Burton: Conflict Resolution CONFLICT RESOLUTION: TOWARDS PROBLEM SOLVING John W. Burton From earliest times human societies, like those which proceeded them, have been subject to rule by the relatively strong.

In contemporary legal terms there have been 'those who have a right to rule, and others who have an obligation to obey.' Feudal societies, then industrial societies, had structures that reflected these we-they relationships based on relative power. Rns 310 Maps Of The United. Out of these structures there have evolved our adversarial systems: party politics, prosecution and defense in the legal system, employer-employee confrontations, class-based social conflicts.

These are the systems associated with our conception of democracy. They appear to be democratic because they include legally recognized oppositions to those who previously claimed the exclusive right to rule.