What is a communal conflict?

A communal conflict is a conflict in which groups that define themselves using ethnic, national or religious criteria, make claim against the state or other political actors. When talking about sources of communal conflict it's important to say that there are many of them and none is more important or more likely to cause a conflict than the other. Those sources might include a common homeland, religion, language, race etc. Communal groups are usually motivated by greed and power, most of them seek material and political gains. Moreover, different kind of groups choose different strategies to reach their goal. Common pattern is that in common open political systems, those groups choose to stay within conventional political actions, while groups existing in radical political systems choose more violent means. Communal conflicts emerged mostly during the Cold War and its aftermath, but since mid 1990's this trend has been reversed, meaning there are less and less of communal conflicts.