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Reflections on Syria: Developing A Cadre of Citizen DiplomatsWith an entourage of twenty graduate students I walked down the cold cobble-stone streets of the Old City Damascus in mid-January of 2010, still amazed by the reality of the situation. For many years I have traveled alone into this world, in between enemies, in between Syria, the United States, and Israel, crossing borders quietly, with great trepidation and enormous inexperience. The practice of citizen diplomacy in Syria has been one of a carefully choreographed dance with politicians, wonderful peace partners, and religious figures where every word determined the health or destruction of both social and political relationships. I have engaged in this work solely with my Syrian counterpart, Hind Kabawat, and we both did this unsupported, unfunded,... |
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Pursuing a Practice of Peacebuilding A Conversation With ICAR Alumna, Cynthia Irmer With the school year quickly coming to a close, an atmosphere of uncertainty is pervasive as another cohort prepares to graduate. Reflecting on the experiences and knowledge gained, how does one negotiate these in such a way as to confidently move forward into what can sometimes seem an ambiguous future? Where do I go? What do I do? What CAN I do? Fortunately, ICAR has an extensive network of successful alumni such as Cynthia Irmer to turn to for practical advice on such matters. |
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"The Parents of the Field": Archiving Project to be Featured on ICAR's Website The field of Conflict Analysis and Resolution is a relative newcomer to academia, with its roots reaching back to the era immediately after the Second World War and the onset of the “Cold War.” While many of the leading figures of that pioneering era are still contributing to the ever-expanding body of work in a fledgling field, several others are “getting on in years.” All have important narratives to share about those early days, when it was a struggle just to get a course on “Post-Conflict Peace-building” or “Second Track Intervention” into curricula that were typically dominated by balance of power theories or thinking about “the unthinkable” (aka nuclear war). |
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CRDC Hosts Dr. Louis Kriesberg "Obama, Conflict, and Mediating the Israeli/Palestinian Conflict" Introduced by host Dr. Marc Gopin, Director of ICAR’s Center for World Religions, Diplomacy and Conflict Resolution, as one of the founding fathers of the field of conflict resolution, Dr. Louis Kriesberg spoke about the Obama Administration's policies on the Middle East and efforts at mediation during a visit to ICAR on Friday, March 5th. |
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Conflict Resolution, One Book at a Time
A basic fact of conflict is that people’s perceptions of each other matter. Viewing someone as subhuman or demonic, for example, reduces people’s inhibitions towards using violence against them. Likewise, negative images of the other escalate conflict through engendering fear, misunderstandings, blame and zero-sum thinking. Research conducted by psychologist Albert Bandura has demonstrated that individuals inflict much harsher punishments on people whom they view negatively, as opposed to people whom they perceive in neutral or sympathetic terms. Importantly, his experiment also showed that subjects invested with positive qualities were least likely to be harmed. Because how we imagine others is consequential, it is essential for conflict resolution practitioners to find creative ways to mitigate the destructive influence of negative... |
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In Memoriam: J. David Singer "Parent of the Field" 1925-2009 The field of conflict and peace studies lost another pioneering and path breaking founder when Emeritus Professor David Singer died just after Christmas as a result of a car accident last September. |