Ripeness, Readiness and Grief in Conflict Analysis

Abstract

Social conflicts are a strong challenge for searchers and practitioners because they involve, among others, multiple issues, actors, cultures or decision making-processes. In assessing the pertinence of a conflict resolution effort, one of the most frequently used explanatory frameworks is ripeness theory (Zartman and Berman, 1982; Kriesberg, 1987; Zartman, 1989). Growing out of ripeness theory, readiness theory (Pruitt, 2005), based on ripeness is a recent effort to overcome the limits of ripeness theory. Among other things, readiness theory is more flexible and encompassing, and it makes it easier to apply ripeness theory as a conflict management tool. We believe that enriching readiness theory by bringing in the theory of grief developed by Elisabeth Kubler-Ross (1978) would even further our understanding of ripeness theory. This paper explores how grief theory can be used to expand ripeness and readiness theories.