Conflict in Sub Saharan Africa: Is Ethnicity to Blame?

Abstract

Is the underlying cause for conflict in Sub Saharan Africa due to ethnicity? This is the prevailing argument among scholars like Goran Hyden and Donald Horowitz. These scholars believe that conflict between ethnic groups are a result of their experiences with other groups and that said experiences provide a sense of self worth. It is the appraisal of this self worth that dictates whether each group feels superior or inferior to other groups. Further more these scholars feel that modernization, political conflict, and pursuit economic advantage are not viable causes for ethnic conflict. Other authors like Paul Collier, Mahmood Mamdani and Crawford Young would disagree with Hyden and Horowitz. For each of these authors the underlying cause for conflict in Sub Saharan Africa is not ethnicity at all but lack of resources, socioeconomic gain, and political power. This paper will address this inconsistency in the literature and specifically analyze the primary cause of conflict in Sub Saharan African nations today by analyzing the hypothesis that the cause of conflict is a combination of a lack of resources, socioeconomic gain, and political power. Through a qualitative comparative case study approach, I will examine the Rwandan genocide of 1994 and Sudan’s ethnic conflict and genocide in its Darfur region, to access and measure the degree of influence ethnicity had in triggering violence. It is the goal of this paper to contribute to the literature on African stability and nation building.