From Complex Conflicts to Stable Cooperation

Conflict is a dynamic and complex form of human interaction, often emerging from incompatible actions, values and goals, and consuming a considerable amount of resources. Conflicts are an expression of and a contribution to system instability and sometimes lead to chaotic escalation between adversaries, causing a breakdown of social and natural systems. To resolve conflicts, the actors can adjust their actions towards cooperatively stabilizing their interaction and form stable coalitions. To study the dynamics of conflict and the evolution of cooperation, we introduce an integrated framework for modeling the interaction of multiple actors who pursue objectives by allocating their resources to various action paths. In repeated learning cycles actors can adjust their targets and resources to those of other actors, thus shifting from conflict to cooperation. Within the general framework it is possible to study the complexity and instability of multi-actor constellations and the transition to cooperation for specific examples in a wide range of fields, including military security and environmental conflicts in fishery management, energy and climate change. 1 Symposium on Complex Systems Engineering, RAND Corporation, Santa Monica, January 11/12, 2007; to appear in: Complexity.