This paper examines the key theoretical stages of conflict emergence — latent conflict, manifest limited conflict, and escalating violent conflict — and argues that early intervention is most effective during the latent stage. Drawing on structural violence theory, conflict prevention literature, and human security frameworks, the paper surveys political, socioeconomic, and resource-based causes of conflict. It also identifies climate change as a new and significant multiplier of existing conflict drivers. By reducing access to natural resources and undermining human security, climate change deepens the conditions that give rise to violence. The paper concludes by calling for sustained inquiry at the intersection of latent conflict and environmental scarcity.
A primary reason for accounting for the emergence of conflict is to use whatever knowledge is gained in efforts to prevent it. Understanding how and why conflict develops — and at what stage intervention is most likely to succeed — is therefore a foundational concern for scholars and policymakers alike.
Conflict prevention theory identifies the following key stages of conflict: latent conflict, manifest limited conflict, and escalating violent conflict (Lund, 2009). Accepting that these stages are discrete in theory, the possibility exists that interventions aimed at prevention — particularly those of a structural nature — are more robust when implemented during the early, latent stage of conflict (Lund, 2009).
During the latent stage, inter-party and societal mistrust, suspicion, and animosity exist at lower levels (GSDRC, 2014). Greater opportunity lies in the early periods of a conflict cycle, as more transformative and far-reaching change may be accomplished. Once a later stage of conflict has been reached, efforts are directed toward thwarting or containing escalation, and all positions harden (GSDRC, 2014). It appears that the latent stage of conflict is truly less conflated and more transparent than other stages, making it the most promising window for meaningful intervention.
Although the concept of structural violence indicates long-term, intractable social and cultural arrangements, it also suggests opportunities for governments to tackle socioeconomic sources of conflict. States often fail to address tensions through early, meaningful, systematic, and peaceful structural and cultural corrections (Galtung, 1990). Indeed, threats to structural violence trigger responses intended to preserve the status quo from those whose interests are protected by inequitable cultural, economic, and social arrangements (Galtung, 1990).
Conflict arises from multiple causal, context-specific, and multidimensional factors that may be broadly categorized as political and institutional, socioeconomic, or resource and environmental (GSDRC, 2014).
In contemporary society, conflict tends to be associated with nationalism, political legacy, unresolved religious or ethnic conflict, the presence of corrupt and repressive regimes, and — importantly — long-standing unequal access to critical resources (Pedersen, 2002). These conventional drivers interact in context-specific ways, and understanding their combination in any given setting is essential for designing viable interventions for resolution and transformation.
"Climate change undermines human security and amplifies conflict"
The dynamic interactions of the various causes and dimensions of conflict, and the contexts in which conflict arises, may hold the details needed for devising viable interventions for resolution and transformation. The human security framework suggests that structural, political, and environmental factors must all be considered together. Will a resolute increase in inquiry at the nexus of latent conflict and peak periods of environmental scarcity yield information that reveals what truly accounts for the emergence of conflict?
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