Overcoming Intractable Conflicts: New Approaches to Constructive Transformations [Paperback]

Despite considerable progress in research and practice in the constructive transformation of intractable conflicts beginning in the 1970s, many terribly destructive conflicts have recently erupted. New circumstances have emerged that have resulted in regressions.

The contributions in this book examine many of the new challenges and obstacles to the transformation of intractable conflicts. It also offers an array of new and promising opportunities for constructive transformations. The book brings together analyses of U.S.-based conflicts with those from many regions of the world. International, intra-state, and local conflicts are explored, along with those that have been violent and non-violent. The diversity in disciplines among the authors provides a wide range of theoretical approaches to explaining how a variety of intractable conflicts can be transformed.

Case studies of local, national, and transnational conflicts serve to illustrate this new landscape. These analyses are complemented by conceptual discussions relating to new conflict systems, actors, dynamics and strategies. Policy implications of findings are also presented.

Miriam F. Elman is associate professor of political science and the Inaugural Robert D. McClure Professor of Teaching Excellence at the Maxwell School of Citizenship & Public Affairs, Syracuse University where she also serves as a research director at the Program for the Advancement of Research on Conflict and Collaboration (PARCC). Elman received her Ph.D. in political science from Columbia University and her B.A. in International Relations from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. She is the editor and co-editor of five books, including most recently Democracy and Conflict Resolution: the Dilemmas of Israels Peacemaking and Jerusalem: Conflict and Cooperation in a Contested City. In addition to her books, she is also the author and co-author of over 65 journal articles, book chapters and reports on topics relatedl³H