Table Of ContentCONFLICT: READINGS IN MANAGEMENT AND
RESOLUTION
Conflict: Readings in
Management and
Resolution
Edited by John Burton and Frank Dukes
Center for Conflict Analysis and Resolution, George Mason University,
Virginia, USA
M
MACMILLAN
© John Burton and Frank Dukes 1990
Foreword © Samuel W. Lewis 1990
Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 1990
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First published 1990
Published by
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British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
Conflict: readings in management and resolution - (The
Conflict series: V.3).
1. Social conflict. Resolution
I. Burton, John W. (John Wear), 1915- II. Dukes, Frank
III. Series
303.6
ISBN 978-0-333-52145-8 ISBN 978-1-349-21003-9 (eBook)
DOI 10.1007/978-1-349-21003-9
The Conflict Series
1. CONFLICT: RESOLUTION AND PROVENTION, * by John Burton
2. CONFLICT: HUMAN NEEDS THEORY, edited by John Burton
3. CONFLICT: READINGS IN MANAGEMENT AND RESOLUTION,
edited by John Burton and Frank Dukes
4. CONFLICT: PRACTICES IN MANAGEMENT, SETTLEMENT AND
RESOLUTION, by John Burton and Frank Dukes
*Provention
The term prevention has the connotation of containment. The term provention has
been introduced to signify taking steps to remove sources of conflict, and more
positively to promote conditions in which collaborative and valued relationships
control behaviors.
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Foreword to the Series
Samuel W. Lewis
President, United States Institute of Peace
We seem to know much more about how wars and other violent
international conflicts get started than we do about how to end them.
Nor do we understand very well how to transform settlements that
terminate immediate hostilities into enduring peaceful relationships
through which nations can continue to work out their differences
without violence. The lack of attention to these questions, at least
with regard to relations among sovereign governments, is due in
some degree to the way international relations as an academic subject
has traditionally been studied. By and large, more academic theory
and analysis have been devoted to patterns and causes in international
behavior with an eye to perfecting explanatory theory than to
effective, usable remedies to international conflicts. We have assumed
the remedies would become plain once the correct theory was found.
That imbalance is now being corrected. Interest is now growing in
the theory and practice of "conflict resolution," a new field concerned
specifically with the nature of conflict as a generic human problem
and with techniques or initiatives that might be applied productively
in addressing conflicts. This new emphasis is reflected in the emer
gence of alternative dispute resolution methods in the law profession,
of peace studies or conflict resolution programs in many of the
nation's colleges and universities, of research journals devoted
specifically to conflict and its resolution, and of community mediation
or problem-solving strategies at the local level and "second-track
diplomacy" at the international level.
Providing much of the conceptual foundation for an explicit focus
on conflict itself has been a small but growing group of interdisciplinary
scholars engaged in a search for formulas and processes that seem to
work in ending conflicts among nations and groups. They are seeking
to identify those institutional and societal structures that have the
best chance of ensuring a lasting and just peace among conflicting
interests. Unfortunately, the work of these scholars has not reached
the widest circles of policy makers, professionals, students, and
researchers who could benefit from the stimulating explorations of
the conflict resolution school of thought.
The United States Institute of Peace wishes to commend the four
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viii Foreword to the Series
book Conflict Series: an effort by one of the acknowledged founding
fathers of the conflict resolution field to summarize the main insights
of the field to date for a wider readership. In these books, John
Burton, with the assistance of other major contributors, delineates
the distinctive scope of the conflict resolution field, defines its key
concepts, explains how the field emerged out of existing approaches
to conflict and peace and how it differs from them, summarizes the
field's leading substantive insights about conflict and its resolution,
collects some of the best readings produced by the field, and probes
where the field needs to go in the future to strengthen its theory and
applicability to real problems. The series also surveys extant practical
techniques for conflict management such as mediation, adjudication,
ombudsmen, interactive management, and problem-solving work
shops and explores their utility for different types of conflict situations.
Of course, the views expressed in these volumes are those of the
authors alone and do not necessarily reflect views of the Institute of
Peace.
Impressively, John Burton and Frank Dukes completed this broad
examination of the conflict resolution field during Burton's year as a
Distinguished Fellow of the United States Institute of Peace in 1988-
89 while he was also a Distinguished Visiting Professor at the Center
for Conflict Resolution at George Mason University in Virginia. No
one in the world is better qualified to present the conflict resolution
field's distinctive perspectives and unique contributions than is
Burton, whom many in the field regard as its first leading explorer
and one of its most ardent spokesmen before students, scholars, and
governments since its beginnings in the later 1950s. In preparing this
series, Burton has drawn on the wealth of his extensive academic
training in economics and international relations and his 25 years of
research and teaching at universities in three countries, as reflected
in his previous ten books and numerous articles. He also has applied
the lessons of his practical experience as diplomat for the Australian
government and as a third party facilitator in efforts to end such
conflict, as Lebanon, Cyprus, Northern Ireland, and Sri Lanka.
The United States Institute of Peace is a non-partisan, independent
institution created and funded by the United States Congress to
strengthen the nation's capacity to understand and deal more effec
tively with international conflict through peaceful means. It serves
this purpose by supporting research and education projects that will
expand and disseminate available knowledge about the nature of
international conflict and the full range of ways it can be resolved
Foreword to the Series ix
within a framework that maximizes freedom and justice. Within this
challenging mandate, one of our tasks is to identify serious, innova
tive, but less well known approaches that may bear further examin
ation and to bring the insights from these approaches to wider circles
so that fruitful dialogue among different perspectives is fostered.
John Burton's work complements another Institute project that is
mapping all the major "roads to peace" - e.g., international law,
diplomacy and negotiations, transnationalism, deterrence theory,
non-violence traditions, and international organizations - that have
been emphasized in the scholarly literature and world of practice as
important methods and tools for achieving international peace. The
conflict resolution method and outlook is one of the approaches the
Institute wishes to see more widely understood so their respective
strengths and limitations can be sorted out and constructive syntheses
can be developed. In short, we seek to stimulate much faster
dissemination of ideas and cross-fertilization than normally would
occur across the barriers of different academic disciplines, professions,
governmental spheres, and private organizations that are concerned
in various ways with international conflict and its resolution, although
they may not necessarily describe their concerns in exactly these
terms.
By supporting John Burton's work, the United States Institute of
Peace hopes that the perspectives, insights, and new directions for
analysis of this relatively new field of conflict resolution will be
brought before, and enrich the work of, a wider readership of
international relations and conflict resolution students; practitioners
in fields such as law, government, labor and industrial management,
and social work; policy makers at all levels; as well as scholars
concerned with conflict issues.
Washington, D. C.
Preface to the Series
It is not easy for those who are seeking new approaches to move
from deterrence theories and practices of conflict settlement and
management to conflict resolution theory and practice. The jump to
prevention and the predictive capabilities that prevention requires,
is even more challenging. These are different fields with different
assumptions. While they exist concurrently they are in different
conceptual worlds. Some practitioners and theorists seek more
effective institutional and management constraints, power negotiating
techniques and peace through technologies of mutual threat. There
are consensus seekers who employ more sophisticated socialization
processes largely within existing systems. Problem-solving advocates
pursue more analysis of human behaviors and seek to deduce
processes of conflict resolution and provention. There cannot be
communication between different approaches, or with policy makers
and the public generally, until there is a precisely defined language,
appropriate concepts that enable a clear differentiation of the various
approaches, and an adequate and agreed theory of human behaviors
at all social levels. This is the purpose of these four books concerned
with the study of Conflict.
There are four books in this Conflict Series. They are:
1. Conflict: Resolution and Provention. This book seeks to provide
an historical and theoretical perspective, and a framework for
consideration of theory and practice in conflict resolution and proven
tion. It is in five parts: Part I defines the approach; Part II deals with
the political context of conflict provention; Part III is concerned with
the theory of decision making, and with conflict resolution processes;
Part IV is concerned with the longer-term policy implications of
provention; and Part V draws together some conclusions.
2. Conflict: Human Needs Theory. An adequate theory of behavior
is required to provide a basis for the analysis and resolution of
conflict, and particularly for prediction of conflict and a guide to
conflict provention. "Needs theory" is put forward as this foundation.
The chapters contributed in this book were written as a result of a
international conference convened in July 1988 for that purpose.
3. Conflict: Readings in Management and Resolution. A new
subject has origins in many fields, and this is an attempt to bring
together some earlier contributions from a broad spectrum of discipli-
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xii Preface to the Series
nes. A newly developing subject also has gaps requiring attention,
and this book includes contributions requested to fill some of these
gaps. It also contains an extensive annotated bibliography.
4. Conflict: Practices in Management Settlement and Resolution. It
is useful to survey practices generally, even those that proceed from
contradictory theories. This book is a general survey of management,
settlement and conflict resolution practices.
Conflict, its resolution and provention, comprises an a-disciplinary
study, that is, a synthesis that goes beyond separate disciplines,
beyond interaction between separate disciplines, and beyond any
synthesis of approaches from several disciplines. An a-disciplinary
approach accepts no boundaries of knowledge. Consequently, it has
as yet no shelf in any discipline-based library. These four books seek
to make a start.
JOHN BURTON
