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International Online Training Program On Intractable Conflict

Conflict Research Consortium, University of Colorado, USA

Conflict Research Consortium

THE ORGANIZATION WHICH DEVELOPED THIS PROGRAM


The Conflict Research Consortium is a multidisciplinary program of research, teaching, and application, focused on finding more constructive ways of addressing difficult, long-term, and intractable conflicts, and getting that information to the people involved in these conflicts so that they can approach them in a more constructive way. A joint university-community program, the Consortium unites researchers, educators, and practitioners from many fields for the purposes of theory-building, testing, disseminating, and applying new conflict management techniques. These efforts are designed to lead to an improved understanding of conflict dynamics, along with better methods for confronting and managing intractable conflicts and reaching good decisions. Unlike our colleagues who focus on comprehensive resolution, we take an incremental approach-- analyzing problems that make these conflicts unnecessarily destructive, and then identifying effective incremental treatments.

Much of our effort over the past few years has been spent developing, testing, and revising our theory of intractable conflicts, based on extensive collection of qualitative data--stories from scholars, practitioners, and disputants--who have told us (either directly or through their writing) about their conflicts and their conflict management efforts. We have analyzed and organized these stories to create a theoretical list of typical conflict problems and treatments. This information (with accompanying explanations) will soon be available over the web, allowing users to identify specific problems that are occurring in their own conflicts, read about related theory, and search for possible remedies. The system is designed to act as a computerized consulting service which will provide customized executive summaries (and back-up information) addressing specific user interests.

In addition to helping neutral intervenors develop their professional skills, the Consortium is also working to help adversaries develop a more sophisticated understanding of conflict processes, and helping disputants develop what we call "do-it-yourself" skills for the many situations in which professional assistance is not available. We have developed and maintain an extensive web site of general conflict information (over 1000 pages long-before the first phase of the international online training program is added), and have been active in a variety of other teaching, training, and intervention efforts, all focused on the intractable conflict theme.

The Consortium's inquiry into intractable conflict continues to be a long term-effort which has evolved greatly over the last several years. Key to the success of our efforts have been a continuing series of projects and activities in three broad areas.

Knowledge Base Projects


The Consortium's knowledge base concept is a bit unusual. The traditional research model suggests that researchers need only understand a field's knowledge base sufficiently to identify an area of the frontier in which they would like to work. At this point researchers tend to become specialists, developing projects which push back that frontier by making incremental additions to a field's overall base of knowledge. This approach has produced a world dominated by specialists. While specialization is responsible for the rapid advances in many fields, it is not a particularly good model for solving complex, real-world problems. For that, we believe generalists are needed--researchers and programs devoted to bringing a field's entire, multi-disciplinary body of knowledge to bear on specific situations. The Consortium is trying to be such an organization.

To do this, we have pursued a series of projects designed to collect and organize as much of the cumulative expertise of the conflict-resolution field as possible. We have also sought to include applicable knowledge from related disciplines (e.g. law, political science, military science). The Consortium's recent knowledge-base projects have included the following:

Theory Development/Knowledge Organization Projects


We have been developing and continuously revising our theory of intractable or "resolution-resistant" conflicts for many years. While the basic approach is now a couple of years old, we continue to add pieces and revise the way in which we think the pieces best fit together. The goal of this theory-building effort is three-fold. One goal is to develop, for ourselves and other scholars, a better understanding about the nature of intractable conflicts-especially, what makes some conflicts intractable, while others are not. The second goal is to develop a better understanding for theoreticians, practitioners, and parties, of how intractable conflicts can be handled more constructively. The third goal is to use our theoretical framework to organize the multidisciplinary knowledge base that we have accumulated in a way that can be more easily navigated and understood. We have so much information on so many diverse topics, that having some sort of organization scheme is essential. By utilizing a scheme that makes sense theoretically, the information builds upon itself, creating a knowledge base that is more than a simple sum of the parts. Specific projects include the following.

Dissemination, Training and Education Projects


Dissemination of theoretical and practical knowledge about more constructive approaches to conflict is one of our primary goals. While a great deal of our recent efforts have involved dissemination over the world-wide web, we also rely on a variety of more traditional methods: books, articles, presentations, classes, in-person training programs, and consultations with scholars, conflict practitioners, and conflict parties both from the U.S. and from other countries. We also teach a graduate seminar at the university which explores our latest thinking on intractable conflicts, and occasionally assume intervention roles in area conflicts. All of this keeps us firmly grounded in the real-world problems and treatments and helps us resist the "ivory-tower syndrome." Aspects of our dissemination program include the following.


Copyright ©1998 Conflict Research Consortium  -- Contact: crc@colorado.edu