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Introduction:
Paul Wehr, of the University of Colorado, advocates having a wide variety of
intervention methods for complex projects. A simple approach to a complex
situation may lead to more harm than good according to Wehr. One very important
element for the development of that bag of tricks is to use local knowledge.
Wehr advises against promoting what he calls "the tyranny of experts."
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This rough transcript provides a text alternative to audio. We apologize for occasional errors and unintelligible sections (which are marked with ???).
Intervention Methods
Paul Wehr
Peace and Conflict Studies, University of Colorado
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Every intervention should be a
multi-module one. You have to have a bag of tricks, or methods, and you mix and
match depending on the situation. There is no single magic bullet, no single
magic method. That's one of the things that is being suggested by this Columbia
experience. Importing 'Getting to Yes,' importing the BATNA, as the way to
resolve Columbian violence has led to a backlash. They call it a "blow back" now,
of negative consequences simply because you were relying on a method that is
being sort of transplanted from one culture to another as kind of an easy fix
and that's just not possible, I think.
...
But I
haven't taken it further to say what kind of a multi-model package of techniques
should I look for, would this suggest, what kind of specialist would you
involve. And of course my inclination more and more is to move away from
bringing in outside experts. I call it the tyranny of the experts. The idea that
these people know and you don't. This is where John Paul's work is so good in
that it looks for the answer within the community itself. Not bringing in
someone from the outside, even though he comes in from the outside. But helping
the communities to see that they have the answer within them. Within national
society it's much more a question of establishing communication links between
levels in societies and so forth.
...
It's probably a mix of
indigenous peacemaking and some external intervention. That is the lesson that came out of
this research in Nicaragua, and mediation in Nicaragua. Is this concept of the
insider partial, and the outsider neutral mediation, or intermediation - the idea
that when you combine these, you get a much richer mixture of possibilities. The
outsider is always very important - the observer - the mediator coming from
outside the conflict, is very important because those in conflict are always
looking, knowing they're being watched, by someone else. That tends to put them
on their best behavior. Of course, everyone wants to settle a dispute, and
yet we need the internal, indigenous resources to make it a good agreement to
make sure that it actually persists, that it survives, that it continues. So this mix of
outside and inside is very important.
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Well in the knowledge business, which is very structured, very
territorial. Academic disciplines have their territories that they've carved
out, and they protect those very fiercely. And that's at universities, for
example, departments, schools, law, engineering, arts and sciences and within each of those departments you have
more specialization, with a particular expert, who are often very specialized in
that segment of that discipline. So this is again, another illustration of the
tyranny of experts, of specialists. That's why trans-disciplinary approaches
have such a difficult time.
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