THE GENESIS: DIALOGUE IN CONFLICT RESOLUTION

Placing the origins of dialogue as an instru­ment of conflict resolution in both of its modes - as communication and as a process to transform relationships - in historical context can enrich our understanding of this complex instrument.

To begin, we need to recall the steady proliferation of “protracted conflict between identity groups” (Fisher, 1997: xi) that characterized the accelerating decline and termination of colonial empires after World War II, especially in the 1960s. As these conflicts began to replace the great state-to-state conflicts of previous eras, old ways of defining and dealing with conflict proved inadequate. Practitioners began experimenting with innovative approaches. The work of two pioneers set the stage.

John Burton left a distinguished career as a senior Australian diplomat and, in the early 1960s, assumed leadership of a department of international relations in the Faculty of Laws at University College London. As Ronald Fisher records in his path­breaking 1997 analysis of the field, Interactive Conflict Resolution, from an unpublished introspection by Burton: “His diplomatic experience had convinced him of the need for an alternative to the power approach that dominated international affairs” in the mid-1960s. “... his unconventional thinking about international relations was at odds with the prevalent, traditional perspectives of most of the academic leaders in the field. The traditional approach. emphasized interactions among sovereign states who pursue their national interests by exercising economic and military power through the formation of alliances, the use of deterrence, and at times, adherence to international law. Security is attained through the threat or use of force, and inevitable conflict is managed through compromise or suppression. Burton was developing his thinking toward a new ‘pluralist' paradigm - the world security perspective - which emphasized the values and relationships of multiple actors in the global system” (Fisher, 1997: 22-29).

Burton was challenged by traditional scholars to demonstrate that his way of thinking could make a difference. Calling on his former diplomatic relationships and with the permission of the British prime minister, he invited to London for “academic talks” about their conflict representatives of all sides of a violent conflict that had erupted around establishment of a Malaysian confederation which the British had formed as they withdrew from colonial status. Six meetings were held over seven months, beginning in December 1965.

The meetings began with each participant sharing his view of the conflict and with an academic panel offering their analyses. The meetings proceeded with no formal agenda, no academic papers, and no agreed statement at the end. Through these free- flowing dialogues, participants were able to explore dimensions of the conflict that would not normally be on the agenda of negotiations - for instance, the role of minority groups in influencing policies. They were able to imagine solutions to problems that were very close to those that ultimately found their ways into a peace agreement. Burton and his colleagues felt that the unconventional dialogue demonstrated the value of the approach and of the emerging thinking about conflict behind it. To pursue this exploration, they formed the Centre for the Analysis of Conflict. They held further explorations of other conflicts, most notably Cyprus, but academic responsibilities and lack of adequate funding limited their activities in those early years.

Burton began calling this approach “controlled communication.” That phrase soon gave way to “problem-solving procedure.” Almost immediately, Burton emphasized that this approach was in no way intended to replace formal negotiation but rather to precede or supplement it. The phrases that would be used later to capture this role are prenegotiation and Circumnegotiation (Saunders, 1996). This presentation of the approach was also used to counter early criticism that the kind of group that Burton had gathered did not necessarily have the power to shape policy - a criticism that practitioners deal with to this day (Fisher, 1997: 22-29).

One of the Americans whom Burton included in his early experimental dialogues was Herbert Kelman, professor of social ethics in the Department of Psychology at Harvard University, who committed himself to applying the knowledge of social science to the analysis and resolution of conflict. In 1971, with fellow faculty member Stephen Cohen, Kelman first used what he called a “problem­solving workshop” as part of a graduate sem­inar on social psychology and international relations. Over some two decades following that first experiment, Kelman developed the method of the workshop to take the form of a carefully prepared three-day workshop preceded by systematic preworkshop meet­ings with each group of participants. He gradually enlarged its scope to the point where participants were highly influential members of their societies. Starting more broadly with Arabs and Israelis, he later focused on specific Israeli-Palestinian meetings. Through these decades, the list of those participants became formidable, including many who later became key figures in society, in government, and in negotiating teams.

These meetings were dialogues facilitated by at least two, often more, social scientists and an occasional former diplomat. They focused on bringing to the surface underlying human issues that often blocked progress in negotiations without ever appearing on formal negotiating agendas and then on talking through possible ways of dealing with them. The workshop was simultaneously a laboratory for deepening knowledge of the causes of conflict, engaging participants in recognizing and coming to terms with them, and considering their political and diplomatic implications. For most of the first twenty years, these workshops were one-time events in the sense that participants were mostly different each time. They did not constitute a continuing process. At the end of the 1980s, he began a series of continuing workshops with essentially the same participants to produce papers on issues important to the negotiations.

The problem-solving workshops of Burton, Kelman, and their respective associates - among them Edward Azar, Christopher Mitchell, Nadim Rouhana - solidly established systematic dialogue around deep-rooted conflict facilitated by scholar-practitioners as a carefully defined and meticulously practiced instrument of conflict resolution. Their analysis, reflection, and writing from their experience has produced a significant body of valuable literature and has undoubtedly influenced the thinking and action of many participants who later played direct roles in policy-making and negotiation.