Ethnic Con ict Revision

Notes on Ethnic Con ict

• War is the grim reaper lurking behind the study of international relations.
• Ethnicity: a sense of belonging to social group with common historical, cultural or linguistic
heritage.
• Ethnic violence: violence perpetrated across ethnic lines, integrally coded around the target’s
ethnic di erence and involving at least one non-state actor (Brubaker and Laitin, 1998).
• “Violence perpetrated across ethnic lines, in which at least one party is not a state (or a
representative of a state), and in which the putative ethnic di erence is coded—by perpetrators,
targets, in uential third parties, or analysts—as having been integral rather than incidental to the
violence, that is, in which the violence is coded as having been meaningfully oriented in some
way to the di erent ethnicity of the target.” (Brubaker & Laitin, 1998, p. 428).
• Nation: an ’imagined community’ (Anderson, 1983), shared national experiences can operate
horizontally and vertically.
• Nationalism: “primarily a political principle that holds the political and the national unit should
be congruent” Gellner (1983).
• Nationality is much broader than ethnicity. e.g. nationalism drives Iraq to ght Iran but ethnicity
drives Iraqi Kurds and Iraqi arabs to ght one another.
• Civil war: “armed combat within the boundaries of a recognised sovereign entity between
parties subject to a common authority at the outset of the hostilities” (Kalyvas, 2006).
• Brubaker & Laitin (1998) argue that the causes of ethnic con ict should be disaggregated.
• Trends in armed con ict:
- In the post-Cold War period there have been no hegemonic wars, fewer interstate wars, more
civil wars, and greater participation of non-state actors in war.
- Technological change has led to a nexus between nuclear and non-nuclear strategic
weapons since systems like thermobaric weapons can in ict extremely great damage.
- The ratio of internal to external wars increased from 2:1 in the pre-1945 period to 5:1
post-1945. (Levy & Thompson, 2010).
- Between 1945 and 1997, 23 interstate wars resulted in 3.3 m battle deaths whereas for the
same period 108 civil wars resulted in 11.4 m battle deaths (Correlates of War project).
- The ethnic con icts of the 1990s in the post-Soviet sphere have turned into frozen con icts.
e.g. Transnistria, Armenia-Azerbaijan in Nagorno-Karabakh, South Ossetia and Abkhazia in
Georgia.
• The increased incidence of ethnic con ict:
- Since 1946, nearly two-thirds of all civil wars have involved ethnic groups; ethnic groups
have been more likely to initiate civil wars than any other groups (Denny and Walter, 2014).
- It is often assumed that the post-1989 period saw an increase in the incidence of ethnic
con ict, but Fearon and Laitin (1996) argues that cordial interethnic relationships were still
the norm.
- Civil wars are much more common than interstate wars.
- “Ethnic con ict di ers sharply from interstate con ict” (Brubaker & Laitin, 1998, p. 438),
which makes the application of IR theory di cult.
- It is important not to draw too sharp a distinction between the cold war and post-cold war
periods. Ethnonationalist con ict was relevant in both periods. Ideology is still signi cant.
- Important to distinguish prominence and perceptions.

Causes of Ethnic Con ict

• Brubaker and Laitin (1995) point out that a “coding bias” towards viewing ethnic violence in
most con icts exists in contemporary academic discourse.
• Distinguish primordialism and instrumentalism.
• Greed vs Grievance + Opportunities vs Motivations:
- Collier & Hoe er (2004) pursue the instrumentalist argument that greed is more importance
than grievance and opportunities more signi cant than motivations.
- Levy and Thompson (2010) argue that timeless ethnic hatred cannot explain con ict because
otherwise con ict would be perpetual where in fact it has not been.
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 • Grievance:
- In the absence of ideological con ict, actors are motivated to frame political and economic
competition in terms of ethnicity (Brubaker and Laitin, 1998).
• Greed:
- Leaders serve their own interests by mobilising supporters around the coherence of ethnic
identity. (Sanin and Wood, 2014). e.g. Milosevic used Serbian nationalism to rally support in
the late 1980s.
- Genocide / ethnic con ict is an e ective way of bringing a war to a conclusion (Straus, 2006).
- Hashemi and Postel’s (2017) have coined the term ‘sectarianisation’ to demonstrate how
political elites maintain authority by mobilising identity markers like sect and ethnicity e.g.
Assad’s mobilisation of the fear of the Sunni majority by minority groups, which split the
opposition and helped his regime to survive.
- Horowitz (2000) nds that ethnic groups facing economic deprivation are more likely to seek
separatism.
- e.g. Iran encourages sectarianisation in Syria and Yemen.
- e.g. Slovenia was richer than other parts of Yugoslavia, but enjoyed little political in uence,
so was the rst to secede.
- e.g. Shia Iraqis have long held grievances because they have historically populated the
poorer Southern mountainous regions.
• Weak state capacity:
- Civil war correlates strongly with low GDP (Fearon and Laitin, 2003).
- Economic issues were accumulating in both Rwanda and Yugoslavia by the late 1980s,
which increased discontent.
- Hironaka (2005) argues that civil wars are more widespread because weak states are no
longer eliminated by strong states.
• End of the Cold War:
- Ideology becomes less important, so ethnicity becomes a more signi cant source of identity.
- Multinational empires lose their coercive strength (e.g. USSR and Yugoslavia), so an “Ethnic
Security Dilemma” arises (Posen, 1993).
- Superpower patronage for Third World nations is withdrawn, which decreases state strength
e.g. US support for the Mobuto regime in Congo decreased.
- Hobsbawn (1990) argued that contemporary ethnic con icts were a product of unsettled
question from 1918-22 (e.g. Armenia-Azerbaijan; Kurdistan; Yugoslavia).
• Third Wave democratisation has been linked to ethnic con ict:
- Authoritarian regimes are good at suppressing ethnic tensions with acts of brutality and
overarching ideologies. e.g. Iraq killed 100-200,000 Kurds in 1991 and appealed to Ba’athism
and the history of Babylon. Tito maintained stability through exceptionalist decentralised
socialism and bonds of brotherhood between South slavs.
- Democratisation in ethnically complex states can cause outbursts of ethnic violence because
authoritarian suppression and established institutions are both lacking. In Azerbaijan,
Georgia, and Armenia, ethnic con icts ensued.
- New leaders in democratised/hybrid regimes lack the ideology their predecessors had, so
mobilise ethnic division.
- Consolidated democracies prevent ethnic con ict by channeling it through institutional
mechanisms. e.g. Scotland and Catalonia.
- The rise of mixed regimes is linked to the increasing con dence and ideological dimensions
of Russian and Chinese models; socioeconomic grievances; the rise of disinformation on
social media.
- Snyder (2000) pursues an elite persuasion understanding of how newly democratised
countries are sometimes prone to nationalist con ict.
• Decolonisation:
- Con icts still raging since 1950s became more intense, but did not come out of nowhere.
(Fearon and Laitin, 2003).
- Colonial border often did not correspond to meaningful sources of identity.
- Colonial regimes often stoked ethnic tensions by favouring one group in their methods of
indirect rule e.g. France favoured the Alawis in the Troupes Specials.
• The end of unipolarity decreases the ability of Western countries to e ect humanitarian
interventions:
- Regional powers have undertaken intervention e.g. Iran, Qatar, and Turkey.
- e.g. Sierra Leone 2000 not likely now.
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 • Mercenary forces make it easier for states to intervene covertly.
• Other factors:
- Regionalism eastern/western Libya or northern/southern Yemen.
- Religious identity/sectarianism which doesn’t necessarily overlap with ethnic identity. e.g.
Syria pits Christian + Alawi Arabs against Sunni Arabs.
- Ideology e.g. Russian Ukrainians ghting against Russia.
• Realists / rationalist understandings of ethnic violence:
- Structural Realism does not have very much to say about this, though classical realism might
look at how elites mobilise populations along ethnic lines or highlight the aggressive nature
of human nature.
- Intrastate ethnic violence is often explained as the result of a ‘security dilemma’ where one
group’s enhancement of their strength leads others to perceive a threat and increase their
capabilities until violence ensues.
- The lack of central authority of a multiethnic state / empire leads newly mobilised nationalist
groups with a (newly ampli ed) history of con ict to regard one another as threats to their
national integrity / health. (Posen, 1993).
- High levels of communication exist within ethnic groups, but not between them, so when a
violent event concerns an outside from another ethnic group, ethnic tensions emerge.
• Constructivist approaches:
- Constructivist / culturalist approaches are better at explaining the irrational nature of some
ethnic violence.
- Ethnic violence is not always instrumental. Often is relates to centres of meaning in culturally
constructed process.
- Constructivists understand ethnic violence through the cultural construction of fear. Fear is
culturally constructed using rhetoric, representation, and symbols. These all relate to
historical memory of ethnic interaction.
- Constructivists explain how ethnic and national identity is sourced through myths, symbols,
cultural artefacts, and commemorations.
- Di ering from rationalist approaches, constructivists explain how ethnic interests are subject
rather than objective, which helps them to understand the seemingly random nature of
violence.
- Rituals can exacerbate ethnic violence by defecating symbols of ethnic integrity. e.g. Hindus
holding processions in India to disrupt muslim ceremonies. Con icting sites and dates of
ethnic meaning can cause ethnic con ict. e.g. Ayodhya and Jerusalem.
- Horowitz (2000) explains ethnic con ict through social psychology, suggesting that it is a
cognitively fruitful mode of mobilising support.
- Van Evera (1996) argues that attitudes towards national diasporas and other nations a ects
the chances that nationalism will incentivise con ict.
- Critiques:
- Constructivist approaches do not usually rely on robust evidence. It is impossible to know
what the psyche of an entire ethnic group is except perhaps using anecdotal evidence.
- Brubaker and Laitin critique constructivists for failing to explain the incidence of ethnic
violence. “Cultural contextualizations of ethnic violence, however vivid, are not themselves
explanations of it.” (Brubaker & Laitin, 1998, p. 443).
• Gender approaches to ethnic violence:
- Women are often prevented from attaining membership in the central ethnic organisations
behind separatist movements e.g. the IRA and the Basque ETA.
- Women can exacerbate ethnic violence by shaming men into taking part. They are often
directly involved in violence e.g. FLN female bombers.

Examples

• Rwanda (1994):
- Context of civil war.
- Hutus vs Tutsis.
• Yugoslavia (1992-2000):
• Iraq (2005-):
• Syria (2011-):
• Ukraine (?) (2014-):
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 Exam Report

• De ne ethnic con ict and what makes it distinct from other forms of con ict.
• Critically assess the notion of ‘new wars’ in historical perspective.

Past Questions

Do you agree that nationalism has been more a source of order than disorder since the end of the
Cold War? (2021)

‘The rise of aggressive forms of nationalism since 1990 highlights the bankruptcy of liberal ideas
of self-determination.’ Discuss. (2020)

Has the negative impact of nationalism on the post-Cold War order been exaggerated? (2019)

To what extent has nationalism been a source of con ict in the post-Cold War international order?
(2018)

‘Since the sources of ethno-nationalist con ict are rooted in local particularisms, no general
theory of ethno-nationalist con ict is possible.’ Discuss. (2017)

Which theoretical perspective or approach best explains the resurgence of nationalism in the
post-Cold War world? (2016)

‘The impact of ethnic nationalism on the international order since the end of the Cold War has
been much exaggerated.’ Discuss. (2015)

Is nationalism a threat only to status quo powers? (2013)

‘Since the end of the Cold War con ict has been about identity more than about ideology or
economics.’ Do you agree? (2012)

‘Nationalism is a problem for international order only when demands or national self-
determination are suppressed.’ Discuss with reference to the post-Cold War era. (2012).

Does the principle of national self-determination strengthen or undermine international order?

(2011)

'The attempts to re-fashion the world on national lines have not brought greater peace, but rather
have created new con icts and brought catastrophe to countless innocent people.' Discuss with
reference to events since 1990. (2010)
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