Beyond Intractability: A Free Knowledge Base on More Constructive Approaches to Destructive Conflict
Introduction:
Sometimes the reframing of conflict can begin even before
two conflicting parties meet.
Suzanne Ghais, program manager at CDR associates in Boulder, Colorado, suggests that
holding preparatory meetings with each party sometimes contributes to successful mediations.
This rough transcript provides a text alternative to audio. We apologize for occasional errors and unintelligible sections (which are marked with ???).
State and Federal Conflict
Suzanne Ghais
Program manager at CDR Associates, Boulder, Colorado
A mediation that I did
between a federal agency and a state agency. In this case it was the state
agency that was the regulator and the federal agency that was the regulated
because it had to do with a military base that had environmental problems, so
the state agency was the environmental regulator. They had just locked horns about the states
authority to require certain things and they had communicated a lot by email and
a lot by non-communicating. I went through the normal steps of a mediation,
including trying to get to what was really important to them and putting that
out there for both sides to see and to understand, so they could get away from
fighting about who has what right, who has what authority, etcetera. And it just
completely shifted. I'm not sure what was the moment when that shift occurred,
but I think to a large extent it happened in my work before the meeting.
That's one of my principles, I try to make a lot of progress before the
people actually meet in preparing them and letting them talk to me and vent and
let them work through some of the emotional aspects.
If it's natural to kill, how come men have to go into training to learn how? -- Joan Baez
Featured Links Organizations Making Noteworthy Contributions to Efforts to Promote More Constructive Conflict Mennonite Conciliation Service
Other Resources from Beyond Intractability Peace-Building: A Field Guide The authors of this edited volume describe how fieldworkers 'fit' in the overall peacebuilding process and provide details of the most effective practices.
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
