Vasquez, John A., James Turner Johnson, Sanford Jaffee, and Linda Stamato, eds. Beyond Confrontation: Learning Conflict Resolution in the Post-Cold War Era. Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press, 1995.
There is nothing new in Beyond Confrontation: Learning Conflict Reso lution in the Post-Cold War Era, and therein lies its considerable value. Over the past several decades of research on peace and conflict resolution, disciplinary boundaries generally have limited the ability of scholars to see beyond that which they had been taught to study. Primarily, this divide has separated those who study domestic conflict resolution from those who focus on international rela tions. Yet another subtle, though not universal, separation has limited learning by setting distinct initial orientations for scholars of political science, social psychology, law, management, ethics, and other fields. All along, some of the best work has been conducted by those who intentionally cross disciplinary boundaries. Nevertheless, most scholars publish in the discipline in which they were trained and from which they receive professional acknowledgement.
This edited volume, the result of a United States Institute of Peace-spon sored seminar, is intended for international relations scholars who study conflict and conflict resolution. The aim is to improve that work by encouraging cross -disciplinary learning. The authors of the various chapters review the literature in their disciplines, thus providing thematic and bibliographic keys to other fields. The orientation of the book as a whole is to call the realist paradigm of inter national relations into question, though the chapter by Charles F. Doran argues that realism is consistent with the study of conflict resolution.
All of the authors acknowledge that the international system is far from chaotic and that norms or structures (legal and systemic) serve to routinize most interactions between states. Most of the authors subscribe to the view that there are some important similarities between domestic and international conflict, especially when, on the domestic side, we examine intergroup conflict. And in most cases the authors seek to marry dispute resolution techniques to theoretical understanding in order to improve the chances of successfully resolving conflicts in the post-Cold War world.
The volume is organized into three parts: an introductory section that provides an overview of dispute resolution in domestic settings and international relations, followed by several chapters that explore interconnections between domestic and global conflict resolution and opportunities for and obstacles to global conflict resolution. The introductory surveys (Robert A. Baruch Bush writing on the domestic setting and Ronald J. Fisher on the international), when taken together, bridge the domestic-international and disciplinary divides through explanations of fundamental terms and concepts. Of the chapters that elaborate on this theme, Deborah M. Kolb and Eileen Babbit's on mediation practices and James Turner Johnson's on international law stand out as particularly lucid and detailed writings on the connections between theory and practice. Less useful is John W. Burton's contribution, which is marred (in my view) by overly dire descriptions of the current global system. He states that "[t]he global system is now fascism," a claim that is more polemical than substantiated. Nevertheless, the chapter is important because it summarizes the views of this leading theorist on the nature of conflict and conflict resolution. Charles F. Doran's chapter, the only explicitly realist work in the volume, provides significant insights in its disaggregation of first, the power and the role of states, and second, of systemic change through violent versus non-violent means. Doran's state-centric approach is less compelling, though, in his neglect of individuals' and groups' needs, interests, and goals, the points on which, in contrast, Burton is most compelling. The concluding chapter, by John A. Vasquez, is, for the most part, successful in weaving together crosscutting themes among the articles. One particularly positive aspect of this volume is that several of the authors reference other chapters in the book, thereby highlighting how insights from different disciplines can be useful to the study of global conflict resolution.
Rejecting realism does not mean that these authors are naive, wishful thinkers. Nor is their approach identical to the philosophically-grounded (and usually dismissed) idealism of Kant and Wilson. They all take the approach that conflict, or at least its expression as violence between groups, is a problem that needs to be resolved and that prescriptions for resolution must have an empirical basis. Proposals suggested by theory must be evaluated by reviewing how successful or unsuccessful they are under what conditions a sort of pragmatic positivism.
It is this aspect of the volume the need to evaluate the usefulness of what we have learned from other disciplines that marks the book as a starting point rather than a definitive work. As John A. Vasquez notes in his concluding paragraphs, "[a] systematic review of existing and recent cases attempting to resolve interstate conflicts or settle disputes" needs to be undertaken. To use Beyond Confrontation as a springboard for further empirical investigation, schol ars will need to identify case studies and evaluate hypotheses. To use Beyond Confrontation in the classroom, a companion casebook would be particularly welcome. For scholars who have not had an opportunity to keep up with the extensive literature on conflict resolution in other fields and for students who need a comprehensive cross disciplinary introduction, this book is a practical literature review and an invitation for further research.
Renée Marlin-Bennett
American University