The Handbook of Conflict Resolution (3rd ed)

by Peter T Coleman

  Transforming Roles

  Another critical way that practitioners can use the network conflict worksheet is by examining how roles can be transformed. There are many ways this can happen. First, actors who are directly involved in the conflict are often interested in changing others themselves. For example, these parties may directly confront others in the system who are generating resistance. To illustrate, the primary actors for side 1 may directly confront the primary actors for side 2. These individuals will often use traditional techniques of negotiation, persuasion, incentives and disincentives, sanctions, and physical interventions to marshal their efforts (Pruitt and Kim, 2004).

  However, there are many more dynamics that can occur in social networks when looking at the broader set of roles in the system. This network analysis approach assumes that an important underlying force for promoting conflict resolution in social networks comes from the power of resolution support. Resolution supporters (box 5) are individuals in a social network who are trying to help both sides of the conflict resolve their differences. A higher ratio of people in resolution supporter roles (the resolution supporter ratio) could serve as a force on the conflicting parties to stop or change their behavior. Mediators, leaders, or people simply interested in helping to stop the conflict would be found here. Instrumentally, resolution supporters may not only encourage the parties deep in the conflict to resolve their issues, they can also encourage people in peripheral roles to get involved as resolution supporters to help reduce the conflict. In all, this places a stronger cooperative force onto the conflicting parties and increases the likelihood that the parties may see the negative social consequences of their continued fighting.

  Theoretically the lower middle portion of the worksheet represents a powerful location for motivating change in the broader system. This illustrates an important nonlinear orientation. That is, a practitioner may not want a network to simply move toward the peripheral part of the system as an approach to resolve all conflicts. This is because more social power in resolving conflicts is presumed to result from having more resolution supporters in a system than pure observers or interactants. Furthermore, moving entities to basic observer roles (box 8) may implicitly promote stonewalling behavior (“Just be quiet.”) or avoidant behavior, which can prevent issues from being sufficiently addressed, thereby increasing the potential for continued aggression when new triggering events occur. An important area for future research will be to examine the conditions under which a move to the observer box is more effective (e.g., When is taking time out more constructive or unconstructive in comparison to other options?).

  Other interesting and unexpected processes can occur among those in peripheral roles. For example, on the one hand, resolution supporters (box 7) may be able to get some observers (box 8) to transform and join their efforts to help resolve the conflict, which would be constructive. On the other hand, resolution supporters may need to be more careful and mindful when trying to solicit support from important interactants in the system who were not aware of the conflict (box 9). Some of these interactants will understand the resolution supporters’ position and agree to join their efforts. In other cases, once interactants learn about the conflict, they may realize that they have their own vested interests and decide to join one of the sides, thereby escalating the conflict in the network. Alternatively, some interactants, after learning about the conflict, could become very upset with both sides of the conflict and enact the joint reactor role (box 6), which could do one of two things. When the conflicting parties learn that the previous interactant is angry at both sides, that could motivate them to cooperate, especially if that person is a powerful player in the system. Ironically, this would represent how the positivity of negativity can help resolve conflicts. However, this new joint reactor could cause the deeply entrenched parties to become angry toward the joint reactor, which may widen the level of hostility in the overall network.6 Hence, resolution supporters need to be mindful of other people’s underlying motivations and reasons for their potential behavior when intervening in a network (Westaby, 2005). Finally, moving people from joint reactors to resolution supporters may also be a function of promoting empathy among the joint reactors so that they can understand how the parties may have ended up in the conflict. If empathy is generated, joint reactors may be more likely to transform into resolution supporters.

  Other Applications and Caveats

  The worksheet has the potential to introduce more complex ways to think about the social situation, which may start to reconfigure avenues for change in line with dynamical systems thinking (Vallacher et al., 2010). In problem-solving sessions, additional worksheets could also be generated around proposed solutions to the conflict to see whether everyone agrees on one side (i.e., a full agreement). Understanding the basic roles in network conflicts may help scholars and practitioners understand how large-scale interventions can be formed to reduce conflict, such as creating antibullying interventions in school systems. For example, this could be used to theoretically explain some of the work of Olweus, Limber, and Mihalic (1999), who developed a program for bullying prevention. Through dynamic network theory, their approach often targets the bully (e.g., side 1 actors who are goal striving to bully), the victim (e.g., side 2 goal preventers wanting the bullying to stop), as well as teachers, student peers, and school staff members in the network who are engaged in various other roles in the network, some of them dysfunctional. The network conflict worksheet would assist in clarifying the role behaviors that people are (or are not) implementing in the system to foster antibullying efforts.

  As for caveats, one needs to be mindful of not too definitively labeling individuals in their roles. To counter this general human tendency, practitioners should highlight how it is common for people to change their roles over time or switch their roles quickly depending on the context. Also, although people may believe they are confident in their initial placement of individuals in the worksheet, there may still be unreliability in some systems. For example, a person may indicate that Juan is a primary actor for side 1 at time 1, but when asked again a day later, the person may fail to indicate Juan anywhere on the worksheet. Whenever possible, it is ideal to do multiple assessments over time to assess reliability. (See Westaby, 2012, for additional conflict resolution strategies and methodological issues.)

  INTERNATIONAL LINKAGES

  To widen our discussion, what about ways to promote sustainable world peace from a network perspective? The following was proposed as one example in dynamic network theory:

  If entities across national borders can engage in joint network motivation linkages (i.e., G and S) toward collective goals that actually result in meaningful overall goal achievements, it will not only satisfy fundamental needs and desires across borders, but will also affect the network rippling of positive emotions that transcend national boundaries and promote goodwill between the nations from the ground up. Motivational and emotional bonds could then start stabilizing across borders. The delicate challenge in such initiatives is to build such linkages that at the same time do not overly interfere with each country’s desired state of sovereignty. (Westaby, 2012, p. 82)

  Otherwise, some international linkages may be perceived as unwelcome advances that generate cultural conflicts and network resistance.

  Several lines of research provide indirect support for these broad propositions. For example, using network methods on data compiled since World War II, Dorussen and Ward (2010) found support for the classic liberal argument that trade linkages between states reduce interstate conflict. In a study of what promotes international mediation linkages, Böhmelt (2009) found that states that had more indirect connections with other states as potential third parties increased the potential for mediation as compared to states that had only bilateral linkages during war. From a dynamic network theory perspective, this would increase the odds that observing states would change to resolution supporters of both sides, when needed, to help resolve confl
icts. Dorussen and Ward (2008) also examined how intergovernmental organizations may promote peace. They found that state membership in these organizations increased network connections between states, which allowed organizational members to intervene in conflict resolution as individual members or as a collective. This illustrates the power of indirect resolution support as compared to direct diplomatic ties alone. However, Hafner-Burton and Montgomery (2006) caution that such international organizations and their disparate distribution of members can highlight power and prestige differences that may affect other conflict-related processes, such as in-group favoritism.

  ONLINE DISPUTE RESOLUTION

  The emerging field of online dispute resolution (ODR) is also relevant to conflict resolution. ODR represents a type of alternative dispute resolution that involves the use of e-mail, chat rooms, and other Internet-based media to facilitate communications between parties and their mediators or arbitrators (Hammond, 2003). Since the 1970s, negotiators have been using computers to organize negotiations, starting with platforms to organize data to today’s fully Web-based electronic negotiation systems (for a review, see Kersten and Lai, 2007). ODR has its advantages and disadvantages, and while some mediators believe that it provides an opportunity for reconciliation when face-to-face mediation is not possible or appropriate, others may believe that it should be avoided because written communication is more vulnerable to miscommunication (Raines, 2005). One study showed that negotiators in an e-mail condition, as compared to face-to-face negotiation, had more difficulty establishing rapport and trust, which contributed to poorer outcomes (Morris, Nadler, Kurtzberg, and Thompson, 2002). In a follow-up study, these researchers found that simply introducing a five-minute telephone call prior to commencing with e-negotiations had a significantly positive effect on outcomes by increasing rapport between negotiators. From a communication perspective, Brett et al. (2007) examined text from transcripts of online negotiations between buyers and sellers on the popular online auction site Ebay.com. They found that parties who phrased their arguments and complaints in such a way as to maintain the face of the other party had a positive effect on dispute resolution. Thus, online negotiators were served best by communicating concerns fairly and in a way that did not directly attack the other party.

  CONCLUSION

  Scholars and practitioners in the field of conflict resolution are acutely aware of the importance of capturing the complexity of social systems (Ricigliano, 2012). The approach taken in this chapter was to highlight how social network concepts can provide an additional approach to understanding the complexities of human conflict and its potential resolution. We illustrated how traditional social network concepts have been applied to a range of issues related to conflict, including some of the new dynamics observed in popular social media platforms, such as Facebook and Twitter, which are changing the landscape of human interaction. This area will remain a hotbed of research as social media become even more common around the world. A major methodological limitation of this literature is that many of the empirical findings are based on cross-sectional designs with little experimental manipulation of variables.

  We also illustrated how new concepts in dynamic network theorizing can provide a complementary approach to traditional network analyses by explicitly accounting for goals in networks. Including goals in networks not only provides a way to map how people are working with or against one another in a network; it may provide a more refined analysis about the level of positivity and negativity in relation to goal conflicts. Future research is needed to examine these contrasts because it is imperative for scholars and practitioners to have an accurate understanding of overall system dynamics in efforts to structure effective interventions. Although social network concepts are providing a useful way to portray social relations and human conflict, much more rigorous research is needed to fully appreciate this potential.

  Notes

  1. The special paths with black circles placed on them denote these conflicted relations between people in the charts; this allows the charts to clearly distinguish between system negation and system reactor roles. Having these circles on the lines allows researchers to quickly see where potentially hostile conflicts exist between people. Placing labels on all solid black lines could also be done as a simplifying technique, whenever relevant or useful, instead of visually differentiating the paths.

  2. Contact the first author about other applications of dynamic network theory for analyzing social interactions in real time or from video or social media platforms. Such analyses may not only help describe overall system dynamics, they could also be used to potentially predict emergent states, such as perceived cooperative, competitive, or hostile climates in dyads, groups, or organizations.

  3. The worksheet could also be extended to three- or more-sided conflicts when necessary.

  4. Computerized versions of the worksheet could also be created to automatically calculate statistics in the network conflict scorecard.

  5. Once the entities are listed and if further information is desired about motives underlying the roles, one could ask participants to indicate on another page the reasons they perceive that each of the entities is engaged in the given roles, consistent with assumptions in dynamic network theory that decision-making factors underlie the role behaviors.

  6. Technically, people in boxes 6 and 7 represent entities who are firmly enacting what are called multiplex roles in dynamic network theory (two or more role behaviors at once). Checks by individuals’ names in the various boxes also indicate multiplex role behaviors connected to system negation or system reactance. See Westaby (2012) for details.

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