Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
humanising and de-escalating position; thirdly, they almost always involve local stake-
holders, but also have the possibility of engaging higher level actors. Such specific
institutions may have their roots in existing (traditional) forms of rule and governance
and are therefore less susceptible to institutional deficiencies in fragile state settings.
We would encourage a detailed study of the strengths and weaknesses of these types
of institutions, as they may form a crucial missing link in the governance regimes that
most of the authors reviewed above have deemed so crucial.
2.4 JOINING SCIENCE AND POLICY:THE CoCooN INITIATIVE
The developments above form the backdrop against which the research programme on
Conflict and Cooperation over Natural Resources (CoCooN) was developed in 2008.
2.4.1 CoCooN's understanding of conflict
When the first discussions within the CoCooN team started, it was immediately
accepted that conflict should not only be seen as something negative or destructive.
Here the CoCooN team, comprised of researchers and policy makers with a long per-
sonal history in 'development and environment' connected seamlessly with researchers
in the Conflict research programme that had been initiated by the Netherlands Organi-
sation for Scientific ResearchNWO two years earlier (NWO2006). The following were
major considerations in formulating the CoCooN programme. Conflict has detrimen-
tal, negative and destructive powers, but it can also be a key driver of change. Conflict
brings creative potential that helps families, organisations and states to (re)define them-
selves, to innovate and to create. There is a need to not only look at conflict as an agent
of negative impacts, but also as an agent of positive change. It was thus recognised that
tension and conflict may also be seen as a source of innovation and creativity in the
adaptation of land-use and governance systems. This was also recognised in the pre-
ceding academic discussion of the peace-building potential of environmental tensions
and conflicts, the need to cooperate in trans-boundary settings, and the emphasis of
institutional resilience of water conflicts, as highlighted by Wolf et al. (2005).
Of further importance is the need to understand protracted conflict situations in
some so-called 'failed' or 'fragile' states in Africa, Asia and Latin America. The contin-
uation of conflict may be in the interest of some involved parties, and a longitudinal
research orientation to conflict will yield a better understanding of these processes.
For instance, in the case of economies of war with heavy investments in arms and
drugs trade, or vested interests in oil, diamond and timber, multiple parties seem to
benefit from prolonged rather than resolved conflict. The question is then, under what
conditions would the parties involved be more interested in collaboration and peace
processes than conflict. This issue was also mentioned in section 2, where the greed
versus grievance debate was noted, as well as in section 3 where a variety of initiatives
were discussed that could help contain the greed of power-holders and companies by
a range of coercive and non-coercive measures.
Without a doubt, the scale of the problem of potentially violent conflicts has
increased, and so too have the interests at stake. Recently, debates have focused on the
possible role of climate change in causing conflict in the future (e.g. Welzer 2008). The
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