Conflict

Its functions and dysfunctions

Lewis Coser's analysis of the functions of conflict is the standard reference and is what earns marks, because most students give only the harms.

Functions.

1. It increases group solidarity. Conflict with an out-group unites the in-group, which is Simmel's proposition again.
2. It defines and clarifies boundaries between groups, and so establishes identity.
3. It acts as a safety valve where hostility is released in a controlled form rather than accumulating.
4. It produces change, and it is the process by which subordinated groups have obtained every improvement in their position.
5. It can create new norms and institutions: industrial conflict produced collective bargaining, labour legislation and the whole machinery of industrial relations.
6. It reveals the real distribution of power, which is otherwise concealed.
7. It can produce alliances, since parties combine against a common opponent.

Dysfunctions.

1. Destruction of life, property and relationships.
2. Disruption of the social order and of cooperation.
3. It diverts effort from production to struggle.
4. It hardens divisions and produces stereotypes that outlast the dispute.
5. It may destroy the group it occurs within, where it is internal and the group lacks machinery to handle it.

Coser's crucial qualification, worth stating precisely: conflict is functional for a group where it concerns means and goals within an accepted framework, and dangerous where it attacks the framework itself. A group with the machinery to express and manage internal conflict is strengthened by it; a group that suppresses all internal conflict accumulates hostility and may shatter when it finally breaks out.

That proposition is the sociological argument for the entire machinery of dispute resolution: courts, tribunals, arbitration, conciliation, collective bargaining and grievance procedures exist to keep conflict inside a framework, and this is Dahrendorf's institutionalisation of conflict from [The Conflict Perspective].

Conflict and competition

The table in [Competition] gives the comparison and is not repeated. The one line to remember: competition is about the prize, conflict is about the opponent.

A worked example

Workers in a factory demand a wage revision.

Latent conflict existed for years: the interests of employer and employees over the division of the product are structurally opposed, whether or not anything is said.

It becomes manifest when a demand is made and refused.

Direct conflict follows: a strike, a lockout, obstruction, and the identification of individuals on each side as opponents.

Coser's functions are visible. Solidarity among the workers rises sharply, and among the managers too. The boundary between the two becomes explicit, where before it was blurred by daily working relations. The real distribution of power becomes visible to both sides for the first time.

Accommodation ends it, as it must, because conflict is expensive for both: a settlement, a conciliation, an award. Neither side has been converted; an arrangement has been reached.

And note what has been created. The dispute produces a written agreement, a procedure for the next dispute, and perhaps a recognised union and a standing grievance mechanism. The conflict has generated the institutions that will contain the next one, which is Coser's point about conflict creating norms, and it is why industrial relations law looks as it does.

Quick revision

1. Conflict is the deliberate struggle to defeat, subdue or eliminate an opponent, with attention on the opponent, not the prize.
2. Characteristics: personal, conscious, intermittent, universal, coercive in means, rule-breaking, aimed at the opponent's defeat.
3. Causes: individual differences, cultural differences, conflict of interests over scarce resources, social change, inequality, and the identification of a rival with a group.
4. Simmel's four types: war, feud or factional strife, litigation, and conflict of impersonal ideals, the most implacable because nothing can be conceded without betraying the ideal.
5. Latent and manifest: no visible conflict may mean successful suppression, not absence.
6. Coser's functions: solidarity, boundary definition, safety valve, change, creation of new norms and institutions, revelation of power, alliances.
7. Coser's qualification: conflict within an accepted framework strengthens a group; conflict attacking the framework endangers it. This is the argument for courts, tribunals, arbitration and collective bargaining.

Test yourself

1. Define conflict and distinguish it from competition in one sentence. Conflict is the dissociative process in which parties seek their ends by directly challenging, resisting or injuring an identified opponent, whose defeat becomes an object in itself. It differs from competition in that attention is directed at the opponent rather than at the prize: competition is about obtaining the object, conflict is about defeating the other party.

2. Give Simmel's classification of conflict. War, between organised groups or states; feud or factional strife, a long-standing conflict within a group, usually along lines of kinship; litigation, in which conflict is conducted through a court under rules; and conflict of impersonal ideals, waged for a cause or belief rather than for personal advantage. He regarded the last as the most implacable, because parties fighting for an ideal rather than for themselves cannot concede anything without betraying it.

3. State Coser's account of the functions of conflict. That conflict increases the solidarity of each group involved; defines and clarifies the boundaries between groups; serves as a safety valve through which hostility is released rather than accumulated; produces social change, being the means by which subordinated groups improve their position; generates new norms and institutions, as industrial conflict generated collective bargaining and labour legislation; reveals the real distribution of power; and produces alliances among parties facing a common opponent.

4. What is Coser's qualification, and what does it justify? That conflict is functional for a group when it concerns means and goals within an accepted framework, and dangerous when it attacks the framework itself; and that a group which suppresses all internal conflict accumulates hostility and may shatter when it finally emerges. It justifies the whole machinery of dispute resolution, courts, tribunals, arbitration, conciliation, collective bargaining and grievance procedures, whose function is to keep conflict expressed and contained within a framework rather than to abolish it.

5. Distinguish latent from manifest conflict and say why it matters. Latent conflict exists in the opposition of interests but is not expressed; manifest conflict is openly conducted. It matters because the absence of visible conflict cannot be taken as evidence of harmony: it may indicate that one party is strong enough to prevent the other from expressing a grievance at all. An assessment of a society or an organisation that counts only manifest disputes will describe the most thoroughly dominated arrangements as the most peaceful.