Types and Causes of Conflict

Conflict is a normal and even necessary feature of politics; disagreement over scarce resources, competing values, and unequal power is inescapable in any society. The relevant question for Global Politics is not how to abolish conflict but why some conflicts are managed peacefully while others turn violent, and what forms violent conflict takes. Getting the categories right matters because the causes, and therefore the remedies, differ across types.

The most traditional distinction is between interstate and intrastate conflict. Interstate conflict is armed struggle between the recognized governments of sovereign states, the classic subject of older international relations. Intrastate conflict, also called internal or civil conflict, takes place within the borders of a single state, typica