Publications

Theory and Practice in Ethnic Conflict Resolution: Conceptualizing Success and Failure, 2000
( book description )

Resolving Identity-Based Conflicts in Nations, Organizations and Communities, 1997
Conflict can either destroy or create-depending on whether and how it is guided. This is the simple yet profound insight that underlies Jay Rothman's innovative new framework for understanding and transforming identity-based conflict in nations, organizations, and communities. ( book description )

From Confrontation to Cooperation: Resolving Ethnic and Regional Conflict, 1992
Based on Rothman's six years of field work in Jerusalem with Arabs and Jews, From Confrontation to Cooperation systematically describes the evolution and application of a methodology for intergroup and international conflict management. ( book reviews )

Journal Articles

Conflict Management Training: Opening the Window to New Ideas
When management trainers claim to give workshop participants immediate and usable skills, they may be promising both too much and too little. They promise too much because real learning (learning to give up old practices and adopting new ones) takes a lot of time. On the other hand, they promise too little because new skills are often simply mechanical devices. New skills are like better widgets: to use them effectively, people must learn how to use them and why they should be used. More fundamentally, people must want to use them. ( full text )

Other Projects

Rivals Change Sides in Debate, The Augusta Chronicle, 2000
When Michael Givens sees a Confederate flag, his emotions flow from a deep wellspring. For him the emblem recalls a great-great-grandfather, Young H.E. Hitch, photographed with his rifle, wearing a gray uniform his wife had sewn, just before marching off with the South Carolina 16th Infantry to a war he never came home from, not even for a proper burial. Mr. Givens has letters the soldier wrote to the family he would never see again... ( full text )

Look for 'Common Ground', Yellow Springs News, 2000
When I graduated from Yellow Springs High School in 1975, I traveled the world in search of home. Twenty five years later I have found home, again, in Yellow Springs. In the interim, Jerusalem was my home for more than seven years. As I engaged with the conflict there, and made conflict resolution my profession, I understood the importance of identity. I also particularly viewed that holy and contested city through Yellow Springs' eyes... ( full text )

An Accord Will Take Antagonism, Resonance, Invention And Action, The Philadelphia Enquirer, 1999
Question: SEPTA management and the Transport Workers Union seem to have settled into hardened positions. At that point, it's hard to make any progress. How would a conflict-resolution specialist handle such a situation?
Answer: That's one of the main challenges and frustrations of my field. Because people are conflict-averse, they won't engage a dispute until it hits them over the head. But once it's at that point, it's going to be very hard to make progress... ( full text )

There's More To Resolving School's Financial Crisis Than Finding Money, Dayton Daily News, 1999
Dayton is world-renowned for its role in ending the Bosnian crisis. How about its own? Are there lessons to draw from the Dayton Peace Accords as we seek a way out of the educational crisis at home? Of course, the scale and intensity are completely different, but important parallels and insights nonetheless may be drawn... ( full text )

Mideast Peace: A Brick At A Time, The Philadelphia Enquirer, 1994
Three building blocks are required to transform bitter enemies like the Israelis and Palestinians into allies: will, confidence and momentum. My recent trip to Israel showed me that a new will for peace has already taken root. Confidence in peace is being built, despite setbacks. And momentum toward peace is lacking, but not entirely... ( full text )

Unofficial Talks Yielded Mideast Peace, The Philadelphia Enquirer, 1993
Viewing the secret talks in Oslo between Israelis and Palestinians as a kind of fluke lessens them. Their success wasn't a case in which the stars all happened for one brief moment to line up and finally smile on the troubled Middle East. It took decades of toil... ( full text )

In Search Of A New Agenda For Isreli-arab Peace, San Fancisco Chronicle, 1991
Where war and enmity have ruled, peace must be gradually constructed on foundations carefully laid. The Israeli-Arab conflict is such a case. Which peace plan is implemented and what international forum is eventually employed are less important than whether the parties can find the will and method to work together to design and implement mutually acceptable solutions... ( full text )

U. Of M. Expert Studies Conflict Resolution, Baltimore Jewish Times, 1987
Doctoral candidate Jay Rothman is researching ways in which the non-violent problem solving process can be applied to the Mideast. As part of his ongoing interest in the study of non-violent resolution of conflicts, Jay Rothman, a doctoral candidate in international relations at the University of Maryland, is undertaking research this academic year at the Harry S. Truman Research Institute for the Advancement of Peace at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem... ( full text )