Friedrich Glasl's model of conflict escalation assists in the analysis of conflicts. Appropriate reactions can be derived from this analysis. The model has nine stages â in contrast to the earlier model of Kurt R. Spillmann, which describes five distinct stages of escalation. These stages are grouped into three levels, which each contain three stages.
Glasl represents "escalation in his nine stage model not as an ascent to higher and higher stages of escalation, but as a descent to deeper and deeper, more primitive and more inhuman forms of dispute... [which] inevitably leads into regions that evoke great 'inhuman energies' which are not ultimately amenable to human control or restraint." In the first level both parties can still win (winâÂÂwin). In the second level one of the parties loses and the other wins (winâÂÂlose), and in the third level both parties lose (loseâÂÂlose).
Many different kinds of conflict can be thus analysed: divorces, conflicts between colleagues and school children, and also conflicts between states.
Samson's death in verse 16:30 of The Book of Judges in the Hebrew Bible is example of Genzel's final stage. Samson's dying words in are . The expression means that after seeing that a person will not be able to defeat his enemy, he decides to take revenge on the enemy and cause both himself and his enemy to be harmed. According to Friedrich Genzel's conflict escalation model, this is the final stage in the escalation of a conflict in which a person is willing to lose everything, the main thing being to defeat his opponent. In situations where death or severe injury is already difficult to avoid, it is seen by some as heroic to abandon efforts to save one's self and instead focus on causing as much harm as possible to the enemy, in the process of effectively committing suicide. Samson's dying words have become a common expression in Hebrew, Arabic, and related varieties of English.
In Arabic the Phrasing is slightly different, but the meaning is similar. In Arabic the expression is phrased differently, as roughly âÂÂAgainst me and my enemies, O Lord!â . The phrase is a proverb in Arabic, about an attacker's desire to harm his enemy even at the cost of the attacker causing his own death. For example, the expression been used in The New Arab newspaper to describe Russian's nuclear strategy.
Menachem Begin described the concept at length in a propaganda statement praising two Zionist militants who were killed in a suicide operation in a British-run prison in Palestine, one of his own Irgun fighters and another from the Lehi militant group.
The Lehi had planned to turn the allegedly scheduled double execution â of their own militant and a member of Begin's Irgun â into a suicide attack, using concealed explosives to kill the militants as well as their executioners and other high ranking British security personnel. Begin, who approved the original plan, claimed that it was thwarted by â who allegedly did not know the plan â refusing to stay a safe distance away from the gallows at the time of the hanging. The explosives detonated while the two militants were alone in their cell, killing only them. This was still seen as a heroic victory for avoiding the hanging the British had planned.
The model describes how two parties in a conflict behave. Solutions leading to de-escalation are not immediately apparent in this model, particularly when it appears to both conflict parties impossible to reverse the situation (e.g. an aggressive act on the territory of a state, separation of a common child from the other parent, withdrawal of nationality by a state, mass redundancy to improve shareholder value), or when one party selects conflict escalation as a strategic ploy.
To achieve de-escalation Glasl assigns the following strategic models to the different stages of escalation:
The ability to recognise and eliminate conflict-nourishing forces in a culturally neutral and non-judgemental fashion in order to de-escalate a conflict is highly advantageous in particular for managers, consultants and social workers.
GlaslâÂÂs conflict model is criticized for being too deterministic and ignoring the probabilistic nature of conflict dynamics.