25-08-2016, 04:31 PM
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There are three principle perspectives from which people approach conflict problems. First, there are the adversaries or contending parties. These are people who become involved in conflict as part of efforts to protect their rights or advance their interests. Typically, there are "first parties," people who want something to change, and "second parties," people who don't want it to change. These are the groups who are fighting one another and without them there would be no conflict. They are not interested in resolving conflicts for the sake of resolution. They are interested in winning, and doing so at the lowest possible cost.
Second, there are bystanders--people who don't really care who wins the conflict, but who are being adversely affected by the conflict and would like to see it resolved. Sometimes, these are people who are literally caught in the cross-fire between opposing military forces and, as a result, they are having their lives threatened and their property destroyed. In other, less extreme, cases they are citizens of communities that are being so torn apart by conflict that they are losing their ability to function effectively.
Third, there are people who are not being adversely affected by the conflict, but who want to try to help the disputants work out their problems. This kind of person is often called a "third party" or and "intermediary"--someone who goes in between the parties to try to help them communicate better, and to work out a solution to their problems. Mediators are one kind of third party; arbitrators, facilitators, and conciliators are others.
Not surprisingly, there are likely to be significant differences in the kinds of conflict management or resolution techniques that the three groups (adversaries, bystanders, and intermediaries) are likely to adopt. Adversaries are often not very interested in resolution because they feel that they will be pressured to accept unwanted compromises which will not protect their interests. Therefore, they tend to follow force-based strategies, with help from people such as community organizers, labor organizers, lawyers, political strategists, and military and para-military forces, all of whom are familiar with force-based confrontational techniques.
Bystanders and intermediary groups (which often includes the society as a whole) tend to focus upon efforts to halt the confrontation regardless of who wins. They often seek help from judges, political leaders, police forces, as well as mediators, facilitators and consensus builders to help them better control destructive conflicts. Yet the disputing parties themselves are the ones that are really in control. If they want to continue conflict as usual, little can be done to change the situation. If they are willing to try some new approaches, significant progress can be made to make most conflicts more constructive.
Disputants' Use of this System
For this reason, this training program is written in ways which emphasize the utility of these ideas for disputants as well as intermediaries. We want the people who are involved in conflicts themselves to look at these materials, and use them to reconsider the ways they are framing and addressing their conflicts. While some of these approaches require the cooperation of all the disputants or the assistance of a third party, there are a large number of steps which can be taken by one party alone–without requiring cooperative efforts of opponents. This obviously makes it much easier to adopt alternative approaches. Another reason why we focus upon strategies which are appealing to, and can be directly implemented by, adversaries is that there is often simply not enough money to hire intermediaries. Consequently, many conflicts have to be handled by the adversaries themselves. These adversary-oriented approaches should also make the job of intermediaries easier, since it emphasizes steps which adversaries have good reason to adopt. All of this explains why we have presented many of the materials in this training program from the parties, rather than an intermediary, perspective.