Tools for Conflict Analysis
Conflict analysis is a subset of international relations and comparative politics in political science. It is a method by which variables specific to each conflict are understood and analyzed in themselves and in relation to other variables. Specific tools are defined in this field as frameworks within which these variables are analyzed.
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Conflict Assessment
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This is the most basic tool in conflict analysis. It centers around taking as many relevant causal variables and breaking them down for analysis. In general, violent conflicts are not based on one sole variable. Ethnic grievances are often coupled with economic ones. Therefore, these two variables are to be considered as one.
Framework Analysis
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This is a sort of analysis, according to Conflict Sensitivity, that isolates social and economic variables from the rest. If everything is based on class and money, then things like ethnic and religious causes for violence conflict are really covers for economic motives. The point of this specific tool is to demystify national or religious grievances and to see the real economic causes underneath.
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"Do No Harm"
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This is a methodological tool that ignores causal variables altogether. It is used to analyze a conflict where things that divide the population are seen in the light of things that unify the population. If a conflict appears to be based on ethnic differences, for example, then this method will seek to find variables such as social class or religious unity that will serve as building blocks to a lasting peace. While seeing what divides the population is easy, what unifies them is difficult. This method seeks to isolate those variables that can be used for building peace regardless of those things that divide the population.
Early Warning
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Having many names, this tool is representative of a large subset of conflict analysis methods. It is based on seeing causal variables before they explode into violence. For example, if one ethnic group is being favored by the government over another, then this tool will seek to identify this problem and approach the authorities to put pressure on the offending state.
Human Rights
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This, again, is a broad description for a number of specific tools in this field. This approach is really about isolating variables describing differential treatment in a specific society. Things like systematic discrimination, press censorship, differentials in wealth or ethnic hatreds are seen as the main causes of conflict, or, more specifically, the main root cause from which more specific causes later emanate. Putting this differently, this tool seeks to understand and prevent conflict on the basis that conflict is caused by how people are treated by the state or other dominant factors. This tool sees conflict as dynamic and shifting as different groups in society jockey for power.
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References
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