Conflict Prevention: Principles, Policies and Practice

Summary

• Conflict prevention is widely endorsed in principle -including in the 2010 U.S. National Security Strategy- but too rarely put into serious practice. It is thus important to narrow the gap between rhetoric and action in preventing violent conflicts.
• The interest of elites in exploiting ethnic differences for political gains, the absence of well-established mechanisms for prevention in certain regions, and the destabilizing role of external meddling continue to impede the development of effective prevention strategies. 
• Yet, much progress has been made in the field of conflict prevention, both at the normative and the operational levels.
• As a crucial actor in conflict prevention, the United States should work with others to forge a consistent approach to countries at risk, urge countries to deal with arbitrary borders through negotiation rather than violence, and support greater cooperation between regional organizations.

About This Brief

On July 1, 2010, the U.S. Institute of Peace organized an all-day conference entitled "Preventing Violent Conflict: Principles, Policies, and Practice." The goals of this conference were to spotlight the importance of conflict prevention, to foster productive discussions between leading scholars and distinguished practitioners, and to identify priority areas for future work on conflict prevention by the Institute and the field at large. This Peace Brief provides an overview of that day's discussions.