Moderating Power Strategies / Power Mix

by Paul Wehr

Each party in a conflict uses a mixture of threatening, trading and integrating power. That mix can be represented graphically as a pie with three sections. The more opposing sides in a conflict can be persuaded to reduce or make nonviolent the action in the threat section of their power pie, the greater the exchange and integration shares become, and the greater the potential for cooperative conflict resolution. The more people can be trained to design their power strategies in that way, the less violent and costly their conflicts could be. Students could be taught in school to understand interpersonal and intergroup conflict in terms of power mixes. They could learn how to move conflict away from threat, toward trade and mutual concern for one another's well-being. Learning techniques for reducing threat by disconnecting it from violence would be one approach. Another would develop students' negotiation and mediation skills to encourage trading behavior in conflict. Communication skills-building could increase their capacity for empathy necessary for mutual tolerance. Conflict professionals such as police could benefit from similar training.

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