Conflict continuum
- The Conflict Continuum is a visual representation of the resolution processes available to parties involved in a dispute.
- The continuum also represents the balance of costs and the control over outcome involved in resolving a dispute.
- As the disputing parties move from left to right across the continuum the cost of resolving the dispute increase and the control the parties maintain over the outcome decreases.
- This creates an organic-rational incentive for parties to settle their disputes through negotiation or mediation.
- The phases of conflict continuum is given below:
Avoidance: Not addressing the controversial issue. Avoidance can be a temporary measure or a permanent means of disposing of a matter.
Negotiation: Back-and-forth communication designed to reach an agreement between two or more parties with some interests that are shared and others that may conflict or simply be different. It may be verbal, nonverbal, explicit, implicit, direct, or through intermediaries.
Mediation: Negotiation between two or more parties facilitated by an agreed-upon third party. Skilled third-party mediators can lower the emotional temperature in a negotiation, foster more effective communication, help uncover less obvious interests, offer face-saving possibilities for movement, and suggest solutions that the parties might have overlooked.
Arbitration: Disputants present their case to an impartial third party, who then makes a decision for them which resolves the conflict. Arbitration differs from mediation in which third party simply helps the disputants develop a solution on their own.
Litigation: Process of taking a legal action. A contest authorized by law, in a court of justice, for the purpose of enforcing a right.
Self-help: Unilateral action by one of the parties designed to affect change.