The Role of Identity in Conflict

Introduction
• Identity plays a vital role in social conflict, as it
is fundamental to how individuals and
collectivities see and understand themselves
in conflict.
• Identities delineate who is “us” and who is
“them,” mobilizing individuals and collectives,
and providing legitimacy and justification for
individual and group aspirations.
 Identities are constructed
• Identities are themselves created and
transformed in processes of social struggle.
Understanding how identities impact conflict
and conflict processes, and the ways they are
constructed within conflicts, informs us about
the emergence, escalation, and potential
transformation of social conflicts.
 ???
• For conflict theorists there are enduring
questions about identity.
• Does it exist?
• If it does, what role does it play in conflicts?
• When and how is it a factor in the emergence,
escalation, and de-escalation of conflicts?
• Is identity, alone, sufficient to cause conflict, or
is it an exacerbating factor contributing to
ingroup/outgroup bias?
 Defining identity
• Identities are complex, historically bound,
socially constructed, and thus ever moving.
They may be transitory in some cases, and
rigid and inflexible in others as they are
constituted in specific lived realities, bound
and shared through story, myth, history, and
legend (Black 2003; Wetherell 1996).
• Theorists use identity to name a varied set of
phenomena. It is used both to classify and to
explain a wide range of social experiences and
processes and thus functions as an analytical
tool and a theoretical concept (Ashmore et al.
2001; Gecas 1982; Stryker and Burke 2000;
Widdicombe 1998).
• In its most general usage, identity refers to a
sense of a self, a way individuals know and
understand themselves.
• Identities acquire significance, meaning, and
value within specific contexts and cultures and
help people understand who they are as
individuals, as occupants of particular roles,
and as members of specific groups
• Theorists often make a distinction between
personal identity, or self-identity, and
collective or social identity.
• Personal identity focuses on an individual’s
sense of him- or herself as an autonomous,
unique person. Social identity refers to the
facets of one’s self-image that derive from
salient group memberships.
 Theorizing Identity
• As a theoretical concept, identity is used to
understand various aspects of identification
processes and to explain their impact on social
relationships and social conflict.
• Three key perspectives shape theorizing about
the relationship between self and society.
• The first argues that people use the raw materials
of their lives to “make” themselves, thus social
identities are projects whereby individuals come
to a narrative sense of self by creating an
integrated whole of their past, present, and
future. Identities are symbols of meanings
created from social interactions (Connell 1987).
• The second perspective focuses on how identity is
constructed within specific relationships and in a
particular time and place, and the importance of
social comparisons in this process.
• Researchers study how groups use differences and
similarities among and between groups to manage
the social implications and consequences of specific
categories and how individuals negotiate,
reconstitute, and represent identities through talk
and interaction.
• The third perspective focuses on issues of
salience. If one assumes people can inhabit a
number of identities, the concept of salience
allows theorists to explore when and how
particular identities become meaningful for
individuals and collectives, how people manage
the intersection of a number of potentially salient
identities, and how individuals negotiate the
borders and boundaries of identity categories.
 Theorizing identity and conflict
• Identity has emerged as a dominant concept
for understanding and analyzing social
conflict. From the interpersonal to the
international arena, and at various levels along
the way, researchers use the concept of
identity to understand conflict dynamics and
explain behaviors (Rothman and Olson 2001).
 The individual and identity
• Individuals have a sense of self, an identity or
public image they want others to see.
• It incorporates particular traits, attributes and
skills along with self-descriptions and self
evaluations that together constitute a
personal identity.
• People want to present themselves and be
seen in ways that are congruent with their
sense of self.
• When the emergent circumstances of a conflict
call into question one’s sense of self, the conflict
itself shifts.
• This shift may include changes in the parties’
conflict-waging strategies, the emotional response
of the parties, parties’ perceptions of the issues at
stake, and perceptions of self and other.
Resolution of the conflict may now require the
management and negotiation of identity needs.
• Identity issues are at the root of conflict when there
is a perception that an interaction challenges or
threatens self-image or “face” (Vuchinich 1990).
• Beyond this, identity threats often lead to increased
inflexibility, rigidity, and defensive responses, which
in turn escalate or exacerbate conflict.
• When interactions do not address identity needs, or
issues arise that violate, defy, diminish, or threaten
them, a variety of responses may result.
 Identity needs and self-image are non-
negotiables
• Increases in inflexibility that contribute to
stalemate in conflict result from the
perception that identity needs and self-image
are non-negotiables .
• This perception may result when abandoning
or conceding a position is perceived as a loss
of face (one is weak or uncommitted).
• Identity may feel non-negotiable if the conflict
threatens what Northrup (1988) calls “core
constructs” (aspects of self-image that help to
organize all other constructs).
• She argues that deep challenges to core
constructs challenge the foundation of one’s
being, and are thus not negotiable.
 Collective identities
• As we move from the individual to the group
the identity question shifts to social identities.
• Positive potential for social change and its
capacity for devastation.
• Ethnocentrism, selective perception,
attribution error, the use of collective
identities to justify discrimination and
inequality, polarization, enemy imaging, and
genocide.
• How can we understand the extermination of the
Jews or the unwillingness of their fellow citizens to
defend them?
• How do we explain genocide in Rwanda, the mass
rape of women in war, trafficking of women and
children, and violence against homosexuals?
• Conflict theorists want to enhance our understanding
of intergroup conflict by understanding collective
attempts to create, define, nurture, and protect key
social identities and satisfy identity needs.
• Four theoretical approaches to understanding
the role of identities in conflict.
 Basic human needs
• In the late 1970s, John Burton articulated a
theory of intractable conflict.
• He explained the complex, deep-rooted
nature of protracted social conflict by linking
individual and group needs to a systems
approach to conflict.
• Human needs fuel conflict when they are
unfulfilled.
• People have essential needs that are universal
and non-negotiable.
• Four of these needs – personal development,
security, recognition, and identity – are key to
understanding violent social conflict (Burton
1990; Sites 1990).
• Rubenstein (2001) argues that over time
identity needs became a central theorizing
point: when the state system fails to meet
identity needs, ethno-national struggles
emerge.
• Because these basic needs are universal and
immutable, people will go to great lengths to
satisfy them (Burton 1990; Sandole 2001).
• when the denial of human needs is at the root of conflicts,
traditional conflict settlement methods often fail.
• When fundamental needs are at stake, traditional interest-
based negotiations focusing on the distribution of resources
will be insufficient to resolve the conflict.
• Because identity needs are perceived to be non-negotiable,
they cannot be put on the table to be divided, traded, and
exchanged.
• They are further violated when left unaddressed because they
are not acknowledged as issues.
• This can lead to increased polarization as identity needs
become further entangled in the conflict process.
 Protracted social conflict
• Edward Azar (1986), collaborating with Burton and
others, further developed a basic needs explanation
of protracted social conflicts.
• Protracted social conflicts (PSC) result from the denial
of basic needs that are fundamentally connected to
issues of identity, including the ability to develop a
collective identity, to have that identity recognized
by others, and to have fair access to the systems and
structures that support and define the conditions that
allow for the achievement and building of identity.
• Azar theorized four internal state variables
that, when present, heighten the likelihood
conflicts will become prolonged and violent
(Azar 1990).
• First he argued that the focus for understanding
conflict dynamics should be on the identity group
as the unit of analysis (religious, ethnic, cultural),
rather than the state. In many post-colonial
societies the structures of the state are
dominated by and benefit one communal group
or a coalition of groups and are unresponsive to
the needs of other groups.
• This inequality feeds frustration, fragmentation, a
lack of system legitimacy, and, ultimately, conflict.
• Azar’s second variable, focused on
intercommunal dynamics, suggests the denial
of human needs is a source of conflict.
• Because basic human needs are expressed
collectively, experienced as defining of the
self and the group, and perceived to be non-
negotiable, the resulting conflict is likely to be
forceful, brutal, and, from a traditional IR
perspective, irrational.
• His third variable is the state’s ability to satisfy the
collective social needs of citizens.
• Protracted social conflicts are more likely when
dominant groups use the state system to fulfill their
interests at the expense of other groups.
• Elites contribute to the exacerbation of this problem by
mobilizing exclusive identities, a process followed by
counter identification on the part of excluded minorities.
• The result is a political system that has weak legitimacy
and little capacity for responding to constituent needs.
• Finally, he posits that many emerging states
have little resistance to the forces of
globalization buffeting them from without.
This variable results in domestic institutions
focusing more on relations of economic
dependency and political–military patronage
within the broader international system than
on the needs of citizens.