Transnational conflict resolution practice: A brief introduction to the context, issues, and search for best practice in exporting conflict resolution

Abstract

AbstractThis article introduces three other articles on transnational conflict resolution practice. Many North American practitioners are “exporting conflict resolution,” applying their domestic experience and North American conflict‐handling models and concepts in other societies and cultures. This practice raises a number of issues, including the cultural appropriateness and transferability of the models and the ability of the society to integrate new conflict‐handling mechanisms or build conflict‐handling capacity. This article describes the kinds of work that various practitioners are conducting abroad and the context in which they are operating. It examines whether some of the models are replicable and suggests that the underlying concepts are often transferable but that the ultimate form or structure depends on the specific cultural context. It concludes that the primary challenge of transnational conflict resolution practice is conceptual transferability and that any emerging guidelines, protocols, or best practices are useful if they aid the recipient society's efforts to structurally adapt the conflict‐handling model.