Zukunftsfähige Agrarlandschaften in Deutschland – Ziele und Anforderungen aus ökologischer, ökonomischer und rechtlicher Sicht

Natur und Recht - Die global steigenden Treibhausgase verändern in zunehmenden Maße auch in Deutschland die klimatischen Verhältnisse. Betroffen sind insbesondere hiesige...     

Seeking Sustainable Solutions: Using an Attractor Simulation Platform for Teaching Multistakeholder Negotiation in Complex Cases

We live and work in an increasingly complex and dynamic world. The demands of working in such environments require that negotiators understand situations of conflict and work with these situations in correspondingly complex and dynamic ways. Dynamical systems theory offers important insights and tools to enhance the understanding of difficult social conflicts, including the conceptualization of ongoing destructive conflicts as strong attractors: a particular form of self-organization of multiple elements comprising the mental and social systems associated with conflict. This article describes the pedagogical use of a computer simulation of conflict attractors (the attractor software) that allows participants to visualize and work interactively with the dynamics of conflict as they unfold over time. It further describes a negotiation workshop that employs the simulation to enhance participants' understanding of complex long-term dynamics in conflict and presents the findings of two outcome studiescomparing the effectiveness of a workshop that employed the simulation with one that employed a traditional integrative problem-solving method. While not definitive, these studies suggest that an understanding of the dynamical approach to conflict, supported by use of the attractor software, can promote the generation of more sustainable solutions for long-term conflicts.     

Intimate Partner Violence Against Married Women in Uganda

This study utilized data from the 2006 Uganda Demographic and Health Survey to examine correlates of the lifetime experience of intimate partner violence (IPV) against married women in Uganda. Guided by an integrated theoretical framework that synthesizes resource and gender theories, five hypotheses are developed and tested concerning three major forms of IPV: (a) physical violence, (b) emotional or psychological violence, and (c) sexual violence. Results from multivariate statistical analyses indicate that although both the resource and gender factors are significant predictors of the lifetime experience of IPV among married Ugandan women, the gender factors appear to be more systematic and robust than the resource factors in predicting IPV in Uganda. Theoretical and policy implications are discussed.