Repyeva A.M. The phenomenon of conflict in political research: definition, forms and phases of political conflict flow

Abstract: This article studies the phenomenon of conflict in the sphere of politics. This topic raises such interest because conflict as a phenomenon of our society, despite its age and presence in modern world, is yet to be fully defined, and there is no single scientific approach to defining the term “conflict”. The author attempts a methodological rethinking of political conflict as a phenomenon, and explains the diversity of its existing definitions that vary per each academic discipline that attempts to explain it from its own angle. The author explains that the broad differentiation of the term “conflict” is dictated by the fact that it’s studied by multiple science disciplines that view it from different sides. It is also noted that General Conflict Studies contains several branches: political, psychological, social, legal, military, administration, labour, etc. Each branch has its own subject field, and studies specific aspects of conflict. The methodological basis of this research is constituted by systemic, structural-functional, comparative-historical, comparative-political, geopolitical, cultural-civilizational approaches, and the methods of analysis, synthesis, induction, deduction, modeling and observation. The novelty of this research is defined by a consolidation of approaches and methods that exist in modern political science, as it is applied to understanding the phenomenon of a political conflict. The conclusions reached represent a multitude of approaches for understanding the subject field of Conflict studies as an academic discipline, as well as to sorting out the considerable number of interpretations in its terminology. This, in turn, sets the goal of further studying of political conflict as a phenomenon.

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