Parent (Previous) Guide Folders
Constructive Conflict Guide >
Civic Knowledge and Skills That We All Need to Constructively Handle Intractable Conflict
______________________
BI Article
Constructive Confrontation: Applying Conflict Insights from a 1st Party (Not 3rd Party) Perspective
Constructive confrontation applies conflict resolution theory and practice to advocacy efforts in an effort to help people limit pushback and better defend their interests.
BI Article
Planning a Constructive Confrontation Strategy: Understanding the Relationship between Negotiation and Power
Healthy conflict resolution systems rely primary on interest-based negotiations, using rights and power contests much less frequently. US democracy currently does the opposite.
BI Article
Confront Constructively
How to peel away the overlays so you can address the core conflict with an optimal power strategy mix.
BI Article
Constructive Confrontation
An introduction to the newly-updated Constructive Confrontation Project
BI Article
Kristin Hansen talks about the Civic Health Project's Work on De-polarization in America
BI Article
The Peacebuilding / Constructive Confrontation Synthesis
This post illustrates why applying conflict dynamics and conflict resolution skills to advocacy roles is so important.
BI Article
Canaries, Constructive Advocates, and Intermediaries
A comparison of three conflict roles, all of which are needed to successfully confront challenging and complex social problems and issues.
BI Article
Lou Kriesberg: Applying the Constructive Conflict approach to the American Right-Wing Populism Phenomenon
Lou Kriesberg explores "what next" for progressives in the United States following Trump's election, arguing that two responses are necessary: resistance, and strengthening democracy.
BI Article
Constructive Demonstration Strategies
A Boulder County (Colorado) County Commissioner reflects on what helps demonstrators be successful and what harms their effectiveness.
BI Article
"Don't Destroy What you Want to Inherit": Peacebuilding Holds the Key to Building a Strong United States of America
A guest post from a MSc student at Ulster University in Northern Ireland, charting a way forward in the United States after the election -- suggesting three critical steps the U.S. might take to avoid "destroying the country we want our children to inherit."
BI Article
Social Justice Advocacy, Bridge-Building and Philanthropy: How Do These Intersect?
What role should philanthropy play in the effort to fix democracy? Can they help? How? Or should they bow out, acknowledging that they are making the problem worse?
BI Article
Conflict Transformation
Many people believe that conflict happens for a reason and that it brings much-needed change. Therefore, to eliminate conflict would also be to eliminate conflict's dynamic power. In transformation, a conflict is changed into something constructive, rather being eliminated altogether.
BI Article
Heidi and Guy Burgess Talk with Tom Klaus and Lamar Roth in their "Third Space"
Tom Klaus and Lamar Roth talked with Guy and Heidi Burgess about Beyond Intractability, hyper-polarization, constructive conflict, and ways we are going to get out of the "mess" we are in.
BI Article
Julia Roig: Where Does Civil Resistance and Social Justice Fit in MPP?
BI Article
Julia Roig: Rethinking 'Polarization' as the Problem
Related Folders
Using Equitable Power-With Decision Making Processes for the Tough Core Issues
This section focuses on the tough issues where win-win solutions don't necessarily exist, or when some groups are demanding more than their fair share. A core principle is that decisions must balance majority rule with minority rights and make decisions with a fair, transparent process.
Subsidiary Folders
Ethical Advocacy
The first part of constructive confrontation is ethics. If you take a power-over, winner-take-all approach to advocacy, that is not what we would call "constructive." Even if it does get you what you want over the short term, it is likely to generate backlash and make your victory short lived. Better to take a collaborative approach to advocacy so that you work for your goals in a way that respects other sides' legitimate goals as well.
Subsidiary Folders
Nonviolent Protest Strategies
Sometimes bad-faith actors do things that simply must be opposed. Violent opposition seldom works -- it usually just enrages the opposition, and if they have superior sources of violence, they will often use them to suppress the protestors. Nonviolent protest strategies, on the other hand, are much less likely to result in repression, and are more likely to gain sympathizers on the other side.
Subsidiary Folders
Balancing the Three Sources of Power -- Integrative, Exchange, and Force
Power is usually thought to be force--coercive power. But there are actually three kinds of power that can be mixed and matched -- force, exchange, and integrative power. Kenneth Boulding argued that integrative power is actually the strongest and most important of the three, because the other two need integrative power to function.
Related Folders
Stripping Away "Overlay" Problems That Make Conflicts Appear More Intractable Than They Really Are
Intractable conflicts have core issues -- the things that the conflict is "really about," and usually a set of "overlay" or complicating factors--things that lie over (and often obscure) the core issues and make them harder to deal with. Identifying and then fixing (or at least limiting) the overlay problems is one of the first steps of constructive conflict engagement.
Colleague Activities
Make it a Habit: Be Hard on Issues But Soft on People
A quick "how to" (and why) from Starts with Us as a good way to reduce polarization, improve relationships, and get more done.
News and Opinion
Notes for Antifa from a Former "Terrorist"
Amitai Etzioni, and America-Israeli sociologist reflects on the role of violence to achieve political ends.
BI Article
The Constructive Confrontation Project
An examination of conflict knowledge and skills to help advocates get their interests and needs met without creating backlash from the other side.