Careers in Conflict Transformation and professional peaceworking: Mediation in the suites

 In the suites

A simple online look at current mediator positions[1] shows a real variety, from peer-to-peer in organizations, to court-ordered (Alternative Dispute Resolution, or ADR), to workplace, and much more.

The career paths are many, can be quite specialized, and are growing in many places in the world, e.g., a growth in mediator positions in alternative dispute resolution for thousands of citizen complaints of police conduct in both Australia and New Zealand (Riley, Prenzler & McKillop, 2020).

The roots of ADR go back to Mohandas Gandhi, an Indian educated in the law in England who opened his practice back in India, then in South Africa, and then back to India. As a lawyer he was trained in purely adversarial tactics and strategies, but that was not his nature, and eventually, going outside the practice of law as it was done then (and now) he called the contending parties to meet, and simply mediated a process that ended in agreement. Much later, in his autobiography, he wrote that, "At last I had learnt the true profession of the law." Based on his method--mediating opposing parties to a mutually agreeable outcome--the practice became known as Alternative Dispute Resolution and is still featured in some law schools as one of many courses taken to earn a law degree. Some law firms offer ADR at times. Other firms focus on ADR as a mediation service, often in lieu of lawyers. Indeed, a graduate student in the Portland State University Conflict Resolution program worked for such a firm and said, "We are all proud that no lawyers work here." 

Some ADR practitioners do so through the court system, as court-appointed mediators in various categories of cases, such as landlord-tenant eviction disputes, small claims, or domestic relations. Each state makes its own requirement rules. In Oregon[2], for example, the state says: 

To be a court-connected mediator in civil cases, small claims or landlord tenant eviction cases, the following requirements apply:

·       Basic mediation curriculum (30 hours)

·       Court system training or substantially similar training (6 hours)

·       Experience observing three actual mediations and participating as a mediator or a co-mediator in at least three court cases while being observed by a person qualified as a general civil mediation supervisor and performing to the supervisor's satisfaction.

Complete requirements to serve as a court-connected mediator can be found in UTCR 12.060. Please contact your local court for instructions on how to apply.

In Oregon, the requirements for domestic relations[3] court-appointed mediators are far more rigorous, starting with a minimum of:

BA in a behavioral science related to family relationships, child development, or conflict resolution and at least 7 years post BA experience in providing social work, mental health, or conflict resolution services to families.

The best advice, then, for a student interested in qualifying to be a domestic relations court-appointed mediator might be to major in a behavioral science degree with a Conflict Resolution or CT minor. 

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[1] https://www.indeed.com/q-certified-mediator-jobs.html?gclsrc=aw.ds&aceid=&gad_source=1&gad_campaignid=22925951201&gbraid=0AAAAADgc-H4mB_LAgpDvb1u8Qs6Rrw5tE&gclid=Cj0KCQiAsNPKBhCqARIsACm01fSgzSb3W_O_wvM9jfD4erZgBt_F2SxtNrUCZkJoGfzZqkiT492dRwUaAtkhEALw_wcB&vjk=94e7b80a5d70e7f5

[2] https://www.courts.oregon.gov/programs/adr/pages/mediatorapplication.aspx

[3] https://www.courts.oregon.gov/programs/ADR/Documents/MediatorQualificationsByType.pdf

Careers in Conflict Transformation and professional peaceworking: Peace journalism, communications, messaging

 Peace journalism, communications, messaging

What sort of careers are available to those who study Conflict Transformation and Peace Studies and who wish to focus on some combination of promoting peace and justice and persuading others to do so? Some possibilities:

·       Any entry-level journalism job is a possibility, from all forms of media, such as reporting, op-ed writing, social media messaging.

·       Content creator, either for hire or as a monetizing venture.

·       Organizational communications staffer for organizations that work for peace and justice.

Peace journalism is just normal journalism with different sequences and priorities. For instance: 

·       Rather than "if it bleeds it leads," the peace journalist will seek out the players in conflict who are committed to nonviolence and draw out their motivations and knowledge.

·       Rather than interview just the opposing leaders in an adversarial struggle, the peace journalist will explore the actions of parties who are far more quietly seeking openings into transforming the conflict from destructive to constructive.

·       Peace journalism features different gatekeeping, which is the power of reporters, editors, and media shop owners (publishers). Such gatekeeping can be the choice of topics, subtopics, and who to source.

·       Peace journalism approaches framing a bit differently from traditional journalism. For example, on a local scale, a peace journalist might well write about a proposal by a unit of government to allow a trash incinerator as an issue involving systemic racism, if there is evidence that BIPOC demographics are disproportionately potentially affected. A peace journalist would likely frame stories on many conflicts as a cost/benefit analysis, with insertion of the particulars of exemplars. And the peace journalist would use gatekeeping to highlight the evidence that amplifies the frame for peace and justice.

Careers in Conflict Transformation and professional peaceworking: Civil resisters, movement leaders & community organizers

Though the pro-war, pro-pollution, anti-DEI, pro-racism leaders and influencers in the US frequently claim[1] that the people in the streets protesting what they do are "paid professional protesters," that is a complete fabrication, as any activist who has been deeply involved in building social movements knows well. The next claim is that these paid professional protesters are funded by George Soros.

The actual career opportunities in the realm of resistance are relatively few and normally low paid. It is a career path for the conflict transformation student whose first consideration is the strong desire to make a living doing the movement work that is foremost in the spirit, heart, and mind of that student. In other words, to be realistic, the idea is to earn enough doing movement work so that the student isn't being a barista full-time and doing the movement work as a part-time volunteer. 

For actual resisters, that is, people who can at times boldly get arrested and incarcerated in pursuit of movement building for peace and justice, a life crafted to allow for that is key. Some options include living in community and choosing a community that can flex with that approach. Such communities might include, for example, many Catholic Worker communities. Holding a Conflict Transformation or Peace Studies degree isn't a requirement for membership in such communities, but it would tend to orient the degree-holder who wishes to engage in resistance toward a corpus of knowledge that serves both the community and the campaigns or movements the graduate is drawn to.

There are some other opportunities for those who are drawn to research, perhaps with the International Center on Nonviolent Conflict or the Albert Einstein Institution, and those positions pay far more than a typical community organizer who works for any number of organizations, some local[2], some national or international with local chapters. Examples might include Physicians for Social Responsibility, the American Friends Service Committee, the National Lawyers Guild, and more.

In various sectors, community organizers build political will for policy creation or defense. For example, some staff for Planned Parenthood work specifically as community organizers, especially in the wake of the US Supreme court Dobbs decision (overturning Roe v Wade), defending abortion rights state by state (Pottenger, 2024). Where feasible, those Planned Parenthood workers are unionized, which generally makes their positions more secure, with benefits that many local advocacy or movement organizations cannot afford.

One of the most interesting confluences in the employment picture for Conflict Transformation and Peace Studies (CTPS) grads is the extent to which the theories learned open into creative responses that can prove highly successful. 

So, for example, in a good Consensus Building class, the student learns many things that translate into excellent community organizing, not just at the 30,000-foot level but right in the literal face of interpersonal relationships. All CTPS courses have dignity, face, respect at the start line. But consensus organizing teaches that external resources, with appropriate conditions, can serve a community quite well. Old guard community organizers trained in the Alinsky adversarial model might well gain some concessions or even defeat an external party in the name of the community. 

For example, a supermarket chain announces plans to build a new store in a community that is largely a food desert served inadequately by overpriced and understocked bodegas. A traditional organizer would whip opposition and likely successfully exclude that supermarket. 

A consensus organizer educated in CTPS might do a more thorough assessment, analysis, and seek to set up exploratory meetings with the corporate team and a team designated by the community to dialog, discuss, learn, and then evaluate. The community team might seek to gain commitments from the corporation on a number of items, such as employees hired from the community, grants available to community organizations, fair labor practices including unionization, and more. A consensus organizer, educated with a CTPS degree, would likely achieve a strong record over time in such employment, developing a range of relationships that not only produce short term victories for the community, but showcase possibilities that translate into more mutual gain, even political favor, and opportunities for community prosperity based on integrity, DEI, and general uplift. This model, then, is one to employ and solidify a career grounded in community gratitude rather than a simple "He fights the bad guys" reputation too many old school community organizers have. Keeping out charlatans is important; bringing in collaborative parties is what keeps it more sustainable.

References

Pottenger, K. (2024). Planned Parenthood: Bargaining after Dobbs. New Labor Forum (Sage Publications Inc.), 34(1), 91–97. https://doi-org.proxy.lib.pdx.edu/10.1177/10957960241298934

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[1] https://www.newsnationnow.com/politics/compensated-activist-majority-protesters-paid/ NewsNation is a cover for rightwing "analysis" that is often an apparently sober examination of outrageous lies from far right sources, as though the lies have merit and only need to be examined from an assumption that they are true and, since they are, why? What are the arguments on both sides of the false claim? In this case, for instance, a supposed paid protester, who claims that the majority of the No Kings protesters are paid, supposedly argues that it doesn't mean that the protesters are insincere. This fake journalism can be slick and, to a person ignorant of it, convincing. In this case, as someone heavily involved in building social movements for six decades, I absolutely know it is a fake journalism story with literally zero truth. 

[2] For example, in the early 1980s I was approached by a local peace activist in the far north of Wisconsin to start an actual paid organization. She and I and one other woman started it in Hayward, Wisconsin and called it Waging Peace. Jeanne was Education, Madge was Office Manager and Public Speaker, and I was Liaison to local peace groups across northern Wisconsin, the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, and northeastern Minnesota. We funded ourselves by a combination of direct mail appeals and small grants. We paid ourselves minimum wage. For each of us, it was simply a time in life where we had some financial obligations but not so overwhelming that we couldn't live on minimum wage and we were all driven to work full-time for peace and justice. In my case, I eventually became a full-time resister, going to prison for a direct disarmament action, but following that with using my Peace and Conflict Studies degree to get hired as an adjunct Peace and Conflict Studies professor, which ultimately led to a full-time professor appointment. This is a highly unusual career path, but it's my reality.

Careers in Conflict Transformation and professional peaceworking: Spinning it up from thin air

It is possible, in some cases, to simply invent a career and lean in with your whole heart and make it so. 

For example, in the early 1980s I was approached by a local peace activist in the far north of Wisconsin to start an actual paid organization. She and I and one other woman started it in Hayward, Wisconsin and called it Waging Peace. Jeanne was Education, Madge was Office Manager and Public Speaker, and I was Liaison and Trainer to local peace groups across northern Wisconsin, the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, and northeastern Minnesota. We funded ourselves by a combination of direct mail appeals and small grants. We paid ourselves minimum wage. For each of us, it was simply a time in life where we had some financial obligations but not so overwhelming that we couldn't live on minimum wage and we were all driven to work full-time for peace and justice. In my case, I eventually became a full-time resister, going to prison for a direct disarmament action, but following that with using my Peace and Conflict Studies degree to get hired as an adjunct Peace and Conflict Studies professor, which ultimately led to a full-time professor appointment. This is a highly unusual career path, but it's my reality. Others have created something from apparent nothing and have thus been able to devote themselves to the work that fed their passion. 

Careers in Conflict Transformation and professional peaceworking: Mediators in the streets

 

In the streets

Mediators on the street level generally work with a variant of the CLARA[1] method of deëscalation, a method used by unarmed civilian protection teams around the world. Calm, Listen, Affirm, Respond, and Add information is an approach to outbreaks of destructive conflict "in the wild," that is, not in an office or other professional setting where the parties have sought the help of a mediator. 

Some cities have formal branches of emergency responders who are unarmed and are usually dispatched to intervene in eruptions of conflicts that can include threats of harm, whether self-harm or harm to others, but which do not involve overt display of weapons. These workers are usually available in one of two fashions. 

They may be the result of well-trained 911 dispatchers who know that a gun is not needed when a fire breaks out, when someone has a heart attack or other health emergency, and in situations that often may escalate by the mere presence of sworn officers with weapons but involve no weapons displayed by the parties in conflict. 

Alternatively, or in addition, the jurisdiction may have a dedicated emergency number for such conflicts. 

What are the professional positions associated with this agency of local government?

Dispatchers are trained in all aspects of fielding calls for first responders, including seeking credible information, ferreting out salient facts, and ruling out either the nuisance calls that don't require a city response or calls that actually must go to the actual police force.

Crews must be trained in deëscalation, which includes both a method such as CLARA and the skills to practice emergency psychological first aid.

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[1] https://inittogether.cargo.site/CLARA-Method

Careers in Conflict Transformation and professional peaceworking: Facilitator

 Facilitators, from consensus process to ombuds and beyond

A career based in facilitation is usually either in a large organization or as a consultant for a large organization. It may come in the form of a specialized process, such as a consensus decision-making circumstance or it may be one of many conflict management services, such as ombuds services or the design and implementation of internal conflict management. It can be a position that is free-floating in a large organization--government agency, institution, corporation--so that the facilitator is simply available across this large organization or it may be a service offered by a private consultancy that a large organization uses from time to time.

Leading a consensus decision-making process is a specialized set of competencies often done in order to legitimately flatten any hierarchy for the purposes of making major decisions, seeking the genuine input and ultimate consensus of all parties or representatives of sectors of the organization, without fear or favor. This is fairly unusual and even more unusual when management--e.g., owners, CEOs, heads of large departments--have an official power pyramid that is difficult to authentically set aside for the duration of the consensus process. A specialist in facilitating this may be required, and it often starts by engaging in the requisite education of the parties to convince them that, for this decision-making process the facilitator has been brought in to temporarily change the structure of how decisions are made, to seek the participation of each of the parties at the table without the disabling effects of fear of overstepping authority.

An ombuds, on the other hand, is available to individuals and small groups within a large organization, to hear concerns and complaints and to facilitate progress toward solutions in order to head off conflicts that might otherwise become litigious or some grander problem, including severe loss of productivity or efficiency due to festering conflict. Latent effects of unattended conflict can radically reduce the productive output of portions of a large organization, imposing ongoing costs that good upstream conflict work, such as ombuds services, can help reduce. 

At times facilitation may also include designing an internal conflict management apparatus and organizational culture that seeks to make the organization self-facilitating to some measure. This frequently includes trainings that skill up more and more of the members of the organization to recognize the problems of unmanaged conflict and to initiate or even perform conflict management themselves. A series of trainings may include increasingly specialized sets of competencies such as: Understanding the organizational working diagrams; Deëscalating workplace conflict; Bystander intervention; Small group facilitation; Envisioning personal futures in the organization; Mandatory reporting legal requirements; Building an organizational culture toward increasing success; Team-building, and much more.

Careers in Conflict Transformation and professional peaceworking: Mediators in the streets and the suites

 Mediators in the streets and the suites

The role of the mediator is to transform destructive conflict into constructive conflict. The levels at which this can be accomplished are essentially infinite; conflict is one natural, ubiquitous human phenomenon and it frequently becomes destructive because it is often rooted in disrespect or the perception of such. At our core, we crave dignity, the positive regard that any human relies upon in our social being makeup. When conflict is actually an expression of contempt it can lead many humans into suspecting such disrespect in all conflicts, even when they are founded in simple disagreement, not emotional dismissal of the other.

When a person can be perceived as a neutral party who cares equally about the well-being of all parties to a conflict, that person can act as a mediator in seeking a workable, acceptable solutionary outcome. Usually, the outcome that is transformative is not a permanent resolution to a conflict but rather a commitment by all the parties to treat each other as being honest, respectful agents in the search for collaborative paths to progress. 

Learning to help others reduce defensiveness is as important as learning to help others reduce actual practices based in disrespect for others. All this requires some understanding of and mastery of aspects of psychology; from the Rogerian "unconditional positive regard" to a trauma-informed approach to hearing from each party, the stance of the mediator is what Kwame Christian calls "compassionate curiosity," listening more, talking less, helping uncover the painful past and the unfortunate assumptions we carry into our human interactions. 

Careers in Conflict Transformation and professional peaceworking: An alternative to what?

Eventually, after studying war so long, we "advanced," arriving at waging war so horrifically that now the end of life on earth only awaits the decision of one of a set of powerful warlords--perhaps Xi Jinping, or Vladimir Putin, or Donald Trump--to launch thermonuclear Armageddon, the "successful" culmination of studying war for thousands of years.

Peace was regarded as so unattainable that it was essentially only associated with religious and philosophical yearning until Mohandas Gandhi began discovering the available secrets of the strategic power of nonviolence early in the 20th century. He discovered that he could coerce even the greatest armed force the world had ever seen at that time--the British empire--and that started the slow growth of the study of peace moving from its cloister in religion and philosophy departments and into sociology, psychology, and eventually political science and security studies. 

Indeed, one goal of conflict transformation and peace science is to proliferate the knowledge that war is obsolete if enough skill and effort is applied to developing the power of civil society to do so much more than simply cast a ballot every few years. The latent power of civil society is proven again and again and is finally researched empirically beginning in 2008--a century after Gandhi began his strategic practice and theorizing. So, 11,000 years of studying war and 100 years of studying peace and the race is on to save the world from war, even with its 11,000-year head start.

Careers? How many careers are there in armed warfare? Armed law enforcement? Weapons manufacturing and sales? How about in other purely adversarial, zero-sum, winner-takes-all-and-crushes-the-loser jobs? A degree in conflict transformation and peace studies is the beginning of preparing to fill positions created to be the alternative to the old hurtful, destructive model. While it may look like that destructive model rules the world, it is possible and necessary to prepare to fill the needs people have by other means.

Mediators instead of gunfights.

Trained unarmed emergency first responders to threats of violence from someone in a mental health crisis instead of armed agents of the state whose last resort is to hurt or kill someone.

Mediators instead of adversarial lawyers.

Civilian-based defense instead of armies.

Peace journalists who foreground the work of nonviolent action and showcase the potential of civil resistance instead of simple if-it-bleeds-it-leads reportage.

Content creators of novels, screenplays, and all manner of art to explore the possibilities of this new world of transforming looming disaster into a win-win outcome.

The best undergraduate conflict transformation and peace studies degree program can and should prepare students to enter this professional world at a place they wish, even though it would be more of an entry level position. The most dysfunctional peace and conflict undergraduate programs might produce philosophically erudite graduates who are effectively qualified to drive cabs or be baristas. This is the challenge.

Careers in Conflict Transformation and professional peaceworking: Why study this body of knowledge?

 Why?

Why do people study conflict transformation and peace? That is a question with two major parts. 

One, what prompted the origins of this field of study, a field that is itself transforming into a discipline?

Two, why do students study all this today?

The first broad question about the emergent genesis of this field has a few strands. 

War has been studied for more than 11,000 years, itself erupting in all likelihood out of the development of agriculture. When foraging was the normal practice, little food storage was possible, with some minor but important exceptions. Storage of food for long periods turned nomadic peoples, not quite so much "owning" any particular land with clear boundaries, into more stationary people, with grain storage in larger and larger amounts, hedging against starvation in bad years of crop failure, but also presenting larger and more valuable--literally tasty--target to acquire. The long history of small raiding parties out to steal a horse or a bride from another tribal band--a long history that did not include grand armies marching against each other--transmogrified into a world of war that slowly produced the heavily armed, legally bounded nation-state system we have all inherited. In that former world, it was bands of tribal folk as dots of human influence in a vast, bountiful sea of Mother Nature's wilderness without any need or temptation to fight en masse for a piece of land. In our world that has been emerging since the dawn of storable agricultural products, we've thus been pondering war--how to defend against armies marching to seize walled cities and the surrounding productive lands and how to organize armies that can conquer neighbors and take those cities and the farms that support them.

Thus, as wars have become destructive enough to present existential threats to life itself, the question has been called: who will study peace? Who will learn how to transform conflict?

Why do students study this today?

Because, as an examination of news, history, and academic research reports inform us, there are far wiser methods than threatening to blow up others. This new understanding is opening a new vista into careers of practitioners at every level of all manner of conflict who can show us how to get more gain with less pain. This is true at the interpersonal, the community, the governmental, and international levels, cracking open an entirely new line of specialists from the individual family to the global human family. It is quite complex and will take a great deal of exploration to understand the width and depth of what can be transformed by these new specialists graduating with degrees in conflict transformation and peace studies.

Careers in Conflict Transformation and professional peaceworking: Envisioning

What?

Years ago I was fortunate enough to travel with two workmates to a Quaker retreat center, Stonybrook, in rural New York, to take part in a week-long seminar in Envisioning a World Without Weapons. It was transformative. 

It was led by a protege of Elise Boulding, Warren Zeigler, and it was a process that 20 of us were guided through, a step-by-step project that was theory and simulation. Not so incidentally, the participants were 18 women and just two of us men. I bunked with the only other guy, who was almost exactly 50 years older than I. It was a week of opening to a new way to think about creating a future, individually and personally. 

Had I not been in that workshop, I am convinced that I would never have written books, earned advanced degrees, or become a professor. Everything that flowed out of that seminar for me synthesized my ideals, my groundtruthed experience, and turned my fantasies into dreams, then into visions.

And so, when I advise students, the first thing I ask them is, "In your hopes, if they were reality, describe yourself in 10 years. What do you do for a living? What are you achieving?"

There is often hesitation, which I completely get. The envisioning workshop featured much of that amongst the 20 participants; we had some skills, we had ideals, but we somehow had internalized a paralyzing trait from our culture of modesty and humility--we consciously or unconsciously seemed to believe that daring to even formulate a vision was an act of hubris. 

When students get to think this over and some form of fantasy emerges, it is often blocky, unclear, and seemingly unrealistic, but it gives me something to work with, to help them choose classes that can serve their formulating educational and career goals. They actually do the work; I simply try to facilitate. I'm sure some would say I am not so effective and some might say it helped, but the seeds of envisioning frequently lead to their personal focus and progress. That focus might lead them to want to learn very specific competencies that can open doors to the path toward their vision. 

Example: A student realizes that working for a nonprofit with the goal of transforming a town into a far greener, more sustainable place to live means they should learn how nonprofits work, how to message to various target audiences, how to help formulate public policy that can work upon implementation, how to encourage pilot civil society initiatives that can model the necessary steps on a small, doable scale, how to raise funds to make it happen, and more. They may find courses across campus in other departments that offer some of the competencies they need, and they come to me to see if those courses can be used toward their degree. I look over the course description, ask them to obtain a syllabus from a previous section, and if it is clear that the course will help round out the skills they need to gain employment in conflict transformation-related work, I arrange for the course to count as an elective. 

So the "what" students learn as they earn their degree in conflict transformation and peace studies can vary as widely as the arc of careers that relate to the degree, and that are is wide indeed.

Careers in Conflict Transformation and professional peaceworking

Who?

Who studies conflict transformation and peace studies? Generally, these students seek some career in the helping professions, with a higher premium on making a difference in the lives of those who might be disadvantaged in some fashion--historically marginalized, impoverished, disabled, targets of aggression, etc. 

These students aim not for the most financially lucrative careers, but they want work that can pay the rent, provide health care coverage, and generally offer reasonable benefits. They do not often study conflict transformation or peace studies without some semblance of a vision of themselves doing work professionally that they regard as fulfilling and meaningful. 

Some hope to dedicate themselves to seeking the structural change they know from their studies will help the most people into a sustainable future. Some hope to work in fields that are focused on much more immediate assistance to individuals in need or in pain.

Some hope to help transform international conflict; some aim to learn the skills necessary to transform more local conflict. 

Some conflict transformation students come from privileged backgrounds while others come from groups less well off, marginalized, or less advantaged in general. Many are from middle class homes, some are on scholarship, and others are amassing student loan debt.

There are many peace studies students who are determined to live out their working lives with the highest ideals and make no compromise with corporations, government, nor institutions. They want an education that gives them the capacity to achieve that and still pay the rent. 

Consensus: group decision-making & community organizing #11

 Bringing consensus elements into community organizing

While an adversarial community organizing model has been highly effective in many cases, from Saul Alinsky's model developed in Chicago neighborhoods, it is not the sort of relational sustainable development that tends to avoid more destructive conflicts. 

The Consensus Community Organizing Center[1], founded in 1999 at San Diego State University, introduced another model of teaching and practicing community organizing that was based on developing opportunities for all stakeholders based on mutual gain, which is, of course on the four pillars of principled negotiation. In some ways, it mimicked core components of how Gandhi, MLK, and Cesar Chavez organized--never seeking to crush anyone, always regarding relationships as key--but the method that is the basis of a school of teaching and practicing at the CCOC eschews civil disobedience, not by condemning it or devaluing it, but by focusing on initiatives that will not likely ever be dependent on offering civil resistance. 

Having noted that, it is often the case that nonviolent civil resistance can be rendered unnecessary by working to develop alternatives that serve the self-interest of the stakeholders, even when they seem to be opposed to each other. Founder Michael Eichler did this in several community organizing projects, the result of which was to "bake a bigger pie," that is, to find new resources to support the enhancement of multiple stakeholders.

This model can be far more successful than the assumption that "they" are the bad guys bent on being unfair to "us." It may tend to have some limits, which only means it's one approach to consider, not a one-method-in-all-situations: 

·       If there have been actual atrocities, it may be substantially harder to introduce a model that seeks to serve all parties' self-interests.

·       When the issues are highly polarized and girded by deeply morally conflicting ideologies, finding middle ground may be impossible (e.g., impossible to serve the interests of committed racists determined to squash aspirations of minority communities).

Nonetheless, aspects of consensus organizing can make the launch of a nonviolent civil resistance campaign more likely to succeed with far fewer damages--more gain, less pain. Gandhi did that with the British, to the point where British working class people tended to support him, a remarkable gain. Dr. King devoted great effort to healing and improving relationships amongst the Southern clergy who often opposed him--his Letter from Birmingham Jail[2] is a master class in exactly this. Cesar Chavez showed respect for the owners of the fields where they exploited migrant laborers even as he held them to the same high standard of human comportment that he practiced. 

African American historian Mary Frances Berry has written about utilizing the "inside game" of political work, which one might roughly equate with consensus organizing, and, when required, the "outside game" of nonviolent civil resistance when the inside game was blocked, stalled, or too slow.

In the end, though there are many paths to victory in any campaign to change, abolish, or defend a policy of a government, corporation, or institution, it is wise to always consider every option except violence. It is unhelpful to disregard any nonviolent method, as all have something to offer in any given moment.

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[1] https://consensus.sdsu.edu/

[2] https://oll.libertyfund.org/publications/reading-room/2023-01-16-letter-from-a-birmingham-jail

Consensus: group decision-making & community organizing #10

Size matters

If Scotland were a recognized nation-state--which they would be had their vote for sovereignty not failed--they would be a much smaller nation than the big ones--India, China, the US, and 119 more[1] that would have a larger population than Scotland. Research into the potential for consensus being a key element in the "Scottish Approach" suggests that it may someday live up to the dearly held myths of an ancient Scottish governance practice that was far more participatory than merely voting in elections (Cairney, 2015). The researcher seems to suggest that time to begin such a "devolution" would ideally be when few truly hard choices over perduring problems would make consensus likely fail and be discarded, with a reversion to a more command-and-control model. 

This raises the idea that, in the context of national politics, the size of the overall population might generally tend to be more or less amenable to a consensus approach, with the relational strengths of smaller nations lending advantage to attempting to introduce a consensus approach at the national level. If that is true, it seems logical that a much more local level would test out more strongly in any initiative to introduce a consensus model. 

It might also suggest that, given the modifications made to consensus by larger international bodies, there are lessons from many places about the likelihood of success, depending in part on the alterations attempted and deemed acceptable. 

While consensus isn't necessary one of the means of governance of highly democratic nations, it is interesting that countries that Democracy Matrix[2] ranks as "Deficient democracies," (including the US, Liberia, Poland, Panama and others) likely have few, if any, structures of consensus at national, state/province, or local levels). As the rankings get into autocracy (e.g., China, Saudi Arabia, Venezuela, North Korea and more), one might predict fewer instances of attempts to practice consensus at any level.

Indeed, what is the relationship of consensus to democracy? When democracy is defined as "majority rule," that, in itself, can be a serious deficiency, as it says nothing about minority rights--the hallmark of the strongest democracies. Any permutation of consensus would likely tend to enfold minority rights much more vigorously than mere majority rule, making it very likely that, to the extent consensus is embedded in layers of governance, that democracy is of a higher caliber. 

References

Cairney, P. (2015). Scotland’s Future Political System. Political Quarterly, 86(2), 217–225. https://doi-org.proxy.lib.pdx.edu/10.1111/1467-923X.12154

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[1] https://www.worldometers.info/world-population/population-by-country/

[2] https://www.democracymatrix.com/ranking

Consensus: group decision-making & community organizing #9

 The art of the possible: Politicians and engineers

Imagine a rail system that, in one country, uses a set gauge of track. The neighboring country to the east decides to use a different gauge of track, effectively making significant trade between the countries impossible. Can units of government agree not to hobble themselves in this way? How can consensus be achieved with the competing factors of replacement cost, fear of invasion, philosophical belief in either laissez faire rights of private railroads to do what they want or absolute sovereignty of countries or even states within countries? This set of confounding components, for example, even kept India[1] from managing its internal gauge break issues into the 21st century.

Whether it's a rail gauge break problem, a water flow issue from an upstream country to a downstream country or any number of other critical infrastructure challenges, practitioners and researchers work to develop methods of achieving cross-cultural consensus, including all stakeholders, many with very different priorities (Wang, Liu, Pan & Li, 2025).

References

Wang, T., Liu, J., Pan, Y., & Li, H. (2025). Antecedents to Moving Forward: Impact of Multiple Stakeholder Relationship Networks on Operational Resilience in Cross-Border Critical Infrastructure Systems. Journal of Management in Engineering, 41(5), 1–14. https://doi-org.proxy.lib.pdx.edu/10.1061/JMENEA.MEENG-6546

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[1] https://creativematter.skidmore.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1011&context=hist_stu_schol

Consensus: group decision-making & community organizing #8

 Who is at the table? Taking it to the international feast and famine

When we consider bargaining across cultures and even across national boundaries, what does research help us understand? What are the best negotiating methods?

University of Mississippi political scientist Lauren Ferry (2023) examined cases of creditor-borrower negotiations in which the borrower sought debt restructuring and found that borrower nations chose different modes depending on which creditor nation or nations were part of the process. 

Ferry found that more complex negotiations between multiple creditor nations led to a focus on the creditor nation or nations least likely to agree to more expansive terms. That is due to the accepted norm of consensus, meaning that the creditor nation least prepared to agree to more lenient terms was the linchpin, thus usually tending to make that nation the focus of the debtor nation's negotiating strategy.

In the end, Ferry's research into publicity about and outcomes from such restructuring processes between 1980-2009, showed that the aggregate number of creditor nations at the table is related to tactics and strategies by debtor nations. When the number needed for consensus increases, the bolder and riskier the borrower nation's coercive methods become, all with the aim of bringing the most reluctant creditor nation into some form of agreement. 

These negotiations are cross cultural by definition. The findings can help us weigh best practices--can we reduce the number of parties at the table without exposing the outcome to spoiler attacks? Can we modify a default consensus expectation to mitigate a radical reaction tendency? 

While a truly transnational culture of diplomacy and negotiation practices is an ideal, bearing in mind what tendencies are proven to exist can make such complex negotiations more likely to bear fruit and less likely to feature hostile force of various sorts. 

References

Ferry, L. (2023). Getting to yes: The role of creditor coordination in debt restructuring negotiations. International Interactions, 49(1), 31–58. https://doi-org.proxy.lib.pdx.edu/10.1080/03050629.2023.2156996

Consensus: group decision-making & community organizing #7

 Global consensus vs local conflict

There are many topics that many claim to have achieved global consensus: human rights, ban on chlorofluorocarbons, outlawing slavery, fighting global climate chaos, and many more, including sustainable development.

But is there actual consensus? If the appearance of consensus exists, how was it achieved? Is there undue influence by monied parties exerting economic pressure, militarily dominant nations or coalitions effectively forcing "agreement" or other inauthentic consensus practices? Was some of the consensus achieved by relatively small numbers of powerful parties long ago and challenges are increasing due to the objections of those parties not consulted or otherwise shut aside in the name of declaring universal acceptance? Consensus decision-making timelines are often quite different from majority-rule or top-down methods, and thus there are also questions about the time devoted to achieving the claim of consensus being adequate or not.

This critique of claim of consensus will either be acknowledged and revisited with inclusivity and an improved process or destructive conflict may emerge, as it has in several cases, including a declaration of human rights by Muslim-majority countries that means to supplant the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. It is also emerging in the assertion of consensus around sustainable development as a function of local values and practices (Leach, Mearns & Scoones, 2025).

References

Leach, M., Mearns, R., & Scoones, I. (2025). Editorial: Community-Based Sustainable Development: Consensus or Conflict? IDS Bulletin, 56(1A), 1–3. https://doi-org.proxy.lib.pdx.edu/10.19088/1968-2025.104

Consensus: group decision-making & community organizing #6

 Saul Alinsky's rules vs consensus organizing

Conflict organizing does build consensus, but within a group that initially shares the interest of eliminating a specific grievance. Consensus organizing attempts to enlarge that consensus by working with the theory we learn about in Getting to Yes: digging deeply toward identifying the interests of all parties. Where there is overlap, and where the net result can be a win for all parties in some form, consensus organizing is more sustainable than the zero-sum approach of Alinsky's general model of conflict organizing, as effective as that is. 

The consensus organizing model overlaps conflict organizing quite a bit at certain stages. For example, if a goal identified by the community (not one assumed by the organizers) ultimately is at complete odds with those who decide policy--a government, a corporation, or an institution--then the methods of conflict organizing are identical to consensus organizing--quite adversarial. But the consensus organizing model is far better at openly exploring possibilities for win-win outcomes than the Alinsky model, in general.

Consensus: group decision-making & community organizing #5

 What about consensus in massive complex government projects?

In complex government projects some innovative consensus methods have helped to reduce non-expert but fully stakeholder conflict with experts by a modified consensus approach that seeks the basic elements of consensus but in a streamlined fashion to reduce the high costs of a longer, classical consensus process. This may not only reduce costs and timelines on the front end, but may very well reduce subsequent resistance and slowdowns from the classical command-and-control approach.

"In this way, collective intelligence across different subgroups of society can be leveraged simultaneously, involving experts and non-experts, called heterogeneous decision-makers in this study" (Singh, Baranwal & Tripathi, 2023, p. 3936).

Researchers into consensus processes, including large organization efforts to achieve a version of consensus in complex policy or project initiatives now incorporate more complex variables into their analysis, including the amount of historical knowledge the moderators or facilitators have about their participants, the ultimate decision-makers, which can make this research more accurate and thus more usable (Liang, Qu & Dai, 2024).

Another permutation of consensus development is the Delphi process in which a large diverse group of experts (by both profession and germane lived experience) meet to develop points in a plan to effectuate some desired change, and successive rounds of polling and explainers gradually generate a prioritized plan acceptable to virtually all (Ahmed, et al., 2025). This has potential to involve geographically dispersed, very differently qualified experts in a large collective decision-making and plan creation. In the research cited by Ahmed and colleagues, the presenting problem was a data-driven conclusion that health care inequities across the UK were not diminishing, and in fact were worsening. Some 76 experts--medical professionals at virtually all levels, victims of health care inequities, researchers, and officials--participating in this Delphi consensus process reached consensus after several rounds of surveys and consideration of reports from each round over two years. This robust process holds strong promise for wiser decisions around addressing persistent public problems.

References

Ahmed, F., Woodhead, C., Hossaini, A., Stanley, N., Ensum, L., Rhead, R., Onwumere, J., Mir, G., Dyer, J., & Hatch, S. L. (2025). Guiding principles for accelerating change through health inequities research and practice: A modified Delphi consensus process. PLoS ONE, 20(7), 1–15. https://doi-org.proxy.lib.pdx.edu/10.1371/journal.pone.0327552

Liang, H., Qu, S., & Dai, Z. (2024). Robust maximum fairness consensus models with aggregation operator based on data-driven method. Journal of Intelligent & Fuzzy Systems, 47(1/2), 111–129. https://doi-org.proxy.lib.pdx.edu/10.3233/JIFS-237153

Singh, M., Baranwal, G., & Tripathi, A. K. (2023). A novel 2-phase consensus with customized feedback based group decision-making involving heterogeneous decision-makers. Journal of Supercomputing, 79(4), 3936–3973. https://doi-org.proxy.lib.pdx.edu/10.1007/s11227-022-04796-7