what is the conflict theory essay

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1.3C: The Conflict Perspective

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Conflict theory sees society as a dynamic entity constantly undergoing change as a result of competition over scarce resources.

Learning Objectives

• Identify the tenets of and contributors to conflict theory, as well as the criticisms made against it
• Conflict theory sees social life as a competition, and focuses on the distribution of resources, power, and inequality.
• Unlike functionalist theory, conflict theory is better at explaining social change, and weaker at explaining social stability.
• Conflict theory has been critiqued for its inability to explain social stability and incremental change.
• Conflict theory derives from the ideas of Karl Marx.
• conflict theory : A social science perspective that holds that stratification is dysfunctional and harmful in society, with inequality perpetuated because it benefits the rich and powerful at the expense of the poor.
• functionalism : Structural functionalism, or simply functionalism, is a framework for building theory that sees society as a complex system whose parts work together to promote solidarity and stability.

The Conflict Perspective

The conflict perspective, or conflict theory, derives from the ideas of Karl Marx, who believed society is a dynamic entity constantly undergoing change driven by class conflict. Whereas functionalism understands society as a complex system striving for equilibrium, the conflict perspective views social life as competition. According to the conflict perspective, society is made up of individuals competing for limited resources (e.g., money, leisure, sexual partners, etc.). Competition over scarce resources is at the heart of all social relationships. Competition, rather than consensus, is characteristic of human relationships. Broader social structures and organizations (e.g., religions, government, etc.) reflect the competition for resources and the inherent inequality competition entails; some people and organizations have more resources (i.e., power and influence), and use those resources to maintain their positions of power in society.

C. Wright Mills is known as the founder of modern conflict theory. In his work, he believes social structures are created because of conflict between differing interests. People are then impacted by the creation of social structures, and the usual result is a differential of power between the ” elite ” and the “others”. Examples of the “elite” would be government and large corporations. G. William Domhoff believes in a similar philosophy as Mills and has written about the “power elite of America”.

Sociologists who work from the conflict perspective study the distribution of resources, power, and inequality. When studying a social institution or phenomenon, they ask, “Who benefits from this element of society? ”

Conflict Theory and Change

While functionalism emphasizes stability, conflict theory emphasizes change. According to the conflict perspective, society is constantly in conflict over resources, and that conflict drives social change. For example, conflict theorists might explain the civil rights movements of the 1960s by studying how activists challenged the racially unequal distribution of political power and economic resources. As in this example, conflict theorists generally see social change as abrupt, even revolutionary, rather than incremental. In the conflict perspective, change comes about through conflict between competing interests, not consensus or adaptation. Conflict theory, therefore, gives sociologists a framework for explaining social change, thereby addressing one of the problems with the functionalist perspective.

Criticism of Conflict Theory

Predictably, conflict theory has been criticized for its focus on change and neglect of social stability. Some critics acknowledge that societies are in a constant state of change, but point out that much of the change is minor or incremental, not revolutionary. For example, many modern capitalist states have avoided a communist revolution, and have instead instituted elaborate social service programs. Although conflict theorists often focus on social change, they have, in fact, also developed a theory to explain social stability. According to the conflict perspective, inequalities in power and reward are built into all social structures. Individuals and groups who benefit from any particular structure strive to see it maintained. For example, the wealthy may fight to maintain their privileged access to higher education by opposing measures that would broaden access, such as affirmative action or public funding.

Understanding Conflict Theory

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Conflict theory states that tensions and conflicts arise when resources, status, and power are unevenly distributed between groups in society and that these conflicts become the engine for social change. In this context, power can be understood as control of material resources and accumulated wealth, control of politics and the institutions that make up society, and one's social status relative to others (determined not just by class but by race, gender, sexuality, culture , and religion, among other things).

"A house may be large or small; as long as the neighboring houses are likewise small, it satisfies all social requirement for a residence. But let there arise next to the little house a palace, and the little house shrinks to a hut." Wage Labour and Capital (1847)

Marx's Conflict Theory

Conflict theory originated in the work of Karl Marx , who focused on the causes and consequences of class conflict between the bourgeoisie (the owners of the means of production and the capitalists) and the proletariat (the working class and the poor). Focusing on the economic, social, and political implications of the rise of capitalism in Europe , Marx theorized that this system, premised on the existence of a powerful minority class (the bourgeoisie) and an oppressed majority class (the proletariat), created class conflict because the interests of the two were at odds, and resources were unjustly distributed among them.

Within this system an unequal social order was maintained through ideological coercion which created consensus--and acceptance of the values, expectations, and conditions as determined by the bourgeoisie. Marx theorized that the work of producing consensus was done in the "superstructure" of society, which is composed of social institutions, political structures, and culture, and what it produced consensus for was the "base," the economic relations of production. 

Marx reasoned that as the socio-economic conditions worsened for the proletariat, they would develop a class consciousness that revealed their exploitation at the hands of the wealthy capitalist class of bourgeoisie, and then they would revolt, demanding changes to smooth the conflict. According to Marx, if the changes made to appease conflict maintained a capitalist system, then the cycle of conflict would repeat. However, if the changes made created a new system, like socialism , then peace and stability would be achieved.

Evolution of Conflict Theory

Many social theorists have built on Marx's conflict theory to bolster it, grow it, and refine it over the years. Explaining why Marx's theory of revolution did not manifest in his lifetime, Italian scholar and activist  Antonio Gramsci  argued that the power of ideology was stronger than Marx had realized and that more work needed to be done to overcome cultural hegemony, or  rule through common sense . Max Horkheimer and Theodor Adorno, critical theorists who were part of The Frankfurt School , focused their work on how the rise of mass culture--mass produced art, music, and media--contributed to the maintenance of cultural hegemony. More recently, C. Wright Mills drew on conflict theory to describe the rise of a tiny "power elite" composed of military, economic, and political figures who have ruled America from the mid-twentieth century.

Many others have drawn on conflict theory to develop other types of theory within the social sciences, including feminist theory , critical race theory , postmodern and postcolonial theory, queer theory, post-structural theory, and theories of globalization and world systems . So, while initially conflict theory described class conflicts specifically, it has lent itself over the years to studies of how other kinds of conflicts, like those premised on race, gender, sexuality, religion, culture, and nationality, among others, are a part of contemporary social structures, and how they affect our lives.

Applying Conflict Theory

Conflict theory and its variants are used by many sociologists today to study a wide range of social problems. Examples include:

• How today's global capitalism creates a global system of power and inequality.
• How words play a role in reproducing and justifying conflict.
• The causes and consequences of the gender pay gap between men and women.

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Conflict Theory in Sociology

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On This Page:

Conflict theory in sociology posits that society is characterized by various inequalities and conflicts that arise due to differences in power, resources, and social status. It emphasizes the competition between groups, often framing issues in terms of dominance and subordination. This theory challenges the status quo and highlights social change driven by these conflicts.

Key Takeaways

• Conflict theories emphasize looking at the history and events in a society in terms of structural power divisions, such as social class.
• Although few modern sociologists call themselves conflict theorists, scholars as notable as Karl Marx (1818–1883), Max Weber (1864–1920), Talcott Parsons (1902–1979), and Ralf Dahrendorf (1929–2009) have formulated theories as to what causes conflict, its normalcy, and the impact it has on societies.
• A structural conflict approach, such as Marxism , believes that society is in a conflict between the classes. They believe that the Bourgeoisie oppress the Proletariat through various social institutions without their full knowledge.
• Some sociologists, such as Crouch (2001), categorize conflict theories across two axes: momentous vs. mundane and exceptional vs. endemic. This categorization reflects when and the extent to which theorists believe that conflict is pathological in a society.
• Sociologists have used conflict theory to frame and enhance discussions as far-ranging as historical events to individualistic vs. collectivistic cultures and gender discrimination in the workplace.

What is Conflict Theory?

Conflict theory is a general term covering a number of sociological approaches, which appose functionalism and which share the idea that the basic feature of all societies was the struggle between different groups for access to limited resources.

Conflict theories assume that all societies have structural power divisions and resource inequalities that lead to groups having conflicting interests (Wells, 1979).

For example, Marxism emphasizes class conflict over economic resources, but Weber suggests that conflict and inequality can be caused by power and status independently of class structures.

Evolution of Conflict Theory

Large-scale civil unrest and large demographic dislocations, extreme poverty, and a wide gap between the interests and wealth of workers and owners led to the development of Marxist conflict theory, which emphasizes the omnipresence of the divides of social class.

Later, conflict theory manifested in World Wars and Civil Rights movements, empowerment movements, and rebuttals of colonial rule (Bartos and Wehr, 2002).

Although people have been spreading conflict from a folk knowledge context for millennia, the philosophy underlying conflict theory — and intentional thinking around how people understand conflict and how they can resolve it in constructive ways — stems from the thinking of Karl Marx, Max Weber, and George Simmel.

However, sociologists such as Bartos and Wehr (2002) propose the definition that conflict is any situation where actors use conflict action against each other in order to attain incompatible goals or to express their hostility.

When two or more individuals pursue incompatible interests, they are in a relationship of conflict. For example, if the workers in a factory wish to work as little as possible and be paid as much as possible, and the owners want the workers to work as much as possible with as little pay as possible, then the workers and owners have incompatible interests (Bartos and Wehr, 2002).

Conflict can also manifest when groups do not necessarily have incompatible goals but feel hostility toward each other.

Hostility arises out of non-rational decision-making, which is impulsive and often at odds with the actions rational analysis (such as prospect or utility theory) may suggest.

Because of this contradiction, conflict behavior heavily influenced by hostility can be damaging to the actor’s interest in the long term (Bartos and Wehr, 2002).

Finally, “conflict behavior” covers many types of behavior. Conflict behavior can consist of rational actions (actions that consider and accurately judge all possible outcomes) and the expression of hostility, as well as behavior that is either coercive (such as causing great physical harm to an opponent) or cooperative (Bartos and Wehr, 2002).

Understanding Conflict Theory

Functionalist approaches to conflict theory.

Functionalist theories, particularly those of structural functionalism, which dominated the US in the 1940s and 1950s, tend to see conflict as momentous and exceptional (i.e., unusual). When conflict is momentous, it is likely to result in major upheavals and potentially momentous change.

Functionalism, in sum, is a theory based on the premise that every aspect of society — such as institutions, roles, and norms — serves some purpose to society and that all of these systems work together with internal consistency (Wells, 1979).

Talcott Parsons (1964) is the most prominent structural functionalist who studied conflict. Parsons believed that conflict generally did not overwhelm social relations, and thus, that overwhelming, momentous conflict was exceptional.

When conflict does happen in a social situation, it is because there is something psychologically wrong with one of these essential institutions, and thus, conflict is a harbinger of potentially major change (Crouch, 2001).

Marxist Approach to Conflict Theory

Marx’s version of conflict theory focused on the conflict between two primary classes within capitalist society: the ruling capitalist class (or bourgeoisie), who own the means of production, and the working class (or proletariat), whose alienated labor the bourgeoisie exploit to produce a profit.

If the power of the ruling class is challenged by, say, strikes and protests, the ruling class can use the law to criminalize those posing a threat, and media reporting will be manipulated to give the impression that the ruling class’s interests are those of the whole nation.

For Marxists, the appearance of consensus is an illusion; it conceals the reality of one class imposing its will on the rest of society.

Coercion – the use of the army, police, and other government agencies to force other classes to accept the ruling class ideology.

In contrast to functionalist theories of conflict, Marxist theories of conflict see conflict as endemic and momentous (Marx, 2000). Endemic conflict theories see conflict as an inherent aspect of social relations and likely to occur at many points over the course of a relationship.

Conflict is endemic to social relations, according to Marxism, because of the belief that society is based upon class relations and that those from different class groups have opposing interests.

This conflict is implicit in every interaction, and conflict does not only exist when it overtly manifests itself in actions.

Indeed, according to Marxists, weaker parties in class conflict may be powerless or too fearful to express conflict openly (Rowthorn, 1980).

Radical criminology is an example of conflict theory applied to the study of crime and the criminal justice system.

It emphasizes the power disparities and structural inequalities present in society, suggesting that laws and the criminal justice system primarily serve the interests of the dominant or elite groups, often marginalizing or criminalizing the less powerful groups.

Marxist vs. Functionalist Approaches to Conflict

While a functionalist may view the conflict between a supervisor and their employees as a symptom of something being wrong in the organization, a Marxist sociologist may view this conflict as a reflection of the reality of the relationship between the supervisor and his workers.

An absence of conflict would deny the inherent and fundamental divides underlying every structural divide in a Marxist society (Crouch, 2001).

Although both functionalism and Marxism disagree as to whether or not conflict is inherent to social interactions, both approaches agree that conflict is likely to bring about disorder and potentially radical social change.

In the case of Marxism, a momentous class conflict will lead to a catastrophic dissolution of class relations.

Indeed, in a way, some sociologists have called it ironic (Couch, 2001) that the ongoing social order according to Marxism resembles that of the functionalist social order. All institutions tend to attempt to maintain the current social order.

Conflict as Mundane

Conflict can also be seen as mundane — unlikely to lead to an upheaval and radical social change. According to institutionalized conflict theory, for example, in cases where institutions are separated from each other, it is unlikely that conflict will spread between institutions.

This desire to separate institutions emerged in response to the fascism and extreme movements arising out of the early-mid 20th century. In particular, political sociologists were interested in how different identities in conflict could run together or cross-cut each other (Lipset, 1964; Crouch, 2001).

When groups tend to hold more identities in conflict with another group, the conflict is more widespread and more intense.

For example, one would expect a society where most blacks were working-class Catholics and most whites were bourgeois protestants to be in greater and more intense conflict than one where a significant proportion of whites were working-class Catholics and so on.

Conflict, Micro-functionalism, and Applied Sociology

Micro-functionalism, in short, is a form of functionalism that stresses the separateness of social institutions. Micro-functionalism and applied sociology see conflict as mundane and exceptional.

Like functionalism, to microfunctionalists, conflict is unusual and pathological, and events such as strikes, divorces, crime, and violence are seen as indicators of malfunctioning but mundane malfunctioning.

Applied sociology, in its study of social problems such as marriage, poverty, and social movements, similarly sees conflict in these domains as pathological but unlikely to cause a great upheaval in greater society.

Critical Sociology and the Normalization of Conflict

Critical sociologists, such as feminist sociologists, see conflict as both endemic and mundane.

Generally, modern sociologists have seen conflict as both endemic and mundane and thus regarded as normal, leading to the disappearance of distinctive conflict sociology in recent years (Crouch, 2001).

Some critical sociologists, such as Ralf Dahrendorf, see conflict as not only endemic and functional but also capable of sustaining the social order in itself.

People innovated and created institutions, in Dahrendof’s approach (1972), by openly expressing and working out differences, difficulties, and contradictions.

This provides a radical contrast to structural functionalism in contending that the endemicity and mundanity — as opposed to the momentousness and exceptionality — of conflict preserves social structures rather than destroying them (Crouch, 2001).

Dahrendorf wrote from the cultural context of the conflicted history of Germany in the early-to-mid 20th century (Dahrendorf 1966). Postwar German sociologists, such as Habermas (1981), tended to stress open dialogue and communication in the working out of conflicts.

The works of Max Weber led to an increasing view of conflict as normalized (Weber, 1978). Weber, unlike Marx, did not reduce social relations to material class interests.

For him, conflict could be about any number of factors, from idealistic beliefs to symbolic orders, and none were necessarily any more important than the others (Crouch, 2001).

Conflict, Hostility, and Rationality/Irrationality

One way that sociologists propose to reduce conflict is through rational decision-making.

Weber (1978) argued that there are two types of rationality involved in decision-making processes.

The first, instrumental rationality, is directed at carrying out a specific goal, such as buying the best car with the money one has or deciding which topics to revise in order to pass an exam the next day.

The other type of rationality that Weber proposes is value rationality, when the objective is to conform to a vaguely defined set of values, such as when a religious person is trying to determine which among various ways of practice is most appropriate (Bartos and Wehr, 2002).

Sociologists consider the implementation of so-called rational decision-making to be effused with difficulties. Different individuals in different contexts can differ greatly in what they consider to be a rational choice .

However, sociologists agree that an action is rational if they consider the set of all relevant alternatives and assess every outcome correctly. Of course, this is unlikely in practice, and thus, few actors make decisions completely rationally.

One form of non-rational decision-making that sociologists consider to drive conflict is hostility. Conflicts that start rationally may end non-rationally. For example, a demonstration planned to let a group’s point of view be known may turn into a riot with rock throwing, the burning of cars, and looting.

Conflict and hostility have a reciprocal relationship: hostility can add fuel to and intensify conflict behavior, and conflict can intensify hostility. As conflicts continue and actors inflict harm on each other, participants may become motivated by desires beyond reaching their original goals, such as inflicting as much harm on the perceived enemy as possible (Bartos and Wehr, 2002).

Causes of Conflict

Generally, sociologists agree that conflict occurs due to groups having incompatible goals. However, these incompatible goals generally arise from several factors: including contested resources, incompatible roles, and incompatible values.

Contested Resource

Contested Resources draws three main categories that contested resources fit into: wealth, power, and prestige. Generally, wealth involves tangibles, such as money or land (Weber, 1978)

For example, children hearing the reading of the will of a deceased parent may suddenly come into conflict as they each believe that they deserve more money than was allocated to them.

The land has also been the source of a number of historical and contemporary conflicts, such as the conflict over East Jerusalem and Golan Heights between Israel, Palestine, and Syria (Bartos and Wehr, 2002).

An actor, according to Bartos and Wehr (2002), is powerful if they can coerce others into doing what they want by either promising to reward the action they desire or by threatening to punish them for failing to do so.

Power is generally unequally distributed, and parties in a power relationship can either dominate another or when one party has greater power potential than the other.

For example, after WWI, the Treaty of Versailles allowed the Allied powers to dominate Germany, requiring the country to pay heavy reparations to the Allied forces.

However, with the rise of Hitler, Germany was rearmed, increasing the country’s power potential. Thus, Germany was able to invade Austria and Czechoslovakia with impunity (Bartos and Wehr, 2002).

Prestige can also be a contested resource. Generally, those held in high respect (high prestige) have power, and those who have power are often held in high respect. Actors can have high prestige in certain situations and much lower prestige in others.

Incompatible Roles

Incompatible goals within an organization may arise out of incompatible roles. In the study of conflict, sociologists have emphasized vertical role differentiation, which assigns different roles to different positions within the power hierarchy.

Although many sociologists have studied the conflict arising from role differentiation, they have not generally agreed on whether role differentiation causes conflict.

In contrast, an organization can have role differentiation because members have partial and specific responsibilities, such as that of an engineer or a salesperson.

Although these roles are different in nature, those playing these rules do not refer to their relationships as those of superiors and subordinates (Bartos and Wehr, 2002).

Nonetheless, the roles of a horizontally integrated organization can still be incompatible.

For example, while an engineer may need to design a building that has beams visible from the atrium for structural stability reasons, this may contradict an architect or interior designer’s desire to have a clean, modern space without visible construction elements.

Incompatible Values

Groups separated from each other can also develop cultures that encourage incompatible values. This can happen due to separation, the values of communities and systems, or role differentiation.

Separation can occur on either the individual or group level. In either case, those separated from others develop unique sets of values, as their interactions with those in their ingroups are more intense than those in the outgroup.

One extreme example of isolation is cults. Cults can range from religious cults that may, for example, worship an ancient god to secular cults such as militias that oppose the government.

These organizations are generally small and have clearly defined beliefs, values, and norms that make them distinct from both other cults and mainstream cultures (Bartos and Wehr, 2002).

Those in groups also tend to form their own group identities, where they tend to value themselves more highly than others value them (Where, 2002).

This “ethnocentric” view — manifested today in the form of nationalism, for example (Chrristenson et al. 1975) — makes it easier for actions inflicted by other groups, however unintentional, to be seen as slights on the ethnocentric group (Bartos and Wehr, 2002).

Community and System Values

The American sociologist Talcott Parsons (1951) noted that in the creation of a social arrangement, actors have to decide whether the relationships among themselves are affective or affectively neutral; self or collectively oriented; universalistic or particularistic; specific or diffuse; ascription or achievement-oriented.

In making these decisions, societies adopt a set of cultural values.

Small tribal societies tend to adopt communal values, and large societies tend to adopt system values (Bartos and Wehr, 2002), which in themselves can lead to goal incompatibility (conflict) between societies.

Communal values emerge from face-to-face interactions and tend to be effective, collectivistic, particularistic, ascriptive, and diffuse, while system values tend to be the opposite.

Habermas (1987) considers these opposing communal and system values to be a potential source of social conflict. Advanced industrial societies, in Habermas’ view, tend to “colonize” and “deform” communal life.

Role Differentiation

Finally, role differentiation can directly create incompatible goals by means of nudging those with different goals to act in incompatible ways.

Roles can emphasize, as discussed previously, communal or system values.

For example, a pastor may emphasize love (an affective communal value) while a businessman may value efficiency — a system value — as more important than love in a business context (Bartos and Wehr, 2002).

Examples of Conflict

The cuban missile crisis.

During the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962, the United States and the Soviet Union became close to nuclear war (Downing, 1992). The Soviet leader Kruschev installed medium-range missiles in Cuba.

The president of the United States had to negotiate the risks of reacting too strongly (nuclear war) with the drawbacks of responding weakly (increasing the influence of the Soviet Union).

That is to say, the United States and the Soviet Union had deeply conflicting interests: the Soviet Union wanted to increase its missile supremacy, and the United States wanted to curtail it (Bartos and Wehr, 2002).

Conflict and Individualism

Although some societies (such as Japan) can preserve some features of small groups, most wealthy, industrialized Western societies tend to encourage individualism, which encourages members of a society to formulate and develop their own values rather than accepting those of the larger groups (Bartos and Wehr, 2002).

Individual personality differences — such as extraversion, aggression, talkative, and problem-solving styles — may lead to the development of incompatible values.

One’s alignment with individualism or collectivism can also have a great impact on styles of decision-making in conflicts.

According to LeFebvre and Franke (2013), for example, participants with higher levels of individualism tended to favor rational approaches to decision-making, while those with higher levels of collectivism tended to value staying loyal to the interests of their ingroups.

A Conflict Theory of Sexual Stratification

Collins (1971) attempts to explain employment discrimination against women as the result of a sexual stratification system constructed from the perspectives of Freud and Weber.

In short, Weber argued that conflict emerges over a struggle for as much dominance over other groups as resources permit.

In the early 1970s, women tended to comprise a low number of professional and manual labor positions relative to men.

For example, in 1971, 18% of college professors were female, and 3.3% of lawyers and judges were. Historically, explanations for this imbalance involved a perceived lack of training and a low commitment to professional work in favor of child rearing (Collins, 1971).

However, as Collins demonstrates, neither of these is necessarily true.

Rather, Collins suggests that women belong to a lower class in a sexual stratification system. This is evidenced by how women in the 1970s who took on managerial roles tended to do so mostly in professions dominated by women (such as nursing).

Collins then goes on to theorize that men’s large size and high sexual and aggressive drives have led to the historical subjugation of women by men.

In this system, according to Collins (1971), women can be acquired as sexual property and thus subjugated to the role of “menial servants” (Levi-Strauss, 1949).

Bartos, O. J., & Wehr, P. (2002). Using conflict theory: Cambridge University Press.

Binns, D. (1977). Beyond the sociology of conflict. New York: St. Martin’s.

Collins, R. (2014). A Conflict Theory of Sexual Stratification1. Social Problems, 19(1), 3-21. doi:10.2307/799936

Crouch, C. J. (2001). Conflict Sociology. In N. J. Smelser & P. B. Baltes (Eds.), International Encyclopedia of the Social & Behavioral Sciences (pp. 2554-2559). Oxford: Pergamon.

Downing, B. (1992). The military revolution and political change. Princeton, NJ: Princeton Univ. Press.

Habermas, J. (1987). 8. The Tasks of a Critical Theory of Society. In Modern German Sociology (pp. 187-212): Columbia University Press.

LeFebvre, R., & Franke, V. (2013). Culture Matters: Individualism vs. Collectivism in Conflict Decision-Making. Societies, 3(1), 128-146. Retrieved from https://www.mdpi.com/2075-4698/3/1/128

Lévi-Strauss, C. (1949). L”efficacité symbolique. Revue de l”histoire des religions, 5-27.

Marx, K. (2000). Selected writings (2 ed.). Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press.

Weber, M. (1978). Economy and society: An outline of interpretive sociology (Vol. 1). Berkeley and Los Angeles: Univ. of California Press.

Wells, A. (1979). Conflict theory and functionalism: Introductory sociology textbooks, 1928-1976. Teaching Sociology, 429-437.

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Conflict Theory by Jörg Rössel LAST REVIEWED: 29 October 2013 LAST MODIFIED: 29 October 2013 DOI: 10.1093/obo/9780199756384-0035

Conflict theory is a rather fuzzy theoretical paradigm in sociological thinking. The term conflict theory crystallized in the 1950s as sociologists like Lewis Coser and Ralf Dahrendorf criticized the then dominant structural functionalism in sociology for overly emphasizing the consensual, conflict-free nature of societies (see Classics of the Conflict Theory Paradigm ). Therefore, they put forward conflict theory as an independent paradigm of sociological theory with a distinct focus on phenomena of power, interests, coercion, and conflict. Basically, conflict theory assumes that societies exhibit structural power divisions and resource inequalities leading to conflicting interests. However, the emergence of manifest conflicts is a rather rare phenomenon, since it depends on the mobilization of power resources by social actors and on their social organization. Therefore, conflict theory assumes that societies and other forms of social organization usually exhibit rather stable structures of dominance and coercion, punctuated only infrequently by manifest conflicts. However, apart from some authors like Randall Collins (see Contemporary Works of the Conflict Theory Paradigm ), only few contemporary sociologists use the label conflict theory to identify their paradigmatic stance. Thus, conflict theory has not become an established paradigm in social theory (see History and Overviews ). However, apart from the notion of conflict theory as independent theoretical paradigm, the term is often used in at least three other important meanings: firstly, to summarize the theoretical tradition in sociological theory, which deals with conflict, power, domination and social change, exemplified by authors like Karl Marx, Max Weber (b. 1864–d. 1920), and Georg Simmel (b. 1858–d. 1918) (see Classics of the Conflict Theory Tradition ). Secondly, it is applied to denote the analysis and explanation of social conflicts in different sociological paradigms and in other behavioral sciences (see Multiparadigmatic Conflict Theory and Perspectives from Other Disciplines ). Finally, the label conflict theory is often applied to substantive research on power structures, domination, conflict, and change (see Fields of Conflict ). Conflict theory as a paradigm had a kind of catalytic function in the social sciences. It was able to show that the sociological classics also had a focus on phenomena of power and conflict (see Classics of the Conflict Theory Tradition ), it inspired other theoretical paradigms to broaden their focus to include hitherto neglected issues (see Multiparadigmatic Conflict Theory ), and it contributed to the emergence of conflict-oriented research in several fields of sociology (see Fields of Conflict ). In contemporary sociological discussions, therefore, conflict theory is less important as an independent sociological paradigm than in the various forms of conflict theorizing it has inspired.

Since conflict theory is not a fully established, independent sociological paradigm, the number of introductory texts and reflections on the history of conflict theoretical thinking is rather limited. Bartos and Wehr 2002 provide a general and comprehensive introduction to the explanation of social conflict. Binns 1977 is a thorough overview of neo-Weberian and Marxist conflict theory. Bonacker 2008 gives an excellent insight into multiparadigmatic conflict theory, covering most theoretical approaches to social conflicts in contemporary social science. Collins 1994 deals exhaustively with the conflict theory tradition, especially Marx and Weber, whereas Collins 1990 creates a link between the conflict theoretical paradigm and contemporary work in comparative historical sociology. Demmers 2012 introduces the most important general theories of violent conflict. The chapter in Joas and Knöbl 2011 is an excellent overview of classic work in the conflict theory paradigm in the 1950s and discusses reasons for the demise of conflict theory as an independent sociological paradigm. Finally, Turner 2003 briefly discusses the conflict theoretical tradition and the classical conflict theory paradigm and focuses especially on contemporary neo-Weberian, neo-Marxist, and feminist conflict theory.

Bartos, Otomar J., and Paul Wehr. 2002. Using conflict theory . Cambridge, UK: Cambridge Univ. Press.

DOI: 10.1017/CBO9780511613692

This is a comprehensive approach to the explanation of social conflict. It has an introductory character and links different theoretical perspectives with empirical examples.

Binns, David. 1977. Beyond the sociology of conflict . New York: St. Martin’s.

This is a historical reflection of the conflict theoretical tradition, focusing especially on the Weberian and neo-Weberian tradition in its relationship to Marxism.

Bonacker, Thorsten, ed. 2008. Sozialwissenschaftliche Konflikttheorien: Eine Einführung . Wiesbaden: Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften.

This volume covers a broad range of social scientific theories dealing with the phenomenon of social conflict. All contributions have a systematic structure and introduce complex theories in a very comprehensible way.

Collins, Randall. 1994. The conflict tradition. In Four sociological traditions . By Randall Collins. New York: Oxford Univ. Press.

This monograph introduces the history of sociological theory by focusing on four major strands of theory building: the conflict, the rational/utilitarian, the Durkheimian or normative, and the micro-interactionist tradition. Because of the author’s readable style and the annotated list of references, the book’s first chapter is a very good introduction to the conflict theoretical tradition.

Collins, Randall. 1990. Conflict theory and the advance of macro-historical sociology. In Frontiers of social theory . Edited by George Ritzer, 68–87. New York: Columbia Univ. Press.

This chapter discusses the contemporary situation of conflict theoretical thinking and links the classical conflict theory paradigm to contemporary work in comparative historical sociology, especially the work in Mann 1986–2013 (see Contemporary Works in the Conflict Theory Paradigm ). It thereby illustrates Collins’s rather encompassing notion of the term conflict theory.

Demmers, Jolle. 2012. Theories of violent conflict: An introduction . Abingdon, UK: Routledge.

This is a book with an introductory character. It explains the most important theories of violent conflict of social psychology, sociology, and political science.

Joas, Hans, and Wolfgang Knöbl. 2011. Conflict sociology and conflict theory. In Social Theory: Twenty introductory lectures . By Hans Joas and Wolfgang Knöbl, 174–198. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge Univ. Press.

This book gives an exhaustive and readable overview of contemporary sociological theorizing. It was originally published in German (Sozialtheorie) in 2004. The chapter not only introduces the main authors and discussions of the classical conflict theory paradigm of the 1950s and 1960s, but it also depicts the failure of conflict theory to establish itself fully as an independent sociological paradigm.

Turner, Jonathan H. 2003. The structure of sociological theory . Belmont, CA: Wadsworth.

The four sub-chapters about conflict theorizing offer a very dense and systematic account of classical and contemporary conflict theory, especially in its neo-Weberian, neo-Marxian, and feminist variety. Turner presents the theories in a very analytic way, summarizing each of them by providing tables of major, empirically testable propositions.

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The Psychology of Conflict Theory: A Comprehensive Guide

Ariane Resnick, CNC is a mental health writer, certified nutritionist, and wellness author who advocates for accessibility and inclusivity.

Orbon Alija/E+/Getty Images

Introduction to Conflict Theory

Historical development and key thinkers of conflict theory, core concepts of conflict theory, conflict theory vs. other sociological theories, applications of conflict theory, criticisms and limitations of conflict theory, the relevance of conflict theory today.

If you've ever felt like you can't get ahead in life because there is only so much success to go around, then you've experienced conflict theory in motion. "Conflict theory is the belief that people and systems are naturally in conflict and competition with each other for limited resources," explains Dr. Patrice Le Goy . She adds that "conflict theory also suggests that people with power will do what they can do keep that power."

German philosopher Karl Marx is considered the father of this theory, but others have expanded on it. We'll discuss what conflict theory is in depth, how the idea has developed and changed over time, how it relates to other sociological theories, and whether or not it's still relevant to life today.

Even though the term might sound a little complex, conflict theory is a straightforward idea and it can be used to explain numerous elements of our lives, such as social classes and wealth inequality. Le Goy says that "people often think of this theory in terms of why war and other major conflicts take place, but we can also think about it in our everyday lives."

Conflict theory is based on a few principles: That we have a limited amount of resources in our world, that humans operate out of self-interest , and that conflict can't be avoided within and between social groups. It's considered the opposite of an idea called functionalism , which claims that society will naturally work together for the greater good and every individual serves a function towards that.

This theory is taught in sociology courses, and its principles since Marx presented them have been broadened over the years to include explanations for war and racial inequality.

First introduced by Karl Marx, conflict theory has been used to explain other social phenomenon over time. Macchiavelli and Thomas Hobbes presented theories that were later refined by Marx. He used conflict theory to explain how the working class acts as producers of goods for the upper class. After that, sociologist Max Weber rounded out the theory by adding politics, race, gender, and education to it. Weber posited that inequality worsened conflict, and forced people to be competitive while not giving them fair chances due to lack of mobility.

Ida B. Wells looked at conflict theory though a lens of race and feminism, using it to explain the increased rate of lynching between the 1800s to 1900s while Black people experienced more social mobility, as well as how white women excluded Black women from the suffragist movement as they fought for the right to vote.

 W.E.B. DuBois also used conflict theory to explain racism in the late 1800s. He conducted in person research with Black families in Philadelphia and wrote about them in The Atlantic, with a focus on the challenges of Black people in the United States.

In the 1950s, sociologist C. Wright Mills examine conflict theory through the lens of large organizations in power. He suggested that an elite class was formed by the government, military, and corporations.

Conflict theory was presented in modern times by presidential candidate Bernie Sanders. He said that the campaign donations that both Republicans and Democrats accepted from banks and other large corporations made them biased towards those organizations and put individuals under their influence. Sanders represented himself as of the people, versus a member of the upper class who sided with corporations.

Conflict theory centers around a few basic concepts.

Competition

The idea that we all have to compete is central to conflict theory. We see this play out, according to Le Goy, in ways such as "people competing for a limited number of jobs that pay well and have good benefits, or for a limited supply of affordable housing in a desirable area."

In this competition, who performs a function best does not innately lead them to achieve success. She notes that "these issues arise from there not being enough of these necessities to accommodate everyone in society and we know that decisions about who gets what are not always need or merit-based."

Conflict theory involves a group in power that has the desire to stay there. Wealth and power are tied together, with wealthy people typically being seen as the people in charge. This makes sense in terms of government, corporations, and individuals who hold a disproportionate amount of wealth compared to the rest of the population.

Conflict theory involves the idea that the upper class uses the goods and services that the working class provides, and that the working class has to stay in their own social stratosphere in order to keep the system going. This theory works against the idea of upward mobility.

Lack of Resources

The notion that there is only so much to go around is why we must compete for power. Limited resources are key to conflict theory. This may seem silly because the world is so big, but if you think about how we concentrate ourselves in it, it makes more sense. We live in cities that are dense in population, and in the densest ones, you may experience intense competition just to find a new home to live in or a new school to send your child to.

Marginalization

Conflict theory involves some people being marginalized due to the imbalance in power. Explains Le Goy, "we see conflict theory in today’s society when we see rights being taken away from marginalized groups. In this case, you are seeing how power is being held on to very tightly and people are not able to have basic rights, in some situations." When some people hold more power than others, those without power are bound to become marginalized.

While functionalism also explains why society is the way it is, it does so in the opposite way of conflict theory. It instead focuses on how we all want to work for the greater good . Consensus theory also explains why society functions as it does, but it instead says that our social order is based on our values and our norms. An additional sociological theory is symbolic interactionism, which focuses more on individuals and how they act based on the meanings they give to various elements of life.

Conflict theory differs from most other sociological theories in being centered around conflict. As such, its seen as more of a "glass half empty" approach to humanity than a "glass half full" one.

Conflict theory can be applied to many different facets of life in our society.

In Politics

We see conflict theory in politics through those who lead our country often coming from upper class, wealthy backgrounds. People in charge make rules and laws for those with less money, and have the power to lower the quality of life of the masses.

When the government decides to go to war, that can also be an example of conflict theory: A group in charge is choosing where our national resources go, and how they are used, while also asking those from economically disadvantaged backgrounds to do the actual fighting.

In Education

Conflict theorists see our educational system as keeping people in their economic classes without enabling mobility to occur. This manifests as schools in lower income neighborhoods having smaller budgets and fewer resources, and as wealthy people sending their children to expensive private schools where they can attain higher quality educations. Schools in economically advantaged neighborhoods typically have higher graduation rates and more students who move on to a four years college than those in lower income areas.

Economics are a major part of conflict theory because the idea behind it is that the working class are stuck in their positions creating goods and performing services while the wealthy will do whatever they have to in order to stay in power. This creates inequality and marginalization, and without upward mobility, those problems will continue over time.

Le Goy notes that "this idea helps us better understand the reasons why people may behave in a way that seems to be self-centered and uncaring about larger society. When in fact, they are just trying to hold on to what they perceive to be their basic needs ."

As with any theory, conflict theory has its limitations and criticisms. Some people don't believe in it at all, while others take some of its notions as true but don't like the way it frames humanity. "a major limitation of conflict theory is that it presumes innate selfish human behavior that does not take into account situational circumstances that may lead to this behavior (competing for very limited resources)," says Le Goy.

There is also a lack of research surrounding conflict theory. It doesn't have any specific studies that show that humans are inherently competitive, or that every wealthy person is insistent on staying that way. It sees people in a negative light, and discounts the very many people who do not center their lives around competition and power.

Lastly, conflict theory can be considered an oversimplification of society's struggles. It doesn't take into account that power struggles still arise within classes, and it doesn't give any credence to the ways that people work towards conflict resolution and mobility.

Conflict theory is relevant to life today if you're seeking an explanation for problems that exist in society. That said, as a sociological theory it presents humanity through a negative lens, and it isn't particularly popular with most people in modern times. It may be useful for explaining some ways that people behave, but it can't be used as an excuse for behavior. It's an interesting idea, and by learning more about it, we can gain a better understanding of how people throughout the years have viewed the struggles in our society.

Hamon, Raeann R. "Conflict Theory." Encyclopedia of Family Studies (2016): 1-5.

Conflict theory - new world encyclopedia.

Bois WEBD. Strivings of the negro people. The Atlantic.

By Ariane Resnick, CNC Ariane Resnick, CNC is a mental health writer, certified nutritionist, and wellness author who advocates for accessibility and inclusivity.

Home → Features → History and Humanities → Sociology

What is conflict theory? Looking at Marx’s main concepts

The fact that Marx was able to propose a theory that can still fit so well in today's modern world is remarkable.

Although Karl Marx is mostly known for founding what became known as socialism, his work was prevalent in numerous fields of economy, philosophy, and even history. Conflict theory is one such area in which Marx developed, and one in which his ideas are still influential to this day.

Conflict theory is a sociological perspective that views society as being in a state of ongoing conflict. According to the theory, there are limited resources that everyone is competing for, and different actors within society (individuals or groups of individuals) are in conflict over those limited resources.

The idea, also embraced and developed by other scholars, has been used to explain a wide range of social phenomena, though it is still hotly debated. Here’s a breakdown of its most important points.

For starters, the basis of conflict theory holds that left to their own, humans are not orderly creatures. Social order is maintained by domination and power, rather than consensus and conformity. Those with wealth and power try to hold on to it by any means possible, chiefly by suppressing the poor and powerless. Furthermore, individuals and groups will work to maximize their own benefits, even at the expense of others’ benefits.

Seeing the view through this lens leads to some important conclusions. Wars and revolutions, wealth and poverty, discrimination and domestic violence, and conflicts over natural resources — they can all be viewed through the lens of conflict theory. Even peaceful and noble aspirations can be explained through conflict theory. In this regard, many of the fundamental developments in human history (such as democracy and civil rights) can be attributed to capitalistic attempts to control the masses rather than to a desire for social order.

It’s not necessarily the right way to view things, or not even necessarily a right way of viewing things, but it’s a lens that has shaped how scholars think of society. At this point, it should also be said that Marx viewed social conflict theory as a component of the four major paradigms of sociology, while others might not agree with this view.

The origin of conflict theory

As with so many things in Marx’s philosophy, conflict theories relies on what he saw as an unavoidable class between socio-economic classes. The wealthy and the less wealthy often have conflicting interests, and their interests collide to shape society — or so Marx and his followers thought.

According to conflict theorists, the wealthy and powerful members of society use their resources to maintain their dominance over the less privileged groups. This can lead to the suppression and oppression of certain groups, including the working class, minorities, and women.

“The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles. Freeman and slave, patrician and plebeian, lord and serf, guild-master and journeyman, in a word, oppressor and oppressed, stood in constant opposition to one another, carried on an uninterrupted, now hidden, now open fight, a fight that each time ended, either in a revolutionary re-constitution of society at large, or in the common ruin of the contending classes.” Karl Marx & Friedrich Engels in The Communist Manifesto , 1848

The classical phrase above says a lot about how Marx viewed the world. Take away some old words and replace them with their modern versions, and you end up with a vision that’s still shared by many people. You don’t need to look further than the Occupy movement which protested against the richest 1%, or the anti-austerity movements prevalent in many parts of Europe — or the countless revolutions that attempted to overthrow the rich elites .

But the origins of these ideas go back a long time.

Conflict theory originated in the work of Karl Marx, who focused on the causes and consequences of class conflict between what was then called the bourgeoisie (the owners of the means of production and the capitalists — basically the rich people) and the proletariat (the working class and the poor).

Focusing on the economic, social, and political implications of the rise of capitalism in Europe, Marx theorized that this system, premised on the existence of a powerful minority class (the bourgeoisie) and an oppressed majority class (the proletariat), created class conflict because the interests of the two were at odds and resources were unjustly distributed among them.

Within this system, an unequal social order was maintained through ideological coercion which created consensus and acceptance of the values, expectations, and conditions as determined by the bourgeoisie.

In other words, the rich tricked the poor into accepting a deal that was bad for them, using ideological tricks.

Marx theorized that the work of producing consensus was done in the “superstructure” of society, which is composed of social institutions, political structures, and culture, and what it produced a consensus for was the “base,” the economic relations of production.

Main assumptions

Conflict theorists believe that competition in society is a constant and, at times, an overwhelming factor in nearly every human relationship and interaction. Basically, competition for resources shapes everything in society.

As mentioned, this competition exists as a result of the scarcity of resources, including material resources like money, property, commodities, and more. Whenever there is an imbalance, a shift of power, or something that disrupts the fragile equilibrium between different social classes, a crisis can emerge.

Larger entities such as governments or companies seek to prevent or manage conflict by reallocating resources and distributing goods. Progressive taxes, minimum wages, and social assistance — in conflict theory, these are all done not for the welfare of the people, but rather to reduce conflict.

Beyond material resources, individuals and groups within a society also compete for intangible resources as well. These can include leisure time, dominance, social status, sexual partners, and many other factors. Conflict theorists assume that competition is the default, rather than cooperation.

Given conflict theorists’ assumption that conflict occurs between social classes, one outcome of this conflict is a revolution. The idea is that change in a power dynamic between groups does not happen as a result of adaptation. Rather, it comes about as the effect of conflict between these groups. In this way, changes to a power dynamic are often abrupt and large in scale, rather than gradual and evolutionary.

An important assumption of conflict theory is that human relationships and social structures all experience inequalities of power. In this way, some individuals and groups inherently develop more power and reward than others. Following this, those individuals and groups that benefit from a particular structure of society tend to work to maintain those structures so as to retain and enhance their power.

Conflict theorists tend to see war as either a unifier or as a cleanser of societies. In conflict theory, war is the result of a cumulative and growing conflict between individuals and groups and between whole societies. In the context of war, a society may become unified in some ways, but conflict still remains between multiple societies. On the other hand, war may also result in the wholesale end of society.

Modern conflict theory

In essence, conflict theory is a simple theory: there is always competition between groups within society over limited resources. But the more you look into it, the more opaque and complicated things become.

Many social theorists have built on Marx’s conflict theory to bolster it, grow it, and refine it over the years, leading to the development of what is called modern conflict theory.

Explaining why Marx’s theory of revolution did not manifest in his lifetime, Italian scholar and activist Antonio Gramsci argued that the power of ideology was stronger than Marx had realized and that more work needed to be done to overcome cultural hegemony or rule through common sense.

Max Horkheimer and Theodor Adorno, critical theorists who were part of The Frankfurt School , focused their work on how the rise of mass culture–mass-produced art, music, and media–contributed to the maintenance of cultural hegemony.

More recently, C. Wright Mills drew on conflict theory to describe the rise of a tiny “power elite” composed of military, economic, and political figures who have ruled America since the mid-twentieth century. C. Wright Mills is known as the founder of modern conflict theory, and he described the struggle for power between the ” elite ” and the “others”. Examples of the “elite” in the US would be government and large corporations.

Many others have drawn on conflict theory to develop other theories within the social sciences, including feminist theory, critical race theory, postmodern and postcolonial theory, queer theory, post-structural theory, and theories of globalization and world systems.

So, while initially, conflict theory described class conflicts specifically, it has lent itself over the years to studies of how other kinds of conflicts, like those premised on race, gender, sexuality, religion, culture, and nationality, among others, are a part of contemporary social structures, and how they affect our lives.

Is conflict theory… right?

Conflict theory is more of a lens of viewing society, rather than something that can be directly proven or disproven. Still, that is not to say that somethings about it can’t be right — or wrong.

Marx believed that with rising inequality, social tension also rises. That much seems to be right, as a mountain of studies show that social and economic inequality is very dangerous to society. The theory is that if the wealth gap becomes too wide, social unrest will ensue — and that is pretty much what we’re observing in society at the moment.

But many things cannot be explained through this lens alone, and there is another, equally convincing and opposite theory: functionalism. Whereas conflict theory views all aspects of life as a competition, functionalism understands society as a system striving for equilibrium.

To say that conflict theory is right or wrong would simply not be correct. Sociologists develop theories to help explain social phenomena. These theories often work at multiple levels, from the macro to the micro — in this case, from describing how interpersonal relationships work, to describing how society works. However, such theories are dependent on context and specific to certain situations, so it is dangerous to over-generalize. Simply put, conflict theory is not the be-all-end-all of human society, but it can be a useful lens through which we can view the world.

The fact that Marx and his work are still so influential to this day is a testament to his value as a philosopher and an economist. However, Marx also paved the way for socialism and communism to emerge, with devastating consequences for millions of people. Blindly believing in such ideas and ignoring just how society really is can lead to disaster — we’ve seen that before, let’s not see it again.

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Module 12: Education

Conflict theory on education, learning outcomes.

• Examine the perspective of conflict theory on education
• Examine the feminist theory on education

Conflict Theory

Conflict theorists do not believe that public schools reduce social inequality through providing equal opportunity. Rather, they believe that the educational system reinforces and perpetuates social inequalities that arise from differences in class, gender, race, and ethnicity. Where functionalists see education as serving a beneficial role, conflict theorists view it more negatively. To them, educational systems preserve the status quo and push people of lower status into obedience, which keeps them socioeconomically disadvantaged.

Figure 1.  Conflict theorists see the education system as a means by which those in power stay in power. (Photo courtesy Thomas Ricker/flickr)

The fulfillment of one’s education is closely linked to social class. Students of low socioeconomic status are generally not afforded the same opportunities as students of higher status, no matter how great their academic ability or desire to learn. Picture a student from a working-class home who wants to do well in school. On a Monday, he’s assigned a paper that’s due Friday. Monday evening, he has to babysit his younger sister while his divorced mother works. Tuesday and Wednesday, he works stocking shelves after school until 10:00 p.m. By Thursday, the only day he might have available to work on that assignment, he’s so exhausted he can’t bring himself to start the paper. His mother, though she’d like to help him, is so tired herself that she isn’t able to give him the encouragement or support he needs. And since English is her second language, she has difficulty with some of his educational materials. They also lack a computer and printer at home, which most of his classmates have, so they rely on the public library or school system for access to technology. As this story shows, many students from working-class families have to contend with helping out at home, contributing financially to the family, poor study environments, and a lack of family support. This is a difficult match with education systems that adhere to a traditional curriculum that is more easily understood and completed by students of higher social classes.

Such a situation leads to social class reproduction, extensively studied by French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu. He researched how cultural capital , or cultural knowledge that serves as (metaphorical) currency that helps us navigate a culture, alters the experiences and opportunities available to French students from different social classes. Members of the upper and middle classes have more cultural capital than do families of lower-class status. As a result, the educational system maintains a cycle in which the dominant culture’s values are rewarded and thus generationally reproduced. Instruction and tests cater to the dominant culture and leave others struggling to identify with values and competencies outside their social class. For example, there has been a great deal of discussion over what standardized tests such as the SAT truly measure. Many argue that the tests group students by cultural ability rather than by natural intelligence. For example, a question on the comprehensive reading section of the SAT inquires about a painting at an art museum. For a student who has not experienced art museums regularly, this question poses greater difficulty than it does for a student who grew up going to cultural events such as art exhibitions. Such mechanisms in public education reinforce and perpetuate inequalities.

This video explains how cultural capital impacts a hypothetical student.

The article referenced in the interactive above raises many important issues, and some questions we might pursue further are:

• Are there any forms of cultural capital that can be acquired without economic capital? That is, can one cultivate habits of speech and appearance that suggest higher social status but which do not cost money? (or at least very much money?) What symbolic values are at work here?
• If prestigious brand-name products, such as the Louis Vuitton handbag, confer some sort of high status on those who possess and display them, then how does the “branding” of the self function in our 21st-Century economy? When individuals brand themselves through social media and other public platforms, whether as employees or “influencers” and such, what status or characteristics are they trying to claim? What do they hope to gain?
• The sociologist Charles Horton Cooley introduced the concept of the “looking glass self,” which says we develop our sense of self according to how we believe others perceive us. Can this idea help us understand how social status and economic class are related? To what extent are status and class a matter of self-conscious performance for the benefit of an imagined audience?

The Hidden Curriculum

The cycle of rewarding those who possess cultural capital is found in formal educational curricula as well as in the hidden curriculum , which refers to the type of nonacademic knowledge that students learn through informal learning and cultural transmission. This hidden curriculum reinforces the positions of those with higher cultural capital and serves to bestow status unequally.

The Hidden Curriculum ideology is very prevalent in sociology, as sociologists seek to better understand how education is shaping society as a larger unit. This video explains what this means.

This next video explains how sociologists examine the hidden curriculum from the various sociological perspectives.

Conflict theorists point to tracking , a formalized sorting system that places students on “tracks” (advanced versus low-achievers) that perpetuate inequalities. While educators may believe that students do better in tracked classes because they are with students of similar ability and may have access to more individual attention from teachers, conflict theorists feel that tracking leads to self-fulfilling prophecies in which students live up (or down) to teacher and societal expectations (Education Week 2004). The ways by which students are assigned to tracks differs both between and within schools. Today, it is less common for schools to rigidly track students in all subjects, and it is less common to track them into different vocational paths. Administrators and teachers in a given school may carefully avoid using the term “tracking” to describe the organization of their school’s curriculum. Yet, schools maintain a variety of policies that sort students into different programs of study including: test scores and grade requirements, pre- and co-requisite requirements, and teacher recommendations.

Low-track classes tend to be primarily composed of low-income students, usually minorities, while upper-track classes are usually dominated by students from socioeconomically successful groups. In 1987, Jeannie Oakes theorized that the disproportionate placement of poor and minority students into low tracks does not reflect their actual learning abilities. Rather, she argued that the ethnocentric claims of social Darwinists and the Anglo-Saxon-driven Americanization movement at the turn of the century combined to produce a strong push for “industrial” schooling, ultimately relegating the poorer minority students to vocational programs and a differentiated curriculum which she considered a lingering pattern in 20th century schools.

Some studies suggest that tracking can influence students’ peer groups and attitudes regarding other students. Adam Gamoran’s study (1992) shows that students are more likely to form friendships with other students in the same tracks than with students outside of their tracks. Since low-class and minority students are overrepresented in low tracks, and Whites and Asians generally dominate higher tracks, interaction among these groups can be discouraged by tracking. However, there is no research showing an academic benefit to low track students from such interaction.

Link to Learning

Tracking is not uncommon in the United States and can take many forms at any level of compulsory schooling. Did you experience tracking at your school? This student Ted talk explains some of the adverse consequences of separating students into high-performing, average, and below-average tracks: Student Tracking Needs to End .

To conflict theorists, schools play the role of training working-class students to accept and retain their position as lower-tier members of society. They argue that this role is fulfilled through the disparity of resources available to students in richer and poorer neighborhoods as well as through testing (Lauen and Tyson 2008). Did you know that a school’s resources are dependent on property taxes in the school district’s boundaries? This is a controversial policy, as it contributes to existing inequalities in the home and in the the neighborhood.

IQ tests have been attacked for being biased—for testing cultural knowledge rather than actual intelligence. For example, a test item may ask students what instruments belong in an orchestra. To correctly answer this question requires certain cultural knowledge—knowledge most often held by more affluent people who typically have more exposure to orchestral music. Though experts in the field of testing claim that bias has been eliminated from tests, conflict theorists maintain that this is impossible. These tests, to conflict theorists, are another way in which education does not so much provide opportunities as maintain established configurations of power.

This NPR article,  Why America’s Schools Have A Money Problem , explains more about inequalities in public schools created by differences in revenue generated through property taxes.

Think It Over

• Thinking of your school, what are some ways that a conflict theorist would say that your school perpetuates class differences?

Feminist Theory

Figure 2.  Some 1903 female graduates of Western University.

Feminist theory aims to understand the mechanisms and roots of gender inequality, particularly in education, as well as their societal repercussions. Like many other institutions of society, educational systems are characterized by unequal treatment and opportunity for women, despite the monumental progress that has been made in recent decades. The literacy rate among women worldwide is 83 percent, compared to the almost 90 percent observed for men, [1] and women around the world are still less likely than men to set foot in a school. [2]

Women in the United States have been relatively late, historically speaking, to be granted entry to the public university system. In fact, it wasn’t until the establishment of Title IX of the Education Amendments in 1972 that discriminating on the basis of sex in U.S. education programs became illegal. In the United States, there is also a post-education gender disparity between what male and female college graduates earn, despite women now graduating college at higher rates than men (Citation C). A study released in May 2011 showed that, among men and women who graduated from college between 2006 and 2010, men out-earned women by an average of more than $5,000 each year. First-year job earnings for men averaged $33,150; for women the average was $28,000 (Godofsky, Zukin, and van Horn 2011). Similar trends are seen among salaries of professionals in virtually all industries. [3]

Here are a few facts about the gendered wage gap from the AAUW (2018): [4]

Figure 3 . One way to think about the gender pay gap is by looking at the difference in median earnings for men and women.

• Women earn 80% of what men make.
• Racial minority women earn even less when compared to white men – with the lowest being Hispanic/Latina women making 53% of what men make.
• Utah has the largest pay gap, California has the smallest.
• The gender gap is found across nearly all professions.

When women face limited opportunities for education, their capacity to achieve equal rights, including financial independence, is limited. Feminist theory seeks to promote women’s rights to equal education (and its resultant benefits) across the world.

Grade Inflation

Grade inflation: when is an a really a c.

In 2019, news emerged of a criminal conspiracy regarding wealthy and, in some cases, celebrity parents who illegally secured college admission for their children. Over 50 people were implicated in the scandal, including employees from prestigious universities; several people were sentenced to prison. Their activity included manipulating test scores, falsifying students’ academic or athletic credentials, and acquiring testing accommodations through dishonest claims of having a disability.

One of the questions that emerged at the time was how the students at the subject of these efforts could succeed at these challenging and elite colleges. Meaning, if they couldn’t get in without cheating, they probably wouldn’t do well. Wouldn’t their lack of preparation quickly become clear?

Many people would say no. First, many of the students involved (the children of the conspirators) had no knowledge or no involvement of the fraud; those students may have been admitted anyway. But there may be another safeguard for underprepared students at certain universities: grade inflation.

Grade inflation  generally refers to a practice of awarding students higher grades than they have earned. It reflects the observation that the relationship between letter grades and the achievements they reflect has been changing over time. Put simply, what used to be considered C-level, or average, now often earns a student a B, or even an A.

Some, including administrators at elite universities, argue that grade inflation does not exist, or that there are other factors at play, or even that it has benefits such as increased funding and elimination of inequality (Boleslavsky 2014). But the evidence reveals a stark change. Based on data compiled from a wide array of four-year colleges and universities, a widely cited study revealed that the number of A grades has been increasing by several percentage points per decade, and that A’s were the most common grade awarded (Jaschik 2016). In an anecdotal case, a Harvard dean acknowledged that the median grade there was an A-, and the most common was also an A. Williams College found that the number of A+ grades had grown from 212 instances in 2009-10 to 426 instances in 2017-18 (Berlinsky-Schine 2020). Princeton University took steps to reduce inflation by limiting the number of A’s that could be issued, though it then reversed course (Greason 2020).

Why is this happening? Some cite the alleged shift toward a culture that rewards effort instead of product, i.e., the amount of work a student puts in raises the grade, even if the resulting product is poor quality. Another oft-cited contributor is the pressure for instructors to earn positive course evaluations from their students. Finally, many colleges may accept a level of grade inflation because it works. Analysis and formal experiments involving graduate school admissions and hiring practices showed that students with higher grades are more likely to be selected for a job or a grad school. And those higher-grade applicants are still preferred even if decision-maker knows that the applicant’s college may be inflating grades (Swift 2013). In other words, people with high GPA at a school with a higher average GPA are preferred over people who have a high GPA at a school with a lower average GPA.

Ironically, grade inflation is not simply a college issue. Many of the same college faculty and administrators who encounter or engage in some level of grade inflation may lament that it is also occurring at high schools (Murphy 2017).

• UNESCO Institute for Statistics. Literacy rate, adult male (% of males ages 15 and above). Retrieved from  https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SE.ADT.LITR.MA.ZS?view=chart .  ↵
• UNESCO. Gender Equality in Education. Retrieved from http://uis.unesco.org/en/topic/gender-equality-education . ↵
• Semuels, Alana (November 2017). "Poor Girls Are Leaving Their Brothers Behind." Retrieved from https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2017/11/gender-education-gap/546677/ . ↵
• AAUW. "The Simple Truth about the Gender Pay Gap." Retrieved from https://www.aauw.org/research/the-simple-truth-about-the-gender-pay-gap/ . ↵
• Modification, adaptation, and original content. Authored by : Florencia Silviera for Lumen Learning. Provided by : Lumen Learning. License : CC BY: Attribution
• Theoretical Perspectives on Education. Authored by : OpenStax CNX. Located at : https://cnx.org/contents/[email protected]:Q7ShLma2@8/16-2-Theoretical-Perspectives-on-Education . License : CC BY: Attribution . License Terms : Download for free at http://cnx.org/contents/[email protected]
• Tracking (education). Provided by : Wikipedia. Located at : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tracking_(education) . License : CC BY-SA: Attribution-ShareAlike
• Cultural Capital Interactive. Authored by : Scott Barr for Lumen Learning. Provided by : Lumen Learning. License : CC BY: Attribution
• Grade Inflation. Provided by : OpenStax . Located at : https://openstax.org/books/introduction-sociology-3e/pages/16-2-theoretical-perspectives-on-education . Project : Sociology 3e. License : CC BY: Attribution . License Terms : Access for free at https://openstax.org/books/introduction-sociology-3e/pages/1-introduction
• Cultural Capital. Authored by : Sociology Live!. Located at : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5DBEYiBkgp8 . License : Other . License Terms : Standard YouTube License
• The Hidden Curriculum | Part 2 of 2: Sociological Perspectives. Provided by : HumberEDU. Located at : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=77psBGyYj94 . License : Other . License Terms : Standard YouTube License
• The Hidden Curriculum | Part 1 of 2: Norms, Values and Procedures. Provided by : HumberEDU. Located at : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NuLhmDE9Exo . License : Other . License Terms : Standard YouTube License
• Image on gender pay gap. Provided by : AAUW. Located at : https://www.aauw.org/research/the-simple-truth-about-the-gender-pay-gap/ . License : All Rights Reserved
• female graduates in 1903. Provided by : Wikipedia. Located at : https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Group_of_women_in_cap_and_gown_at_Western_College_on_Tree_Day_1903_(3191801017).jpg . License : Public Domain: No Known Copyright

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What Is Conflict Theory?

Understanding conflict theory, special considerations.

• Conflict Theory FAQs
• Behavioral Economics

Conflict Theory Definition, Founder, and Examples

What you need to know about the Karl Marx theory

Adam Hayes, Ph.D., CFA, is a financial writer with 15+ years Wall Street experience as a derivatives trader. Besides his extensive derivative trading expertise, Adam is an expert in economics and behavioral finance. Adam received his master's in economics from The New School for Social Research and his Ph.D. from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in sociology. He is a CFA charterholder as well as holding FINRA Series 7, 55 & 63 licenses. He currently researches and teaches economic sociology and the social studies of finance at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem.

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Conflict theory, as associated with Karl Marx , is a social theory that posits that society is in a state of perpetual conflict because of competition for limited resources.

Conflict theory holds that social order is maintained by domination and power, rather than by consensus and conformity. According to conflict theory, those with wealth and power try to hold on to it by any means possible, chiefly by suppressing the poor and powerless. A basic premise of conflict theory is that individualcs and groups within society will work to try to maximize their own wealth and power.

Key Takeaways

• Conflict theory focuses on competition among groups within society over limited resources.
• Marxist conflict theory sees society as divided along lines of economic class between the proletarian working class and the bourgeois ruling class.
• Conflict theory views social and economic institutions as tools in the struggle among groups or classes, used to maintain inequality and the dominance of the ruling class.
• Later versions of conflict theory look at other dimensions of conflict among capitalist factions and among various social, religious, and other types of groups.

Theresa Chiechi / Investopedia

Philosophers and sociologists have long sought to use conflict theories to explain a wide range of phenomena, including wars, revolutions, poverty , discrimination, and domestic violence.

Marx’s version of conflict theory focused on the conflict between two primary classes. Each class consists of a group of people bound by mutual interests and a certain degree of property ownership. Marx theorized about the bourgeoisie, a group that represented members of society who hold the majority of the wealth and means. The proletariat is the other group, comprised of those considered working-class or poor.

With the rise of capitalism, Marx theorized that the bourgeoisie , a minority within the population, would use their influence to oppress the proletariat, the majority class. This way of thinking is tied to a common image associated with conflict theory-based models of society. Adherents to this philosophy tend to believe in a pyramid arrangement in terms of how goods and services are distributed in society. At the top of the pyramid is a small group of elites that dictate terms and conditions to the larger portion of society because they have an outsized amount of control over resources and power.

Uneven distribution within society was predicted to be maintained through ideological coercion; the bourgeoisie would force acceptance of the current conditions by the proletariat. Conflict theory assumes that the elite will set up systems of laws, traditions, and other societal structures in order to further support their own dominance while preventing others from joining their ranks.

Marx theorized that, as the working class and poor were subjected to worsening conditions, a collective consciousness would raise more awareness about inequality, and this would potentially result in revolt. If, after the revolt, conditions were adjusted to favor the concerns of the proletariat, the conflict circle would eventually repeat but in the opposite direction. The bourgeoisie would eventually become the aggressor and revolter, grasping for the return of the structures that formerly maintained their dominance.

Marx viewed capitalism as part of a historical progression of economic systems. He believed capitalism was rooted in commodities , or things that are purchased and sold. For example, he believed that labor is a type of commodity. Because laborers have little control or power in the economic system (because they don’t own factories or materials), their worth can be devalued over time. This can create an imbalance between business owners and their workers, which can eventually lead to social conflicts. He believed these problems would eventually be fixed through a social and economic revolution.

Adaptations of Marxist Conflict Theory

Max Weber, a German sociologist, philosopher, jurist, and political economist, adapted many aspects of Marxist conflict theory and later further refined some of Marx's ideas. Weber believed that conflict over property was not limited to one specific scenario. Rather, he believed that there were multiple layers of conflict existing at any given moment and in every society.

Whereas Marx framed his view of conflict as one between owners and workers, Weber also added an emotional component to his ideas about conflict. Weber's beliefs about conflict extend beyond Marx's because they suggest that some forms of social interaction, including conflict, generate beliefs and solidarity between individuals and groups within a society. In this way, an individual's reactions to inequality might be different depending on the groups with which they are associated; whether they perceive those in power to be legitimate; and so on.

Conflict theorists of the later 20th and early 21st centuries have continued to extend conflict theory beyond the strict economic classes posited by Marx, although economic relations remain a core feature of the inequalities across groups in the various branches of conflict theory. Conflict theory is highly influential in modern and postmodern theories of sexual and racial inequality, peace and conflict studies, and the many varieties of identity studies that have arisen across Western academia in the past several decades.

Examples of Conflict Theory

Conflict theorists view the relationship between a housing complex owner and a tenant as being based mainly on conflict instead of balance or harmony, even though there may be more harmony than conflict. They believe that they are defined by getting whatever resources they can from each other.

In the above example, some of the limited resources that may contribute to conflicts between tenants and the complex owner include the limited space within the complex, the limited number of units, the money that tenants pay to the complex owner for rent, and so on. Ultimately, conflict theorists see this dynamic as one of conflict over these resources.

The complex owner, however gracious, is fundamentally focused on getting as many apartment units filled as possible so that they can make as much money in rent as possible, especially if bills such as mortgages and utilities must be covered. This may introduce conflict between housing complexes, among tenant applicants looking to move into an apartment, and so forth. On the other side of the conflict, the tenants themselves are looking to get the best apartment possible for the least amount of money in rent.

The financial crisis of 2008 and the subsequent bank bailouts are good examples of real-life conflict theory, according to authors Alan Sears and James Cairns in their book "A Good Book, in Theory." They view the financial crisis as the inevitable outcome of the inequalities and instabilities of the global economic system, which enable the largest banks and institutions to avoid government oversight and take huge risks that only reward a select few.

Sears and Cairns note that large banks and big businesses subsequently received bailout funds from the same governments that claimed to have insufficient funds for large-scale social programs such as universal healthcare. This dichotomy supports a fundamental assumption of conflict theory, which is that mainstream political institutions and cultural practices favor dominant groups and individuals.

This example illustrates that conflict can be inherent in all types of relationships, including those that don't appear on the surface to be antagonistic. It also shows that even a straightforward scenario can lead to multiple layers of conflict.

Conflict theory is a sociopolitical theory that is heavily associated with Karl Marx. It seeks to explain political and economic events in terms of an ongoing struggle over finite resources. In this struggle, Marx emphasizes the antagonistic relationship between social classes, in particular the relationship between the owners of capital—whom Marx calls the “bourgeoisie”—and the working class, whom he calls the “proletariat.” Conflict theory had a profound influence on 19th- and 20th-century thought and continues to influence political debates to this day.

What Are Some Common Criticisms of Conflict Theory?

One common criticism of conflict theory is that it fails to capture the way in which economic interactions can mutually benefit the different classes involved. For example, conflict theory describes the relationship between employers and employees as one of conflict, in which the employers wish to pay as little as possible for the employees' labor, while the employees wish to maximize their wages. In practice, however, employees and employers often have a harmonious relationship. Moreover, institutions such as pension plans and stock-based compensation can further blur the boundary between workers and corporations by giving workers an additional stake in the success of their employer.

Who Is Credited With Inventing Conflict Theory?

Philosophers and sociologists have long used conflict theory to analyze societies.

Marxist conflict theory refers to conflict theory as put forward by the 19th-century political philosopher, who led the development of communism as a school of thought in economics. Karl Marx’s two most famous works are The Communist Manifesto , which he published in 1848; and Das Kapital , published in 1867. Although he lived in the 19th century, Marx had a substantial influence on politics and economics in the 20th century and is generally considered one of history’s most influential and controversial thinkers.

University of North Carolina, Pembroke. " Social Work Theories ."

OpenEd CUNY. " Theoretical Perspectives on Society: Karl Marx and Conflict Theory. "

Stanford University, Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. " Karl Marx ."

OpenEd CUNY. " Theoretical Perspectives: Conflict Theory. "

University of Minnesota Duluth. " Sociological Theory: The Basics of Conflict Theory ."

Alan Sears and James Cairns. “ A Good Book, In Theory .” Pages 40-41. University of Toronto Press, 2015.

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Beyond Intractability

The Hyper-Polarization Challenge to the Conflict Resolution Field: A Joint BI/CRQ Discussion BI and the Conflict Resolution Quarterly invite you to participate in an online exploration of what those with conflict and peacebuilding expertise can do to help defend liberal democracies and encourage them live up to their ideals.

Follow BI and the Hyper-Polarization Discussion on BI's New Substack Newsletter .

Hyper-Polarization, COVID, Racism, and the Constructive Conflict Initiative Read about (and contribute to) the  Constructive Conflict Initiative  and its associated Blog —our effort to assemble what we collectively know about how to move beyond our hyperpolarized politics and start solving society's problems. 

By John Paul Lederach

Originally Published October 2003; "Current Implications" section added April 2017 by Heidi Burgess.  

Current Implications

This essay was written 14 years ago, but the concepts presented are just as relevant today as they were then and are particularly important as we try to figure out what to do with all the very intractable conflicts that are facing us. Resolution -- of the political conflicts in the US and Europe, of the violent identity conflicts in the Middle East and Africa, of the clashes over sovereignty and borders in Asia -- seems pretty much impossible. More...

Introduction[1]

I have been using the phrase "conflict transformation" since the late 1980s. I remember that timeframe because it came on the heels of intensive experience in Central America. When I arrived there my teaching vocabulary was filled with the terminology of conflict resolution and management. But I soon found that many of my Latin colleagues had questions, concerns, even suspicions about what such concepts meant.

Their worry was that quick solutions to deep social-political problems would not change things in any significant way. "Conflicts happen for a reason," they would say. "Is this resolution idea just another way to cover up the changes that are really needed?" Their concerns were consistent with my own experience.

The ideas that inform much of my work arise out of the Anabaptist-Mennonite religious framework. This framework emphasizes peace as embedded in justice, the building of right relationships and social structures through a radical respect for human rights , and nonviolence as way of life. In the course of my work in finding constructive responses to violent conflict, I became increasingly convinced that much of what I was doing was seeking constructive change. I recall that by the late 1980s I would talk about this work as a process of transformation .

However, this notion of transformation raised new questions. Despite its problems, the term "resolution" was more well-known and widely accepted in mainstream academic and political circles. "Transformation," on the other hand, was regarded by many as too value-laden, too idealistic, or too "new age." But for me, the term was accurate, scientifically sound, and clear in vision.

Conflict transformation is accurate because the core of my work is indeed about engaging myself in constructive change initiatives that include and go beyond the resolution of particular problems. It is scientifically sound because the writing and research about conflict converge in two common ideas: conflict is normal in human relationships and conflict is a motor of change. And transformation is clear in vision because it brings into focus the horizon toward which we journey, namely the building of healthy relationships and communities, both locally and globally. This process requires significant changes in our current ways of relating.

In this essay, I will engage a creative tension between the metaphors of resolution and transformation in order to sharpen understanding. However, this is not done to minimize or degrade the term "resolution" or the many individuals who creatively prefer it as the best prism for understanding their work. My purpose is to add a voice to the ongoing discussion and search for greater understanding and clarity in human relationships.

But the question remains, what is this transformation stuff? This essay is an attempt to share my understanding of conflict transformation as an orientation, an approach and a framework. It describes transformation as a lens and a strategy for approaching conflict.

The Lenses of Conflict Transformation

In common everyday settings we experience social conflict as a time when a disruption occurs in the "natural" discourse of our relationships. As conflict emerges , we stop and take notice that something is not right. The relationship in which the difficulty is arising becomes complicated, not easy and fluid as it once was. We no longer take things at face value, but rather spend greater time and energy to interpret what things mean. As our communication becomes more difficult, we find it harder and harder to express our perceptions and feelings. We also find it more difficult to understand what others are doing and saying, and may develop feelings of uneasiness and anxiety. This is often accompanied by a growing sense of urgency and frustration as the conflict progresses, especially if no end is in sight.

If someone uninvolved in the situation asks what the conflict is about, our initial explanations will typically be framed in terms of the specific issues the parties are dealing with. This is the content of the conflict, the immediate problems that must be resolved through problem solving and negotiation .

However, the transformational approach addresses this situation somewhat differently. This is because conflict transformation is more than a set of specific techniques. It is about a way of looking and seeing, and it provides a set of lenses through which we make sense of social conflict. These lenses draw our attention to certain aspects of conflict, and help us to bring the overall meaning of the conflict into sharper focus.

Before proceeding further, I should describe what I mean by a lens as a transformational tool. I recently purchased a set of glasses that have what are called progressive lenses. This means that in my eyeglasses I have three different lens types in the same frame. One lens helps bring into focus things at a great distance that would otherwise be a blur. A second brings objects that are at mid-range into a clear picture. The third helps me read a book or thread a fish line through a hook.

It is interesting to note three things about my new glasses and how they relate to a transformational view. First, if I try to use the close-up lens to see at a distance, the lens is counterproductive and useless. Each lens has its function and serves to bring a specific aspect of reality into focus. But when it brings that layer of reality in focus, other layers are placed in a blur. If you look through a camera with a telephoto lens or through a microscope at a slide of bacteria you can find this happening in dramatic fashion.

Second, no one lens is capable of bringing everything into focus. Rather, I need multiple lenses to see different aspects of a complex reality, and cannot rely exclusively on one lens to see the multiple layers of complexity.

Third, the three lenses are held together in a single frame. I need each of the different lenses to see a particular portion of reality, and I need them to be integrated to see the whole picture. Thus, we need lenses that help us address specific aspects of conflict as well as a framework that holds them together in order to see the conflict as a whole.

So what are useful lenses that bring varying aspects of conflict complexity into focus and at the same time create a picture of the whole? This essay will suggest three.

• First, we need a lens to see the immediate situation.
• Second, we need a lens to see past the immediate problems and view the deeper relationship patterns that form the context of the conflict. This goes beyond finding a quick solution to the problem at hand, and seeks to address what is happening in human relationships at a deeper level.
• Third, we need a lens that helps us envision a framework that holds these together and creates a platform to address the content, the context, and the structure of the relationship. From this platform, parties can begin to find creative responses and solutions.

Conflict Transformation: A Simple Definition

Although the definition is relatively short, its various components lend it a degree of complexity. To better understand conflict transformation, an explanation of each component is needed. Together, these components attempt to capture the attitudes and orientations we bring to creative conflict transformation, the starting point of such an approach, and the various change processes involved in such an approach.

To Envision and Respond : A transformational approach begins with two pro-active foundations: 1) a positive orientation toward conflict, and 2) a willingness to engage in the conflict in an effort to produce constructive change or growth. While conflict often produces long-standing cycles of hurt and destruction, the key to transformation is the capacity to envision conflict as having the potential for constructive change. Response, on the other hand, suggests a bias toward direct involvement and an increased understanding that comes from real-life experience. Both "envision" and "respond" represent the ways we orient ourselves toward the presence of conflict in our lives, relationships, and communities.

Ebb and Flow: Conflict is a natural part of relationships. While relationships are sometimes calm and predictable, at other times events and circumstances generate tensions and instability. A transformational view, rather than looking at isolated conflict episodes, seeks to understand how these particular episodes are embedded in the greater pattern of human relationships. Change is understood both at the level of immediate issues and the broader patterns of interaction.

Life-Giving Opportunities : On the one hand, this phrase suggests that life gives us conflict, and that conflict is a natural part of human experience and relationships. Rather than viewing conflict as a threat, the transformative view sees conflict as a valuable opportunity to grow and increases our understanding of ourselves and others. Conflict helps us stop, assess and take notice. Without it, life would be a monotonous flat topography of sameness and our relationships would be woefully superficial. This phrase also suggests that conflict creates life and keeps everything moving. It can be understood as a motor of change that keeps relationships and social structures dynamically responsive to human needs.

Constructive Change Processes : This notion emphasizes the capacity of the transformational approach to build new things. Conflict transformation begins with a central goal: to build constructive change out of the energy created by conflict. By focusing this energy on the underlying relationships and social structures, constructive changes can be brought about. The key here is to move conflict away from destructive processes and toward constructive ones. The primary task of conflict transformation is not to find quick solutions to immediate problems, but rather to generate creative platforms that can simultaneously address surface issues and change underlying social structures and relationship patterns.

Reduce Violence and Increase Justice : Transformation must be able to respond to life's on-the-ground challenges, needs, and realities. How do we address conflict in ways that reduce violence and increase justice in human relationships? To reduce violence we must address both the obvious issues and content of any given dispute and also their underlying patterns and causes. To increase justice we must ensure that people have access to political procedures and voice in the decisions that affect their lives.

Conflict transformation views peace as centered and rooted in the quality of relationships. This includes both face-to-face interactions and the ways in which we structure our social, political, economic, and cultural relationships. In this sense, peace is a "process-structure," a phenomenon that is simultaneously dynamic, adaptive, and changing. In essence, rather than seeing peace as a static "end-state," conflict transformation views peace as a continuously evolving and developing quality of relationship. It is defined by intentional efforts to address the natural rise of human conflict through nonviolent approaches that address issues and increase understanding, equality, and respect in relationships.

Direct Interaction and Social Structures: The above concerns about violence and justice suggest that we need to develop capacities to engage in change processes at the interpersonal, inter-group, and social-structural levels. One set of capacities points toward direct, face-to-face interaction between people or groups. The other set underscores the need to see, pursue, and create change in our ways of organizing social structures, from families, to complex bureaucracies, to structures at the global level. This requires a capacity to understand and sustain dialogue as a fundamental means of constructive change.

Indeed, many of the skill-based mechanisms that reduce violence are rooted in communicative capacities to exchange ideas, find common definitions, and move toward solutions. But dialogue also plays a crucial role in the maintenance or change of social structures. Through dialogue, these structures can be modified to be more responsive and just.

Human Relationships: Relationships are at the heart of conflict transformation.

Rather than concentrating exclusively on the content and substance of the dispute, the transformational approach suggests that the key to understanding conflict and developing creative change processes lies in seeing the less visible aspects of relationship . While the issues over which people fight are important and require creative response, relationships represent a web of connections that form the broader context of the conflict. It is out of this relationship context that particular issues arise and either become volatile or get quickly resolved.

Conflict and Change

Both conflict and change are a normal part of human life. Conflict is continuously present in human relationships, and the fabric of these relationships is constantly adapting and changing. Before discussing practical approaches to conflict transformation, it is important to better understand the link between conflict and change.

There are four central modes in which conflict impacts situations and changes things:

• the personal,
• the relational,
• the structural, and
• the cultural.[2]

In addition, we can think about these changes in response to two questions. First, from a descriptive view, what does conflict change? And second, from the standpoint of responding to conflict as it arises, what kind of changes do we seek? In the first arena, we are simply acknowledging the common patterns and impact of social conflict. In the second, we recognize the need to identify what our values and intentions may be as we actively seek to respond, intervene, and create change.

The personal dimension refers to changes effected in and desired for the individual. This includes the cognitive, emotional, perceptual, and spiritual aspects of human experience over the course of conflict. From a descriptive perspective, transformation suggests that individuals are affected by conflict in both negative and positive ways. For example, conflict affects our physical well-being, self-esteem, emotional stability, capacity to perceive accurately, and spiritual integrity. Prescriptively, (i.e., relating to what one should do) transformation represents deliberate intervention to minimize the destructive effects of social conflict and maximize its potential for individual growth at physical, emotional, and spiritual levels.

The relational dimension depicts the changes affected in and desired for the face-to-face relationships. Here issues of emotions, power, and interdependence, and the communicative and interactive aspects of conflict are central. Descriptively, transformation refers to how the patterns of communication and interaction in relationships are affected by conflict. It looks beyond visible issues to the underlying changes produced by conflict in how people perceive, what they pursue, and how they structure their relationships. Most significantly, social conflict makes explicit how close or distant people wish to be, how they will use and share power, what they perceive of themselves and each other, and what patterns of interaction they wish to have. Prescriptively, transformation represents intentional intervention to minimize poorly functioning communication and maximize mutual understanding. This includes efforts to bring to the surface in a more explicit manner the relational fears, hopes and goals of the people involved.

The structural dimension highlights the underlying causes of conflict, and stresses the ways in which social structures, organizations, and institutions are built, sustained, and changed by conflict. It is about the ways people build and organize social, economic, and institutional relationships to meet basic human needs and provide access to resources and decision-making. At the descriptive level transformation refers to the analysis of social conditions that give rise to conflict and the way that conflict affects social structural change in existing social, political and economic institutions.

At a prescriptive level, transformation represents efforts to provide insight into underlying causes and social conditions that create and foster violent expressions of conflict, and to promote nonviolent mechanisms that reduce adversarial interaction and minimize violence. Pursuit of this change fosters structures that meet basic human needs ( substantive justice ) and maximize people's participation in decisions that affect them ( procedural justice ).

The cultural dimension refers to the ways that conflict changes the patterns of group life as well as the ways that culture affects the development of processes to handle and respond to conflict. At a descriptive level, transformation seeks to understand how conflict affects and changes cultural patterns of a group, and how those accumulated and shared patterns affect the way people in a given context understand and respond to conflict. Prescriptively, transformation seeks to uncover the cultural patterns that contribute to violence in a given context, and to identify and build on existing cultural resources and mechanisms for handling conflict.

The Big Picture: Connecting Resolution and Transformation

Thus far we have discussed the concepts that make up the various components of conflict transformation. We now want to move from the concept of transformation to the practice of transformation. We must therefore establish an operative frame of reference for thinking about and developing the design of transformational approaches. Our starting point requires the development of an image of our purpose, or what I call the "big picture." Since intractable conflicts are usually quite complex, developing a "big picture" helps us to develop a purpose and direction. Without it, especially in the arena of intractable conflict, we can easily find ourselves responding to a myriad of issues without a clear understanding of what our responses add up to. We can solve lots of problems without necessarily creating any significant constructive social change at a deeper level.

Creating a Map for Conflict Transformation

It is common in the study of conflict to develop a map that helps us to engage in conflict assessment and analysis. Similarly, it is useful to have a map of what we mean by transformation. Figure 1 provides a shortcut overview of such a map, which can help us to visualize the development of a strategy to constructively transform conflict.

This transformational framework has three components, each of which represent a point of inquiry in the development of a response to conflict:

• the presenting situation,
• the horizon of preferred future, and
• the development of change processes linking the two.

The movement from the present toward the desired future is not a straight line, but rather a set of dynamic initiatives that set in motion change processes and create a sustained platform to pursue long-term change. Such a framework emphasizes the challenge of how to end something not desired and how to build something that is desired.

Inquiry 1: The Presenting Situation

The first point of inquiry is the presenting situation, the conflict episode that provides an opportunity to look both at the content of the dispute and the patterns of relationship in the context in which the dispute is expressed. This is graphically represented in Figure 1 as a set of embedded circles or spheres.

A transformational view raises two important questions: What are the immediate problems that need to be solved? What is the overall context that needs to be addressed in order to change destructive patterns? In other words, transformation views the presenting issues as an expression of the larger system of relationship patterns. It moves beyond the "episodic" expression of the conflict and focuses on the relational and historical patterns in which the conflict is rooted.

Put another way, presenting issues connect the present with the past. The patterns of how things have been in the past provide a context in which the issues in a dispute rise toward the surface. But while they create an opportunity to remember and recognize, presenting issues do not have the power to change what has already transpired. The potential for change lies in our ability to recognize, understand, and redress what has happened, and create new structures and ways of interacting in the future.

Inquiry 2: The Horizon of the Future

The second point of inquiry is the horizon of the future, the image of what we wish to create. It asks us to consider what we would ideally like to see in place.

However, this is not simply a model of linear change, in which there is movement from the present situation to the desired future. While the presenting issues act as an impetus toward change, the horizon of the future points toward possibilities of what could be constructed and built. It represents a social energy that informs and creates orientation. Thus, the arrow points not only forward to the future, but also back toward the immediate situation and the range of change processes that may emerge. This combination of arrows suggests that transformation is both a circular and a linear process, or what we will refer to here as a process structure .

Inquiry 3: The Development of Change Processes

The final major inquiry is the design and support of change processes . This broader component requires that we think about response to conflict as the development of change processes that attend to the web of interconnected needs, relationships, and patterns. Because the change processes should address both the immediate problems and the broader relational and structural patterns, we need to reflect on multiple levels and types of change rather than focusing on a single operational solution. Change processes must not only promote short-term solutions, but also build platforms capable of promoting long-term social change.

Taken as a whole, this big picture provides a lens that permits us to envision the possibilities of immediate response and longer-term constructive change. It requires a capacity to see through and beyond the presenting issues to the deeper patterns, while at the same time seeking creative responses that address real-life issues in real time. However, to more fully understand this approach we need to explore in greater depth how platforms for constructive change are conceptualized and developed as process structures.

Process Structures: Platforms for Transformation

We come now to the operational side of transformation. The key challenge is how to support and sustain a platform with a capacity to adapt and generate ongoing desired change while at the same time responding creatively to immediate needs. To engage this challenge we have to think about platforms as process structures.

In modern physics, process structures are natural phenomena that are dynamic, adaptive and changing, and yet at the same time sustain a functional and recognizable form and structure.[3] Margaret Wheately refers to them as "things that maintain form over time yet have no rigidity of structure."[4] The two terms that make up this term, "process" and "structure," point to two interdependent characteristics: adaptability and purpose. Transformational change processes must feature both of these characteristics. They must be both linear and circular.

In simple terms, linear means that things move from one point to the next in a straight line. It is associated with a rational-logical understanding of events in terms of cause and effect. However, in the social arena, events are likely moving along broad directions not always visible from a short-term perspective. In this arena, a linear perspective asks us to stand back and take a look at the overall direction of social conflict and the change we seek. It requires us to articulate how we think things are related and how movement is created. Specifically, it asks us to look at the patterns of interaction, not just the immediate experience, and understand the changes in these broad patterns.

Circular understanding suggests that we need to think carefully about how social change actually develops. This notion of circularity underscores some defining elements of transformational change processes. First, it reminds us that things are connected and in relationship. Second, it suggests that the growth of something often "nourishes" itself from its own process and dynamic. In other words, it operates as a feedback loop. Third, and most critical to our inquiry, an emphasis on circularity makes it clear that processes of change are not unidirectional. Figure 2 represents change as a circle, featuring four experiences common to those in the midst of a difficult conflict.

• There are times when we feel as if desired change is happening. Things move forward and progress, and what we hope to build seems to be in sight.
• At other times, we feel as if we have reached an impasse or "hit a wall." Nothing is happening or all pathways forward seemed blocked.
• Sometimes we feel as if the change processes are going backwards, and what has been achieved is being undone. In worst-case scenarios we hear language like, "In a single stroke, years of work have been set back." Common to the change process is the feeling that we are "swimming against the tide" or headed upstream.
• Finally, we sometimes feel like we are living through a complete breakdown. It seems as if everything is falling apart and collapsing. These periods tend to be deeply depressing, and are often accompanied by the repeated echoes of "we have to start from ground zero."

All of these experiences are integral parts of the change process and provide us with some important insights about change. First, no one point in time determines the broader pattern. Rather, change encompasses different sets of patterns and directions. Second, we should be cautious about going forward too quickly. Sometimes going back may create more innovative ways forward, and falling down may create new opportunities to build. Third, we should be aware that life is never static and that we must constantly adapt.

Figure 3 represents a simple process structure, which features a web of dynamic circles that create an overall momentum and direction. One might think of this as a rotini, a spiral made up of multi-directional internal patterns that create a common overall movement. It features both the purpose associated with linearity and the feedback loops associated with circularity.

The key to create a platform for transformation in the midst of social conflict lies in holding together a healthy dose of both circular and linear perspectives. A transformational platform is essentially this: The building of an on-going and adaptive base at the epicenter of conflict from which it is possible to generate processes that create solutions to short-term needs and provide a capacity to work on strategic long-term constructive change in systemic relational context.

We can visualize this idea in Figure 4 by adding to our process-structure the rising escalation of conflict episodes. In order to understand a transformational platform, we need to visualize the idea of an on-going base from which processes can be generated. The escalation of conflict creates opportunity to establish and sustain this base. From the transformational view, developing a process to provide a solution to the presenting problem is important but not the key. Central to transformation is building a base that generates processes that 1) provide adaptive responses to the immediate and future iterations of conflict episodes, and 2) address the deeper and longer-term relational and systemic patterns that produce violent, destructive expressions of conflict.

In other words, a conflict-transformation platform must be short-term responsive and long-term strategic. The defining characteristic of such a platform is the capacity to generate and re-generate change processes responsive to both immediate episodes and the relational context. It is in this way an adaptive process-structure, one that can produce creative solutions to a variety of problems.

Practices For Transformational Strategies

In earlier sections, I described conflict transformation as a set of lenses that combine to create a way to look at social conflict and develop responses. Here I explore how to make this framework applicable by outlining several core practices that are useful in addressing social conflict from a transformational approach.

Practice 1: Develop a capacity to see presenting issues as a window

A transformational approach relies on a capacity to see the immediate situation without being overwhelmed by the demands of presenting issues, the urgency that pushes for a quick solution, and the anxieties that often develop as conflict escalates. The pursuit of broader transformational goals requires us to look beyond the immediate problems and to see these issues as a window. Just as we look through the glass, focusing our attention on what lies beyond the window, we look through the immediate issues to discover the relational context and the underlying causes of conflict. This is what some authors have called the capacity to see the difference between content of a conflict and its emotional and relational context.[5]

Practice 2: Develop a capacity to integrate multiple time frames

Approaching the immediate situation as a window also involves the ability to think about change without being constrained by a short-term view of time. This is not to say that short-term perspectives are never appropriate. The key is the ability to recognize the needs of multiple time frames and create strategies that integrate short-term response with long-term change. Addressing immediate episodes and broader relationship patterns requires processes with different time frames. Processes that will be effective in one case are not likely to be effective in another. For the transformation-oriented practitioner, the key capacity is an ability to recognize what sorts of processes and time frames may be needed to address the different kinds of change.

Practice 3: Develop a capacity to pose the energies of conflict as dilemmas

Posing conflicts as dilemmas involves shifting from an either/or frame of reference to a both/and frame of reference. In settings of sustained violence, we sometimes face what appear to be impossible decisions that involve outright contradictions. For example, those of us working in relief and aid agencies in Somalia in the early 1990s struggled with choices about where to put our energies and responses when none of the apparent options seemed adequate. Should we send food and relief aid even though we know armed groups will take advantage of it to continue the war, or should we not send food but then feel helpless about the enormous humanitarian plight? Far too often how we framed our questions limited our strategies. Framing choices in rigid either/or terms made it difficult to handle complexity .

A shift in thinking emerged when we reframed our questions to reflect the legitimacy of different but not incompatible goals. Rather than accepting a frame of reference that posed our situation as choosing between one important goal or another, we reframed the questions in terms of interdependent goals. How can we build capacities for peace in this setting and at the same time create responsive mechanisms for the delivery of humanitarian aid? The formula is this: How can we address "A" and at the same time build "B"? This way of formulating the question creates a capacity to recognize different but interdependent aspects of a complex situation and develop integrative responses. The capacity to reframe conflict in this way enables us to more clearly identify our goals and seek innovative options for action.

Practice 4: Develop a capacity to make complexity a friend, not a foe

In conflicts, especially when there has been a long history of patterns and episodes that were not constructively addressed, people feel overwhelmed. It may seem that that situation is just too complicated, that there are too many things going on to even try to explain it. At times of escalated conflict, complexity describes a situation in which we feel forced to live with multiple and competing frames of reference about what things mean. We are also faced with lots of things happening at multiple levels, between different sets of people, all at the same time. This often leads to a sense of ambiguity, which produces three feelings: we feel insecure about what it all means, we are not sure where it is going, and we feel as if we have little or no control over what happens. This often leads people to seek escape or to find a quick solution.

But in order to constructively deal with complexity, we must make it a friend rather than a foe and recognize its potential for building desired change. One of the great advantages of complexity is that change is not tied exclusively to one thing, action or option. The first key is to trust the capacity of systems to generate options and avenues for change. Second, we must pursue those options that appear to hold the greatest promise for constructive change. Third, we must not lock rigidly onto to one idea or approach. The potential avenues of change generated in complex systems are numerous. Complexity is especially a friend when cycles and episodes of conflict seem to narrow toward the same outcomes every time. It is here that paying careful attention to the multiplicity of options can create new ways to look at old patterns.

Practice 5: Develop a capacity to hear and engage the voice of identity and relationship

We have mentioned time and again the need to look for and see the patterns in the context that underpin the presenting situation. This involves an ability to recognize and then develop response processes that engage the deeper core of the conflict. Two central "root causes" of social conflict are identity and relationship.

Identity is best understood as a relational dynamic that is constantly being redefined. It is not primarily about negotiating an agreement to solve a material problem, but rather is about protecting a sense of self and group survival. While it is rarely explicitly addressed, identity shapes and moves the expression of conflict. At the deepest level it is lodged in the narratives of how people see themselves, who they are, where they come from, and what they fear they will become. It is also deeply rooted in their relationships with others.

A central challenge for transformation is how to create spaces and processes that encourage people to address and articulate a positive sense of identity in relationship to others but not in reaction to them. This can be accomplished in three ways.

• First, be attentive to language, metaphors, and expressions that signal the distresses of identity. In order to deal with core issues of identity, one must acknowledge them as issues.
• Second, move toward appeals to identity rather than away from them. Acknowledge that the conflict requires a process that more explicitly addresses issues of identity and relationship. Generating solutions to immediate problems is not enough.
• Third, design transformation processes as dynamic platforms that create repeating patterns of exchange and exploration rather than produce immediate negotiated solutions.

Three guiding principles that characterize this process of exchange and exploration: honesty, iterative (i.e. repeating and cumulative) learning, and appropriate exchange .

• First, we should work toward the creation of spaces where people feel safe enough to be deeply honest with themselves and others about their fears, hopes, hurts and responsibilities. Honesty reflects parties' sense of safety and builds trust .
• Second, we must create multiple points of access and repetitive examination for addressing identity. The negotiation and definition of identity is a complex process that requires processes of interaction with others as well as inner reflection about self. Identity work is not a one-time decision-making process, but rather an ongoing learning process about self and other. This requires an iterative platform for addressing identity concerns within a framework of broader constructive change.
• Third, appropriate exchange calls attention to the need to design work on identity in ways that respect people. Beyond direct face-to-face dialogue , there are many ways that learning and deepening understanding about identity and relationship can occur. This includes dialogue-as-music, dialogue-as-sport, and dialogue-as-shared-work to preserve old city centers, parks and mountains. All of these may do more than traditional dialogue to advance learning and understanding.

In addition, it is important to be attentive to people's perceptions of how identity is linked to power and the definition of the systems and structures that organize and govern their relationships. This is particularly important for people who feel their identity is eroded, marginalized or under deep threat. When addressing identity-based concerns, processes must strive to understand the roots of people's perceptions and address the systemic changes needed to assure access and respectful participation.

Conclusions

The lenses of conflict transformation focus on the potential for constructive change emergent from and catalyzed by the rise of social conflict. Because the potential for broader change is inherent in any episode of conflict, from personal to structural levels, the lenses can easily be applied to a wide range of conflicts.

A key advantage to this framework lies in its capacity to think about multiple avenues of response. To use our earlier comparison, we suggested that transformation builds on and integrates the contribution and strengths of conflict-resolution approaches. A transformational approach inquires about both the specifics, immediately apparent in the episode of conflict, as well as the potential for broader constructive and desired change.

Clearly there are arenas in which transformation is limited and a quick and direct resolution of the problem is more appropriate. In disputes where parties need a quick and final solution to a problem and do not have a significant relationship, they typically appeal to negotiation and mediation . In such cases the exploration of relational and structural patterns are of limited value. For example, a one-time business dispute over a payment between two people who hardly know each other and will never have contact again is not a context to explore a transformational application.

However, in cases where parties share an extensive past and have the potential for significant future relationships, and where the episodes arise in an organizational, community or broader social context, simple resolution approaches may be too narrow. Though they may solve the immediate problems, they miss the greater potential for constructive change. This is even more significant in contexts where there are repeated and deep-rooted cycles of conflict episodes that have created destructive and violent patterns. In such cases, avenues to promote transformational change should be pursued.

Conflict transformation places before us some big questions: Where are we headed? Why do we do this work? What are we hoping to contribute and build? Increasingly, I am convinced that those in the alternative dispute-resolution field and the vast majority of people and communities who wish to find more constructive ways to address conflict in their lives were drawn to the perspectives and practices of conflict resolution because they wanted change. They wanted human societies to move from violent and destructive patterns toward the potential for creative, constructive and nonviolent capacities to deal with human conflict. This means replacing patterns of violence and coercion with respect, creative problem-solving, increased dialogue , and nonviolent mechanisms of social change. To accomplish this, a complex web of change processes under-girded by a transformational understanding of life and relationship is needed.

This essay was written 14 years ago, but the concepts presented are just as relevant today as they were then and are particularly important as we try to figure out what to do with all the very intractable conflicts that are facing us. Resolution -- of the political conflicts in the US and Europe, of the violent identity conflicts in the Middle East and Africa, of the clashes over sovereignty and borders in Asia -- seems pretty much impossible. Transformation of the conflicts from destructive to less so, perhaps even to constructive engagements is certainly more feasible and much better than "giving up."

Note also Lederach's use of "multiple lenses" and multiple "change strategies."  Both are essential parts of dealing with the complexity of today's very complex and rapidly changing conflict landscapes.  Rather than becoming outdated, I would argue that this conflict transformation approach is needed even more now than when this essay was originally written.  --Heidi Burgess, Feb. 2017

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[1] This essay is an excerpt from John Paul Lederach's book "The Little Book of Conflict Transformation, published by Good Books, 2003. Conflict Research Consortium graduate student Michelle Maise condensed the 70+ pages of material in the original draft of that manuscript (with John Paul's and the publisher's permission) into this essay.

[2] See Preparing for Peace (Syracuse University Press, 1995) and Building Peace (US Institute of Peace Press, 1999).

[3] See Margaret Wheatley's discussion of this in reference to learning organizations in Leadership and the New Sciences , San Francisco: Barrett-Koehler, Publishers, 1994.

[4] Wheately, 1994:16.

[5] See Hocker and Wilmot's discussion of content and relationship in Interpersonal Conflict or Edwin Friedman's discussion of anxiety, emotional process and symptomatic content in Generation to Generation .

Use the following to cite this article: Lederach, John Paul. "Conflict Transformation." Beyond Intractability . Eds. Guy Burgess and Heidi Burgess. Conflict Information Consortium, University of Colorado, Boulder. Posted: October 2003 < http://www.beyondintractability.org/essay/transformation >.

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Article contents

Conflict management.

• Patricia Elgoibar , Patricia Elgoibar University of Barcelona
• Martin Euwema Martin Euwema Katholieke Universiteit Leuven
•  and  Lourdes Munduate Lourdes Munduate University of Seville
• https://doi.org/10.1093/acrefore/9780190236557.013.5
• Published online: 28 June 2017

Conflicts are part of nature and certainly part of human relations, between individuals, as well as within and between groups. Conflicts occur in every domain of life: family, work, and society, local and global. Conflict management, therefore, is an essential competency for each person. People differ largely in their emotional and behavioral responses to conflict and need to learn how to behave effectively in different conflict situations. This requires a contingency approach, first assessing the conflict situation, and then choosing a strategy, matching the goals of the party. In most situations, fostering cooperative relations will be most beneficial; however, this is also most challenging. Therefore, constructive conflict management strategies, including trust building and methods of constructive controversy, are emphasized. Conflict management, however, is broader than the interaction of the conflicting parties. Third-party interventions are an essential element of constructive conflict management, particularly the assessment of which parties are intervening in what ways at what escalation stage.

• cooperation
• competition
• conflict behavior
• conglomerate conflict behavior
• constructive conflict management
• conflict resolution strategies

Definition of Conflict

Conflicts are part of nature, and certainly part of human relations. People experience conflict with other persons, in teams or in groups, as well as between larger entities, departments, organizations, communities, and countries. Conflicts appear at home, at work, and in our spare-time activities with friends, with people we love and with people we hate, as well as with our superiors and with our subordinates and coworkers. Parties need to accept conflicts as part of life dynamics and learn to deal with them effectively and efficiently. Conflict management refers to the way we manage incompatible actions with others, where others can be a person or a group.

Conflict is a component of interpersonal interactions; it is neither inevitable nor intrinsically bad, but it is commonplace (Coleman, Deutsch, & Marcus, 2014 ; Schellenberg, 1996 ). In the 20th century , Lewin ( 1935 ) concluded that an intrinsic state of tension motivates group members to move toward the accomplishment of their desired common goals. Later on, Parker Follett ( 1941 ) explored the constructive side of conflict and defined conflict as the appearance of difference, difference of opinions or difference of interests. Deutsch ( 1949 ) developed this line of thought and analyzed the relation between the way group members believe their goals are related and their interactions and relationships.

A common definition of conflict argues that there is a conflict between two (or more) parties (individuals or groups) if at least one of them is offended, or feels bothered by the other (Van de Vliert, 1997 ; Wall & Callister, 1995 ). Traditionally, conflict has been defined as opposing interests involving scarce resources and goal divergence and frustration (Pondy, 1967 ). However, Deutsch ( 1973 ) defined conflict as incompatible activities: one person's actions interfere, obstruct, or in some way get in the way of another's action. Tjosvold, Wan, and Tang ( 2016 ) proposed that defining conflict as incompatible actions is a much stronger foundation than defining conflict as opposing interests, because conflicts also can occur when people have common goals (i.e., they may disagree about the best means to achieve their common goals). The key contribution of Deutsch’s ( 1973 ) proposal is that incompatible activities occur in both compatible and incompatible goal contexts. Whether the protagonists believe their goals are cooperative or competitive very much affects their expectations, interaction, and outcomes as they approach conflict (Tjosvold et al., 2016 ).

Characteristics of Conflict

Euwema and Giebels ( 2017 ) highlighted some key elements of conflict.

Conflict implies dependence and interdependence. Parties rely to some extent on the other parties to realize their goals (Kaufman, Elgoibar, & Borbely, 2016 ). This interdependence can be positive (a cooperative context), negative (a competitive context), or mixed. Positive interdependence is strongly related to cooperative conflict behaviors, while negative interdependence triggers competitive behaviors (Johnson & Johnson, 2005 ). Interdependence also reflects the power difference between parties. A short-term contractor on a low-paid job usually is much more dependent on the employer than vice versa. Many conflicts, however, can be seen as “mixed motive” situations.

Conflicts are mostly mixed motive situations because parties have simultaneous motives to cooperate and motives to compete. Parties are, on the one hand, dependent on each other to realize their goal, and, on the other hand, they are at the same time competitors. For example, two colleagues on a team are cooperating for the same team result; however, there is competition for the role as project leader. In a soccer team, the players have a team goal of working together to win, but they can be competing to be the top scorer. The mixed motive structure is very important to understand conflict dynamics. When conflicts arise, the competitive aspects become more salient, and the cooperative structure often is perceived less by parties. Interventions to solve conflict, therefore, are often related to these perceptions and the underlying structures.

Conflict is a psychological experience. Conflict is by definition a personal and subjective experience, as each individual can perceive and manage the same conflict in a different manner. Conflict doesn’t necessarily have an objective basis (Van de Vliert, 1997 ). It depends on the perception of the specific situation, and the perception is by definition subjective and personal.

Conflict concerns cognitive and affective tension. When someone perceives blocked goals and disagreements, he or she can also, although not necessarily, feel fear or anger. Many authors consider that conflict is emotionally charged (Nair, 2007 ; Pondy, 1967 ; Sinaceur, Adam, Van Kleef, & Galinky, 2013 ), although the emotion doesn’t need to be labeled necessarily as a negative emotion. Some people actually enjoy conflict. Emotional experiences in conflict are also scripted by cultural, historical, and personal influences (Lindner, 2014 ).

Conflict can be unidirectional. One party can feel frustrated or thwarted by the other while the second party is hardly aware of, and doesn’t perceive the same reality of, the conflict.

Conflict is a process. Conflict is a dynamic process that does not appear suddenly, but takes some time to develop and passes through several stages (Spaho, 2013 ). Conflict is the process resulting from the tension in interpersonal interactions or between team members because of real or perceived differences (De Dreu & Weingart, 2003 ; Thomas, 1992 ; Wall & Callister, 1995 ).

Type of Conflict: Task, Process, and Relationship Conflict

Early conflict and organizational research concluded that conflict interferes with team performance and reduces satisfaction due to an increase in tension and distraction from the objective (Brown, 1983 ; Hackman & Morris, 1975 ; Pondy, 1967 ; Wall & Callister, 1995 ). Jehn ( 1995 ) differentiated between task and relational conflict, and later also included process conflict (De Wit, Greer, & Jehn, 2012 ). Task conflict refers to different opinions on content (Jehn & Mannix, 2001 ). Examples of task conflict are conflict about distribution of resources, about procedures and policies, and judgment and interpretation of facts (De Dreu & Weingart, 2003 ). Process conflict refers to how tasks should be accomplished (Jehn, Greer, Levine, & Szulanski, 2008 ). Examples are disagreements about logistic and delegation issues (Jehn et al., 2008 ). Finally, relationship conflict refers to “interpersonal incompatibility” (Jehn, 1995 , p. 257). Examples of relationship conflict are conflict about personal taste, political preferences, values, and interpersonal style (De Dreu & Weingart, 2003 ). All three types of conflict—task, process, and personal (relational) conflicts—are usually disruptive, especially personal conflict, which is highly disruptive (De Dreu & Weingart, 2003 ; Jehn, 1995 , 1997 ). A review and meta-analysis by De Wit et al. ( 2012 ) showed that, under specific conditions, task conflict can be productive for teams. Moreover, conflict can wreck a team’s efforts to share information and reach a consensus (Amason & Schweiger, 1994 ). Therefore, research supporting the benefit of task and relationship conflict is not conclusive and each situation varies. What seems to be clear is that managing conflict efficiently to avoid escalation is a priority for teams.

Conflict Behavior, Conflict Management, and Conflict Resolution

Conflict behavior, conflict management, and conflict resolution are different layers of a conflict process and therefore should be distinguished. Conflict behavior is any behavioral response to the experience of frustration, while conflict management is the deliberate action to deal with conflictive situations, both to prevent or to escalate them. Also, conflict management is differentiated from conflict resolution, which is specific action aimed to end a conflict.

Conflict Behavior

Conflict behavior is the behavioral response to the experience of conflict (Van de Vliert et al., 1995 ). Conflict behavior is defined as one party’s reaction to the perception that one’s own and the other party’s current aspiration cannot be achieved simultaneously (Deutsch, 1973 ; Pruitt, 1981 ; Rubin, Pruitt, & Kim, 1994 ). It is both what people experiencing conflict intend to do, as well as what they actually do (De Dreu, Evers, Beersma, Kluwer, & Nauta, 2001 ; Van de Vliert, 1997 ). In conflict situations people often respond primarily, following their emotions, more or less conscientiously.

Many factors affect how people respond to the experience of conflict. Social psychology shows the processes are largely unconscious (Wilson, 2004 ). For example, how people respond to intimidating behavior by their supervisor might be primarily influenced by the context and individual perception, as well as previous relations with persons in authority, including parents and teachers (Gelfand & Brett, 2004 ; Van Kleef & Cote, 2007 ). These natural behavioral responses are also referred to as “conflict styles.” They are rooted in our personality and can differ in context. Some people will naturally respond by being friendly and accommodating, where others will start arguing or fighting (Barbuto, Phipps, & Xu, 2010 ; Kilmann & Thomas, 1977 ; Van Kleef & Cote, 2007 ).

Conflict behavior becomes more effective once we are more aware of our natural tendencies and are also able not to act upon them, and instead to show flexibility in behavioral approaches. This is where conflict behavior becomes conflict management. Therefore, one can be a naturally highly accommodating person who will spontaneously give in to others who make demands, but one will be more effective after learning to assess the situation at hand and to carefully decide on a response, which might be quite different from the natural or spontaneous reaction.

Dual-Concern Model

The dual-concern model holds that the way in which parties handle conflicts can de described and is determined by two concerns: concern for self (own interests) and concern for others (relational interests) (Blake & Mouton, 1964 ; Pruitt & Rubin, 1986 ; Rahim, 1983 ; Thomas, 1992 ; Van de Vliert, 1999 ) (see Figure 1 ). Usually, the two concerns define five different conflict behaviors: forcing, avoiding, accommodating, compromising, and problem solving or integrating. These behaviors are studied at the level of general personal conflict styles, closely connected to personality, as well as at the level of strategies and tactics (Euwema & Giebels, 2017 ).

The different conflict styles have been studied intensively, with three approaches. A normative approach, wherein integrating (also known as problem solving) is seen as the preferred behavior for conflict resolution; a contingency approach, exploring conditions under which each of the behaviors is most appropriate; and a conglomerate approach, focusing on a combination of the behaviors (see “ Conglomerate Conflict Behavior ”).

Figure 1. Dual-concern model.

In forcing, one party aims to achieve his or her goal by imposing a solution onto the other party. Concern for one’s own interests and own vision is what matters. There is little attention and care for the interests and needs of the other party, or the relationship with the other (Euwema & Giebels, 2017 ). This style is appropriate when the outcome is important for one party but trivial to the opponent, or when fast decision making is necessary. It becomes inappropriate when issues are complex, when both parties are equally powerful, when the outcome is not worth the effort for one party, or when there is enough time to make a collective decision. Moreover, forcing decisions can seriously damage a relationship and contribute to bullying in the workplace (Baillien, Bollen, Euwema, & De Witte, 2014 ); however, normative forcing, which is referring to rules and imposing them, can be effective (De Dreu, 2005 ). Note that some alternative terms that have been used for forcing in the literature are competitive , contending , or adversarial behavior .

With avoiding, one party aims to stay out of any confrontation with the other. This behavior prevents efforts to yield, to negotiate constructively, or to compete for one’s own gains. The conflict issue receives little attention, usually because the avoiding party thinks he or she won’t gain from entering into the conflict (Euwema & Giebels, 2017 ; Van de Vliert, 1997 ). Avoiding may be used when the benefits of resolving the conflict are not worth confronting the other party, especially when the problem is trivial or minor; when no good solutions are available for now; or when time is needed (Van Erp et al., 2011 ). An important motive for avoiding also is to prevent loss of face and to maintain the relationship. This is particularly true in collectivistic cultures, particularly in Asian societies (Oetzel et al., 2001 ). Avoiding is inappropriate when the issues are important to a party, when the parties cannot wait, or when immediate action is required (Rahim, 2002 ). Rubin, Pruitt, and Kim ( 1994 ) distinguished between long-term avoidance, which is a permanent move to leave the conflict, and short-term avoidance, defined as temporary inaction.

Accommodating

Accommodating is giving in or going along with the ideas, wishes, and needs of the other party. Accommodating usually is the result of a low concern for one’s own conflictive interests combined with a high concern for the interests and needs of the other party. Giving in often is related to a strong need for harmony and a sensitivity to the needs of the other. Accommodation is useful when a party is not familiar with the issues involved in the conflict, when the opponent is right, when the issue is much more important to the other party, and in order to build or maintain a long-term relationship, in exchange for future consideration when needed. Giving in also can be an educational strategy, giving space to the other to find out what the effect will be. Accommodating is less appropriate when the issue is of great concern, when accommodation creates frustration, or when accommodation reinforces dynamics of exploitation (Spaho, 2013 ). Note that an alternative term for this concept that can be found in the literature is yielding .

Compromising

Compromising involves searching for a middle ground, with an eye on both one’s own interest and the interest of the other. The premise is that both parties must find a middle ground where everyone receives equal consideration, meaning that each party makes some concession (Van de Vliert, 1997 ). Compromising is appropriate when a balance of forces exists and the goals of parties are mutually exclusive (Buddhodev, 2011 ). Compromise leads to a democratic solution; however, it may prevent arriving at a creative solution to the problem and a limited effort to increase resources before distributing them (Spaho, 2013 ).

Problem Solving or Integrating

Problem solving is a win–win strategy aimed at “optimizing rather than satisfying the parties” (Van de Vliert, 1997 , p. 36). Great value is attached to one’s own interests and vision, but also a lot of attention is given to the needs, ideas, and interests of the other. One looks for open and creative solutions that meet both interests. Problem solving or integrating is useful in dealing with complex issues, and it allows both parties to share skills, information, and other resources to redefine the problem and formulate alternative solutions. It is, however, inappropriate when the task is simple or trivial, and when there is no time. Also, it is more difficult to develop when the other party does not have experience in problem solving or when the parties are unconcerned about the outcomes (Pruitt & Rubin, 1986 ). Note that some alternative terms that can be found in the literature for this concept are cooperation and collaboration .

The dual-concern model is used as a contingency model, describing which conflict behaviors are used best under what conditions (Van de Vliert et al., 1997 ), and also as a normative model, promoting integrating behaviors as the most effective style, particularly when it comes to joined outcomes and long-term effectiveness. Forcing, in contrast, is often described as a noncooperative behavior, with risk of escalated and unilateral outcomes (Blake & Mouton, 1964 ; Burke, 1970 ; Deutsch, 1973 ; Fisher & Ury, 1981 ; Pruitt & Rubin, 1986 ; Rahim, 2010 ; Thomas, 1992 ). As a result, authors define forcing and integrating as two opposed behavioral approaches (Tjosvold, Morishima, & Belsheim, 1999 ). Following this model, many scholars during the 1970s and 1980s proposed that individuals use a single behavior in conflict, or that the behaviors should be seen as independent. Therefore, the antecedents and effects of different conflict behaviors are often analyzed separately (Tjosvold, 1997 ; Volkema & Bergmann, 2001 ). However, parties usually try to achieve personal outcomes, and try to reach mutual agreements by combining several behaviors in a conflict episode (Van de Vliert, 1997 ). This is the basic assumption of the conglomerate conflict behavior (CCB) theory (Van de Vliert, Euwema, & Huismans, 1995 ), which established that conflict behaviors are used in a compatible manner, sequentially or simultaneously.

Conglomerate Conflict Behavior (CCB)

In the dual-concern model, a contrast is made between forcing (contending with an adversary in a direct way) and integrating (reconciling the parties’ basic interests) as two opposed behavioral approaches (Tjosvold et al., 1999 ). However, the CCB framework assumes that individual reactions to conflict typically are complex and consist of multiple components of behavior (Van de Vliert, 1997 , Van de Vliert et al., 1995 ). The CCB theory covers the idea that behavioral components may occur simultaneously or sequentially and that the combination drives toward effectiveness (Euwema & Van Emmerik, 2007 ; Medina & Benitez, 2011 ). The theory has been supported in studies analyzing conflict management effectiveness in different contexts, such as in managerial behavior (Munduate, Ganaza, Peiro, & Euwema, 1999 ), in military peacekeeping (Euwema & Van Emmerik, 2007 ) and by worker representatives in organizations (Elgoibar, 2013 ).

The main reason that people combine different behaviors is because conflicts are often mixed-motive situations (Euwema, Van de Vliert, & Bakker, 2003 ; Euwema & Van Emmerik, 2007 ; Walton & McKersie, 1965 ). Mixed-motive situations are described as situations that pose a conflict between securing immediate benefits through competition, and pursuing benefits for oneself and others through cooperation with other people (Komorita & Parks, 1995 ; Sheldon & Fishbach, 2011 ). Therefore, a person's behavior in a conflict episode is viewed as a combination of some of the five forms of conflict behaviors. An example of sequential complex behavior is to first put the demands clearly (forcing), followed by integrating (searching for mutual gains, and expanding the pie), and finally compromising, where distributive issues are dealt with in a fair way. An example of serial complexity can be found in multi-issue conflict, when for some issues conflict can be avoided, while for high priorities, demands are put on the table in a forcing way. Another CCB pattern is the conglomeration of accommodating and forcing. This pattern is sometimes referred to as “logrolling” (Van de Vliert, 1997 , p. 35), and it is a classic part of integrative strategies, to maximize the outcomes for both parties. Logrolling behavior consists of accommodating the high-concern issues of the other party and forcing one’s own high-concern issues. This approach is usually helpful in multi-issue trade negotiations; however, it requires openness of both parties to acknowledging key interests.

How to Explore Your Tendency in Conflict

The most famous and popular conflict behavior questionnaires are:

MODE (Management of Differences Exercise). MODE, developed in 1974 by Thomas and Killman, presents 30 choices between two options representing different conflict styles.

ROCI (Rahim's Organizational Conflict Inventory). The ROCI is a list of 28 items that measures the five styles of conflict behavior described.

Dutch Test of Conflict Handling. This list of 20 items measures the degree of preference for the five styles (Van de Vliert & Euwema, 1994 ; De Dreu et al., 2001 , 2005 ). It has been validated internationally.

Conflict management is deliberate action to deal with conflictive situations, either to prevent or to escalate them. Unlike conflict behavior, conflict management encompasses cognitive responses to conflict situations, which can vary from highly competitive to highly cooperative. Conflict management does not necessarily involve avoidance, reduction, or termination of conflict. It involves designing effective strategies to minimize the dysfunctions of conflict and to enhance the constructive functions of conflict in order to improve team and organizational effectiveness (Rahim, 2002 ).

Conflicts are not necessarily destructive (De Dreu & Gelfand, 2008 ; Euwema, Munduate, Elgoibar, Pender, & Garcia, 2015 ), and research has shown that constructive conflict management is possible (Coleman, Deutsch, & Marcus, 2014 ). The benefits of conflict are much more likely to arise when conflicts are discussed openly, and when discussion skillfully promotes new ideas and generates creative insights and agreements (Coleman et al., 2014 ; De Dreu & Gelfand, 2008 ; Euwema et al., 2015 ; Tjosvold, Won, & Chen, 2014 ). To make a constructive experience from conflict, conflict needs to be managed effectively.

Deutsch’s classic theory of competition and cooperation describes the antecedents and consequences of parties’ cooperative or competitive orientations and allows insights into what can give rise to constructive or destructive conflict processes (Deutsch, 1973 , 2002 ). The core of the theory is the perceived interdependence of the parties, so that the extent that protagonists believe that their goals are cooperative (positively related) or competitive (negatively related) affects their interaction and thus the outcomes. Positive interdependence promotes openness, cooperative relations, and integrative problem solving. Perceived negative interdependence on the other hand, induces more distance and less openness, and promotes competitive behavior, resulting in distributive bargaining or win–lose outcomes (Tjosvold et al., 2014 ).

Whether the protagonists believe their goals are cooperative or competitive very much affects their expectations, interactions, and outcomes. If parties perceive that they can reach their goals only if the other party also reaches their goals, the goal interdependence is positively perceived and therefore parties will have higher concern for the other’s goals and manage the conflict cooperatively (De Dreu et al., 2001 ; Tjosvold et al., 2014 ). On the contrary, if one party perceives that they can reach their goals only if the other party fails to obtain their goals, the interdependence becomes negatively perceived and the approach to conflict becomes competitive (Tjosvold et al., 2014 ). Goals can also be independent; in that case, conflict can be avoided (the parties don’t need to obstruct each other’s goals to be successful). Therefore, how parties perceive their goals’ interdependence affects how they negotiate conflict and whether the conflict is constructively or destructively managed (Alper et al., 2000 ; Deutsch, 1973 ; Johnson & Johnson, 1989 ; Tjosvold, 2008 ).

Successfully managing conflict cooperatively requires intellectual, emotional, and relational capabilities in order to share information, to contribute to value creation, and to discuss differences constructively (Fisher & Ury, 1981 ; Tjosvold et al., 2014 ). In contrast, a competitive-destructive process leads to material losses and dissatisfaction, worsening relations between parties, and negative psychological effects on at least one party—the loser of a win–lose context (Deutsch, 2014 ).

Deutsch’s theory proposes that emphasizing cooperative goals in conflict by demonstrating a commitment to pursue mutually beneficial solutions creates high-quality resolutions and relationships, while focusing on competitive interests by pursuing one’s own goals at the expense of the other’s escalates conflict, resulting in imposed solutions and suspicious relationships (Tjosvold et al., 2014 ).

In summary, Deutsch’s theory states that the context in which the conflict process is expressed drives parties toward either a cooperative or a competitive orientation in conflicts (Alper et al., 2000 ; Deutsch, 2006 ; Johnson & Johnson, 1989 ). In other words, a cooperative context is related to a cooperative conflict pattern, and a competitive context is related to a competitive conflict pattern. When parties have a cooperative orientation toward conflict, parties discuss their differences with the objective of clarifying them and attempting to find a solution that is satisfactory to both parties—both parties win (Carnevale & Pruitt, 1992 ). On the contrary, in competition, there is usually a winner and a loser (Carnevale & Pruitt, 1992 ) (see Table 1 ). In the CCB model, the patterns can include cooperative (i.e., integrating) and competitive (i.e. forcing) behavior; however, the cooperative pattern will be dominated by integrating while the competitive pattern will be dominated by forcing (Elgoibar, 2013 ).

Table 1. Characteristics of Cooperative and Competitive Climates

Source : Coleman, Deutsch, and Marcus ( 2014 ).

How to Manage Conflicts Constructively

The need for trust.

Trust is commonly defined as a belief or expectation about others’ benevolent motives during a social interaction (Holmes & Rempel, 1989 ; Rousseau et al., 1998 ). Mutual trust is one important antecedent as well as a consequence of cooperation in conflicts (Deutsch, 1983 ; Ferrin, Bligh, & Kohles, 2008 ). As Nahapiet and Ghoshal pointed out, “Trust lubricates cooperation, and cooperation itself breeds trust” ( 1998 , p.255). There is ample evidence that constructive conflict and trust are tightly and positively related (Hempel, Zhang, & Tjosvold, 2009 ; Bijlsma & Koopman, 2003 ; Lewicki, Tonlinson, & Gillespie, 2006 ).

Successful constructive conflict management requires maximal gathering and exchange of information in order to identify problems and areas of mutual concern, to search for alternatives, to assess their implications, and to achieve openness about preferences in selecting optimal solutions (Bacon & Blyton, 2007 ; Johnson & Johnson, 1989 ; Tjosvold, 1999 ). Trust gives parties the confidence to be open with each other, knowing that the shared information won’t be used against them (Zaheer & Zaheer, 2006 ). Various studies revealed that trust leads to constructive conglomerate behaviors and to more integrative outcomes in interpersonal and intergroup conflicts (Lewicki, Elgoibar, & Euwema, 2016 ; Lewicki, McAllister, & Bies, 1998 ; Ross & LaCroix, 1996 ).

How can trust be promoted? Developing trust is challenging (Gunia, Brett, & Nandkeolyar, 2014 ; Hempel et al., 2009 ). Numerous scholars have noted that trust is easier to destroy than to create (Hempel et al., 2009 ; Meyerson et al., 1996 ). There are two main reasons for this assertion. First, trust-breaking events are often more visible and noticeable than positive trust-building actions (Kramer, 1999 ). Second, trust-breaking events are judged to have a higher impact on trust judgments than positive events (Slovic, 1993 ). Furthermore, Slovic ( 1993 ) concluded that trust-breaking events are more credible than sources of good news. Thus, the general belief is that trust is easier to destroy than it is to build, and trust rebuilding may take even longer than it took to create the original level of trust (Lewicki et al., 2016 ).

However, there is room for optimism, and different strategies have been shown to promote trust. As held in social exchange theory (Blau, 1964 ), risk taking by one party in supporting the other party has been found to signal trust to the other party (Serva et al., 2005 ). Yet, fears of exploitation make trust in conflict management and negotiation scarce. Therefore, the use of trust-promoting strategies depends on the specific situation, and parties need practical guidance on how and when to manage conflict constructively by means of promoting mutual trust.

How does the possibility of trust development between parties depend on the conflict context? Based on this practical question, some strategies for trust development have been proposed (Fisher & Ury, 1981 ; Fulmer & Gelfand, 2012 ; Gunia, Brett, & Nandkeolyar, 2012 ; Lewicki et al., 2016 ). In relationships where trust is likely, the following strategies can help: assume trustworthiness, prioritize your interests and give away a little information about them, engage in reciprocity (concessions), highlight similarities and spend time together, get to know your counterpart personally and try to be likable, behave consistently and predictably, and paraphrase your counterpart’s positions. In relationships where trust seems possible: emphasize common goals; focus on the subject, not on the people; look to the future and find a shared vision; mix questions and answers about interests and priorities—the fundamental elements of information sharing—with making and justifying offers; take a break; suggest another approach; call in a mediator; and forgive the other party’s mistakes. In relationships where trust is not possible, more cautious strategies can help: make multi-issue offers; think holistically about your counterpart’s interests; engage in reciprocity (concessions); express sympathy, apologize, or compliment your counterpart; and look for preference patterns in your counterpart’s offers and responses.

Constructive Controversy

C onstructive controversy is defined as the open-minded discussion of conflicting perspectives for mutual benefit, which occurs when protagonists express their opposing ideas that obstruct resolving the issues, at least temporarily (Tjosvold et al., 2014 ). Indicators of constructive controversy include listening carefully to each other’s opinion, trying to understand each other’s concerns, and using opposing views to understand the problem better. These skills are considered vitally important for developing and implementing cooperative problem-solving processes successfully and effectively.

Deutsch ( 2014 ) stated that there haven’t been many systematic discussions of the skills involved in constructive solutions to conflict, and he proposed three main types of skills for constructive conflict management:

Rapport-building skills are involved in establishing effective relationships between parties (such as breaking the ice; reducing fears, tensions, and suspicion; overcoming resistance to negotiation; and fostering realistic hope and optimism).

Cooperative conflict-resolution skills are concerned with developing and maintaining a cooperative conflict resolution process among the parties involved (such as identifying the type of conflict in which the parties are involved; reframing the issues so that conflict is perceived as a mutual problem to be resolved cooperatively; active listening and responsive communication; distinguishing between effective relationships between parties and positions; encouraging, supporting, and enhancing the parties; being alert to cultural differences and the possibilities of misunderstanding arising from them; and controlling anger).

Group process and decision-making skills are involved in developing a creative and productive process (such as monitoring progress toward group goals; eliciting, clarifying, coordinating, summarizing, and integrating the contributions of the various participants; and maintaining group cohesion).

Tjosvold et al. ( 2014 ) and Johnson et al. ( 2014 ) also elaborate on the skills needed for facilitating open-minded discussions and constructive controversy. They developed four mutually reinforcing strategies for managing conflict constructively:

Developing and expressing one’s own view. Parties need to know what each of the others wants and believes, and expressing one’s own needs, feelings, and ideas is essential to gaining that knowledge. By strengthening expression of their own positions, both parties can learn to investigate their position, present the best case they can for it, defend it vigorously, and try at the same time to refute opposing views. However, expressing one’s own position needs to be supplemented with an open-minded approach to the other’s position.

Questioning and understanding others’ views. Listening and understanding opposing views, as well as defending one’s own views, makes discussing conflicts more challenging but also more rewarding; therefore, the parties can point out weaknesses in each other’s arguments to encourage better development and expression of positions by finding more evidence and strengthening their reasoning.

Integrating and creating solutions. The creation of new alternatives lays the foundation for genuine agreements about a solution that both parties can accept and implement. However, protagonists may have to engage in repeated discussion to reach an agreement, or indeed they may be unable to create a solution that is mutually acceptable, and then they can both learn to become less adamant, to exchange views directly, and to show that they are trying to understand and integrate each other’s ideas so that all may benefit.

Agreeing to and implementing solutions. Parties can learn to seek the best reasoned judgment, instead of focusing on “winning”; to criticize ideas, not people; to listen and understand everyone’s position, even if they do not agree with it; to differentiate positions before trying to integrate them; and to change their minds when logically persuaded to do so.

Conflict Resolution

Conflict resolution processes are aimed at ending a conflict. So, while conflict management can also include escalation, conflict resolution searches for a way of ending the conflict. The difference between resolution and management of conflict is more than semantic (Robbins, 1978 ). Conflict resolution means reduction, elimination, or termination of conflict.

To find a resolution, parties have to bring an extra piece of information, relate the information they have differently, or transform the issue, change the rules, change the actors or the structure, or bring in a third party (Vayrynen, 1991 ). The most popular conflict resolution processes are: negotiation, mediation, conflict coaching, and arbitration (Rahim, 2002 ). Conflict resolution can also be accomplished by ruling by authorities. Integration of the different techniques sequentially or simultaneously has been shown to support optimal conflict resolution (Jones, 2016 ).

Negotiation

Negotiation is a process in which the parties attempt to jointly create an agreement that resolves a conflict between them (Lewicki & Tomlinson, 2014 ). Walton and McKersie ( 1965 ) were the first to identify the two polar yet interdependent strategies known as distributive and integrative negotiation. Distributive negotiation means that activities are instrumental to the attainment of one party’s goals when they are in basic conflict with those of the other party. Integrative negotiation means that parties’ activities are oriented to find common or complementary interests and to solve problems confronting both parties. Other scholars also focused on the opposite tactical requirements of the two strategies, using a variety of terms, such as contending versus cooperating (Pruitt, 1981 ), claiming value versus creating value (Lax & Sebenius, 1987 ), and the difference between positions and interests (Fisher & Ury, 1981 ).

If a distributive strategy is pursued too vigorously, a negotiator may gain a greater share of gains, but of a smaller set of joint gains, or, worse, may generate an outcome in which both parties lose. However, if a negotiator pursues an integrative negotiation in a single-minded manner—being totally cooperative and giving freely accurate and credible information about his/her interests—he or she can be taken advantage of by the other party (Walton & McKersie, 1965 ). The different proposals that have been formulated to cope with these central dilemmas in negotiation are mainly based on a back-and-forth communication process between the parties, which is linked to the negotiators’ interpersonal skills (Brett, Shapiro, & Lytle, 1998 ; Fisher & Ury, 1981 ; Rubin et al., 1994 ).

Mediation is process by which a third party facilitates constructive communication among disputants, including decision making, problem solving and negotiation, in order to reach a mutually acceptable agreement (Bollen, Munduate, & Euwema, 2016 ; Goldman, Cropanzano, Stein, & Benson, 2008 ; Moore, 2014 ). Using mediation in conflict resolution has been proven to prevent the negative consequences of conflict in the workplace (Bollen & Euwema, 2010 ; Bollen et al., 2016 ), in collective bargaining (Martinez-Pecino et al., 2008 ), in inter- and intragroup relations (Jones, 2016 ), and in interpersonal relations (Herrman, 2006 ). However, mediation is not a magic bullet and works better in conflicts that are moderate rather than extreme, when parties are motivated to resolve the conflict, and when parties have equal power, among other characteristics (Kressel, 2014 ).

Conflict Coaching

Conflict coaching is a new and rapidly growing process in the public as well as private sector (Brinkert, 2016 ). In this process, a conflict coach works with a party to accomplish three goals (Jones & Brinkert, 2008 ): (a) analysis and coherent understanding of the conflict, (b) identification of a future preferred direction, and (c) skills development to implement the preferred strategy. Therefore, a conflict coach is defined as a conflict expert who respects the other party’s self-determination and aims to promote the well-being of the parties involved. Giebels and Janssen ( 2005 ) found that, when outside help was called in, parties in conflict experienced fewer negative consequences in terms of individual well-being than people who did not ask for third-party help.

Sometimes, the leader of a team can act as conflict coach. A study by Romer and colleagues ( 2012 ) showed that a workplace leader’s problem-solving approach to conflicts increased employees’ perception of justice and their sense that they had a voice in their workplace, as well as reduced employees’ stress (De Reuver & Van Woerkom, 2010 ; Romer et al., 2012 ). In contrast, the direct expression of power in the form of forcing behavior can harm employees’ well-being (Peterson & Harvey, 2009 ). A forcing leader may become an additional party to the conflict (i.e., employees may turn against their leader; Romer et al, 2012 ).

Conflict coaching and mediation are different processes. First, in conflict coaching, only one party is involved in the process, while in mediation, the mediator helps all the parties in conflict to engage in constructive interaction. Second, conflict coaching focuses on direct skills instructions to the party (i.e., negotiation skills). In that, conflict coaching is also a leadership development tool (Romer et al., 2012 ). There is a growing tendency to integrate conflict coaching and workplace mediation, particularly in preparation for conflict resolution, because the coach can help the coached party to investigate options and weigh the advantages of the different options (Jones, 2016 ).

Arbitration

Arbitration is an institutionalized procedure in which a third party provides a final and binding or voluntary decision (Lewicki, Saunders, & Barry, 2014 ; Mohr & Spekman, 1994 ). Arbitration allows the parties to have control over the process, but not over the outcomes. Therefore, arbitration differs from negotiation, mediation, and conflict coaching, in which the parties decide the agreement themselves (Posthuma & Dworkin, 2000 ; Lewicki et al., 2014 ). In arbitration, the third party listens to the parties and decides the outcome. This procedure is used mainly in conflicts between organizations, in commercial disputes, and in collective labor conflicts (Beechey, 2000 ; Elkouri & Elkouri, 1995 ).

Decision Making by Authorities

The strategies of negotiation, mediation, conflict coaching, and arbitration have in common that the parties together decide about the conflict process, even when they agree to accept an arbitration. This is different from how authorities resolve conflict. Decision making by authorities varies from parents’ intervening in children’s fights to rulings by teachers, police officers, managers, complaint officers, ombudsmen, and judges. Here, often one party complains and the authority acts to intervene and end the conflict. This strategy is good for ending physical violence and misuse of power. However, the authorities’ decisive power is limited, and therefore in most situations authorities are strongly urged to first explore the potential for conflict resolution and reconciliation among the parties involved. The authority can act as an escalator for the process, or as a facilitator, and only in cases of immediate threat can intervene or rule as a last resort. Authorities who employ this strategy can improve the learning skills of the parties and can impose upon the parties an acceptance of responsibility, both for the conflict and for the ways to end it.

It is important to emphasize the natural and positive aspects of conflict management. Conflict occurs in all areas of organizations and private lives and its management is vital for their effectiveness. Through conflict, conventional thinking is challenged, threats and opportunities are identified, and new solutions are forged (Tjosvold et al., 2014 ). Therefore, when conflict occurs, it shouldn’t be avoided but should be managed constructively.

Further Reading

• Coleman, P. , Deutsch, M. , & Marcus, E. (2014). The handbook of conflict resolution . Theory and practice . San Francisco: John Wiley & Sons.
• De Dreu, C.K.W. , Evers, A. , Beersma, B. , Kluwer, E. , & Nauta, A. (2001). A theory—based measure of conflict management strategies in the workplace. Journal of Organizational Behavior , 22 (6), 645–668.
• Elgoibar, P. , Euwema, M. , & Munduate, L. (2016). Trust building and constructive conflict management in industrial relations . Springer International.
• Lewicki, R. J. , McAllister, D. J. , & Bies, R. J. (1998). Trust and distrust: New relationship and realities. Academy of Management Review , 23 , 438–458.
• Pruitt, D. G. & Rubin, J. Z. (1986). Social conflict: Escalation, stalemate, and settlement . New York: McGraw Hill.
• Van de Vliert, E. , Euwema, M.C. , & Huismans, S.E. (1995). Managing conflict with a subordinate or a superior: Effectiveness of conglomerated behavior. Journal of Applied Psychology , 80 (2), 271–281.
• Wall, J. A. , & Callister, R. R. (1995). Conflict and its management. Journal of Management , 21 , 515–558.
• Alper, S. , Tjosvold, D. , & Law, K. S. (2000). Conflict management, efficacy, and performance in organizational teams. Personnel Psychology , 53 , 625–642.
• Amason, A. C. , & Schweiger, D. M. (1994). Resolving the paradox of conflict: Strategic decision making and organizational performance. International Journal of Conflict Management , 5 , 239–253.
• Bacon, N. , & Blyton, P. (2007). Conflict for mutual gains. Journal of Management Studies , 44 (5), 814–834.
• Baillien, E. , Bollen, K. , Euwema, M. , & De Witte, H. (2014). Conflicts and conflict management styles as precursors of workplace bullying: A two-wave longitudinal study. European Journal of Work and Organizational Psychology , 23 (4), 511–524.
• Barbuto, J. E. , Phipps, K. A. , & Xu, Y. (2010). Testing relationships between personality, conflict styles and effectiveness. International Journal of Conflict Management , 21 (4), 434–447.
• Beechey, J. (2000) International commercial arbitration: A process under review and change. Dispute Resolution Journal , 55 (3), 32–36.
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An analysis of homelessness using the conflict theory.

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Homelessness can be understood in the context of Conflict Theory, which holds that capitalism is the main reason for homelessness in the United States. This sample sociology paper explores the idea of Conflict Theory and its application to understanding the homeless problem in the United States.

Homelessness in America

Homelessness has been a substantial problem in the United States for decades. Many argue about the reasons for homelessness which include financial and psychological factors to name a few. Both conservatives and liberals have their specific reasons for the rise of homelessness in this country, but few seem to come up with successful and resilient solutions.

There is much debate regarding the claim that homelessness is the result of lack of resources, laziness, or even lack of motivation. It is evident that capitalism is one of the main reasons for homelessness in contemporary United States, and the cause for capitalism can be linked to the conflict theory.

Social problem's in a capitalist economy

Homelessness has increasingly become a problem in the United States over the past few decades as is evident in Pennsylvania's increasing homeless communities , and it is only continuing to get worse.

The epidemic has skyrocketed over the last few years, as “the number of homeless families rose by close to 30 percent between 2007 and 2009” (Champion, 2010).

Communities collect information on the extent of the problem of homelessness using electronic records from emergency housing shelters and a census conducted in abandoned properties, cars, on the streets, and other places. A point-in-time count of sheltered homeless populations presented by The State of Homelessness in America 2013 identified:

• 633,782 people experiencing homelessness at least one night in January 2012
• This translates to a national homeless rate of 20 per 10,000 people
• Veterans make up almost ten percent of the homeless population

It is quite evident that homelessness in America is a social fact with no singular clear explanation or even definition. It is also clear that homelessness is caused by many risk factors, including individual risks, low-income and poverty , and structural risks. The more a person is exposed to these risks, the greater their risk of becoming homeless. This also means that the chance for a person to remain homeless becomes greater as well.

Analysis of the homelessness problem

An explanation of the epidemic of homelessness involves capitalism. Those who are homeless lack economic, social, and human capital. This is combined with the fact that many who are homeless had a low level of resources in the first place.

According to McNaughton, many people become homeless because they already had low levels of capital resources which were reduced even further by edgework, and “anyone may become homeless, but they are more likely to when they have a low level of resources” (2008, p.108).

This also increases one’s risk of not only becoming homeless but remaining homeless.

The main explanation for homelessness is that the United States is quickly becoming a capitalist country. Capitalism is the main cause of unemployment and homelessness in the last few decades. Karl Marx, the famous philosopher who defined the words capitalism, socialism, and communism , said, in a capitalist society, there are those who have capital and those who do not. Furthermore, this type of society identifies the ownership of capital as a deciding factor in a person’s worth both financially and personally.

Right to own property versus right to shelter and protection

The right to own property is protected by law in a capitalistic society such as the United States, while the right to shelter and food are simply not protected by our government. Those who are in charge of corporations and in politics make up the top percentage of the wealthy in this country, and millions of homes are vacant and abandoned. Meanwhile, working class people with children live in crowded shelters or in vehicles. These are the signs of a capitalistic society.

Capitalism basically divides the people into two categories:

• Those who have capital
• Those who do not

In other words, the people are divided into those who are winners in society and those who are not. And it is becoming increasingly clear that those who are homeless are considered to be losers by those who are not are not lacking a roof over their head and meals every day. After all, being homeless involves a loss of some sort:

“Potent social forces [capitalism, patriarchy, imperialism, home ownership] do exist and being homeless is to lose a stake in several of them” (Neale, 2007, p.46).

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Sociological theory applied to homelessness and the conflict theory

A sociological theory that can be used to explain capitalism as a cause for homelessness is the conflict theory. Under Karl Marx’s conflict theory, society has two classes of people: the owners and the workers. The theory suggests that owners basically exploit the workers, depriving them of the basic human necessities such as food and shelter. Meanwhile, the workers believe that they are taken care of adequately, and they rely on the owners for their well-being. But the owners do not have the workers’ best interests in mind because they want to produce wealth by any means.

Under the conflict theory, many people in a capitalistic society see wealth as something that was earned through education, hard work, and dedication. They see the poor and the homeless as lacking motivation, lazy, and uneducated. They believe they want welfare and others to take care of them.

Marx believed that this type of thinking was false consciousness. His conflict theory says that homelessness and other social issues are results of a person’s shortcomings and personality flaws instead of the flaws of society itself.

The conflict theory can be used in research papers to explain capitalism and ultimately homelessness because constant resentment is held by those who have against those who are described as the “have nots” towards the “haves”. There are power differences among social classes that are created by our capitalistic society, and the entire country is dominated by wealthy groups who gain control through competition and ultimately power.

Champion, J. (2010, December 10). Millions of homeless, millions of empty homes. Workers.org. Retrieved January 1, 2014, from http://www.workers.org/2010/us/homeless_and_homes_1216/

McNaughton, C. (2008) Transitions through Homelessness: Lives on the edge. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.

Neale, J. (1997) ‘Theorising homelessness: contemporary sociological and feminist perspectives’, in Burrows, R., Pleace, N. and Quilgars, D. (eds) Homelessness and Social Policy. London: Routledge: 35-49.

The State of Homelessness in America 2013. (2013, April 8). National Alliance to End Homelessness:. Retrieved December 30, 2013, from http://www.endhomelessness.org/library/entry/the-state-of-homelessness-2013

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