ABSTRACT

Conflict prevention has been a long-standing and high-profile international policy goal, and yet in practice international agencies have found it difficult to operationalise, with the structural dimension of conflict prevention proving especially challenging. Drawing on a review of policy documents, parliamentary debates, and key informant interviews, this article uses a detailed case study of the UK government’s structural conflict prevention policy between 2010 and 2015 to understand why international agencies have found it difficult to implement such policies. Our analysis traces this failure by examining top-level strategy, translation into department-level policy, and country-level implementation in South Sudan. The article finds that the UK government failed to implement structural conflict prevention for three key reasons: because the concepts were not well defined or communicated, because priorities were quickly drawn to more urgent problems, and because the approach was not institutionalised within departments or country offices. We argue that for SCP to succeed, international agencies need to be more realistic about the complex challenges associated with SCP and pay more attention to the process of institutionalisation.

摘要

预防冲突一直是一项长期且备受瞩目的国际政策目标，但在实践中，国际机构发现难以运作，事实证明，预防冲突的结构层面尤其具有挑战性。本文通过对政策文件、议会辩论和关键知情人访谈的回顾，对 2010 年至 2015 年英国政府的结构性冲突预防政策进行了详细的案例研究，以了解为什么国际机构发现此类政策难以实施。我们的分析通过检查南苏丹的顶级战略、转化为部门级政策和国家级实施来追溯这一失败。文章认为，英国政府未能实施结构性冲突预防主要有以下三个原因：因为这些概念没有得到很好的定义或传达，因为优先事项很快被吸引到更紧迫的问题上，并且因为该方法没有在部门或国家办事处内制度化。我们认为，SCP 要取得成功，国际机构需要对与 SCP 相关的复杂挑战更加现实，并更加关注制度化过程。