Social Conflicts and Third Parties
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About the Book and Author
Social Conflicts and Third Parties: Strategies of Conflict Resolution
Jacob Bercovitch
The pressing need to find new ways to settle social disputes and render them less destructive has led to a concern with the role that outsidersor third partiescan play in the conflict resolution process. This book contributes to an increased understanding of the nature and activities of third parties in a wide range of conflict situations.
Dr. Bercovitch first describes and interprets the major elements of the third-party intervention process, then provides an empirical examination of its structure and characteristics in settings as diverse as family struggles, labor-management problems, and international disputes. Throughout, he illustrates the dynamics of the process from the vantage point of the third parties themselves. Finally he points out the conditions most likely to strengthen this type of conflict management and discusses the means for determining the appropriate forms of intervention at different junctures of a dispute.
Jacob Bercovitch is a lecturer in international relations at the University of Canterbury in New Zealand.
To My Parents, with Love and Gratitude
First published 1984 by Westview Press
Published 2019 by Routledge
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Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
Bercovitch, Jacob.
Social conflicts and third parties.
(A Westview replica edition)
1. Conflict management. 2. Social conflict. 3. Negotiation.
4. Social interaction. I. Title.
HM136.B38 1984 303.6 83-10351
ISBN 13: 978-0-367-28750-4 (hbk)
Students of social behavior can not venture far without being reminded that individuals and groups face one kind of conflict or another throughout most of their lives. Whichever way one looks, there is certainly no shortage of conflicts. There are conflicts between spouses, between friends, between departments, organizations and firms, conflicts between groups of people and conflicts within and between nations. The only kind of conflict we have not yet seen is interplanetary conflict. Conflict is a phenomenon which most of us experience at first hand, but only few of us go far toward understanding it.
Although most conflicts are managed, or settled, through a variety of peaceful and well-established means (e.g. negotiation, markets, courts etc.), some conflicts may tend to escalate and be expressed through coercion and violence. The cycle of an escalating conflict and violence may strike everywhere. It may strike the family, the factory, or the nation. Wherever it strikes and whichever form it assumes, violence is a form of behavior which is designed to kill or injure a person, or destroy his property. What makes violence so frightening is that it can evolve out of normal conflict situations, and that it can kill thousands, indeed hundreds of thousands of people. In one way or another, the challenge of violence is one of the gravest problems we face today.
Given the fact that much violence grows out of circumstances in which people or groups find themselves in conflict with others, does this mean that conflict as such is bad? The answer to that is emphatically negative. Conflict as such is neither good, nor bad. When dealt with appropriately, it may lead to progress and creation; when dealt with inappropriately, it may lead to violence and destruction. If most people in conflict possessed the desire, as well as the skills and ability, to deal with their conflicts appropriately, more amicable agreements could be achieved and less violence witnessed. If we only knew more about conflict management, more conflicts could be managed peacefully and effectively.
One of the more constructive aspects of conflict management involves the efforts of interveners, or third parties. A variety of individuals and agencies engage in this form of peacemaking (as distinct from peacekeeping ) in order to help the disputing parties to find a solution to their conflict. Peacemakers of this sort (i.e. pacific and voluntary) offer an alternative to the use of violence or legalistic approaches. This book is about third parties in conflict situations. It is not intended as an instruction manual, it is intended to stimulate discussion and interest in this aspect of conflict management.
Options and strategies available to third parties are quite numerous. Third parties may intervene in conflicts between people acting as individuals and in conflicts between larger social units. And yet, despite its importance and the vast expansion in its use, we still know very little about this form of conflict management. The purpose of this book is to understand, in some detail, the structure and process of this conflict management mechanism and offer some insights into its underlying principles. Used in context, these insights and understanding provide an important basis for moving back and forth between theory and practice, between the real world and the conceptual world, and for thinking about the art and science of third party intervention and the conditions of its effectiveness.
