C&K : Adopting Procedures, Educating Parties, and Developing Options (Chapter 6)

This chapter focuses on the first three stages of managing public disputes: adopting procedures, educating parties, and developing options. The main element of the adopting procedures stage is establishing ground rules. The ground rules can be established in written form or orally and they can be agreed upon in many different ways (vote, consensus, etc). Most ground rules are established with input from the parties. Some parties can bring up rules in the pre-interviews that will entice them to help problem solve (i.e. “don’t question motives). Some ground rules are established in the first meeting, but ground rules can change as the sessions progress.

Educating the parties entails having the parties explain their interests and their role in the conflict thus far to the other party(s). This includes telling their assumptions, their source of information, and their concerns. This can lead to a discussion about reliability of data and all parties can share their information sources and a common truth can be agreed upon. This stage also includes having discussions about the history of the conflict, which helps identify the key issues for each party. It is important to keep the parties focused on their interests, and this sometimes requires reframing statements and asking probing questions (i.e. what is your concern about that issue?).

Developing options is the first stage of problem solving. It is important for the parties to work together to develop a possible list of solutions. An outside expert can also provide more solutions that the parties may not have thought of. This stage is discussed more in subsequent chapters and other readings because this can be a tricky stage and there are many different models to come up with solutions and put them on the table.

Conflict: Problem Solving

The chapter focuses how to problem solve with two opposing groups. A goal of a problem solving meeting is to try and change the parties’ view of the conflict from something to be won to a problem that needs to be solved. A roadblock to this realization is the parties have skewed views of themselves and their action versus their adversary’s actions. This is a negative misperception. Often times in conflict the decision makers of one party get so wrapped up in the conflict that it is hard to envision other tactics besides harmful ones. It is difficult to consider other actions because of the potential risk associated with changing tactics. It is easy for that party to think that they have not choice but the other party is purposefully choosing the harmful tactics that they are. This is the principle of unrecognized entrapment and is one of the reasons why problem solving processes avoid the subject of blame (the principle of no-fault). Parties can’t often envision all of their options prior to a problem solving meeting because they are so stuck in their tactics and have the misperceptions of the other party (principle of unrecognized options).


The facilitators of a problem solving process can not choose sides or try to pin down responsibility. They serve as an analytical function in breaking the conflict down and helping to find solutions. An important aspect to the process is setting; the process has to take place in an open environment that does not make people feel angry or inhibited because that hinders the creative flow of ideas. The problem solving process can be insulated from interparty issues, isolated, and stimulating. A potential problem solving tactic is to host a problem solving workshop with people of the different parties. These workshops should be no more than 25 people maximum and the agenda should be simple and flexible. Facilitators should provide role model behavior (non-judgmental, supportive, questioning), a sympathetic audience, a neutral language, analytical insights, and be an agent of reality. If there are solutions proposed it is the facilitator’s responsibility to point out the weaknesses and potential road blocks. Andy did that for us in his role play be always asking us to think how the government would see our options and how we should frame things etc.

Negotiating Justice: The Challenges of Addressing Past Human Rights Violations

The focus of this article is talking about what difficulties arise when peace has been agreed upon after a conflict that saw significant human rights violations. This comes under the field of transitional justice. One common procedure in dealing with reparations is a Truth Commission where a temporary group of people investigates the human rights violations. This is not related to a judicial system. At the end of this process, the committee makes a public report and suggests improvements and reforms to policy and institutions. Truth commissions often include people telling their stories and communicating about things that happened during the conflict. The hope in truth commissions is that lessons will be learned from the future and the victims will find some reparation. One of the largest challenges to think about is the idea of amnesty. Should the people who committed the human rights violations and other crimes be offered amnesty if they come forward and tell their story as part of the truth commission. This is a tricky question because there are so many levels of crime and the judicial system cannot completely be ignored. Another issue is whether or not the people who have amnesty will have that same privilege in international law or when traveling from their country.

The article gives two examples about truth commissions. In Liberia the lack of amnesty for the leader, Charles Taylor, helped in the transitional justice process. He has an indictment, which actually helped the peace talks because they knew that he could not continue to seek power in the future. In Sierra Leone the peace agreements included the clause that 'full and unconditional amnesty' was granted to all the parties. Both sides wanted this to be in the agreement, and this fact helped the peace negotiations. Clearly there is no blanket answer on the effectiveness of amnesty on a peace negotiation, but it is an interesting element to consider. I feel like if I had my human rights violated, I would want to see some more concrete form of justice, but perhaps I would be open to a non-judicial reparation.

Varieties of Mediating Activities and Mediators in International Relations

This article focuses on a lot of different elements of mediation. The success of mediation can be hard to define; it comes in many forms like de-escalation, settlement, and enduring resolutions. An important aspect of mediation is the timing of the mediating activity, which is very similar to the concept of a conflict’s ‘ripeness.’ The international context affects the timing of mediation because at some points in time there are more mediating type organizations. Public pressure can also affect the timing of mediation through public opinion surveys, policy makers, and visible support. The relationship between the adversaries, I think, has the most affect on the timing of mediation. Parties can go though stages of their relationship and their parity of power is necessary for mutual accommodation. Parties can have fluxes of power.

Mediation has a variety of stages and the pre-negotiation stage is one of the most important. This is the stage where strategic choices are made and issues are decided on. The initiation stage involves explaining the process to the parties. Negotiation is where a lot of the interparty contact happens, and the implementation stage involves putting the settlement into action. Mediators are not always official professionals; they can be church officials or other informal people.

Understanding Public Disputes: The Spiral of Unmanaged Conflict (C & K Chapter 5)

This chapter focuses on the different dynamics and elements of public disputes. Public disputes can be very different from labor-management disputes/family conflicts because of the more broad range of people involved and affected. Public disputes tend to have more complicated relationships between interests and in fact can have more interests associated with the conflict than other types of disputes. It is hard to pinpoint all of the parties at the start, and the party members can vary widely on their expertise and power. Power can come in different forms; some examples are: financial power, reputation power, network power, skills/knowledge power, and legal authority. Since there are so many parties at varying levels there are many different ways to make decisions and the procedures for public disputes are not standardized.

If conflict goes unmanaged, it can undergo a downward spiral. After a problem emerges, people/citizens get involved and if nothing is done quickly and openly people can tend to get stuck in their issues and stop communicating amongst the parties. The conflict can then even go outside the direct community via people looking for outside support of their interests. Parties can tend to lose their objectivity and see the conflict as more polarized than it may be. This brings about a sense of crisis. The outcomes of public disputes can vary widely. Different options are include litigation, government decisions, and violence. It seems that it is easier to manage a conflict at the beginning of its cycle rather than waiting for the downward spiral.

One thing in this chapter that confused me is why they state (pg. 6-7) that the parties tend to not have a continuing relationship; wouldn't a community need to have a continuing relationship?

Facilitation Skills for Interpersonal Transformation (Kraybill)

This article focuses on the skills necessary for negotiating a conflict for interpersonal transformation. It talks about the moment-by- moment skills, the techniques for sustained dialogue, and the transformative process design. The section on moment-by-moment skills for interpersonal transformation is an extensive reiteration of a lot of the techniques discussed in intro to conflict resolution and mediation. It is important to paraphrase and what one party says to ensure effective listening and to depolarize what they are saying. It is also important to reframe what the parties are saying to try and get at the issues rather than positions and thus hopefully come up with a common ground. The techniques for sustained dialogue are a lot more interesting. The Samoan circle has two central chairs where people from opposing parties talk about the issues. There are also chairs in a semi-circle around them for others to sit in to make a comment or wait their turn for the center chair. Only the people in the chairs are allowed to be talking and everybody learns from what they are saying. The conflict spectrum is another technique. This is a visual technique where everybody places themselves on an “issue spectrum” corresponding to how extreme they feel their viewpoints on the subject are. Another private technique is interviewing key players to the conflict. This helps create an atmosphere of communication and engagement. The idea of transformative process focuses on the idea that the process of communication and negotiation can be more important than the content of the negotiation/conversation. A lot of group conflict can result from bad process. A good process involves a forum that is acceptable to all parties, all parties have representatives in the decision making and design of the process, is clear about its purpose, has a variety of forums, and has a feedback element. All of these elements require preparation and thought on the part of the facilitators.

Intractable Conflicts

This article focuses on the five different paradigms for handling intractable conflicts. Intractable conflicts are destructive conflicts that persist for long periods of time and no attempts at resolving them have worked. Intractable conflicts are known for their persistence, destructiveness, and resistance to resolution. All intractable conflicts share a sense of context, core issues, relations, processes, and outcomes. The context of intractable conflicts includes power imbalances and can have roots in racism, colonialism, sexism, and/or human rights abuses. The issues of intractable conflicts usually tend to have a depth of meaning which makes them difficult to be resolved in the traditional sense. The relationship between the parties can often be isolated (little positive interaction between the parties), and sometimes the groups have oppositional group identities. The process has a strong emotional core were rage and righteousness come to the surface. The process usually has to involve over coming stereotypes. The outcome of intractable conflicts often includes a prolonged trauma and loss of trust in the world for the lower power party.

There are five different ways to approach intractable conflict. The realist paradigm focuses on the need for aggression in these conflicts because the conflict is about domination and control; humans are always flawed and strong actions are necessary to be in control of the situation. The Human Relations Paradigm says that people have the capacity for good as well as evil and the external conditions they are exposed to affect their actions. Change can only be brought about by including all aspects of the communities with integrative negotiation and antibias education. The Medical Paradigm views these intractable social conflicts as pathological diseases that need to be contained before they spread. This paradigm focuses on preventative diplomacy. The Postmodern Paradigm focuses on how different people “make sense of the world.” Change is brought about by bringing the assumptions about what is ‘right’ into the negotiations; negotiation would be at the intragroup level and about oppositional identities. The last paradigm, the Systems Paradigm is about is simple cell and its environment. A lot of elements in the environment are interdependent and have complex relationships. Each destructive pattern affects all the elements, and thus conflicts have many different hostile elements and complex layers.

The article ends with 8 guidelines of intervention that are helpful, but I think the most important and helpful part of this article is understanding what intractable conflicts are and the ways to approach understanding them.