Conflict does not emerge in a vacuum. Sometimes one conflict is nested within another. The university departmental conflict referred to below, for example, was greatly influenced by a concurrent higher-level conflict between the University president and the faculty. Parties in a conflict differ in the directness of their involvement and the importance of its outcome for them. Primary parties are those who oppose one another, are using fighting behavior, and have a direct stake in the outcome of the conflict.
Secondary parties have an indirect stake in the outcome.
They are often allies or sympathizers with primary parties but are not direct adversaries. Third parties are actors such as mediators and peacekeeping forces which might intervene to facilitate resolution. In fact, as a conflict emerges, cause and consequence tend to blend. Hostility might be a consequence of one phase of a conflict and a cause of the next. Perceived goals and interests incompatibility is perhaps the most basic cause of social conflict.