550 Journal of the Spanish Institute for Strategic Studies N. 5 / 2015 the concept of conflict for the purposes of this article, we will move onto define what we should understand social conflict to be each time that we come across this term. In order to do so, we shall simply delimit the scope of the concept of conflict that we addressed in the previous paragraph: Social conflict is thus “that in which the opposing parties are groups of people who cohabit the same space and time in a specific region of the world defined by the territorial delineations of a state”. With this definition, we have abstained from indicating the motives of the conflict, unlike other definitions given by authors such as Coser36 or Giner.37 We dismiss the use of terms such as contest38 or dispute,39 also used in other definitions, but which could also apply to competition. We would remind you of the definition given for conflict above. For the spatial delimitation of social conflict we comply with the artificial recourse to territorial delineations of states. This approach allows us to rule out cases in which social conflict sees the same group encounter other groups across different states, as is the case in the case of the Kurds.40 The reason for this decision is that social conflict for the group in question varies across each country in which it is present, despite the fact that the group tries to portray it as one single conflict in their discourse. Simply the fact that state systems exist under different legal codes and with different communities that the group theoretically faces in each state leads one to conclude that these are different social conflicts. Solely for the purpose of this article, we should understand armed conflict to be “a social conflict in which one of the opposing groups, organised in a conscious manner and following a plan, carries out actions using arms against the opposing group or sectors of the population that it identifies as belonging to this group, with a view to achieving the underlying objective to this opposition”. This definition of armed conflict accommodates the classic contribution on war made by Clausewitz, whereby it is an act of force used to impose the will of one group onto another by means of the attrition of the latter group and for which limits 36 COSER, Lewis A. The Function of Social Conflict, Glencoe: Free Press, 1956, p 8 apud GINER Salvador opus cit, p 65. 37 GINER, Salvador. Opus cit. p 65. 38 Ibid. p 65. 39 MAC IVER, R. M. and PAGE C.H. Opus cit. p 65. 40 ZORRILLA ,José Antonio. “The Kurds” in IEEE Position Paper 52/2014 online Spanish Institute for Strategic Studies Madrid 12 May 2014 accessed 22 March 2015 Available online at: http://www. ieee.es/Galerias/fichero/docs_opinion/2014/DIEEEO52-2014_Kurdos_ULtimo_JAZorrilla.pdf p 2. http://revista.ieee.es/index.php/ieee
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