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14 J. Conflict Resol. 1 (1970)

handle is hein.journals/jcfltr14 and id is 1 raw text is: 











Editorial   Notes


  The  integration of social-science knowledge
is to us a great and continuing need. We be-
lieve that this evaluation is shared by many
JCR  readers and contributors. The article by
Raack  in this issue, for instance, is representa-
tive of the recently growing  movement   to-
ward the integration of history with the other
social sciences; we think this integration adds
interesting substance to the debate about the
scientific relationship between micro-  and
macro-history. Liischen suggests a meaning-
ful conceptual connection between  the neat-
ness of  game  theory  and  the sociological
complexities of real games.
  In this issue as in most other issues of JCR,
the particular combination  of articles is a
product of the timing of manuscript submis-
sion and processing rather than of efforts to
group  articles by topic and approach.  The
general phenomenon   of conflict does always
provide a unifying theme. From time to time,
however, we expect to be able to call attention
to some more  specific problem shared by two
or more articles in the same issue-or, for a
similar purpose,  to draw  together  several
articles appearing in different issues.
  A  perpetual tension between the essential
scientific processes of analysis and synthesis
is, no doubt, one of the major pains  in the
painful task of integrating knowledge about
social conflict. Simmel, Coser, Bernard, and a
number  of other analysts have offered useful
identifications and classifications of the ele-
ments of  conflict, including distinctions be-
tween  cognitive conflicts and  conflicts of


interest, and  distinctions among   conflict,
competition, and  cooperation. In this issue
Glenn  and  his  colleagues conceptualize  a
pure distinction between conflicts of under-
standing  and  conflicts of  interest, while
making  it clear that both elements can well
be present in a real episode. Liischen's treat-
ment shows  elements of conflict, competition,
and cooperation operating together in a sport
contest. We confront the problem  of finding
out how  these conceptually distinct elements
interact-or at least coexist-in vivo.
  As it happens, or perhaps for a more  sys-
tematic reason involving the nature of con-
flict, all four articles in the first section of
this issue demonstrate another  problem   of
analysis and synthesis. It has to do with the
internality and  externality  of  social
conflict (1) according to  various  socially-
determined boundaries  of groups, of organi-
zations, and of states, and (2) according to the
way people view their antagonists as psycho-
logically inside or outside in a particular
conflict. The first distinction can be seen as
relatively stable because it rests on social con-
ventions. By contrast, people may in fact be
able to shift their perceptions of the insideness
or outsideness of a  given antagonist  quite
rapidly as the perceived  arena  of conflict
shifts. Intuitively it seems that the choice by a
protagonist among   possible modes  of con-
ducting a  conflict might  depend  to  some
extent on these two distinctions.
  Mitchell's questions are aimed basically at
the proposition that international integration

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