Stakeholder Analysis and Identification for Social Change Programmes in Conflict Settings

Abstract

Delivering social change programmes is often an intricate, long-term process that can become an arena of contestation with its design for soliciting participation. In dynamic contexts such as conflict-affected areas, delivering social change programmes involves diverse actors, issues, and dimensions that make for complex arrangements. Social change programmes, which can be used interchangeably with social programmes, are defined in the article as programmes intended to improve the quality of life of people or to protect vulnerable groups, especially in disadvantaged communities (Diallo, 2007; Valdez & Bamberger, 1994). In achieving the outcomes of social change programmes, traditional approaches in negotiation and conflict management have been promoted and practised across sectors, drawing from various disciplines such as game theory, behavioural decision research, social psychology, and communications. However, in the pursuit of general application, these approaches have become vulnerable to the oversimplification of social contexts, which may miss critical nuances that could make negotiation and conflict management approaches more robust and flexible in more dynamic contexts.