Coming to the Table: Decisions and Decision-Making in a Non-State Armed Group, The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE)

his dissertation examines the role of critical factors in the internal and external environments of a Non-State Armed Group (NSAG) in its decision to end civil war and come to the negotiating table. The theories in the field of conflict resolutiontend to over-emphasise the role of external factors, such as pressures in the global environment, changing economic conditions, role of third parties, demands of the social environment, and the nature of the immediate political environment, when explaining the phenomenon of coming to the table in order to negotiate an end to the conflict. This research argues that factors internal and intrinsic to NSAGs, such as organizational structure, culture, change, leadership, dynamics, mission and vision are equally important in understanding how the group makes the decision to come to the table. The field of conflict resolution, therefore, needs to pay greater attention to these internal factors and understand what kind of interactions between the internal and external environment can facilitate or hinder NSAGs from making the decision to come to the table.

The NSAG under study is the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) in Sri Lanka. The four occasions the LTTE came to the negotiating table in the last three decades are analysed and compared to draw conclusions about the relative influence of the factors in the two environments in the decisions made by the group. Field research was conducted in three countries: US, India and Sri Lanka. Interviews with journalists, academics, human rights activists, government and military officials and members of the LTTE and other Tamil NSAGs yielded first hand information on the internal dynamics of the LTTE. Group propaganda materials, media reports, scholarly and journalistic analysis provided secondary data for the research.

The findings of this research support the theory that it is the internal environment that plays a critical role in the decision making process and, in fact, determines the final decision made by the group to engage in negotiations.