The Causal Grammar of Structured Coexistence: Conflict, Violence, Repair, and Non-Suppressive Peace

Sociological and philosophical traditions have developed extensive explanationsof social structure, conflict, violence, and peace. Yet these phenomena are oftenanalyzed within partially separate theoretical frameworks. As a result, disagreementis frequently conflated with conflict, conflict with violence, and stability with peace.This article proposes a causal grammar linking five concepts: structure, conflict,violence, repair, and peace. Social structures organize fields of feasible possibilitywithin shared social environments. Conflict emerges when actors attempt to sustainstructures that cannot be jointly reproduced. Violence occurs when incompatibilitycompresses actors’ feasible life-space. Repair denotes the protected reopening ofdamaged relations, while peace refers to stable coexistence that preserves actors’possibilities and maintains the capacity for repair.The framework provides a compact diagnostic vocabulary for distinguishingdifference from conflict, conflict from violence, and stable order from non-suppressivepeace.Keywords: conflict; violence; peace; social theory; political sociology