ICAR Ph.D. Dissertations
A description of the changing discourse surrounding conflict resolution as justice practice. By redefining crime in various ways - as disputes, harms, and conflicts - conflict resolution and restorative justice practitioners construct alternative narratives of crime. Positioning theory is used as a tool to analyze practitioner narratives of community mediation, victim offender mediation and community conferencing practice.
These alternative practices are understood as primarily discursive interventions, providing participants with narrative agency to recreate their identities in the aftermath of wrongdoing. Thus the malignant positioning of offender and victims inherent in criminal court processing is counteracted.
Pluralism in Television News on State Formation Conflicts and Pluralism of “Imagined Communities”: institutional Foundations and Implications for Media Conflict Interventions
By Natalia Mirimanova
Mass media interventions into protracted conflicts are based on two assumptions: 1. greater proportion of private and other non-state media ensures pluralism in conflict reporting, and 2. supply of pluralism of perspectives on the conflict in media entails pluralism of opinions and attitudes in the society. The dissertation explores whether institutional pluralism among national television news channels translates into pluralism of news frames on a state formation conflict that society is a party to, on the one hand, and whether pluralism in the national television news coverage of the state formation conflict fosters pluralism of “imagined communities” among the audience. These two sets of relationships were tested within a new interdisciplinary analytical framework in the case of the Russian television news coverage of the conflict over Chechnya in 2000-2001 and in the case of Serbian national television news coverage of the conflict over Kosovo in 2001-2002. Russian television channels of varying degrees of institutional autonomy demonstrated consistent differences in their framing of Chechnya conflict. Distinct “imagined communities” accurately mapped onto the audiences of institutionally distinct channels in Russia. In Serbia no pluralism of framing Kosovo conflict was discovered among institutionally diverse television channels.
Frame Change: The Role of the Press and "the Irish Question"
By Linda McLean Harned
Language frames us, our world and where we are headed—by changing the frames we use we can contribute to changing our future. Press frames are constructed through the selection of certain pieces of information that can contribute to paradigms, our ways of thinking; and to worldviews, our ways of seeing the world, of seeing and perceiving the other. Our perception of the other informs our attitudes, which in turn influences how we behave toward the other. When the language the media uses to define the conflict changes, the frames of the conflict can also change, allowing for a different way of seeing the future. This work first discusses the role of the press in the historic frames used to define “the Irish question.” This is followed by an examination of how press frames in the Northern Ireland conflict were created, and maintained, and then how and why they changed. The impact of frame change is then discussed within the context of reimagined communities and reconciliation.
Terrorism and Conflict Resolution: Theory and Practice
By William G. Cunningham, Jr.
An examination of terrorism and counterterrorism using the framework of conflict analysis and resolution. We develop a definition and a typology of terrorism that is based on the primary motivators of terrorism. We review of the causes of ethno-national terrorism focusing on relevant micro and macro level theories. We review the strategies and tactics of contemporary terrorism and counterterrorism. We develop a framework to analyze counterterrorism based on the use of power, rights, and interestbased methods and processes. We develop an interest-based model of counterterrorism based on the theories and practices of conflict resolution. We use a case study analysis of the terrorism and counterterrorism approaches used in Northern Ireland to validate our concepts and models. We apply Sandole’s three pillar model of conflict analysis to analyze terrorism and counterterrorism interventions in Northern Ireland.
Loyalty and Order: Clan Identity & Political Preference in Kyrgyzstan & Kazakhstan
By Melissa Murray Burn
Following the collapse of the Soviet system, clan and faction networking has gained considerable attention in Central Asia. Far reaching changes in politics, economics and society have reshaped clan relations to meet pressing needs, revealing an adaptability that confirms the endurance of the clan system. What are the implications for ongoing democratization efforts? This research project explores the extent to which social group identity, specifically clan identity, shapes people's political preferences leading them to support authoritarian behavior or particular elements of liberal democracy. After developing an integrative crossdisciplinary framework to link identity to political attitudes, case study analyses in the post- Soviet republics of Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan demonstrate that strong clan identity is correlated with a particular set of political preferences. The multimethod research program included interviews and a small social survey in each country in 2005 together with an analysis of recent scholarship on the subject societies. The theoretical framework combines concepts from social identity theory, institutionalism literature, and political science.
December 2006