Beyond Intractability: A Free Knowledge Base on More Constructive Approaches to Destructive Conflict
Introduction:
Brazilian economist Olympio Barbanti explains how people working on development issues need to do a local conflict-assessment to determine what conflicts are being caused by the development effort and what impacts those and other conflicts are likely to have on the success of those efforts.Olympio Barbanti talks about the shortcomings of using U.S. based conflict resolution models in the developing world. He says the lack of regulatory structure is a severe obstacle to U.S. models of conflict resolution in developing countries.
This rough transcript provides a text alternative to audio. We apologize for occasional errors and unintelligible sections (which are marked with ???).
The Developing World and US Conflict Resolution Models
Olympio Barbanti
Faculty in the Department of International Relations at the Pontificia
Universidade Catolica de Minas Gerais, in Belo Horizonte, Brazil
For example, in developing
countries, social theory is very influenced by some kind of Marxist approach,
like in Latin America... together with a Marxist approach pose some limitations
to the application to the conflict resolution approach to these same countries.
People do not believe that conflicts can be resolved or they are not capable of
sorting out their differences in a rational or formal way. In fact, they believe
that you need to increase conflicts as a way of promoting a change in society.
People try nonviolence for a week and when it doesn't 'work' they go back to violence, which hasn't worked for centuries. -- Theodore Roszak
Featured Links Organizations Making Noteworthy Contributions to Efforts to Promote More Constructive Conflict International Crisis Group "The International Crisis Group (ICG) is an independent, non-profit, multinational organisation, with over 100 staff members on five continents, working through field-based analysis and high-level advocacy to prevent and resolve deadly conflict." (Quote from Website)
Other Resources from Beyond Intractability Getting to Peace William Ury explains how to transform confllict at home, work, and in the world.
Nobel Peace Prize Winners
Shirin Ebadi Winner of the Nobel Peace Prize in 2003
"for her efforts for democracy and human rights. She has focused especially on the struggle for the rights of women and children."
The Beyond Intractability Knowledge Base Project Guy Burgess and Heidi Burgess, Co-Directors and Editors c/o Conflict Information Consortium(Formerly Conflict Research Consortium), University of Colorado Campus Box 580, Boulder, CO 80309 Phone: (303) 492-1635; Fax: (303) 492-2154; Contact