Addressing the Root Causes of Conflict and Violence in Mali SHARE The Addressing Root Causes (ARC) Mali programme is being implemented under a consortium partnership with Norwegian Church Aid (NCA, the project lead) and ICCO, the Dutch inter-church development organization, and is funded by the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The material included here deals generally with conflict and peace; that specifically relating to the democratic peace is included on that theme page. Conflict usually occurs primarily as a result of a clash of interests in the relationship between parties, groups or states, either because they pursuing opposing or incompatible goals. The assumption is that each war is based on a societal contradiction that can be established objectively. Studies suggest that violent behavior often is caused by an interaction of situational and individual factors. Poor communication skills. The conclusion from all this research is that the more freedom people have, the less their collective violence and war. Unclear or unfair expectations. There are several common causes of conflict: A lack of common understanding. This disruption of a structure of expectations is a necessary and sufficient cause of international Conflict Behavior. That means that abusers learn … Structural contradiction. On this level, affected actors perceive, interpret and evaluate given differences. The recent CSAE conference, an annual conference on the economic development in Africa organized at Oxford included great new conflict research, which examines both the causes and the consequences of conflict. Although the term war is sometimes used as a synonym for conflict, it is more usual to restrict the meaning of war to violent conflict, involving armed forces. Motivations and goals. Main causes of violent conflict. Power plays and manipulations. Manifest conflict then will occur as a new balance of powers and associated structure of expectations are determined.