Cosder's Function of Conflict

Research Paper Following Simmel’s work on conflict, Lewis Coser focused on the functions of conflict through a functionalist perspective. He concluded that conflict was inclined to be dysfunctional only for social structures in which there was insufficient toleration or institutionalization of conflict. Highly intense conflicts that threatened to "tear apart" society tend to arose only in rigid social structures. Thus, what threatened social structures was not conflict as such, but rather the rigid character of those structures. With a developed theory, comes the criticism of how applicable the theory applies the real world and can it be prominently viewed within society? I believe that Coser’s theory is not only very applicable to society but these social structure conflicts can be seen through various events that have occurred in history. By looking at history, there is a macro level perspective in demonstrating the two social structure conflicts, and history consists of events which can serve as proof to help support Coser’s theory. I intend on finding historical events and show how each event relates to the functions of conflict Coser has brought up. By doing this, I will be demonstrating Coser’s theory in relation to the real world. Taking part in almost a half century conflict, the Cold War is a very recent well known historical event that can be considered quite fresh for discussion. This event follows the intergroup conflict model, depicting rival interests of groups with distinct memberships. The Cold War was a rivalry that heavily emphasized the competition between America’s capitalism and Russia’s communism. After WWII, the major superpowers afterwards were America and the USSR and it would make sense that after their truce, they would begin to compete against one another for world dominance. Competing in different areas, each country’s economic ideals shaped their competition with one another in achieving military and economic powers. Both countries followed the typical rival interests that are at the root of intergroup conflict, they competed for power, social control, territory, and economic incentives. An example of this was the United States’ involvement in the Vietnam War to prevent a communist takeover of South Vietnam as part of their wider strategy of containment. This was a way to demonstrate how strong the influence of capitalism and communism competed over other regions in the world. Each country that followed capitalism or communism was like an indirect takeover, and meant another ally or enemy. Another even more notable event during the Cold War was the nuclear arms race, which was an intense period that led to large spending on armaments and stockpiling nuclear arsenals. This was a fairly blunt competition of seeing which country had the economic and military backing to outgun each other through a technological and financial competition. Leaders from both sides condemned each other, and because this war followed an intergroup conflict formula, the leaders exaggerated and invented threats that their opponents posed to one another. Propaganda helped convince the populous to not only fear but to also be hostile towards their foes. But even with all this rivalry, a war never truly broke out directly between the two countries.
In this rivalry, there also came a silver lining. The Cold War rivalry between the two nations focused so much on technological competition that there was a race on attaining firsts in space exploration, which would be seen as necessary for national security and symbolic of technological and ideological superiority. The Space Race involved pioneering efforts to launch artificial satellites, sub-orbital and orbital human spaceflight around the Earth, and piloted voyages to the Moon. Both sides shared a parallel goal, and thus offered a healthy competition that helped improve each other by creating the desire of wanting to outdo the other. It did not matter each side was working for a different ideal, both sides in a way were working together to achieve the same goal. The American Revolution is possibly the most well-known historical event that most United States citizens know about. This event is a great example of demonstrating Coser’s intra-group conflict theory. Intra-group conflict states that groups with close relationship have greater emotional investment with their partners, and thus, they tend to suppress rather than express hostile feelings. This pertained very closely to Americans and their mother country of Britain as the Americans considered themselves Englishmen, even though they were colonials. The colonial states shared a history of performing business with Britain, such as the importation of cotton and tobacco, while also receiving slaves and British protection. During the French and Indian War, Britain helped supplied military help and intelligence in fending off their invaders. They fought together in a war and won with the aid from each side. America and Britain had a good thing going, but as a closely knit group, this relationship was not going to stay positive for long.
Closely knit groups share their love and goodwill between each other, but they also have to deal with the hatred that comes with intense interaction. In the years following the French and Indian War, Britain imposed a series of direct taxes such as the "Stamp Act," as Britain stated the colonies should contribute more to maintain the territories as part of the Empire; this included help paying off debts from the war. Americans protested vehemently at the idea that the Parliament in London could pass laws upon them, such as levying taxes, without any of their own elected representatives in the government. These protests were not meant to attack Britain but to help resolve the hostility they were feeling. The Americans withheld their grudges with Britain, but this was the beginning of their accumulated grievances. When the tea was taxed, Bostonians revolted by dumping the tea into the river, this was the first small demonstration of ordinarily isolated individuals brought into an active role. The protest over the tea tax motivated the colonials to take vigorous roles in political life for the first time. Instead of fixing this growing concern, the British brought harsh reprisals known as the Intolerable Acts intended to demonstrate Parliament's supremacy. This continued to pile on the grievances the colonials felt, and it did not help that they lacked representation in the governing British Parliament; many colonists considered the new laws to be illegitimate and a violation of their rights as Englishmen.
The First Continental Congress was formed to reject the Parliament and effectively replaced the British ruling apparatus in the former colonies, but by no means was this rebellion. The congress was still undoubtedly loyal to King George III but they only desired to govern themselves while remaining in the empire. The creation of this congress was only to help settle with the recent issues by quelling the resentment Parliament was creating. However good their intentions, King George III saw this as a direct threat to Britain and branded the congress as traitors. This was finally the last act that caused many of the colonials to retaliate. This feeling of neglect and betrayal was as if the colonials were a child being disowned by their uncaring parent, and because they lose their family allegiance, they would assume a new individual identity that would rebel against their parent. Of course for the colonials, this came in form of the Second Continental Congress that would adopt a Declaration of Independence. From all of these minor incidents, it can be witnessed how this snowball of antagonistic treatment towards the colonials would end up blowing up. The colonials put up with their mother country and tried to preserve their relationship by dealing with the issues themselves, but fixing their issues was a one sided ordeal and was not enough to stop an eventual outbreak. In the end, war came forth to not only resolve with the immediate issue of Britain’s decision, but also the accumulated grievances which were denied expression.
From history, I have chosen two big events that relate to Coser’s social structure. The Cold War was a typical intergroup conflict scenario that pitted the United States’ capitalism against Russia’s Communism. The rivals had different ideals that were the root of their conflict and they competed for power, control, and other incentives to prove their own superiority. Competing with one another, they never actually engaged each other but only took part indirectly in combatting each other. Following the intragroup conflict outline, the American Revolution was an outcome due to the difficult relationship the colonials had with Britain. The colonials held emotional ties to their mother country, and tried to suppress their hostile feelings that were being planted upon them by Parliament’s unfair laws. They attempted to deal with the issues plaguing them, but it was not enough to slow the buildup of their grievances, which eventually lend to separation and war. My choice of using history to support Coser’s theory is due to my belief that history consists of events already happened and if applicable to a theory previously, then can still be appropriate for modern times. Large events such as wars can serve as a larger view model for individual or smaller group relationship conflicts. Also by using more well-known historical events, it is easier to gather more information due to how much more detailed it is due to importance or how recent the event was. It is possible Coser saw history as a good source of observations, and developed his theory by studying events from the past.