have generated, it has also sometimes undercut the energy necessary to build movements by focusing prematurely on dialogue, de‐escalation, and resolution.
The two of us have spent a significant part of our professional lives working to understand what drives conflict; the relationship between communication, emotion, power, culture, and structure; and the processes that can be used to support people in working through their conflicts in a constructive way. We have guided public dialogues, high‐stakes negotiations, and intense interpersonal interactions in organizations, communities, and families. Much of our work has involved trying to identify how people can resolve differences, arrive at solutions to seemingly intractable problems, and lower the level of tension and hostility in volatile situations. But in doing so we have also had to support people in raising difficult issues, accepting that some elements of their most important conflicts are not amenable to tangible short‐term solutions, and learning to mobilize and use their power effectively.
We have experienced some astonishingly and unexpected transformative moments in our work with others, but we know that profound change does not come easily, predictably, or by the mechanistic application of some formula for human interaction. We believe that just as the lessons we have learned as advocates for social change have informed our work as conflict interveners, our work on conflict sheds light on the struggle for social justice. What those lessons are and how they can be applied to the volatile world we inhabit is the focus of this book.
Three of the most important lessons we have learned are the vital role of conflict in breaking cycles of oppression, the importance of taking a strategic approach to long‐term conflict, and the danger that neutrality poses as a central guiding principle for the role that conflict interveners play in the change process. These lessons are relevant not only to conflict specialists but to all those working for social change.
Constructive Conflict
Conflict intervention practitioners frequently assert that conflict itself is not the problem, but how we handle it often is. Labor and management struggle over competing interests, environmentalists and fossil fuel producers look at the world through different lenses, and divorcing parents often have different visions and values about rearing children. The challenge we all face, therefore, is not so much how to resolve these differences but how to find a constructive way to deal with them over time.
What conflict interveners have usually meant by handling conflict constructively, however, has been about bringing these differences to rapid and peaceful resolution, tamping down the level of emotionality and particularly anger, “separating the people from the problem,” and minimizing the disruptive effects of conflict on people, communities, and institutions. This vision of what makes conflict constructive negates the true importance of creative and constructive conflict in our world.
So what makes conflict truly constructive?
Constructive conflict moves us forward in creating the world we want to be part of, one that reflects our most important values and desires, promotes the systems that will contribute to the changes we seek, and disrupts those that interfere with these. Constructive conflict is also carried on in accordance with our values about human and group interaction and with the fundamental goals we are pursuing.
There are two important caveats here, however. One is that what is constructive is contextual to the person and situation. The other is that no action is pure. The line between constructive conflict and pointless destruction is often a fine one. When does angry, militant, and effective mass action turn into looting, arson, and violence against individuals?
The initial reaction to the George Floyd murder was justified, necessary, chaotic, and sometimes destructive of the very communities who have been historically victimized by the White racist system that the protests were directed against. This is not unusual. It is what happened after Rodney King was beaten, Dr. King was assassinated, and during some of the most important labor actions in American history (e.g. the Pullman and Homestead Strikes). Accepting that such violence may be an inevitable and sometimes energizing aspect of social change efforts may force many of us to deal with an uncomfortable level of cognitive dissonance, but working for social change requires that we do so. Of course, the violence associated with progressive social movements, although generally small in scale and destruction, is frequently exaggerated and seized upon to discredit these movements in their entirety. This was the response of many supporters of Donald Trump who tried to minimize the destruction and danger posed by the invasion of the US Capitol on January 6, 2021, by equating it with the minor acts of violence that occurred during some Black Lives Matter protests.
The challenge in developing a truly constructive approach to conflict, which of necessity is disruptive, is to move through periods of chaotic disruption to build a multi‐pronged, sustainable, strategic, nonviolent approach to disrupting oppressive systems.
Nonviolence and Disruption
As may be obvious, nonviolence is one key to sustainable ap‐proaches to systems disruption. Nonviolence as both a philosophy and a strategy has been at the heart of many of the most important and successful social movements in recent history. The anti‐nuclear, civil rights, women's, gay rights, and environmental movements have largely adhered to a commitment to nonviolence. This has been essential to sustaining them and to harnessing the moral power that has been vital to their success.
But we should remember that the power of nonviolence lies not only in its moral consistency and vision but in what lurks behind it. The alternative to taking seriously the grievances expressed by nonviolent protestors is often chaotic and destructive violence. This was true of the movement against British Colonialism led by Mohandas Gandhi, the struggle to end apartheid in South Africa, and the US civil rights movement. We should also remember that in a White supremacist system, people of color are held to a very different standard about violence than White people.
At the opening of the Livonia Trial in 1964, Nelson Mandela discussed why after years of a disciplined commitment to nonviolence, he chose to participate in acts of sabotage against the apartheid regime of South Africa:
“All lawful modes of expressing opposition to this principle had been closed by legislation, and we were placed in a position in which we had either to accept a permanent state of inferiority, or to defy the Government. We chose to defy the Government. We first broke the law in a way which avoided any recourse to violence; when this form was legislated against, and when the Government resorted to a show of force to crush opposition to its policies, only then did we decide to answer violence with violence.”
(Mandela, Statement at the opening of his trial on charges of sabotage, Supreme Court of South Africa, 1964)
Mandela never disavowed this decision, albeit one he was very loath to make. Whether this was the wisest or most effective approach remains an interesting question. The group that engaged in sabotage (Umkhonto—an offshoot of the ANC) was quickly broken up, and these actions led to the long imprisonment of Mandela and his associates. Directly, it did little to disrupt the apartheid system. But 27 years later, Mandela emerged from imprisonment as a widely respected leader who was able to negotiate an end to apartheid and take the critical initial steps to building a new society. His power was in part derived from the widespread recognition that he was perhaps the only one with the credibility to enter into an agreement that would not be immediately rejected or provoke mass outbreaks of violence.
Recognizing that the power of nonviolence lies to some extent in the alternative it provides to a more violent confrontation does not mean that proponents of nonviolence are hypocritical. Effective movements for social change, as noted above, are not pristine or rigidly consistent.
Resolution,
