TEMPLATE DESIGN © Deep Democratic Reform in Agreement Formation and Approval Mechanism is Widely Supported and Positively Impacts Cognitive, Emotional and Behavioral Attitudes Doron Tzur Program for Negotiation and Conflict Resolution, Bar-Ilan University, Isreal. Abstract The common wisdom is that conflict resolution requires negotiation between the leaders and the public’s role is to support the process. I submit that a deep democratic reform in the agreement formation and approval process can, by itself, transform a seemingly intractable conflict. The joint work of both polities to constructively review many possible package deals enables a stable and well- considered shift in beliefs and mutual perception, better solutions and improved immunity to ‘spoilers’. An Internet questionnaire was administered to a small sample (N=61) of participants selected to socio-demographically represent the Israeli population. A Respondent first rated the current mechanism, then rated options for democratic reform in final approval, agreement evolution method and decision-making and finally composed her preferred mechanism and rated it. 52% preferred a democratic reform in all three areas, 28% in two and 10% in one. Only 10% preferred no reform at all. Respondents perceived their democratically reformed mechanism to be more faithfully representative (+2.98 on 0:10 scale, p<10 -5 ), arousing hope (+2.22, p<10 -5 ), enabling agreement in a few years (+2.02, p<10 -5 ), should be activated immediately (+1.87, p<10 -3 ), reduces concerns (1.69, p<10 -3 ), agreement would prove ripeness (+1.55, p<10 -4 ) and internal conflict would decrease (1.27, p<10 -2 ). Conceptualization Resolution/peace-building process in “Intractable” ethno-national conflicts Substance Mechanism Relations Implementation Agreement formation and approval Ripening Mechanism Component “Standard” Model Democratic Reform Examples Agreement Evolution BargainingOpen Evolving Tender Decisions during Agreement Evolution Political leadersOpen Public Decision Parliaments Mini Public Expert Committee Final Agreement Approval Govt+ParliamentReferendum New Elections Personal Signing Secrecy“Closed doors”“Open doors” ResponsibilityPolitical systemDedicated body Widely considered to be the most important phase The (usually neglected) focus of this research: Can a reincarnated modern Democratic Diplomacy make a difference? Method Reform Preferences A Model for Reform Influence Reform Impact on Perceived Effectiveness Population: 61 participants sampled from a 20,000 members Internet panel so as to socio- demographically represent the Israeli population. Sample checked out to be in close match with Israel central bureau of statistics data on gender, age, marital status, ethnicity, political inclination and religiosity but somewhat more educated. Comparison with “Peace Index” data (based on larger phone surveys) indicated that the sample’s attitudes towards the Israeli-Palestinian conflict are also well representative. Questionnaire: Basically a deliberative exercise designed to establish common terminology and objectively ‘educate’ participants about the mechanism and options for its reform, while gathering information. The questionnaire contained 35 questions with a total of 113 items. Most questions requested a 0-10 assessment of agreement with a statement. Respondents were encouraged to explain their choices in writing and were also asked 6 specific open questions – this was done to both gather qualitative information and to induce deeper deliberation and cognitive involvement in the subject matter. Individual deliberative effect was found large (s~3) but balanced (m~0). Main Analyses: described in relying on data from. 2. Questions from “Peace Index” 1. Introduction and instructions 3. effectiveness of “ current mechanism ” 7. Democracy, the conflict and socio-demographics. 5. Select “preferred Reforms combination” 6. effectiveness of “ preferred mechanism ” 4. Agreement to Component reforms Reform preferences Reform Motivation Reform Impact Open_Tender, Open_Vote, Referendum? (estimate what the participants would have chosen if asked to approve this combination in a referendum after deliberation) boxes Questionnaire sections Direct choices tended to reflect conservatism and respondent’s judgment of practicability relative to agreement levels. 62.3% are “Reformists” (estimated to support 3 [32.8%] or 2 [29.5%] out of Open Tender, Open Vote, Referendum reforms over the current mechanism). They tend to doubt that Palestinians want peace (r=-0.378, p=0.003), and display a dissonance (p=0.03) between “Palestinians deserve a state” but “won’t accept it as an end to the conflict”. Reformism correlates positively with support for deliberative democracy (r=0.19, p=0.14) and negatively with importance of international support (r=-0.22, p=0.09), the “ mutual fear and misunderstanding ” conflict narrative (r=-0.17, p=0.18) and with assessment of leadership’s ability (r=-0.17, p=0.2). Reformism also correlates to positive change in “ Mechanism Importance ” due to answering the questionnaire (r=0.265, p=0.04) – a deliberative effect. Cognitive Behavior Prediction Emotion The model summarizes the main linear connections among the 15 most important effectiveness differences for participants who indicated they want one change or more (n=55 ). All coefficients are significant at p=0.1 or better. Goodness of fit index = Model was initiated from single factor models (containing loops) but discarding the less significant terms also eliminated the cycles. As raw data reflects different reforms, this model is best interpreted as an explanation to what drives people away from the current situation and how cognitive assessment of a reformed mechanism (mainly that it faithfully represents and reduces internal conflict ) leads to very significant peace promoting changes in emotion, behavior and positive predictions for the outcome of the mechanism and the superiority of its results. Summary & Conclusions Support for democratic reform and its perceived positive impact on the conflict resolution process have been tentatively established. A confirmatory step of directly measuring the impact of the unified reform would increase confidence in these results. The research actually executed a mini version of an open tender and open vote on mechanism options and thus demonstrated the viability of involving “ordinary people” in complex decisions like those needed in the agreement formation stage. In fact, with the addition of iterations and final “referendum” it is very similar in flavor to the reform it is researching. Nineteen statements were used as an operative definition of “perceived effectiveness”. The chart shows their brief definitions and the percent supporters (= those who indicated 6-10 on the 0-10 agreement scale + ½ of the neutrals) of the statement for: 1. Reformists after individual hypothetical reform (n=38) 2. Reformists in the current mechanism (n=38) 3. Non Reformists (Conservatives) in the current mechanism (n=23) Effectiveness variables are shown in decreasing order of their average change from current mechanism to reform over the entire sample. For those marked (-) decrease is an improvement. The most marked increase is in Faithfully Represents, indicating that reformists feel not represented in the current mechanism. However, were this to be changed, they assess that an agreement can be quickly reached, have higher hopes and much lower concerns and believe that an agreement will prove ripeness, all significantly stronger than the conservatives – enthusing them to activate the reformed mechanism immediately. In other variables: durability of peace, satisfaction from the agreement content, seeing the agreement as an indication to relationship change and support for the agreement (both positive support and obliged support ), reform brings reformists to a par with conservatives and renews their interest.to follow closely. If the “Open Tender, Open Vote, Referendum” reform was offered to participants, it is likely that Reformists would react to it similarly to their own reform (with perhaps slightly decreased differences). It is much harder to predict if conservatives would then lower their perceived effectiveness, thus offsetting some of the reform benefits of rather ‘jump on the band wagon” with the majority..