M4 Conflict Regimes

Topic

"Conflict regimes"—within the broader category of Conflict, one of the three themes carried over by the political authority track as it shifts stages—refer to the two possible states of conflict within a society: latent or escalated. As long as unchanneled grievance remains within the limits of the State's repressive and absorptive capacity, the conflict stays in the latent regime.

The balance between unchanneled grievance and the State's repressive and absorptive capacity is the variable that triggers the transition from one conflict regime to the other: while the State's capacity successfully contains the unchanneled grievance, the conflict regime remains latent; once the unchanneled grievance exceeds that capacity, the conflict regime shifts to an escalated state.

This is the same balance tracked by the level of unchanneled grievance: when its sustained accumulation surpasses the State's repressive and absorptive capacity, the conflict regime shifts from latent to escalated; it is this very transition—combined with the breakdown of the State's monopoly on violence—that ultimately leads to a collapse into civil war.

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