Learning objectives for week The Learning Objective of Week 2 is to prepare for later weeks looking at conflict intervention by considering the events, interactions, history, and beliefs that impede or prevent conflict resolution

		Unit 3, Week 2, Page 1 Don't feel you've got enough? Take this internet course on conflicts that do not resolve 3 Don't feel you've got enough? Look at this comprehensive site for teachers 2 A site dedicated to "Information on more constructive approaches to difficult and intractable conflicts" 1 A rating scale for identifying kinds of conflict 0 Read the Journal of Peace Research 0 Links to intractable conflict 0 with emphasis on international conflict [rate or suggest links for this page]

Week 2- Why conflicts fail to resolve Duelling Hall

Contents

• introduction
• why negotiation fails
• more about negotiation
• how communication fails
• why coercion fails
• why avoidance fails
• intractable conflict
• questions
• references

Introduction

In the previous week, we considered the ubiquity of conflict, its association with coercion at both an individual and at a societal level, and how conflicts resolve spontaneously. We suggested that the very many routes to resolution were all variations on coercion, disengagement, or negotiation.

As we saw last week, negotiation is how most people say they would do about conflicts. So it is clearly what many people in our culture would wish to do if they found themselves in a conflict. However, this may not be so in other cultures or even among all sub-cultures within the West. Among male adolescents, for example, a threat or a provocation may require a coercive response otherwise standing is lost.

Psychotherapists tend to assume that talking is always the best method of dealing with problems. We therefore have a strong bias towards negotiation. In this week, we will not assume that one way of dealing with a conflict is better than another. The method chosen has to fit the culture of the parties to the conflict, their personalities, and any external, structural factors. The main structural factor that makes negotiation the only feasible matter of conflict resolution is if the parties to the conflict must cooperate despite being in conflict. Imagine, for example, being attached to your worst enemy and then thrown into the sea (well, perhaps you would not be attached to your worst enemy, because clearly your worst enemy would be the one throwing you both into the sea). Both of you would have to cooperate to stay afloat and plot a course, directing your joint efforts to swimming in that direction. Given the history between you it would be difficult to do that, but negotiation would be the only effective method of resolving any differences between you. Withdrawal would mean that one of you stops swimming, and that would halve the chances of staying afloat. Coercion would not work because any power or status differences that might have given you or your enemy the edge would have disappeared, and fighting would use up too much valuable energy.

Why negotiation fails

Even though negotiating would be the only way to survive, it might be hard to do. In fact, one could even imagine situations in which a person would rather die themselves if it meant also killing their enemy. Why is negotiating so hard to do, even to save one's life?

Negotiating with others has certain entailments. The first, and most basic, is that the other person has to be taken into account. There may be considerable reluctance to do this. It may seem like giving credence to the other's position, or accepting that one has to make concessions. A person may not want to treat the other as a human being at all, or at least not one to whom any sort of respect or consideration should be paid. Negotiation may feel like condoning what the other person has done. Negotiation, if it carries on from coercion, may also seem like a betrayal of previous sacrifice. Peace-makers who attempt to negotiate an armistice may be told that any dealings with the enemy are a betrayal of all the soldiers who have given their lives to defeat the enemy.

Couples counsellors are not unfamiliar with this situation, and it is the stock in trade of mediators appointed by a court or brought in by a lawyer during divorce cases. Mediation may seem impossible at first, as both parties may say "why should I talk to him/her after what he/she has done to me?" To say that negotiation will make things less messy, or that negotiation is better than leaving conflicts to fester may be unconvincing. These reasons may even make it seem that the purpose of mediation is just to make things better for lawyers.

	Before you go to the next page... Can you think of a coercive solution to conflict that is better than a negotiated solution would be? (If you can't, try harder)   What do you mean, better?   How do you deal with hatred in your psychotherapy practice? Post a message to your tutorial group