Understanding Conflict: Key Terms

Key Terminology

• Conflict involves incompatible goals pursued by different groups, potentially through peaceful or violent means.
• Armed Conflict is a specific type where both parties use force, encompassing minor skirmishes to full-scale wars.
• Violent Conflict, also known as Deadly Conflict, includes armed conflict and one-sided violence, like genocide.
• Contemporary Conflict refers to political and violent conflict patterns in the early 21st century.
• Conflict Settlement involves reaching agreements to resolve political conflicts, often to prevent or end armed conflicts.
• Conflict Containment includes peacekeeping and strategies to limit violence, like geographical restrictions.
• Conflict Management refers to settling and containing violent conflict, and the regulation to prevent escalation.
• Conflict Resolution is a comprehensive approach, addressing the root causes and transforming conflict dynamics.
• Conflict Transformation goes beyond resolution, targeting institutional and cultural changes for lasting peace.
• Negotiation is a process where parties use dialogue to resolve their conflicts.
• Mediation is a voluntary third-party intervention with a mediator facilitating communication, parties retain control.
• Conciliation/Facilitation is similar to mediation, an intermediary assists parties towards negotiation, sometimes minimally.
• Problem-Solving encourages reconceptualizing conflict for creative, mutually beneficial solutions.
• Reconciliation is a longer-term process aimed at overcoming mistrust and hostility.
• Peacemaking is aimed at settling armed conflicts through voluntary agreements, often with international organizations.
• Peacekeeping involves deploying international forces to separate belligerents, monitor, and support humanitarian efforts.
• Peace-enforcement is a powerful third party imposing a settlement, usually with force.
• Peacebuilding supports peacekeeping and peacemaking by addressing structural issues to prevent future conflict.
• The goal of conflict resolution is transforming potentially violent conflicts into peaceful social and political change.

Evolution of Conflict Studies

• Conflict Studies was previously known as Civil War Studies.
• The goal is to transform violent conflicts into peaceful social and political change, which is an ongoing task.
• Conflict resolution emerged during the Cold War (1950s-1960s), applying industrial relations and community mediation to broader conflicts.
• Conflict resolution gained prominence, making a difference in real conflicts by the 1980s.
• Conflict Transformation addresses structural, relational causes (unmet needs), unlike the short-term settlement focus of conflict resolution.
• Transformation reshapes relationships, alters power dynamics, and changes underlying structures to prevent recurring violence.
• Both conflict resolvers and transformers work towards the same goals, using "conflict resolution" as an umbrella term.
• The end of the Soviet Union shifted focus to internal, ethnic conflicts, and power struggles within countries in the 1990s.
• Conflicts stem from economic differentiation, social change, cultural formation, psychological development, and political organization.
• Conflict becomes overt when parties perceive incompatible goals; involves evolving parties, levels, and issues.
• Conflicts are dynamic, shifting through escalation and de-escalation influenced by attitudes and behaviors.
• Third parties often get involved and may evolve into additional conflict parties.
• A key distinction is made between destructive conflicts, which should be avoided, and constructive conflicts, which are essential for creativity

Integrative Approach to Conflict Resolution

• The field of conflict resolution began in the 1950s.
• It distinguishes itself from traditional fields such as international relations.
• It adopts a comprehensive, integrative method characterized by:
• Multi-level analysis
• Multidisciplinary approach
• Multicultural perspective
• Analytic and normative dimensions
• Theoretical and practical integration
• The field emphasizes both the comprehension of conflict and the creation of tactics for its tranquil resolution.

Defining Conflict

• The word "conflict" describes both consensual disputes and dissensual disputes.
• Disputes require settlement, while conflicts, rooted in unmet human needs, require deeper resolution.
• "Conflict" is used broadly to describe any situation where involved parties perceive incompatible goals.
• Sporting competitions and legal cases are separate by the existing rules for handling engagement.

Causes of Conflict

• The causes of conflict are grouped as
• Background causes
• Root causes
• Underlying causes
• Structural causes (e.g., poverty, ethnic, religious discrimination)
• Statistical generalizations often explain it; poverty and undemocratic regimes may lead to conflict.
• Conflicts are complex with multiple causes.
• Theories on conflict must be applied in specific contexts.

Timeline of International Conflict Phases

First Phase (Pre-World War I & II)

• Traditional warfare (classical war) and the theories of Clausewitz are the focus.

Second Phase (Cold War Era)

• Bipolar power structure based on nuclear deterrence
• Proxy wars were common (e.g., Korea, Vietnam, Afghanistan).
• Conflicts were politically and ideologically driven-capitalism (liberalism) vs communism.
• Interstate wars declined after World War II.

The Role of Propaganda

• Key conflicts of the post-war era:
• Korean War
• The Israeli-Palestinian conflict
• Partition of India and Pakistan (still disputed)
• Raised the question: -"What does peace really mean?”
• The Day After—a film made for television in the U.S. without advertising which addressed a critical societal issue.

Third Phase (Post-Cold War & Contemporary Conflicts)

• New wars / wars of the third kind / hybrid wars emerged (e.g., economic warfare, cyber warfare).
• Conflicts concerning statehood, governance, and the role and status of nations and communities (e.g., migration).
• Interstate wars decreased, but genocides increased during the 1990s and 2000s.
• Transition from PSC to TCN (Political Settlement Conference to Transnational Corporation network) models.
• Active participation and political dialogue is required to achieve conflict resolution which is fundamental to attaining peace.
• Dialogue is essential over War which is a continuation of politics and a failure of politics.

Framework Models for Conflict Analysis

• Universal generalizations of conflict explanations using one model/theory are not possible.
• Models/theories can be categorized as follows:
• Internal (ethnological and anthropological approaches)
• Relational (behavioral sociology and psychology)
• Contextual (perspectives considering external factors, including Marxist theories).
• Key early modern European theorists had distinct perspectives on conflict.
• Machiavelli: self-preservation and pursuit of power drive conflict.
• Hobbes: competition for gain, fear, and insecurity cause discord.
• Hume: Scarcity generates conflict.

Galtung’s Models

• Johan Galtung’s theories include
• Types of violence
• Conflict
• The distinction between negative and positive peace
• Models analyze complex interactions between structure, attitudes, and behaviors to understand conflict development, escalation, and transformation.

The Conflict Triangle: Contradiction, Attitude, and Behavior

• Galtung's theories conceptualize conflict as a triangle, with three interconnected components:
• Contradiction (C)—Parties define core issues in their views on incompatibility of goals.
• Symmetric conflicts involve direct clashes of interests between parties.
• Asymmetric conflicts are shaped by power imbalances and relationship inequalities.
• Contradictions mirror a mismatch between community values/social frameworks.
• Attitude (A)—The parties perceive each other within the conflict.
• Perceptions can be positive or negative.
• Negative attitudes, like stereotypes and hatred, escalate violent conflicts.
• Attitudes embody emotive (feelings), cognitive (beliefs), and conative elements.
• Behavior (B)—Parties respond to the conflict.
• Responses include cooperation, negotiation, hostility, and coercion.
• Violent conflicts involve threats, coercion, and physical attacks.
• Analysts who focus on structural relationships adopt an instrumental view of conflict sources.
• Galtung said that all three components (C, A, B) must be present for a full conflict to exist.
• Latent Conflict (or structural conflict), entails a contradiction without either attitudes or violent behavior.
• Escalation means that the attitudes and behaviors evolve, thus making conflicts grow in scope and intensity.
• Widening (involving new parties).
• Deepening (becoming more entrenched).
• Spreading (generating secondary conflicts).
• These dynamics entail complexities in addressing all 3 components and achieving meaningful transformation.

Understanding the Causes of Conflict

• Necessary to understand the underlying causes to tackle conflict resolutions.
• Military power alone is isInsufficient, only addressing the immediate violence.
• Insight is required into its root causes, not just its surface manifestations
• Unresolved root causes can continue to incite re-emergence, even after peace agreements are agreed.
• Latent conflict tends to remain even after military victories
• Persisting such as the tensions between U.S. and China
• Occurs when there isnt adequatley structural and cultural violence resolved
• Trade inequality, as well as political dominance, or cultural differences keeps the conflict simmering
• Structural violence
• Societal structures that cause inequality or deprivation.
• The caste system in India affects marginalized or disenfranchised groups
• Systemic discrimination and limits opportunities result in social tensions.
• Cultural violence
• attitudes, beliefs, or ideologies, justifies or legitimizes direct or structural violence
• Indigenous populations is rationalized through cultural norms the violence to persist
• Non-addressed, can result in negative peace, the absence of direct violence but the persistence of underlying tensions
• For peace to sustained, deeper issues must be confronted
• Inequality and cultural bias are removed to positive peace
• Structural and cultural factors also shape how people behave -Unresolved lead to neg. peace -Where violence cease but persistent tensions remain
• positive peace is when issues are properly addressed -Goes past violence, a genuine resolution. -Societal injustices/Biases are converted