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International Center for Cooperation and Conflict Resolution
Teachers College, Columbia University
Teachers College
Columbia University

Quick Facts

  • 60-80% of difficulties in organizations stem from strained relationships between employees, not skill or motivation deficits.
  • Risks of future genocides or political mass murder remains high or significant in 18 countries.


ICCCR

International Center for Cooperation and Conflict Resolution

ICCCR News Archives > News Archives

News Archives

A Practical Handbook for Peace-building in The Arab World: Translating and Distributing The Handbook of Conflict Resolution: Theory and Practice (2006). Edited by Morton Deutsch, Peter T. Coleman, and Eric Marcus, this handbook gathers essential knowledge about the origins and effective resolution of conflict; and providing materials on violence, justice, cooperation, social change, models of practice for training, mediation, and approaches for developing conflict resolution skills. The Center, with the hard work of Ph.D. student Naira Musallam, is currently translating the book into Arabic, since materials in Arabic addressing topics related to conflict and conflict resolution are scarce, and organizing to distribute it at low cost or no cost to universities, NGOs, and others working for peace in Arab-speaking countries. Our staffs’ knowledge in both conflict resolution and in Arabic language and culture will assure a translation that is both accurate and culturally relevant and sensitive. (Story released Fall 2008)



The Fundamentals of Peace Initiative: Modeling the Dynamics of Sustainable Peace from Theory and Practice. Decades of research has taught us a great deal about conflict, conflict escalation, stalemate and de-escalation. However, in contrast to the abundant research on conflict, relatively little research has focused directly on sustainable peace. This project, funded by the Berghof Foundation for Peace, will attempt to identify and model the basic (necessary and sufficient) parameters and dynamics of sustainable peace. It will build on two often distinct foundations; theory and practice. First, it will be informed by previous theory and research on peaceful societies. However, it is critically important that this model-development project be equally informed by and open to insights from peace-practitioners working on-the-ground to end conflict, initiate and sustain peace. Thus, our first initiatives in this area will involve qualitative work with various “expert” practitioners (broadly defined) who have worked with “effective” peace initiatives. This will include both preliminary interviews and a working meeting. We plan to convene a session entitled: Exploring the Fundamentals of Peace: A Practice-to-Theory Dialogue on Effective Systemic Peace Initiatives. (Story released Fall 2008)




Difficult Conversations Laboratory and Clinic. Conversations around topics such as the war in Iraq, the Israeli-Arab conflict, abortion rights and affirmative action tend to be divisive, emotionally difficult and have the potential to quickly move into a destructive path. Gaining systematic understanding of the basic dynamics differentiating constructive versus destructive approaches to difficult conversations is vital to both scholars and practitioners in the field of peace building. This project will be conducted in three phases. The first and second phases will serve to establish a laboratory to test and refine our understanding of the nature of the underlying constructive and destructive dynamics in such conflicts. The third phase will allow us to begin to work more directly on practical applications, by establishing a clinic to work with leaders of schools, community-based organizations and non-governmental organizations struggling with difficult conflicts. (story released Fall 2008)






Conflict Feedback.  Based on our work applying complexity science to evolving conflicts, we are developing a tool for visualizing complex conflicts as they unfold overtime. It can be very useful to represent the dynamical-system of conflicts – in the form of a dynamic network – through a series of feedback loop analyses. This analysis is useful for mapping positive and negative feedback processes that escalate, de-escalate, and stabilize destructive conflicts. This method not only captures the multiple sources and complex temporal dynamics of such systems, but can help identify central nodes and patterns that are unrecognizable by other means. We are currently working with a team from Columbia University’s Center for New Teaching and Learning to develop a web-based method for creating animated maps for conflict visualization and analysis.