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by Andrew Flake

Earlier this month, I had the privilege of joining colleagues at Atlanta’s Carter Center to moderate a program on “Peacekeeping and Conflict Resolution.” Sponsored by our Atlanta International Arbitration Society, it featured a discussion by scholar Paul Root Wolpe, Ph.D., who has set out to found, here in Atlanta, a center devoted to interdisciplinary conflict resolution efforts — “PACT,” or Peacekeeping And Conflict Transformation.

The discussion was fascinating, and in part highlighted the history of institutions in the city, including the Carter Center and the King Center, that make Atlanta uniquely suited for this kind of project.

Certainly, as the program title suggests, a large part of peacekeeping globally centers on what Dr. Wolpe referred to as the first track or band of conflict, involving state actors. But there are other tracks: a second into which we could place large institutions like our bar associations, non-governmental organizations, arbitral institutions, and others, and a third, including local community groups and organizations.

These are the areas in which most of us operate professionally, and one recurring theme from our panel discussion really runs right through our work in the field of mediation. The theme is the importance of the right way to discuss conflict. It is the how of discussing difficult issues, which is not, as often happens, to simply avoid them.

The “how” includes skills that we coach the parties in mediation on, and that help us help them reach agreement: active and deep listening, empathy, the ability to separate a position — policy-related, legal, or political — from a person. We help the parties be mindful where we can of what they have common, and in particular, their shared interests in the deal they are negotiating.

As mediators and dispute-resolution professionals, isn’t there something here that we can share — approaches and skills that are not limited to diplomatic discussions or the commercial mediation room, but that apply to disagreements and different viewpoints between friends, neighbors, and yes, even over the extended-family Thanksgiving table?

Don’t these approaches, when projected out and repeated, start to make a systemic difference? In that sense, isn’t there a connection, while not immediately obvious, between track-one and track-two level conflicts, and how we approach our private disputes? I think Swedish diplomat Dag Hammarskjold had this idea in mind when he said that “our work for peace must begin within the private world of each of us.”

Beyond our own personal and professional endeavors, we can look at efforts to bring that kind of discussion into the public space. We can support initiatives to teach those skills and to strengthen the process of civil dialogue. As one example, Arizona State University hosts a Civil Discourse Project, whose programs and content are excellent. Other non-profits, like the AAA-ICDR Foundation, support a range of community dispute resolution programs that go beyond the simply legal.

Since the Thanksgiving week is here, I’ll close with this: I’m grateful for the chance we have, across a range of disputes, to model the right way to handle conflict and to discuss disagreement. There are a myriad of ways we can join this overall work of conflict resolution and yes, peacebuilding, even writ small. We can start where we are.

Happy Thanksgiving, and have a restful and enjoyable holiday! ABF