The Handbook of Conflict Resolution (3rd ed)

by Peter T Coleman

  The dynamical system of the conflict, in the form of a dynamic network, can be represented through a series of feedback loop analyses (see figure 30.1 for a representation of the conflict and peace process in Mozambique in the 1980s and 1990s). Loop analysis, developed by Maruyama (1963, 1982), is useful for mapping reinforcing and inhibiting feedback processes that escalate, de-escalate, and stabilize destructive conflicts. Reinforcing feedback occurs when one element (such as a hostile act) stimulates another element (such as negative out-group beliefs) along its current trajectory. Inhibiting feedback occurs when one element inhibits or reverses the direction of another element (such as when guilty or compassionate feelings damper hostilities). Strong attractors are created when reinforcing feedback loops are formed between previously unrelated elements while inhibiting feedback dissipates in the system.

  Figure 30.1 Feedback Loop Analysis of Mozambique Conflict and Peace

  Source: Coleman, P. T., Vallacher, R., Nowak, A., Bui-Wrzosinska, L., and Bartoli, A. (2011). Navigating the landscape of conflict: Applications of dynamical systems theory to protracted social conflict. In N. Ropers (Ed.), Systemic thinking and conflict transformation. Berlin: Berghof Foundation for Peace Support.

  Feedback mapping not only captures the multiple sources and complex temporal dynamics of conflict systems but can also help identify central nodes and patterns that are unrecognizable by other means. The process typically begins by identifying the key elements in the conflict that emerge during different phases of escalation and specifying the nature of the linkages among these elements. This analysis can be characterized as evolving through various developmental stages (such as phases 1 to 9 in figure 30.1). Maps can be generated at the individual level (identifying the emotional and cognitive links that parties hold in their attitudes, feelings and beliefs—associations related to the problem and to their sense of the other), the interpersonal level (allies, enemies, power structures and so on), and the systemic level (e.g., mapping the feedback loops that allowed a particular series of events to escalate, such as seen in figure 30.1). This can be useful for remaining mindful of the systemic context of the conflict and restoring a sense of complexity into the parties’ understanding of events.

  Feedback mapping can be particularly useful for identifying and understanding the more constructive or functional aspects of social systems. Merely asking stakeholders, “Why doesn’t the conflict get worse?” “Why did disputants settle in the past?” or “What provides a sense of hope today?” can orient the analysis toward more constructive components or dynamics of the system, as can asking, “Where are the islands of agreement or the networks of effective action today?” or “What type of taboos exist for destruction and violence here [places of worship, children, hospitals]?” This information, which is typically ignored in conflict analysis, can help reveal the system’s own autoimmune system that operates to inhibit the conflict.

  Conflict maps can be generated alone as a prenegotiation exercise (with minimal training), with the help of facilitators or mediators, or in small groups of stakeholders. With conflict mapping, the goal is not necessarily to get it right. The goal at this stage is to get it different, that is, to try to reintroduce a sense of nuance and complexity into the stakeholders’ understanding of the conflict. The goal is to try to open up the system: to provide opportunities to explore and develop multiple perspectives, emotions, ideas, narratives, and identities and foster an increased sense of emotional and behavioral flexibility.

  However, feedback loop mapping can result in extremely complex visualizations of a conflict’s dynamics; therefore, it is critical to be able to offer strategies for subsequently focusing and simplifying. For instance, once a system is mapped, one can employ basic measures of network analysis and centrality to assess different qualities of the elements, such as their levels of in-degree (how many links or loops feed them), out-degree (whether they serve as a key source of stimulation or inhibition of the conflict for other nodes), and betweenness (the degree to which they are located between and therefore link other nodes; see Wasserman and Faust, 1994). This process can help to focus the analysis and manage the anxiety associated with the overwhelming sense of complexity of the system. However, it does so in a manner better informed by its complexity, history, and context.

  Guideline 3: Read the Emotional Reservoirs of the Conflict

  Emotions are not simply important considerations in intractable conflict; they are the issue as they set the stage for destructive or constructive perceptions, cognitions and interactions. In fact, research on emotions and decision making in patients with severe brain injuries found that when people lose the capacity to experience emotions, they also lose their ability to make important decisions (Bechara, 2004). Thus, emotions are not only relevant to our decisions; they are central to them.

  Laboratory research on emotions and conflict dynamics tells a consistent tale; it is the ratio that matters (Gottman, Swanson, and Swanson, 2002; Kugler, Coleman, and Fuchs, 2011; Losada and Heaphy, 2004). It is not necessarily how negative or how positive people feel about each other that really matters in conflict; it is the ratio of their positivity to negativity over time. Studies show that healthy couples and functional, innovative work groups tend to have disagreements and experience some degree of negativity in their relationships. This is normal, and in fact people usually need to experience this in order to learn and develop in their relationships. However, these negative encounters must occur within the context of a sufficient reservoir of positivity for the relationships to be functional. And because negative encounters have such an inordinately strong impact on people and relationships, there have to be significantly more positive experiences to offset the negative ones. Scholars have found that disputants in ongoing relationships need somewhere between three and a half to five positive experiences for every negative one to keep the negative encounters from becoming harmful (Gottman et al., 2002; Kugler et al., 2011; Losada and Heaphy, 2004). They need to have enough emotional positivity in reserve. Without this, the negative encounters will accumulate (rapidly), helping to create and perpetuate wide and deep attractors for destructive relations—in other words, intractable conflicts.

  Guideline 4: Begin with What Is Working

  Conflict resolution practitioners tend to focus on identifying and solving problems. While important, this orientation tends to obstruct our view of what is already working or of existing opportunities for solutions. Nevertheless, virtually every conflict system, even the most dire, contains people and groups who, despite the dangers, are willing to reach out across the divide and work to foster dialogue and peace. These are what Laura Chasin calls networks of effective action (Pearce and Littlejohn, 1997) and Gabriella Blum (2007) labels islands of agreement. For example, Blum has found that during many protracted conflicts, the disputing parties often maintain areas in their relationship where they continue to communicate and cooperate despite the severity of the conflict. In international affairs, this can occur with some forms of trade, civilian exchanges, or medical care. In communities and organizations, these islands may emerge around personal or professional crises (e.g., a sick child), outside interests (mutual work on common causes), or by way of chains of communications through trusted third parties. Recognizing and bolstering such networks or islands can mitigate tensions and help to contain the conflict.

  There are countless examples of this in the international arena: among Germans and Jews during the Nazi campaign in Europe during World War II, blacks and whites in South Africa in the 1980s, and today in places like Darfur, Somalia, Iran, and North Korea. These networks are often the centerpiece of latent constructive attractors for people and groups. During times of intense escalation, these people and groups may become temporarily inactive; they may even go underground. But they are often willing to reemerge when conditions allow, becoming fundamental players in the transformation of the system. Thus, early interventions should identify and engage with these individuals and networ
ks carefully and work with them to help alleviate the constraints on their activities in a safe and feasible manner.

  In addition, communities around the world usually have well-established taboos against committing particular forms of violence and aggression. In fact, archeological research suggests that communal taboos against violence have existed for the bulk of human existence and were a central feature of the prehistoric nomadic hunter-gatherer bands (Fry, 2006, 2007). Indeed, a key characteristic of peaceful groups and societies, both historically and today, is the presence of nonviolent values, norms, ideologies, and practices. To varying degrees, they all emphasize impulse control, tolerance, nonviolence, and concern for the welfare of others. These values, when extended to members of other groups, hold great potential for the prevention of violence and the peaceful resolution of conflict.

  Guideline 5: Beginnings Matter Most

  Research on nonlinear systems consistently shows that they are particularly sensitive to the initial conditions of the system. This means that beginnings matter. Studies in our Intractable Conflict Lab have found that how people feel during the first three minutes of their conversations over moral conflicts sets the emotional tone for the remainder of their discussions (Kugler et al., 2011). Gottman’s (2002) research on marriage has found similar effects: the first few minutes of a couple’s emotions in conflict are up to 90 percent predictive of their future encounters. Computer simulations of conflict dynamics suggest that even very slight differences in initial conditions can eventually make a big difference (Leibovitch et al., 2008). The effects of these small differences may not be visible at first, but they can trigger other changes that trigger other changes and so on over time, until they have a huge impact on the dynamics. These initial differences can be the result of various things: strong attitudes of the people coming in, their openness to dialogue or the level of complexity of their thinking, how the conversations are set up and facilitated, or the history of the disputants’ interactions together. But what is clear is that the initial encounters tend to matter more than whatever follows.

  Guideline 6: Circumvent the Conflict

  Recognizing that stakeholders in protracted conflicts often view peacemakers themselves as also being players in the theater of conflict, some intervenors attempt to work constructively in these settings by circumventing the conflict. The idea here is that a main reinforcing feedback loop of intractability is the fact that the destructiveness of the conflict exacerbates the very negativity and strife that created the conflict conditions in the first place and thereby perpetuates it. However, attempts to address these circumstances directly, in the context of a peace process, typically elicit resistance; they are seen as affecting the balance of power in the conflict (usually by supporting lower-power groups most affected by the conditions). Intervenors recognizing this will work to address these conditions of hardship, without making any connection whatsoever to the conflict or peace processes. To some degree, this is what many community and international development projects try to achieve. The difference is that this tactic targets the conditions seen as most directly feeding the conflict and requires that every attempt be made to divorce these initiatives from being associated with the peace process (Praszkier, Nowak, and Coleman, 2010). This unconflict resolution strategy can help address some of the negativity and misery associated with conflicts, without becoming incorporated (attracted) into the polarized good-versus-evil dynamics of the conflict.

  Guideline 7: Seek Meek Power

  Sometimes more direct intervention in a conflict is necessary. Intractable, entrenched patterns of destructive conflicts typically reject out of hand strong-arm attempts pressing for peace and stability or even less coercive approaches to statist diplomacy or third-party mediation. History provides countless examples of the UN, the United States, and other powerful outside parties failing to forge peace in enmity systems such as Israel-Palestine, Cyprus, and Kashmir. Nevertheless, peace sometimes does emerge out of long-term conflicts, and one path is through the power of powerlessness, that is, through the unique influence of people and groups with little formal or hard power (military might, economic incentives, legal or human rights justifications, and so on) but with relevant soft power (trustworthiness, moral authority, wisdom, kindness). Hard-power approaches in high-intensity conflicts tend to elicit greater resistance and intransigence from their targets. Meek-power third parties are at times able to weaken resistance to change by carefully introducing a sense of alternative courses of action, hope for change, or even a sense of questioning and doubt in the ultracertain status quo of us-versus-them conflicts. They can also begin to model and encourage more constructive means of conflict engagement such as shuttle diplomacy and indirect communications through negotiation chains.

  The events in the Mozambique peace process in the 1990s provide an excellent example of the utility of meek power in strong systems. During the conflict, the internal coherence of the two hostile systems was very high. Ideologically, militarily, and politically, there was no communication and exchange between the systems. Change emerged at the margins through nonthreatening communication processes facilitated by the Community of Sant’Egidio, a Catholic lay organization that allowed some key actors in the enmity system to consider alternatives to the current status quo. This initial consideration was made possible by the “weaknesses” of the propositions and of the proponents.

  Guideline 8: Work with Both Manifest and Latent Attractors

  Understanding change requires comprehending how things change over time. Complex systems evidence both linear and nonlinear change, which operate at different timescales. Linear change means that a change in any one element (e.g., increased cooperation) results in a proportional change in another (more constructive conflict) in a relatively direct and immediate manner. However, the elements of complex, tightly coupled conflict systems such as those characteristic of intractable conflicts tend to interact in a nonlinear fashion. This means that a change in any one element does not necessarily constitute a proportional change in others; such changes cannot be separated from the values of the other elements that constitute the system. This has major implications for conflict transformation and peace building.

  First, it is critical to recognize that a system’s (current) states and attractors change according to different timescales. Manifest conflicts can evidence dramatic and rapid changes in their states, from relatively peaceful states to violent ones, or from intensely destructive states to peaceful ones. This is seen when social processes move from one attractor pattern to another across what has been termed a threshold or tipping point (Gladwell, 2000). However, such changes in the current state of the conflict should not be confused with changes in the underlying attractor landscape. Attractors tend to develop more slowly and incrementally over time as a result of a host of relevant conditions and activities, although their presence may not become known for some time.

  Second, latent attractors may be highly significant in the long run because they determine which states are possible for the system if and when conditions change. Critical changes in a system, then, might be reflected not in the system’s observable state but rather in the creation or destruction of a latent attractor representing a potential state that is currently invisible to all concerned. This is what the world witnessed during the Cold War between the United States and the Soviet Union. Hostile relations had been obvious for decades between the two countries, but after perestroika, their relations moved rapidly into a more tolerant and constructive attractor, which had been present but latent during the Cold War. During destructive conflicts, negative attractors are usually visible and positive attractors are latent. During more peaceful times, positive attractors are visible and negative attractors become latent.

  The potential for latent attractors has important implications for addressing intractable conflict (Coleman, Bui-Wrzosinska, Vallacher, and Nowak, 2006; Coleman et al., 2007; Nowak, Vallacher, Bui-Wrzosinska, and Coleman, 2006). For example
, although such factors as objectification, dehumanization, and stereotyping of the out-group can promote intractable intergroup conflict (Coleman, 2003; Kriesberg, 2005), their impact may not be immediately apparent. Instead, they may create a latent attractor to which the system can abruptly switch in response to a provocation that is relatively minor, even trivial. By the same token, although efforts at conflict resolution and peace building may seem fruitless in the short run, they may create a latent positive attractor for intergroup relations, thereby establishing a potential dynamic to which the groups can suddenly switch if conditions permit. A latent positive attractor, then, can promote a rapid deescalation of conflict, even between groups with a long history of seemingly intractable conflict.

  Guideline 9: Alter Conflict and Peace Attractors for the Long Term

  Although people tend to believe that peaceful relations are the opposite of contentious ones, research has found that the potential for both are often simultaneously present in our lives (Gottman et al., 2002). Although we can usually attend to only one or the other, the underlying potential for both exists in many relationships. In fact, they tend to operate in ways that are mostly independent of one another. In other words, conflict and peace are not opposites; they are two prospective and independent ways of being and relating—two alternative realities. This suggests that people can be at war and at peace at the same time. Even during periods of intense fighting between divorcing couples, work colleagues, ethnic gangs, or Palestinians and Israelis, there exist hidden potentials in the relationships—latent attractors—that are in fact alternative tendencies for relating to one another (Coleman, 2011; Vallacher et al., 2010, 2013). We see evidence of this when people or groups move very quickly from caring for each other to despising one another, or when the opposite occurs.