Conflict Resolution and Human Needs

Linking Theory and Practice

Kevin Avruch, Christopher Mitchell, Kevin Avruch, Christopher Mitchell

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2013
• ISBN:
  9781136226021
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Peace & Global Development
• Index: Politics & International Relations

This edited volume examines Basic Human Needs theory and interactive problem solving, looking at recent developments in thinking about both and how these might affect peacebuilding in contemporary conflicts of the twenty-first century.

The era in the immediate aftermath of World War II was, paradoxically, a time of great optimism in parts of academia. There was, especially in the United States and much of Europe, a widespread belief in the social sciences that systematic scholarly analysis would enable humanity to understand and do something about the most complex of social processes, and thus about solving persistent human problems: unemployment, delinquency, racism, under-development, and even issues of conflict, war and peace.

This book examines the evolution of the Basic Human Needs theory and is divided into two key parts: Basic Human Needs in Theory and Basic Human Needs in Practice. Exploring this theory through a wide range of different lenses, including gender, ethics and power, the volume brings together some of the leading scholars in the field of peace and conflict studies and draws upon research both past and present to forecast where the movement is headed in the future.

This book will be of much interest to students of peace and conflict studies, conflict resolution, psychology, security studies and IR.

Part I

Basic Human Needs in theory

Chapters 1–7 are all focused in one way or another on the theory of Basic Human Needs (BHN). Sandole's chapter provides the most comprehensive summary of the place of BHN in the work of its most emphatic proponent, John Burton, and extends the theory to conflicts involving direct violence. Avruch and Sandole-Staroste critique the Burtonian approach for its relative (Avruch) or absolute (Sandole-Staroste) neglect of power and gender, with implications for practice. Kriesberg and Väyrynen consider some of the moral or ethical implications of adopting a BHN perspective. Kriesberg places the most frequently associated BHN practice, the problem-solving workshop (PSW) among a range of different approaches to building peace. Väyrynen considers the heavily “medicalized” metaphors and the “scientific gaze” that many BHN approaches adopt towards understanding and “treating” conflict, and offers an alternative rooted in ethnography and phenomenology. Price and Simmons look beyond the usual understanding of BHN and conflict resolution entirely. Price critiques Burton's “Aristotelian” understanding of BHN and offers an approach to third-party involvement based upon the notion of “insight,” adopted from the philosopher Bernard Lonergan. Completing the theory-focused section, Simmons looks at BHN through a narrative lens of “political talk,” accepting the value of “thinking through” such needs as security, freedom, equality and tolerance, while moving beyond the requirement of anchoring such needs in biology or ontology.

1 Extending the reach of Basic Human Needs

A comprensive theory for the twenty-first century¹

Dennis J.D. Sandole

Introduction

The purpose of this chapter is to contribute to the development of a comprehensive theory of conflict and conflict resolution by building upon the existing body of knowledge on basic human needs and their role in the initiation, exacerbation and resolution of violent conflict. This effort rests on an examination of the groundbreaking theoretical and practical work of conflict resolution pioneer, John W. Burton, who has done the most to advance knowledge on the relationship between frustrated basic needs and violent conflict. Following a brief overview of Burton's rich corpus of knowledge, I discuss what still seems to be missing from his work. Then, attempting to fill the void, I note the earlier contributions of others as well as my own in extending the theoretical and practical reach of current knowledge on the needs-conflict nexus, with implications for foreign and public policy in the ever more complex twenty-first century.

What do we know about the basic needs-conflict nexus?

Burton's contributions for our purposes comprise developments in four interrelated areas: (1) the World Society Paradigm (WSP); (2) Basic Human Needs (BHNs) Theory; (3) Analytical problem-solving facilitated conflict resolution processes; and (4) provention.

The World Society Paradigm

The World Society Paradigm (WSP) was Burton's response to the prevailing “billiard ball model” of the Realist-dominated field of International Relations (see Wolfers 1962). So-called “Realists” see a world comprised only of nation-states “bouncing off of each other” in their respective bids for power acquisition, maintenance and projection, with little or no attention paid to domestic politics, which are “black-boxed.” By contrast, Burton's World Society Paradigm sees a world comprised of systems of multiple actors in addition to nation-states, e.g. business corporations, terrorist organizations, organized criminal networks, fiefdoms presided over by warlords, and the like (see Burton 1972: Ch. 4). An important feature of the WSP is that it incorporates the billiard ball model of Realists as well as the cobweb model of Idealists, showing the interactions, transactions and communications within, among and between non-state as well as state and transnational actors.

Basic Human Needs

Burton's thinking on the role of Basic Human Needs (BHNs) in the etiology of violent conflict began as a consideration of values, especially what he calls “social-psychological values” (1972: 127–128). These values, operative at the individual and small-group levels, may be pursued “even at the expense of life itself.” Because they are fundamental to human behavior, they are “presumably universal [that is,] held by people within all cultures and ideological systems.” Consequently, these values may be viewed as “social-biological values” – a subset of social-psychological values – because they reflect “biological drives and motivations,” which are found even in “more primitive organisms” (Burton 1972: 127–128). As a “fundamental particle of human behavior,” social-biological values are concerned with homeostasis (see Cannon 1963): “survival, personality development, and self-maintenance within any social environment” (Burton 1972: 128).

Regarding homeostasis, Burton (1972: 129, emphasis added) argues that:

A hypothesis that there are social-biological values . . . serves to explain the apparently continuing struggle for participation and freedom to develop personality within a social environment . . . the persistent demand for independence of nations, and for identification of groups within states.

Burton's thinking presciently anticipates later developments, such as the ethnic wars in the former Yugoslavia and Soviet Union, plus the more recent Arab Spring. Indeed, Jean-Pierre Filiu (2011, emphasis added) sees the recent upheavals in North Africa and the Middle East as strident demands for “dignity, pride, honour [and] a struggle for self-determination, for liberation from a corrupt clique, for regaining control and power over a nation's and the individual's destiny.” Further reinforcing this homeostasis thesis, Burton (1972: 129) argues that such “manifestations of nationalism have clear biological origins and protective functions.”

Burton's theory of conflict, embedded within a values frame, postulated a clash between social-biological values and “institutional values, that is, values that relate directly to the survival of institutions or to the cultural goals of separately organized societies” (Burton 1972: 127). The nature of this conflict is that “in the course of social evolution, basic drives and motivations have been suppressed by institutional restraints, initially of a purely social or community character, and later by those resulting from economic specialization and organization” (Burton 1972: 129).

Burton's narrative on the potent role of social-biological values as drivers of human behavior, especially conflict, eventually gave way to a theory based on needs. In this later development, he was influenced more by sociologist Paul Sites (1973: Ch. 2) than by humanistic psychologist Abraham Maslow (1987), who is renowned for his work in developing a “hierarchy of needs” for (1) physiological (homeostatic) maintenance, (2) safety and security, (3) love and belongingness, (4) self-esteem and (5) self-actualization.²

Why did Burton decide to go with Sites instead of Maslow? In contrast to Maslow's hierarchy of five needs, “Sites (1973: Ch. 2) postulates eight, all of which require fulfillment and, therefore, none of which is necessarily more important than others”: (1) consistency in response, (2) stimulation, (3) security, (4) recognition, (5) distributive justice, (6) rationality and the appearance of rationality, (7) meaning and (8) control (Burton 1979: 72).

To Sites’ list of eight needs, Burton (1979: 73) added a ninth, role defense: the “protection of needs once they have been acquired.” “Role defense” is concerned not only with the protection of a particular role (e.g. prime minister), but also the protection of measures necessary for the fulfillment of other needs commensurate with that role: “the individual attempts to secure a role and to preserve a role by which he acquires and maintains his recognition, security and stimulation” (Burton 1979: 73). This is an imperative that applies to all parties to conflicts, including those in privileged, elite, authority positions. For some, especially human rights advocates, this part of Burton's thinking is contentious, for he is arguing that successful conflict resolution depends in part on recognizing that the “bad guys” also have basic needs and not only those whom they oppress: “No explanation of a conflictual situation or the behavior of individuals, groups and authorities is complete without consideration of role defence as an important need” (emphasis added) (Burton 1979: 73; also see Burton 1979: Ch. 7).

Sites’ comprehensive listing of needs and Burton's reframing of it eventually gave way to a much shorter listing – identity, participation, recognition and security – all of “which are an ontological part of the human development process” (emphasis added) (Burton 1984: 147). What remained consistent in Burton's theorizing as he shifted from social-biological values to basic needs was “that certain needs will be pursued, regardless of any force that might be used by authorities” (emphasis in the original) (Burton 1984: 141).

Analytical problem-solving facilitated conflict resolution processes

Burton's contributions to the development of conflict resolution processes originally took shape under the heading of “controlled communication” (Burton 1969). The objective was to have a multidisciplinary third-party panel bring representatives of conflicting parties together to facilitate clear communication, statements of purpose and definitions of the problem about which they were conflicting. Conceived initially as a technique for dealing with subjective “social-psychological values” that had not yet achieved objective “social-biological,” universal status, controlled communication was similar to the casework method employed by social workers, plus the methods of conciliation and mediation used in dealing with small group and industrial conflicts.³

As “needs” explicitly entered Burton's thinking, controlled communication was reinvented as “analytical problem-solving facilitated conflict resolution” (Burton 1990c: 328). The idea behind problem-solving is that conflict may not be about territory and similar grievances, but about underlying needs for security, recognition, participation and identity. For Burton, these basic needs are social goals, i.e. in contrast to physical resources, they are not scarce. Hence, conflicts originally perceived as zero-sum, “win-lose” contests, often with “lose-lose” outcomes, could be reframed as positive-sum with potential “win-win” outcomes. Since this is not an option in the traditional power paradigm, “then, clearly, it is in the interests of all parties to ensure that the opposing parties achieve these social needs” (Burton 1984: 147–148). The essential objective in analytical problem-solving facilitated conflict resolution, therefore, is to encourage the parties to bring to the surface their “underlying motivations” (e.g. their basic needs for identity, recognition, participation and security).

Accordingly, Burton argues that there is a need for a “paradigm shift” in thinking and behavior, from a power approach emphasizing coercion to a problem-solving or human needs perspective focusing on analysis, and a new vocabulary. Like controlled communication, problem-solving is an analytical approach that clears up misperceptions in a workshop format facilitated by trained, experienced third-party practitioners. Unlike controlled communication, however, problem-solving also deals with “objective” bases of conflict, which Burton referred to earlier as “social-biological values” and subsequently as basic human needs that are commonly held by humans and other organisms. Consequently, basic needs are universal and must be fulfilled, lest the frustrated actors concerned blast their way into our consciousness via terrorism and other forms of violence (see Burton 1979; 1984: Ch. 16; Sandole 2010: Ch. 4).

“Provention”

Burton created the neologism, “provention,” to capture the “prevention of an undesirable event by removing its causes, and by creating conditions that do not give rise to its causes” (Burton 1990a: 3). In contrast to “prevention [therefore,] provention [signifies] taking steps to remove [underlying] sources of conflict, and more positively to promote conditions in which collaborative and valued relationships control behaviors” (emphasis in original) (Burton and Dukes 1990b: 161).⁴

Provention has implications for the robustness and resilience of civilizations that resolution may not have:

Were consideration for the future given priority, civilizations would be threatened only by an inadequate understanding of human relations and systems operations. But civilizations have yet to discover the representative political system that gives priority to the future. Provention . . . would be the core of such a political philosophy.

(Burton and Dukes 1990b: 161)

Further:

We have . . . theories and empirical evidence that the source of a great deal of anti-social behavior stems from adverse living conditions. Yet there is little attempt to avoid the costs and consequences of deviant behaviors and incarcerations by diverting adequate resources to housing, education and health. Whether the conflict be drug violence or ethnicity conflict, there are means of provention that are probably less costly to society than attempts at control.

(Burton and Dukes 1990b: 163)

Provention depends on proactive strategies. Whatever “human nature” is, however, it tends not to be proactive, but reactive. Nevertheless, extending Burton's thinking, provention should be an imperative toward which societies strive as policymakers and others contemplate a growing number of interdependent, interacting challenges comprising a complex “global problematique,” e.g. climate change, pandemics, population growth, WMD proliferation, poverty, malnutrition, terrorism, environmental degradation (see Sandole 2010). Reinforcing this sentiment, Burton's biographer David Dunn (2004: 128) has framed provention as:

a general theory of positive social change, where conflict is a central problem area, where the goal is the dynamic of a peaceful society (constituted at all levels of human behavior), where the relationships are sustained by legitimate mechanisms of reciprocated support and not by coercive measures or by elites, by virtue of their own authority.

In effect, for Dunn (2004: 132), “provention is at one and the same time a theory of general social systems and a reconstruction of political philosophy.”

Accordingly, the World Society Paradigm is an ontological statement on the nature of the world within which conflicts occur; Basic Human Needs Theory accounts for why confli...