This paper is based on a cross-national experimental study conducted among American, Turkish, Israeli-Jewish, and Israeli-Palestinian students using a computer game called "PeaceMaker." The game is a highly realistic and complex simulation of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. PeaceMaker was used for educational and experimental purposes in a classroom setting and each student played the game in both Israeli and Palestinian decision maker roles. Our purpose was to evaluate the game's effectiveness as a pedagogical tool in teaching about conflict and its resolution, especially with regard to generating knowledge acquisition, perspective taking as a crucial skill in conflict resolution, and attitude change. We were also interested in understanding whether these effects changed depending on whether the participants were direct parties to the conflict or not. In order to gauge the effect of the game in these areas, we used a pre-and post-intervention experimental design and utilized questionnaires. We found that the game increased the level of knowledge about the conflict for the Israeli-Jewish, Israeli-Palestinian, American, and Turkish students. We also found that the game successfully contributed to perspective taking among Turkish and American students only on a contemporary issue related to the conflict.Keywords: conflict and negotiation teaching, computer-based simulations, active learning and teaching, Israeli-Palestinian conflict As a method of "active learning and teaching," 2 simulations have become one of the most widely used pedagogical tools in the teaching of conflict analysis and resolution. Role plays and simulations are also used in the teaching of international relations and crisis decision making (for example, Hermann 1969;Lantis 1998;Boin, Kofman-Bos, and Overdijk 2004;Asal 2005;Lay and Smarick 2006;Gehlbach et al. 2008), but it is the skills training aspect (for example, negotia-1 The authors would like to thank Ruveyda Celenk for her contributions to the study during the collection of data.2 Active teaching and learning is defined as a pedagogical approach that aims at replacing the traditional lecture-discussion-based instruction with a more student-centered approach. It aims at teaching critical thinking skills and the construction of knowledge where students are encouraged to take part in an experiential learning environment (Krain 2010
This article focuses on the evaluation of transfer from Track Two diplomacy to negotiations and policymaking by examining four Track Two initiatives between Israelis and Palestinians over the issues of water and Jerusalem. The article first discusses the transfer process for the water and Jerusalem cases and then presents lessons drawn from the comparative study. The comparative assessment reveals similarities concerning transfer in terms of what the contributions of Track Two are to the process of negotiations, which transfer strategies are used, and what conditions are necessary to make a contribution to the outcome. Initiatives in both cases employ primarily the strategy of working with influential people and they are more successful in impacting the process of negotiations rather than the outcome. Their contribution to the process of negotiations shows regularities in the types of learning acquired and used. Successful transfer to outcome is observed in one occasion when transfer strategies were implemented effectively, the negotiators were open to outside information, and there was political willingness. Asymmetrical transfer of people, and of ideas, from Track Two initiatives to negotiations was a barrier to effective transfer.
This paper reviews the seminal theories of social psychology which have guided scholarship on inter-group conflicts and describes how these theories have been used by conflict resolution practitioners to design Track Two diplomacy initiatives among citizens in conflict zones. The authors hope that such a review will provide scholars of conflict resolution and international politics with a better understanding of how complex social theories are adapted for use in the applied world, and how gaps between theory and practice can be identified and addressed. The paper begins with an overview of three of the main theoretical contributions of social psychology to the problem of inter-group conflict: social identity theory, stereotyping and prejudice, and contact theory. We then review how these theories have been applied by conflict resolution specialists in international and ethnic conflicts as they have sought to moderate intergroup hostilities in conflict zones. The paper concludes with an analysis of the gaps between theory and practice, namely: theory of change gap, transfer strategies gap, and unit of analysis gap. Finally, based on the reviewed social psychology research, the article makes policy recommendations about how these gaps between theory and practice can be narrowed.
Explanations of states' security decisions prioritise structuralsystemic, institutional and culturalconstraints that characterise foreign security decisions as a function of external/international, domestic/institutional, or normative/cultural factors. By examining Turkey 's 1990-1991 and 2003 Iraq war decisions systematically, we problematise this prioritisation of structure, and we investigate the dynamic relationship between structural constraints and leaders in their decision-making environments. In these cases, while the structural constraints remain constant or indeterminate, the decision outcomes and the decision-making process differ significantly. Our findings, based on structured-focused comparison, process tracing, and leadership trait analysis, suggest that the leaders' personalities and how they react to constraints account for this difference and that dependence on only one set of factors leads to an incomplete understanding of security policies and international politics. We contribute to the broader understanding of leaders' personalities by suggesting that self-confidence and cognitive complexity are the key traits distinguishing leaders' orientations towards structural constraints.Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, upon assuming power as prime minister during the decisionmaking process, was faced with questions of whether or not Turkey would allow the stationing of the US troops on its soil and grant over-flight rights. Both leaders supported cooperation with the US requests, but faced significant domestic opposition. Özal dominated the decision making in the first Gulf War, even though he had no specific constitutional authority to do so, and he engineered Turkish cooperation with the US-led military offensive against Iraq. Erdoğan, on the other hand, delegated authority and bungled a parliamentary vote that resulted in the rejection to the stationing of the US troops and the preclusion of a Northern front in the invasion of Iraq. Both episodes were significant junctures in the Turkish-US relations.In this study, we argue that foreign policymaking involves a dynamic relationship between political leadership as agency and the international, institutional and cultural constraints as structure. Throughout, we use the term 'structure' as the context in which action takes place; it not only limits but also shapes and propels behaviour. By 'agency', we mean the role of humans in the decision-making process. We illustrate the dynamic structureagency interaction in the Turkish decision-making context analysing the 1991 and 2003 Iraq war decisions. These cases are especially suitable for the purpose of our argument because although structural constraints were similar or indeterminate between Turkey's Iraq war decisions, the processes and choices were very different. This, we conclude, is indicative of the dynamic relationship between agency and structure. Specifically, we see two leaders, Özal in the first Iraq war and Erdoğan in the second Iraq war, with very different orientations towards structural constraints. ...
Personality approaches to politics are often criticized for not examining the effect that institutional role constraints have on individual beliefs and preferences. When leaders appear to change their stance when they change roles, it is assumed that roles have a determining influence. Modern personality theory and contemporary sociological role theory, however, view the effects of roles as interacting with agents' personalities. In this article, we investigate this question by comparing personality profiles of three Turkish leaders ( € Ozal, Demirel, and G€ ul) during their tenure as prime minister and during their subsequent time as president. For G€ ul, we perform an additional comparison during his time as foreign minister. The personality profiles are in the form of quantitative scores generated from machine-coded content analysis of leaders' words using the Leadership Trait Analysis method. We hypothesize that different leaders will be more susceptible to changing role contexts, depending on core personality traits, and that different traits are more likely to change with new roles. Overall, our results suggest that leaders' traits are fairly resistant to changes across roles and that task orientation is the most likely trait to change as leaders adapt to different role demands and expectations. This study makes a contribution to our understanding of the interaction between personality and political contexts by offering specific theoretically derived hypotheses and by empirically and statistically examining a preliminary set of expectations that could be applied more broadly to other leaders.When leaders change their political and institutional position, many would expect them to adapt to that new position. Their expressed beliefs and style of engaging with others might change with different role demands, expectations of role-appropriate behavior, and the powers and incentives associated with the position. When leaders do adapt to new roles, this change in 1 0162-895X
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