Theory and practice of track -two diplomacy: Impact and dynamics of the Search for Common Ground in the Middle East initiative

This research explores the experience of the Search for Common Ground in the Middle East (SCGME) initiative, a major effort in track-two diplomacy with particular relevance to the Arab-Israeli conflict. This multi-faceted, nongovernmental initiative is found to have a humanizing impact upon its more active participants, and to have made modest contributions to their empowerment for work related to conflict resolution at societal as well as interstate levels. These generally positive results suggest that sustained, nonofficial dialogue can complement official peacemaking efforts in significant ways, provided a conducive, non-escalatory political environment and careful effort to establish additional conditions for the desired impacts: involvement of interested and committed participants, facilitation of consistent and adaptive processes, and the cultivation of cultural empathy among members of opposed communal groups. As an example of an "integrative approach" to track-two diplomacy, the SCGME case provides potential lessons that merit further inquiry by researchers and practitioners. First, while the vicissitudes of a political environment can easily affect the dynamics and reduce the impact of a sustained track-two initiative, the SCGME experience attests that, provided adequate support and a degree of prior momentum, it is possible for interventions to survive reversals in official peace processes and continue to make modest contributions to peacebuilding efforts. Second, because the degree of success achieved by various working groups within SCGME often reflected differential levels of participant interest and commitment, careful attention should be given to participant selection and/or screening processes for activities that are intended to create group cohesion and have some catalytic function. Third, whereas the most humanizing and empowering impacts of SCGME appear closely related to consistency of effort, adequate funding of track-two activities is probably essential if they are to adapt to changing interests and circumstances and acquire momentum and vitality. Fourth, because limitations of humanizing and empowering impacts often implicated incomplete development of realistic cultural empathy among participants from estranged communities, protagonists and students of track-two diplomacy should carefully consider to the role of theory and facilitation methodology in interventions intended to generate new understandings and options in the midst of intercommunal conflict.