The Phenomenon of Conflict: In Search of a Unified Theory for Effective Management

Abstract

The article contains an analysis of the scientific prerequisites for the development of the conflictological paradigm of social knowledge contained in various methodological and theoretical approaches to understanding the conflict as a social phenomenon. Stages of growth of the theoretical potential of various sociological schools and directions, related to conflictological problems, are outlined. The preconditions for a theoretically justified possibility of forming an integral epistemological picture of conflictological knowledge, revealing the main methodological approaches to the construction of a unified theory of conflict are shown. The main problem associated with the formation of the conflictological paradigm of social knowledge is understood as a virtually unavailable single and integral theory of conflict that would satisfy the needs and requirements of all specialists engaged in its study. A unified conflict theory creates the basis for a new paradigm of the social sciences, allows different specialists to work in the same conceptual and instrumental field; unifies and simultaneously expands the problems of applied research, provides them with reliable methodological and theoretical prerequisites; greatly accelerates the process of theoretical and applied research on the theory and practice of conflict; radically changes the usual notions about the conflict as the least desirable, and its absence as the most desirable state; thereby freeing these views from common, but erroneous associations.