Using Conflict Theory


Book Description

Using Conflict Theory presents how and why conflict erupts, and how it can be managed.




Theories of Violent Conflict


Book Description

This revised and updated second edition introduces students of violent conflict to a variety of prominent theoretical approaches, and examines the ontological stances and epistemological traditions underlying these approaches. Theories of Violent Conflict takes the centrality of the ‘group’ as an actor in contemporary conflict as a point of departure, leaving us with three main questions: • What makes a group? • Why and how does a group resort to violence? • Why and how do or don’t they stop? The book examines and compares the ways by which these questions are addressed from a number of perspectives: primordialism/constructivism, social identity theory, critical political economy, human needs theory, relative deprivation theory, collective action theory and rational choice theory. The final chapter aims to synthesize structure and agency-based theories by proposing a critical discourse analysis of violent conflict. With new material on violence, religion, extremism and military urbanism, this book will be essential reading for students of war and conflict studies, peace studies, conflict analysis and conflict resolution, and ethnic conflict, as well as security studies and IR in general.




The Strategy of Conflict


Book Description

Analyzes the nature of international disagreements and conflict resolution in terms of game theory and non-zero-sum games.




Game Theory as a Theory of Conflict Resolution


Book Description

Game theory could be formally defined as a theory of rational decision in conflict situations. Models of such situations, as they are conceived in game theory, involve (1) a set of decision makers, called players; (2) a set of strategies available to each player; (3) a set of outcomes, each of which is a result of particular choices of strategies made by the players on a given play of the game; and (4) a set of payoffs accorded to each player in each of the possible outcomes. It is assumed that each player is 'individually rational', in the sense that his preference ordering of the outcomes is determined by the order of magnitudes of his (and only his) associated payoffs. Further, a player is rational in the sense that he assumes that every other player is rational in the above sense. The rational player utilizes knowledge of the other players' payoffs in guiding his choice of strategy, because it gives him information about how the other players' choices are guided. Since, in general, the orders of magnitude of the payoffs that accrue to the several players in the several outcomes do not coincide, a game of strategy is a model of a situation involving conflicts of interests.




A Theory of Conflict


Book Description




How Enemies Are Made


Book Description

In popular perception cultural differences or ethnic affiliation are factors that cause conflict or political fragmentation although this is not borne out by historical evidence. This book puts forward an alternative conflict theory. The author develops a decision theory which explains the conditions under which differing types of identification are preferred. Group identification is linked to competition for resources like water, territory, oil, political charges, or other advantages. Rivalry for resources can cause conflicts but it does not explain who takes whose side in a conflict situation. This book explores possibilities of reducing violent conflicts and ends with a case study, based on personal experience of the author, of conflict resolution.




The Handbook of Conflict Resolution


Book Description

The Handbook of Conflict Resolution, Second Edition is written for both the seasoned professional and the student who wants to deepen their understanding of the processes involved in conflicts and their knowledge of how to manage them constructively. It provides the theoretical underpinnings that throw light on the fundamental social psychological processes involved in understanding and managing conflicts at all levels—interpersonal, intergroup, organizational, and international. The Handbook covers a broad range of topics including information on cooperation and competition, justice, trust development and repair, resolving intractable conflict, and working with culture and conflict. Comprehensive in scope, this new edition includes chapters that deal with language, emotion, gender, and personal implicit theories as they relate to conflict.




Solidarity in Conflict


Book Description

Democracy has become disentangled from our ordinary lives. Mere cooperation or ethical consumption now often stands in for a robust concept of solidarity that structures the entirety of sociality and forms the basis of democratic culture. How did democracy become something that is done only at ballot boxes and what role can solidarity play in reviving it? In Solidarity in Conflict, Rochelle DuFord presents a theory of solidarity fit for developing democratic life and a complementary theory of democracy that emerges from a society typified by solidarity. DuFord argues that solidarity is best understood as a set of relations, one agonistic and one antagonistic: the solidarity groups' internal organization and its interactions with the broader world. Such a picture of solidarity develops through careful consideration of the conflicts endemic to social relations and solidarity organizations. Examining men's rights groups, labor organizing's role in recognitional protections for LGBTQ members of society, and the debate over trans inclusion in feminist praxis, DuFord explores how conflict, in these contexts, becomes the locus of solidarity's democratic functions and thereby critiques democratic theorizing for having become either overly idealized or overly focused on building and maintaining stability. Working in the tradition of the Frankfurt School, DuFord makes a provocative case that the conflict generated by solidarity organizations can address a variety of forms of domination, oppression, and exploitation while building a democratic society.




Root Narrative Theory and Conflict Resolution


Book Description

This book introduces Root Narrative Theory, a new approach for narrative analysis, decoding moral politics, and for building respect and understanding in conditions of radical disagreement. This theory of moral politics bridges emotion and reason, and, rather than relying on what people say, it helps both the analyst and the practitioner to focus on what people mean in a language that parties to the conflict understand. Based on a simple idea—the legacy effects of abuses of power—the book argues that conflicts only endure and escalate where there is a clash of interpretations about the history of institutional power. Providing theoretically complex but easy-to-use tools, this book offers a completely new way to think about storytelling, the effects of abusive power on interpretation, the relationship between power and conceptions of justice, and the origins and substance of ultimate values. By locating the source of radical disagreement in story structures and political history rather than in biological or cognitive systems, Root Narrative Theory bridges the divides between reason and emotion, realism and idealism, without losing sight of the inescapable human element at work in the world’s most devastating conflicts. This book will be of much interest to students of conflict resolution, peace studies and International Relations, as well as to practitioners of conflict resolution.




Conflict Resolution


Book Description

Broadly defining "conflict resolution", James A. Schellenberg gives systematic coverage to five main ways people may try to resolve their conflicts: coercion, negotiation, adjudication, mediation, and arbitration. The main theories of conflict, both classic and contemporary, are reviewed under four main categories: individual characteristics theories, social process theories, social structural theories, and formal theories.