64] Ibid, page 72.

[65] Ibid, page 76.

[66] Marcuse, 1965/n.d., page 12.

[67] ‘Coercive power’ here does not only refer to military power but, for instance, also is also seen to include strategically arranged negotiations that do not aim at reaching consensus but lead to mere compliance with or submission to proposed strategies.

[68] Cf. e.g. Blaschke, 2009.