ABSTRACT
This chapter proposes that an encompassing approach which more than any of the single theories suggested can claim to explain intertemporal and international variations in the level of conflict. It explains a world system approach which offers an explanation for the observed pattern of political and industrial conflict at the core. The chapter focuses on cross-national differences and suggests integrating the neocorporatist paradigm, which argues that political and industrial conflicts reflect a lack of incorporation of societal interests into the process of policy formation. It discusses that the level of deprivation and the availability of resources reflects not only the phase of the societal model but also the mode of interest intermediation and world economic and political constraints. The chapter suggests a comprehensive causal model which predicts that the level of deprivation and resource availability in a country at a specific time depends on the phase of the societal model and its system of interest intermediation.
