Theory of Conflict

I have decide to use Cyber Crime Act NO.14 of 2015  in connection with Conflict Theory due to the number of criticism that have been provided by some institutions, lawyers, journalists and other people who claims that some of the provisions of the Act are unconstitutional hence affects some fundamental rights of human beings therefore creates division of classes between the law makers and the law compliers, as those who are suppose to comply with the law feels that such provisions were created to humiliate them. If such provisions were created to humiliate them, then they are not fit for the purpose of protecting the public interest. In that case if people decide not to comply with the said provisions, they will be deemed to commit crime as stipulate by the Act itself. Therefore, creating a possibility on the existence of conflict between those who are arguing against such provisions and those who created the law.

El presente trabajo es un análisis del conflicto de la Cordillera del Cóndor entre Ecuador y Perú, específicamente en la situación de los actores en el enfrentamiento bélico no declarado en 1995. Los antecedentes inmediatos de la
disputa se encuentran en el Protocolo de Río de 1942. Sus orígenes provienen de la delimitación de fronteras de principios del siglo XIX por parte de las naciones que conquistaron la independencia de España.

The Jos crisis is one that has attracted the attention of scholars from different disciplines and also policy-makers. Its protracted nature and the dynamics of the conflict gave rise to different views from different scholars as regards its causes. However, the fact still remains that until the deep-rooted causes are attended to and a lasting solution is proffered, the conflict will keep re-escalating. On that note, it is pertinent to examine theories relevant to the Jos crisis. The exploration of conflict theories is important for understanding the nature of the conflict itself. In order to find solutions to the seemingly protracted problems in Jos, Plateau State, these theoretical areas need to be fully explored. Of particular importance are the Human Needs, Relational, Instrumentalist Theory of Religion and Social Identity Theories. It is hoped that the developments in this area will assist researchers and policy-makers to understand the causes of the conflict and also help in the search for a solution.

En su última etapa de trabajo, Parsons se embarcó en dos tipos de proyectos. Por un lado, la continuación de su teoría sistemática a través de investigaciones evolucionistas acerca del devenir histórico de las sociedades humanas. Por el otro, el abordaje de problemas específicos de Estados Unidos y su rol en la situación política global. Aunque en ambos casos los análisis responden, de manera más o menos directa, a la lógica de su modelo tetrasistémico o AGIL, los primeros se orientan a mantener un carácter formal y abstracto, mientras los segundos recuperan un anclaje histórico-político del análisis sociológico. En conjunto, pretenden establecer un andamiaje conceptual homogéneo que permita vincular cuestiones analíticas e históricas sin caer en un uso puramente referencial de la sociedad. Sin embargo, los principales comentaristas e investigadores de la obra parsoniana ponen de relieve las dificultades de su sistema para cumplir este objetivo totalizador. Este artículo busca ampliar la discusión respecto de las tensiones entre el nivel “abstracto” e “histórico-político” de la etapa evolucionista del pensamiento parsoniano, explorando la contraposición de dos tipos diferentes de ingreso al problema de la sociedad: el abordaje del Estado-nación y su noción de comunidad societal.

Heraclitus law, punctuated equilibria and the dynamics of contemporary world
Miroslav Bárta, Charles University, Czech Institute of Egyptology, Czech Republic

The modern world appears like a multipolar arena with penetrable frontiers which are becoming more and more fuzzy, one that offers an array of divergent forms of truth and feels like a melting pot of national and global interests that are in permanent harmony and conflict at the same time. Permanent competition and conflict between the interests of a few and many dominates the public space. The nature of military conflicts has likely changed. Unlike in the past, when wars were easily identifiable and limited in space and time, nowadays the commonplace of wars is not only a specific geographic region, but more often it can be cyberspace, mass media or economic systems, which all lack physical borders. Nowadays, war can be won or lost without a single drop of blood being spilled. It can be lost even without noticing it. Last but not least, vital changes appear to come into being as if out of nothing, unexpectedly and seemingly without any cause. In this paper, I propose to apply the so-called Heraclitus law and the model of punctuated equilibria to the deep archaeological past to provide models for military organizations in the present to predict future conflicts and their specific forms.
As a consequence of these complexities, modern armies around the world have significantly changed by definition and nature. In contrast to the past, it is not only a force defending a given country and geographic region. Armies have been converted into a force that has – in addition to traditional modes of acting – goals to ensure political stability and/or security in its mother’s country or counter climatic instability. To meet such challenges armies unavoidably require analytical tools which can be provided exclusively by interdisciplinary research anticipating and explicating long-term trends and major laws underlying the evolution of any given civilization. It is for this reason, that the ‘deep-time’ archaeological record of the past is so germane to planners today.  One of the most important theories is punctuated equilibria theory that is based on the evidence of history from many continents and several millennia of complex civilisations existence, provides a multispectral and efficient tool for mapping long term trajectories and for predicting major periods of instability and ‘leap changes’. Thus we need Big history, Deep time, and Big data to find our way into the future and make the world more stable and safer. 
By definition this theory postulates that major changes take place abruptly and change entirely the nature and principles on which a given system operates. Such a ‘leap period’ is always preceded by a longer period of stasis, a seemingly uneventful stage, during which all components of the whole system (be it economic, social, administrative, symbolical, political etc.) accummulate the potential for a major change. After reaching a critical level of multiple minor changes and and the increasing impact of diminishing returns of the system, the period of stasis (or equilibria) disappears and the individual subsystems start to intensify their interactions with each other, eventually leading to a deep and complex change of the overall structure and operating principles of the system.
What emerges is that we need to analyse long term tendencies and deep time data from as many spheres of human activities as possible in order to recognize and predict the loss of equilibria and an aggravation of potential for a leap in the form of a major discontinuity. This being not enough, a cultural system entering such an unstable and historically brief period of major reshuffle is more often than not influenced by external factors of which climate change may be the most essential one. While the inner dynamics of a given system can be controlled to a limited extent, modified and tempered, external factors such as climate change (being the most significant one), are global variables that cannot be overridden, and consequently, have always led to political instability. What modern military organizations might consider is that long term trends in study of human populations, processes in nature, and the mechanisms of their change, together with the predictive potential inherent in this theory, are precisely those that can considerably increase security and stability, but may also have significant bearing on the efficacy of performance, and accuracy of military strategies.