The Handbook of Conflict Resolution: Theory and Practice, 3rd Edition

CHAPTER TEN

INTERGROUP CONFLICTa

Ronald J. Fisher

Intergroup conflict is expressed in many forms and in many different settings in all societies. In organizations, poorly managed differences between departments or between factions within the same unit can dampen morale, create animosity, and reduce motivation and productivity. In community settings, schisms between interest groups on important social issues can lead to polarization and hostility, while low-intensity conflict between ethnic, racial, or religious groups finds expression in prejudice, discrimination, and social activism to reduce inequity. At the societal level, high-intensity conflict between such identity groups on a broader scale can break out into ethnopolitical warfare, which ...