ABSTRACT
Much the same sorts of conditions distinguish peaceful from turbulent Western societies as have made the difference between civil peace and civil disorder in other societies and other eras. Data have been collected on each reported occurrence of strife in twenty-one nations of the Western community for the years 1961 through 1965, using procedures described elsewhere. The most immediate and therefore statistically strongest of causes of strife is the pattern of institutional support and coercive control which channels the expression and repression of collective motivations to violence. Discontent is evidently a first cause of strife, but if it is relatively mild its popular manifestation is determined not by its extent or intensity but by popular attitudes about the desirability of governments and of violence. The more intense discontent is, the less likely is it to be either moderated or intensified by such attitudes and the more likely it will lead to severe violence.
