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Decades of research on social conflict has contributed to researchers' understanding of a wide variety of psychological, social, and community-based aspects of conflict escalation and intractability. However, the field has yet to put forth a theoretical model that links these components to the basic underlying structures and dynamics that account for intractability and transformation. This article presents a dynamical systems approach to conceptualizing intractable conflict as a preliminary step toward developing a basic theory of intractability. The authors propose that it is particularly useful to conceptualize ongoing, destructive patterns of conflict as strong attractors, a particular form of self-organization of multiple elements of conflict systems. Their dynamical approach to conflict intractability is outlined, and some preliminary implications of this approach for conflict de-escalation are discussed.

Conflict is inherent in virtually every aspect of human relations, from sport to parliamentary democracy, from fashion in the arts to paradigmatic challenges in the sciences, and from economic activity to intimate relationships. Yet, it can become among the most serious social problems humans face when it loses its constructive features and becomes protracted over time with no obvious means of resolution. This book addresses the subject of intractable social conflict from a new vantage point. Here, these types of conflict represent self-organizing phenomena, emerging quite naturally from the ongoing dynamics in human interaction at any scale--from the interpersonal to the international. Using the universal language and computational framework of nonlinear dynamical systems theory in combination with recent insights from social psychology, intractable conflict is understood as a system locked in special attractor states that constrain the thoughts and actions of the parties to the conflict. The emergence and maintenance of attractors for conflict can be described by means of formal models that incorporate the results of computer simulations, experiments, field research, and archival analyses. Multi-disciplinary research reflecting these approaches provides encouraging support for the dynamical systems perspective. Importantly, this text presents new views on conflict resolution. In contrast to traditional approaches that tend to focus on basic, short-lived cause-effect relations, the dynamical perspective emphasizes the temporal patterns and potential for emergence in destructive relations. Attractor deconstruction entails restoring complexity to a conflict scenario by isolating elements or changing the feedback loops among them. The creation of a latent attractor trades on the tendency toward multi-stability in dynamical systems and entails the consolidation of incongruent (positive) elements into a coherent structure. In the bifurcation scenario, factors are identified that can change the number and types of attractors in a conflict scenario. The implementation of these strategies may hold the key to unlocking intractable conflict, creating the potential for constructive social relations.

The present article describes research in progress which is developing a simple, replicable methodology aimed at identifying the regularities and specificity of human behavior in conflict escalation and de-escalation prooesses. These research efforts will ultimately be used to study conflict dynamics across cultures. The experimental data collected through this methodology, together with case studies and aggregated, time-series macro data are key for identifying relevant parameters, systems' properties, and micromechanisms defining the behavior of naturally occurring conflict escalation and de-escalation dynamics. This, in turn, is critical for the development of realistic, empirically supported computational models. The article outlines the theoretical assumptions of Dynamical Systems Theory with regard to conflict dynamics, with an emphasis on the process of conflict escalation and de-escalation. Next, work on a methodology for empirical study of escalation processes from a DST perspective is outlined. Specifically, the development of a progressive scenario methodology designed to map escalation sequences, together with anexample of a preliminary study based on the proposed researcb paradigm, is presented. Implications of the approach for the study of culture are discussed.

Conflict is inherent in virtually every aspect of human relations, from sport to parliamentary democracy, from fashion in the arts to paradigmatic challenges in the sciences, and from economic activity to intimate relationships.? Yet, it can become among the most serious social problems humans face when it loses its constructive features and becomes protracted over time with no obvious means of resolution.?This book addresses the subject of intractable social conflict from a new vantage point.??Here, these types of conflict represent self-organizing phenomena, emerging quite naturally from the