The Sociology of Social Conflicts. by Louis KriesbergReview by: Anthony OberschallSocial Forces, Vol. 52, No. 4 (Jun., 1974), pp. 577-578Published by: Oxford University PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2577020 .

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Book Reviews / 577

To discover answers, Woods worked intermit- tently for ten years spending two sabbaticals of six months each in Riverville, the original rural community, and making several trips to three cities outside Louisiana where half of the current popu- lation now lives. She located migrants by refer- ence to phone books, school and Catholic parish records, city directories, and by information from Riverville kinsmen.

She concludes that identity and cohesiveness arise and are maintained by reference to common territory, Catholicity, "deemphasized racial char- acteristics," consanguinity, and affinity. In the city, ethnic identity (measured by consciousness of geographic origin, mutual aid, racial identification, religious observance, and family solidarity), is found to persist although somewhat weakened.

Woods' work in the city has certain weak- nesses. Persons crucial to her study of marginality, identity, "passing," etc., could easily slip through the research net by changing surnames by mar- riage or choice, by changing or abandoning reli- gion, by dissolving kinship ties, or simply by moving to other cities. Therefore, it is possible that Woods could only locate those who did main- tain solidarity and identity.

It is in Riverville that Woods' research comes alive, providing a picture of Creoles interacting with one another, with blacks, and with whites. Yet Woods fails to make it clear exactly how many people live in Riverville until late in the book. This is especially confusing since she gives a study population of 10,147 early in the book with- out stating either how many of this number belong to generations now alive, or where those alive now live. It is therefore surprising to find late in the book that Riverville has a population of less than 500.

Curiously, Woods scarcely develops the con- cept of marginality, a disappointing feature of the book. In addition, there is scanty reference to other studies of racially mixed groups. Minor irritations are the poor index and the lack of a bibliography. Yet the work is a valuable and wel- come addition to the study of mixed groups and equally useful for students of the South, kinship, family, migration, and race.

RACIAL ISSUES IN NEW ZEALAND: PROBLEMS AND

INSIGHTS. Edited by Graham Vaughan. A uck- land: A karana Press, 1972. 117 pp. N.Z. $3.60.

Reviewer: GRAHAM C. KINLOCH, Florida State University

Myths concerning national unity and racial equality appear to occupy a central place in most, if not all, societies. New Zealand is little different in this regard: the notion of "We are one people"

has been prominent from the beginning of white settlement. Yet this society conforms in many respects to the colonial type-a migrant white elite has subordinated an indigenous population and set up a system of institutionalized racism designed to entrench its privileged position. A superficial impression of New Zealand's race prob- lem is that it is conspicuous by its absence. How- ever, as this small book shows, the Maori minority is subject to discrimination in all spheres of the society's institutional structure.

Racial Issues in New Zealanid contains ten dis- cussions of white (Pakeha)-Maori discrimination, consisting of a bibliography of related r esearch, discussion of racial policy decisions, Polynesian crime rates, police-Maori relations, ethnic identity, the effects of bilingualism on Maori and Samoan children, Polynesian family structure, the effects of racial legislation, and the attempt to draw some general conclusions. These chapters reveal the (surprising) degree to which Maoris are subject to social, occupational, economic, educational, legal., and cultural discrimination, as well as the negative effects of Pakeha racial stereotypes on the Maori self-concept. The heightening of racial tension in the wake of increasing urbanization is emphasized, while suggested solutions to the race problem include improved police-minority rela- tions, the importance of Maori voluntary organiza- tions, multicultural educational programs, and race relations legislation.

The book's major focus is on documenting the Pakeha-Maori problem. While it provides some interesting insight into this topic, the work is very limited on a number of accounts: it is predom- inantly descriptive rather than analytical, lacking the application of race relations theory and avail- able conceptual frameworks, thereby neglecting the dynamics and processes within these intergroup r elations; it ignores the position of other ethnic and race groups in the society; many chapters refer to American research literature rather than presenting New Zealand data; while the quality of the contributed papers is most uneven, ranging from the comments of the Chief Inspector of New Zealand Police, Auckland District, on the one hand, to those of lawyers and psychologists on the other. The quality of the book's reproduction is also rather low. In general, white-Polynesian race relations provide an interesting topic for analysis, particularly the perceived cultural differences in- volved, and further analysis of Pakeha-Maori rela- tions should prove valuable in this regard. To readers searching for definitive sociological work in this area, however, this book is disappointing. Beyond documenting that New Zealand indeed has a "race problem," its contribution to the race rela- tions literature is virtually negligible.

THE SOCIOLOGY OF SOCIAL CONFLICTS. By Louis Kriesberg. Englewood Cliffs: Prentice-Hall, 1973. 300 pp. $8.95.

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578 / SOCIAL FORCES / vol. 52, june 1974

Reviewer: ANTHONY OBERSCHALL, Yale Univer- sity

In this useful book, Kriesberg deals with con- flicts between groups, communities, organizations, and states. He synthesizes ideas and findings from several fields: industrial relations, international relations, race relations, social-psychological ex- periments, civil strife studies, and others. There are ample illustrations to contemporary conflicts such as campus disorders, women's liberation, urban riots, strikes, the Cold War, and Arab-Israeli conflict.

For Kriesberg, social conflict has an objective foundation, i.e., the pursuit of incompatible goals by adversaries. Adversaries pursue their goals by calculating the costs and benefits of various strate- gies. Their judgments are affected by fears, hatreds, stereotypes, and faulty information. The course and outcome of conflicts is determined more by adversaries' interaction than by their internal char- acteristics. Kriesberg's framework, as he himself writes, is not a theory consisting of a set of inter- related propositions that can be systematically applied to predict the incidence and course of con- flict. Such a theory does not yet exist. But he sums up the present state of knowledge and identifies the concepts and variables that conflict theorists will find necessary in their work. The difficulty is much like that in other fields of sociology. There exists an overabundance of concepts and variables, and an impressive set of empirically verified prop- ositions in limited settings. But their applicability to other settings is unknown, and the pivotal vari- ables are not easily pinpoipted. Kriesberg makes a persuasive case that the relative power of . ad- versaries and their degree of organization are pivotal variables.

Chapters deal with the dimensions of social con- flict, its causes, mobilization, the choice of means, escalation and deescalation, termination and out- comes, and the consequences of social conflict. I found the most useful and novel material in the chapters on choice of means, escalation, and ter- mination. Kriesberg finds that, under many cir- cumstances, loosening of social control and a relative gain in power by the weaker party will increase the likelihood of coercive means. He shows that the nature and magnitude of grievances tends to be a poor predictor of the choice of coercive, violent means. Factors contributing to escalation are factions and rivalries within the conflict groups; selective exit of less committed, less militant members; new issues that arise from the confrontation itself, such as the reaction of social control agents; and polarization. Deescala- tion results from the exhaustion of resources, mounting costs, lack of success, and the inter- vention of third parties. Four types of outcome are discussed: withdrawal, imposition by one side, compromise, and conversion. Kriesberg also dem- onstrates the difficulties of conflict regulation when negotiations are fully visible, and when the ad-

versaries are so loosely structured that the rank and file are not bound by the leaders' agreements and overt conflict continues during conciliation efforts.

The book is well written. Each chapter has a summary and excellent bibliography. The division of chapters into subsections and sub-subsections I found at times confusing. Some figures are insuf- ficiently labeled and difficult to understand even with the accompanying text. Although Kriesberg's coverage is wide, there are some omissions. I would like to have seen more discussion of ter- rorism, of diffusion and contagion processes (in particular, the effects of mass media coverage on conflict), and of the contest for public opinion and outside support. All in all, however, the book performs a useful function in pulling together the most salient ideas and findings on social conflict which lie scattered in books and periodicals of many disciplines. Kriesberg provides an informed analysis and well-written commentary on this body of knowledge.

SOCIAL CONFLICT AND SOCIAL MOVEMENTS. By Anthony Oberschall. Englewood Cliffs: Pren- tice-Hall, 1973. 371 pp.

Reviewer: ROBERTA ASH, De Paul University

My reaction to Professor Oberschall's book was mixed; it is fundamentally a good book but is marred by poor editing (analytically confused intra-chapter organization and awkward sentences), lapses into formalism, and lack of daring about its central perspective. I can summarize my re- sponse in two remarks: (1) the emphases on resource management and the basic rationality of social movements are cogent and important con- tributions to the field; (2) the book improves markedly, moving from an unreadable first chapter (The Sociological Study of Conflict .... ) and an unsatisfactory second chapter (Sources of Social Conflict) to a good middle part on mobilization (containing an astute debunking of mass-society theory) to a lucid analysis of social control, con- frontations, and violence. In other words, Professor Oberschall became bolder and less attached to abstract schemes in the course of his writing. He essentially understands movements as reasonable collective responses to underlying objective con- ditions. Unfortunately, he does not blow his value- free, formalistic cover until far into the book. This inconsistency in his viewpoint appears both in details-such as the absurd circumlocution "negatively privileged collectivity" when he means "oppressed people"-and in the broader problems of his reluctance to use historical analyses or to commit himself to the concept of class. He partially overcomes these limitations when he examines particular cases, like the Nigerian civil war or the Civil Rights Movement. (Yet his solid analysis of the Nigerian conflict lacks the fearless brilliance

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