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Resolving Structural Conflicts
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 what to do about violent conflicts that are not the results of misunderstanding, prejudice, or malice, but the products of a social system that generates violent conflict as part of its normal operations. This question poses enormous challenges to those interested in conflict resolution, since the solution to this problem involves restructuring social, political, and cultural systems rather than just calling in a mediator to help people arrive at an agreement. This study breaks new ground in showing how local conflicts involving crime, police, and prisons; transnational conflicts involving religious terrorism by groups like ISIS; and international conflicts involving Great Power clashes are all produced in large part by elite-driven, exploitative or oppressive social structures. It also presents new ideas about the implications of this ‘structural turn’ for the practice of conflict resolution, emphasizing the need for conflict resolvers to embrace a new politics and to broaden their methods far beyond traditional forms of facilitation. Written by a leading scholar, this book will be of much interest to students of conflict resolution, peace studies, war and conflict studies, sociology, political science and international relations in general.
- GenresNonfiction
170 pages, Paperback
First published December 8, 2016
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
December 14, 2017
The crux of this book is that many conflicts cannot truly and sustainably be solved unless we take the role of structures, of systems, into account. Neither moralizing about corrupt individuals and “evil” groups nor reducing analyses conflict solely to economic interest or ideological imperative alone is sufficient.
Rather, we must restructure systems which generate conflict by depriving people of the ability to meet their needs to ones that satisfy the needs of all parties. This goes for the resurgence of religious conflicts to the generation of violence and crime by poverty.
The challenge, as the author states it, is: “how can we achieve radical change nonviolently?”
Such conflicts are solved only when everyone’s needs are satisfied. We need alternative systems and people are calling for this more and more.
The rest of the book explores this in detail through various cases historically and around the world to make the idea crystal clear. Some excerpts to get an idea of the book
When describing the overthrow of secular leaders in areas such as the middle east, and how this disillusionment led to the rise of fundamentalist leaders promising change, he captures the dynamics succinctly. “Some have called this sort of eventuality ‘blowback’ –the unanticipated consequences of covert warfare. But it is much more than that. I would argue that it is the inevitable result of the imperialist project, which cannot help deny9ing subject peoples their autonomy, dignity, and identity.”
“An interesting but difficult problem produced by this fact is that residents of ‘exporting’ nations – those sending their systems of production and values abroad – have little consciousness of the revolutionary impact of incorporating ‘importing’ societies into the system. Movements of resistance therefore come to them as a great surprise, and they are tempted to attribute them to religious fanaticism, power-lust, or some other evil or deviant personal motivation, rather than seeing them as directly related to a system that has come to seem entirely “natural.”
“Conflict resolution is not power-based negotiation. Its aim is not compromise but social and political change.”
“From a conflict studies perspective, it seems clear that efforts to make peace between political partisans by attempting to convince them to be more civil and cooperative are almost certain to fail, precisely because they do not expose the systemic sources of the partisanship/”
“The work of peaceful system transformation must involve public education on a large scale. Strenuous new efforts are required to help our fellow humans worldwide, at a time of increasing insecurity and frustration, to move beyond partisan moralism to a new appreciation for their own responsibility and the system’s responsibility for avoidable violence.”
Rather, we must restructure systems which generate conflict by depriving people of the ability to meet their needs to ones that satisfy the needs of all parties. This goes for the resurgence of religious conflicts to the generation of violence and crime by poverty.
The challenge, as the author states it, is: “how can we achieve radical change nonviolently?”
Such conflicts are solved only when everyone’s needs are satisfied. We need alternative systems and people are calling for this more and more.
The rest of the book explores this in detail through various cases historically and around the world to make the idea crystal clear. Some excerpts to get an idea of the book
When describing the overthrow of secular leaders in areas such as the middle east, and how this disillusionment led to the rise of fundamentalist leaders promising change, he captures the dynamics succinctly. “Some have called this sort of eventuality ‘blowback’ –the unanticipated consequences of covert warfare. But it is much more than that. I would argue that it is the inevitable result of the imperialist project, which cannot help deny9ing subject peoples their autonomy, dignity, and identity.”
“An interesting but difficult problem produced by this fact is that residents of ‘exporting’ nations – those sending their systems of production and values abroad – have little consciousness of the revolutionary impact of incorporating ‘importing’ societies into the system. Movements of resistance therefore come to them as a great surprise, and they are tempted to attribute them to religious fanaticism, power-lust, or some other evil or deviant personal motivation, rather than seeing them as directly related to a system that has come to seem entirely “natural.”
“Conflict resolution is not power-based negotiation. Its aim is not compromise but social and political change.”
“From a conflict studies perspective, it seems clear that efforts to make peace between political partisans by attempting to convince them to be more civil and cooperative are almost certain to fail, precisely because they do not expose the systemic sources of the partisanship/”
“The work of peaceful system transformation must involve public education on a large scale. Strenuous new efforts are required to help our fellow humans worldwide, at a time of increasing insecurity and frustration, to move beyond partisan moralism to a new appreciation for their own responsibility and the system’s responsibility for avoidable violence.”
March 6, 2021
I don’t think it’s a book to love, but instead a book to gain insight. For someone who’s an expert in this area, I hoped for more on the transformation side from Rubenstein. For those beginning to explore systems transformation this is a great read.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews