Introduction

The concept of conflict transformation began to emerge around 1990 and then rapidly gained increasing attention. 1. This dating is based on Google Ngram viewer data. In a specified language, during a chosen years span (ending no later than 2008), the relative frequency of a given word or phrase can be viewed. In this instance, the term “conflict transformation” was quite rare in books published in English, appearing in only 0.00000001230 percent of all words in 1991 and then rising steeply to 0.00000063416 percent in 2008, an increase of over fifty times. References to word trends in this chapter usually come from this source, which is readily available on the Internet.in the field of conflict resolution, which itself experienced rapid growth in attention beginning around 1960. Until recent years, there seemed to be not only a growth in research and writing about conflict transformation and resolution but also many practical successes, including President Jimmy Carter’s mediation achieving an Israeli-Egyptian peace treaty, the ending of the Cold War, overthrowing apartheid in South Africa, and negotiation of the agreements settling the troubles in Northern Ireland. At present, however, the world seems to be experiencing terrible failures. Many conflicts persist destructively and even expand with long-lasting devastating consequences. There are violent, intractable conflicts in many places in the world and rising intolerance, political gridlock, and authoritarianism in many countries. Moreover, the world around has not remained static; recent decades have witnessed new technologies and political trends emerging amid changing circumstances.