by Heidi Burgess

November 22,  2021

This is the second part of a set of two blog posts on ways to de-escalate and de-polarize escalated conflicts, which I am posting in advance of the release of our full Constructive Conflict Guide (of which this will be a part). The first of the de-escalation blog posts can be found here. 

In addition to the approaches discussed last time (raising escalation awareness, tactically escalating only very carefully (using constructive confrontation or Gandhi-style negotiation loop-backs), avoiding the sacrifice trap, picking your fights, reframing the problem, stopping blaming the other, and using de-escalatory language (I-statements and empathic listening) you can also do the following:

Control Rumors

When a "triggering incident" happens, rumors, often false and exaggerated, spread quickly. This can turn a relatively minor incident into a significant event, even a major crisis.  To prevent inaccurate and inflammatory rumors from spreading, community leaders need to set up communication systems to monitor rumor transmission, check veracity, and disseminate credible contrary information when warranted.  For example, one technique the Community Relations Service has used to prevent civil rights conflicts to escalate out of control  is to set up rumor-control teams composed of trusted community leaders. These leaders agree to be available by phone 24/7 and when called, quickly check to see if rumors are accurate or not. They then report what they learn (from credible sources) about what has been going on, and if mistakes were made, what steps are being taken to address the situation. This not only defuses dangerous rumors, it sets up a process that encourages officials to do the right thing. 

Cooling-Off Periods

Cooling-off periods are common tools used in some circumstances to try to give people time to calm down and think before they do something in anger that that they are likely to regret.  Cooling-off periods are often legally required, for example, before a union can strike, before someone can buy a gun, or before someone can obtain an abortion. But they are useful in many more circumstances than those legally required.  Whenever one becomes angry at another person, it helps to do what William Ury described, in his book Getting Past No, as "going to the balcony."  Step back, and (metaphorically, from above), look down at the situation.  Look at what just happened and why.  How did you contribute to the situation?  How did they?  What are you really looking for in this exchange?  Are you looking for further fighting—or are you looking at a solution to the problem? How much does the relationship mean to you?  Is it worth working to save it?  Is there another way to pursue your interests and needs that will not be as confrontational?    Most often when one "goes to the balcony," one is able to see a better way forward than continued conflict escalation.

Utilize Third Siders

William Ury and Joshua Weiss have developed the notion of "Third Siders." These are people—both disputants (insiders)  and third parties (outsiders) who want to de-escalate a conflict and make it more constructive.  Ury and Weiss say that there are ten different "third side roles" that are arranged in three categories: prevention, resolution, and containment.

The first line of defense, they assert, is prevention, which includes three roles.  Providers can reduce underlying tensions by helping assure that the parties are able to meet their fundamental human needs, which often drive conflicts when they are absent.  Teachers give people better conflict resolution skills, so they understand how to solve problems collaboratively and know that such approaches are usually better than coercive power-based strategies.  Bridge-builders work to bring people together, so they can break down their us-versus-them, overly simplified stereotypes, and come to understand the validity of everyone's point of view.

But, Ury and Weiss admit, sometimes prevention doesn't work or doesn't happen in time, so the next line of defense is resolution.  Of course, intractable conflicts are ones that have resisted resolution for quite some time, but nevertheless, there often are roles for mediators who can help work through some of the negotiable disputes within the context of wider intractable conflicts. Arbiters (often called arbitrators) can, like judges, make decisions for the parties about right and wrong and who must do what. Again, they probably will not have the authority or legitimacy to settle the entire conflict, but there might be some disputes within the broader conflict context that could successfully be arbitrated or adjudicated. (Ury and Weiss include adjudication in this category.) For example, abortion has been an intractable conflict within the United States for a long time.  Yet there have been a long series of court cases that have adjudicated various aspects of this conflict, and have established limits of what people can and cannot do in pursuit of their overall goals with respect to this issue. Another resolution role is the equalizer. Equalizers work to empower low-power groups so that they can advocate for themselves more effectively (and without further escalating the conflict). And, finally, healers can help to heal past wounds and address grievances, so they don't build up and continue to strengthen the escalation spiral.

When resolution doesn't work, three more third-side roles, which Ury and Weiss label as "containment roles," can be brought into play. First are peacekeepers, who simply separate the parties and keep them from fighting (thereby stopping continued escalation). Second are referees, who keep the fighting that happens contained within norms of legitimate fighting.  Third are witnesses who accurately report on what happens to the larger society to stop rumors and to make sure that people who are inclined to take illegitimate actions know they are being watched. (This, in theory, increases the costs to them for violating community norms or breaking agreements, and thereby discourages such behavior.)

In ways that are similar to our call for "massively parallel peacebuilding" to transform intractable conflicts, Ury and Weiss argue that if all ten third-side roles are widely deployed at the same time in a conflict, that conflict will most certainly become less destructive, and may even be transformed or resolved.  The problem is, they assert, that it is very unusual for all ten roles to be used at once, and at a scale necessary to really have widespread impact.

De-escalating Gestures and Breaking Stereotypes

De-escalating gestures or disarming behaviors are behaviors undertaken by one side of a conflict that are unexpected, and show a greater willingness to compromise or listen to, or respect the other side than is generally expected. One of the best-known examples of such a gesture was the October 1978 visit of the President of Egypt, Anwar al-Sadat, to Israel. Sadat's visit ran contrary to all other Arab policy. Until then, all Arab governments had refused official recognition of Israel and had avoided direct official contacts. But when Sadat offered to come to Israel and speak to the Israeli Knesset (the Israeli legislature) , his offer was quickly accepted. Sadat was warmly greeted by Israeli officials and by enthusiastic crowds.[1] Bilateral negotiations between Israel and Egypt then began, but they soon reached a stalemate. Nevertheless, with the mediation of U.S. President Jimmy Carter, a peace treaty was reached and signed in 1979 and it has held ever since.

The key element of such de-escalating gestures is that they breakdown the "evil other" stereotype, and make "the other" seem like a person or group of people that you could actually work with. Sometimes such gestures are made overtly and publicly, as was true with Sadat's visit to Israel, or South Africa's unconditional release of Nelson Mandela from prison in 1990. Other times they are private. Before Mandela was released, for example, white leaders from South Africa met with leaders from the outlawed black African National Congress outside the country. This facilitated Mandela's release, and also led to the willingness of the ANC to proclaim (as explained by Ebrahim Rasool) that "South Africa belonged to all who lived there." 

If de-escalating gestures can be linked together, they can enable what Charles Osgood referred to as GRIT -- the Gradual Reduction in Tension. With GRIT, one side announces and initiates a series of small cooperative moves, and invites the other side to reciprocate. If the opponent responds positively, the first party makes a second concession, which sets a "peace spiral" in motion. If the first initiative is ignored, on the other hand, it can be followed by a second or even a third attempt. These concessions should be designed to build trust and indicate a willingness to cooperate, but should not be terribly costly. If they succeed, everyone will be better off.  If they fail, not much is lost.

Trust Earning / Confidence Building

In intractable conflicts, trust between disputants is usually completely absent, and rebuilding trust is a much longer and slower process than losing trust in the first place (which can happen very quickly).  To re-earn trust, one must engage in a lengthy series of confidence-building measures  and other steps to prove that one is worthy of being trusted.  Among these are both sides indicating a desire and willingness to rebuild the relationship and taking visible steps to do so, ad recognizing and working to make amends for the harms done. Other confidence building measures include actively listening to the grievances of the other side and addressing those grievances in a more forthcoming way than had been done before.  When this is done successfully, the previously hostile parties can begin to develop a working relationship and can, over time, work to mend the emotional scars built up over the years of conflict.  Ideally, disputants can start to build what Lewicki and Tomlinson call "identification-based trust," which is not just based on rational calculations about whether the other party is good to it's word, but an emotional connection between the parties, based on a sense of shared goals and values. 

Respect and Face

I (Heidi) used to teach a semester-long undergraduate conflict skills class. At the end, I told the students, if they only remembered two words from the class five or ten years later, the two words should be "respect," and "listen."  I talked about listening in the first post; respect I'll talk about here.

Respect can be defined and enacted in a variety of different ways, but most importantly, it means treating others with dignity.  It is the opposite of humiliation and contempt. As William Ury writes in his book The Third Side: "Human beings have a host of emotional needs—for love and recognition, for belonging and identity, for purpose and meaning to lives. If all these needs had to be subsumed in one word, it might be respect." When respect is absent, when people are humiliated, they tend to lash back.  Evelin Lindner, probably the world's leading expert on humiliation has long called it "atom bomb of emotions," as it blows relationships up. Respect, on the other hand, builds relationships.  People respond positively when treated positively, and they are much more likely to treat you with respect if you treat them that way. 

But, as I taught in my class, even if respect is not reciprocated, even if people have engaged in bad behaviors and do not deserve respect, it usually helps to give it to them anyway.  It goes a long way towards stopping the escalation spiral, and may even, over time, get the bad actors to change their approach to you, as they see you more as a worthy human, and less as a worthless opponent. Now, whether such is true of the most manipulative and cynical bad-faith actors is a matter of dispute, and we do not have room to discuss that here.  Certainly there is value in calling out bad behavior, and working to stop it where it occurs.  But even that can usually be done in a respectful way, rather than in a humiliating way which is almost certain to drive the escalation spiral higher.  Here, one of Fisher, Ury, and Patton's principles from their long best-selling book Getting to Yes, applies, "focus on the issues, not the people." Or, in this context, attack the unacceptable things that people are doing, rather than attacking the people themselves. 

Face is a concept that is very closely related to respect—it is one's self image, and the image one tries to project to the world.  All people, I would argue, have a strong desire to "save face," meaning they want to look good to others, and not look foolish, weak, or mistaken. Cultural experts often assert that "high-context cultures" (such as Korea, China, Japan, as well as some Middle-Eastern and Latin American countries) place a higher value on face than do "low-context cultures" (such as the U.S. and other Western countries). Losing face before one's group in high-context cultures, says Raymond Cohen in Negotiating Across Cultures. Communications Obstacles in International Diplomacy, can be "a fate worse than death" (p. 30).

So "giving face," not humiliating people, allowing them a face-saving way out of a mistake, rather than making a big deal about it, or insisting on massive retaliation, is also much more likely to result in mutually-acceptable outcomes and de-escalation of the conflict. Plus, the willingness to acknowledge and correct mistakes is a virtue that we should all have an interest in cultivating. 

Giving Everyone A Future They Can Live With

We will talk about this in detail in Section 4C on visioning, but briefly, if you want to convince the other side to stop fighting, you need to give them hope that, if they work with you, they will be able to get a future in which they would want to live. The most clear example of the importance of this is the difference between the end of World War I and the end of World War II.  The Treaty of Versailles, at the end of World War I was so punitive against the Germans that it left them angry and vengeful. While certainly not the only factor that led to World War II, it certainly was a major contributing factor to the rise of Hitler and the Third Reich. World War II, on the other hand, ended in Europe with the Marshall Plan, which helped rebuild Europe, and a similar program which was implemented in Japan. Though Germany was still forced to pay reparations, they were not as severe as those after World War I, and were off-set by the assistance they got from the Marshall plan, which enabled economic, political, and social recovery.  This facilitated growing cooperation within much of Europe (excluding areas controlled by the Soviet Union, which were not part of the Marshall Plan), which eventually lead to the formation of the European Union, instead of a third world war.

Using the Optimal "Power Strategy Mix" 

Power is usually thought of as force—the way the stronger party can use coercion to force the weaker party to do something they otherwise wouldn't want to do.  But power can take other forms too:  In his book, Three Faces of Power, Kenneth Boulding referred to coercive power (a threat: "you do that or else!"), exchange power (negotiation: "if you do that, I'll do this") and integrative power (respect: "I'll do that for you because I respect you or I care about you."). Integrative power, he explained, is actually the most powerful of the three, because neither of the other two work without it.  At the societal level, oppressors can only continue their oppressive actions if loyal people help them carry those actions out.  As renown nonviolence scholar Gene Sharp points out, the widespread non-cooperation of followers can undo any tyrant. And exchange only works if people have enough respect for the process and the other side to abide by their promises.  If they don't, the exchange or negotiation will quickly break down. 

]So the key notion here is that these three power strategies are always used in some combination.  In order to de-escalate conflicts, disputants are well advised to use as much integrative and exchange power as possible, and as little threat or force as they can. As we explain in the video on the power strategy mix, it helps to analyze the character of the parties you are trying to influence.  Are they "persuadable"? If so, they will likely respond best to integrative power.  Are they willing to negotiate?  If so, they will likely respond best to exchange power (with a dash of integrative power mixed in to hold the negotiation together).  A relatively  small  number of people are what we all "incorrigibles"—people who absolutely, positively refuse to budge.  Those people will need to be persuaded with threats, but again it helps to use as little coercion as possible and mix in with it exchange and respect (integrative power) as we talked about above in the sections on Constructive Confrontation and Gandhi's step-wise escalation.  Finding the optimal mix of power strategies will help get what you want/need while creating as little backlash as possible.

Conclusion

Obviously, not everyone can do all of these things.  Some will be more relevant than others for each person's position, concerns, knowledge and skills.  As I said above, when I used to teach a conflict skills class, on the last day I told my students that I hoped they'd remember at least two things from that class five, ten, even twenty years down the road.  Those two things were "listen" and "treat others with respect."  If you do that--and you remember that "others" means everybody, even people you think you hate; even bad-faith actors, the rest of this can come in time.  And it will be easier to do, if you do those things first and always.