Conflicts and Conflict Resolution

For the anarcho-punk band, see Conflict (band).

For the literary element, see Conflict (narrative).

Conflict is a state of opposition, disagreement or incompatibility between two or more people or groups of people, which is sometimes characterized by physical violence. Military conflict between states may constitute war.

Definitions

In political terms, "conflict" refers to an ongoing state of hostility between two groups of people.

Conflict as taught for graduate and professional work in conflict resolution commonly has the definition: "when two or more parties, with perceived incompatible goals, seek to undermine each other's goal-seeking capability".

One should not confuse the distinction between the presence and absence of conflict with the difference between competition and co-operation. In competitive situations, the two or more parties each have mutually inconsistent goals, so that when either party tries to reach their goal it will undermine the attempts of the other to reach theirs. Therefore, competitive situations will by their nature cause conflict. However, conflict can also occur in cooperative situations, in which two or more parties have consistent goals, because the manner in which one party tries to reach their goal can still undermine the other's attempt.

Types and Modes of Conflict

A conceptual conflict can escalate into a verbal exchange and/or result in fighting.

Conflict can exist at a variety of levels of analysis:

• intrapersonal conflict (though this usually just gets delegated out to psychology)
• interpersonal conflict
• group conflict
• organizational conflict
• community conflict
• intra-state conflict (for example: civil wars, election campaigns)
• international conflict

Conflicts in these levels may appear "nested" in conflicts residing at larger levels of analysis. For example, conflict within a work team may play out the dynamics of a broader conflict in the organization as a whole. (See Marie Dugan's article on Nested Conflict. John Paul Lederach has also written on this.)

Theorists have claimed that parties can conceptualise responses to conflict according to a two-dimensional scheme; concern for one's own outcomes and concern for the outcomes of the other party. This scheme leads to the following hypotheses:

• High concern for both one's own and the other party's outcomes leads to attempts to find mutually beneficial solutions.
• High concern for one's own outcomes only leads to attempts to "win" the conflict.
• High concern for the other party's outcomes only leads to allowing the other to "win" the conflict.
• No concern for either side's outcomes leads to attempts to avoid the conflict.

In Western society, practitioners usually suggest that attempts to find mutually beneficial solutions lead to the most satisfactory outcomes, but this may not hold true for many Asian societies.

Several theorists detect successive phases in the development of conflicts.

Practitioners of nonviolence have developed many practices to solve social and political conflicts without resorting to violence or coercion.

Examples

Approach-avoidance conflict is an example of intrapersonal conflict.

The Vietnam Conflict is commonly regarded as a war.

The Arab-Israeli conflict forms a historic and ongoing conflict between Israel and Arab interests. See also Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

The Catholic-Protestant conflict in Northern Ireland furnishes an example of another notable historic conflict. See Bloody Sunday (Northern Ireland 1972).

Many conflicts have a supposedly racial or ethnic basis. This would include such conflicts as the Bosnian-Croatian conflict (see Kosovo), the conflict in Rwanda, and the conflict in Kazakhstan.

Class conflict forms an important topic in much Marxist thought.

Another type of conflict exists between governments and guerrilla groups or groups engaged in asymmetric warfare.

See also

• competition
• dispute
• Copenhagen Consensus

External links

• Debate Conflicts  Open Democracy Conflicts Debate. "Even when guns are silent, the ideas behind them threaten. Warfare and conflict resolution urgently need to be explained, their causes clarified, and creative solutions explored".

Conflict resolution or conflictology is the process of resolving a dispute or a conflict, by providing each side's needs, and adequately addressing their interests so that they are satisfied with the outcome. Conflict resolution aims to end conflicts before they start or lead to physical fighting.

This usually involves two or more groups with opposing views regarding specific issues, and another group or individual who is considered to be neutral in their opinion on the subject. This last bit though is quite often not entirely demanded if the "outside" group is well respected by all opposing parties. Resolution methods can include conciliation, mediation, arbitration or litigation.

These methods all require third party intervention. A resolution method which is direct between the parties with opposing views is negotiation. Negotiation can be the 'traditional' model of hard bargaining where the interests of a group far outweigh the working relationships concerned. The 'principled' negotiation model is where both the interests and the working relationships concerned are viewed as important.

It may be possible to avoid conflict without actually resolving the underlying dispute, by getting the parties to recognize that they disagree but that no further action needs to be taken at that time. In a few cases, such as in a democracy, it may even be desirable that they disagree, thus exposing the issues to others who need to consider it for themselves: in this case the parties might agree to disagree.

It is also possible to manage a conflict without resolution, in forms other than avoidance. See conflict management.

Conflict resolution has also been studied in non-human primates (see Frans de Waal, 2000). Aggression is more common among relatives and within a group, than between groups. Instead of creating a distance between the individuals, however, the primates were more intimate in the period after the aggressive incident. These intimacies consisted of grooming and various forms of body contact. Stress responses, like an increased heart rate, usually decrease after these reconciliatory signals. Different types of primates, as well as many other species who are living in groups, show different types of reconciliatory behaviour. Resolving conflicts that threaten the interaction between individuals in a group is necessary for survival, hence has a strong evolutionary value. These findings contradicted previous existing theories about the general function of aggression, i.e. creating space between individuals (first proposed by Konrad Lorenz), which seems to be more the case in between groups conflicts.

Additional resources

• Peace Forge -A wiki dedicated to best practices in peace and conflict resolution
• CUNY Dispute Resolution Consortium- 'The Dispute Resolution Headquarters in New York City.

The City University of New York Dispute Resolution Consortium (CUNY DRC) serves as an intellectual home to dispute resolution faculty, staff and students at the City University of New York and to the diverse dispute resolution community in New York City. At the nation’s largest urban university system, the CUNY DRC has become a focal point for furthering academic and applied conflict resolution work in one of the world’s most diverse cities. The CUNY DRC conducts research and innovative program development, has co-organized countless conferences, sponsored training programs, resolved a wide range of intractable conflicts, published research working papers and a newsletter. It also maintains an extensive database of those interested in dispute resolution in New York City, a website with resources for dispute resolvers in New York City and since 9/11, the CUNY DRC assumed a leadership role for dispute resolvers in New York City by establishing an extensive listserv, sponsoring monthly breakfast meetings, conducting research on responses to catastrophes, and managing a public awareness initiative to further the work of dispute resolvers.