Showing papers on "Realistic conflict theory published in 1984"

Group Identification: The Same Thing to All People?

Abstract: The hypothesis derived from Social Identity Theory that strength of group identification would be positively correlated with intergroup differentiation is tested. Data was obtained from 55 workers in a bakery using semistructured interviews. Analysis showed clear differentiation between the factory departments by subgroups of workers along dimensions of perceived contribution to the running of the factory and expressed friendliness towards out-groups. However, multiple regression analyses revealed that the relationship between group identification and intergroup differentiation was not consistently positive but varied between subgroup and between attitude dimensions. The most reliable predictor of differentiation, consistent with Realistic Conflict Theory, was perceived conflict between ingroup and outgroups.

Economic dimensions of conflict.

Abstract: The crudest common model of population and conflict posits that as population increases resources become relatively scarce giving rise to competition among individuals and groups. Competition intensifies with increasing population and eventually results in conflict and violence. Such conflict arises within local groups in the social context of families clans or other levels of primary social organization. Within national states such conflict occurs in the political context and in extreme cases leads to regionally based civil wars. At the international level domestic scarcity leads to foreign adventurism in search of "lebensraum" resulting in war. Thus civil wars regional disturbances or international conflicts are attributed at least in part to population pressures. This chapter argues that such a model is misleadingly simple. There are conditions in which population growth leads to violence but there are other possible outcomes. Each of the steps intervening between population pressure and conflict requires examination in some detail: the relationship between population growth and scarcity the forms of competition that arise from scarcity conditions under which competition can be considered conflict and conditions under which conflict erupts into violence. The argument is that competition and conflict may arise at local levels at regional levels within nation states and at international levels between sovereign states. A range of institutions exists at each level which has in part the purpose of mediating conflict to avert violence. Thus to understand the link between population change and violence it is necessarry to examine the mediating institutions at each of these levels. Markets are a relatively impersonal way of mediating conflict over scarce resources and can work as long as all parties are willing to accept the outcomes of these adjustment processes. There is no reason to believe that all will or should passively accept market outcomes. Institutions have developed to mediate conflicts according to other principles. At the lowest levels of social organization are families clans tribes and other basic groups that accord access to scarce resources and validate claims to goods and services. Such allocations are made according to principles of reciprocity in which ones ability to make claims is a function of ones position within the social organization. At the level of the nation state political institutions have emerged to adjudicate claims and allocate scarce resources according to principles of redistribution. Claims are established and make effective in these systems based on ones position and status within the political system. At the international level the institutions for mediating conflict and competition between states are weak and the very attempt to mediate claims may simply intensify conflict. Violence need not be an automatic consequence of populaton growth and changes in population distribution. It is possible that better institutional development can lead to more humane and equitable means of dealing with intensified patterns of scarcity.

Political dimensions of conflict.

Abstract: This discussion of the political dimensions of conflict examines: the complexity of conflict; protracted social conflict; interstate conflict; and population conflict and conflict resolution. The transformation of a set of social antagonisms into political conflict entails a power conflict i.e. "a crisis in the stabilized forms of political interactions whether between states or social groups within a state." These stabilized forms of interactions are contingent upon differential political power relations between states and/or social groups. Becuase of deep structural changes in the economy the conflict might emerge initially in economic terms. The structural relations that condition international interactions also can transform the conflict into an open political one between states. In this context 3 types of relations are relevant: dependence interdependence and relative independence. A crisis in economic relations may be transformed into political conflict depending on the structural relations existing between the conflictive parties. In ideological terms 2 major cleavages exist in the 2nd half of the 20th century; the traditional East/West cleavage (or communism/capitalism) and the North/South cleavage. Most of the ideological conflicts waged today on the world level stem from these 2 cleavages. Protracted social conflicts are conflicts over the distribution of resources and rewards in the society between distinct ethnic groups (as opposed to social classes in general). It is now well documented that inequalities increased rather than decreased through the development policies adopted in the 3rd world. 5 alternative theses which offer complementary explanations for conflict among nations are reviewed. In certain cases power politics is the predominant dynamic and plays a major role in the generation and the resolution of a conflict. In other cases the economic motives predominate. Population trends and patterns are important factors affecting the structure of social conflicts. Population growth rates densities age distribution composition and migration trends are all elements that can initiate exacerbate or attenuate conflictive situations. And social conflicts may affect population trends. Inequality structures represent the field of interaction between population patterns and conflictive situations.

Conflict: some conceptual clarifications

Abstract: This article explores the usage of the concept of conflict in social science literature, and attempts a conceptual clarification of conflict and relatedconcepts such as conflict resolution, conflict settlement and conflict accommodation. The article ends with a typology of various types of conflict.