Escalation-ladder of aggression

Conflict escalation in animal rights activism

As a long-term effect of the assassination of a striking political candidate shortly before the elections for the Dutch parliament in May 2002, both public and political opinions on animal rights activism became a heated issue in the Netherlands for years afterwards. Discussions cause much controversy, if not openly shown hatred. The murderer, who has since been convicted, was a dedicated environmental activist who also cared a great deal about animal welfare and who was a strict vegan.

The interplay of motivation, emotion, knowledge and perception, environment and behaviour often leads to a conflict growing from bad to worse. Parties grow more grim in their fight, they become more excited, the differences in their knowledge grow larger and their perceptions diverge more and more, people surrounding them become more and more mobilised in the conflict and the behaviour gets rougher and rougher.

The escalation ladder (Glasl, 1997) shows that in the consecutive steps of an escalating conflict, parties may show different behaviour. Interestingly, these behaviours develop in three phases, whereby the change-over to every phase means crossing a threshold. Parties are aware then that something is changing.

The ladder goes down: every step is a step deeper into the conflict. Each step lists its characteristics and examples from the world of animal welfare.

Organisations and their position on the escalation ladder

It is remarkable that many organisations are missing on the ladder. That of course in the first place is a good thing. Yet an organisation can contribute to an escalation when it withdraws itself from resistance to a certain situation of abuse. A clear example are those private poultry keepers who uncritically co-operated with the culling of poultry. By co-operating with the government and its rigorous and drastic measures, they contributed to the legitimation of a morally failing government policy.

On the escalation ladder, industrial farming has over the years slid downwards to a position that must be seen as directly heading for disaster. The sector does not listen (anymore) to critical comments from society and simply goes about its business. The critical consumer could in fact correct the sector, but forms no collective and as an individual is not very effective. Moreover, the majority of the customers live abroad: "What the eye doesn't see, the heart doesn't grieve about".

Harder to place are large organisations such as the churches, the national society for the protection of animals and some of the animal welfare organisations. These groups would like to show resistance and do so in words and sometimes even a little in deeds, but often feel their hands are tied because they do not want to lose their members or supporters.

A very obvious and active resistance is shown by Compassion in World Farming (CIWF), anti-vivisection societies and anti-fur organizations. However, they try to stay out of an escalation as much as they can. The leagues of vegetarians or vegans in the first instance aim to offer alternatives; they set a good example.

Furthermore, there are official bodies that do play a role in the origin or lasting of conflicts, but whose role is unclear. Examples are veterinary surgeons, the hunters' association, the purchasing departments of supermarket chains, consumers and consumer organisations.

Preventing escalation

An organisation can give a positive turn to an escalating conflict when it clearly formulates the limits of its actions. Vision, transparency and rules or codes of conduct make clear what has to be done or left out in order to prevent conflicts from developing.