Book Review: Zartmann I. William, Preventing Deadly Conflict
| Published date | 01 October 2019 |
| Date | 01 October 2019 |
| DOI | 10.1177/0020881719857886 |
| Subject Matter | Book Reviews |
314 Book Reviews
Zartmann I. William, Preventing Deadly Conflict (Cambridge, UK;
Malden, MA: Polity Press, 2015), viii + 243 pp., US$19.95. ISBN
0745686915 (Hardback).
DOI: 10.1177/0020881719857886
The book under review analyses conflict in the international system, its causes
and the multiple stages of conflicts. The author interprets these phases of conflict
and mechanisms of resolution at each phase with precise detail with adequate and
relevant examples. The main objective of the book, as the title suggests, is to pro-
pose methods to resolve conflict. Conflict prevention may be planned in three
ways: (a) long-term prevention, (b) mid-term prevention and (c) short-term pre-
vention. The book in large part covers conflict in the international system while
referring in certain instances to intra-state conflict.
The author with a figure in the beginning of the book emphasizes ‘Conflict
ratchets its way from a passive state of incompatibilities to active confrontation,
escalating toward and into violence’ (p. 5). ‘Long term norms of prevention pro-
vide for handling conflict from its beginnings to the end, wherever in the conflict
cycle that end may occur’ (p. 5). Mid-term mechanisms for conflict management
and resolution work reverse the course of the cycle before it reaches the threshold
of violence. If those efforts fail, last-minute methods are indicated to prevent a
crisis and then to wind down the conflict so that the mechanisms and norms can
redirect its course through management towards resolution (p. 5). Consistently,
the study points towards the efforts for conflict resolution and the protracted
nature of intent for resolution.
In the chapters that follow, the book maintains this threefold typology of pre-
vention as an outline to understand and analyse conflicts of different kinds.
However, the first chapter undertakes an insightful analysis of the challenges to
the process of prevention, namely sovereignty, knowledge, prediction, early warn-
ing, action, effectiveness, protection and non-prevention. Among the challenges,
majority is self-explanatory, and the book highlights the important aspect of
knowledge of various facets of a particular conflict, which may be helpful in
devising methods of prevention. He argues that ‘conflict is always overdeter-
mined and the causes are multiple and hidden and it is difficult to establish a
causal chain that would enable the preventers to break the links effectively’
(p. 15). Intricate knowledge of different aspects of conflict is a prerequisite to
initiate the process.
The second chapter focuses on the prevalence of prevention in the international
system and titled as The Ubiquity of Prevention. The chapter establishes, with
numerous examples, that conflict has been prevented from occurring in numerous
situations, and that has been the norm. The chapter covers three types of conflicts
in detail, namely security conflict, territorial conflict and ethnic conflicts.
However, in the context of conflicts related to security, the book argues that the
end of Cold War and the consequent end of incumbent equilibrium had effects on
security in the system. The author explains that ‘under the circumstances of the
second decade of the new millennium, the structure, agents, and norms for conflict
prevention are very uncertain, and World Order is reeling’ (p. 42). He underlines
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