Creating Concord Organizations: Institutional Design for Bridging Antagonistic Cultures

Introduction

Communal violence within countries and regions has been on the rise since the end of the Cold War.2 To give two of many possible examples, 60,000 people have died from fighting or its consequences in Ethiopia and Eritrea and 30,000 have died in Chechnya. Against the drum beat of violence and death, there has also been another, less visible, trend. Some societies with deep communal divisions have moved toward greater democratic accommodation, toleration, and a sense of a shared future. South Africa, Northern Ireland, Israel and Palestine in the Oslo period, some troubled cities in India and the United States, and more recently the Greek and Turkish enclaves on Cyprus are all examples of ‘societies' moving toward less violent and more accommodating communal relations. To use the terms popularized by Lipschutz and Crawford, most of these societies are moving from the question of’ Who Dominates?' (that is, illiberal states with contested participation) to the question of ‘Who Belongs?’ (that is, liberal states still struggling with constitutive issues).3

One problem with the categorization of communal conflict proposed by Lipschutz and Crawford is that it rests on large structural arrangements. They say little about how societies move toward less violent, more effective inter-communal relations. Certainly, the formal establishment of democratic rule of law, competitive parties, and honest administration creates the preconditions for liberal regimes, which in turn create frameworks for equitable communal inclusion. Likewise, communal strife is diminished by policies that expand economic growth and respond to those who cannot succeed by market means. But liberal and (re)distributive regimes do not automatically convert conflict over domination into conflict over belonging. Democratic theory and practice tell us that mediating institutions are necessary for the adoption of democratic communal problem solving. For instance, Varshney found that it takes successful cross-community organizations, including the Hindu – Muslim alliance in the old-style Congress party, to activate the advantages embedded in somewhat favorable structural relations. He noted that Indian cities with more cross-community organizations of all kinds had lower levels of communal violence. Importantly, he also found that in Indian cities cross-community contacts by themselves, such as going to the wedding of a friend from another community, are not predictive of lower levels of communal violence.<>

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