Working Papers and Occasional Papers

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Working Papers and Occasional Papers produced by the Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter School for Peace and Conflict Resolution. Earlier imprints were published originally by the Institute for Conflict Analysis and Resolution.

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Now showing 1 - 20 of 47

A "Community of Values" in the CSCE/OSCE?
(School for Conflict Analysis and Resolution, 2001-06) Sandole, Dennis J. D.
“Dr. Dennis Sandole has long been interested in questions of peace and security and has published a range of empirical and theoretically oriented studies on the subject. This current Working Paper represents a report on his most recent investigation into the role of international organizations in creating the structures for comprehensive common security. His focus here is on the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) and its predecessor, the Conference for Security and Cooperation in Europe (CSCE). This Working Paper analyzes data collected through interviews with heads of delegation to the organization conducted in 1993, 1997, and 1999. These successive surveys allow Sandole to explore changes of attitudes in the context of the momentous events of the 1990s, most notably the NATO intervention in Bosnia (1995) and the more contentious intervention in Kosovo (1999). Details of the surveys are included in the appendix of this paper.”
A Journey from the Laboratory to the Field: Insights on Resolving Disputes through Negotiation
(School for Conflict Analysis and Resolution, 2001-03) Druckman, Daniel
This Occasional Paper is Druckman's answer, at least in part, to a fundamental question that graduate students at the Institute for Conflict Analysis and Resolution and elsewhere often ask—where do ideas for research come from? The response put forward in this paper is that they come in large part from theoretically derived models and from methodologies designed to explore the implications of such models. Druckman argues that frameworks are valuable as organizational tools and as guides for the design and analysis of data-collection. He believes that the immediate situation is generally the primary influence on the behavior of actors in a negotiation and that such behavior is best understood in terms of an ongoing process.
A Willingness to Talk
(School for Conflict Analysis and Resolution, 1990-10-29) Mitchell, Christopher
“Moves intended to initiate de-escalation and begin a peace process are often difficult to make and even more difficult to identify unambiguously. Two examples from recent Anglo-Argentine relations provide a basis for investigating whether successful gestures of conciliation demonstrate any common qualities or occur only in highly propitious circumstances. A number of hypotheses are advanced concerning characteristics which enhance a gesture's credibility and chances of success. Although it is noted that even gestures attempting to signal a clear ‘willingness to talk’ with an adversary, which demonstrate these characteristics, can be missed entirely, misinterpreted, or ignored by a Target firmly committed to continuing the conflict by coercive means; the initiation of a successful process of conflict termination remains a highly uncertain procedure. “
An Intervenor's Role and Values: A Study of a Peace Committee Report in Grahamstown, South Africa
(School for Conflict Analysis and Resolution, 2002-02) Midgley, J. R.
“The extraordinary transition in South Africa has received well-deserved attention. Midgley tells a less well-known part of the story relating to the work by members of a collection of Peace Committees acting to manage and resolve community conflicts between the time of the September 1991 National Peace Accord and the 1994 elections to majority rule. He focuses on his experience with the Grahams town Peace Commission and a specific set of conflicts within the Rini Township between members of the community and between the community and the police. Midgley uses this story to explore a wide range of issues at the heart of conflict resolution practice, including mediators' roles and tensions between the roles of peacebuilder, activist, and peacemaker, ethical considerations, and the relationships among the Peace Committees and political actors. He provides an assessment of the work of the Peace Committees and both points to their significant accomplishments during a period of transition and their failure to transform themselves into an institutionalized part of the post-transition political order. Rob Midgley's insights will be valuable to everyone interested in the potential and the limits of building new structures of peace in a complex social and political environment. We thank him for his contribution.”
Cities After the 1960s-- Where Have All the Promises Gone?
(School for Conflict Analysis and Resolution, 1994-03-01) Wilkins, Roger
The promise for the cities in the 1960s was that America had taken an honest look at its racial history. The country was rich then and growing and vital. Some people thought that America had experienced a profound change of heart and that justice could be purchased with our bountiful growth. We were then experiencing a continual period of low inflation, low unemployment, and steadily growing gross national product. I remember I was upbraided once after I had given a speech by a man who said, ‘We will have justice out of growth. America is never a zero-sum game. We will always grow. Out of our bounty, we will have justice.’ Well, unfortunately it did not turn out that way. Some of us had strong suspicions-Jim and I, Wally Warfield among them-that there was less promise and more foreboding in our sixties experiences. From the things that we had seen in the cities all across the country, I had profound doubts that the humane trajectory of the early sixties could be sustained in the cauldrons of despair deep in our inner cities. There was too much animosity toward the people there. There was too much poverty. There was too much human devastation. And, there was too little will and money to be marshaled against those things. So, I left the federal government almost exactly 25 years ago, making the same warnings in speech after speech. There were really two warnings. First, if we do not change our national investment patterns, our cities will become blacker and poorer, and that will be a disaster for our nation. Second, if we continue to treat people like savages, they will become savages, and raising groups of savages in the middle of the central points of growth and renewal of a culture is a wonderful way for a civilization to commit suicide. Now, 25 years later, the forebodings have clearly outdistanced the promise.
Conceptions of the World Order: Building Peace in the Third Millennium
(School for Conflict Analysis and Resolution, 1997-04-23) Rapoport, Anatol
"...It is a very great pleasure to welcome Dr. Anatol Rapoport to George Mason University to deliver the Tenth Annual Vernon M. and Minnie I. Lynch Lecture, "Conceptions of World Order: Building Peace in the Third Millennium," in this, the Institute for Conflict Analysis and Resolution's Fifteenth Anniversary Year.
Conflict and Culture: A Literature Review and Bibliography, 1992-98 update
(School for Conflict Analysis and Resolution, 1998-06) LeBaron, Michelle; Garon, Stephen
“The 1992 publication, Conflict and Culture: A Literature Review and Bibliography by Michelle LeBaron begins with the premise that the goals of conflict resolution are complementary to those of multiculturalism. It further posits that conflict resolution is a tool to achieve multiculturalism, which is defined as valuing the existence, maintenance and extension of individual cultures. A true multicultural society, it claims, is one in which equal participation is unfettered by race, ethnicity, gender, or class. LeBaron further proposes that if conflict resolution is to fulfill its promise vis-a-vis multiculturalism and facilitate successful intergroup relations, the conflict resolution community must engage in critical self reflection and examine its theoretical underpinnings for cultural biases. In particular, it contends that any process for effective multicultural conflict resolution must address cultural diversity, culture-influenced perceptions, and the issue of power. In addition to making these claims, the literature review addresses several related themes. For example, it deals with the ubiquity of the mediation model and the numerous culture-bound assumptions which undergird it. Recognizing the rapid changes in ethnic diversity and the growth of alternative dispute resolution (ADR), it asserts the need for both formal and informal conflict resolution systems to respond to cultural concerns. It also explores some of the characteristics of effective service providers in cross-cultural settings, and raises the implications of multiculturalism for dispute resolution training.”
Conflict Resolution and Civil War: Reflections on the Sudanese Settlement of 1972
(School for Conflict Analysis and Resolution, 1989-03) Mitchell, Christopher
“Christopher R. Mitchell's ‘Conflict Resolution and Civil War: The Sudanese Settlement of 1972’ is the third in a series of Working Papers reflecting the research interests and findings of the Center for Conflict Analysis and Resolution at George Mason University.”
Conflict Resolution and Power Politics/ Global Conflict After the Cold War:Two Lectures
(School for Conflict Analysis and Resolution, 1996-01) Rubenstein, Richard
“The two public lectures contained in this working paper were presented by Institute for Conflict Analysis and Resolution faculty member Richard E. Rubenstein at the University of Malta. ‘Conflict Resolution and Political Power’ was presented in Valletta, Malta, on January 12, 1995, under the sponsorship of the International Foundation. ‘Global Conflict After the Cold War’ was given on November 30, 1994, at Sir Teri Zammit Hall, Msida, under the auspices of the University of Malta's Department of Sociology. Malta's continuing interests in international peacemaking and conflict resolution are well known throughout the world. Almost from the time it became independent, this former British colony saw itself as a force for peace in the Mediterranean region: a natural bridge between Europe and North Africa, the First World and the Third. Pursuing these interests, Maltese public officials and academics have played a leading role in negotiating international agreements on the Law of the Sea and on environmental security. They have reached out to the Islamic nations and to Israel and have convened important conferences on Mediterranean regional problems. In fall 1994, I was pleased to attend the annual meeting of the International Peace Research Association hosted in Valletta by the University of Malta's Institute for Peace and Conflict Studies.”
Conflict Resolution as a Political System
(School for Conflict Analysis and Resolution, 1988) Burton, John W
“‘Conflict Resolution as a political System" was the first of the Institute's series of working Papers to be published, and when it came out in 1988 both the author and the then Director regarded the series as a vehicle for timely ‘think pieces’ or reports of research in progress at the Institute, then only a small Center. John Burton's original paper was introduced as extending the boundaries of conflict resolution and offering ‘. . .a view of what the field's fundamental philosophy should be...’ Over the last five years, however, it has become more and more evident that one of the fundamental problems facing the so called ‘Post Cold War World’ is the intellectual and practical construction of innovative forms of political systems, to replace the dominant model of the unitary, "‘national", territorial state which, in the real world, has increasingly been shown to be non-unitary, multi-national, and inconveniently unwilling to remain confined to assigned chunks of state territory. Without new thinking about possible and appropriate forms of political organization, that contain within themselves means of resolving inevitable conflicts, the ‘Post Cold War World’ seems likely to become the Small Shooting War World and to be filled with Bosnias, Somalias, Ngorno Karabakhs, or Afghanistans. Hence, the Institute's decision to republish John Burton's piece is both a timely response to the need to rethink the fundamentals of political organisation and a reminder of the liveliness of Burton's original work, which still has much to say about the world of the mid-1990s.”
Conflict Resolution in the Post Cold War Era: Dealing with Ethnic Violence in the New Europe
(School for Conflict Analysis and Resolution, 1992-10) Sandole, Dennis J. D.
“This timely paper by Dr. Sandole is part of a continuing project at the Institute intendedto analyse and recommend remedies for the resurgence of overt and violent conflict in Eastern Europe. It takes the form of a consideration of the manner in which the ‘security problematic’ for Europe as a whole has changed as a result of the end of the confrontation there between the USSR and the USA, and how this has become a matter of coping with conflicts that are internal or transnational, arising from long suppressed ethnic rivalries. Such conflicts have not been wholly unknown in Western Europe since 1945 - Alto Adige, Catalonia, the Basque country, Northern Ireland - but since the ending of Soviet control in Eastern Europe and the development of the idea of a ‘common European home’ the world has become all too familiar with the management and mismanagement of conflicts between Croats and Serbs, Russians and Lithuanians, Czechs and Slovaks, Georgians and Ossetians. In these, and many more, ethnicity and the search for ethnic identity and security play major roles.”
Conflicts in the Second World: A View on Track 2 Diplomacy
(School for Conflict Analysis and Resolution, 2001-06) Riegg, Natalya Tovmasyan
“Natalya Tovmasyan Riegg has been a Visiting Fellow at the Institute for Conflict Analysis and Resolution (ICAR) and a Research Fellow at the National Peace Foundation since 1999. This Working Paper reflects her thinking about the problems of creating a peaceful settlement to the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict in her native Armenia. We at ICAR have benefited greatly from our association with her, and it is with great pleasure that we share her thoughts in this Working Paper.”
Cutting Losses: Reflections on Appropriate Timing
(School for Conflict Analysis and Resolution, 1995-12) Mitchell, Christopher
“The field of conflict resolution has reached a point in its evolution where hunches and intuitive guesses are being transformed into testable theoretical propositions. Nowhere is this more important than in the debate about when conflicts are ‘ripe for resolution.’ The conventional wisdom is that early intervention is preferable to late intervention since conflicts are more tractable when there is cognitive flexibility, when the structural conditions are conducive to settlement and the issues are clear and unclouded, and when the protagonists have not lapsed into a malignant spiral of violent hostility. If this wisdom is correct, and there is much evidence that it is so, then conflict revolutionaries should direct most attention to the prevention of violent conflicts. If conflict resolvers fail to prevent the occurrence of violence, however, the question of when it is timely and appropriate for third parties (or the antagonists themselves) to initiate peace processes remains. This is a vital issue, since premature or tardy interventions may impede rather than advance positive peace processes.”
Empathy and Forgiveness for Apartheid's Most Condemned Man: Confronting the Human Side of Evil
(School for Conflict Analysis and Resolution, 2002-02) Gobodo-Madikizela, Pumla
“In this paper, Gobodo-Madikizela focuses on the very micro process of reconciliation and the issue of apology and forgiveness. She asks, ‘How can we understand forgiveness in the context of tragedy?’ She argues that forgiveness derives from the ‘sheer humanness’ of an encounter between victim and perpetrator of evil and the ensuing empathy and understanding. She provides a detailed, nuanced account of her encounters with one particularly notorious individual, Eugene de Kock, one of the apartheid government's chief assassins, and her personal struggle with empathy. She seeks to understand how he reached his decision to apologize and how the act of apologizing transformed him. Her meetings with de Kock led her to question the nature of evil, and how empathy can distort the boundary between interviewer and subject, and how the human touch alters relationships.”
Engaging Provention: A Pressing Question of Need
(School for Conflict Analysis and Resolution, 2013) Dunn, David J
“In three major sections, what follows is unified by the notion of need. The uses of this term are slightly different, but there is a unity throughout. That unity is the life and work of John W. Burton, whose contribution was recognized and celebrated at the conference, held at ‘Point of View’ in April and May of 2011, that preceded this work. Over the course of 40 years my engagement with John Burton followed no consistent pattern. He was one of my teachers when I was an undergraduate student at University College in London, and I was immediately attracted to his way of thinking and his engagement with students. He did not look down on us, but trusted our opinions and urged us to think creatively, and he valued our opinions. We went, necessarily, our separate ways, and after graduate school in the United States and London I embarked on a career teaching International Relations in the United Kingdom. Though I did not encounter Burton for two decades, his work and perspective stayed with me and influenced my own approach to the study and teaching of the subject. When I did re-engage with Burton’s work, it influenced me profoundly, to the extent that I wanted to write a study of its evolution: the importance of it, as far as I was concerned, was such that it needed to be engaged more widely and more significantly (See Dunn, 2004). That purpose is restated here. In the last years of Burton’s life I got to know him well. I visited him often (at least as often as intercontinental travel and work allowed) at his home in Canberra, and we conversed long and frequently. What is striking is that, even as the years advanced, he was driven. He had a routine: breakfast, newspapers and journals, ostensibly a nap, then writing. He rested, but his mind was always active, pushing forward his own thoughts. He was not an angry man, but he was not content either. He was driven by the belief that the way things are are not the way they have to be. (See for example, Burton 2008). He resisted that notion, intellectually and viscerally.”
Finding Meaning in a Complex Environment Policy Dispute: Research into Worldviews in the Northern Forest Lands Council Dialogue, 1990-94
(School for Conflict Analysis and Resolution, 2000-05) Crocker, Jarle; Docherty, Jayne
“Among the different types of social conflict that have been studied by social scientists, disputes over the environment have been recognized as uniquely rich avenues for intellectual - inquiry. Often occurring at the intersection of complex economic, social, legal, political, and ecological issues, environmental conflicts also evoke deeply held values that lie at the core of many individual and group identities. The nature of community, the definition of the good life, and the meaning of the relationship between humans and nature are only a few of the prominent questions commonly raised by these disputes, These deeply rooted philosophical issues are not easy to address under any circumstances. Since they clearly do not lend themselves to technical analysis or easy resolution, policy managers may not even acknowledge them, much less welcome their inclusion in public dialogue. Embedded in intense, high stakes policy conflicts, they are easily lost altogether.”
Frames, Framing, and Reframing In, and Through The Mass Media: Reflection of Four Protracted Environmental Disputes in the Israeli Press
(School for Conflict Analysis and Resolution, 2002-05) Vraneski, Ariella; Richter, Ravit
“The mass media is part and parcel of modern life. In recent years environmental conflicts have increasingly become part of the public agenda, and they now gain vast media coverage. While all agree that fully functioning media sectors are essential for expanding and supporting democracy on global, national, and local levels alike, many claim that the media’s interference, by definition, escalates conflicts. Recent studies confirm that many roles can be attributed to media coverage, including some that lead conflicts toward constructive resolutions. The hypothesis of our research is that through frames, the media is both influenced by and influential with regard to the conflict’s dynamics. This paper presents parts of a research project, aimed at improving the understanding of the framing and re-framing processes of intractable environmental conflicts. It introduces a hybrid typology for analyzing the media framing and re-framing patterns, and discusses the frames used by the media while covering four Israeli case studies. The paper portrays existing patterns of mutual impact between environmental conflicts, their press coverage, and public decision making, and raises several queries related to interventions in the media’s framing processes.”
Global Projections of Deep-Rooted US Pathologies
(School for Conflict Analysis and Resolution, 1996-10) Galtung, Johan
Barbara W. Tuchman, in her fine book The March of Folly,' studies four cases of foreign policy actors-Troy in the Battle of Troy. the Renaissance Popes during the Protestant Reformation, England and the American Revolution. and the USA in Vietnam-and concludes that their actions cannot be described as anything but simply foolish.? What they enacted worked out extremely badly. Their so-called decisions made them look foolish, if not to their contemporaries, then at least to posterity.
Globalization and Pressure to Conform: Contesting Labor Law Reform in Egypt
(School for Conflict Analysis and Resolution, 2004-02) Paczynska, Agnieszka
“The economic changes brought on by globalization imply a fundamental restructuring of the relationship between the state and society, a transformation that inherently generates conflicts. Everyone has been affected by these changes, but the costs and benefits of integration into the global economy have not been distributed evenly across all social groups. While some have benefited from the changes, others have found themselves struggling to cope in this new environment. Many students of globalization have noted that as economic integration has progressed, the power of capital vis-a.-vis the state as well as vis-a.-vis organized labor has grown. In particular, as capital has become more mobile and the competition to attract this increasingly mobile capital has increased, the set of policy choices available to national governments has shrunk. As national-level policies have become more capital-friendly, the position of trade unions has declined and workers have been caught in a relentless ‘race to the bottom’ -lower wages, lower social spending, and less worker-friendly labor market regulations. “
Group Violence in America
(School for Conflict Analysis and Resolution, 1989-03) Rubenstein, Richard
“‘Group Violence in America: The Fire Next Time?’ is the second working paper of the Center for Conflict Analysis and Resolution at George Mason University. Both writings will come as a surprise to those who think of conflict resolution as being essentially a process, a process by which parties to conflicts are brought together and helped to transform their relationships. In fact, conflict resolution, as defined by the center in its Mission Statement, is more than a process. It is an approach to social relationships at all levels of interaction, from the family to the international, that seeks to take into account inherent human aspirations and needs of development, and that seeks to isolate those environmental constraints, political, social, and economic, which frustrate the attainment of such development. With such a perspective, conflict resolution is by definition a challenge to conventional approaches to public policies, in that its focus is on the person, not on institutions, except to the extent that institutions should be adapted to the needs of persons. This raises the time-honored question of the individual and the social good. But that question has in the past been posed by those who have an interest in the preservation of institutions in order to justify their positions. Now the question is being posed more to tilt the balance in favor of the person. It was for this reason that the first working paper posed the question whether conflict resolution was a political philosophy. Given that it is concerned with resolving deep rooted conflicts, that is, conflicts over fundamental human needs for identity and recognition that emerge, for example, in ethnic and class struggles, and given that it recognizes that such resolution may be possible only through structural change and fundamental policy changes, it follows that conflict resolution is in the arena of political analysis and change.”

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