Attracted to Conflict: Dynamic Foundations of Destructive Social Relations: Dynamic Foundations of Destructive Social Relations

250 Pages·2013·1.84 MB·English

by  Robin R. Vallacher

Peace Psychology Book Series
Series Editor: Daniel J. Christie
Robin R. Vallacher · Peter T. Coleman
Andrzej Nowak · Lan Bui-Wrzosinska
Larry Liebovitch · Katharina G. Kugler
Andrea Bartoli
Attracted to
Confl ict: Dynamic
Foundations
of Destructive
Social Relations
Peace Psychology Book Series
Series Editor
Daniel J. Christie
For furthervolumes:
http://www.springer.com/series/7298
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EditorialandProgrammeAdvisoryBoard
HenryAbarbanel,InstituteforNonlinearScience,UniversityofCalifornia,SanDiego,USA
DanBraha,NewEnglandComplexSystemsInstituteandUniversityofMassachusettsDartmouth,USA
Pe´terE´rdi,CenterforComplexSystemsStudies,KalamazooCollege,USAandHungarianAcademy
ofSciences,Budapest,Hungary
KarlFriston,InstituteofCognitiveNeuroscience,UniversityCollegeLondon,London,UK
HermannHaken,CenterofSynergetics,UniversityofStuttgart,Stuttgart,Germany
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France
JanuszKacprzyk,SystemResearch,PolishAcademyofSciences,Warsaw,Poland
KunihikoKaneko,ResearchCenterforComplexSystemsBiology,TheUniversityofTokyo,Tokyo,Japan
ScottKelso,CenterforComplexSystemsandBrainSciences,FloridaAtlanticUniversity,BocaRaton,USA
MarkusKirkilionis,MathematicsInstituteandCentreforComplexSystems,UniversityofWarwick,
Coventry,UK
Ju¨rgenKurths,NonlinearDynamicsGroup,UniversityofPotsdam,Potsdam,Germany
AndrzejNowak,DepartmentofPsychology,WarsawUniversity,Poland
LindaReichl,CenterforComplexQuantumSystems,UniversityofTexas,Austin,USA
PeterSchuster,TheoreticalChemistryandStructuralBiology,UniversityofVienna,Vienna,Austria
FrankSchweitzer,SystemDesign,ETHZurich,Zurich,Switzerland
DidierSornette,EntrepreneurialRisk,ETHZurich,Zurich,Switzerland
StefanThurner,SectionforScienceofComplexSystems,MedicalUniversityofVienna,Vienna,Austria
Robin R. Vallacher (cid:129) Peter T. Coleman
Andrzej Nowak (cid:129) Lan Bui-Wrzosinska (cid:129) Larry
Liebovitch (cid:129) Katharina G. Kugler (cid:129) Andrea Bartoli
Attracted to Conflict:
Dynamic Foundations of
Destructive Social Relations
RobinR.Vallacher PeterT.Coleman
DepartmentofPsychology InternationalCenterforCooperationand
FloridaAtlanticUniversity ConflictResolution
BocaRaton,Florida TeachersCollege
USA ColumbiaUniversity
NewYork
USA
AndrzejNowak LanBui-Wrzosinska
DepartmentofPsychology InternationalCenterforComplexityand
UniversityofWarsaw Conflict
Warsaw,Poland WarsawSchoolofSocialSciencesand
Humanities
Warsaw,Poland
LarryLiebovitch KatharinaG.Kugler
DivisionofMathematicsand EconomicandOrganisationalPsychology
NaturalSciences Ludwig-Maximilians-UniversitaetMuenchen
CityUniversityofNewYork Munich,Germany
QueensCollege
NewYork
USA
AndreaBartoli
SchoolforConflictAnalysisandResolution
GeorgeMasonUniversity
Arlington,Virginia
USA
ISBN978-3-642-35279-9 ISBN978-3-642-35280-5(eBook)
DOI10.1007/978-3-642-35280-5
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Preface
Conflict is ubiquitous in social life, leaving no realm of human interaction
untouched. The potential for conflict in social relations has not gone unnoticed in
psychologyandthesocialsciences,asevidentinthemanyinsightfulperspectives
thathavebeenadvancedregardingthiscentralfeatureofhumannature.Despitethis
long-standing preoccupation, however, conflict in all its manifestations has yet to
beintegratedwithrespecttoaunifiedsetofprinciples.Thelackofanagreed-upon
theoreticalsynthesisishardlysurprising.Conflictcancharacterizesocialrelations
as distinct as marriage, parliamentary democracy, and international negotiations.
Conflict can be a one-off experience, lasting minutes or even seconds, or it can
becomeapersistentstatethatunfoldsovermonths,years,orevendecades.Conflict
can be a constructive experience, promoting innovation and a shared reality, or it
canengagethemostdestructiveaspectsofhumannature,promotingextremeforms
of violence, disrupting social progress, and magnifying differences in people’s
beliefs andvalues.Andconflictcansetinmotionmechanismsthatprovide forits
resolutionoritcanrepresentaself-sustainingprocessthatmakesresolutionvirtu-
allyimpossible.
Theperspectivedevelopedinthisbookwasmotivatedinpartbytheinabilityof
traditional models of social relations to impose coherence on the multifaceted
natureofconflictinhumanaffairs.Weapproachedthistaskfromwhatmayseem
like an ironic assumption: that the diversity of conflict can be integrated with
respect to a perspective on science that encompasses the far greater diversity of
phenomena in the natural world. This perspective—nonlinear dynamical systems
theory—has proven successful since the 1970s in establishing the invariant pro-
cesses that underlie seemingly distinct topics in fields such as physics, chemistry,
cosmology,andbiology.Inrecentyears,themetaphors,principles,andmethodsof
nonlineardynamicalsystemshavebeensuccessfullyadaptedtothesubjectmatter
of human experience, from cognitive and social psychology to economics and
politicalscience.Thisbookdescribeshowthedynamicalperspectiveinpsychology
has been extended to understanding human conflict at different levels of social
v
vi Preface
reality, from dyadic tensions to interstate warfare, with special emphasis on
conflictsthataredestructiveandseeminglyimpervioustoresolution.Suchintrac-
table conflicts are relatively rare, but their toll in loss of life, property damage,
resourcedepletion,anddrainingofsocialcapitalqualifiesthemasamongthemost
consequentialofallsocialproblems.Andtheyhaveproventobethemostdifficult
tounderstand,letaloneanticipateorresolve.
Considerable progress has been made over the past decade in framing the key
features of intractable conflict in terms of formal models informed by nonlinear
dynamical systems. These models have been instantiated incomputer simulations
and tested against archival and empirical data. But this book is intended to be
heuristicaswellassynthetic,establishingaroadmapforfutureresearchagendas.
So in addition to framing conflict in dynamical terms and presenting supportive
research,wepointtoareasinwhichmorescholarlyworkisneededandweoutline
thestrategiesbywhichthesetheoreticalandempiricalgoalscanbeaccomplished.
Because the potential for destructive and intractable conflict cuts across all
levels of human experience, comprehensive yet nuanced understanding is best
served by enlisting the involvement of theorists, researchers, and practitioners
with correspondingly diverse areas of expertise. The authors of this book reflect
thismultidisciplinaryapproach.Ourteamincludesanexperimentalsocialpsychol-
ogist (Vallacher), a social psychologist with expertise in computer simulation of
socialprocesses(Nowak),threesocial-organizationalpsychologistsspecializingin
conflict management and resolution (Coleman, Bui-Wrzosinska, and Kugler), a
cultural anthropologist with firsthand experience in intrastate conflict resolution
and peace processes (Bartoli), and a physicist with expertise in complexity and
nonlinear dynamical systems (Liebovitch). This collaborative effort, initiated in
2006,hastackledawiderangeoftopics,includingdyadic(e.g.,marital)conflicts,
intra-organizationaldisputes,schoolviolence,civilwar,interstatewarfare,negoti-
ation,peacebuilding,andsustainability.
The scholarly output of our team to date would have been impossible without
the valuable cooperation of colleagues and the organizational and financial
assistance provided by several institutes and foundations. Much of the initial
work in developing the dynamical framework, generating formal models, and
collecting empirical data was funded by a grant from the James S. McDonnell
Foundation. Generous funding for conferences and workshops has been provided
by the International Center for Cooperation and Conflict Resolution (ICCCR)
andtheAdvancedConsortiumonCooperation,Conflict,andComplexity(AC4)at
ColumbiaUniversity;theInstituteforConflictAnalysisandResolution (ICAR) at
George Mason University; the Community Foundation of Boulder; the Peace
Studies Program at Florida Atlantic University; and the Berghof Foundation.
Finally, we wish to acknowledge several colleagues, postdoctoral students, and
graduate students for their invaluable scholarly contributions to our research
program: Pawal Haltof, Wojciech Borkowski, Naira Musallam, Christine
Chung, Jay Michaels, Susan Sullivan, and Vincent Naudot. The success of our
efforts to date, as represented in this book, is attributable in large measure to the
Preface vii
collaborative spirit—and constructive conflict—inspired in our team by the
aforementioned individuals and organizational entities.
BocaRaton,FL RobinR.Vallacher
NewYork,NY PeterT.Coleman
Warsaw,Poland AndrzejNowak
Flushing,NY LanBui-Wrzosinska
Munich,Germany LarryLiebovitch
Arlington,VI KatharinaG.Kugler
AndreaBartoli
.
Contents
1 Overview:ConflictinHumanExperience. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
ChapterOverview. . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . 2
TheProblemofIntractableConflict. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
IntractableConflictintheContemporaryWorld. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
WhatWeKnowAboutIntractableConflict. .. . . .. . . .. . . .. . . .. 5
WhatWeDon’tKnowAboutIntractableConflict. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
TheRelevanceofSocialPsychology. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
TheAdvantagesofSocialPsychology. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
TheLimitationsofSocialPsychology. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
PuttingSocialPsychologyinContext. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
TheRelevanceofComplexityScience. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
TheEssenceofComplexityScience. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
ComplexityScienceandSocialConflict. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
TheOrganizationandTrajectoryofThisBook. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
Chapter2.Origins:ThePromiseofDynamicalSystemsTheory. . . 13
Chapter3.Foundations:TheDynamicalPerspectiveonSocial
Processes. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
Chapter4.Patterns:TrajectoriesofConflict. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
Chapter5.Traps:IntractableConflictasaDynamicalSystem. . . . . 15
Chapter6.Escape:HowIntractableConflictsCanBeTransformed. . . 15
Chapter7.Sustainability:TheDynamicsofEnduringPeace. . . . . . 15
Chapter8.Epilogue:ConflictintheTwentyFirstCentury. . . . . . . 16
References. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
2 Origins:ThePromiseofDynamicalSystemsTheory. . . . . . . . . . . 19
LessonsfromPeaceandConflictStudies. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
TheParadoxesofSocialConflict. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
TheDiversityofConflict. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
FiveParadigmsofConflictStudies. .. . . .. . . .. . . . .. . . .. . . . .. 27
ix