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Constructive Conflict Guide >
Intractable Conflict Threat and Opportunity >
The Nature of Intractable Conflict >
How Are Intractable Conflicts Different from Other Conflicts?
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Scale and Complexity Overview

BI Article
Developing a Systems/Complexity Paradigm
Introduction to key literature including Lederach, Dugan, Boulding, Coleman, Ricigliano, McDonald/Diamond and others.

BI Article
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
Larry Susskind and Shafik Islam on Complexity
This paper combines key ideas from complexity theory with key ideas from negotiation theory, and suggests that by putting those two approaches together, better decisions can be made.

Subsidiary Folders
The Staggering Scale of Society-Wide Conflict
We tend to think of conflict as a simple two party game (perhaps with a role for a third party mediator). The reality of society-wide conflict is that it simultaneously involves the chaos of millions of such simultaneous and interlocking games.

Related Folders
Ideas for Addressing Scale and Complexity to Build Upon
The first step toward constructively managing scale and complexity is to recognize that this is a long-standing problem and societies have already developed many effective complexity-oriented techniques that we can build on.

Subsidiary Folders
The Additional (and Even Bigger) Challenge of Societal Complexity
It isn't just scale, the intractability of society-wide conflict is also attributable to the complexities of human psychology, social interactions, high-tech communication systems, modern economies, environmental constraints, and other factors.