Addressing Protracted Ethnopolitical Conflicts: Moving Beyond Description to Basic Dynamics

Protracted ethnopolitical conflicts continue to undermine the security, stability and well being of societies worldwide. Today, there are over 30 wars and armed conflicts being waged around the globe, with approximately 40 % of intra-state armed conflicts lasting for 10 years or more and 25 % of wars lasting for more than 25 years. In these settings, generations of youth are socialized into conflict, a condition we know to perpetuate violence in many forms. In fact, scholars have linked the attacks of September 11th to the socio-political conditions that were festering in hot zones of protracted conflict. A defining feature of protracted conflicts is that they display remarkable resistance to intervention even in the face of rational considerations that would seemingly defuse the animosities at work. This suggests that the problem of intractability says more about psychology than it does about objective reality. Numerous psychological, social, and political mechanisms relevant to conflict intractability have been identified. Indeed, the challenge of achieving clarity on this problem does not reflect a lack of identifiable factors, but rather an over-abundance. The task before us is to integrate these diverse factors into an account that provides a coherent perspective, yet allows for prediction and a basis for conflict resolution in specific settings. Dynamical-systems Research on Intractable Conflicts