Conflict Frontiers

About Conflict Frontiers

We started developing the Conflict Frontiers and the Conflict Fundamentals Seminars in the Spring of 2016. We named this effort "Moving Beyond Intractability" because this was a new project built on top of the long-standing Beyond Intractability Knowledge Base, with the goal of moving beyond the limits of current knowledge, and helping as many people as possible "move beyond" intractability in the conflicts they are involved in and care deeply about.  ​For awhile, we also called these two seminars "MOOSes," which stood for "Massive Open Online Seminars." because they were sort of like the more common MOOCs (massive open online courses), that were all the rage at the time, but we were going for small audiences, not large ones, and we weren't teaching "settled knowledge" (at least not in the Frontiers Seminar), so we called it a "seminar," not a "course."

Our development of both Conflict Frontiers and Conflict Fundamentals was spurred by four factors.  

1. First was our concern about the increasing number and intensity of intractable conflicts around the world.  When we started developing BI, intractable conflicts were seen as an important challenge, but they were being surmounted.  Northern Ireland, South Africa, and the Cold War, for example, were all intractable conflicts that we thought had been transformed, if not resolved.  Now in 2016, all three of these conflicts seem to be re-emerging, and in 2024, the "Cold War" is pretty darned hot. At the same time, we have seen the almost total meltdown of the Middle East, the continuing intractability of many wars in Africa, a heightening of tensions in several parts of Asia, and now, an ever-deepening division within the United States that is threatening the very basis and stability of our own democracy.
    
2. A second driving factor was Bill Ury's suggestion, many years ago, that we turn Beyond Intractability from simply an online "knowledge base" to a virtual "place" where users could "get together," talk, and brainstorm new ways of dealing with their myriad conflict challenges.  We tried to bring this about in a variety of ways, but the idea never really caught on.  These MOOSes were another attempt to do that -- which, in hindsight, didn't catch on either.  We have done better with our Substack Newsletter, to which quite a few of our colleagues have contributed ideas, and those ideas have been incorporated into our newer "Guide to Constructive Conflict Resources." But we are maintaining all the original Conflict Frontiers material too, because there was a lot of valuable material in here, that isn't duplicated elsewhere.
    
3. A third factor was that the Burgesses retired from teaching at the University of Colorado in the spring of 2016, which freed up a lot of our time.  We began to think about writing the book that we'd been wanting to write for years, but never had time to do so.  But books aren't really "our style"--we've been committed to the notion of sharing ideas online for free for a very long time. So it wasn't a hard sell when our friend and colleague Mari Fitzduff suggested that we'd be better off writing "our book" online. Doing so would also allow us to try, once again, to implement Bill Ury's notion of creating "a place" on BI, which is how we switched from the idea of an online book to an online seminar that was open to anyone who was interested.
    
4. But the fourth factor was that we got cold feet.  We have been watching the vitriol and worse that seemed to accompany most (if not all) online political discussions, and were cognizant that we did not have the staff or funding to monitor all the discussions we had originally envisioned encouraging in response to our posts.  So we didn't really push the discussion idea very hard, and Bill Ury's notion of BI becoming "a place for dialogue" didn't really happen.  But it was still a place for us to post our newest ideas, which we did for several years, until we switched to using our Substack Newsletter for the same purpose.

While the Conflict Fundamentals Seminar presents "settled knowledge" in the peacebuilding and conflict resolution fields, this Frontiers Seminar looks at what we called "frontier-of-the-field issues" — particularly scale and complexity and how to deal effectively with the challenges those factors create. The units are based on ideas and materials that Guy and Heidi Burgess have developed and have taught over the last 30 years. However, these ideas are based on our collaboration with over 500 people who have contributed to the development of Beyond Intractability and related projects. Thus, it includes the work and ideas of many people, not just us. 

Syllabus Overview

We start by examining the nature of intractability and why business-as-usual conflict resolution approaches don’t work well for these kinds of conflicts. A big part of the reason is the complexity and scale of these conflicts—which makes traditional “table-oriented” approaches (such as negotiation, mediation, dialogue, and problem-solving) less successful. (They just can't involve enough people). After exploring the implications of complex systems on conflict analysis and intervention, we suggest a complexity-oriented approach to intractability which we call  Massively Parallel Peacebuilding (MPP).

The second part of the seminar fleshes out what MPP means and how it can be applied, both in the U.S. and elsewhere.  We examine the goals and objectives of MPP, and traps and opportunities intractable conflicts provide for MPP. We then examine what we call "first-order make-a-difference actions" which are actions intended to directly alter the course of the conflict, and second-order actions, which are those intended to overcome the obstacles to successfully taking the first order actions—lack of capacity and cost being two examples.  We end with a discussion of how to move forward and apply these principles in “the real world.”  All of this is done in over 100 short videos (with transcripts) plus supporting materials from other BI sections (Things You can Do to Help, Conflict Fundamentals, BI Knowledge Base, and BI in Context.)

Seminars in the series currently include:

Topic Area 1: Scale, Complexity, & Intractability Here we introduce the Conflict Frontiers Seminar and discuss what we mean by the term "intractable conflict." We then explain why we think our inability to successfully address such conflicts is the single greatest threat facing humanity today.  This seminar goes on to explore the factors that make intractable conflict so difficult, including, especially, the challenges posed by the enormous scale of society-wide conflict and the social and psychological complexity of these conflicts. 

• Unit 1: The Challenge of Complex, Large-Scale Intractable Conflict - Here we introduce the Conflict Frontiers Seminar and discuss what we mean by the term "intractable conflict." We then explain why we think our inability to successfully address such conflicts is the single greatest threat facing humanity today.  This seminar goes on to explore the factors that make intractable conflict so difficult including, especially, the challenges posed by the enormous scale of society-wide conflict and the many problems posed by the social and psychological complexity of these conflicts.  For a much shorter, text-based version of the same content, see The Challenge of Complex, Intractable Conflicts.
   
• Unit  2: Pushing the Frontier: Limits of Business as Usual Approaches - It is often assumed that all conflicts can be addressed with the same well-tested, very successful conflict resolution techniques that work for small-scale intractable conflict.  We assert here that these "business-as-usual" strategies are not sufficient for intractable conflicts for a variety of reasons--they are highly complex, they are very large scale, and the people involved have concerns that go beyond a rational weighing of interests.
   
• Unit  3: Introduction to Complexity and "Systems Thinking" - Theoretical Antecedents - Some conflict theorists and practitioners have recognized the limits of traditional approaches to conflict and have been developing a variety of ideas about "systems" and "complexity-based" approaches to conflict which are reviewed here.
   

• Unit  4: Moving Toward a Complexity-Oriented Paradigm - In this seminar we (Guy Burgess and Heidi Burgess) present "our take" on systems thinking and complexity, drawing from these earlier authors but also integrating the ideas of Kenneth Boulding and Wendell Jones relating to levels of systems and complex adaptive systems. These ideas have led us to develop the concept of "Massively Parallel Peacebuilding," which is explored in the next Featured Seminar. Note: This seminar is made up of 13 short (10-15) minute videos.  For a much shorter overview of the key ideas, you can read our essay on A Complexity-Oriented Approach to Intractable Conflict.

   

Topic Area 2: Massively Parallel Peacebuilding - In the next part of the Frontiers Seminar we explain how we think that a strategy of Massively Parallel Peacebuilding (MPP) can help address these problems.  MPP is a highly-decentralized strategy for meeting the scale and complexity challenge. Building on what we now know (and can reasonably expect to find out), MPP identifies an Action List over 100 steps we can all take to help address ten big challenges that lie at the core of the intractable conflict problem. 

• Unit  5: Introduction to Massively Parallel Peacebuilding -Here we introduce Guy Burgess and Heidi Burgess's concept of Massively Parallel Peacebuilding (MPP) as a systems approach to intractable conflict.  MPP introduces ten "challenges" that need to be met to overcome intractability, and suggests over 100 things (10 or so per challenge) that need to be done (by 1000s of people and organizations) working in parallel to successfully address any intractable conflict. (The last Frontiers video explains how this isn't a totally crazy idea.)
• Unit  6: Figuring Out What is Going On (MPP Challenge 1) - One of the common traps of intractability is that there is a tendency to over-simplify a conflict to a simple "us-versus-them" struggle.  But they are always much more than that. The first challenge in Massively Parallel Peacebuilding is simply figuring out what is really going on in any particular conflict. 

Topic Area 3: Authoritarian Populism - Authoritarian Populism is a term that we and others use to refer to the rise of "light" or "would-be authoritarian leaders" who purport to be "men of the people," who are, indeed, being elected by popular vote in a number of democracies around the world. Their behavior, once in office, however, is much more like an autocrat than a democratic leader. In this unit, we explore how our ideas of Massively Parallel Peacebuilding can contribute to an understanding of this problem, as well as suggesting constructive responses to it.  NOTE: These videos were recorded during the first Trump administration and have not been updated since. While we think that the ideas presented are generally still applicable, there may be areas in which these videos do not fully address the reality of the second Trump administration.

• Unit  7: Using MPP to Understand the Authoritarian Populism Problem - As an example of how MPP can be used, in this seminar we explore one of the greatest threats to world and national peace today — what we (and others) call "authoritarian populism."  This unit contains a series of posts explaining what this is, and how and why it has developed in the U.S. and elsewhere. Then we will be utilizing the MPP approach to explore avenues for reversing or resisting such tendencies.
   
• Unit  8: MPP-based Strategies for Addressing the Authoritarian Populism Problem - Seminar 7 introduced and explained the nature of the "Authoritarian Populism Problem."  In this seminar we introduce a series of posts that begin to explore ways to constructively address the problem.
   
• Unit 9: The 2020 US Election – What Happens When We Have an Election That Both Sides Absolutely Positively Can't Afford to Lose? - This was written in the months before the U.S. 2020 election, which pitted Joe Biden on the Democratic side versus Donald Trump on the Republican side.  Hyper-polarization had been building throught the Trump presidency and was escalating even further from the campaign.  This seminar looks at the threats that created, and ways to diminish them as well.
   
• Unit 10: The Biden Years – Saving Democracy and Biden’s Challenge to the Conflict and Peacebuilding Fields - This was written shortly after Joe Biden's inauguration speech which promised to pull America back together.  We reflect on what it would take to do that.
   
• Unit 11: Challenging "Bad-Faith" Actors Who Seek to Amplify and Exploit Our Conflicts - Traditionally, the conflict and peacebuilding field has concentrated on supporting the good-faith efforts of citizens trying to find a way to move beyond their differences and build a society in which everyone would like to live. But we also need to contend with Bad-Faith Actors who seek to undermine these efforts and drive people apart.

Topic Area 4: Constructive Confrontation - This fourth Frontiers Topic Area builds on our earlier "Constructive Confrontation Initiative." Unlike the other topic areas, which combine several individual Conflict Frontiers Seminars, this Topic Area only has one seminar of the same name.

• Unit 12: Constructive Confrontation - The purpose of this seminar is to highlight what we mean by the term “constructive confrontation,” to (briefly) explain how it is different from what most advocates are doing now, and to explain things that everyone – including YOU! – can do to confront YOUR personal and our societal conflicts more constructively.

Continuing development of "Frontiers Ideas."

We began the Conflict Frontiers and Conflict Fundamentals Seminars in 2016, when the hyper-polarization between the left and the right in the U.S. was heating up with the election between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump. Obviously, the problem of hyper-polarization and the resultant destructive politics has only gained speed since then. We are no longer adding material to the Conflict Frontiers Seminar, but we are adding material two to three times a week to a Substack Newsetter which is copied, as well, on BI.  The new Guide to Constructive Conflict is also a combination of the Conflict Frontiers and Conflict Fundamentals Seminars, along with the best materials from our Newsletters and our Colleague, News, and Opinion posts.

Caveat:

Although we call this "a seminar," it is not being actively "taught." We do not have the capacity to have students "enroll," study this material together, discuss it, and be tested on it or otherwise be graded and get a certificate upon completion, as is generally the case for most "seminars."  However, the material is freely usable to whomever wants to use it to learn the basics of conflict resolution in a self-taught, unstructured, manner.