Section XV: Making Conflicts Less Intractable
This section begins with a trilogy of chapters that, first, analyze how a fairly predictable percentage of conflicts in almost any domain can become “intractable”, and outline techniques for handling this. The second chapter goes into more detail about what exactly makes a conflict intractable, and how new insights are developing new levers for change; and the third describes the process of using those levers to actually influence a conflict which supposedly cannot be influenced.
One of the tools frequently advocated for serious conflict is training of groups of the participants—but sometimes these are resistant. The next chapter addresses how you might approach an audience when you expect such resistance—or didn’t expect it, but encounter it anyway.
The ensuing two chapters address in detail one of the central factors in many major conflicts: religion. A chapter analyzing how religion can help solve as well as cause conflict is followed by one which explicitly argues that religious people and groups are actually capable of more “prosociality” than others, if they are approached in the right way. And the final chapter in this section analyzes how a consummate practitioner, faced with one of the world’s most famously intractable conflicts, actually applied many of the findings that are in the other chapters.
83. Getting in Sync: What to Do when Problem-Solving Fails to Fix the Problem
Peter Coleman and Rob Ricigliano
In the first of a trilogy on complex cases, the authors estimate that far beyond the usual categories people think of as “intractable”—such as international, race relations or major environmental conflicts—about 5% of disputes of virtually all kinds actually fit this pattern. The authors review why this is, and outline a series of techniques developed in recent years for handling conflict of the worst kind, in any domain. This chapter should be read in conjunction with Coleman, Redding & Fisher’s “Intractable 1 and 2" chapters.
84. Understanding Intractable Conflicts
Peter Coleman, Nicholas Redding and Joshua Fisher
In the second chapter of our complex-case trilogy, the authors summarize recent findings from complexity science and dynamical systems theory, showing how the new insights provide the possibility of innovative levers for change. Their key findings are presented as a set of five guidelines. This follows the more general explanation in Coleman and Ricigliano on Getting in Sync and is also closely related to the next chapter, Influencing Intractable Conflicts, which also presents a set of five guidelines: this time, for actually working on a conflict which, on the surface, appears impossible to influence.
85. Influencing Intractable Conflicts
Peter Coleman, Nicholas Redding and Joshua Fisher
The final chapter of our complex-case trilogy describes techniques developed in recent years which promise greater effectiveness in the admittedly frustrating process of actually tackling an intractable conflict. It should be read not only in conjunction with Understanding Intractable Conflicts by the same authors and Getting in Sync by Coleman and Ricigliano, but also in conjunction with McDonald on Kashmir, in which a retired U.S. Ambassador describes what he actually did when drawn into working on the long-standing Kashmir problem.
86. Training a Captive Audience
Stuart Kirschner and Jack J. Cambria
Let’s say you’ve finished this book and would like to use some of it. But what about your more hardheaded colleagues, team members or other audiences? Using their experience in training the highly skeptical police officers of the New York City Police Department, psychologist Stuart Kirschner and longtime (2001-2015) NYPD Hostage Negotiation Team commander Jack Cambria discuss the design of training for a potentially resistant audience.
87. Religion in Cooperation and Conflict
Jeffrey R. Seul
In the first of two chapters, the author argues that the relationship between religion and conflict is widely oversimplified. Recent and careful social science research has demonstrated that contrary to the assumptions of some people, religion most often increases its adherents’ ability to relate positively to others—and this can include adherents of another religion or non at all. In contrast, he reviews the research on extreme religious militancy, including the evidence on suicide and other violent attackers, and concludes that the most careful researchers have universally found that these actions are not principally propelled by religion itself, but by other factors. In his next chapter, Seul proceeds to analysis of how religion can help to transform conflict, and how it can be consciously invoked toward that purpose.
88. Religious Prosociality for Conflict Transformation
Jeffrey R. Seul
In the second of two chapters on religion and conflict, Seul reviews the research on religious prosociality, or its ability to help people relate positively to others, and finds a series of features of religion that can actually help to resolve conflict—when understood and employed appropriately. He offers a series of specific steps and strategies for particular situations, and argues that we are beginning to improve our ability to encourage the best rather than the worst of behavior when invoking religion in a conflict.
89. A New Future for Kashmir?
John and Christel McDonald
Only rarely is the public privileged to track a major negotiation and see up close whether the theories actually get put into practice. A multitude of other chapters in the book are implicated here as Ambassador John McDonald talks about the prevailing assumptions, the intractable conflict, and a breakthrough move toward progress in the decades-old conflict between India and Pakistan over Kashmir. This chapter stands particularly as a practical illustration, by a consummate practitioner, of the principles explained by Coleman et al., in Intractable 1 and 2, as well as Adler’s Protean Negotiator. Because so few practitioners at this level have undertaken to write down what they actually did, we have elected to preserve the original 2006 text largely intact, with only a few clarifying changes. The McDonalds’ updated (2016) assessment follows. [For another view of how the field’s theories apply, or do not, in a difficult environment, this chapter could be read in conjunction with Kaufman and Blanchot, Theory Meets Reality.]
One of the tools frequently advocated for serious conflict is training of groups of the participants—but sometimes these are resistant. The next chapter addresses how you might approach an audience when you expect such resistance—or didn’t expect it, but encounter it anyway.
The ensuing two chapters address in detail one of the central factors in many major conflicts: religion. A chapter analyzing how religion can help solve as well as cause conflict is followed by one which explicitly argues that religious people and groups are actually capable of more “prosociality” than others, if they are approached in the right way. And the final chapter in this section analyzes how a consummate practitioner, faced with one of the world’s most famously intractable conflicts, actually applied many of the findings that are in the other chapters.
83. Getting in Sync: What to Do when Problem-Solving Fails to Fix the Problem
Peter Coleman and Rob Ricigliano
In the first of a trilogy on complex cases, the authors estimate that far beyond the usual categories people think of as “intractable”—such as international, race relations or major environmental conflicts—about 5% of disputes of virtually all kinds actually fit this pattern. The authors review why this is, and outline a series of techniques developed in recent years for handling conflict of the worst kind, in any domain. This chapter should be read in conjunction with Coleman, Redding & Fisher’s “Intractable 1 and 2" chapters.
84. Understanding Intractable Conflicts
Peter Coleman, Nicholas Redding and Joshua Fisher
In the second chapter of our complex-case trilogy, the authors summarize recent findings from complexity science and dynamical systems theory, showing how the new insights provide the possibility of innovative levers for change. Their key findings are presented as a set of five guidelines. This follows the more general explanation in Coleman and Ricigliano on Getting in Sync and is also closely related to the next chapter, Influencing Intractable Conflicts, which also presents a set of five guidelines: this time, for actually working on a conflict which, on the surface, appears impossible to influence.
85. Influencing Intractable Conflicts
Peter Coleman, Nicholas Redding and Joshua Fisher
The final chapter of our complex-case trilogy describes techniques developed in recent years which promise greater effectiveness in the admittedly frustrating process of actually tackling an intractable conflict. It should be read not only in conjunction with Understanding Intractable Conflicts by the same authors and Getting in Sync by Coleman and Ricigliano, but also in conjunction with McDonald on Kashmir, in which a retired U.S. Ambassador describes what he actually did when drawn into working on the long-standing Kashmir problem.
86. Training a Captive Audience
Stuart Kirschner and Jack J. Cambria
Let’s say you’ve finished this book and would like to use some of it. But what about your more hardheaded colleagues, team members or other audiences? Using their experience in training the highly skeptical police officers of the New York City Police Department, psychologist Stuart Kirschner and longtime (2001-2015) NYPD Hostage Negotiation Team commander Jack Cambria discuss the design of training for a potentially resistant audience.
87. Religion in Cooperation and Conflict
Jeffrey R. Seul
In the first of two chapters, the author argues that the relationship between religion and conflict is widely oversimplified. Recent and careful social science research has demonstrated that contrary to the assumptions of some people, religion most often increases its adherents’ ability to relate positively to others—and this can include adherents of another religion or non at all. In contrast, he reviews the research on extreme religious militancy, including the evidence on suicide and other violent attackers, and concludes that the most careful researchers have universally found that these actions are not principally propelled by religion itself, but by other factors. In his next chapter, Seul proceeds to analysis of how religion can help to transform conflict, and how it can be consciously invoked toward that purpose.
88. Religious Prosociality for Conflict Transformation
Jeffrey R. Seul
In the second of two chapters on religion and conflict, Seul reviews the research on religious prosociality, or its ability to help people relate positively to others, and finds a series of features of religion that can actually help to resolve conflict—when understood and employed appropriately. He offers a series of specific steps and strategies for particular situations, and argues that we are beginning to improve our ability to encourage the best rather than the worst of behavior when invoking religion in a conflict.
89. A New Future for Kashmir?
John and Christel McDonald
Only rarely is the public privileged to track a major negotiation and see up close whether the theories actually get put into practice. A multitude of other chapters in the book are implicated here as Ambassador John McDonald talks about the prevailing assumptions, the intractable conflict, and a breakthrough move toward progress in the decades-old conflict between India and Pakistan over Kashmir. This chapter stands particularly as a practical illustration, by a consummate practitioner, of the principles explained by Coleman et al., in Intractable 1 and 2, as well as Adler’s Protean Negotiator. Because so few practitioners at this level have undertaken to write down what they actually did, we have elected to preserve the original 2006 text largely intact, with only a few clarifying changes. The McDonalds’ updated (2016) assessment follows. [For another view of how the field’s theories apply, or do not, in a difficult environment, this chapter could be read in conjunction with Kaufman and Blanchot, Theory Meets Reality.]
Section XV authors:
Jack Cambria retired from the New York City Police Department in 2015 after nearly thirty-four years of dedicated service. For over sixteen years he served in the Emergency Service Unit (ESU), whose primary focus is to provide rescue, SWAT, and counterterrorism services to the City of New York. He ended his NYPD career as the longest-standing commander of the Hostage Negotiation Team, serving in that capacity for over fourteen
years.
Peter T. Coleman is Professor of Psychology and Education at Columbia University, where he holds a joint appointment at Teachers College and The Earth Institute. Dr. Coleman directs the Morton Deutsch International Center for Cooperation and Conflict Resolution (MD-ICCCR) and the Institute for Psychological Science and Practice (IPSP) at Teachers College, and is Executive Director of Columbia University’s Advanced Consortium on Cooperation, Conflict, and Complexity (AC4). He currently conducts research on conflict intelligence and systemic wisdom as competencies for navigating conflict constructively, including a focus on adaptive negotiation and mediation dynamics, cross-cultural adaptivity, optimality of motivational dynamics in conflict, justice and polarization, multicultural conflict, intractable conflict, and sustainable peace.
Josh Fisher is the Director of the AC4 consortium at Columbia University. He is also an Adjunct Faculty member in the School of Professional Studies, and an Associate Research Scientist at the Earth Institute, studying conflict management, natural resources, and extractive industry. His current work focuses on natural resource management as a tool for conflict prevention. He works with government, civil society, international
organizations, and nonprofit partners to design strategies to constructively manage environmental conflicts. Dr. Fisher received his PhD in Conflict Analysis and Resolution from George Mason University.
Stuart Kirschner is retired as an Associate Professor of Psychology at John Jay College of Criminal Justice. For over a decade he was principal instructor for the Emergency Psychological Technician (EPT) course, which instructs New York City Police Officers on communication with emotionally disturbed persons. Kirschner received his M.A. from Columbia University and his Ph.D. from the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. For 12 years he was an Administrator at Kirby Forensic Psychiatric Center (KFPC), a New York State Office of Mental Health maximum security psychiatric center. Dr. Kirschner has served as expert witness and consultant to defense counsel and prosecutors where psychiatric defenses have been entered, and writes regularly on psychiatric defenses and assessment of dangerousness.
U.S. Ambassador (ret.) John W. McDonald is a lawyer, diplomat, former international civil servant, development expert and peacebuilder, with twenty years in Western Europe and the Middle East and sixteen years working on United Nations economic and social affairs. He retired in 2017 as Chairman and CEO of the Institute for Multi-Track Diplomacy; he cofounded IMTD in 1992, and developed its systems approach on national and international peacebuilding.
Christel G. McDonald (M.A. History), former European Civil Servant, and experienced Historical Researcher, is deeply committed to furthering higher education for young people from around the world.
Nicholas Redding is a research psychologist with the Ulupono Initiative of The Omidyar Group, a social impact investment firm focused on encouraging sustainable energy, food and waste practices in Hawai’i. Prior to joining Ulupono, he was a research program coordinator with the Advanced Consortium on Cooperation, Conflict, and Complexity (AC4) at the Earth Institute, Columbia University. He holds a Ph.D. in Social-Organizational Psychology from Columbia University.
Robert Ricigliano is a Systems and Complexity Coach at The Omidyar Group, where he supports and guides teams within organizations and initiatives to better understand and effectively engage with dynamic systems. Prior to joining The Omidyar Group, Robert cofounded the Master of Sustainable Peacebuilding Degree Program at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee (UWM), held senior positions at the Conflict Management Group and Harvard Negotiation Project, and consulted on peacebuilding in complex environments. He has worked with government officials, non-governmental organizations, foundations, leaders of armed groups, and political parties in the U.S. and in conflict zones around the world. He is the author of Making Peace Last (2012).
Jeff Seul is Lecturer on the Practice of Peace at Harvard Divinity School and co-chair of the Peace Appeal Foundation, an organization that helps local stakeholders launch and sustain peace and national dialogue processes to end or avoid war. Mr. Seul previously taught at Harvard Law School, and was a senior associate of the Program on International Conflict Analysis and Resolution at Harvard’s Weatherhead Center for International
Affairs. Much of his work is focused on approaches to transformation of conflict with a religious dimension. Mr. Seul is also a partner in the international law firm Holland & Knight, the former general counsel of a startup tech firm (Groove Networks), a Roman Catholic and a Zen practitioner.
Jack Cambria retired from the New York City Police Department in 2015 after nearly thirty-four years of dedicated service. For over sixteen years he served in the Emergency Service Unit (ESU), whose primary focus is to provide rescue, SWAT, and counterterrorism services to the City of New York. He ended his NYPD career as the longest-standing commander of the Hostage Negotiation Team, serving in that capacity for over fourteen
years.
Peter T. Coleman is Professor of Psychology and Education at Columbia University, where he holds a joint appointment at Teachers College and The Earth Institute. Dr. Coleman directs the Morton Deutsch International Center for Cooperation and Conflict Resolution (MD-ICCCR) and the Institute for Psychological Science and Practice (IPSP) at Teachers College, and is Executive Director of Columbia University’s Advanced Consortium on Cooperation, Conflict, and Complexity (AC4). He currently conducts research on conflict intelligence and systemic wisdom as competencies for navigating conflict constructively, including a focus on adaptive negotiation and mediation dynamics, cross-cultural adaptivity, optimality of motivational dynamics in conflict, justice and polarization, multicultural conflict, intractable conflict, and sustainable peace.
Josh Fisher is the Director of the AC4 consortium at Columbia University. He is also an Adjunct Faculty member in the School of Professional Studies, and an Associate Research Scientist at the Earth Institute, studying conflict management, natural resources, and extractive industry. His current work focuses on natural resource management as a tool for conflict prevention. He works with government, civil society, international
organizations, and nonprofit partners to design strategies to constructively manage environmental conflicts. Dr. Fisher received his PhD in Conflict Analysis and Resolution from George Mason University.
Stuart Kirschner is retired as an Associate Professor of Psychology at John Jay College of Criminal Justice. For over a decade he was principal instructor for the Emergency Psychological Technician (EPT) course, which instructs New York City Police Officers on communication with emotionally disturbed persons. Kirschner received his M.A. from Columbia University and his Ph.D. from the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. For 12 years he was an Administrator at Kirby Forensic Psychiatric Center (KFPC), a New York State Office of Mental Health maximum security psychiatric center. Dr. Kirschner has served as expert witness and consultant to defense counsel and prosecutors where psychiatric defenses have been entered, and writes regularly on psychiatric defenses and assessment of dangerousness.
U.S. Ambassador (ret.) John W. McDonald is a lawyer, diplomat, former international civil servant, development expert and peacebuilder, with twenty years in Western Europe and the Middle East and sixteen years working on United Nations economic and social affairs. He retired in 2017 as Chairman and CEO of the Institute for Multi-Track Diplomacy; he cofounded IMTD in 1992, and developed its systems approach on national and international peacebuilding.
Christel G. McDonald (M.A. History), former European Civil Servant, and experienced Historical Researcher, is deeply committed to furthering higher education for young people from around the world.
Nicholas Redding is a research psychologist with the Ulupono Initiative of The Omidyar Group, a social impact investment firm focused on encouraging sustainable energy, food and waste practices in Hawai’i. Prior to joining Ulupono, he was a research program coordinator with the Advanced Consortium on Cooperation, Conflict, and Complexity (AC4) at the Earth Institute, Columbia University. He holds a Ph.D. in Social-Organizational Psychology from Columbia University.
Robert Ricigliano is a Systems and Complexity Coach at The Omidyar Group, where he supports and guides teams within organizations and initiatives to better understand and effectively engage with dynamic systems. Prior to joining The Omidyar Group, Robert cofounded the Master of Sustainable Peacebuilding Degree Program at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee (UWM), held senior positions at the Conflict Management Group and Harvard Negotiation Project, and consulted on peacebuilding in complex environments. He has worked with government officials, non-governmental organizations, foundations, leaders of armed groups, and political parties in the U.S. and in conflict zones around the world. He is the author of Making Peace Last (2012).
Jeff Seul is Lecturer on the Practice of Peace at Harvard Divinity School and co-chair of the Peace Appeal Foundation, an organization that helps local stakeholders launch and sustain peace and national dialogue processes to end or avoid war. Mr. Seul previously taught at Harvard Law School, and was a senior associate of the Program on International Conflict Analysis and Resolution at Harvard’s Weatherhead Center for International
Affairs. Much of his work is focused on approaches to transformation of conflict with a religious dimension. Mr. Seul is also a partner in the international law firm Holland & Knight, the former general counsel of a startup tech firm (Groove Networks), a Roman Catholic and a Zen practitioner.