I first learned about conflict resolution in the United States Army. They didn’t call it conflict resolution in the army, they called it combat. The idea was that you win or you die. Confrontational? Yes. It has proven effective enough to make people think that their nation is doing something to be the go toContinue reading “My First Lessons in Conflict Resolution”
Category Archives: Conflict
The Problem with Problem Solving
As a scholar in the field of conflict I spend a lot of time analyzing the dual concern model. One of the basic ideas of this model is that the actors in a conflict determine how important their goals are in relation to the other party’s concern for or against the same goal. Basically you areContinue reading “The Problem with Problem Solving”
Why Disagreement is Not Conflict
The best definition of conflict that I have ever heard was provided by Dr. Ariane David. I attended a training she gave on the topic of Non-Positional Thinking. She said, “You know you are involved in destructive conflict when you start feeling defensive.” It is the feeling that you are personally being attacked that makesContinue reading “Why Disagreement is Not Conflict”
What is Conflict Resolution?
Conflict resolution is relatively easy to define. A conflict is a serious disagreement powered by the idea that one has something to lose. The threat of loss is sometimes real. In many cases the threat of loss is a perception of the parties and is powered by the emotional content of the disagreement, rather thanContinue reading “What is Conflict Resolution?”
Information Asymmetries and Pragmatic Nonviolence
Background I first learned about information asymmetries in the 2001 when I read a newspaper article about George Akerlof, Michael Spence, and Joseph Stiglitz winning a Nobel prize for their work on the subject. At the time the idea angered me, that one party might use another party’s lack of information against them. Not onlyContinue reading “Information Asymmetries and Pragmatic Nonviolence”