Lecture Six: Psychological And Social Causes Of Conflict

Front 1

Humanism

(Maslow, Rogers)

Back 1

Goal: Self-actualization to fulfill potential and increase freedom and autonomy

Conflict: individuals or groups cannot self-actualize and when elites cannot control or diminish self-actualizers

Front 2

Social Cognitive

(Bandura)

Back 2

conflict arises when coping-strategies are acts of defiance, anti-social behaviour, latent anger, or violence

(i.e. North Korea using nuclear threats to get international aid)

Front 3

Frustration-Aggression Theory

(Dollard)

Back 3

Conflict arises when the goals and desires of a group are frustrated and the consequence of that is aggression and violence

Front 4

Relative Deprivation theory

Back 4

A group feels they are relatively deprived in comparison to others.

Conflict arises when a group cannot attain what they consider to be 'just rewards' and so they turn to violence means to achieve their ends

Front 5

Needs Theory

(Maslow's Hierarchy and Burton)

Back 5

People want control of physical and social environments and connection human emotions

Burton: needs are interrelated but they are not a hierarchy; needs can provide meaning, action, recognition security and connectedness

To better understand conflict, we need to understand needs in connection with human emotions - we need to learn about needs fires and the pursuit of needs satisfiers (consolidation of identity linked to needs - conflict is found here)

Front 6

Contact Theory

Back 6

Stereotyping --> negative interactions that result in reinforced negative feelings reciprocated in inappropriate situations.

Conflict arises from unequal status between groups, cooperative interactions that are not equal to what is required for development, opposing goals, and local authorities and norms that are not equal to the support and encouragement needed for balance interactions.

Front 7

Conformity Approaches

(lebon, Sopow)

Back 7

Individuals lose freedom of through in crowds and mobs.

LeBon: strong leaders control crowds and turn them into mobs; anonymity affords people the ability to do things that they would not do otherwise; autonomy is maximized; mobs collect "riffraff" (people who like violence)

Sopow: three types of protestors (passive, active and violent). Those who are violent are the ones to watch.

Conflict arises when members of a crowd chose to engage in violence to incite action in the mob; the leaders of a crowd frame and inflame an issue; bystanders influence and encourage behaviour of violent individuals; ancestral shadow builds in a cultural belied system that justifies violence on behalf of their group

Front 8

Power

(Sun Tzu, Kautilya, Thucydides, Machiavelli & Morgenthau)

Back 8

Conflict is a consequent of individuals and groups seeking power acquisition, maintenance, and expansion; opportunity through an imbalance (take) or a vacuum (fill); and control of leadership

Front 9

Preservation and order

(Hobbes, Aaron, Ayoob, Holsti)

Back 9

Conflict arises from anarchy (lack of sovereign authority to enforce order, and therefore, there is need for more than power (order, ideology, profit, etc.)

Holsti & Ayoob: failed an weak states are part of the ordered system; failure of order and preservation is foundational and creates a system of violence on its own

Front 10

Nationalism

(Mosca, Michels, Pareto, Mills&Chomsky, and Tilly)

Back 10

Mosca: elites are needed nationally to provide cohesive, secretive and uncountable order for society

Pareto: we want the best and brightest among us to rule

Michels: there is always a small authoritarian elite that have a significant measure of control in any society (the Iron Law of Oligarchy)

Mills & Chomsky: the small group of elites at the top of a society as an undemocratic capitalist business group of government allies

Tilly: modernization creates need for strong governments to create conflicts for power consolidation purposes

Conflict occurs between elites and is the consequence of failed peace management on their part

Front 11

Pluralism

Back 11

Democracy is the idea that there should be competition among groups to determine public policy

Conflict arises from rivalries between fluid or overlapping groups in the pursuit of influence

Front 12

Resource Mobilization Theory

Back 12

Competition between groups, especially between minority groups occurs within states to mobilize resources and to press demands against the state.

conflict occurs when resources are mobilized or when the potential to presses demands against the state especially authoritarian states, materializes

Front 13

Marx & Engles

Back 13

Capitalism is the structural source of conflict; conflict is a class conflict between the capitalist bourgeoisie and the proletariat workers

Front 14

Imperialism

(Luxembourg & Lenin)

Back 14

state-backed capitalism operates against workers and uses workers as part of the process to exploit and control other workers --> exploitation is moved overseas for resources and labour

Conflict is a competition between capitalist, imperialist states over labour

Front 15

Mao

Back 15

Conflict occurs as a class struggle between the first and third world states where third world states are pulled into a massive economic machine in which they are exploited (industry vs. agriculture)

Front 16

Gramsci

Back 16

Hegemony imposes and legitimizes on groups interest as the universal, and incontestable way of thinking/being/organizing

Conflict occurs against capitalist hegemony in trying to delegitimize and overthrow that way of thinking

Front 17

Gill

Back 17

Conflict occurs against the U.S. as the leader of the hegemonic class states. The class conflict occurs between globalized elites, semi-integrated working-class, and excluded labourers and peasants

Front 18

Dependency Theory

(galtung's structural violence)

Back 18

Conflict occurs due to the underdevelopment and poverty that resulted from the global economic system as set up by global Northern capitalists.

Galtung's structural violence: econ, socio, psych violence emerges due to structures of state

Front 19

Wallerstein's World Systems

Back 19

Core, Semi-periphery, periphery

Front 20

Modernization

(Smith, Hegel, Rostow, Huntington)

Back 20

Rostow: creating progress; economic growth will lead to political development

Huntington: Political development is not a given

Conflict: modernity fighting traditionalism; individualism overcoming communalism; industrialization overcoming agriculture; functionalism overcoming intrinsic existence; democracy overcoming authoritarianism; globalization overcoming nationalism

Front 21

Intercultural Clashes

Back 21

Primordial (negative feelings towards others based in ethnocentrism) + Instrumentalist (identity causes used to obfuscate true political interests) + constructivist (norms and rules through habits and ideals) = conflict through interactions with one another and other identity factors

Front 22

Nationalism

Back 22

clash of mass populaces over state power and identity

requires and "in" and "out" group"

Front 23

Religion

Back 23

Conflicting narratives --> question of identity