Managing Conflict through Cooperative Planning: Partners Hungary’s Work on Majority – Minority (Roma) Tensions

Suggested Citation: Olson, Lara. Managing Conflict through Cooperative Planning: Partners Hungary’s Work on Majority – Minority (Roma) Tensions. Cambridge, MA: CDA Collaborative Learning Projects, 2000.
Partners for Democratic Change (PDC), an NGO based in the USA, established locally directed and staffed agencies in Eastern Europe which use PDC’s ‘change management’ methods for working on conflict to address key problems in their home countries.
This case study describes the development of the Partners organization in Hungary and examines ‘cooperative planning’ work with local governments and disadvantaged Roma minorities to solve the ethnic tensions between the two groups which have often led to open violence.
The case describes the nature of Roma-Hungarian tensions that Partners Hungary works to address. It then provides a detailed account of Partners Hungary’s role in facilitating a cooperative planning processes with the Roma minority and local government in one Hungarian region.