Resolving Deep Rooted Conflicts

This book is a collection of articles and essays by Professor Herbert C. Kelman, a leading figure in the conflict resolution community and one of the most influential peace researchers. Professor Kelman, a social psychologist, has been a pioneer of conflict resolution and peace research, and his work in conflict resolution has included a decades-long action research program on the Arab-Israeli conflict which has seen the development of Interactive Problem-Solving Workshops, an approach which has had a deep impact not only on research, but also on the practice of conflict resolution around the world, and especially in the Middle East. Focusing on Kelman’s conflict resolution-related work, this volume comprises an important collection of articles written by Kelman across his career as academic and practitioner. By bringing together these carefully selected articles the book offers a concise overview of the body of Kelman’s work and his intellectual biography. It traces the origins of the field of conflict resolution, the development of the study and practice of Interactive Problem Solving Workshops, and the wider challenges faced by conflict resolution research and practice. This book will be of much interest to students of peace and conflict studies, conflict resolution, psychology and IR in general.

This book introduces Root Narrative Theory, a new approach for narrative analysis, decoding moral politics, and for building respect and understanding in conditions of radical disagreement. This theory of moral politics bridges emotion and reason, and, rather than relying on what people say, it helps both the analyst and the practitioner to focus on what people mean in a language that parties to the conflict understand. Based on a simple idea—the legacy effects of abuses of power—the book argues that conflicts only endure and escalate where there is a clash of interpretations about the history of institutional power. Providing theoretically complex but easy-to-use tools, this book offers a completely new way to think about storytelling, the effects of abusive power on interpretation, the relationship between power and conceptions of justice, and the origins and substance of ultimate values. By locating the source of radical disagreement in story structures and political history rather than in biological or cognitive systems, Root Narrative Theory bridges the divides between reason and emotion, realism and idealism, without losing sight of the inescapable human element at work in the world’s most devastating conflicts. This book will be of much interest to students of conflict resolution, peace studies and International Relations, as well as to practitioners of conflict resolution.

The first part of a set of four volumes which seeks to provide an historical and theoretical perspective for consideration of theory and practice in conflict resolution and provention.

How does one build democracy in the aftermath of a violent, deep-rooted conflict? This handbook shows how to structure negotiations and design democratic institutions which address the real needs and interests of conflicting parties. It provides practical advice for policy-makers and political leaders in post-conflict societies and presents a wealth of options that can be drawn upon to build a sustainable peace. Aimed at those negotiating a peace settlement, this book provides a thorough overview of democratic levers - such as power-sharing formulas, questions of federalism and autonomy, options for electoral reform, when to use truth commissions, transitional justice mechanisms, methods of preserving minority rights, constitutional safeguards and many others. It also analyses actual negotiated settlements from various countries and illustrates the many, often unrecognized, options that negotiators can draw upon when attempting to build or rebuild democracy.

This work raises questions on whether and how to effectively resolve conflict. Taking stock of the ideas, assumptions and practices of this emerging field, the book provides an examination of conflict theory and practice, focusing on politics and international relations, as well as biology, culture, management, psychology and social psychology. Central to its thesis is the interaction between the skills of resolving conflict and societal pressures for conflict's continuation. Conflict resolution is a growth area of study; its methods are applicable in domestic violence as well as in attempts to secure world peace. This text is written in a deliberately provocative way which does not include every side to an argument.>

"One of Canada's foremost leaders in conflict resolution writes about his personal experiences of infamous, long-standing conflicts in South Africa, the former Yugoslavia, Rwanda, and elsewhere. He argues that we must understand human violence if we are to keep human civilization alive. From such understanding, he is able to show how deep-rooted conflict can slowly be transformed into peace and reconciliation. Anyone who cares about violence in this world should feel that this book is for them."

This edited volume examines Basic Human Needs theory and interactive problem solving, looking at recent developments in thinking about both and how these might affect peacebuilding in contemporary conflicts of the twenty-first century. The era in the immediate aftermath of World War II was, paradoxically, a time of great optimism in parts of academia. There was, especially in the United States and much of Europe, a widespread belief in the social sciences that systematic scholarly analysis would enable humanity to understand and do something about the most complex of social processes, and thus about solving persistent human problems: unemployment, delinquency, racism, under-development, and even issues of conflict, war and peace. This book examines the evolution of the Basic Human Needs theory and is divided into two key parts: Basic Human Needs in Theory and Basic Human Needs in Practice. Exploring this theory through a wide range of different lenses, including gender, ethics and power, the volume brings together some of the leading scholars in the field of peace and conflict studies and draws upon research both past and present to forecast where the movement is headed in the future. This book will be of much interest to students of peace and conflict studies, conflict resolution, psychology, security studies and IR.