Ethnic Cleansing, History of
demonstrate just how difficult it is to gain international
consensus for intervention. The Russian involvement
in Chechnya might well end in ethnic cleansing; only
the most tepid of protests are registered on behalf of
the hundreds of thousands of innocent refugees from
the conflict. Even when intervention takes place, it is
very difficult to separate nations peaceably who have
experienced the ravages of ethnic cleansing. One of the
fallacies of those who justify ethnic cleansing is that
peace is advanced by forceably creating homogeneous
nation-states. Instead, long-term animosities and
national traumas are engendered that can explode into
violence and war.
Especially in the former communist world, there are
numerous countries with weak state structures, under-
developed civil societies, and struggling economies.
Where political elites are willing to play the ‘nationalist
card’ in order to mobilize populations on behalf of the
modernizing nation-state, ethnic cleansing might well
occur. Under similar circumstances, countries like
Turkey, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Indonesia could
also be vulnerable to attacks on minority nations.
See also: Anti-Semitism; Ethnic Conflict, Geography
of; Ethnic Conflicts; Ethnic Conflicts and Ancient
Hatreds: Cultural Concerns; Ethnic Groups\
Ethnicity: Historical Aspects; Genocide: Anthro-
pological Aspects; Genocide: Historical Aspects;
Holocaust, The; Race: History of the Concept;
Racism, History of; Xenophobia
Bibliography
Ahmed A S 1995 Ethnic cleansing: A metaphor for our time?
Ethnic and Racial Studies 18(1): 1–25
Allen B 1996 Rape Warfare: The Hidden Genocide in Bosnia–
Herzego
ina and Croatia. University of Minnesota Press,
Minneapolis, MN
Bartov O 1996 Murder in our Midst: The Holocaust, Industrial
Killing, and Representation. Oxford University Press,
New York
Baumann Z 1989 Modernity and the Holocaust. Cornell Uni-
versity Press, Ithaca, NY
Bell-Fialkoff A 1996 Ethnic Cleansing, 1st edn. St. Martin’s
Press, New York
Brubaker R 1996 Nationalism Reframed: Nationhood and the
National Question in the New Europe. Cambridge University
Press, Cambridge, UK
Cigar N 1995 Genocide in Bosnia: The Policy of ‘Ethnic
Cleansing’, 1st edn. Texas A&M University Press, College
Station, TX
Gutman R 1993 A Witness to Genocide. Macmillan, New York
Hayden R M 1996 Schindler’s fate and Balkan tragedy of the
1990s: Genocide, ethnic cleansing, and population transfers.
Sla
ic Re
iew 55(4): 727–48
Kuper L 1981 Genocide: Its Political Use in the Twentieth
Century. Yale University Press, New Haven, CT
Lemberg H 1992 ‘Ethnische Sa$ uberung’: Ein Mittel zur Lo$ sung
von Nationalita$ tenproblemen? Aus Politik und Zeitgesc-
hichte: Beilage zur Wochenzeitung Das Parlament B 46(92):
27–38 [‘Ethnic cleansing’: A means for the solution of
4802
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ory: A Supplement to the Weekly, The Parliament]
Martin T 1998 The origins of soviet ethnic cleansing. Journal of
Modern History 70(4): 813–61
Melson R 1992 Re
olution and Genocide: On the Origins of the
Armenian Genocide and the Holocaust. University of Chicago
Press, Chicago
Naimark N 2001 Fires of Hatred: Ethnic Cleansing in Twentieth
Century Europe. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA
Scott J C 1998 Seeing Like a State: How Certain Schemes to
Impro
e the Human Condition Ha
e Failed. Yale University
Press, New Haven, CT
Stiglmayer A 1994 Mass Rape: The War against Women in
Bosnia–Herzego
ina. University of Nebraska Press, Lincoln,
NE
Ther P 1998 Deutsche und polnische Vertriebene: Gesellschaft und
Vertriebenenpolitik in der SBZ\DDR und in Polen 1945–1956
[German and Polish Deportees: Society and Deportee Policy in
the SBZ\GDR and in Poland 1945–1956]. Vandenhoeck &
Ruprecht, Go$ ttingen, Germany
Vujacic V 1993 Communism, Nationalism, and Democracy in
Russia and Serbia: 1985–1993, draft manuscript
N. M. Naimark
Ethnic Conflict, Geography of
Ethnic conflict is a worldwide phenomenon. Much of
it is territorially based, entailing disputes over the
control of space. It occurs over a wide range of spatial
scales, from the interstate level to the urban neighbor-
hood. Violence takes place at the extreme, though a
significant amount of ethnic conflict is characterized
by nonviolent behavior. Causal factors can range from
material welfare concerns to identity issues. A range of
territorially based solutions or at least attempts at
conflict regulation have been put forward.
1. Spatial Scales
It is possible, from a geographical perspective, to
classify ethnic conflicts into three categories—the
interstate, the intrastate and the micro-scale or intra-
urban. However it must be stressed that there are
powerful linkages between the various scales. Events
at the interstate scale can reverberate down into the
individual states and may even have consequences at
the level of urban neighborhoods. Likewise, conflicts
at the urban micro-scale can impact at the larger
spatial scales, even as far as triggering ill-feeling or
worse, in the ‘international’ arena.
1.1 Ethnic Conflict at the Interstate Scale
The geographical distributions of many ethnic groups
do not conform neatly to existing state boundaries (the

Basques and the Kurds provide clear examples of
this). The misfit between state and ethnic group
boundaries may generate claims. As Donald
Horowitz (1985) has put it ‘if irredentism is conceived
as a movement to retrieve ethnic kinsmen and their
territory across borders, the common disjunction of
group boundaries and territorial boundaries offers
scope for irredentas aplenty.’ Horowitz further notes
that a decision to attempt to forcibly retrieve ethnic
group members across a border is, in the main, a
government decision. This contrasts with secession,
which is an ethnic group decision to break away from
the state that the group currently finds itself penned
into. Secession may involve an attempt to form a
separate state, or it may mean breaking away from one
state and joining another.
Stanley Lieberson (1972) has stressed that an ethnic
group has the possibility of reducing or eliminating
any disadvantage it may suffer, by opting for political
separation. As he points, out such a strategy is not
available to other disadvantaged groups in a stratified
society (for instance those disadvantaged on grounds
of gender, age or economic position). Thus, as Lieber-
son outlines it, the most fundamental difference
between ethnic and other forms of stratification lies in
the fact that the former is nearly always the basis for
the internal disintegration of the existing boundaries
of the state. Since the objective is most likely to be the
formation of a new state, the best way to describe such
secessionist groups is to refer to them as ‘ethno-
nationalists.’ Such attempts at the disruption of
existing states will not be greeted favorably by existing
governments. Thus secession is likely to be pursued
and to be resisted by the use of violence.
Interstate ethnic conflict also manifests itself through
the roles of ‘external national homelands’ (Brubacker
1996) and ethnic diasporas. With the former a state
may feel an obligation towards its fellow ethnics in one
or more other states. This obligation may translate
into attempts to influence those other states’ policies
towards the homeland state’s co-ethnics, or to the
offering of immigration and citizenship privileges for
returning members of the ethnic diaspora. Involve-
ment, however, may extend to irredentist claims.
Ethnic diasporas, on the other hand, may express
concerns about circumstances in their original (real or
mythical) home countries. In this case elements in the
diaspora communities will press their ‘own’ govern-
ment to adopt policies that are perceived to be
advantageous to fellow ethnics in the ‘old country’ or
ethnic homeland. Irish Americans vis-a' -vis Ireland,
Jewish Americans vis-a' -vis Israel and Arab Americans
vis-a' -vis Palestine are clear instances of this. Indeed
some of these groups may well adopt stances that are
more extreme that those taken by their fellow ethnics
‘back home,’ or as Samuel P. Huntington has put
it, they may be ‘more Catholic than the Pope’
(Huntington 1997). He also observes that diaspora
communities become particularly active in the age of
Ethnic Conflict, Geography of
electronic communication: ‘the commitments of dia-
sporas are reinvigorated and sometimes polarized by
constant contact with their former homes.’
Ethnic conflict at the interstate level is also evident
in what Samuel Huntington labels ‘fault line wars.’
While these wars erupt at the interfaces between
‘civilizations’ (labeled by Huntington ‘Western,’ Is-
lamic,’ African’ etc.), they frequently involve localized
ethnic groups, acting, as it were, as the standard
bearers of their respective global-scale groupings. Of
course, some of these fault-line wars occur at the
intrastate level. In either case they are struggles for
control of people and of territory.
Population transfers play a significant role in many
interstate ethnic conflicts. If borders cannot be ad-
justed,peoplesmaybe‘adjusted’instead.Sometimesthe
ethnic territories are ‘purified’ by agreement, as with
the transfer of Greeks and Turks in the early 1920s.
Frequently, however, transfers are achieved by ex-
pulsion or—the ultimate savagery—by genocide. Fin-
ally, it can be noted that some transfers are associated
with what John McGarry (1998) calls ‘demographic
engineering’ on the part of states. Here ‘agents’ may be
moved in, being populations allotted special roles on
behalf of the state concerned; on the other hand some
groups perceived as ‘enemies’ may be moved out,
enemies being defined as groups whose present loca-
tions pose problems for the authorities and an obstacle
to their goals (these goals generally being ones of
territorial control). As with all types of population
transfer, these movements can occur both within and
between states.
1.2 Ethnic Conflict at the Intrastate Scale
Gurr and Harff (1994), in their book on ethnic conflict
in world politics place ethnic groups into four cate-
gories—ethnonationalists, indigenous peoples, com-
munal contenders and ethnoclasses. Ethnonationalists
are relatively large and regionally concentrated ethnic
groups, which live within the boundaries of a single
state or straddle several adjacent ones. They are likely
to be seeking a greater degree of autonomy or even
independent statehood. Indigenous peoples may also
be seeking some degree of autonomy, but are par-
ticularly concerned about the discrimination and
exploitation experienced at the hands of the more
technologically advanced peoples who, by and large,
control them. Communal contenders, unlike ethnona-
tionalists, do not seek separation or secession, rather,
they seek to share power in the governance of the state
they reside in.
As with communal contenders, ethnoclasses seek
equality. Unlike them, however, they are usually
spatially dispersed, rarely having a well-defined ter-
ritorial base (for example, where ethnic entrepreneurs
operate in specialized, spatially dispersed economic
niches). Consequently, in their case, strategies aimed
4803
Ethnic Conflict, Geography of
at secession from the existing state or at seeking some
degree of autonomy within it are not relevant.
Thus, while some ethnic group conflicts impinge at
the inter-state level, many are contained within the one
state and do not spill over ‘international’ boundaries.
The roles played by dominant groups in these situa-
tions are crucial—they set the context for the other
ethnic groups present. What Hennayake (1992) calls
majority ethnonationalism can generate a reaction in a
situation he refers to as interactive ethnonationalism.
In a similar vein Brubacker (1996) writes of ‘national-
izing states’ where dominant elites promote the
language, culture, demographic position, economic
flourishing or political hegemony of their own group,
creating an environment disadvantageous to the cul-
tural aspirations and material interests of the other
ethnic groups present within the state. Indeed here
issues of inclusion and exclusion are met, seen at their
most general in the distinction between ‘civic’ and
‘ethnic’ nationalism. With the former, the nation is
ethnically inclusive of all those who subscribe to the
nation’s political creed. With the latter the claim is
made that an individual’s deepest attachments are
inherited, not chosen (Ignatieff 1993). National
identity is defined by ethnic identity—ein Volk: ein
Staat.
The maintenance of political and social cohesion in
multi-ethnic states will be possible under three con-
trasting circumstances: first, where we find civic
nationalism to be dominant, second, where one ethnic
group is dominant and third, where an external power
exerts hegemony. This latter situation has been
particularly prevalent where imperial powers have
operated—from the British, French, German, Austro-
Hungarian and the Russian empires of the nineteenth
and early twentieth centuries to what Michael Ignatieff
(1993) refers to as the Soviet and American joint
imperium after World War II. However with the
collapse of all but one of these, the lid of the pressure
cooker has been lifted and apparently solid states have
fragmented (the Soviet Union and Yugoslavia being
the most notable instances). This has led to the (re-)
emergence of previously suppressed or slumbering
ethnic groups. Such a reawakening has threatened the
fabrics of many states, generating movements that call
for varying degrees of separation (from secession to
regional autonomy).
Ethnic struggles at the intrastate level, from time to
time, have been characterized both by what may be
called ‘census wars’ and by ‘symbolic strife.’ With
reference to the former Donald Horowitz (1985) has
coined the phrase ‘winning the census’—here there are
concerns about existing (ethnic) demographic balances
and future trends. As he puts it ‘numbers are an
indicator of whose country it is.’ Census watching
becomes an obsession; arguments occur regarding the
accuracy of census enumerations, and in some cases
ethnic numeral balances are so sensitive that the census
is abandoned (as happened, for instance, in Lebanon).
4804
Matters of symbolism also take on a huge im-
portance in states with internal ethnic conflict. Ray-
mond Breton (1984) argues that the symbolic order is
a key component in constructing and maintaining a
collective entity. A dominant ethnic group will attempt
to impose its symbolic order on the state—flags,
official language, anthems, etc. Other ethnic groups
may resist this process, with the consequence that
many symbols become contested and contribute to
disunity. Ethnonationally contested spaces, in par-
ticular, are notable for their symbolic discensus. Of
course symbols may well help create unity within a
particular ethnic group, but in terms of inter-ethnic
relations they divide.
Within-state ethnic conflict may arise between
indigenous or well-rooted populations, on the one
hand, and recent, less well-rooted immigrants on the
other. If the immigrant flow is overwhelming (nu-
merically or technologically) the indigenous ethnic
group(s) will find themselves marginalized (as was the
case in North America). However many immigrant
flows have to accommodate themselves to the pre-
existing social and political environment. In this case,
conflict will be over equality of treatment—the im-
migrant will not expect (or presumably wish) to take
over the state that receives them.
1.3 Ethnic Conflict at the Micro-scale
Ethnic conflict gains its greatest intensity at the small
scale—here individuals and small groups interface
with each other as part of the daily round. Rural,
relatively low population density environments can
experience intense conflict (as well as day-to-day
coexistence), but it is usually in the urban, big city
environments that ethnic antagonisms can achieve a
peculiarly focused, ‘molecular’ nastiness.
In the urban context, foreign origin migrants at-
tempt to establish themselves as do those from within
the state, some of which may also have their origins in
ethnically differentiated regions. While conflict is not
necessarily an inevitable outcome, it is of frequent
occurrence, as the migrants compete with each other
and with the receiving society for scarce resources of
housing, employment, educational opportunities and
so on. In these circumstances many ethnic newcomers
experience a degree of residential segregation, part
based on the wishes of the immigrant and migrant
ethnics themselves, part based on the somewhat hostile
response of those who see themselves as the ‘hosts.’
From a bottom-up perspective, ethnic groups may
be seen to cluster together residentially for reasons of
physical defense, from a wish to distance themselves
from the embarrassment of contact with ethnocentric
others, and, indeed from a wish to have a base for
organizing politically and thereby gaining a say in the
decision making in the wider society through judicious
use of the electoral system. In the more extreme

conflict environments, the segregated residential clus-
ter can provide a base for organizing physical attack
against a wider society that is seen to be oppressive.
This is where the urban guerrilla is most likely to
thrive. Finally segregation can provide a context for
cultural preservation, one where the ethnic culture can
be tended and, indeed, transmitted to future genera-
tions. Some of this clustering is for very positive
reasons, but conflict can also be a key generating
factor (Boal 1987).
From the viewpoint of the encompassing society,
segregation also has its merits—it provides a means of
containing ‘alien’ populations, it insulates host culture
from what may be perceived as undesirable influences,
it provides a means of manipulating and minimizing
the electoral impact of the immigrant ethnics and, at
the extreme, it sets up the ethnic clusters as readily
definable targets for attack. Beyond the urban scale,
Nurit Kliot (1986) refers to intermingled ethnic clus-
ters in Lebanon as ‘hostage situations.’ The same
situation can apply at the urban scale.
Much ethnic conflict at the urban scale is relatively
low key, entailing competition for access to the
resources of everyday life and frictions over cultural
matters. However, some cities become cockpits of
ethnonational strife. In this situation, local conflicts
and competition become embroiled in issues of sov-
ereignty, and are thereby greatly intensified. Meron
Benvenisti (see Bollens 2000) has labeled such cities
‘polarized,’ while Joe$ l Kotek (1999) has applied the
term ‘frontier’. According to him, frontier cities are
above all disputed places because they are subject to
contradictory and opposing sovereignty claims. For
Kotek, a frontier city is ‘a territory for two dreams.’
The urban encapsulation of ethnonational conflict
may be seen as the city merely mirroring wider conflicts
over sovereignty, secession, irredentist claims and
desires for regional autonomy. More accurately, cities
displaying ethnonational encapsulation are, in reality,
actually key players in the conflicts in their own right.
Examples, such as Jerusalem, Belfast, Brussels, Mon-
treal, Nicosia and Sarajevo make the point. Indeed
some of these cities are the epicenters of the wider
conflict and are the focus of particularly intense
ethnonational disputation. Jerusalem stands out in
this regard.
2. Conflict Regulation and Resolution
Solutions to ethnic conflicts can take a number of
forms—territorial approaches, dominance approaches
and mutuality approaches. Territorial solutions entail
actions that increase the ethnic homogeneity of speci-
fied territorial spaces. The most extreme approaches
involve the removal—by genocide or by forced popu-
lation transfer—of one or more ethnic groups, pro-
ducing what might be called ‘purified’ spaces. More
acceptably, territorial approaches can involve the
creation of separate states for each ethnonational
Ethnic Conflict, Geography of
group (partition or secession), or for cantonal or
federal arrangements within the one state. Of course
processes of integration\assimilation can also remove
difference within a given state. If these occur by
consent, then inter-ethnic relations are likely to be
positive; if they occur in a coercive manner the
consequences will be alienation and the consequent
storing up of future conflict.
Dominance is where hegemonic control is exerted
by the most powerful group present in a multi-ethnic
environment. It is unlikely to provide a long term
solution to inter-ethnic conflict—rather it suppresses
it, leading to a situation where one is likely to find
reluctantly acquiescent ethnic minorities at best,
considerable alienation at worst.
Mutuality is where ethnic groups in conflict reach a
point where they are prepared to enter into a process
of mutual recognition and acceptance. Consocia-
tional\power sharing arrangements within the state
will be the outcome. In this situation we would find
what has earlier been referred to as civic nationalism.
Space is shared in a process of mutual accommodation
(see discussions in O’Leary and McGarry 1995 and in
Boal 1999).
See also: Conflict Sociology; Ethnic Cleansing, His-
tory of; Ethnic Conflicts; Ethnic Conflicts and Ancient
Hatreds: Cultural Concerns; Ethnic Groups\
Ethnicity: Historical Aspects; Ethnicity: Anthro-
pological Aspects; Ethnicity, Sociology of; Ethno-
centrism; Ethnonationalism: Cultural Concerns;
Racial Relations; Racism, History of; Racism,
Sociology of; Tribe;
Bibliography
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graphy: Progress and Prospect. Croom Helm, London,
pp. 90–128
Boal F W 1999 Seeking the common ground. Geopolitics 4:
239–61
Bollens S A 2000 On Narrow Ground: Urban Policy and Ethnic
Conflict in Jerusalem and Belfast. State University of New
York Press, Albany, NY
Breton R 1984 The production and allocation of symbolic
resources: an analysis of the linguistic and ethno-cultural
fields in Canada. Canadian Re
iew of Sociology and Anthro-
pology 21: 123–44
Brubacker R 1996 Nationalism Reframed. Cambridge University
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Connor W 1994 Ethnonationalism: The Quest for Understanding.
Princeton University Press, Princeton, NJ
Gurr T R, Harff B 1994 Ethnic Conflict in World Politics.
Westview Press, Boulder, CO
Hennayake S K 1992 Interactive ethnonationalism: an alterna-
tive explanation of minority ethnonationalism. Political Ge-
ography 11: 526–49
Horowitz D 1985 Ethnic Groups in Conflict. University of
California Press, Berkeley, CA
Huntington S P 1997 The Clash of Ci
ilizations and the Remaking
of World Order. Simon and Schuster, London
4805
Ethnic Conflict, Geography of
Ignatieff M 1993 Blood and Belonging: Journeys into the New
Nationalism. BBC Books, London
Kaplan D H 1992 Nationalism at a micro-scale: educational
segregation in Montreal. Political Geography 11: 259–82
Kliot N 1986 Lebanon: a geography of hostages. Political
Geography Quarterly 5: 199–220
Kotek J 1999 Divided cities in the European cultural context.
Progress in Planning 52: 227–37
Lieberson S 1972 Stratification and ethnic groups. In: Richmond
A H (ed.) Readings in Race and Ethnic Relations. Pergamon,
Oxford, UK, pp. 199–209
McGarry J 1998 Demographic engineering: the state-directed
movement of ethnic groups as a technique of conflict
regulation. Ethnic and Racial Studies 21: 613–38
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terly 6: 151–70
F. W. Boal
Copyright # 2001 Elsevier Science Ltd.
All rights reserved.
Ethnic Conflicts
1. What is Ethnic?
Ethnicity is ancient and ubiquitous, and commentaries
on ethnic differences have been highly variable over
time and place. The term has been used variously to
signify ‘nation,’ ‘race,’ ‘religion,’ or ‘people,’ but the
central generic meaning is that of collective cultural
distinctiveness. For the present we shall avoid the
popular but awkward and potentially misleading
‘ethnic group’ in favor of the more convenient term
ethny. An ethny here is a culturally distinctive collect-
ivity, larger than a kinship unit, whose members claim
a common origin or descent. The prototype is a local
endogamous population sharing cultural traits that
differentiate it from other collectivities. From such
groupings, more extended ethnies develop by nep-
otism, extended endogamy, fictive kinship, descent
myths, political enclosures, economic linkages, and
territorial expansion. For modern large-scale ethnies
the ‘symbolic’ boundaries can be quite vague and
elastic but the essential retained qualities are ascribed
membership (by birth) and cultural identity (cf.
Williams 1994, pp. 52–3, 57–8).
An elementary but critical distinction, often ignored
in scholarly discussions, is that ethnicity can refer
either to boundary-markers—an ethny’s distinctive
culture or lines of social closure—or to the content of
the issues (or ‘stakes’) in ethnic confrontations. Thus,
an ‘ethnic conflict’ can mean that two or more
distinctive ethnies are fighting to control scarce re-
sources (oil, gold, timber, diamonds, water, land,
fishing grounds). The contenders are ethnic but the
4806
International Encyclopedia of the Social & Behavioral Sciences
stakes are not. But in other cases, the objects of rivalry
or violent conflict are themselves ethnic: language use,
religious practices, marriage customs, domestic law,
ceremonies and holidays, and so on. Especially likely
to lead to severe conflict are situations in which rigidly-
bound ethnies are rivals for political control of
centralized states. Many so-called ethnic conflicts are
struggles over non-ethnic goods, but genuine ‘conflicts
of identity’ are those in which boundaries are rigid and
salient and the objects of contention are cultural.
Much scholarly disputation has centered upon
whether ethnicity is primordial or instrumental. Pri-
mordial ethnicity is seen as closely tied to kinship and
descent, rigidly bound, enduring, emotionally charg-
ed. Instrumental (situational) ethnicity is thought to
be ambiguous, changeable, driven by considerations
of advantage or disadvantage in the pursuit of im-
mediate interests. Indeed, it has long been recognized
that ethnic boundaries are often permeable and
changeable—because of territorial intermingling, con-
tinuous variations in cultural traits, interethnic inter-
actions, intraethnic diversity, and state interventions
(Levine and Campbell 1972, Chap. 7). But the
inclusive reality is that ethnies are both primordial and
circumstantial—some are fluid, others rigid; some
endure over centuries, others are short-lived. Over the
long run, much change can be observed. But in the
short run, of one lifetime or a few generations, strong
ethnic boundaries are often associated with great
inequalities of social, economic, and political status,
with strongly felt grievances, and with passionate
commitments, solidarities, and conflicts. Today’s
world of vast migrations and rapid economic and
political changes often results in change and merging
of ethnies, and individuals frequently have multiple
ethnic identities. Nevertheless, there is no prospect
that ethnicity will disappear: it might be said, to
paraphrase V. Pareto that those who seek to totally
abolish ethnicity are engaged in cutting holes in the
water. Because membership is an ascribed status,
intra-ethnic relations tend to be diffuse and particular-
istic; for the same reason ethnic politics tends to be
exclusivistic. While ethnies thus look backward into
origins and history, they also look sidewise to persons
who share in communal distinctiveness, and forward
into a future of shared fate.
Struggles over definitions in this field have a long
and complex history. Because the objects of interest
are inherently complex, the search for the One True
Definition will obviously fail.
This consideration also applies to definitions of our
other key term, conflict, which is loosely used in
ordinary discourse. In the present review conflict refers
to social behavior, not to psychological processes or
cultural contradictions; it consists of a struggle in
which an opponent seeks to neutralize, defeat, injure,
or eliminate another. It is not synonymous with
competition, regulated contestation or rivalry. In
particular, the distinctive character of violent conflict
ISBN: 0-08-043076-7