Introduction

Only in the past two decades has conflict resolution been institutionalized as a distinct field of study in the academy and as a body of knowledge and applied skills that can be utilized in many spheres of our personal, social and political lives. As a result, conflict resolution -- from Alternative Dispute Resolution to international diplomacy -- is viewed by many as an emerging new profession. The growing popularity of the term "conflict Resolution" notwithstanding, in media accounts and policy circles this term is often used interchangeably or along with terms such as peacekeeping and peacemaking, international diplomacy and security. In academia, however, scholars still struggle for the recognition of conflict resolution as a distinct field of interdisciplinary or multidisciplinary study. At the same time one cannot ignore the relationship between the study and practice of conflict resolution and related fields of inquiry such as psychology, sociology, communication, peace studies, security studies, international relations and foreign policy. But whether conflict resolution is treated as an interdisciplinary or multi-disciplinary field of inquiry or as a new credible profession, its emergence and proliferation need to be situated in an historical context.

Following an overview of crucial turning points in the evolution of conflict resolution as a field of study and practice, this paper will critically examine the central assumptions that underlie contemporary debates in the field and map new directions for theory, research, practice and activism. It is important to note, however, that the critical exploration of the underlying assumptions of conventional conflict resolution undertaken in this paper is not part of a reformist project designed to simply identify and add missing voices and perspectives to the existing body on knowledge. Rather, it is grounded in the premise that to map new directions for theory, research, practice and activism in conflict resolution requires a dramatic departure from the often taken-for-granted assumptions that presently dominate the field.

The study of war and peace, some historians insist, dates backs to ancient times. Most historical overviews on the origins of conflict resolution, however, especially those who focus on the international arena, stress the impact of the two World Wars and their aftermath on the evolution of peace research and conflict resolution. Scholars in these fields tend to agree that the horror, suffering and destruction that resulted from the wars led to a search for alternatives to realism -- the dominant paradigm of international relations.1  This search triggered ongoing debates on the origins, nature and dynamics of conflict and cooperation that dominate the discipline of international relations to the present day.

Although the literature on the evolution of peace research and conflict resolution mentions the impact of the two World Wars, its primary focus tends to be on the impact of World War II. This is partially because the suffering of civilians during World War II reached numbers like never before. According to some estimates while military deaths were roughly the same in both wars (nearly 17 million), civilian deaths in World War II were seven time greater than in World War I and were estimated at 35 million.2 Another reason for dealing primarily with the impact of World War II on the debates on conflict and cooperation involves the claim of some experts that World War II begun when World War I ended with a problematic resolution reflected in the Treaty of Versailles in 1919.3

Yet, despite some questioning of the power politics paradigm that dominated the study of world politics during that period (mid- 1940s to mid- 1960s), no serious alternatives were in sight; during the first two decades following the two major wars, the primary emphasis was on the study of war and its causes. Peace, for the most part remained an abstract concept, defined merely as the absence of war. Scholars in the social sciences who undertook such studies agreed that war as a problem has a scientific solution. Thus they employed quantitative measures to examine the origins of wars and their consequences, stressing the need for such studies (and scholars) to remain value neutral. The most influential writers on these issues during this period were Quincy Right and Lewis Richardson.4 Another key development during this period involved the emergence of game theory which began as an extension of microeconomics theory.5

More recently scholars such as James Laue and Kenneth Boulding, among others, identified additional crucial turning points that had a significant effect on the development of the field.6  These turning points include:

(1) the 1960s, especially the civil rights movement;

(2) the emergence of a discourse about so-called "low-intensity conflicts" during the mid-1970s to late 1980s;

(3) the proliferation of the nuclear freeze and disarmament during the escalation of the Cold War and;

(4) the end of the Cold War with the collapse of the Eastern Block and the institutionalization of conflict resolution in both academia and other spheres of social and political life.7

According to Joseph Scimmecca the institutionalization of conflict resolution as a field of study and practice should be analyzed not only from an historical perspective.8  He traces the roots of the field and its expansion -- especially but not exclusively in North America -- to four movements (sometimes separate and sometimes intertwining), all of which began in the mid-1960s and early 1970s:

(1) new developments in organizational relations;

(2) the introduction of the "problem-solving workshop" in international relations;

(3) a redirection of religious figures from activist work to "peacemaking;" and

(4) the criticism of lawyers and the court system by the general public that resulted in the emergence and institutionalization of Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR).9

Scimecca examines the commonalities between these movements -- which have since developed into domains of specializations within the broadly defined field -- stressing that "each of these four movements in conflict resolution, in their own unique way, represents a challenge to traditional authority."10  Indeed, conflict resolution established itself as a distinct field of study and practice by prescribing a departure from traditional authoritarian and adversarial processes to more collaborative decision-making and problem-solving.

These commonalities and shared emphasis notwithstanding, the field's diverse origins and influences coupled with its interdisciplinary or multidisciplinary nature and its growing popularity often result in some confusion around the various terms that presently dominate the field, the theoretical frameworks that inform them and the implications of choosing one definition over another.

It is somewhat ironic that in the field of conflict resolution, a field that has justified its existence by appealing to consensus and compromise, there seems to be great disagreement not only over analytical frameworks but also over the very words employed to articulate these frameworks. As Louis Kriesberg pointed out, "the very words conflict resolution have been a matter of dispute" in the field of conflict resolution. 11  Indeed, conflict resolution scholars and practitioners subscribe to different definitions of conflict and conflict resolution. The differences between these various definitions, however, are not merely semantic; they reflect contested viewpoints that are at the center of contemporary debates in the field. These debates involve such distinctions as between "conflicts" and "disputes," "management," "settlement" and "resolution," as well as the tendency to classify conflicts into "interpersonal," "intergroup," and "international."

As will become evident as this paper progresses, the definitions of these terms and the distinctions between them is grounded in explicit or implicit assumptions about the role of power, culture and other modalities of identity in conflict resolution. John Burton's definition of conflict resolution, for example, is grounded in his attempt to move beyond what he terms "power politics" frameworks. According to Burton, "the relative power [of the parties to the conflict] becomes irrelevant in a problem-solving situation." 12  Thus, he characterizes conflict resolution as "the transformation of relationships in a particular case by the solution of the problems which led to the conflictual behavior in the first place." 13  James Laue, on the other hand, viewed power relations as an essential aspect of conflict. Laue suggests that "conflict may be defined. . .as escalated natural competition between two or more parties about scarce resources, power and prestige. Parties in conflict believe they have incompatible goals, and their aim is to neutralize, gain advantage over, injure or destroy one another."14

Troubled by the confusion around central concepts in the field, John Burton has collaborated with Frank Dukes in a four-volume series designed, among other things, to provide clearer definitions to central concepts in the field. Burton insists that "there cannot be communication between different approaches, or with policy makers and the public generally, until there is a precisely defined language, appropriate concepts that enable a clear differentiation of the various approaches, and an adequate and agreed theory of human behaviors at all social levels."15 Towards this end, John Burton and Dukes have introduced a conceptual framework that distinguishes between disputes and conflicts, between dispute settlement, conflict management and conflict resolution and between interest-based versus needs-based processes. 16 Accordingly, dispute settlement or conflict management could be employed in cases which involve negotiable interests, while conflicts which involve non-negotiable human needs require an in-depth analysis of behaviors and relationships, that is, conflict resolution.

Another common trend in the field has been to categorize conflicts based on the societal level in which they take place -- the family, the community, the nation or the international system. Based on this classification, most conflict resolution scholars tend to divide conflicts into interpersonal, intergroup and international. Nevertheless, scholars, researchers, and practitioners in the field insist that "conflict, while occurring at quite different social levels (from inter-individual to inter-national), nevertheless has sufficient common attributes." 17  Yet, they tend to treat these levels of analysis as distinct and develop theories which often highlight the unique characteristics of interpersonal, intergroup or international conflicts respectively rather then the interplay between them.18

Regardless of which definition or typology of conflict one favors, several conflict resolution scholars are gradually beginning to confront the limitations of existing theoretical frameworks and point out new directions for the development of the field. Working in the thinking space opened by some of these critiques, I would like to suggest that any serious attempt to map new directions for theory, research and practice in the field ought to begin with a critical examination of the underlying assumptions of contemporary conflict resolution literature.

Theorizing is not more than an attempt to make sense of or come to terms with what is happening around us. We all engage in theorizing numerous times during the day; we theorize about interpersonal conflicts, gender and race relations and world politics when we interact with our families, friends, co-workers as well as when we read the newspaper or watch the evening news. Yet, theorizing is more often than not viewed as almost exclusively the domain of those who occupy the ivory towers. This view has been reinforced by the uncritical acceptance of science as the principle mode of knowledge production. As a result, few people are aware of the fact that all knowledge claims are based on particular assumptions grounded in one's life-experiences and knowledge base. In other words, who we are informs what we see, understand and explain as well as what we are not able to comprehend and assign meaning to. Therefore, by critically examining the assumptions or webs of meanings that underlie a particular body of knowledge, we can learn not only about that particular field of inquiry but also about the historical and sociopolitical conditions which shaped it and about the major figures who contributed to this body of scholarship.

The search for central assumptions that underlie a particular body of scholarship involves epistemological and metatheoretical questions. These are questions that address not only the content of particular knowledge claims, but also the processes and practices that inform their construction. Accordingly, conflict resolution theories and intervention models should be treated as socially constructed artifacts rather than as unproblematic discoveries or "the truth." In the context of this paper, the examination of central assumptions that have informed conflict resolution scholarship requires close attention to the prevalent social understandings, political conditions and disciplinary assumptions which lead to the acceptance of particular knowledge claims rather than others.

This critique notwithstanding, the fact that a broad number of scholars share a several basic assumptions that frame a field of inquiry does not in any way imply that the work is deficient or compromised. Rather, the questions that need to be raised concern the degree to which the assumptions remain tacit and therefore unexamined and the degree to which other perspectives, which do not share these assumptions, have been foreclosed by their centrality and taken for granted validity. To use Michel Foucault words, the following critique is "not a matter of saying that things are not right as they are. It is a matter of pointing out on what kinds of assumptions, what kinds of familiar, unchallenged, unconsidered modes of thought the practices that we accept rest." 19

Because of the rapid expansion of peace and conflict resolution studies in recent years, it is necessary to undertake a critical exploration of the assumptions underlying the existing body of scholarship. This critical exploration is designed to uncover the strengths and weakness of particular theories, point to certain gaps in the field, and pay close attention to the perspectives of people whose lives have been shaped by conflicts and with scholars in other inter/multi-disciplinary fields of study, such as gender studies and cultural studies, that face similar challenges. In what follows, I will try to make explicit a number of broad assumptions that have dominated conflict resolution theory and practice in the past two decades.

(1) Conflict is a natural phenomenon; it is an integral part of people's lives.

This assumption has been central to the emergence of conflict resolution as a distinct field of study, stressing that conflict is not necessarily destructive and that it plays a crucial and rather constructive role in human development. Nevertheless, in most conflict resolution literature, conflict, especially if accompanied by violence, is viewed more as a negative than as a neutral or positive phenomenon.

(2) Conflict is a universal phenomenon.

Most conflict resolution frameworks are informed by the assumption that conflicts share essential features that have their roots in human behavior and thus manifest themselves across cultures and sociopolitical contexts. This assumption has inspired the search for generic conflict resolution frameworks grounded in universal explanations of human behavior that are viewed as applicable across culture and context.

(3) The focus of conflict resolution should be on the present and on the future, not on history and on the past.

Since in most conflicts history is contested and subject to different interpretations by different people and communities, the common view among conflict resolution scholars and practitioners is that making history part of the analysis and the intervention may result in further escalation of the conflict. As a result, the focus in conflict resolution remains primarily on the present and on the future.

(4) Conflict occurs at different societal levels.

The most common distinction in the field is between interpersonal conflict, inter-communal or intergroup conflict, and international conflict. Other classifications distinguish between conflicts which take place within states as opposed to conflicts that take place between states. Although scholars tend to agree that these levels are intertwined, the vast majority of conflict resolution literature reflects their treatment as separate domains.

(5) Conflict tends to occur between two or more cohesive parties.

This view presupposes the existence of two cohesive, and unified parties locked into a conflict over scare resources or incompatible interests, values or needs. Based on this assumption, in order to resolve the conflict, the official representatives of these parties have to be willing to come to the negotiation table. Little or no attention has been devoted to the composition of the parties themselves.

(6) Conflict resolution processes are designed primarily to transform the relationship between the parties.

Although there is a difference between scholars and practitioners who see the transformation of the relationship as a means and those who see it as an end, both approaches are grounded in the centrality of dialogue and face-to-face communication for the building of trust and understanding that are viewed as instrumental to changing the parties' perceptions of the conflict from a win-loss to a win-win situation.

(7) The conflict is not likely to be resolved without the intervention of a third party.

In most conflict resolution frameworks the intervention of a third party is taken for granted. According to the conventional view, it takes the intervention of neutral or at least impartial party to get the parties to the negotiation table, facilitate the communication between them and introduce alternatives and guarantees for the resolution of the conflict.

Even though these assumptions have been introduced separately so far, they are interconnected and interdependent. For example, the assumption that conflict is a universal phenomena and thus conflict resolution frameworks hold universal validity and applicability is connected to the exclusion of history from conventional conflict resolution scholarship and to the centrality of the levels of analysis schema in the field. This web of connections lends these assumptions some of their power. Therefore, to seriously challenge these particular knowledge claims it is not enough to call into question each assumption separately. Equally important is to uncover the explicit and implicit linkages between these dominant assumptions and the ways in which they build upon and reinforce each other.

While the body of conflict resolution literature grounded in these assumptions is rapidly expanding, its failure to come to terms with the changing nature of conflicts across societal levels calls for a critical exploration of the gaps, silences and absences embedded in these assumptions. To seriously consider these gaps, scholars, practitioners, and activists who are committed to the peaceful resolution of conflicts have to engage in critical conversations both with people whose lives have been entangled in protracted conflicts and with scholars in other inter/multi-disciplinary fields of study, such as development, gender, and cultural studies, that have faced similar challenges.

How do we transcend the limitations of the assumptions that underlie most contemporary scholarship in conflict resolution? How do we create a body of literature that is able to make sense of the range of complex conflicts around us? What type of questions, insights, propositions should underlie new theorizing, research, practice, and activism in the broadly defined field of conflict resolution? These are some of the questions that come to mind when one begins to search for new directions in the field.

Following is a list of propositions, that represent a dramatic departure from the central assumptions that underlie conventional conflict resolution, are designed to offer some answers to the questions posed above.

(1) The meanings attributed to different conflicts (including positive and negative connotations) reflect first and foremost the power relations that underlie them.

Conflict, particularly in deeply divided societies and communities is embedded in prevailing social and political relations of power that structure the possibilities for its resolution. Therefore, conflict should not be treated apriori as a positive or negative phenomenon. Whether conflict is perceived as positive or negative depends on the structure of power relations that underlie a particular conflict.

(2) Conflict is a context-specific phenomenon.

Rather than beginning with the assumption regarding the similarity of human experience and the universal validity and applicability of contemporary conflict resolution frameworks, new approaches to the study and practice of conflict ought to start with the premise that each conflict has its own unique history and characteristics.

(3) Conflicts cannot be truly resolved if history is ignored. Attention should be also devoted to the post-negotiation phase in conflict resolution, that is, the period that comes after a peace agreement has been signed.

Since people's sense of identity has been shaped among other things by their interpretations of history, the conflict cannot be truly resolved if history is ignored. Similarly, while there is extensive literature on pre-negotiation and on negotiation, there is very little theoretical material on what happens after peace accords are signed.

(4) The levels-of-analysis schema is not real; it is merely a constructed framework designed to simplify the analysis of conflicts.

The tendency to categorize conflicts based on the social level where they appear to take place and the treatment of these levels as distinct obscures the complexity of the conflict and hinders its successful resolution. In fact, conflict occurs simultaneously in various domains of human interaction. New approaches should move beyond this traditional classification to transcend boundaries between the different dimensions and levels of conflict. In order to move in that direction, we must recognize the inseparability of personal and political, internal and external, domestic and international, and local and global dimensions of conflict and explore ways to theorize the relationships between them. The study of identity conflicts is a step in that direction.

(5) A successful resolution of a conflict requires an understanding of who the parties are a focus not only on similarities between the parties but on differences as well, both between and within the parties.

Conventional conflict resolution literature has stressed people's capacity to reach an agreement grounded in a recognition of the many similarities that underlie their lives. The emphasis on similarities, however, falls short of addressing a multitude of issues that have been at the center of deep-rooted protracted conflicts around the world, especially power inequalities and differences in social identities both within and between parties to conflict. These issues can be examined only if we develop more complex understandings of the parties in conflict. This implies that rather than treating the parties in conflict as unitary and cohesive rational actors, attention should be devoted to their internal composition and self-understanding.

(6) Conflict resolution should not focus only on the transformation of the relationship between the parties but also on the transformation of the parties themselves.

Whether the transformation of the relationship is treated as a means or as an end in and of itself, it diverts attention away from the careful examination of issues such as power inequities that are often structured around differences in social identities based on culture, religion, gender, race, class, ethnicity, sexuality, nationality. Contemporary theoretical frameworks and methodologies are not able to comprehend the various types of conflicts in multicultural settings and in rapidly changing contexts. To come to terms with structured inequalities and with the fragmented and mobile nature of individual and collective identities requires more complex theories of peace and conflict resolution.

(7) The resolution of conflicts does not necessarily require the intervention of a neutral third party; conflict resolution can be initiated from the bottom-up by ordinary citizens and social movements involved in the conflict.

Despite the emergence of a relatively large body of literature on people's diplomacy (known also as "citizen diplomacy," "unofficial diplomacy," or "track II diplomacy"), the field remains preoccupied with a limited understanding of peaceful conflict resolution which tends to involve meetings between the parties' official representatives, facilitated by a third party, often around a negotiation table. What is lost in these conventional approaches are the widely divergent positions of the people whose lives have been entangled in and shaped by the conflict and their first-hand knowledge about the conflict and the prospects for its resolution. The positions of ordinary citizens are usually subsumed under the positions of their official representatives, thus denying peoples' agency and silencing voices and perspectives that may be instrumental in the search for peaceful conflict resolution. To overcome this problem, peoples' struggles to peacefully resolve the conflict through social movements, alliance-building and solidarity initiatives with people on the other side of the conflict, as well as protests, and other forms of grass-roots, community-based activism should be treated as important venues for the study and practice of peacemaking and conflict resolution.

The term transformation has become increasingly popular in peace and conflict resolution studies. While still a somewhat amorphous term, the growing popularity of this term points to the limitations of other terms such as "management" and "resolution." According to John Paul Lederach, "unlike resolution and management, the idea of transformation does not suggest we simply eliminate or control conflict, but rather points descriptively toward its inherent dialectic nature." 20  In other words, transformation, more than other concepts, takes into account the dynamic nature of social conflict and the potential changes it can trigger in individuals, groups and structures. Moreover, Lederach and others insist that the term transformation is more conducive to struggles for just and lasting solutions to conflict whereas "resolution too often has meant seeking to stop the conflict and create harmony at the expanse of justice." 21  Yet, despite its slightly different interpretations, the term transformation marks more than merely a linguistic departure from conventional approaches to the study and practice of conflict.

The move away from conventional toward new approaches to the analysis and resolution of conflicts, or from conflict resolution to conflict transformation, has theoretical, methodological, practical and political implications. Figure 1 identifies four key dimensions that are interrelated and characterize the departure from conventional to new approaches to the study and practice of conflict resolution:

(1) a move from universal to context-specific theorizing;

(2) a move from top-down/prescriptive to bottom-up/elicitive intervention models; and

(3) a move from scientific (positivist) to constructivist (post-positivist) research; (4) a move from status-quo oriented to social change oriented politics.

As Figure 1 points out, however, although conventional and new approaches rest on different sets of theoretical assumptions which inform different intervention models and political practices, they should not be treated as diametrically opposed to one another but rather as two poles of a continuum. In other words, the purpose of this paper is not to discredit or delegitimize conventional the approaches and practices but rather to point out to their hegemony in the field. Along the same lines, I do not intend to idealize new approaches and their related practices but rather to point out potential venues for future research.
 

_______________________________________________________________________________

 
Theory                         Universal-------------------------------------------Context specific

Practice                       Top-down------------------------------------------Bottom-Up

                                      Prescriptive----------------------------------------Elicitive

Research                     Scientific/positivism-----------------------------Constructivism/Post-positivism

Political Project         Status Quo -----------------------------------------Social Change

_______________________________________________________________________________

It is understandable that in order to justify the existence of conflict resolution as a separate field of study, scholars and practitioners have looked for causes, dimensions and processes of conflict that appear universally valid. However, the emphasis on the universal dimensions of conflict and conflict resolution -- that is, on patterns of similarity between conflicts and on claims of shared essential features of conflict across sociopolitical and cultural contexts -- has come at the expense of attention to the specificities of different conflicts. There has been a paucity of context-specific studies that begin with the local and the particular rather than with the global and universal.

Conventional conflict resolution scholarship has attempted to construct theories based on the universal dimensions of conflict, dimensions that are presumed to be consistent regardless of history, culture, and sociopolitical context. What is needed, however, to complement these universal frameworks of conflict resolution are new theories and intervention models that emerge from the particular life experiences of people in conflict situations; we need context-specific studies of conflicts and their resolution around the world. These studies may provide the empirical basis for more general theorizing that will use a comparative perspective to analyze various cases and identify the patterns of similarity and difference between them and the relevance of existing conflict resolution literature to their understanding.

Such a shift in theoretical emphasis is likely to have direct implications on the practice of conflict resolution. A focus on context-specific theorizing will encourage scholars and practitioners to develop new intervention models that emerge in the ivory towers and be applied to particular cases but are the result of a critical dialogue between them and the people involved in the conflict. Indeed, as I have indicated earlier, there is a serious need in the field for new conceptual frameworks and intervention models that will take more seriously the lived realities and struggles of people, rather than focus solely on governments and on official representatives.

One way of thinking about a move in this new direction has been usefully illustrated by Richard Falk who distinguished between peace and conflict resolution "from below," which he contrasts with the view of peace and conflict resolution "from above," that characterizes most conventional conflict resolution frameworks.22  Falk encourages a move beyond the practice of top-down conflict resolution which is usually grounded in analyses concerning "the capacity of official elites to agree upon a conflict-resolving process." 23  Bottom-up approaches on the other hand, stress, according to Falk, "the relevance of the peoples affected and of an emergent ethos associated with the activities and horizons of transnational social forces." 24

While top-down conflict resolution takes place primarily around negotiation tables, usually outside the region where the conflict unfolds, and is often characterized by attempts to apply generic, universal models of conflict resolution to particular case-studies, bottom-up conflict resolution frameworks tend to emerge from the "inside," from particular contexts and struggles. From this vantage point, peoples' struggles, social movements, protest and grass-roots activism are viewed as crucial venues for the study and practice of conflict resolution. The move from top-down toward bottom-up intervention models is designed to infuse conflict resolution scholarship with a more radical perspective grounded in particular struggles and political commitments. Bottom-up approaches are better able to capture the range of political, social, and economic issues confronting women, men, classes, races, religions, cultures, sexualities, nations and other particular social groups and movements.25

A distinction related to the one between top-down and bottom-up intervention approaches has been recently introduced by John Paul Lederach who traveled worldwide as a mediation trainer and conflict resolution specialist. Lederach distinguishes between prescriptive and elicitive models of training and intervention in conflict. In the prescriptive model, according to Lederach, "training is conducted on the basis of transfer, of passing on to the participants the approach, strategy, and technique mastered by the trainer. . .The elicitive approach, on the other hand, undertakes training as an opportunity and an encounter for participants in a given setting to discover and create models of conflict resolution in the context of their setting." 26  The move away from universal towards context-specific approaches and from top-down to bottom-up intervention models requires also a shift in research frameworks and methods.

The field of conflict resolution does not have a distinct body of literature that marks the foundations of conflict research. While the absence of a distinct tradition of research in conflict resolution may be related primarily to the newness of the field, there are other factors which may have contributed to this situation:

(1) the interdisciplinary or multidisciplinary nature of the field has encouraged conflict resolution scholars to utilize research methods from their "home" disciplines (i. e., sociology, psychology, law, political science and international relations among others);

(2) the prevailing contention that one has to first search for comprehensive theoretical frameworks from which to deduce research methods; and

(3) the complex social and political dimensions of doing research on conflict and conflict resolution, especially in conflict-torn regions.

Research projects in the field have been informed for the most part by more general research frameworks originating in the social sciences. Thus, the body of conflict research is presently comprised of research projects that are usually classified according to the particular research methods they use. The most common classification is the one informed by the distinction between qualitative and quantitative research. Accordingly, quantitative research refers to counts and measures of things while qualitative research examines the "social contours and processes human beings use to create and maintain social realities." 27

The body of quantitative research in conflict resolution includes studies based on laboratory simulations and other experiments grounded in strategic-choice models as well as in game-theory and decision-making theories.28  Qualitative research, on the other hand, includes thematic case studies as well as analyses of modes of intervention such as mediation, negotiation and pre-negotiation in different settings and more recently also across cultures.29

The different social scientific traditions that inform research projects in conflict resolution tend to focus on the methods rather than on the theoretical underpinnings and assumptions that underlie such projects regardless of the particular method in question. Most research projects in conflict resolution have been grounded, explicitly or implicitly, in a methodological tradition which has been dominant both in the natural and in the social sciences. According to this tradition, theory is to be tested against empirical data. As Richard Bernstein explains, "social scientists assume that there is a realm of objective facts. The facts that are reported in observation statements are taken to be the foundation and touchstone for all higher theories."30

Bernstein, however, like other postempiricist philosophers of science, has argued that "facts and observations are themselves 'theory-laden' and shaped by our conceptual schemes." 31  In other words, there are no uninterpreted brute facts "out there," unaffected by our theoretical and conceptual frameworks. That is to say that research frameworks and methods in conflict resolution, as in any other field of study, inherently reflect not only researchers' theories, but also their world-views which includes beliefs, values and political positions. Thus, since the middle of the 19th century, there has been a growing understanding among philosophers that knowledge is a social product and as such is historically conditioned.32

The treatment of knowledge as a social product calls attention not only to the knowledge claims themeselves but also to the social location of the researcher and its possible implications for what s/he include or exclude from the research framework. To address the relationship between research and the social location of the researcher requires careful attention to epistemological and metatheoretical questions from the outset. Epistemological and metatheoretical questions are not only about what we know or do not know but also about how we know what we claim to know and who it is who knows. In other words, knowledge is always imbricated with its worldly context and that theories, research frameworks and intervention models are socially constructed artifacts rather than unproblematic discoveries.

This recognition that knowledge is historically, culturally, and socially constructed has called into question attempts by thinkers to present their knowledge claims as neutral and objective. As a result, many scholars from nearly all the social sciences have engaged, especially in the past decade, in reexamining the ontological, epistemological and methodological foundations of their research projects and of the disciplinary traditions which inform them.33  To map new directions for research in the field, conflict resolution scholars ought to engage in these timely debates. A good place to start is by exploring the potential contribution of the growing body of literature on "action research" to the development of new research frameworks in conflict resolution.

The concept "action research" was first used in the 1940's by Kurt Lewin in reference to the application of tools and methods to immediate, practical problems, with the goal of contributing to particular studies in different disciplines.34  A few decades later, Rappoport emphasized that action research aims to contribute both to the practical concerns of people in an immediate problematic situation, and to the goals of social science through joint collaboration within a mutually acceptable ethical framework.35  There are two central questions that have informed discussions concerning the relevance of action research methods to the field of conflict resolution: how can one do research that will aid the practitioner? and how can research be utilized most effectively produce social change?

In order to come to terms with the transformative potential of action research, it is necessary to treat action research as a fundamental departure from more traditional research frameworks and methodologies. According to peace researcher Abigail Fuller, "the most basic distinction is that applied research is meant to be value-free while action and praxis research are not."36  Fuller goes on to point out that while "applied research is simply research in the service of a client. . .typically research for those who can pay (governments and corporations), action or praxis research. . .is research in the service of subordinate groups struggling for social change."37

As a research framework designed to challenge and replace top-down research methods that tend to reinforce the power disparities between researchers and communities, action research calls for definitions of social change articulated by the people in conflict themselves. In other words, participatory action research is not merely for but with people, and as such it involves them in all aspects and stages of the research process. Along these lines, feminist historian Rina Benmayor insists that "as researchers with a commitment to change, we must decenter ourselves from the "ivory tower" and construct more participatory, democratic practices. We must keep people and politics at the center of our research." 38  Hence, despite major differences among scholars who have utilized action research methodologies for different projects and purposes, there are three key characteristics that most projects share: participation, collaboration and reciprocity.

Indeed, action research projects create both the basic conditions and the possibilities for a different relationship to emerge between the people who conduct the research and the people whose lives sometimes depend on the success of these projects. For Patti Lather, the reciprocity that characterizes action research projects in particular and empowering methodologies in general "implies give and take, a mutual negotiation of meaning and power."39

What are the possibilities of utilizing action research methods in the field of conflict resolution? Frank Dukes's discussion of action research methods has emphasized their relevance to the study and practice of conflict resolution, stressing that "there are many potential benefits of Action Research. Researchers learn of problems directly from those involved, rather than wondering how well a group of students in the lab represent the larger world. The researcher is assured that results will be used by those directly involved, although they may also feed into the paper-publishing mill. . .[and] the practitioner is better informed by subjecting practice to critical examination."40

Dukes further argued that while action research does not claim "universal suitability or infallibility, [it] may play a role as a valid, useful, and exciting part of the drive for understanding that is essential for successful social intervention." 41  Dukes's primary concern, however, appears to be with the potential contribution of action research to so-called "successful social intervention." 42 What is conspicuously missing from Dukes's discussion of action research in the context of conflict resolution is a commitment to use this particular method to make a difference in people's lives. Indeed, while more researchers are beginning to use methods such as action research, since as Patti Lather pointed out they have been "found to create conditions that will generate rich data," only few are willing to "go beyond the concern for more and better data" and consciously use research "to help participants understand and change their situations." 43 According to Lather, empowerment ought to be one of the primary objectives on action research.

The use of empowering research methods enables a re-articulation of the relationship between knowledge and power and between researcher and researched in ways that are both emancipatory and responsible. It is grounded in the premise that people "have a moral right to participate in decisions that claim to generate knowledge about them. Such a right. . . protects them. . .from being managed and manipulated. . .[T]he moral principle of respect for persons is most fully honored when power is shared not only in the application. . . but also in the generation of knowledge." 44

In sum, future research in the field ought to be concerned with four issues that are at the heart of action research projects:

(1) the need to listen to voices and perspectives that are usually silenced or marginalized;

(2) the need to challenge the power differentials that characterize the relationship of researcher/researched;

(3) the critique of empiricism and rigid notions of neutrality and objectivity; and (4) the commitment to self-reflexivity and self-criticism on the part of the researcher.

As with the other transformations discussed above, the move away from research grounded in empiricism to the treatment of knowledge as a social product and of research as an empowering process has direct political implications; it implies a transition away from status quo to social change oriented conflict resolution.

The field of conflict resolution was originally conceived as a critical field of study that would constitute a viable alternative to more traditional fields of study and practice. Scholars such as John Burton stressed the potential of conflict resolution to trigger system change, that is, to transform social and political structures in ways that will make them more responsive to basic human needs.45  Along the same lines, Richard Rubenstein argues that one of the tasks of conflict resolvers is to assist "their clients to create new normative systems and governance structures capable of satisfying basic human needs and social interests." 46  But, as some critics have recently pointed out, conflict resolution can be (and has been) utilized to maintain the social and political status quo. Moreover, some have argues that all too often conventional conflict resolution approaches tend to forge a so-called compromise that more often than not at the expanse of the weaker and more vulnerable party to the conflict.

Some of the reasons for the appropriation of conflict resolution to uphold the status quo lie in many of the assumptions and propositions discussed earlier in this paper, especially the tendency to focus on the transformation of the relationship between the parties, not on the parties themselves, the failure to take structured inequalities and differences in power and privilege into account and the tendency to use top-down intervention models. According to Alejandro Bendana, the growing appeal of conflict resolution among power elites around the world may be related to the fact that "conflict resolution and management are, in effect, social accords which constitute the containment of societal contradictions within a framework upholding neoliberal dogmas with regard to the role of the state, the central place of the market, fiscal responsibility and the primacy of the private sector." 47  In other words, power elites view conflict resolution as a useful vehicle to manipulate consensus and give people a false sense of stability "in order to preserve as much of the existing privilege and power as possible."48

At the same time, Bendana insists that "conflict resolution could also be conceived as part of a process of positive social transformation and evolution propelled by popular self-empowerment."49  In order to move in that direction, conflict resolution must become a tool for networking, coalition-building and political mobilization at the grassroots level. Bandana argues, however, that in order to move in that direction, conflict resolution scholars must recognize that "techniques are not separable from politics. . .[and that] we cannot separate the field from the political framework in which it appears." Unlike power elites, Bandana does not view conflict resolution as a tool to reach consensus and false stability but as "a tool of emancipation" and "a field of struggle" designed to promote political change grounded in the principles of equality and social and economic justice. These sentiments are echoed by Rubenstein who argues that "without the sort of struggle that permits groups identities, needs, and interests to be defined, attempts at conflict resolution will ordinarily be premature."50  Social movements and citizen groups have an important role to play in this process.

In light of this extensive discussion, it should become clear that the move away from conventional approaches to the study and practice of conflict resolution requires more than simply adding new perspectives to the existing body of literature. It is a transformative project which seeks to construct alternative accounts of social and political realities and therefore, needs to take place simultaneously in the domains of theory, research, practice, and activism.

Conclusion

The field of conflict resolution is at a crucial and exciting crossroad. As people and social movements around the world engage in struggles to determine their futures, the global political context within which theories are constructed and applied confronts uncertainty and unpredictable changes. These rapid changes in global politics have introduced new conflicts, and brought to the fore an array of new issues and provocative questions that have not been adequately addressed in the conventional literature of the field. To engage these questions and seriously consider their implications for the study and practice of conflict resolution requires the exploration of new ways of thinking.

In addition to providing an historical overview of the origins of conflict resolution and contemporary debates in this rapidly expanding field, this paper sought to uncover and critically examine the key assumptions that presently dominate the growing body of conflict resolution scholarship. These assumptions need to be de-centered or at least lose some of their power for the field to move in new directions. Based on the examination of these prevailing assumptions, I introduced a number of propositions designed to map the terrain for future theorizing and research in conflict resolution. These propositions begin with the premise that conflict resolution theory and practice ought to be context-specific and grounded in the lives and struggles of people in a particular conflict and that history must be treated as a dimension that is crucial to understanding the specificity of a particular conflict and of the different interpretations of history it involves.

To move in that direction, conflict resolution scholars need to explore new ways of dealing with the significant role of difference in conflict and conflict resolution. This should include exploring questions of culture, history, disparities in power and privilege and new understandings of identity and community which emerge in the context of struggles against different structures of inequality and oppression along the lines of gender, ethnicity, race, class, sexuality and nationality among other struggles. The further expansion and institutionalization of conflict resolution studies depends on our willingness to confront these issues and move beyond the underlying assumptions that currently dominate the field.

An earlier draft of this paper was commissioned by the International University of People's Institutions for Peace (IUPIP), and presented at their annual seminar in Rovereto, Italy, August 1996.

1. Carolyne Stephenson, "The Evolution of Peace Studies." In Peace and World Order Studies: A Curriculum Guide, 5th Edition. eds., Michael Klare and Daniel Thomas (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1989), pp. 9-19.
2. David Barsh, Introduction to Peace Studies (Belmont, CA: Wadworth Publishing Company,1991), p. 33.
3. Ibid, p. 32.
4. Following are some of their representative publication: Quincy Right, A Study of War (1942); Lewis Richardson, Arms and Insecurity: A Mathematical Study of the Causes and Origins of War (1960)  and Statistics of Deadly Quarrels (1960)
5. See for example, von Neumaann and Morganstren, The Theory of Games and Economic Behavior (1944); Rappoport and Chammah, Prisoner's Dilemma: A Study in Conflict and Cooperation (1965)
6. Kenneth Boulding, "Future Directions in Conflict and Peace Studies." In  Conflict: Readings in Management & Resolution, eds. John Burton and Frank Dukes (New York: St. Martin's Press,1990; pp. 35-47; James Laue, "Contributions of the Emerging Field of Conflict Resolution." In Approaches to Peacemaking, eds., Thompson et al. (Washington DC: United States Institute of Peace, 1992), pp.299-332.
7. For a critical perspective on the relationship between the end of the cold war and the boom in conflict resolution studies see Alejandro Bendana  "Conflict Resolution: Empowerment and Disempowerment," Peace & Change, Vol. 21 (1), (January 1996), pp. 68-77 and Richard Rubenstein, "Conflict Resolution on the Eastern Frontier: Some Questions for Modern Missionaries," Negotiation Journal, 1992, pp. 205-213.
8. Joseph Scimmeca, "Conflict Resolution in the United States: The Emergence of a Profession?" In Conflict Resolution: Cross-Cultural Perspectives, eds. Avruch, Black & Scimecca (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1991), pp. 19-39.
9. Ibid.
10. Ibid, p.20.
11. Louis Kriesberg "Conflict Resolution Applications to Peace Studies," Peace & Change, Vol. 16, No. 4, pp. 400-417.
12. Burton & Dukes, Conflict: Readings in, p. 330.
13. Ibid. pp. 2-3.
14. James Laue, "The Emergence and Institutionalization of Third-Party Roles in Conflict," In Conflict: Readings in Management & Resolution, eds. Burton & Dukes (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1990, p. 257.
15. Ibid. p. xi.
16. John Burton and Frank Dukes, Conflict: Practices in Management, Settlement & Resolution (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1990), pp. 1-151..
17. Christopher Mitchell, The Structure of International Conflict (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1981), p. 3
18. For an example of the centrality of the tendency to classify conflicts as occurring at different levels of social and political interaction see Dennis J.D. Sandole,"Paradigm, Theories, and Metaphors in Conflict and Conflict Resolution: Coherence or Confusion?"  In Conflict Resolution Theory and Practice: Integration and Application eds. Sandole & van der Merwe (Manchester & New York: Manchester University Press, 1993), especially pp. 7-20.
19. Michel Foucault, "Practicing Criticism." In Michel Foucault, Politics, Philosophy, Culture: Interviews and Other Writings 1977-1984. ed. Lawrence D. Kritzman, translated by Alan Sheridan and others. (New York: Routledge, 1988), p. 154.
20. John Paul Lederach, Preparing for Peace: Conflict Transformation Across Cultures, Syracuse: Syracuse University Press, 1995), p.17.
21. Ibid, p. 16.  For a similar critique of conflict resolution see Laura Nader, Harmony, Ideology, Justice and Control in Sapotic Mountain Village (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1990) and "When is Popular Justice Popular?" In The Possibility of Popular Justice, eds. Sally Merry and Neal Milner, pp. 435-54. (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1993).
22. Richard Falk, "World Order Conceptions and the Peace Process in the Middle East." In Building Peace in the Middle East: Challenges for States and Civil Society, ed. Elise Boulding (Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner Press, 1994), pp. 189-196.
23. Ibid, p.189.
24. Ibid.
25. The need for bottom-up theory and practice has been articulated in other fields of study as well.  See for example, Nancy Hartsock, "Foucault on Power: A Theory for Women?" In Feminism/Postmodernism, ed. Linda Nicholson (New York: Routledge, 1990), pp. 157-175 and Donna Haraway, "Situated Knowledges: The Science Question in Feminism and the Privilege of Partial Perspective, Feminist Studies, Vol. 14, No. 3, pp. 575-599.  Hartsock urges feminists "to build an account of the world as seen from the margins, an account which can expose the falseness of the view from the top and can transform the margins as well as the center" (p. 171).  Along the same lines, Haraway insisted that, "there is a good reason to believe vision is better from below the brilliant space platforms of the powerful" (p. 583).
26. Lederach, p. 64.
27. Bruce Berg, Qualitative Research Methods for the Social Sciences (Boston: Allyn and Bacon, 1989), p. 6.
28. The Journal of Conflict Resolution is perhaps the best example of quantitative research in conflict resolution.
29. For representative examples see Deborah Kolb, The Mediators (Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 1983); Saadia Touval and William Zartman, eds., International Mediation in Theory and Practice (Westview Press and Foreign Policy Institute, 1985) and Kenneth Kressel and Dean Pruitt, eds., Mediation Research: The Process amd Effectiveness of Third- Party Intervention (San Francisco & London: Jossey-Bass Publishes, 1989).
30. Richard Berenstein, The Restructuring of Social and Political Theory. (New York: Harcout Brace Jovanovich, 1976), p. 20.
31. Ibid.
32. See for example, Jurgen Habermas, Theory and Practice (Boston: Beacon Press, 1971); Richard Rorty, Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1979); Richard Bernstein, Beyond Objectivism and Relativism: Science, Hermeneutics and Praxis (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1988); Sandra Harding, The Science Question in Feminism (New York: Cornell University Press, 1986) and Whose Science? Whose Knowledge? Thinking from Women's Lives (New York: Cornell University Press, 1991).
33. See for example James Clifford and George Marcus, eds., Writing Culture: The Poetics and Politics of Ethnography (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1986); Lather Patti, Getting Smart: Feminist Research and Pedagogy with/in the Postmodern (New York: Routledge, 1991).
34. Kurt Lewin, Resolving Social Conflict (New York: Harper & Row, 1948).
35. N. R. Rapoport. "Three Dilemmas in Action Research," Human Relations, Vol. 23, No. 6, pp. 499-513.
36. Abigail, Fuller, "Toward An Emancipatory Methodology of Peace Research," Peace & Change, Vol. 17, No. 3, p. 301.
37. Ibid.
38. Rina Benmayor, "Testimony, Action Research, and Empowerment: Puerto Rican Women and Popular Education." In Women's Words: The Feminist Practice of Oral History, eds. Sherna Berger-Gluck and Daphne Patai (New York: Routledge, 1991), pp. 172-3.
39. Lather, p. 57.
40. Frank Dukes, "Action Research." In Conflict: Readings, eds. Burton & Dukes, p. 297.
41. Ibid.
42. Ibid.
43. Lather, p. 57.
44. John Heron, "Experimental Research Methods." In Human Inquiry, eds., Reason Peter & John Rowan (New York: John Wiley, 1981), pp. 34-5.
45. John Burton, "Conflict Resolution as a Political Philosophy." In Conflict Resolution Theory and Practice: Integration and Application eds. Sandole & van der Merwe (Manchester & New York: Manchester University Press, 1993), pp. 55-64.
46. Richard Rubenstein, "Dispute Resolution on the Eastern Frontier," p. 209
47. Alejandro Bendana, "Conflict Resolution: Empowerment and Disempowerment." Peace & Change, Vol. 21, No. 1, (January 1996), pp. 69-70.
48. Ibid., p. 70.
49. Ibid., p. 71.
50. Rubenstein, "Dispute Resolution," p. 210.