The Science and Art of Conflict Resolution

Abstract

Conflict Resolution in the Twenty-first Century: Principles, Methods, and Approaches. By Bercovitch Jacob, Jackson Richard. Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press, 2009. 226 pp., $29.95 paperback (ISBN-13: 978-0-472-05062-8). The goal of this book is stated clearly at the outset and is intended to achieve “a truly comprehensive survey and analysis of the major methods of conflict resolution” (p. 1). The survey and analysis is structured in such a way as to address an important question for scholars and practitioners of conflict resolution alike. The question is what are the most effective methods to resolve interstate and internal or civil conflicts in the twenty-first century? The authors claim in the first chapter that the task of resolving internal conflict is perhaps more challenging than in the past given that the fundamental nature of internal conflict has changed in the twenty-first century. Civil conflicts are no longer primarily disagreements over territory (p. 8) but are now caused by differences over issues of ethnicity, religiosity, and identity. According to the authors, internal conflicts represent significant threats to the peace and security of states and individuals via destabilizing refugee flows, the exportation of political instability, and in the creation of safe havens for those groups intent on conducting asymmetric warfare. The authors persuasively argue that finding an answer or a set of answers to the question of which methods are most effective in resolving civil conflicts, despite their incredible complexity, is thereby crucial on both strategic and moral grounds. The view that the nature of internal conflicts has changed leads the authors to advance an intriguing claim and one that is a distinguishing feature of this book: New conflicts demand that we develop and employ new conflict resolution techniques, including preventive or nonofficial (Track II) diplomacy or humanitarian intervention. The primary reason is that newer methods of conflict resolution may be more effective in truly resolving conflict than so-called traditional techniques, such …