text: Chapter 4
  Step 1—Evaluate the Context of the Conflict
  4-30. During the first step of conflict diagnosis, the team evaluates and outlines key contextual issues in an
  operational environment. Context does not cause conflict but describes the often long-standing conditions
  that resist change. Issues may include environmental conditions, poverty, youth bulge, or recent or long-
  term conflict in a region. Contextual conditions can reinforce divisions between communities or contribute
  to pressures making violence appear attractive for advancing individual interests. Contextual conditions can
  shape perceptions of identity groups. Key actors can use the conditions to manipulate and mobilize
  constituencies.
  4-31. Each ICAF step begins with identifying the contextual conditions and issues from which the conflict
  evolved. This process, depicted in figure 4-2, reflects the complex interaction between the context and the
  other elements of the ICAF.
  Step 2—Understand Core Grievances and Sources of Social and Institutional Resilience
  4-32. The team should understand, agree upon, and communicate the concepts of core grievances and
  sources of social and institutional resilience. They should describe them within the specific situation. Under
  the ICAF, a core grievance is any societal group’s perception that other groups or social institutions
  threaten its physical security, livelihood, interests, or values. A source of social and institutional resilience
  is any group’s perception that social relationships, structures, or processes are in place that can resolve
  disputes and meet basic needs through nonviolent means.
  4-33. During the second step of conflict diagnosis, the team must—
  * Describe identity groups who perceive threats to their identity, security, or livelihood.
  * Articulate how societal patterns reinforce perceived deprivation, blame, and intergroup
  cleavages; articulate how those societal patterns promote harmony and peaceful resolution of
  disputes.
  * Explain how positive or negative institutional performance contributes to or aggravates the
  resolution of conflict.
  4-34. Identity groups are groups of people that identify with one another, often because of characteristics
  used by outsiders to describe them. These characteristics can include ethnicity, race, nationality, religion,
  political affiliation, age, gender, economic activity, or socioeconomic status. Identity groups are inclined to
  conflict when they perceive that other groups’ interests, needs, and aspirations compete with and jeopardize
  their identity, security, or other fundamental interests.
  4-35. Societal patterns associated with conflict reinforce divisions between groups. These patterns can
  include elitism, exclusion, corruption, chronic state capacity deficits, and unmet expectations. Capacity
  deficits consist of systemic economic stagnation, scarcity of necessary resources, and ungoverned spaces.
  Unmet expectations may be a lack of a peace dividend, land tenure issues, disillusionment, and
  disenfranchisement. Impacts of societal patterns often include negative economic consequences for
  disadvantaged groups.
  4-36. Institutional performance considers formal and informal social structures to determine the groups’
  performance level and if they contribute to or mitigate conflict and instability. Formal social structures
  consist of governments, legal systems, religious organizations, public schools, security forces, and
  economic institutions. Informal social structures include traditional dispute resolution bodies; families,
  clans or tribes; and armed groups. Assessing institutional performance involves distinguishing between
  outcomes and perceptions. Institutional outcomes are results that can be measured objectively; perceptions
  are the evaluative assessment of those outcomes. To diagnosis the conflict, teams must understand how
  various groups within a society perceive outcomes, especially in terms of effectiveness and legitimacy.
  Step 3—Identify Drivers of Conflict and Mitigating Factors
  4-37. The team should understand and outline the drivers and mitigating factors of conflict and enumerate
  them within the situation being assessed. Drivers of conflict represent the active energy moving the
  conflict—the dynamic situation resulting from key actors’ mobilization of social groups around core
  grievances. While core grievances can be understood as the potential energy of conflict, key actors translate