The Handbook of Conflict Resolution (3rd ed)

by Peter T Coleman

In this introduction, I give some examples of conflicts and indicate the kinds of questions one might pose to understand what is going on in the conflicts—questions that are addressed in many of the following chapters. It also includes a brief discussion of the orientations of both practitioners and researcher-theorists to provide some insight into the misunderstandings that often occur between these two groups. It concludes with an abbreviated history of the study of conflict from a social psychological perspective.

  A CONFLICT BETWEEN HUSBAND AND WIFE

  Some time ago, I had the opportunity to do therapeutic work with a professional couple involved in bitter conflicts over issues they considered nonnegotiable. The destructiveness of their way of dealing with their conflicts was reflected in their tendency to escalate a dispute about almost any specific issue (e.g., a household chore, the child’s bedtime) into a power struggle in which each spouse felt that his or her self-esteem or core identity was at stake. The destructive process resulted in (as well as from) justified mutual suspicion; correctly perceived mutual hostility; a win-lose orientation to their conflicts; a tendency to act so as to lead the other to respond in a way that would confirm one’s worst suspicion; inability to understand and empathize with the other’s needs and vulnerabilities; and reluctance, based on stubborn pride, nursed grudges, and fear of humiliation, to initiate or respond to a positive, generous action so as to break out of the escalating vicious cycle in which they were trapped.

  Many couples in such conflicts do not seek help; they continue to abuse one another, sometimes violently, or they break up. The couple I worked with sought help for several reasons. On the one hand, their conflicts were becoming physically violent. This frightened them, and it also ran counter to their strongly held intellectual values regarding violence. On the other hand, there were strong constraints making it difficult for them to separate. Their child would suffer; they felt they would be considerably worse off economically; and they had mutually congenial intellectual, aesthetic, sexual, and recreational interests that would be difficult to continue engaging in together if they separated. As is often the case in such matters, it was the woman, being less ashamed to admit the need for help, who took the initiative to seek the assistance of a skilled third party.

  The wife, who worked (and preferred to do so), wanted the husband to share equally in the household and child care responsibilities; she considered equality of the genders to be a core personal value. The husband wanted a “traditional marriage” with a conventional division of responsibilities in which he would be the primary income-producing worker outside the home, while his wife would principally do the work related to the household and child care. The husband considered household work and child care inconsistent with his deeply rooted image of adult masculinity. The conflict seemed nonnegotiable to the couple. For the wife, it would mean betrayal of her feminist values to accept her husband’s terms; for him, it would violate his sense of male adult identity to become deeply involved in housework and child care.

  Yet this nonnegotiable conflict became negotiable when, with the help of the therapist, the husband and wife were able to listen to and really understand the other’s feelings and how their respective life experiences had led them to the views each held. Understanding the other’s position fully, and the feelings and experiences behind them, made each person feel less hurt and humiliated by the other’s position and readier to seek solutions that would accommodate the interests of both. They realized that with their joint incomes, they could afford to pay for household and child care help that would enable the wife to be considerably less burdened by such responsibilities without increasing the husband’s chores in these areas (though doing so, of course, lessened the amount of money they had available for other purposes).

  This solution was not perfect for either partner. Each would have preferred that the other share his or her own view of what a marriage should be like. But their deeper understanding of the other’s position made them feel less humiliated and threatened by it and less defensive toward the other. It also enabled them to negotiate a mutually acceptable agreement that lessened tensions despite the continuing differences in basic perspective. (See Deutsch, 1988, for further discussion of negotiating the nonnegotiable.)

  AN INTERGROUP CONFLICT AT A SCHOOL

  A conflict has developed between two groups of teachers at a high school in New York City: the Black Teachers Caucus (BTC) and the newly formed Site-Based Management (SBM) Committee. The SBM committee’s eighteen members consist of the principal, the union chairperson, a representative from the parents’ association, a student, and an elected teacher representative from each academic department. All of the SBM members are European American, with the exception of an African American teacher chosen from the math department.

  At the last SBM meeting, the math teacher proposed that an official voting seat be designated for an African American teacher. After much heated discussion, the proposal was voted down. But the problems raised by the proposal did not go away. Much personal bitterness has ensued.

  The school has experienced a recent demographic shift from a predominantly white student body to one that is now mainly composed of students of color. This has occurred for two reasons. First, there has been a large influx of students of color from the city-owned housing projects constructed in the district during the past two years. Second, as a result, the number of science-oriented students coming from other parts of the city has dropped.

  The student population is now 40 percent African American, 30 percent Latino American, 25 percent European American, and 5 percent Asian American. The faculty is 90 percent European American and 10 percent African American. The parents’ association is 100 percent European American.

  The Position of the BTC

  The BTC believes that the SBM committee needs its input to make the changes needed—specifically, the curriculum is Eurocentric and many school policies are out of touch with the cultural perspective of the current student population. In addition, the caucus is very concerned about an increase in bias-related incidents in the community and wants to initiate antiracism classes at all grade levels.

  The members of the BTC believe that although the majority of the management committee members are sincerely interested in bringing about positive school change and are good, dedicated teachers, they lack personal understanding of the impact of racism on the African American experience. Some even seem to still value the old melting-pot approach to race relations, a position the caucus members believe is naive and dysfunctional when it comes to positive educational change.

  The BTC believes that having its representative present as a voting member on the committee will add a needed multicultural and antiracist perspective at this critical time of change. The caucus wants to be part of this change and will not take no for an answer.

  The Position of the European American SBM Committee Members

  There are many reasons the European Americans voted against an African American seat on the SBM committee, and they deeply resent the implication that they are racists for so doing. First, they believe that if any particular black teacher wants a seat, he or she should go through regular democratic procedures and get elected by the respective department. New elections will be held in May.

  Second, it would not be fair to give a special seat to the black teachers without opening up other seats for the Latino, Asian, Jewish, Greek, or “you name it” teachers. SBM is about department representation, the members say, not about representation based on race or ethnicity.

  Third, designating a seat for blacks or establishing quotas of any kind based on race would give the appearance of catering to pressure from a special-interest group and be difficult to explain to the rest of the faculty and the parents’ association. They believe that the best direction for the school and society as a whole is a color-blind policy that would assimilate all races and ethnic groups into the great American melting pot. The site management members sincerely believe that they
do not discriminate because of race, and they resent the implication that they are incapable of teaching children of color.

  The principal of the school, who is strongly committed to both site-based management and multiculturalism, very much wants this conflict to be resolved constructively. After several months of unproductive discussions between the two groups, during which they become progressively hardened in their respective positions, the principal calls in a mediator to help the groups resolve their conflict. By various means over a period of time, she—as well as the principal—encourages a civil problem-solving discussion of the issue. Together the groups brainstorm and come up with twenty-seven ideas for handling the problem. Ultimately they agree on one solution as being the best: each year the principal will appoint seven faculty members to a multicultural task force that reflects the student composition. Two of the task force members will also be members of the SBM committee, one to be elected by the task force members and one selected from the ethnic group most heavily represented in the student population.

  The solution, though not perfect, is acceptable to both sides and is implemented to the satisfaction of the teachers. It goes on contributing to the reduction of intergroup tensions as well as to the effectiveness of the SBM committee.

  THE CONFLICT IN NORTHERN IRELAND

  As Cairns and Darby (1998) point out, “The conflict in Northern Ireland is at its most basic a struggle between those who wish to see Northern Ireland remain part of the United Kingdom and those who wish to see the reunification of the island of Ireland” (p. 754). The roots of the conflict go back centuries to the period when the English colonized the island, occupied 95 percent of the land, and introduced a community of foreigners (mainly Scottish Protestants) in Northern Ireland. They became a majority in this area, in contrast to a Catholic majority in the Republic of Ireland.

  Cairns and Darby (1998) also state that “years of oppression by the colonists and rebellion by the native Irish culminated in the Treaty of 1921, which partitioned the island into two sections: the six predominantly Protestant counties of the North, which remained an integral part of the United Kingdom, and the twenty-six mainly Catholic counties of the South, which separated from the United Kingdom” (p. 755) and ultimately became known as the Republic of Ireland. Despite the partition, significant violence has occurred periodically in Northern Ireland.

  The use of the terms Catholic and Protestant to label the conflicting groups is not meant to indicate that the conflict is primarily a religious one, although that is an element. A small sector of the Protestant population is virulently anti-Catholic and fears for its religious freedom if union occurs with the Republic of Ireland, whose population is 98 percent Catholic. The Irish Roman Catholic hierarchy has heavily influenced its laws in such matters as divorce and birth control.

  Other elements come into play as well. The Catholics mainly consider themselves to be Irish, while the Protestants prefer to be viewed as British. Economic inequality has been an important factor in fueling the conflict: there has been considerably more unemployment, less education, and poorer housing among the Catholics as compared with the Protestants. The two communities are largely separated psychologically even though they are not always physically separated. Each has developed separate social identities that affect how the members in each community view themselves and the people of the community. The social identities of the two groups have been negatively related until recently: a perceived gain for one side is usually associated with a perceived loss for the other.

  Although the costs of the intergroup conflict in Northern Ireland have been relatively small compared to ethnic conflicts in areas such as Rwanda, Lebanon, Bosnia, Sri Lanka, Kosovo, and Syria, they have not been insignificant. Taking into account population size, the deaths due to violence in Northern Ireland are equivalent to 500,000 deaths in the United States. There are not only the direct costs of violence in terms of death and injury (about 3,000 killed and 30,000 injured between 1969 and 1994) but also the indirect, harder-to-measure economic and mental health costs. Some of these costs were borne by England: the economic, psychological, and political toll from seeing some of its soldiers attacked and killed in an attempt to control the violence.

  Over the years, various attempts have been made to reduce the explosiveness of the conflict, including efforts by the Northern Ireland government to improve the economic situation of the Catholics, stimulation of intergroup contact under favorable circumstances, conduct of intergroup workshops for influential leaders in both groups, organization of women’s groups that conducted demonstrations against violence, integration of some of the Catholic and Protestant schools, recognition and honoring of the cultural traditions of both groups, and so forth. Many of these efforts were sabotaged by extremist groups on both sides. However, cumulatively they began to create the recognition that peaceful relations might be possible and that continued violence would not lead to victory for either side. Most of the ordinary people on both sides became increasingly alienated from the perpetrators of violence.

  The conditions for possible successful negotiation of a solution to the conflict were beginning to develop. The heads of three interested and concerned governments—President Bill Clinton of the United States, Prime Minister Tony Blair of Great Britain, and Prime Minister Bertie Ahern of Ireland—played key roles in getting the leaders of the various factions involved in the conflict to the negotiating table. Appointing former US senator George Mitchell, a highly respected and influential political figure, as a mediator was an important, positive step. He was acceptable to both sides and was a well-practiced, skilled political mediator.

  There have been substantial popular votes in Northern Ireland as well as in Ireland in favor of an agreement negotiated among leaders of the main Protestant and Catholic factions in Northern Ireland that was hoped would end their protracted, sometimes violent conflict. The agreement was developed with the aid of a skillful mediator, and with strong pressures from the leaders of the three interested governments in constant telephone contact with the negotiators during the difficult phases of the process. In coming to an agreement, each of the conflicting parties had to modify long-held positions, reduce their aspirations, and act with greater civility toward one another, as well as bring the extremists in their groups under control. This was difficult to do. The level of distrust among the conflicting groups is still very high despite the agreement. Its successful implementation over a period of time requires a high level of vigilance among those committed to preventing misunderstandings or the actions of extremists from unraveling it. The agreement itself was a creative attempt to respond to the apprehensions as well as interests of the various participants in the conflict. Its achievement was honored in 1998 by the Nobel Peace Prize, awarded to John Hume and David Trimble, the leading negotiators for the Catholics and Protestants, respectively.

  Ed Cairns, a social psychologist at the University of Ulster in Northern Ireland, e-mailed me on November 5, 2005, with his views of what has happened since the agreement. He indicated that the agreement led to the setting up of a regional parliament known as the Northern Ireland Assembly. This made a good start and included ministers from all parties, even those initially opposed to the agreement. However, the assembly has had a stop-start existence and has been suspended more often than it has been in action. These suspensions came about largely because of Protestant and Unionist perceptions that the IRA was refusing to decommission its weapons as required by the Good Friday Agreement in 1998. No weapons were decommissioned until 2001, and the final decommissioning was not announced until 2005. In between, however, there were allegations that the IRA had been involved in espionage, training Colombian guerrillas, and a major bank robbery.

  Sinn Fein has also pointed out that Loyalist paramilitaries, which tend to be smaller organizations, have not offered to decommission and are now believed to be involved in racketeering and major crime. Furthermore, although there have been major changes to the policing syste
m, Sinn Fein believed that all the reforms promised in the agreement have not yet been implemented.

  The IRA’s refusal to decommission cost David Trimble, the main Unionist leader at the time of the agreement and in the assembly, dearly. He had entered into the government with Sinn Fein—seen by most as the political wing of the IRA. However, Protestants felt that Catholic/Nationalists had most of their demands met—for example, by the release of “political” prisoners and the disbandment of the Royal Ulster Constabulary, but had given nothing in return. The result was that in the 2003 elections, Trimble lost his seat, and his party was virtually wiped out, being replaced by the more radical, antiagreement Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) led by Ian Paisley. Similarly, Sinn Fein made gains in the 2003 elections replacing the Social Democratic and Labour Party SDLP (founded by John Hume) as the largest Catholic/Nationalist party.

  Generally these electoral moves have been reflected in social surveys in which a majority of Protestants report that in 2013 they would be unlikely to vote again for the agreement had they the opportunity to do so. Demographic trends also suggest a worsening of intergroup relations indicating that Northern Ireland is entering a period of “benign apartheid,” with segregation now worse than it was before the troubles began in 1968. Observers are in agreement, then, that one lesson from Northern Ireland is that a peace agreement does not necessarily lead straight to a postconflict era but instead may be followed by a postagreement phase, which may last a considerable period of time.

  Despite mostly gloomy news, the original Good Friday Agreement is still in existence, large-scale violence is unknown, and there is general agreement that no appetite exists among politicians, the people, or indeed the (former) terrorists for a return to out-and-out violence.