PACS 4500
Senior Seminar in
Peace and Conflict Studies
Guy Burgess
Co-Director
Conflict Information Consortium, University of Colorado
UCB 580, University of Colorado, Boulder, CO 80309-0580, (303) 492-1635
burgess@colorado.edu
Copyright © 2014 Guy Burgess and Heidi Burgess
Due Dates
Project Topic Questions
Project Team Matchmaking?
Neuroscience & Peacebuilding
http://www.internationalp
eaceandconflict.org/foru
m/topics/an-introductionto-neuroscience-forpeacebuilders-marifitzduff#.VL2ONEfF98E
Think Before You March
http://foreignpolicy.com/2015/01/16/think-before-you-marchcharlie-hebdo-islamist-terrorism/
Anti-Terror Protests
http://mobile.nyti
mes.com/2015/01
/14/opinion/thoma
s-friedman-weneed-anothergiant-protest.html
Information Fads
http://www.ritholtz.com/blog/2015/01/the-year-in-news/
Information Fads
http://www.ritholtz
.com/blog/2015/0
1/the-year-innews/
Beyond the Invisible Fist
A Very Large-Scale Strategy for Promoting More Constructive Forms of
Competition and Conflict
The Concept of Intractability
Guy Burgess & Heidi Burgess
Co-Directors
Conflict Information Consortium, University of Colorado
UCB 580, University of Colorado, Boulder, CO 80309-0580, (303) 492-1635, burgess@colorado.edu
Copyright © 2014 Guy Burgess and Heidi Burgess
Beyond Intractability History
Intractability &
The Limits of Resolution
Conflict
Resolution
Consortium
SPIDR Best Practices
http://law.gsu.edu/cncr/pdf/papers/BestPracticesforGovtAgenices.pdf
Definition by Example
 International: Israel/Palestine, Tibet,
Kashmir
 Public Policy: Taxes, climate change,
homosexual marriage, abortion,
affirmative-action, unionization
 Interpersonal: Innumerable conflicts
between individuals in family, workplace,
and community settings
Intractability Continuum
Tractable
Intractable
Individual conflicts all at various
points along a continuum from
tractable to intractable
Coleman’s Definition: The Five Percent
http://www.fivepercentbook.com/
Attractors
 Like a black hole, everything nearby is
pulled into them, and escape is very
difficult, if not impossible.
http://attractorsoftware.org/
No Zone of Possible Agreement (ZOPA)
Party A
Winning
Outcomes
Party B
Winning
Outcomes
Party A
Party B
Winning
Winning
Outcomes ZOPA Outcomes
Intractable
Tractable
Simplified to “Us vs. Them”
“Intractability happens,” according to Coleman, “when the
many different components of a conflict collapse together
into one mass, into one very simple “us versus them”
story that effectively resist change.”
Polarization
Alliance Formation, Coalition Building
Cold War Alliances
Interlocking Issues
http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2014/06/13/world/middleeast/1000000029
39855.mobile.html?from=homepage
Mid-East Complexities
http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_world_/2014/07/17/the_middle_east_friendship_chart.html
Intractable Conflicts /
More Tractable Dispute Episodes
 Conflicts – underlying, long-running, tensions
between the parties based on differing
interests with respect to distributional issues,
moral questions, status, and identity.
 Disputes – episodes within the context of the
larger conflict that may be resolved by
agreement or various types of legal, political,
military or other power contests.
Conflicts and Disputes




The underlying conflict is intractable and
cannot be resolved in the near (or even long)
term.
Dispute episodes within the context of that
conflict are, however, routinely resolved by
power contests (or, sometimes, agreement).
The cumulative effect of these resolved
disputes determines the “outcome” of the
larger conflict for the moment.
The underlying conflict is only “resolved”
when there is no significant challenge to the
prevailing situation (outcome) for an
extended.
The Football Analogy (sort of)
Disputes are the plays and conflict is the game
with special rules: 1) the game never ends, and
2) the goal is to keep the ball at your end of the field.
Abortion Dispute History
A partial list of major abortion-related disputes in the United States and
associated shift in aggregate social policies.
Pro-Choice
Pro-Life
Abortion prohibition laws
Abortion legalization efforts (state-level)
Roe v. Wade
GOP decision to focus on the abortion issue
Pro-Choice interest group organization
Pro-Life interest organization
Pro-Life Supreme Court appointments
Pro-Choice Supreme Court appointments
Threats abortion providers
State-level abortion restriction legislation
Many other disputes in various arenas
1st Party / Advocacy Perspective
The field’s heroes and heroines are almost
always associated with long-term efforts to
promote social justice through constructive,
nonviolent, confrontation strategies.
Compromise / final resolution model
virtually never delivers.
The United States Case
Similar dynamics doubtless
afflict many other countries,
however.
Optimal Wealth Distribution
Fixing the
Inequality
Problem:
What Will It
Take?
Gates Picketty
The Clerisy
Democrats as the
party of the .1%
Reich: The Truth About the Economy
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JTzMqm2TwgE
Pew
http://www.people-press.org/2014/06/26/the-political-typology-beyond-red-vs-blue/
Pew Typology
Pew Typology
Partisan Views on Inequality
http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2014/04/28/americans-agree-inequality-hasgrown-but-dont-agree-on-why/
Poverty and “Stuff”
http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2014/05/02/chart-of-theweek-how-americas-poor-can-still-be-rich-in-stuff/
The US Cultural Divide
George Lakoff
Moral Politics
Google Books Link
Strict Father / Nurturing Mother
Beyond the Invisible Fist
A Very Large-Scale Strategy for Promoting More Constructive Forms of
Competition and Conflict
The Complexity of the Human
Needs Problem (Have/Have Not)
Guy Burgess & Heidi Burgess
Co-Directors
Conflict Information Consortium, University of Colorado
UCB 580, University of Colorado, Boulder, CO 80309-0580, (303) 492-1635, burgess@colorado.edu
Copyright © 2014 Guy Burgess and Heidi Burgess
Have/Have-Not Complexity
Systemic Problems
Problems at the Top
•
Prison Industrial Complex
•
Natural Selection
•
Poverty Capitalism
•
New Class Differences
•
Cheating Advantages
•
Superstar Effect
•
Automation
•
Money Addiction
•
Technological Advance
•
Boundless Greed Rationalization
•
Kludgeocracy
•
Zero-Sum Thinking
•
Employer's Market (Fear
Economy)
•
Concentration of Wealth
•
Discrimination
•
Lack of Compassion
Problems at the Bottom
•
Underperforming Schools
•
Family Disintegration
•
Tax Structure
•
Withdrawal from the Workforce
•
Red Tape Regulations
•
Low Educational Expectations
•
Scarcity Thinking
•
Crime
Problems at the Top
“Assortative Mating”
The many
reinforcing
advantages of the
elites and semielites
Super Star Effect
Money Addiction
http://mobile.nytimes.com/2014/01/19/opinion/sunday/for-the-love-ofmoney.html?from=opinion
Rationalizing Boundless Greed
“Makers”
vs.
“Takers”
Banking “Ethics”
http://www.forbes.com/sites/halahtouryalai/2012/12/27/10-biggest-banking-scandals-of-2012/
Zero-Sum Society
The Concentration of Wealth/Power
Matthew’s Law
“To whomsoever hath, to
him shall be given”
Kenneth Boulding
A.K.A The Golden Rule – “He who has the gold
makes the rules.”
Power corrupts, absolute
power corrupts absolutely.
Lord Acton
Discrimination
•
•
•
•
•
•
Race
Gender
Religion
Color
National Origin
Physical or
Mental
Handicaps
Problems at the Bottom
Marriage and Poverty
http://www.heritage.org/childpoverty/united-states
Family Problems
http://mobile.nytimes.com/2014/01/23/opinion/kristof-modernfamily-matters.html?from=opinion
Low Educational Expectations
http://www.usnews.com/news/articles/2014/01/14/arne-duncan-schoolexpectations-are-too-low-in-the-united-states
Scarcity and Thinking
http://www.amazon.com/Scar
city-Having-Little-MeansMuch/dp/0805092641
Long Term Employment Trends
http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/11_16/b4224007222337.htm
Criminal Behavior
Systemic Problems
Prison Industrial Complex
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_incarceration_rate
The Lance Armstrong Effect
In a highly competitive environment, cheating (exploitation of customers,
employees, and the environment) is the tie-breaker.
The “win” goes to the best cheater.
For capitalism to work, government must “level the playing field” by
preventing cheating.
Technology / Social Equity
http://www.aspeninstitute.org/policy-work/communications-society/power-curve-society-future-innovationopportunity-social-equity
Technological Advance
http://mobile.nytimes.com/2014/01/12/opinion/sunday/fri
edman-if-i-had-a-hammer.html
Red Tape
Kludgeocracy
http://www.nationalaffairs.com/publications/detail/kludgeocracy-in-america
The Economy: Employers Market
http://mobile.nytimes.com/2013/12/27/opinion/krugman-the-fear-economy.html
The Fear Economy
http://mobile.nytimes.com/2013/12/27/opini
on/krugman-the-fear-economy.html
Reserve Army of the Unemployed
Economic Stress /
Lack of Compassion
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/12/11/opinion/does-rising-inequality-make-ushardhearted.html?ref=thomasbedsall
Under Performing Schools
Tax / Subsidy Structure
http://readersupportednews.org/opinion2/279-82/21352-the-year-of-the-great-redistribution
Pew Taxonomy
Partisan Anchors
1 -- Steadfast Conservatives – socially conservative populists
(the tea party)
2 -- Business Conservatives – Pro Wall Street, pro-immigrant
3 -- Solid Liberals – liberal across-the-board
Less Partisan, Less Predictable
4 -- Young Outsiders – conservative views on government, not
social issues
5 -- Hard-pressed Skeptics – financially stressed and pessimistic
6 -- Next-generation Left – young, liberal on social issues, less so
on social safety net
7 -- Faith and Family Left – racially diverse and religious
Bystanders – young, diverse, on the sidelines of politics
Table Numbers Group Assignments
Screen
Front
7
1
6
2
Windows
5
4
3
Door
Have/Have-Not Complexity
Estimate “Explant
Percentage of Explained
Variance” associated with
each factor.
Problems at the Top
• Natural Selection
• New Class Differences
• Superstar Effect
• Money Addiction
• Prison Complex
• Boundless Greed
Rationalization
• Cheating Advantages
• Zero-Sum Thinking
• Automation
• Concentration of Wealth
• Kludgeocracy
Problems at the Bottom
• Employer's Market
• Family Disintegration
• Lack of Compassion
• Withdrawal from the Workforce
• Underperforming Schools
• Low Educational Expectations
• Tax Structure
• Scarcity Thinking
• Red Tape Regulations
• Crime
Systemic Problems
Discussion Questions
 For your group, estimate what the group
thinks about the importance of the
various causes of inequality. Rank
according to truthfulness, impact, and
susceptibility to change.
 Discuss the differences between your
views and the views of other groups.
 Think ways in which you might be able to
build a working coalition with other
groups.
 Try to avoid the “51% Hammer” syndrome.
Extra Slides
• Reclaim the Wealth
• No More Corruption
(legal and illegal)
• Innovation for
Opportunity
• Our Own Destiny
• Protecting the
Commons
• The Robin Hood
Coalition
• No More Robber
Barons
• Techno-imperialism
• Takers Don’t Make
The Multifaceted Inequality Problem
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/17/opinion/brooks-the-inequalityproblem.html?partner=rssnyt&emc=rss
The Undeserving Rich
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/20/opinion/krugman-the-undeserving-rich.html
Brooks Response
http://readersupportednews.org/opinion2/279-82/21578-david-brooks-utter-ignorance-aboutinequality
Technology / Social Equity
http://www.aspeninstitute.org/policy-work/communications-society/power-curve-society-future-innovationopportunity-social-equity