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Types of Power Other Than Force
Power is the ability of parties to protect and advance their interests. This section provides links to types of power other than force.
Inventory of Available Force Types
Critical to the development of sound force-based strategies is a systematic inventory of available force-based options along with their advantages and disadvantages, likely benefits, and costs. This section provides a broad overview of the types of force which are commonly available.
Creation of Violence Limiting Mechanisms
Violence -limitation mechanisms based upon political and legal institutions as well as the power of the police are often able to limit the use of violent, force-based strategies. Absence of these institutions often requires the parties to develop strategies capable of dealing with violent confrontations.
Elections / Instituting Democracy
Democratic electoral processes provide one of the most important mechanisms for establishing broadly accepted political and legal institutions capable of limiting the use of violence.
Empowerment
Empowerment strategies are designed to help disempowered groups strengthen their base of forcing power so that they can participate fairly and effectively in dispute resolution processes of all types.
Non-Violent Struggle
Abandonment of violent confrontation does not mean that the parties have to accept defeat. Rather, they can use non-violent means of confrontation which can be equally or more effective than violent struggle.
Collective Security
Collective security agreements call upon participating parties to jointly oppose any aggressive (or illegitimate) actions taken against any of the parties participating in the agreement.
Peace Zones
Peace Zones are proposed international zones which could be administered by the United Nations for the benefit of all the people who live there and care about the region. The establishment of an international Peace Zone had been suggested for Jerusalem, for example, so that it could remain open to the three main religious groups which have roots there.
Civilian Defense
Civilian defense strategies attempt to deter violent aggression by promising a nonviolent program of systematic non-cooperation with any conquering force. The goal is to prevent aggressors from benefiting from their actions.
Long-Term Struggle
In many conflict situations the parties do not have the forcing power needed to advance their interests over the short-term. They may, however, be able to successfully pursue a long-term strategy focused around the building up of forcing power.
Strategic Retreat
Sometimes the best approach to a threat is to comply and build strength for a future confrontation.
Criminal Prosecution
Criminal prosecution is one strategy for dealing with war crimes and other excessive violence related to protracted conflicts. When successfully used it makes people responsible for what they did; it brings some sense of justice to a society; and it gives a sense of finality, of ending to a violent confrontation.
Apology and Forgiveness
One strategy for dealing with the war criminal problem focuses upon the admission of guilt, the paying of reparations, the asking of forgiveness, and the granting of amnesty. Like criminal prosecution, this approach has its costs and benefits--both practical and moral.
Truth Commissions
Truth commissions are used following periods of human rights abuses and war crimes to publicly and permanently document what actually happened. These efforts, which can be combined with forgiveness and amnesty programs, provide some measure of justice and help build support for programs designed to prevent such occurrences in the future. They also are often a necessary step for meaningful reconciliation to take place.
Human and Civil Rights Organizations
Human rights organizations provide a coalition-building mechanism through which the disempowered victims of human rights abuses can receive support from outside (and, often, international) sympathizers.
Understanding the Nature of Threats
Improved understanding of the nature of threat and force-based interactions can help the parties better understand when the use of threats and/or force does and does not make sense.
The following seven items are listed both as problems and as treatments, as they can be either, depending on the situation. The write-ups indicate how these concepts can be seen both ways.
Submission
In cases where people are subjected to overwhelming force which they do not have the power to resist, it may be most appropriate to simply accept defeat and try (at least over the short term) to make the best of a bad situation.
Subversion
Often, people who are being subjected to force pretend that they are submitting to the demands of the forcing or threatening party, when in reality they are pursuing a deceptive strategy which allows them to avoid complying with those demands.
Defiance
The cost of using force-based threats increases dramatically when the opponent responds to a threat with defiance rather than submission. This forces the threatening party to carry out the threat or admit that it was a bluff. Carrying out a threat is likely to result in an expensive, destructive, and rapidly escalating confrontation, while withdrawing the threat is likely to undermine a party's ability to use threat and force-based strategies in the future.
Defense
Defense is a strategy which allows people to prevent others from successfully using force against them. Successful defense strategies do not, however, give the defending party the ability to successfully use force against their opponents.
Coalition Building
People can build their power base and their ability to pursue (or resist) force-based strategies by building coalitions with people with complementary interests. Members of these coalitions promise to help each other advance their interests and defend themselves from external force-based strategies.
Deterrence, Counter-Threats, and Arms Races
Often disputants respond to force-based threats with counter-threats rather than submission. Such threats and counter threats can result rapid escalation of a conflict. In military situations, this is called an "arms race." Similar dynamics can arise with legal, political, or other types of force as well.
Flight (Refugees)
Another possible response to overwhelming force is flight, in which the parties simply flee the area. It is this strategy which is responsible for the large numbers of refugees who flee the world's trouble spots.