Political conflict is an acute clash of multidirectional political.
The role of the government, which is based on the struggle for values and status, power and resources, the main purpose is to neutralize, damage or destroy an opponent.
D. Based on the theory of society's equilibrium, Apter believes that there are three degrees of development of social conflicts: collision of preferences (cooperation), collision of interests (competition) and collision of basic values (true conflict). According to Apter, the task is to transform conflicts of values into conflicts of interests or preferences. To implement it, different methods are used: negotiations, mediation, etc. Е. Nordlinger substantiated six basic principles for successful settlement of political conflicts: stable coalition, proportionality principle, depoliticization, reciprocity of the veto right, compromise, granting the right of conflict settlement to a third party.
There are 3 main types of political conflicts.
1) Conflict of interest. The political norm here is the "bargaining" over the division of the economic "pie" (the struggle around the size of taxes, the volume of social security), which is easily settled, because it is possible to come to a compromise (economic development of the country, stable states).
2) A conflict of values is characteristic of developing states with an unstable state system: they require more efforts to settle, because a compromise on values such as "freedom", "equality", "tolerance" is difficult if not impossible to achieve.
3) Identification conflict is characteristic of societies in which a subject identifies himself with a certain group (ethnic, religious, linguistic), but not with society (state) as a whole. This type of conflict arises under conditions of the opposite of races, ethnic and linguistic opposites.
Depending on the level of participants, there may be a political conflict:
a) Interstate (subjects of the state and their coalitions)
b) State (branches of government, political parties)
c) regional (actors - regional political forces)
d) local people.
Intra-political conflicts are divided into regime and legitimate ones.
Regime - the purpose of one of the actors may be to seize power in the state or change the political system, but without destroying the territorial integrity of the state.
Legitimate - part of the state seeks to secede. Often legitimate conflicts coincide with ethno-political, but not always ethno-political conflicts are legitimate (requirements of national equality, autonomy).
In Russia, most conflicts are internal political legitimate.
1) Territorial (source - internal political clashes between the government and the national liberation movement. South Ossetia, South Dagestan).
2) contradictions between constituent entities of the Russian Federation and the federal centre on issues of bringing the laws of constituent entities in compliance with federal legislation
3) hidden power struggles between rival factions of the ruling elite
4) Conflicts related to the opposition of the principle of the right of people to self-determination and territorial integrity of the state with the desire to legitimize the supremacy of the titular nation: the state in question over other peoples
5) Conflicts caused by discrimination against Russians in a number of CIS countries, linguistic disputes about the state language
Conflicts in southern Russia today reflect a high degree of social, political and ethnic tension in the region. By their type, they are domestically legitimate.
Among the causes of political conflicts in the South of Russia they are singled out:
1) The erosion of the common legal space of the country
2) Conducting work to bring regulatory legal acts of the constituent entities of the Russian Federation into line with the Constitution of the Russian Federation.
3) clear predominance of interests of ruling elite groups in the state policy, struggle between groups of ruling elite for power
4) interethnic and interregional contradictions
5) Ethnoegoism, egocentrism, chauvinism, manifested in the strengthening of national separatism
A possible change in the situation in southern Russia is associated with the creation of a system of federal districts and the institution of plenipotentiary representatives of the President of the Russian Federation, which should result in an increase in the efficiency of power, the establishment of a balance of interests of individuals and the state in the region.