CONFLICT ANALYSIS

Zdzisaw Pawlak
Institute of Theoretical and Applied Informatics
Polish Academy of Sciences
ul.Batycka 5, 44 000 Gliwice, Poland
E-mail: zpw@ii.pw.edu.pl

K.POORNIMA T.SARANYA A.VARALAKSHMI HARIKA
13MCS0101 13MCS0082 13MCS0106
MTECH-CSE MTECH- CSE MTECH-CSE
FIRST YEAR FIRST YEAR FIRST YEAR
it_poornima@yahoo.in sayadream87@gmail.com a.varalakshmiharika@gmail.com


Date of Submission: 21/04/14

ABSTRACT
Conflict analysis is a means to understand better the complex dynamics of a conflict, set of
conflicts, or situation of instability. Most commonly, it is undertaken or commissioned by
external institutions, such as donors or foreign ministries for their own purposes. I n this
paper, we proposed three binary relations, conflict, alliance and neutrality. A formal definition
of these relations is given, some their properties are investigated and illustrated. The proposed
approach can be used both, as a basis for conflict theory as well as a tool for computer
simulation of case studies. I n any conflict various parties (agents, objects) are involved in a
dispute over some issues, which can be used to define relationships between the parties. The
approach is based on three binary relations, and called alliance, neutrality and conflict
relation respectively.
KEYWORDS: Conflict Analysis, Peace-Building Process, Track II Peace Building process,
Answer Set Programming, Binary Relations
INTRODUCTION
Conflict analysis should be at the heart of international engagement in all conflict affected and
fragile contexts. The process of participatory conflict analysis can have a peace -building value
in itself. In several locations, workshops and discussion groups created opportunities for
dialogue, reflection, interaction and the building of trust between people. In general affected by
conflict and violence, people will often not speak openly about what really think and have
experienced. The trust built through participatory approaches can increase the degree of
disclosure, thus leading to more final analysis. The process of reflection, through both
analytical workshops and advocacy training, can help people to understand the factors affecting
their situation and articulate potential responses. As such, it helps them understand that they are
not just victims, but potentially actors with influence over their situation. We had to build up
these relationships from the start. We found that we needed more time to undertake the research
and that there were greater challenges in verifying the findings. In many cases, time and
resources posed constraints on the extent of participation and results gathered from the project
indicate that, to get the full broader participatory conflict analysis. The design of conflict analysis
should build in a focus on responses, in order for analysis to inform conflict prevention. [1] The
challenges and considerations we have addressed when designing and implementing conflict
analysis is
1. Overarching and design issues- A careful and sensitive planning and the implementation of
participatory research does require investment of staff time and resources for the process to
happen. As such, there is no quick and dirty participatory conflict analysis. Analysis can add
vital new layers of insight into conflict and the process of doing such analysis can have a
positive impact in itself-thus they often represent good value for money because of the extra
benefits they offer.
2. Working with local partners- What is meant to translate a commitment to participation into
action and impacts may accrue as a result. It is should be noted, however, that working closely
with local partners is also hugely important to the efficiency and quality of the research process
itself. At the most practical level, partners often have a depth and breadth of capacity to
undertake research in the local context that external actors are unlikely to have, in terms of
ability to organize research activities, their range of contacts and their knowledge of how to
manage practical, political obstacles. One challenge that did arise on occasion, however, is the
quality of research outputs provided by partners but also other outputs such as transcripts of
focus group discussion and write up- the challenge here being that the less detail that is
provided, the less possible it is to synthesis and analyses this information for the final written
conflict analysis.
3. Pros and cons of having existing relationships- It should be noted that there can disadvantages
to having existing relationships and ongoing programming. It goes without saying that conflict
analysis is a very sensitive matter and there is very potential to cause offence through the way in
which the analysis process is managed and particularly with how findings are presented. While
experience of working in that environment generally helps the researchers to steer through these
sensitive, an organization may decide that investigating a particular issue has risks or its ongoing
programming and therefore seek to avoid or minimize the issues within the research.
4. Managing expectations- People may differently to being asked to participate in an analysis
process. By contrast, participants can sometimes become very enthusiastic about the process and
expect that it can deliver more than is realistic. It is important for researchers to be clear and
honest from the start about the purpose of the research, what it might lead to and what is likely or
unlikely to change as a result.
5. Managing access- Moreover its complicated the analysis process because different
researchers had different experiences and, in some cases, those that were responsible for writing
up the English-language report had not been able to experience significant parts of the research
at first hand.
6. Language issues- Language can act as a complicating factor which can make the research and
analysis more difficult and more costly. However, translating this information so that is
accessible to those writing the final analysis adds an extra filter on the information and increase
the risks that subtleties will not be picked up or will be mistranslated. It also needs to be
recognized that this translation requires at least some extra time and money. Since the final
reports were all in English, there were also issues about the accessibility of the analysis for local
participants and stakeholders.
7. Converting analysis into actionable recommendations- We want to see conflict analysis used
to inform programming by donors and other stakeholders, as well as ourselves, to ensure that it is
more conflict sensitive. We recognize that institutions often struggle to translate detailed analysis
of a complex situation into concrete actions that they themselves can implement, not least
because they often lack time and space to do so. The key challenge is that in order to make useful
recommendations, it is necessary to have a very good understanding of ones target audience,
including not only the policies and programmes for which they are responsible, but also the
operational and institutional constraints to which they are subject. This requires the analytical
team not only to have a very detailed understanding of the conflict, but also to have a detailed
understanding of the target institutions- which usually involves considerable communication
with those who have a policy.
LITERATURE REVIEW

[2] This paper develops a prototype for a new type of conflict analysis tool designed to be used
as part of a Track II peace building process. The tool, termed Conflict Analysis through the
Structured Evaluation of Scenarios (CASES), provides information on relevant comparative
cases by systematically analyzing cases from the Minorities at Risk (MAR) dataset. From these
285 groups in the dataset, the CASES report identifies five comparison cases, designed to
illuminate potential future trajectories of the subject case. In the CASES report, each of the
comparison cases represents a scenario, a possible future of the subject case. The report therefore
contains five brief narratives that describe and designed to be used as part of a Track II peace
building process.

The following figure shows a CASES Process:
















Fig: Diagrammatic Representation of Track II peace building process
CONFLICT ANALYSIS RELATED TO KNOWLEDGE REPRESENTATION
REASONING
ASP (Answer Set Programming): [3] it is an Approach to declarative problem solving and
combining.
ASP is emerging as a viable tool for Knowledge Representation and Reasoning.
Roots in ASP:
(Logic based) Knowledge representation and reasoning
(Deductive) databases
Constraint Solving (in particular, SAT Solving)
Identify Subject Case

Search MAR using
selection variables.
Develop list of potential
comparison cases.

Choose 4-5 comparison
cases that provide a
range of outcomes.

Develop subject case
scenarios based on
comparison cases.

Conduct nested
scenario analysis as
necessary.

Develop potential
peacebuilding
interventions.

Analyze scenarios,
identify driving forces.

Logic Programming (with negation)
It allows for solving all search problems in NP in a uniform way.
Conflict-Driven Answer Set Solving:
Objective:
View inferences in Answer Set Programming (ASP) as unit propagation on no-goods.
(No-good-constraint violated by any solution.)
Advantages:
A uniform constraint-based framework for different kinds of inferences in ASP
Advanced techniques from the areas of CSP and SAT
Highly competitive implementation
No-goods from Logic Programs:
no-goods from Clark's Completion- O(n)
no-goods from Unfounded Sets- O(2
n
)
no-goods from Aggregates- O(2
n
)
Algorithm:
Loop
Propagate // (Boolean) constraint propagation
If no conflict then
If all variables assigned then return solution
Else Decide // pick and assign some free literal
Else if top-level conflict then
Return unsatisfiable
Else
Analyze // resolve conflict and record a conflict constraint
Buckjump // undo assignments
WORK SUMMARY
Conflict analysis and resolution play an important role in business, governmental, political and
lawsuits disputes, labor-management negotiations, military operations and others. In any conflict
various parties (agents, objects) are involved in a dispute over some issues, which can be used to
define relationships between the parties. The approach is based on three binary relations, and
called alliance, neutrality and conflict relation respectively. R
+
, R
0
, R
-
.We assumes that these
relations have the following properties:
(I) R
+
(x,x),

(ii) R
+
(x,y) implies R(y,x),
(iii) R
+
(x,y) and R
+
(y,z) implies R
+
(x,z),
(iv) non R
-
(x,x),
(v) R
-
(x,y) implies R
-
(y,x)
(vi) R
-
(x,y) and R
-
(y,z) implies R
+
(x,z) ,
(vii) R
-
(x,y) and R
+
(y,z) implies R
-
(x,z),
(viii) non R
0
(x,x),
(ix) R
0
(x,y)=R
0
(y,x).

Each equivalence classe of alliance relation is a coalition. Let us note that the condition (iii) can
be expressed as "friend of my friend is my friend". R
+
Conditions (VI) and (vii) refer to well
know sayings "enemy of May enemy is my friend" and "friend of my enemy is my enemy".
Let us observe that in the conflict and neutrality relations there are no coalitions. All the three
relations are pair wise disjoint, i.e., every pair of objects belong to exactly one of the above
defined relations i.e., is in conflict, is allied or is neutral.

FURTHER RESEARCH WORK
Political Violence and Conflict Management:
Emphasis is placed on research regarding non-military resolution of terrorism conflicts. Methods
such as sanctions, legal action and negotiation are analyzed theoretically and empirically to
determine their foundations for use in handling, preventing, and resolving terrorism conflicts.
Considerations are also given to military and other forms of coercive methods of conflict
resolution [6], but the aim is not to develop these methods since that is done elsewhere. This is
done through analyzing different conflict resolution processes utilized to solve conflicts
involving different forms of terrorism, such as ethno-nationalistic terrorism, narco-terrorism, and
religious.
It is working towards developing already existing theoretical frameworks of terrorism studies as
well as constructing new theories regarding the prevention, management and resolution of
conflicts involving terrorism [4]. The results from the research are designed to fulfill demands
from both academic and policymaking circles.
Environmental Security:
A central thesis within the field of environmental security is that environmental stress reduces
social capacity and thus gives rise to conflict. Environmental [5] issues and competition for
scarce renewable natural resources become security concerns when they reach a point of crisis.
By understanding the role that environmental security issues play in state failure, policy
recommendations can be devised to mitigate environmental security issues before they lead to
violent conflict and/or aggravate a conflict that subsequently leads to state failure.
This research addresses the following questions:
Are environmental security issues causally linked to state failure? If so, how?
What is the role of governance (local, national, regional and international), legitimacy,
and rule of law in mitigating or aggravating environmental security problems?
How does posing a problem through the lens of environmental security issues lead to new
insights and possible new policy actions?
CONCLUSION
This Paper presents Key messages, challenges while designing the conflict analysis to peace
building impact and track II peace building process tool is identified for implementing this
process. Identified the answer set programming (ASP) method related to knowledge
Representation and Reasoning (KRR), Two current Research issues are addressed. For the
Further Research in conflict analysis, it is needed to establish an environment and to maintain
right balance, intensity of conflict with an invaluable set of tools to create an optimal work
environment.
REFERENCES
[1] From Conflict Analysis to Peace building impact, www.c-r.org , www.saferworld.org.uk.
[2] Andrew Blum, The Futures of Conflict: Exploring the Use of Comparative
Scenarios in Track II Peace building, University of Maryland.
[3] Martin Gesber, Answer Set Programming, University of Paradan.
[4] Dr. Niklas, L. P. Swanstrom, Political Research and Conflict Management, Conflict and
Security in Asia.
[5] International Conflict Research, http://www.incore.ulst.ac.uk/.
[6] Saaty, T.L. and Alexander.Conflict Resolution: The Analytic Hierarchy Process. New
York, 1989.
[7] Coombs, Clyde.H, Avrunin, The Structure of Conflict, Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
[8] Nguen Van Xuat, Security in the Theory of Conflicts,Bull. Pol. Acad. Sci., Math., 32, 539 -
541.
[9] Nurmi, Comparing Voting Schemes,D. Reidel, Dordrecht.
[10] Pawlak, Zdzisaw 1984, On Conflicts. Int. J. of Man-Machine Studies , 21, pp. 127 - 134.