Some Theories on Conflict and Violence

Hannah Arendt’s On Violence discusses philosophically the relationships of power, violence, and authority in conflict situations. It dissects the concept of power in relation to violence and authority. When it comes to justification, power and authority need no justification because they are inherent in the existence of political communities. What they need though is legitimacy. However, violence needs justification, but “it will never be legitimate.”

Thucydides’ The Peloponnesian War interestingly presents a dialogue that features the motivation behind alliance-building, expansion of territories, and perception and attitudes towards the Other.

Tony Karpo’s lecture presented theories of conflict, such as Galtung’s idea, sociobiology, frustration-aggression theory, social learning theory, social identity theory, relative-deprivation theory, basic human needs, Gilpin’s theory of hegemonic war, Modelski’s long-cycle theory, and Wallertein’s world systems theory. The lecture provided an overview and application of those theories. For example, Gilpin’s hegemonic war talks about a war that is between a dominant power and a rising challenger. The dominant one wants to retain status quo but its decline in power is an opportunity for the rising challenger to take the leadership in the international system. The example given was the US as the dominant power while China is on the side to take the dominance in due time.

In applying these theories to actual cases of conflict situations, we found out that there is more to be done theoretically to really explain and provide deep understanding of the actual conflicts. These theories are not like shirts that can be fit into a body of certain conflict. I think these theories are useful in giving us starting points and certain perspectives in the approach of conflict analysis and assessment. That’s why they are called theories – attempts to explain a phenomenon.