Tag Archive for conflict management

What does the biggest corporate scandal in years mean for India Inc?

Scandal engulfed one of India’s largest conglomerates at the end of January, when a report by a US-based short seller alleged massive corporate fraud. As well as sending shares in Adani Group companies tumbling and heightening fears of wider economic contagion, the report ignited a political scandal, with opposition parties highlighting Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s…

Dispute with Iran: A Strategic Risk Assessment Tool for the Nuclear Talks

What are the chances of success and what are the factors of risk in the new round of talks between the Iranian government and the permanent members of the UN Security Council plus Germany (“P5+1”) about Iran’s disputed nuclear programmed? These questions will draw much attention by political decision-makers and business executives and students of…

Conflict Resolution (II): A Risk Evaluation Tool for Mediators

The second part of the article on conflict resolution draws the conclusions from the previously developed argument, that mitigating the risks of peace negotiations, as perceived by the conflict parties, is the key to ending protracted conflict (see Conflict Resolution (I): Peace-Making and Risk-Taking). The risk evaluation tool introduced below, aims to identify and assess…

Conflict Resolution (I): Peace-making and Risk-taking

Parties who are involved in a protracted conflict must take risks in order to be able to settle their dispute. This argument may seem counter-intuitive at first, but consider the Middle East conflict as the perhaps most notorious case. For many years of on-and-off peace talks, both the Israeli government and the representation of the…

Risk Propensity and Conflict Behavior

Advisors active in conflict management need to consider what drives the conflict behavior of the parties involved in a dispute. Conflict behavior is, to a certain extent, motivated by rational strategic interests. But the escalation of a conflict also results from socio-psychological factors, such as attribution effects, as well as cognitive biases, such as framing…

The Four Pillars of Counter-Terrorism

By military means alone terrorism cannot be defeated. This rule, from which few exemptions exist on the national level, is fully evident in view of today’s prominent transnational terrorism spread by Islamist extremists. Therefore, counter-terrorism must pursue a comprehensive strategy that also includes psychological means in response to the mechanisms of fear triggered by indiscriminate…