On Stages of Conflict Escalation - Conflict and Multimodal Communication: Social Research and Machine Intelligence - page 54

3.4 Suggested Models of Stages of Conflict

Different authors have suggested different numbers of stages and different ways
of characterizing them, e.g., Friedrich Glasl ( 1997 ) suggests nine steps of conflict,
Douglas Noll ( 2000 ) suggests five phases, and Eric Brahm ( 2003 ) suggests eight
phases. Some authors do not suggest a definite number of stages; rather, they
give lists of possible stages. Examples of this are the topic Everyone Can Win
by Cornelius et al. (1997) and the topic Interpersonal Conflict Escalation Levels
by Hocker and Wilmot ( 1991 ). See Table 3.1 , below, for a summary of the stages
suggested in Glasl ( 1997 ), Noll ( 2000 ), Brahm ( 2003 ), Cornelius et al. (1997), and
Hocker and Wilmot ( 1991 ).
If we compare the different models, we can see that all the models of con-
flict escalation, except Brahm's, end quite dramatically with full-blown conflicts,
involving mutual “annihilation” (Glasl), “regression” (Noll), possible “violence”
(Cornelius et al.), and “deadly combat” (Hocker and Wilmot). Only Brahm provides
a less pessimistic view, going from “stalemate” (step 5), via “de-escalation” and
“settlement/resolution,” to “post-conflict” and, finally, “peace and reconciliation.”
Most of the models are, thus, models only of conflict escalation and do not include
the possibility of de-escalation.
The differences in the number of stages and in the labeling of the stages indicate
that the different authors have somewhat different types of conflict in focus, and
that most of them are models of conflict of a long-term, very serious type of
conflict. At least three of them (Glasl, Cornelius et al., and Hocker and Wilmot)
contain escalation that involves moving from words to action, from verbal threats
to trying to hurt another person physically. This type of escalation is not typical
for most everyday conflictual communicative interactions that often mainly contain
argumentation, discussion, and perhaps quarrel.
However, some of the stages in all of the models can, to some extent, be applied to
more short-term, nonphysical types of conflict, but, as we have seen, most of them
primarily have a focus on more long-term conflicts, being applicable to conflicts
with more of a long-term perspective than conversations, including also conflicts
between groups and nations, leading to very serious confrontations like suicide
bombings or war.
One way to capture the difference between different types of conflict is to
consider the nature of the social activity they develop in. In general, different social
activities can contain different types of conflicts, connected with different stages of
conflict development. The differences between activities and conflicts may, in turn,
require an assumption of different conflict stages for the most satisfying analysis
in a theoretical model. Finding a suitable model of steps or stages of conflict
may therefore be dependent on identifying the type of social activity where the
conflict is occurring. In many cases, also a subtype of that type of activity may
be what is required to understand a particular type of conflict. In a long-term
conflict, this can, for example, mean identifying a set of steps or stages of conflict
in spoken interaction (taking place during one particular interaction), and then in a