{"status":"ok","message-type":"work","message-version":"1.0.0","message":{"indexed":{"date-parts":[[2025,8,2]],"date-time":"2025-08-02T17:57:03Z","timestamp":1754157423638,"version":"3.41.2"},"reference-count":6,"publisher":"Emerald","issue":"1\/2","license":[{"start":{"date-parts":[[2006,1,1]],"date-time":"2006-01-01T00:00:00Z","timestamp":1136073600000},"content-version":"tdm","delay-in-days":0,"URL":"https:\/\/www.emerald.com\/insight\/site-policies"}],"content-domain":{"domain":[],"crossmark-restriction":false},"short-container-title":[],"published-print":{"date-parts":[[2006,1,1]]},"abstract":"<jats:sec><jats:title content-type=\"abstract-heading\">Purpose<\/jats:title><jats:p>This paper identifies meta\u2010level considerations long ignored in Sri Lanka's peace negotiations.<\/jats:p><\/jats:sec><jats:sec><jats:title content-type=\"abstract-heading\">Design\/methodology\/approach<\/jats:title><jats:p>Variety absorption being at the heart of manoeuvres by the various parties of the negotiation, Ashby's Law of Requisite Variety informs the diagnosis. Also used are Beer's viable systems model, Maturana's structural coupling and Stokes sociological thinking on identity which encompasses the nature of identity, levels of identity, organisation of identity.<\/jats:p><\/jats:sec><jats:sec><jats:title content-type=\"abstract-heading\">Findings<\/jats:title><jats:p>Whilst in Sri Lanka's conflict resolution parlance, identity has been pivotally limited to race, in socio\u2010cybernetic terms it denotes much more. This leads to the recognition that relationships between structurally coupled entities change as negotiations progress thus calling upon them (and others) to dynamically adapt their identity in their endeavour to retain viability.<\/jats:p><\/jats:sec><jats:sec><jats:title content-type=\"abstract-heading\">Practical implications<\/jats:title><jats:p>The diagnosis shows the need to design negotiation processes capable of absorbing the variety needed to address the content of negotiations.<\/jats:p><\/jats:sec><jats:sec><jats:title content-type=\"abstract-heading\">Originality\/value<\/jats:title><jats:p>Linking identity to viability explains why stakeholder relations move through emergent properties\/relations and why negotiations between static protagonist, as done in all previous Sri Lankan peace negotiations, are doomed to failure. This work is useful for those who formulate the modalities of Sri Lanka's peace talks and for cyberneticians and people involved in conflict resolution \u2013 particularly those bedevilling sovereignty.<\/jats:p><\/jats:sec>","DOI":"10.1108\/03684920610640263","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2006,7,3]],"date-time":"2006-07-03T19:20:02Z","timestamp":1151954402000},"page":"108-123","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":3,"title":["A cybernetic diagnosis of Sri Lanka's 2002\u20102003 peace negotiations"],"prefix":"10.1108","volume":"35","author":[{"given":"Leonie","family":"Solomons","sequence":"first","affiliation":[]},{"given":"Alfredo","family":"Moscardini","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[]}],"member":"140","reference":[{"key":"key2022012220115219000_b1","unstructured":"Beer, S. (1979), Heart of Enterprise, Wiley, New York, NY."},{"key":"key2022012220115219000_b2","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Beer, S. (1984), \u201cThe viable system model: its provenance, development, methodology and pathology\u201d, Journal of the Operational Research Society, Vol. 35 No. 1.","DOI":"10.2307\/2581927"},{"key":"key2022012220115219000_b3","unstructured":"Gharajedaghi, J. (2002), Systems Thinking, Butterworth\u2010Heinemann, Oxford."},{"key":"key2022012220115219000_b5","unstructured":"Maturana, H.R. (1980), \u201cMan and society\u201d, in Benseler, F. et al. (Eds), Autopoiesis, Communication and Society, Campus Verlag, Frankfurt, pp. 11\u201031."},{"key":"key2022012220115219000_b4","unstructured":"Maturana, H.R. (2002), \u201cAutopoiesis, structural coupling and cognition: a history of these and other notions in the biology of cognition\u201d, Cybernetics & Human Knowing, Vol. 9 Nos 3\u20104, pp. 35\u201054."},{"key":"key2022012220115219000_b6","unstructured":"Stokes, P.A. (2004), The Viable Organization of Society: Societal Correlates of the VSM, available at: www.metaphorum.org (accessed May 2005)."}],"container-title":["Kybernetes"],"original-title":[],"language":"en","link":[{"URL":"http:\/\/www.emeraldinsight.com\/doi\/full-xml\/10.1108\/03684920610640263","content-type":"unspecified","content-version":"vor","intended-application":"text-mining"},{"URL":"https:\/\/www.emerald.com\/insight\/content\/doi\/10.1108\/03684920610640263\/full\/xml","content-type":"application\/xml","content-version":"vor","intended-application":"text-mining"},{"URL":"https:\/\/www.emerald.com\/insight\/content\/doi\/10.1108\/03684920610640263\/full\/html","content-type":"unspecified","content-version":"vor","intended-application":"similarity-checking"}],"deposited":{"date-parts":[[2025,7,24]],"date-time":"2025-07-24T23:52:21Z","timestamp":1753401141000},"score":1,"resource":{"primary":{"URL":"http:\/\/www.emerald.com\/k\/article\/35\/1-2\/108-123\/272733"}},"subtitle":[],"editor":[{"given":"Angela","family":"Espinosa","sequence":"first","affiliation":[]}],"short-title":[],"issued":{"date-parts":[[2006,1,1]]},"references-count":6,"journal-issue":{"issue":"1\/2","published-print":{"date-parts":[[2006,1,1]]}},"alternative-id":["10.1108\/03684920610640263"],"URL":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1108\/03684920610640263","relation":{},"ISSN":["0368-492X"],"issn-type":[{"type":"print","value":"0368-492X"}],"subject":[],"published":{"date-parts":[[2006,1,1]]}}}