The conflict helix is a process of conflict which originates in the sociocultural space of meanings, values, norms, status, and class. It is at one time a structure, the opposition of attitudes, at another a situation, the opposition and awareness of different interests. It may be latent until the will initiates action, or resolved through abnegation or resignation of interests. Or it may be manifest as opposing interests strive to overcome and balance each other. In any case, conflict eventuates in a balance of interests, capabilities, and wills--in a structure of expectations enabling solidary and contractual interactions, producing order, and ensuring correct social predictions. But eventually such structures and changes in the underlying balance become incongruent, leading to disruption by some trigger event. A new process of conflict then ensues, resolving in a new balance that is built on the previous ones.

Thus is the conflict helix. All societies are the outcome of such a conflict process, all consist of structures of expectations, all are built on multiple and overlapping balances of powers among individuals. What general conclusions can we then draw for societal level conflict and violence?

Structures of expectations may be general sets of understandings and behavior which remain fairly stable while substructures are being formed. Thus, the balance of powers constituting the American political system held firm during the subordinate power struggle called Watergate, which resulted in a new subbalance symbolized in Nixon's resignation and the swearing in of Ford as the new President of the United States. Manifest conflicts can occur randomly with regard to general structures of expectations, in that they involve at separate times separate substructures.

Moreover, conflict is specific to a particular structure of expectations (as a riot over food distribution procedures or tax collections). Its manifest occurrence, however, is a function of the proper trigger event. Trigger events, from the perspective of a specific structure of expectations, are random events (as the arrest of a black by a white policeman may spark a neighborhood riot).¹ Their probability of occurrence depends on the gap between the structure and the underlying balance (Section 29.5 of Chapter 29), but their actual occurrence at a specific time is in general unpredictable.²

Finally, when we consider conflict manifestations for society as a whole, in fact, we are aggregating many different manifestations for many different structures of expectations. Thus, a large number of riots for the United States will reflect the process of disruption and formation of a variety of structures of expectations. Some structures may be similar, such as the racial, social, and political structures in large and separate Northern urban areas, but many riots will relate to quite different structures (as concerning the military draft, industrial anti-strike activities, or anti-religious textbooks in primary schools). The aggregation of conflict data for a society randomizes manifest conflict in a society with respect to any specific structure of expectations. This is true also for aggregate conflict manifestations across societies.

A balance of powers may be altered without manifest conflict. No trigger event may have disrupted the structure of expectations, or the structure may be sufficiently integrated to withstand considerable imbalance or shocks. However, if change continues, eventually even small events can cause participants to reorder the status quo. There is no one to one relationship between change and manifest conflict, only a probabilistic one. And this relationship depends on what is changing.

There are three kinds of change of interest. The first is in the type of society. A transformation from traditional to exchange societies, or from traditional to coercive, vastly alters the configuration of power across society--the very basis of power and the central status quo of society. This is then the period of greatest conflict and violence for societies as their individuals reorder their statuses and class memberships.

Shifts in type of society also produce different values, meanings, and norms, a different culture. Basic philosophical principles are modified, the view of truth and ethics shifts, and the legal basis of society is altered in a breakdown of the crystallized cultural system and the formation of a new system. Through history, the change of a society from one type to another has involved the most violence.

A second kind of change occurs in the social consciousness of individuals. Education, travel, military duty, communication (radio, television, newspapers), and so on increase an individual's awareness of other places and people, other statuses and life styles, other interests. Expanding consciousness may lead to new aspirations and create a sense of personal, group, and class injustice. And such consciousness may also increase an awareness of other individuals similarly placed and of one's own capabilities and the weakness and strength of opponents.

For society as a whole, therefore, if education, communication, and so on are relatively little, we should expect that as the rate of education and communication increase, so should the probability of conflict as people's new interests strain structures of expectations. Manifest conflict may not occur because of the strength of opposing forces, such as government repression, but if such coercion is held constant, manifest conflict should increase with the rate of education. For those already educated and conscious of the world, however, additional education and communication should have only a marginal effect, unless they have been indoctrinated into one ideology and all communications stress one perspective, as in communist societies. Then newly available alternative views and facts should have tremendous impact. For this reason, among others, totalitarian societies maintain tight control over the content of education and all communication media.

A third change is in the economy of a society. Economic development--a multifold increase in society's complexity and diversity of labor, its productive and consumptive capacity, in its wealth--forms a multitude of structures of expectation, diverse, overlapping, and crosscutting. This multitude and potentiality for easy creation and disruption with minimal conflict (such as quitting a job), allows us to satisfy more easily our many interests and to be cross-pressured by our different class-positions in many groups.

We therefore should expect that the faster the rate of increase in economic development, the less the probability of conflict. The reason is that a variety of capabilities and potential structures of expectations are being created, and interests actualized. This diversity should make the balancing and compromise among specific interests easier.

Only when changing interests are blocked, that is, when a growing social consciousness in society is not adjusted to, will the probability of manifest conflict increase. Thus, the ratio of the growth in social consciousness in society to its growing development provides a measure of the likelihood of conflict. This is a measure of the rigidity of the status quo.

Especially important in this regard is the coercive power that the elite are willing to employ. In modern states where the political system keeps and enforces the general structure of expectations, conflict is often between the political elite and those attacking their policies or the status quo. The more dominant the political system in social affairs, the more social conflict swirls around the extensions of government control. Even everyday questions about the price of bread or gasoline, whether to change one's job, or hiring a baby-sitter become matters of government policy. All modem state-societies are antifields to some extent, and the front between antifield and social field is the region of potential social storms.

Whether in fact conflict will be manifest is another question. This depends on the force and terror³ the elite are willing to employ. Repression raises the costs of opposing the elite. However across societies there is a curvilinear relationship between elite force and manifest conflict.

Where force is little used, the elite have high legitimacy and conflicts can be adjusted through traditional institutions. The increase in the use of force signals a decrease in legitimacy or a blockage of the demands of those seeking a change in policies or status quo. As legitimacy decreases, the political system increasingly is seen as the source of social ills and a change in elite or system as the solution. Thus, manifest conflict and repression will at first be positively related. However, if repression becomes extensive, elite terror widespread, and force systematically applied, then overt opposition becomes suppressed. Total repression is effective in establishing a conflict-free structure of expectations, as the surface harmony of the Soviet and Communist Chinese systems show, and as is clear from the harmony of concentration camps, slave labor camps, and prisons.

Moreover, each dimension of conflict should be associated with a particular type of state. The following sections will briefly describe what these types of conflict should be.

Pluralistic conflict is therefore intrinsic to the interactions and change within exchange societies. It is the normal friction associated with the multiple building and dissolution of implicit and formal contracts and groups in a free society. In an exchange society, conflict manifestations over-all will be at a constant but low level. If one measures the intensity of conflict from one state to the next, where such a measure takes into account the number of killed in domestic violence, the number of revolutions, coups, riots, assassinations, and so on, then this measure of societal strife should be inversely related to the degree to which a society is based on exchange power.

Indeed, authoritarian political systems seem to undergo a cycle of revolts which settle successional disputes. These may become quite violent, without attacking or bringing into question the legitimacy of the over-all order (Gluckman, 1963).

A problem for many authoritative states is that they are not one consensual society, but often two or more different subsocieties balanced against each other within a common political system. Such is the case with many African states, such as Nigeria.

These divisions are communal, often based on racial, language, and tribal homogeneity and territorial separation. Where activities within communal divisions are left alone by the state, conflict will not occur. But where authoritarian rulers try to extend their legitimacy over such communities, violence is often the result. This conflict is acerbated if class and racial-language-tribal cleavages are the line of class division. If one communal division comprises the elite and the others the ruled, then violence is highly probable.

Thus, authoritarian states will manifest communal and traditional conflict. This conflict behavior will comprise coups, revolutions, and successional revolts of communal subsocieties as well as apolitical banditry, family or class feuds, guild confrontations, and the like.

A second variety of conflict occurs among the elite themselves. Instability is common and elite executions, purges, and demotions are the standard way of maintaining power and policies. Within totalitarian political systems, the balance of political power comprises different elite factions, among which conflict is settled through eliminating or disarming the opposing elite.

Conflict in coercive societies is manifested by class terror and repression, and elite purges.

(1)Conflict manifestations are random regarding specific societal structures of expectations.

(2)Change produces societal conflict.

(3)Power shapes conflict.

(4)Overt conflict has three manifest dimensions.

(5)Exchange societies manifest pluralistic conflict.

(6)Authoritative societies manifest communal/traditional conflict.

(7)Coercive societies manifest elite repression /purges.

These are very broad, bereft of much detail at this point, and on the order of directional propositions.

They emphasize the power basis of conflict, the role of interests and expectations, and the importance of the societal context. The next chapters (beginning with Chapter 33) will subject these propositions to empirical test, and in the process flesh out their bones.

Note that these eight propositions ignore frustration, deprivation, poverty, anomie as conditions or causes of conflict, which are the social science folk beliefs of our time. The next volume, Vol. 3: Conflict In Perspective, will consider these popular explanations of social conflict, and relate their arguments to the conflict helix and propositions.