Lately much ado is being made of the findings of Sean Gourley and his crew regarding power law relationships they’ve found in insurgency-based conflict. For some quick background, go here: http://seangourley.com/ and watch the 7 minute TED video.
Let me be frank. This is another prime example of academics armed with mathematical/statistics based techniques run amok with statistical inference and a naïve belief that it can predict the future.
First, let’s get some perspective. The discovery of power law relationships in conflict is not new. Lewis Fry Richardson discovered a power law relationship between intensity of conflict and the frequency of its occurrence as early as the 1940s. That discovery has been a result in search of a theory ever since. So far, no one has found a satisfying explanation for why the relationship exists, but it has continued to be one of the most robust findings in conflict literature.
Along come Gourley et al, and suddenly the finding is new again. But his group applied the idea to insurgency to see if the relationship exists there as well, and sur...
Young, Rowland L. "A Powerful Change in the Minds of Men." American Bar Association Journal 62, no. 1 (January 1976): 90. International Security & Counter Terrorism Reference Center, EBSCOhost (accessed February 27, 2011).
Raven, Bertram, and John French. Jr. "Legitimate Power, Coercive Power, and Observability in Social Influence ." Sociometry Vol. 21.No. 2 (1958): 83. Web. 2 Aug 2010. .
...nt variables. It can deal with the interests within a country and interests out of it. It can occur due to ideological differences or religious differences. It can occur due to a power grab, and in the cases of a failed brinkmanship, can be a complete accident. Each war throughout history has its own unique set of reasoning for occurring, which makes studying the causation of war so fascinating: in every war you study, you are guaranteed to find so many unique characteristics that it possesses.
...to be achieved, years, decades, lifetimes, conflict is intended to fulfill this need. Ultimately, conflict theory is about the struggles, ideologies, representations, and power that the haves possess and the have-nots want to exert. These concepts come into play causing conflict between the groups which ends in social change.
. Pilisuk, Marc. “[CN]Chapter 5: [CN] Networks of Power.” Who Benefits from Global Violence and War: Uncovering a Destructive System. With Jennifer Achord Rountree. Westport: Praeger Security International, an imprint of Greenwood Publishing Group, Inc., 2008. Print.
In both conflicts the main cause of each power nation's failure can be traced to a misunderstanding or lack of understanding the root cause of the conflicts. Which provided a basis for the insurgency
It is widely believed, and reported that crime is higher in communities with higher populations of minority residents. While the authors of Criminological Thought (1990), overviewed what they considered the foundational theorists and contributors to the field of criminology, not all of those examined within the text emphasized the same things. It is the writers position that three of those contributors examined within the book, the respective theories of Earl Richard Quinney, Edwin Sutherland, and Robert Ezra Park, specifically Park’s Social Disorganization Theory, Quinney’s Conflict Theory, and Sutherland’s Differential Association Theory are often utilized to describe the plight of instability in urban communities and crime. This paper
Ploughshares Armed Conflict Reports 2003. Institute of Peace and Conflict Studies, Conrad Grebel College Waterloo, Ontario, Canada. 2003©
Human nature will always corrupt the mind of modern man and send him down the destructive path of war. Due to this, the chronology of war is a constant stream of events that have dated back to the creation of civilization. The inevitability of it is based off something within the mind, that we call human nature. This phoneme pulls the attentions of man towards the path of greatest gain in the quickest amount of time. A part of this is due to mans greed to obtain as much power as possible. Power doesn’t hold one meaning however, it can be broken down into many aspects of appeal for man, creating even more of attraction. Whether the individual in control is seeking power through wealth, through control, or dominance their means of obtaining it includes war or destruction.
Almost every conflict situation consists of one party having more power than the other. When the power differential is significant, this usually has a major effect on both the matter and process of the dispute. In order for the outcome of the conflict to be fair, both parties must be relatively equal when it comes to power if resolution of the conflict is to be fair. If one side is far more powerful than another, they are more likely to impose their solution on the weaker party, who in turn will be forced to acquiesce, because they have no other choice.
Pilisuk, Marc. “[CN]Chapter 5: [CN] Networks of Power.” Who Benefits from Global Violence and War: Uncovering a Destructive System. With Jennifer Achord Rountree. Westport: Praeger Security International, an imprint of Greenwood Publishing Group, Inc., 2008. Print.
However, “Conflict theory holds that the administration of criminal justice reflects the unequal distribution of power in society. The more powerful groups use the criminal justice system to maintain their dominant position and to repress groups or social movements that threaten it. (Hess, Orthmann and Wright) This theory is to be a conflict about power of the people that are to be in charge such as the government and local authorities to get what they want, when where and the reason for their actions as a means of preventing those that do not have the power of authority to do as they
Some theorists believe that ‘power is everywhere: not because it embraces everything, but because it comes from everywhere… power is not an institution, nor a structure, nor possession. It is the name we give to a complex strategic situation in a particular society. (Foucault, 1990: 93) This is because power is present in each individual and in every relationship. It is defined as the ability of a group to get another group to take some form of desired action, usually by consensual power and sometimes by force. (Holmes, Hughes &Julian, 2007) There have been a number of differing views on ‘power over’ the many years in which it has been studied. Theorist such as Anthony Gidden in his works on structuration theory attempts to integrate basic structural analyses and agency-centred traditions. According to this, people are free to act, but they must also use and replicate fundamental structures of power by and through their own actions. Power is wielded and maintained by how one ‘makes a difference’ and based on their decisions and actions, if one fails to exercise power, that is to ‘make a difference’ then power is lost. (Giddens: 1984: 14) However, more recent theorists have revisited older conceptions including the power one has over another and within the decision-making processes, and power, as the ability to set specific, wanted agendas. To put it simply, power is the ability to get others to do something they wouldn’t otherwise do. In the political arena, therefore, power is the ability to make or influence decisions that other people are bound by.
When comparing and contrasting U. S. military operations and capabilities with regard to regular versus irregular warfare it is important to understand the definition of irregular and the spectrum of conflict. In recent history, the term “irregular warfare” has been used interchangeably with or alongside insurgency and counterinsurgency warfare. This usage and comparison is too narrow. ...
My father spent his early life running. Running from the terror in Mexico to the United States. Running from the gang and violence-infested communities in southeast Los Angeles to Houston. With each start he was not only running away from something, but towards something: towards a safer future for his family. In his eyes, the desired future was not attainable in such areas where conflict was prevalent. The only viable option was not to wait for the tensions to subside but to take matters into his own hands and search for the harmony that he never experienced. Growing up, I noted how these experiences influenced my father’s values in the way that he tried to raise his family. While these accounts did not directly affect me as much as they