## 2 Conflict Management in the Construction Sector  
The construction industry is not free from social conflicts in modern society. Construction projects are not only technical endeavors but also social systems involving various stakeholders. In particular, the occurrence and level of conflicts during the execution of construction projects have increased as the projects have become more complex and modern society is hyper-connected [1; 8; 9]. Understanding social conflicts is crucial as they can significantly affect project performance. Therefore, predicting potential stakeholder reactions is critical for stable and timely project implementation [11]. Many studies attempted to understand the nature of stakeholders in conflict situations because successful stakeholder management is a key success factor of complex projects [12]. According to [PERSON] [13], stakeholders are defined as \"any group or individual who can affect or is affected by the achievement of a corporation's purpose\". In the context of infrastructure projects, this study refers to stakeholders as any group or individual who can affect or is affected by the achievement of an infrastructure project's objective. There are two types of stakeholders in construction projects: internal and external stakeholders. Internal stakeholders are contractually involved in the project, while external stakeholders are mainly parties without any legal relationship [14]. In the construction domain, previous conflict-related studies primarily focused on internal stakeholders by addressing contractual and technical disputes, typically represented by claims among stakeholders [12; 15; 16; 17; 18; 19; 20]. Although civil infrastructure projects suffer from social conflicts including external stakeholders, there is a limited amount of research that attempted to study social conflicts in construction that included external stakeholders. In previous research, social conflict in civil infrastructure projects has been expressed in various terms such as social risk, social acceptance, and stakeholder satisfaction. Social conflict is influenced by various factors in accordance with the nature of the project. Previous studies identified conflict drivers for civil infrastructure projects using literature reviews and case studies. In particular, these approaches have been instrumental in delving into specific cases and deriving meaningful insights. For example, [PERSON] et al. (2017) conducted 22 retrospective case studies and identified 15 conflict drivers in 49 conflict events [4]. They presented conflict scenarios of civil infrastructure projects and conflict propagation pathways of each scenario. [PERSON] et al. (2018) identified 18 conflict drivers based on two cases using grounded theory and the paradigm model [21]. They proposed a conflict analysis framework considering the causes of conflict and characteristics of civil infrastructure projects. In addition, [PERSON]'s research team conducted a systematic literature review of stakeholder management performance attributes in construction projects and identified 18 performance objectivesand 22 performance indicators [11]. Then, they evaluated which factors contributed to successful external stakeholder management in a subsequent study [22]. The nature of conflict and its origins, the motivations behind collective action, and the consequences of such conflicts have attracted the interest of researchers, practitioners, public officers, and policymakers. But at the same time, literature reviews revealed a research gap in the methodologies employed in analyzing social conflicts in construction. Most previous studies on social conflict to date have been grounded in qualitative analysis. These studies often delved deeply into the conflict phenomena in specific conflict cases through interviews, surveys, and case studies. These qualitative approaches have provided context-specific insights for understanding conflict phenomena in civil infrastructure projects. Nevertheless, they are limited in generalizability and broad perspectives.