conflict & communication online, Vol. 19, No. 1&2, 2020
www.cco.regener-online.de
ISSN 1618-0747

Madlen Preuß
Unequal balances of power. The assertion of an established status as a new explanatory approach for intergroup conflicts

Following Elias’ Established-Outsider-Figuration that power is an integral part of every human relationship, intergroup conflicts should be explained by actual and/or claimed power balances, regardless of reference categories. Against this theoretical background, a scale for the empirical measuring of the assertion of an established status is developed and proposed as an alternative predictor to established explanatory approaches. Analyses based on German surveys in 2014, 2016 and 2018 show there is a reliable and valid measuring instrument and a predictive power for a whole series of rejections of weaker groups. This argues for a stronger adaptation of Elias’ concept in quantitative empirical research of intergroup conflicts and the idea of considering religion, culture or gender less as a cause but rather as a legitimation of these conflicts.

The author:
Madlen Preuß is lecturer and researcher focusing on social inequality and empirical social research at the Faculty of Social Science at the University of Applied Science Bielefeld, Germany, and associated researcher at the Institute for Interdisciplinary Research on Conflict and Violence at Bielefeld University, Germany. Her areas of interest include conflicts associated with migration, social inequalities and inequivalencies, discrimination, empirical social research, and social area analyses.
eMail: madlen.preuss@fh-bielefeld.de