This document discusses protracted social conflicts, which revolve around questions of communal identity rather than traditional disputes. It identifies several characteristics of protracted social conflicts, including blurred lines between internal and external actors and causes, as well as no clear starting and ending points. The document then outlines Azar's model of conflict causes for protracted social conflicts, identifying four key preconditions: communal content, deprivation of human needs, the state's role in satisfying or frustrating group needs, and international linkages. It discusses the process dynamics of how latent conflicts become active, including communal and state actions and strategies as well as built-in conflict mechanisms. The document emphasizes that addressing fundamental human needs and long-term development are

1. Engendered protracted social
conflicts
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2.  Lebanon
 Sri Lanka
 Philippines
 Northern Ireland
 Ethiopia
 Israel/Palestine
 Sudan/South Sudan
 Cyprus
 Nigeria
 South Africa

3. New Type of Conflict
Distinct from traditional disputes over territory,
economic resources or East-West rivalry …..
revolves around questions of communal
identity.
Some characteristics:
 Blurred demarcation between internal and
external sources and actors
 Multiple causal factors and dynamics, reflected in
changing goals, actors and targets
 Do not show clear starting and terminating points

4. Azar’s Model of Conflict Causes:
The PSC Model
Four preconditions for the emergence and
intensification of conflict
 ‘Communal content’
 Deprivation of human needs
 Governance and the State’s role
 International linkages (spillover effect)

5. 1) COMMUNAL CONTENT
The identity groups – racial, religious,
ethnic, cultural and others
It is the relationship between identity
groups and states which is at the core
of the problem.
Colonial history

6. 2) DEPRIVATION OF
HUMAN NEEDS
security needs
development needs
political access needs
identity needs
(cultural and religious expression)
*Grievances resulting from need deprivation
are usually expressed collectively.

7. 3) STATE’S ROLE IN THE
SATISFACTION OR FRUSTRATION
OF INDIVIDUAL AND
IDENTITY GROUP NEEDS
– ‘Most states which experience PSC tend
to be characterized by incompetent,
parochial, fragile and authoritarian
governments…’
Political authority is monopolized by the dominant
identity group or a coalition of hegemonic groups
which use the state to maximize their interests at
the expense of others (often linked to a colonial
legacy).

8. 4) ROLE OF REGIONAL AND
INTERNATIONAL LINKAGES
 The political-economic relations of
economic dependency within the
international economic system; diasporas
 The network of political-military linkages
constituting regional and global patterns of
clientage and cross-border interest

9. PROCESS DYNAMICS
3 GROUPS OF DETERMINANTS
How a latent conflict becomes active
 Communal actions and strategies
 State actions and strategies
 Built-in mechanisms of conflict

10. Communal actions & strategies
 Identity group formation, organization and
mobilization
 Emergence and nature of leadership: Ethnic
activists and political entrepreneurs
operating within groups build upon fears
about their security and their future
 Choice of:
- political goals (access, autonomy,
secession, revolutionary political program);
- tactics (civil disobedience, guerrilla war)
 Scope and nature of externalities

11. State action and strategies
 Accommodate – “chief satisfier of
basic needs”
 Frustrate
 Repress
Legitimacy challenged
New actors: military

12. Built-in mechanisms of conflict
 View of ‘the other’ as inherently evil & aggressive
through
antagonistic group histories
exclusionist myths
demonizing propaganda
dehumanizing ideologies
SERVE TO JUSTIFY
DISCRIMINATORY POLICIES AND
LEGITIMIZE ATROCITIES
The middle ground shrinks!

13.  ALL OF THIS
INTENSIFIES FURTHER
AS POLITICAL CRISIS
SPIRALS INTO
WAR.

14. Protracted Social conflict
 No clear starting and terminating
points
 Self-perpetuating. Capable of
persisting and fluctuating levels for
years.

15. FUNDAMENTAL HUMAN NEEDS
•Security needs
•Development needs
•Political access needs
•Identity needs
(cultural and religious expression)

16. Men and women have
DIFFERENTIATED needs
•Security needs
•Development needs
•Political access needs
•Identity needs
(cultural and religious expression)

17.  Long-term development is
ESSENTIAL to address
fundamental causes
Reducing overt conflict requires reduction in levels of
underdevelopment. Groups which seek to satisfy their
identity and security needs through conflict are in
effect seeking change in the structure of their society.
Conflict resolution can truly occur and last if
satisfactory amelioration of underdevelopment
occurs as well.
 Studying PSC leads one to conclude that
peace is development in the broadest
sense of the term.

18. 18
“...change in the structure of
society”
Communal Balance
Geographical Balance
Sectoral Balance
Gender Balance
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