All Recent Posts
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Things You Can Do To Help | Conflict Frontiers | Conflict Fundamentals
Beyond Intractability in Context | Colleague Activities
- Using the MPP Action List: The Authoritarian Populism Example (Part I) -- How can populist revolts address the real failures of establishment elites without falling victim to authoritarian temptations?
- Conflict Frontiers Seminar 6--Figuring Out What Is Going On (MPP Challenge 1) -- Widespread, and overly simplistic, "us vs. them" ways of thinking about conflict underlies much of its destructiveness.
- Conflict Frontiers Seminar 5 -- Introduction to Massively Parallel Peacebuilding (MPP) -- While there is no simple way to "resolve" intractable conflicts, a complexity-oriented approach can make them less destructive.
- Conflict Frontiers Seminar 4 -- Moving Toward a Complexity-Oriented Paradigm -- We need a new strategy tailored to intractable conflict's gigantic, tangled web of causes and consequences.
- Conflict Frontiers Seminar 3 -- Introduction to Complexity and "Systems Thinking": Theoretical Antecedents -- Nests, cycles, attractors, and paradigms -- new ways of thinking about conflict and its resolution.
- Conflict Frontiers Seminar 2 -- Pushing the Frontier: the Limits of Business-as-Usual Approaches -- More of the same isn't enough--we need new approaches to successfully address intractable conflicts.
- Conflict Frontiers Seminar 1 -- Understanding the Intractable Conflict Problem -- Destructive dynamics associated with intractable conflict are as big a threat as climate change. Find out why!
- Massively Parallel Peacebuilding Action List -- The ten challenges of MPP are daunting, but there is a role here for everyone.
- Factual Disputes -- An overview of the many kinds of disputes over facts that arise in conflicts--and what to do about them. Although getting worse, this problem isn't new!
- Cognitive Dissonance -- Cognitive dissonance can escalate or de-escalate conflict depending on how it is used.
- Siege Mentality -- North Korea's siege mentality is particularly dangerous as the US is exhibiting a siege mentality too!
- Minimize the Use of Force -- Exchange and respect are more powerful than force--they persuade without causing backlash.
- Seek Co-existence, Not Total Victory -- The demand for total victory is a recipe for continuing and deepening strife--co-existence is essential for peace.
- Be Willing to Consider the Possibility That You May Be Wrong -- Most of us are so enmeshed in our own worldviews that we don't consider that we might be wrong. It helps to listen to outsiders and consider that possibility.
- Listen Actively and Empathically -- Empathic listening is amazingly powerful--sometimes that is all that is needed to defuse destructive conflicts.
- Practice - and Preach - Civility in Public and Private Discourse -- Incivility begets more of the same, while civil discourse can help de-escalate conflict and improve relationships.
- Allow Your Opponents to "Save Face" -- No one likes to be humiliated--allowing your opponent to save face will help defuse a conflict.
- Focus on Fixing the Problem, Not Attacking People -- Attacking people makes them angry. Enlisting their help to solve a mutual problem is more likely to work as hoped.
- If You're Not Part of the Solution, You're Part of the Problem -- Conflict is created by everyone--it becomes better or worse depending on what all of us do.
