Conflict Analysis: Understanding Causes, Unlocking Solutions

CONFLICT ANALYSIS: UNDERSTANDING CAUSES, UNLOCKING SOLUTIONS. Matthew Levinger Washington, DC: United States Institute of Peace, 2013 265 pages, paper, $20.45The book Conflict Analysis: Understanding Causes, Unlocking Solutions focuses on conflict-big-scale violence orchestrated by governments or nonstate actors. Following a systematic inquiry into the causes and trajectories of conflict, Levinger's book stipulates strategies for anticipating, preventing and responding to conflicts, namely prevention, management and resolution (p. 3). The recipe for conflict analysis is look and listen (p. 5). Drawing from a cross range of historical and contemporary cases such as the protracted conflict in the Middle East and the Democratic Republic of Congo, the book highlights the importance of conflict analysis for national and international actors: practitioners, scholars, governments and nongovernment representatives. It is a book that students of peace and conflict studies, scholars, and practitioners need to possess to tackle the complexity of conflict analysis. While some scholars use conflict analysis interchangeably with conflict assessment, Levinger's proposition is that the later precedes the former.Levinger's approach to conflict analysis is unique. Using an interdisciplinary approach, he integrates practical and theoretical knowledge to simplify conflict analysis. To devise effective peacebuilding strategies, he underscores the importance of analyzing the causes of peace and conflict, cognizant of connectors, spoilers, and dividers. He emphasizes conflict analysis as a social phenomenon undertaken by practitioners in daily life, but also an intellectual venture for scholars trained to undertake systematic conflict analysis to examine assumptions regarding the causes and nature of a conflict. He provides a systematic approach that considers all the dimensions of a conflict and, in collaboration with like minds, to formulate a common vocabulary and narrative about the potential root cause(s), trajectory, and possible measures for conflict management and resolution.The book is divided into three parts with nine chapters and a conclusion. The first part deals with understanding deadly conflicts, highlights the trends, high costs, causes of peace and conflict, and the complexity of predicting global conflicts of the twenty-first century. Not only has the nature of organized violence become increasingly ambiguous in recent decades, but the causes of contemporary conflicts are also often multidimensional and complex (p. 33). Levinger emphasizes the nonlinearity of conflict and the importance of recognizing the dividers who provoke inter- and intra-state conflicts, and the connectors who can promote peace. Effective measures to prevent or deescalate deadly conflict depend on the identification of early warning threats in the hot spots and making decisive responses.The second part explores the tools for conflict analysis that include the frameworks for conflict assessment as the first step in conflict analysis process for planning and policy making, narrative analysis, scenario analysis, conflict mapping and systems mapping. …