Beyond Intractability: A Free Knowledge Base on More Constructive Approaches to Destructive Conflict

What are Intractable Conflicts? Beyond Intractability participants have thought and written a lot about the nature of intractability. Here are some of his thoughts about it, focusing on different kinds of intractable conflicts, how intractable conflicts are different from more negotiable or "tractable" disputes and how such difficult conflicts can be approached.
The Nature and Types of Intractable Conflicts
	Peter Coleman discusses different types of intractable conflicts.
	Pamela Aall, of the U.S. Institute of Peace, discusses the disagreement among scholars and practitioners regarding a definition of "intractability."
	Peter Coleman explains how intractable conflicts are different from simpler "tractable" conflicts.
	Peter Coleman describes five different metaphors or ways of defining what intractable conflicts are all about.
Approaches to Intractable Conflicts
	Peter Coleman describes the importance of long-term thinking when it comes to intractable conflicts.
	Peter Coleman discusses how some aspects of an intractable conflict might be transformed while others are not.
Case Examples of Intractable Conflicts
	Peter Coleman describes an abortion dialogue in which the parties came to respect each other and protect one another, but they were still very polarized on the abortion issue.

This rough transcript provides a text alternative to audio. We apologize for occasional errors and unintelligible sections (which are marked with ???).

If it were proved to me that in making war, my ideal had a chance of being realized, I would still say "No" to war. For one does not create human society on mounds of corpses. -- Louis Lecoin, French pacifist leader

Featured Links
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Conflict Management Program

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Nobel Peace Prize Winners

Betty Williams
Founder of the Northern Ireland Peace Movement, and 1976 Nobel Peace Laureate

Beyond Intractability Version IV
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Project Acknowledgements

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
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