Getting Down to Basics: A Situated Model of Conflict in Social Relations

The field of conflict resolution is fractured. Despite many decades of fine research, we still lack a basic unifying framework that integrates the many theories of conflict dynamics. Thus, the findings from research on conflict are often piecemeal, decontextualized, contradictory, or focused on negative outcomes, which contributes to a persistent research‐practice gap. In this article, we describe a situated model for the study of conflict that combines separate strands of scholarship into a coherent framework for conceptualizing conflict in dyadic social relations. The model considers conflict interactions in the context of social relations and employs prior research on the fundamental dimensions of social relations to create a basic framework for investigating conflict dynamics. The resulting model is heuristic and generative. We discuss the theoretical context and main propositions of this model as well as its implications for conflict resolution practitioners.     

INTERDISCIPLINARY LAW AND PSYCHOLOGY TRAINING AT INDIANA UNIVERSITY

The opportunity to do interdisciplinary research and training is both exciting and daunting. As Indiana University forges a partnership between law and psychology, graduate and law students are on the frontlines of the collaboration—present for both the rewards and the challenges of bringing two disciplines together. We are grateful for this chance to represent the voices of students involved in interdisciplinary training and education. As a third-year law student at Indiana School of Law (M.N.) and a first-year graduate student in Clinical Psychology at Indiana University (R.B.), we respond to the following questions about our interdisciplinary experiences in law and psychology. ¹     

Increasing irrationality? The equilibrium relationship between electoral and legislative party system size, 1950–2005

Institutional theories of party system size tell us that voters and parties should anticipate the mechanical effects of electoral systems and adjust their behaviour accordingly. If these expectations hold true, then the size of the party system at the electoral and legislative levels should maintain a long-run equilibrium relationship, as the number of parties receiving votes is adjusted in response to the number of parties in the legislature. I estimate a series of error-correction models to examine this expectation in 16 Western democracies from 1950 to 2005. Party system size at the electoral level does exhibit a general, equilibrium relationship with party system size in the legislature. However, this relationship has recently disappeared in single-member-district systems. This growing disparity between party system size at the electoral and legislative levels signals important changes in the nature of electoral representation.     

A Historical Sociology of the New Cultural Diplomacy

International Journal of Politics, Culture, and Society - Although the term ‘cultural diplomacy’ is familiar, it was infrequently used before the end of the Cold War. In fact,...     

‘Constant Violence from Everywhere’: Psychodynamics of Power and Abuse Amongst Rural and Small-Town Youth

Informed by psychosocial theoretical constructs, this study explores dynamic processes that underlie behaviors of what we call youth relational violence. The paper challenges earlier studies about teen dating violence that use models of adult domestic violence to inform the work, and posits, instead, that youth relational violence is not domestic, occurs beyond the scope of committed partnerships, and varies broadly in the degree and qualities of the relational dyads in which it occurs. Data from participants in targeted and random focus groups (n = 84) consider the social and economic context of a rural and small-town region. The study makes no gender assumptions about abusive teen relationships, nor does it limit data sources and analyses to heterosexual dyads. It conceptualizes elements of power and attachment, and operationalizes them into analyzable data forms, toward the development of a theoretical model that will inform research and practice about violence between teens in relational dyads. Whereas research in the last decade has focused principally on prevalence and evaluation, this paper introduces an exploration of dynamic processes that underlie power, tolerance of abuse, vulnerability to perpetration and victimization, and degree of attachment as it relates to abuse and power dynamics.     

Consent,Legitimation, and Dysphoria

Ideals of consent and consensuality are rapidly displacing ideals of legality as the demarcation of lawful from unlawful, legitimate from illegitimate, and good from bad.  This is a particularly pronounced trend in the areas of sexual and reproductive rights and ethics.  Consensual sex has almost completely displaced marital sex as the demarcation of not only criminal from laudatory sex but also good from bad sex.  Likewise, the consensuality of a pregnancy is increasingly the demarcation of a celebrated rather than mourned pregnancy, rather than its marital province.  This development is justly celebrated as a breakthrough in women's rights and equality, but it carries costs.  This essay develops some of the limits and perils of an over-reliance on consent and consensuality as the primary criterion of the morality of sex and reproduction.  Consent is not always a trustworthy guide to wellbeing, for both general reasons, and reasons specific to sexual and reproductive life.