Michele Acuto, Contributing Editor
The present context is moving towards an increasing dependence of the official style of foreign affairs on transnational means undertaken at other tiers. In this view, the role of the so-called “Track-II” should be revised in those situations where the tensions are escalating, or the perils for the global system are too high to be settled through this type of diplomacy. In these cases, perhaps, the best method is that hybrid type of mediation that has been defined as Track One and a Half.
In order to understand this reasoning it is necessary to start from the changing structure of the international order. At present, state-to-state interactions are not always the best response to the emergence of transnational dangers and cross-border civil disputes. When faced with emergencies of this sort, first-track instruments may fail due to their reliance on bureaucratized politics, and because of their dependence on domestic support. Consequently, Track-I mediations can collapse because of electoral cycles, internal pressure groups, and foreign policy stalemates, remaining imprisoned on Robert Putnam’s famous logic of the “two-level game.”
As a response to some of these hindrances, a set of informal fora has been put in place in recent decades to look for alternative solutions to international conflicts. This variety of negotiation—commonly known as “Track Two diplomacy”—presents numerous advantages in respect to the limits of the official communication channels.
Firstly, Track-II dialogues can take place regardless of many bureaucratic conditions that often impede formal negotiations, as for instance accreditations schemes. Further, and often as a spin-off effect of this possibility, second-track meetings can provide a milieu where to act when foreign relations are paralysed, as in the case of the NEACD’s dialogue on the Korean nuclear crisis during the Six Party Talks deadlock. Moreover, they can also function as ‘agents’ of socialization and promote identity-building exercises, fostering cooperation between the international actors involved in the process. This has, for example, been the case of the ASEAN Institute of Strategic and International Studies (ASEAN-ISIS) role in South-East Asia. Additionally, Track-II fora grant numerous possibilities to develop personal relations between civil society members, officials and scholars, creating an even greater number of cross-border ties with an inherently informal nature. In this environment it is also possible to test new policy orientations and consider their acceptability at various levels of the international system, since the deliberations of such meetings are usually far from being binding.
According to Joseph Montville’s original interpretation, the goals of Track-II diplomacy are essentially three: developing strategies, influencing public opinion, and organizing resources to resolve conflict. The most efficient institution of this type of ‘unofficial’ international relations is the role played by third party mediation. Those who manage second-track cooperation efforts have the possibility of building meaningful levels of confidence, while trying to produce practical strategies to solve the disagreement amongst the parties. Consequently, as John McDonald put it: “this track is not for amateurs.” The mediators have to have a sufficient preparation to prevent the weaknesses of Track-II diplomacy from overcoming its strengths. In fact, assuring communication alone is not necessarily a sufficient means of conflict resolution and identities can be highlighted rather than tuned down. Second track suggestions can lose effect if perceived as disconnected to the first track. Also, participants can be misled by their incomplete knowledge, risking duplication and contradictory outcomes, as well as being easily targeted as messengers of their home countries. Resolutions from these fora may take too long to yield results, and indeed create no results at all in some cases. Finally, second-track actions are not enough to reduce the tensions or stop the direct (even armed) confrontations between international actors: Track-II diplomacy, albeit increasingly relevant at a global level, is still lacking the political and material leverage to stop large-scale clashes, and is often useless when it comes to influencing dictatorial polities that reject any level below the first track.
In view of these considerations, if it is fair to assert that Track-II diplomacy can address serious international issues that Track-I diplomacy simply cannot, the opposite is also true. In the contemporary context the answer to this dilemma is found in the middle—grey—ground.
To respond to the growing number of unconventional ‘international problems’ the diplomatic tracks are to be used together, until the anarchical system of states will be replaced by some alternative order. Track-II cannot be a universal substitute for Track-I interchange, as much as the latter cannot do without the former in a progressively higher number of settings. This is reflected in the major second-track dialogues that are currently taking place: security is still the main concern for governmental and non-governmental actors, but environmental and developmental talks are taking a substantial role on the global scene, alongside the evergreen economic round-tables.
One of the most effective middle-ground solutions can be pinpointed in what Susan Allen Nan called “Track One and a Half Diplomacy.” This kind of mediation is still considered at the unofficial level, as it is meant to be managed by non-governmental entities, but involving in the dialogue officials from the conflict in question as well.
Brokering agreements at this level may enjoy the advantages offered by Track-II, avoiding political stalemates and bureaucratic requirements, while retaining much of the ability to influence directly the top level that the second track loses in its bottom-up processes.
‘Track-1˝’ actions can draw on a particular diplomatic agility that is frequently missing in the other tracks’ proceedings. Mediators at this rank are usually less engaged in open meetings and conference diplomacy and tend to reach at the sources of the grievances more effectively than others.
Examples of Track One and a Half can be found, for instance, in the Crisis Management Initiative (CMI) mission in Aceh, led by the former Finnish president and Nobel laureate Martti Ahtisaari, or in the Carter Center negotiation for the “Guinea Worm Ceasefire” in 1995 within the Sudanese civil war. Often, ‘Track-1˝’ efforts are taken up by independent institutions with strong links to the governmental level, and widely recognised personalities as key intermediaries. Other examples of this type, alongside the CMI and the Carter Center, may be the recently established initiative of The Elders, which groups 13 renowned political pundits and is currently involved in Darfur, or the Global Center for the Responsibility to Protect, which has been created by a number of NGOs such as Oxfam and Human Rights Watch. These and others represent modern and relatively lithe brokers on the global scene that might have a relevant role in the years to come.
In the current evolving landscape of world politics, that sees the emergence of human security challenges, we are leading towards an ever more relevant role for Track-II and ‘Track-1˝’ diplomacy, with official state-to-state relations increasingly dependent on these. While this does not mean that the time for Track-I to leave the scene to alternative means has come, the first level is now obliged to adapt to a context where the tracks ‘below’ it are setting the pace. In these circumstances, the middle way solution may possibly be the right one.
