Tom Glaisyer

“The Third Side”

Biography
Tom Glaisyer, BEng & BCom, is currently studying at the School of International and Public Affairs, Columbia University. He is a Project Associate at The Center for International Conflict Resolution, also based at Columbia University. Prior to this work he spent 10 years working as a technology and change management consultant where his work was focused on the implementation of large back office systems and the changes they generated in the workplace.

Position Paper

“The third side is the surrounding community, which serves as a container for any escalating conflict. In the absence of that container, serious conflict between two parties all too easily turns into destructive strife. Within the container, however, conflict can gradually be transformed from confrontation into cooperation.”

—William Ury, The Third Side

This paragraph from William Ury’s The Third Side is the inspiration for my line of research in the field of virtual communities and the social software that may enable conflict transformation in conflict and post-conflict situations. I am particularly interested in whether they can be a positive tool in conflict (especially genocide) prevention, peacemaking, and peacekeeping.

The important role of communication for civilians within wars cannot be overstated. The breakdown of many negotiations or the incomplete implementation of peace agreements often has resulted from an inability of governments to engage in a two-way dialogue with their citizens, maintain trust and prevent sabotage by citizens holding extreme views within the population. The hypothesis behind my research is that the development of social networking tools that incorporate reputation-building and influence-recording tools and knowledge bases (such as wikis) as well as self-publishing technology to support dialogue (blogs and the like) will permit civil society in conflict-ridden situations to build clearer voices and positions with which governments can interact.

The idea of the Third Side has been widely studied, but up until now there has been almost no research on the Third Side in the virtual world and the attributes needed within such technological systems so that individuals, groups and institutions that operate in the arena of war and peace can adopt and use such technologies. Research has been published on the development of group decision support systems within private and public organizations (Poole, Jackson, Kirsch, DeSanctis, 1999), the use of tools to develop and distill ideas from a large distributed population, including the challenges of computer moderated mediation (Ackerman, Swenson, Cotterrill, DeMaagd). Literature also exists on the impact of the internet on domestic US politics (Kornfield, 2004). Moreover, the emergence in the domestic arena of social networking support tools (such as www.linkedin.com), tools to support meetings (such as www.meetup.com), tools on which political discussion has emerged (such as www.tribe.com) and the development of a group tool that uses a scoring system to create incentives to manage discussions efficiently (www.omidyar.net) all suggest that this technology is developing fast. What still needs to be studied is the instrumental role that such technologies may play in conflict and genocide prevention and whether such technologies are best designed as private or public, identity based or anonymous systems.

To date, most knowledge in the area of conflict situations is based on an eclectic mix of anecdotal reports of pirate shortwave radio broadcasting across Europe to the diaspora of internally displaced people from conflict situations such as Bosnia, the “war-bloggers” of Iraq and the anonymous “blogged” reports of repression within Nepal. Up until the last few years it has been unrealistic to expect that observers, participants and onlookers would have access to web-technology, nor would they have adopted social networking software, though the recent spread of technologies and the emergence of internet cafes across the world has enabled the self-publishing of comments with an ease that was previously unimaginable. What has not yet found a footing is the use of social networking software in this sphere of activity, yet it is the obvious and, I believe, critical next step.

My research to date suggests that what is needed to aid the transformation of conflicts constructively is a flexible platform that integrates all the functionality identified above, provides a level playing field for participants, encourages cooperative strategies and obtains sponsorship from an organization that grants such a system legitimacy in the conflict in which it is being used. The sponsoring organization may also provide incentives to cooperate. My research points towards future development in the field and provides a basis for my fieldwork on the ground in two conflict situations in the summer of 2005, which I hope to spend in the Balkans working on post-conflict peace-building projects and in Uganda learning about the ongoing conflicts between the Banyoro and the Bafuruki.

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