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History
of conflict resolution
by John Burton ©
March 1998
An entry
prepared for the Institute of Peace Studies, Seoul, Korea, for its "World
Encyclopedia of Peace", 1998 Edition.
Contents
Summary
The
post World War II World Society
Philosophical
Failure
A
Shift in Thinking
The
Development of Theory
Recent
Developments: Interests and Needs
Settlement
Processes as a Cause of Protracted Conflict
The
Problem of Change
An
Emerging Political Philosophy
References
Summary
Conflict
resolution as a concept has been promoted over the years by members
of the Society of Friends (Quakers) and others. When "Conflict
Resolution" was introduced at the University of London in 1965
as an extension of the conventional strategic, power politics, International
Relations course, it was given a specific meaning. This new section
dwelt on the possibilities of analytical problem solving in inter-state
relationships rather than dealing with potential military conflict situations
by balance of power and alliance means. Why had Germany and Japan gone
to war against Britain? Why was a revolt in Vietnam not deterred by
the threat of force from the leading world power of the time and from
the United Nations? If deterrence did not deter, what were the options?
After some years of debate and discussion Conflict Resolution became
an alternative to the traditional Morgenthau (1948) power politics approach
to International Relations.
This problem
solving approach, with its analytical focus on human motivations and
relationships, was soon seen to apply to all social and political levels,
thus offering an alternative to the power-based law-and-order approach
to the problems of societies. A body of theory and a Conflict Resolution
literature quickly evolved. Conflict Analysis and Resolution emerged
as a separate social science area of study. To cope with its comprehensive,
a-disciplinary approach, frequently independent Institutes and Centres
were established within universities, rather than separate departments
or sections within departments.
By reason
of its comprehensive nature, Conflict Resolution is now emerging as
a political philosophy, with widespread social and political implications.
The
post World War II World Society
The Charter
of the United Nations was drafted at San Francisco in 1945. At that
time conventional wisdom held that the emerging global society should
be a centralised federal system. The central authority was to have final
power in the preservation of peace. There were certain international
legal norms to be observed. There was to be a Court to interpret these.
There was to be a body, the Security Council, comprising the five major
powers, plus ten others elected by the General Assembly. The Security
Council was given enforcement powers. Member states were to contribute
forces for the purpose.
The world
society was, in short, to be constructed and administered along the
lines of the prevailing single nation state. Majority rule, law and
order, the common good, were among the conceptual notions that made
up the political philosophy of the time.
Philosophical
Failure
It was
not then acknowledged that the common good was, both at the domestic
level and at the international level, the common good as interpreted
by the powerful. It was assumed, and widely accepted, that authorities
which have effective control within their territories are, by dint of
this control, politically legitimised authorities.
We now know from experience that this power conception of legitimisation
is false. In the absence of consensus support, the maintenance of law
and order through coercion by a central authority, can be a source of
violence and protracted conflict which spills over into the international
system.
The UN
was thus flawed from the outset in two ways. Many of its members are
non-legitimised authorities and, as such, the source of serious domestic
conflicts. And the UN is flawed by its own non-legitimacy. The General
Assembly has no means of control in respect of matters of international
concern. Only the Security Council can apply law and order, and the
permanent members of that body each has the right of veto.
It is hard
to believe now, but at the time at which the Charter was drafted few
people, perhaps none at San Francisco, had any clear ideas on the handling
of conflict situations outside this traditional power framework. The
national central authority coercive model was what was in the minds
of all as the ideal for an international institution. The goal was to
prevent aggression of the World War 11 German, Italian and Japanese
type. Few were educated to ask why this aggression had occurred, what
were the background circumstances, and were there problems that could
have been resolved.
It was
not until the early 'sixties that there was any effective challenge
to the normative and authoritarian approach of power theory. When it
came, it came in the field of industrial relations. Scholars and consultants,
(such as Blake, Shepard and Mouton, 1964), pointed to the need for inter-action
between management and workers if there were to be co-operation and
increased productivity. This coincided with work in decision-making
theory which focused attention on the advantages of feed-back processes,
rather than on unqualified power and hierarchical approaches to decision
making, (Karl Deutsch, 1963).
A Shift
in Thinking
A group
of lawyers in Britain associated with the David Davis Memorial Institute
published in 1966 their considered view that the institutions available
to states, judicial settlement, mediation, conciliation, negotiation
and the other means contemplated within the UN Charter and within classical
power political philosophy, were adequate as means by which to maintain
peaceful international relationships. The League of Nations had failed
because of an unwillingness on the part of states to use the instruments
available, but the powers given to the United Nations Security Council
had changed this.
The academic
community became sharply divided between those who adopted this traditional
power view, and those who sought to determine the nature of conflict
and how to resolve it through an understanding of it by the parties
concerned.
In England
in the late 1960's one outcome of this quite bitter academic debate
was an attempt by some teachers of International Relations at University
College, London, to falsify the belief that parties in conflict were
unwilling to cooperate in resolving conflicts. Their hypothesis was
that parties to conflicts would endeavour to avoid the costs of escalation
of conflicts and to resolve them if they were placed in an exploratory
and analytical framework in which they could explore possible options.
Obviously
some new process would be required, some analytical process, that would
avoid power bargaining from stated positions and would be exploratory
once the goals and objectives of all sides had been revealed. Clearly,
this would require an appropriate third party, preferably a panel of
four or five facilitators, who could inject interdisciplinary knowledge
and information, not about the conflict at issue, but about conflicts
and human behaviour generally which the parties could apply to their
conflict. This would need to be without publicity so as to avoid charges
of weakness by leaders who were willing to negotiate with the enemy,
and possibly change perceptions and policies.
One test
case in the mid-60's concerned a conflict in South East Asia, involving
Indonesia, Malaysia and Singapore, which the British Prime Minister
of the day, Harold Wilson, had tried to mediate. The parties had all
refused to accept his invitation-which he had made public. With his
knowledge and consent the London group invited the three heads of government
to send nominees to meet in London for an off-the-record analytical
and exploratory dialogue. They responded immediately. The nominees met
for ten days in a face-to-face situation controlled by a panel of five
scholars. The agenda was an analysis of the situation, with no preliminary
proposals. There was no bargaining or negotiation. All three discovered
that they shared the same fears and aspirations, possible infiltration,
sponsored by the other parties, of their economies by foreign nationals.
After some days they could communicate readily. They returned home.
Fighting stopped and diplomatic relations were re-established without
any public statements. (For an account of this intervention, see "Civilisations
in Crisis" in International Journal of Peace Studies Vol 1 No 1.)
This exercise
was followed by others which again falsified the proposition that conflicting
parties would not meet together. The same processes were tested at the
industrial level and at the community level. Much was learned by these
experiences, which were shared by many scholars working in the field.
Confidentiality became an important consideration. There were none of
the usual academic reports of experiments. Once it was accepted by the
parties that there would be no publicity or reporting of any observations
made during discussions, at least for many years, changes in attitudes
and policies could be made, without any possibility of accusations of
being "weak" or climbing down. The degree to which parties
re-perceived the total situation, and the values and motivations of
their "enemy", came as a welcome surprise to those facilitating
and observing.
The
Development of Theory
A theory
of behaviour was now required which would not merely explain why parties
were unwilling to meet within existing international institutions, but
which would also indicate what kind of institutions and processes would
be acceptable and helpful.
Paul Sites,
in 1973, introduced a previously neglected behavioural dimension into
the study of human relationships. He attributed "power", not
to governments, but to individuals and groups of individuals. He observed
that they use all means at their disposal to pursue certain human needs.
The individual or group has an inherent need for a social role, an identity
and identification with others, and social recognition as an individual
or ethnic group. He argued that there are certain societal needs that
will be pursued regardless of consequences. This, in his view, was the
source of ultimate power and explained why authorities are powerless
in many situations, both domestic and international, to deter or to
enforce their decisions.
It was
then possible to make a clear distinction between human needs, such
as those listed by Sites and which are an ontological part of the human
organism, and interests, such as commercial and material interests.
It followed that in any conflict situation there are differences (interests)
that can be negotiated, but there are also differences (human needs
and some cultural values) that are not for trading at any price. The
latter, being ontological needs, are shared by all parties. When there
is a direct interaction they are readily recognised by all as shared
sources of conflict to be removed.
It was
necessary, therefore, in resolving any conflict situation to work towards
political structures that enable the full development of the individual
and of the identity group to which the individual belongs. Ethnic conflicts
could not be settled by "democratic" majority government,
and other options had to be explored. Indeed, the major role of panels
associated with conflict resolution processes would be to be innovative
in translating the shared needs and values that are revealed by the
dialogue into political structures, institutions and behaviours that
would promote their fulfilment.
There is
one other strand in the development of conflict resolution theory that
should be noted. We are here dealing with what must be regarded as the
most complex field of study that man will ever come across: the behavioural
relations of humans as persons and as groups. It happened that, during
this period of development of behavioural theory, the philosophy of
science was also developing. What was previously described as scientific
method was found to be not so scientific, and indeed, useful and reliable
only in limited circumstances. The debate between Popper (1957) and
Kuhn (1962) revealed shortcomings in controlled experiments and in empirically
based theorising. It also demonstrated that a formal deductive approach
that relied upon falsification was impractical, as such testing was
usually not possible in open systems.
Further
insights emerged after Peirce's work on "abduction" (1980)-the
questioning of the consensus assumptions. Those engaged in conflict
resolution analysis were persuaded, by the behaviours and responses
revealed in a conflict situation, to conclude that traditional concepts
of law and order, of the common good, of majority decision making, of
the right to rule and to expect obedience, were probably at the root
of a great deal of social conflict. Clearly this was the case in situations
where there was an absence of political legitimisation. The attempt
to impose structures that denied to people their identity and their
development in all aspects, and the attempt to impose the norms of the
powerful, were dysfunctional and a source of conflict.
Recent
Developments: Interests and Needs
The theory
of needs led logically to the development of a process that would enable
parties to conflicts to ascertain the hidden data of their motivations
and intentions, and to explore means by which human-societal needs held
in common could be satisfied. As these needs were universal, and as
they related to security, identity and other developmental requirements
that are not in short supply, the process soon revealed that conflict
resolution with win-win outcomes is possible.
Many research
and teaching institutes in different cultures have now sought to test
both theory and practice in actual situations. The Foreign Service Institute
of the U.S. Department of State has published reports on the process
(1986). An extensive literature on conflict resolution now exists. (Banks
and Kelman, 1984, Burton, 1979 and 1990, Dukes, 1996, Mitchell and Banks,
1996, Sandole and Van der Merwe, 1993, and many others).
In summary, classical thinking led us to believe that conflict was about
negotiable interests only. For that reason it was thought that the individual
could be socialised and, if necessary, deterred by punishments. What
both conflict theory and resolution processes revealed was that protracted
conflicts are primarily over non-negotiable human needs such as those
listed by Sites. This being the case, it is impossible to socialise
the individual into behaviours that run counter to the pursuit of security,
identity and other aspects of development. (Burton, 1997). The warning
flag is out: conflicts, such as wage disputes, and conflicts over opposing
cultural and national "human values", may not really be over
negotiable interests. They may relate to needs that are not for trading,
such as being treated on the shop floor as a person and not a machine.
Indeed, it may well be that conflicts are protracted unnecessarily just
because inalienable values (identity) are translated into interests
(wages) merely to fit into the traditional processes of bargaining and
negotiation. When analytical processes are available, the hidden data
are revealed and can be dealt with.
A new conceptual
frame requires a new language. As suggested, there is a need to re-define
disputes and conflicts. A "dispute" may be a matter for negotiation,
but a "conflict" has its sources in values that are not subject
to bargaining or negotiation. "Prevention" by police action
is a quite different concept from "provention", that is getting
to the source of problems so that they do not occur. There are many
terms with special meanings within this non-power philosophy. (Burton
1996).
Settlement
Processes as a Cause of Protracted Conflict
At the
international policy level, however, there has been little change. National
defence is the main priority of state policy. Superiority of power remains
the goal of states-which leads to adversary diplomacy and politics,
and to arms escalation. States, and the UN as the institution of states,
still see the global society in the classical framework.
In the
absence of any national institutions or international agency with the
role of conflict resolution, leaders of powerful governments intervene.
They seek credits for their initiatives, and informal, confidential
exchanges become impossible. Publicity forces parties to adhere to their
positions and to avoid being accused by local interest groups of weakness
in changing their positions.
There are,
in addition, structural conditions which make any significant change
towards conflict provention unlikely. Whenever there are political changes
which remove a source of serious international conflict, as for example,
changes in the former Soviet Union, other serious situations seem to
emerge, for example, the denial of "human rights" in China
and its reactions to Western policies, and existing "preventive"
structures are once again justified and extended. The practical reality
is that national armies, intelligence agencies and the global arms industry
combine to make up an interest group more extensive and powerful than
any other likely combination of problem-solving structures. (Saul, 1993
and Timberg, 1996).
The
Problem of Change
The evolution
of civilisations has required change and adjustment to change, yet "survival
of the fittest", the struggle by leaders and potential leaders
for recognition, identity and a social role, results in many built-in
mechanisms for preservation against change. Leadership and elites seek
to conserve existing roles and institutions by whatever military and
political means are at their disposal until overcome by more powerful
forces. Societies have always been in conflict because some sections
have drives for change stemming from pursuit of their human needs, while
others fear it and its threat to their interests.
The facilitated
conflict resolution processes that have now evolved are effective to
the extent that parties to conflicts are helped to cost accurately the
consequences of change or no change, to cut down the delays that occur
in change, and to speed up the evolutionary process toward greater fulfilment
of societal needs. Societies are moving towards insights and processes
in which bargaining of needs against interests can be avoided, and in
which the parties concerned can define needs and interests and cost
the consequences of preserving interests at the expense of needs.
Translated
on to the global scene the great powers fear change lest it prejudice
their relative power positions. Yet all sides know that change in political
systems is not merely inevitable, but also desirable. The U.S. does
not particularly desire to defend repressive feudal systems in Central
America and elsewhere throughout the globe; but it fears the consequences
of unpredictable political change. China fears the responses of existing
"great powers" to its emergence as a major developing economy.
Analytical interaction has not yet taken place. If there were a means
of reliably bringing about change with desired outcomes, many situations
in the world society would no longer attract great power interventions.
An Emerging
Political Philosophy
The shift
of Conflict Analysis and Resolution as a study from the resolution of
specific conflicts to the "provention" of conflicts by getting
at their institutional sources is a shift towards an altered political
philosophy. It is a shift from adversarial political, industrial, legals
and other institutions towards problem-solving processes.
This makes
Conflict Analysis and Resolution a challenge to all social sciences,
which have to date failed adequately to include a human dimension. Economics
treats unemployment as a function of economic development, treating
the unemployed as robots to be employed or not according to financial
needs governing inflation and investment. Sociology was founded on the
assumption that the human being is malleable and can, if socially motivated
or coerced, adjust to institutional requirements. Politics is still
within the traditional power frame and continues to define "democracy"
as majority rule, the majority frequently being elected by a minority
of voters, and excluding many class and ethnic groups.
Once a
human dimension is included in social analysis it becomes clear that
many traditional assumptions are false, and no more than historical
myths. The long-term trend from feudalism, through industrial relations
and political classes towards continuing and increasing conflict has
now placed civilisations in crisis. A holistic approach is required
to all problems: conflict, crime, violence, corruption and other sources
of personal insecurity.
The analytical
challenge is finally a challenge to political philosophy. Democratic
systems are founded on adversarial institutions: adversarial party politics,
adversarial industrial relations, adversarial legal systems and processes,
and others which are power based and do not take into account the human
needs which have been found to require satisfaction if there are to
be non-conflictual relationships.
In the
light, however, of structural conditions which ensure the continuing
production and sales of weapons of war, and professions which rest on
continuing threats to security, national and international, movements
towards conflict resolution, to be credible, must be within the prevailing
defence, intelligence, and industrial structure. It may be possible
to modify or eliminate some adversarial processes in party political
processes, in industrial relations, in law and order, in families, etc,
but more than this becomes no more than idealism, at least until these
preliminary changes become accepted and future generations are educated
in a non-power environment.
References
Banks,
M. and Kelman, H.C. (1984). Conflict in World Society: A new perspective
on international relations. Wheatsheaf Books Ltd. Sussex.
Blake,
P.R, Shepard, H.A. & Mouton, J.S. (1964) Managing Inter-Group Conflict
in Industry. Gulf Publishing Co.
Burton,
J.W. (1979). Deviance, Terrorism and War: The Processes of Solving Unsolved
Social and Political Problems. St.Martin's Press. N.Y.
Burton,
J.W. (1990). Conflict Resolution and Provention. St.Martin's Press.
N.Y.
Burton,
J.W. (1996). Conflict Resolution: Its Language and Processes. The Scarecrow
Press. Lanham, MD., and London.
Burton,
J.W. (1997). Violence Explained. Manchester University Press.
David Davis
Memorial Institute, 1966. Report of a Study Group On Peaceful Settlement
of International Disputes, London.
Karl Deutsch,
(1963). The Nerves of Government. The Free Press, N.Y.
Kuhn, Thomas.
(1962) The Structure of Scientific
Revolutions.
The Chicago Press.
Mitchell,
C. and Banks. (1996) M. Handbook of Conflict Resolution: the analytical
and problem-solving approach. Pinter, London.
Morgenthau,
Hans. (1948). Politics Among Nations: The Struggle For Power and Peace.
Knopf, N.Y.
Peirce,
C.S. (1980) in Levi I. "Induction in Peirce," in Mellor, D.H.
(ed) Science, Belief and Behavior. Cambridge University Press.
Popper,
Karl. (1957) The Poverty of Historicism.
Routledge
& Kegan Paul, N.Y.
Sandole,
D.J.D. and Hugo van der Merwe. (1993). Conflict Resolution: Theory and
Practice. Manchester University Press.
Sites,
Paul. (1973) Control, the Basis of Social Order. Dunellen Publishers.
Tinberg,
Robert. (1996) The Nightingale's Song. Simon and Schuster.
Saul, John.
(1993). Voltaire's Bastards: The Dictatorship of Reason in the West.
Penguin Books.
United
States Department of State, Foreign Service Institute. Perspectives
on Negotiation. 1986.
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