Ordinal preferences construction for multiple-objective multiple-participant conflicts

A methodology to construct ordinal preferences from multiple objectives for multiple participants in a conflict is proposed. The methodology combines value focused thinking, the analytic hierarchy process, criteria satisficing, and relative weighting and prioritization schemes to order states of a conflict. Compared to conventional methods of utility and optimization, application of the proposed methodology is less expensive, both cognitively and computationally. Still, hard thinking and value judgments would nonetheless be required to define meaningful and appropriate objectives, attributes and criteria, as would any decision making task. Preference construction for an 8-participant conflict is demonstrated. The resulting preferences can be directly inputted into a graph model for conflict resolution to determine stable outcomes of the conflict.