It would be difficult to argue that our world is not characterised by the spread of conflict and complexity. But can a psychologically informed approach, informed by a better understanding of complexity science, point to the possibilities for cooperation in our diversity, rather than political violence?   John Alderdice will explore this challenge and its practical implications.

A psychoanalytic psychiatrist by profession, John Alderdice played a significant role, during his eleven years as Leader of the Alliance Party of Northern Ireland, in the negotiation of the 1998 Good Friday Agreement. He was then the first Speaker of the new Northern Ireland Assembly and later appointed to the Independent Monitoring Commission overseeing the standing down of the paramilitaries and the normalization of security. A former President (now President D’Honneur) of Liberal International, the world-wide network of more than 100 liberal political parties, and previously Chairman of the Liberal Democrats in the House of Lords, he now consults and lectures around the world on violent political conflict and is currently Director of the Centre for the Resolution of Intractable Conflict (CRIC) at Harris Manchester College, Oxford, Chairman of the Belfast-based Centre for Democracy and Peace Building (CDPB) and a Clinical Professor in the Department of Psychiatry at the University of Maryland in Baltimore, USA.