Works
- The Resolution of Conflict: Constructive and Destructive Processes, 1973
In Tactics of Organizational Politics
Ideas
The crude law of social relations. Deutsch studied what makes a conflict turn out constructive or destructive. His summary, the crude law of social relations, holds that the characteristic effects of a relationship tend to elicit that relationship: cooperative moves tend to draw cooperation in return, and suspicious, competitive ones tend to draw competition.
What it explains
Deutsch explains why the tone of the first moves in a dispute tends to set its course. A party that opens cooperatively makes cooperation more likely, and one that opens with threats makes a contest more likely.