DEFINITIONS AND TRENDS
OF DIFFERENT TYPES OF
ARMED CONFLICT
Mgr. Zinaida Bechná, Ph.D.
MVZ208 Security and Democracy in the South Caucasus
Week 2: 26/9.2016
Structure
 Introduction
 A taxonomy of conflict
 Who fights?
 Why do they fight?
 Where do they fight?
 Is the world getting more or less peaceful?
Introduction
• International violence is becoming less problematic
than it was during the last century – more intrastate
conflicts, than interstate struggles.
• From 1989 to 1996 there were 69 armed conflicts, of
which only five have been between states.
Trends in conflict I
Trends in conflict II
Trends in conflict III
A taxonomy of conflict
 Who fights?
 Governments
 Organizations
 Individuals
 Why do they fight?
 Politics?
 Economics?
 Insanity?
 Where do they fight
 Home or away?
 Consequences of conflict
 How many were killed?
 What is the time frame?
A taxonomy of conflict
A taxonomy of conflict
A taxonomy of conflict
A taxonomy of conflict
A taxonomy of conflict
The concept of conflict
• This word is derived from the Latin “con-fligo” which means strife.
• “Conflict is a struggle in which the aim is to gain objectives and
simultaneously to neutralize, injure, or eliminate rivals”.
• Conflict is “a social situation in which minimum of two actors (parties) strive
to acquire at same moment in time an available set of scarce resources.”
• Conflict is a situation in which “actors use conflict behavior against each
other to attain incompatible goals and/or express their hostility”.
• In general, conflict is understood in terms of aspirations of conflicting
parties to achieve incompatible goals simultaneously.
The concept of conflict
• What is “conflict behavior”?
• The definition suggests that conflict behavior is any behavior
that helps the party to achieve its goal that is incompatible with
that of the opponent or that expresses its hostility towards him.
• Rational action is based on careful deliberation, judgment and
valuing a set of all relevant alternatives, assessing their outcomes
correctly, evaluation in accordance with own values and then
choosing the action that was the best. Contrary to that, nonrational
actions are quick, impulsive and driven by emotions.
The concept of conflict
 Conflict action - conflict behavior.
 If the actions of conflict party are guided by
rational considerations, then we speak
about conflict action. When we assume that
they may be rational or non-rational, we use
the term conflict “behavior.”
The concept of conflict
• “coercive” - “non-coercive” action/behavior:
• Coercive action forces the opponent side to what they do not
wish to do, by threatening to inflict injury or by actually
inflicting it.
• Distinguish between physical violence and symbolic injury.
• Severe physical violence, can be violent, in sense of hurting or
killing the opponents, or destroy their property. It could also
have non-violent character, such as depriving opponents of
resources they need. Symbolic injury, in the other hand, weakens
the opponent by inducing fear, shame, or guilt.
• Not all conflict actions involve coercion.
The concept of conflict
 “Conflict behavior”
- an umbrella term that covers many diverse types of
behavior. It can involve rational or non-rational
conflict actions and expressions of hostilities and a
range of behavior that is highly coercive as well as to
behavior that is fully cooperative.
The concept of Conflict
 Goals are incompatible when the action of one
party threatens the interests of another party.
 The complexity of conflict depends whether
tangible issues (like recognition, security,
territory, money) are more significant than
intangible aspects like symbolic meanings
that shape values and ideologies, legitimizing a
certain conflict behavior.
The concept of conflict
 Donald Horowitz: “conflict is a struggle in which the aim is to
gain objectives and simultaneously to neutralize, injure, or
eliminate rivals” (Horowitz 1985: 95).
 The Heidelberg Institute for International Conflict Research
defines conflict as “the clashing interests (political differences)
on national values of some duration and magnitude between at
least two parties (organized groups, states, groups of states,
organization) that are determined to pursue their interests and
win their cases.“
Towards conceptual clarity
 Peter Wallensteen:
 In order to understand and provide conflict
analysis, we have to focus on three major
components of the phenomenon:
 1) actors,
 2) process (action), and
 3) incompatibility (issues at stake).
The concept of conflict
 By combining these aspects, we arrive at a most
comprehensive analysis of all possible kinds of
conflict, which is a “social situation in which a
minimum of two actors (parties) strive to
acquire at the same moment in time an available
set of scarce resources” (Wallensteen 2009: 15).
Typology according to actors
 (1) Extrasystemic armed conflict, which takes place between a
state and a non-state group outside its own territory. In the
Correlates of War (COW) project, this category is further divided
into colonial wars and imperial wars;
 (2) interstate armed conflict, which occurs between two or
more states;
 (3) internal armed conflict, in which the government of a state
is in conflict with internal opposition groups without intervention
from another state; and
 (4) internationalized internal armed conflict, when conflict
occurs between the government of a state and internal groups in
opposition to and with intervention from an outside state (Havard,
Wilhelmsen, Gleditsch 2004: 11).
Typology according to actors
 Civil war–affected states are states in which “it is almost the
case that significant elements of actual or potential military
power exist outside the control of the central state apparatus”
(Giddens 1987).
 Violence is a central feature of such a conflict and the only way
to establish the authority of one or the other conflicting party.
Under this condition a state uses its military power to suppress
rebellions challenging its authority and legitimacy. As a result
civil conflict is brutish and nasty, accompanied by killing, which
is “to a great extent a matter of national pride” (Misra 2008: 45).
Typology according to actors
 Emergence of new non-state actors
 Trends that have increased a range of
worldwide arms trades expanded the power of
multinational corporations and the growth of
trans-border exchange of weapons, drugs, and
people, which in turn has contributed to the
formation of coalitions that have acquired the
capacity to form armies.
Typology according to actors
 first, between states;
 second, between a state and non-state actors
outside of the state;
 third, between a state and non-state actors
within a state; and
 fourth, between non-state actors taking place
outside of the state.
Conflict typology by Process—Violence Intensity
 The COSIMO (Conflict Simulation Model)
conflict categorization belongs among the most
prominent classifications; it has been
developed by the Heidelberg Institute for
International Conflict Research (HIIK),
aiming to grasp armed conflict from nonviolent,
latent conflict to violent war phases.
Conflict typology by Process—Violence Intensity
 Dennis Sandole (1998):
 Non-violent conflict is a manifestation of
conflict processes during which one party
seeks to undermine the goal-seeking
capabilities of another conflicting party by
non-violent means, as i.e. economic sanctions,
exclusion of some groups from access to
power, and so on.
Conflict typology by Process—Violence Intensity
• According to The Uppsala Conflict Data Program:
• Minor armed conflicts - conflicts with more than 25 deaths
but fewer than 1000 for the year and for the duration of the
conflict.
• Intermediate armed conflicts - conflicts with more than 25
deaths and fewer than 1000 for a year, but more than 1000
for the duration of the conflict.
• Wars - conflicts with more than 1000 battle-related deaths in
one year.
Conflict typology by Process—Violence
Intensity
 Hedley Bull’s definition, which has guided research within the
field of IR, defines war as “organized violence carried on by
political units against each other” (Bull 1977: 184).
 Significant assumptions made by this definition elucidate the
following aspects of war: first, it is fought by political
organizations (not by any other collective actors, as for
example economic corporations); second, war is organized
violence with its own rules and norms; and third, war is
collective, not individual (Vasquez 1993: 35).
 As the most well-known definition by famous military theorist
Carl von Clausewitz claims “war is merely the continuation
of policy by other means” (Clausewitz 2008).
Conflict typology by Process—Violence Intensity
 The concept of war has been based on two
primary criteria: (1) a certain magnitude of
battle related fatalities (initially including only
soldiers and military staff) and (2) the status
of the conflicting actors. According to these
scholars, the threshold of 1,000 battle-related
deaths caused by sustainable organized armed
forces differentiate war from other types of
conflict (Singer, Small 1972: 8).
Conflict dynamics
 Latent conflict,
 Manifestation of the conflict,
 Escalation,
 Dead-point,
 De-escalation,
 Resolution and
 Post conflict arrangement of relations (peace
building).
Conflict dynamics
 During the phase of latent conflict divergence of
interests are perceived, but the actors are unwilling or unable
to clearly articulate the existence of conflict.
 During the manifestation of the conflict at least one of the actors
articulates its incompatible interests and intention to protect
them at the expense of other party.
 During the escalation of the conflict both conflict parties try to
achieve their goals. This phase has four sub-phases: 1.
Discussion, 2. Polarization, 3. Isolation and 4. Destruction.
Conflict dynamics
 Dead-point is a situation when neither conflict party is
able to end conflict in his favor.
 De-escalation –decreasing the destructive power of
conflict, a greater willingness to search compromise
solutions.
 Resolution and post conflict arrangement, peace
building restore relation between the parties, the
objective is to restore cooperation and peace.
Frozen conflict
Competing goals: typology of issues
at stake in armed conflicts
 Academic research focuses on such aspects as
religion, ideology, language, ethnicity,
resources and markets, dominance,
equality, and territory.
 (1) ethnic conflict, (2) conflict over political
arrangements, (3) ideological, (4) economic,
and (5) territorial cross-border conflict.
Competing goals: typology of issues
at stake in armed conflicts
 Each conflict differs on a range of dimension
and may include ethnicity, religion, political,
economic, and territorial aspirations.
 The question is how these dimensions
interrelate in the whole process of conflict
dynamics and how far each contributes to
armed conflict?
A typology of Internal Armed
Conflict
Ethnic conflict
 Ethnic conflict is a conflict in which the key causes of
confrontation run along ethnic lines, which involve
some elements of ethnic identity, the status of
ethnic groups, and the opportunity to mobilize
violent confrontation. At the outset of a conflict,
ethnic conflict could be identified by the observable
pattern of rebel recruitment, while ethnicity by itself
could be a motivation to mobilize forces.
Conflict over political arrangements
 The long-term political relationship becomes
increasingly conflictive and hostile when
 (1) political change is used as a tool to mobilize
masses,
 (2) there are conflicting visions about the political
arrangement of a state, and
 (3) incompatibility of goals rests upon a change of
political regime.
Ideological confrontation
 Religion can tur into armed confrontation if
 (1) the religious make-up of a state involves
different religious groups,
 (2) there are conflict-prone religious structures, and
 (3) religion is a politicized issue and serves as a tool
in the hands of political leaders.
Economic conflict
 Economic aspects of conflict are operationalized as
follows: (1) economic decline and inequality in the
economic development of different regions,
 (2) the shadow economy (smuggling, drug
trafficking, illegal trade activities), and
 (3) interest to control key economic resources.
 Irredentism is not a state-based process; it is a movement that seeks to
attain the external support and territory of the group across the existing
border. The goal of this group is to add territory and population into an
existing state by reason of common affinities, such as ethnic, cultural,
historical, or linguistic ties (Wolff 2007).
 Secession, which is a process at the end of which a population group
inhabiting a defined territory within an existing state has succeeded in
splittin itself and its territory off from a titular state. As a result it has
established an independent state of its own (Wolff 2004). Secession is a
process of political divorce and the formation of at least one new sovereign
unit through a formal declaration of independence.
Challenges in conflict research
 It is critically significant to think about the dialog between the
conceptual and operational level of our analysis.
 The problem remains how to assess the causal impact of one
factor in relation to others. One of the possible ways for
establishing the relation between operationalization and
measurement lies in the case-oriented view.
 The challenge for further research is to explore not only the
combination of issues at stake in armed conflict, but also the
correlation and causal relationships among these aspects.
Conflict research
 Study of each conflict requires the research of:
 1. Background of the conflict (history of mutual
relations),
 2. Type of actors,
 3. Character and nature of involved parties,
 4. Reasons of conflict and
 5. Context (the role of external actor).
Useful Sources in Conflict Research
News databases
BBC Summary of World Broadcasts (www.monitor .bbc.co.uk)
Factiva (www.factiva.com)
Open Source Center (www.opensource.gov)
Keesing’s Record of World Event (www.keesings.com)
LexisNexis (academic.lexisnexis.com)
Reports issues by specialized NGOs and IGOs
Global Witness (www.globalwitness.org)
Human Rights Watch (www.hrw.org )
International Crisis Group (www.crisisgroup.org)
Integrated Regional Information Network (www.irinnews.org)

Useful Sources in Conflict
Research
Surveys
Afrobarometer (www.afrobarometer.org)
Households in Conflict Network – HiCV (www.hinc.org)
World Values Survey (www.worldvaluessurvey.org)
General country information
World Development Indicators (data.worldbank.org)
UN Data (data.un.org)
The Quality of Government Institute, Goteborg University (www.qog.pol.gu.se)
Gapminder (www.gapminder.org)
Conflict data programs
Center for International Development and Conflict Management, University of
Maryland (www.cidcm.umd.edu)
Correlated of War (www.correlatesofwar.org)
Uppsala Conflict Data Program (www.ucdp.uu.se)
Literature:
 Bartos, O. J., Wehr, P. (2002): Using Conflict Theory,
Cambridge University Press.
 Tesar, F. (2007): Etnicke konflikty, Praha, Portal.
 Waisová, Šárka (2005): Řešení konfliktů v mezinárodních
vztazích. Praha: Portál.
 Wallensteen, P. (2007): Understanding Conflict Resolution, War,
Peace and Global System, SAGE, London.
 Wolff, S. (2006): Ethnic Conflict A Global Perspective, Oxford
University Press.