Constructive Conflict Guide > The Complex Factors That Make Intractable Conflict So Difficult > Conflict "Overlay" Problems______________________
Parent (Previous) Guide Folders Constructive Conflict Guide > The Complex Factors That Make Intractable Conflict So Difficult > Conflict "Overlay" Problems
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BI Article
Frames, Framing and Reframing
Frames are the way we see things and define what we see. Similar to the way a new frame can entirely change the way we view a photograph, reframing can change the way disputing parties understand and pursue their conflict.
BI Article
Identity Frames
Identity frames include ideas about who one is, what characteristics they share with their group(s) and how they do and should related to others. These frames are frequently sources of conflict.
BI Article
Competitive and Cooperative Approaches to Conflict
This set of materials explores these two different approaches to conflict and the results of pursuing one or the other.
BI Article
Cultural and Worldview Frames
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.
BI Article
Process Frames
To a hammer, all the world is a nail. People tend to apply their own skills to working out a conflict, i.e. someone in the military pursues military solutions, diplomats pursue diplomatic solutions, and mediators pursue mediation. While this is usually a sensible division of labor, it can also distort choices if people from one procedural frame dominate the process and other options are not considered.
BI Article
Theories of Change
A simple introduction to a complex concept, this explains what theories of change are, and why they are needed to confront both COVID-19 and racism.
BI Article
Ethos of Conflict
A community's ethos is its shared beliefs, goals and identity. Communities in an intractable conflict expand that ethos to explain their approach to the conflict. A community's ethos strongly affects how destructive the conflict becomes.
BI Article
Focus on Contribution, Not Blame
Focusing on blame doesn't solve problems, it just makes them more intractable. Focusing on contribution instead encourages collaborative problem solving that stands a much better chance of success.
BI Article
Heidi Burgess and Guy Burgess: Framing the Events of Spring and Summer 2020
A further exploration of the effects of framing on the COVID-19 pandemic and protests about racism.
Subsidiary Folders
Failure to Recognize the Need to Limit Destructive Conflict
Many people think polarization, conflict, and even war is inevitable -- "it is just human nature," some say. But the lethality of modern conflict and warfare makes the importance of conflict limitation and war prevention of utmost importance.
Subsidiary Folders
Missing Underlying Democratic Vision
Many Americans who came of age after the end of the Cold War don't have a good sense of how democracy is different from other governmental systems, and why it is superior (at least to those who have grown accustomed to it). And even those who support democracy have widely different images about what democracy is, and what aspects of it are most important to preserve or even strengthen.
Subsidiary Folders
Us-vs-Them Framing, Enemy Images, and Into-the-Sea Framing
One common contributor to intractability is the tendency to simplify complex conflicts into simple us-versus-them, good side versus bad side narratives. These go so far as "into-the-sea" framing where adversaries tried to entirely get rid of the other side.
Subsidiary Folders
History of Past Unrightable Wrongs
A term first coined to refer to genocides, "unrightable wrongs" are wrongs that are so severe that they cannot be fully remedied. The best that can be done is that truth and responsibility can be acknowledged, and apologies and reparations made to survivors.
Related Folders
Limiting Divisive Us-vs-Them Framing
When we define a conflict in us-versus-them terms, asserting that "we" are the "good guys" and "they" are the "bad guys" we are almost assuring that "they" will do the same thing, and common ground (other than defining each other as the enemy) will not be found.
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Constructive Framing & Future Visioning
If we can abandon our hyper-polarized, us-vs-them way of thinking about conflict and reframe our differences as shared problems to be solved collaboratively, we can develop a vision for a more attractive future in which we would all like to live.
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Imagine a Positive Shared Future
You can't get to a destination if you don't know where it is. Likewise, if you don't know what kind of future you want, it will be hard to achieve. And if you seek a future that the "other side" strongly opposes, you are also likely to fail. Constructive conflict involves developing an image of a positive shared future -- a future in which everyone in society would like to (or at least be willing to) live.
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Visionaries
Visionaries help us imagine a unifying vision for a diverse society that maximizes self-determination while promoting joint action to protect the commons.
Related Folders
A Vision for a Democracy That Lives up to Its Ideals
The ability of conflict to advance, rather than threaten, the human condition depends upon having a shared vision of how to build a democratic society that fairly and wisely balances the competing interests of its diverse citizenry.
Colleague Activities
The Horizon's Project Sensemaking Podcasts
Sensemaking, or what we'd call framing, is essential for understanding what's happening and how to respond to world events. Here are six short videos with leading peacebuilders about their sensemaking practices.
News and Opinion
The Most Important Divide in American Politics Isn't Race
An important and persuasive argument that the progressive left, in its urban and cosmopolitan bubble, misunderstands the big fault line in US society.