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Introduction:
Sanda Kaufman, a scholar practitioner, says one obstacle to success is over-estimating what conflict resolvers, alone, can actually do.
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This rough transcript provides a text alternative to audio. We apologize for occasional errors and unintelligible sections (which are marked with ???).
Main Obstacles
Sanda Kaufman
Professor of Planning and Public Administration at the Levin College of Urban
Affairs, Cleveland State University
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Q: What do you think are the main obstacles for people involved in this kind
of work?
A: I think that one major obstacle is the feeling that if we just used our
conflict management tools and approach them in the best possible way, and had
the resources and the access, that's all it would take. And in intractable
conflicts, typically, it's not all in how we do the conflict management. It's
very often in the political constellation, the international situation,
economics, moments in history, sometimes personalities. If we do not reckon with
all those factors, we are likely to fail and be baffled because we thought
everything was in our hands if we just did it right, and that actually isn't
true. So I think we can do a lot, but we need to be humble and figure
out how much, all told, we can actually contribute to a situation, and how much
is in somebody else's hands. Maybe if we could have influence or approach these
other important decision makers or factors; that would help. But we typically
don't do that, and I think that's an obstacle.
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