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Phased Self-Determination: A Way Out for Kosovo? While the world’s sole surviving superpower remains fixed on global terrorism, civilizational clashes, and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, another complex challenge is playing itself out in the Balkans, but passing largely unnoticed. This is the question of the final status of the Serbian province of Kosovo, with its predominant Muslim Albanian population — the last remaining problem from the genocidal dissolution of former Yugoslavia during the 1990s. The lines have been drawn between the Kosovar Albanian position of (a) full independence versus Kosovar Serbs’/ Belgrade’s position of (b) “substantial autonomy.” Former Finnish president Martti Ahtisaari, the Special Representative of the UN... |
ICAR Receives $102,000 GiftMr. Thomas J. Scott II, a longtime friend of ICAR and the founder of the Center for Policy Negotiation in Boston, has left a $102,000 bequest to ICAR to benefit the John W. Burton Endowment Fund. The interest from the Burton endowment is used to provide student support, faculty intervention assistance, publications and outreach support, and to fund elements of ICAR’s operational needs. Mr. Scott passed away on March 20, 2007. Mr. Scott was born in 1920 in Providence, R.I., served in the Navy during World War II, and graduated from Harvard University in 1946. He had a long and distinguished career in the fields of energy policy and negotiations. In 1971, he served as the president and CEO of Buckley & Scott, a heating oil distribution company in Needham, Mass. During the 10 years he spent with the company, he served as the president of the Center for Energy Policy in... |
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Graduate Students Win Dissertation Proposal FellowshipSelected from a highly competitive national pool of applicants, two Mason students were awarded Dissertation Proposal Development Fellowships by the Social Science Research Council, allowing them to focus on and develop their dissertation proposals this summer. The students will receive up to $5,000 as a stipend for pre-dissertation research. Sandra Ruckstuhl, a PhD student in Mason’s Conflict Analysis and Resolution Program, is using the grant money to develop a case study focused on conflict and cooperation in water management in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Specifically, she will be looking at political economies and political ecologies of institutions. She expects to work with the staff of nongovernmental agencies, donor agencies,... |
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Panel Examines U.S.-Iran Relations ICAR Hosts Policymakers in Discussion at National Press Club The First Amendment Lounge at the National Press Club was filled to capacity on Monday when members from the international and national media, Mason students and faculty and the general public listened to a panel discussion on averting armed conflict between the United States and Iran. The event was hosted by Mason’s Institute for Conflict Analysis and Resolution (ICAR) and moderated by ICAR professor Richard Rubenstein. Opening the discussion, Rubenstein pointed out that the tense relationship Iran has with the United States began in 1953, when Iranians looked to America as a friend sent to distance them from Russian and English exploitation. “When the U.S. ended up acting much like its former exploiters, the... |
Upcoming ICAR Community EventsFor more info on events, email: jlock1@gmu September 15: September 15-16: October 14-17: October 22: October 27: November 8: |
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Congressman Moran Urges ICAR Graduates to Engage, Not Stand Idle On May 19, 2007, delivering the commencement address for the Institute for Conflict Analysis and Resolution (ICAR), U.S. Representative James Moran (D-VA) implored graduates to engage in a range of domestic and foreign policy conflicts rather than sit idle on the sidelines. Presenting for a packed Harris Theatre on George Mason University’s Fairfax campus, Moran began by first heralding ICAR as “an academic program whose unique focus on peace through understanding and reconciliation may be the most important academic curriculum in the country,” then lauding the graduates as “far better than virtually anyone to make a profound difference in the direction of world affairs.” Outlining some of the United... |
Online AnalysisThe ICAR News Network, developed by ICAR staff Michael Shank and Paul Snodgrass, is a new online forum featuring current analysis by conflict specialists at ICAR. The forum addresses some the world’s most salient and intractable conflicts and provides critical next steps for constructive engagement. Hosted on the ICAR website, the ICAR News Network posts short analytical pieces, guided by the theories and principles of the field of Conflict Resolution and written by ICAR faculty, alumni and students. The ICAR News Network provides a resource for Washington policymakers and think-tanks, business leaders, NGO and UN representatives, news agencies and others interested in quality, substantive analysis of current global and domestic conflicts. Submissions reflect only the author’s viewpoint and are reviewed by ICAR staff to ensure highest quality. Forum topics include local,... |
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ICAR BookstandIn the Moment of Greatest Calamity: Terrorism, Grief, and a Victim’s Quest for Justice Identity, Morality, and Threat: Studies in Violent Conflict Thus Saith The Lord: The Revolutionary Moral Vision of Isaiah and Jeremiah Peace and Security in the Postmodern World Zones of Peace |
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New Working PapersManaging Protracted and Deep Rooted Conflicts in the U.S. Senate By Richard A. Cocozza, ICAR Ph.D. Student Consensus Among Stakeholders: A Call for Change in Virginia’s Involuntary Civil Admissions Process By Sandra Cheldelin, ICAR Professor, Monica S. Jakobsen, ICAR Ph.D. Student, and Deanna S. Yuille, ICAR Masters Student |
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Recent ICAR Op-Eds and Letters to the EditorA New Opening for Mideast Peace Middle East Muddling How to Challenge Iran’s Militancy Without Using Arms In Pursuit of Turnround on a US Policy Catastrophe |
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New Books The Practice of Human Rights: Tracking Law between the Global and the Local Cambridge University Press Edited by Mark Goodale, ICAR Professor, and Sally Engle Merry Book Description |
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Lisa Shaw ICAR is proud to announce that the undergraduate Conflict Analysis and Resolution Program (CAR) advisor, Lisa Shaw, received the George Mason University 2006-2007 Advisor of the Year Award. Lisa, a 2007 Masters graduate from ICAR, is now the Student Services coordinator for the undergraduate program. Her region of interest throughout her graduate studies has been Latin America with particular emphasis on the Chiapas conflict in Mexico, immigration from Central America, and the impact of immigration on non-traditional receiving communities in the United States. Her thesis is entitled Beyond the Border: Public Policy and Irregular Migrants in Northern Virginia Municipalities. “I feel the study is significant because non-traditional... |
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Khadija O. Ali Khadija O. Ali, a doctoral student at the Institute for Conflict Analysis and Resolution, is being spotlighted this month for her tireless efforts to bring peace and stability to Somalia. Ali, a former member of the Somali Transitional National Parliament and a Minister of State at the Transitional National Government from 2000 to 2002, recently briefed the U.S. House of Representatives Foreign Affairs Committee on the conflict in the Horn of Africa. Organized by the African subcommittee, Ali discussed critical next steps for the United States in dealing with Somalia’s Transitional Federal Government, Ethiopia’s troop presence, African Union peacekeeping forces, the national reconciliation conference and the moderate Islamic... |
ICAR Faculty Awarded University DistinctionAuthor of “Thus Saith the Lord”, “Aristotle’s Children”, “When Jesus Became God”, and other books and articles, and professor at George Mason University’s Institute for Conflict Analysis and Resolution (ICAR), Richard E. Rubenstein can now add the title of University Professor to his already impressive resume. To be nominated for this distinction among full-tenured faculty at Mason, faculty members must have an international scholarly reputation, a strong record of research, and a recognizable influence on their individual fields. This year, the university’s Board of Visitors named 18 new University Professors, one of whom was Rubenstein. When asked about the award, Rubenstein said “It’s always nice to be recognized by one’s university, but this has a special meaning to me, since it is also a way of... |
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Celebrating 25 Years of Pioneering Theory, Research, and Practice at ICARFor 25 years, our faculty, students and alumni have addressed deep rooted conflicts wherever they occur — in metropolitan Washington D.C., across the United States, and on the international stage. We have been leaders in the field since our founding: ICAR was one of the first groundbreaking “Theory Centers” funded by the Hewlett Foundation. We created the world’s first Master of Science and doctorate in conflict resolution, and we recently expanded our programs to serve undergraduate students and mid-career professionals. |