A Comparative Analysis of Higher Education's Impact on Conflict Resolution/Management in South Africa and Cyprus

The paper assesses how and to what degree governmental policies regarding education, specifically higher education, contribute to enhancing non-cumulative patterns and decreasing cumulative patterns of conflict. Effective conflict resolution and/or management rely heavily on the underlying patterns of conflict. Conflict resolution is the solving and elimination of the dispute at hand. Conflict management is the settling of conflict on a temporary basis or the mitigation of conflict to a level more acceptable to the parties involved. The theory of conflict management is based on the principle of rationality, i.e. maximizing gains and minimizing losses. Thus conflict management attempts to maximize the positive elements of conflict, e.g. creativity, focus, energy, change and cohesiveness, and to minimize the negative effects of conflict, e.g. destructiveness, paralysis, aggression, despair and violence. Underlying patterns of conflict such as racial, ethnic, tribal, cultural, economic, social, psychological and political can enhance or diminish the prospect of conflict resolution and/or management. Conflict theory suggests the more non-cumulative the patterns of conflict, the more effective conflict resolution and/or management. Noncumulative conflict is essentially conflict that does not add and/or re-enforce previous or other conflicts. All countries have both cumulative and non-cumulative patterns of conflict. Conflict theory suggests the more cumulative the pattern of conflict the more likely conflict will become violent. Democracy ultimately requires effective, non-violent ways to resolve and/or manage conflict. South Africa and Cyprus have had and in the case of Cyprus currently continues an official governmental policies promoting cumulative patterns of conflict. For close to two decades South Africa has experienced antiapartheid government rule. Yet despite its apparent success in transferring power from the minority to the majority, cumulative patterns of conflict in higher education still remain despite governmental efforts to decrease them. In Cyprus, cumulative patterns of ethnic, cultural, economic, social, psychological and political are the official policies of both the Republic of Cyprus (Greek Cypriots domain) and the Northern Republic of Cyprus (Turkish Cypriots domain). Therefore, South Africa and Cyprus do differ in the