The Management of Conflict: Interpretations and Interests in Comparative PerspectiveComplex social and political conflicts invariably have multiple roots rather than a single clear cause, and they are therefore difficult to manage effectively. Conflicts are about the interpretations of opponents' motives as well as the interests that antagonists pursue. Conflict management is most effective when it addresses not only the specific objects of contention but also adversaries' deeper, emotion-laden fears. Drawing on research and ideas delineated in his companion book, The Culture of Conflict, Marc Howard Ross offers a cross-cultural approach to conflict management. He identifies key features of constructive conflict management societies and evaluates three strategies of conflict management--self help, joint problem-solving, and third-party decision making--showing how each succeeds or fails in dealing with both disputants' interests and interpretations as causes of conflict. Exploring a wide variety of conflict management successes and failures--including the confrontation between MOVE and the city of Philadelphia, a public housing dispute in New York City, the return to warfare in post-colonial highland New Guinea, persistent hostility in Northern Ireland, and the Camp David Accords--Ross explains that how disputants' interests and interpretations are addressed affects the course of each dispute, its intensity, and the degree to which the dispute results in a constructive outcome. He offers the hypothesis that in bitter disputes modifying opponents' interpretations is a prerequisite for bridging differences in interests, stresses the need for models of successful conflict management, and suggests ways to expand constructive conflict management. |
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Contents
The Two Faces of Conflict | 1 |
Interests Interpretations and the Culture of Conflict | 17 |
The Culture of Constructive Conflict Management | 35 |
Changing Interests | 69 |
The Sources of Conflict and Strategies of Conflict | 95 |
Limitations to Constructive Conflict Management | 110 |
Mae Enga Peacemaking Race Relations in the Southern | 124 |
Other editions - View all
The Management of Conflict: Interpretations and Interests in Comparative ... Marc Howard Ross No preview available - 1993 |
Common terms and phrases
accept actions adversaries aggression agreement alter Anglo-Irish Agreement argues Camp David Accords Catholic chador chapter clan concerns conflict theory Conseil d'Etat constructive conflict management constructive conflict societies cooperation cross-cultural culture of conflict Cuomo Dentan develop differences discussion dispute management effective efforts emphasize ethnic example exchanges external conflict fears fighting focus Forest Hills French goals groups Gulliver identity IKung images important individuals intense interests and interpretations intergroup internal involved Israel issue joint problem solving leaders linked low-conflict societies manage conflicts Mbuti Meggitt ment Montville MOVE mutual needs negotiations Northern Ireland occur opponents outcome Papago participants peace peacemaking political Protestant Pruitt and Rubin psychocultural dispositions psychocultural interpretations Raiffa relationships Robarchek role Ross Sambia scarves self-help Semai side situations social structural solutions specific structural and psychocultural successful conflict management suggests theory third parties third-party decision threats Tikopia tions tive underlying understanding violence
Bibliographic information
| Title | The Management of Conflict: Interpretations and Interests in Comparative Perspective |
| Author | Marc Howard Ross |
| Edition | illustrated, reissue, revised |
| Publisher | Yale University Press, 1995 |
| ISBN | 0300065175, 9780300065176 |
| Length | 226 pages |
| Subjects | › Political Science / General Social Science / Violence in Society |
| Export Citation | BiBTeX EndNote RefMan |