The Conflict in Côte d'Ivoire (2002–2011)

Abstract

INTRODUCTION So far the empirical evidence adduced in favor of my theory of wartime violence has been drawn from a single case, namely, the Spanish Civil War. For the purposes of lending external validity to the results taken from the Spanish case, in this chapter and the following I will compare it to other cases, showing that they are broadly consistent. In this chapter, I present a study of the Ivorian Civil War(s) (2002–2007; 2010–2011), with a focus on the subnational dynamics of violence in this African conflict. My interest in Cote d'Ivoire stems from the fact that this civil war was fought along clear frontlines and characterized by uncontested control over large territories on the part of each of the armed groups. As with other cases of conventional civil wars, current theoretical approaches cannot fully explain violence against civilians in the Ivorian case. Thus, despite the fact that Cote d'Ivoire and Spain differ extremely in many respects, their civil wars exhibit commonalities that are relevant for the purposes of this book. The main “master cleavage” during the Ivorian Civil War concerned ethnic identities: the underlying cause of the war was the political disempowerment of those considered “non-Ivorians,” and recruitment into armed groups took place along ethnic lines. Thus, following standard classifications (e.g., Sambanis 2001), this case can be considered an ethnic civil war, which is not the case with the Spanish Civil War. As explained in Chapter 3, while ethnic issues did in fact surface during the Spanish conflict, and quite significantly during the postwar period – national minorities such as Catalans, Basques, or Galicians suffered particularly severe repression at the hands of Franco's regime – the Spanish Civil War was fought along a Left–Right cleavage. Chapter 7 reports other results in the conflict studies literature that are consistent with the theory in this book. I draw from existing works that have dealt with dynamics of violence during internal conflict, not necessarily civil war. I also refer to results from research I have conducted on low-intensity sectarian violence in Northern Ireland that are consistent with the theoretical framework in this book.