David Wood: Working in violent settings to mediate conflict; Seton Hall professor of practice

About this episode

David Wood, a Seton Hall professor of practice and career international peace negotiator (Libya, Yemen, Georgia/South Ossetia, Lebanon), delivers a detailed field-level account of conflict mediation, structured around four "pillars" of peacebuilding: transcending the collective (judging individuals rather than groups), compassion, complex/nuanced thinking, and genuine curiosity. He traces his own accidental path into the field — a rucksack trip into post-Arab Spring Libya, Russian-language study that landed him in the second Chechen war zone — and describes concretely how he gets militia leaders to negotiate: by tapping into their universal desire to be seen as good and offering practical, deliverable incentives (aid tied to conflict resolution) rather than abstract dialogue. A substantial thread critiques international-aid institutions themselves: humanitarian aid's political entanglements, the elite Northeast-corridor pipeline that produces development professionals disconnected from rural/practical skill sets, and Afghanistan's failure as a case study in aid reinforcing corruption rather than fighting it. Vance connects Wood's frameworks to René Girard's mimetic theory and mob formation, and the conversation pivots sharply into domestic US politics: Wood reveals that in a professional risk-assessment exercise, the US was graded as a crisis flashpoint alongside Syria and Yemen, driven by eroding trust in democratic, legal, media, and educational institutions — the same four pillars that make any society governable. The two discuss Robert Putnam's "Bowling Alone" social-capital decline, the loss of cross-cutting social spaces (church, PTA, motorcycle clubs) that once forced ideologically different people into sustained, polite contact, and debate whether America needs a "hurting stalemate" (mutual recognition that neither side can win outright) before genuine political reconciliation becomes possible — with Wood arguing the US may already be past that threshold without realizing it, like a frog that can't feel water slowly heating around it.

“You've gotta help people overcome group identification. So when people start to think in groups and they start to judge others based on their group identity, then you're in a bad situation because that allows for group judgments and group punishments.”

“The US was up there in a crisis flashpoint now, along there with a Syria or a Yemen according to their grading system... Americans are starting to stop trusting their conflict management institutions.”

“That was actually, I think, generated by an American academic called Glenn Loury... social capital... horizontal exchange between people as equals allows for a sharing of ideas and perspectives and humanization of the other.”

Key moments

• ~18%: Wood's account of walking, unarmed and by rucksack, into post-Arab-Spring Libya to mediate between militia leaders — and his admission "I just got lucky... it was a silly thing to do."
• ~24%: The core insight behind militia negotiation — every leader, however violent, wants to be seen as good and cares about legacy; mediation works by connecting to that desire plus offering concrete deliverables.
• ~47%: INSTITUTIONS peak — the US graded as a crisis "flashpoint" in a government risk-assessment exercise, alongside Syria and Yemen, due to eroding trust in democratic, legal, media, and educational institutions.
• ~53%: MOB peak — the four pillars of peacebuilding, explicitly linked by Vance to René Girard's mimetic theory and mob psychology (scapegoating, group over individual culpability).
• ~63%: The Peace Corps/international-aid "skills gap" discussion — practical trade skills displaced by academic credentialism as an entry requirement for humanitarian work.
• ~74%: TRUST peak — Robert Putnam's "Bowling Alone" and Glenn Loury's social-capital theory applied to America's declining cross-cutting associational life, and why social media fails to replace it.
• ~87%: WINDOWS peak — Wood's "raising a child" analogy for why societies can't perceive their own slow-motion conflict escalation from inside; his direct comparison of Lebanon's rapid post-2020 collapse to the US trajectory.
• ~93%: BUBBLES peak — the "hurting stalemate" theory of conflict resolution (both sides must recognize neither can win outright) and Wood's assessment that the US may already be there without political leadership capable of recognizing or acting on it.

Notable quotes

“The US was up there in a crisis flashpoint now, along there with Syria or Yemen according to their grading system.”

“Being in a society in conflict is much like seeing your child grow up... if you go away for six months and come back, you see the development.”

“You need a hurting stalemate... you need people to see there's a hurting stalemate, and then you also need the optimism that a solution can be made.”

“Every person also wants to be seen as a good person... that's one of the key entry points to negotiate with even militia leaders.”