Policy’s role in democratic conflict management

This article proposes rethinking democratic conflict management by acknowledging the increasingly important role policy plays in it. As the debate on the health of democracy intensifies, research on how democracies manage and absorb political and societal conflicts becomes broadly relevant. Existing...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Policy sciences 2022-06, Vol.55 (2), p.239-254
Main Authors: Hinterleitner, Markus, Sager, Fritz
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Conflict management
Conflict resolution
Democracy
Economic Policy
Elections
Hypotheses
Management
Political Science
Political Science and International Relations
Political Science and International Studies
Public Administration
Research Article
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Summary:This article proposes rethinking democratic conflict management by acknowledging the increasingly important role policy plays in it. As the debate on the health of democracy intensifies, research on how democracies manage and absorb political and societal conflicts becomes broadly relevant. Existing theories and perspectives view conflict management through the lens of elections and other institutional mechanisms, or they examine the social and economic preconditions for successful conflict management while inadequately understanding how policies contribute to conflict management. The article develops a theoretical framework that allows for the analysis of how policies’ material and interpretive effects influence societal conflicts and thereby strengthen (or weaken) democracy. While the article focuses on hypothesis-generation rather than hypothesis-testing, it draws on a large variety of policy and case examples to corroborate and illustrate the theoretical expectations embodied in the framework. Insights into policy’s role in democratic conflict management expand our understanding of the challenges to democracy in the twenty-first century and create new possibilities for comparative, policy-focused research into what makes democracy work.
ISSN:0032-2687
1573-0891
DOI:10.1007/s11077-022-09461-7