Changing the Debate About “Success” in Conflict Resolution Efforts

This essay outlines a conceptual framework for discussing success in interactive conflict resolution and in conflict resolution efforts more generally. It first proposes reasons why evaluation is crucial for improving practice. An overview of the new framework and its development are then presented. This gives the reader a window into its construction and some of the challenges of evaluation in conflict intervention processes. Next, the uses of the framework are explained as well as how its use helps to change the debate about successful processes. Finally, this article discusses how the theoretician, practitioner, and researcher-evaluator can use this framework for their own purposes, and how evaluating processes based upon their goals helps to improve the theory, practice, and research of the field.     

Should Science Class Be Fair? Frames and Values in the Evolution Debate

Communicators try to shape public opinion to their advantage by invoking social values. We examine a vivid example of this value framing in the debate over teaching evolution in the public schools. Supporters of intelligent design (ID) theory have pressed for greater acceptance in public schools by framing the issue as a question of fairness. A survey experiment revealed overwhelming agreement that including ID in science class is fairer than excluding it. This belief had a greater impact on tolerance for ID when the issue was framed with respect to fairness. A second study showed similar effects from a pro-ID documentary film. A final study showed that training in scientific reasoning counteracts the impact of the fairness value, thereby decreasing tolerance for ID. Combined, these studies show how political debate can be understood as a contest over which values deserve greatest consideration or emphasis.     

The U.S. Global Strategy as Seen from the Debate in the Primary Election

There may be more than one year to go before the 2008 U.S. presidential election, but the primary election of the two parties has already begun ahead of time. Both the Democratic and Republican candidates for the     

Reinvigorating the Bretton Woods Institutions： Traditional and Rising Powers＇ Debate on the Issues and Stakes

Introduction：
Throughout modem history, the Intemational Monetary Fund （IMF） and the World Bank, commonly referred to as the Bretton Woods Institutions （BWI）, have waned in and out of importance to the global economic system. Created in 1944, both organizations were to have specialized roles in intemational economic govemance. The IMF would address exchange rate cooperation, liberalization of international payments and balance of payments adjustments; the World Bank would address capital investment, development, and long-term project lending. While both organizations would face repeated crises of purpose and legitimacy throughout their modem history, the recent sidelining of the BWIs in the aftermath of the Asian crisis would raise the awareness of world leaders of the need to address relevance of their mandates in their evolving global setting. At the tum of the century, the BWIs were declared irrelevant.