Anti-Indian protester and Indian security forces in Kashmir, 2010.
International
Confl ict
CHAPTER 5
Listen
to Chapter 5
at M
y
PoliSciLab
Watch the Video
‘’Authors’ Chapter Introduction’’
at MyPoliSciLab
Prepara tus exámenes
Prepara tus exámenes y mejora tus resultados gracias a la gran cantidad de recursos disponibles en Docsity
Consigue puntos base para descargar
Gana puntos ayudando a otros estudiantes o consíguelos activando un Plan Premium
Orientación Universidad
Prepara tus exámenes
Prepara tus exámenes y mejora tus resultados gracias a la gran cantidad de recursos disponibles en Docsity
Busca documentos
Prepara tus exámenes con los documentos que comparten otros estudiantes como tú en Docsity
Busca documentos en el Store
Los mejores documentos en venta realizados por estudiantes que han terminado sus estudios
Video Cursos
Estudia con lecciones y exámenes resueltos basados en los programas académicos de las mejores universidades
Quiz
Responde a preguntas de exámenes reales y pon a prueba tu preparación
Consigue puntos base para descargar
Gana puntos ayudando a otros estudiantes o consíguelos activando un Plan Premium
Comunidad
Pregúntale a la comunidad
Pide ayuda a la comunidad y resuelve tus dudas de estudio
Ranking de las universidades
Descubre las mejores universidades de tu país según los usuarios de Docsity
Ebooks gratuitos
¡Nuestros e-books salva-estudiantes!
Descarga nuestras guías gratuitas sobre técnicas de estudio, métodos para controlar la ansiedad y consejos para la tesis preparadas por los tutores de Docsity
Conflicto Internacional, Traducciones de Relaciones Internacionales
En este libro en ingles habla sobre las guerras en el mundo, los conflictos ideológicos y conflicto de intereses.
Tipo: Traducciones
2009/2010
1 / 40
Esta página no es visible en la vista previa
¡No te pierdas las partes importantes!
Documentos relacionados
Vista previa parcial del texto
¡Descarga Conflicto Internacional y más Traducciones en PDF de Relaciones Internacionales solo en Docsity!
Anti-Indian protester and Indian security forces in Kashmir, 2010.
International
Conflict
CHAPTER 5
Listen to Chapter 5 at MyPoliSciLab
Watch the Video ‘’Authors’ Chapter Introduction’’ at MyPoliSciLab
CHAPTER OUTLINE
The Wars of the World
Chapter 3 (in the section “The Waning of War”) discussed the decreasing number and size of wars in the world. This chapter will focus on the remaining wars and historical cases to explain the causes of international conflicts. Figure 5.1 shows the 14 wars in progress in January 2013. The largest are in Syria and Afghanistan. All 14 wars are in the global South. All but Colombia are in a zone of active fi ghting (outlined on the map) spanning parts of Africa, the Middle East, and South Asia. In fi ve smaller zones (dotted lines on the map), dozens of wars of recent decades have ended. Some of the countries in these zones still face diffi cult postwar years with the possibility of sliding back into violence, as Yemen did in 2009 after a 1999 cease- fi re. But most peace agreements in the world’s postwar zones are holding up.^1
Types of War
Many different activities are covered by the general term war. Consequently, it is not easy to say how many wars are going on in the world at the moment. But most lists of wars set some minimum criteria—for instance, a minimum of a thousand battle deaths—to distinguish war from lower-level violence such as violent strikes or riots. Wars are very diverse. Wars arise from different situations and play different roles in bargaining over confl icts. Starting from the largest wars, we may distinguish the fol- lowing main categories. Hegemonic war is a war over control of the entire world order —the rules of the international system as a whole, including the role of world hegemony (see “Hege- mony,” pp. 57 – 60 ). This class of wars (with variations in definition and conception) is also known as world war, global war, general war, or systemic war.^2 The last hegemonic war was World War II. Largely because of the power of modern weaponry, this kind of war probably cannot occur any longer without destroying civilization. Total war is warfare by one state waged to conquer and occupy another. The goal is to reach the capital city and force the surrender of the government, which can then be replaced with one of the victor’s choosing (see p. 185 ). Total war began with the massively destructive Napoleonic Wars, which introduced large-scale conscription and geared the entire French national economy toward the war effort. The practice of total war evolved with industrialization, which further integrated all of society and economy into the practice of war. The last total war between great powers was World War II. In total war, with the entire society mobilized for the struggle, the entire society of the enemy is considered a legitimate target. For instance, in World War II Germany attacked British civilians with V-2 rockets, while British and U.S. strategic bombing killed 600,000 German civilians and hundreds of thousands of Japanese. Limited war includes military actions carried out to gain some objective short of the surrender and occupation of the enemy. For instance, the U.S.-led war against Iraq in 1991 retook the territory of Kuwait but did not go on to Baghdad to topple Saddam Hussein’s government. Many border wars have this character: after occupying the land
The Wars of the World ■ Types of War ■ Theories of the Causes of War Confl icts of Ideas ■ Nationalism ■ Ethnic Confl ict ■ Genocide ■ Religious Confl ict ■ Ideological Confl ict Confl icts of Interest ■ Territorial Disputes ■ Control of Governments ■ Economic Confl ict
Study and Review the Pre-Test & Flashcards at MyPoliSciLab
(^1) Fortna, Virginia Page. Peace Time: Cease-Fire Agreements and the Durability of Peace. Princeton, 2004. (^2) Levy, Jack S. Theories of General War. World Politics 37 (3), 1985: 344–74. Thompson, William R. On Global War: Historical-Structural Approaches to World Politics. South Carolina, 1988.
The Wars of the World 155
it wants, a state may stop short and defend its gains, as Russia did after expelling Georgian troops from disputed Georgian provinces in 2008, for example. Raids are limited wars that consist of a single action—a bombing run or a quick incur- sion by land. In 2007, Israeli warplanes bombed a facility in Syria that Israel believed to be a nuclear research facility in order to stop Syria from making progress on nuclear weapons. Raids fall into the gray area between wars and nonwars because their destruction is limited and they are over quickly. Raiding that is repeated or fuels a cycle of retaliation usually becomes a limited war or what is sometimes called low-intensity conflict. Civil war refers to war between factions within a state trying to create, or prevent, a new government for the entire state or some territorial part of it. 3 (The aim may be to change the entire system of government, to merely replace the people in it, or to split a region off as a new state.) The U.S. Civil War of the 1860s is a good example of a seces- sionist civil war, as is the war of Eritrea province in Ethiopia (now the internationally recognized state of Eritrea) in the 1980s. The war in El Salvador in the 1980s is an exam- ple of a civil war for control of the entire state (not secessionist). Civil wars often seem to be among the most brutal wars. People fighting their fellow citizens act no less cruelly than those fi ghting people from another state. The 50,000 or more deaths in the civil war in El Salvador, including many from massacres and death squads, were not based on eth- nic differences. Of course, many of today’s civil wars emerge from ethnic or clan confl icts as well. In Chad, for example, a rebel group composed of rival clans to the president’s nearly overthrew the government in 2007. Sustaining a civil war usually requires a source of support for rebels, from neighboring states, diaspora ethnic communities, or revenue from natural resources or illegal drugs. Guerrilla war , which includes certain kinds of civil wars, is warfare without front lines. Irregular forces operate in the midst of, and often hidden or protected by, civilian populations. The purpose is not to directly confront an enemy army but rather to harass and punish it so as to gradually limit its operation and effectively liberate territory from its control. Rebels in most civil wars use such methods. U.S. military forces in South Viet- nam fought against Vietcong guerrillas in the 1960s and 1970s, with rising frustration. Efforts to combat a guerrilla army—counterinsurgency—are discussed in Chapter 6. In guerrilla war, without a fi xed front line, there is much territory that neither side controls; both sides thus exert military leverage over the same places at the same time. Often the government controls a town by day and the guerrillas by night. Thus, guerrilla wars are extremely painful for civilians, who suffer most when no military force fi rmly controls a location, opening the door to banditry, personal vendettas, sexual violence, and other such lawless behavior. 4 The situation is doubly painful because conventional armies fi ght- ing against guerrillas often cannot distinguish them from civilians and punish both together. In one famous case in South Vietnam, a U.S. offi cer who had ordered an entire village burned to deny its use as a sanctuary by the Vietcong commented, “We had to destroy the village to save it.” Warfare increasingly is irregular and guerrilla-style; it is less and less often an open, conventional clash of large state armies, although the latter still occurs occasionally. In all types of war, the abstractions and theories of IR scholars hardly capture the hor- rors experienced by those on the scene, both soldiers and civilians. War suspends basic norms of behavior and, especially over time, traumatizes participants and bystanders.
Watch the Video “The South Ossetia Crisis” at MyPoliSciLab
Explore the Simulation “Conflict: You Are a Strategic Analyst” at MyPoliSciLab
(^3) Collier, Paul, and Nicholas Sambanis, eds. Understanding Civil War: Evidence and Analysis. Vol. 1: Africa. Vol.
2: Europe, Central Asia, and Other Regions. World Bank, 2005. Walter, Barbara F., and Jack Snyder, eds. Civil Wars, Insecurity, and Intervention. Columbia, 1999. (^4) Kalyvas, Stathis N. The Logic of Violence in Civil War. Cambridge, 2006.
156 Chapter 5 International Confl ict
Soldiers see their best friends blown apart before their eyes, and they must kill and maim their fellow human beings; some experience lifelong psychological traumatic stress as a result. Civilians experience terror, violence, and rape; they lose loved ones and homes; they too often live with trauma after- ward. The violence of war does not resemble war movies, but instead creates a nearly psychotic experience of overwhelm- ing confusion, noise, terror, and adrenaline. Soldiers in pro- fessional armies train to keep functioning in these conditions—but still have an incredibly difficult job— whereas those in irregular forces and civilian populations caught in civil wars have little hope of coping. The horrors of all wars are magnified in cases of genocide and massacre, of child soldiers, and of brutal warfare that continues over years. Scholars and policy makers are paying more attention in recent years to the difficult transitions from war to peace around the world—postwar reconciliation, conflict resolu- tion, transitional governments representing opposing fac- tions, economic reconstruction, and so forth. These efforts often address collective goods problems among the parties, as when Somali clan elders in 2007 agreed that all would be bet- ter off by giving up their guns to the new central government but none wanted to go fi rst. 5 After the shooting stops, inter- national peacekeepers and NGOs focus on Security Sector Reform (SSR) to create professional military and police forces instead of warlord militias. The process of Disarma- ment, Demobilization, and Reintegration (DDR) deals with the common problem of what to do with irregular forces after civil wars end.^6 In several countries where long internal wars in the 1990s had led to dehumanization and atrocities—notably in South Africa—new governments used truth commissions to help the society heal and move forward. The commission’s role was to hear honest testimony from the period, to bring to light what really happened during these wars, and in exchange to offer most of the participants asylum from punishment. Sometimes international NGOs helped facilitate the process. However, human rights groups objected to a settlement in Sierra Leone in 1999 that brought into the government a faction that had routinely cut off civilians’ fingers as a terror tactic. (Hostilities did end, however, in 2001.) In 2006, Colombian right-wing militia leaders called from jail for the creation of a Truth Commission before which they could confess their role in a long civil war (and receive amnesty). Thus, after brutal ethnic conflicts give way to complex political settlements, most governments try to balance the need for justice and truth with the need to keep all groups on board. Experts have debated how much truth and reconciliation are necessary after long confl icts. Some now argue that in some circumstances, tribunals and government-spon- sored panels to investigate past crimes could lead to political instability in transitional states. Other experts disagree, noting that the work of such panels can be essential to building trust that is important for democracy.^7
GIVING UP THE GUNS
Once armed groups stop shooting, a long process of postwar transition ensues. Disarming and demobilizing militias is the most critical aspect of this transition, but also the most difficult because it leaves disarmed groups vulnerable. Here, a major armed group turns in weapons under an amnesty in the Niger Delta region of Nigeria, 2009.
(^5) Gettleman, Jeffrey. Islamists Out, Somalia Tries to Rise from Chaos. The New York Times, January 8, 2007: A5. (^6) Schnabel, Albert, and Hans-Georg Ehrhart, eds. Security Sector Reform and Post-Confl ict Peacebuilding. UN University, 2006. (^7) Payne, Leigh. Unsettling Accounts: Neither Truth Nor Reconciliation in Confessions of State Violence. Duke. 2008. Subotic, Jelena. Hijacked Justice: Dealing with the Past in the Balkans. Cornell. 2009.
158 Chapter 5 International Confl ict
force to try to settle conflicts on favorable terms. But a maker of war can become a maker of peace, as did Egypt’s Anwar Sadat, for example. Individuals of many cultural back- grounds and religions lead their states into war, as do both male and female leaders.
The Domestic Level The domestic level of analysis draws attention to the characteristics of states or societies that may make them more or less prone to use violence in resolving con- flicts. During the Cold War, Marxists frequently said that the aggressive and greedy capitalist states were prone to use violence in international conflicts, whereas Western leaders claimed that the expansionist, ideological, and totalitarian nature of communist states made them especially prone to using violence. In truth, both types of society fought wars regularly. Likewise, rich industrialized states and poor agrarian ones both use war at times. In fact, anthropologists have found that a wide range of preagricultural hunter-gatherer socie- ties were much more prone to warfare than today’s societies. 13 Thus the potential for warfare seems to be uni- versal across cultures, types of soci- ety, and time periods—although the importance and frequency of war vary greatly from case to case. Some argue that domestic politi- cal factors shape a state’s outlook on war and peace. For example, the democratic peace suggests that democracies almost never fi ght other democracies (see Chapter 3) , although both democracies and authoritarian states fight wars. Oth- ers claim that domestic political par- ties, interest groups, and legislatures play an important role in whether international confl icts become inter- national wars.^14 Few useful generalizations can tell us which societies are more prone or less prone to war. The same soci- ety may change greatly over time. For example, Japan was prone to using violence in international conflicts before World War II, but averse to such violence since then. The !Kung bush people in Angola and
WHY WAR?
Political scientists do not agree on a theory of why great wars like World War II occur and cannot predict whether they could happen again. The city of Stalingrad (Volgograd) was decimated during Germany’s invasion of the Soviet Union, 1943.
(^13) Keeley, Lawrence H. War before Civilization: The Myth of the Peaceful Savage. Oxford, 1996. O’Connell, Robert L. Ride of the Second Horseman: The Birth and Death of War. Oxford, 1995. Ehrenreich, Barbara. Blood Rites: Origins and History of the Passions of War. Metropolitan/Henry Holt, 1997. Ember, Carol R., and Melvin Ember. Resource Unpredictability, Mistrust, and War: A Cross-Cultural Study. Journal of Confl ict Resolution 36 (2), 1992: 242–62. (^14) Shultz, Kenneth. Domestic Opposition and Signaling in International Crises. American Political Science Review 92 (4), 1998: 829–44. Fearon, James. Domestic Political Audiences and the Escalation of International Disputes. American Political Science Review 88 (3), 1994: 577–92.
The Wars of the World 159
Namibia—a hunter-gatherer society—were observed by anthropologists in the 1960s to be extremely peaceful. Yet anthropologists in the 1920s had observed them engaging in murderous intergroup violence. 15 If there are general principles to explain why some soci- eties at some times are more peaceful than others and why they change, political scientists have not yet identified them.
The Interstate Level Theories at the interstate level explain wars in terms of power rela- tions among major actors in the international system. Some of these theories are discussed in Chapter 2. For example, power transition theory holds that conflicts generate large wars at times when power is relatively equally distributed and a rising power is threatening to overtake a declining hegemon in overall position. At this level, too, competing theo- ries exist that seem incompatible. Deterrence, as we have seen, is supposed to stop wars by building up power and threatening its use. But the theory of arms races holds that wars are caused, not prevented, by such actions. No general formula has been discovered to tell us in what circumstances each of these principles holds true. Some political scientists study war from a statistical perspective, analyzing data on types of wars and the circumstances under which they occurred. 16 Current research focuses on the effects of democracy, government structure, trade, international organiza- tions, and related factors in explaining the escalation or settlement of “militarized inter- state disputes.” 17
The Global Level At the global level of analysis, a number of theories of war have been proposed. Of the several variations on the idea that major warfare in the international system is cyclical, one approach links large wars with long economic waves (also called Kondratieff cycles ) in the world economy, of about 50 years’ duration. Another approach links the largest wars with a 100-year cycle based on the creation and decay of world orders (see “Hegemony” on pp. 57–60). These cycle theories at best can explain only general ten- dencies toward war in the international system over time.^18 An opposite approach in some ways is the theory of linear long-term change—that war as an outcome of conflict is becoming less likely over time due to the worldwide development of both technology and international norms. Some IR scholars argue that war and military force are becoming obsolete as leverage in international conflicts because these means of influence are not very effective in today’s highly complex, interdependent world. A parallel line of argument holds that today’s military technology is too powerful to use in most confl icts; this is especially applicable to nuclear weapons. Advocates of these theories make historical analogies to the decline of the practices of slavery, dueling, and cannibalism—once considered normal but now obsolete. 19 These approaches have a strong empirical basis (see “The Waning of War” in Chapter 3), but no consensus has emerged regarding the best explanation for this trend.
(^15) Eibl-Eibesfeldt, Irenaus. The Biology of Peace and War: Men, Animals, and Aggression. Viking, 1979. (^16) Wright, Quincy. A Study of War. Chicago, 1965 [1942]. Richardson, Lewis F. Arms and Insecurity. Boxwood,
- Geller, Daniel S., and J. David Singer. Nations at War: A Scientific Study of International Confl ict. Cambridge, 1998. Midlarsky, Manus I., ed. Handbook of War Studies II. Michigan, 2000. Diehl, Paul F., ed. The Scourge of War: New Extensions of an Old Problem. Michigan, 2004. (^17) Singer, J. David, and Paul F. Diehl, eds. Measuring the Correlates of War. Michigan, 1990. Ghosn, Faten,
Glenn Palmer, and Stuart Bremer. The Militarized Interstate Dispute 3 Data Set, 1993–2001: Procedures, Coding Rules, and Description. Confl ict Management and Peace Science 21 (2), 2004: 133–54. (^18) Goldstein, Joshua S. Long Cycles: Prosperity and War in the Modern Age. Yale, 1988. Modelski, George. Long
Cycles in World Politics. Washington, 1987. (^19) Mueller, John. Retreat from Doomsday: The Obsolescence of Major War. Basic Books, 1989.
Confl icts of Ideas 161
ultimately contributed to the disintegration of large multinational states such as Austria- Hungary (in World War I), the Soviet Union, and Yugoslavia. The principle of self-determination implies that people who identify as a nation should have the right to form a state and exercise sovereignty over their affairs. Self- determination is a widely praised principle in international affairs today (although not historically). But it is generally secondary to the principles of sovereignty (noninterfer- ence in other states’ internal affairs) and territorial integrity, with which it frequently conflicts. Self-determination does not give groups the right to change international bor- ders, even those imposed arbitrarily by colonialism, in order to unify a group with a com- mon national identity. Generally, though not always, self-determination has been achieved by violence. When the borders of (perceived) nations do not match those of states, conflicts almost inevitably arise. Today such conflicts are widespread—in North- ern Ireland, Quebec, Israel-Palestine, India-Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Tibet, Sudan, and many other places. 21 The Netherlands helped establish the principle of self-determination when it broke free of Spanish ownership around 1600 and set up a self-governing Dutch republic. The struggle over control of the Netherlands was a leading cause of the Thirty Years’ War (1618–1648), and in that war states mobilized their populations for war in new ways. For instance, Sweden drafted one man out of ten for long-term military service, while the Netherlands used the wealth derived from global trade to finance a standing profes- sional army. This process of popular mobilization intensifi ed greatly in the French Revolution and the subsequent Napoleonic Wars, when France instituted a universal draft and a centrally run “command” economy. Its motivated citizen armies, composed for the first time of Frenchmen rather than mercenaries, marched longer and faster. People participated in part because they were patriotic. Their nation-state embodied their aspirations and brought them together in a common national identity. The United States meanwhile had followed the example of the Netherlands by declaring independence from Britain in 1776. Latin American states gained independ- ence early in the 19th century, and Germany and Italy unifi ed their nations out of multi- ple political units (through war) later in that century. Before World War I, socialist workers from different European countries had banded together as workers to fight for workers’ rights. In that war, however, most abandoned such solidarity and instead fought for their own nation; nationalism thus proved a stronger force than socialism. Before World War II, nationalism helped Germany, Italy, and Japan build political orders based on fascism —an extreme authoritarianism girded by national chauvinism. And in World War II, it was nationalism and patriotism (not com- munism) that rallied the Soviet people in order to sacrifice by the millions to turn back Germany’s invasion. In the past 50 years, nations by the dozens have gained independence and statehood. Jews worked persistently in the fi rst half of the 20th century to create the state of Israel, and Palestinians aspired in the second half to create a Palestinian state. While multina- tional states such as the Soviet Union and Yugoslavia have fragmented in recent years, ethnic and territorial units such as Ukraine, Slovenia, and East Timor have established themselves as independent nation-states. Others, such as Montenegro and Kurdistan, seek to do so and already run their own affairs. The continuing influence of nationalism in today’s world is evident. It affects several of the main types of confl ict that occupy the rest of this chapter.
(^21) Horowitz, Donald L. Ethnic Groups in Conflict. 2nd ed. California, 2000.
162 Chapter 5 International Confl ict
Ethnic Confl ict
Ethnic conflict is quite possibly the most important source of conflict in the numerous wars now occurring throughout the world. 22 Ethnic groups are large groups of people who share ancestral, language, cultural, or religious ties and a common identity (individuals identify with the group). Although conflicts between ethnic groups often have material aspects— notably over territory and govern- ment control—ethnic conflict itself stems from a dislike or hatred that members of one ethnic group system- atically feel toward another ethnic group. Ethnic conflict is thus not based on tangible causes (what some- one does) but on intangible ones (who someone is). Ethnic groups often form the basis for nationalist sentiments. Not all ethnic groups identify as nations; for instance, within the United States various ethnic groups coexist (sometimes uneasily) with a common national identity as Americans. But in locations where millions of members of a single ethnic group live as the majority population in their ances- tors’ land, they usually think of themselves as a nation. In most such cases they aspire to have their own state with its formal international status and territorial boundaries.^23 Territorial control is closely tied to the aspirations of ethnic groups for statehood. Any state’s borders deviate to some extent (sometimes substantially) from the actual location of ethnic communities. Members of the ethnic group are left outside its state’s borders, and members of other ethnic groups are located within the state’s borders. The resulting situation can be dangerous, with part of an ethnic group controlling a state and another part living as a minority within another state controlled by a rival ethnic group. Fre- quently the minority group suffers discrimination in the other state, and the “home” state tries to rescue or avenge them. Other ethnic groups lack any home state. Kurds share a culture, and many of them aspire to create a state of Kurdistan. But Kurds reside in four states—Turkey, Iraq, Iran, and Syria—all of which strongly oppose giving up control of part of their own territory to create a Kurdish state (see Figure 5.2). In the 1990s, rival Kurdish guerrilla armies fought both
DRIVING OUT THE OUT-GROUP
Ethnic conflicts play a role in many international conflicts. Ethnocentrism based on an in-group bias can promote intolerance and ultimately dehumanization of an out-group, as in genocides in Darfur (Sudan), Rwanda, and Bosnia; South African apartheid; the persecution of Jews and other minorities in Nazi Germany; and slavery in the United States. In 2008, after decades of peace and tolerance, Kenya erupted in bloody ethnic violence after a disputed presidential election. Here, a mob from one ethnic group attacks and drives away all members of a rival ethnic group from a formerly mixed town.
(^22) Gurr, Ted Robert. Peoples versus States: Minorities at Risk in the New Century. U.S. Institute of Peace Press,
- Saideman, Stephen M. The Ties That Divide. Columbia, 2001. Horowitz, Donald L. Ethnic Groups in Confl ict. California, 1985. Williams, Robin M. The Wars Within: Peoples and States in Conflict. Cornell, 2003. (^23) Cederman, Lars-Erik. Emergent Actors in World Politics: How States and Nations Develop and Dissolve. Princeton, 1997. Shelef, Nadav. Evolving Nationalism: Homeland, Identity, and Religion in Israel, 1925–2005. Cornell, 2010.
164 Chapter 5 International Confl ict
become driven not by tangible grievances (though these may well persist as irritants) but by the kinds of processes described by social psychology that are set in motion when one group of people has a prolonged conflict with another and experiences violence at the hands of the other group.^25 The ethnic group is a kind of extended kinship group—a group of related individuals sharing some ancestors. Even when kinship relations are not very close, a group identity makes a person act as though the other members of the ethnic group were family. For instance, African American men who call each other “brother” express group identity as kinship. Likewise, Jews around the world treat each other as family even though each community has intermarried over time and shares more ancestors with local non-Jews than with distant Jews. Perhaps as technology allows far-fl ung groups to congre- gate in cyberspace, there will be less psychological pressure to collect ethnic groups physi- cally in a territorial nation-state. Ethnocentrism , or in-group bias, is the tendency to see one’s own group in favorable terms and an out-group in unfavorable terms. Some scholars believe that ethnocentrism has roots in a biological propensity to protect closely related individuals, though this idea is controversial.^26 More often, in-group bias is understood in terms of social psychology. In either case, the ties that bind ethnic groups together, and divide them from other groups, are based on the identity principle (see pp. 6–7). Just as the reciprocity principle has its negative side (see pp. 5–6), so does the identity principle. The same forces that allow sacrifice for a group identity, as in the European Union, also allow the formation of in-group bias. No minimum criterion of similarity or kin relationship is needed to evoke the group identity process, including in-group bias. In psychological experiments, even trivial dif- ferentiations can evoke these processes. If people are assigned to groups based on a known but unimportant characteristic (such as preferring, say, circles to triangles), before long the people in each group show in-group bias and fi nd they don’t much care for the other group’s members.^27 In-group biases are far stronger when the other group looks different, speaks a differ- ent language, or worships in a different way (or all three). All too easily, an out-group can be dehumanized and stripped of all human rights. This dehumanization includes the com- mon use of animal names— pigs, dogs, and so forth—for members of the out-group. U.S. propaganda in World War II depicted Japanese people as apes. Especially in wartime, dehumanization can be extreme. The restraints on war that have evolved in regular inter- state warfare, such as not massacring civilians (see “War Crimes” on pp. 270–274), are easily discarded in interethnic warfare. Experience in Western Europe shows that over time, education can overcome ethnic animosities between traditionally hostile nations, such as France and Germany. After World War II, these states’ governments rewrote the textbooks that a new generation would use to learn its people’s histories. Previously, each state’s textbooks had glorified its own past deeds, played down its misdeeds, and portrayed its traditional enemies in unflat- tering terms. In a continent-wide project, new textbooks that gave a more objective and fair rendition were created. By contrast, present-day Japanese textbooks that gloss over Japan’s crimes in World War II continue to infl ame relations with both China and Korea. The existence of a threat from an out-group promotes the cohesion of an in-group, thereby creating a somewhat self-reinforcing process of ethnic division. However, ethno- centrism also often causes members of a group to view themselves as disunited (because
(^25) Glad, Betty, ed. Psychological Dimensions of War. Sage, 1990. (^26) Shaw, Paul, and Yuwa Wong. Genetic Seeds of Warfare: Evolution, Nationalism, and Patriotism. Unwin Hyman, 1989. (^27) Tajfel, H., and J. C. Turner. The Social Identity Theory of Intergroup Behavior. In Worchel, S., and W. Austin, eds. Psychology of Intergroup Relations. 2nd ed. Nelson-Hall, 1986, pp. 7–24.
P O L I C Y P E R S P E C T I V E S
President of Liberia, Ellen
Johnson-Sirleaf
PROBLEM How do you prevent civil war
while retaining control of your government?
BACKGROUND Imagine you are the president of
Liberia. Your election in the spring of 2006 as the first woman president in Africa was hailed as a breakthrough for Liberia. The election ended decades of political violence that dev- astated your own country as well as your neighbors Ivory Coast and Sierra Leone. Most recently, the violence ended when former Liberian president Charles Taylor went into exile in Nigeria. Tens of thousands of people lost their lives or were subject to human rights abuses, including torture and mutilation, in the wars begun under Taylor’s rule. Recently, however, there is optimism within your coun- try and from the international community. Rebel groups have remained quiet, and Charles Taylor was arrested in 2006 and faces trial in a war crimes tribunal established by the UN for the brutal war in Sierra Leone. Economic aid has begun to stream into your country to assist in development. Your country is resource rich and has the potential to become a middle-income country owing to its vast natural agricultural and mineral resources. And you won the 2011 Nobel Peace Prize for helping end the war.
DOMESTIC CONSIDERATIONS Tremendous
challenges, however, lie ahead. Economically, your coun- try is underdeveloped, with years of civil war leading to increases in corruption and economic stagnation. Many of the powerful economic actors in your country benefit from the corruption and graft, which you have pledged to end. Unemployment is very high, with hundreds of thousands of young men unemployed. Until recently, roving bands of fi ghters controlled pockets of territory. Armed police have occasionally returned to the streets to restore order, and in late 2008, a mass breakout from the country’s only maxi- mum security prison allowed over 100 criminals to escape.
SCENARIO Now imagine that a group that was
involved in the civil war begins to reopen the war. The group has taken refuge in Sierra Leone and now begins to
make cross-border raids against your country. You also suspect they are sending weapons and funds to rebels within Liberia. Although Sierra Leone does not support the group, its government is experiencing its own political instability and has limited resources to devote to the issue. One option is to negotiate directly with the group. Nego- tiations could lead to peace, but might require power shar- ing in your government that could derail your attempts to lessen corruption. Another option is to use military force against the rebels. But international donors would discourage you from endangering the fragile peace in Liberia, with the implicit threat of an aid cutoff if you are perceived to be too hard- line. Thus, a military offensive against the rebels would have fi nancial risks. In addition, the reemergence of a civil war would make your proposed democratic and economic reforms more diffi cult to implement. Your military is not well trained and you are very uncertain about the possibility of success against the rebels. A strong military response to the rebels, however, could discourage future aggression and establish that you are a tough leader who is serious about enforcing the peace.
CHOOSE YOUR POLICY How do you handle this
new threat from the rebels? Do you adopt a hardline policy against them in hopes of defeating them? Or do you attempt reconciliation in hopes of minimizing the prospect of further bloodshed, albeit at the price of bringing your enemies into the government and thus undermining some of your goals?
Explore the Simulation “You are a Leading Shi’a Cleric in Iraq” at MyPoliSciLab
Confl icts of Ideas 167
be justifiable. However, explaining genocide as a result of backwardness does not work well, because one of the world’s most civilized, “advanced” states, Germany, exterminated its Jews even more effi ciently than Rwanda did its Tutsis—the difference being that the “advanced” society could kill with industrial chemicals instead of at knifepoint. Social psychology theories treat the Rwandan genocide as pathological—a deviation from both rationality and social norms. In-group biases based on fairly arbitrary group characteristics become amplified by a perceived threat from an out-group, and exagger- ated by history, myth, and propaganda (including schooling). Such feelings can be whipped up by politicians pursuing their own power. A key threshold is crossed when the out-group is dehumanized; norms of social interaction, such as not slitting children’s throats, can then be disregarded. As the genocide in Rwanda unfolded, the international community stood by. A weak UN force there had to withdraw, although its commander later estimated that with 5, more troops he could have changed the outcome. The weak international response to this atrocity reveals how frail international norms of human rights are compared to norms of non- interference in other states’ internal affairs—at least when no strategic interests are at stake. The Hutu ultranationalists quickly lost power when Tutsi rebels defeated the government militarily, but the war spread into Democratic Congo, where the ultranationalists took refuge and where sporadic fighting continues 18 years later.^29 Top U.S. officials, including President Clinton, later apologized for their inadequate response, but the damage was done. Worse yet, renewed vows of “never again” proved wanting once more in the next case, Darfur. In Sudan, the warring sides (largely northern Muslims versus southern Christians) in a decades-long civil war signed a peace agreement in 2003, ending a war that had killed more than a million people. The agreement called for withdrawing government forces from the south of the country, establishing a power-sharing transitional government and army, and holding a referendum in the rebel areas in six years. These processes led to the successful independence of South Sudan in 2011. But following this peace agreement, rebels in the western Darfur region began to protest their exclusion from the peace agree- ment. In response, the government helped Arab (Muslim) militias raid black African (also Muslim) Darfur villages, wantonly killing, raping, and burning. In late 2004, the government and some of the Darfur rebels reached a tentative peace agreement, and the African Union and United Nations sent in a joint peacekeeping mission in 2007. After years of Sudanese government delays and other frustrations, the force had 23,000 uni- formed personnel on the ground by 2011. The international community’s ineffective response to the mass murders in Darfur, like that in Rwanda in 1994, shows the limited reach of international norms in today’s state-based international system.^30 In cases of both genocide and less extreme scapegoating, ethnic hatreds do not merely bubble up naturally. Rather, politicians provoke and channel hatred to strengthen their own power. Often, in ethnically divided countries, political parties form along ethnic lines, and party leaders consolidate their positions in their own populations by exaggerat- ing the dangers from the other side. The Cold War, with its tight system of alliances and authoritarian communist gov- ernments, seems to have helped keep ethnic conflicts in check. In the Soviet Union and Yugoslavia—multinational states—the existence of a single strong state (willing to
(^29) Power, Samantha. The Problem from Hell: America and the Age of Genocide. Basic Books, 2002. Barnett,
Michael. Eyewitness to a Genocide: The United Nations and Rwanda. Cornell, 2003. Straus, Scott. The Order of Genocide: Race, Power, and War in Rwanda. Cornell, 2006. Des Forges, Alison. Leave None to Tell the Story: Genocide in Rwanda. Human Rights Watch, 1999. (^30) Hamburg, David A., M.D. Preventing Genocide: Practical Steps Toward Early Detection and Effective Action. Paradigm, 2008.
168 Chapter 5 International Confl ict
oppress local communities) kept the lid on ethnic tensions and enforced peace between neighboring communities. The breakup of these states allowed ethnic and regional con- fl icts to take center stage, sometimes bringing violence and war. These cases may indicate a dilemma in that freedom comes at the expense of order and vice versa. Of course, not all ethnic groups get along so poorly. After the fall of communism, most of the numerous ethnic rivalries in the former Soviet Union did not lead to warfare, and in Czechoslovakia and elsewhere, ethnic relations were relatively peaceful after the fall of communism.
Religious Confl ict
One reason ethnic confl icts often transcend material grievances is that they fi nd expres- sion as religious conflicts. Because religion is the core of a community’s value system in much of the world, people whose religious practices differ are easily disdained and treated as unworthy or even inhuman. When overlaid on ethnic and territorial conflicts, religion often surfaces as the central and most visible division between groups. For instance, most people in Azerbaijan are Muslims; most Armenians are Christians. This is a very common pattern in ethnic conflicts. Nothing inherent in religion mandates confl icts—in many places members of differ- ent religious groups coexist peacefully. But religious differences hold the potential to make existing confl icts more intractable, because religions involve core values, which are held as absolute truth.^31 This is increasingly true as fundamentalist movements have gained strength in recent decades. (The reasons for fundamentalism are disputed, but it is clearly a global-level phe- nomenon.) Members of these movements organize their lives and communities around their religious beliefs; many are willing to sacrifice, kill, and die for those beliefs. Funda- mentalist movements have become larger and more powerful in recent decades in Chris- tianity, Islam, Judaism, Hinduism, and other religions. In India, for example, Hindu fundamentalists have provoked violent clashes and massacres that have reverberated internationally. In 2002, a frenzy of burning, torturing, and raping by Hindu nationalist extremists killed nearly a thousand Muslims in India’s Gujarat state, where the Hindu nationalist party controls the state government. In Israel, Jewish fundamentalists have used violence, including the assassination of Israel’s own prime minister in 1995, to derail Palestinian-Israeli peace negotiations. Fundamentalist movements challenge the values and practices of secular political organizations—those created apart from religious establishments. The secular practices threatened by fundamentalist movements include the rules of the international system, which treat states as formally equal and sovereign whether they are “believers” or “infi- dels.” As transnational belief systems, religions often are taken as a higher law than state laws and international treaties. Iranian Islamist fundamentalists train and support militias in other states such as Iraq and Lebanon. Jewish fundamentalists build settlements in Israeli-occupied territories and vow to cling to the land even if their government evacu- ates it. Christian fundamentalists in the United States persuade their government to withdraw from the UN Population Fund because of that organization’s views on family planning and abortion. Each of these actions runs counter to the norms of the interna- tional system and to the assumptions of realism.^32 Some have suggested that international confl icts in the coming years may be gener- ated by a “clash of civilizations”—based on the differences among the world’s major
(^31) Appleby, R. Scott. The Ambivalence of the Sacred: Religion, Violence, and Reconciliation. Rowman & Littlefield, 2000. (^32) Juergensmeyer, Mark. The New Cold War? Religious Nationalism Confronts the Secular State. California, 1993.
170 Chapter 5 International Confl ict
In several countries, Islamists reject Western-oriented secular states in favor of governments more explicitly oriented to Islamic values. 36 These movements reflect long-standing anti-Western sentiment in these countries—against the old European colonizers who were Christian—and are in some ways nationalist movements expressed through religious channels. In some Middle Eastern countries with authoritarian gov- ernments, religious institutions (mosques) have been the only available avenue for political opposition. Religion has therefore become a means to express opposition to the status quo in politics and culture. These anti-Western feelings in Islamic countries came to a boil in 2006 after a Danish newspaper published offensive cartoons depicting
1^ Germany, France, Spain 2^ Bosnia-Herzegovina 3^ Serbia/Kosovo 4^ Turkey 5^ Cyprus 6 Georgia 7 Southern Russia/Chechnya
8^ Armenia/Azerbaijan 9^ Afghanistan 10 Tajikistan 11^ Western China 12^ Philippines 13 East Timor/Indonesia 14 India
15^ Pakistan 16^ Lebanon 17^ Israel/Palestine 18^ Egypt 19^ Algeria 20 Sudan 21 Nigeria
21 20
(^15 )
16
12 13 17
18
19
(^78) 10
1
(^2 )
4 5 6
9 11
FIGURE 5.3 Members of the Islamic Conference and Areas of Confl ict
Shaded countries are members of the conference; numbered regions are areas of conflict between Muslims and non-Muslims or secular authorities.
(^36) Binder, Leonard. Islamic Liberalism: A Critique of Development Ideologies. Chicago, 1988. Davidson, Lawrence. Islamic Fundamentalism: An Introduction. Greenwood Press, 2003.
Confl icts of Ideas 171
the prophet Muhammad. Across the world, Muslims protested, set fire to several Dan- ish embassies, rioted (with dozens of deaths resulting), and boycotted Danish goods. In 2012, an anti-Muslim YouTube video produced by an Egyptian in the United States led to further rioting and triggered an armed attack on a U.S. consulate in Libya, kill- ing the U.S. ambassador. Public opinion in both Muslim and non-Muslim countries shows some misconcep- tions and differences in opinion (see Figure 5.4). Support for Islamist radicals varies greatly among countries. A 2005 poll recalls “mirror image” perceptions (see p. 131). In five Western industrialized countries, about 40 to 80 percent thought Muslims were “fanati- cal,” and 60 to 80 percent thought they did not respect women. But in three of fi ve Mus- lim countries, more than 60 percent thought non-Muslims were “fanatical,” and in four of those fi ve countries, a majority thought non-Muslims did not respect women.
Muslims think non-Muslims are: Not respectful of women 53% 39% 52% 50% 52%
Jordan Turkey Egypt Indonesia Pakistan
Fanatical 68% 67% 61% 41% 24%
Non-Muslims think Muslims are: Not respectful of women 83% 80% 77% 59% 69%
Spain Germany France Great Britain U.S.
Fanatical 83% 78% 50% 48% 43%
How often is suicide bombing or violence against civilians justified in order to defend Islam?
Lebanon Indonesia Pakistan Turkey Jordan Egypt
Percent responding often or sometimes in 2010 39% 15% 8% 6% 20% 20%
FIGURE 5.4 Public Opinion in Muslim and Non-Muslim Countries
Source: Pew Global Attitudes Survey, 2005 and 2010.