Influences of Social Organization on Dispute Processing

Abstract

Man is an ingenious social animal. Institutionalized responses to interpersonal conflict, for instance, stretch from song duels and witchcraft to moots and mediation to self-conscious therapy and hierarchical, professionalized courts. The dispute processing practices prevailing in any particular society are a product of its values, its psychological imperatives, its history and its economic, political and social organization. It is unlikely that any general theory encompassing all of these factors will be developed until there have been many piecemeal attempts to understand something of the influence of each.