The social psychology of intractable conflicts

Abstract

The author reviews Daniel Bar-Tal’s summary of the social-psychological research on mass violence, particularly intractable conflicts, and critically examines his synthesis of this large and growing body of literature. What actually defines a conflict as intractable is discussed, and an overview of past research is presented. The author explores Bar-Tal’s thinking on the escalation of conflict, how societies are shaped by conflict, how conflicts come to be sustained over time so as to become intractable, and finally, how such conflicts might be brought to an end. While sustained, large-scale conflicts are truly awful, in that they cause horror but also astonishment, they arise from the normal, mundane processes underlying intergroup dynamics. In this sense, their “normality” offers invaluable insights into how to assuage the suffering caused by what are otherwise mundane and even valuable social-psychological processes.