Newsletter #372 — July 30, 2025

Heidi Burgess and Guy Burgess

We first met Lou as graduate students in the mid-1970's when we were introduced by Kenneth Boulding and Elise Boulding (two other founders of the conflict and peacebuilding field) who have, as we often mention, done much to shape our thinking. Lou wrote the book Intractable Conflicts and Their Transformation, which came out in 1989, just as we were starting what was then known as the "Conflict Resolution Consortium (CRC)" at the University of Colorado. The CRC was one of 18 Conflict Resolution Theory-Building Centers that was funded by the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation.  (Lou's program at the University of Syracuse was another recipient of Hewlett Theory-Building Grants.) We originally started focusing on three types of conflicts: international conflicts, environmental conflicts, and racial conflicts. Guy and I were the only Consortium participants who went to all three of those working groups, and we noticed that we were struggling with the same issues in all three conversations. Upon reading Lou's book, I realized, the commonality was that conflicts in all three of these domains tended to become intractable.  That didn't always happen, of course, but it frequently did. 

Also about that time, the forerunner of ACR (the Association for Conflict Resolution), then, unfortunately, named "SPIDR" (Society of Professionals in Dispute Resolution), came out with a monograph on mediating environmental conflicts. A good half of the document described conflicts that mediators should not mediate, because they were likely to fail, thereby giving both themselves (the mediators) and the young field (conflict resolution) a bad name. Well, we thought, someone has to figure out better ways of handling those conflicts! So, following Lou's lead, we combined our three working groups into one, and started our focus on "intractable conflicts," which continues to this day.

Beyond Intractability began with a series of three meetings of about 50 people each, about 25 scholars who focused on very difficult conflicts (Lou and we called them "intractable," while others had different names: protracted, destructive, deep-rooted, resolution-resistant, malignant, etc). The practitioners were more skeptical of the notion, several insisting that there was no such thing as an "intractable conflict." One argued that there were only "intractable people;" several others asserted that intractability only occurred when the third party (i.e. the mediator) was incompetent, because (they apparently assumed) a good mediator could solve anything. Indeed, one of the best-selling books of that era, Fisher and Ury's Getting to Yes (Bruce Patton was added in the second edition) argued that almost all conflicts could be resolved if one only used their technique of "principled negotiation," which negotiated on the basis of interests, not positions, and sought options for mutual gain (among several other principles).  This was a bullish time for the young field of conflict resolution, when many practitioners thought they were capable of solving almost anything. 

But Lou and we were interested in looking at those "almosts"—those conflicts that didn't seem to respond to principled negotiation or related strategies. You will note that Lou's blog post (which follows below) is about Israel/Palestine.  That was our poster-child for intractability back in the late 80s; it still is.  Folks from Kashmir sometimes told us their conflict was just as intractable, as did people from DRC and a few other places in Africa. Most people studying conflict in the U.S. didn't see U.S. conflicts in that way — it wasn't until recently that people began to see the similarities between the cleavages they were working on abroad using what was called "peacebuilding," and what was needed to heal the cleavages we are experiencing in the United States.

That's where Lou comes into our story again. In 1998, Lou published a book entitled Constructive Conflicts:  From  Escalation to Resolution. This book has been revised six times, with Bruce Dayton coming on as a co-author on the fourth, fifth and sixth editions. (The sixth edition, entitled Constructive Conflicts: From Emergence to Transformation came out in 2022). The books are chock-full of both theory and practice tips, but the number one core idea is that conflicts can be constructive (meaning they can be beneficial to the disputants as well as to their families, organizations, and societies as a whole, if they are engaged properly. The book also explores how conflicts can be transformed from destructive to constructive, and uses case studies from both the U.S. and abroad as examples.

In 2019, we were trying to begin a new project at the CRC (which actually had become CIC some time earlier, as we were no longer talking about "resolving conflicts," but rather helping to make them more constructive). We were getting very concerned that the political divide in the United States was growing very ugly and was increasingly destructive. So we were interested in getting more American mediators and other conflict resolvers to recognize the problem and help American disputants to engage in their political conflicts in more constructive ways.  We went round and round considering names for that project, and the best one we could come up with was "The Constructive Conflict Initiative."  But "Constructive Conflict" was Lou and Bruce's term, and we didn't want them to think that we were stealing it or trying to horn in on their good ideas. So we reached out to both of them.  Rather than being protective, they were fine with us using the same term, and helped us a lot at the beginning of that project.

As I (Heidi) have told many people, and I hope I have told Lou often, he is our hero. He has been a thought leader, consummate scholar, and a revered teacher in the field of peace and conflict resolution for years.  Though he retired from active teaching and research at the University of Syracuse some years ago, he is still — at 99 years old! —writing blog posts, and otherwise engaging with people about current events.  In 2022 (when he was 96 years old!) Oxford University Press published Lou's latest book: Fighting Better: Constructive Conflicts in America. As I wrote in my review of that, which came out in both the Negotiation Journal and on BI, 

{Fighting Better] is a scholarly masterpiece, unlike any other I have read in the conflict resolution field.  It takes readers back to 1945, and in one chapter on political power, back to 1765, to help those of us who have little (or in my case forgotten) historical knowledge about the struggles for justice that have taken place in the past. Kriesberg clearly illustrates how we got to where we are now in terms of status, class, power, and racial struggles, drawing lessons from that journey to suggest how we should best go forward if we are to make progress towards justice now. 

I highlight key ideas from each chapter (addressing class, status, and power conflicts through the years) and then conclude my review by saying:

The remainder of the book contains a long list of suggestions for constructively addressing class, status, and power inequities.  Some will fit in some circumstances; others will fit elsewhere.  His suggestions are not a "one-size-fits-all" panacea for our current woes.  But they certainly do suggest that there are myriad ways we can do better than we are doing now, and that is the responsibility of all of us, no matter who we are, and what class, status, and power position we are in, to play our role in pursuing equity in constructive, not destructive ways. 

Taken as a whole, the book provides more than ample evidence of why we should do this.  Constructive conflict not only works better for the individual participants; it works better for everyone.  Destructive conflict approaches, while sometimes appearing to be beneficial to the instigator over the short-run, almost inevitably leads to backlash that reverses any gains made and hurts everyone over the longer run.

This is a message, of course, that we, too, have been trying to spread. But the concept of constructive conflict started with Lou, and he continues to help us develop and promote this critical idea.

And now, here's the blog post Lou sent for us to post.

Thoughts on Israeli/Palestinian Conflict 

[My title--Lou didn't give one.]

by Lou Kriesberg. Sent by email on July 29, 2025

I was briefly in Israel a few days before the assassination of Israel’s prime Minister, Yitzhak Rabin at a peace rally  in Tel Aviv.  I was appalled to see signs and posters everywhere in Jerusalem, depicting Rabin as a traitor, a Nazi, who should be killed.  Benjamin Netanyahu led the extremist Likud Party which was associated with such conduct. At Likud rallies where sometimes “Death to Rabin” was chanted, Netanyahu did not object.   Yigal Amir, a young ultranationalist, law student, opposing the Oslo Accords, shot and killed Rabin as the Peace rally concluded on November 4, 1995.

Shimon Peres became Prime Minister, continuing the campaign to  implement the Oslo Accords.  However, many vicious Palestinian terrorist attacks erupted in Tel Aviv, Jerusalem, and elsewhere. In response to the terrorist attacks, many Israeli Jews abandoned the Oslo Accords and elected Netanyahu and a right wing government at the next elections.  Yet, various actions taken by many other actors might have sustained progress to a two-state solution.  For example, many Jews and/or Palestinians might have had their respective leaders make concessions to reach a formal agreement.

Even now, maybe some bundle of actions by various people can foster progress to a peaceful accord between Jews in Israel and Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza.  They include Netanyahu and extremist Orthodox Jews’ electoral defeat;  the attainment of civil equality for Palestinian citizens of Israel; Arab nations absorbing Palestinian refugees in their midst;  greater intervention by the  United Nations; and implementing  several conditional proposals by Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and other Arab countries to invest in economic development in the West Bank, Gaza, and Israel. Ultimately, progress will be enhanced as  all parties recognize that peace and security are fostered by adopting mutually beneficial efforts, rather  than by striving only for self-serving gains. 

Heidi's final thought:

That last sentence applies everywhere: not just in Israel, the West Bank and Gaza, but in the U.S., Europe, Africa, Asia, and South America—everywhere where conflicts are raging (as they are, sadly, all over the world.) Our fear and worry is that many people have forgotten (or never knew) what peace (or in other contexts) democracy is, or why they might want it. We have to work on strengthening that understanding too.

Happy Birthday, Lou, and may you keep lighting our path for a good many years to come!

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About the MBI Newsletters

Two or three times a week, Guy and Heidi Burgess, the BI Directors, share some of our thoughts on political hyper-polarization and related topics. We also share essays from our colleagues and other contributors, and every week or so, we devote one newsletter to annotated links to outside readings that we found particularly useful relating to U.S. hyper-polarization, threats to peace (and actual violence) in other countries, and related topics of interest. Each Newsletter is posted on BI, and sent out by email through Substack to subscribers. You can sign up to receive your copy here and find the latest newsletter here or on our BI Newsletter page, which also provides access to all the past newsletters, going back to 2017.

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