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Turbulent Peace: The Challenges of Managing International Conflict
Like its predecessor, Managing Global Chaos , this comprehensive volume explores the sources of contemporary conflict and the vast array of possible responses to it. Fifty of the most influential and innovative analysts of international affairs present multiple perspectives on how best to prevent, manage, or resolve conflicts around the world. Four new themes emerge in this the return of geopolitics; the recognition that differenct societies require different peacemaking strategies; the pull and tub between conflict management and post-conflict governance issues, such as democratization; and the understanding that creating a sustainable peace is as difficult as making peace in the first place.
894 pages, Paperback
First published July 1, 2001
About the author
Chester A. Crocker
25 books7 followersChester Arthur Crocker (born October 29, 1941) is the James R. Schlesinger professor of strategic studies at Georgetown University’s Walsh School of Foreign Service and serves on the board of its Institute for the Study of Diplomacy. Dr. Crocker’s teaching and research focus on international security and conflict management.
From 1981 to 1989, Dr. Crocker served as Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs. He developed the strategy and led the diplomacy that produced the treaties signed by Angola, Cuba, and South Africa in New York in December 1988. These agreements resulted in Namibia’s independence (March 1990) and the withdrawal of foreign forces from Namibia and Angola. President Ronald Reagan granted him the President’s Citizens Medal, the country’s second highest civilian award.
Dr. Crocker chaired the board of the United States Institute of Peace (1992-2004) and continued to serve as a director of this independent, nonpartisan institution through 2011. He serves on the boards of Universal Corporation, Inc., a leading independent trading company in leaf tobacco and agricultural products; and the Good Governance Group Ltd, a strategic advisory consultancy service. He is a member of the World Bank’s Independent Advisory Board on governance and anti-corruption; is a founding member of the Global Leadership Foundation, a leading international NGO that advises leaders facing governance and conflict challenges; and also serves on the international advisory board of International Affairs (London). Dr. Crocker consults as advisor on strategy and negotiation to a number of U.S. and European firms.
Dr. Crocker’s previous professional experience includes service as news editor of Africa Report magazine (1968-69) and staff officer at the National Security Council (1970-72) where he worked on Middle East, Indian Ocean, and African issues. He first joined Georgetown University as director of its Master of Science in Foreign Service program, serving concurrently as associate professor of international relations (1972-80). He served as director of African studies at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (1976-80).
Dr. Crocker lectures and writes on international politics, U.S. foreign policy, conflict management and security issues, and African affairs. He has appeared on numerous television shows, as a dinner or keynote speaker at conferences in the U.S., Europe and Africa, and as a witness in Congressional hearings. His book, High Noon in Southern Africa: Making Peace in a Rough Neighborhood, was published by Norton in 1993. He is the co-author of Taming Intractable Conflicts: Mediation in the Hardest Cases (2004) and co-editor with Fen O. Hampson and Pamela Aall of: Rewiring Regional Security in a Fragmented World (2011), Leashing the Dogs of War: Conflict Management in a Divided World (2007), Grasping the Nettle: Analyzing Cases of Intractable Conflict (2005), Turbulent Peace: The Challenges of Managing International Conflict (2001), Herding Cats: Multiparty Mediation in a Complex World (1999) and Managing Global Chaos: Sources of and Responses to International Conflict (1996).
From 1981 to 1989, Dr. Crocker served as Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs. He developed the strategy and led the diplomacy that produced the treaties signed by Angola, Cuba, and South Africa in New York in December 1988. These agreements resulted in Namibia’s independence (March 1990) and the withdrawal of foreign forces from Namibia and Angola. President Ronald Reagan granted him the President’s Citizens Medal, the country’s second highest civilian award.
Dr. Crocker chaired the board of the United States Institute of Peace (1992-2004) and continued to serve as a director of this independent, nonpartisan institution through 2011. He serves on the boards of Universal Corporation, Inc., a leading independent trading company in leaf tobacco and agricultural products; and the Good Governance Group Ltd, a strategic advisory consultancy service. He is a member of the World Bank’s Independent Advisory Board on governance and anti-corruption; is a founding member of the Global Leadership Foundation, a leading international NGO that advises leaders facing governance and conflict challenges; and also serves on the international advisory board of International Affairs (London). Dr. Crocker consults as advisor on strategy and negotiation to a number of U.S. and European firms.
Dr. Crocker’s previous professional experience includes service as news editor of Africa Report magazine (1968-69) and staff officer at the National Security Council (1970-72) where he worked on Middle East, Indian Ocean, and African issues. He first joined Georgetown University as director of its Master of Science in Foreign Service program, serving concurrently as associate professor of international relations (1972-80). He served as director of African studies at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (1976-80).
Dr. Crocker lectures and writes on international politics, U.S. foreign policy, conflict management and security issues, and African affairs. He has appeared on numerous television shows, as a dinner or keynote speaker at conferences in the U.S., Europe and Africa, and as a witness in Congressional hearings. His book, High Noon in Southern Africa: Making Peace in a Rough Neighborhood, was published by Norton in 1993. He is the co-author of Taming Intractable Conflicts: Mediation in the Hardest Cases (2004) and co-editor with Fen O. Hampson and Pamela Aall of: Rewiring Regional Security in a Fragmented World (2011), Leashing the Dogs of War: Conflict Management in a Divided World (2007), Grasping the Nettle: Analyzing Cases of Intractable Conflict (2005), Turbulent Peace: The Challenges of Managing International Conflict (2001), Herding Cats: Multiparty Mediation in a Complex World (1999) and Managing Global Chaos: Sources of and Responses to International Conflict (1996).
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
April 29, 2015
This is a collection of academic pieces for academic purposes. I read most of them or part of them out of sheer curiosity, but I would not recommend it to a “curious reader” or someone who wants to understand better this subject. In my opinion reading good articles about specific topic (e.g. situation in Sudan) would be better than wasting time on such “pretentious way of writing”
March 14, 2026
I think the other reviewer summed it up well
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H-Net
In their introduction, Crocker, Hampson and Aall endorse the cautious optimism advanced by Ted Robert Gurr in his chapter on ethnopolitical conflict in the new century, "because both the frequency and the intensity of ethnic and intercommunal conflict declined during the past decade".
Though they warn against any assumption of an "easing of intergroup conflict and movement toward political settlement as trends", their assertion is nevertheless puzzling, given the extent of atrocities and the millions of people killed and displaced during the 1990s.
Hampson's essay on the role of third parties in ending violent conflict proposes several theoretical approaches to conflict management. He concludes that a third party's full and continued engagement is a must for peaceful settlement, and that "interventions that fail are typically associated with a lack of staying power or an inability to muster the resources needed to build a secure foundation for a settlement....
Turbulent Peace may be one of the most comprehensive readings on the international security conditions of the post-Cold War era, excluding the area of arms control.
This was also true of the 1996 edition, Managing Global Chaos: Sources of and Responses to International Conflict.
In the 2001 version, the authors confirm this when they declare in their introduction that their objective "was to present mush of the best thinking on our past experience and current options and to give shape to the field of conflict analysis and management".
It was their misfortune that the 2001 edition appeared just before the terrorist attacks on September 11, and that its treatment of terrorism is minimal, especially since terrorism (as the precipitator of a global security crisis) is at the center of a critical regime change in the United States.
Whereas most of the materials in this massive reading deal with the security problems
associated with the crisis of the state in the Third World and in the context of democratization processes, the crisis and militarization of the political system and foreign policies of the superstates of the industrial world are generally overlooked here, even though they constitute defining aspects of the global terror crisis.
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soft and mushy
gets you endless work
//////
H-Net
In their introduction, Crocker, Hampson and Aall endorse the cautious optimism advanced by Ted Robert Gurr in his chapter on ethnopolitical conflict in the new century, "because both the frequency and the intensity of ethnic and intercommunal conflict declined during the past decade".
Though they warn against any assumption of an "easing of intergroup conflict and movement toward political settlement as trends", their assertion is nevertheless puzzling, given the extent of atrocities and the millions of people killed and displaced during the 1990s.
Hampson's essay on the role of third parties in ending violent conflict proposes several theoretical approaches to conflict management. He concludes that a third party's full and continued engagement is a must for peaceful settlement, and that "interventions that fail are typically associated with a lack of staying power or an inability to muster the resources needed to build a secure foundation for a settlement....
Turbulent Peace may be one of the most comprehensive readings on the international security conditions of the post-Cold War era, excluding the area of arms control.
This was also true of the 1996 edition, Managing Global Chaos: Sources of and Responses to International Conflict.
In the 2001 version, the authors confirm this when they declare in their introduction that their objective "was to present mush of the best thinking on our past experience and current options and to give shape to the field of conflict analysis and management".
It was their misfortune that the 2001 edition appeared just before the terrorist attacks on September 11, and that its treatment of terrorism is minimal, especially since terrorism (as the precipitator of a global security crisis) is at the center of a critical regime change in the United States.
Whereas most of the materials in this massive reading deal with the security problems
associated with the crisis of the state in the Third World and in the context of democratization processes, the crisis and militarization of the political system and foreign policies of the superstates of the industrial world are generally overlooked here, even though they constitute defining aspects of the global terror crisis.
/////
soft and mushy
gets you endless work
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews