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Constructive Conflict Guide >
The Complex Factors That Make Intractable Conflict So Difficult
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The Additional (and Even Bigger) Challenge of Societal Complexity

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Embracing Complexity: The Key to Dealing with Intractability
This section outlines the Burgess's take on the intersection of complexity, systems thinking, conflict transformation, and peacebuilding.

BI Article
Complex vs. Complicated Systems
An explanation of the key distinction between complex (organic) systems, and complicated (mechanical) systems. This distinction is critical.

BI Article
System Levels
This is drawn from an article written by Kenneth Boulding in 1956. The ideas, largely forgotten, are of utmost importance to modern systemic peacebuilding.

BI Article
The Really Big Picture Ecodynamics & Planetary Evolution
Building on Kenneth Boulding's ideas, Guy Burgess explains how biological concepts of ecodynamics and evolution apply to conflict systems too.

BI Article
Engineering and Medical Troubleshooting Models
The difference between complex and complicated systems requires different types of responses for each.

BI Article
Complex Adaptive Systems
Societal-level conflicts are "complex adaptive systems" similar, in many ways, to ecosystems and the human body.

BI Article
The Complex Causes of Social Problems
An introduction to the Burgess's notion of "massively parallel problem-solving," this video looks at inequality in this way.

BI Article
The Google Maps and Adopt-a-Highway Approach to Systems
A look at two metaphors that make it easier to see how we can limit destructive hyper-polarization by combining big picture thinking with individual commitments to help fill gaps in society's broader efforts to address the problem.

BI Article
Complexity
Complexity refers to the numbers and interrelationships of factors involved in a conflict: the numbers of parties, issues, technical facts, etc. Complex systems are even more difficult to understand and deal with than "complicated systems" from which they must be distinguished. This essay describes the differences between complex and complicated systems and explains how both make transformation or resolution a challenge.

BI Article
Conflict Problems Are Extraordinarily Multifaceted and Complex
An examination of the implications of complexity on intractability, and how this affects our approaches to intractable conflicts.

BI Article
Hyper-Polarization Challenges: Scale, Complexity, and Collaboration
Chip Hauss, Larry Susskind, and Shafik Islam offer their thoughts on how to collaborate despite the scale, complexity, and hyper-polarized nature of modern society.

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Feedback Loops
The complexity of conflict stems from the fact that every conflict action invariably helps shape the conflict actions of others in ways that produce a complex and endless series of feedback loops.

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The Complex Nature of Power
Power is not just the ability to force someone to do something against their will. It is also the ability to influence others through mutually beneficial exchanges and persuasion.

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Democratic and Authoritarian Strategies for Handling Complexity
In democracies, societal complexities are handled through division of labor-based, distributed decision-making which is vastly more efficient than the authoritarian approach in which the leader tries to dictate everything.

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The Relationship between Complexity, Scale, and Diversity
Guiding modern societies requires an in-depth understanding of the ways in which millions of people (with a diverse array of motivations) interact in society's many institutional settings.

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Types of Complexity
Society is so complex that no single scientific field can possibly understand it all. That's why we have wide range of social science disciplines, each focused on a different aspect of the social, economic, and environmental systems.

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Pursue a Complexity-Oriented Approach
It is not enough to abandon simplistic, us-vs-them thinking. We need to develop and embrace realistic strategies for working at the daunting scale and complexity of modern society.

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Types of Complexity
Society is so complex that no single scientific field can possibly understand it all. That's why we have wide range of social science disciplines, each focused on a different aspect of the social, economic, and environmental systems.