To: Hewlett Theory-Building Centers January 1998 Conference Participants
From: Guy Burgess and Heidi Burgess, Colorado Conflict Research Consortium; Campus Box 580, University of Colorado, Boulder, CO 80309-0580; Phone: (303)492-1635; Fax: (303)492-2154; E-mail crc@colorado.edu
Subject: Finalization of Dates, Invitees, and Session Topics
Date: October 21, 1997
Enclosed is the agenda-setting questionnaire for the January Hewlett Theory Center Conference. We really need everyone who is coming to fill out the questionnaire and return it by Oct. 24. Even if you indicated your preferences before, we need your reaction several new topics (suggested by other centers), and we need to know which sessions you might be willing to help organize and/or contribute to. (We are hoping that everyone will play a role--organizer or contributor--for at least one session.) Please give us your responses by October 24 so that session organizers will have time to plan their sessions.
The dates for the conference are January 9, 10, and 11 (Friday - Sunday). The informal outing (hike/museum or whatever) will be Friday morning, with formal sessions starting at 1:00 p.m. Friday and continuing through 4:00 pm Sunday.
We need some information about how best to communicate with you.
Do you have an e-mail account that you check frequently? [ ]yes [ ] no
If so what is it?
Do you have a fax machine that you check frequently? [ ]yes [ ] no
If so what is?
What is the best mailing address to use for you?
Do you have easy access to the World Wide Web for downloading conference materials, (primarily draft agendas, framing papers, and reference works suggested by participants?)
[ ]yes [ ] no
Are there other participants from your center who should receive information (that we are not aware of)? If so, how should we contact them?
At this point we need you to help us narrow
down the list of topics to something manageable. Clearly, we
can't address everything. We would like you to go through the
list of suggested topics and use the following five categories to
indicate your level of interest.
You may also use the comment space to indicate topics which you think could be combined.
We need you help in deciding which of these topics to include on the final agenda.
ADR AND INTRACTABLE CONFLICT: What role can ADR can play in reducing the destructiveness of intractable conflicts? How should ADR practitioners respond when intractable conflicts are brought to them for resolution?
[ ]organizer; [ ]contributor; [ ]first priority; [ ]second priority; [ ] not interested; comments:
ADR MISUSE: Charges are often made that mandatory ADR is unjust because it favors the more powerful group or because the processes are structured to favor speed of resolution over client concerns. Such cooptation of ADR is a problem that needs attention, yet it is one that splits the ADR community. How are we dealing with it?
[ ]organizer; [ ]contributor; [ ]first priority; [ ]second priority; [ ] not interested; comments:
CIVIL POLITICAL DISCOURSE: Many disputes over intractable issues are resolved through elections, legislative votes, or other contests of political power. Widespread concern about the destructiveness of these processes has resulted in the growing and increasingly controversial campaign for "civility." How can our knowledge of conflict processes contribute to framing the concept of "civility" and furthering (and perhaps re-directing) the "civility movement."
[ ]organizer; [ ]contributor; [ ]first priority; [ ]second priority; [ ] not interested; comments:
*NEW* CONSTITUENCY PROBLEMS: How do constituencies drive intractable disputes? What can be done to moderate their effect and "bring them along" with small scale dispute resolution processes? (See also, the "scaling up" topic.)
[ ]organizer; [ ]contributor; [ ]first priority; [ ]second priority; [ ] not interested; comments:
CONSTRUCTIVE LITIGATION: How can parties to intractable conflicts use the judicial system most effectively while limiting the destructive consequences (for instance conflict escalation) which often result from adversarial processes
[ ]organizer; [ ]contributor; [ ]first priority; [ ]second priority; [ ] not interested; comments:
CRISIS MANAGEMENT: How can crises be de-escalated and slowed down enough to allow more careful consideration of alternative responses?
[ ]organizer; [ ]contributor; [ ]first priority; [ ]second priority; [ ] not interested; comments:
DO-IT-YOURSELF SKILLS: Given the number of conflicts going on at any one time, third-party professionals cannot possibly be involved in all of them at once. Most conflicts are carried out by the parties themselves, most of whom have little, if any, conflict resolution training. What can the community of conflict professionals do to help people engage in conflicts more constructively themselves (i.e., without the help of a professional intermediary)?
[ ]organizer; [ ]contributor; [ ]first priority; [ ]second priority; [ ] not interested; comments:
ESCALATION: Escalation is rampant in intractable conflicts and is often highly destructive. While successful de-escalation cannot be expected to resolve the core intractable issues, it can do much to limit the destructiveness of the overall confrontation. Possible sessions on escalation include:
*NEW* A) Why does a simmering conflict escalate and then calm down again, leaving the issues unresolved? Is there any pattern? What kind of interventions help/hurt?
[ ]organizer; [ ]contributor; [ ]first priority; [ ]second priority; [ ] not interested; comments:
B) What strategies are available for de-escalating violent confrontations?
[ ]organizer; [ ]contributor; [ ]first priority; [ ]second priority; [ ] not interested; comments:
C) What strategies are available for de-escalating non-violent but still highly emotional and hostile confrontations?
[ ]organizer; [ ]contributor; [ ]first priority; [ ]second priority; [ ] not interested; comments:
*NEW* FINAL RESOLUTION: What makes "final resolution" of an intractable conflict possible? For example, how are Northern Ireland and South Africa different from each other?
[ ]organizer; [ ]contributor; [ ]first priority; [ ]second priority; [ ] not interested; comments:
FRAMING: The way conflicts are framed significantly affects the way they are pursued as well as the outcome. Poor framing causes parties to pursue positions and strategies which unnecessarily antagonize opponents and limit the parties' ability to pursue their goals. What strategies do we have for facilitating and/or improving the framing process? How might an intermediary get the parties to better frame the issues?
[ ]organizer; [ ]contributor; [ ]first priority; [ ]second priority; [ ] not interested; comments:
*NEW* INSTITUTIONALIZATION OF CONFLICT: Intractable conflicts often become useful for political purposes, and thus become institutionalized within a society. How do we, as a society, organize ourselves to make (or avoid) decisions in the face of intractable conflicts?
[ ]organizer; [ ]contributor; [ ]first priority; [ ]second priority; [ ] not interested; comments:
JUSTICE AND EMPOWERMENT: Intractable conflicts often involve low-power parties who cannot adequately defend their interests unless they gain power. Realizing this, intermediaries often take steps to empower these groups, but this then threatens the intermediaries' ability to act as effective neutrals. When is empowerment appropriate? For whom? By whom? In what ways can this be done without compromising the intermediary role? How does empowerment affect the justice of the outcome?
[ ]organizer; [ ]contributor; [ ]first priority; [ ]second priority; [ ] not interested; comments:
MANAGING OUR OWN CONFLICTS: How do ADR professionals' respond to their own intractable conflicts? Consideration might be given to the justice and empowerment problem described above, the conflict between advocates and critics of ADR, between advocates of transformative processes versus settlement-based processes, or the conflict over credentialing. These all are moral disagreements over the goals of dispute resolution processes and a distributional dispute over who gets the clients and who does not. What can we learn by examining how we deal with our own professional conflicts?
[ ]organizer; [ ]contributor; [ ]first priority; [ ]second priority; [ ] not interested; comments:
*NEW* NATURE OF INTRACTABLE CONFLICTS: What makes some conflicts intractable, while others aren't? Are the sources of conflict different? Are the conflict processes different? Are the parties different? Are there any commonalities that make intractable conflicts in various settings similar?
[ ]organizer; [ ]contributor; [ ]first priority; [ ]second priority; [ ] not interested; comments:
NEGOTIATING AMID INTRACTABLE CONFLICT: How can negotiation be used to resolve particular disputes within the context of an intractable conflict? Can parties, for example, be encouraged to negotiate a settlement to a particular dispute once their relative level of power is known? When are disputes ripe for negotiation? Can "ripeness" be created or encouraged? (See also Power Contest Shortcuts)
[ ]organizer; [ ]contributor; [ ]first priority; [ ]second priority; [ ] not interested; comments:
PERSUASION, CONVERSION AND RECONCILIATION: How can parties become persuaded that their opponent's views are, at least in part, legitimate and thus should be honored? What can be done to encourage recognition, conversion of views, and eventual reconciliation of the parties to long-standing intractable conflicts?
[ ]organizer; [ ]contributor; [ ]first priority; [ ]second priority; [ ] not interested; comments:
POWER CONTEST SHORTCUTS: Key to making negotiation "loop-backs" work are low-cost strategies which parties can use to realistically test their power options. What "shortcuts" are available for avoiding protracted power contests? How can use of these shortcuts be encouraged?
[ ]organizer; [ ]contributor; [ ]first priority; [ ]second priority; [ ] not interested; comments:
PRINCIPLES OF COMMONALITY-- A BALANCE FOR DIVERSITY: Much progress has been made in recognizing and honoring people's widely differing belief systems. In celebrating diversity, however, people often fail to recognize the importance of areas of commonality, especially cross-cultural principles of fairness. What are potential principles of commonality capable of binding a diverse society together or encouraging the transformation of cross-cultural conflicts?
[ ]organizer; [ ]contributor; [ ]first priority; [ ]second priority; [ ] not interested; comments:
SCALING UP CONVERSION, RECONCILIATION, AND TRANSFORMATION EFFORTS: Typically, efforts to transform intractable relationships take place in carefully facilitated small group settings. Unfortunately, intractable conflicts often involve large segments of the population--far more people than could ever be involved in such small group processes. This means that participants in small group transformation processes must be able to "scale-up" their experience or risk being disowned by their constituents.
A) How can this problem be addressed?
[ ]organizer; [ ]contributor; [ ]first priority; [ ]second priority; [ ] not interested; comments:
*NEW* B) A specific subset of this problem might focus especially on violent civil strife. How do people who were routinely killing one another form working polities? What is the impact, for example, of war crimes tribunals or reconciliation commissions, on collective memory and the capacity of groups to live together?
[ ]organizer; [ ]contributor; [ ]first priority; [ ]second priority; [ ] not interested; comments:
*NEW* VIOLENCE: What factors contribute to the escalation of violence in intractable conflicts? Can violence be prevented or limited? How can it be stopped once it has started?
[ ]organizer; [ ]contributor; [ ]first priority; [ ]second priority; [ ] not interested; comments:
*NEW* DECONSTRUCTING CONFLICTS: How can intervenors "deconstruct" intractable conflicts so that more tractable component parts of the conflict can be successfully addressed? How best can intervenors enter into such situations?
[ ]organizer; [ ]contributor; [ ]first priority; [ ]second priority; [ ] not interested; comments: