Conflict, as the phenomenon Essay
Conflict, as the phenomenon that perceives differences in issue positions between two or more parties at the same moment in time, is long being known as incredibly relevant scientific research object. Naturally, that it has special derivations, which occupies scholars’ minds not less than origin: conflict’s cycles, conflict management and conflict prevention. The last one seems to be outstanding due to its pronounced practical orientation. Actually, the science of conflict witnessed numerous approaches, each of which has the right to exist and can reasonably be opposed all the same. There is the attempt to take some look at two controversial to each other theories – Thomas Friedman’s “Dell Theory” and William Duiker’s precedency towards fragmentation. By making some simple analysis and analogues drawing, we’ll be authorized to make grounded decisions and to emphasize more convincing one.
Let’s begin with William Duiker’s opinion. The “opinion” word was used not accidentally, as no of his works contains centralized and narrowly directed theory about fragmentation’s value on conflict prevention. Being world known historian, William Duiker has never devoted his main ideas to conflict prevention. It’s assumed that appropriate scholar’s conclusion was made during socially-cultural specifics of historical society’s development evaluation and investigation. Duiker’s idea about fragmentation relevance is rooted to post cold war period and Soviet Union failure. According to this scholar, world community witnesses trend towards Western values overall spreading from the time of Soviet Union’s collapse. This trend toward globalization is called by author as “Global village” (Duiker, p. 795). However, Duiker claims that this trend is dangerous to generate serious problems and leads to clash of civilizations. Here are some supports from the text: “As for the new economic – now enshrined as the official policy in Western capitals – public anger at the impact of globalization has reached distributing levels in many countries leading to a growing demand to self-protection and group identify in an impersonal and rapidly changing world” (Duiker, p. 795). Therefore, William Duiker determines strange values enforcing as the primary reasons for group conflicts appearance. Drawing some forecast of social relations development, author makes next conclusion: “ The 21st century will be characterized by simultaneous trends toward globalization and fragmentation as the thrust of technology and information transforms societies and gives rise to counteractions among societies seeking to preserve a group identify and sense of meaning and purpose in confusing world” (Duiker, p. 795). In other words, Duiker states that globalization will lead to even deeper fragmentation throughout conflicts. In this regard, refusal of “Global village” is perceived by the author as helpful solution on conflict prevention.
The theory of Thomas Friedman worth to be recognized much more different to Duiker’s views. First of all, there are clear controversies. Friedman’s “Dell Theory” was put by this author in his famous book “The world is flat”. To get the entire view on this theory, there is extremely laconic and pithy slogan: “no two nations having McDonald’s have gone to war” (Kerr, p1). Being votary to globalization, Thomas Friedman is clear with his idea that this trend is useful to become the functional tool with wars and conflicts preventing. His theory is grounded on Dell’s world supply chain evaluation. By tracing this supply chain, Friedman came to the conclusion that economic globalization is worth to be perceived as deterrent to war in those countries that are part of the global supply chain (Kerr, 1). The point can be explained in next words. Global economic co-operation is incredibly profitable for all involved parties. Thus, no of country interested to get billions loses being identified as unstable and potentially conflict partner. To prove this idea, Thomas Friedman puts two main supports. First of all, he emphasizes the countries that are out of global supply chain: Iraq, South Lebanon, Syria, Pakistan, North Korea, Afghanistan and Iran. Seemingly, there are no doubts that these states exactly have gained the reputation of outstanding potential conflict aggressors. At second, scholar states that history has already witnessed the cases of his theory correctness. As the proof, Friedman lines out India-Pakistan in 2002 and China-Taiwan in 2004. To sum up, Thomas Friedman’s “Dell Theory” shouldn’t be understood as some absolute. The author is clear with the statement that economic globalization and international supply chains improving is not able to eliminate wars at all. His main thoughts devoted to potential of global trade in conflict preventing filed, and several provided supports are worth to be recognized convincing and demonstrative.
Being aimed to evaluate Duiker’s and Friedman’s views about conflict, it is quite hard to say which of them is correct. However, there is the opinion that “Dell Theory” seems to be more valuable. This point is gathered around its practical meaning. In contrast to William Duiker, Thomas Friedman is far from general views toward society’s development trends condemnation. This author proposes real solutions, which are easy to implemented and tested detail. In his turn, William Duiker does not give clear answers to the problem. Reasonable and thoughtful research of historical premises and socially-cultural controversies is not useful to learn the concrete measures, which are useful on conflict prevention.
