Joan Orgon Coolidge - Toward a Just Peace: James H. Laue's Theory of Applied Practice

This dissertation explores James H. Laue’s approach to conflict resolution by examining his applied theory of third-party intervention. A scholar/practitioner of both theory and practice from the early 1960s to the early 1990s, Laue’s contributions to building the field of conflict analysis and resolution are substantial. As a first-generation third-party intervenor his broad vision for just peacemaking advanced the development of conflict resolution institutions such as the National Conference on Peacemaking and Conflict Resolution and the United States Institute for Peace.

Laue also advanced the academic discipline of conflict resolution by integrating theory building and practice. Of particular note are his intellectual ideas regarding crisis intervention, third-party roles, intervention as advocacy, the perfect mediator, getting-to-the table, pre-negotiation stakeholder preparation, and applied ethics. The research also investigates Laue’s legacy in his students who have carried his vision and have advanced his applied theory as third-party intervenors, domestically and abroad, to deep-rooted and complex, multi-party conflicts.

This study reflects the first systematic inquiry into the basis and nature of Laue’s contributions to the field which required both archival research and in-depth interviewing of Laue’s colleagues and students. It also necessitated reconstructing a thirty-year narrative of Laue’s academic and professional development, a byproduct of which is the larger narrative of the birth of the field of conflict resolution. The narrative traces Laue’s involvement in the civil rights nonviolent direct action movement in the early 1960-70s which included close contact with Martin Luther King, Jr. and other Movement leaders, and his racial conflict intervention work at the Department of Justice’s Community Relations Service. The narrative then chronicles the next twenty years in which Laue taught at numerous Universities -- Hollins College, Harvard Medical School, Washington University, the University of Missouri at St. Louis, and George Mason University -- while developing the practice of third-party intervention in complex community conflicts, particularly through his work with the Conflict Clinic, Inc.

This dissertation was written by a scholar/practitioner for conflict specialists who have benefitted from the talented, sacrificial visionaries who have gone before them, and who desire to continue the creative labor of building and improving applied theory so as to exact positive social change.

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