Publikation

Many international aid and peace building organisations work in post-conflict situations. Their principal strategic choice is to promote (local) peace actors, networks and alliances – i.e. actors who are already engaged in peace building. Spoilers – i.e. actors who oppose the peace process and seek various means to create uncertainty and turmoil within the peace environment – play a considerable role in these processes. However, they are rarely considered as a target group and few international organisations have developed strategies to deal with them constructively. But how can (potential) spoilers – such as armed groups, radical political parties, war veterans, traditional leaders or economic actors – be integrated into peaceful transformation processes? Which strategies exist? What experiences have been gained with inclusive approaches and what lessons can we learn from them?

In order to address these questions, an introductory session as well as two panels and three working groups were formed, examining a) constructive approaches to dealing with spoilers, b) lessons learnt: dealing with different types of actors, and c) instruments to analyse spoiler groups, strategies and risk management.

On 26 and 27 September 2006, the Working Group for Development and Peace (FriEnt) and the German Development Institute (DIE) jointly organised an international workshop on “Dealing with Spoilers in Peace Processes”. The workshop aimed to find answers to questions regarding spoilers in peace processes and identify possible follow-up activities within the frame of FriEnt’s new priority topic “spoilers”. Report edited by Natascha Zupan and Günter Schönegg.