I'm not really interested in persuading people, I don't want to and I try to make this point obvious. What I'd like to do is to help people persuade themselves.
- Noam Chomsky
Topical Audio Interview Segments from the Beyond Intractability Project
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Are western models of conflict resolution applicable to non-western settings? Kevin Avruch, a cultural anthropology professor at George Mason University's Institute for Conflict Analysis and Resolution, advocates an approach that combines endogenous conflict resolution strategies with strategies brought in by third parties.
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Beyond Intractability participants have thought and written a lot about the nature of intractability. Here are some of their 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.
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What exists is possible. So said Kenneth Bouldingaccording to his wife Elise. Elise Boulding explains the power and meaning of the phrase for conflict resolution practitioners.
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Determining when events happened is important to understanding a situation, says mediator Silke Hansen. Sometime people describe recent events together with events from long ago.
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Peter Coleman, of Columbia University, argues that people excluded from the negotiating process are likely to become "spoilers" - people who try to sabotage an agreement after it is reached.
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Some people talk about negotiation and gender in terms of how women negotiate differently from men. Deborah Kolb, Co-Director of the Program on Negotiations in the Workplace at Harvard University, says that what people should really be talking about is why women are not at the negotiation table in the first place.
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Some people talk about negotiation and gender in terms of how women negotiate differently from men. Deborah Kolb, Co-Director of the Program on Negotiations in the Workplace at Harvard University, says that what people should really be talking about is why women are not at the negotiation table in the first place.
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Sanda Kaufman, a Romanian Jew now living in the United States, observes that Westerners expect very quick results when it comes to conflict resolution. This is not realistic, and so contributes to our sense of failure, she asserts.
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Angela Khaminwa, Program Officer for Outreach and Communication at The Coexistence Initiative, explores the withholding of citizenship as a form of political violence.
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CRS Mediator Stephen Thom describes how some parties can help the mediator more than others.