The stability of human behaviour is based on a system’s quasi-stationary equilibrium (see here) - Driving Forces (DFs) are equal Restraining Forces (RFs). For change to take place the system must first “unfreeze” – i.e. DFs must become relatively stronger than RFs. It seems that one of the basic problems for building peace is:
How can we make Driving Forces relatively stronger than Restraining Forces and thus generate change?

The study of change in human systems has an important lesson to teach:

“… as was often noted, just adding a driving force towards change often produced an immediate counterforce to maintain the equilibrium. This observation led to the important insight that the equilibrium could more easily be moved if one could remove restraining forces since there were usually already driving forces in the system.”1

And,

“It is possible that the success of group decision and particularly the permanency of the effect [i.e. change] is, in part, due to the attempt to bring about a favourable decision by removing counter forces within the individuals rather than by applying outside pressure”2

In other words, Driving and Restraining Forces already exist in every system (individual, group, community or society). If we want to work with the system in order to influence change we need to alter the equilibrium between Driving and Restraining Forces – we need to make Driving Forces relatively stronger. But if we just boost - or add - Driving Forces it is likely that we will increase Restraining Forces as a result – and the system will maintain its equilibrium, it will not change. Instead, if we choose to focus on reducing Restraining Forces, the Driving Forces that already exist within the system will move it to a new equilibrium. More simply,

If we reduce resistance to change the system will change, even without needing to increase Driving Forces.

It seems, nonetheless, that much of what agencies with peacebuilding is more about boosting Driving Forces than dealing with resistance. Let us provide two examples to illustrate this assertion:

*** Example ***

The training program targets associations of former political detainees and former prisoners of war. Your assessment confirms that these groups are most likely to sympathise with extremist political parties and die-hard nationalists – interestingly, those who have suffered more support divisive and aggressive agendas. Yet within these groups lies a high potential for social change: everybody is looking to them, political parties struggle harshly to get “the victims” within their ranks, politicians want to present themselves as on the side of the “heroes”, the media everyday talk about political detainees and POWs. Working with these groups means having an impact on the society as a whole.

The training runs for ten weeks distributed across one year. Your agency has called the best people around for this: participants are exposed to cutting-edge classes on “understanding conflict”, “dealing with trauma”, “nonviolence” and skills such as “negotiation”, “problem solving”, “mediation”, and so on. Expert trainers rely on successful models from abroad (PTSD and the work of Judith Herman on trauma, Sharp on nonviolence, Harvard’s Fisher and Ury on negotiation, and so on).

The use of expert trainers and curricula based on successful models from abroad – in terms of change in human systems – equates to adding Driving Forces. By using experts and successful models from abroad the program shows participants how they should/could change. It seems not to matter if the trainers use experiential processes and foster participation. This training tries to build motivation to change by showing participants successful models to learn (or imitate). It shows how they could (or should) be3 .

What 60 years of studies and experiences on change in human systems are telling us is that the training program in the example is likely to increase resistance to change - as long as the training insists only on adding/boosting driving forces. If the process fails to deal with the participants’ resistance to change, it will probably fail to help them change.

*** Example ***

The project works with groups of war victims, mostly relatives of missing persons and victims, former political detainees. The target area covers several rural communities across Kosovo where missing persons and detainees are in great numbers. Activities range from economic assistance/rehabilitation to psychosocial support. Psychosocial support – as planned in the project and approved by the donor – will take the form of self-help groups; the assessment strongly influences this choice as grounded in concrete needs and as culturally, socially and economically appropriate.

The project trains the national staff as self-help group facilitators, organises a round of meetings in all communities to advertise the initiative, informs the local family associations of victims and – finally – starts with opening the first groups in a few communities. Facilitators are well prepared and people attend the groups - the initiative seems to start producing results.

Eventually, after a few meetings, the facilitators start reporting back about “problems and discussions”, and of a growing turmoil within the communities where the groups are active. The project decides to look into it and discovers that the very same self-help groups are the ones directly connected to the problems. The local Family Associations do not seem satisfied with the initiative, they see it as useless and complain that rather than doing nonsense “talk-shops” the project should just provide them with economic assistance. Relationships between project staff and the leaders of Family Associations have deteriorated and – in one case – have gotten close to a physical fight. The Family Associations - and a consistent part of the village communities with them - are making it clear that the project staffs are not welcome any more. In particular, national staff are getting uneasy at the very idea of entering the villages.

Looking into the problem more closely, the agency sees that much of the resistance comes from the local Family Association. Through a series of one-to-one consultations the project director understands that they have made a serious mistake: the project has not involved the local Family Associations - it has only informed them. The Family Associations therefore see the project and the agency as an external actor that does not really know the problems, and they feel offended and “stepped over” by the agency.

After consultations, the agency organises a large meeting with leaders from all the Family Associations. The meeting starts with the project manager saying, “we have made a mistake, we have not considered your experience and knowledge, we have understood that we are only a secondary agent of change and you are the primary agents. We would like to hear from you about what you think needs to be done to provide psychosocial support to the victims in your communities and how we can possibly help you to do that”. The meeting unfolds with project staff asking questions and leaders of Family Associations having plenty of space to speak out. Eventually, the staff also had an opportunity to explain carefully the initiative for self-help groups.

As a result, one month after the meeting most of the local leaders decide to undergo facilitators’ training and soon after several groups start up in almost all communities where the agency is active. In 2007, four years after the end of the project, a local NGO named the “Kosovar Centre for Self Help” is active and expanding in Kosovo, with the bulk of 20 volunteer facilitators coming from the local Family Associations of victims and almost 30 active groups.4

The problem is that it is much easier to add Driving Forces than to locate and deal with resistance. For example, for an agency doing peace building training it is much easier to get the best people around and rely on successful models, than engage in a process of understanding the forces that act within the system, locate resistance and deal with it. For a trainer, it is easier to take the role of an expert, rely on scientific literature (mostly from universities in dominant cultures) and refer to popular authors and models – it is safer. Yet, dealing with resistance is the way to successfully understand and influence social change.

In order to deal with resistance we must first know what it is. What constitutes resistance to change? The answer is different from system to system, from situation to situation, but the literature on change in human systems can help us understand where to look: In essence,


Personal psychological defences (in individuals) and group embedded norms (in groups) prevent individuals and groups to restructure their thoughts, perceptions, feelings and attitudes towards conflict. When we want to understand what is preventing a system/community to change the way they deal with conflict, it is here that we need to look. The implications for peace building training are enormous. Let us consider these questions and refer them to the specific situations where we are engaged:

• What can we do to alter the equilibrium DFs=RFs?
• To what extent are we boosting DFs with our training/activities?
• How are we dealing with resistance to change?What are the personal psychological defences towards change in the individuals with whom we are working?
• What are the embedded norms that prevent this group from changing? How is this culture preventing this group from taking a more constructive way of dealing with conflict?
• How can resistance be reduced?

Source: mikicesari@gmail.com

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