Intractable Conflict Research Articles

MASSIMALISMO TERRITORIALE E PROTESTA NELLA CARTOGRAFIA DEL CONFLITTO ISRAELO-PALESTINESE

The paper discusses the political significance and historical accuracy of maps that visualize competing historical claims about the land of Palestine, with specific emphasis on maps that have recently been the object of debate or criticism. After an initial overview of the role played by cartographic representations of ancient Israel and of the land of Palestine in the history of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the paper presents the recent debates on the “Disappearing Palestine” map series and on the resurgence of visual representations of “greater Israel” promoted even by official Israeli social media account. By discussing the historical accuracy of these representations and the political agendas that they (and their critics) intend to promote, it confutes some of the criticism levelled against the visual representation of the Palestinian loss of land since the Mandate, and provides a critical outlook into the role of scientific objectivity in the cartographic representation of intractable conflicts.

Education for shared life in Israel during the 7 October 2023 war

ABSTRACT This study takes a unique approach by examining the perceptions of Arab and Jewish teachers in Israel’s Shared Education Program during the 7 October war. This sudden and intense event in the ongoing, intractable Israeli-Palestinian conflict, provides a unique context for understanding how these educators view their roles and the program’s viability during periods of heightened violence. Utilizing qualitative thematic analysis, this study conducted semi-structured interviews with 12 teachers who had participated in the program prior to the war. The findings reveal significant emotional impacts, including fear, anxiety, and ambivalence toward continuing the shared education efforts. Notably, the war led to the program’s suspension, influenced by both administrative decisions and the teachers’ concerns. This research underscores the intricate dynamics of sustaining educational initiatives aimed at fostering shared life in a divided society, particularly during wartime. Despite the challenges, teachers expressed a mixture of hope and reluctance about the future of shared education, emphasizing the pivotal role of such programs in promoting understanding and empathy between divided groups. The study concludes that despite severe conflicts, the desire to maintain educational efforts for shared life persists, albeit with numerous difficulties and complexities.

Challenges and opportunities for management of aggressive intractable inter-ethnic conflicts between the Turkana and Pokot people in the north-western region of Kenya

The North-Western of Kenya has endured persistent, belligerent inter-ethnic conflicts. These battles are particularly between the Turkana and Pokot communities. The conflicts are rooted in historical marginalization and competition for scarce natural resources. Additionally, cultural validation of warriorhood and widespread availability of small arms have contributed enormously to the exacerbation of the skirmishes. Earlier interventions have been unsuccessful resulting from weak state presence, politicization and insufficient community ownership. This study identified and analyzed the main challenges hindering effective conflict this two communities. It also explored feasible and locally driven opportunities for sustainable peacebuilding. The study is guided by the Conflict Transformation Theory of John Paul Lederach. This theory emphasizes the need to alter structural injustices, associations, narratives and institutions for durable peace. A mixed-methods design was adopted. It integrated descriptive survey and phenomenological approaches. Data were collected through questionnaires, interviews, focus group discussions and document analysis. A stratified sample of 400 respondents (Turkana: 60%; West Pokot: 40%) participated. Instrument reliability exceeded a Cronbach’s alpha of 0.76. Quantitative data that was categorical was analyzed by Chi-square test. Qualitative data was thematically analyzed and implied collective meaning reported. Findings revealed that the conflict is sustained by the proliferation of firearms, inadequate security services, political manipulation and cultural endorsement of violence (notably in Turkana). Over 53% of respondents reported increased conflict since 2017. Turkana respondents experienced more frequent attacks and upheld the “heroic warrior” ideal more than their West Pokot counterparts. Structural variables such as poverty, unemployment among the youth, and marginalization were just as crucial in driving conflict continuity. While institutions of customary conflict resolution are in retreat, communities were keen to be engaged in peace processes. Cultural dispositions and exposure to conflict variability point towards region-based intervention. The community trusts its capacity to solve problems, offering a window of opportunity for bottom-up peacebuilding. Turkana–Pokot conflict is deeply rooted, multi-layered and mounting. Strength and resilience of the people are a fertile ground for radical peacebuilding grounded in local contexts and participatory governance. There ought to be a multi-sectoral intervention: institution strengthening of people-owned peace structures, equitable disarmament, participatory governance, focused peace education on particular alternative masculinities and investment in public infrastructure. State action has to be centered on trust-building, early warning and psychosocial healing to enable sustainable change of conflict.

A Justice-First Approach to Ambient Intelligence in Healthcare

Ambient intelligence systems (AIS) are increasingly deployed to provide persistent, artificially intelligent, monitoring and documentation of healthcare. AIS pose many ethical issues, including risks to the privacy of third parties, pernicious biases in predictive analytics, and intractable conflicts between the interests of patients, family members and care providers. In this paper we argue that these risks cannot be effectively navigated by applying a traditional bioethical framework. The traditional bioethical framework focuses heavily on protecting the autonomy and interests of a patient within the context of a single decision. An AIS, on the other hand, occupies a physical space and thus implicates multiple stakeholders, with interests that may conflict, in a setting where individually opting out of the interaction may be impractical or infeasible. Hence, we argue that, like many questions arising in the context of public health ethics, they should be dealt with through a “justice-first” approach to ethical theorizing.

Well-being and community resilience: The relation between individual, collective, and structural features in an intractable conflict context.

Well-being and community resilience: The relation between individual, collective, and structural features in an intractable conflict context.

Integration of negative emotions, empathy, and support for conciliatory policies in intractable conflicts

ABSTRACT Adaptive regulation of intense negative emotions appears crucial for reconciliation, as negative emotions often impede the resolution of intractable intergroup conflicts. Integrative emotion regulation (IER; actively taking an interest in one’s own negative emotions) appears promising in this context, given previous findings of its links to empathy and support for conciliatory policies in the context of the Middle East conflict. However, prior work did not test whether these links hold when negative emotions related to the conflict (e.g. anger and fear) are elicited. We conducted two studies with Jewish-Israelis to test these links, focusing on participants’ reactions to innocent Palestinians. In both studies, we measured IER, empathy (sympathy, perspective-taking), and support for conciliatory policies (humanitarian aid) and compared a negative emotion condition (Study 1: fear, N = 240; Study 2: anger, N = 293) to a neutral control condition. Our findings replicated the positive relations between IER, empathy, and support for conciliatory policies even when negative emotions were elicited. These findings are discussed in relation to prior research on emotion regulation in group contexts, including applications to conflict resolution.

Are slow codes uniquely deceptive?

"Sham codes" or "slow codes"-defined here as resuscitative efforts undertaken only to the extent necessary to convey the impression that "everything was done," rather than to achieve return of spontaneous circulation (ROSC)-have been almost universally condemned for the past five decades. To facilitate an examination of this practice, we consider how the clinician's obligations and prerogatives differ under four scenarios, all of which involve conflict between the physician who desires to withhold cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) and the family who does not. Under two scenarios, involving quality of life considerations and quantitative futility ("long shots"), we argue that slow codes are ethically impermissible. Under two other scenarios, however, we maintain an agnostic view on the moral permissibility of slow codes. We observe that where the case for impermissibility is predicated on considerations of honesty and professional integrity, commonly practiced and commonly defended alternatives to the slow code, such as non-initiation of CPR after bedside assessment, limited trials of CPR, and futile CPR, are typically undertaken for beneficent reasons and, like the slow code, entail non-lying deception. Finally, we offer recommendations for care delivery reform that work "upstream" to prevent the conflicts and crises of trust that give rise to intractable conflicts surrounding CPR.

Serious Games and Game Performance Before and During the Israel-Hamas War: The Case of Fact Finders and PeaceMaker

This study examines the impact of players’ gender and nationality on game performance before and during the Israel-Hamas war. The study focuses on two games for social impact revolving around intractable conflicts: PeaceMaker (Israeli-Palestinian conflict) and Fact Finders (Cyprus Conflict). We conducted three case studies with 510 undergraduates voluntarily playing the aforementioned games and reporting their final scores. The participants included Israeli-Jew, Palestinian, American, and Cypriot undergraduate students. We found that before the Israel-Hamas war, women won PeaceMaker no less than men. Interestingly, during the Israel-Hamas war, women won PeaceMaker more than men. Finally, third-parties to the Cyprus conflict (Israelis, Palestinians and Americans) significantly outperformed direct-parties (Cypriots) in Fact Finders before and during the Israel-Hamas war. Overall this study's findings suggest that serious games can be used as effective interventions for peace education and conflict resolution regardless of players’ gender or nationality, even during violent times.

In the academic margins: social ostracism as an intersection of psychological and sociological causes

ABSTRACT Most studies dealing with the feeling of ostracism focus on employees in the organisational workspace and take a psychological perspective. We argued sociological aspects also play a role in ostracism. We examined ostracism among students at an Israeli institution of higher education (HE) in the context of neoliberalism and the Jewish majority-Arab minority social reality in Israel. The neoliberal regime, emphasising market demands, performance, competition, and excellence, may prevent students from minority groups who lack the necessary liberal knowledge and economic means from succeeding in HE institutions. Our study tested the relationship between a personality trait (conscientiousness), in-group cohesion, and students’ feelings of ostracism, recreating the results predicted in the literature. Then, we challenged these results by comparing findings for Jewish-Israeli (JI) and Palestinian-Arab citizens of Israel (PAI) students in the context of the continuous, intractable conflict between majority (JI) and minority (PAI) groups. The sample included 352 students (81% JI, 19% PAI). Findings showed psychological theories only partially explained students’ feelings of ostracism. Unlike JI students, PAI students did not enjoy the benefits of in-group cohesion and are left to fend for themselves having to rely heavily on personality, they are more vulnerable to ostracism.

Poetry as “self-therapy” in intractable conflict settings

ABSTRACT Focusing on contemporary verse created by Somali refugees in Kenya and Rakhine communities in Myanmar, this article explores the use of poetry as a tool for self-therapy by populations living in regions impacted by intractable conflict. The exploration starts with a presentation of two case studies, each one briefly exploring the history and nature of intractable conflicts in Somalia and Myanmar respectively, before introducing a sample of poems created by members of these two communities. The paper then develops an analysis of several therapeutic themes that appear within the poems, such as the use of indigenous metaphors, hope, imagination, and humour. Based on the analysis of these therapeutic themes in light of theories on trauma healing, and in light of indigenous symbolism and shared meanings, the paper suggests that communities impacted by intractable conflicts demonstrate an ability to engage in a form of self-therapy through the use of poetry.

Meeting the Other: Changing Attitudes Despite Intractable Conflicts—A Meta‐Analysis

ABSTRACTWith rising numbers and increasing complexity of long‐living conflicts, the effect of contact interventions is tested in that context. This meta‐analysis investigated the effect contact interventions have on outgroup‐attitudes in the context of a highly intractable conflict. Publications were included, if they quantitatively assessed a contact intervention with samples collected in the context of a highly intractable conflict, either still active or politically resolved, and assessed attitude toward the outgroup they met as a dependent variable. With these criteria, 38 publications with 57 samples and 143 outcomes were included. The influence methodological rigorousness has on the effect sizes in the primary studies is low. The present results suggest that contact interventions are associated with improved attitude toward the outgroup; however, this result is accompanied by high heterogeneity, suggesting high degree of uncertainty in the estimation of the main effect. Further, the mix of correlational and experimental studies makes causal inferences difficult.

PERANAN MILITER DALAM KONFLIK INTERNAL MYANMAR PADA TAHUN 2017-2022

This study aims to explain how the role of the military has increasingly sharpened the internal conflict in Myanmar in 2017-2021 between the military government and ethnic minorities in Myanmar. For this purpose, qualitative research methods, document studies and literature are used. To strengthen the analysis, the concept of bad leaders and the concept of intractable conflict are used. The results of the study show that the Myanmar military is the main actor that prolongs the conflict, or the main factor in creating and maintaining intractable conflict in Myanmar. The strong role and ambition of Min Aung Hlaing as the military leader in leading the coup is to return Myanmar to a military authoritarian state. In conclusion, as long as the Tatmadaw does not relinquish power, and there is no effective international pressure, this conflict is likely to remain in a stalemate phase with a prolonged deadlock

What Is Transformative Dialogue and How Does It Bring About Transformation? A Commentary to Florian Bekkers' Article “Is Transformative Dialogue a Possible and Justifiable Intervention for Resolving Intractable Conflicts?”

ABSTRACTIn his article “Is Transformative Dialogue a possible and justifiable intervention for resolving intractable conflicts?” Florian Bekkers discusses three processes that have all been referred to as Transformative Dialogue. In this commentary the author claims that these processes are in fact fundamentally different and that one of the ways they differ is in how they use theory and what guides the action of interveners in each approach. Most conflict theories are meant to explain conflict behavior rather than guide the decisions of interveners, which are instead based on implicit and unspoken assumptions. Clarifying the assumptions of interveners would do much to both highlight salient differences between approaches and to address critical questions of ethics which Bekkers raises in his article. Transformative Dialogue building on the premises of Transformative Mediation is nondirective and the transformation achieved is based on the fact that participants make key decisions about dialogue and how to relate to others themselves.

Conflict-Induced Migration and Economic Opportunities: The Integration of Yemeni Migrants in Indonesia Amidst the Ongoing Yemeni Crisis

The Yemeni intractable conflict (2011 to present) causes one of the worst humanitarian crises in the century. This study aims at revealing how migration during conflict opens economic opportunities for Yemenis who migrated to Indonesia from 2011. The study proposed to analyze the links between the historical commercial migration and recent war migration and their impacts on the integration of the most recently arrived Yemenis to Indonesia. To do so, we draw on the theories of conflict-induced migration and related studies concerning the phenomenon of Yemenis migration to Indonesia. The study utilizes descriptive phenomenological research design to collect data and recruit the participants. Twenty-seven Yemeni migrants were recruited to fill in the online survey distributed by the Yemeni Community, and twenty Yemeni migrants, chosen purposively, were interviewed. Our prior findings show that, unlike the first wave of Yemeni’s migration that is described as “chain migration” by which most of the migrants were from Hadhramout migrated for religion and business purposes, the second wave of migration is motivated by a severe conflict in Yemen which caused a forced migration or ‘conflict-induced migration’. In addition to macro-factors of migration ‘political and economic’, micro-factors, namely social factors such as intermarriage, education, teaching (mainly Qur’an and its science), trading, and family union led to current migration. Other psychological factors such a ‘stigma’ not to return to Yemen due to the complexity of the situation, most Yemeni prefer to marry Indonesian women to secure a better life. Instead, due to the complexity of the Indonesian working visas and business ownerships for foreigners, most of the Yemenis prefer to implement the ‘integration’ strategy to survive and cope with the situation. The study concludes that the current wave of migration is an extension of the pre-colonial and colonial waves; however, what differs is the social integration, through which many economic opportunities become available due to their marriages to Indonesian women.

Review of Florian Bekkers' Paper “Is Transformative Dialog a Possible and Justifiable Intervention for Resolving Intractable Conflicts?”

ABSTRACTThis paper makes a significant contribution to conflict engagement theory by examining transformative dialog in addressing what is variously called “deeply rooted,” “identity‐based,” “intransigent” or “intractable” conflict. While the term “intractable” may unfortunately suggest that addressing such conflicts creatively is almost impossible, creative engagement remains essential even if complete resolution is not realistic, particularly in today's increasingly complex global landscape. The paper offers both theoretical depth and practical guidance for practitioners working in the challenging terrain of identity‐based conflicts, where traditional conflict resolution approaches often fail to achieve meaningful progress. Its examination of transformative dialog provides valuable insights for both scholars and practitioners in the field.

Is Transformative Dialogue a Possible and Justifiable Intervention for Resolving Intractable Conflicts?—A Practitioner's View

Is Transformative Dialogue a Possible and Justifiable Intervention for Resolving Intractable Conflicts?—A Practitioner's View

Genitorialità responsiva e educazione alla pace: alcune riflessioni sulla fragilità nei contesti di Intractable Conflicts

The paper establishes a connection between the principles of responsive parenting and the issues concerning education of peace and promotion of peaceful coexistence. It is argued that the promotion of education for non-violence and positive conflict management should not be the sole responsibility of the school, but rather a shared endeavour between educators and parents. This contribution examines the role of family relationships in either deconstructing, or perpetuating, forms of violence that fuel the so-called Intractable Conflicts. Furthermore, the paper draws upon research conducted within the context of an Intractable Conflict, to elucidate the ways in which responsive parenting and resilience can facilitate constructive conflict management.

CLIMATE CHANGE AND ARMED BANDITRY ON FOOD SECURITY IN ADAMAWA STATE -NIGERIA

The study examines the effects of climate change and armed banditry on food security in Adamawa State. Adamawa has been grappling with an array of complex climate change and escalating security crises, marked by multifaceted forms of banditry that include acts of terrorism and an intractable herder-farmer conflict. The objectives of the study are to assess the causes of climate change and armed banditry in Adamawa State, examine the effects of climate change and armed banditry on food security in Adamawa State and to proffer mitigation measures to climate change and armed banditry in Adamawa State. The study adopts eco-scarcity theory. The study uses quantitative method of data analysis. The collected through questionnaires were analysed used simple percentage and mean. The study discovered deforestation and poverty as the major causes of climate change and armed banditry in Adamawa State. The recommends that state government should lunch tree planting campaign and should prioritize job creation.

Is Transformative Dialogue a Possible and Justifiable Intervention for Resolving Intractable Conflicts?

ABSTRACTThe world is suffering from intractable conflicts. Societies and families are torn apart and individuals are threatened in their existence. In this article, three controverses are explored about how to deal with intractable conflicts. In taking a closer look, these intractable conflicts can be understood as “identity‐related.” It can be shown that this identity dimension of a conflict is not sufficiently addressed by argumentation and negotiation. Still, accepting that some differences in value and belief seem so fundamentally incompatible that we should give up striving for a solution need not be the conclusion. There are decades of positive reports of practical experience with various transformative methods on a microscale available that can be taken on to develop interventions to solve intractable conflicts on a societal level. Is it possible and justifiable to develop and institutionalize “transformation” as a third general approach next to argumentation and negotiation? Can interventions aiming at a transformation of self‐understanding and identity be introduced without manipulation and infringement of autonomy?

Intractable conflicts over end-of-life decisions: A descriptive and ethical analysis of French case-law.

Intractable conflicts over end-of-life decisions: A descriptive and ethical analysis of French case-law.