Nature of Intractable Conflict

Christopher Mitchell is an Emeritus Professor at the School for Conflict Analysis and Resolution, George Mason University, USA. He has written extensively on informal mediation, track two facilitation and local level peace-building. In 1981 he published one of the first ever textbooks in the field, The Structure of International Conflict, to which this volume is a follow up.

"Chris Mitchell's Structure of International Conflict inspired a generation of academics and practitioners to enter the field of conflict analysis and resolution. Now, as he shows in this equally inspirational book, forty years on the field has grown enormously. This is a masterly survey of the current state of the art and an indispensable guide for all those, scholars and practitioners alike, who want to place themselves on the front line of research and practice." - Tom Woodhouse, University of Bradford, UK

• Foreword 1. Compulsion; Natural Born Killers? 2. Formation: Sources and Emergence 3. Classification; Intractable Conflicts 4. Perpetuation; Dynamics and Intractability 5. Prevention 6. Mitigation 7. Regulation: Conflict Within Limits 8. Institutionalisation 9. Termination I: Keeping the Peace 10. Termination II: Resolving the Issues 11. Creation; Towards Transformation 12. Reconciliation; Ending the Hatred Afterword