Comprehensive Exams

S-CAR

 Ph.D. Comprehensive Exams

A Study Guide

 

Prepared by: Jay Filipi and David Alpher

Last Updated: David Alpher, June 2010, Molly Tepper 2011

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Introduction and Overview

1.            Creating Study Groups

2.            Rules of the Game of Comps

     a.            Theory

     b.            Research

     c.            Practice

     d.            Integration

     e.            The Question

3.            Taking the Comps

4.            Thinking About Potential Questions

5.            Example Questions

6.            Example Answer with Faculty Feedback

All PhD students are required to pass comprehensive exams to become a PhD candidate. Offered  in January or August, usually the week before the new semester begins, the comprehensive exam is a three-day ‘take-home’ written paper that is no more than 35 pages in length.   The PhD Coordinator emails the exam questions out on the Monday evening at 5pm and papers are emailed back to the PhD Coordinator by 5pm on Thursday. Everyone taking the exam at that time period are given the same questions. Students choose to answer one (1) of the 3-4 questions provided. Each paper returned is read by two faculty members in a double-blind process; a third reader is brought in if one decides to fail the student. Students usually find out if they have passed by that Sunday or Monday before the semester begins (failure can affect registration in 998, hence the quick turn around).  Students who fail the exam are able to take it two more times, after which, if they still do not pass, they are offered a Masters degree instead. 

Below is a helpful guide that will assist you as you prepare for your comps.  Good luck with your studying!

 PURPOSE OF THE GROUP

            Unlike other tests and examinations you have taken in your life, the comps are not a competition or ranked outcome. The purpose of the comps is to double-check your readiness to receive your terminal degree and to integrate the information cohesively as one would in order to implement work in the field.

Therefore, the purpose of the study group is to collaborate and prepare for the comps. Essentially, your group will help each member to remember what they already know about the Conflict Resolution. The Group will work together to recall and reaffirm understanding of the theories, research methodologies and practice of conflict and conflict resolution.

SIZE OF THE GROUP

             There may not be any one perfect size to your comps study group. Often people find that between three and five members is adequate and useful. Finding times to meet may also affect group compositions.

HOW TO FORM THE GROUP

            There are no set rules for how to form a group. However, there are some parameters to keep in mind when forming your study group.

1) Be large enough to divide the workload effectively (too few people and it won’t all be done)

2) Be small enough to be manageable (everyone has their own life and their own schedules, coordination of a large group is difficult and may waste more energy than necessary)

3) Be diverse, remember this is S-CAR, where diversity is important, make sure that your group has colleagues who are experts in practice, theory and research (the key components of the comps).

4) Members should be able to work well together.

Think of the comps as a game—an exercise with a specific purpose, and specific rules. Like any other game, the comps have a set of rules that should be respected if you wish to pass. Knowing what can and cannot be done within the rules of the game will contribute to the likelihood of your success.

Readers want to see two to three theories used deeply and comprehensively—this is part of the specificity of the exercise. Although you would not necessarily constrain yourself to such a tight focus in the field, this is what is necessary for the purposes of the exercise—to show depth of expertise.   It is not so much about showing what you know or how much you know; rather it is providing a well-constructed argument rooted in comprehensive knowledge of the critiques and issues of the feild, showing your understanding of why you are using these theories in this way. As such, the comps are not a memorization excercise with a regurgitation process at the end. Rather, they are a reflection of your deep thinking about your knowledge of the field and showing your capacity to apply it appropriately

It is helpful to start to write up notes in the months before the comps and develop potential case studies to be used. The following section is one suggestion for studying for comps when working in groups. However, it can be adapted for individual studying as well. 

a.            Theory

            Rule #1: Be well versed in all the theories. To begin this process you and your team should recall all the different theories you can think of. Examples: Basic Human Needs; Relative Deprivation; Ripeness Theory; Nested Model; Structural Violence; Cultural Violence; Narrative; Collective Action; Social Mobilization; Positioning Theory; Game Theory, etc., etc.

            Theories should be divided among your group with equal share. After being divided up, your group should prepare 2-3 pages of notes on that theory with citations and/or bibliographies. Counter arguments and critiques of the theory, also with citations and bibliographies should be included. After the notes have been gathered each member is then responsible for writing up 2-3 pages on that theory in their own words. These new pages are best to be written in such a way that with minor edits they may be copied and pasted into your final essay, without copying (read: plagiarizing) the work of others in the group.

            Once this process is completed and the student has refreshed their knowledge of conflict theories, they should be mindful of which theories they naturally gravitate towards when making sense of conflict dynamics.  Knowing which theories one naturally desires to use and how those theories inform one another will greatly benefit your writing of the Comps.  Remember, it is about integration and constructing your argument, not memorization and straight regurgitation. Knowing your relationship to these theories is an important part of your intergration process and may be reflected in your answer.  

            * REMEMBER!--Do not use more than 2 – 3 theories when writing your Comps.

b.            Research

             Rule #2:  Demonstrate a strong understanding of all the research methodologies. This process should be undertaken in a similar fashion to Theories. Your group should brainstorm all the research methodologies you collectively know. Remember to include both qualitative and quantitative methods, even though you may use only one or the other in the actual exercise.

            Divide the methods up amongst your group and have each member prepare 2-3 pages of good notes on how to do that method, why/when that method should be used, when not to use that method, critiques of the methodology, etc., etc. After these notes have been prepared, each member should write up 2-3 pages in their own words describing the research method.

            Important things to consider while writing your individual 2-3 pages: write so that your explanation can, with minor edits, be inserted into your Comps, with the same caveat as above; know and be able to argue how and why each theory informs the research. Several comps in the past have failed due to poor or thin research sections or when this section has been skipped. 

c.            Practice

             Rule #3:  Know the many types of conflict resolution practice. Brainstorm all the ways that conflict resolution is implemented. Divide the workload amongst your group and have each member prepare 2-3 pages of notes on each practice and why and how it is used.

After this is completed, each member prepares his or her own 2-3 page write-up on the practices of conflict resolution. When preparing your own write-up: Keep it as universal as possible so that it may be inserted into your Comps with minor edits;  include a list of theories that inform the practice; understand the strength and limitations of each resolution type.* Be sure you can explain the relationship of practice, theory, and research.

d.            Integration

             Rule #4: Integrate Theory, Research and Practice. The students’ ability to integrate all three components is crucial to success on the Comps. Integration means understanding and showing/arguing: (1) how theory informs research and practice; (2) how research is guided by the theories; (3) how research suggests a form of practice; (4) how practice is clearly driven by theory; and (5) how practice is informed by (or informs) research. There should be a flow between these sections, showing the integration and logic connecting these ideas. Theory, research and practice should not be compartmentalized, necessarily. The comp question is not three individual papers, but should show a reflective loop such that the use of research and practice does not merely follow from theory, but can act to test it as well.

e.             The Question

             Students are to answer only one of the 3 - 5 questions provided. Students may not throw out the question in favor of a question of their own design. They may, however, work within the confines of the question to address a particular angle, specific situation, or interesting dynamic that directly relates to the question posed. Make sure the question is clearly and completely answered. Misreading or misunderstanding a question has lead to comps being failed. Work with your group to learn how to read and interpret comp questions. Outlining practice answers is often helpful. If a question is not clear, often the Ph.D coordinator is available to assist.

Before The Exam

- Find ways to combat your stress. Eat and rest properly. Take time the day(s) before and the day of the exam to relax and clear your head.

- Clear your schedule and your spaces. Inform people that you are "not available" and turn off all communication technologies, etc.  Set up a good workspace and gather and organize your books and notes around you. Make sure your computer works and that you have a backup plan for emergencies (external hard drive or other contingencies).

- Arrange or plan your meals for the duration of the week.

During the Exam

- Take the first evening to review the comp questions and outline how one might answer each one of them. Once you have a clear outline, begin writing. Usually, people write all day Tuesday and Wednesday and edit and clean up the arguments on Thursday before the 5pm deadline.

- It is vitally important to manage your time well—many people who have failed the comps did so because they took too much time focusing on one section of the exercise, and forgot to include another until it was too late to do so well. All of the four elements above must be included and shown well.

- Think of dividing up the comps into approximately four section lengths. 4-5 pages for the introduction and conclusion, and approximately ten pages each for theory, research and practice. Those who skimp on one of the sections may not do well. Keep in mind that this is approximate, given that the sections are integrated and loop back on each other, may start first with research or practice and then theory, and is not four individual papers shunted together.

- Backup and save your work frequently.

- Take time for stretches or a walk during the comps, especially if you are experiencing high levels of stress.

- Proper citations and bibliography are expected. (Some people find using Zotero to be especially helpful -- www.Zotero.com). Bibliographies and indexies can be additional pages beyond the 35-page limit.

- Indexes with graphs, pictures, charts, and/or intervention tools (ie- questionnaires) or other data is welcomed where appropriate.


After the Exam

- Celebrate!!
- Sleep!!
- Expect an e-mail after Saturday as to whether you passed.
- Celebrate again and on to the proposal!



(If you fail the exam, the PhD Coordinator will assist you with a process to help you pass the next time. Meet with the Coordinator as soon as possible after the comp.)

There is always some sort of major global conflict going on. Develop and practice applying the theories and integration with a case study.

The questions may focus on a current event in the news.

The questions may focus on a current issue or topic in the CAR field or discussed within the department.

The questions are not going to be tricks or traps about some obscure event.

They are designed to be for mass dissection by the PhD Cohort.

~ ~ ~ ~

To get a sense of the kinds of questions and how you might go about answering them, practice with the exam questions below, outlining each one, and then compare your answer with others in your group.

A recent Washington Post article featured the ambitious goals of a relatively new humanitarian organization.  Humanity in Action trains American and European student leaders to “identify and surmount institutionalized violations in democratic societies” (Preempting the violence that comes of intolerance, Wash. Post, 11/18/05).  The director, Judith Goldstein, describes this initiative as pre-conflict resolution and seems to aim at John Burton’s notion of provention as an optimum objective.  Fellows in this program undergo five weeks of intensive training and meet with a wide range of social scientists before being placed in various international internships.

Assume you had a free hand in designing such a pre-conflict/provention training program.  What theoretical bases would you use to guide the design?  What skills would you emphasize in training that would be derivative of the theories, specifying in some detail the intervention strategies?  Finally, what research modality would you assemble that could assess the achievement of summative objectives? 

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Some conflicts manifest in complex, multifaceted ways and elicit the attention and intervention of multiple third party actors simultaneously.

First, choose a conflict of this type that you are familiar with and identify the most important aspects that require attention during conflict resolution processes. You may choose a social conflict at any level (organizational conflict, community conflict, inter-group conflict, or international conflict). To resolve this conflict does one or another part of the conflict require priority, either in terms of level of effort or sequence? If so, why? What theory or theories help conflict resolution professionals make these judgments of priority?

Second, describe what types of conflict resolution processes and interveners may be most useful for the multiple facets of the conflict you have selected. What does current theory tell us about the interaction of multiple conflict resolution efforts? 

Third, how can the various individuals and institutions working on conflict resolution processes in this sort of conflict best seek to have their efforts complement each other towards shared goals of conflict resolution? What are the challenges, both practical and ethical, in attempting to work together?  Should all seek to work together?

Fourth, what remaining theoretical issues should drive future research on these questions?  Suggest an appropriate research study to address one or more gaps in current theoretical knowledge. Outline the research question, methodology, and significance for theory and practice of the proposed research.

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You have been asked to consult with a small team of conflict resolution professionals to develop a program to do a two-week training program to promote dialogue among leaders of civil society organizations in a post-conflict country. While the state’s civil war ended in the late 1990s, ethnic, religious, and regional divisions remain and are deepening.  Your team will be working with a well-respected local NGO affiliated with faculty from the National University.

What would you suggest should be included in this two-week program? What theories of peacebuilding or dialogue inform your design? How would you design an evaluation to assess the success or failure of the training program?

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Choose an incident of violence labeled by some as “terrorism” either domestically or internationally or choose to consider the broader “war on terror.” Consider this incident or broader series of activities as an example of a conflict.

1. Present an analysis of the conflict, including such considerations as the sources, parties, interests, escalation, power dynamics, and potential outcomes of the conflict. What theory or theories are most useful in explaining this type of violence? Are there other theories that are particularly ill-suited to explain “terrorism?”

2. Then, based on your analysis, design a specific intervention to move this conflict in some way towards resolution. Clarify the goals and methods of your intervention and how the theories you believe explain the conflict inform your choice of intervention. Explain whether or not you believe there are specific characteristics of “terrorism” that make specific types of intervention more or less useful.

3. Finally, design an appropriate means to evaluate your intervention. Consider evaluating the intervention’s success in terms of the goals of the intervention, and also consider evaluation for its theory-building potential. What type of data and data analysis would allow you to argue that your intervention “succeeded?”  

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Some analysts have suggested that protracted social conflicts generate fear, distrust, polarization between the parties and specific types of social structures. Overcoming these legacies of conflict is critical to successful postconflict peacebuilding.

1. Choose a conflict with which you are familiar and explain how the strategies and behaviors of the parties during the period of active conflict generated new attitudes and/or the creation of new institutions that then shaped postconflict peacebuilding.

2. Identify a theory or theories that you think help us understand both the nature of the conflict and the links between conflict and postconflict peacebuilding. Is your theory better at explaining either the nature of the conflict or the challenges of peacebuilding? Why or why not?

3. Explain how your theory or theories provide guidance in determining what specific elements of postconflict society are most critical to sustaining the peace and what types of intervention are most likely to be useful.

4. Finally, provide a research plan to compare two conflicts to assess whether the same conditions generated by the conflict resulted in similar conditions in the postconflict peacebuilding phase.

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The outcomes of protracted social conflicts, many have argued, are often the sources for future conflicts, thereby creating series of linked conflicts through time. Research on civil wars, for example, has found that one of the strongest predictors of future armed conflict in any given state is whether that country has recently emerged from civil strife. Studies at the interpersonal, organizational, community and other levels have identified similar cyclical patterns.

Write an essay that:

Discusses two or three theories in some detail that are particularly useful to understanding how the outcome of one conflict creates the conditions for the outbreak of the next.

Outlines a research plan that will test whether it is the outcomes of the previous conflict or some other variable that leads to a dynamic of repeated conflicts. Are underlying structural conditions, for example, a better explanation for why conflicts tend to re-occur?

Proposes an intervention that identifies one or two key elements that make some conflicts cyclical and proposes a set of activities to address this key link. For example, if enemy images from an earlier conflict create conditions that favor future conflicts, then what type of intervention would be most appropriate to break the cycle of conflict?

Please illustrate your essay with appropriate examples from contemporary or historical conflicts at any level of analysis.

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Many analysts have referred to the dehumanization of the Other as a precondition for or active cause of the acts of extreme violence which have occurred in some cases of serious intergroup conflict. Other analysts have questioned the connection between dehumanization and atrocious violence. Write an essay on the dehumanization of the Other in which you accomplish the following tasks: 

(1) Describe a past or contemporary conflict in which acts of extreme violence appear to be linked (or not) to the dehumanization of the Other. By way of introduction, provide a brief analysis of the conflict, commenting on the apparent connections between the processes of dehumanization in this case and acts of violence that may be related to it.

(2) What causes dehumanization of the Other? Using the conflict under discussion and referring to other conflicts where appropriate, describe the theories that, in your view, best account for processes of dehumanization and best explain their effects. What are the strengths and limitations of these theories, in your opinion? Explain fully.

(3) Imagine that you have been asked to do conflict prevention research in a situation in which dehumanization leading to possible acts of extreme violence is arguably taking place, but where no such acts have yet occurred. What research project would you undertake to discover whether a process of dehumanization likely to generate extreme violence is taking place? Outline your project in detail, paying attention to the manner of framing the research, specific questions to be investigated, methods of collecting and analyzing data, and reliability of your results.

(4) Utilizing the insights derived from your answers above, as well as your knowledge of conflict resolution processes, outline EITHER a conflict intervention process designed to prevent acts of extreme violence from taking place in cases where dehumanization is presently occurring; OR a conflict intervention process designed to reconcile alienated groups in situations in which dehumanization and acts of extreme violence have already taken place. In either case, explain briefly how the results of your intervention might reflect on the theories discussed earlier.

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Choose an intergroup conflict and conflict resolution process with which you are familiar.  Analyze it briefly, being clear which theories make sense of the conflict.  Next, consider conflict resolution interventions which work with individual people or small groups of people in efforts to resolve that conflict.  What are the theoretical bases for these interventions?

What, if any, are the assumed connections between the individual or small group focused interventions, and the larger conflict?  Design a research project to further our knowledge of transfer, or lack thereof, from individual or small group focused interventions to larger conflict dynamics.  Explain the theoretical rationale for your research project, the focus of the research question, methodology, and expected results clearly, being sure that the methodology is appropriate for the question your research project asks.

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A long civil war in Ruritania has just come to a (shaky) end, with the help of American and European mediation.  Fighting has ceased, but both sides have yet to fully disarm and demobilize, and negotiations about a more stable peace are, in effect, continuing.

The two sides in the war represent communities, roughly equal in size, separated by religion (but not language) and a long history of shifting mutual victimization (depending on which side held the upper hand).  Of particular concern for the stability of the post-settlement period are the armed paramilitary groups associated with each community.  Much of the violence against civilians was carried out by these groups.  The concern is that youth serving in these groups (or even newly recruited despite the settlement) could act as spoilers.  A very high unemployment rate among youth, but especially from the geographical areas and social classes which supplied the paramilitaries with personnel, and a palpable sense of despair about their future once the fighting ends and paras disband, underlies these concerns.

Having helped facilitate the end of active hostilities, the United States wants to support the peace process.  Someone in USAID (an ICAR graduate) knows that “bottom-up” efforts are important, alongside elite-level processes.  She has therefore convinced her chief to out a Request for Proposal (RFP) inviting the design and implementation of a program aimed specifically at the sort of youth who would be “fodder” for the paras or potential “ground-level” spoilers of the peace process.  She has a very broad idea in mind: to take these youth out of the conflict to the U.S. for a relatively long period of time (up to 18 months), in a program that (a) allows them to interact; (b) learn some conflict resolution skills; and (c) acquire some job skills to enhance employability back home (and contribute to improve the economy there).  The goals, first and immediately, are to take this potential paramilitary “fodder” out of the country and, more long term, to enhance their commitment to tolerance of and coexistence with their former enemy.

Here is your task:  Based on her very broad ideas, write the RFP.  Design and describe the implementation of the entire program.  You must:

            - Based on the particular contours (social, cultural, political and economic) of this conflict, refer to the relevant conflict and conflict resolution theories that underlie the program’s rationale and support your design.  (You may wish to add detail to the brief characterization of the conflict, above, if you need to.) 

            - Describe the program implementation in great detail (structure; personnel required; main and subsidiary goals; phases or timelines, etc.)

            - Pay special attention to potential problem areas or concerns, given this conflict and this population, in the design and implementation of the program, with a sense of how you would address them; and

            - Specify a detailed assessment plan (summative and formative)

(For this RFP you need not worry about budgets or cost.  It will be less than a single B-2 bomber no matter what you envision, right?)

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This comprehensive exam question focuses on conflicts in two fictitious countries—Country A and Country B.  Residents of both countries have experienced frequent episodes of ethnic strife in which hatred, prejudices, and inequalities between two ethnic groups dominate the social and political landscape.  But the dynamics of the conflict are strikingly different in each country.  In Country A the ethnic tensions have led to a prolonged period of violence (an ethnic war) between the two groups.  But Country B has been spared from such violence, in spite of the transgenerational hatreds between the two ethnic groups.  What makes this difference particularly challenging for conflict analysts to understand are the following three commonalities between these conflict settings:

Condition #1:  In both Country A and Country B, a dominant ethnic group controls the reins of political power over a disempowered ethnic group.  The members of latter group are politically disenfranchised, excluded from the access to positions of political power, and isolated from the channels of political decision-making.  Moreover, the dominant ethnic group controls the media.

Condition #2: The economic inequalities in both countries are striking.  In each the dominant group has reaped financial gains through their control of economic power.  The less dominant group has relatively little access to economic advancement and the instruments of economic power.  And they are also limited in their employment opportunities.  The result is poverty for virtually everyone in the disempowered group.

Condition #3: In both countries intergroup relations are characterized by fear and hatred.  The dominant political/economic group in each country castigates the other group as inherently degenerate.  Members of the less powerful group are depicted by the dominant group as essentially violent and incapable of civilized behavior.  And in stark contrast, the dominant group elevates themselves as pure, virtuous, and highly civilized. Those in the less powerful group view themselves as victims of the dominant group whom they depict as essentially evil, greedy, and oppressive of anyone unlike themselves.

So, again, why did violence erupt into a full-scale ethnic war in Country A but not in Country B?  And what are the most viable means for conflict resolution intervention in Country A to mitigate the violence and promote sustainable peace?  You should develop your essay in three sections, each of which answers a critical question about this disparity in the two conflict settings.  

Question 1:

What conflict theory best explains this disparity in the two conflict settings?  Choose one of the following options: 1. A human needs theory; 2  An identity theory; 3. A theory of power; 4. A critical social theory. In defending your selection of a theory from one of these domains, you should provide (not necessarily in this order) (a) a detailed summary of the theory’s defining concepts, principles, and modes of explanation, (b) a critical reflection on the theory’s strengths and weaknesses, including in relation to other theories, (c) a discussion that articulates how the chosen theory is useful in explaining the disparity between the conflicts in Country A and Country B.

            Question 2:  

What research project would best shed light on the disparity between the two conflict situations? In order to achieve the overall objective of demonstrating integration, you should develop a research project that relates to the particular theory developed in section 1. In answering this question, be sure to include the defining aspects of a  research design:  (a) the research problem, (b) research question(s), (c) the setting, procedure, and instruments for gathering data (either quantitative or qualitative, or both), (d) the methodology (or methodologies) for data analysis, (e) and the anticipated findings, including the categories for organizing and giving meaning to the data. 

            Question 3:

What mode of practice should be deployed to mitigate the violence and, ideally, to promote sustainable peace in Country A?  To answer this question, you should design a mode of practice that follows from your understanding of the causes of the conflict, as explained by the theory selected in section 1 and the research design developed in section 2.  Such a design should address these aspects of the intervention, among others: the participants and their selection process, the objectives, the resources required, the methods to be used, the expected outcomes, and the likely challenges to success.

Your answers to these three questions serve as an application of the three domains of our field and, taken together, should demonstrate the integration of theory, research, and practice.

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Background

 Basic Human Needs (BHN) theory sans argument is a foundational theory in the field of conflict analysis and resolution and certainly at ICAR.  Still, questions remain as to its applicability in research and practice.   A specific question pertains to the measurability of BHNs.  For example, some argue there is no one-to-one connection between a need and a satisfier.  There are many ways of satisfying a need.  Moreover, needs cannot be tested because they are never encountered in a “pure” form.

Now assume a causal relationship between relative deprivation, frustration-aggression, and violence (RD + F/A = V).  For example, urban riots can be said to occur because one or more groups in a community feel a sense of deprivation relative to another group.  This leads to frustration and aggressive behavior that is manifested violently.  But wait!  The contradiction exists.  There are communities where groups are encased in similar forms of relative deprivation, but whose resultant frustration leads to internalized forms of aggression at most and no manifest violence.

 
Your Task  

 Suppose you were asked by a broadly constituted community task force concerned about the proliferation of urban riots to conduct a study of this issue that would lead to some form of an intervention. 

Research
 

How would you set-up a research design for this study?  Indicate your testable proposition or hypothesis.  Indicate why you think this design is preferable to another that could be chosen.  What are its advantages and comparable constraints?

Practice

As a reflective practitioner, suggest an intervention design that would flow from the research.  Specify how you think theory (noted above or others that may emerge) would inform practice.

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President-elect Barack Obama's five main foreign policy goals are to: (1) Responsibly end the war in Iraq; (2) Deal definitively and resolutely with al Qaeda and the Taliban in Pakistan and Afghanistan; (3) Prevent weapons of mass destruction (WMD) from falling into the hands of terrorists; (4) Break America's dependence on foreign oil and, in the process, undermine the trajectory toward  global warming; and (5) forge other international partnerships to deal with remaining problems, such as the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

If you were a member of the President's National Security Council (NSC), what might be your advice to him for dealing with these problems -- which seem to be interrelated -- with regard to the following: 

(a) Relevant theories of conflict initiation and escalation?

(b) Relevant theories of, and approaches to third party conflict handling (e.g., conflict resolution and transformation)?

 And, if the President wanted "proof" that these theories were valid,

(c) Construct a Research Design for testing the validity of one or more of your proposed hypotheses."

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According to the Human Security Report, there were 40 percent fewer armed conflicts in 2005 than at the end of the Cold War in 1990 (see http://www.miniatlasofhumansecurity.info/en/files/miniAtlas_preface.pdf). Other data sets (such as the Uppsala Conflict Data Program/International Peace Research Institute, Oslo available at http://www.prio.no/CSCW/Datasets/Armed-Conflict/UCDP-PRIO/) differ in details but show similar declines.

Write an essay that argues whether this statement is correct, incorrect, or needs modification in one way or another. In other words, are you convinced that there are 40 percent fewer armed conflicts in 2005 than in 1990? If so why? If not why not?

What theory or theories support your argument with regard to the claims that armed conflicts have declined?  In particular, are there theories of economic or political development that would explain the trends in numbers of armed conflicts?

Design a research project that would help you collect the kind of data that you would need to support your argument above.  If you choose to use quantitative methods, explain why you think such a choice is likely to provide you with insights that qualitative methods cannot.  If you choose to use qualitative methods, explain why you think such a choice is likely to provide you with insights that quantitative methods cannot.  If you choose a mixed method, justify that choice as well.

Finally, consider that you have been hired by an international development agency that assumes that increasing per capita income is the key to reducing armed conflict. Explain whether you think this assumption is useful or not and then design an intervention that promotes increasing per capita income in ways that you anticipate will reduce armed conflict.  Consider what possibly unintended consequences might undermine your goals and provoke higher levels of armed conflict.

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For purposes of this question, let's assume that the current global economic crisis not only continues but worsens—i.e., economic growth continues to be negative, trade and industrial production suffer further declines, unemployment rises, profits and wages fall, etc.  The United Nations has formed a Commission on Economic Crisis and Social Conflict (CECSC) and has asked you to serve as a consultant.  The Commission wants you to answer the following questions in writing:

• As the economic crisis continues and deepens, what types of social conflict do you expect to develop or to escalate?  Please be as specific as possible in describing these potential conflicts.

• What theories help you make your predictions?  Describe these theories accurately, and explain how they helped to generate the predictions. (Please feel free to comment on the limitations of current theories if you wish).

• What sort of research should the Commission undertake to improve its understanding of the relationship between economic crisis and potential social conflicts?  Give an example of a research project that it might sponsor,
  describing the project's methodology, tests of verifiability, and possible results in some detail.

• Taking any one of the conflicts that you believe will continue or escalate, describe an intervention process that you believe the Commission should sponsor in order to resolve or mitigate the conflict.  Spell out the details of the process, stating why you believe it is the most appropriate and potentially effective form of intervention to attempt.

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A very wealthy and generous philanthropist has just informed the United Nations University that she wishes to establish a new center to offer graduate degrees in conflict analysis and resolution, do needed research, and sponsor useful conflict intervention activities.  She has more than enough money to establish a first-class center but she wants to create a program that will represent “the next step in the development of the field.”  The president of the UN University has approached you for advice.   “You graduated from ICAR,” he says, “which we know is an excellent program.  But we want to create something even better at UNU.  So we would like you to answer the following questions:”

• What theories should be covered by the new graduate curriculum that the ICAR curriculum does NOT cover, or does not cover in enough detail.  Describe these theories accurately, and explain why you think they are so useful as to require inclusion in the UNU curriculum.

• Which TWO research methods do you think are the most important for our students to learn?   Describe each method in detail.  Focusing on one of these methods, suggest an important research question that it could be used to answer, and outline how you would use it to answer the question.

• Which TWO conflict resolution processes do you think are most important for our students to learn?  Describe them in detail.  Why do you believe they are so useful?  Describe the courses or other instructional environments that you would create to teach the skills necessary to permit students to use these processes.   State how you would evaluate the students’ performances in these courses or learning environments.

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You have been invited to design a hall for the new Peace Museum of the United States Institute of Peace.  The Director of the Museum asked you to select one particular current protracted conflict and represent its dynamics and possible resolution.  You have four walls each of which represent (a) the description of the conflict and the parties involved; (b) theoretical ideas that are useful in understanding the conflict; (c) interventions and conflict resolution strategies; and (d) evaluation of your conflict intervention. You also have one display in the middle of the hall that you can use to focus on the most important issue related to this conflict.

Which conflict will you represent and why?  On the first wall, what information about the sources, parties, interests, escalation, power dynamics, and potential outcomes of the conflict will you display?  What theories might help viewers understand both the dynamics of the conflict and the design of the intervention you select, and why?  What types of intervention will you display and how will you stress their relevance to your particular conflict?  How will the design of evaluation be presented?  How will you emphasize the importance of evaluation?

What will you present in the central empty box?  Why this is the central issue?

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You have been invited to write a case study book for graduate students in conflict analysis and resolution.  The book must include five sections:   

1. present a group of theories that explain the specific dynamics of deep rooted and protracted conflicts;

2. analyze a conflict case as an illustration of the group of theories;

3. show how the proposed theories can be used as a basis for a research project on the case;

4. propose a system of conflict resolution intervention that relates to the group of theories and the case; and

5. present an exercise—role play, simulation, game, etc.—that can help students understand the conflict dynamics of the case. 

Your case book proposal should not exceed 35 pages (including references) and must describe all parts of the book for the publisher and the peer reviewers.

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In a small West African country, eight years of peace have followed 11 years of brutal civil war. At this time, almost all NGOs and IGOs have either pulled out of the country or significantly reduced their staff and programming efforts.  For all intents and purposes, the economy is stagnant, new jobs are not being created to replace those that grew around the post-conflict programs.  Petty trading has become the primary means of earning a living, reducing not only government revenues but also the level of income of average citizens.  As such, government services are scarce and parents are no longer able to send their children, particularly girls, to school resulting in the post-war increase in school enrollment falling close to pre-war levels. (The lack of education and jobs were the main reasons given by many former combatants for their participation in the civil war.)  In addition, drug traffickers are using old trading routes and the lax formal security apparatus to violently increase their business, particularly in the capital city.

Concerns from high ranking government officials, influential diaspora members, and regional leaders have prompted the Dean of the Department of Peace Studies at the state-run University to request that a team of experts conduct an analysis of the situation and propose strategies to help prop up the deteriorating situation. The recent election brought a new political party into power and the President and Vice President are anxious to demonstrate that they can turn the page on the inadequacies of the past.

As a member of the team of experts:

1.      What conflict theories would inform your analysis of the situation?

2.     What theories and practices of resolution would you consider and at what level of interaction might these theories/practices be applied?  (For example, at the grassroots, the mid-range, or the elite levels.)

3.     In terms of both conflict analysis and determination of resolution strategies, what research methods would you employ to gather and analyze data to be sure that it was as valid as possible?

4.     How would you, as researcher, question your own assumptions or double-check the viability of your own theories in the given situation?

5.     Based on the questions above, what would you likely propose to your team members?

6.     If your proposals were indeed implemented, what evaluation strategies would you design to determine the effectiveness of these proposals?

7.     When the evaluation was completed, how would you implement and share your findings?

8.     At the end of the project, would you be willing to revise your theoretical assumptions and review your de-fault resolution methodologies?  What might be the difficulties with this?  What might be the rewards?

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There is growing tendency in the field to rely on theories that not only provide the insights for the analysis of conflict but also develop the foundation for change. Based on the analysis of the conflict of your choice show how particular theories can serve both functions. First, describe these theories and develop the research design based on these theories. Second, discuss how ideas for change incorporated in these theories can contribute to the practice of conflict resolution and peacebuilding in this case. Develop the logical links between components of your research design (variables, indicators, etc.) and indicators of change.

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Many conflict analysts and resolvers have developed a strong interest in "structural conflicts" -- intergroup conflicts which are generated by or linked to changes in social, political, and/or cultural structures. Please answer the following 4 questions related to this topic:

1. What theories do you think are most useful in helping us to understand structural conflicts? Outline two or three such theories in detail, explaining why you believe that they are useful and commenting on their limitations as well.

2. What, in your view, are the major problems associated with the practical resolution or transformation of structural conflicts? Discuss one or more of these problems in detail, using concrete examples where appropriate.

3. What further research needs to be done, in your opinion, in order to improve our understanding of structural conflicts or to solve one or more of the problems associated with resolving or transforming them? Formulate two or three significant researchable questions. With regard to each question, (a) state why you think the research is needed; and (b) provide a concise description of a method that might be used to answer the question.

4. Select a structural conflict with which you are familiar and describe it briefly. Then outline a process of conflict resolution or transformation that might be used to resolve that conflict, commenting on how the process might be used to solve one or more of the problems noted in part (2) of your answer, above.

Student #6

Question One

The outcomes of protracted social conflicts, many have argued, are often the sources for future conflicts, thereby creating series of linked conflicts through time. Research on civil wars, for example, has found that one of the strongest predictors of future armed conflict in any given state is whether that country has recently emerged from civil strife. Studies at the interpersonal, organizational, community and other levels have identified similar cyclical patterns.

Write an essay that:

Discusses two or three theories in some detail that are particularly useful to understanding how the outcome of one conflict creates the conditions for the outbreak of the next.

Outlines a research plan that will test whether it is the outcomes of the previous conflict or some other variable that leads to a dynamic of repeated conflicts. Are underlying structural conditions, for example, a better explanation for why conflicts tend to re-occur?

Proposes an intervention that identifies one or two key elements that make some conflicts cyclical and proposes a set of activities to address this key link. For example, if enemy images from an earlier conflict create conditions that favor future conflicts, then what type of intervention would be most appropriate to break the cycle of conflict?

 Please illustrate your essay with appropriate examples from contemporary or historical conflicts at any level of analysis.

Sample Answer: Student #6

Introduction…
 

In this paper, I will be examining the outbreak of violent conflict that escalated suddenly in the first days of 2007 between forces of Fatah and Hamas in the Gaza Strip.  Although this level of fighting had never been seen before between these two factions, I argue that this is in fact an example of recurring conflict.  This level of violence is an extension of political conflict and much lower-level clashes that have come before.  The situation in the West Bank, characterized by a different interaction between individuals and structure, does not see this level of violence, but easily could. In either case, I argue here that the current conflict is a resurgence by other means, and we have to look at it as such; the absence of heightened violence between Hamas and Fatah in the recent past should not be taken as a narrow understanding that “this is the first time,” (there has been violence before, but not nearly at this level) we need to take a broader view of conflict in order to see it. Regardless, even if this is disagreed with, I can say that I agree with the perception of conflict being cyclical, and so with violence heightened in the instance I’m citing here, we can expect it to happen again; we’re looking to break the cycle for the future. 

            I will use structuration theory and relative deprivation to illustrate two theories that help to explain the cyclical nature of conflict, linking one iteration to the next.  I will explain here that (adding Jabri to Giddens) as structuration theory indicates, it isn’t structural issues or individual ones that cause conflict, but rather their interaction.  I would add to this that it is changes in the interaction that one or more of the parties is ill-equipped to deal with peacefully that we need to examine most closely. 

This resonates with me because I find it unconvincing that either structural issues or individualistic ones lie at the heart of conflict.  A Marxist reading would tell me that it’s the structures that I need to look at to find conflict and its continuation. Skinner might tell me that it’s the learned behaviors from the last round of fighting that continue hostilities into the next. While there is some truth in each of these, I do not find them dynamic enough to have real explanatory power; I also find them unconvincing because in either case, the opposite end of the spectrum tends to fade into an afterthought, treated as only vestigially important.

As a second theory, I bring in relative deprivation. While structuration helps me to understand the workings of the dynamic interaction of structure with individual agent, relative deprivation helps me to understand a more concrete mechanism that influences the mindset of the participants towards violence. I do not find the theory to be causal—I’ll explain that further when I get to that section of this paper—but I do find it helpful, and to represent a dynamic within a structuration understanding that grounds structuration, so to speak.

The research section of this question asks me to design a plan that would help me determine whether it is the outcomes of previous conflicts or “some other variable” that leads to the dynamic of recursive conflict. Since “is it this or something else” is very broad, I have taken this simply to read “what is it that causes recursive cycles of conflict?” My recommendation for this, since structuration theory—particularly in Jabri’s reading of it—is deeply linked with forms of discourse, centers around discourse analysis. What I’m looking for with this is to help determine what discourses are present that locate power and the justification for military force as a solution to a situation, and what counter-discourses exist in which we might find a way to break the cycle?

This segment starts with a literature review to identify possible Palestinians from both sides of the Hamas-Fatah line, who are speaking out about peace or seem to be offering something other than a militarist discourse. These will then be invited to interview for a deeper discourse analysis.

My research section overlaps with my practice section. I am recommending a problem-solving workshop as a mid-state intervention… not one to recommend a peace process, but one which will help to get participants—invited from the interviewees in the previous segment of research—used to working with each other, and in which A) ideas can be explored and analyzed that will help to understand the conflict, its roots and its possible solutions better, and B) the participants can be observed (knowingly) as a focus group to continue the discourse analysis into a forum of interaction instead of leaving it with individuals.  I do not find problem-solving workshops to be a final intervention, but rather one in which deeper research might be conducted, and participants identified for further work. I will explain this in the practice section.

That problem-solving workshop will suggest, through the information it produces on the causes of recursive conflict—what it is we need to watch out for in a resurgence among the Palestinians and what might prevent that from happening—specific avenues in which the physicality and the discourse might be approached helpfully. A specific intervention will then be recommended to follow up on one of those avenues as more of a targeted plan for specific result.

A bit of background…

            Prior to the Palestinian elections in 2006, Fatah had retained its hold as the sole source (through the PLO, its umbrella) of Palestinian political legitimacy.  It was not without its factions or threats, but Hamas as a group—the only real alternative, politically—had remained within an entirely different role.  Working sometimes in the fore and sometimes in the background, Hamas’ role (leaving aside its military arm for the moment) was to provide the social services that Fatah was unable to.  This was the niche it filled; it brought food to those unable to provide for themselves, water when the infrastructure was down or damaged, and money to those unable to provide for themselves.  In many ways, it held the fabric of the Palestinian society together. 

            Remaining in an ostensibly apolitical role (although it did make political inroads, they were comparatively negligible), the organization was also freed from the accusations of corruption that continue to plague Fatah.  Since it had no official power, it retained a perception of cleanliness and incorruptibility.  It was these two factors, more than anything else, which came together during the elections in 2006 and resulted in a Hamas victory that was unexpected by everyone—including Hamas. 

            Each side blamed the other for the outbreak of violence that occurred all too soon after the shift in Hamas from community power to political power.  Violence escalated sharply after a Hamas member was killed outside a mosque in Khan Younis in January, 2007, and prevented talks on the formation of a national unity government.  The details of that end of the conflict are slightly peripheral to the argument I’ll construct here, but I will touch on them later, during the practice segment of this paper—what is important at the moment is that having this experience of heightened conflict, we can absolutely be on the lookout for further iterations. 

            A note on conflict in this area should be made, which is that given the endemic, pervasive conflict that’s existed among many parties for a number of years, it is occasionally difficult to tease out easily definable stages of “pre-conflict,” “conflict,” “post-conflict.” The battles between Hamas and Fatah—ongoing, though in a lull at the moment—represent a spike in an unexpected area that can be examined more clearly than some. 

            The Palestinian inter-factional violence threatens to disrupt the dream of a Palestinian state and a Palestinian people, dividing them from one another and sending the governing structure onto the rocks. The intermittent assassinations and riots previous to this were, although threatening, nothing compared to what has gone on over the past few months.

Theory…

 Structuration theory deals, at its simplest, with the idea that social and political existence is the dialectical creation of interaction between structures and actors within the structures.  Actors are allowed and barred from actions depending on their place within a structure, but that structure is also shaped by the actions of actors within it.  This is a logical extension from the individualist or structuralist points of view that preceded the theory, both of which posit a far more static set of interactions that can lead to peace or war—an either/or framework as opposed to a both/and. Structuration theory offers a description of how the both/and work with one another to create social dynamics and social change. 

Structuration theory deals with the way in which meaning and action is constructed within societies, how the balances are maintained that keep a society within non-destructive bounds (or can drive it outside them), and how those balances can be changed (for better or worse).  Structuration as a term refers to the dialectical co-construction of action, meaning and the ability to action and "is neither the experience of the individual actor nor the existence of any form of societal totality, but social practices ordered across space and time."

[1] It is, in other words, dynamic. 

Structuration points out that to separate the actor (which can be either an individual or, as in the case I am illustrating here, a group) from the structure within which it operates is a false dichotomy.  Neither exists in an abstract “true” form outside of influence from the other, but is shaped by the other in continuous interaction.  Understanding a social system from this point of view requires an understanding of each individual as an agent, an entity capable of the will to action and the ability to execute action—agency.  It requires an understanding that agents are not puppets of the structures within which they operate, but have power; and that the operation of an actor’s agency can maintain or change the structure of a society.  Further, the structure of a society has power variously with and over individual actors to change and constrain or enable their actions.  The medium within which agents operate shapes the agents’ options and knowledge of/ understanding of their options and capabilities. This suggests discourse as a central thing to examine when looking at a structurated environment, which I’ll get to below.

Before I get much farther, a brief discussion of Foucault should come into any discussion of structuration, especially if I’m making any use of Jabri at all, because of his description of discourse.  "...In a society such as ours...there are manifold relations of power that permeate, characterize and constitute the social body, and these relations of power cannot themselves be established, consolidated nor implemented without the production, accumulation, circulation and functioning of a discourse." (Foucault, Power/Knowledge: Selected Interviews & Other Writings 1972-1977).  For Foucault, all of reality is a social construction.  The mechanism for its construction is the discourse, speech acts or written text that have effect within a society.  Power, to Foucault, is the ability to transmit information and have it be accepted as “true.”  The ability to control the concept of truth carries with it the ability to shape the conception of reality within a social construct.  The ability to define what is criminal or insane (aberrant, in other words—a particularly pertinent word when it comes to thoughts on the legitimacy of violence), to take some of his favorite examples, depends on the ability to control the definition of what is “normal.” 

“We must make allowance for the concept’s complex and unstable process whereby discourse can be both an instrument and an effect of power, but also a hindrance, a stumbling block, a point of resistance and a starting point for an opposing strategy. Discourse transmits and produces power; it reinforces it, but also undermines and exposes it, renders it fragile and makes it possible to thwart it. (Foucault, Power/Knowledge: Selected Interviews & Other Writings 1972-1977)”  We get a hint of structuration in action here, and one of several mechanisms through which discourse and structuration can contribute to recursive conflict, as various agents act to control, take control or regain control of power through the possession of dominant discourse.  I will apply this in more depth below—for now, it should be sufficient to gain a passing glimpse of the discourse concept, which will factor in more heavily later. 

           A brief reading of this should suggest that like culture, structures and agents are multifaceted, multifarious and do not exist in singular blocks, but overlap and interact with one another.  It is not my purpose to enumerate all the various levels of structure within Palestinian society; what I will deal with here is only the larger governmental and social structure, not the various sub-units within it. 

A further differentiation to be made in order to understand this difference and the duration of structures: systems, in structuration theory, are the "patterning of social relations across time-space, understood as reproduced practices.  Social systems should be regarded as widely variable in terms of the degree of 'system' they display and rarely have the sort of internal unity which may be found in physical and biological systems."

   This concept should be differentiated from structure: “rules and resources, recursively implicated in the reproduction of social systems.  Structure exists only as memory traces, the organic basis of human knowledgeability, and as instantiated in action.”

3] In other words, a system is a pattern of discourses and actions between agents that are sustained over time while structure represents the medium though which those systems are transmitted, and which enables or constrains them through time.  The structure may or may not be actively visible to the actors at any given time or in any given action—but it is there, present nonetheless. Stressing the point I made above comparing this to the definition of culture, any of those systems can also serve as a structure within a more limited social setting, but that’s beyond the scope of what I’m dealing with here. 

So we are examining the Palestinian society around the time of the 2006 elections to find some of the roots of the current conflict and the conditions for its probable recursions.  The relevant structure within which these elections take place is one characterized by a general belief in the legitimacy of political parties to act on behalf of individuals, and as the legitimate holders of social mobilizing power—the dominant social discourse—and of the nation-state as the highest goal and basic unit of interaction on both the national and international levels.  At the level of nation-state politics, the secular state is the recognized unit internationally and although Hamas is a fundamentalist party, it understands that this is the structure in which governments must operate—although they have a very different view of the operation of that than Fatah, and most outside governments do.  Herein lies one of the problems that I will address below.  

Within this setting, Fatah—for all its flaws and the complaints against it—secular and aiming for the power of a recognized nation-state by international definitions, holds the reigns of political power.  The agent recognizes and aims to work within the structure as it is relating to political and social power, and thus agent and structure are more or less (comparatively speaking) in harmony. Hamas, on the other hand, is a fundamentalist religious organization.  It exists within the communities, it provides social services, it has its own military arms (and these, unlike Fatah’s, are highly decentralized, each drawing allegiance from an individual charismatic leader in addition to an allegiance to the organization as a whole; the individual trumps the organization in Hamas’ case—the internal discursive system is very different from Fatah’s), it has a very different set of aims in mind with regard to the concept of a Palestinian state—religious, not secular, and far more antagonistic towards Israel.  As a social services organization and community mobilizer, it exists within the same structure as Fatah, but is in harmony only so long as it remains out of political power—IN political power, it is discordant.

The various actors in this conflict each have positions as actors within a given structure (the readers will notice a nod to positioning theory here, but I will not take it further than a nod).  Their roles are prescribed by those positions, and on the whole, the balance has remained stable, each in their niche of interaction.  The systems of their interaction are harmonic, because each uses a discourse befitting its place within those niches.  Although Hamas has challenged the secular discourse with its own fundamentalist one, it has also remained in a position from which that did not rise into a serious political challenge.  It had kept Fatah on the ropes in some senses, but on the whole had continued to act within a slightly different venue. 

If agency is a co-construction of agent and structure, then it’s a change in relationship, not the existence of relationship that tends to cause conflict.  Hamas existed more or less stably (at least without large-scale violence against other Palestinians) within the Palestinian society until the election of 2006.  At that point, its interaction with the structure changed and became unstable, as did Fatah’s—conflict was the result.  The systems of interaction Hamas used in its previous niche were now discordant and caused disruption.  It was not prepared to change, and given its nature and capabilities, could not in time.

Daily activities through the pattern of the system allow the structure to maintain its interaction with the agent.  Hamas’ role within the structure, and the system of its interactions were drastically changed when it became, suddenly, a political party and power in control of the Palestinian government.  It was equipped, through the experience of its system of interactions, to be a social-services carrier, to interact with Palestinians in a certain set of ways, to interact with Fatah and with Israel in others—to act and wield one discourse.  Before any evolution in those systems of interaction could take place that would allow the organization-as-actor to evolve into a new set of systems that matched with its new role, it was thrust into a new system of interactions (and a different discourse) within the same structure with its old system capabilities intact and entrenched.
 

Fatah, for its part, found itself in a similar position.  The system through which it had interacted with Hamas in the past was suddenly discordant with the needs of the new positions in which both it and Hamas found themselves.  It had always been the representation of the only source of political legitimacy in Palestinian life—the PLO. How then to interact as secondary and on the losing end to Hamas? The two parties could not continue to interact with one another on the same basis with which they previously had, and they could not communicate healthily in this new milieu.  Either the structure had to change, or the parties would find themselves in a clash—and without a functioning system of political interaction between them, the only replacement they had in common was military.  As this structure of the nature of government and governmental interaction is not solely Palestinian, but maintained and interacted with by a great many outside actors, the Palestinians as actors did not have sufficient power to change it; which, following on the point made above, meant that the physical clash was more or less inevitable. 

Both parties exist within a system of discursive legitimation of war (or at least violence) as a means to achieve their aims and to coerce others to do their bidding.  There is a long history of this, and it exists, sadly, at every level of Palestinian life.  It was predicted in many quarters, looking at the lead-up to this outbreak of violence, that these patterns were in place and that if Hamas won the election, violence could be expected; those predictions were correct, in this case. 

So… regarding structuration as a cause of violence, here we have two actors whose system of interaction is suddenly changed but whose capability to change with it is limited to nonexistent within the available timeframe, within a structure that is locked by outside actors actively on a path to maintain its integrity and not change; in this case, that force is stronger than the Palestinian’s ability to change the structure into a form that might accommodate the new systems of interaction, so they are forced back into discordant positions.  A train wreck in structuration. 

Were the structure, the system or the agents able to be dialectically shaped enough within that set of interactions, we might have a different situation today—resistance to that change links structuration to conflict.  It also links us to recursive conflict because, as I will detail further below, actors forced out of their more native set of interactions face a loss of power and agency (outside the discourse) and find themselves in new and probably uncomfortable roles of interaction and will likely tend to work to get their old status back by whatever means pointed available—I would posit this is particularly true in a situation such as Palestine where the political parties are tied into daily life far more pervasively than their analogues are in the States, for example.  If we buy into the notion that discourse is power and that through discourse our whole reality is shaped, then it is a far more pointed proposition to lose control of that political discourse there than it might be in others.  

Regarding structuration as a condition for recursive violence, let’s look past the strengthening of certain discourses for a moment.  We’ve gone over the idea that agent and structure dialectically shape each other; and that agency is a co-creation of agent and structure.  This, all things being equal, we can imagine will come to a sort of equilibrium after a while; a system’s tendency to balance itself.  A disturbance in that system (taking “system” here not as I’ve used the term above, but meaning a complex grouping of co-interacting factors) will throw it one direction (the election), causing a reaction back (the recent conflict) attempting to bring the system back to its “original” position. 

We can see a situation in which we get a pendulum effect, back and forth and back again… each new iteration changing the relationships within the equation such that they no longer match with and are discordant with their new positions.  But on its own I don’t think this is entirely convincing.  A necessary point, but not convincing.  In order to bring the situation to a fuller description of how the outcome of one conflict creates the conditions for the outbreak of the next, we need to bring in at least one more theory—as I’ve said elsewhere, no one theory can act as causal of conflict, recursive or otherwise… the interaction of several conditions at once, can. 

Relative deprivation follows from here as a mechanism both of this outbreak of conflict and through which, conflict becomes recursive in combination with other factors.  I will state from the beginning that I disagree with the idea that any theory describes a “cause” of conflict.  I find that a cursory reading of any theory will describe only that in some cases, this theory can contribute to the likelihood that conflict will arise during a given time period.  The question in my analysis should not be to look at theories to tell us “why does violence erupt,” but rather to ask “does this theory help us to understand or explain why violence erupted now, in this situation, or instruct us about when is there more likelihood that it will?” Relative deprivation is a good example of this use. 

           Ted Gurr’s original conception of relative deprivation tied the theory inexorably to frustration-aggression.  In short, the concept was that it isn’t deprivation in general that leads to violence, but deprivation relative to another group with which one perceives one’s own to be in competition.  “Actors' perception of discrepancy between their value expectations and their value capabilities” (Gurr, “Why Men Rebel”) in relation to another group.  There are three forms this can take: one’s own capabilities and/or resources remain the same while the other’s increases; one’s own decrease while the other’s remain the same; and one’s own decreases while the other’s increases. 

Deprivation is thus not tied to anything deemed “essential” or immutable, but is socially constructed and viewed in relation to the resources and capabilities—and thus the relative power—of another group with which the group in question is in social contact.  Deprivation is subjective, and its definition will be subject to a protagonist’s knowledge, experience and position within society.  Relative deprivation points not to what we feel we need to have to survive, but to what we feel we ought to have.  The theory asserts that individuals and groups will use their presently perceived or expected social or political position, achievements, gratifications, or capabilities as a base of comparison; it need not (in fact, often doesn’t) refer to more concrete things that one may feel oneself deprived of in an absolute sense.  The gap between a group’s expectations and capabilities and those of another group is then their relative deprivation; the severity depends on their sense of comparison. 

We can see a tie to structuration theory here, and to the Fatah-Hamas example at hand, because the relatively advantaged group will be more able to control the discourse of power and agency within a given structure—without significant structural change, this will be a zero-sum game, and a gain by one side means a loss by the other.  We are talking about power—relative comparison in the ability to wield it, to control the discourse within which it resides and within which identity and the nature of Palestinian life will be defined. There is a sense of more absolute deprivation in the zero-sum game, but also a relative deprivation as each side uses the other as their reference group in a sociological, subjective comparison having to do with the expectation each side has of its role with the population, which in turn has to do with the role that each side has in the structuration equation.  More on expectations as a component within relative deprivation below. 

            Gurr stated that any of these three conditions of changing capabilities that I listed above would increase the levels of frustration within the relatively disadvantaged population (more on this below, there are important qualifiers to come).  The difficulty with this as a causal mechanism arises because frustration is not a definite cause of aggression.  Some people or groups will rally behind frustration to change their behavior, to reach out in a conciliatory gesture, or see the source of frustration as just punishment for irreligious behavior—any number of reactions that do not necessarily include a rise to aggressive behavior. 

            Relative deprivation can be said to underlie a good deal of violence.  But how are the theory and violence linked? Relative deprivation is a subjective assessment of a set of social interrelationships.  How do we move from there to violence? The basis for Gurr’s answer is that the sense of relative deprivation is a frustration that leads to aggression, and in his initial writings, the theory hangs on the frustration/aggression link to tie it to violence. 

Because relative deprivation exists as a social construction, it can form the basis for the organization of one group to collective violence against the other.  This, as stated, is certainly not a given—there are very large holes in the frustration-aggression theory, frustration being neither necessary nor sufficient to cause violence in every instance.  But we can see that it’s possible, particularly in the presence of other factors as a facilitating context.  A second factor within the theory linking relative deprivation to violence is that the things that a group feels themselves to be deprived of have also to be things that they feel they are entitled to and can get, or get back, and keep.  If a group’s capabilities are decreasing but their expectation of what they ought to have is also decreasing, then we do not face a situation of relative deprivation. It’s only when expectations and capabilities are divergent that we do, and this is in linkage with another group who has or seems to be getting what we expect ourselves to be entitled to.

This is particularly acute when there is a sense of justice or fairness involved, or—as with the case of the Palestinians—also something definitional to identity and power at stake.  Critics of Gurr have proposed strictly sociological alternatives within the construct of relative deprivation in which frustration-aggression plays no role, or a greatly altered role, which gets them around the difficulties with that part of the theory.  I prefer instead to go with the concept that if the theory is not supposed to be directly causal, but supposed to be used in combination with other factors not to describe a cause but rather a propensity, this also gets me around the frustration-aggression-as-the-bedrock-of-the-theory problem. 

The choice of reference group is crucial; this choice is not written in stone, and it is of course possible to choose in such a way that one's sense of deprivation leads to nonaggression, or leads a group to cease comparing themselves with one relatively advantaged group and instead to compare themselves with a different and equal group, or one which is deprived relative to them.  This helps to explain why the deprived or oppressed often accept their conditions as opposed to rising up; if their reference groups are equally oppressed and poor, for example, the sense of relative deprivation is removed. 

In order to lead to violence then, the sense of deprivation must be related to specific dimensions of inequality existing in society, which most likely in turn are linked to power and identity.  These, returning to structuration theory, are determined in part by the interaction between systems of social relation and structure.  Class, status, power and prestige, for example.  In the case of the Palestinian elections, Fatah had and expected to keep its level of power and prestige—its ability to form and work with the structure and the systems within it. 

     Hamas’ victory in the elections created a sense of deprivation in Fatah relative to Hamas along these metrics. Not just an absolute deprivation in loss of political power, but relative deprivation in all the various societal links that power has in the Palestinian groups.  It’s this that enters the societally created and subjective back into the equation, rather than leaving it with a strict loss of enough seats in parliament to get ousted from power.  Fatah expected to retain their capabilities as related to that societal construction of legitimacy, agency, voice, identity; they lost them to another group, whose power increased as their own decreased. They felt that they were the legitimate representatives of the Palestinian people, and that Hamas would disrupt the patterns and lose ground for everyone; they felt that they could take the power back, at least inasmuch as gaining a power-sharing agreement with Hamas.  

We still need to focus this combination of theories into violence a little more strongly.  For Gurr, two variables serve as mechanisms for this.  The first is the normative justification for violence within a society, which Jabri has spoken of (relating to structuration and violence) and I’ve mentioned—in short, that the discourse exists within the society for violence as a legitimate means of achieving a goal.  The second is the assumed utility of such violence, based on experience (either one’s own or observed in someone else’s).  If violence is believed to be a legitimate recourse and has a demonstrated history of achieving goals, we can say that the focus has occurred within the given context.  The degree to which the focus occurs and is realized by the population in general or the conflicting groups in specific is positively correlated with the likelihood that violence will occur. 

Let me tie this again back to structuration theory and say that if the context in question is one in which a group has lost, through a perception of relative deprivation, the ability to interact with the structure in the way in which it feels it ought, then we are dealing with a situation in which relative deprivation links to a far more disorienting and important (in the eyes of the group in question) element than some other things we could think of. This also increases the propensity to violence.

Two further variables factor into Gurr’s tie-in to violence.  First is the balance of power of a potentially conflicting group to existing control mechanisms (particularly in the case of political violence, where we have a controlling regime and a dissident group—Fatah and Hamas, respectively); the other is the balance of power within an uprising group compared to the institutional support of the group they rise up against.  The potential for violence will be at its greatest when uprising and risen against have nearly equal power and institutional support. 

In the case at hand, both parties, Fatah and Hamas, embody both dissident and structural elements—just in different ways.  Hamas’ power vis-à-vis the control mechanisms that Fatah could bring to bear suddenly increased a significant degree.  Institutional support of Fatah had dropped, as witnessed by Hamas’ victory in the election.  Hamas’ had increased.  Hamas had, in fact, suddenly gone from being dissident to being institutional.  Structuration changes Gurr’s balances and leads to an increased propensity to violence. 

So the election created a case of relative deprivation for Fatah, which reacted to try and gain power back.  When political options were blocked, violence—an accepted alternative within this discourse—erupted.  Violence broke out in Gaza, as opposed to the West Bank, because Fatah’s control mechanisms were far stronger in the West Bank (and, one can imagine, being a far more strategic area for Israel and other parties than the Gaza Strip is, external crackdown would likely have had a greater quelling effect), and far weaker in Gaza, where Hamas was and is stronger.  Structuration suggests that the ability of given actors to execute action is different in both places, resulting in a different conflict outcome.  The discourse of political action as opposed to violence between the Palestinian groups has always been stronger in the West Bank than it is in Gaza, creating still further structuration propensity towards violence in one area than in the other. 

Bringing this back to recursive violence, we can state that through conflict and population displacement, reference groups with which one will compare oneself will likely change.  So will the perceived levels of power, authority, agency and other determinants with which one will place oneself in comparison.  With each change, new patterns become available for both renewed violence or, potentially peace—but the parties are probably not prepared to make positive use of these new connections, as their movement was neither planned nor by choice.  Recursion becomes more likely. 

Violence has also now been entered more strongly into the structuration discourse.  One hope that we have for breaking the cycle is that at the moment, it’s extremely debatable whether this round of violence has produced positive results for anyone, although having committed to it, both sides have a vested interest in finding ways to describe it has having been useful or at least necessary.   
 

Conflict, as with other forms of change, will tend to alter the relationships of actors within a structuration equation.  The interaction of these two shifts creates a climate in which further iterations of conflict are increasingly likely as A) the discourse of justified violence is reified within the systemic discourse; B) the roles and positions with the structuration dialectic are shifted into new forms that the parties quite likely do not find themselves comfortable in and are loathe to remain with; C) the reference groups are shifted, allowing for new patterns of relative deprivation; and D) the composition of the groups is shifted towards a more hard-line leadership, with doves marginalized—which again will have direct effect on the ways in which systems are carried through and in which agents interact with structure. 

Chris Mitchell has pointed out on several occasions that the existence of conflict will also tend to marginalize doves and empower hawks, and make it more difficult for doves to speak out, thus further strengthening the discourse of violence.  This dynamic, fit into the structuration dialectic and the lens of relative deprivation, gives us a further toehold in the recursive nature of conflict. 

             So is it the outcome of a conflict or some other dynamic that leads to recursive conflict?  “Outcome” is a very broad term. Structural conditions are quite likely changed through the course of conflict, with new composition of groups, new reference groups, new systems of interaction and new mechanisms for clashes arriving.  This is one way of looking at outcome. Another would be to take a more individualist look at who remains in power, who’s out of it, and who’s dead or still living.  Yet another would be to look at, for example, the emergence of enemy images, specific structural conditions or chosen traumas stemming from the conditions and result of an iteration of conflict.  Structural conditions are more likely to be a cause of renewed conflict if the structuration dynamics have altered so as to reduce a party’s recourse to address them to their liking, or if through relative deprivation the group has another to reference in comparison in the ways that I’ve described above.  Dynamics, not conditions; the ability to feel that one can act with or against structural conditions in other than violent ways. 

I find these latter to be more surface outcomes, and the shifted roles within the structuration dynamic closer to the core.  A person or group is more likely to form enemy images of someone who has taken what they feel rightfully entitled to; they are more likely to form chosen traumas stemming from a loss of their own sense of agency.  I would thus call these secondary outcomes, not primary; and as such, they are secondary to the formation of recursive conflict.

 The term “metaconflict” refers to the situation in which conflict becomes about itself, continuing or resurfacing because of the dynamics of the last round as opposed to because of the “true root causes.”  True, actions of dehumanization, enemy imaging, chosen trauma and other factors of self-definition and definition of the “Other” contribute to this.  However, we should be looking for why these things have power; why are they important to address, what is it that’s going on within our own group that gives these the power to mobilize us to action.  Why do we see ourselves as connected with this other group, what is the dynamic of system and actor/structure interaction that makes them important enough to fight for rather than to turn away from?  Looking beneath in this way, we find structuration and relative deprivation as examples of the necessary dynamics of “outcome.”  Both theories have to do with describing the way in which change occurs as well as describing an outcome situation.  It isn’t the ground lost that causes the next round, but the way in which the interaction takes place with the people you lost it to.  That interaction is also an outcome, in a sense—and an important one, in my view. 

There has to be a dynamic reason underpinning the decision to open hostilities against the other—their mere existence is not enough.  To take a very different example from the current one, we could say that the Nazis had strong enemy images of the Jews—but it wasn’t because of these that they moved against that group.  Rather it was because of the belief (real or used as an excuse, it doesn’t particularly matter) that this group was actually in control of the discourse and was taking away from them what was rightfully theirs.  The mere existence of Jews, while distasteful or even hateful to them, wasn’t enough—they had to add the dynamic before action could be undertaken.  The Nazis felt (or at least publicized that they felt) these dynamics to be the outcome of past conflict—therefore a factor in recursion.  So I find these dynamics core, and other forms of “outcome” to be secondary.
 

It may be that when asked the question, the Palestinians would disagree with that so with this in mind, we approach the question of whether it is “outcomes or some other variable” with…

Research…
 

An initial stage of research will lead to Problem Solving Workshops both as a form of intervention and as a deeper, secondary level of research.  Problem-solving workshops are not an endpoint in intervention, in my interpretation of them (more on this later).  They should be used to identify further layers of intervention, to create and target them.

Problem-solving workshops, definitionally dealing with the broad texts of two or more involved parties (more on this later) fit well with a system of discourse analysis research, and will identify which discourses are most important and which are secondary to a study of the causes of conflict and its recursion.  If altered discourses created in the interaction of actor and structure are what fuel war and future iterations of war, then counter-discourses must be constructed in order to break the cycle, again as per Jabri’s reading of structuration.  What are these and how should they be implemented?

            Snowball sampling will be used to identify both an initial understanding of the important discourses as well as to identify individuals who understand and employ them, and who can serve as useful participants in the problem-solving workshops.  An initial literature survey (of newspapers, published articles and—although not literally literature—radio and TV broadcasts) will be used to identify a first round of actors within the Palestinian conflict that appear to be speaking out about peace, or at least to be approaching counter-discourses to war. 

These individuals will then be approached and asked for interviews and further recommendations about where A) the important people are who should be approached further; who can function as important fulcrums within a new system and who is that new system, should it be created, likely to coalesce around; and B) where the important structural elements are—are they economic, or educational? Are they political?  These latter represent part of the discourse analysis—what, in other words, are the dominant discourses that speak to the important interactions between structure and actor in the service of peace or war?

            The interviews that will be conducted with them and with the ones who recommended them will focus around a discourse analysis.  This is an interesting tool to use in this situation because it offers a way to break apart the discourses being used and being suggested by the participants themselves.  In general, the strength of a discourse analysis lies in the ability of the researcher to deconstruct the story and re-construct a logically cohesive rhetorical argument.

            Discourse analysis can be described as a way of approaching and thinking about a problem as opposed to strictly as a research method.  It does not provide a crunched numerical answer to a question posed within its framework, but rather represents a way in which a researcher illuminates and deconstructs the ontological and epistemological assumptions behind a statement or a text—text being the speech act (or written piece, “text” literally) taken in concert with the context within which it is placed. 

A highly postmodern technique, the user seeks to understand not just what was said but why it was said, what it means that it was said.  In other words, the researcher is looking to deconstruct the hidden motivations behind a text as an essential part of interpreting it.  This is important because we are looking for repeating patterns of conflict, not just an understanding of one outbreak.  I would argue that it’s also an important thing to know even if we’re just looking at an isolated incident, but especially so given the needs of our research for this question.  Discourses are dynamic and subject to change, and so we need a similarly dynamic research technique that will allow us to get behind the reasons that a discourse is dynamic and that it might change.

Postmodern theories describe any interpretation of reality as a text—act or statement combined with context.  Discourse Analysis seeks therefore not to provide absolute answers to a specific problem, but enable the researcher to make the deconstructed motivations and assumptions explicit and to understand the conditions behind a discourse, aiming at allowing a view of the situation at hand from a different perspective.  Discourse Analysis is meant to provide a deeper awareness of the hidden motivations in others (and in ourselves as researchers) and, therefore, enable us to direct the sort of intervention I describe below, better. 

In order to build an intervention on the idea of structuration theory and relative deprivation, I need to understand the ontology and epistemology of the subjects—understand the reasoning behind their discourses, understand the text.  Other forms of qualitative research, or of quantitative research, might be brought in to analyze specific elements of the results—but this would be situationally dependent and while useful in general, I do not find them to be as useful in the scenario I’m building here.   

            The major reason for using discourse analysis here is that the form and function of structuration relating to conflict and its reoccurrence, according to Jabri, is based around discourses of power and violence.  To understand the sources of war, we must search between wars and take a deep look at the social forces at work between outbreaks which will make a new round of conflict inevitable.

Jabri sets us two major themes that lead us to the next round. These are: A) discursive continuities and B) institutional continuities, both of which act to legitimate violence, and are available to be called upon and recreated by actors within the structure through their use of social systems.  I would actually phrase these as discontinuities, in the way that I have described them above—I find that a more useful way to think of them.   I understand that she is referring mainly to the continuity of a discourse of violence and the institutions that make violence physically possible on a large scale—but I want to include the broader thinking here.  My sense is that she means these things as outcomes in a more literal sense, whereas I am fitting them into the dynamics I’ve already talked about.

In order to understand fully what the processes are that will cause conflict to recur in this situation (and taking a nod from the deconstructive nature of discourse analysis I must understand it as this situation and not in all situations)—whether it is the outcome of previous conflictual interactions or some other variable—I need to understand how the participants on both sides view it.  I need to understand how they frame power, their identity, and violence and its justifications.  In order to counter the cycle of violence, I need to establish what counter-discourses there might be (or that might be elicited or designed).  This may sound very broad, but I mean it to be.  I want this research to be as open-ended as possible, within this set of limits.

            In the interviews I will use unstructured questions designed to probe these issues.  The central research question is “what are the dynamics within this conflict that will cause it to recur?”  This seems a bit self-obvious as research goes, but is still a valid question.  Around that, I will ask interviewees to tell me about how they view the conflict in general, that will give me details that I can interpret myself as well as factoring their own interpretation: what are its roots? Are they political? Religious? I will ask them to define what they think a Palestinian is: what’s the root of the Palestinian identity? Is there one singular thing, or are there many? I will ask how they view power: is it political? Religious? Economic? Are there descriptions that recur that would tell me something about where the best fulcrums are on which to lever change?  These are all elements that could factor into power within structuration and elements that could factor into relative deprivation.  I will ask how they view violence as a tool, and in what situations might it or might it not be a useable tool?

Jabri regards the “militarist discourse” as an integral part of the justification for violence, which can assume two forms: (1) either war is glorified by the perpetrators (potential or actual), or it is depicted as a tool that one might be loath to use, but which is nonetheless available to be used.  Since actor and structure co-create each other, actors do in fact have the power to change the discourse regarding any mechanism within that structure, including that for war (“Agency then is neither a capacity of an individual nor a function of the social system, but the co-reconstitution of individual practices and social processes” Giddens).  Again—I believe I need broad research questions in order to get to the heart of these things and find out why violence is likely to recur in this situation—how are these things fitted within the various Palestinian discourses?  Leaving them as a priori concepts doesn’t do me as much good as it might seem.

The dominant and common discourses regarding these questions (which through reflection shows us the nature of concepts of social dominance within this context), as well as the places where the discourses differ, can both serve to legitimize violence and cast light on counter-discourses that might disrupt the pattern, and sets the terms and boundaries of any debate on the subject (the primary intervention described below is designed, among other things, to change the frame of possible debate—more on this later).  Before entering into any such debate through intervention, this must be explored first so that the process can be better monitored and controlled by the interveners—as it has been said, the content and the agenda for problem-solving workshops belongs to the participants; the process is controlled by the facilitators.  More on this below, in... 

            Practice…
 

            Once we have gotten a better handle on the discourses and the potential fulcrums for discourse alteration, we can move to a deeper intervention.  The method I would begin with for this is a problem-solving workshop.  This is not an end-point intervention, in my reading; Burton’s concept of problem-solving workshops was of exploration—participants would come together and work with one another to identify the critical problems and potential ways of solving them.  In this sense, the workshops seem to me to be more usefully thought of as a form of participant-inclusive research rather than what I’ve phrased as an end-state intervention—one designed to actually mediate a solution or broker peace.  Problem-solving workshops are useful as a mid-state intervention, designed to illuminate problems and potential solutions, and to get participants from “opposite sides of the fence” inoculated to working with each other, to re-humanize each other, and to gain an improved understanding of how to operate with one another when it comes to an end-state process.
 

            Facilitators are present to serve as trusted impartial third parties, mediate disputes and to facilitate the conversation, keeping it on topic within reason, or to help guide it if it takes a useful detour.  Because the facilitators are trusted by both (or all) sides (and I will assume here that I have found and convened such people for the purpose), the participants can act and speak with more freedom in the knowledge that it is their collective interests kept at heart.

The actual agenda—unlike the process—is the purview of the participants.  At this stage, the idea is to get the participants into a forum separated from their regular lives and context; I would hold these workshops in Turkey, which is a location impartial to both sides within the conflict.  Holding the workshops in a separated location allows for some distance from the conflict territory, relieving at least some of the pressure on the participants.  It also removes them from the temptation to head home should something happen to increase the tension back in Palestine, or to increase the tension between the participant groups; they can’t simply walk out. 

            The advantage of this intervention held at this stage is that it is essentially non-committal.  It is not a negotiation, none of the participants are present in an official capacity with their side, and neither ground nor power cannot be gained or lost through them—which relieves pressure upon the participants and allows them to act in a more informal way, analyze the situation and explore possible paths that they might not countenance in an official setting.  It is also important at this stage that participants have a way of truthfully denying, if pressed, that they are “negotiating with the other side,” or legitimizing them through their presence at a mutual table.  These meetings are low profile and essentially run according to “Chatham House Rules”—I won’t tell your people what you said and you don’t tell my people what I said.  It is an academic exploration of common problems and potential ways out of them.

       One week will be set aside for the problem solving workshops.  More than this would be too stressful for all involved and difficult to keep on track; less than this would not allow the necessary time for both parties to acclimate to one another. 

Through our research we will be looking for moderates on both sides, Fatah and Hamas, to fill the panels.  We could also expand this to a third team, depending on the sense we get from the research, which we might call “not directly supporting either side but caught in the middle.” This would have to be determined in situ. 

We will approach radicals only up to a certain limit.  Chris Mitchell and others point out that in a peace process, radicals and militants must be included or they will tend to act as spoilers to any process or solutions proposed through it.  However, what I am proposing here is not a peace process, but an intervention designed to identify and target where a peace process should center itself.  With that done, a further iteration of intervention, aiming at creating more of an end-state process, could approach militants with something in hand, something to bounce ideas off of and to work with. 

For this iteration, we will work on the assumption that while moderates will tend to be able to articulate the points of view of radicals, the inverse is less likely to be true.  This is an assumption on my part, and one which will be mitigated by including within the snowball sampling a request to identify “moderate radicals”—those who would tend to side with the radicals and to be in contact with them but who are not actually about to pick up a weapon themselves.  This is the closest we can come for the purposes of safety and security of the group—it must not become a forum used by radicals to identify and target or eliminate moderates.

The end-state intervention, the nature of which would depend on the results of this research/intervention, will not be discussed here; it is beyond the scope of the paper.  It is not time yet to reach for that—the situation is not ripe, has not reached a “hurting stalemate,” there is still more fighting to be done before that point is reached—one outbreak of large-scale violence between the groups could be considered an aberration by the participants.  Quite probably, it will take another recursion of violence to reach that point… it won’t be until the next that the pattern will become truly apparent.  what we are aiming at with this intervention is to uncover the groundwork that can be brought to bear on that next iteration. 

However, we can make an effort at a second-stage intervention following on the problem-solving workshops. This will be designed to stabilize some element within the society, identified by the participants as an important fulcrum for such work.  That stabilization effort is somewhere between this mid-state and an end-state solution.  More on this below. 

        I have said that the problem-solving workshops will involve an agenda to be set by the participants themselves; this is mostly true.  Problem solving workshops will be convened around the central elements suggested through the initial discourse analysis—the textual playing out of the abstract dynamics.  Panelists will be asked to work with these as a starting point.  Since the panelists will be taken from the interviewees we have already used to do our discourse analysis, they will have a good idea already of where we’re headed with this, but some guidance towards the question at hand would be an acceptable alternative between allowing entirely free reign and designating the questions that should be approached. 

      The participants will be invited to share, over the course of the workshops, their thoughts with the other side(s).  It is in this sense that part of the agenda will be offered to them, although they can use or discard it as they find useful.  We will be looking, over the course of the workshops, to get the participants past the stage of saying “it’s their fault that it happened and it’ll be their fault if it happens again” and to explore the dynamics of conflict and its recursion at a level of remove from blame of one party or the other, looking for patterns and key points.

     The first day of the workshops will be a joint exploration of the process itself, an introduction to the point of the whole exercise.  This will have been explained to them individually as part of asking if they want to take part, but will be done again in the group environment.  This will take part of the day—the rest of the day will be a chance for the two groups to meet each other and to vent, if necessary—to speak their side to the others.  Each panel will have had a chance to talk with themselves as a panel before arriving in Turkey, so we will not need to take time from the workshops to do that part of it. 

It won’t be until the second day that the actual meat of the workshops will begin.  It’s a safe assumption that initially the panelists will prefer to explain themselves and their positions, to tell their story to the facilitating team rather than to the other side directly—with the sting of conflict so present, tensions between them will likely be high.  This is understood and allowed for in the timing of the workshops.  The facilitating team at this stage will keep the proceedings from turning into a debate before each side has had a chance to present themselves. 
 

I would not outline a specific agenda or process for the specific days—only a general one.  “Process” as regards speaking in turn, not shouting one another down, rules of general conduct will be facilitated by team members—the agenda for each day will be constructed by the panelists themselves.   I would personally prefer the time to be spent discussing the discourses and counter-discourses described above in this paper… but whether they do or not will factor into the “further research” part of the purpose of these workshops.  If this doesn’t seem useful to the participants, that would be valuable information as well—why, in interaction with the other side, might they hold to or move away from a previous understanding?

Workshop groups will be observed as focus groups.  Focus groups are particularly good for shedding illumination on the interactions of participants—which is, after all, what we’re interested in here.   This will be made explicit to the participants—what we’re looking for is how and why the panels either stick with or decide to move away from (or resist) certain discourses and counter-discourses. 

The second phase of the workshops will involve the participants beginning to explore each other’s stories and positions in a mutual interaction.  They will (hopefully) join the facilitating team in the analysis of the problem(s), the positions and the possible solutions.  Serious discussion of the nature of the conflict begins only in this phase.  The facilitating team can begin to introduce relevant theories at this point as a way of deepening the discussion and the understanding of the conflict by the participants; they can also begin drawing parallels between this conflict and others worldwide. 

The participants will tend to have a very deep knowledge of the conflict from some points of view, and to have effective blinders to other elements—the tendency to view one’s own conflict as unique is strong.  While it is actually unique in some senses, it can be helpful to draw the participants away from their own condition and see the same dynamics operating with others.  This can open their eyes to dynamics they may not have seen before, and rather than draining hope from the situation—if everybody else is going through the same thing, how is there a way out of it?—this is a way to then draw them back towards the elements that are again unique to them and to help lead them towards their own realization that they can find their own way out. 

The third phase is the most collaborative of the three.  In this stage facilitation takes on a more active role as the participants begin serious work towards a mutual solution, deepening understanding of problematic dynamics and discourses within them, and applying counter-discourses to real-life environments where they might take hold.  To restate what I’ve said before, this is not a forum for implementing that solution; it is a forum for eliciting what it might look like.  At the very least, the participants should feel that they have come to understand the other side better, as well as understanding their own differently, more deeply.  The main purpose, however, is simply to build the communication inroads, because the participants in these meetings will likely be at least some of the same ones who any final solution will revolve around.
 

The final phase of the workshops will be reserved for working with the “re-entry issues.”  Participants from all sides will need a way that they can describe what they’ve done with the other side to their own side, the simple fact that they’ve met with them—or a way of convincingly getting their stories straight so that they don’t have to admit to it at all, should the tension be perceived at a dangerous level when they get home.  This last part of the workshops will also serve to bind the participants closer together through the recognition that they have “left the range” with each other and gone past what would be expected of them in their normal lives. 

            The reason for sticking with problem-solving workshops at this point is that any end-state solution attempted at this stage of the conflict is unlikely to be sustainable, regardless what it is.  The conflict is still too “hot,” ripeness not yet reached.  The research proposed here—both the snowballed discourse analysis interviews and the focus group discourse analysis are designed to get around this problem of unripeness. Through research, participants are primed to take part in another stage of intervention, and key elements are identified through the research to anchor that intervention around. This cuts the time needed for the second intervention down and gives it a greater chance of sustainability.

            Let’s assume that through the research and focus group, we find that the counter-discourses to militarism and the dynamics/discourses around which conflict is likely to recur center around economics and religion. For the participants, there is a form of power located within these societal elements that will tend to sow the seeds of a new round of conflict, but could also counter the press of militarism.  Economics, for example, may be cited as an element that tends to make conflicts cyclical as the winners of this or the last round are able to control the flow of money, the pay of government employees, are able to rise higher within the society and thus able to dominate the others, to control the discourse of identity.  Religion is tied into the identity of the people overall, dictates elements of legal system, governmental thrust… a series of elements that in a discourse/power socially constructing reality equation where one party is fundamentalist and the other secular; in a varied society in which there are secular and religious Muslims alongside Christians and a few other minorities (Jewish, Druze), will have grave impact on life.  I’ve already talked about the deep permeation of political parties into more elements of daily life and identity than their analogues would in most places. 

We can see both structuration and relative deprivation within both of these two elements—a structuration view would say that the increased economic power of one group will enhance that group’s ability to alter and control the workings of the structure to their liking. As that group’s status, power, capabilities, etc. enhance, they do so at the cost of the other group’s, which previously held that ability.  The relative deprivation in an economic discussion is perhaps obvious—but economics should be understood in the broader social context rather than narrowly as “who has more money.”  Returning to identity, we can also see the relative deprivation when it comes to the identity and the quality (meant broadly) of life for both sides, should the other become dominant. Structuration here will show us again the ability of one group to alter or work freely within the systems and structures at hand.

We might also add into relative deprivation that a group may use itself as a reference group—compare its current or feared future status and capabilities to what it used to have before the conflict (as opposed to what the “Other” has now).  In either case, the result is the same. An exploration of relative deprivation at that level is a topic for another paper. 

Given the fundamentalist nature of one of the groups, it is unlikely that religion will be a suitable forum for further interaction at this stage. Economics, however, is of interest to both parties more or less equally.  Neither can survive without some economic flow, and both are more or less beholden to constituencies that require a livelihood. It is immediate in the sense that the presence or lack of a functioning economy will have direct effect on people’s lives, as opposed to the less easily defined and quantified presence of religion—a difference that will have a concrete effect on the power and sustainability of any effort at intervention. Work with economics also offers more opportunity to “expand the pie” than a discussion of religion does, and bridges the two sides with something that cross-cuts their ideological differences.  It also increases the capacity of any given individual to feel that they have agency within the structure, regardless the political situation. 

Fatah will be concerned that continued Hamas dominance in government will provoke continuation of the outside world’s embargo on economic aid to Palestine. There may be a lever here to use, to push Hamas towards a power-sharing arrangement in return for freeing access to economic aid. This need not overturn the results of the 2006 election, but could retain that part of the democratic process while still pushing for a moderate middle ground and retention of their broader role within society.  Actual work on this power-sharing is a further intervention than will be attempted here.  There is one major caveat to this plan, which I’ll address below.

Economics is where the pie can truly be expanded in this situation—there are severe limits to the depth of the Palestinian economy in and of itself at this point, but it can grow. Having completed the problem-solving workshops, the results can be taken to a higher level, particularly outside the Palestinians.  The next stage of my proposed intervention would be twofold; one prong would go to the outside governments, particularly the Israelis and the Americans (for the purposes of this paper, I will assume that I have inroads such that I or members of my team can approach the proper people within those governments). 

The purpose of this would only partially be to free up economic aid—such aid at too high a level tends to reduce the level of economy within beneficiary areas as people fairly rapidly come to rely on the it. Mainly, the purpose is to get those two governments to back away from interference with the Palestinian economy, to refrain from embargoes or curfews that might limit its activity. The American involvement is primarily to put weight on the Israelis to ensure that they comply with this to the greatest extent possible.

This gets me back to the caveat I mentioned above. Increased economic success within the context of a Hamas-dominated government may have the inadvertent effect of strengthening support for Hamas and making them less likely to accept a power-sharing agreement for the government. If they’re being successful as things are, why share? This first prong is the important one for that point—some muscle is needed along with a suitable carrot to entice Hamas towards the middle, and to entice Fatah to go along with it.  Freeing the economic aid and holding back on the embargoes and curfews would do well for this.

The second prong will be advocacy and training within the Palestinian economic camp. By this I mean business leaders, economists and investors. I will invite participants from the problem-solving workshops to be trained as trainers, and to work with one another in concert to build economic networks and connections within Gaza and the West Bank. Particularly if those ties can be created between the two, linking them back together after the rift that’s grown through this round of conflict.  This would increase the power of all within the existing structure, countering the militarist discourse by building social networks that all have something to do with, that do not bolster the political power of either group (necessarily) and through which all can benefit. 

The core Palestinians will understand, through their experience in the workshops, that what we’re looking for is to prevent another round of heightened violence, knowing what part of the pattern it is that they’re addressing and what its role might be in either heightening or quelling the next round. Having been trained as trainers, they will be seeded back into their communities with whatever forms of proxy communication they need to protect their own safety.
 

Conclusion…
 

I want to stress again that what I’m talking about here is not an end-state peace process.  There’s a good deal of difference between attempting to institute a mechanism that might hold off another round of conflict, and one that would actually solve the deeper and more complex problems that led to the conflict in the first place.  This is an important distinction. 

In order to ensure a positive peace between the two sides, and perhaps knit them into an integrative whole, the analysis, research and practice would need to be a good deal more complex than what I’m describing here.  It’s one thing to say “these are some elements that lead to conflict being recursive and some elements that can work to break that cycle” and quite another to truly transform a situation.  What I AM describing here is a temporary fix that might delay another round of violence long enough to get a full peace process going.  It should be recognized as such… neither economics nor religion, though both are core to the greater issue, are sufficient to accomplish that full knitting and transformation—though both are necessary. 
 

Summing up, I have stated structuration theory and relative deprivation as central factors that cause conflict to recur.  They are dynamics, rather than “items”—this is important, and places them closer to the heart of the issue at hand than more static dynamics such as enemy imaging or chosen traumas as a reason for recursion in conflict.  They act in concert with one another, each amplifying the effect of the other.  This is also important, as it is in dynamic interaction that the heart of conflict lies; and through dynamic interaction that the relevant systems are altered in such a way that a new round of conflict becomes likely.  My use of theory, the research, and the practice component of this paper are all designed to work on that intermediary solution rather than the end-state. 

Reviewer Comments:

 Dear Student #6,

Below are the comments made by the graders of your exam. I hope they are helpful. And again, congratulations!

Best, Agnieszka


First Reviewer
 (High) PASS


This is a well-written and sophisticated treatment of the recent conflict between Hamas and Fatah utilizing Giddens’ structuration theory as refined by Jabri’s use of discourse.  The student knows the case very well and it is presented, though briefly, with a great deal of complexity and nuance. The discussion of theory is self-assured, to the point where far from simply presenting Giddens and Jabri, the student engages in one or two constructive critiques that fit the theory to the facts of the case. Particularly impressive is the linkage of structuration to Relative Deprivation—something I haven’t seen done before.

This discussion can certainly be sharpened, but in the (time) context of a Comps essay it is more than adequate: it’s provocative.

The discussion of discourse analysis as the major research technique is presented with critical knowledge of its strengths and limitations.  



The section on practice highlights the problem solving workshop, but in such a way as to ingeniously link it back to research. (This makes it very close to Burton’s original—and oft-forgotten--conception of its use.) The PSW is presented fully—that is, as it would unfold in several days and with different goals, near and intermediate, in mind.

In sum, this is a superior essay:  a well-chosen case expertly presented, and linked to a sophisticated overall conception of theory and practice.





Second Reviewer: 
PASS



This is an insightful essay that demonstrates competence in theory, research, and practice. I particularly appreciate the essay’s questioning of the question in regard to the research and the practice components. 

This essay does not propose research that will definitively test “whether it is the outcomes of the previous conflict or some other variable that leads to a dynamic of repeated conflicts.” Instead, the essay questions the idea of identifying one “cause” of conflict, and proceeds to design research to identify discourses that may be useful in 
shaping a Problem Solving Workshop. Such practically relevant research is much-needed in our field.

I would question, however, the proposal to seek out only interviewees who have already spoken out for peace or those recommended by such individuals. This sampling process will no doubt lead to a skewed discourse, the discourse of the peace community rather than the sought after discourse enabling cyclical violence. I would also question the primary research question (p. 25) of ‘What are the dynamics within this conflict that WILL cause it to recur?” I would hope that we leave open the possibility that we do not know with full certainty that it will recur.

Finally, the discussion of the research plan would be much strengthened by explicit consideration of human subjects participation. For example, what sorts of informed consent will be sought from interviewees, and from PSW participants?

The essay also refuses to offer one intervention to fully “break the cycle of conflict.”  This refusal is based upon a useful distinction between dynamic interaction and end states, and a less developed reference to ripeness and hurting stalemates. The PSW proposed is justified by the theory and case dynamics discussed. I would note that 
it IS possible, however, contrary to the statement on page 28, for participants to “simply walk out” of a PSW at a remote location. It has, unfortunately happened. But the overall point of choosing a remote location is a useful one. 



The discussion of structuration theory and relative deprivation is thoughtful, and well-connected to the chosen conflict case study. However, later in the paper “ripeness” and “hurting stalemate” appear as additional theory embedded implicitly in the discussion of practice. (The conflict is not ripe for an end state settlement, thus that practice part of the question is avoided.) It would be very interesting to see the essay consider ripeness more explicitly in relation to structuration theory and relative deprivation. 

This essay was a pleasure to read!