Confliggere cooperando. Un'analisi concettuale del conflitto politico in ambiente coalizionale

The concept of conflict is both crucial and equivocal for the social sciences. Many meanings may be (and have been) ascribed to the word. Here, I seek to provide an empirical definition of social conflict, which is linked to the notion of relation. The quality of the definition is tested by climbing down the ladder of abstraction and by using it for analyzing a specific type of conflict, whose definition is often neglected in the social science literature: the political conflict within coalitions of political actors, where cooperation exists (or should exist).