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Between the Sword and the Wall
The Santos Peace Negotiations with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia
Harvey F. Kline
University of Alabama Press, 2020
Chronicles the peace process negotiations between Colombian president Juan Manuel Santos and the Marxist Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia

In Between the Sword and the Wall: The Santos Peace Negotiations with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, Harvey Kline, a noted expert on contemporary Colombian politics, brings to a close his multivolume chronicle of the incessant violence that has devastated Colombia’s population, politics, and military for decades. This, his newest work on the subject, recounts and analyzes the negotiations between Colombian president Juan Manuel Santos and the Marxist Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), which ended with a peace agreement in 2016.
 
The FARC insurgency began in 1964, and every Colombian president after 1980 unsuccessfully tried to negotiate a peace agreement with the group. Kline analyzes how the Santos administration was ultimately able to negotiate peace with the FARC. The agreement failed to receive the approval of the Colombian people in an October 2016 plebiscite, but a renegotiated version was later approved by the congress in the same year. Afterward, more than 7,000 rebels turned over their weapons to the UN mission in Colombia. The former combatants were then to be judged by a special court empowered to punish but not imprison those who had violated human rights. Throughout the book, Kline emphasizes the dual nature of the Santos negotiations, first with the FARC and second with the democratic opposition to the agreement led by former president Álvaro Uribe Vélez.
 
Kline provides readers with a well-researched analysis based on a variety of resources, including media articles and primary documents from the government, international organizations, and the FARC. He also conducted extensive interviews with twenty-eight government officials and Colombian experts from all ideological persuasions.
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Beyond Machiavelli
Tools for Coping with Conflict
Roger Fisher, Elizabeth Kopelman, and Andrea Kupfer Schneider
Harvard University Press, 1994

Conflict is a growth industry, as a glance at the daily paper or the nightly news tells us. Trade wars, global warming, ethnic strife, refugee crises--as the world draws closer together on a thousand fronts, trouble erupts, clashes occur, and new problems arise. What's wrong, and what can be done about it? This cogent book offers a clear approach for dealing with conflicting interests of any kind.

Roger Fisher, the world-renowned master of negotiation, with two of his leading colleagues--Elizabeth Kopelman and Andrea Kupfer Schneider--provides a step-by-step process for dealing with the persistent and complex disputes that mark our changing, often dangerous world. Instead of simply asking why things work--or don't--the authors ask: how can we affect the way things work? They break conflicts into manageable components and advance a process for problemsolving. Arguing that we need to move beyond oneshot "solutions" toward a constructive way of dealing with differences, they lay out tools for conflict analysis and practical applications for those tools in the international arena.

The authors also show that tactics which successfully influence an adversary are equally applicable to the task of persuading an employer, a community official, or a business associate. Originally drafted as a handbook for the diplomats and senior officials advised by Fisher and his colleagues, this succinct, lucid, and effective book is the primer about the new paradigm in conflict management.

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Chances for Peace
Missed Opportunities in the Arab-Israeli Conflict
By Elie Podeh
University of Texas Press, 2015

Drawing on a newly developed theoretical definition of “missed opportunity,” Chances for Peace uses extensive sources in English, Hebrew, and Arabic to systematically measure the potentiality levels of opportunity across some ninety years of attempted negotiations in the Arab-Israeli conflict. With enlightening revelations that defy conventional wisdom, this study provides a balanced account of the most significant attempts to forge peace, initiated by the world’s superpowers, the Arabs (including the Palestinians), and Israel. From Arab-Zionist negotiations at the end of World War I to the subsequent partition, the aftermath of the 1967 War and the Sadat Initiative, and numerous agreements throughout the 1980s and 1990s, concluding with the Annapolis Conference in 2007 and the Abu Mazen-Olmert talks in 2008, pioneering scholar Elie Podeh uses empirical criteria and diverse secondary sources to assess the protagonists’ roles at more than two dozen key junctures.

A resource that brings together historiography, political science, and the practice of peace negotiation, Podeh’s insightful exploration also showcases opportunities that were not missed. Three agreements in particular (Israeli-Egyptian, 1979; Israeli-Lebanese, 1983; and Israeli-Jordanian, 1994) illuminate important variables for forging new paths to successful negotiation. By applying his framework to a broad range of power brokers and time periods, Podeh also sheds light on numerous incidents that contradict official narratives. This unique approach is poised to reshape the realm of conflict resolution.

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Civil Wars, Civil Peace
An Introduction to Conflict Resolution
Kumar Rupesinghe and Sanam Naraghi Anderlini
Pluto Press, 1998

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The College Administrator’s Survival Guide
C. K. Gunsalus
Harvard University Press, 2006

Late one afternoon, as you are organizing your new office as department chair, one of the senior members of the department drops by. He affably informs you of his plans for the coming semester: that contrary to the published class schedule, he only teaches on Tuesday afternoon, Wednesday, and Thursday morning, so as to have the weekends free for travel; that he expects the office staff to start his coffeemaker by 10 a.m. sharp on his teaching days; and that since he hasn’t been assigned a research assistant, his teaching assistant will do research tasks, including errands. What do you say? What do you do?

Never mind budgets or curriculum reform: staff problems can be the most thorny of any academic administrator’s job. Every day, professors who have never run anything bigger than a seminar find themselves in charge of a complex and volatile organization called a Department of English (or Biology, or Sociology, or Textile Marketing). What should they do?

In this book, a widely respected advisor on academic administration and ethics offers tips, insights, and tools on handling complaints, negotiating disagreements, responding to accusations of misconduct, and dealing with difficult personalities. With humor and generosity, C. K. Gunsalus applies scenarios based on real-life cases, examples from negotiation, law, and child-rearing to guide novice (and experienced) academic administrators through the dilemmas of management in not-entirely-manageable environments.

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The College Administrator’s Survival Guide
Revised Edition
C.K. Gunsalus
Harvard University Press, 2021

The book that every dean and department chair needs to survive—and thrive—in the twenty-first-century university.

First released in 2006, The College Administrator’s Survival Guide has served as the bible for a generation of provosts, deans, department chairs, and program directors. Shrewd administrators have returned to the guide time and again for C. K. Gunsalus’s advice on handling complaints, negotiating disagreements, and dealing with difficult personalities. Now, in this revised and updated edition, Gunsalus guides rookie administrators and seasoned veterans through today’s most pressing higher-education challenges.

These days academic leaders must respond to heightened demands for transparency and openness. These demands are intensified by social media, which increases the visibility of university conflicts and can foster widespread misinformation about campus affairs. Meanwhile, institutions have become flatter, with administrators expected to work more closely with faculty, students, and a range of professionals even as support staffs shrink. Between the ever-replenishing inbox, the integration of often-exasperating management systems into every dimension of academic life, and the new demands of remote learning, deans and department heads are juggling more balls than ever before. Tightening budgets have already forced administrators into more difficult choices and, in the wake of COVID-19, there will be no relief from financial constraints.

From #MeToo to partisan battles over curricula and funding, college and university leaders need more savvy and greater sensitivity than ever. What hasn’t changed are the challenges of dealing with difficult people and the importance of creating and maintaining environments in which faculty, staff, and students have the support they need to do their best work. The College Administrator’s Survival Guide provides the tools to keep cool and get the job done.

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Common Ground on Hostile Turf
Stories from an Environmental Mediator
Lucy Moore
Island Press, 2013
In our increasingly polarized society, there are constant calls for compromise, for coming together. For many, these are empty talking points—for Lucy Moore, they are a life's work. As an environmental mediator, she has spent the past quarter century resolving conflicts that appeared utterly intractable. Here, she shares the most compelling stories of her career, offering insight and inspiration to anyone caught in a seemingly hopeless dispute.

Moore has worked on wide-ranging issues—from radioactive waste storage to loss of traditional grazing lands. More importantly, she has worked with diverse groups and individuals: ranchers, environmental activists, government agencies, corporations, tribal groups, and many more. After decades spent at the negotiating table, she has learned that a case does not turn on facts, legal merit, or moral superiority. It turns on people.

Through ten memorable stories, she shows how issues of culture, personality, history, and power affect negotiations. And she illustrates that equitable solutions depend on a healthy group dynamic. Both the mediator and opposing parties must be honest, vulnerable, open, and respectful. Easier said than done, but Moore proves that subtle shifts can break the logjam and reconcile even the most fiercely warring factions.

This book should be especially appealing to anyone concerned with environmental conflicts; and also to students in environmental studies, political science, and conflict resolution, and to academics and professionals in mediation and conflict resolution fields.
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Conflict in Organizational Groups
New Directions in Theory and Practice
Leigh Thompson
Northwestern University Press, 2007

The chapters in this book were presented at a conference held at the Kellogg School of Management in June 2005 entitled Conflict in Organizational Groups: New Directions in Theory and Practice. The Kellogg Team and Group Research Center (KTAG) and the Kellogg School of Management cosponsored the conference. The goal of the conference was to bring together both junior and senior scholars from a variety of disciplines to discuss their newest ideas and current trends in group conflict research. The chapters in this book represent perspectives from the fields of business, political science, sociology, and psychology.

The idea to organize a conference about conflict in organizational groups arose from three interrelated and exciting opportunities for theory and practice--both the academic and business press have focused growing attention on the management challenges of organizational groups; the academic community has begun to integrate various disciplinary perspectives, as evidenced by a growing number of cross-disciplinary coauthorships and thematic conferences; and several statistical and methodological advances have allowed scholars to better model variables across levels of analysis.

Taken together, these three reasons inspired the assembling of the interdisciplinary mix of seasoned and newly minted authors who in this volume tackle important and complex questions about group conflict. Their chapters represent cutting-edge advances in theory, methodology, and challenges to dominant perspectives.

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Conflict Management for Libraries
Strategies for a Positive, Productive Workplace
American Library Association
American Library Association, 2005

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Conflict Resolution in the Twenty-first Century
Principles, Methods, and Approaches
Jacob Bercovitch and Richard Jackson
University of Michigan Press, 2009
In the past, arbitration, direct bargaining, the use of intermediaries, and deference to international institutions were relatively successful tools for managing interstate conflict. In the face of terrorism, intrastate wars, and the multitude of other threats in the post–Cold War era, however, the conflict resolution tool kit must include preventive diplomacy, humanitarian intervention, regional task-sharing, and truth commissions. Here, Jacob Bercovitch and Richard Jackson, two internationally recognized experts, systematically examine each one of these conflict resolution tools and describe how it works and in what conflict situations it is most likely to be effective.

Conflict Resolution in the Twenty-first Century is not only an essential introduction for students and scholars, it is a must-have guide for the men and women entrusted with creating stability and security in our changing world.

Cover illustration © iStockphoto.com

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Conflict Zone, Comfort Zone
Ethics, Pedagogy, and Effecting Change in Field-Based Courses
Agnieszka Paczynska
Ohio University Press, 2019

By taking students out of their comfort zone, field-based courses—which are increasingly popular in secondary and postsecondary education—have the potential to be deep, transformative learning experiences. But what happens when the field in question is a site of active or recent conflict? In Conflict Zone, Comfort Zone, editors Agnieszka Paczyńska and Susan F. Hirsch highlight new approaches to field-based learning in conflict zones worldwide. As the contributors demonstrate, instructors must leave the comfort zone of traditional pedagogy to meet the challenges of field-based education.

Drawing on case studies in the United States and abroad, the contributors address the ethical considerations of learning in conflict zones, evaluate the effectiveness of various approaches to teaching these courses, and provide guidelines for effecting change. They also explore how the challenges of field-based classes are magnified in conflict and postconflict settings, and outline the dilemmas faced by those seeking to resolve those challenges. Finally, filling a crucial gap in existing literature, the contributors identify best practices that will assist aspiring instructors in developing successful field-based courses in conflict zones.

Contributors: Daniel R. Brunstetter, Alison Castel, Gina M. Cerasani, Alexander Cromwell, Maryam Z. Deloffre, Sandi DiMola, Leslie Dwyer, Eric Hartman, Pushpa Iyer, Allyson M. Lowe, Patricia A. Maulden, rj nickels, Anthony C. Ogden, Jennifer M. Ramos, Lisa E. Shaw, Daniel Wehrenfennig

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Contested Lands
Israel-Palestine, Kashmir, Bosnia, Cyprus, and Sri Lanka
Sumantra Bose
Harvard University Press, 2012

The search for durable peace in lands torn by ethno-national conflict is among the most urgent issues of international politics. Looking closely at five flashpoints of regional crisis, Sumantra Bose asks the question upon which our global future may depend: how can peace be made, and kept, between warring groups with seemingly incompatible claims? Global in scope and implications but local in focus and method, Contested Lands critically examines the recent or current peace processes in Israel-Palestine, Kashmir, Bosnia, Cyprus, and Sri Lanka for an answer.

Israelis and Palestinians, Turkish and Greek Cypriots, Bosnia's Muslims, Serbs, and Croats, Sinhalese and Tamil Sri Lankans, and pro-independence, pro-Pakistan, and pro-India Kashmiris share homelands scarred by clashing aspirations and war. Bose explains why these lands became zones of zero-sum conflict and boldly tackles the question of how durable peace can be achieved. The cases yield important general insights about the benefits of territorial self-rule, cross-border linkages, regional cooperation, and third-party involvement, and the risks of a deliberately gradual ("incremental") strategy of peace-building.

Rich in narrative and incisive in analysis, this book takes us deep into the heartlands of conflict--Jerusalem, Kashmir's Line of Control, the divided cities of Mostar in Bosnia and Nicosia in Cyprus, Sri Lanka's Jaffna peninsula. Contested Lands illuminates how chronic confrontation can yield to compromise and coexistence in the world's most troubled regions--and what the United States can do to help.

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Cultivating Civility
Practical Ways to Improve a Dysfunctional Library
Jo Henry
American Library Association, 2020

Like other workplaces, libraries can sometimes be stressful, with library workers bearing the brunt of such problems as uncivil patrons, poor communication, inadequate leadership, and toxic behaviors by fellow employees. But there’s hope. Following up their acclaimed examination of the dysfunctional library ("should be essential reading for library leaders" raves Journal of the Australian Library and Information Association), here the authors present a book of proactive solutions and guidance culled from their own research, including interviews with library administrators and staff. Sharing valuable insights that will stimulate thought and discussion towards the goal of a healthier and more harmonious workplace, this book

  • addresses the subject from four viewpoints—individual, team, leader, and organization—focusing on solutions and practical steps in each area;
  • shows how self-reflection and self-awareness can be key starting points for exploring workplace issues;
  • offers numerous suggestions for wellness and self-care;  
  • provides tips for improving interpersonal communication and conversations in ways that prevent silos and span boundaries;
  • sheds light on forming and sustaining cohesive library teams, then provides solutions for misaligned teams and dissenters;
  • discusses why effectively conveying vision, role modeling, and demonstrating empathy are all crucial behaviors of library leaders;
  • shares actions library leaders can take to engage employees in the change process;
  • examines how organizational structures can either detract or contribute to a library’s success; and
  • details types of training that can be utilized to minimize dysfunction, including training for bias, empathy, conflict management, and diversity.

Filled with beneficial advice on every page, this resource will help libraries be better workplaces for everyone.

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Cyberspace and National Security
Threats, Opportunities, and Power in a Virtual World
Derek S. Reveron, Editor
Georgetown University Press, 2012

In a very short time, individuals and companies have harnessed cyberspace to create new industries, a vibrant social space, and a new economic sphere that are intertwined with our everyday lives. At the same time, individuals, subnational groups, and governments are using cyberspace to advance interests through malicious activity. Terrorists recruit, train, and target through the Internet, hackers steal data, and intelligence services conduct espionage. Still, the vast majority of cyberspace is civilian space used by individuals, businesses, and governments for legitimate purposes.

Cyberspace and National Security brings together scholars, policy analysts, and information technology executives to examine current and future threats to cyberspace. They discuss various approaches to advance and defend national interests, contrast the US approach with European, Russian, and Chinese approaches, and offer new ways and means to defend interests in cyberspace and develop offensive capabilities to compete there. Policymakers and strategists will find this book to be an invaluable resource in their efforts to ensure national security and answer concerns about future cyberwarfare.

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Defusing the Angry Patron
A How-To-Do-It Manual for Librarians
Rhea Joyce Rubin
American Library Association, 2010

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Desire and Imitation in International Politics
Jodok Troy
Michigan State University Press, 2021
Imitating the desire of others is inherent to the struggle for power in international politics. The imitation of desire is a human trait seldom recognized in International Relations studies, let alone conceptualized. The imitation of desire that takes place among entities—as opposed to being intentionally generated by them—challenges the conventional wisdom of International Relations that assumes rational autonomous individuals. This book identifies the root of Realism, pointing out its awareness of the conflicting impact of desire and imitation in a world driven by restless comparison. It subsequently demonstrates the conceptual value of mimetic theory while proposing a template of understanding international polities, starting from assumptions of disorder and violence. This volume not only contributes to the study of conflict based on the imitation of the desire of others among international polities, but also proposes in its conceptualization that it is worth looking at studies of agency and structure, normative change, peace, and reconciliation.
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Diplomacy and the Future of World Order
Chester A. Crocker
Georgetown University Press, 2023

Three scenarios for future approaches to peace and conflict diplomacy, explored through the lens of regional perspectives and security threats

Diplomacy in pursuit of peace and security faces severe challenges not seen in decades. The reemergence of strong states, discord in the UN Security Council, destabilizing transnational nonstate actors, closing space for civil society within states, and the weakening of the international liberal order all present new obstacles to diplomacy.

In Diplomacy and the Future of World Order, an international group of experts confronts these challenges to peace and conflict diplomacy—defined as the effort to manage others’ conflicts, cope with great power competition, and deal with threats to the state system itself. In doing so, they consider three potential scenarios for world order where key states decide to go it alone, return to a liberal order, or collaborate on a case-by-case basis to address common threats and problems.

These three scenarios are then evaluated through the prism of regional perspectives from around the world and for their potential ramifications for major security threats including peacekeeping, nuclear nonproliferation, cyber competition, and terrorism. Editors Chester A. Crocker, Fen Osler Hampson, and Pamela Aall conclude the volume by identifying emerging types of diplomacy that may form the foundation for global peacemaking and conflict management in an uncertain future.

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Domesticating Democracy
The Politics of Conflict Resolution in Bolivia
Susan Helen Ellison
Duke University Press, 2018
In Domesticating Democracy Susan Helen Ellison examines foreign-funded alternate dispute resolution (ADR) organizations that provide legal aid and conflict resolution to vulnerable citizens in El Alto, Bolivia. Advocates argue that these programs help residents cope with their interpersonal disputes and economic troubles while avoiding an overburdened legal system and cumbersome state bureaucracies. Ellison shows that ADR programs do more than that—they aim to change the ways Bolivians interact with the state and with global capitalism, making them into self-reliant citizens. ADR programs frequently encourage Bolivians to renounce confrontational expressions of discontent, turning away from courtrooms, physical violence, and street protest and coming to the negotiation table. Nevertheless, residents of El Alto find creative ways to take advantage of these micro-level resources while still seeking justice and a democratic system capable of redressing the structural violence and vulnerability that ADR fails to treat.
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The Dysfunctional Library
Challenges and Solutions to Workplace Relationships
Jo Henry
American Library Association, 2017

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Effective Difficult Conversations
Catherine B. Soehner
American Library Association, 2017

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Environmental Disputes
Community Involvement In Conflict Resolution
James E. Crowfoot and Julia Wondolleck
Island Press, 1990
Environmental Disputes helps citizen groups, businesses, and governments understand how Environmental Dispute Settlement--a set of procedures for settling disputes over environmental policies without litigation--can work for them.

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Environmental Preservation and the Grey Cliffs Conflict
Negotiating Common Narratives, Values, and Ethos
Kristin D. Pickering
Utah State University Press, 2024
Based on a qualitative, ethnographic, observational case study approach, Environmental Preservation and the Grey Cliffs Conflictpresents an analysis of the conflict negotiation between the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and a local community that struggled to address a deteriorating Corps-managed recreational lake area in Tennessee known as “Grey Cliffs.” Viewing the dispute from the perspective of a new member of the community and a specialist in technical communication and professional writing, Kristin Pickering provides a unique perspective on this communication process.
 
Though environmental degradation and unauthorized use threatened the Grey Cliffs recreational lake area to the point that the Corps considered closure, community members valued it highly and wanted to keep it open. The community near this damaged and crime-ridden area needed help rejuvenating its landscape and image, but the Corps and community were sharply divided on how to maintain this beloved geographic space because of the stakeholders’ different cultural backgrounds and values, as well as the narratives used to discuss them. By co-constructing and aligning narratives, values, and ethos over time—a difficult and lengthy process—the Corps and community succeeded, and Grey Cliffs remains open to all. Focusing on field notes, participant interviews, and analysis of various texts created throughout the conflict, Pickering applies rhetorical analysis and a grounded theory approach to regulation, identity, sustainability, and community values to analyze this communication process.
 
Illustrating the positive change that can occur when governmental organizations and rural communities work together to construct shared values and engage in a rhetoric of relationship that preserves the environment, Environmental Preservation and the Grey Cliffs Conflict provides key recommendations for resolving environmental conflicts within local communities, especially for those working in technical and professional communication, organizational communication, environmental science, and public policy.
 
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The Executive Way
Conflict Management in Corporations
Calvin Morrill
University of Chicago Press, 1995
What causes conflict among high-level American corporate executives? How do executives manage their conflicts? Based on candid interviews with over two hundred executives and their support personnel, Calvin Morrill provides an intimate portrait of these men and women as they cope with problems usually hidden from those outside their exclusive ranks.

Personal and corporate scandals, compensation battles, budget worries, interdepartmental rivalries, personal enmities, and general rancor are among everyday challenges faced by executives. Morrill shows what most influences the way managers handle routine conflicts are the cultures created by their company's organizational structure: whether there is a strong hierarchy, a weak hierarchy, or an absence of any strong central authority. The issues most likely to cause conflict within corporations Morrill identifies as managerial style, competition between departments, and performance evaluations, promotions, and compensation.

Among the people whose day-to-day lives we get to know are Jacobs, a divisional executive whose intuitive understanding of the corporate hierarchy enables him to topple his incompetent superior without direct confrontation; Fuller, who through a mix of brains, guile, and connections rises from staff executive secretary to corporate vice president in a large bank; Green, an old-fashioned accounting partner in a firm being taken over by management consultants; and the "Princess of Power," "Iron Man," and the "Terminator"—executives fighting their way to the top of a successful entertainment company.

Unprecedented in its direct access to top managers, this portrayal of daily life and conflict management among corporate elites will be of interest to professionals, scholars, and practitioners in organizational culture and behavior, managerial decision making, dispute, social control, law and society, and organizational ethnography.
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Failed States and Fragile Societies
A New World Disorder?
Ingo Trauschweizer
Ohio University Press, 2014

Since the end of the Cold War, a new dynamic has arisen within the international system, one that does not conform to established notions of the state’s monopoly on war. In this changing environment, the global community must decide how to respond to the challenges posed to the state by military threats, political and economic decline, and social fragmentation. This insightful work considers the phenomenon of state failure and asks how the international community might better detect signs of state decay at an early stage and devise legally and politically legitimate responses.

This collection of essays brings military and social historians into conversation with political and social scientists and former military officers. In case studies from the former Yugoslavia, Somalia, Iraq, and Colombia, the distinguished contributors argue that early intervention to stabilize social, economic, and political systems offers the greatest promise, whereas military intervention at a later stage is both costlier and less likely to succeed.

Contributors: David Carment, Yiagadeesen Samy, David Curp, Jonathan House, James Carter, Vanda Felbab-Brown, Robert Rotberg, and Ken Menkhaus.

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From War to the Rule of Law
Peace Building after Violent Conflicts
Joris Voorhoeve
Amsterdam University Press, 2007
As recent events in Iraq demonstrate, countries that have suffered through civil war or rule by military regime can face a long, difficult transition to peaceful democracy.

Drawing on the experiences of peacekeepers in Bosnia, Haiti, Rwanda, and Afghanistan, From War to Rule of Law demonstrates that newly emerging democracies may need much more than emergency economic support. Restoring the rule of law, Joris Voorhoeve shows, can involve the training of a new police force, for example, or the creation of an international war crimes tribunal. Any disregard for human rights or delay in civilian reconciliation can lead to serious resurgences in violence.

Voorhoeve concludes by offering specific recommendations for members of the United Nations and the European Union, as well as individual donors. Given the nature of today’s armed conflicts, From War to Rule of Law provides new hope for all those concerned about the lasting success of international peacekeeping missions.

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High-Table Diplomacy
The Reshaping of International Security Institutions
Kjell Engelbrekt
Georgetown University Press

The proliferation of “minilateral” summits is reshaping how international security problems are addressed, yet these summits remain a poorly understood phenomenon. In this groundbreaking work, Kjell Engelbrekt contrasts the most important minilateral summits—the G7 (formerly G8) and G20—with the older and more formal UN Security Council to assess where the diplomacy of international security is taking place and whether these institutions complement or compete with each other.

Engelbrekt’s research in primary-source documents of the G7, G8, G20, and UN Security Council provides unique insight into how these institutions deliberate on three policy areas: conflict management, counterterrorism cooperation, and climate change mitigation. Relatively informal and flexible, GX diplomacy invites more countries to take a seat at the table and allows nontraditional security threats to be placed on the agenda. Engelbrekt concludes, however, that there is a continuing need for institutions like the UN to address traditional security problems.

High-Table Diplomacy will provoke discussion and further research on the role of minilateral summits among scholars of international relations, security studies, and international organizations.

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International Political Earthquakes
Michael Brecher
University of Michigan Press, 2008

International Political Earthquakes is the masterwork of the preeminent scholar Michael Brecher. Brecher, who came of age before World War II, has witnessed more than seven decades of conflict and has spent his career studying the dynamics of relations among nations throughout the world.

When terrorism, ethnic conflict, military buildup, or other local tensions spark an international crisis, Brecher argues that the structure of global politics determines its potential to develop into open conflict. That conflict, in turn, may then generate worldwide political upheaval. Comparing international crises to earthquakes, Brecher proposes a scale analogous to the Richter scale to measure the severity and scope of the impact of a crisis on the landscape of international politics.

Brecher's conclusions about the causes of international conflict and its consequences for global stability make a convincing case for gradual, nonviolent approaches to crisis resolution.

Michael Brecher is R. B. Angus Professor of Political Science at McGill University.

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Islands of Agreement
Managing Enduring Armed Rivalries
Gabriella Blum
Harvard University Press, 2007

We are culturally conditioned to think of war and peace in binary terms of strict opposition. Correspondingly, we tend to focus our attention on conflict prevention or conflict resolution. But as Islands of Agreement demonstrates, peace and war are seldom polar totalities but increasingly can and do coexist within the confines of a single scenario.

Consequently, Gabriella Blum suggests that even where conflict exists, we regard it as only one dimension of an ongoing, multifaceted interstate relationship. The result is a shift in perspective away from the constricting notions of "prevention" or "resolution" toward a more holistic approach of relationship management.

This approach is especially pertinent because conflicts cannot always be prevented or resolved. Through case studies of long-enduring rivalries--India and Pakistan, Greece and Turkey, Israel and Lebanon--Blum shows how international law and politics can function in the battlefield and in everyday life, forming a hybrid international relationship.

Through a strategy she calls "islands of agreement," Blum argues that within the most entrenched and bitter struggles, adversaries can carve out limited areas that remain safe or even prosperous amid a tide of war. These havens effectively reduce suffering and loss and allow mutually beneficial exchanges to take place, offering hope for broader accords.

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Making Sense of Intractable Environmental Conflicts
Concepts and Cases
Edited by Roy J. Lewicki, Barbara Gray, and Michael Elliott
Island Press, 2002

Despite a vast amount of effort and expertise devoted to them, many environmental conflicts have remained mired in controversy, stubbornly defying resolution. Why can some environmental problems be resolved in one locale but remain contentious in another, often carrying on for decades? What is it about certain issues or the people involved that make a conflict seemingly insoluble.

Making Sense of Intractable Environmental Conflicts addresses those and related questions, examining what researchers and experts in the field characterize as "intractable" disputes—intense disputes that persist over long periods of time and cannot be resolved through consensus-building efforts or by administrative, legal, or political means. The approach focuses on the "frames" parties use to define and enact the dispute&#8212the lenses through which they interpret and understand the conflict and critical conflict dynamics. Through analysis of interviews, news media coverage, meeting transcripts, and archival data, the contributors to the book:

  • examine the concepts of frames, framing, and reframing, and the role that framing plays in conflicts
  • outline the essential characteristics of intractability and its major causes
  • offer case studies of eight intractable environmental conflicts
  • present a rich body of original interview material from affected parties
  • set forth recommendations for intervention that can help resolve disputes
Within each case chapter, the authors describe the historical development and fundamental nature of the conflict and then analyze the case from the perspective of the key frames that are integral to understanding the dynamics of the dispute. They also offer cross-case analyses of related conflicts.

Conflicts examined include those over natural resource use, toxic pollutants, water quality, and growth. Specific conflicts examined are the Quincy Library Group in California; Voyageurs National Park in Minnesota; Edwards Aquifer in Texas; Doan Brook in Cleveland, Ohio; the Antidegradation Environmental Advisory Group in Ohio; Drake Chemical in Pennsylvania; Alton Park/Piney Woods in Tennessee; and three examples of growth-related conflicts along the Front Range of Colorado's Rocky Mountains.

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The MOVE Crisis In Philadelphia
Extremist Groups and Conflict Resolution
Hizkias Assefa
University of Pittsburgh Press, 1990

In 1985, police bombed the Philadelphia community occupied by members of the black counterculture group MOVE (short for “The Movement”).  What began fifteen years earlier as a neighborhood squabble provoked by conflicting lifestyles ended in the destruction of sixty-one homes and the death of eleven residents - five of them children.  Some 250 people were left homeless.

Was this tragedy the only solution to the conflict?  Were John Africa and his morally and ecologically idealistic followers “too crazy” to negotiate with? 

The authors interviewed MOVE members and their neighbors, third-party intervenors, and representatives of the Philadelpia administration in the 1970s, and draw on their own knowledge of the field of dispute resolution.  More than simply describing a terrible event, they examine the dynamics of conflict, analyzing attempts at third-party mediation and the possibility of resolution without violence.  Their analytical approach provides insight into other major conflicts, such as the problems of perception and misperception in U.S. - Iranian relations.

In an age when terrorism and hostage-taking are regular features on the six o’clock news, their questioning of traditional views on negotiation with “irrational” adversaries is especially important.

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Music and Conflict
Edited by John Morgan O'Connell and Salwa El-Shawan Castello-Branco
University of Illinois Press, 2010
This volume charts a new frontier of applied ethnomusicology by highlighting the role of music in both inciting and resolving a spectrum of social and political conflicts in the contemporary world. Examining the materials and practices of music-making, contributors detail how music and performance are deployed to critique power structures and to nurture cultural awareness among communities in conflict.
 
The essays here range from musicological studies to ethnographic analyses to accounts of practical interventions that could serve as models for conflict resolution. Music and Conflict reveals how musical texts are manipulated by opposing groups to promote conflict and how music can be utilized to advance conflict resolution. Speaking to the cultural implications of globalization and pointing out how music can promote a shared musical heritage across borders, the essays discuss the music of Albania, Azerbaijan, Brazil, Egypt, Germany, Indonesia, Iran, Ireland, North and South Korea, Uganda, the United States, and the former Yugoslavia. The volume also includes dozens of illustrations, including photos, maps, and musical scores.
 
Contributors are Samuel Araujo, William Beeman, Stephen Blum, Salwa El-Shawan Castelo-Branco, David Cooper, Keith Howard, Inna Naroditskaya, John Morgan O'Connell, Svanibor Pettan, Anne K. Rasmussen, Adelaida Reyes, Anthony Seeger, Jane C. Sugarman, and Britta Sweers.
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Nation-Building
A Key Concept For Peaceful Conflict Transformation?
Jochen Hippler
Pluto Press, 2005
The term 'nation-building' has experienced a remarkable renaissance since the early 1990s. It has been used to describe and to justify the military interventions in Somalia, Afghanistan and Iraq. Linked to the idea of 'failed' or 'failing' states, the concept is used to hide and legitimise a whole range of diverse policies, allowing foreign powers to control and reshape countries in areas of conflict.



Currently the international debate on nation-building is heavily dominated by US actors and authors, especially by writers connected to the Bush administration or its policies. This book presents academic and political alternatives, presenting a critical view from 'Old Europe'.



The book combines academic research and analysis with policy orientation, with contributors from both fields. It clarifies the terminology distinguishing developmental, peace-related, imperial and analytical approaches to nation-building. Highlighting its connections to globalisation, democracy, ethnic and religious minorities, the contributors consider case studies such as Somalia, the Balkans, Afghanistan, Iraq, and Nigeria.



Dr. Jochen Hippler, Political Scientist at the University of Duisburg-Essen and its Institute for Development and Peace (INEF), specialises in regional conflicts and interventionism in the Third World, political identities, and the Middle East. He is the former Director of the Transnational Institute in Amsterdam and the author of numerous books and articles including Pax Americana (Pluto Press 1994), The Democratisation of Disempowerment (Pluto Press 1995) and The Next Threat (Pluto Press 1995).

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New Armies from Old
Merging Competing Military Forces after Civil Wars
Roy Licklider, Editor
Georgetown University Press, 2014

Negotiating a peaceful end to civil wars, which often includes an attempt to bring together former rival military or insurgent factions into a new national army, has been a frequent goal of conflict resolution practitioners since the Cold War. In practice, however, very little is known about what works, and what doesn’t work, in bringing together former opponents to build a lasting peace.

Contributors to this volume assess why some civil wars result in successful military integration while others dissolve into further strife, factionalism, and even renewed civil war. Eleven cases are studied in detail—Sudan, Zimbabwe, Lebanon, Rwanda, the Philippines, South Africa, Mozambique, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Sierra Leone, Democratic Republic of the Congo, and Burundi—while other chapters compare military integration with corporate mergers and discuss some of the hidden costs and risks of merging military forces. New Armies from Old fills a serious gap in our understanding of civil wars, their possible resolution, and how to promote lasting peace, and will be of interest to scholars and students of conflict resolution, international affairs, and peace and security studies.

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Peace Operations
Trends, Progress, and Prospects
Donald C. F. Daniel, Patricia Taft, and Sharon Wiharta, Editors
Georgetown University Press, 2008

Trends in the number and scope of peace operations since 2000 evidence heightened international appreciation for their value in crisis-response and regional stabilization. Peace Operations: Trends, Progress, and Prospects addresses national and institutional capacities to undertake such operations, by going beyond what is available in previously published literature.

Part one focuses on developments across regions and countries. It builds on data- gathering projects undertaken at Georgetown University's Center for Peace and Security Studies (CPASS), the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), and the Folke Bernadotte Academy (FBA) that offer new information about national contributions to operations and about the organizations through which they make those contributions. The information provides the bases for arriving at unique insights about the characteristics of contributors and about the division of labor between the United Nations and other international entities.

Part two looks to trends and prospects within regions and nations. Unlike other studies that focus only on regions with well-established track records—specifically Europe and Africa—this book also looks to the other major areas of the world and poses two questions concerning them: If little or nothing has been done institutionally in a region, why not? What should be expected?

This groundbreaking volume will help policymakers and academics understand better the regional and national factors shaping the prospects for peace operations into the next decade.

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The Political Economy of Transitions to Peace
A Comparative Perspective
Galia Press-Barnathan
University of Pittsburgh Press, 2009

Much attention has focused on the ongoing role of economics in the prevention of armed conflict and the deterioration of relations. In The Political Economy of Transitions to Peace, Galia Press-Barnathan focuses on the importance of economics in initiating and sustaining peaceful relations after conflict.

Press-Barnathan provides in-depth case studies of several key relationships in the post-World War II era: Israel and Egypt; Israel and Jordan; Japan, the Philippines, and Indonesia; Japan and South Korea; Germany and France; and Germany and Poland. She creates an analytical framework through which to view each of these cases based on three factors: the domestic balance between winners and losers from transition to peace; the economic disparity between former enemies; and the impact of third parties on stimulating new cooperative economic initiatives. Her approach provides both a regional and cross-regional comparative analysis of the degree of success in maintaining and advancing peace, of the challenges faced by many nations in negotiating peace after conflict, and of the unique role of economic factors in this highly political process.

Press-Barnathan employs both liberal and realist theory to examine the motivations of these states and the societies they represent. She also weighs their power relations to see how these factor into economic interdependence and the peace process. She reveals the predominant role of the state and big business in the initial transition phase (“cold” peace), but also identifies an equally vital need for a subsequent broader societal coalition in the second, normalizing phase (“warm” peace).  Both levels of engagement, Press-Barnathan argues, are essential to a durable peace. Finally, she points to the complex role that third parties can play in these transitions, and the limited long-term impact of direct economic side-payments to the parties.

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The Post-Conflict Environment
Investigation and Critique
Daniel Bertrand Monk and Jacob Mundy, editors
University of Michigan Press, 2014
In case studies focusing on contemporary crises spanning Africa, the Middle East, and Eastern Europe, the scholars in this volume examine the dominant prescriptive practices of late neoliberal post-conflict interventions—such as statebuilding, peacebuilding, transitional justice, refugee management, reconstruction, and redevelopment—and contend that the post-conflict environment is in fact created and sustained by this international technocratic paradigm of peacebuilding. Key international stakeholders—from activists to politicians, humanitarian agencies to financial institutions—characterize disparate sites as “weak,” “fragile,” or “failed” states and, as a result, prescribe peacebuilding techniques that paradoxically disable effective management of post-conflict spaces while perpetuating neoliberal political and economic conditions. Treating all efforts to represent post-conflict environments as problematic, the goal becomes understanding the underlying connection between post-conflict conditions and the actions and interventions of peacebuilding technocracies.
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The Power of Dialogue between Israelis and Palestinians
Stories of Change from the School for Peace
Sonnenschein, Nava
Rutgers University Press, 2019
In The Power of Dialogue between Israelis and Palestinians, scholar and activist Nava Sonnenschein shares a collection of twenty-five powerful interviews she conducted with Palestinian and Jewish Israeli alumni of peacebuilding courses, a decade after their graduation. Participants with diverse personal and professional backgrounds completed a series of conflict transformation workshops using the model developed by the School for Peace at the world’s only intentional Jewish-Palestinian community, Neve Shalom-Wahat al-Salam (“Oasis of Peace” in Hebrew and Arabic). Critically, the interviews vividly demonstrate that peacebuilding does not end with the courses. Most of the graduates choose to work professionally in roles that contribute to peace-building. Sonnenschein shows the transformational potential of encounter between members of groups in conflict, sharing how ordinary Israelis and Palestinians coming together in an open and honest environment undergo life-changing experiences that provide concrete hope for a sustainable path to a peaceful shared existence as equals in Israel and Palestine. 

 
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Religion and Peace
Global Perspectives and Possibilities
Nukhet A. Sandal
Ohio University Press, 2022
Can religion help societies achieve peace and stability? What actions can religious leaders take to facilitate conflict resolution? This book addresses these critical questions in terms of numerous contemporary conflicts within and between countries. In the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks, public attention to religion shifted away from its relationship to politics and toward its connection to violence in civil conflicts, wars, and terrorism. Religion’s role in sowing discord became more prominent than its ability to unify. Only recently have discussions turned toward the positive impact of religion and spirituality in the public sphere and to the role of faith in resolving diplomatic, political, and social problems. The essays in this book contribute to this discourse by examining past, present, and future opportunities to promote peace through religion and spirituality. The contributors to this volume explore topics such as humanitarianism, philosophy, counterextremism, human rights, rituals, populism, foreign policy, and environmentalism. Some of the chapters approach these topics from a transnational perspective, while others focus on specific countries in Africa, Asia, Europe, Latin America, and the Middle East. Contributors: Jonathan C. Agensky Slavica Jakelic Afra Jalabi Brandon Kendhammer Loren D. Lybarger Cecelia Lynch Peter Mandaville Jeremy Rinker Margaret M. Scull Amy Erica Smith
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The Resolution of African Conflicts
The Management of Conflict Resolution and Post-Conflict Reconstruction
Alfred Nhema
Ohio University Press, 2007

“These two volumes clearly demonstrate the efforts by a wide range of African scholars to explain the roots, routes, regimes and resolution of African conflicts and how to re-build post-conflict societies. They offer sober and serious analyses, eschewing the sensationalism of the western media and the sophistry of some of the scholars in the global North for whom African conflicts are at worst a distraction and at best a confirmation of their pet racist and petty universalist theories.”
—From the introduction by Paul Tiyambe Zeleza

This book offers analyses of a range of African conflicts and demonstrates that peace is too important to be left to outsiders.

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Rethinking War and Peace
Diana Francis
Pluto Press, 2004

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Shades of Sulh
The Rhetorics of Arab-Islamic Reconciliation
Rasha Diab
University of Pittsburgh Press, 2016
Sulh is a centuries-old Arab-Islamic peacemaking process. In Shades of Sulh, Rasha Diab explores the possibilities of the rhetoric of sulh, as it is used to resolve intrapersonal, interpersonal, communal, national, and international conflicts, and provides cases that illustrate each of these domains. Diab demonstrates the adaptability and range of sulh as a ritual and practice that travels across spheres of activity (juridical, extra-juridical, political, diplomatic), through time (medieval, modern, contemporary), and over geopolitical borders (Cairo, Galilee, and Medina). Together, the cases prove the flexibility of sulh in the discourse of peacemaking—and that sulh has remarkable rhetorical longevity, versatility, and richness. Shades of Sulh sheds new light on rhetorics of reconciliation, human rights discourse, and Arab-Islamic rhetorics.
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The Spirit of Dialogue
Lessons from Faith Traditions in Transforming Conflict
Aaron T. Wolf
Island Press, 2017
We tend to approach conflict from the perspective of competing interests. A farmer’s interest lies in preserving water for crops, while an environmentalist’s interest is in using that same water for instream habitats. It’s hard to see how these interests intersect. But what if there was a different way to understand each party’s needs?

Aaron T. Wolf has spent his career mediating such conflicts, both in the U.S. and around the world. He quickly learned that in negotiations, people are not automatons, programed to defend their positions, but are driven by a complicated set of dynamics—from how comfortable (or uncomfortable) the meeting room is to their deepest senses of self. What approach or system of understanding could possibly untangle all these complexities? Wolf’s answer may be surprising to Westerners who are accustomed to separating religion from science, rationality from spirituality.

Wolf draws lessons from a diversity of faith traditions to transform conflict. True listening, as practiced by Buddhist monks, as opposed to the “active listening” advocated by many mediators, can be the key to calming a colleague’s anger. Alignment with an energy beyond oneself, what Christians would call grace, can change self-righteousness into community concern. Shifting the discussion from one about interests to one about common values—both farmers and environmentalists share the value of love of place—can be the starting point for real dialogue.

As a scientist, Wolf engages religion not for the purpose of dogma but for the practical process of transformation. Whether atheist or fundamentalist, Muslim or Jewish, Quaker or Hindu, any reader involved in difficult dialogue will find concrete steps towards a meeting of souls.
 
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Turkey and the Kurdish Peace Process
Actors, Issues, and Context
Arin Y. Savran
University of Michigan Press, 2022

After the fall of the Ottoman Empire following World War I, the Kurds in the Middle East became the largest ethnic group in the region without a state of their own. Divided between Turkey, Syria, Iran, and Iraq, the Kurds have fought for their right to exist as a distinct national group, as well as for governing themselves. Turkey and the Kurdish Peace Process provides a historical and conceptual account of events in order to detail the key conditions, factors, and events that gave rise to the PKK (Kurdistan Workers’ Party) conflict in Turkey, as well as the conditions influencing the emergence, management, and collapse of the peace talks. Drawing from conflict resolution theories, this book investigates the transformation of key conflict actors and changes, over time, in their approach to the main conflict issues.

Moreover, Arin Y. Savran expands the concept of conflict transformation to encompass the ideological transformation of a movement as a result of a rigorous and deep intellectual epiphany on the part of the political leaders—a phenomenon that is unusual and little is known about, making it all the more relevant to include in future theoretical approaches in peace process studies. Methodologically, she rethinks conflict transformation/resolution approaches to focus on shifts in beliefs and relationships that occur prior to a peace process or the start of peace negotiations, when often much focus on peace processes is on the post-agreement phase. This book is among the first comprehensive, scholarly accounts to date (in the English language) that analyzes the Kurdish peace process.

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Unchopping a Tree
Reconciliation in the Aftermath of Political Violence
Ernesto Verdeja
Temple University Press, 2009
Political violence does not end with the last death. A common feature of mass murder has been the attempt at destroying any memory of victims, with the aim of eliminating them from history. Perpetrators seek not only to eliminate a perceived threat, but also to eradicate any possibility of alternate, competing social and national histories. In his timely and important book, Unchopping a Tree, Ernesto Verdeja develops a critical justification for why transitional justice works. He asks, “What is the balance between punishment and forgiveness?  And, “What are the stakes in reconciling?” 

Employing a normative theory of reconciliation that differs from prevailing approaches, Verdeja outlines a concept that emphasizes the importance of shared notions of moral respect and tolerance among adversaries in transitional societies. Drawing heavily from cases such as reconciliation efforts in Latin America and Africa—and interviews with people involved in such efforts—Verdeja debates how best to envision reconciliation while remaining realistic about the very significant practical obstacles such efforts face

Unchopping a Tree addresses the core concept of respect across four different social levels—political, institutional, civil society, and interpersonal—to explain the promise and challenges to securing reconciliation and broader social regeneration.
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Understanding the Somalia Conflagration
Identity, Political Islam and Peacebuilding
Afyare Abdi Elmi
Pluto Press, 2010

Somalia has been devastated by a US-backed Ethiopian invasion and years of civil war, and it has long been without a central government. Against this background of violence, Somali academic Afyare Abdi Elmi, attempts to explain the multiple dimensions of the conflict and find a peace-building consensus.

Somalia is a failed state and a Muslim state. This combination means the West assumes that it will become a breeding ground for extremism. The country regularly hits the headlines as a piracy hotspot. This combination of internal division and outside interference makes for an intensely hostile landscape. Elmi shows that only by addressing the problem of the statelessness in the country can the long process of peace begin. He highlights clan identities, Islam and other countries in the region as the key elements in any peace-building effort.

This unique account from an author who truly understands Somalia should be required reading for students and academics of international relations and peace / conflict studies.

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Walk with Us and Listen
Political Reconciliation in Africa
Charles Villa-Vicencio
Georgetown University Press, 2009

Effective peace agreements are rarely accomplished by idealists. The process of moving from situations of entrenched oppression, armed conflict, open warfare, and mass atrocities toward peace and reconciliation requires a series of small steps and compromises to open the way for the kind of dialogue and negotiation that make political stability, the beginning of democracy, and the rule of law a possibility.

For over forty years, Charles Villa-Vicencio has been on the front lines of Africa's battle for racial equality. In Walk with Us and Listen, he argues that reconciliation needs honest talk to promote trust building and enable former enemies and adversaries to explore joint solutions to the cause of their conflicts. He offers a critical assessment of the South African experiment in transitional justice as captured in the Truth and Reconciliation Commission and considers the influence of ubuntu, in which individuals are defined by their relationships, and other traditional African models of reconciliation. Political reconciliation is offered as a cautious model against which transitional politics needs to be measured. Villa-Vicencio challenges those who stress the obligation to prosecute those allegedly guilty of gross violation of human rights, replacing this call with the need for more complementarity between the International Criminal Court and African mechanisms to achieve the greater goals of justice and peace building.

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War and Peace in Jalémó
The Management of Conflict in Highland New Guinea
Klaus-Friedrich Koch
Harvard University Press, 1974

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Wars in the Midst of Peace
The International Politics of Ethnic Conflict
David Carment
University of Pittsburgh Press, 1997

Violent conflicts rooted in ethnicity have erupted all over the world. Since the Cold War ended and a new world order has failed to emerge, political leaders in countries long repressed by authoritarianism, such as Yugoslavia, have found it easy to mobilize populations with the ethnic rallying cry. Thus, the worldwide shift to democratization has often resulted in something quite different from effective pluralism.
 
This volume of essays assembles a diverse array of approaches to the problems of ethnic conflict, with researchers  and scholars using pure theory, comparative case studies, and aggregate data analysis to approach the complex questions facing today’s leaders. How do we keep communal conflicts from deteriorating into sustained violence? What models can we follow to promote peaceful secession? What effect does--or should--ethnic conflict have on foreign policy?

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What Deters and Why
Exploring Requirements for Effective Deterrence of Interstate Aggression
Michael J. Mazarr
RAND Corporation, 2018
The challenge of deterring territorial aggression is taking on renewed importance, yet discussion of it has lagged in U.S. military and strategy circles. The authors aim to provide a fresh look, with two primary purposes: to review established concepts about deterrence, and to provide a framework for evaluating the strength of deterrent relationships. They focus on a specific type of deterrence: extended deterrence of interstate aggression.
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WHO INTERVENES?
ETHNIC CONFLICT AND INTERSTATE CRISIS
DAVID CARMENT
The Ohio State University Press, 2006
Who Intervenes? takes as a given that there are tensions among ethnic groups throughout the world. But it is not at all clear when and why these tensions escalate into violence. The likelihood and character of intervention depend upon the interplay of two factors: ethnic composition and institutional constraint. A fourfold typology is produced. For example, states with high constraints and ethnic diversity are likely to intervene only for reasons related to national interests, while states with both ethnic dominance and low constraint are most disposed to intervene. The disposition to intervene is catalyzed, the authors hypothesize, by the presence of ethnic affinity and cleavage.

The book includes a comparative analysis of five case studies: India and Sri Lanka, Somalia and Ethiopia, Malaysia and the Thai Malay (a non-intervention), the immediate aftermath of the breakup of Yugoslavia, and Greece and Turkey with Cyprus. The case histories produce strong support for the relevance of the typology and catalysts. Ethnic composition, institutional constraint, and ethnic affinity and cleavage are very useful factors in distinguishing both the likelihood and form of intervention.

Policies that encourage institutional reform and support ethnic diversity can be expected to reduce the likelihood and even the perceived need for intervention.
 
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