In the ﬁrst case, consumption starts at G and the drive becomes more intense the
closer one is; in the second case the consumption ends at G and the drive is extinguished.
Combined into one diagram yields an A-shaped curve known to many actors for many
goals.
1.4 Conﬂict: Actors in Pursuit of Incompatible
Goals
Let us now add another actor to create a social system.
If life, action, is the pursuit of goals, then social life, interaction, is the exchange of
value. Actors enter into exchange relations, for many reasons, one of them being that
they think they gain utility (subjective value); another because they are used to do so;
still another because they are forced to. The farmer and the city-dweller exchanging
food with manufactured goods are useful as examples of a limited type of exchange.
The prison inmate and his guard also exchange values–the inmate is usually forced into
his position and the guard is usually paid to be there–but the values exchanged are
predominantly negative, like not being a troublemaker against relaxing the rules. We
refer to the interaction relation as dissociative if the values exchanged are mainly negative
or neutral, and as associative if the values exchanged are predominantly positive.
Both examples above have a certain superﬁcial equivalence or reciprocity about them:
the farmer gets his due in terms of manufactured goods, the guard gets back from the
inmate as trouble whatever he, the guard, may have added to the punishment in terms of
strict reinforcement of regulations, etc. But reciprocity, or equity, is not a generally valid
social rule. In the relationship between slave-owner and slave, or between nineteenth
century capitalist and worker, it makes no sense to talk about equity in the exchange.
In the following sections the diﬀerence between equality among actors and equity in
the exchange between actors will be explored. Cases of gross inequity in exchange will be
referred to as exploitation, which may even go so far as to involve an exchange between
positive and negative value, as when the slave contributes to proﬁt and receives all kinds
of deprivation in return.
How is exchange on unequal terms possible? Simply because the two-person free-will
market model has very limited applicability. It portrays the individual as master, seeking
optimal value exchanges, and not as an element in a more comprehensive and complex
social structure where repression plays a major role.
23
The social structure may prescribe for the individual his patterns of exchange and ﬁx
the exchange price for his labor (wages), his love (that love should be reciprocated), etc.
Not all actors are able to change the prices since they are often not geared to one isolated
individual but to positions, to statuses and roles, as a worker, a lover, an enterprise, a
big power, etc., not easily changed. But not all spheres of life are thus regulated and
circumscribed, and the spheres that are only regulated up to a certain level leave lots of
possibilities for the change-oriented individual, group or nation.
Thus, individuals as well as collectivities are both free and bound, both able to ﬁx the
terms of exchange as they want and to withdraw from unrewarding bargains, and unable
to do so. With a less complex image of social reality no analysis will carry us very far.
To summarize: life is the pursuit of goals, social life is the exchange of value - and
that which pursues values, and exchanges values, is referred to as an actor.
In the pursuit he acts, and in the exchange he interacts; actors move along their
life-lines, dotted with goal-consumption, culminating in goal-states.
Occasionally the life-lines intersect: the actors come together in space and time, become
relevant to each other and may engage in value-exchange or interaction; positive, neutral,
negative.
And this is, of course, where conﬂict enters, although it can also be deﬁned for one
actor.
We can now deﬁne conﬂict, building on the notions of contradiction and incompatibility
developed in the general goal-notions explored here. According to these notions there are
goals to be realized; the realization sometimes referred to as goal-consumption. Thus,
with the units being sets of individuals and the variables being goal-dimensions, INT
becomes the region of acceptable goal-realization, here called ACC, or the acceptability
region. A conﬂict, then, is a contradiction where the acceptability region is located inside
the incompatibility region:
ACC ⊂ INC
This will serve as a point of departure. A conﬂict simply involves incompatible goals.
But there is more to it: those goals are pursued, leading to Conﬂict=Actors in Pursuit of
Incompatible Goals.
24
have control over their own consciousness-formation and are not subject to too much
manipulation– and mobilization of resources to pursue those goals, which presupposes
that they have control over their own internal organization. Neither condition is satisﬁed
for the underdog Periphery in the vertical case, and that is what makes it vertical.
The diﬀerence between the two types of conﬂict can now be made sharper in the eﬀort
to deﬁne the conﬂicts, not only the two relations. So, what are the two types of conﬂicts
about?
The way it is conceived of here there is always conﬂict in the vertical relation because
conﬂict is already built into the structure whereas conﬂict may come and go in the
horizontal relation.
The vertical structure has much more permanence, the horizontal structure is more
eventful. For that reason they are best captured, analytically, in what somewhere
also has been termed the structure-oriented and actor-oriented perspectives, discourses,
intellectual frameworks, respectively.
According to the former, society is seen as a structure and the essential characteristics
are the nature of the interaction relation and the interaction structure, not the nature
of the individuals and sets of individuals. To refer to them as “actors” presupposes
that they can act, i.e. that they have suﬃcient Spielraum, action-space, that they have
alternatives and hence can set goals and pursue them. This opportunity is to a large
extent denied the underdog periphery in the vertical relation; and for that reason analysis
in terms of consciously formed goals and organized pursuit of them easily becomes false
and misleading.
But it is not misleading in the second, horizontal, type of relation. Here there are
actors by deﬁnition capable of formulating and pursuing goals. Hence the structural
network can be permitted to recede into the background in an analysis, and the focus
can be on the actors themselves, on their goals and strategies. Just as much as marxist
types of analysis are less warranted in the latter, strategic analysis of individuals whose
consciousness has been deformed by being at the bottom of a vertical division of labor,
penetrated, fragmented, can only lead to illusions of harmony when the bottom does not
express any goal diﬀerent from that of their masters, nor takes any step in that direction.
Similarly, marxist analysis of a horizontal situation leads to strained eﬀorts to cast the
relationship in terms of exploitative interaction. This, of course, is not to deny that
vertical type analysis of internal relation inside S1 and S2 may be very fruitful in eﬀorts
to understand S1-S2 relations even when the latter look horizontal.
In the following, however, marxist and liberal analytical schemes will not necessarily be
28
used; the analysis will move forward on its own conﬂict theory terms, obviously borrowing
from either.
And the terms are suﬃcient to deﬁne the two types of conﬂict, i.e. the typical conﬂicts
in the two social situations. Since the sets of individuals have already been clariﬁed in
the two cases, conﬂict obviously has to be explicated by turning to the goal aspect.
In a vertical relation the conﬂict is deﬁned in terms of interests, and according to the
following axiom:
It is in everybody’s interest not to be exploited
The entire analysis of vertical conﬂict derives from this assumption, and we shall
later show that there is a similar assumption behind the much better known analysis of
horizontal conﬂict.
The basic point is, of course, that there is no reference to consciously formulated goals,
only to “interests”. These interests are objectively deﬁned, and tied to an analysis of the
interaction relation itself. If exploitative, then somebody is exploited and somebody is
an exploiter. What the axiom says is that however interest is deﬁned, it is in everybody’s
interest not to be exploited, even when he begs for subjugation.
Is it in somebody’s interest to exploit? It is deﬁnitely, very often, somebody’s subjective
goal to exploit, but is it also in somebody’s objective interest? A Gandhi might say no:
the exploiter may think that it is in his interest, but it actually is not; not merely because
the exploiter will sooner or later have an uprising topple his privileged position, but also
because he becomes a slave of his own eﬀorts to exploit and to maintain the exploitation.
To destroy the exploitative structure, therefore, is also to liberate the exploiter from his
exploitation, and set him free.
But the opposite view is indeed also possible. There is such an overwhelming multitude
of situations where people, consciously or not, seem to accept positions of privilege, and
to react against any eﬀort to reduce the exploitation.
An analytical concept is needed to explain this as well as to explain the situation of
the exploited.
The exploiter may not be conscious of his exploitation, so why does he persist in it?
One answer may be: because it is in his interest to do so.
On the other hand, the exploited is in a situation not in his interest, so why does he
nevertheless sometimes accept it consciously and openly? One often found answer may
be: because he has false consciousness or none at all.
Thus, interest is seen as something that may or may not be expressed as a value. If
the expressed goal does not coincide with the interest, which we assume for everybody is
29
the equity solution, E. One conﬂict history would be for a system to start in A with S1
as the exploiter, then move to C with a revolution with S2 as the exploiter, and then end
up in E with equity.
And that ends our story so far. It all hinges on the concept of equity, not only on the
negative concept of exploitation. In equity S1 and S2 can meet, but for that to happen
much consciousness formation is needed. In both.
Meeting in equity there can still be incompatibility, but the conﬂict is horizontal, and
according to the following axiom:
It is in everybody’s interest to maximize value.
Obviously this may bring us from a marxist to an economist paradigm. But there is
no assumption that values are egoistic. Cultures will deﬁne them and play the role for
horizontal conﬂict structures play for vertical conﬂict. Their cultures may be altruistic,
with no axiom to the eﬀect that the sum of a zillion egoisms is one altruism.
So far conﬂict has been deﬁned, like many authors do, in terms of incompatibility of
goals, and two major subtypes of goals have been indicated, interests and values, giving
rise to two major subtypes of conﬂict: conﬂict of interest (structural conﬂict) and conﬂict
of values (actor conﬂict). The distinction is neither exhaustive nor mutually exclusive;
many, maybe most, conﬂicts are mixes of the two.
This does not mean that we split the theory of conﬂict into two conﬂicts of interest
and conﬂicts of values. On the contrary, we shall assume that there are two basic parts
of the theory of conﬂict, but deﬁned diﬀerently.
One is a conﬂict transformation theory of how conﬂicts of interest are transformed
into conﬂicts of manifest values. And the other is manifest conﬂict theory.
In other words, it is assumed that conﬂict in latent form, as conﬂict of interest, does
not have an independent life, remaining the same, but will be heading for transformation
into manifest form, as conﬂict of values. Indeed, latent conﬂicts–exploitation, penetration,
fragmentation– are persistent facts in social life, but that persistence is for each speciﬁc
conﬂict in an unstable equilibrium. Consciousness-formation and organization, individual
and collective, are also facts of life.
But can it not be imagined that a latent conﬂict is resolved without necessarily being
transformed into a manifest conﬂict? From the axiomatic statement just given no, but
this is certainly not evident.
For instance, could it not be that somebody comes from the outside, digs into the
structural conditions of the conﬂict of interest, changes-manages the whole situation and
produces a more equitable society? Yes, this can certainly be imagined, but there would
31
still be a conﬂict of interest in the division of labor between the outside conﬂict-managers
and the conﬂict-managed. The conﬂict-managers would use the conﬂict of others as the
raw material that they themselves would process and turn into a processed product, a
conﬂict solution.
With the old Herr (topdog) gone, the Knecht (underdog) will wake up to ﬁnd himself
under a new Herr – the conﬂict-manager. The rule may be diﬀerent, but the opportunity
of self-growth, of becoming truly autonomous through one’s own conﬂict transformation
or conﬂict manifestation, has been lost.
1.6 Frustration and Conﬂict
So far we have assumed that goals are not only set but also obtained, that goal-states
are reached and goals consumed. However, it is a rather trivial fact of life that it often
takes time and other resources to reach goal-states, and even if the actor tries as hard as
possible, the goal-state may nevertheless never be arrived at.
It is customary to refer to this as frustration, which means that the access to the
goal-state has been blocked. It is also customary to talk about sources of frustration,
which are the factors that must be removed to permit the access to the goal-state when
the actor is said to be frustrated.
There are many diﬃculties with these deﬁnitions, however. To take an example: a
person wants an academic degree, but has to mobilize time, money and other resources.
He is frustrated because of this, but in the end gets his degree. In that case one might
perhaps say that his frustration is relative to the goal-state of getting his degree easily,
and that diﬀers from the frustration of a person who fails the examination for the third
and last time.
One major class of sources of frustration can be referred to as scarcity of resources.
Not to aﬀord something produces a clear case of frustration; to aﬀord it and discover
that it is out of stock another; to aﬀord it, locate it and then discover that somebody one
cares for and about dislikes the object, still another. But there may also be goal-states
that are blocked because no resources can ever be mobilized to reach them. He who has
glued the goal perpetuum mobile on his mind is in a diﬀerent kind of diﬃculty from he
who merely wants to invent a more eﬀective steam engine than anyone else before him.
The same applies to the person some time ago who wanted to go to the moon: today
that goal is more realistic.
32
In other cases we do not know: mathematicians often set themselves goals in terms of
theorems they want to prove where they may be unable both to prove and to disprove.
Politicians certainly do the same: he who works for the world government cannot say
whether his goal is realistic and may become a part of empirical reality. But given the
actor, his goal and the resources available we have a basis for operationalizing the degree
of frustration as the amount of additional resources needed to reach the goal-state, ie, to
remove the sources of frustration. As indicated, it may vary from zero in the case of no
frustration to inﬁnity in the case of unrealistic goals.
Let us now complicate the picture again, this time by introducing not only one valuedimension,
but two, so that there are two diﬀerent goal-states, G1 and G2 to refer to; for
the same actor or for diﬀerent actors is of no signiﬁcance. We have mentioned scarcity of
resources as one important source of frustration and this now brings us to the next: the
situation where two goal-states exclude each other because they are incompatible. This is
not the case of having insuﬃcient resources to obtain one’s goal, but of realizing that one
goal stands in the way of realizing another goal. A person may ﬁnd it diﬃcult to be both
rich and happy, or to be both honest and considerate; a nation may have diﬃculties being
loyal to an international community of nations and at the same time safe-guarding its
own more immediate interests. Or: two persons may ﬁnd that they are in love with the
same, third, person who is as monogamous as they are; two countries may ﬁnd that the
desire for autonomy for one conﬂicts with the desire for markets for the other, and so on.
It is customary to refer to this as conﬂict, which means that the access to one goal-state
is blocked by eﬀorts to reach an other goal-state; the goal-states are incompatible, exclude
each other.
In principle this is not very diﬀerent from frustration. In frustration there is one
goal-state and insuﬃcient resources to reach it; in conﬂict there are at least two goalstates
and insuﬃcient resources to realize them all. Thus, conﬂict is for two actors what
frustration is for one actor, for which reason one sometimes treats conﬂict as a special
case of frustration. We shall prefer to do it the other way, however, as will be elaborated
below. At any rate, the distinction between the two is important since conﬂict (except
when G1 and G2 are pursued by the same actor, the two actors are inside one) is to
the social system (and to sociology) what frustration is to the personal system (and to
psychology). But it is important to tie them together in a general theoretical framework
to be developed in the following two parts of this book.
Life in general, and social life in particular, would now look highly diﬀerent if goals
were always adjusted to the possibilities of satisfying them. It is important to imagine
33
this state of aﬀairs since this book is dealing with the particular conditions under which
goals are not satisﬁed, whether this is best analyzed in terms of too high ambitions or too
limited resources. Under this condition, which is hard to imagine, frustration and conﬂict
would both be unknown since they are both special cases of limited resources. Life would
consist in A-shaped wave patterns with limited amplitudes: goals are satisﬁed, then goals
build up again, drives become intense, they are satisﬁed, and so on and so forth.
It is customary to associate this type of existence closely with stability, and that is
probably correct: there would be few ripples on the waves that could serve as foci for the
emergence of new social patterns. There would be no motivation for a pattern of change
and growth.
But appetites might be growing as conditions of satisfying them develop, challenging
even a stable and collectivistic social structure protected by a culture of a buddhist
variety. It does not account for the circumstance that the world’s richest societies also
seem to be the societies that change fastest, or the possibility of having change itself as a
value, even a dominant one. Such a world, with suﬃcient resources for all goal-states to
be enjoyed, would probably rather be characterized by non-buddhist patterns of behavior
and attitudes.
On the other hand there is the world with a maximum of frustration and conﬂict. Any
grown-up person today will immediately think of the nazi concentration camp as a model,
with its seemingly unlimited potential for inﬂicting frustration and conﬂict. The results
in terms of behavior of the inmates are well-known; they range from animal brutishness
to extreme apathy to incredible acts of compassion.
We mention this to place the study of frustration and conﬂict in its proper perspective,
as dealing with human essentials, with matters of life and death. For somewhere on this
range from zero to inﬁnity in terms of degree of frustration and conﬂict every personal and
social system on earth is located. The quality of the existence of the actors is a function
of this condition. And, as so often is the case in human aﬀairs: the best prescription for
most individual and collective actors is in media res. Too much frustration and conﬂict
may have a highly destructive eﬀect, and too little may provide the actor with too low
levels of stimulation, challenge, to function adequately.
Conﬂicts are frustrating but not all frustrations can be put on the standard conﬂict
form with actors, goals, incompatibility and pursuit. To deal with the latter we need
more conceptual tools.
34
1.7 The Elements of Conﬂict
We have deﬁned conﬂict as a social system of actors with incompatibility between their
goal-states. We shall show that surprisingly much can be said about conﬂict as such,
with no reference to special types of conﬂicts. It is a property of social systems; then
conceived of as a more or less interdependent systems of actors striving to achieve their
goal-states. In the process it happens that they stand in each other’s way, or so they may
believe, and this is where the system becomes a conﬂict system. We are concerned with
the general theory of such systems.
However, to make it less abstract, and to have tools of analysis, some dimensions of
conﬂict systems will have to be introduced. The science of conﬂicts, conﬂictology, needs
elements of analysis as much as any other science to arrive at hypotheses that can be
tested and serve as a basis for the establishment or empirically conﬁrmed propositions,
which in turn can serve as building-bricks for theories (or vice versa). Twelve such
dimensions will be presented in the next part of this book, in this chapter we shall focus
on a more precise version of the deﬁnition.
For a start these are the elements in the conceptualization of conﬂict:
1. The actors, m of them, who may be of any kind. We assume that they are, for
good or for bad, relevant to each other so that they form a system of actors.
2. The goals, n of them, also of any kind, that the actors try to achieve, forming a
system of goals.
We do not assume that all m actors try to achieve all n goals, but we need information
on where they stand on all of them. The system of goals combined with the system
of actors form the action-system.
The movements of this system can be traced in the many-dimensional goal-space,
R, where each actor can be located on each goal-dimension.
3. The acceptability-region, A, which is deﬁned as the set of positions in the manydimensional
goal space acceptable to all actors. This point of bliss is the point
where all m actors enjoying the goal-states on all n dimensions, obviously a part of
A. However, often some actors may accept less, thus extending the acceptability
region.
4. The incompatibility-region, I, which is deﬁned as the set of points that cannot
be realized because one or more goal-states, points on the goal-dimensions, are
35
incompatible with one or more others. The points not of incompatibility are points
of compatibility and also form a set, the compatibility-region, C. Clearly, I + C =
R if we presuppose that we have suﬃcient information to decide for each point in
R whether it is a point of compatibility or incompatibility.
5. The conﬂict, which is deﬁned as a property of the action-system which obtains
when there is no overlap between acceptability-region and compatibility-region. Or,
diﬀerently expressed: the acceptability-region is a subset of the incompatibilityregion.
Still diﬀerently expressed: when all acceptable combinations of degree of
goal-consumption exclude each other, are incompatible with each other.
With the action-system and the deﬁnition of conﬂict, we can now deﬁne the conﬂictsystem
as the minimum set of actors and goals that does not change the conﬂict. If
we start out with m actors and n goals it is not always the case that all of them are
needed, for instance to deﬁne the East-West conﬂict. Thus, the conﬂict-system is
the hard nucleus of the action-system where the conﬂict is located; if we reduce it
further then we lose actors and-or goals that are indispensable for the understanding
of the nature of the conﬂict.
To analyze a conﬂict, however, we often have to add to the conﬂict-system some
more actors and goals, as when the East-West conﬂict is analyzed in its global
context, adding the Paciﬁc to the Atlantic theater, then referred to as the reference-system.
Thus, conﬂict-system and reference-system are the minimum and
maximum, respectively, needed to analyze the conﬂict.
We then add to the scheme so far developed:
6. Conﬂict attitude, which we identify with mental states of the actors, and
7. Conﬂict behavior, which we identify with somatic states of the actors in the action-
system.
Thus attitude and behavior are used to describe completely the states of the actors
in the system; using the age-old body-soul division between the somatic and the
mental states.
This means that the conﬂict-system is looked at from two diﬀerent angles: an abstract
angle where goal-states are analyzed for their compatibility or incompatibility,
and a concrete angle where actors are analyzed in terms of attitude and behavior.
We then use “behavior” in such a way as to include verbal as well as non-verbal
36
behavior, not to mention behavior that consists in keeping constant the state of
one’s body; inactivity. And we use “attitude” so as to include cognitions as well as
evaluations and emptiness; inactivity.
These are very broad concepts, but the line between them is relatively clear, which
is not the same as saying that we do not believe in empirical correlations between
somatic and mental states of the actors. It should perhaps be added that if the
actor is a collectivity, then “behavior” refers to the behavior of its members, and
“attitude” to the attitudes of the members. However coordinated and harmonized,
even “masses” ultimately boil down to individuals.
We mention this because there might be an alternative deﬁnition, reserving “behavior”
for collective representative behavior–which may not be representative–and
attitude for collective representative attitude–which may not be representative. We
reject that approach as being too reminiscent of the old “group-soul” idea, and
because of diﬃculties in drawing the border line.
At the concrete level of behavior and attitude actors act and feel the conﬂict, they
are the conﬂict. We are used to identifying this as destruction, both in behavior
and attitude, an identiﬁcation which is not necessary even if empirically tenable.
But had it not been for the destruction, violence, that may accompany conﬂict the
ﬁeld would not have attracted so much attention as it does.
8. Conﬂict negation is now easily deﬁned: it is a process that includes the disappearance
of the conﬂict. In other words; it is a succession of states of the conﬂict system where
the end state has one deﬁnitely characteristic: an overlap between acceptability
and compatibility has been found. Conﬂict negation is a process where the ﬁnal
state may be referred to as conﬂict termination.
Nothing is implied about the quality of the negation: it need not be just, good or
lasting; the negation just is in the sense that the conﬂict is not: acceptability- and
compatibility-regions overlap. Thus, a negation may involve killing one actor or
suppressing one goal, just as well as it may involve the fusion of two actors into a
integrated whole or the dissolution of the incompatibility through the mobilization
of reservoirs of time, energy, money etc. All elements we have listed to arrive at
the deﬁnition of conﬂict become keys to conﬂict negation in as much as they are
elements in the conﬂict situation, and constitute in themselves approaches, both in
theory and in practice, to the negation and termination of any conﬂict.
37
Paradoxically it seems more easy to arrive at a theory for the resolution than for the
origin or genesis of conﬂicts. Much can also be said about the dynamics of conﬂicts, but
it looks as if knowledge of the dynamics and resolution phases of conﬂicts sheds more
light on the phase of origin than vice versa. A conﬂict system is a succession of states;
the more similar these states the more static the system, the more dissimilar the more
dynamic, by deﬁnition.
Knowledge of the nature of the conﬂict itself at all points in the history of the system
is indispensable, particularly since the conﬂict will change and generally aggravate by
an admixture stemming from the escalation in the dynamics phase. But given the way
conﬂict has been deﬁned most of the relevant properties of the system are already included
in the deﬁnition of the conﬂict: the description of the actors, the description of the goals,
suﬃcient knowledge about either to establish acceptability and incompatibility regions
and their relation to each other. It is claimed that with this knowledge it should be
possible to proceed on the basis of general conﬂict theory, and that the shadows thrown
by the prehistory are of minor signiﬁcance relative to the impact of the factors already
included in the deﬁnition of the successive conﬂicts in which the system is found. History
is already absorbed in actors and goals.
1.9 Conﬂict Theory and Game Theory
We have now presented the building-blocs for a conﬂict theory: actors, their goals (values,
interests) imputed to them by analysis of their interests and studies of their behavior to
uncover what they seem to pursue, and on interview methods to get verbal declarations
about value-orientations and other attitudes. Acceptability- and incompatibility-regions
are deﬁned and compared. The more detailed knowledge about all these factors or aspects
of a conﬂict, the more can be said about the conﬂict dynamics and possible resolution.
In game theory the same elements appear, but in a somewhat diﬀerent order so that
the emphasis becomes diﬀerent. There are actors, but usually only two. There are goals
but they are usually projected onto a generalized utility-dimension so that for all practical
purposes the theory is handling only one goal. This means that game theory in its simple,
very common, case is studying (2,1)-conﬂicts, known as two-person games, but more
general formulations of the theory are certainly available.
For some mathematical theorems to apply there is the condition that the goal-dimension
(utility-dimension) is additive, even limited to the structure of an interval scale. There is
39
Chapter 2
DIMENSIONS OF CONFLICT
Introduction
This book is written in a spiral; things are touched upon, left behind, approached again
when some other themes have been explored a little bit, fade out then to be approached
again later on. Thus, after the preparatory work done in Part One an eﬀort will now be
made to approach a major theme: the dimensions, necessary and suﬃcient, to conceive
of conﬂict in all its phases, origin or genesis, process or dynamics, resolution or negation.
In short, its ongoing, never ending transformation.
Let us start by making a distinction between typologies of conﬂict and dimensions
of conﬂict. A typology classiﬁes conﬂicts into types. A dimension is a variable that
apply to all conﬂicts, regardless of type. Moreover, they can be conceived of dynamically:
a conﬂict can move along these dimensions; that is what makes them diﬀerent from a
taxonomic, static scheme. Actually, there is only one typology that we would not include
among the dimensions, the simple typology derived from the type of actors participating
in the conﬂict: conﬂicts involving persons, involving groups, or involving societies. This is
a typology and not a dimension because we would not generally assume it to be dynamic.
An interperson conﬂict would remain an interperson conﬂict, although its history might
reveal ramiﬁcations from and to all the other types.
When it comes to dimensions each author in the ﬁeld will have his own bundle to
present, and this book is no exception. The present bundle has been arrived at with two
principles in mind.
43
First, as already mentioned: it should be possible to say what we want to say about
conﬂict relying on these dimensions, and whatever can be derived from them by purely
logical operations, alone.
Second, the dimensions should be as few as possible, for economy of thought use
conceptual puritanism. Why? Why submit oneself voluntarily to Occam’s razor? Are not
the richness and variety of society in general, and conﬂict in particular, so overwhelming
that it can only be captured by a language that with the same richness and does that
not argue in favor of the variety in natural languages?
If there were a choice between the puritan rigor just advocated and the richness
of natural language we would certainly opt for the latter. But there is also virtue to
the former, often referred to as ”scientiﬁc discipline”. The virtue is to some extent
combinatorial: the researcher says, to himself and to others, here are my terms of
reference, let me now try to get as much out of them as possible. If they are very many
one cannot possibly explore all the combinations. But if they are very few I can do that,
and this may lead me into dark corners where the fruitfulness of the dimensions chosen is
measured exactly by their ability to lighten up those corners. Thus, the puritanism of
conceptual economy serves as a heuristic, as an aid not only to formulate what I already
know, but also to ask questions about the unknown. The fruitfulness of the scheme
should be judged on the basis of the latter rather than the former.
To arrive at the dimensions we use the deﬁnition of conﬂict: actors in pursuit of
incompatible goals, remembering that as limiting case actors may be parties, goals may
be interests, incompatibilities may never be brought into the open, and the pursuit may
be steered by the structure. This “limiting case” must be given much prominence.
It has been found useful to group the dimensions under the four headings of actors,
goals, incompatibility and pursuit. With three dimensions for each heading this gives a
total of 12, but the scheme is not quite that economical since there are subdimensions:
44
The Table may look impossible at ﬁrst glance, but is actually very simple. Thus,
the two ﬁrst two columns simply start with the number of actors and number of goals;
then proceed to the structure of the sets of actors and the structure of the sets of goals,
obviously deﬁning some kind of “space”; and then continue with two important functions
of that space: the type of consciousness the actors have of it, and the extent to which
various positions in that goal space are acceptable or not.
In the third column, then, the incompatibility function does the same for what is
empirically possible, attainable, realizable or not, preceded by two important distinctions
in the theory of incompatibility, analyticity and substitutability.
And ﬁnally, there is the fourth column which starts out with such obvious manifestations
of conﬂict as attitude and behavior, and then brings in a basic variable in any theory
of conﬂict: how the resources are distributed, which is a euphemistic way of bringing in
power, but then power of diﬀerent types.
The basic distinction is between ideological or normative, remunerative and punitive
forms of power, to be explored in some detail. But underlying that is power or resources
as something an actor has, and power as something built into the structure as part of the
position of an actor. Obviously this relates to the key distinction in Part One between
actor-conﬂict and structure-conﬂict, and the two types of power can be referred to as
resource power and position-power respectively. We just mention this point to assure the
reader that the key distinction from Part One has not been lost sight of but comes up in
dimension (12) below.
Let us then dig into this systematically, and in the order indicated in Table 2.1.
ACTORS
2.1 Domain
This is a deceptively simple dimension: simply counting the number of actors. However,
there is the basic idea that the counting starts at zero, with the non−actor, the “party”
to a conﬂict. Then, the single actor conﬂict, the actor at odds with himself, is of course
included; deﬁning the category of the intra−actor conﬂict, whether of the intrapersonal,
intra−group or intra−societal variety. Correspondingly, when the domain exceeds 1 we
obviously have to do with inter−actor conﬂicts, starting with the bilateral or bipolar
variety, ending with the multilateral, multipolar type where m actors are involved.
46
How then would we distinguish between, say, an intragroup and an inter−person
conﬂict? Does not the group consist of persons, like a society consists of groups, and does
not that mean that an intra−group conﬂict is simply a conﬂict between persons, just as
an intra−societal conﬂict would be a conﬂict between groups? No, although this may be
the consequence of an intra−actor conﬂict, it seems a waste of terms to identify them
with each other a priori. On the contrary, we can conceive of an intra−group conﬂict
as a condition where the same intra−person conﬂict is found throughout the group, in
the smallest sub−section; and similarly we can conceive of an intra−societal conﬂict as a
conﬂict where the same intra−group conﬂict is found throughout the society. In either
case the collectivity is ridden with or by a fundamental doubt, for instance as to what is
worse, “to be red” or “to be dead”; or what is preferable, a socialist government headed
by Jews or the country occupied, by anti-Jewish Germans (a Cold War, post−World War
II dilemma, and a pre−World War II dilemma in France, respectively).
Thus, the intra−collectivity conﬂict is a collectively shared dilemma, “dilemma” being
a term often made use of in connection with intra−personal conﬂict; here generalized.
Perhaps the diﬀerence between intra−actor and inter−actor conﬂict can be made more
clear in terms of some possible, although extreme, outcomes, as indicated in Table 2.2.
Table 2.2. Conﬂict−Types and Possible Outcomes
type
person group society
domain intra suicide apathy anomie
inter homicide internal war external war
Typically, the extreme outcome of the intra−actor conﬂict would be some kind of
self−destruction and the extreme outcome of inter−actor conﬂict some type of otherdestruction.
But this means that it might be very advantageous for a possible target of
that other destruction to manipulate the perception of a conﬂict so that it is seen as
an intra-actor conﬂict, leading to gradual erosion, inactivity and self−destruction of a
potential aggressor.
We do not have to go so far as to the collective suicide found in some cultures for a
group or a society to become inactive. Total collective apathy, or one corresponding term
at the social level, anomie, would render a potential aggressor innocuous.
For the time being there is not much more to get out of this dimension. It only deﬁnes
the number of actors in the set of actors, not the structure of that set. To that we now
turn.
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2.2 Structure of Actors
To deﬁne a structure one needs a set of elements, and a set of relations between them.
To the social scientist there is no doubt what the latter is: the key relation of interaction,
analyzed in terms of ex−change, what passes between the parties, and in−change, what
goes on inside the parties as a consequence of the interaction. But what does this
interaction relate or connect? We cannot say “actors” because we may have situations
without actors, only with parties. But in the latter case it would usually make sense to
say “positions”, that in which the party is put to perform according to the interaction
rules. We let that do for the time being, and turn to the major distinction: whether
the conﬂict is unstructured or structured, and in the latter case whether it is vertical or
horizontal. Needless to say, these distinctions are analytical and hence too blunt. There
are all kinds of shades in between, such as the semi−structured conﬂict, the diagonal
conﬂict, and so on. But, as somebody has said: the existence of hermaphrodites and
other intermediate types does not make the dimension of gender invalid as an analytical
or practical tool.
First, there is the unstructured conﬂict which in a sense is a conﬂict that takes place in
a vacuum, a vacuous conﬂict. There is no prior interaction whatsoever, like the colonial
powers suddenly descending on an African society. Analytically speaking this case is often
relatively simple to handle since analysis of the resources the two actors bring into the
conﬂict will often carry us a considerable distance in understanding what is happening.
This dimension will be explored below, in Section 2.12, under (12). Suﬃce it here only to
say that in this case we could clearly speak about symmetric versus asymmetric conﬂicts,
depending on the distribution of the resources the actors have at their disposal for the
conﬂict.
However, in general we shall assume that conﬂict is structured, and in that case the
major focus would be on the nature of the interaction. More particularly, the focus will be
on the results of the ex−change and in−change; on whether the net beneﬁts that accrue
from the interaction are unevenly or evenly distributed. In the ﬁrst case the conﬂict is
vertical, in the second case it is horizontal.
This is the basic, fundamental distinction, because it is so closely related to the
distinction between conﬂicts of interest and conﬂicts of goals. The conﬂicts of interest
are structurally deﬁned, they do not necessarily leave any traces whatsoever in terms
of consciousness, attitude or behavior in the parties. And the basic, but by no means
the only one, conﬂict of interest would be in connection with verticality. However, as
48
pointed out in the preceding part of the book there can also be structural conﬂicts that
are horizontal − only that they are probably not so important. Further, in a vertical
conﬂict parties may certainly become actors through organizations and interests become
goals through consciousness formation, so there is no contradiction in saying that an
actor’s goal is his interest. The point is merely that there can be interests that are not
goals.
In horizontal conﬂict, a conﬂict between parties in an equitable relationship, we would
not talk about conﬂicts of interest since that term has been tied to some kind of asymmetry
in the interaction structure, in the form of exploitation, penetration, fragmentation or
marginalization. Thus, the horizontal conﬂict would typically be a conﬂict over goals.
At this point it is important not to confuse the vertical−horizontal distinction with
the asymmetric−symmetric distinction.
The former has to do with a position in the structure, the latter with the resources
they bring into the conﬂict. The two are strongly related empirically, however analytically
distinct they may be.
Thus, exploitation is usually predicated on the assumption that he who is on top
of the structure, in its center, will also command the resources. In other words, it is
predicated on the assumption that structural power is highly correlated with resource
power; relational power with diﬀerence power to express the same in terms with a slightly
diﬀerent connotation. But that is not necessarily the case.
Correspondingly, the theory of revolution, the opposite of the theory of repression,
assumes that those at the bottom of a vertical structure have latent resources. The
function of consciousness formation and organization is to mobilize these resources. When
this is done a vertical conﬂict may turn into a symmetric conﬂict, or even an asymmetric
conﬂict in favor of the underdog.
Having said this let us introduce some additional distinctions in connection with
interaction, highly useful in conﬂict theory.
First, an interaction relation connects actors. However, it may not necessarily connect
all of them, in which case the connection is weak; if it does connect all of them it is
strong. If the interaction is vertical this gives us weak order and strong order respectively,
and in the latter case one may even have linear order. There is some way of ordering
actors so that the diﬀerences between them become measurable. An example would be
the ordering of civil servants on a salary scale, where they can be compared in terms of
the number of ”steps” that separates them. In Figure 2.1 some examples are given, for
both the vertical and the horizontal cases. It should be noted that in either case “strong”
49
The horizontal types are the simplest ones. In Model III, Communal Society, all
interaction is horizontal and the connection is strong, not like in Model IV, Pluralistic
Society, where groups relate to each other horizontally, but very weakly or not at all.
In the vertical case “strong” has been interpreted weakly: the point is that no element
is isolated from the rest, all are connected, but at the bottom of society there may be
fragmentation. It is quite clear who is above and who is below, but those at the bottom
are only relate to each other by having the same actor on top of them. This is Model I,
Conservative or perhaps better Feudal Society.
Correspondingly, in Model II, Liberal Society, the predominant mode is still vertical
but it has been modiﬁed by introducing horizontal interaction between equals. The
“weakness” in this case, is not exactly of the type indicated in the deﬁnition above; that
deﬁnition would point more in the direction of detachment between vertical units. But
in spite of these impurities in the deﬁnitions the scheme is so related to what has been
presented here for conﬂict analysis, and also brings us towards more concrete societies.
Thus, conservative society has its obvious manifestations today in archetypical Japan,
liberal society in the various types of class societies from the United States to the Soviet
Union, communal society in the people’s communes in China, and pluralist society appears
as some kind of future utopia, more or less articulated in the minds and actions of some
people.
Our point in this connection, however, is not to engage in of futuristic analysis but to
indicate something about the concrete setting in which conﬂicts may take place.
Thus, in Model I and Model II societies the conﬂicts would predominantly be vertical
and in Model III and Model IV societies predominantly horizontal. The latter two
would, by deﬁnition, have overcome–transcended–vertical interaction. They would be
non-exploitative, equitable societies.
The point is that conﬂict genesis, as well as conﬂict dynamics and conﬂict resolution,
will take on very diﬀerent forms in these four societies, and that is a theme which will be
developed later.
More particularly, we would be interested in studying what kind of conﬂict resolution
mechanisms would develop in these four social forms; clearly more related to structureconﬂicts
in Models I and II, and to actor-conﬂicts in Models III and IV.
Let us then turn to the next aspect of interaction, particularly well known through the
works of Sorokin, Parsons and many social anthropologists. The focus is not on inequityequity,
but on the scope of interaction, from the narrow band referred to as speciﬁc
interaction via the broad band of diffuse interaction to an interaction so encompassing
51
formation: 2–two blocs–or 15 + 7 = 22, the number of participant countries in the two
alliances?
How do we take into account the NN, neutral-nonaligned, countries playing an increasingly
important role?
And, what diﬀerence does it make that the NATO system possibly is more organized
like a Model II society with the superpower on top, some middle powers–UK, France, the
Federal Republic of Germany–in the middle and small powers at the bottom whereas
the Warsaw Treaty system is more organized like a Model I society, obviously with the
superpower on the top?
And then, what has been done once can be done twice: one can open up the single
country actor and ask what it looks like on the inside, what is its structure?
And so on, and so forth. What has been given here are only some major tools for that
type of exploration.
2.3 Consciousness
We now come to the question to what extent the parties we have been talking about are
capable of seeing the forces operating upon them. To the extent they do we shall say
that they have consciousness, consciousness being deﬁned exactly as the insight in one’s
own situation, or more speciﬁcally precisely in the forces conditioning oneself, meaning
one’s self, including inner forces.
The major signiﬁcance of this dimension lies in the distinction between conﬂicts of
interest and conﬂicts of values. Thus, in the pure conﬂict of interests we assume no
consciousness, no insight in the situation in which the party ﬁnds itself.
That does not mean that the conﬂict does not exist; only that it is objective (independent
of, ante consciousness), not subjective (in consciousness). Another term often used
for the subjective conﬂict is one that is “perceived”.
53
This gives rise to a simple but important combination of the two categories “objective”
vs “subjective” conﬂict, indicated in Table 2.3:
Table 2.3 “Objective” vs “Subjective” Conﬂicts
Actor-oriented
not subjective subjective
Structure-oriented not objective no conﬂict conﬂict of goals
objective
conﬂict of interest
False consciousness
interests = goals
True consciousness
As mentioned repeatedly above there are two ways of ﬁnding out whether there is a
conﬂict anywhere: one is actor−oriented and leads to the exploration of values somewhere
in the actor’s consciousness or subconsciousness, revealed in attitudes and/or behavior.
The other is structure−oriented and leads to the exploration of any kind of asymmetry
built into the structure. The asymmetry deﬁnes interests of two types: the interest in
maintaining advantage, and the interest in getting out of disadvantage. Obviously, this
leads to four diﬀerent cases, as indicated in the Table.
The case of “no conﬂict” is in need of no further comment. But the other three cases
can stand some elaboration, although it is rather obvious what is intended.
Thus, there is the important category of the conﬂict of interest that is not perceived,
not subjective. In this case there is a pure conﬂict of interest, and since we do not assume
that parties have no consciousness (they are alive), whatever consciousness they have is
false since they do not see their own situation.
This immediately leads to the question of how this false consciousness has come about:
what are the structures upholding it? In our analysis this is explored by using the
ubiquitous twin of exploitation-penetration.
It is exactly through the penetration of the consciousness of the underdog, through
the mystiﬁcation of the structure for him, that he is led not to see the obvious.
This can take place at the level of the person, of the group, and the society. The
precise mechanisms will vary, but they have one thing in common: the topdog somehow
gets under the skin of the underdog.
The parents penetrate the consciousness of the children they dominate, the teachers
the students; the managers the workers; the Center nations penetrate also physically the
Periphery nations by making their elites into pliable bridgeheads for themselves, and so
on. Thus, Ibsen’s A Doll’s House is precisely about what happens when a Nora throws
away the false consciousness built into her.
54
And the reaction: All was quiet till Ibsen wrote that play.
Diametrically opposed to this is the pure category of the conﬂict of values that are
subjective, as it would have to be in order for a value to be deﬁned, but structure−oriented
analysis does not lead to the issue of any kind of asymmetry certiﬁcate. In other words,
it is the type of conﬂict one would have in situation of zero or horizontal interaction,
with compatible goals. Thus, a deﬁnite stand is taken here: we do not assume that all
conﬂicts have a class character. There are subjective conﬂicts, and they are vacuous or
horizontal − which does not mean that all vacuous or horizontal conﬂicts necessarily
have led to consciousness formation. For this a certain crystallization is needed, maybe
through some conﬂict manifestation in one form or another. But that would not be a
case of false consciousness, or at least not of the serious kind mentioned in the category
above. It might be a case of unconsciousness, which is something diﬀerent.
Finally, there is the obvious combination of the two categories: the conﬂict which is
at the same time objective and subjective. In this case there is consciousness, interests
are seen as goals, which means that there is true consciousness. For whom? For the
underdog, or for the top-dog, or for both. For there is no assumption that the top-dog
necessarily has more insight in the conﬂict of interest than the underdog; that would
introduce the palpably untrue hypothesis that all exploitation is somehow premeditated.
It should be emphasized that consciousness is not the same as ”attitude”. The way
it is conceived of here consciousness is cognitive and attitudes cathectic (which is not
the same as “evaluative”). Since it is cognitive, the whole notion points to one major
function of social science: to contribute to true consciousness.
This is exactly what the social scientist should be equipped for.
On the one hand he should have the tools to develop insights into structures, on the
other hand he should also understand actors, and he should be able to combine the two.
However, when this is not necessarily what social scientists engage in, then it may be
fruitful to ask what holds him back? And the answer to that question would probably
have to be divided into two, at least.
The obvious answer is that the social scientist might himself have considerable vested
interest in putting some limits on the extent to which he wants to explore false consciousness,
demystify social structures. He may himself be highly privileged, or at least
belong to the privileged class. And even if the vested interest is not so strong, he may be
ideologically opposed to its clariﬁcation. He clearly sees society from one vantage point
only, that of his class, or perhaps more importantly, sees the world from one vantage
point only, that of this region, however analytically schooled, and this may distort and
55
contract his perspective.
More importantly, however, would be the idea that analysis might not be enough. We
have argued strongly above in favor of the idea that societies can only be understood
when they are in a state of excitation, not only in the “normal” state. There is an obvious
parallel here to the physicist-engineer encountering some new compound, exposing it to
a context diﬀerent from the “normal” 15o
C and one atmosphere pressure to see how it
reacts. And this leads to a confrontation, a special type of experience, as a deeper tool for
social insight and normal state analysis. He might detest that phenomenon being more
law-and-order oriented, and disinclined to engage in or beneﬁt from such experiences.
56