Politics Is about Relationship A Worldview for the Citizens' Century

In this straightforward exploration of core problems facing humanity, hope is combined with realism based on confidence in the energies and capacities of citizens outside government to meet the pressing challenges we face today. Saunders presents an eye-opening approach to politics, focusing on the cumulative, multilevel, open-ended process of continuous interaction over time in whole bodies politic across permeable borders, either within or between countries. Showing how this approach works on the ground through examples from West Virginia to South Africa, Tajikistan to China, this book is a major contribution to our understanding of the state of the world and the prospects of democracy.

Harold H. Saunders is Founder and Chairman of the International Institute for Sustained Dialogue, Director of International Affairs at the Kettering Foundation, former member of the National Security Council Staff and former Director of Intelligence and Research at the State Department. He was US Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern and South Asian Affairs in the Carter Administration. He flew on the Kissinger shuttles in 1974– 75 and was a principal drafter of the Camp David accords in 1978. Since leaving governmentin 1981, he has developed a processcalled Sustained Dialogue from intensive experience in nonofficial dialogues. He is author of The Other Walls: The Arab-Israeli Peace Process in a Global Perspective, A Public Peace Process: Sustained Dialogue to Transform Racial and Ethnic Conflicts, and Sustained Dialogue in Conflicts: Transformation and Change.

Introduction: Meeting the Challenges of a World in Crisis: Engaging Whole Bodies Politic
PART I: OUR STARTING POINTS
1. Politics Is About...?
2. A Proper World View, Appropriate for Its Time
PART II: THE PARADIGM AND THE CONCEPT
3. The Relational Paradigm: A Multilevel Political Process of Continuous Interaction
4. The Concept of Relationship
PART III: DIALOGUE MAKES IT HAPPEN
5. A Different Way of Thinking - Another Way of Relating
6. Transformation in South Africa: A People Engaged
7. Public Peacemaking and Peacebuilding in Tajikistan
8. Power and Public Work in West Virginia
9. Citizens Talk about the Russia-US Relationship
10. Conducting the China-US Relationship: A Diplomat's View11. Development Is about Relationship: Applying the Relational Paradigm to Economic and Social Development
PART IV: THE CITIZEN'S CENTURY
12. What Difference Does It Make? What Makes This Difference?