"Can Civil Society Achieve Civility WITHOUT the Civilian? Instigation Theory argues that without voluntary approval of the civilian, Civil Society loses its capitalization and morphs from proponent to Observer, or worse, 'Disruptor'." (Poster Presentation for 4th Annual Celebration of Student Scholarship)

1. “He Who Feeds You, Controls You”
(right) West African Leader and anti neo-colonist Captain Thomas Sankara:
Sankara declared war on corruption and embraced personal austerity, paying himself a salary of $450 a
month, slashing the wages of his top officials and forbidding the use of chauffeur-driven
Mercedes and first class airline tickets by his ministers and senior civil servants. He refused to have his
picture displayed in public buildings, still a rare thing in the Africa of 2015, and was staunchly
opposed to foreign aid, declaring: ‘He who feeds you, controls you.’
Instigation Theory: Genesis
ABSTRACT
Instigation Theory is simple: it argues that one solution causes another problem. Additionally, it
states that the short-term solution should always coexist with the measurable achievement of
sustainable results and never in place of such results. Finally, Instigation Theory condemns
haste—passionate action and action without internal resolve, and codes such an action as a
disruptor.
LITERATURE REVIEW
Thompson on the necessity of the citizen in Civil Society progress: “The policy of national unity
and reconciliation cannot be understood in isolation from the interactions of ordinary [citizens]
with its mechanisms; it is the dialectic between the individual and the policy that determines
individual opportunities to exercise agency.” (Ch. 5, Everyday Resistance…)
Galtung on imposing a culture: "A major task of peace research, and the peace movement in
general, is that never-ending search for a peace culture - problematic, because of the
temptation to institutionalize that culture, making it obligatory with the hope of internalizing it
everywhere. And that would already be direct violence, imposing a culture." (p. 291)
Richmond on the citizen’s consent: Conflict-resolution approach was "based on a human-
needs/world-society framework developed out of a need to find a process that could facilitate
"Resolution," rather than management, of intractable conflicts...and was derived from bottom-
up, grassroots movement.... Conflict-resolution approaches attempted to bring the individual
back into the realm of conflict" by making the case that only through the consent "of the
individual citizen" can conflict be "resolved at the diplomatic level." (p. 321)
Corey Jefferson, cjeffer8
S-CAR, George Mason University
CONCLUSION
The mission of civil society is to serve. However, its actors sabotage their own effectiveness by
packing their own flag before the journey to a foreign society. Mission Civilisatrice lingers and
in its attempt at aid the stronger tendency is to become the "observer“ (Thompson, 2013):
distant, relevant, powerful, apathetic, and poised to perpetuate structural violence by never
reconciling the previous tyrannical disruptions.
FURTHER DISCUSSION
Where (debatably) good intentions go wrong: Paris on global governance: "Peacebuilding
missions are not merely exercises in conflict management, but instances of a much larger
phenomenon: the globalisation of a particular model of domestic governance - liberal
democracy- from the core to the periphery of the international system." (p. 638)
With cost and funding a heavy influence on the degree of intervention, 'value' becomes a
primary variable. Under the gaze of government, without the sobering input of the citizen, the
'aid' recipient represents merely a commodity of system order and function. Conscripted to
violence or value.
Lederach: Level 2 invites Level 1, Level 1 chooses Level 2, Level 2 sends rep to Level
1, Level 1 sends rep to Level 2 = intergroup facilitation.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
A special thank you goes to all current and future actors in civil society who dare to wrestle
with the legacy and mission statement of their own organizations. Additional thanks goes to the
staff of S-CAR at George Mason University for not settling on past theories to conduct our
future and for acknowledging the future generations Conflict Analysis scholars. Finally, a
personal thank you goes to my classmates for making the active decision to wake up and
show up for class both physically and cognitively.
Works Cited
Azikiwe, Abayomi (2015). “Burkina Faso courts to allow exhumation of Thomas Sankara remains.” Worker’s
World. workers.org/articles/2015/03/10/burkina-faso-courts-to-allow-exhumation-of-thomas-sankara-
remains/
Galtung, Johan. “Cultural Violence.” Journal of Peace Research, Vol 27 No. 3 (August, 1009) pp. 291-
305
Paris, Roland. "International Peacebuilding and the 'Mission Civilisatrice'." Review of International
studies 28.4 (2002): 637-656.
Richmond, Oliver P. "A Genealogy of Peacemaking: The Creation and Re-Creation of Order."
Alternatives: Global, Local, Political 26.3 (2001): 317-348.
Thompson, S. (2013). Whispering Truth to Power: Everyday Resistance to Reconciliation in
Postgenocide Rwanda. Madison: The University of Wisconsin Press.
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Can Civil Society Achieve Civility WITHOUT the Civilian?
Instigation Theory argues that without voluntary approval of the civilian, Civil Society loses its
capitalization and morphs from proponent to Observer, or worse, Disruptor.
(left) “Caricature about Africa's colonisation. Image: Alamy” (theGuardian)
John Paul Lederach, 1997