Reducing Inter group Conflict Research Paper

Conflicts based in ethnic, religious, and racial differences continue to erupt around the world, despite decades of intervention and scholarly research. With conflicts ranging from genocide and mass killings in Darfur, to political and religious divisions in Northern Ireland, heated tensions between Sinhalese and Tamils in Sri Lanka, to the most recent outbreak of violence between Israelis and Palestinians in Gaza, it is difficult to assess precisely what contribution social science has made to an adequate diagnosis of the sources of violent conflict.

Harder still to know is how best to move forward to alleviate conflict, promote reconciliation, and achieve sustainable, peaceful relations among diverse groups. Theoretical and empirical efforts by social psychologists and peace scholars have amassed a great deal of knowledge regarding factors that enhance or inhibit conflict, and the likely effectiveness of practices and interventions that address such conflict. Early on, their work became intricately connected in a joint effort to develop an interdisciplinary community of researchers devoted to the scientific study of peace; these scholars drew on the strengths of their respective disciplines to link the perceptions, motivations, and emotions of individuals to concrete strategies that could promote conflict resolution and reconciliation (Christie, Tint, Wagner, & Winter, 2008; Kelman, 1965). Over the last several decades, however, contributions from these scholarly communities have grown apart and lack the integration and sense of shared purpose that helped to create the interdisciplinary investigations of early peace research. Reducing Inter group Conflict Research Paper Each has continued to develop its own conceptual models and publication outlets as new generations of scholarship emerge, and correspondingly, scholars from social psychology and peace research tend to have limited knowledge or awareness of the frameworks and underlying principles that guide the other’s work. Although some contend that it may be difficult to reunite these divergent traditions (see Clemens, in press), emerging perspectives recognize a great deal of potential for integration (p. 4) across these approaches (see Vollhardt & Bilali, 2008). A primary goal of the present volume is to bring these perspectives together, and to encourage a more integrative approach to the study of intergroup conflict and peace as we look toward the future.Reducing Inter group Conflict Research Paper