Dialog across difference #14: Back to Cold War roots

The Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe (CSCE) existed during the Cold War to facilitate dialog aiming toward cooperation between rivals rather than simply collaboration amongst like-minded nations (Crump, 2016). The dialog amongst 35 European nations arguably helped avoid a land war or an apocalyptic nuclear war even when some leaders and some circumstances seemed pointed toward that destructive outcome. 

The formulation of the CSCE dialog offered two important features. 

One, that it continually asserted that European security was a multilateral and pan-European phenomenon, linking the security of each nation to an indivisible security for all, not just despite rivalries, but because of them.

Two, that it was process, not a limited goal-oriented endpoint action.

These components can teach us a great deal about using dialog when organizations tend toward rivalry. Emphasizing the mutual interdependence of well-being and the never-ending need for the relational benefits of ongoing dialog can help blunt our human tendencies toward sudden extreme turns toward destructive conflict. 

References

Crump, L. (2016). Forty-five Years of Dialogue Facilitation (1972-2017). Security and Human Rights, 27(3–4), 498–516. https://doi.org/10.1163/18750230-02703017