In the history of political science there is a long tradition that identifies the very emergence of politics with the attempt to avoid the inevitable conflicts that structure human existence. For example, Thomas Hobbes is commonly interpreted as a crucial figure in the history of “social contract” theories, according to which the organization of political entities such as governments is the result of an attempt by the human community to preserve itself from conflict. As Mushred (2012) succinctly summarizes Hobbes' position: “the state of nature is anarchic, akin to perpetual war, in which each man takes what he can and without any legal basis for right or wrong. Consequently, it was in the interests of individuals to collectively give up their personal freedom of action… in exchange for personal security and rules-based interactions in society.” (p. 59) This is an intuitive position: political forms of organization provide some sense of conflict resolution through shared norms and laws. However, from another perspective, it is also evident that politics itself produces its own set of conflicts. For example, realist theories of international relations argue that politics itself is defined by power struggles between political actors. This thesis is clearly also valid for a political actor such as the internal politics of a nation state, since in democracy, for example, there is a clear conflict between political parties regarding the policies to be pursued. Consequently, conflict is inevitable for politics. The question of whether political institutions in contemporary societies remain adequate to resolve conflicts is in this sense profound, to the extent that it deals with the very essence of politics. That is, if politics remains... at the center of the paper... an element of conflict even when problems are expected to be resolved politically through consensus. From this perspective, the question of whether or not politics can adequately resolve conflict takes on a new form, whereby the question becomes whether conflicts essential to politics simply become so debilitating that political organizations such as governments can no longer function. If conflict is essential to politics, then, we cannot expect politics to resolve all conflicts: rather, we must expect it to continually redefine where unresolvable conflict lies in social organization. This is not a criticism of the effectiveness of politics itself, but rather a criticism of what we expect from politics: it becomes a naive position to think that politics can resolve all our conflicts if in reality it is based on forms of conflict.