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Describe in objective and general issues, elements of approach and theories of conflict.
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Africa’s Great Lakes region has been known in the past four decades or so – as an area of violent conflict. An advanced research project on this region has to start with some reflections on theories of conflicts, as some parts of this region have been characterised by a devastating disease which has resulted in loss of human lives, degradation of the environment, pillage, banditry, rape of women and girls, and a general political instability of high magnitude. To explain what has happened, we need to build a good explanatory tool. The beginning of wisdom is to be aware of one’s limits of knowledge and be certain of one’s areas of strength. For easy understanding, this chapter is divided into several sections. The first section describes the main objectives, clarifies the term ‘contemporary’ and raises general issues regarding the relevance or irrelevance of theories in this research project. The second section discusses the approaches used in the work; while the third, elaborates on theories of conflict, as well as their claims, assumptions and possible social and political implications. The study ends with some brief recommendations about these theories. Let me start by saying that we cannot change all the phenomena around us or those things that are far from us – things we do not know about, or understand. We cannot explain social phenomena effectively without building some systematic and testable tools of explanations. Empiricism is central to building a critical theory. The contemporary world system (or global system) has produced more conflicts because many of its malfunctioned infrastructures and institutions were built on neo-colonial values, practices related to trans-Atlantic slavery, outcomes
of European and American imperialist policies, post-colonial states’ failures to decolonise, contradictions related to expansion of monopolistic capitalism, the claims associated with struggles toward multipolarity, consequences of intensification of illegal arms trafficking and arms race among nation-states in the name of national and regional security propositions. Thus, from the above perspective, the origin of conflict can be systemic. More than 25 per cent of the populations in sub-Saharan Africa live in conflict- afflicted countries. For a variety of reasons and factors, various actors make more claims and grievances within their systems today than 50 or 60 years ago. Regardless of their origins and manifestations, grievances made by the nation-states, citizens, ethnic groups or communities imply the existence of an adversarial relationship, social and political tensions, and agencies of protests through which grievances are organised. Grievances are the most important components in the studies of conflict. Nota Bene, in this work, I use the expressions nation and state interchangeably. There are many contemporary theories that explain the nature of disagreements, frictions, discomfort, tensions, political, religious, ideological and economic differences among social classes, gender, age groups, the states, and regional and international organisations. These theories explain the origins of conflicts, their causes and manifestations, their trajectories and their social, cultural and economic implications at the individual, group, country, regional and international levels. The location of the conflict culturally, sociologically, economically and politically through a theoretical analytical framework is likely to inform us how the conflict might be resolved. Thus, the nature of the explanations would provide knowledge and embody assumptions about how to proceed in changing a conflicting situation. This chapter identifies and broadly examines elements of major theories that are used more specifically in the social sciences and humanities to explain how they deal with the origins of conflicts, their manifestations, both human and material resources, agencies and their ideological base, if any. The main questions about dealing with theories of conflicts are: (1) Why do conflicts occur? (2) How do they occur? (3) Who are their agents and what are their agencies? (4) How are they managed? (5) What resources are used to advance them? (6) What are their intended and non-intended consequences? Finally, (7) Can they be prevented both in the short as well as in the long run? In general, all theories of conflict address most of these questions though this may not be in order listed here. It should also be emphasised that there are weak and strong theories of conflict. The ‘weakness’ and ‘strength’ of the theories depend very much on the schools of thought in which one is located. Weak theories are those that do not take seriously the context in its holistic manner. They do not pay enough attention to conditions that led to conflict. These theories are not sufficiently testable and not strongly applicable because they lack rigorous and systematic logic of explanation.
new land tenures were imposed. New political systems were also established, and new social and collective relations were constructed. One of the primary sources of conflict relates to access, use and control of land. Others stem from access to, and control of, resources such as water, animal, plant and minerals. In general, all human and social conflicts can alienate the individuals involved as well as the ethnic groups, larger societies and states from their own rules and established lifestyle. They might begin to question their set ways of life in a way that ultimately diminishes the social harmony of a given society. Furthermore, it is necessary to distinguish between primary and secondary types of conflicts. Primary types of conflicts are those which relate to the fundamental or structural systems of individual, societal or state’s functions. They are deeper than peripheral types of conflicts. For instance, they touch on the ontology of the systems, modes of societal organisations and governance; and they deal with individual social and political locations in a given society. Secondary types of conflicts address generally symptoms, behaviours, and atomistic individualistic claims. They might also be classified teleologically as instrumental. Thus, in a given social and political context, we have to pose the question of whether or not what we are observing historically or empirically as relations of conflict reflect primary or secondary types of conflict.
It is necessary that I clarify further where intellectually and philosophically I stand on. My approaches help to define and examine conflict, conflict resolution, peace and reconstruction within a historical framework. Humans embody the germ of the past and build the present on the past. But the past, the present, and the future each has its own specific distinctive moment, space, and time. The present should not sacrifice the past and vice-versa. From this perspective, a social progress agenda such as the one on peace, security and development, is perceived as being essentially a teleological and dialectically synthesised conscious effort. I use a historical- structuralist approach and its philosophical assumptions and claims with a dose of systems analysis as articulated by the advocates of the world system. The way social classes, nation-states, and societies function in the world system is a result of the internal and external dynamics of their locations. But these locations are far from being historically fixed or static. The world is a system and an organic whole whose behaviours are conditioned by the actors’ locations and how they come to be in the system. The actors and the subsystems do not act in the same way because their actions depend on their specific functions and attributes and their location within the system. I consciously avoid intellectual extremism, historical determinism and conspiracy theory because they lack a good understanding of the forces of history. I interpret history as a changing phenomenon that is not predetermined
by any circumstances or forces. I build my arguments on historical-structuralist assumptions and in finding correlations between historical facts or causations/ correlations and structures of the African contemporary society. Historical structuralism raises the question of origins of these phenomena and the nature of the evolution of their structures. Within the structures of the African societies, I place more emphasis on the political institutions or the states and their relations to the Immanuel Wallenstein’s world system (1974, 1980, and 1989). Although concrete illustrations or experiences are used to support and/or clarify my assumptions and explanations, this chapter is more of theoretical reflection upon which a broad framework of analysis is constructed. Furthermore, my interests in historical causation of social phenomena and critical examination of their structures are shaped by social constructivism. Adler (1997, 2002) and (Fearon and Wendt 2002) take the social world of agreed collective social values more seriously in also a non-material world. Ideas, ideals, identities and images are all socially constructed based on shared norms and beliefs systems. One of the most important characteristics of the world system at the end of the twentieth century was the movement of states and people’s struggles to redefine themselves. This redefinition has been taking different forms and shapes, some tragically like in the Balkans, many parts of Africa and the Middle East, and others more gradually and peacefully. The substance or the content of this redefinition and its intellectual quality depends on the dynamics of the local political configurations, how a given people and state have become part of the world system; the location of these actors in the international political economy; what they are bringing into the global market; who the actors are; and who their alliances are. This process of redefining themselves is facilitated by the means and forces of globalization. The existing form of liberal globalisation, the state-centric approach of the classical realism to peace, security and construction is being challenged by multinationals or multilateral and transnational organisations. The global forces are forcing the state or the centralised authority to make accommodations in order to survive or to redefine the limits and the strength of its notion of sovereignty. Privatisation of the state is one of the characteristics of the world system that is diminishing the power of the state to engage its citizens productively both economically and politically. To use Johan Galtung’s expressions, I am interested in ‘structure-conflict’ and ‘actor-conflict’ as historical agencies in a changing world system (1958).
Why are people and states drawn into conflicts? In international relations we say that individuals and states that have nothing in common or do not expect to have anything in common are not likely to be drawn into major conflicts. I agree with
The conflict is inherent to the nature of the state. As developed throughout nineteenth and twentieth centuries, classical realism was characterised by the theory of balance of power, unilateral militarism, and a sharp distinction between domestic politics and international relations. Additionally, neo-realism, which developed after World War II, places an emphasis on alliance and deterrence. For neo-realists, therefore, the political clout of nations correlates closely with their economic power and their military might. The only source of power is capabilities (Kenneth Waltz 1979:153). Balance of power serves as deterrence against war. But it could also create or intensify tensions among nations. By and large, conflicts are likely to emerge when there are:
The father of liberalism in West, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, has defined it as a unified principle of liberty and equality. These two expressions have been interpreted differently in both economics and political thought depending on the political context and school of thought of interpreters and users. However, in contemporary world, there is no one single theory of classical liberalism. According to Time Dunne, Milja Kurki and Steve Smith (2006:104), there are several variants of liberal theories such as actor-centred rationalist theory; actor- constructivist theory; rationalist democratic peace theory; and constructivist democratic peace theory. This chapter deals only with the one that is common to all, namely rationalism, individualism, and democracy. Theorising about liberalism begins at the level of domestic politics. Domestic actors and structures matter as they can strongly influence the foreign-policy identities and interests of the state. Thus, domestic properties such as actors, institutions, practices are considered crucial explanatory variables, which also are called independent variables (2006, p. 90). At this level, people are defined as being essentially rational, ethical and moral creatures capable of controlling
their baser impulse. The unit of analysis is first at the individual level. Thus, human rationality and morality are the core elements in forming or reforming institutions in order to find solutions to social problems. The world or politics can be constructed without necessarily transiting from conflict and the human nature is not necessarily evil or bad. The core elements of the liberal theory have two dimensions in explaining the world: (a) political level, which is about liberal democracy. It is about freedom of the individuals or emancipation of the individual from the forces of materialism of the world; and (b) it is about free market and free trade as articulated in the invisible hand thesis of Adam Smith, promoted and sustained by laissez-faire and freedom of goods and services (free trade). These two dimensions can be actualised at the domestic level. Their basic claim here is that domestic actors influence how states define their foreign policy interests and how they behave in international arena (Putnam 1988 and Milner 1997 and 1998). Another dimension of liberal theory is its reflection on the bottom up of an analytical framework. It is about the dynamics of individual-societal relations. Rationalist and actor-centred liberal approaches theorise, in using a bottom-up perspective, about how policy interests are formulated and how attitudes and actions of national actors are shaped by domestic groupings as strategic rational actors. It is assumed that there is no basic ideological distinction between domestic and foreign policies: one is supposed to be a continuation of the other. Contemporary liberal approaches in general place emphasis on communication, concrete benefits derivable from international relations or the international political economy or any intra-grouping relations. In democracies, citizens or communities do have incentives to maintain and advance their own interests. It is assumed in these theories that most members of the communities are very likely to win from their bottom-up approaches to peace. The win-win theory is founded on the liberal principles of negotiations, cost-benefit analysis and rationalism, which is based on methodology that advances imperatives of individualism. And democratic peace is the main process through which communities or individuals can deal with real or potential conflict situation. As Dunne et al. indicate, in liberal republics, elected decision-makers are held responsible for all decisions (including foreign policy by their constituencies). Assuming that the citizens are cost – and risk – averse, the shadow of electoral sanctions would prevent republican governments from going to war too easily.’ The Neo-liberal approach, which has been dominating the world economy, was introduced at the end of World War II by the United States as part of the solutions to war. It was supposed to create the conditions that would sustain peace and support development. It also can be defined as the dominant political economic paradigm of our time which refers to the policies and processes whereby a relative handful of private interests are permitted to control as much
Known also as a social conflict theory, Marxism started as a single theory in explaining the social relations of production in Western Europe by its father, Karl Marx. Over the decades, however, there have been many interpretations of Marxism both in industrial countries in the West and in the non-industrial Global South, which have produced a variety of explanations about Marxism. Marxism has influenced many thoughts in developing countries from Vietnam to Congo-Brazzaville, Mozambique, Angola, China and Cuba. It is not easy to measure effectively its level of influence. Most of radical leftist theories since the political decolonisation of erstwhile colonies and the rise of popular movements in various periods, including the most recent one at the end of Cold War, have
been influenced by some aspects of Marxist analytical perspectives, especially the theory of change, social class theory and proletarian revolution. Marxism is, thus, an umbrella theory of radical leftist theories containing an ideology of organising new society, and it is also a progressive methodology. It has influenced other critical thoughts such as world system, dependencia theory, World Social Forum, African socialism, Marxism-Leninism, Maoism, critical theory, race theory, queer theory, feminist theory, especially in the West, and so on. However, the core propositions of Marxism or Neo-Marxism deal with the contradictions of the capitalist system and capitalist conditions and how to change society. From the point of view Marxism, social conflict is inevitable within the evolution and the ethos of capitalism. And the location of the conflict is in the structure of the capitalist economy and its power base. It is in the ownership of means of production and social relations of production that one locates the origin of the social conflict. The process of labour control toward being the main objective of surplus accumulation leads to the alienation and social displacement. Marxism holds that the appropriation of labour and control over the means of production such as technologies, machinery and time by capitalists create dehumanization. The totality of these relations of production constitutes the economic structure of society, the real foundation on which arises a legal and political superstructure and to which correspond definite forms of social consciousness. The mode of production of material life conditions the general process of social, political and intellectual life. It is not the consciousness of men (sic) that determines their existence, but their social existence determines their consciousness. As compared to other theories, all social relations in Marxism are defined as economic relations. And a human being is defined essentially and mainly as an economic animal. Economic conditions determine the quality and the life of ideology, philosophy, culture, and psychology or all what is known as the superstructures. Thus, in Marxism, conflict is:
practise the same trades and wear the same types of clothes as men. Equality is defined as the recognition of the value of the contributions of men and women. Obviously, if one group or class establishes the system of values and imposes it on the other, then there cannot be merely difference but also inequality in favour of the group with the decision-making power resides (Assie-Lumumba 1997:298). There are different categories of gender relations such as relations between men and women and those between boys and girls; relations between women and women, and relations between girls and girls, and relations between men and men and boys and boys. These types of relations are determined by the systems of socialisation and institutionalisation in a given society. Other types of gender relations, include the relations of categories of women to social phenomena (whether to state, division of labour, education systems, economic relations, political systems or other) and the different relations of groups of men to those of same phenomena. Like other forms of relations, gender relations are structured by ideologies and beliefs, practices, property and resources access and ownership, legal codes and so on (Iman 1987:5). It is easy to identify gender inequality in some societal or political traditions and values that have become routine for a long period of time. All these relations are socially constructed and, thus, not absolutely fixed in time and space. The critique of the feminists have been that ontologically and practically, the issues related to gender analysis are either missing or are weak toward the understanding of the implications and consequences of gender inequality. The situation cannot be changed without a critical analysis of the nature of this inequality and the various types of conflict it creates. There is no better place than that of the Great Lakes region to include the gender analysis and feminist theories to study various dimensions of violence against women and girls during the existing conflict in the region. Another theory that was developed during the Cold War and which has been expanding rapidly since then, especially in sociology and international relations and which has also come to define conflict in social and values terms, is constructivism. One of the most important manifesting characteristics of the world system at the end of the twentieth century is the movement of states and people’s struggles to redefine themselves through either old values or new values depending on the nature of the ethos of change that is being pursued. Heavily influenced by the pragmatism of technology and the failures of other theories to develop new languages and models of analysis, constructivist theory deals with the claim that with the possibilities and options that the world has, there is a need to reconstruct new value systems away from the dangerous past. Adler (1997, 2002) and Fearon and Wendt (2002) also take the social world of agreed collective social values more seriously in a non-material world.
Social constructivism is a sociological concept that describes a reality as a social construction. As a theory, it analyses how social phenomena develop and how an individual makes meaning of knowledge received within a social context. Reality exists only when people agree to create it. Thus, reality is a socially constructed phenomenon. As Peter L. Berger and Thomas Luckmann argued in The Social Construction of Reality , all knowledge, including the most basic, taken-for-granted common sense knowledge of everyday reality, is derived from and maintained by social interactions. They also claim that when people interact, they do so with the understanding that their respective perceptions of reality are related, and as they act upon this understanding, their common knowledge of reality becomes reinforced. Since this common sense knowledge is negotiated by people, human typifications, significations and institutions come to be presented as part of an objective reality, particularly for future generations who were not involved in the original process of negotiation. There is a general agreement (Adler 1997, 2002; Checkel 1998; Fearon and Wendt 2002; Wendt 1999) that the questioning and building of theoretical elements of constructivism are formed around the following templates:
This is a relatively new theory in the social science disciplines. Within the dominant social paradigm (DSP), it translates to belief in science and technology,
do the green theories explain? What is the foundation of their analysis, arguments and their policy? Finally, what social and political implications do they portend? These questions embody some of the issues that will engage our attention next. In Europe and the United States, the new movements and emerging green parties articulated their positions based on new green politics, which include ecological responsibility, social justice, non-violence and grassroots democracy. These pillars have provided common platforms for all new green party formations around the world, including Africa, South America and Asia. Green political theory is both normative and empirical. It challenges both liberalism and socialism for not advancing the causes of the environment; and its normative dimensions put an emphasis on the questions of social justice, rights, democracy, citizenship, the state and the environment. This political theory has also been critical to the capitalist political economy, the enlightenment legacies; ecological, social and psychological effects and cost of modernisation process. They have also questioned the anthropocentric nature of the humans with their instrumental reason used for the manipulation and domination of nature. Green theories must explain in a systematic manner the sources of the conflict, which are:
How does one analyse post-colonialism? What tools, does it provide to analyse the world and how does it define conflict within the world of politics or the society at large? Post-colonialism is a set of theories or an umbrella theory that seeks to explain the conditions and the structures of external domination and its local or national impact mostly on anthropology, education, literature, religion, history, politics, economics, gender studies, sociology, and human rights studies. As a generalised theory, it is among the most popular theories used in defining both the nature of
social conflict and its progress in historical terms. It is a complex theory that is intended to explain all the conditions, and societal and state structures related to a given situation after the colonial experience. It is a more comprehensive theory as it includes all the dimensions of human experiences and all the disciplines about learning process at a given time after the official period of colonisation. But it is often considered too general, too vague and with too many historically determined values. However, common intellectual and historical claims and their specificities are part of our inquiry. It is a phenomenon that is found in all the former colonies. This umbrella theory in general deals with central questions of protests, decolonisation or self- determination and political reconstruction or rebuilding. These main items are the core expressions, which are intended to advance the building of a new state, new cultural identities, redefinition of new citizenry and new political territoriality and new international relations and in short new world politics. Most of the revolutionary theories and political reforms in the former colonies have derived partly from post-colonialism. They bother on nationalism, self- determination, the struggle for independence, the means used to advance the struggle for independence and the outcome of such struggle. It also explains the agencies and the agents of such independence. This is so because they are historically, ideologically and politically founded broad theories. Decolonisation, which is the core element of post-colonialism, requires profound transformation of the former colonial conditions. Before various of the decolonisation processes can take place, the mindset of the former colonial elites must change as decolonisation is first of the mental magnitude, according to Fanon. In addition to the decolonisation of the mind, physical decolonisation of the space means to remake history according to the ambitions associated with independence. Most theoreticians and advocates of post-colonialism agree about its meanings in the indigenous languages, including the implied nationalism and patriotism. It is a totalising theory built into the history of a critique of imperialism and its means of domination and its structures of oppression. It is an eclectic theory and yet it is the most clearly articulated theory in historical terms. According to the theory, conflict emerges first on the identification of the characteristics of post-colonialism. The relationship between oppression and freedom is permanently conflicting. For instance, in Africa and many other former colonial regions, although the European colonial powers have physically left the colonized areas in most cases, but the basic structures of the states and the limits of the territoriality they created are still part of the independent states and other institutions they left behind. This situation creates not only institutional conflict but also latent instability within the existing dynamics of political institutions. Post-colonialism also interrogates the relationship between former colonised countries and the current forms of globalisation. It examines the origins of
methodology or survey sampling, we use them to also measure the quality of the analysis or to measure correlations among variables. Theories of conflict do not operate differently from the assumptions and theoretical imperatives discussed in this conclusion.
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