Author's Keywords: Conflict Management, Information and Communication Technologies (ICT), Networks, Diplomacy, Dialogue	Convention Submission, Review, and Scheduling! All Academic Convention can help with all of your abstract management needs and many more. Contact us today for a quote! Submission - Custom fields, multiple submission types, tracks, audio visual, multiple upload formats, automatic conversion to pdf. Review - Peer Review, Bulk reviewer assignment, bulk emails, ranking, z-score statistics, and multiple worksheets! Reports - Many standard and custom reports generated while you wait. Print programs with participant indexes, event grids, and more! Scheduling - Flexible and convenient grid scheduling within rooms and buildings. Conflict checking and advanced filtering. Communication - Bulk email tools to help your administrators send reminders and responses. Use form letters, a message center, and much more! Management - Search tools, duplicate people management, editing tools, submission transfers, many tools to manage a variety of conference management headaches! Click here for more information.
Association: Name: American Political Science Association URL: http://www.apsanet.org
Citation: URL: http://www.allacademic.com/meta/p151460_index.html Direct Link: HTML Code:

Wehrenfennig, Daniel. "Beyond Diplomacy: Conflict Management in the Network Society" Paper presented at the annual meeting of the American Political Science Association, Marriott, Loews Philadelphia, and the Pennsylvania Convention Center, Philadelphia, PA, Aug 31, 2006 <Not Available>. 2009-05-24 <http://www.allacademic.com/meta/p151460_index.html>

Wehrenfennig, D. , 2006-08-31 "Beyond Diplomacy: Conflict Management in the Network Society" Paper presented at the annual meeting of the American Political Science Association, Marriott, Loews Philadelphia, and the Pennsylvania Convention Center, Philadelphia, PA Online <PDF>. 2009-05-24 from http://www.allacademic.com/meta/p151460_index.html

Publication Type: Proceeding Abstract: Besides the neo-realist concentration on material forces and power or the neo-liberal deterministic perspective of market mechanism, the existence of a working communication and interaction structure between the parties seems to be an important factor to the success of conflict management. Especially since the end of the Cold War, half of all conflicts have been ended through communication and peace talks between the conflict parties, whereas 100 years ago roughly one in five was resolved through negotiation (Sisk 2001). Although the importance of working communication and dialogue for conflict management is not a new approach and can be found in early liberal cosmopolitan ideas such as Kant�s �perpetual peace� or studies on communication by Karl Deutsch (1953), Paul Watzlawick (1962) or J�rgen Habermas (1985) and more recently Thomas Risse (2000), it has expanded beyond the traditional realm of state diplomacy. During the time of the Cold War, a few political agents from the conflict parties and some higher political representatives from the super-powers could make �peace�; today we deal with a much more complex situation in which, in a constructivist jargon, �new� cultural, identity and civil forces have entered what was previously the exclusively political arena. Some very successful dialogue approaches such as Interactive Conflict Resolution (Burton 1969, Fisher 1997, Saunders 1999), the Harvard Negotiation Project (Fisher 2001) or Transcend (Galtung 2004) have worked with this development and integrated many of these �new� forces, making second track diplomacy (civil diplomacy) a major part of many inner-state conflicts in particular. It has taken its place beside the still important political negotiation (first track diplomacy). However, as Manuel Castells (1996) describes it, �our world, our lives, are being shaped by the conflicting trends of globalization and identity. The information technology revolution and the restructuring of capitalism have induced a new form of society, the network society.� The network society, which is shaped by this enormous technical evolution, has triggered many changes in conflict environments, offering new opportunities and challenges for communication and dialogue in conflict management. Through the works of Barabasi (2003) on �Networks�, Rosenau (2003) on �Distant Proximity�, McLuhan (1989) on the �Global Village�, Katz�s (2002) �Perpetual Contact� theory and others, modern scholarship has begun to understand how deeply technological evolution has transformed socialization and communication patterns, as well as power relations. These changes have high potential to advance the mission of diplomacy and conflict management, by using modern technology and network capabilities. However, practitioners and scholars have also begun to realize these changes are in tension with many existing approaches in the field, which are still mostly based on a different understanding of power, networks and communication. These changes and their consequences for conflict management are at the heart of this paper. Although the changes affect the structural conditions for communication and dialogue as well as its content, this only works when the concentration is on the former, which precedes the latter. One of the changes in the structural conditions for dialogue processes is the new flexibility that comes with modern forms of interaction and communication. The organization and implementation of periodic longer conferences and talks, which remains one of the main tools of conflict management today, is becoming more and more difficult. People have so many other responsibilities that they are no longer willing to commit to long-term planning. Change also seems to happen much faster and with major impact throughout the social network structures. Meetings every other month are not sufficient anymore; there is a need for immediate response or dialogue on a daily or weekly basis to follow and react to change. Another challenge is that the multiple �connectedness� of actors, combined with the increasing diffusion of power into multiple new groups, makes it difficult to determine who is an �insider� or �outsider� in a crisis. The old strategies of containing conflicts and crises are failing. Whom to talk to and how has become a very challenging question. These are only some of the complexities that will be discussed in this paper. Therefore, if the projection and the reality of the network society are even slightly in the direction many of the most respected authors in political science, sociology and international relations predict, then the theory and practice of conflict management and diplomacy needs to be reevaluated and updated. Newer case study research (Greenberg, Barton and McGuiness 2000) and the writings on Digital Diplomacy (Bollier 2003, Catto 2002) have begun to recognize this, this paper attempts to systematically analyze and conceptualize the issues.

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Beyond Diplomacy: Conflict Management in the Network Society