Intense Conflict Research Articles

Conflicts in Adolescence and Their Association with Closeness: Results of a Multi-Perspective Study from Germany

Adolescence is marked by rapid biological and psychosocial changes that profoundly impact parent–child communication in order to reorganize responsibilities and move toward a more egalitarian relationship. Therefore, our primary objective in the present study was to explore the influence of changing conflict frequency and intensity on the perceived level of closeness between parents and adolescents, considering the perspectives of both parties involved. Using 10-wave longitudinal data with measures of parents (n = 17,005) and their children (n = 15,841) aged seven to 16 from the German Panel “Analysis of Intimate Relationships and Family Dynamics” (pairfam), the present study used fixed-effects models to address the research goal. The findings indicate that, for parents and adolescents, an increase in both conflict frequency and intensity corresponds to a more pronounced decline in closeness. Higher levels of initial closeness when the participants entered the survey resulted in milder decreases in closeness when conflict intensity was higher, a pattern observed for both parents and adolescents. Regarding conflict frequency, no impact of initial closeness was discerned among parents, while an opposing effect was found among adolescents. These findings shed light on changes in parent–child communication during the transition from early to middle adolescence, underscoring the need for further exploration of the closeness–conflict association.

The Collapse of Democracy in Chile

The study of the de-democratization occurring in emerging democracies is one of the key research topics in comparative political science. Some scholars have found that the breakdown of democracy is related to some social structural factors. For example, the inequality of economic development, the degree of political fragmentation of the electorate, and the political institutional arrangements of democracies. Other scholars argue that the collapse of democracy is the result of the actions and choices of political elites. In order to preserve their wealth and status, political elites formed powerful coalitions to undermine democracies, which led to the reversal of democracy into authoritarian regime. Yet there is no single explanation for Chile's democratic collapse. Therefore, this study reviews the literature on the theory of democratic collapse, and analyzes the causes of the democratic collapse in Chile by combining the economic and social conditions of Chile in 1973. The research finds that Chile's democratic collapse is the result of a combination of elite revolt behavior and centrifugal political institutional arrangements. The intense class conflict violates the interests of the political elite and causes the political elite to rebel. At the same time, the centrifugal arrangement of the political system has left the state and the government lacking the ability to effectively counter the revolt behavior of the political elite.

Mutualism in marine wildlife value orientations on Cape Cod: Conflict and consensus in the sea and on the shore

Wildlife value orientations drive attitudes and behavior related to wildlife species. In the United States, a shift in value orientations toward wildlife from domination to mutualism has been well-documented. Few studies, however, have examined value orientations toward wildlife in the marine environment among multiple stakeholders. A 2021 survey of residents, commercial fishers, and tourists on Cape Cod, Massachusetts, USA measured marine wildlife value orientations in the context of intense stakeholder conflicts over rebounding populations of seals and white sharks. Respondents in all three stakeholder groups were more oriented toward mutualism than domination, but differed in intensity. Tourists scored highest on mutualism and lowest on domination, followed by residents. Commercial fishers had the highest domination and lowest mutualism scores, but their mutualism values exceeded their domination values. The Potential for Conflict Index2 revealed consensus on mutualism and domination measures was highest among tourists and lowest among commercial fishers, indicating a greater diversity of commercial fisher views. The shared mutualism orientation provides a foundation for coexistence in the face of marine environment challenges.

Content and process: organizational conflict and decision making.

The foundational work in the Carnegie perspective established conflict as endemic to organizations and a driver of organizing behavior and decision making. Organizations as a system of coordinated action among interdependent individuals and groups with different preferences, interests, information, or knowledge create the potential for pervasive and ongoing latent goal conflict. At the same time, extant psychology research has devoted considerable attention to identifying the content and intensity of conflict, focusing on the relationship between different types of conflict and their impact on group outcomes. The Carnegie perspective also assumes that the need for joint decision-making and the differences in goals or perception of reality are never fully resolved. As a result, it has paid attention to the processes through which conflict is addressed - by attending sequentially to goals, decentralizing information, accumulating excess resources, and forming coalitions rather than formal mediating procedures. The assessment of the psychology and organizational theory research also suggests that future work focusing on organizational conflict as latent, situated, and dynamic would enable greater clarity on how organizations make decisions.

Civil Conflicts and Exchange Rate Misalignment: Evidence from MENA and Arab League Members

Abstract For more than a decade, civil conflicts intensity has been high in the Middle East and North Africa, yet the monetary and financial impacts of such episodes have received relatively little attention. Using macroeconomic and conflict panel data for Arab League members, Iran and Turkey during the period 1970–2018, this paper constructs a country-specific real exchange rate misalignment index and adopts an instrumental variable approach to show that civil conflicts lead to real exchange rate overvaluations in the region: a 1 unit increase in civil conflict intensity leads to a 0.24 unit increase in the RER misalignment index. The results suggest that upward pressures on the real exchange rate, such as inflation resulting from physical capital and output loss, dominate. Economic policy during post-conflict transitions should mitigate this effect by incorporating a strategy to realign the currency.

The Impact of Parental Conflict on Children for Their Growth, Upbringing and Proper Grooming

Conflicts often take place between parents. It impacts the kids emotionally and also the way they behave. Kids of parents who have conflicts face difficulties in excelling in life and becoming successful. Family structure plays an important role in a kid’s development. Intense conflicts result in divorce, separation and even in spouses living together and married despite conflicts. All these situations can impact kids’ grooming as compared to an ideal nuclear family living in harmony. Disruption in husband-wife association adversely impacts their kids’ communal psychological results. This can hurt on the grooming and emotions of kids. The adverse impact on kids is revealed in the form of sorrow, perplex, fright of desertion, blameworthiness, misperception, rage, faithfulness disagreement, distress, and anguish. This research was done involving the seventy-seven mothers of students who scored ‘D’ and ‘E’ grades in the selected 15 private secondary schools of Hyderabad district, Sindh, Pakistan. Mothers were contacted through the principals of these schools after the consent of the mothers. This study found that kids raised by two-parent status are more successful since they can afford kids better and divide responsibilities of home too. Furthermore, it was revealed that financially sound parents raise more successful kids than single parents.

Профессиональное общение сотрудников дежурных смен с гражданами, доставленными в служебное помещение дежурных частей органов внутренних дел

The article discusses the professional communication of duty shift employees with citizens brought to the duty unit as a result of a detected crime, administrative offense, incident. The content and structure of communication, its result in the form of mutual understanding, interaction or interpersonal conflict, as well as the patterns of the dynamics of the psychological states of the participants involved are the subject of research.
 The methodological basis of the study was formed by such scientific approaches and principles of cognition as phenomenological, structural, functional, personal, systemic. Methods of scientific and cognitive activity: observation and experience, description, comparison, universal analysis and synthesis, induction and deduction, abstraction, generalization and systematization, analogy, modeling
 The phenomenology of the situation of communication between duty shift employees and a citizen brought to the duty unit often reveals its emotionally intense nature and conflict content, primarily with the protesting detainee, which prevents mutual understanding and interaction of its participants.
 The employee of the duty shift perceives not only the content of the text of verbal information delivered, but also notices the nature of the mental state of a person and his personal characteristics, which generally determine the type of his behavior. This characterizes the employee's professional communication structurally in terms of the perception and understanding of the interlocutor, whose behavior is modeled by the employee in the process of primary observation.
 On-duty shift officers who receive detainees work in conditions of objective overload and chronic fatigue as the main psychophysical condition. The mental state of the employee himself can also be potentially conflicting. The actual behavior of all participants will depend on the correlation and severity of relevant external and internal factors, as well as on the employee's attitude towards constructive behavior and the resolution of a difficult situation.

Arriving from the revolution: International Women’s Year in the Portuguese ‘Hot Summer’

ABSTRACT In this article, I discuss reactions to International Women’s Year (IWY) in Portugal. Following the military coup of April 1974 that brought down the Estado Novo dictatorship and initiated the Carnation Revolution, Portugal underwent the ‘Hot Summer’ of 1975, a period of intense social conflict and the decolonisation processes of countries in Africa that had long fought for independence (1961–1974). I examine the composition of the Portuguese delegation and the socialist-oriented discourse they adopted, underlining how little the needs of either women in the former colonies or feminist movements were represented and addressed. While two Portuguese women’s organisations, the Democratic Movement of Women and the Commission for the Status of Woman, took advantage of IWY to promote initiatives within the country, the Movement for Liberation of Women took a more critical approach. Interweaving history, memory, and written, visual, and oral sources, I interpret the legacy of events during the summer of 1975, at both an individual level and from the perspective of women’s organisations.

Stepping-Up: Impacts of Armed Conflicts on Land Expansion

AbstractLand expansion by existing smallholder farmers (SHFs), aka stepping-up, is a major pathway to the rise of medium-scale farmers (MSFs) in Africa. In this paper, we investigate if and how armed conflicts constrain the ability of SHFs to transition to MSFs. We find that increased conflict intensity reduces the likelihood that a SHF will expand to a larger scale, especially for farmers who rely mostly on farm incomes, rather than off-farm incomes, for their livelihoods. These findings uphold other evidence that peace and stability influence private investment, including land-based investments, that are associated with economic transformation.

Study on the development trend of social-ecological systems and the drivers of sustainable development – A case study of the Loess Plateau in China

Understanding the complex interactions between social and ecological systems is essential for effective management and implementation of sustainable development. The Loess Plateau, located in northwestern China, is an arid and semi-arid region with intense human-nature conflicts. Therefore, this region's socio-economic development and ecological conservation have been a hot research topic. Since the implementation of the Grain to Green Program in 1999, the ecological environment of the Loess Plateau has been significantly improved, and socio-economic development has been achieved. In this study, a comprehensive framework was developed to assess the socio-ecological trends and sustainability of development in the Loess Plateau from 2000 to 2020, and the driving forces of sustainability were explored at a deeper level. We found that the socio-ecological index of the Loess Plateau has fluctuated upward in the last 20 years, and the overall development was in a healthy direction. However, it is worth noting that the sustainability of the social-ecological system in the Loess Plateau showed spatial heterogeneity. The significant vegetation restoration in the central part of the Loess Plateau greatly improved the local ecological environment. At the same time, moderate economic development did not take up too many natural resources, so the development in these areas showed high sustainability. In addition, after analyzing the driving forces, we found that natural conditions (e.g., flat topography, mild climate, moderate precipitation) and vegetation cover showed positive feedback on sustainability. However, weather extremes due to climate change and socio-economic activities carried out by humans have complex feedback effects on sustainability. Our results help to identify the development of socio-ecological systems and drivers of sustainability in different regions of the Loess Plateau, thereby providing theoretical support for the formulation of sustainable development policies.

Characterizing land use transition in China by accounting for the conflicts underlying land use structure and function

Human activities and global changes have undergone significant transformations in land systems. It is imperative to comprehend the intricacies of land use transitions (LUT), as they serve as indicators of the evolving dynamics within the complex human-environmental relationship. In this study, we adopt the conflict-coordination theoretical framework to delve into the role of land-use conflicts (LUC) in driving LUT. Our investigation involves the quantification of LUT and the assessment of LUC within China, spanning from 1980 to 2020. Subsequently, we scrutinized the interplay between LUT and LUC using Spearman correlation analysis and the Wilcoxon test. Our findings reveal that greater diversity in land-use structure can be attributed to ecological land fragmentation and the restoration of unused land, while the expansion of urban and cropland areas contributes to a less diverse land-use pattern. Furthermore, there is a discernible upward trend in land use function. Although the overall degree of LUC in China is relatively mild, there is a noticeable upward trajectory over the past four decades. More pronounced conflicts within land-use patterns promote a diversified land-use pattern, while conflicts arising from competing land-use functions elevate the level of land-use functionality. Moreover, a dynamic interplay between land-use transitions and conflicts becomes evident, with intense conflicts within land-use patterns weakening land-use functionality, and imbalances in functionality driving greater diversity in land-use patterns. Our research introduces an innovative analytical framework that elucidates LUT through the lens of LUC, with the potential for broader applicability across different regions. This framework not only enhances our understanding of LUT but also provides valuable scientific guidance for the effective management of conflicts to promote the sustainable development of land resources.

Facing displacement and a global pandemic: evidence from a fragile state

Abstract We use novel survey data to assess the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on internally displaced persons (IDPs) in Libya. Our analysis compares the effects of the pandemic for displaced and non-displaced citizens, controlling for individual and household characteristics and geo-localized measures of economic activity and conflict intensity. In our sample, 9.5% of respondents report that a household member has been infected by COVID-19, while 24.7% of them have suffered economic damages and 14.6% have experienced negative health effects due to the pandemic. IDPs do not display higher incidence of COVID-19 relative to comparable non-displaced individuals, but are about 60% more likely to report negative economic and health impacts caused by the pandemic. We provide suggestive evidence that the larger damages suffered by IDPs can be explained by their weaker economic status—which leads to more food insecurity and indebtedness—and by the discrimination they face in accessing health care.

The effect of crude oil price changes on civil conflict intensity in rentier states

While existing literature has considered the relationship between oil and conflict, most of the studies have failed to consider mechanisms that might mediate the effect of the fluctuating market price of oil on conflict. We theorize that the military capacity of the state is a key mediating mechanism for understanding the relationship between shifting oil market prices and conflict intensity. We argue that states which rely upon oil sales to fund a large portion of government spending will have a more difficult time maintaining conflict-reducing state capacity during times in which oil prices are below previously prevailing averages for extended lengths of time. Using country-year data in 67 conflict states from 1989–2019, we find that low average oil prices are associated with lower military spending which in turn is associated with higher rates of battle fatalities in existing civil conflicts.

Conflict occurrence and preferred management styles among ICU nurses during the first wave of COVID-19 pandemic: A cross-sectional study in Saudi Arabia.

Intensive care units (ICUs) have been overwhelmed by the increasing number of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) cases, causing psychological burdens, stress, and various types of conflict among nurses. To examine the occurrence, type, and intensity of conflict and preferred management styles among ICU nurses during the COVID-19 pandemic. This cross-sectional descriptive study was conducted in a government hospital in Saudi Arabia using a convenience sample of 95 nurses from three ICUs. Data were collected using an e-questionnaire comprising the Nursing Conflict Scale, Rahim Organizational Conflict Inventory-II, and sociodemographic variables. Most participants reported exposure to moderately (64.2%) or highly (34.79%) intense conflict during the pandemic. The competitive (2.23 ± .472) and intragroup (2.23 ± .385) types of conflict were the most frequently reported. The preferred conflict management style was collaborating (21.85 ± 5.49), followed by accommodating (18.39 ± 4.03). Pearson's correlation analysis showed that age, years of experience, and education were significantly associated with conflict type and management style. Preparedness to care for suspected or confirmed COVID-19 cases was associated with interpersonal conflict (r = .20, p = .04). The participants experienced moderate- to high-intensity conflict; however, they employed constructive rather than destructive management styles. Nurse leaders, policymakers, and educators must initiate transformational intervention programmes to enhance and sustain nurses' competencies in constructive conflict management strategies. Interpersonal communication and crisis management training programmes should be formulated to raise nurses' awareness and enhance their competencies vis-à-vis taking a positive approach to overcoming various conflict types and levels, particularly during crises.

Breaking the Bank: Effects of Domestic Conflict on the Banking Sector in Turkey

ABSTRACT Although banks occupy a central role in most (post-)conflict situations, there is a perplexing lack of attention to them in studies of political violence. As a case experiencing domestic conflict with varying degrees in the last decades, Turkey offers opportunities to understand how the banking sector, including state deposit banks, responds to such political violence. We focus on the short-term impact of political violence and address the following questions: Do all actors in the sector respond in similar ways to security threats? Is there variation according to conflict intensity? We shed light on these puzzles with an analysis of original data on bank ownership, bank branches, bank deposit amounts, and bank credits. We show that banks with profit incentives respond to conflict by lowering their presence in provinces hit by these attacks. In comparison, our finding that deposits in high conflict intensity areas are not affected suggests that it is indeed economic actors outside high intensity regions that are more sensitive to short-time changes in security compared to local ones. Overall, the results demonstrate that political violence hurts banks’ presence in conflict locations and their presence matters through credit provision to these areas.

Integrative Transcriptomics and Proteomics Analysis Reveals Immune Response Process in Bovine Viral Diarrhea Virus-1-Infected Peripheral Blood Mononuclear Cells.

Bovine viral diarrhea virus (BVDV) causes bovine viral diarrhea-mucosal disease, inflicting substantial economic losses upon the global cattle industry. Peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMCs) are the central hub for immune responses during host-virus infection and have been recognized as crucial targets for BVDV infection. In order to elucidate the dynamics of host-BVDV-1 interaction, this study harnessed RNA-seq and iTRAQ methods to acquire an extensive dataset of transcriptomics and proteomics data from samples of BVDV-1-infected PBMCs at the 12-h post-infection mark. When compared to mock-infected PBMCs, we identified 344 differentially expressed genes (DEGs: a total of 234 genes with downregulated expression and 110 genes with upregulated expression) and 446 differentially expressed proteins (DEPs: a total of 224 proteins with downregulated expression and 222 proteins with upregulated expression). Selected DEGs and DEPs were validated through quantitative reverse transcriptase-polymerase chain reaction and parallel reaction monitoring. Gene ontology annotation and KEGG enrichment analysis underscored the significant enrichment of DEGs and DEPs in various immunity-related signaling pathways, including antigen processing and presentation, complement and coagulation cascades, cytokine-cytokine receptor interaction, and the NOD-like receptor signaling pathway, among others. Further analysis unveiled that those DEGs and DEPs with downregulated expression were predominantly associated with pathways such as complement and coagulation cascades, the interleukin-17 signaling pathway, cytokine-cytokine receptor interaction, the PI3K-Akt signaling pathway, the tumor necrosis factor signaling pathway, and the NOD-like receptor signaling pathway. Conversely, upregulated DEGs and DEPs were chiefly linked to metabolic pathways, oxidative phosphorylation, complement and coagulation cascades, and the RIG-I-like receptor signaling pathway. These altered genes and proteins shed light on the intense host-virus conflict within the immune realm. Our transcriptomics and proteomics data constitute a significant foundation for delving further into the interaction mechanism between BVDV and its host.

Redefinition to the Researching Value of Romance in the Rain

Qiong Yao, the well-known queen of love story in Taiwan since 1990s, has wrote countless love fairy tales in her works. Romance in the Rain, which was wrote in the first person, is one of the few works of Qiong Yao with a deep sense of history. It depicted decades of China's chaotic history from one angle and employed the rise and collapse of the powerful warlord Lu Zhenhuas family as a cue. It discussed how people's fortunes changed through time and demonstrated many humanities through the intense character conflicts as well. Romance in the Rain not only reflects Qiong Yao's ideal world but also her real existence. It can be accepted as Qiong Yaos masterpiece which was inspired by and related to Taiwan's political climate in the 1960s, the rise of Taiwan's realistic literature. This article uses the method of text analysis to study the novel, and explains the customs of foreign countries and places, and then transforms this visual and spectacle representation of others into imagined China, which satisfies the needs of Taiwanese audiences at that time. The curiosity of Chinese audiences creates the value of "pan-Chinese" nationalism.

Research on the Impact of China's Dual Circulation Economic Strategy on Corporate Restructuring & Countermeasures in the Context of the US-China Game in the Post-Epidemic Era

As globalisation accelerates and deepens, the competition between China and the US in the 'global governance system' (GGS) becomes more intense. China's activism during the epidemic effectively filled the gap in global leadership created by the US government's belated, reckless, and misguided policies on preventive measures. Nevertheless, the epidemic has also exposed the Chinese industrial chains lack of resilience and government intervention in corporate planning. In response to China's growing economic and political power, the US, under the Trump and Biden administrations, has begun to promote reverse globalisation and hopes to limit the growth of Chinese companies through economic and technological decoupling from China (US-Sino decoupling). With the US unilateral decision to decouple, if the Chinese government does not regulate it through policy promptly, it could significantly impact the global supply chain and its own companies. Therefore, in the context of US-Sino decoupling, Chinese companies in the post-epidemic era must improve their own supply chain resilience and reduce the intensity of conflict with the US. This paper will use case studies and comparative analysis to explore the main problems China faces from the experience of other middle-power countries in their economic recovery against US economic sanctions and to provide effective countermeasures for implementing this objective in the context of a dual circulation economic strategy.

Parent-Adolescent Conflict: Adolescents' Coping Strategies and Preferred Parenting Styles during the Social Movements in Hong Kong, 2019.

This research investigated parent-adolescent conflict, conflict resolution strategies and perceived parenting styles by adolescents during the social movements in Hong Kong in 2019, a period characterized by considerable social unrest in which many young people participated in demonstrations and protests. The study drew on responses from 866 adolescents aged between 11 and 16 who completed a questionnaire that included a conflict issue checklist and elicited respondents' conflict resolution strategies as well as perceived parenting styles. Correlation analysis was performed to identify the correlation of parent-adolescent conflicts with differences in political stances with their parents and other demographic data. Regression analysis was performed to identify the correlation of perceived parenting styles and conflict resolution strategies adopted by adolescents. Results indicated that early adolescents have a higher intensity of conflicts with their parents than late adolescents in this period. Respondents had more intense conflicts with their parents over political differences and ways of expressing their political views than other issues. Those respondents in conflict or ineffective arguing strategies perceived their parents as more authoritarian than those who adopt positive conflict resolution strategies. However, when asked about their ideal ways of resolving conflicts, adolescents preferred problem-solving rather than conflict strategies.

Spatial evaluation and zoning strategy of land use elemental conflicts in heavy industrial zones: evidence from central Liaoning Province in Northeast China.

The matching imbalance of resource factors leads to land use elemental conflicts (LUECs), which has become the bottleneck restricting high-quality social and economic development. The heavy industrial zones (HIZ) have become the focus area of LUECs due to the high-resource consumption. Taking the urban group of central Liaoning Province, the area of industrial revitalization in northeast China as a case study area, the study proposed a wavelet coherence approach to identifying the influencing indicators and indicators weight of LUECs for spatial evaluation. Two-dimensional graph theory is used to cluster the evaluation results of LUECs at the plot scale and controls the main indicators to put forward the zoning strategies of LUECs. The results showed that the main indicators affecting LUECs in the western part of the HIZ are mainly human indicators, while the fierce conflicts in the east mainly come from natural indicators. The zoning strategies of LUECs in the HIZ should prevent excessive energy consumption from increasing carbon emissions in intense conflict zone and moderate conflict zone and strengthen the rural settlement arrangement and soil erosion control in mild conflict zone and structure ecological security early warnings in potential conflict zone. This study provides an important reference for land use conflicts in the global heavy industrial urban agglomeration.