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Richard Rubenstein

Richard Rubenstein
University Professor of Conflict Resolution and Public Affairs
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J.D., Harvard Law School, 1963
Litt.D. (honoris causa), University of Malta, 2016
M.A., Oxford University, 1961
Honours School of Jurisprudence (Rhodes Scholar)
B.A., Harvard College, 1959
Magna Cum Laude in History and Literature

Biography

Richard E. Rubenstein is University Professor of Conflict Resolution and Public Affairs at George Mason University, holding degrees from Harvard College, Oxford University (as a Rhodes Scholar), Harvard Law School, and the University of Malta. A former lawyer, political scientist, and director of S-CAR, he is the author of nine books about various types of violent social conflict and the possibilities of resolving them nonviolently. His most recent book is Resolving Structural Conflicts: Violent Systems and How They Can Be Transformed (Routledge, 2017). Rubenstein teaches grad and undergrad courses on conflict theory and speaks publicly on issues of peace and social justice. He blogs at www.rich-rubenstein.com.



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Awards and Honors
Faculty Member of the Year for 2017
Dr. Rubenstein has been named Faculty Member of the Year for 2017 by the George Mason University Alumni Association.
Honorary Degree- Doctor of Literature
On December 2, the University of Malta awarded Dr. Rubenstein the honorary degree of Doctor of Literature at a ceremony attended by the Rector of the University at a ceremony held at the Church of...
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Titlesort icon Semester
The purpose of the course is to develop our understanding of violent structural conflicts and the possible methods of...
Explores how people translate underlying grievances into collective action. Examines how groups organize, frame, and...
Explores role of religious ideas, practices, and organizations in conflict, war, peace making, and conflict...
Topics vary; they are announced each academic year.
Taken in last semester of master’s student course work. Assists in developing students’ own theories of conflict and conflict...
Examines major theories of conflict causation and motivation. Emphasizes need for theories to inform processes of conflict resolution. Weaves...
This foundation course is 6 credits and has two classes a week.Introduces field of conflict analysis and resolution. Examines definitions...
Capstone course in which students reflect on what they have learned, integrating knowledge from course work and...
Examines causes, sources, and origins of  group violence with particular attention to group violence of...
Terrorism is a significant factor in conflict worldwide, yet the underlying causes and conditions that give rise to terrorist activity are often...
Covers conflict at macro level, introducing theories of international and global violence and conflict, drawing from...
Covers conflict at mezzo level, introducing theories of social harmony and conflict, drawing on sociology, social...
Covers deeply rooted, intractable, or protracted social conflicts around core issues of identity, including race,...
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Title Published Date
January 27, 2017
This book analyses how certain types of social systems generate violent conflict and discusses how these systems can be transformed in order to create the conditions for positive peace.Resolving Structural Conflicts addresses a key issue in the field of conflict...
Category: Book
April 15, 2016
The notion of an Arab pursuit of Kantian freedom and linkage between Kant’s practical reason and Averroes’s tanwiri reason in the rationalization of politics, public sphere, morality, and religion can be better informed by deconstructing the Western...
Category: Book Chapter
May 08, 2012
Richard Rubenstein explores both the rhetoric that sells war to the public and the underlying cultural and social factors that make that sales pitch so effective. Through analysis of discourses that have led to wars, the author offers a new way to think about the...
Category: Book Chapter
March 26, 2012
In Chapter 2 “The role of civilians in American war ideology,” Richard Rubenstein examines the reasons why Americans go to war in the past two centuries. He shows how past American military campaigns have been shaped by normative beliefs regarding why...
Category: Book Chapter
September 28, 2010
What makes Americans fight? Why do the professed first citizen of the free world so often accept armed conflict as a political measure, and how do we justify those choices to ourselves? When is war the right decision?From the American Revolution to the end of...
Category: Book
June 25, 2009
Popular justifications for war in the USA have long been based on normative values embodied in America's civil religion, including a sacred right of self-defense. Over time, these justificatory rationales have been adapted and expanded to generate public...
Category: Journal Article
June 25, 2009
This special issue of Dynamics of Asymmetric Conflict (DAC) grew out of a conference convened in 2005 at the Institute for Conflict Analysis and Resolution (ICAR) of George Mason University to celebrate Professor Christopher Mitchell’s imminent elevation to...
Category: Journal Article
September 09, 2008
Category: Book Chapter
September 01, 2008
Category: Book Chapter
September 01, 2008
Category: Book Chapter
November 13, 2006
In ancient Judea, Jeremiah and Isaiah advised kings and priests and watched the great armies of the ancient Near East sweep across the desert, threatening and overtaking their tiny country with its burgeoning faith. Across centuries a new view emerged based on...
Category: Book
September 20, 2004
Europe was in the long slumber of the Middle Ages, the Roman Empire was in tatters, and the Greek language was all but forgotten, until a group of twelfth-century scholars rediscovered and translated the works of Aristotle. His ideas spread like wildfire across...
Category: Book
August 13, 2003
Category: Book Chapter
August 01, 2003
Category: Book Chapter
July 10, 2000
The story of Jesus is well known, as is the story of Christian persecutions during the Roman Empire. The history of fervent debate, civil strife, and bloody riots within the Christian community as it was coming into being, however, is a side of ancient history...
Category: Book
January 01, 1996
The two public lectures contained in this working paper were presented by Institute for Conflict Analysis and Resolution faculty member Richard E. Rubenstein at the University of Malta. "Conflict Resolution and Political Power" was presented in Valletta...
Category: Papers & Reports
September 22, 1994
Samuel Huntington's theory on how to craft a new paradigm capable of revealing the principal sources of conflict and collaboration in a rapidly changing international system is criticized. It is argued that destructive conflict between identity groups can be...
Category: Journal Article
June 01, 1994
Readers opening the New York Times on the morning of February 7, 1909, saw the headline: Police and Reds Both Hunt Azeff. "Where is Azeff?" the report began. "Who will get to him first? Who will be his executioner, the Russian police or the...
Category: Book
January 01, 1994
What is "the news" about? International conflicts and communal wars. Religious upheavals and racial disorders. Political debates and family disputes. Arrests, shootouts, strikes, layoffs, feuds, fistfights...and lawsuits (always lawsuits). From page one...
Category: Papers & Reports
April 01, 1993
Immediately following the invasion of Kuwait by Iraqi troops in August 1990, many scholars and practitioners in the field of conflict resolution went on record opposing military action by United States or United Nations forces to liberate Kuwait from Iraqi...
Category: Papers & Reports
September 01, 1989
"Group Violence in America: The Fire Next Time?" is the second working paper of the Center for Conflict Analysis and Resolution at George Mason University.Both writings will come as a surprise to those who think of conflict resolution as being...
Category: Papers & Reports
September 01, 1988
In a calm, level-headed analysis, Rubenstein offers a powerful rebuttal to many assumptions about terrorism. He maintains that terrorist acts are often the responses of frustrated people to American-sponsored oppression that is intended to protect U.S. imperial...
Category: Book
January 25, 1988
Category: Journal Article
February 01, 1973
Category: Book
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November 2010
In June of this year, the Obama administration teamed up with the conservative majority of the U.S. Supreme Court to
Category: Newsletter Article
November 09, 2010
 Richard Rubenstein, conflict resolution and public affairs professor at George Mason University, reports on why
Category: Television Appearances

October 24, 2010
"Endless War" is how The New York Times headlined its review of the Boston University historian Andrew J.
Category: Newspaper Article

September 01, 2010
After months of heated controversy, the debate over plans to build an Islamic cultural center two blocks from New York
Category: Magazine Article

August 27, 2010
#1 Refuse to Accept the Normality of WarAt the end of the nineteenth century, when the United States first became a
Category: Newspaper Article

 
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August 26, 2010
Video by Bloomsbury Press, publishers of Reasons to Kill, coming September 28, 2010.
Category: Television Appearances

July 22, 2010
In arguing that a bust of Joseph Stalin did not belong at the National D-Day Memorial in Bedford, Va., Michael Gerson
Category: Newspaper Article

June 07, 2010
When British Petroleum’s deepwater rig exploded in the Gulf of Mexico, causing an unprecedented oil eruption and
Category: Magazine Article

May 01, 2010
Q. In REASONS TO KILL, you study the arguments that pro-war advocates have made throughout American history as we
Category: Magazine Article

May, 2010
In Reasons to Kill, I study the arguments and images used by U.S. public officials and other pro- war advocates to
Category: Newsletter Article

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Title Event Datesort icon
Informal Conversation with Johan GaltungSponsored by the Working Group on Systemic Violence with Richard RubensteinMonday, November 25th4:30pm-6:30pmMetropolitan Building 5183
November 25, 2013
Dissertation Defense:The spirit and insights of the axial flowerings: A paradigm for conflict resolution? Monday, November 18, 201310:30am-12:30pmMetropolitan Building 5183The current convention of conflict resolution discipline is that it is a 20th century dispensation. My study argues that
November 18, 2013
Dissertation Defense- Shinae HongThe Struggle Against Neoliberal Governance: Anti-FTA Social Movement In Korea In The Context Of Neoliberal Economic ReformThursday, November 14th3:00pm-4:30pm Metropolitan Building 5145
November 14, 2013
Tuesday, October 1st2:00pm-4:00pmThe Metropolitan Building, 5th Floor Room: 51833434 N. Washington BlvdThis roundtable will explore how certain discourses consciously or unconsciously limit certain alternative conflict resolution options. This will be a discussion, so please bring your thoughts
October 01, 2013
Arlington Campus University Life's  Pizza and Perspectives SeriesPresents Guns in America: Policy and Politics FREE Pizza! 
September 11, 2013
The relatively recent plague of political incivility and deadlock in America has been attributed to many factors, ranging from the ill temper of certain politicians to the extremism of certain political and religious groups. But conflict analysts and resolvers think that the problem runs deeper and
March 05, 2013
ELEVATE OUR NATION Why has the presdiential contest of 2012 proven so disappointing?  What prevents the candidates and their parties from discussing so many vital issues?  Why is the level of political rhetoric so mean-spirited?  For discussion of these and other questions of
November 02, 2012
This dissertation addresses the complexity of the Cyprus challenge and the missing peacebuilding function in the attempts to resolve the Cyprus conflict.
October 31, 2012
This proposal attempts to establish the framework for a dissertation project that will examine the relationship between political institutions, the elites that comprise their leadership and the actions carried out through the institution's auspices. My aim is to investigate the extent to which
September 12, 2012
Little is known about the dynamics of environmental stress as it moves through social-ecological systems. What causes it to accelerate or diminish as it travels through space and time, or across hierarchical levels of the systems it disrupts? Do structural properties in these systems play a role?
April 26, 2012
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Presentation to SALT advocates and Virginia legislators (RICHMOND ROUNG-UP FORUM) Dr. Richard Rubenstein of George Mason University on 03.22.2014 in Vienna, Virginia 
March 22, 2014
Some of the conflicts most difficult to resolve are those generated by failing or dysfunctional social and political systems. How can the systems that generate structural violence, crime, ethnic struggles, and war be changed to eliminate endemic violence? This brown bag discussion will function
April 09, 2013
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