Culture and international conflict resolution: A critical analysis of the work of John Burton

by Tarja Vayrynen, Peter Lawler (Editor), Emmanuel Pierre Guittet (Editor)

Overview

This book re-examines conflict resolution – and partcualry problem-solving conflict resolution – from a new perspective. The book is a critical study of John Burton’s work, and outlines an alternative framework for the study of international conflict. It provides an insight into the problems of conflict and conflict resolution from a social constructionist angle.

Väyrynen argues that culture has a constitutive role in international conflict and conflict resolution. Culture offers a grammar for acting in and interpreting the world, and provides understandings of conflict and its resolution. Theories which deny the importance of cultural failure to understand the ontological conditions of human ‘being’.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780719081408
Publisher:	Manchester University Press
Publication date:	12/01/2009
Series:	New Approaches to Conflict Analysis
Pages:	172
Product dimensions:	6.10(w) x 9.20(h) x 0.70(d)

About the Author

Tarja Väyrynen is Research Director at Tampere Peace Research Institute in Finland

Table of Contents

Introduction: the problematique of culture in international conflict analysis
1. Peaceful third-party interventions and Burtonian problem-solving conflict resolution
2. Burton’s human needs theory and the denial of culture in conflict resolution
3. The rationale of Burton’s totalist theory
4. Cultural dimensions of the social world
5. Phenomenological interpretation of problem-solving workshop conflict resolution: limitations and possibilities
Conclusion: ten theses on culture and international conflict resolution

Editorial Reviews

..."can be helpful for advanced students of conflict and peace studies, international relations, applied psychology and philosophy..."--Radka Havlova, Journal of International Relations and Development


., ."can be helpful for advanced students of conflict and peace studies, international relations, applied psychology and philosophy..."--Radka Havlova, Journal of International Relations and Development

"The work of John Burton is overdue for the sort of assessment that Vayrynen provides. There is here not only a critique of conflict strategies, but a highly perceptive and imaginative enquiry into Burton's work, particularly his assumption of human needs, and a form of rationality." --Stephen Chan, Nottingham Trent University

From the Publisher

V<:a>yrynen (Tampere Peace Research Institute, Finland) examines Burton's pioneering work in the problem-solving workshop type of international conflict resolution, and its relation to his human needs theory. She argues that a conflict theory founded on a sociobiologically based human-needs theory, leads to the denial of culture and the socially constructed nature of human existence. She critiques the approach by analyzing his work, and articulates an alternative approach. Distributed in the US by Palgrave. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

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