This article provides an overview of the author's efforts, together with those of colleagues, to help institutionalize the teaching and practice of conflict resolution in the newly independent states of the former Soviet Union and Eastern and Central Europe. These include his institute's university-based programs in Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Turkey funded primarily by the U.S. Institute of Peace, and his work, in conjunction with Partners for Democratic Change, in the Czech Republic, Lithuania, Poland, and the Slovak Republic. The article concludes by locating these activities within the context of the author's model for a new European peace and security system.
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References
1.
1. Instead of the National Peace Academy, the U.S. Congress in 1984 created the U.S. Institute of Peace (USIP) (which did not require facilities at GMU). See United States Institute of Peace Act, Pub. L. 98-525, 19 Oct. 1984.
2.
Bryant Wedge and Dennis J. D. Sandole, “Conflict Management: A New Venture into Professionalization,”Peace and Change, 8(2/3):129-138 (Summer 1982).
3.
3. ICAR's APT projects deal with (1) divided societies and communities, (2) racial and ethnic conflict in schools, and (3) governance. See Juliana E. Birkhoff, Frank Blechman, and Wallace Warfield, “Teaching Conflict Resolution: The Applied Practice and Theory Program,”ICAR Newsletter, 7(1):1, 4-9 (Spring 1995). There has been some interest in internationalizing the APT, perhaps initially within the context of the Transcaucasian Project.
4.
See also Dennis J. D. Sandole and Hugo van der Merwe, eds., Conflict Resolution Theory and Practice: Integration and Application (Manchester: Manchester University Press; New York: St. Martin's Press, 1993).
5.
5. Dennis J. D. Sandole, “Applied Conflict Resolution Theory and Practice: Enacting Burton's `Consultative Role of the Professional in Conflict Resolution' in Post-Cold War Europe,”ICAR Newsletter, 6(2): 17 (Fall 1994).
6.
6. Although Dr. Mitchell and I had included Georgia in our original request for funding, USIP awarded us less than we asked for, recommending that we drop one site from our list. We decided to temporarily suspend Georgia from the project because, at the time, the level of violence there made it difficult to establish contact with potential partners.
7.
7. See Moorad Mooradian, “Third Party Mediations and Missed Opportunities in Nagorno-Karabakh: A Design for a Possible Solution” (Ph.D. diss., George Mason University, 1996).
8.
8. The center, which was established with the assistance of an Armenian American benefactor, consists of a large room suitable for conferences as well as classes, plus two other rooms with four computers and printers for the use of students in the conflictology program.
9.
9. See Daniel Druckman and Serdar Güner, “Diplomacy in the Amarna Period: A Social-Psychological Analysis” (Paper prepared for delivery at the Bellagio Conference on the Origins of Diplomacy, 16-20 Sept. 1996, Bellagio, Italy).
10.
10. See Conflict Resolution in Democratic Society: A Comprehensive Curriculum Prepared by Partners for Democratic Change and the National Centers on Conflict Resolution in the Bulgarian, Czech, Hungarian, Polish and Slovak Republics and the Russian Federation (San Francisco: Partners for Democratic Change, 1993). The Partners' programs in Lithuania and Georgia had not been established by the time of the December 1992 meetings in Stadtschlaining.
11.
11. The first of these presentations has been translated into Lithuanian as well as summarized in English and included in the published proceedings, Konfliktai ir Bendradarbiavimas, ed. J. Lakis, V. Šlapkauskas, and S. Ignatavičius (Vilnius: Maketavo VPU leidykla, 1996), pp. 46-51, 74-76.
12.
idem , “Post-Cold War Peace and Security Systems in Europe: Prospects and Prescriptions,”Peace and the Sciences, pp. 5-12 (Mar. 1993).
13.
On 1 Jan. 1995, the CSCE became the OSCE. See CSCE Budapest Document 1994: Towards a Genuine Partnership in a New Era (Budapest, 6 Dec. 1994).
14.
Martin van Creveld , The Transformation of War (New York: Free Press, 1991).
15.
15. See John W. McDonald, Jr., and Diane B. Bendahmane, eds., Conflict Resolution: Track 2 Diplomacy (Washington, DC: U.S. Department of State, Foreign Service Institute, Center for the Study of Foreign Affairs, 1987).
16.
16. On these and other political paradigms, see Dennis J. D. Sandole, “Paradigms, Theories, and Metaphors in Conflict and Conflict Resolution: Coherence or Confusion,” in Conflict Resolution Theory and Practice, ed. Sandole and van der Merwe, pp. 3-24.
17.
17. On negative and positive peace, see Johan Galtung, “Violence, Peace and Peace Research,”Journal of Peace Research, 6(3): 167-191 (1969).
18.
18. Ronald J. Fisher and Loraleigh Keashly, “The Potential Complementarity of Mediation and Consultation Within a Contingency Model of Third Party Intervention,”Journal of Peace Research, 28(1):36 (1991).
19.
19. Since NEPSS is meant to develop within the context of the OSCE, I have deemed it important to explore with OSCE elites, including heads of delegation to OSCE negotiations in Vienna, their views on ideas associated with NEPSS. For some initial reactions in this regard, see Dennis J. D. Sandole, “Changing Ideologies in the Conference on Security and Co-operation in Europe,”The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, 542:131-147 (Nov. 1995).
20.
20. Quoted in Kenneth N. Waltz, Man, the State and War: A Theoretical Analysis (New York: Columbia University Press, 1959), pp. 188, 232.
21.
21. In addition to the enthusiasm shown by Salva Gabeskiria and Victor Cikaidze at the Bilkent planning conference for establishing a conflict resolution program at Tbilisi State University, similar enthusiasm was expressed to me by other Georgians (as well as by South Ossetians and Abkhazians) at “Caucasus Seminar: Joint Training of NGO Representatives and UN Personnel in Conflict Resolution and Human Rights Monitoring,” held at the Austrian Study Center for Peace and Conflict Resolution, Stadtschlaining, 20 July-3 Aug. 1996. As indicated earlier, Dr. Mitchell and I plan to include Georgia (and, most likely, Abkhazia and South Ossetia as well) in our project as soon as funding permits. In the meantime, Irakli Kakabadze, an ICAR M.S. student who is from Georgia, has expressed a willingness to teach at Tbilisi State upon his graduation. Also, Partners for Democratic Change has recently established its program in Georgia, under the direction of former ICAR visiting fellow Ivane Matchavariani. See “Partners Opens New Center in Georgia,”Partners for Democratic Change International Newsletter, 3:5 (Fall 1996).
22.
22. Sandole, “Applied Conflict Resolution Theory and Practice,” p. 17.
