THREATS TO SUSTAINABILITY - SIMULATING CONFLICT WITHIN AND BETWEEN NATIONS

Violent conflict is increasingly viewed as a factor related to sustain able development. This article argues, based on the well-established t heory of lateral pressure originally proposed by Choucri and North in 1975, that the relationship arises because the same factors that affec t sustainable development also influence conflict, namely population, technology, resources, military force, and trade and bargaining, while conflict, in turn, affects these variables. The theory is tested with a system dynamics model that includes international as well as domest ic violent conflict, calibrated to seven countries in southern Africa and six OECD countries, The results show a number of situations in whi ch conflict is perpetuated in a cycle that is difficult to break. (C) 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.