High Probability Of Conflict Research Articles

Measuring the conflict tendency between tourism development and ecological protection in protected areas: A study on National Nature Reserves in China

Managing conflict between tourism development and ecological protection is one of the challenges facing Protected Areas (PAs). Conflict tendency analysis could help to inform conflict management, but the existing studies lack consideration of accessibility and seasonality. This study aims to move forward by integrating traffic accessibility and monthly variation into analysis, as well as the type of ecological risk, through an application study on National Natural Reserves (NNRs) of China. The results show that 89.26% of NNRs have areas with a high probability of conflict, and 22% have monthly fluctuant coverage of high risk areas. According to their characteristics on monthly variations and dominant ecological risks, the studied NNRs can be classified into twenty types. Tailored conflict management strategies need to be adopted for different types. This research is conducive to improving the measurement of conflicts tendency between tourism development and ecological protection, especially for areas lacking historical tourism statistics, and to providing spatio-temporal information for practice in conflict management for PAs.

The Timescale of Control: A Meta-Control Property that Generalizes across Tasks but Varies between Types of Control

Prominent models of control assume that conflict and the probability of conflict are signals used by control processes that regulate attention. For example, when conflict is frequent across preceding trials (i.e., high probability of conflict), control processes bias attention toward goal-relevant information on subsequent trials. An important but underspecified question regards the meta-control property of timescale-that is, how far back does the control system "look" to determine the probability of conflict? To address this question, Aben, Verguts, and Van den Bussche (2017) developed a statistical model quantifying the timescale of control. In a flanker task, they observed short timescales for lists with a low probability of conflict (which induce reactive control) and long timescales for lists with a high probability of conflict (which induce proactive control). To investigate the domain generality of these timescales, we applied their model to two additional conflict tasks that manipulated the list-wide probability of conflict. Our findings replicated Aben et al. suggesting meta-control may be task general with respect to timescales operating on the list level. We subsequently modified their model to examine timescale differences for items in the same list that differed in their probability of conflict but not the type of control engaged. We failed to detect a difference in timescales between items. Collectively, the findings demonstrate that differences in the timescale of control are task general and suggest that timescale differences are driven by the type of control engaged and not by the probability of conflict per se.

Psychological aspects of social responsibility as a method of conflict management at the enterprise

Some aspects of the implementation of social responsibility principles in conflict management at the enterprise are considered in this paper. Any activity involving human interaction is followed by high probability of conflict. The implementation of social responsibility principles affects the interests of a large number of participants – related parties or stakeholders, who, in turn, have their own needs, goals, values and expectations. Certainly, this causes various differences, which over time can escalate into conflicts. One of the primary internal stakeholders of the company is its staff, as the quality and efficiency of the company is influenced not only by the efforts of individual employees, but the overall productivity of the whole team. Social and labor relations between the employer and staff, as well as employees themselves, should be focused on the creation of conditions for human activity and interaction in such a way as to minimize the possibility of various contradictions, conflicts and their destructive development. The means of management, particularly the prevention and resolution of conflicts within the enterprise are the introduction of elements of internal social business responsibility. Its priority areas include: human resources development (advanced training; professional retraining; internships; on-the-job training; the possibility of gaining the second higher education; in-house training, etc.); formation of safe and comfortable working conditions; ensuring the stability of wage payments; additional medical and social insurance of employees; providing financial assistance to employees in critical or emergency situations. At present, modern enterprises, implementing the principles of social responsibility, transform it into social benefit, at the same time receiving a number of positive effects, including improvement of business reputation and image; employee productivity increase; sales growth and customer loyalty; increase of the enterprise investment attractiveness; stimulation of consumer confidence and, first of all, prevention and overcoming of conflicts in the team.

Natural resources and conflict: A meta-analysis of the empirical literature

The link between natural resources and conflict has been extensively analysed by the empirical literature. Yet, there is disagreement on both the existence and the type of relationship connecting resources to conflict. Existing research has focused on demonstrating the impact of resource scarcity or abundance on the risk of conflict, but no effort has explored the reasons behind the persisting disagreement among scholars. This paper seeks to remedy this imbalance by conducting a meta-analysis of the empirical literature that investigates the link between natural resources and conflict. We adopt an econometric approach to analyse > 900 estimates from 41 articles. Our results show that both resource scarcity and abundance are associated with a higher probability of conflict. The direction and magnitude of the relationship depends on the type of resources and whether climate variables are controlled for. Specifically, the impact of the scarcity of agriculturally related resources, such as land and vegetation, seems to be mediated by climate variables. We also find that the way conflicts and resources are operationalized together with methodological choices and model specifications, greatly influence the probability of finding a significant relationship between conflicts and resources.

Does Sex Matter? Temporal and Spatial Patterns of Cougar-Human Conflict in British Columbia

Wildlife-human conflicts occur wherever large carnivores overlap human inhabited areas. Conflict mitigation can be facilitated by understanding long-term dynamics and examining sex-structured conflict patterns. Predicting areas with high probability of conflict helps focus management strategies in order to proactively decrease carnivore mortality. We investigated the importance of cougar (Puma concolor) habitat, human landscape characteristics and the combination of habitat and human features on the temporal and spatial patterns of cougar-human conflicts in British Columbia. Conflicts (n = 1,727; 1978–2007) involved similar numbers of male and female cougars with conflict rate decreasing over the past decade. Conflicts were concentrated within the southern part of the province with the most conflicts per unit area occurring on Vancouver Island. For both sexes, the most supported spatial models for the most recent (1998–2007) conflicts contained both human and habitat variables. Conflicts were more likely to occur close to roads, at intermediate elevations and far from the northern edge of the cougar distribution range in British Columbia. Male cougar conflicts were more likely to occur in areas of intermediate human density. Unlike cougar conflicts in other regions, cattle density was not a significant predictor of conflict location. With human populations expanding, conflicts are expected to increase. Conservation tools, such as the maps predicting conflict hotspots from this study, can help focus management efforts to decrease carnivore-human conflict.

A Test of Huntington’s Thesis

AbstractThis paper tests Huntington’s the Clash of Civilizations hypothesis evaluating the impact of civilizations on militarized interstate disputes. In particular, we investigate whether countries that belong to different civilizations tend to be more involved in conflict than countries that belong to the same civilization. We show that over the period of 1816-2001, dissimilarity in civilization in a dyad has no effect on conflict involvement. However, even after controlling for temporal dependence, and for geographic, political, military and economic factors, being part of different civilizations in the post-Cold War period brings about 63.6% higher probability of conflict than belonging to the same civilization, whereas this effect is insignificant during the Cold War.

The Geography of Conflicts and Regional Trade Agreements

In addition to standard trade gains, regional trade agreements (RTAs) can promote peaceful relations by increasing the opportunity cost of conflicts. Country pairs with large trade gains from RTAs and a high probability of conflict should be more likely to sign an RTA. Using data from 1950 to 2000, we show that this complementarity between economic and politics determines the geography of RTAs. We disentangle trade gains from political factors by a theory-driven empirical estimation and find that country pairs with higher frequency of past wars are more likely to sign RTAs, the more so the larger the trade gains. (JEL D72, D74, F15, N70)

Commitment and Conflict in Bilateral Bargaining

Building on previous work by Schelling and Crawford, we study a model of bilateral bargaining in which negotiators can make binding commitments at a low positive cost c. Most of our results concern outcomes that survive iterated strict dominance. If commitment attempts never fail, there are three such outcomes. In two of them, all the surplus goes to one player. In the third, there is a high probability of conflict. If commitment attempts succeed with probability q < 1, the unique outcome that survives iterated strict dominance entails conflict with probability q2. When c = 0, analogous results hold if the requirement of iterated strict dominance is replaced by iterated weak dominance. (JEL C78, D84)

Competition among Giants: A Look at How Future Enlargement of the European Union Could Affect Global Power Transition

This essay analyzes the regional and global implications of different enlargement formulations of the European Union (EU) during the first half of the twenty-first century by (1) assessing the consequences of expanded EU membership with varying enlargement scenarios regarding global power distributions, (2) considering the implications of a drift between the United States and the EU as China reaches parity with the West, and (3) examining the implications of EU enlargement for regional stability in the Middle East as a consequence of Turkey's entry into or rejection by the EU. The findings reaffirm earlier results that China is expected to reach parity with the United States in 2025–2030 and move ahead to be the largest economy in the world. The results for the EU show that, regardless of its enlargement plans, it will fall behind the other giants, becoming the third largest economy. Part of the expected decline in its GDP share can be offset by adding Turkey, and perhaps Russia, to the Union. We also find that Turkey's inclusion into the EU will bring stability to the Middle East. Moreover, we observe that the relationship between Iran and Turkey is one with a high probability of conflict and that it will intensify very quickly over time. With Iran's pursuit of nuclear weapons, this dyad is likely to become more conflictual before Iran establishes clear superiority. Turkey's membership in the EU would remove Iran's growing challenge to the volatile Middle East. With Turkey in the EU, parity between Iran and Turkey would disappear and Iran could no longer project hostility against the latter.