Learning Lessons From Waco: When Parties Bring Their Gods to the Negotiation Table (Religion and Politics) - Softcover

Docherty, Jayne

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0815627769 ISBN 13: 9780815627760

Publisher: Syracuse University Press, 2001

Synopsis

Heated debates about "what really happened in Waco" are a recurring public drama. Yet, little or no attention has been given to the work of the negotiators who talked with the Branch Davidians. In this important book, Jayne Seminare Docherty utilizes largely unexplored sources of data to explain why fifty-one days of negotiations by federal officials failed to get all of the Branch Davidians to exit the compound.

Learning Lessons from Waco applies a theory of worldview conflicts to the more than 12,000 pages of the negotiation transcripts from Waco. Through perceptive analysis of the situation, Docherty offers a fresh perspective on the activities of law enforcement agents. She shows how the Waco conflict resulted from a collision of two distinct worldviews―the FBI's and the Davidians'―and their divergent notions of reality.

By exploring the failures of the negotiations, she also urges a better understanding of encounters between rising religious movements and dominant social institutions. Finally, the resulting model is applicable to other conflict resolution processes such as mediation and facilitated problem solving.

About this title

From the Author

This book launched my career around teaching and practicing complex negotiations when the parties do not share worldviews and/or when they are trying to renegotiate relationships and structures not just solve a single problem. My later publications in this area were informed by my practice, which has included working with ethnic armed groups in Burma/Myanmar in preparation for the peace process that is ongoing and restructuring organizations. The problems are strikingly similar at all different levels of social organization. If you would like an easier to digest book about my findings, check out The Little Book of Strategic Negotiation. Links and references to my other publications can be found at my academia.edu site. Many of the lessons I learned from studying the Waco negotiations are highly relevant as we, in the United States, struggle to find ways to address the polarization in our civic and political life. They are also very helpful as we think about how to relate to and reduce the threat from extremist groups at home and abroad.Please send me a message if you want to discuss any of these issues. 

About the Author

Jayne Seminare Docherty is the Academic Programs Director at the Center for Justice and Peacebuilding at Eastern Mennonite University. She is also the Chief Knowledge Officer and a founding partner of CJP IKON, a software development company created with graduates of CJP. Docherty earned her undergraduate degree at Brown University in 1978. She has been working in peacebuilding education since 1980, when she developed a peace and social justice curriculum for a Catholic high school. Since earning her doctorate in conflict analysis and resolution from George Mason University, she has taught at George Mason University, Columbia College (South Carolina), and Eastern Mennonite University. Docherty has also guest taught with programs in Lebanon, Somaliland, and Belgium. Much of her professional practice has involved training and supporting negotiators as they navigate complex negotiation processes in unstable settings. More details can be found at her LinkedIn profile and her academia.edu page.  

Edition details

• Publisher: Syracuse University Press
• Publication date: 2001
• ISBN 10: 0815627769
• ISBN 13: 9780815627760
• Binding: Paperback
• Language: English
• Number of pages: 372