Toward a Conflict Revolution:
Kenneth Cloke
“If we listen attentively, we shall hear amid the uproar of
empires and nations, the faint fluttering of wings, the
gentle stirring of life and hope. Some say this hope lies in
a nation, others in a man. I believe, rather, that it is
awakened, revived, nourished by millions of solitary
individuals whose deeds and words every day negate
frontiers and the crudest implications of history.”
Albert Camus
© Kenneth Cloke
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The Global Nature of Conflict
• Every conflict takes place not only between individuals, but within
a context, culture, and environment; surrounded by social,
economic, and political forces; inside organizational systems,
structures, and technological settings; among a diverse
community of people; at a particular moment in time and history;
on a stage, milieu, or backdrop.
• None of these elements is conflict-neutral. Each contributes –
sometimes in veiled and unspoken, yet profound ways to the
nature, intensity, duration, impact, and meaning of our conflicts.
• Each profoundly affects the quality of our lives, our personal
capacity for joy and compassion, and our ability to survive as a
planet.
• Like ripples in a pond, each conflict and each resolution extend
outward, impacting others and creating a “butterfly effect.”
• As a result, we are each responsible as global citizens for
building conflict resolution capacity around the world.
© Kenneth Cloke
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What are Chronic Conflicts?
Chronic conflicts are those that nations, societies,
organizations or individuals
•Have not fully resolved
•Need to resolve in order to grow and evolve
•Are capable of resolving
•Can only resolve by abandoning old approaches and
adopting new ones
•Are resistant to resolving because they are frightened,
dissatisfied, insecure, uncertain, angry, or unwilling to
change
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© Kenneth Cloke
Features of Chronic Conflict
Chronic conflicts can often be distinguished by their:
• Repetition
• Low levels of resolution
• Incongruity between high level of emotion and apparent
triviality of the issues over which people are fighting
• Being commonly mistaken for miscommunications or
personality clashes
• Tolerance of disrespectful and adversarial behaviors,
• Seeming irrationality
• Accidental misunderstandings
• Idiosyncratic circumstances
• Underlying similarities
© Kenneth Cloke
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10 Meta-Sources of Chronic Conflict
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Environmental deterioration
Social inequality
Economic inequity
Political autocracy
War and military approaches
Hyper-competitive capitalist markets
Prejudices and biases
Narrow nationalism and isolationism
Hierarchy, bureaucracy and corruption
Power and rights based systems, institutions
and processes
© Kenneth Cloke
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Problems that are Global in Nature
(1)
The size and density of human populations
CO2 and methane emissions that are resulting in global
warming
The destructive power and availability of military
technology
Species extinctions and loss of tropical rainforest and
woodland
Loss of potable water and arable land
Resistance to antibiotics and cost of medical care
Vulnerability to pandemics, natural catastrophes, and
severe weather conditions
Loss of bio-diversity
Unregulated economic transactions
The global impact of local, relatively minor
environmental decisions
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© Kenneth Cloke
Problems that are Global in Nature
(2)
• Nuclear proliferation, willingness to use war and resort
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to violence
Terrorism and cycles of revenge and retaliation
Acceptability of the use of torture and cruelty
Intentional targeting of civilians in warfare
Global financial crisis and unregulated economic
transactions
Continuing poverty, social inequality and economic
inequity
Destabilization due to political autocracy and
dictatorship
Rise in prejudice and intolerance
Genocidal policies and “ethnic cleansing”
Growth of the drug trade, sexual trafficking, and
organized crime
© Kenneth Cloke
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What Won’t Be Able to Solve Them
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Military force and coercion
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Treaties and international agreements
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Legal interventions and the rule of law
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Adversarial styles of negotiation
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Traditional rules and regulations, policies and procedures
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Diplomacy
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Nation states and political governments
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Capitalism and market principles
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The United Nations, as presently constituted
© Kenneth Cloke
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A Diagram of Exponential Change
0 AD
1500
© Kenneth Cloke
1900
1950
2050
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What We Can Predict
• That global problems will become more widespread,
severe, impactful, common and costly;
• That conflicts will be triggered by these problems, and
escalate as more individuals, groups, nations and ecosystems are impacted;
• That conflicts will accumulate around the failures in local,
national and global response systems;
• That the ability to resolve these conflicts quickly and
effectively will have a direct impact on the amount and
severity of the damage they create;
• That mediation, collaborative negotiation, dialogue, and
allied conflict resolution methodologies will increasingly
be needed to address and resolve disputes that result
from efforts to act beyond borders.
© Kenneth Cloke
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Cultural Obstacles to Change
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Conditioned passivity and reactiveness
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Rewards for competition, narrow focus and selfishness
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Fear of failure or punishment
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Cynicism, apathy, control-orientation and obedience
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Stories of victimization and demonization
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Reliance on external discipline and authority from above
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Isolation, lack of communication and social
fragmentation
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Conflict avoidance, accommodation and aggression
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Acceptance of covert behavior and mediocrity
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Lack of ownership of “someone else’s problem”
© Kenneth
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7 Core Skills to Recover from Conflict
1. Communication skills to reduce bias and prejudice and
engage in constructive dialogue
2. Negotiation skills to solve problems and settle differences
3. Emotional skills to work through rage and guilt and
assuage grief and loss
4. Mediation skills to resolve disputes collaboratively
5. Community building and public dialogue skills to develop
interest-based, collaborative leadership and become
productive, functional communities again
6. Heart and spirit enhancing skills to rebuild empathy and
compassion and encourage forgiveness and reconciliation
7. Conflict resolution systems design skills to prevent and
resolve future disputes before they become intractable
© Kenneth Cloke
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12 Conflict Resolution
Methodologies
1. Interest-Based Negotiation
2. The Multi-door Courthouses
3. Prejudice Reduction and Bias Awareness
4. Cross-Cultural Mediation
5. Public Policy and Environmental Mediation
6. Victim-Offender Mediation and Restorative Justice
7. Public Dialogue and Community Building
8. Nonviolent Communication and Appreciative Inquiry
9. Transformative, Transcendent, and Heart-Based Mediation
10. Truth and Reconciliation Commissions
11. Conflict Resolution Systems Design
12. Integrated Capacity Building - Mediators Beyond Borders
© Kenneth Cloke
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Power, Justice and Decision Making
Kind of Power
Power With
Restorative
Reparative
Power Through
Kind of
Decision Making
Unanimity
Consensus Delegation
Consultation
Notification
Announcement
Retributive
Power Over
Revengeful
Power Against
Kind of Justice
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© Kenneth Cloke
Elements of Economic Collaboration
Elinor Ostrom won the 2009 Nobel Prize in economics for showing, in
contrast to orthodox economic ideas, that groups of people are entirely
capable of managing common economic and natural resources when
the following conditions are met:
1.The group and its purpose are clearly defined;
2.The costs and benefits are shared equally;
3.Decisions are made by consensus;
4.Misconduct is monitored;
5.Sanctions start out mild and escalate only as needed;
6.Conflict resolution is fast and fair;
7.The group has the authority to manage its own affairs;
8.The relationship of the group with others is appropriately structured.
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© Kenneth Cloke
An Algorithm for Systems Design (1)
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All interested parties are included and invited to participate fully in
designing and implementing content, process, and relationships.
Decisions are made by consensus wherever possible, and nothing is
considered final until everyone is in agreement.
Diversity and honest differences are viewed as sources of dialogue,
leading to better ideas, healthier relationships, and greater unity.
Stereotypes, prejudices, assumptions of innate superiority, and ideas
of intrinsic correctness are considered divisive and discounted as onesided descriptions of more complex, multi-sided, paradoxical realities.
Openness, authenticity, appreciation, and empathy are regarded as
better foundations for communication and decision-making than
secrecy, rhetoric, insult, and demonization.
Dialogue and open-ended questions are deemed more useful than
debate and cross-examination.
Force, violence, coercion, aggression, humiliation, and domination are
rejected, both as methods and as outcomes.
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© Kenneth Cloke
An Algorithm for Systems Design (2)
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Cooperation and collaboration are ranked as primary, while
competition and aggression are considered secondary.
Everyone’s interests are accepted as legitimate, acknowledged, and
satisfied wherever possible, consistent with others’ interests.
Processes and relationships are considered at least as important as
content, if not more so.
Attention is paid to emotions, subjectivity, and feelings, as well as to
logic, objectivity, and facts.
Everyone is regarded as responsible for participating in improving
content, processes, and relationships, and searching for synergies
and transformations.
People are invited into heartfelt communications and self-awareness,
and encouraged to reach resolution, forgiveness, and reconciliation.
Chronic conflicts are traced to their systemic sources, where they can
be prevented and redesigned to discourage repetition.
Victory is regarded as obtainable by everyone, and redirected toward
collaborating to solve common problems, so no one feels defeated. 18
© Kenneth
Cloke
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Consequences of Interest Based
Design
Shift from hierarchy, bureaucracy, and autocracy to heterarchy, participation, and
democracy
Reduce inequalities in status, inequities in wealth, and autocracies in power
Foreswear the use of military options except in the decreasing likelihood of self-defense
when under attack
Invite direct public participation in all significant decision-making
Substitute dialogue for debate
Reach consensus whenever possible and vote only as a last resort
Shift from exercising power and defending rights to satisfying interests
Commit to open, honest, authentic communication and elimination of government secrecy
Conduct foreign and domestic policy based on collaboration and partnership rather than
antagonism and hyper-competition
Celebrate diversity in race, gender, sexual orientation, culture, and individual personality
Flatten hierarchical agencies by reducing the ranks of middle management and leveling pay
differentials
Treat employees as equals and reorganize internally into self-managing teams
Bridge organizational silos and institutional specializations
Implement continuous feedback and 360-degree performance improvement processes
Reward disagreement and dissent, and invite organizational learning
Encourage self-assessment, learning, evolution, and transformational change
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© Kenneth Cloke
Three Things We Need to Improve
1. Our personal capacity for mindfulness, integrity,
learning, and heartfelt communications
2. Our interpersonal capacity for egalitarian
relationships, collaborative negotiation, and
democratic dialogue, and
3. Our systemic capacity for designing preventative,
strategic approaches to resolving social, economic,
political, and ecological disputes and encouraging
positive attitudes toward diversity, community, and
change
© Kenneth Cloke
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“Ecology is the study of balance, and some of the
some principles that govern the healthy balance of
elements in the global environment also apply to the
healthy balance of forces making up our political
system. In my view, however, our system is one the
verge of losing its essential equilibrium. The
problem is not so much one of policy failures:
much more worrisome are the failures of candor,
evasions of responsibility, and timidity of vision that
characterize too many of us in government.”
Al Gore
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© Kenneth Cloke