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ABSTRACT
What happens when the promotion of ‘inclusive peace’ creates an exclusionary negotiated settlement? Through analysing the promotion of inclusion in Myanmar's Nationwide Ceasefire Agreement (NCA) negotiations that took place from 2011–15, I challenge claims in peace research that the more inclusive a peace process is, the more effective the outcome. Through discussing how the promotion of the inclusivity norm to the negotiating parties had unintended negative effects on the outcome of the process, namely excluding certain armed groups and crowding out civil society actors, I argue against assuming that integrating salient peacemaking norms always result in effective outcomes.
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No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Notes
1 This article acknowledges the drastic and tragic political and social changes that unfolded in the country after the Myanmar military seized power from the civilian government on 1 February 2021, but intentionally focuses on the period of negotiations between 2011 and 2015 to distill the process of norm diffusion within the context of ongoing talks within this transitional period of quasi-civilian rule. Therefore, it refers to the Myanmar military as the Tatmadaw instead of sit-tat, and ethnic armed groups (EAGs) as EAGs rather than ‘Ethnic Resistance Organizations,’ (EROs), terms in use in the post-coup period. See: https://teacircleoxford.com/politics/sit-tat-or-tatmadaw-debates-on-what-to-call-the-most-powerful-institution-in-burma/.
2 Hereafter referred to as ‘exclusive outcome.’ As the NCA was meant to have all 16 government-recognised groups sign, ‘only’ having 8 out of 16 sign was seen by many as a non-ideal outcome. Furthermore, many Myanmar analysts contended that signatories consisted of less powerful EAGs and larger and more powerful armed groups did not sign.
3 For more on the mechanisms of normative agency, see Pring and Palmiano Federer Citation2020.
4 This article is based on empirical fieldwork for a doctoral dissertation written in the framework of the Swiss National Science Funded project, ‘Are mediators norm entrepreneurs?’ For more information about norms and mediation, see the Swiss Political Science Review Volume 26, Issue 4; Special Issue: Norms in International Mediation. Earlier drafts of this article were presented at the Oxford Burma Studies Graduate Student Workshop in 2018 and at the Centre for Security Studies ETH Zurich in 2019. The findings from this research have also been published in a book titled NGOs Mediating Peace: Promoting Inclusion in Myanmar’s Nationwide Ceasefire Negotiations, Palgrave Macmillan. The research for this article was done in accordance with the principles of Scientific Integrity at the University of Basel and the Swiss National Science Foundation during 2015–18 preceding the requirement for a formal ethics review.
5 This theoretical adaption of norm localization theory to mediation is based on Hellmüller, Palmiano Federer, and Pring Citation2017.
6 For more on the local agency of peace process actors in framing inclusivity as a key issue, see Pring and Palmiano Federer Citation2020.
7 For this article, this label refers to the range of international NGO mediators, donors and foreign embassy political staff directly supporting the peace process.
8 See for instance, Saw Yan Naing. 2017. Shan Delegation Tours Switzerland to Study Federal System. 26 January 2016. The Irrawaddy. Available at: https://www.irrawaddy.com/news/burma/shan-delegation-tours-switzerland-to-study-federal-system.html accessed 15 February 2024.
9 Interview with EAG representative, 12 April 2017; Interview with EAG representative, 10 May 2017; Interview with government technical team member, 4 April 2017.
10 They mentioned in the article: ‘From a strategic standpoint, the future of the peace process is in serious jeopardy if all the armed ethnic groups are not included in the framework.’ See, for example, The Irrawaddy. 2016. Leon de Riedmatten: 'You Cannot Talk About Nationwide Ceasefire if You Don't Include Everyone,' available from: https://www.irrawaddy.com/in-person/leon-de-riedmatten-you-cannot-talk-about-nationwide-ceasefire-if-you-dont-include-everyon.html accessed on 26 June 2019.
11 Interview with international Myanmar analyst, 23 March 2017.
12 Thanks to an anonymous reviewer for this point.
13 Interview with government technical team member, 17 May 2017.
14 Interview with government technical team member, 30 November 2017.
15 Interview with government technical team member, 30 November 2017.
16 Ibidem.
17 See: ICG, 2014, and EBO Briefing Paper 3/2015, “The Last Hurdle to Signing the NCA: Unity/Inclusiveness: 14+1 versus 16+1.”
18 Thanks to an anonymous reviewer for these points.
19 Su Myat Mon. 2018. The need for women’s inclusion in the peace process, available from: https://frontiermyanmar.net/en/the-need-for-womens-inclusion-in-the-peace-process accessed on 26 June 2019.
20 Interview with international Myanmar analyst, 23 March 2017.
21 See, for example, the Alliance for Gender in the Peace Process. 2015. Where are the women in Myanmar’s Peace Process, available from: https://www.agipp.org/en/news/where-are-women-myanmars-peace-process accessed on 26 June 2019.
22 Ibidem.
23 Interview with international Myanmar analyst, 18 January 2018.
24 Interview with international Myanmar analyst, 17 February 2017.
25 Ibidem.
26 This section is adapted with permission, from Chapter 7: The Trouble with Inclusivity: How Promoting Inclusive Peace Led to an Exclusive Outcome (Palmiano Federer Citation2024).
27 Ethnic Armed Organizations’ Summit Statement Law Khee Lar, Karen State, 2–9 June 2015.
28 Interview with International Myanmar Analyst, 4 April 2017.
29 The non-signatories to the NCA had refused to sign the agreement, as it didn’t include six non-state armed groups: Ta’ang National Liberation Army (TNLA), Arakan Army (AA), Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army (MNDAA), Lahu Democratic Union (LDU), Arakan National Congress (ANC) and Wa National Organisation (WNO).
30 Institute for Security and Development Policy. 2015. Myanmar’s Nationwide Ceasefire Agreement, available from. http://isdp.eu/publication/myanmars-nationwide-ceasefire-agreement/ accessed on 26 June 2019.
31 Interview number 84, 18 January 2018.
32 Ibidem.
33 Thank you to Professor Matthew Walton for this point.
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Julia Palmiano Federer
Julia Palmiano Federer is a Senior Researcher at the Center for Security Studies (CSS) at ETH Zürich and a Research Fellow at the Ottawa Dialogue, University of Ottawa. Her research interests center around innovative and critical approaches to peace mediation and conflict resolution, including the role of norms in peace mediation, the role of nongovernmental organisations producing knowledge and expertise on peacemaking and the impact of Track Two (unofficial dialogues) on questions of inclusion and effectiveness.