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From Interests to Identities: Towards a New Emphasis in Interactive Conflict Resolution

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Abstract

This article explores the methods by which practitioners have traditionally approached international conflicts. Approaches focusing on the resources or the interests of the parties can be appropriate methods of resolution in conflicts where resources and interests are the only issues at stake. However, conflicts raging today often contain issues of identity. These identity-based, ethnopolitical conflicts are often resistant to traditional resource- and interest-based resolution methods. This article suggests a different approach, one that emphasizes needs, and in particular identities, of conflicting parties. We suggest that such a focus is essential in working towards resolution in many of the deeply rooted conflicts in today's world. We explore the ARIA model of conflict engagement as a mechanism for a systematic approach to interactive conflict resolution that specifically deals with the complex issues of identity. We also offer a preliminary evaluation of interactive conflict resolution as a general approach in varied international conflict situations. The question of interactive conflict resolution effectiveness is explored using Licklider's data for civil war termination and Bercovitch's data for international conflict mediation.
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Thesis
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This thesis proposes that Johan Galtung's theory of positive and negative peace will gain relevance and applicability in contexts of non-armed societal conflicts like the Trump-era culture wars when the theory is adapted to take into account not only dynamics such as violence, but also felt threat. In this project, I reviewed the academic literature on culture war and sociopolitical polarization in the United States, as well as the literature on Galtung's theory. I then adapted positive and negative peace theory to take into account conflict dynamics rising from felt threat, which I argue makes Galtung's theory more applicable to conflicts where violence is invisible, contested or difficult to ascertain. I tested this version of Galtung's theory through 20 exploratory, qualitative interviews with American liberal and conservative partisans. These interviews resulted in a typology of various a) visions of positive and negative peace in the Trump-era culture wars, b) strategies partisans use to achieve them and c) preferences for specific types of peace. These results are discussed regarding their relevance to the field and their contribution to the academic literature.
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