Apology and Forgiveness

These are two sides of the mutli-faceted "diamond" of reconciliation. Both are necessary for true reconciliation to take place.

Beyond Intractability Essay

Blood on the Doorstep: The Politics of Preventive Action

"Combining hard-headed commentary with expert analysis of recent deadly conflicts in Somalia, Rwanda, the Balkans, and Afghanistan, Rubin shows that violence arises not only from internal conflicts within poverty-stricken societies, but also from external political manipulation and failures of global institutions... According to Rubin, the solution lies in coalitions of international organizations, NGOs, and states prepared to take political action, and not in a new institutional architecture or global governance." -- from Website

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Burying the Past Making Peace or Doing Justice: Must We Choose?

Beginning with a conceptual approach to justice and forgiveness and moving to an examination of reconciliation on the political and on the psychological level, the collection examines the quality of peace as it has been forged in the civil conflicts in Rwanda, South Africa, Chile, Guatemala and Northern Ireland.

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Citizens for Global Solutions

"Citizens for Global Solutions envisions a future in which nations work together to abolish war, protect our rights and freedoms, and solve the problems facing humanity that no nation can solve alone. This vision requires effective democratic global institutions that will apply the rule of law while respecting the diversity and autonomy of national and local communities." -- from Website

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Civil Society

Civil society refers to the public's active engagement in government and public affairs. A society with a thriving civil society can deal with conflict in a creative, non-violent manner. A society with a weak civil society tends to stifle conflict until it explodes into violent revolution.

Beyond Intractability Essay

Coexistence

Developing an attitude and means of achieving coexistence is key to overcoming many intractable religious, ethnic, and other intergroup conflicts. However, defining what coexistence is and how it can be achieved, is a challenge. Helen Chauncey, Angela Khaminwa, and Sarah Peterson all talked to us about their coexistence work with the NGO, The Coexistence Initiative.

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Confidence-Building Measures

Limiting or reducing the level of fear among parties in conflict is essential for building confidence and a sense of security. Confidence-building measures aim to lessen anxiety and suspicion by making the parties' behavior more predictable.

Beyond Intractability Essay

Creating Safe Spaces for Communication

Constructive communication between parties is often facilitated by creating a "safe space" for such communication. This essay describes what such spaces are, how they are useful, and how they can be established.

Beyond Intractability Essay

Culture and Conflict

People from different cultures often have such radically different worldviews that what seems like common sense to one side, is anything but sensible to the other. Different cultures and worldviews can lead to completely different understandings or frames of a conflict, making resolution a challenge.

Beyond Intractability Essay

Envisioning

Envisioning is a process in which people try to see into the future--not only what they expect to happen, but what they would like to happen. In order to attain "peace," people must have an image of what "peace" would look like. Only then can they figure out what they need to do to get there.

Beyond Intractability Essay

Ethnic Conflict and International Relations

Local political systems can either exacerbate ethnic rivalries or help to subdue them. Likewise, international politics can either intensify hostilities or help to calm them. This book examines political systems and policies (both locally and internationally) to determine which policies are better or worse at resolving ethnic tensions.

Book Summary

Forgiveness, Amnesty and Justice: The Case of the Lord's Resistance Army in Northern Uganda

By analysing the role that forgiveness is playing in bringing almost two decades of conflict between the Lord's Resistance Army and the Ugandan government to an end, this article demonstrates that a disjuncture exists between the theoretical treatment of forgiveness and the practice of political forgiveness. That is, it demonstrates, contrary to arguments made by both its supporters and critics, that political forgiveness, even when conceived in conjunction with amnesties, may contribute to both restorative and retributive forms of justice.

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Inter-Religious Dialogue

The Journal of Inter-Religious Dialogue is a forum for academic, social, and timely issues affecting religious communities around the world. Published online, it is designed to increase both the quality and frequency of interchanges between religious groups and their leaders and scholars. By fostering communication, the Journal hopes to contribute to a more tolerant, pluralistic society.

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Intractable Conflicts and their Transformation

Seemingly inherent and essential aspects of a conflict might be context-specific. Thus, intractable conflicts may resist resolution, but under differing contextual circumstances might be resolved with relative ease. This collection of essays examines the sources of intractability and suggests ways to prevent and transform intractable conflicts.

Book Summary

Large-Scale Communication

This essay discusses ways to communicate to large groups and even whole societies. While the media is the most traditional way of doing this, other approaches are also sometimes utilized, such as community dialogues or even "national conversations."

Beyond Intractability Essay

Making Peace after Genocide

This report distills the author's experience as a presidential special envoy to Africa's Great Lakes region from 1996 to 2001, and as the director of a Burundi leadership training initiative from 2003 to 2009. The author discusses the lessons drawn from the Burundi and Rwandan experiences after the Tutsi-Hutu conflict.

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Media Strategies

The media can be used for good or bad in conflict processes. This set of materials examines how the media can be used to help deal with conflicts constructively.

Beyond Intractability Essay

Mediators Without Borders: A Proposal to Resolve Political Conflicts

This essay gives guidelines for mediators who are working in cultures different from their own. It explains the nature of the problem such mediators face, gives strategies for addressing the problem and then outlines a "twelve-step program" for increasing the capacity of hostile communities to prevent, resolve, and recover from violent conflicts.

Beyond Intractability Essay

Narratives and Story-Telling

Stories have been vital to all cultures throughout history. Recently, they have been purposefully employed as tools to promote empathy between adversaries and to help people heal from past trauma.

Beyond Intractability Essay

Nation Building

The general public sees nation-building programs as those in which dysfunctional or "failed states" are given assistance. This essay looks at the history of nation building and how it has been interpreted differently over the years.

Beyond Intractability Essay

Peacebuilding from the Grassroots: Equity Conciliation and Conflict Transformation in Colombia

Conflict resolution efforts that attempt to work in cooperation with -- rather than in opposition to or in ignorance of -- the local culture in which a conflict is occurring are much more likely to succeed. Colombian culture already contains several powerful conflict resolution mechanisms, which may hold great potential for effecting lasting change. This case study focuses particularly on a mechanism called equity conciliation.

Case Study

Public Diplomacy

Public diplomacy provides a means of influencing foreign publics without the use of force. This brief article describes its history, discusses how it has been used by the U.S. in the "War on Terror," and gives a list of "best practices."

Beyond Intractability Essay

Rethinking Religious Tolerance: A Human Rights Approach

In reviewing five edited collections and one monograph from the 1990s, the article summarizes the present status of the "human rights revolution" that was signaled by the adoption in 1948 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. It goes on to elaborate and evaluate some of the attempts contained in these books to deal with theoretical and practical controversies surrounding the subject of human rights, particularly the discussion of what to make of "cultural relativism" as far as human rights are concerned. Finally, the article summarizes some recent thinking and research on a neglected area, namely compliance with human rights standards protecting "freedom of religion or belief."

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Task Force on the United Nations

"How is the United Nations fulfilling its mandate? In December 2004, Congress directed USIP to create a Task Force on the United Nations to assess this vital question and to recommend an actionable agenda." -- from Website

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The Universal Declaration of Human Rights

On December 10, 1948 the General Assembly of the United Nations adopted and proclaimed the Universal Declaration of Human Rights the full text of which appears in the following pages. Following this historic act the Assembly called upon all Member countries to publicize the text of the Declaration and "to cause it to be disseminated, displayed, read and expounded principally in schools and other educational institutions, without distinction based on the political status of countries or territories."

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West Africa Network for Peacebuilding (WANEP)

WANEP envisions a peaceful and fair West African community where human rights are enforced and people can meet their human needs and dictate their own direction. WANEP carries out research on West African approaches to conflict resolution and publishes the results, operates a peace-building internship and training program, and works to strengthen the capacity of peacebuilding practitioners and organization in West Africa.

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