Clearly, there is no shortage of theories as to the causes, processes, outcomes and management of conflict.
Many disciplines have contributed but there is little synthesis. This chapter is a brief thought experiment (Gedankenexperiment)1 on where we might go from here to improve conflict theory.
Thomas Kuhn (1996) coined the phrase "paradigm shift" to describe a radical change in the way scientists understand the world. In the natural sciences, important examples include the sun-centered universe, evolution, plate tectonics, relativity, quantum mechanics, and string theory. We are yet to see a paradigm shift in conflict theory.
Unsurprisingly, Kuhn continues, paradigm shifts are rare. Everyday science is evolutionary, not revolutionary. A paradigm consisting of shared assumptions, beliefs and values guides “normal” science. Most researchers study ordinary cases and emphasize the mean, ignoring the outliers as unimportant. An alternative is to focus on the anomalies, the “Black Swans” as Taleb (2007) called rare, unpredictable events that have massive impact and for which rational explanations are concocted after the fact.2
Still, knowledge does change. Facts may not be as solid as they appear. Even the location and height of Mount Everest are not fixed, thanks to colliding continental plates that move it laterally about six centimeters a year and push it up while erosion wears it down. Add the disruption to settled ways of doing things from advances in technology. Consider too the tendency of original articles to seem far more compelling than later studies, a tendency documented by John Ioannidis at Stanford in HIV therapy, angioplasty, and stroke treatment, possibly a result of publications preferring to present positive results. If shaky claims enter science too quickly, firmer ones often meet resistance, and scientists like most people struggle before letting go of long-held beliefs. In the end, science is a human endeavor.
Knowledge grows but includes uncertainty and error. Thus, far better than learning facts is learning how to adapt to changing facts (Arbesman 2012).In some cases, Black Swans lead to alternative paradigms and in some of those cases the alternative gains acceptance. The result is a new paradigm with new ideas as to what matters, new propositions that guide research and decisions. Then, the cycle repeats. The history of conflict is full of Black Swans such as the seventh century conquests by Islam and the thirteenth century conquests by the Mongols, the 1914 assassination at Sarajevo, the 1948 election victory of Harry Truman, the 9/11 terror attack,3 and the timing and tactics of the resulting US counterattack. After World War I, the French built the Maginot Line across the previous German invasion route to prevent reinvasion—Hitler simply went around it. After the easy success in Iraq, the US government completely missed and failed for nearly four years to adapt to the insurgency.
Four iterative tasks face theoreticians attempting to develop a general theory of conflict. The first is developing a taxonomy of conflict such as the Linnaean system on which biology rests or the periodic table on which chemistry rests. An agreed taxonomy provides a uniform and internationally agreed nomenclature, puts each conflict into an agreed context, aids organizing and retrieving information, and guides design and interpretation of research. For the study of conflict, one possibility starts with a division into Man vs. God, Man vs. Man, Man vs. Nature, and Man vs. Self. Another is into levels of conflict. These are but possible starting points with all the subdivisions undefined. The ideal system would identify and assign every type of conflict to one and only one category, would accommodate additional forms of conflict that might emerge, and would suggest useful similarities and differences among the types.
The second task is putting bad theories out to pasture.
Social scientists seem more reluctant to do so than natural scientists.4 Using some agreed upon set of criteria for eliminating bad ideas seems essential to developing a successful general theory of conflict. Six suggested criteria are empiricism, falsifiability, generalizability, logic, parsimony, and usability (Chapter 1). They provide a rubric for objective analysis of existing theories and those likely to be developed in the future.The third task is selecting and synthesizing ideas that provide a general explanation of the outcomes, processes, and causes of conflict, the main components of a complete theory.
With respect to outcomes, Strategic Choice (Chapter 2) might provide a method for identifying stable solutions to conflicts from the simplest to the most complex. The work on Human Needs (Chapter 4) and on Fairness (Chapter 2) might provide guides for ranking of preferences that the method requires.
With respect to process, Expected Utility (Chapter 12) might provide a method for incorporating risk and utilities to predict the strategy each party to a conflict is likely to follow. The Dual Variable Models (Chapter 7) have potential for incorporating relationships. It might be important to incorporate the effects of stress (Chapter 10) and to incorporate unintended consequences (Chapter 9).
With respect to causes, there seems to be little more than long lists of possibilities beginning with those rooted in our biological nature and ending with the causes of interstate war. Overall, this seems the most difficult element of a complete theory, as many if not all conflicts seem to have multiple causes of incredible variety.
These are tentative suggestions at best, intended to provoke discussion as to what a good theory of conflict would look like and contain. They fall far short of a coherent theory and they overlook a significant difficulty. Once published, anyone can use a theory of human behavior to advantage, invalidating it.
The application to baseball of the theory known as “moneyball” illustrates the point. Applying it, Oakland began winning by signing players with a high on-base percentage regardless of how they got there. Other teams caught on, did the same, and erased the short-lived advantage the theory gave to Oakland (Sandel 2012). Military history and competitive strategy provide countless additional examples, some mentioned earlier. This may make a theory of conflict impossible!The fourth task is research to test theory against the criteria—once there is agreement as to what and how many there are. Just what those research methods are depends in no small degree on whether the study of conflict belongs to the humanities, the social sciences, or both. Social scientists, impressed by the success of the physical sciences and particularly with the high regard for mathematics of the European philosophers and scientists who met in Vienna until most fled Hitler, emulated their logical positivist philosophy and methods. The result has been an emphasis on quantification, hypothesis testing, inferential statistics, and research design. But, determining which variables were important to measure, devising valid and reliable ways to measure them, and reducing them to the number of variables their methods and computers could handle often resulted in over-simplification. When they did strive for breadth, the result typically was something like this from Rummel:
Let me denote the economic development of a nation by E, its power capability by C, and its participation in the system by P. Then, the theory is that P = α E + β C where α and β are constants.
Abba Eban, among other accomplishments a former Israeli foreign minister, ambassador to the UN, and author of three elegantly written books on history and diplomacy, replies:
If Rummel wants to ‘denote,’ let him denote, but let him not expect much understanding.
As noted earlier (Chapter 1), John Gaddis questioned the efficacy of quantitative methods as well.
Eban and Gaddis almost certainly overstate the case against empiricism and mathematical models, which have made positive contributions to understanding conflict. But, the humanities contribute a broader context and entirely different methods that are useful as well. The great nineteenth-century German historian Leopold von Ranke established principles for historical inquiry designed to improve methodological objectivity (Chapter 1). Subsequently, a vast literature has expanded on them, continually improving research. However, the goal here is not to provide a manual of the many research methods available5 but to suggest better articulation of different methods. Conflict theory is likely to advance by both qualitative and quantitative, by both inductive and deductive methods, and by both rational thought and inspired ideas. As Bueno de Mesquita and others have said, probably it is better to measure important variables approximately than to measure unimportant ones precisely.