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124 Conflict Essay Topic Ideas & Examples

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Writing an essay on conflict can be both challenging and thought-provoking. Conflict is an unavoidable aspect of human existence, and it can manifest in various forms, such as interpersonal conflicts, societal conflicts, or even conflicts within oneself. To help you explore this complex topic, here are 124 conflict essay topic ideas and examples that can serve as a source of inspiration for your writing.

Interpersonal Conflicts:

• The impact of communication breakdown on interpersonal conflicts.
• Resolving conflicts in romantic relationships: Strategies for success.
• The role of empathy in resolving conflicts between friends.
• The influence of cultural differences on interpersonal conflicts.
• The effects of social media on conflict resolution in friendships.
• The connection between conflict and power dynamics in relationships.
• Conflict resolution strategies for dealing with difficult family members.
• The role of compromise in resolving conflicts between siblings.
• The impact of unresolved childhood conflicts on adult relationships.
• Conflict management techniques for resolving workplace disputes.

Societal Conflicts: 11. The causes and consequences of political conflicts in developing countries. 12. The role of social media in fueling societal conflicts. 13. The impact of religious conflicts on society. 14. The influence of socioeconomic disparities on societal conflicts. 15. The role of education in preventing societal conflicts. 16. The effects of ethnic conflicts on economic development. 17. The connection between gender inequality and societal conflicts. 18. The impact of globalization on societal conflicts. 19. The role of media in perpetuating societal conflicts. 20. Conflict resolution strategies for addressing racial tensions in society.

Internal Conflicts: 21. Exploring the internal conflict between personal desires and societal expectations. 22. The impact of self-doubt on internal conflicts. 23. Overcoming internal conflicts between ambition and contentment. 24. The role of fear in internal conflicts. 25. The connection between guilt and internal conflicts. 26. The effects of trauma on internal conflicts. 27. The influence of cultural norms on internal conflicts. 28. The role of self-reflection in resolving internal conflicts. 29. The impact of unresolved internal conflicts on mental health. 30. Strategies for achieving inner peace amidst internal conflicts.

Conflict in Literature and Film: 31. Analyzing the theme of conflict in Shakespeare's plays. 32. The portrayal of societal conflicts in dystopian literature. 33. Exploring the internal conflicts of the protagonist in a novel. 34. The role of external conflicts in driving the plot of a film. 35. The influence of conflict on character development in literature. 36. The depiction of interpersonal conflicts in romantic comedies. 37. The effects of war-related conflicts in historical novels. 38. Analyzing the symbolism of conflict in a poem. 39. The portrayal of family conflicts in contemporary literature. 40. The impact of moral conflicts on the actions of a film's protagonist.

Global Conflicts: 41. The causes and consequences of wars in the Middle East. 42. The role of diplomacy in resolving global conflicts. 43. The impact of climate change on international conflicts. 44. Analyzing the conflict between developed and developing nations. 45. The influence of resource scarcity on global conflicts. 46. The connection between terrorism and global conflicts. 47. The effects of colonialism on current global conflicts. 48. The role of international organizations in preventing conflicts. 49. The impact of nuclear weapons on global conflicts. 50. Conflict resolution strategies for achieving world peace.

Conflict in History: 51. The causes and outcomes of the American Civil War. 52. Analyzing the conflicts of World War I from multiple perspectives. 53. The influence of ideological conflicts on the Cold War. 54. The effects of colonial conflicts on the decolonization process. 55. The connection between religious conflicts and the Crusades. 56. The impact of territorial disputes on conflicts in Southeast Asia. 57. Exploring the conflicts surrounding the French Revolution. 58. The role of nationalism in fueling conflicts in the Balkans. 59. The effects of conflicts on the rise and fall of empires. 60. Analyzing the conflicts during the Civil Rights Movement.

Conflict in Science and Technology: 61. The ethical dilemmas and conflicts in genetic engineering. 62. The impact of conflicts between scientific progress and religious beliefs. 63. The role of conflicts in the development of artificial intelligence. 64. Analyzing conflicts between privacy and surveillance in the digital age. 65. The effects of conflicts between environmental conservation and industrial development. 66. The connection between conflicts in scientific research and funding. 67. The influence of conflicts over intellectual property in technology. 68. Exploring conflicts in bioethics and medical advancements. 69. The impact of conflicts between scientific evidence and public opinion. 70. Analyzing conflicts in the regulation of emerging technologies.

Conflict in Sports: 71. The effects of conflicts between athletes and team management. 72. The role of conflicts in sports rivalries. 73. Analyzing conflicts between players and referees in sports. 74. The impact of conflicts between fans and players on sports events. 75. The connection between conflicts in sports and nationalism. 76. The influence of conflicts in sports doping scandals. 77. Exploring conflicts between athletes' personal beliefs and sports regulations. 78. The effects of conflicts between sports teams and sponsors. 79. The role of conflict resolution in sports coaching. 80. Analyzing conflicts in gender equality and representation in sports.

Conflict and Social Justice: 81. The causes and consequences of conflicts in the fight against racial discrimination. 82. The influence of conflicts in gender equality movements. 83. The impact of conflicts in LGBTQ+ rights advocacy. 84. Analyzing conflicts in the pursuit of disability rights. 85. The connection between conflicts in immigration policies and social justice. 86. The effects of conflicts in environmental activism. 87. Exploring conflicts in the criminal justice system and prison reform. 88. The role of conflicts in indigenous rights movements. 89. The impact of conflicts in economic inequality and wealth distribution. 90. Analyzing conflicts in the fight against human trafficking.

Conflict and Education: 91. The causes and outcomes of conflicts in school settings. 92. The influence of conflicts between teachers and students on academic performance. 93. The effects of conflicts in standardized testing and educational policies. 94. The connection between conflicts in school bullying and mental health. 95. The role of conflicts in the inclusion of students with disabilities. 96. The impact of conflicts in educational funding and resource allocation. 97. Analyzing conflicts in the implementation of multicultural education. 98. The effects of conflicts in teacher unions and labor rights. 99. The role of conflict resolution in promoting a positive school climate. 100. Exploring conflicts in educational equity and access.

Conflict and Health: 101. The causes and consequences of conflicts in healthcare systems. 102. The influence of conflicts in medical ethics and patient care. 103. The impact of conflicts in vaccination policies and public health. 104. Analyzing conflicts in access to healthcare and healthcare disparities. 105. The effects of conflicts in mental health stigma and treatment. 106. The connection between conflicts in medical research and informed consent. 107. The role of conflicts in the pharmaceutical industry and drug pricing. 108. Exploring conflicts in end-of-life care and euthanasia. 109. The effects of conflicts in reproductive rights and healthcare. 110. Analyzing conflicts in alternative medicine and traditional healthcare systems.

Conflict and Technology: 111. The causes and consequences of conflicts in online privacy. 112. The influence of conflicts in cybersecurity and data breaches. 113. The impact of conflicts in artificial intelligence and job displacement. 114. Analyzing conflicts in social media regulation and freedom of speech. 115. The effects of conflicts in digital divide and access to technology. 116. The connection between conflicts in online harassment and mental health. 117. The role of conflicts in technology addiction and screen time. 118. Exploring conflicts in the regulation of autonomous vehicles. 119. The impact of conflicts in copyright infringement and intellectual property. 120. Analyzing conflicts in technology-based surveillance and civil liberties.

Conflict and the Environment: 121. The causes and consequences of conflicts in climate change policies. 122. The influence of conflicts in natural resource extraction and conservation. 123. The impact of conflicts in environmental activism and protests. 124. Analyzing conflicts in land rights and indigenous environmentalism.

These essay topic ideas and examples cover a wide range of conflict-related themes and can serve as a starting point for your writing. Remember to choose a topic that interests you and aligns with your essay's purpose. Good luck with your essay, and may your exploration of conflict deepen your understanding of the world around you.

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Mastering The Art Of Writing A Great Conflict Essay

Table of Contents

… But how to write a conflict essay?

This task can become a real stone of stumbling for many students, especially when they write admissions essays.

The practice shows that students tend to describe conflicts in the one-dimensional narrative, where one side of the conflict is depicted as a knight in shining armor and the other side is a complete villain.

Of course, it is the simplest way to manage conflicts (as anyone sees clearly, who is right), however, this approach highlight the inability to give an unbiased assessment of both sides of the conflict.

Here we will cover the essentials of writing such essays and how to avoid the most common mistakes in the conflict papers.

Studying the basics of the conflict essay

What is conflict, and what are its causes? Is it possible to avoid it, and how to solve it? Who are the participants, and is there a possibility for them to have a peaceful order? Here are the main points that should be covered in your text.

But what are you going to write about?

Different vocabularies give so many different definitions of this term that it is so easy to be bamboozled by all these meanings.

• A war of a fight.
• A mental struggle.
• An opposition of persons or forces.
• Anything that sets the character back from achieving a specific goal (in fiction).

That is why it is crucial to read and understand the task before you start writing.

Writing guideline for the essays about conflict

Your journey to the perfect paper should start with the proper investigation:

• What is the type of conflict you are writing about?
• What are its reasons?
• What are the consequences?
• How to solve it?

Taking into consideration all mentioned above, it becomes clear that the disagreement between two people does not limit the type of conflict. It also may cover a conflict between a man and society or nature, or even a fight against self.

And do not forget about the key players: the protagonist and antagonist of the conflict.

As soon as you have defined the central conflicts and leading players, it is time to gather facts that prove this point of view. Arm yourself with a pen and start searching for the evidence of conflict in the literary work, if your task is to cover the conflict depicted in a novel or a poem.

You may use many sources for data collection; however, make sure that they are reliable and relevant. And do not forget to jot down the information about the source for proper referencing; otherwise, using materials without appropriate arrangement will be considered plagiarism.

Carefully analyze gathered material and single out a precise thesis statement that will be the basis of the paper. Later it will become the last sentence of the introduction, but now it is the basis of the outline for your essay on conflict. The basic outline template for such paper will look like this:

• A hook sentence – an interesting fact, question, quote, or anecdote.
• Introduction part that makes readers aware of the conflict.
• Thesis statement.
• 3 body paragraphs , each with one issue of the conflict and several proofs.
• Address whether the conflict was resolved or not.
• You may also discuss the ways of avoiding or solving the conflict.
• The conclusion  should cover the main points of the paper with the rephrasing of a thesis.

Breaking down a personal conflict essay

Two types of conflict can be covered in the essay – personal and internal. Personal, on its turn, can be divided into a conflict between people, or a person and organization, or a person and a state (especially in the countries of the totalitarian regime).

Usually, students prefer to describe their own conflict experience, for example, with parents or peers. In this case, one has to define the purpose of writing as thereon hangs the tone of the text. For example, the aim is to show that there are no right or wrong, but two legitimate points of view.

Then the tone of the paper will be empathic as the writer has the insight into the opposite point of view and there are two sides of every story.

What about an internal conflict essay?

Such essays deal with the psychological conflicts inside one person. Thus, they discuss what happens when we have to do something that is against ethical standards or values, or the clash of logical and emotional response to something.

Here much prominence should be given to the ways of overcoming this conflict and as a result, becoming a better person.

And in both cases, it is necessary to follow these guidelines to improve the quality of the text:

• Pay attention to the task requirements: do not exceed the word limit , arrange the quotes according to the chosen referencing style, format the paper properly.
• Make sure that the paper is plagiarism-free .
• Edit and proofread the text.

Take advantage of a well-written conflict essay example

As they say, seeing once is better than hearing twice. When you look through a top-notch paper written by a professional writer, everything clicks into place.

What is more, you can use such paper as a template for your own paper and as a source of inspiration.

…What’s not to love?

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How to Write an Essay on Conflict

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In both real life and in fiction, conflict describes an enduring struggle between two opposing forces. Whether you're watching a cartoon or reading a serious literary tome, conflict is a key component of plot. Writing an essay on conflict requires a focus, clarity, and an understanding of the different types of conflict presented in a story.

Identify the Type of Conflict

While most people think of conflict as a fight between two characters, it can be categorized as internal or external or both. Conflict can present itself in four primary ways: externally, as man versus man, man versus society, or man versus nature and internally, as man versus self, as exemplified by the tragic struggle of Shakespeare’s Hamlet trying to avenge his father’s murder.

Find Supporting Evidence

Whether you’re analyzing a piece of literature or a clash between two nations, you’ll first need to identity the two opposing forces that comprise your central argument, and then find evidence to support your claim. For example, if your central conflict is man versus nature – think Sebastian Junger’s “The Perfect Storm” – you’ll want to find specific examples of where the sea rises up against the sailors. As with any analytical essay, analyzing conflicts requires you to look for specific quotes, phrases or parts of dialogue that reinforce your position.

Draft Your Thesis

Once you've figured out your protagonist and antagonist and the type of conflict to address in your essay, narrow your focus and write a concise thesis statement that states the central conflict you plan to address. For example, If you’re analyzing “man versus society” in your essay, such as when Atticus Finch fights against a racist society in “To Kill a Mockingbird,” you could state, "In 'To Kill a Mockingbird,' Harper Lee uses Atticus Finch’s defense of Tom Robinson to both illustrate and combat the rampant racism that has infected his Southern town." Your thesis statement will provide you with a road map for the rest of your paper and will help you decide upon the main points of your paper. Your thesis should be the very last sentence in your introduction.

Start Writing

Once you’ve found your examples and written your thesis, write your first draft. Remember to start your essay with a “hook” – a question, a quote, or a statistic, for example that will introduce the conflict you’ll be analyzing. Start each body paragraph with a topic sentence that states a main point, and then support that point with three or four of your examples from your initial research. Repeat this process for each remaining body paragraph. Within the body of the paper, address whether the conflict was resolved, and how. In your conclusion, summarize your main points and restate -- but don’t repeat verbatim -- your thesis.

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Jennifer Brozak earned her state teaching certificate in Secondary English and Communications from St. Vincent College in Latrobe, Pa., and her bachelor's degree in journalism from the University of Pittsburgh. A former high school English teacher, Jennifer enjoys writing articles about parenting and education and has contributed to Reader's Digest, Mamapedia, Shmoop and more.

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Essay Samples on Conflict

How to resolve conflict without violence: building peaceful communities.

Conflict is an inevitable aspect of human interactions, and while disagreements are a natural part of life, it is essential to address and resolve them without resorting to violence. By employing effective methods and strategies, individuals and communities can navigate conflicts constructively, fostering harmonious relationships...

• Conflict Resolution

The UPS Teamsters Strike: Navigating Negotiations and Economic Impact

The Looming UPS Teamsters Strike After months of negotiations, the UPS Teamsters union and UPS management reached a tentative agreement on July 26, 2023, potentially averting a nationwide strike. The Teamsters strike had been authorized for early August if a deal was not reached, which...

• Employee Engagement

The Enduring Issue of Conflict: From Imperialism to WWI and WWII

Introduction Conflict is a very significant enduring issue in history. Conflict is a serious disagreement or argument. There can be conflict between individuals, groups of people, and even nations, is significant because it affects a lot of people and has long-lasting effects. Some issues of...

• Enduring Issue
• Imperialism

Conflict Theory and Ageism in Aging Discrimination

The advantage characteristic of the conflict theory is that it creates a continuous constant, drive for the middle and upper topmost class of young people to accumulate compile, wealth to maintain preserve their social class. This is good because it ensures guarantee the economy grows....

• Discrimination

The Link Between Identity and Purpose in Life in "Never Let Me Go"

It is known to man that when one knows what when you can find your purpose find a sense of identity to yourself. In “Never Let Me Go” The story focuses on Kathy H., who portrays herself as a guardian, talking about looking after organ...

• Book Review
• Never Let Me Go

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Ton Of Conflict In Sonny's Blues

There is a ton of conflict at work in 'Sonny's Blues.' The general clash in this story is between black presence and white society, and this has unequivocally affected how the storyteller sees the world. He depicts this battle of experiencing childhood in Harlem, where...

• Sonny's Blues

My Personal Opinion on the Types of Conflict Resolution

Normally there are four types of conflict resolution strategies: Avoiding, Competing, Accommodating, and Collaborating. Avoiding is about a withdraw of a conflict. Competing is about a team being divided into two parties and instead of being collaborative they just fight and compete about who idea...

• Collaboration
• Conflict Resolution Theory

Kokata: Traditional Conflict Resolution Mechanism of the Kambata People of SNNPRS

Governments may find it usually difficult to find solution for a conflict of any type-be within a particular group, between groups or relating to between their own and outside groups, for example border conflict. This may be as they aspire to address conflict only using...

Analysis of the Salam Model of Conflict Resolution

Man is essentially a social being who necessarily must interact and compete with other members of his social setting to achieve anything. The Holy Qur’an alludes to this innate quality of man when it states that “And everyone has a goal which dominates him; vie,...

• Competition

Theme of Conflict In 'A View From The Bridge'

Conflict is a theme which has quite a large role in this play because all the characters have a little bit of conflict between each other. In 1930s Brooklyn, there was conflict between two cultures due to Italians moving over to America. This caused conflict...

• A View From The Bridge
• Arthur Miller

Don Nardo's The Persian Gulf War and Its Detalisation of Conflicts

The Persian Gulf War By Don Nardo goes into detail about the conflict between Iran and Iraq, Kuwait, United States and more. In the introduction it starts off by stating “The world was stunned on August 2, 1990, by alarming news.[...]¨(7). The alarming news was...

• Persian Gulf

Conflict among Nations as a Global Issue Throughout History

Throughout history, enduring issues have developed across time and societies. One such issue is conflict, this is a disagreement between two opposing parties. This issue is significant as it can destroy empires, encourage innovations, and kill or displace civilians. You can see the significance of...

• Controversial Issue

An Argument for Constructing a Resolution Strategy for Ethnic Conflict

Global conflict refers to the disputes between different nations or states. It also refers to the conflicts between organizations and people in various nation-states. Furthermore, it applies to inter-group conflicts within a country in cases where one group is fighting for increased political, economic, or...

• Ethnic Identity
• Religious Pluralism

Different Conflict Situations In A Diverse Workplace

Joanne Barrett, a recruitment specialist states that when in a workplace with employees of different cultures, backgrounds, beliefs and values, conflict is bound to happen. Showing respect towards fellow colleagues in the organisation is important as to help solve it. Barret suggested that employers and...

How Conflict Can Be Normal In All Relationships

While conflict can be normal in all relationships, it should be a last resort by all means. Relationships should be a mutual effort and be based on communication. Reason being, it can lead to an unhealthy relationship, create a negative perception of the relationship, and...

• Relationship

Issue Of Conflict Mineral Mining In Congo

It is no major secret that the area of land that makes up the Democratic Republic of the Congo (referred to in this paper by its shortened name, the Congo) has been in a state of conflict for the past 40 years or more, with...

• Natural Resources

Reflection On Conflicts And Its Management In My Company

There is no universal explanation of what a conflict is, but can be considered, any situation in which the people’s perspectives, interests, goals, principles, or feelings are divergent. To ensure cooperation and productivity in any given company, every aspect of conflict must be appropriately dealt...

The War In Yemen: Roots Of The Conflict

The current war in Yemen has been ongoing for three years, since 2015. The Houthi rebels and Yemen’s government are in a bloody war. Roots for conflict started with the failure of a political change when the then president handed over his power to his...

• What Is History

Cultural Conflicts In Multinational Corporations: Michelin Company Case

Michelin was established in the 1800s in France. There are over 120,000 employee around the world and most 20,000 people are working in North America. In 2004, the department of North America faced some challenges includes decreasing in performance and lack of competitiveness. After evaluation,...

Best topics on Conflict

1. How to Resolve Conflict Without Violence: Building Peaceful Communities

2. The UPS Teamsters Strike: Navigating Negotiations and Economic Impact

3. The Enduring Issue of Conflict: From Imperialism to WWI and WWII

4. Conflict Theory and Ageism in Aging Discrimination

5. The Link Between Identity and Purpose in Life in “Never Let Me Go”

6. Ton Of Conflict In Sonny’s Blues

7. My Personal Opinion on the Types of Conflict Resolution

8. Kokata: Traditional Conflict Resolution Mechanism of the Kambata People of SNNPRS

9. Analysis of the Salam Model of Conflict Resolution

10. Theme of Conflict In ‘A View From The Bridge’

11. Don Nardo’s The Persian Gulf War and Its Detalisation of Conflicts

12. Conflict among Nations as a Global Issue Throughout History

13. An Argument for Constructing a Resolution Strategy for Ethnic Conflict

14. Different Conflict Situations In A Diverse Workplace

15. How Conflict Can Be Normal In All Relationships

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Essays About Conflict in Life: Top 5 Examples and Prompts

Conflict is a broad and gripping topic, but most struggle to write about it. See our top essays about conflict in life examples and prompts to start your piece.

Conflict occurs when two people with different opinions, feelings, and behaviours disagree. It’s a common occurrence that we can observe wherever and whenever we are. Although conflicts usually imply negative aspects, they also have benefits such as stronger relationships and better communication.

To aid you in your paper, here are five examples to familiarize you with the subject: 

1. Useful Notes On 4 Major Types Of Conflicts (Motivational Conflict) By Raghavendra Pras

2. encountering conflict by julius gregory, 3. complete guide to understanding conflict and conflict resolution by prasanna, 4. analysis of personal conflict experience by anonymous on gradesfixer, 5. personal conflict resolving skills essay by anonymous on ivypanda, 1. conflict: what is and how to avoid it, 2. conflicts in our everyday lives, 3. review on movies or books about conflicts, 4. actions and conflicts , 5. conflicts at home, 6. conflicts that changed my life, 7. my personal experience in covert conflict, 8. cascading conflicts, 9. how does conflict in life benefit you, 10. the importance of conflict management.

“Conflict… results when two or more motives drive behaviour towards incompatible goals.”

Pras regards conflict as a source of frustration with four types. Experimental psychologists identified them as approach-approach, avoidance-avoidance, approach-avoidance, and multiple approach-avoidance. He discusses each through his essay and uses theoretical analysis with real-life examples to make it easier for the readers to understand.

“The nature of conflict shows that conflict can either push people away or bring them into having a closer, more comfortable relationship.”

The main points of Gregory’s essay are the typical causes and effects of conflicts. He talks about how people should not avoid conflicts in their life and instead solve them to learn and grow. However, he’s also aware that no matter if a dispute is big or small, it can lead to severe consequences when it’s wrongly dealt with. He also cites real-life events to prove his points. At the end of the essay, he acknowledges that one can’t wholly avoid conflict because it’s part of human nature.

“…it is important to remember that regardless of the situation, it is always possible to resolve a conflict in some constructive or meaningful way.”

To help the reader understand conflict and resolutions, Prasanna includes the types, causes, difficulties, and people’s reactions to it. She shows how broad conflict is by detailing each section. From simple misunderstandings to bad faith, the conflict has varying results that ultimately depend on the individuals involved in the situation. Prasanna ends the essay by saying that conflict is a part of life that everyone will have to go through, no matter the relationship they have with others. 

“I also now understand that trying to keep someone’s feelings from getting hurt might not always be the best option during a conflict.”

To analyze how conflict impacts lives, the author shares his personal experience. He refers to an ex-friend, Luke, as someone who most of their circle doesn’t like because of his personality. The author shares their arguments, such as when Luke wasn’t invited to a party and how they tried to protect his feelings by not telling Luke people didn’t want him to be there. Instead, they caved, and Luke was allowed to the gathering. However, Luke realized he wasn’t accepted at the party, and many were uncomfortable around him.

The essay further narrates that it was a mistake not to be honest from the beginning. Ultimately, the writer states that he would immediately tell someone the truth rather than make matters worse.

“To me if life did not have challenges and difficult circumstances we were never going to know the strength that we have in us.”

The essay delves into the writer’s conflicts concerning their personal feelings and professional boundaries. The author narrates how they initially had a good relationship with a senior until they filed for a leave. Naturally, they didn’t expect the coworker to lie and bring the situation to their committee. However, the author handled it instead of showing anger by respecting their relationship with the senior, controlling their emotion, and communicating properly.

10 Helpful Prompts On Essays About Conflict in Life

Below are easy writing prompts to use for your essay:

Define what constitutes a conflict and present cases to make it easier for the readers to imagine. To further engage your audience, give them imaginary situations where they can choose how to react and include the results of these reactions. 

If writing this prompt sounds like a lot of work, make it simple. Write a 5-paragraph essay instead.

There are several types of conflict that a person experiences throughout their life. First, discuss simple conflicts you observe around you. For example, the cashier misunderstands an order, your mom forgets to buy groceries, or you have clashing class schedules. 

Pick a movie or book and summarize its plot. Share your thoughts regarding how the piece tackles the conflicts and if you agree with the characters’ decisions. Try the 1985 movie The Heavenly Kid , directed by Cary Medoway, or Where the Conflict Really Lies: Science, Religion, and Naturalism by philosopher Alvin Plantinga.

In this essay, describe how actions can lead to conflict and how specific actions can make a conflict worse. Make your essay interesting by presenting various characters and letting them react differently to a particular conflict.

For example, Character A responds by being angry and making the situation worse. Meanwhile, Character B immediately solves the discord by respectfully asking others for their reasons. Through your essay, you’ll help your readers realize how actions significantly affect conflicts. You’ll also be able to clearly explain what conflicts are.

Your home is where you first learn how to handle conflicts, making it easier for your readers to relate to you. In your essay, tell a story of when you quarreled with a relative and how you worked it out.  For instance, you may have a petty fight with your sibling because you don’t want to share a toy. Then, share what your parents asked you to do and what you learned from your dispute.

If there are simple conflicts with no serious consequences, there are also severe ones that can impact individuals in the long run. Talk about it through your essay if you’re comfortable sharing a personal experience. For example, if your parents’ conflict ended in divorce, recount what it made you feel and how it affected your life.

Covert conflict occurs when two individuals have differences but do not openly discuss them. Have you experienced living or being with someone who avoids expressing their genuine feelings and emotions towards you or something? Write about it, what happened, and how the both of you resolved it.

Some results of cascading conflict are wars and revolutions. The underlying issues stem from a problem with a simple solution but will affect many aspects of the culture or community. For this prompt, pick a relevant historical happening. For instance, you can talk about King Henry VIII’s demand to divorce his first wife and how it changed the course of England’s royal bloodline and nobles.

People avoid conflict as much as possible because of its harmful effects, such as stress and fights. In this prompt, focus on its positive side. Discuss the pros of engaging in disputes, such as having better communication and developing your listening and people skills.

Explain what conflict management is and expound on its critical uses. Start by relaying a situation and then applying conflict resolution techniques. For example, you can talk about a team with difficulties making a united decision. To solve this conflict, the members should share their ideas and ensure everyone is allowed to speak and be heard.

Here are more essay writing tips to help you with your essay.

Maria Caballero is a freelance writer who has been writing since high school. She believes that to be a writer doesn't only refer to excellent syntax and semantics but also knowing how to weave words together to communicate to any reader effectively.

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Conflicts Essay Example

Type of paper: Essay

Topic: Conflict , Management , Workplace , Leadership , Society , Organization , Employee , Teamwork

Words: 1250

Published: 03/16/2021

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Arguably, not every society in the world can avoid conflict. In fact, conflict is part of human nature. Conflict among organizations and individuals is an unavoidable aspect of daily life. Many scholars assert that conflict is inevitable. Perhaps, understanding how it escalates and starts entails progressive strategy in using it to the advantage of those concerned. Conflict refers to a situation in which groups and people think, or have incompatible goals and objectives. Conflict is a wide concept, but many people belief only violence and war is conflict. However, conflict takes place in all levels of society and in all situations. Generally, organizations, individuals and people experience various types of conflicts every day (Philips, 2007).

As a matter of fact, conflict escalation is a steady regression from immature and mature level of various emotional developments. Certainly, the psychological course develops from one step to another. Conflict escalates in various stages, and each stage has various characteristics. Some conflict escalates for a good course; good relationship face at times conflict. In most case, parties look for solutions cooperatively and objectively. Furthermore, ways that conflict escalates include complaints, passive resistance, active resistance, assaultive, as well as use of lethal force (Wandberg, 2005).

Undeniably, the organization of society is in a way that it has both root causes and factors that may escalate conflicts. Unjust and unequal treatment of individuals in the community could lead to conflicting situations. For example, if leadership and opportunities in the nation do not represent the members of the entire society (Philips, 2007). Other scholars assert that, conflict is as a result of arithmetical progression of resource supply and geometrical progression in population increase. Due to imbalance in population and resource allocation, individuals will struggle to survive leading to conflict.

Conversably, individual differences in society cause conflict. As a matter of fact, people in society are different in nature and have variation on issues such as ideas, aspirations, attitudes, as well as interest. Therefore, this difference puts them in a situation that they cannot accommodate each other, leading to conflict. Additionally, cultural issues could tremendous cause conflicting situations (O’Rourke & Collins, 2008). Culture differ from one community to another, this variation sometimes causes tension. Among these communities, there are various interests among individuals, making conflict inevitable.

Social change is part of societal growth and progress. Nevertheless, the rate in which social change escalates may lead to the uprising of conflict. In the 21st century, there are various conflicting scenarios between the old norms and the new generations. Conflict expresses a state of social disequilibrium among the parties. Other core causes of conflict include, political discrimination, identity and ethnic affiliation, economic issues, as well, as modernization.

Addressing conflict in society is very important. In fact, addressing conflict is crucial in achieving enhancing productivity, as well as organizational effectiveness. In society, most individuals and organizations suffer from chronic patters of conflicts that have never been resolved. This may cause dysfunction among the conflicting parties. Hence, addressing conflicts resolves issues and ensure that there is normal functioning in the society. Generally, addressing conflict is crucial because it increases productivity, reduces costs, increase collaboration, as well as bringing satisfaction (Wandberg, 2005).

The existence of conflict in an organization, among individuals, and in the government is not a bad thing. Certainly, when conflict is resolved effectively it leads to development and growth at professional and personal level. Nevertheless, effective resolution of conflict creates a difference between negative and positive outcomes. When conflict is resolved effectively, it leads to positive impacts; hence, it justifies on the occurrence of the conflict (Philips, 2007). Effective conflict resolution leads to unbelievable benefits such as increased understanding, group cohesion, and improvement in self-knowledge. The strategies used to effectively resolve conflict, expands the awareness of people on issues, strengthening of bonds, prevent fights, as well as providing them with insights on how to achieve cooperate and personal objectives.

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However, poor handling of conflict could lead to a negative outcome. In fact, conflicting objectives may promptly turn to be organizational and personal dislikes. The teamwork among the parties is broken, talent wasted, as well as tremendous decrease in production. Individuals in society should understand and appreciate the existence of competition, and uniqueness. Perhaps, these will lead to collaboration, accommodation and compromising of situation (O’Rourke & Collins, 2008).

In society today, there are various incidences of conflict. In fact, the incident objectively observed demonstrated various aspects of conflict, which include causes, parties’ reactions, as well as strategies to resolve it. The incident took place between management and the employees over working conditions and remunerations. The situation in the workplace was very critical. As a matter of fact, there were few conflict cowards in the group. Every individual wanted his or her views to be heard and considered. The entire group of employees were united in airing their views; many of them were furious because they had addressed their problem to the management team, but their problems were not solved.

The conflicts in the workplace were caused by various reasons. The management team and the employees differed in addressing priorities; the management placed higher priorities to the progress of the company more than the priorities of the m employees. Additionally, the methods of promotions and awarding process in the company were not equally carried out. Therefore, it developed a lot of tension among the employees and the management team. Moreover, the conflicting groups complained of various organizational issues, which in one way or another escalated conflicts. The organizational factors included budget, management, long working hours, leadership. Adherence to core values, disagreements, as well as financial problems. Other core issues that were observable were poor communications, differences in interests, and personality clashes (Wandberg, 2005).

The main parties on the workplace conflict focused in resolving the conflict through communication. The management team elaborated on improving various organizational practices. Perhaps, they established the cause of the problem and established subordinate goals, minimized authorities of management as well as improving policies. The tension among the parties was very high, but the few individuals who were against negative conflicts acted and tried to make the parties reach a consensus. Furthermore, the organization made changes on human resource department that will focus on analyzing internal problems. Ultimately, the remuneration agreement was arrived at.

Undeniably, the deals made during conflict resolution process eased the tension, and the parties came to a compromising position. Despite the efforts, others were still emotional and could not accept some terms. As a matter of fact, it is very difficult to convince everyone in a conflict situation. The employees and management have different priorities, personalities as well as interests O’Rourke, J & Collins, S. (2008). The ultimate decision that was focused on was to involve the employees in setting the appropriate remuneration percentage, which will affect the company and employees equally. The most important strategy in making the entire decisions was to reduce tension and encourage communication. The cost of conflict should not outweigh the entire progress of the organization; hence, management team should focus on preventing conflict to escalate further. Conflict is part of human life and should always be handled with great care.

O’Rourke, J & Collins, S. (2008). Managing Conflict and Workplace Relationship. London: John Wiley & Sons.

Philips, G. (2007). The Conflict. New Jersey: Echo Press. Wandberg, R. (2005). Conflict Resolution: Communication, Cooperation, Compromise. New York: Wadsworth.

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7 Types of Conflict in Literature: How to Use Them (with Examples)

Gina Edwards

“Nothing moves forward in a story except through conflict.”

This is what Robert McKee, the author of Story: Substance, Structure, Style, and the Principles of Screenwriting , calls the Law of Conflict, and storytelling is governed by it.

The finer details like story setting, character, and plot events all give the reader context and understanding, but conflict , according to McKee, is the “soul” of story. Every kind of story, every genre – novel, short story, science fiction , romance, mystery, historical , young adult , etc. – requires it.

In her book Writing Fiction , Janet Burroway says that, in literature, “only trouble is interesting.” It’s a bit ironic that in real life, we resist trouble; we shy away from conflict. Yet readers crave it in fiction.

First-time authors often find the idea of putting their characters into conflict an upsetting one. Just as they want to avoid conflict in their own lives, they don’t want to place their characters into uncomfortable, confrontational situations. They’ll focus on eloquent setting description or complex character development but then give the main character no conflict to resolve. Don’t make that mistake.

Why Conflict Is Key

7 types of conflict in fiction, how to create conflict in your novel, layered conflict makes compelling fiction.

Quite simply, conflict keeps your story interesting. Conflict is opposition – either internal or external (more on that below). Conflict is what comes from the challenges your protagonist must solve or resolve on the way to achieving his/her/their goal. It offers a teasing carrot of uncertainty about whether your protagonist will achieve that goal, keeping your readers engaged and turning pages to discover whether (or not) the conflict is resolved.

And that’s what every author wants, right? To carry the reader all the way to THE END?

Without conflict, your main character is simply experiencing a series of largely uninteresting slice-of-life moments. Without conflict, there is no story.

There are two basic kinds of conflict: external and internal, which have been further categorized and codified in many different ways over time. Here are seven different types to consider.

External Conflicts

External conflict pits the character against some exterior force or world-view and happens outside the character’s body. Five of the seven types of conflicts are of the external kind.

1. Person vs. Person

Also called man vs. man and protagonist vs. antagonist , this is the most common type of external conflict. It is clear and universally understood as a good vs. evil story in which an unambiguous challenger opposes the main character.

The heart of this type of story involves two characters with opposing outlooks, opinions, or goals. The story will become richer when both characters believe themselves to be right or when there is no clear right or wrong between their differences.

• In The Hunger Games , Katniss Everdeen must go up against other contestants in order to survive – her vs. them
• In The Wizard of Oz , Dorothy faces off against the Wicked Witch
• Murder mysteries with the investigator vs. murderer also are person vs. person stories

2. Person vs. Nature

This type of conflict counters a character against some force of nature, such as an animal or the weather.

• A classic example is Ernest Hemingway’s Old Man and the Sea
• In Life of Pi , the protagonist must face a tiger trapped in the boat with him
• The drought is a formidable opposition in John Steinbeck’s Grapes of Wrath , as is the setting in Cormac McCarthy’s The Road (read more about the use of setting here )

3. Person vs. Society

When a novel sets a character against a tradition, an institution, a law, or some other societal construct, it is a Person vs. Society story.

• Atticus Finch opposed his racist community in Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird
• Wilbur fights for his survival against a society that eats pigs in Charlotte’s Web
• In Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale , the society treats women as property of the state; Atwood makes the story even more interesting by layering in environmental disasters (Person vs. Nature) to intensify the conflict

4. Person vs. Technology

When science moves beyond human control, conflicts of Person vs. Technology develop. Stories in this conflict type include:

• 2001: A Space Odyssey
• Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein

5. Person vs. Supernatural

Vampires, werewolves, aliens, and ghosts – any typically unbelievable, supernatural, or inexplicable phenomena – provide Person vs. Supernatural conflicts. Examples of such stories include:

• The Shining , by Stephen King
• The Haunting of Hill House , by Shirley Jackson
• The War of the Worlds , by H.G. Wells
• The Exorcist
• Jeff Vandermeer’s Southern Reach series
• Almost anything by Edgar Allan Poe

Internal Conflicts

The two remaining types of conflicts are internal – ones that happen inside the character’s mind or heart. When your main character has an inner turmoil that’s causing some emotional pain, it increases the tension of the story.

6. Person vs. Self

A character battling inner demons, one who has an inner moral conflict (think Hamlet ), or is simply striving to become a better person is in a Person vs. Self conflict.

• Katniss Everdeen in The Hunger Games (again!) must reconcile her need to survive in the battle arena with her desire not to kill another human being
• Daniel Scott Keyes's short story Flowers for Algernon has a main character struggling with losing his intelligence to a congenital mental disability, with the focus on the character’s feelings about his circumstances: the conflict between his intellect and emotion are central

7. Person vs. Destiny (Fate/Luck/God)

This is an ambiguous conflict type. Sometimes aspects of it get split up and parsed out among the other categories. For example, since accepting fate can be seen as an inner personal struggle, some define it as Person vs. Self instead. Or some might reframe Person vs. God as being person against religion and, therefore, would put it in the external conflict type of Person vs. Society. The categories don’t really matter as long as you understand the concept.

Examples of this conflict type include Star Wars , The Odyssey , and Lord of the Rings .

• Although Star Wars contains plenty of external conflicts, a major part of the storyline is Luke’s destiny to become a Jedi Master
• In The Odyssey , Odysseus encounters all sorts of mystical creatures
• Fate has made Frodo the ring-bearer in Lord of the Rings

When a character has a want or a goal and encounters some obstacle, the result is a conflict. The obstacle must be faced by a character readers care about. Additionally, the obstacle must oppose a want or a goal that’s meaningful to that character. The result? Conflict.

Conflict can vary in degree or intensity, but every conflict must have several key characteristics.

• The conflict must be clear, specific, and relevant to the character; it should not be an abstract or trivial problem – either to the character or to the reader
• It must exist within the character’s realm, not separate or remote from their world
• The conflict must not be overcome too easily
• Finally, the conflict must happen to a character(s) the reader cares about (not necessarily “likes,” but has some compassion for)

In summary, conflict results when a compassion-worthy character who wants something intensely encounters a significant obstacle. Add in relevant action and you’ll have a story.

Every novel needs a major conflict. More complex stories have multiple conflicts, as noted above for Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale , which has both Person vs. Society and Person vs. Nature conflicts. Furthermore, a story that contains external conflict can be made more complex, layered, and interesting by including characters who also have inner conflict (see The Hunger Games in the examples above).

James Scott Bell, in The Art of War for Writers , makes this distinction between inner conflict and inner struggle:

An inner conflict is plot-centric; it is an internal obstacle either triggered by or somehow directly connected to the story – the plot. Whereas inner struggle is something that plays against the character’s strengths; it’s something the character brings to the plot, usually from her past, either long ago or recent past (but before the first page). The plot will put the protagonist in situations where she has to deal with this inner struggle, and she’ll carry that struggle with her throughout the story. If the character is in a series, it will run throughout the book series.

To illustrate, let’s say you want your female main character to be assertive . Two qualities that might battle against assertiveness are shyness and indecision . Then consider what in the protagonist’s background could be a reason for her struggle between assertiveness and yet being shy or indecisive . Maybe someone important in her life told her she’d never amount to anything. Maybe she had a hard-scrabble, poor childhood she desperately wanted to get out of, but as a child she saw too many adults around her fail in every attempt to do so themselves. You get the idea?

Pulitzer Prize-winning author Robert Olen Butler says inner conflict is a defining mark of a literary work. A book might also possess characteristics of a particular genre, but inner conflict can give a novel a sense of being the literary kind.

Whether or not you’re striving for a literary work, if you use two or more of the seven types of conflict identified above, making sure at least one is internal, your writing will be compelling.

How do you feel about using conflict in your writing? Let us know in the comments!

Do you know how to craft memorable, compelling characters? Download this free book now:

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Gina Edwards is a writer, retreat leader, certified creativity coach, and editor. Through retreats, group coaching, and the community Women Writing for CHANGE, she provides safe spaces for women writers—aspiring and published—to claim their voices, write their stories, and leave their legacies. Gina, her clients, and her writer-friends are on a collective mission to positively impact the world through their written words.

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Conflict in Literature

This essay about the role of conflict in literature, emphasizing its profound impact on characters and readers alike. It explores various types of conflict, from man versus man to man versus nature, highlighting how these struggles shape characters and narratives. Through examples from classic literature, it demonstrates how conflicts reflect universal human experiences and existential questions. Ultimately, the essay argues that literary conflict serves as a powerful tool for introspection and understanding the complexities of human nature.

How it works

At the heart of every captivating story lies a pulsating core of conflict, a fundamental driving force that sweeps characters into motion and shapes the contours of narrative arcs. Conflict in literature isn’t merely a hurdle for characters to overcome; it is the crucible within which characters are forged, tested, and ultimately transformed. Whether pitted against another character, society at large, natural forces, or their own inner demons, characters’ struggles can hold a mirror up to our own lives, making literature a profound exploration of human experience.

When dissecting the anatomy of literary conflict, we recognize several predominant types, each serving unique functions within storytelling. The most direct and often most visceral is man versus man. This conflict is straightforward but deeply complex in its implications. It’s the clashing of wills, a battleground where characters confront their adversaries face-to-face. Consider the epic showdowns in novels like Alexandre Dumas’ “The Count of Monte Cristo.” The protagonist, Edmond Dantès, faces a myriad of enemies on his quest for vengeance. Each confrontation reveals layers of his character and those of his adversaries, peeling back to expose raw ambitions, fears, and moral complexities.

Yet, not all conflicts are waged on external fronts. Man versus self presents a labyrinthine internal struggle, a dialogue within a single mind. Here, literature dives into the psyche, presenting characters grappling with their own fears, desires, and doubts. In “Hamlet,” Shakespeare masterfully explores such internal conflict. Hamlet’s soliloquies reveal his introspections and debates over moral and existential dilemmas. His internal struggle is a poignant study of the human condition, touching on themes of duty, vengeance, life, death, and the authenticity of action.

Contrasting with the inward focus of man versus self, man versus nature sets characters against the indiscriminate might of the natural world. Jack London’s “The Call of the Wild” is a prime example, where the harsh, unforgiving wilderness becomes both a stark adversary and a catalyst for Buck’s primal transformation. This conflict type not only highlights survival but also explores the fundamental nature of existence, stripping characters down to their barest instincts and desires.

The man versus society conflict often sees characters entangled with the laws, norms, and cultural pressures of their communities. Dystopian novels like Margaret Atwood’s “The Handmaid’s Tale” employ this conflict type to critique and examine societal structures. Protagonist Offred’s battle against a repressive regime questions the themes of freedom, identity, and resistance, providing a dark vision of patriarchy and power.

These conflict types are not just isolated silos; they often intertwine within a narrative, layering the story with multiple dimensions of struggle. The complexity arises not merely from the conflict itself but from how the characters navigate these challenges. Their responses, successes, and failures paint a rich tapestry of human resilience and adaptability.

Literary conflicts are more than plot devices; they are reflections of universal existential and philosophical questions. Through them, authors probe deep truths about human nature and societal functions. The conflicts force characters to confront their deepest fears, question their values, and in the process, often reveal profound truths about the human experience. This reflective quality is what makes literature resonate across ages and cultures.

The enduring relevance of these conflicts in literature also speaks to their foundational role in human society. They are timeless because the fundamental challenges they represent—struggles with morality, identity, authority, and existence—are perennial human concerns. As society evolves, so too do the manifestations of these conflicts, but their core essence remains unchanged, acting as a continuous thread woven through the fabric of all human stories.

Conflict in literature also invites readers into a participatory role. As we navigate through the conflicts with the characters, we are prompted to reflect on our own choices and challenges. This vicarious experience can be both cathartic and enlightening, offering us insights into our own lives and the world around us. It is through the lens of conflict that literature achieves its most profound impact, serving not only as entertainment but as a powerful medium of reflection and introspection.

In sum, literary conflict is the dynamo that powers narratives, propelling characters into action and readers into deep engagement with the text. It is a multifaceted tool that writers use to explore the complexities of life and human nature. By examining these conflicts, we gain a deeper appreciation for literature’s ability to delve into the human spirit and emerge with universal truths that resonate with readers across time and place. The exploration of conflict in stories is not just about observing struggles; it’s about understanding the essence of what it means to be human.

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Beyond Intractability

The Hyper-Polarization Challenge to the Conflict Resolution Field: A Joint BI/CRQ Discussion BI and the Conflict Resolution Quarterly invite you to participate in an online exploration of what those with conflict and peacebuilding expertise can do to help defend liberal democracies and encourage them live up to their ideals.

Follow BI and the Hyper-Polarization Discussion on BI's New Substack Newsletter .

Hyper-Polarization, COVID, Racism, and the Constructive Conflict Initiative Read about (and contribute to) the  Constructive Conflict Initiative  and its associated Blog —our effort to assemble what we collectively know about how to move beyond our hyperpolarized politics and start solving society's problems. 

By Michelle LeBaron

July 2003  

Culture is an essential part of conflict and conflict resolution. Cultures are like underground rivers that run through our lives and relationships, giving us messages that shape our perceptions, attributions, judgments, and ideas of self and other. Though cultures are powerful, they are often unconscious, influencing conflict and attempts to resolve conflict in imperceptible ways.

Cultures are more than language, dress, and food customs. Cultural groups may share race, ethnicity, or nationality, but they also arise from cleavages of generation, socioeconomic class, sexual orientation, ability and disability, political and religious affiliation, language, and gender -- to name only a few.

Two things are essential to remember about cultures: they are always changing, and they relate to the symbolic dimension of life. The symbolic dimension is the place where we are constantly making meaning and enacting our identities. Cultural messages from the groups we belong to give us information about what is meaningful or important, and who we are in the world and in relation to others -- our identities.

Cultural messages, simply, are what everyone in a group knows that outsiders do not know. They are the water fish swim in, unaware of its effect on their vision. They are a series of lenses that shape what we see and don't see, how we perceive and interpret, and where we draw boundaries. In shaping our values, cultures contain starting points and currencies[1]. Starting points are those places it is natural to begin, whether with individual or group concerns, with the big picture or particularities. Currencies are those things we care about that influence and shape our interactions with others.

How Cultures Work

Though largely below the surface, cultures are a shifting, dynamic set of starting points that orient us in particular ways and away from other directions. Each of us belongs to multiple cultures that give us messages about what is normal, appropriate, and expected. When others do not meet our expectations, it is often a cue that our cultural expectations are different. We may mistake differences between others and us for evidence of bad faith or lack of common sense on the part of others, not realizing that common sense is also cultural. What is common to one group may seem strange, counterintuitive, or wrong to another.

Cultural messages shape our understandings of relationships, and of how to deal with the conflict and harmony that are always present whenever two or more people come together. Writing about or working across cultures is complicated, but not impossible. Here are some complications in working with cultural dimensions of conflict, and the implications that flow from them:

Culture is multi-layered -- what you see on the surface may mask differences below the surface.

Therefore, cultural generalizations are not the whole story, and there is no substitute for building relationships and sharing experiences, coming to know others more deeply over time.

Culture is constantly in flux -- as conditions change, cultural groups adapt in dynamic and sometimes unpredictable ways.

Therefore, no comprehensive description can ever be formulated about a particular group. Any attempt to understand a group must take the dimensions of time, context, and individual differences into account.

Culture is elastic -- knowing the cultural norms of a given group does not predict the behavior of a member of that group, who may not conform to norms for individual or contextual reasons.

Therefore, taxonomies (e.g. "Italians think this way," or "Buddhists prefer that") have limited use, and can lead to error if not checked with experience.

Culture is largely below the surface, influencing identities and meaning-making, or who we believe ourselves to be and what we care about -- it is not easy to access these symbolic levels since they are largely outside our awareness.

Therefore, it is important to use many ways of learning about the cultural dimensions of those involved in a conflict, especially indirect ways, including stories, metaphors, and rituals.

Cultural influences and identities become important depending on context. When an aspect of cultural identity is threatened or misunderstood, it may become relatively more important than other cultural identities and this fixed, narrow identity may become the focus of stereotyping , negative projection, and conflict. This is a very common situation in intractable conflicts.

Therefore, it is useful for people in conflict to have interactive experiences that help them see each other as broadly as possible, experiences that foster the recognition of shared identities as well as those that are different.

Since culture is so closely related to our identities (who we think we are), and the ways we make meaning (what is important to us and how), it is always a factor in conflict. Cultural awareness leads us to apply the Platinum Rule in place of the Golden Rule. Rather than the maxim "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you," the Platinum Rule advises: "Do unto others as they would have you do unto them."

Culture and Conflict: Connections

Cultures are embedded in every conflict because conflicts arise in human relationships. Cultures affect the ways we name, frame, blame, and attempt to tame conflicts. Whether a conflict exists at all is a cultural question. In an interview conducted in Canada, an elderly Chinese man indicated he had experienced no conflict at all for the previous 40 years.[2] Among the possible reasons for his denial was a cultural preference to see the world through lenses of harmony rather than conflict, as encouraged by his Confucian upbringing. Labeling some of our interactions as conflicts and analyzing them into smaller component parts is a distinctly Western approach that may obscure other aspects of relationships.

Culture is always a factor in conflict, whether it plays a central role or influences it subtly and gently. For any conflict that touches us where it matters, where we make meaning and hold our identities, there is always a cultural component. Intractable conflicts like the Israeli-Palestinian conflict or the India-Pakistan conflict over Kashmir are not just about territorial, boundary, and sovereignty issues -- they are also about acknowledgement, representation, and legitimization of different identities and ways of living, being, and making meaning.

Conflicts between teenagers and parents are shaped by generational culture, and conflicts between spouses or partners are influenced by gender culture. In organizations, conflicts arising from different disciplinary cultures escalate tensions between co-workers, creating strained or inaccurate communication and stressed relationships. Culture permeates conflict no matter what -- sometimes pushing forth with intensity, other times quietly snaking along, hardly announcing its presence until surprised people nearly stumble on it.

Culture is inextricable from conflict, though it does not cause it. When differences surface in families, organizations, or communities, culture is always present, shaping perceptions, attitudes, behaviors, and outcomes.

When the cultural groups we belong to are a large majority in our community or nation, we are less likely to be aware of the content of the messages they send us. Cultures shared by dominant groups often seem to be "natural," "normal" -- "the way things are done." We only notice the effect of cultures that are different from our own, attending to behaviors that we label exotic or strange.

Though culture is intertwined with conflict, some approaches to conflict resolution minimize cultural issues and influences. Since culture is like an iceberg -- largely submerged -- it is important to include it in our analyses and interventions. Icebergs unacknowledged can be dangerous, and it is impossible to make choices about them if we don't know their size or place. Acknowledging culture and bringing cultural fluency to conflicts can help all kinds of people make more intentional, adaptive choices.

Culture and Conflict: How to Respond

Given culture's important role in conflicts, what should be done to keep it in mind and include it in response plans? Cultures may act like temperamental children: complicated, elusive, and difficult to predict. Unless we develop comfort with culture as an integral part of conflict, we may find ourselves tangled in its net of complexity, limited by our own cultural lenses. Cultural fluency is a key tool for disentangling and managing multilayered, cultural conflicts.

Cultural fluency means familiarity with cultures: their natures, how they work, and ways they intertwine with our relationships in times of conflict and harmony. Cultural fluency means awareness of several dimensions of culture, including

• Communication,
• Ways of naming, framing, and taming conflict,
• Approaches to meaning making,
• Identities and roles.

Each of these is described in more detail below.

Communication refers to different starting points about how to relate to and with others. There are many variations on these starting points, and they are outlined in detail in the topic Communication, Culture, and Conflict . Some of the major variations relate to the division between high- and low-context communications, a classification devised by Edward T. Hall.[3]

In high-context communication, most of a message is conveyed by the context surrounding it, rather than being named explicitly in words. The physical setting, the way things are said, and shared understandings are relied upon to give communication meaning. Interactions feature formalized and stylized rituals, telegraphing ideas without spelling them out. Nonverbal cues and signals are essential to comprehension of the message. The context is trusted to communicate in the absence of verbal expressions, or sometimes in addition to them. High-context communication may help save face because it is less direct than low-context communication, but it may increase the possibilities of miscommunication because much of the intended message is unstated.

Low-context communication emphasizes directness rather than relying on the context to communicate. From this starting point, verbal communication is specific and literal, and less is conveyed in implied, indirect signals. Low-context communicators tend to "say what they mean and mean what they say." Low-context communication may help prevent misunderstandings , but it can also escalate conflict because it is more confrontational than high-context communication.

As people communicate, they move along a continuum between high- and low-context. Depending on the kind of relationship, the context, and the purpose of communication, they may be more or less explicit and direct. In close relationships, communication shorthand is often used, which makes communication opaque to outsiders but perfectly clear to the parties. With strangers, the same people may choose low-context communication.

Low- and high-context communication refers not only to individual communication strategies, but may be used to understand cultural groups. Generally, Western cultures tend to gravitate toward low-context starting points, while Eastern and Southern cultures tend to high-context communication. Within these huge categories, there are important differences and many variations. Where high-context communication tends to be featured, it is useful to pay specific attention to nonverbal cues and the behavior of others who may know more of the unstated rules governing the communication. Where low-context communication is the norm, directness is likely to be expected in return.

There are many other ways that communication varies across cultures. High- and low-context communication and several other dimensions are explored in Communication, Culture, and Conflict .

Ways of naming, framing, and taming conflict vary across cultural boundaries. As the example of the elderly Chinese interviewee illustrates, not everyone agrees on what constitutes a conflict. For those accustomed to subdued, calm discussion, an emotional exchange among family members may seem a threatening conflict. The family members themselves may look at their exchange as a normal and desirable airing of differing views. Intractable conflicts are also subject to different interpretations. Is an event a skirmish, a provocation, an escalation, or a mere trifle, hardly worth noticing? The answer depends on perspective, context, and how identity relates to the situation.

Just as there is no consensus across cultures or situations on what constitutes a conflict or how events in the interaction should be framed, so there are many different ways of thinking about how to tame it. Should those involved meet face to face, sharing their perspectives and stories with or without the help of an outside mediator? Or should a trusted friend talk with each of those involved and try to help smooth the waters? Should a third party be known to the parties or a stranger to those involved?

John Paul Lederach, in his book Preparing for Peace: Conflict Transformation Across Cultures, identifies two third-party roles that exist in U.S. and Somali settings, respectively -- the formal mediator and the traditional elder.[4] The formal mediator is generally not known to those involved, and he or she tries to act without favoritism or investment in any particular outcome. Traditional elders are revered for their local knowledge and relationships, and are relied upon for direction and advice, as well as for their skills in helping parties communicate with each other. The roles of insider partial (someone known to the parties who is familiar with the history of the situation and the webs of relationships) and outsider neutral (someone unknown to the parties who has no stake in the outcome or continuing relationship with the parties) appear in a range of cultural contexts. Generally, insider partials tend to be preferred in traditional, high-context settings, while outside neutrals are more common in low-context settings.

These are just some of the ways that taming conflict varies across cultures. Third parties may use different strategies with quite different goals, depending on their cultural sense of what is needed. In multicultural contexts, parties' expectations of how conflict should be addressed may vary, further escalating an existing conflict.

Approaches to meaning-making also vary across cultures. Hampden-Turner and Trompenaars suggest that people have a range of starting points for making sense of their lives, including:

• universalist (favoring rules, laws, and generalizations) and particularist (favoring exceptions, relations, and contextual evaluation)
• specificity (preferring explicit definitions, breaking down wholes into component parts, and measurable results) and diffuseness (focusing on patterns, the big picture, and process over outcome)
• inner direction (sees virtue in individuals who strive to realize their conscious purpose) and outer direction (where virtue is outside each of us in natural rhythms, nature, beauty, and relationships)
• synchronous time (cyclical and spiraling) and sequential time (linear and unidirectional).[5]

When we don't understand that others may have quite different starting points, conflict is more likely to occur and to escalate. Even though the starting points themselves are neutral, negative motives are easily attributed to someone who begins from a different end of the continuum.[6]

For example, when First Nations people sit down with government representatives to negotiate land claims in Canada or Australia, different ideas of time may make it difficult to establish rapport and make progress. First Nations people tend to see time as stretching forward and back, binding them in relationship with seven generations in both directions. Their actions and choices in the present are thus relevant to history and to their progeny. Government negotiators acculturated to Western European ideas of time may find the telling of historical tales and the consideration of projections generations into the future tedious and irrelevant unless they understand the variations in the way time is understood by First Nations people.

Of course, this example draws on generalizations that may or may not apply in a particular situation. There are many different Aboriginal peoples in Canada, Australia, New Zealand, the United States, and elsewhere. Each has a distinct culture, and these cultures have different relationships to time, different ideas about negotiation, and unique identities. Government negotiators may also have a range of ethno cultural identities, and may not fit the stereotype of the woman or man in a hurry, with a measured, pressured orientation toward time.

Examples can also be drawn from the other three dimensions identified by Hampden-Turner and Trompenaars. When an intractable conflict has been ongoing for years or even generations, should there be recourse to international standards and interveners, or local rules and practices? Those favoring a universalist starting point are more likely to prefer international intervention and the setting of international standards. Particularlists will be more comfortable with a tailor-made, home-grown approach than with the imposition of general rules that may or may not fit their needs and context.

Specificity and diffuseness also lead to conflict and conflict escalation in many instances. People, who speak in specifics, looking for practical solutions to challenges that can be implemented and measured, may find those who focus on process, feelings, and the big picture obstructionist and frustrating. On the other hand, those whose starting points are diffuse are more apt to catch the flaw in the sum that is not easy to detect by looking at the component parts, and to see the context into which specific ideas must fit.

Inner-directed people tend to feel confident that they can affect change, believing that they are "the masters of their fate, the captains of their souls."[7] They focus more on product than process. Imagine their frustration when faced with outer-directed people, whose attention goes to nurturing relationships, living in harmony with nature, going with the flow, and paying attention to processes rather than products. As with each of the above sets of starting points, neither is right or wrong; they are simply different. A focus on process is helpful, but not if it completely fails to ignore outcomes. A focus on outcomes is useful, but it is also important to monitor the tone and direction of the process. Cultural fluency means being aware of different sets of starting points, and having a way to speak in both dialects, helping translate between them when they are making conflict worse.

These continua are not absolute, nor do they explain human relations broadly. They are clues to what might be happening when people are in conflict over long periods of time. We are meaning-making creatures, telling stories and creating understandings that preserve our sense of self and relate to our purpose. As we come to realize this, we can look into the process of meaning making for those in a conflict and find ways to help them make their meaning-making processes and conclusions more apparent to each other.

This can be done by storytelling and by the creation of shared stories, stories that are co-constructed to make room for multiple points of view within them. Often, people in conflict tell stories that sound as though both cannot be true. Narrative conflict-resolution approaches help them leave their concern with truth and being right on the sideline for a time, turning their attention instead to stories in which they can both see themselves.

Another way to explore meaning making is through metaphors. Metaphors are compact, tightly packaged word pictures that convey a great deal of information in shorthand form. For example, in exploring how a conflict began, one side may talk about its origins being buried in the mists of time before there were boundaries and roads and written laws. The other may see it as the offspring of a vexatious lawsuit begun in 1946. Neither is wrong -- the issue may well have deep roots, and the lawsuit was surely a part of the evolution of the conflict. As the two sides talk about their metaphors, the more diffuse starting point wrapped up in the mists of time meets the more specific one, attached to a particular legal action. As the two talk, they deepen their understanding of each other in context, and learn more about their respective roles and identities.

Identities and roles refer to conceptions of the self. Am I an individual unit, autonomous, a free agent, ultimately responsible for myself? Or am I first and foremost a member of a group, weighing choices and actions by how the group will perceive them and be affected by them? Those who see themselves as separate individuals likely come from societies anthropologists call individualist. Those for whom group allegiance is primary usually come from settings anthropologists call collectivist, or communitarian.

In collectivist settings, the following values tend to be privileged:

• cooperation
• filial piety (respect for and deference toward elders)
• participation in shared progress
• reputation of the group
• interdependence

In individualist settings, the following values tend to be privileged:

• competition
• independence
• individual achievement
• personal growth and fulfillment
• self-reliance

When individualist and communitarian starting points influence those on either side of a conflict, escalation may result. Individualists may see no problem with "no holds barred" confrontation, while communitarian counterparts shrink from bringing dishonor or face-loss to their group by behaving in unseemly ways. Individualists may expect to make agreements with communitarians, and may feel betrayed when the latter indicate that they have to take their understandings back to a larger public or group before they can come to closure. In the end, one should remember that, as with other patterns described, most people are not purely individualist or communitarian. Rather, people tend to have individualist or communitarian starting points, depending on one's upbringing, experience, and the context of the situation.

There is no one-size-fits-all approach to conflict resolution, since culture is always a factor. Cultural fluency is therefore a core competency for those who intervene in conflicts or simply want to function more effectively in their own lives and situations. Cultural fluency involves recognizing and acting respectfully from the knowledge that communication, ways of naming, framing, and taming conflict, approaches to meaning-making, and identities and roles vary across cultures.

[1] See also the essays on Cultural and Worldview Frames and Communication Tools for Understanding Cultural Differences .

[2] LeBaron, Michelle and Bruce Grundison. 1993. Conflict and Culture: Research in Five Communities in British Columbia, Canada . Victoria, British Columbia: University of Victoria Institute for Dispute Resolution.

[3] Hall, Edward T. 1976. Beyond Culture . Garden City, NY: Doubleday.

[4] Lederach, John Paul. 1995. Preparing for Peace. Conflict Transformation Across Cultures . Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, pp. 94.

[5] Hampden-Turner, Charles and Fons Trompenaars. 2000. Building Cross Cultural Competence. How to Create Wealth from Conflicting Values. New Haven and London: Yale University Press.

[6] There is also the set of essays on framing which is closely related to the idea of meaning making.

[7] Ibid., 244.

Use the following to cite this article: LeBaron, Michelle. "Culture and Conflict." Beyond Intractability . Eds. Guy Burgess and Heidi Burgess. Conflict Information Consortium, University of Colorado, Boulder. Posted: July 2003 < http://www.beyondintractability.org/essay/culture-conflict >.

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Workplace Conflict, Essay Example

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Conflict is inevitable in the workplace.  Just like conflict is unavoidable in any other type of relationships, relationships within work environments are ripe for difficulties between people.  In an organizational setting, conflict is even more common than in personal situations however, due to there generally being no choice regarding who works together.  Employees rarely have any say in who is hired for parallel positions and even the management who does the hiring bases hiring decisions on skills and meeting certain hiring criteria rather than on friendship potential.  This means that while fellow employees may (or may not) be skilled at their jobs, they may have characteristics that do not match well with the characteristics or personality of other employees.  Conflict in work setting can occur between same level employees, employees and management, and employees, management and external stakeholders (De Dreu, C. K. W. and Gelfand, M.  J. 2008).

An example of a common workplace conflict is one having to do with leadership styles or differences in personality between management and employees. This might involve a variety of interpersonal problems stemming from lack of awareness and appreciation of diversity in the workplace. For example, employees may feel bullied by managers with authoritative personalities or need more direct communication and guidance from mangers who assume that minimal instruction should be enough for the employee to work from. Managers with Type A personalities may hold employees up to their own demanding standards while employees may feel overworked or as if the expectations set by their manager are too ambitious.  Some employers may be extremely extroverted and make more introverted employees feel as if there is something wrong with the way they interact with others (Ayoko, Callan, &Hartel, 2003).

Often conflict arises from managers gravitating toward employees who have the same personality and work style as they do, giving these employees the majority of attention, positive reinforcement, better evaluations and raises despite the fact that another employee may actually be doing the majority of the work and achieving far more than the favored employee. This can result in conflict between the two employees and between the manager and the less favored employee, especially if the favored employee shares information about the conflict with the manager.

Favoritism in the workplace can be the result of several factors. The first involves hiring. Managers have been shown to favor employees they personally hire over employees they had no involvement with during the hiring process.  This may be because managers feel that a personal hire reflects upon them and their decision making ability such that they want the employees they hire to perform at a level above other employees.

The second reason that managers may be biased toward certain employees involves general similarities.  Similarities that may result in such bias include recognized factors such as race, background, gender, and socioeconomic status but may include other factors such as where an employee comes from, where they went to school, common after work hobbies and similarity in personality style.

The third reason that managers may be biased toward some employees is due to a personal relationship that develops either before the employee has been hired or afterwards.  Employees who are liked by their manager because they are perceived to be personable, easy to work with, easy to communicate with or those who seem to display loyalty to the manager may be able to ingratiate themselves with the manager and influence their decisions regarding project assignment and evaluation ratings.

Regardless of the reason for managers favoring one employee over another, when this is displayed by the manager in the form of increased attention, better assignments, special invitations to meetings are get-togethers with higher-ups or better evaluations, bonuses, raises or promotions, this is considered discrimination which is one of the highest level of conflict found within an organization (Shefali, 2013).

This is a conflict I have been experiencing in a personal work situation.  I have developed a plan that I hope to put in place soon.  My boss has been showing a preference for my co-worker who has known the boss for many years and has a personal relationship with him.  My peer also knows what the boss expects and doesn’t need much direction whereas I need more guidance that is provided.  My boss also invited my co-worker out after work in front of me and includes him in upper level meetings I am never invited to.  In order to address this situation I have decided to try the following:

Talk to colleagues to get their impressions of the situation without being negative or judgmental about my boss or co-employee.  This will help me determine if I am over-reacting to the situation or seeing it as it is.

I will keep a record of instances which I view as favoritism, what my co-worker did in my boss’s eyes to receive the favoritism if I can determine it and why I perceive it to be favoritism.  If there are instances when my co-worker and I have done the same amount of work and accomplished the same outcome yet my co-worker gets all the praise I will record this also.

If others confirm my perceptions I will schedule a meeting with my boss.  I will tell him how I am perceiving the situation and provide clear examples of what I have been perceiving as favoritism.  If the boss suggests that I am not remembering correctly I will use my journal to provide evidence of my perceptions based on the events that occurred.  If possible, I will take a colleague with me into the meeting to support my perceptions.  This will hopefully communicate to my boss that others are perceiving the same thing I am and let him know that this is a serious situation so he will change his behavior.

The potential outcomes of this plan could be good or bad.  One outcome might be that my boss understands my perceptions and realizes that he has been showing favoritism.  This could strengthen our relationship or at least lead him to not favor my colleague so obviously at work.  A second outcome might be that my boss acts like he doesn’t understand what I’m talking about suggesting that I am imaging the whole thing such that nothing changes.  I would likely become more resentful if the behavior continues while my boss openly denies its occurrence.  The last option is that my boss could become defensive and lash out at me through a disciplinary action or even by firing me.  I am not sure what recourse I would have should this occur but will look into it before taking this course of action.

Ayoko, O. B., Callan V. J., and Hartel, C. E. J. (2003).  Workplace conflict, bullying and counterproductive behaviors. International Journal of Organizational Analysis,  11(4), 283-295.

De Dreu, C. K. W. and  Gelfand, M.  J. (Eds). (2008). The psychology of conflict and conflict management in organizations. The organizational frontiers series, (pp. 3-54). New York, NY: Taylor & Francis Group/Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, xxii, 484 pp.

Shefali, K. (2013). Favoritism strains workplace morale, harms agency performance. Federal News Radio. Retrieved fromhttp://www.federalnewsradio.com/492/3530979/Favoritism-strains-workplace-morale-harms-agency-performance

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Conflict Management Essay

Introduction, causes of conflict, change the culture and context of the conflict, listen actively and responsibly, acknowledge and integrate emotions to solve problems, search beneath the surface for hidden meaning, separate what matters from what gets in the way, stop rewarding and learn from difficult behavior, solve problems creatively, plan strategically, and negotiate collaboratively, explore resistance, mediate, and design systems for prevention.

Are you assigned to write an essay about conflict management, but don’t know where to start? Then, you are in the right place. Check out this sample on managing conflicts, its causes, and possible solutions.

Conflicts come as a result of disagreements. They are part of everyone’s life from childhood with parents, teenagers in school and usually carried on to the work place from home. The trends of business and organizational conflicts which are resulting into their breakdown and loss are an area that needs special attention to preserve and increase their profitability.

The solution to these problems is good management skills which can be implemented. This essay will discuss the conflicts between management and employees in organizations. It will include the eight strategies by Kenneth Cloke and Joan Smith in their book, “ Resolving Conflicts at work: Strategies for everyone on the job .”

The process involves, “organizational change, managing change, change implementation, multicultural, change resistance, readiness for change, coping with change, communication, involvement, middle management, case study, change factors, intercultural management and involving change agents” (Savolaien, 2011, p. 1).

The process of conflict management in organizations requires determination and participation of two parties, employees and the management.

In this essay leadership skills in management are emphasized to create efficiency. Poor communication within the work place where those employed are never involved or asked of their opinion is one source of conflict. This causes the employees not to rely on the employer but rather on the gossip.

Employees need a good working environment with adequate working equipment; with each employee’s work clearly defined. Failure of management to provide appropriate working conditions may lead to disagreement between the employees. The employees should also learn to understand each other, with respect while appreciating their work and personality.

This builds a strong team. If the leadership fails by being unfair or having poor values in an organization or business, this would be another source of conflict. To enhance harmony and team work the above factors must be put at the right place by the management (McNamara, n.d.).

National culture affects organizations. For an organization to grow it must keep on changing the old ways so as remain competitive. A problem in leadership management may be in form of failure of leaders to have adequate information on the business; thus lowering their competitiveness.

If employees complain of the problems in the working place without supervisors addressing the issue, the conflict continues to build pressure. The work and procedures of the business activities have an influence by values from the community (Cloke & Goldsmith 2005).

The cultures of societies are characterized by conflicts which come from various circles that shape our behaviors e.g. racism and economic conflicts (Cloke & Goldsmith, 2005). The beliefs of the people are usually taken to the organization. This is what brings differences between different countries with the same type of business organizations.

From research, it became clear that culture has an influence on organizations implying that there will be a great difference between organizations established in different places.

Failure of supervisors to involve other employees in decision making may bring conflict. This however may be as a result of the culture of the local people. The supervisors who like the way operations are run and not willing to change can be a hindrance to solving any problem.

To change the culture and involve the employees, while insisting on open communication and flexibility is a good way forward in solving organizational conflicts. The organization should decide to change, by implementing the changing strategies of their conflict approach (Savvolaien, 2011).

Communication is vital in every organization. Employees can bring success of the business. Satisfaction of the employees motivates them to have a greater output. Management concern about them will help them to have confidence in what they do. Listening to the employees is one of the greatest virtues that a manager can do to promote higher output of the employee (Business, 2010).

Openness of employees to management would help the managers to always get first hand information in most cases whether good or bad. Being clear on expectations of employees on their work enables them to avoid any confusion. This helps employees to become more responsible. Guidance in their work builds confidence in their work and helps increase their efficiency (Business, 2010).

After listening to the employees, the manager should have in mind that the employees are meant to implement the plan for change. Appreciating information given by employees help them to respond positively to the strategy that is laid in place. The manager should design a strategy that helps the employees to fulfill their needs as they promote growth of business organization.

Visiting the employees at their working place is the starting place to promote openness. It is important that a manager should know how they feel about the work and what they wish the management could do for them.

A manager should be keen to evaluate performance of employees. It is recommended for managers to discuss with their employees regarding their goals and hear their views and how they feel about their progress. Furthermore, the employer should be empathetic to the employees and should be concerned of any problem with their employees (Business, 2010).

Conflicts cause people to act against their wishes. For example people may speak and act against what they think. This is because of thinking that there may be no solution to the problem encountered. “Conflict processes dark, hypnotic, destructive power: the power of attachment when it is time to leave…” (Cloke & Goldsmith 2005, p. 21).

This means that management should work from the grassroots to solve any problem and not just superficially. Knowing the root cause of the problem helps in effective planning as one realizes, “ If you listen closely, you will discover that beneath every insult and accusation lies a confession, and beneath every confession lies a request” (Cloke & Goldsmith 2005, p. 8).

This helps in building mutual trust and respect. This relationship can only be build by having effective communication between the employees and the management (Business, 2010).

The concern of management should focus on the future. Unnecessary questions on who was right or wrong should not come between the management and employees. This means the management should keep focus on the solution to the problem but not concentrating on non beneficial arguments (Perkins, 2010).

The action taken by management to solve a conflict between employees should always seek the best and just action. Managers should speak straight to the point; to the person who causes a conflict. Those who fail to do right after repeated counsel should be fired and leave the rest of the workers with peace.

Listening to employees gives direction to deal with the opponents, by stopping to reward them and learning from their difficult behaviors (Cloke & Goldsmith, 2005). This means seeking for new strategies to deal with the opponents so as to stop rewarding them. Failure to plan and apply new strategies to solve problems makes the conflict to have deep roots in the organization as well as creating a bad culture (Cloke & Goldsmith, 2005).

To manage conflicts in an organization, management should have clear values, vision, mission and objectives. Seeing opportunities to solve the problems; with a positive attitude assists in effective implementation. It requires a lot of effort to deal with an opposition.

The management should therefore work so as to reach a certain goal of an agreement or disagreement (Cloke & Goldsmith, 2005). This means they should have a plan of talking to the employees as well as the necessary action to the opponent employee with fairness and justice.

Conflict management means dealing with the conflict till the end of it. If any resistance is seen in the process of solving a conflict it is a good opportunity to dismiss fears of employees. It is an indication of dissatisfaction; probably they were not included in the implementation or they were not involved in the process. If employees feel they had been undermined, they can bring resistance. Thus, communication remains paramount in the whole process of solving a problem (Nermin, 2011).

Business organizations will always encounter conflict from one time to another. Employees and management culture can be a hindrance to conflict management. Culture should therefore be considered in the planning of resolving any conflict. Managers should enhance transparency in their organizations and good leadership skills in conflict management. This would result in justice as well as the growth of business organization.

Business. (2010). How to actively listen to your employees . Web.

Cloke, K. & Goldsmith, J. (2005). Resolving conflicts at work: eight strategies for everyone on the job . New York, NY: John Wiley and sons.

McNamara, C. Basics of Conflict Management . Web.

Nermin, A. (2011). Enhance Your Leadership Skills- Build Trust & Resolve Conflict . Web.

Perkins, K. (2010). Proactive Steps to turn around workplace disputes . Web.

Savolaien, T. (2011). Challenges of Intercultural Management, Change Implementation in The Context of National Culture . Web.

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In the campus protests over the war in Gaza, language and rhetoric are—as they have always been when it comes to Israel and Palestine—weapons of mass destruction.

By Zadie Smith

A philosophy without a politics is common enough. Aesthetes, ethicists, novelists—all may be easily critiqued and found wanting on this basis. But there is also the danger of a politics without a philosophy. A politics unmoored, unprincipled, which holds as its most fundamental commitment its own perpetuation. A Realpolitik that believes itself too subtle—or too pragmatic—to deal with such ethical platitudes as thou shalt not kill. Or: rape is a crime, everywhere and always. But sometimes ethical philosophy reënters the arena, as is happening right now on college campuses all over America. I understand the ethics underpinning the protests to be based on two widely recognized principles:

There is an ethical duty to express solidarity with the weak in any situation that involves oppressive power.

If the machinery of oppressive power is to be trained on the weak, then there is a duty to stop the gears by any means necessary.

The first principle sometimes takes the “weak” to mean “whoever has the least power,” and sometimes “whoever suffers most,” but most often a combination of both. The second principle, meanwhile, may be used to defend revolutionary violence, although this interpretation has just as often been repudiated by pacifistic radicals, among whom two of the most famous are, of course, Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King, Jr . In the pacifist’s interpretation, the body that we must place between the gears is not that of our enemy but our own. In doing this, we may pay the ultimate price with our actual bodies, in the non-metaphorical sense. More usually, the risk is to our livelihoods, our reputations, our futures. Before these most recent campus protests began, we had an example of this kind of action in the climate movement. For several years now, many people have been protesting the economic and political machinery that perpetuates climate change, by blocking roads, throwing paint, interrupting plays, and committing many other arrestable offenses that can appear ridiculous to skeptics (or, at the very least, performative), but which in truth represent a level of personal sacrifice unimaginable to many of us.

I experienced this not long ago while participating in an XR climate rally in London. When it came to the point in the proceedings where I was asked by my fellow-protesters whether I’d be willing to commit an arrestable offense—one that would likely lead to a conviction and thus make travelling to the United States difficult or even impossible—I’m ashamed to say that I declined that offer. Turns out, I could not give up my relationship with New York City for the future of the planet. I’d just about managed to stop buying plastic bottles (except when very thirsty) and was trying to fly less. But never to see New York again? What pitiful ethical creatures we are (I am)! Falling at the first hurdle! Anyone who finds themselves rolling their eyes at any young person willing to put their own future into jeopardy for an ethical principle should ask themselves where the limits of their own commitments lie—also whether they’ve bought a plastic bottle or booked a flight recently. A humbling inquiry.

It is difficult to look at the recent Columbia University protests in particular without being reminded of the campus protests of the nineteen-sixties and seventies, some of which happened on the very same lawns. At that time, a cynical political class was forced to observe the spectacle of its own privileged youth standing in solidarity with the weakest historical actors of the moment, a group that included, but was not restricted to, African Americans and the Vietnamese. By placing such people within their ethical zone of interest, young Americans risked both their own academic and personal futures and—in the infamous case of Kent State—their lives. I imagine that the students at Columbia—and protesters on other campuses—fully intend this echo, and, in their unequivocal demand for both a ceasefire and financial divestment from this terrible war, to a certain extent they have achieved it.

But, when I open newspapers and see students dismissing the idea that some of their fellow-students feel, at this particular moment, unsafe on campus, or arguing that such a feeling is simply not worth attending to, given the magnitude of what is occurring in Gaza, I find such sentiments cynical and unworthy of this movement. For it may well be—within the ethical zone of interest that is a campus, which was not so long ago defined as a safe space, delineated by the boundary of a generation’s ethical ideas— it may well be that a Jewish student walking past the tents, who finds herself referred to as a Zionist, and then is warned to keep her distance, is, in that moment, the weakest participant in the zone. If the concept of safety is foundational to these students’ ethical philosophy (as I take it to be), and, if the protests are committed to reinserting ethical principles into a cynical and corrupt politics, it is not right to divest from these same ethics at the very moment they come into conflict with other imperatives. The point of a foundational ethics is that it is not contingent but foundational. That is precisely its challenge to a corrupt politics.

Practicing our ethics in the real world involves a constant testing of them, a recognition that our zones of ethical interest have no fixed boundaries and may need to widen and shrink moment by moment as the situation demands. (Those brave students who—in supporting the ethical necessity of a ceasefire—find themselves at painful odds with family, friends, faith, or community have already made this calculation.) This flexibility can also have the positive long-term political effect of allowing us to comprehend that, although our duty to the weakest is permanent, the role of “the weakest” is not an existential matter independent of time and space but, rather, a contingent situation, continually subject to change. By contrast, there is a dangerous rigidity to be found in the idea that concern for the dreadful situation of the hostages is somehow in opposition to, or incompatible with, the demand for a ceasefire. Surely a ceasefire—as well as being an ethical necessity—is also in the immediate absolute interest of the hostages, a fact that cannot be erased by tearing their posters off walls.

Part of the significance of a student protest is the ways in which it gives young people the opportunity to insist upon an ethical principle while still being, comparatively speaking, a more rational force than the supposed adults in the room, against whose crazed magical thinking they have been forced to define themselves. The equality of all human life was never a self-evident truth in racially segregated America. There was no way to “win” in Vietnam. Hamas will not be “eliminated.” The more than seven million Jewish human beings who live in the gap between the river and the sea will not simply vanish because you think that they should. All of that is just rhetoric. Words. Cathartic to chant, perhaps, but essentially meaningless. A ceasefire, meanwhile, is both a potential reality and an ethical necessity. The monstrous and brutal mass murder of more than eleven hundred people, the majority of them civilians, dozens of them children, on October 7th, has been followed by the monstrous and brutal mass murder (at the time of writing) of a reported fourteen thousand five hundred children. And many more human beings besides, but it’s impossible not to notice that the sort of people who take at face value phrases like “surgical strikes” and “controlled military operation” sometimes need to look at and/or think about dead children specifically in order to refocus their minds on reality.

To send the police in to arrest young people peacefully insisting upon a ceasefire represents a moral injury to us all. To do it with violence is a scandal. How could they do less than protest, in this moment? They are putting their own bodies into the machine. They deserve our support and praise. As to which postwar political arrangement any of these students may favor, and on what basis they favor it—that is all an argument for the day after a ceasefire. One state, two states, river to the sea—in my view, their views have no real weight in this particular moment, or very little weight next to the significance of their collective action, which (if I understand it correctly) is focussed on stopping the flow of money that is funding bloody murder, and calling for a ceasefire, the political euphemism that we use to mark the end of bloody murder. After a ceasefire, the criminal events of the past seven months should be tried and judged, and the infinitely difficult business of creating just, humane, and habitable political structures in the region must begin anew. Right now: ceasefire. And, as we make this demand, we might remind ourselves that a ceasefire is not, primarily, a political demand. Primarily, it is an ethical one.

But it is in the nature of the political that we cannot even attend to such ethical imperatives unless we first know the political position of whoever is speaking. (“Where do you stand on Israel/Palestine?”) In these constructed narratives, there are always a series of shibboleths, that is, phrases that can’t be said, or, conversely, phrases that must be said. Once these words or phrases have been spoken ( river to the sea, existential threat, right to defend, one state, two states, Zionist, colonialist, imperialist, terrorist ) and one’s positionality established, then and only then will the ethics of the question be attended to (or absolutely ignored). The objection may be raised at this point that I am behaving like a novelist, expressing a philosophy without a politics, or making some rarefied point about language and rhetoric while people commit bloody murder. This would normally be my own view, but, in the case of Israel/Palestine, language and rhetoric are and always have been weapons of mass destruction.

It is in fact perhaps the most acute example in the world of the use of words to justify bloody murder, to flatten and erase unbelievably labyrinthine histories, and to deliver the atavistic pleasure of violent simplicity to the many people who seem to believe that merely by saying something they make it so. It is no doubt a great relief to say the word “Hamas” as if it purely and solely described a terrorist entity. A great relief to say “There is no such thing as the Palestinian people” as they stand in front of you. A great relief to say “Zionist colonialist state” and accept those three words as a full and unimpeachable definition of the state of Israel, not only under the disastrous leadership of Benjamin Netanyahu but at every stage of its long and complex history, and also to hear them as a perfectly sufficient description of every man, woman, and child who has ever lived in Israel or happened to find themselves born within it. It is perhaps because we know these simplifications to be impossible that we insist upon them so passionately. They are shibboleths; they describe a people, by defining them against other people—but the people being described are ourselves. The person who says “We must eliminate Hamas” says this not necessarily because she thinks this is a possible outcome on this earth but because this sentence is the shibboleth that marks her membership in the community that says that. The person who uses the word “Zionist” as if that word were an unchanged and unchangeable monolith, meaning exactly the same thing in 2024 and 1948 as it meant in 1890 or 1901 or 1920—that person does not so much bring definitive clarity to the entangled history of Jews and Palestinians as they successfully and soothingly draw a line to mark their own zone of interest and where it ends. And while we all talk, carefully curating our shibboleths, presenting them to others and waiting for them to reveal themselves as with us or against us—while we do all that, bloody murder.

And now here we are, almost at the end of this little stream of words. We’ve arrived at the point at which I must state clearly “where I stand on the issue,” that is, which particular political settlement should, in my own, personal view, occur on the other side of a ceasefire. This is the point wherein—by my stating of a position—you are at once liberated into the simple pleasure of placing me firmly on one side or the other, putting me over there with those who lisp or those who don’t, with the Ephraimites, or with the people of Gilead. Yes, this is the point at which I stake my rhetorical flag in that fantastical, linguistical, conceptual, unreal place—built with words—where rapes are minimized as needs be, and the definition of genocide quibbled over, where the killing of babies is denied, and the precision of drones glorified, where histories are reconsidered or rewritten or analogized or simply ignored, and “Jew” and “colonialist” are synonymous, and “Palestinian” and “terrorist” are synonymous, and language is your accomplice and alibi in all of it. Language euphemized, instrumentalized, and abused, put to work for your cause and only for your cause, so that it does exactly and only what you want it to do. Let me make it easy for you. Put me wherever you want: misguided socialist, toothless humanist, naïve novelist, useful idiot, apologist, denier, ally, contrarian, collaborator, traitor, inexcusable coward. It is my view that my personal views have no more weight than an ear of corn in this particular essay. The only thing that has any weight in this particular essay is the dead. ♦

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As Anger Grows Over Gaza, Arab Leaders Crack Down on Protests

Grief and rage over the war and Israel have led to demonstrations across the Arab world. Arrests suggest governments fear the outrage could boomerang.

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By Vivian Yee ,  Vivian Nereim and Emad Mekay

Vivian Yee and Emad Mekay reported from Cairo, and Vivian Nereim from Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.

Like other governments across the Middle East, Egypt has not been shy about its position on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Its denunciations of Israel over the war in Gaza are loud and constant. State media outlets broadcast images of long lines of aid trucks waiting to cross from Egypt into Gaza, spotlighting Egypt’s role as the main conduit for aid entering the besieged territory.

Earlier this month, however, when hundreds of people gathered in downtown Cairo to demonstrate in solidarity with Gaza, Egyptian security officers swooped in, arresting 14 protesters, according to their lawyer. Back in October, the government had organized pro-Palestinian rallies of its own. Yet at those, too, it detained dozens of people after protesters chanted slogans critical of the government. More than 50 of them remain behind bars, their lawyers say.

It was a pattern that has repeated itself around the region since Israel, responding to an attack by Hamas, began a six-month war in Gaza: Arab citizens’ grief and fury over Gaza’s plight running headlong into official repression when that outrage takes aim at their own leaders. In some countries, even public display of pro-Palestinian sentiment is enough to risk arrest.

Out of step with their people on matters of economic opportunity and political freedoms, some governments in the Arab world have long faced added discontent over their ties with Israel and its chief backer, the United States. Now the Gaza war — and what many Arabs see as their own governments’ complicity — has driven an old wedge between rulers and the ruled with new force .

Morocco is prosecuting dozens of people arrested at pro-Palestinian protests or detained for social media posts criticizing the kingdom’s rapprochement with Israel. In Saudi Arabia, which is pursuing a normalization deal with Israel, and the United Arab Emirates, which has already struck one, the authorities have displayed such hypersensitivity to any hint of opposition that many people are too frightened to speak on the issue.

And Jordan’s government, caught between its majority-Palestinian population and its close cooperation with Israel and the United States, has arrested at least 1,500 people since early October, according to Amnesty International. That includes about 500 in March, when huge protests were held outside the Israeli Embassy in Amman.

Afterward, the president of the Jordanian Senate, Faisal al-Fayez, said that his country “ will not accept that demonstrations and protests turn into platforms for discord.”

Arab autocracies rarely tolerate dissent. But activism around the Palestinian cause is particularly thorny.

For decades, Arab activists have linked the struggle for justice for the Palestinians — a cause that unites Arabs of different political persuasions from Marrakesh to Baghdad — to the struggle for greater rights and freedoms at home. For them, Israel was an avatar of the authoritarian and colonialist forces that had thwarted their own societies’ growth.

“What’s happening to the Palestinian people clarifies the foundation of the problem for Arabs everywhere, that the problem is tyranny,” said Abdurrahman Sultan, a 36-year-old Kuwaiti who has participated in sit-ins in support of the Palestinian cause since the war began.

Kuwait initially tolerated some of the sit-ins. But for some Arab governments, the connection evokes peril. Palestinian flags were a common sight at the Arab Spring protests that swept the region in 2011. In Egypt, where since taking power in 2013 President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi has quelled protest and muffled most criticism, the authorities are ever mindful that activism can quickly boomerang against them.

“Today they’re out to protest for Palestine; tomorrow they might protest against him himself — the president,” said Nabeh Ganady, 30, a human rights lawyer who represents the 14 activists arrested at the April 3 protest in Cairo.

The message, said Mahienor El-Massry, a human rights lawyer who joined the demonstration, “is that people shouldn’t even dream that there exists any margin for freedoms or for democracy, and that you should never gain confidence and then move toward bigger demands.”

Ms. El-Massry was arrested along with 10 other protesters during a smaller solidarity protest outside United Nations offices in Cairo last Tuesday, according to Ahmed Douma, a well-known Egyptian activist. They were later released.

In interviews conducted around Egypt, Morocco and Persian Gulf countries — including Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Oman and Kuwait — many citizens described the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in stark terms, viewing the Palestinian cause as a struggle for justice, Israel as a symbol of oppression and, in some cases, their rulers’ dealings with Israel as morally bankrupt.

Coming after agreements by Bahrain, Morocco and the United Arab Emirates to normalize ties with Israel, along with Saudi steps toward following suit, the war has galvanized outrage in those countries toward not only Israel but also Arab leaders willing to work with it.

“If you’re willing to sell that, and sell those people out — sell yourself out — what’s next? What else is for sale?” said Salem, an Emirati in his 20s who asked to be identified by a middle name, given the Emirati authorities’ record of punishing dissent.

Governments that signed agreements with Israel have often described the decision as a step toward greater regional dialogue and interfaith tolerance . In February, the Emirati government said in a statement to The New York Times that keeping its diplomatic ties with Israel open was “important in difficult times.”

But because of hostility or, at best, indifference toward Israel in the broader Arab public, there is a “direct, necessary connection” between authoritarianism and the signing of such agreements, said Marc Lynch, a political science professor focused on the Middle East at George Washington University.

The fact that some gulf Arab states have used Israeli surveillance tools to monitor critics only cements that impression.

“If people had any space to democratically elect or express, they wouldn’t choose to normalize with Israel,” said Maryam AlHajri, a Qatari sociologist and anti-normalization activist.

Many Arab governments have tried to tame or harness popular anger with heated rhetoric condemning Israel over the war. Yet they see too many practical benefits to ties with Israel to renege on peace deals, analysts said.

Egypt, the first Arab country to make peace with Israel, has developed a close security partnership with its neighbor over years of jointly combating militancy in northern Sinai. Egypt and Israel have also worked together to blockade Gaza to contain Hamas, whose brand of militant political Islamism Egypt considers a threat. And Egypt needs Israel’s cooperation to prevent a huge influx of Palestinian refugees from Gaza.

Gulf monarchies, including Saudi Arabia and the Emirates, which have for years faced attacks by Iran-backed groups, have long maintained back-channel security connections with Israel, which sees Iran as its greatest threat. That enemy-of-my-enemy arrangement paved the way for normalization talks later on, and critiques of those initiatives are rare since many gulf monarchies effectively ban all forms of protest and political organizing.

H.A. Hellyer, a Middle East security expert at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, said governments were “trying to thread a line between that anger, which I think is very genuinely felt, across all sectors of Arab societies, and what those states interpret as their national security considerations.”

In the past, some of the region’s leaders permitted their frustrated populations to blow off steam with pro-Palestinian and anti-Israel activism. But now that the suffering in Gaza implicates Arab governments in the eyes of many of their citizens, the chants tread on sensitive territory.

Some Egyptians have criticized their government for, among other things, allowing Israel any say over the delivery of desperately needed aid into Gaza through a border crossing in Egypt. And since October, Moroccans have gathered for large, near-daily solidarity demonstrations in about 40 cities that bring together leftists and Islamists, young and old, men and women.

Mostly, the authorities have left them alone. But a few protests have been repressed, according to rights groups and witnesses, and dozens of protesters have been arrested, including a group of 13 in the city of Sale and an activist named Abdul Rahman Zankad, who had criticized Morocco’s normalization agreement with Israel on Facebook.

Mr. Zankad was sentenced to five years in prison this month.

“People are arrested simply for voicing their opinions,” said Serroukh Mohammed, a lawyer in the port city of Tangier and a member of an Islamist political organization. Moroccans will continue to protest, he said, as long as their government defies popular sentiment to maintain ties with Israel.

Representatives for the governments of Egypt and Morocco did not respond to requests for comment.

For Arabs like Mr. Sultan, from Kuwait, the absence of popular support for relations with Israel means any normalization agreements are doomed to fail.

“To make peace, you need regimes and governments that represent their people, that are elected,” he said.

Aida Alami contributed reporting from Rabat, Morocco.

Vivian Yee is a Times reporter covering North Africa and the broader Middle East. She is based in Cairo. More about Vivian Yee

Vivian Nereim is the lead reporter for The Times covering the countries of the Arabian Peninsula. She is based in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. More about Vivian Nereim