Conflict Model Research Articles

Power and conflict in inter‐organisational information systems development

AbstractThe need for inter‐organisational information systems projects, which are complex undertakings often riddled with poorly understood power struggles and conflicts that hinder project success, has increased in previous decades. Through the lenses of systemic and episodic power, together with an organisational conflict model, this longitudinal, qualitative case study explores the dynamics of power and conflict and their effects in an inter‐organisational information systems development project. This study highlights that the bureaucratic, social and technical setup of the project forms a foundational system from which specific power practices emerge, in this case, the practices of hiding, storytelling and bargaining. The power practices have both restrictive and productive effects on conflict, but the practices cannot easily escape the confines of the foundational system and continue to cause the resurfacing of different manifestations of latent conflict inherent in the system. As a result, both ‘power to’ (systemic power) and ‘power over’ (episodic power) can escalate project conflict, and rational conflict management for gaining ‘win‐win’ resolutions may not be in the stakeholders' interests. Thus, strategies for openly managing political conflicts should be considered.

Science and Religion: A New Introduction, 3rd ed.

Science and Religion: A New Introduction, 3rd ed.

Sociocultural Conflicts and Ottoman Settlement Policies at the Balkan Wars

ABSTRACT Migrations from Balkans to the Ottoman Empire continued for about 150 years; and peaked during the wars such as the 1877–78 Ottoman-Russian War and the Balkan Wars. Balkan immigrants with multi-ethnic, multicultural backgrounds and settling in with monocultural host communities faced hostility. We analysed these conflicts through official Ottoman archives, testimonies, and literary memoirs for the period of 1912 and 1917. Through the lenses of the conflict model of migration, we have explored the dynamic nature of migration processes in response to conflicts emerged between immigrants and local population in this period. We argue that Balkan immigrants faced insecurities arising from socio-cultural conflicts and this adversely affected the integration process.

A system dynamics simulation model for water conflicts in the Zhanghe River Basin, China

ABSTRACT This article presents a model that simulates the dynamics of water demand, water supply and the instability of water allocation schemes at the national river basin scale during water scarcity. The Zhanghe River Basin in China is used as a case study to demonstrate the model. The optimum solution, minimizing water allocation instability, allocated most of the river’s water to the downstream sub-basin, with most of the water assigned for downstream use allocated to Anyang city. The results show that the socioeconomic–environmental dynamics of the stakeholders in a water-sharing problem should be taken into account when allocating water.

Effect of a New Lithium Preparation on the Behavior of CBA/CaLac Mice in an Experimental Conflict Model.

The use of lithium drugs in clinical practice requires constant monitoring of lithium plasma concentration, because toxicity is sometimes observed at therapeutic concentrations of lithium. This is often associated with fluctuations of plasma concentration of lithium ions after intake of individual doses. Therefore, the use of a porous carrier providing a stable blood level of the drug is extremely promising and important for clinical practice. We studied activity of a new lithium drug (lithium complex) consisting of aluminum-silicon base and lithium citrate immobilized on its surface. Lithium carbonate served as the reference drug. It was shown that lithium carbonate and lithium complex exhibited no anxiolytic activity in the conflict model, but produced an antidepressant effect and improved exploratory behavior of animals.

CONFLICT MODEL ON WORK MOTIVATION

Each agency must be able to manage employees by applying appropriate conflict models according to organizational needs that can increase a person's work motivation for a job. This study aims to determine whether the functional and functional effects on employee work motivation. This research is a descriptive and verification research using path analysis, where the population of respondents is all employees of the tourism and culture office of West Java province as many as 200 people with a sample of 67 respondents using SPSS 24 software. From the results of the respondents' responses that have been distributed So simultaneously the test results show that the conflict model affects work motivation with a functional effect of 0.493 and a significant effect on dysfunctional 0.198 and simultaneously the effect of the two variables on work motivation is 0.295. From the research results partially know that functional is more dominant in influencing work motivation than dysfunctional in the conflict model.

Safety analysis of freeway on-ramp merging with the presence of autonomous vehicles

Freeway on-ramp merging areas are high-risk areas for motor vehicle crashes and conflicts due to the variety of driving styles, the difference in mainline and ramp traffic states, and factors related to roadway design and traffic control. The emerging Autonomous Vehicle (AV) technologies are expected to bring substantial improvements in ramp merging operations in general, including the possibility to reduce traffic conflicts and crashes by partially or fully eliminating the critical factors related to the human drivers. In order to investigate the potential safety impacts of AVs at on-ramp merging, this study first proposes a novel conflict index in theory as a specific indicator for ramp merging safety. Then, a merging conflict model is introduced to estimate the index value in various cases by considering the interactions between the mainline and ramp vehicles. In order to account for real-world uncertainties and variations in various crash-contributing factors, the proposed approach incorporates Monte-Carlo method and probabilistic distributions calibrated on the empirical freeway data. The developed approach is later applied in a case study with incremental AV market penetration rates to investigate AV safety impacts at on-ramp merging. The results show clear benefits of AVs in reducing the frequency and severity of the critical merging events. In addition, a sensitivity analysis on essential model parameters shows that the merging safety of AVs is closely related to their gap acceptance policy and the proper functioning of the driving systems, providing further insights into the future development of AVs.

A network approach to measuring state preferences

AbstractState preferences play an important role in international politics. Unfortunately, actually observing and measuring these preferences are impossible. In general, scholars have tried to infer preferences using either UN voting or alliance behavior. The two most notable measures of state preferences that have flowed from this research area are ideal points (Bailey et al., 2017) and S-scores (Signorino & Ritter, 1999). The basis of both these models is a spatial weighting scheme that has proven useful but discounts higher-order effects that might be present in relational data structures such as UN voting and alliances. We begin by arguing that both alliances and UN voting are simply examples of the multiple layers upon which states interact with one another. To estimate a measure of state preferences, we utilize a tensor decomposition model that provides a reduced-rank approximation of the main patterns across the layers. Our new measure of preferences plausibly describes important state relations and yields important insights on the relationship between preferences, democracy, and international conflict. Additionally, we show that a model of conflict using this measure of state preferences decisively outperforms models using extant measures when it comes to predicting conflict in an out-of-sample context.

Transferable Utility Cooperative Differential Games with Continuous Updating Using Pontryagin Maximum Principle

We consider a class of cooperative differential games with continuous updating making use of the Pontryagin maximum principle. It is assumed that at each moment, players have or use information about the game structure defined in a closed time interval of a fixed duration. Over time, information about the game structure will be updated. The subject of the current paper is to construct players’ cooperative strategies, their cooperative trajectory, the characteristic function, and the cooperative solution for this class of differential games with continuous updating, particularly by using Pontryagin’s maximum principle as the optimality conditions. In order to demonstrate this method’s novelty, we propose to compare cooperative strategies, trajectories, characteristic functions, and corresponding Shapley values for a classic (initial) differential game and a differential game with continuous updating. Our approach provides a means of more profound modeling of conflict controlled processes. In a particular example, we demonstrate that players’ behavior is braver at the beginning of the game with continuous updating because they lack the information for the whole game, and they are “intrinsically time-inconsistent”. In contrast, in the initial model, the players are more cautious, which implies they dare not emit too much pollution at first.

Is all conflict the same? The role of perceived intensity in understanding its effects

AbstractWhile interpersonal conflict at work continues to draw attention, researchers have rarely considered the role that conflict intensity plays in amplifying individuals' affective reactions to it. Hence, this study examines conflict intensity as a moderator of the relationship between interpersonal conflict and perceived stress, physical symptoms, and job satisfaction, through negative affect. A total of 306 employees from various industries participated in this cross‐sectional study. Supporting and expanding an emotion‐centered model of conflict, results indicated that the indirect effects of conflict on the study's outcomes were higher when participants perceived the conflict to be of medium and high‐level intensity.

Противодействие аристотелизму в еврейской культуре: конфликт вокруг произведений Маймонида в XIII в. с точки зрения теории игр

The Maimonidean Controversy at the beginning of the 13th century was one of the most significant conflicts in the midst of the Jewish diasporas in the Middle Ages. The conflict followed a vivid discussion on the treatises of Maimonides and the interpretation of Judaism in the light of Aristotelian philosophy. Almost all of major Jewish communities in Europe were drawn in this conflict. Moreover, at some point the conflict expanded outside of the Jewish world, so that some works of Maimonides were burnt by the Christian Inquisition as heretical books. Despite the significance of these events and the trace left in the memory of the Jewish people, there is not much reliable evidence about them. The authors aim to discuss the history of this conflict, focusing on the problematic aspects of the Maimonides’ teaching, and to make a reconstruction of the events occurred, to provide a specification of main characteristics of the conflict interaction (the players, their strategies and preferences, possible outcomes of the conflict, conflict dynamics, etc.), to design a game-theoretical model of the social conflict under consideration and to explore this model using the methods of mathematical game theory. It turns out that the majority of the players' actions correspond to optimal behavior concepts employed in game theory (bargaining solutions, Pareto efficiency, Nash equilibria). However, some actions obviously contradict the concept of rational behavior (one of the fundamental assumptions in mathematical game theory), and namely these actions induced the conflict escalation and such a tragic outcome.

Archetypal games generate diverse models of power, conflict, and cooperation

Interdependence takes many forms. We show how three patterns of power generate diverse models for understanding dynamics and transformations in social-ecological systems. Archetypal games trace pathways that go beyond a focus on a few social dilemmas to recognize and understand diversity and complexity in a landscape of social situations, including families of coordination and defection problems. We apply the extended topology of two-person two-choice (2 × 2) games to derive simple archetypes of interdependence that generate models with overlapping opportunities and challenges for collective action. Simplifying payoff matrices by equalizing outcome ranks (making ties to show indifference among outcomes) yields three archetypal games that are ordinally equivalent to payoff structures for independence, coordination, and exchange, as identified by interdependence theory in social psychology. These three symmetric patterns of power combine to make an asymmetric archetype for zero-sum conflict and further structures of power and dependence. Differentiating the ranking of outcomes (breaking ties) transforms these primal archetypes into more complex configurations, including intermediate archetypes for synergy, compromise, convention, rivalry, and advantage. Archetypal models of interdependence, and the pathways through which they generate diverse situations, could help to understand institutional diversity and potential transformations in social-ecological systems, to distinguish between convergent and divergent collective action problems for organizations, and to clarify elementary patterns of power in governance.

On Trade, Distributional Conflict, and Endogenous Regime Change

Can we expect shocks in trade openness to affect the quality of the domestic political process, and in what way? Isolating cross-country heterogeneity in the distributional effects of trade shocks for different relative factor endowments as a critical element for theory development, the paper tackles the puzzle by formally developing and solving a new probabilistic model to link the distributional effects of shocks to endogenous institutional change via induced conflict between a capital-intensive and a labour-intensive coalition. The model of distributional conflict combines a political selection stage to select the rate of income redistribution by majority voting and a constitutional conflict stage among factor-intensive coalitions whose steady state outcome determines the level of institutional inequality assigning the “rules“ of political selection. The former is modelled via a canonical weighted median voter setup with the (infinitely many) weights-distributions induced by the value of the steady state outcome of the constitutional conflict stage, while the latter is modelled as a Tullock contest with an endogenous contest success function and the heterogeneous coalition prizes equalling the expected value of the contest to each coalition as a function of the coalitions' efforts. Closed form solutions are derived for (i) the expected outcome of distributional conflict in terms of institutional quality and (ii) the intensity of conflict. Via comparative static analysis based on the Stolper Samuelson theorem in Heckscher-Ohlin trade theory, it is formally shown that positive shocks in trade openness always induce higher institutional inequality irrespective of heterogeneity in the underlying distributional effects, but that the expected mechanisms driving the drop in quality differ across capital-abundant and labour-abundant countries.

Causal factors and models of human-Tapanuli orangutan conflict in Batang Toru landscape, North Sumatra, Indonesia

Causal factors and models of human-Tapanuli orangutan conflict in Batang Toru landscape, North Sumatra, Indonesia

ОБОБЩЕННАЯ МОДЕЛЬ ЛАНЧЕСТЕРА, ФОРМАЛИЗУЮЩАЯ КОНФЛИКТ НЕСКОЛЬКИХ СТОРОН

The analysed studies of combat simulation shows that the theory of dynamic systems, in particular the Lanchester model, is used for dynamic simulation of military conflicts. A large number of Lanchester models, each of which takes into account particular and specific factors, has already existed. However, these models examine a symmetric bilateral conflict. At the same time, in the Lanchester models class there are no models of multilateral conflicts. The purpose of the paper is to form the generalized Lanchester model of a multilateral conflict. The elements of scientific novelty of this model are to take into account different strategies of parties in a multilateral conflict and different conflict levels for the strategies. This model allows us to study the dynamics of resources changes of the conflict parties, to identify local wins and losses in the transition mode of the model, to draw conclusions about the global wins and losses of the parties, to form recommendations about choice of the parties’ strategies and the values of the parameters of their strategies for achieving a global win. The article outlines the ways for further research on the development of this generalized Lanchester model.

An analysis of land use conflict potentials based on ecological-production-living function in the southeast coastal area of China

The rapid advancement of urbanization and industrialization has led to the continuous strengthening of multi-functionality of land use. The overlapping, crowding, agglomeration and transformation of various land use functions suggested that there would be fierce competition and conflicts. Based on the widely recognized “ecological-production-living” perspective of sustainable development in the world, we constructed the spatial identification and intensity diagnosis model of potential land use function conflicts (LUFCs), and selected Nan’an City, a typical coastal city in southeast China, as an empirical analysis. On the level of theoretical building, the LUFCs were divided into eight types, the conflict intensity was divided into four stages, and a land use conflict risk index (LUCRI) was constructed to characterize the possibility of potential conflict, which was divided into four ranks. Empirical research showed that the spatial concentration characteristic of ecological function of land use in Nan’an City was not significant and was poor spatial connectivity, while the gradient and band feature of production function was significant and was good spatial connectivity, and living function have formed three core clusters. The controllable conflict zones gathered and formed cold spots in high altitude forest areas, as well as the out-of-control conflict zones gathering and forming hot spots in concentrated areas of social and economic activities. The area proportions of different conflict types respectively were 1.79%, 18.07%, 23.17%, 13.49%, 8.00%, 13.66%, 20.34% and 1.49%. The whole study area was basically at risk of potential conflicts, with the area proportions accounting for 55.28%, 30.19%, 12.30% and 2.23%. Different governance strategies should be adopted according to the spatial distribution, manifestation and conflict degree. The model and index constructed in this paper could accurately reflect the actual situation of land use in fast-growing areas, which would provide reference for land space planning and management.

Konflikty o ziemię rolną – perspektywa ekonomiczna

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Sectarian Divide as a Cause of Protracted Conflict: A Case of Syria (2011-18)

Since the people’s uprising in 2011 against the authoritarian regime of Bashar Al Assad and its oppressive policies, Syria is entangled in a long spiral of violent conflict. Though a number of factors explain the violent nature of war and its longevity, however sectarianism proved to be the most significant and the most dominant factors of all. The dominancy of minority Alawite community in the country led to the discrimination against other sects especially the Sunni majority, comprising 74 percent of the total population. Such prejudices against Sunnis and other sects have pitched Syrian people against the regime which evolved into a long and sectarian civil war that dominates the Syrian society till date. Applying Protracted Social Conflict Model, this paper tries to answer the question that how sectarianism played a role in the perpetuation of the Syrian civil war during 2011-2018. Using qualitative methods of analysis, the paper endeavours to dig out the roots of the current violent conflict in the country. For data collection and analysis, secondary sources in the form of books, research articles and other internet sources have been consulted in an attempt to analyse what is unknown on the basis of what is known.

Promoters versus Adversaries of Change: Agent-Based Modeling of Organizational Conflict in Co-Evolving Networks

The social adoption of change is usually hard because in reality, forces opposing the social adoption of change manifest. This situation of organizational conflict corresponds to the case where two competing groups of influential agents (“promoters” versus “adversaries” of change) operate concurrently within the same organizational network. We model and explore the co-evolution of interpersonal ties and attitudes in the presence of conflict, taking into account explicitly the microscopic “agent-to-agent” interactions. In this perspective, we propose a new ties-attitudes co-evolution model where the diffusion of attitudes depends on the weights and the evolution of weights is formulated as a “learning mechanism” (weight updates depend on the previous values of both weights and attitudes). As a result, the co-evolution is intrinsic/endogenous. We simulate representative scenarios of conflict in 4 real organizational networks. In order to formulate structural balance in directed networks, we extended Heider’s definition of balance considering directed triangles. The evolution of balance involves two stages: first, negative links pop up disorderly and destroy balance, but after some time, as new negative links are formed, a “new” balance is re-established. This “new” balance is emerging concurrently with the polarization of attitudes or domination of one attitude. Moreover, same-minded agents are positively linked and different-minded agents are negatively-linked. This macroscopic self-organization of the system is due only to agent-to-agent interactions, involving feedbacks on weight updates at the local microscopic level.

Scale-free networks, 1/f dynamics, and nonlinear conflict size scaling from an agent-based simulation model of societal-scale bilateral conflict and cooperation

An agent-based model is presented that mechanistically simulates social interactions across two partially coupled lattices, each containing a mixture of individualists, networkers, and reciprocators. Numerical experiments reveal evidence for two spontaneously emergent and widely relevant complex behaviors: self-organized criticality generating fractal (1/f) dynamics, and a scale-free (power-law degree distribution) network, adding to the short list of generative mechanisms for these phenomena. The model may also suggest explanatory hypotheses for two sociological puzzles: Richardson’s scaling law for war size; and an inverse relationship between actor scale and water resource conflict, potentially relevant to this century’s prognosticated water wars. Adjusting a handful of model parameters yields a diverse set of fundamentally different behaviors, perhaps implying model applicability to a wide range of social systems and that comparatively simple social engineering steps could conceivably induce large social shifts.