Strategies,capabilities, and demands: Explaining outcomes in violent intrastate nationalist conflicts

The study of nationalist and ethnic conflict has undergone considerable growth since the end of the Cold War. Much of the effort has been focused on ascertaining the nature and origins of such conflicts, and less on their process and termination. Those studies that do focus on conflict termination have generally done so using case‐study or idiosyncratic methods. Hence, we do not yet have much large‐N or statistical evidence that might suggest broad trends in how such conflicts end, or even much experience in measuring the relevant concepts in a manner conducive to such methods. This paper will address these questions by introducing a theoretical framework that seeks to explain the outcomes of violent intrastate nationalist conflicts. It will discuss measurement issues for relevant independent variables, and present data for a group of 75 violent, intrastate nationalist conflicts from 1945–1996. This data will then be used to test propositions derived from the model. The aim is to provide a useful building block for the study of the process and outcome of conflicts which political scientists now recognize to be some of the most important for the coming century.     

主体民族主义与国族构建的悖论——以色列民族政策思想之评析

以色列是一个以犹太、阿拉伯两大族类为主体的多民族国家。国家的犹太属性、内部殖民主义和分而治之是以色列处理与国内阿拉伯人民族关系的基本思想。以色列的民族政策造成阿拉伯人在社会生活的各个方面遭受挤压、歧视,成为经济落后、政治孤立的少数族类,与主流社会十分疏远。这一现实与以色列理应将全体国民纳入其民族国家构建范畴,以塑造统一的政治文化共同体和国族认同的民族构建产生了直接的悖论,并且从根本上制约着国家的稳定、健康与和谐发展。     

The Culture of Interest: A Proposed Addition and Revision of the Three‐Culture Model

Negotiation and conflict resolution theorists have classified world cultures according to three types for the purpose of describing and predicting some of the ways in which individuals and groups within broad, geographically based cultural groups behave in conflict and negotiation‐related situations. These three broad categories, called “cultural syndromes,” have described these cultures according to the relative value they place on these three concerns: honor, face, and dignity. Based on our examination of the literature on the cultural dimensions of negotiation and conflict management, our own practice, and an analysis of literature and practice pertaining to the place and utility of the honor, face, interest, and dignity attributes within and between cultural groups , we propose a reformulation of this typology. Our reformulation would replace the broad “dignity” category with a new category that we call “interest,” which we believe better characterizes Northern European and North American cultures. We also argue that a cultural orientation toward dignity is universal and not geographically unique and is thus shared by all three cultures. This new formulation, we believe, more accurately characterizes the global range of orientations toward negotiation and conflict resolution and would, if adopted, help scholars and practitioners better understand culturally divergent conflict orientations and behaviors as well as the ramifications of such differences for negotiation and conflict resolution practice.     

Conflict Analysis and Conflict Resolution: Divorce or Friendly Mediation?

The interests, needs, and academic practices of conflict analysis scholars are often fundamentally at odds with those of conflict resolution scholar practitioners. In this essay, I make suggestions for new academic arrangements that could allow both groups to be productive and empowered in their theory building and teaching and also have positive impacts on the development of students and on global institutions and conflict environments.     

Turning down the heat: Influences on conflict management in enduring rivalries

Enduring rivalries represent the most difficult challenges for policy makers seeking to promote international peace and security. Once in place, enduring rivalries account for a disproportionate number of crises, militarized disputes, as well as wars, and include conflicts that are more likely to escalate than those falling in other conflict contexts. Unfortunately, we know very little about conflict management in enduring rivalries from either a theoretical or policy perspective. This study seeks to account for why some rivalries are successfully managed while others persist at high and unabated levels of conflict In addressing these concerns, we explore 35 enduring rivalries over the period 1945–1992. We find that although enduring rivalries are quite resistant to influences that produce changes in their dynamics, both endogenous and contextual influences can exercise a significant impact upon the prospects for conflict management between enduring rivals.     

Beyond the Thomas–Kilmann Model: Into Extreme Conflict

This article discusses an extension to the Thomas–Kilmann conflict mode instrument (Thomas and Kilmann 1977) designed specifically for conflict situations in which strong negative emotional relationships are at play. The Thomas–Kilmann (TK) model is widely used to help participants (disputants and mediators) identify how two basic conflict characteristics interact to influence how stakeholders shape their actions with regard to their interests. Essentially the TK Model is built on the premise that the two salient conflict variables are the relative importance of the relationships at hand and the substantive issues being discussed. These variables are illustrated with a simple matrix that shows how each party will interact with the other based on the relative importance it places on these variables. Graphically illustrating where the behaviors fall on the matrix can explicate parties' behaviors to add a new perspective that may change the dynamic of the conflict. But the TK Model does not address scenarios in which individuals have very negative or destructive relationships, and sabotage, blocking, and exclusion are behavioral norms. Hence, we developed the Baumoel–Trippe (BT) Extension to the TK Model to address the highly negative and often identity‐based conflicts that are often found in the world of family business. Accordingly, the BT Extension to the TK Model explores conflicts in which the relationships are not merely unimportant or uncooperative, but where they become negative to downright vengeful. There is so much at stake for family business stakeholders that the family relationships may become so adversarial that the very business and family harmony all parties value are at risk. With our extension of the TK Model, we seek to provide insight into how decisions might be made when stakeholders are in highly negative, conflictual relationships.     

Great effort,little help? Peace and conflict resolution organisations in Northern Ireland and Turkey

This article offers a comparative analysis of the role played by peace and conflict resolution organisations (P/CROs) in Northern Ireland and Turkey in negotiating solutions to ethno-nationalist conflicts in these countries. It argues that P/CROs have been instrumental in de-escalating violence and encouraging conflicting parties to resolve conflict peacefully. Examining both the elite and grass-roots levels, the article assesses P/CROs that have advanced middle-range approaches and track-two dialogue towards peace. Drawing on data from multiple sources, including semi-structured interviews, archival material and official documents, the analysis indicates that P/CROs have a range of tools at their disposal to influence political decision-makers. These include public (and closed) conferences, forums and events attended by current or former politicians, representatives of the conflicting parties and prominent figures and intellectuals in the conflict-affected society, as well as other grass-roots initiatives. The article finds that P/CROs provided help shaping and promoting non-violent processes of conflict resolution between the British Government and the Irish Republican Army (IRA), and the Turkish Government and the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK).     

Victims of Terrorism and Political Violence: Identity,Needs, and Service Delivery in Northern Ireland and Great Britain

Terrorism and political violence exist fundamentally as communicative acts; inherently the acts themselves serve to inspire anxiety and fear. As the recipients of such a communicative act, victims of terrorism and political violence serve as the vehicle for the dissemination of these communications to both the intended and broader audiences. Their victimising experience is thus a complex interplay between a profound personal trauma and the political/communicative dimension of the attack. Given this complexity, this article addresses how victims’ needs are understood by victims of terrorism and political violence in both Northern Ireland (NI) and Great Britain (GB). Through engagement with practitioners, victims, survivors, and community activists, this article conceptualises the existing perceptions amongst these different groups regarding needs, the delivery of services to victims in NI and GB, and examines the origins of the different approaches. Results demonstrate that victims’ needs are highly context-dependent at a public level, but relate heavily to the experiences of other victims of terrorism and political violence at a private level.     

What Can We Learn from a University that Rewards Faculty Practice?

What conditions, including standards for promotion and tenure, should we be cultivating at universities if we want scholar practitioners (or pracademics) in conflict‐related fields to thrive in academic settings? This article examines the Center for Justice and Peacebuilding at Eastern Mennonite University as an example of “positive deviance” — a university and an academic program that wholeheartedly support faculty members who engage in extensive practice, including long‐term involvement with peacebuilding processes. Three conditions — location, culture, and the application of peacebuilding strategies within the university — have given rise to and continue to support this system even as the university embraces a commitment to increasing scholarly productivity by faculty members.     

Methods Meet Policy: Transnational Monitoring of the Israel–Palestine Conflict

For the past 2 years, the Kansas Event Data System project has been using event data and other web-based sources to produce quarterly reports on the Israel–Palestine conflict for the swisspeace (Swiss Peace Foundation) FAST Project, which is sponsored by Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation and a number of non-governmental organizations. This paper describes the indicators that we are monitoring, the process we have developed to generate the reports, and the supplemental sources we are using. We address the issue of the differences between newspaper and news wire reports with respect to "media fatigue" effects and also analyze some of the strengths and weaknesses of this approach to conflict monitoring.     

Psychological Barriers to Resolving Intergroup Conflict: An Extensive Review and Consolidation of the Literature

This article reviews over sixty years of research on psychological barriers to intergroup conflict resolution and finds that scholars have identified eighty nominally different barriers that create or exacerbate intergroup conflict. In order to create a tractable list that would be more helpful to future scholars and practitioners, we consolidate this vast literature (e.g., by eliminating substantive and conceptual redundancies) to produce a list of twenty‐six “unique” psychological barriers. We further organize this inventory of barriers with a framework that distinguishes between “cognitive,” “affective,” and “motivated” psychological barriers. To better understand the literature ecosystem of research on psychological barriers, we employ a data visualization tool to illustrate the extent to which each of the twenty‐six unique barriers has been studied conjointly with every other barrier in the articles we reviewed. We then shift our attention to the work of scholars who have attempted, experimentally, to attenuate psychological barriers in negotiation and conflict settings, and identify five primary methods for doing so. Finally, we discuss the implications of our review for future work in this field.     

TV News and the language of acid rain in Canadian‐American relations

This study focuses on American television news coverage of a specific issue, acid rain, in Canadian‐American affairs. It attempts to bring into focus the interaction of the formal characteristics of the news and political orientations of the viewing audience to offer an alternative approach to the pluralistic models that dominate media and foreign policy research. Finally, the study offers several strategic propositions describing the relationship of news language to political responses for this particular case of Canadian‐American affairs.     

Attachment Styles, Conflict Perception, and Adolescents' Strategies of Coping with Interpersonal Conflict

In this study, we examined the relationships between and among adolescents' attachment styles, conflict perceptions, and strategies for coping with conflicts with their peers. The study participants were 146 pupils at a junior high school who completed self-report questionnaires about their attachment styles (secure, anxious, or avoidant), conflict coping styles (avoiding, dominating, obliging, compromising, and integrating), and conflict perceptions (positive or negative), as well as social and academic status and the frequency with which they and their friends were involved in conflicts.
We found strong, statistically significant correlations between attachment style, coping strategy, and conflict perception. Generally, participants whose secure attachment scores were higher reported that they held more positive attitudes toward conflict, used more cooperative strategies to cope with conflicts, and were involved in conflicts less often; they also seemed to be less obliging and more dominating in their coping strategies. Avoidant attachment adolescents in our study displayed more negative conflict perceptions and made greater use of dominating strategies.
We also found that participants' conflict perceptions mediated the relationship between their attachment styles and coping styles. Because it is generally easier to change attitudes than it is to change attachment styles, which are more fixed, our findings suggest that changing adolescents' conflict perceptions, through school curricula, for example, may be an effective way to improve their ability to cope with conflict.