Peace and Conflict

PSYC/ANS0 4600 01

Instructor: Dr. Linda M. Woolf

Office Hours:

Texts:

Course Description:

This seminar on peace and conflict employs an interdisciplinary perspective to examine the causes of conflict and violence and the ways to resolve, manage, and control both violent and nonviolent conflicts at all levels:

This course is intended to provide students with information integrating theory and research on international, intergroup, and interpersonal conflict and direct approaches to conflict resolution such as negotiation, mediation, and facilitation.

This course will be conducted as a seminar. As such, active student participation and ownership of the class is expected. Students will be responsible for both the presentation of material and discussion leadership.

For it isn't enough to talk about peace. One must believe in it. And it isn't enough to believe in it. One must work at it. -- Eleanor Roosevelt

Course Objectives:

  1. Objective: To become more knowledgeable concerning the role of peacekeeping, peacemaking, and peacebuilding during all phases of conflict: preconflict, conflict, and postconflict.

    Outcomes: Students will be able to discuss the concepts of peacekeeping, peacemaking, and peacebuilding during all phases of conflict and apply the principles to a specific conflict.

  2. Objectives: To become familiar with the important psychosocial factors present during a preconflict situation and the peacekeeping, peacemaking, and peacebuilding strategies that can be used to avert conflict. To become familiar with methods of conflict resolution that are commonly used and which, if used inappropriately, only serve to escalate conflict (i.e., hard bargaining , sanctions, and the use of force).

    Outcomes: Students will be able to discuss the psychosocial factors that either facilitate or prevent conflict and war. They will be able to apply these principles to a specific conflict.

  3. Objectives: To become familiar with the importance of and the strategies involved in understanding the various aspects of conflict.

    Outcomes: Students will be able to analyze a conflict and articulate the problem from multiple frames of reference. They will be able to articulate the concept of partisan perceptions and apply this concept to a conflict situation.

  4. Objective: To examine the nature of conflict resolution and the psychological dimensions associated with peacekeeping, peacemaking, and peacebuilding for all parties involved in a conflict from soldiers to humanitarian workers.

    Outcomes: Students will be able to develop a specific plan to be used in a specific conflict situation. This specific plan will address the psychological needs and concerns for the various participants in a conflict.

  5. Objectives: To examine the steps involved in putting a conflict resolution plan to work and methods of dealing with ambiguity and change in such contexts.

    Outcomes: Students will be able to articulate the methods used to implement a conflict resolution plan and address issues related to ambiguity and change within a plan.

  6. Objective: To examine the psychological aspects of postconflict peacekeeping, peacemaking, and peacebuilding, as a society moves from intervention to reconciliation and reconstruction.

    Outcomes: Students will be able to address the issues of forgiveness, reconciliation and reconstruction. The will be able to articulate the problems and concerns surrounding issues such as landmines, demilitarization, development of a civilian criminal justice system, and the creation of Truth Commissions. Students will address the problems inherent in a particular postconflict situation both generally and specifically.

Peace is not merely a distant goal that we seek, but a means by which we arrive at that goal. --Martin Luther King, Jr.

Class Meetings:

The class will meet on Wednesdays from 2:00-4:50. As this is a seminar class, classroom attendance is mandatory. Class participation and discussion will greatly enhance your understanding of the material. Additionally, you and your fellow classmates are interdependent in a seminar course. A high level of commitment is necessary from everyone to guarantee optimal learning and benefit. As such, participation/discussion will constitute a percentage of your final grade.

If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor. If an elephant has its foot on the tail of a mouse and you say that you are neutral, the mouse will not appreciate your neutrality. --Bishop Desmond Tutu

Course Requirements:

Three exams, presentation of chapters and concepts, action memorandum (a specific conflict resolution, peacekeeping, peacemaking, peacebuilding plan), and class participation/discussion.

Percent of Grade:

Examinations 45%
Presentation of Chapter/Concepts 15%
Conflict Resolution/Peacekeeping Plan 30%
Class Part./Disc.10%

Examinations: The three exams are designed to test for basic understanding of core concepts and ideas. They will cover material presented in class, readings, and discussion. Each exam will be worth 15% of your final grade.

Presentation of Chapter/Concepts:Students will accept responsibility for presenting the material associated with a chapter in one of the two texts. Students should not simply outline the chapter and lecture. Students can elect to use a variety of formats to introduce the concepts to the class including PowerPoint demonstrations, group exercises, analysis of a conflict highlighting the chapter concepts, and so forth. Your presentation will be worth 15% of your final grade.

Action Memorandum: The purpose of the action memorandum is to put into practice all of the various concepts discussed in class. The memo will consist of a written plan, addressed to a specific person who would be best able to facilitate your project. You will include with your memo background information, detail concerning the rationale for your plan, and reference information. In addition to your written project, you will present your action memo to the class. Be prepared to discuss your project and progress through the course of the semester both in class and via e-mail discussion group. This will enable you to receive feedback from your colleagues in class. Students will be working in teams. Teams and the selection of conflicts to be examined will be discussed the first week of class. The action memo and accompanying materials is worth 30% of your final grade.

"There is no greater fallacy than the belief that aims and purposes are one thing, while methods and tactics are another." ---Emma Goldman

Class Participation & Discussion: Please realize that your participation in this class is extremely important. As such, class participation will constitute 10 percent of your final grade. The class participation grade will derive from regular attendance and everyday discussion and analysis. Please be aware that skipping class (unexcused absences) will impact your grade in this area.

Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed.
--Dwight D. Eisenhower



Course Outline

The schedule below provides a general guideline to the semester and is flexible based on any need for additional discussion of a particular topic. The abbreviations PoP and CWIC will be for your texts, The Psychology of Peacekeeping and Coping with International Conflict, respectively.

DateTopic and Readings
January 16 Introduction to the Class
Organize teams and examine current conflicts
The Psychology of Peacekeeping

Readings:

  • Chapter 1: The evolving psychology of peacekeeping (PoP)

  • Chapter 1: Negotiation in the context of international conflict (CWIC)
January 23 & 30Prevention: To Avert Conflict or War

Readings:

  • Chapter 2: Peace through economic and social development (PoP)

  • Chapter 3: Early intervention: Prediction and action (PoP)

  • Chapter 4: The psychology of diplomacy (PoP)

  • Chapter 5: Cultural and ethnic issues of conflict and peacekeeping (PoP)

February 6Thinking Like an Activist
Work in groups on projects and discuss with class

Readings:

  • Chapter 2: Thinking like an activist (CWIC)

  • Causes and implications of ethnic conflict, by M. Brown in The Ethnicity Reader, edited by M. Guibernau & J. Rex

February 13Early Intervention
Understanding the Problem

Readings:

  • Chapters 6: Insensitivity to the value of human life: A study of psychophysical numbing (PoP)
  • Chapter 3 : Case study-- The Middle East (CWIC)

  • Psychological dynamics of intractable ethnonational conflicts: The Israeli-Palestinian case by N. N. Rouhana & D. Bar-Tal (1998) in American Psychologist, 53, 761-770.

February 20 & 27Understanding the Problem (continued)

Readings:

  • Chapter 4: Understanding partisan perceptions (CWIC)

  • Chapter 5: The decision for the other side's point of view (CWIC)

  • Chapter 6: The view from the bureaucracy (CWIC)

  • Chapter 11: Peacekeeping and the psychology of conflict resolution (PoP)

    Exam I (February 20)

March 6 & 20 Understanding the Task

Readings:

  • Chapter 7: Personnel selection, preparation and training for UN peacekeeping missions (PoP)

  • Chapter 8: Psychological aspects of peacekeeping on the ground (PoP)

  • Chapter 9: Psychological ambiguities in peacekeeping (PoP)

March 27Understanding the Task (continued)

Readings:

  • Chapter 7: Case study on arms control (CWIC)

  • Chapter 8: Understanding the human dimension (CWIC)

  • Chapter 9: Building a productive framework for negotiation (CWIC)

April 3 Idea Generation
Work in groups on projects and discuss with class

Readings:

  • Solving the inventing problem (CWIC)

  • Chapter 11: Defining our purpose and strategy (CWIC)

  • Chapter 16: Selecting a point of choice (CWIC)

    Exam II

April 10 Putting Ideas to Work

Readings:

  • Chapter 12: Case study - The bombing campaign of Vietnam (CWIC)

  • Chapter 13: Analyzing threats and sanctions (CWIC)

  • Chapter 14: Changing the demand (CWIC)

April 17 From Violence to a Durable Peace

Readings:

  • Chapter 10: Humanitarian intervention, psychosocial assistance, and peacekeeping (PoP)

  • Chapter 12: Creating a durable peace: Psychological aspects of rebuilding and reforming the indigenous criminal justice system (PoP)

  • Diplomacy, Negotiation, and peaceful settlement, by D. Barash in Teaching About International Conflict and Peace, edited by M Merryfield & R. Remy

April 24 From Violence to a Durable Peace (continued)

Readings:

  • Chapter 13: The psychological consequences of mines left behind following a conflict (PoP)

  • Chapter 14: Postconflict peacebuilding and making efforts count: Reconstruction, elections, and beyond (PoP)

  • Chapter 17: Finding a "yesable" proposition (CWIC)

May 1From Violence to a Durable Peace (continued)

Readings:

  • Chapter 15: Forgiveness, reconciliation, and the contribution of international peacekeeping (PoP)

  • Chapter 16: The peace process at its culmination: The reconciliation elections (PoP)

  • Chapter 17: Treating the new world disorder (PoP)

  • Breaking the cycle of genocidal violence: Healing and reconciliation, by E. Staub in Perspectives on loss: A sourcebook, edited by J. H. Harvey

May 8 Final Projects
Final Exam

World Peace, like community peace, does not require that each man love his neighbor - it requires only that they live together with mutual tolerance, submitting their disputes to a just and peaceful settlement. --John F. Kenney

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