CONF 695: Micro Theories of Conflict
Instructors: Borislava Manojlovic and Karina Korostelina
Description
This course is designed for master’s students to actively engage in reflecting on the course material interactively. This course is designed to explore theoretical approaches to psychological processes, personality, ingroup and intergroup dynamics, and social processes in the society as whole with the emphasis on their role in the processes of conflict resolution and transformation. Critical understanding of psychological and socio-psychological phenomena as both generators and outcomes of conflict will be important part of the course. This course has three main parts: psychological processes, approaches to person, and group processes and society.
CONF 695: Addressing Intractable Conflict
Instructors: Heidi Burgess and Guy Burgess
Description
Complex intractable conflicts present, by definition, the toughest of challenges facing those working in the conflict and peacebuilding fields. While daunting, these conflicts are also the most important. They are the ones that are causing misery for millions of people around the world; they contribute to worsening global problems (such as economic stability and climate change) and they prevent constructive decision making and governance from occurring at all levels—from local to international. So learning how to transform these conflicts into ones that are less destructive and more constructive – even before they can be resolved – is of utmost importance.
This course draws on the Beyond Intractability Knowledge Base and Learning Community to help students understand (1) what causes some conflicts to be more intractable than others, (2) what dynamics sustain the destructive character of these conflicts, (3) and what can be done to reverse these dynamics to make intractable conflicts less damaging and ultimately open to transformation and resolution.
Students will also learn how to utilize systems thinking to analyze a conflict of their choice, and they will apply a variety of conflict resolution theories to develop intervention strategies designed to transform their chosen conflict from a destructive one to a more constructive one. They will also learn how to evaluate such intervention plans to assess their likelihood of success.
Throughout the course, students will be encouraged to engage with the BI Knowledge Base and Learning Community—learning how to draw information from it –for the purposes of this class and over the longer term--and they will also be encouraged to contribute ideas and written materials to the knowledge base, as a step towards becoming active in this long-standing, world-wide learning community.
CONF 695: Ethics and Conflict
Instructor: Daniel Rothbart
Description
For this course students explore issues and controversies in our field that are what is just and unjust, morally right and wrong, and good and bad. Such issues are relevant to analysis and practice before, during, after the occurrence of conflict; they are vital to the sound work of third party interveners in a conflict setting, such as conflict resolution practitioners.
The major topics include the following: validity of pacifism, the notions of a just war, the challenges of genocide prevention, non-violent resistance, humanitarian interventions, and human rights activism. The course is organized around four major questions. First, what is the nature of right and wrong, good and bad, virtue and vice in the context of violent conflict? For this question, we draw upon the insight of moral philosophers and religious thinkers. This question calls for attention to arguments of pacifists, such as M.L. King and M. Gandhi. Second, what constitutes a just intervention in violent conflict? Just war theory addresses this question by offering normative criteria for a state’s rightful use of force in settling disputes with another state. These insights and challenges are applied to a critical reflection on contemporary violence. Third, can wars be fought justly (or humanely), and if so, how? This question centers on the need to balance two moral imperatives—first, the obligation [moral, political, legal] of state militaries to protect their own forces during combat, and second, the moral imperative to act humanely towards the innocents of war—prisoners, children, and the infirmed. We give special attention to experiences of civilian noncombatants in modern warfare—their plight as unwilling ‘participants’ of war’s tumult represents a major segment of modern warfare. Fourth, in “post-conflict” settings, what constitutes a just peace? This question includes a range of moral quandaries for those engaged in peacebuilding—how to bring “justice” to a war-torn country, how to protect genuine reconciliation throughout society, and how to provide ‘human security’ to the innocents of war.
CONF 695: Transforming Conflict Through Insight
Instructor: James Price
Description
Transforming Conflict Through Insight is an interactive, online introduction to the theory and skills of the Insight approach to conflict analysis and resolution. In this course you will learn the fundamentals of how we use our minds when we engage and disengage in conflict, and how to leverage that knowledge in designing and implementing conflict interventions—from the interpersonal to the social scale. The course will be divided into three cumulative parts. It begins with an exploration of the way we use our minds, followed by an investigation into the dimensions of conflict interactions, and ending with development of basic conflict analysis and intervention skills.