Books by Michael D English
Long a source of contention and ambiguity in Washington, the US Institute of Peace (USIP) is seen... more Long a source of contention and ambiguity in Washington, the US Institute of Peace (USIP) is seen by some as a vital part of the US national security apparatus, by others as a counter to the influence of militarism in US foreign policy, and by still others as an example of fiscal irresponsibility and bureaucratic redundancy—when it is noticed at all. Michael English traces the history of USIP to determine why and how it came into existence, how its mission has changed over time, its successes and its failures, and how it has come to take the shape that it has today.
Book is available through: https://www.rienner.com/title/The_US_Institute_of_Peace_A_Critical_History
Papers by Michael D English
This paper offers an introduction to Critical Conflict Resolution, a form of conflict resolution ... more This paper offers an introduction to Critical Conflict Resolution, a form of conflict resolution practice that addresses larger, systemic concerns while also focusing on the conflicts produced by systemic contradictions. It describes two forms of practice for these conflicts, emergent and evolutionary, as well as identifying the need to develop systemic consciousness in both practitioners and parties in order to produce real change. It provides suggestions for practitioners and conflict scholars as they engage with this developing area of practice.
Unrest Magazine, Oct 24, 2013
Even though Unrest Magazine serves as the vehicle for the ideas and associations we think should ... more Even though Unrest Magazine serves as the vehicle for the ideas and associations we think should inhabit the CCR universe, we have not put forth anything codifying our views as to what Critical Conflict Resolution is or could be. The brief essay that follows is our attempt to provide an overview of the project as it currently exists and where it might go in the future. As CCR continues to grow and develop, part of our objective becomes to provide clarity on its lexicon and to distinguish the ways in which it offers a substantive difference from other forms of practice and analysis. This essay will attempt to clarify a number of key terms and concepts as they relate to that objective.
Unrest Magazine, Nov 2, 2012
In a little less than two months, the year 2012 will draw to a close and so will the Invisible Ch... more In a little less than two months, the year 2012 will draw to a close and so will the Invisible Children’s Kony 2012 campaign. Whether or not Joseph Kony, leader of the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA), is captured or killed is to some extent irrelevant given the success of Invisible Children’s efforts to make him internet-famous and a household name. While I am in awe of the visibility the Kony 2012 effort captured, I find myself more concerned with what it revealed about the current state of conflict work. Conflict work in this case is defined as actions taken by parties who intervene in societies experiencing or recovering from violence. Such work is generally connected to conflict resolution, development, human rights peacebuilding, and other related types of third party intervention. Although Invisible Children is only one particular NGO and Kony 2012 one intervention attempt, combined they are a particularly telling example of the disunity of what is considered appropriate when it comes to conflict work. Invisible Children’s ability to organize and market their cause set a bar unmatched in recent memory; nevertheless, as a precedent for future interventions it comes with a steep price. Kony 2012 might be a very successful piece of propaganda, but it is an equally disastrous piece of conflict practice.
Unrest Magazine, Jul 1, 2011
Unrest Magazine, Jan 15, 2011
And this is just the first sentence of the summary. indicate that the Alliance for Conflict Trans... more And this is just the first sentence of the summary. indicate that the Alliance for Conflict Transformation (ACT) was commissioned in 2005 by USIP to conduct an assessment of the preparedness of graduate students for work international conflict. The authors write, the "goal of this study was to explore the match between academic program offerings and the needs of the organizations and agencies that hire individuals for international conflict work" (2010, p. 2). From its title, the report appears to position itself as an overarching examination of graduate education and professional practice. In reality, the thrust of the report is decidedly oneway, emphasizing the relationship of graduate programs as the producers of skilled labor for organizations working in international conflict. According to Carstarphen et al., roughly half of the employing organizations interviewed felt students were unprepared upon graduation to work in these settings and that there was substantial room for improvement in graduate education. In short, academic programs are not providing students with the skills and knowledge employing organizations deem necessary for employment postgraduation.
Unrest Magazine, Sep 1, 2010
Thesis Chapters by Michael D English
This dissertation traces the origins, formation, and development of the United States Institute o... more This dissertation traces the origins, formation, and development of the United States Institute of Peace. The project seeks to illuminate how an elite-led reform campaign to establish a national peace academy resulted in a federally funded “think and do tank,” arguably a crucial component of the national security state. More generally, the research aims to understand how initiatives intended to alter the behavior of the state are constrained and transformed through their journey in the field of power.
The study begins by examining the history of calls for the establishment of a federal peace office, calls which date to the founding period of the United States and are anchored in the writings of such notable figures as George Washington and Benjamin Rush. This project reveals that there were at least three contending views about the relationship of peace to the state. In overlooking these distinctions, peace reformers championed the legacy of George Washington as a peace advocate, while ignoring Washington’s own interactions with those committed to non-violence. Next, the study examines the origins of the National Peace Academy Campaign and its efforts to pass peace legislation at the federal level. It interprets this campaign as an attempt to offer alternatives, in the form of peace studies and conflict resolution, to the dominance of political Realism during the Cold War and Vietnam War. Finally, the study considers the passage of U.S. Institute of Peace Act and the organization that emerged from the law. Here the Institute is situated within the context of scholarship on think tanks and knowledge production. The study explores the organization’s transformation from a focus on peace education to policy analysis, and finally to its recent incarnation as a hybrid think tank and intervention agency.
This thesis explores the tension between national symbols of remembrance and the pursuit of peace... more This thesis explores the tension between national symbols of remembrance and the pursuit of peace within the United States. The severity of previous ethno- nationalist conflicts throughout Europe and the other parts of the world creates a framework, whereby the United States is neglected from the discussion on nationalism. This study examines the use of certain national symbols within the United States (flags, anthems, monuments, and memorials) and their influence in the conception of America as a nation. Visual representations of war and tragedy are influenced by the nationalist worldview and used to maintain national narratives that support the idea that peace can only be obtained through strength.
The construction of monuments and memorials as national symbols plays a large role in the development of cultural identity within mass society. This thesis investigates the way nationalism has influenced the meaning ascribed to peace through America’s use of national symbols. The attitudes of United States citizens towards U.S. foreign policy and the country’s involvement in various war efforts reflect the realist position maintained by nation-states vis-à-vis nationalism that affirms peace is only achievable through the use of force.
Conference Presentations by Michael D English
We live in a difficult moment in history. The resurgence of xenophobic and nationalist rhetoric e... more We live in a difficult moment in history. The resurgence of xenophobic and nationalist rhetoric emphasizes a worldview that tells us we are safest when we close off our communities and borders. Now, more than ever, advocates for peace need to demonstrate the power citizen actors can have in challenging this rhetoric and building bonds of friendship across cultural and political divides.
Keynote Address for Friendship Force International World Conference.
Presentation from the 2016 ACR Conference in Baltimore
We hope to offer this session as an inclusive conversation for conference participants to discuss... more We hope to offer this session as an inclusive conversation for conference participants to discuss critical and feminist strategies for resisting the neoliberal present in our classrooms and developing forms of peace and conflict resolution education that can promote systemic change. No papers will be presented during this session. Instead, we hope to explore the following questions with interested participants:
● What are the best practices for introducing feminist and critical pedagogy into the classroom?
● How can we respond to student resistance to threatening, but necessary ideas?
● How can we educate in a way that recognizes both intersectionality and systemic embeddedness?
● How do we build solidarity among students and faculty members to address these challenges within our own institutions?
The relationship between art and conflict resolution is generally viewed within the narrow confin... more The relationship between art and conflict resolution is generally viewed within the narrow confines of performance and healing practice. NGOs promote dance and theater as “safe and creative” methods for working through trauma and teaching peace education. Yet while art is considered relevant for school children and survivors of violence, it is often considered irrelevant to those seeking to engage in the “serious” business of conflict work. It is our concern that limited considerations of art and artistic production trivializes the valuable contributions contentious and provocative work plays in representing systems of violence and must therefore be recognized as an important component of a broader, critical approach to systemic conflict. From the Dadaists' rejection of war to punk pioneers Crass’ rebellion against Thatcherism to Pussy Riot’s revolt against Putin’s Russia, art as agitation serves as a critical counter-hegemonic practice, creating spaces to realize and challenge the violence of oppressive systems.
This paper builds from the previous work of English and Sweetman on Critical Conflict Resolution to explore the role of artists as a specific type of conflict practitioner in addressing systemic conflicts. Systemic conflicts are understood to be those situations where economic, social, and political inequalities are transformed into antagonistic, asymmetric power relationships. These conflicts are sustained and reproduced through various forms of violence, especially in what Johan Galtung identified as cultural violence and what we identify borrowing from Galtung as the violence of common sense. We borrow from the foundational work of Laue and Cormick on community disputes to argue that the field of conflict resolution must expand its notions of the potential roles for those seeking to intervene in system generated conflicts. To that extent there is a significant division in the types of work that need to be undertaken. While traditional roles associated with third-party practice remain essential, there is also a need to establish practices aimed at exposing how violence becomes legitimated within dominant ideology. Traditional conflict practices are at risk of becoming forms of system maintenance in situations where the violence of common sense is normalized and experienced as part of daily life. In these situations, the space to think critically and creatively about the sources of conflict are reduced as individuals become habituated to the ways violence is performed and mediated in these particular situations.
This presentation will examine a selection of artists and art groups as conflict intervenors to illustrate the necessary contribution of imagination and representation in the resolution of systemic contradictions that produce violence and conflict. We will look primarily at two cases (Dada and Pussy Riot) in an effort to expand our notion of conflict practice. The Dadaist response to World War I remains the key example of refusal in the face of the totalizing ideology of the imperialist era. Likewise, in our own moment, the hegemonic thrust of neoliberal ideology transcends national boundaries, yet is experienced in localized and particular forms. Pussy Riot’s invocation of DIY ethics, punk agitation, and use of social media technologies echos the Dadaist refusal while modernizing the way representation can be performed under repressive regimes.
Finally, we will address two possible critiques of our expanded role for conflict practice. The first portrays such action as a form of bourgeois privilege and therefore, non-representative of the oppressed. Who is allowed to participate in the act of representation and what are the boundaries? The second critique identifies confrontational art with spontaneity and ultimately, a source of distraction from the work of organization or traditional third party intervention. This critique is similar to the charges by certain peace activists against the New Left elements of the anti-Vietnam war movement. We recognize the value of these insights and hope to demonstrate why addressing systemic conflicts sometimes requires unorthodox measures.
Today, educators seeking to implement alternative pedagogies are doing so in an environment of au... more Today, educators seeking to implement alternative pedagogies are doing so in an environment of austerity. David J. Blacker terms this milieu “the neoliberal endgame,” where the educational process is subsumed by the “the exponentially increasing drumbeat of production.” While it is essential for educators to recognize the intertwining complexities of austerity and neoliberalism, we must not forget that these challenges are situated within a broader historical struggle over questions of power and representation. bell hooks coined the label “White Supremacist Capitalist Patriarchy” to describe the “interlocking systems of domination that define our reality.” Gender, race, and economic systems cannot be treated as independent elements to be fixed one problem at a time. As such they must be addressed through both individual and collective means. We believe following from the work of Freire, hooks, Giroux, and others that the classroom (in its many and varied forms) remains an essential space for developing critical consciousness and counter-hegemonic practices.
We hope to offer this session as an inclusive conversation for conference participants to discuss critical and feminist strategies for resisting the neoliberal present in our classrooms and developing forms of peace and conflict resolution education that can promote systemic change. No papers will be presented during this session. Instead, we hope to explore the following questions with interested participants:
What are the best practices for introducing feminist and critical pedagogy into the classroom?
How can we respond to student resistance to threatening, but necessary ideas?
How can we educate in a way that recognizes both intersectionality and systemic embeddedness?
How do we build solidarity among students and faculty members to address these challenges within our own institutions?
The relationship between art and conflict resolution is generally viewed within the narrow confin... more The relationship between art and conflict resolution is generally viewed within the narrow confines of performance and healing practice. NGOs promote dance and theater as “safe and creative” methods for working through trauma and teaching peace education. Yet while art is considered relevant for school children and survivors of violence, it is often considered irrelevant to those seeking to engage in the “serious” business of conflict work. It is our concern that limited considerations of art and artistic production trivializes the valuable contributions provocative work plays in representing systems of violence and must therefore be recognized as an important component of a broader, critical approach to systemic conflict. This paper invokes the Dadaists' rejection of war, punk pioneers Crass’ rebellion against Thatcherism, and Pussy Riot’s revolt in Russia to argue that art as agitation serves as a critical counter-hegemonic practice, creating spaces to realize and challenge the violence of oppressive systems. It builds from the previous work of English and Sweetman on Critical Conflict Resolution to explore the role of artists as a specific type of conflict practitioner in addressing systemic conflicts - situations sustained and reproduced through various forms of violence, especially in what Johan Galtung identified as cultural violence and what we identify borrowing from Galtung as the violence of common sense. Influenced by the foundational work of Laue and Cormick, we argue that CAR must expand its notions of the potential roles for intervenors in system generated conflicts. While traditional third-party roles remain essential, there is also a need to establish new practices aimed at exposing how violence becomes legitimated within dominant ideology. Traditional conflict practices are at risk of becoming forms of system maintenance in situations where the violence of common sense is normalized and experienced as part of daily life.
Critical Conflict Resolution seeks to further the conversation around the roles and possibilities... more Critical Conflict Resolution seeks to further the conversation around the roles and possibilities for intervenors in systemic conflicts; these are situations where the unequal distribution of power and resources takes precedent in reproducing cycles of violence. Building from the insights of Laue and Cormick, we attempt to refocus the relationship between conflict practice and theory building in a manner that generates a more productive cycle of understanding and application for all involved. Our focus for this session moves beyond mediation and encourages discussion on roles that envision conflict resolution as more robust tool for community engagement.
Syllabi by Michael D English
This is the capstone course for students completing the Certificate in Peace, Conflict, and Secur... more This is the capstone course for students completing the Certificate in Peace, Conflict, and Security Studies at CU Boulder. This course is focused on developing students' skills as researchers, creators, and presenters of information on PACS related issues. Learning how to produce empirical research is not just for scholars, its creation and distribution are vital in helping artists, activists, policymakers, humanitarian organizations, and citizens make informed decisions about the pressing matters facing our world. Our work over the semester is directed toward helping students develop their talents through the design, implementation, and presentation of an independent research project. We will discuss the research process, including the ethical concerns, topic formation, research methodologies, data collection strategies, as well as how to present our findings. We will explore the differences and commonalities between knowledge manufactured for policymakers, academicians, and the public. Additionally, we will practice various methods of data collection and analysis techniques.
This course aims to provide students with an introduction to the theories and practices associate... more This course aims to provide students with an introduction to the theories and practices associated with contemporary study of conflict analysis and resolution (or CAR). CAR offers a diverse range of analytical tools and intervention strategies designed to address contemporary forms of conflict, ranging from interpersonal disputes to interstate warfare. Throughout the semester we will engage with the writings of foundational thinkers and current innovators in an effort to develop our skills as conflict analysts and potential conflict intervenors. We will explore the underlying sources of conflict and its dynamics, as well as consider modes of intervention related to the practices of facilitation, negotiation, mediation, and other group processes. Students will learn core theories, analytical techniques, models, and modes of practice essential to resolving conflict without recourse to violence and for building more peaceful and resilient communities.
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Books by Michael D English
Book is available through: https://www.rienner.com/title/The_US_Institute_of_Peace_A_Critical_History
Papers by Michael D English
Thesis Chapters by Michael D English
The study begins by examining the history of calls for the establishment of a federal peace office, calls which date to the founding period of the United States and are anchored in the writings of such notable figures as George Washington and Benjamin Rush. This project reveals that there were at least three contending views about the relationship of peace to the state. In overlooking these distinctions, peace reformers championed the legacy of George Washington as a peace advocate, while ignoring Washington’s own interactions with those committed to non-violence. Next, the study examines the origins of the National Peace Academy Campaign and its efforts to pass peace legislation at the federal level. It interprets this campaign as an attempt to offer alternatives, in the form of peace studies and conflict resolution, to the dominance of political Realism during the Cold War and Vietnam War. Finally, the study considers the passage of U.S. Institute of Peace Act and the organization that emerged from the law. Here the Institute is situated within the context of scholarship on think tanks and knowledge production. The study explores the organization’s transformation from a focus on peace education to policy analysis, and finally to its recent incarnation as a hybrid think tank and intervention agency.
The construction of monuments and memorials as national symbols plays a large role in the development of cultural identity within mass society. This thesis investigates the way nationalism has influenced the meaning ascribed to peace through America’s use of national symbols. The attitudes of United States citizens towards U.S. foreign policy and the country’s involvement in various war efforts reflect the realist position maintained by nation-states vis-à-vis nationalism that affirms peace is only achievable through the use of force.
Conference Presentations by Michael D English
Keynote Address for Friendship Force International World Conference.
● What are the best practices for introducing feminist and critical pedagogy into the classroom?
● How can we respond to student resistance to threatening, but necessary ideas?
● How can we educate in a way that recognizes both intersectionality and systemic embeddedness?
● How do we build solidarity among students and faculty members to address these challenges within our own institutions?
This paper builds from the previous work of English and Sweetman on Critical Conflict Resolution to explore the role of artists as a specific type of conflict practitioner in addressing systemic conflicts. Systemic conflicts are understood to be those situations where economic, social, and political inequalities are transformed into antagonistic, asymmetric power relationships. These conflicts are sustained and reproduced through various forms of violence, especially in what Johan Galtung identified as cultural violence and what we identify borrowing from Galtung as the violence of common sense. We borrow from the foundational work of Laue and Cormick on community disputes to argue that the field of conflict resolution must expand its notions of the potential roles for those seeking to intervene in system generated conflicts. To that extent there is a significant division in the types of work that need to be undertaken. While traditional roles associated with third-party practice remain essential, there is also a need to establish practices aimed at exposing how violence becomes legitimated within dominant ideology. Traditional conflict practices are at risk of becoming forms of system maintenance in situations where the violence of common sense is normalized and experienced as part of daily life. In these situations, the space to think critically and creatively about the sources of conflict are reduced as individuals become habituated to the ways violence is performed and mediated in these particular situations.
This presentation will examine a selection of artists and art groups as conflict intervenors to illustrate the necessary contribution of imagination and representation in the resolution of systemic contradictions that produce violence and conflict. We will look primarily at two cases (Dada and Pussy Riot) in an effort to expand our notion of conflict practice. The Dadaist response to World War I remains the key example of refusal in the face of the totalizing ideology of the imperialist era. Likewise, in our own moment, the hegemonic thrust of neoliberal ideology transcends national boundaries, yet is experienced in localized and particular forms. Pussy Riot’s invocation of DIY ethics, punk agitation, and use of social media technologies echos the Dadaist refusal while modernizing the way representation can be performed under repressive regimes.
Finally, we will address two possible critiques of our expanded role for conflict practice. The first portrays such action as a form of bourgeois privilege and therefore, non-representative of the oppressed. Who is allowed to participate in the act of representation and what are the boundaries? The second critique identifies confrontational art with spontaneity and ultimately, a source of distraction from the work of organization or traditional third party intervention. This critique is similar to the charges by certain peace activists against the New Left elements of the anti-Vietnam war movement. We recognize the value of these insights and hope to demonstrate why addressing systemic conflicts sometimes requires unorthodox measures.
We hope to offer this session as an inclusive conversation for conference participants to discuss critical and feminist strategies for resisting the neoliberal present in our classrooms and developing forms of peace and conflict resolution education that can promote systemic change. No papers will be presented during this session. Instead, we hope to explore the following questions with interested participants:
What are the best practices for introducing feminist and critical pedagogy into the classroom?
How can we respond to student resistance to threatening, but necessary ideas?
How can we educate in a way that recognizes both intersectionality and systemic embeddedness?
How do we build solidarity among students and faculty members to address these challenges within our own institutions?
Syllabi by Michael D English
Book is available through: https://www.rienner.com/title/The_US_Institute_of_Peace_A_Critical_History
The study begins by examining the history of calls for the establishment of a federal peace office, calls which date to the founding period of the United States and are anchored in the writings of such notable figures as George Washington and Benjamin Rush. This project reveals that there were at least three contending views about the relationship of peace to the state. In overlooking these distinctions, peace reformers championed the legacy of George Washington as a peace advocate, while ignoring Washington’s own interactions with those committed to non-violence. Next, the study examines the origins of the National Peace Academy Campaign and its efforts to pass peace legislation at the federal level. It interprets this campaign as an attempt to offer alternatives, in the form of peace studies and conflict resolution, to the dominance of political Realism during the Cold War and Vietnam War. Finally, the study considers the passage of U.S. Institute of Peace Act and the organization that emerged from the law. Here the Institute is situated within the context of scholarship on think tanks and knowledge production. The study explores the organization’s transformation from a focus on peace education to policy analysis, and finally to its recent incarnation as a hybrid think tank and intervention agency.
The construction of monuments and memorials as national symbols plays a large role in the development of cultural identity within mass society. This thesis investigates the way nationalism has influenced the meaning ascribed to peace through America’s use of national symbols. The attitudes of United States citizens towards U.S. foreign policy and the country’s involvement in various war efforts reflect the realist position maintained by nation-states vis-à-vis nationalism that affirms peace is only achievable through the use of force.
Keynote Address for Friendship Force International World Conference.
● What are the best practices for introducing feminist and critical pedagogy into the classroom?
● How can we respond to student resistance to threatening, but necessary ideas?
● How can we educate in a way that recognizes both intersectionality and systemic embeddedness?
● How do we build solidarity among students and faculty members to address these challenges within our own institutions?
This paper builds from the previous work of English and Sweetman on Critical Conflict Resolution to explore the role of artists as a specific type of conflict practitioner in addressing systemic conflicts. Systemic conflicts are understood to be those situations where economic, social, and political inequalities are transformed into antagonistic, asymmetric power relationships. These conflicts are sustained and reproduced through various forms of violence, especially in what Johan Galtung identified as cultural violence and what we identify borrowing from Galtung as the violence of common sense. We borrow from the foundational work of Laue and Cormick on community disputes to argue that the field of conflict resolution must expand its notions of the potential roles for those seeking to intervene in system generated conflicts. To that extent there is a significant division in the types of work that need to be undertaken. While traditional roles associated with third-party practice remain essential, there is also a need to establish practices aimed at exposing how violence becomes legitimated within dominant ideology. Traditional conflict practices are at risk of becoming forms of system maintenance in situations where the violence of common sense is normalized and experienced as part of daily life. In these situations, the space to think critically and creatively about the sources of conflict are reduced as individuals become habituated to the ways violence is performed and mediated in these particular situations.
This presentation will examine a selection of artists and art groups as conflict intervenors to illustrate the necessary contribution of imagination and representation in the resolution of systemic contradictions that produce violence and conflict. We will look primarily at two cases (Dada and Pussy Riot) in an effort to expand our notion of conflict practice. The Dadaist response to World War I remains the key example of refusal in the face of the totalizing ideology of the imperialist era. Likewise, in our own moment, the hegemonic thrust of neoliberal ideology transcends national boundaries, yet is experienced in localized and particular forms. Pussy Riot’s invocation of DIY ethics, punk agitation, and use of social media technologies echos the Dadaist refusal while modernizing the way representation can be performed under repressive regimes.
Finally, we will address two possible critiques of our expanded role for conflict practice. The first portrays such action as a form of bourgeois privilege and therefore, non-representative of the oppressed. Who is allowed to participate in the act of representation and what are the boundaries? The second critique identifies confrontational art with spontaneity and ultimately, a source of distraction from the work of organization or traditional third party intervention. This critique is similar to the charges by certain peace activists against the New Left elements of the anti-Vietnam war movement. We recognize the value of these insights and hope to demonstrate why addressing systemic conflicts sometimes requires unorthodox measures.
We hope to offer this session as an inclusive conversation for conference participants to discuss critical and feminist strategies for resisting the neoliberal present in our classrooms and developing forms of peace and conflict resolution education that can promote systemic change. No papers will be presented during this session. Instead, we hope to explore the following questions with interested participants:
What are the best practices for introducing feminist and critical pedagogy into the classroom?
How can we respond to student resistance to threatening, but necessary ideas?
How can we educate in a way that recognizes both intersectionality and systemic embeddedness?
How do we build solidarity among students and faculty members to address these challenges within our own institutions?