Conflict is inherent in virtually every aspect of human relations, from sport to parliamentary democracy, from fashion in the arts to paradigmatic challenges in the sciences, and from economic activity to intimate relationships. Yet, it can become among the most serious social problems humans face when it loses its constructive features and becomes protracted over time with no obvious means of resolution. This book addresses the subject of intractable social conflict from a new vantage point. Here, these types of conflict represent self-organizing phenomena, emerging quite naturally from the ongoing dynamics in human interaction at any scale-from the interpersonal to the international. Using the universal language and computational framework of nonlinear dynamical systems theory in combination with recent insights from social psychology, intractable conflict is understood as a system locked in special attractor states that constrain the thoughts and actions of the parties to the conflict. The emergence and maintenance of attractors for conflict can be described by means of formal models that incorporate the results of computer simulations, experiments, field research, and archival analyses. Multi-disciplinary research reflecting these approaches provides encouraging support for the dynamical systems perspective. Importantly, this text presents new views on conflict resolution. In contrast to traditional approaches that tend to focus on basic, short-lived cause-effect relations, the dynamical perspective emphasizes the temporal patterns and potential for emergence in destructive relations. Attractor deconstruction entails restoring complexity to a conflict scenario by isolating elements or changing the feedback loops among them. The creation of a latent attractor trades on the tendency toward multi-stability in dynamical systems and entails the consolidation of incongruent (positive) elements into a coherent structure. In the bifurcation scenario, factors are identified that can change the number and types of attractors in a conflict scenario. The implementation of these strategies may hold the key to unlocking intractable conflict, creating the potential for constructive social relations.

This first-of-a-kind collection brings together in one volume the strongest available evidence of successful transfer effects from unofficial third-party work to official peacemaking. Using comparative case analysis from several real-world interventions, Paving the Way offers insights into the conditions and qualities of successful programs of interactive conflict resolution from experts in the field. Editor Ronald J. Fisher has assembled a collection of seminal case studies that illustrate interactive approaches to conflict resolution from the Malaysia-Indonesia conflict in the 1960s to the Peru-Equador peace process of the late 1990s. Integrating theory, research, and practice, the cases posit that interactive conflict resolution can make a significant, and sometimes essential, contribution to the resolution of protracted and violent identity conflicts. The methods and solutions offered in Paving the Way will serve as best practices for those in the field and as training tools and resources for scholars and policymakers.

This first-of-a-kind collection brings together in one volume the strongest available evidence of successful transfer effects from unofficial third-party work to official peacemaking. Using comparative case analysis from several real-world interventions, Paving the Way offers insights into the conditions and qualities of successful programs of interactive conflict resolution from experts in the field. Editor Ronald J. Fisher has assembled a collection of seminal case studies that illustrate interactive approaches to conflict resolution from the Malaysia-Indonesia conflict in the 1960s to the Peru-Equador peace process of the late 1990s. Integrating theory, research, and practice, the cases posit that interactive conflict resolution can make a significant, and sometimes essential, contribution to the resolution of protracted and violent identity conflicts. The methods and solutions offered in Paving the Way will serve as best practices for those in the field and as training tools and resources for scholars and policymakers.