Social & Political Conflict – Understanding the Sources

Defining Politics and Understanding Political and Social Conflict

Politics is essentially a system for social solving problems, making decisions and resolving conflicts within a given society or community. The reason that politics-as-problem-solving seems so distant from our experience is due to a cultural tendency to focus on solutions that are based on who holds power (power-based) or who is "right" in the eyes of the law (rights-based). The standard political approach, which creates winners and losers, tends to lead to ever deeper polarization. The possibility of "losing" when profoundly important issues are at stake is intolerable, which means that the need to "win" becomes ever more important. These approaches create aggression and division.

There is a way out of this cycle, however, and it is rooted in finding systems of political communication that embrace nuance and address underlying needs and interests. These interest-based systems would take an omnipartial (partial toward everyone), win-win approach to decision making. Interest-based approaches would be led by an attitude of curiosity, creativity, empathy, unity, and collaboration while also embracing differences and diverse perspectives.

Politics as a Social Decision Making Process

Here are some interest-based ways of defining politics. These ways of understanding of politics discourage domination and point to the necessary and potentially positive role of politics:

1. Politics is a social problem-solving process. As a result, a diversity of views about the nature of the problem and multiple, alternative ways of solving it will predictably result in better, more sustainable solutions.
2. Politics is a large group decision-making process. As a result, the greater the consensus, the stronger the democracy, the more apt people are to agree with a decision and the more likely it is to be effective.
3. Politics is a conflict resolution process.  As a result, the amount of chronic, on-going, systemic conflict can be dramatically reduced by assuming that there is more than one correct answer, by adopting a complex, egalitarian, interest-based approach to conflict resolution, and by allowing no one to lose just so that others can win.

The Components of Political and Social Conflicts

Why do potentially productive political disagreements about important social issues often turn into unproductive conflicts?

There are three basic sub-components and necessary characteristics of any political or social conflict. These can be used to create conflicts, OR they can show us how to dismantle them.

1. Diversity: In the first place, there must be two or more distinct individuals or groups of people, each with diverse perspectives, beliefs, ideas, opinions, needs, values and interests.  Diversity of perspectives and experiences is the strength of any society or democratic political system, and it is an essential ingredient to disagreement and conflict.
2. Inequality: In the second place, there must be an inequality in power between these individuals or groups, reflecting their ability to implement their diverse beliefs, ideas, opinions, values, etc.  Politics is essentially about distributing the power to affect change in a society, and it is the element of inequality in a society that makes a conflict be political.
3. Adversarial, win/lose process: In the third place, there must be an adversarial, win/lose process for decision-making or problem solving that pits diverse individuals and groups against each other, allowing someone to "win" and someone to "lose." Adversarial processes that try to create fixed outcomes based on power and rights will lead to polarization and chronic conflict.

Some seek to reduce the level of political/social conflict by decreasing diversity and boosting respect for accepted or conventional ideas and buttressing established authority.
Some seek to reduce the level of political/social conflict by increasing equality, championing the freedom to dissent, articulate, argue for and implement diverse perspectives.
Few focus on changing the adversarial win/lose nature of the process. Many can't imagine or don't know that effective processes exist where diversity and inequality do not regularly result in social division and political polarization.

The belief that politics and social issues must be adversarial is overly simplistic. It focuses only in a win/lose process does not adequately take into account the ways that inclusive, consensus building, collaborative and interest-based processes are able to “expand the pie” and generate new options by listening, assessing criteria, brainstorming creative alternatives, building consensus, soothing injured feelings, resolving underlying disputes and maximizing positive outcomes.

Elements of Social & Political Decision-Making

There are three distinct elements that form the basis of effective political analyses, social problem-solving, conflict resolution and decision-making.

To have effective social and political decision-making, one must cultivate these three elements.

1. Content: The substance or content of the problem must be successfully identified, discussed, addressed, and resolved.
2. Relationship: Everyone who is impacted by a problem must be involved, and the relationship between the people who trying to solve or make decisions about it, must be respectful, constructive, trusting, and collaborative.
3. Process: The process of solving problems and making decisions must be inclusive, transparent, effective, and fair.

Analyzing Political and Social Conflict: Are the Elements in Balance?

• Is the content of the problem successfully identified and addressed and the relationship constructive, but the process is ineffective and unfair?
• Is the content clear and addressed and the process effective, but the relationship is competitive, adversarial and untrusting?
• Or is the relationship strong and the process effective, but it there is a lack of clarity or agreement about the content of the discussion?

In any case where there is an imbalance between the elements of effective decision-making, chronic conflicts will arise that can prevent even the best solutions from being implemented.

While discussing political and social issues it is most common to focus on content. Many try to convince others their perspective by sharing more evidence, facts, data and information. By itself this strategy rarely is successful.

Generally, little attention is devoted to improving either the processes or the relationships in a political decision making process.

When in doubt, focus on improving process and relationships. "First connection, then content."

While these three elements are intricately interconnected, it is important to periodically set aside disagreements over content in order to focus attention exclusively on improving processes and relationships. Doing so makes it possible to achieve content goals far more effectively in the long run by learning to act fairly, repair trust, and work constructively, even when there are disagreements over content.

This is especially important in political and social conflicts, where nearly everyone is focused on the content of the debate, even to the point of being willing to sacrifice processes and relationships entirely. By allowing deeply desired ends to justify the use of undesirable means, without realizing that by using hostile, adversarial means we routinely produce hostile, adversarial ends. It is precisely our willingness to achieve results at the expense of fairness in processes and trust in relationships that fuels most political conflicts.

See below for strategies for balancing the elements of content, relationship and process.

Go to the Foundations for Building Conflict Literacy module of this Conflict Literacy Framework to learn tools for building relationships and creating a deeper understanding of content.

To learn effective processes for decision-making in diverse groups go to these modules of the Conflict Literacy Framework:

• Dialogue & Facilitation
• The Circle Process
• Finding Common Ground: (Collaborative Negotiation, Multi-stakeholder Engagement And Consensus Building)