Unveiling the Puzzle of Conflict Escalation in Madagascar: Destructive Transformation at Play

Conflict transformation is the key concept explaining the processes and parts of mechanism behind conflict escalation in Madagascar. This country has experienced various episodes of conflict, ranging from political tension situation to high intensity conflicts, from the colonial period to present day. There are multiple variants of escalation of conflict stages in the Malagasy cases. Comparative research design, through Qualitative Comparative Analysis (QCA) provides set of methods and techniques to study these outcomes. The phenomenon of escalation of conflict stages can be explained through causal configuration. This paper mainly argues that the multi-levelled and uneven transformation occurring throughout the process of conflict escalation created situations of destructive changes. Deriving from concepts and theories pertaining to peace, conflicts, mediation and negotiation, conflict escalations and de-escalations, we particularly focus on the following to untangle the intricacy of conflict escalation in the Malagasy cases: a) conflict dimensions (cultural, socio-demographic and economic, political and global external), b) the degree of influence of the opposing parties as well as factions within each party and their repertoires of action, c) the framing of the conflicts by these parties, d) the boundary construction of the self/the other, e) the accommodation policies and f) metanarratives and local narratives.