| |  | Amnesty
Many argue that amnesty can allow societies to wipe the slate clean after war crimes or other human rights abuses, to put the past behind them in favor of the future. Others argue, that this condones the perpetrators' actions and encourages such behavior. |
| | | Benefits of Intractable Conflict
Conflict is change. Without it, attitudes, behavior, and relationships stay the same, regardless of whether they are fair. Although conflict is often understood as something negative, this essay explores its many benefits. |
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Civic Education
Civic education programs aim to develop citizens' knowledge of the political system and create an engaged, politically informed populace. |
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| Conflict Stages
These essays
detail the typical stages an intractable conflict goes through. |
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Costs of Intractable Conflict
The twentieth
century was the deadliest in all of human history. With eight million Jews murdered and one million Rwandans,
it was named "the age of genocide." However, human casualties merely scratch the surface of the true cost of conflict. This essay discusses the human, economic, social, and political costs of intractable conflict. |
| | | Designing New Dispute Resolution Systems
Dispute system design refers to the process of creating an entire routinized system for repetitively handling similar types of disputes. Applied domestically to labor-management and workplace disputes, it also is applied at a national level to help societies develop new conflict management procedures and entire justice systems as part of the democratization process. |
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| Diplomacy — Introduction
Caskie Stinnett said, "A diplomat is a person who can tell you to go to hell in such
a way that you actually look forward to the trip." These resources discuss the impact of
diplomacy on intractable conflict. |
| | | Early Warning
Based on similar efforts to predict natural disasters and crop yields, many have attempted to construct models to predict where conflict will erupt. This essay explores the difficulties in creating such a system. |
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| Election Monitoring
Elections are a key component of democratization. Timing and credibility are critical
however. This essay examines both and explores the use of election monitors as an
approach to ensuring the integrity of the elections. |
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| Elections
Elections are a
cornerstone of democracy and, hence, figure prominently in democratization efforts
around the world. This essay explores different electoral systems, elections in
post-conflict situations, and the role of the international community in election
monitoring. |
| | | Globalization
Globalization has both positive and negative effects for people in both the developed and the developing world. This essay examines the many benefits and costs of globalization, and considers how it might be directed to maximize benefits while minimizing costs. |
| | | Hurting Stalemate Stage
Once conflicts escalate for awhile, the parties often reach a stalemate, neither party can win, but neither party wants to back down. At this stage the parties have two options, continue to bleed each other dry or look towards resolution. |
| | | Intergovernmental Organizations (IGOs)
IGO activities are actions taken by international governmental organizations (IGO's) to transform, resolve, or manage conflicts. Activities of the UN and regional IGOs are described in this essay. |
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| International Law
International
law is the attempt to manage conflict between countries. These essays explore both
the successes of international law and the challenges it still faces. |
| |
| Latent Conflict Stage
The
first stage of conflict is latent conflict. At this stage, there are deep value differences
or significant injustice, which will potentially lead to an active conflict. |
| | | Lustration
The term "lustration" derives from the Latin for "purification." In this essay, it refers to a means by which some countries deal with a legacy of human rights abuses. |
| | | Negotiation Stage
In the negotiation stage, parties search for mutually- beneficial ways of resolving their conflict. This stage must be timed and executed very carefully in order to avoid a return to the escalation stage. |
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Peace Education
Peace education involves practical and philosophical training that uses empowerment and nonviolence to build a more democratic, harmonious community. |
| | | Peacebuilding and Reconciliation Stage
In long-running inter-group conflicts, after successful negotiation, peacebuilding and reconciliation is necessary to prevent a return to the conflict. In this stage, disputants begin to heal and to rebuild relationships, slowly putting their society back together. |
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Propaganda
Propaganda involves the obscuring, manipulating, or misconstruing of information for political gain. It may involve efforts to garner support amongst followers or to dampen the spirits of one's opponents. |
| | | Rule of Law
Particularly since the end of the Cold War, the rule of law has increasingly been recognized as an important aspect of international conflict resolution and post-conflict peace building. Similarly, the absence of the rule of law is often implicated as a source of violence, human rights violations, and intractability. |
| | | Scapegoating
The term scapegoat refers to people who are forced to bear responsibility for the mistakes of others. Scapegoating can prolong conflict and lead to intense violence. |
| |
| Shuttle Diplomacy
When
emotions run too high to bring disputants together in the same room (or even the same
country,) shuttle diplomacy can be used to carry messages back and forth. This essay
discusses when and how this should be done. |
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Social Movements
Social movements are groups of individuals who come together around an issue to bring about (or resist) change. |
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Sovereignty
This essay discusses the historical development of the concept of sovereignty and the challenges to that concept in the contemporary international system. |
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Stabilization and the Problem of Insurgency
This essay examines the problem of insurgencies, focusing especially, but not entirely, on the Iraqi insurgency after the fall of Saddam Hussein, and methods that are being tried, or should be tried to stabilize the situation and allow peacebuilding to begin. |
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| Trauma Healing
When conflict
results in physical or psychological abuse, people can become traumatized. Trauma causes
victims to continue to suffer, to be almost frozen in time.This essay details the effects
of trauma and offer suggestions for healing. |
| | | Truth Commissions
Truths commissions are official groups endowed with the authority to extensively investigate the human rights abuses and war crimes committed in a specific country or region during a specified time period. |
