Analysis

In light of the examples in Chapter 3, it is useful to see how the approaches to business-based peacebuilding described in Chapter 2 hold up. Both CSR and economic causes of war literature have some relevance to businessbased peacebuilding, but they serve primarily as the foundation upon which the specific literature of business-based peacebuilding has developed. Their relevance outside of this is that they illustrate two different approaches adopted by companies faced with conflict. Some companies choose actions derived from the CSR model like local community engagement, mitigation of negative effects of the business, and most social investment programs. Others adopt the economic causes model and promote programs designed specifically to address development and economic growth, or the equitable distribution of resources. However, most combine aspects of both. It is more interesting to examine the business-based peacebuilding theory itself to see how well it addresses the cases presented in Chapter 3. In addressing motivations, Nelson (2000) saw seven characteristics of the contemporary business experience that encourage companies to get involved in peacebuilding. On reflection, many of these are not necessary to explain business-based peacebuilding. Nelson lists three components related to the expansion of companies: privatization, liberalization, and increased investment in emerging markets. The argument is that greater engagement with the world would encourage business-based peacebuilding efforts. However, the majority of companies involved in business-based peacebuilding, with the exception of those providing donation support to humanitarian efforts and those who are building tools for peacebuilders, such as Groove, were only active in areas where they already had business operations. It is not necessary to explain why the businesses have such operations as much as why some companies with such operations choose business-based peacebuilding while others choose compliance, do-no-harm strategies, flight, or apathy – a question well suited to additional research. Nelson also considers technological change and global competitiveness to be motivating factors for business-based peacebuilding. From the cases examined, it is difficult to see how this could be the case. It is reasonable to

believe technological change and global competitiveness have made MNCs less likely to just write off the costs of conflict or to leave an area when conflict starts, but this approach does not have much to say about the businessbased peacebuilding efforts themselves. Nelson’s other two motivations, increased societal expectations, and the changing nature of governance are the most appropriate for the business-based peacebuilding efforts described. These explanations are deficient, however, in that they are all external to the companies themselves. Nelson fails to realize there are internal changes in businesses that correspond to the external motivations. Not every company that receives societal pressure to assist in a conflict opts to do so. Talisman in Sudan was under pressure from both its home government, Canada, and international activists, yet did not engage in business-based peacebuilding. Likewise, it is inaccurate to presume that changing governance structures that allow for non-governmental governance would automatically pull in business actors. Many of the examples in Chapter 3 illustrate that corporations that practice business-based peacebuilding usually do so out of a recognition of “enlightened self interest” that incorporates the wellbeing of the society around them into their business decisions – the “cultural change” described by von Koerber (2002) as well as the “conflict mainstreaming” described by others. This, by and large, is the product of an internalization of CSR discourse and the weakening of the pure Anglo-Saxon model of business. This is especially evident in South Africa, where some companies were taking principled stands on apartheid that had to harm their business from a bookkeeping perspective. The shift to a CSR-influenced business philosophy opens up the possibility of businesses taking action outside their core business practices and virtually demands that they incorporate societal concerns into the practices themselves. This expansion of the range of options possible within normal business can then be coupled with a similar expansion in the venues in which businesses can act, to provide a tentative explanation for the growth of business-based peacebuilding. It is not just that governance space was created, but that internal forces pushed businesses to fill it. The cases in Chapter 3 endorse the idea that many companies will take action after an increase in costs attributable to the conflict. Especially in the Colombian and Sri Lankan experience, violence led to direct responses from companies and the business community. In South Africa, the costs were more likely imposed by sanctions than violence, but they affected companies nonetheless. Similarly, the costs could be reputational and related to activist pressure much more than the experience on the ground. Some perspectives argue it is important for conflict resolution organizations to promote a fuller understanding of the costs of conflict on business. The preceding examples, however, do not fully support this conclusion. It is patently evident that businesses do not have the ability to comprehensively understand their own role in the conflict as well as external, trained specialists, but that does not mean they are incapable of understanding the costs

associated to the way they do business. Corporations are organizations run on a cost-gain decision making structure. Actions are taken because they are believed to have gains that justify the costs. Risk, of course, is always a component of this and no one would expect every company to act the same way in the same situation. When activists and scholars of business-based peacebuilding discuss informing the business communities of the costs of a conflict, they are using the wrong approach. What they should be doing instead is taking action to make the effects of the conflict into costs for the company. This is already happening, but is not recognized as such. What is meant here is that it is much more difficult to break down engrained business decision-making processes to get business leaders to focus formally on items outside of their calculations. Instead, it is better to translate the conflict into costs the business can understand. This is not reframing, but a quite literal attempt to make conflict costly for business. The best recent examples of this might be the blood diamonds or dolphin-safe tuna campaigns. In both cases, industry compliance was gained by asking consumers to make behavioral changes which could cost companies directly. There is no reason that similar efforts could not be used to promote positive peacebuilding. In fact, PeaceWorks is subtly imposing these types of costs on its competitors by promoting purchasing its products as promoting peace. Arguably, this is the same process that has mainstreamed CSR over the past thirty-five years. As more people discuss social responsibilities of corporations, the corporations are more willing to increase the costs of violating the CSR guides, whether through consumer boycotts, regulation, or even just a general distaste among consumers for the company and its products. This cost-making activity, which is primarily rhetorical, can be partnered with another framing strategy, the promotion of a “peace dividend.” While the concept may be terminologically difficult in some areas, the examples of Northern Ireland and Sri Lanka especially illustrate the use of envisioning positive possibilities. The literature mentioned in Chapter 2 treats this as businesses (or, more often, associations) making a business-based argument for peace. However, it likely has repercussions outside the raw calculation of likely GNP. Peace-dividend-style appeals from the business community, in many cases, may provide the first realistic alternative discourse to the outcomes promoted by the conflicting parties. Of course, this kind of intervention is not unique to business-based peacebuilding. In fact, interpersonal models often focus on allowing participants to see past their lived-in conflict and envision possible futures (Wilslade and Monk 2000). Businesses and business associations that ask individuals to look past the current conflict to reasonable, possible futures are helping in the resolution of the conflict. The range of possible actions described by analysts in Chapter 2 appears to be sufficient in capturing the possibilities of business-based peacebuilding

described in Chapter 3. However, businesses do not seem committed to following peacebuilding approaches tailored to the conflict types (identity, economic, and so forth) as described by Nelson. Company efforts are much more likely to be based on an evaluation of what is needed within the current context than in addressing the believed causes of conflict. This is an example of what Sandole calls the “two-culture problem” (Sandole 1999: 131). This arises because there is a divergence between actors attempting to eliminate the causes of the conflict and those attempting to interrupt the process of conflict. Sandole found that what many conflict analysts refer to as the “causes” of the conflict, what Sandole calls the “startup conditions,” only fuel the conflict at the beginning. There is a point beyond which the conflict itself becomes the largest “cause” of further conflict. For Sandole, this is the difference between “conflict-as-startup conditions” and “conflict-asprocess.” The effective intervention in conflict requires an accurate assessment of whether the conflict is in startup conditions or as process. The conflicts in which businesses are actively pursuing business-based peacebuilding are almost always long-term and certainly have moved into conflictas-process. Therefore, the business approach of addressing current concerns instead of the perceived “causes” of the conflict is appropriate. Seen from this perspective, it is quite possible that the businesses involved in businessbased peacebuilding are taking a more effective approach to conflict than many conflict resolution organizations. Luckily, those organizations like IMTD and International Alert that are active in business-based peacebuilding appear similarly sophisticated. To an extent, this analysis implies that Zandvliet’s concern that companies take a simplistic view of conflict can be mitigated by the fact that they focus more pragmatically on addressing what they see, instead of applying such an analysis to devising a comprehensive peacebuilding scheme (2002). Concerns such as those of Bais and Hujiser (2005), who wrote that business could not be effective in dialogue, are not supported by the cases in Chapter 3. While businesses cannot participate in dialogue with other parties as if they are participating in business-to-business negotiations, there is no evidence to suggest they are attempting to do so. Businesses, especially large-scale and multinationals, regularly have to communicate with individuals outside the business community, whether regulators or lawmakers in government, local communities, or the media. They even have entire departments – marketing – dedicated to communicating with a group of people who have different opinions and worldviews. Of course, there is also a lot of movement by individuals between the foreign policy, trade agencies and corporations. In at least one case a company, Lundin, hired a diplomat to assist its business-based peacebuilding efforts. This is not to say that businesses are uniquely qualified to mediate – that is not the case – but to singularly rule them out is unjustified. Conflict resolution has long been an amateur vocation and although the professionalization of the field is helpful, this should not be done to exclude viable partners in peace.