The Post-Cold War era witnessed a dramatic rise in the number of peace agreements between parties mired in deep-rooted conflict. However, many of these agreements quickly broke down. Nearly 90% of armed conflicts in the twenty-first century are repetitive conflicts.1 The involvement of civil society in peace processes is increasingly viewed as important to societies affected by protracted conflict. Expectations for the role of civil society are growing due to the limitations of high-level peace negotiations, both in reaching an agreement and sustaining the peace process. Top-level political and military leaders in the limelight, sitting across a negotiation table, tend to be locked into positions and publicly stated goals. High-level negotiations often focus on “an issue-oriented and short-term achievement” and have a record of destroying rather than building platforms for peace.2 Then, how much impact can civil society have and what roles can it take in a peace process? Is civil society peacebuilding an alternative to mainstream high-level political negotiations?
To answer this question, this book looks at the Korean peace process and the role of civil society. The Korean conflict emerged from the impact of a changing global order during and after the Second World War. The Korean peninsula was divided by the US and the Soviet occupations in 1945, following 36 years of Japanese colonial rule. Despite efforts through the UN to create a unified Korea, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) was established in the North and the Republic of Korea (ROK) was established in the South in 1948. It was not only a partition of a territory, but also a division of politics, economy, society, culture, family, ideology and even religion. Additionally, the Korean War (1950–1953) and the Cold War turned this division into a protracted conflict. The experience of the Korean War initiated the dominance of a Cold War identity for both Koreas, and this identity weakened the collective identity of Korea as a whole nation so radically that even following the Cold War, inter-Korean identity politics did not turn around.3
In some ways, peace seems to have been kept in the Korean peninsula, considering that there has not been a large scale battle between North Korea and South Korea since the armistice agreement was signed in 1953. There were several breakthroughs in the peace process such as the July 4 Communique of 1972; the 1991 Basic Agreement; the June 15 Joint Declaration; and the October 4 Joint Declaration between North and South Korea; and the September 19 Joint statement and the February 13 Agreement in the six-party talks. However, these high-level agreements were never fully implemented and the mistrust between North and South Korea still appears to be a major obstacle to a sustainable peace in the Korean peninsula. Although the inter-Korean summits, followed by the US–North Korea summit in June, 2018 once again raised hopes for the resumption of the Korean peace process and an official end to the Korean War,4 there is always the possibility of a reoccurrence of war, given the serious provocations among the conflict parties until early 2018, and the competition for armament, including the development of nuclear and missile technology.5
The civil society in the Korean peninsula took on the peacebuilding role by building relationships across the boundaries of the Korean conflict, by influencing public opinion for social justice and peace, and by providing aid to vulnerable people in North Korea. But, it has been very difficult and sometimes quite dangerous for the Korean civil society to sustain these roles, as the governments have been tightly controlling contact between the people of South and North Korea in the name of national security. It became even more difficult for the civil society to continue their work after several breakdowns of the peace process. But, still many people in civil society are putting despair and fear aside, and trying to overcome limitations to build sustainable peace on the Korean peninsula.
This book applies the core concepts and theories of peacebuilding in the field of Peace and Conflict studies to critically examine the Korean peace process and the role of civil society in strategic peacebuilding. A brief discussion about the three key concepts of this book, ‘Peace Process’, ‘Peacebuilding’ and ‘Civil Society’, is necessary.
Peace Process
The term ‘peace process’ came into being during the international peace negotiations of the 1970s, such as the one between Israel, Syria, and Egypt, and became more and more popular during the 1990s, to refer to the tentative rapprochement between parties in a protracted conflict, and to the practice of building peace through staged negotiations. Jan Selby explains it as “phased processes for negotiating and nurturing peace”.6 John Darby and Roger Mac Ginty provide observations on the four phases of a peace process, which are pre-negotiation, the management of the process, the peace accord, and post-accord reconstruction. The pre-negotiation phase involves bringing the parties together and initiating talks. In order to create the momentum for negotiation, a combination of several triggers is required, for example secret talks and contacts at the civil society level, mediation by third parties, the aspirations of the people for peace, and a hospitable geopolitical situation. When negotiations begin, the management of the process is important. People in societies affected by a protracted conflict tend to have deep animosity and mistrust toward the other parties in the conflict. Therefore, a negotiation process is highly vulnerable to opposition from those within the conflict parties who do not agree with the peace process. To reach a negotiated settlement, questions about addressing the root causes and central grievances of the conflict would be key, but dealing with these questions may only extend stalemates. For this reason, in many cases, the most contentious issues are left unaddressed, so as to reach an agreement, bring the physical violence to an end, and create an institutional framework; a power-sharing structure, for example. Finally, following the peace accord, cementing the peace through the reconstruction of the societies is pursued. The implementation of the agreement and the resolution of the issues which were deferred to the post-accord phase, are now the areas of focus. The final phase generally includes demobilisation, disarmament, and reintegration (DDR), healing trauma, transitional justice, reconciliation, and socioeconomic development.7
According to Darby and Mac Ginty, these four phases do not necessarily occur in a linear fashion, because the context “peculiar to each country accounts for the distinctive sequencing of each process”.8 However, scholars point out that, despite different contexts, many peace processes share similar challenges, most of which are related to maintaining the process after the agreement. According to Jonathan Tonge, over half the peace processes since the end of the Second World War witnessed a recurrence of violence within two years following an agreement. Tonge says “Acceptance of the term ‘peace process’ requires understanding that transitions towards non-violence and the permanent eradication of conflict are non-linear, subject to regression and rarely short”.9
There are several theoretical and practical discussions pertaining to conditions under which peace is durable and the recurrence of violence is preventable. Amongst them, ‘liberal peace theory’ is the most widely accepted by major international organisations and government agencies. Liberal peace theory assumes that state weakness or failure is the main cause of violence; and the establishment of liberal political institutions and economic liberalisation are essential conditions for peace.10 A market economy is expected to be the catalyst for consolidating the process by increasing contact and reducing barriers between the conflict parties. The economic exchanges would spill over into the political sectors and foster regional integration, as in the case of the European Union. Additionally, liberal economic development would overcome the vicious circle of poverty and violence. This liberal agenda also appears to be in line with the facilitation of globalisation. However, as Selby points out, historically, the liberal approach did not guarantee the sustainability of peace processes such as the Palestine-Israeli peace process and the peace process between the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) and the Sri Lan...