Dynamics Of Conflict Research Articles

Social impact analysis on environmental conflict dynamics at coal fired steam power plant

This article examines the dynamics of environmental conflict to the community around the Batang Coal Fired Steam Power Plant as a case study. Rejection of it appears in the early stage of the construction because of its thread to the environment and economic resources, mostly to farmers and fishers. Batang Coal Fired Steam Power Plant has track records of conflict turmoil from behalf of the Ujungnegoro, Kandeman District, Central Java. This study used a qualitative approach with in-depth interviews and FGD methods to affected districts and related government agencies, as well as analyzing environmental pollution. Social impact assessments (SIA) are a framework to investigate the causes, dynamics, and resolution of social-environmental conflicts. This study found out that the root cause of environmental conflict starts with ecological degradation. The dynamics of social and economic will accumulate until a form of conflict. This study offers conflict management models in resolving social-environmental conflict.

The Corner, the Crew, and the Digital Street: Multiplex Networks of Gang Online-Offline Conflict Dynamics in the Digital Age

Social media is increasingly intertwined into people’s lives, spurring questions about the relationships between online behavior and offline actions. We advance knowledge in conflict dynamics by using a multiplex network framework that conceptualizes online and offline gang relationships as co-constitutive networks—online and offline relationships often overlap and entangle in complex ways that influence behavior in both the virtual and real worlds. We propose a mixed-methods abductive approach for digital data that uses qualitative analyses to challenge and corroborate quantitative analyses of online gang conflict. Synthesizing data from Facebook posts by alleged gang members, maps of gang territory, and police records of offline shooting events, we show that online gang conflicts are not random attacks but targeted network relationships, and such online relationships are dependent on offline geographic relationships and shooting history relationships between gangs. Our mixed-methods approach further shows via qualitative analyses that the statistical network associations are based on cultural-specific language surrounding gang names and symbols, neighborhood streets, and prominent gang members. Our approach underscores how mixed-methods and qualitative approaches are essential in unpacking “big data” and computational methods in understanding the multiplex nature of group conflict.

Land Use Conflicts and Planning Implications: Insights from Kumbo, Cameroon

As actors compete over land for varied reasons, conflicts linked to the multiplication of incompatible land uses have witnessed an increase. This validates the need for renewed evidence on the trigger mechanisms and manifestations of land use conflicts. To close this knowledge gap, this paper examines land use conflict dynamics and their planning implications in Kumbo – Cameroon. The paper further explores the manifestations of land use conflicts, and examine planning options to stem such conflicts. Data for this study was obtained through a random survey of 394 respondents. This was further complemented by interviews and focus group discussions. The data obtained was analyzed using descriptive statistics and the logit model. This was further buttressed through spatial analysis using Arc GIS 10.8. The logit results reported that informal economic activities tend to increase the likelihood of land use conflicts in Kumbo. Furthermore, the analysis showed an intricate direct relationship between poor planning and implementation of policies, and increasing land use conflicts in Kumbo. In the wake of an expected increase in land use conflicts, this paper suggests pragmatic solutions aimed at relocating and realigning compatible land uses in this community.

The temporalities of natural resources extraction: Imagined futures and the spatialization of the lithium industry in Chile

Lithium is expected to be a key resource for the upcoming economy, mainly for its linkage to green energies. A substantial amount of its production occurs in developing countries, promising positive outcomes for local and global actors. Based on the “Imagined Futures'' framework developed by German Sociologist Jens Beckert (2016), this article aims at examining the role of fictional expectations in local, national, and global processes of spatialization regarding lithium production, extraction, and commercialization. In particular, this article based on the case of Chile asks how fictional expectations constructed around the lithium industry explain decisive and conflictual dynamics within different spatial scales in the context of the global production networks and value chains of this industry. We argue that analyzing fictional expectations allows us to understand these dynamics. At the same time, the case of the lithium industry in Chile provides an opportunity to explore the role of territories and spatialization when studying fictional expectations. To do so, the paper draws on extensive empirical evidence from interviews with 30 key actors linked to the lithium industry. The main results show how fictional expectations and imaginaries about the future economy produce tensions and conflicts at the local level, at the time that pressure actors to make decisions in the present based on images about a future. Global value chains, economic forecasts, and political demands for greener technologies also provide narratives and imaginaries, feeding contesting interests, positions, and views about potential benefits and consequences of lithium extraction, tensioning the different scales of decision-making.

The Role of The United Nations in Promoting Conflict Resolution in The Escalation of Intrastate Mali Conflict Instability (2018- 2022)

The instability of the conflict in Mali has increased for four years since 2018. The increase in violence, military coups, political instability, humanitarian crises, and terrorism has forced the United Nations to increase its strength in pushing for the implementation of peace agreements in the Mali intrastate conflict. This research was conducted using qualitative methods with secondary data to see the role of the United Nations in encouraging the resolution of the intrastate conflict in Mali during the period of instability for the last four years. In the analysis, this study finds that through a mandate renewed every year, the United Nations adopts its role to encourage conflict resolution with the dynamics of conflicts from 2018 to 2022. Over the past four years, the role of the United Nations as an international organization to encourage the implementation of resolutions to the conflict in Mali focuses on several things, namely; (1) Overseeing Mali’s political transition, (2) Strengthening security for civilians and peacekeepers through international cooperation, (3) Acting as government assistance to promote human rights and law enforcement, and (4) Encouraging the progress of the 2015 peace agreement in Mali to achieve the maximum target. Keywords: Conflict Resolution, Intrastate Conflict, International Organization, Mali, United Nations

Counterinsurgency as order-making: refining the concepts of insurgency and counterinsurgency in light of the Somali civil war

ABSTRACT In this paper, we argue that the current insurgency and counterinsurgency discourse is dominated by concepts that are too narrow and too isolated from the wider civil war literature within which insurgency and counterinsurgency occur. Rather than accounting for the complex political processes and wide range of forces and actors that shape conflict dynamics, the dominant insurgency and counterinsurgency debate tends to reduce highly messy contexts to a competition between the often false dichotomy of insurgents and counterinsurgents, usually understood as the state versus one or more non-state violent actors. In order to understand civil war contexts like South-Central Somalia, we argue that orthodox reductionist concepts and assumptions underpinning the dominant insurgency and counterinsurgency discourse provide limited value. Building on recent critical literature, the paper proposes a refined conceptualization. Instead of understanding insurgency and counterinsurgency as peculiar forms of war, strategies, or sets of guerilla tactics, we follow Jaqueline Hazelton’s line of thought, suggesting that insurgency and counterinsurgency are mere elements of a broader process of violent order-making. Thus, insurgency and counterinsurgency are, in our view, comprehensive processes of organized challenge to and consolidation of established political order within the context of civil war.

Mafia: An Experiential Learning Game for OB Topics

This article discusses the benefits of using Mafia—a fun, interactive, low-cost, and easy-to-learn role-playing game—to explore organizational behavior (OB) topics. We explain how Mafia can be used in the classroom to discuss OB topics, including dynamics of teamwork, disagreement and conflict, decision-making, trust, roles, and communication. We share our experience playing Mafia in three undergraduate-level class sessions and provide recommendations, based on experiential learning and critical thinking principles, for instructors interested in playing this game. Overall, students enjoyed the sessions and provided some interesting insight in the debriefing, demonstrating the suitability of this game to discuss OB concepts.

Necessary complexity in the Anthropocene: new approaches in socio-ecological systems thinking, Do No Harm, and fragility integration

ABSTRACT The links between climate change, fragility, and conflict have received growing attention over the past decade. Yet, the theory and analysis underlying conflict-sensitive practice has not figured significantly in these developments, thus limiting effective action and policy. While there is pressing need for climate adaptation efforts, climate change-related disaster response, and low-carbon development to leverage local capacities for peace and avoid exacerbating conflict dynamics, existing conflict sensitivity frameworks (a) lack sufficient emphasis on action and (b) struggle to incorporate the complex, systemic interactions among ecologies, societal conflict, and aid, or other efforts to address fragility. This paper draws on complexity-informed approaches that more directly and practically integrate socio-ecological systems thinking into urgently needed conflict-informed action. Specifically, the paper establishes the basis for integrating CDA Collaborative Learning Projects’ systems-based Reflecting on Peace Practice (RPP) approach and Do No Harm (DNH) framework for accountable analysis and action amidst conflict, and reframing the key analytical categories of Connectors and Dividers to Resilience and Vulnerabilities.

Do No Harm: The Role of Humanitarian Aid and Neutrality in Protracting Civil Wars

ABSTRACT We review the impact of humanitarian actors in civil war through the examination of the concepts of neutrality and impartiality – embedded within the ‘do no harm’ principle. We argue that despite the rationale of principles seeking to detach international action from the embodied dynamics of conflict, these governing tenets have effectively served to reinforce power discrepancies between authoritarian regimes, opposition forces, and civilians in civil wars. Because humanitarian practices have so often been co-opted to strengthen the position of authoritarian regimes and inflict harm, we trace their impact in conflict networks and assess whether they serve to further protract and unbalance civil war.

Mowing the grass

Mowing the grass is a cyclical pattern in counterterrorism campaigns where governments attack to destroy terrorist capacity, thereby achieving a period of quiet as groups recover. If groups expect their capacity to be destroyed, why build their capabilities in the first place? I analyze an infinite-horizon dynamic game where a group endogenously builds capacity in the face of potential attacks and capacity is an evolving, persistent variable. The model highlights that terrorist groups and governments have incentives to create strategic uncertainty and thus explains attack cycles without punishment strategies, revenge preferences or imperfect/incomplete information. I calibrate the model to time-series data in the Israeli–Palestinian conflict describing rockets fired from Gaza. The results illustrate a peace-making dilemma: altering the government’s incentives will have comparatively minimal effects on long-term conflict dynamics, whereas changing the terrorists’ incentives to acquire capacity would either increase the frequency of high-capacity terrorism or government attacks.

The implications of the state’s response to the violent ethnic conflicts in Balochistan

The ethnic conflicts have severely challenged Pakistan's integrity and national security. Ethnic nationalists are entangled with the state over identity issues and their demand for a due share in power and resources. The study aims to explore the nature of the state response to these conflicts and to measure the effects of the state responses on the conflict's dynamics and social environment of Balochistan. The research questions are how the state responded to ethnic conflicts, and what are the implications of the responses on the dynamics of ethnic conflicts? The research is qualitative, descriptive, and interpretive approaches have been used to address the research questions. The material is collected from primary and secondary sources, such as government records, newspapers, books, periodicals, research papers, and websites. The study is significant because it has debated a less debated burning issue of Baloch. The research findings show that Pakistan responded with compromise and dominance, but dominance was always the paramount option. However, dominance has not been a better framework because it has further complicated the conflicts. It is recommended that reconciliation and compromise are better response options because they can positively defuse conflicts and adjust ethnic identities.

Unravelling the Correlation of Intractability and Human Security in the Kashmir Conflict: An Analysis using Edward Azar's Social Protracted Conflict Theory

This study explores the relationship between intractability and human security challenges in conflicts. Human security plays a crucial role in intractable conflicts, acting as both a cause and an effect.When individuals are denied human security, conflicts tend to emerge, persist, and escalate. Addressing human security concerns is essential to break the cycle of intractability. The study applies Edward Azar's Social Protracted theory to examine the connection between human security and intractability. Using Azar's framework, the Genesis phase focuses on identifying the underlying issues of identity and autonomy in the Kashmir conflict. The second phase analyzes how events over time have created new dynamics in the Kashmir conflict, potentially escalating it to the point of intractability. The third phase explores the negative effects of the intractability on the affected population, leading to pessimism and additional human security challenges.The study underscores the importance of considering human security in efforts to address intractable conflicts.

Dynamics of Cooperation and Conflict in Multiagent Systems

Dynamics of Cooperation and Conflict in Multiagent Systems

Transitions between peace and systemic war as bifurcations in a signed network dynamical system

AbstractWe investigate structural features and processes associated with the onset of systemic conflict using an approach which integrates complex systems theory with network modeling and analysis. We present a signed network model of cooperation and conflict dynamics in the context of international relations between states. The model evolves ties between nodes under the influence of a structural balance force and a dyad-specific force. Model simulations exhibit a sharp bifurcation from peace to systemic war as structural balance pressures increase, a bistable regime in which both peace and war stable equilibria exist, and a hysteretic reverse bifurcation from war to peace. We show how the analytical expression we derive for the peace-to-war bifurcation condition implies that polarized network structure increases susceptibility to systemic war. We develop a framework for identifying patterns of relationship perturbations that are most destabilizing and apply it to the network of European great powers before World War I. We also show that the model exhibits critical slowing down, in which perturbations to the peace equilibrium take longer to decay as the system draws closer to the bifurcation. We discuss how our results relate to international relations theories on the causes and catalysts of systemic war.

One-party Dominance of BJP: Emerging Dynamics of Conflict and Co-operation in Indian Federalism

Federalism in India is a unique framework of governance that aims to meet the necessities of a heterogeneous and variegated society. In the Indian design, the destiny of States rests with the Union government, which can alter, dissolve or redefine issues with consultation, but without their consent. The rationale for adopting such an arrangement was to discourage centrifugal forces that had led to communal carnage and the partition of the Indian sub-continent at the time of Independence in 1947. Post-Independence, multiple constitutional, political and societal factors shaped the nature and course of Indian federalism as it evolved from one-party dominance of the Congress party to a phase of multiparty coalitions led by a national and/or regional parties in the 1990s and thereafter under a bi-nodal coalitional system. Subsequently, since 2014 the advent of BJP as a dominant party has strengthened federal centralisation that has unleashed several challenges that have a number of ramifications for federalism. Therefore, this paper examines the working of Indian federalism with a focus on contemporary trends of centralisation, conflict and co-operation.

Nature and Dynamics of Peace and Conflict in Yoruba land: A Qualitative Scoping Review

Conflict is one of the dynamic social relationships upon which the survival of a society is predicated, hence conflict resolution mechanisms are developed to ensure peace and stability in society. Given the nature of conflict and conflict resolution strategies, this review adopts the historical method by exploring publications on peace and conflict causation in Yoruba land with primary purpose of establishing the use and abuse of names as tools for resource control in peace and conflict understanding. Forty-two publications met the inclusion criteria and the review adopted metasynthesis/ qualitative approach. It was noted that conflict and conflict resolution mechanisms existed in the pre-Oduduwa era that revolved around self-interests, political ambition and rebellion. The 19th century Yoruba land witnessed emergence of socio-political, migrant-settler differences, fears of domination types of conflicts. Disputes over economic resources, boundaries and political gains emerged during the colonial period as new forms of conflict with the introduction of modern litigation and legal fireworks. While sources of conflict continued to increase in post colonial Nigeria, mechanism for resolution also became more dynamic to accommodate all possibilities in conflict resolution. Publications examined in this review were mainly qualitative and theoretical; focused on specific locations hence, findings may not be generalized.

RECLAIMING THE LOST PARADISE: THE JAMMU AND KASHMIR REORGANISATION ACT AND INDIA’S NEW HISTORICAL NARRATIVE ON KASHMIR

Historical narratives and collective memory are relevant to claims regarding community, territory, and identity related to the Kashmir conflict. They have been central in shaping India's national imaginary and mobilizing support for New Delhi's policies in the region. The article analyzes how the topos of "paradise on earth" has informed the trajectories of Indian state narratives on Kashmir transforming, under the Modi government, into a call to action to recover and reclaim the lost paradise. The new discursive direction has been underpinned by a renewed interest in the plight of the Kashmiri Pandits-the Brahmin community native to the Kashmir valley-whose collective identity is deeply rooted in the history and socio-cultural distinctiveness of the region. The article thus situates the renewed political and public interest in the story of the Pandits' flight from Kashmir within a broader narrative of the state underlying the current phase of India's Kashmir policy. In this way, the article provides a perspective on how the trajectory of the Indian government's historical narratives about the region has informed the dynamics of conflict, occupation, and violence in the Kashmir Valley.

The patch as method: The arts’ contribution towards understandings of conflict

This article asks: how do art practice and research give form to changing dynamics of conflict? Its argument is two-fold: art’s contribution can be developed from empirical considerations (what art finds out), and from methodological ones (how art finds something out). Bringing in art practice and the research methods it informs into political science helps understand conflict and its changes: by engaging simultaneously with the interaction between the collective and the personal, art practice and research elucidates those complex and layered narratives used by various actors in conflict that often resist approaches rooted in social and political sciences. By paying attention to everyday interactions and emphasizing dynamism, art provides a different way to chart changes in armed conflict. Art documents discourses that are difficult to communicate otherwise and allows us to detect and engage with the grey areas, transformations, processes and ambivalences of conflicts that escape neat categorizations.

Analysing Somalia Conflict: Involving Actors, Causes, Triggering and Possible Solutions

This study is analyst Somali conflict roots and investigate social effects of this long term conflicts. This paper is analyzing Somali conflict and it is backed up by analyzing and utilizing existing literature as well as reports. It also included include the comprehensive range of conflict dynamics identified, and the way in which factors that are identified as having greater importance are identified and discussed. This paper is Structuration approach of the framework provides a degree of sophistication in distinguishing conflict enablers, such as availability of arms, from sources of tension such as chronic resource shortages unemployment and the limitations of traditional legal frameworks. Furthermore, the essay also presented the possible solutions on Somalia conflict such as it presented to apply indigenous or grass root peace building approach which Somaliland managed its civil wars and conflict and also build democratic political authority which have the popularity as well as legitimacy of its own people. Also this essay identifying the role of actors or agencies of Somalia Conflict by declaring their positions and also underlying interests of the conflicting parties. Finding the causing and triggering factors of Somaliland conflict and long historical linked problems from traditional, and solutions to solve Somaliland Elders and clams are solve their conflict’s in 1991.

Sub-states in transition: changing patterns of EU paradiplomacy in Scotland and Wales, 1992–2021

ABSTRACT This article sheds new light on the dynamics of Scottish and Welsh relations with the European Union (EU). We analyse the development of Scotland and Wales’s ‘paradiplomacy’ over a 30-year period (1992–2021), offering the first comprehensive analysis of the EU-focused activities of sub-states transitioning out of the EU. We identify the significance of the interplay between a territory’s formal constitutional position and differences in party politics across levels of government in shaping paradiplomacy. Increasing tensions between the UK and devolved governments regarding the UK’s EU withdrawal have reinforced conflict dynamics, including in the context of growing protodiplomacy from the Scottish Nationalist Party (SNP) government.