Ethnic Disputes Research Articles

The Effectiveness of the United Nations Peacekeeping Operations in Building the Capacity of Local Police Forces: Case of Kosovo

Kosovo has historically been the scene of ethnic-driven regional conflicts among the communities. After the disengagement of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (SFRY) in 1992, the conflicts that had begun with the independence declarations of the Republics of SFRY eventually evolved into ethnic disputes between Serbs and Albanians. As the United Nations (UN) failed to resolve the conflict by diplomatic means, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) initiated an air campaign to stop armed attacks by Serbian Military Forces on the Albanian civil communities. The UN Interim Administration Mission in Kosovo (UNMIK) was established in 1999 to restore peace and stability in Kosovo. One of the mandated tasks of the UNMIK was to establish the local police known as Kosovo Police Service (KPS) and to build its capacity. The objectives of this research are to determine whether the UNMIK was effective and successful in building the KPS’s capacity. A set of new success criteria is developed and applied to evaluate the success of UNMIK in this mandated task. Data for this study were collected using official reports of the UN and the crime statistics of the KPS. As a result of the analysis, it was determined that UNMIK was successful in establishing a local police force.

"The Stamp of Discord" or More about Food as a Cultural and Ethnic Code

One of the most exotic and little-known ritual foods of the Greek community in Sozopol for the so-called damgi (the stamp) - a special kind of fried cakes, which until almost the end of the twentieth century were prepared only here, only by the Greek urban community and only for weddings. Over the years, however, the scope of their preparation and supply has expanded. From ritual props, they become one of the culinary emblems of Sozopol and seduce tourists visiting the city during the active season. In order to preserve the unique recipe and local rituals related to the stamps, a special "Damga Festival" has been established in the Black Sea resort for several years, which aims to preserve and promote this part of the "delicious heritage" of Sozopol. But a well-conceived festival is at the center of old ethnic disputes.

ASEAN’s Contributions to Attain Peace on The Dynamic of Rohingya Ethic Issue

Humanitarian violence have become a key issue in conflicts that occur, domestically and internationally. This research focuses on how crimes against humanity have occurred in Myanmar, especially in Rakhine-Rohingnya. Furthermore, this study explains how ASEAN’s contribution in urging to resolving the Rohingya ethnic dispute in Myanmar. Moreover, the role of ASEAN in protecting refugees relate to the lost citizenship rights. This study uses deductive explanations and qualitative methods, collecting information through secondary data and interviews with reliable parties.

Comparative perspectives and experience of conflict resolution based on separatist movements in the Kingdom of Spain

The relevance is the major feature of the European continent, which is characterised by the fact that most countries in the region have defined borders that are following national or ethnic features. However, based on the investigation of existing separatist movements in Europe, it can be stated that in states with a single national characteristic, different groups with a distinct national identity can develop. Such a situation exists in the Kingdom of Spain, particularly in the Basque Country and Catalonia. The purpose of the presented scientific research is the historical analysis, comparative characteristics and ways of resolving conflict situations that occurred during the separatist processes in the Kingdom of Spain. The main scientific method that was used in writing the presented scientific research is discourse analysis, which allowed, the use of a set of analytical methods of interpreting various texts or statements, identifying the main preconditions, basic characteristics, and distinctive and common features of separatist movements in the Kingdom of Spain. The main results of this research are: analysis of the root causes and identification of crucial features of separatist processes in Spain; generalisation of ways to resolve conflicts based on separatist movements in the state; modelling of further dynamics and options for the development of separatism in the Kingdom. The results of the presented research, and the conclusions that were obtained during this work, can be used as a foundation for future scientific research on this issue; in addition – as a foundation for scientific research in areas relevant to the subject presented in the research. Additional fields of science and areas where the presented results and conclusions can be used in the future are: diplomatic service – in the study of the history of the emergence and ways of resolving conflicts based on separatism in Europe; higher education – in the fields of history, political science, conflict studies – as a historical example of the emergence and resolution of ethnic disputes; for other researchers of the presented subjects

Evaluating the Intersection of Technology and Nuclear Escalation in South Asia

There are range of factors that are shaping nuclear issues in South Asia. Among these, India and Pakistan remain outside the Treaty on the Non-proliferation of Nuclear Weapons and the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty. Further, their religious conflicts, ethnic disputes, military confrontations and territorial disputes remain fierce and acute. The confluence of these factors means that when a crisis occurs, India and Pakistan are more likely to misjudge the situation due to poor communication, or to even face the use of tactical nuclear weapons. This essay examines the convergence of technology and nuclear escalation. It concludes by offering some conclusions about external powers that are often involved in the technological procurement and their both stabilising and destabilising impacts on South Asia. Keywords: Nuclear Escalation, Treaty on the Non-proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty, South Asia

Health Status of IDPs: An Overview Due to Boko-Haram Insurgency in Nigeria

Over 12 million people have been displaced throughout Africa due to wars and bloodshed caused by religious and ethnic disputes. Despite the large numbers of internally displaced persons (IDPs) in Africa, there is still limited information on their health status.

The Dissolution of the Soviet Union, the Emergence of the CIS System, and Ethnic Disputes

Purpose: It was self-evident that nationalism emerged as the Soviet Union, which had the largest number of ethnic groups on the planet, disbanded. The result of the dominant ethnic group s failure to maintain equal relations without discrimination between ethnic groups as it integrates minorities nationally is inevitably an expression of conflict in the democratization process. The purpose of this paper is to study what ethnic conflicts have occurred in the region since the formation of the CIS. Method: In the past, Ukraine and Georgia, newly independent countries in the Soviet region, faced the prob-lem of separation of minorities domestically. The separation of Donetsk and Luhansk in Ukraine, the Abkhazia conflict and the South Ossetia conflict in Georgia are examples. Therefore, I analyze these examples in this pa-per. Results: In Donetsk and Luhansk states of Ukraine, Russia directly intervened in the claims of separation and subsequent civil war, including military mobilization and support, and in Georgia, Abkhazia and South Ossetia demanded separation from Georgia. Through the conflict, Russia strengthened its influence in these regions. Conclusion: The separation between the Ukrainian and Georgian conflicts from other conflicts in the Eastern Europe of the post-Cold War was that there was direct military intervention by Russia, which escalated the con-flict between the United States and Russia. In the future, Russia is expected to actively respond to the threat of Russia s security due to nationalist political movements of ethnic minorities within the CIS.

Peranan Wan Akub di Muntok Bangka Abad ke-18

The development of Muntok could not be separated from the long historical story of its original name. This research is presented the background of Wan Akub's arrival in Muntok and his role in the government and economy in the 18th century. This study uses historical methods emphasizes on the biographical approach. Wan Akub is the head of government in Muntok who was sent by the Palembang Sultanate as well as the head of tin mining. Some of his policies were to open an irrigation system or help the tin mining process in Muntok as economic resources for the locals. There were various policies that had been made a considerable influence in Muntok. He imported tin miners from Johor and built clay fortresses to reduce ethnic disputes in Muntok as well introduced tin tiban regulations. He also initiated the distribution of tin products as a form of remuneration. In addition, the migration of Wan Akub's relatives from Siantan left for Bangka acquired by new skills in cloth weaving technique called Cual.

A Violent Guatemala

Among ethnic disasters of the past few decades, few can match in intensity or have been reported in the media more extensively than those of the Indigenous in Guatemala. The social structure of the nation—its hierarchy, driven by a light-skinned population, most of whom are ethnically mestizo but who do not identify with the purely Indigenous—its history, and its small size make it an important site for the documentation and reporting of ethnic disputes and differences.

“Dark and Dirty” Histories of Leisure and Architecture: Varosha’s Past and Future

Once celebrated as a tourist destination, and now filled with derelict hotels, Varosha is a contested landscape at once embodying contradicting political and economic aspirations and featuring vividly in negotiations for political reconciliation in Cyprus. This paper provides a history of the antagonisms that surround this area by interrogating the creation of hotels and landscapes of leisure in 1960s Varosha and by exposing how these aspired to transform the cultural identity of the entire island. Casting the spotlight on the Golden Sands hotel, the paper demonstrates that, along with advancing iconographies of global modernity, hotel design was insidiously shaped by ethnic disputes as well as socio-economic and environmental contestations. Seen in the context of other conflict-torn cities, this history of the contested landscape of Varosha provides crucial insights into the imbrications of architectural history and design practices in the management of contested instances of modern, twentieth-century heritage.

A conflict that did not happen: revisiting the Javakhk affair in Georgia

AbstractDuring and after the collapse of the Soviet Union, several violent conflicts erupted in different parts of its (former) territory. The South Caucasus region has experienced three ethnically rooted violent conflicts, yet other ethnic disputes in the same region remained dormant. Despite an extensive literature on the South Caucasus conflicts, research on those ethnic disputes that could have erupted during the collapse of the Soviet Union is scarce. This article discusses the case of the Armenian populated region of Javakhk (Javakheti) in Georgia. It explores the questions of how, unlike the Abkhazian and South Ossetian movements that were able to effectively mobilize against Georgian calls for sovereignty leading up to the Soviet collapse, Armenian populated territories in Georgia remained relatively quiet. Considering that the primary ethnic minority groups within the Georgian Soviet Socialist Republic could each be linked by concerns over demographic shifts, economic discrimination/resource allocation, and political representation, the absence of conflict in Javakhk, as well as in Kvemo Kartli, is somewhat surprising. Based on existing theories of nationalism and ethnic conflicts and field interviews with the leaders of the popular movements in Javakhk, the paper examines the underlying reasons for the lack of conflict there.

State-building, Military Modernization and Cross-border Ethnic Violence in Myanmar

This article explains cross-border uses of force against ethnic armed groups along Myanmar’s bloody borders with China and Thailand. I trace the history of Burma’s ethnic disputes, its state-society relations, and the “modernization” of its military doctrine to understand how its state-building enterprise can shape the use of force along a state’s frontier. I treat each of the border regions as distinct sub-categories to highlight variation in the micro-dynamics as well as types and conditions under which the use of state-orchestrated violence occurs. First, I point to the role of greater state-building – extractive, coercive, etc. – and how it influences the use of force along border regions. Second, I explore the modernization of Burma’s military and evolution of its doctrine – this includes early efforts by the tatmadaw’s post-1988 shift toward a more conventional counterinsurgency strategy. An implication of my theory is that more peaceful relations between states perversely can create the conditions for more cross-border violence, as there are greater opportunities for states to either “pool” border security or outsource the use of force to proxies or paramilitary forces.

South Sudan conflict from 2013 to 2018: Rethinking the causes, situation and solutions

With the South Sudanese conflict in its fifth year in 2018, this paper seeks to not only examine the status of the civil war that has engulfed the youngest nation on earth but to also discuss the evolving narratives of its causes and provide policy recommendation to actors involved in the peace process. Having examined the continuously failing peace treaties between the warring parties, it is evident that the agreements have failed to unearth and provide solutions to the crisis and a new approach to examining the causes and solutions to the problem is therefore necessary. This paper argues that ethnic animosities and rivalry are a key underlying cause that has transformed political rivalry into a deadly ethnic dispute through vicious mobilisation and rhetoric. Therefore, it recommends a comprehensive peace approach that will address the political aspects of the conflict and propose restructuring South Sudan’s administrative, economic and social spheres in order to curb further manipulation of the ethnic differences. Keywords: South Sudan, civil war, transitional authority, conflict resolution, ethnicity

Searching for Refuge: Challenges in the Contemporary Muslim World

Searching for Refuge: Challenges in the Contemporary Muslim World Muhammad Shafiq Western industrialization followed by the colonization of most of the Muslim world confronted the Muslim community with a new political and identity crisis that they are still struggling with. The ethnic and nationalist movements against colonizing in the early part of the twentieth century resulted in ethnic nation‐states with conflicting views. Today many Muslims are living in a sort of nostalgia between the ideal past and the reality of the present. Ethnic disputes, economic disequilibrium, corruption, and political instabilities along with Western vested political and economic interests are sinking many of the Muslim‐majority countries into the dark ages of oppression. This article aims at analyzing some of the Qur'anic verses about hijrah (seeking refuge), tracing the issue of refuge in Muslim history with focus on medieval terminologies of dar al harb (abode of warfare) and dar al Islam (abode of peace), and ending with contemporary challenges in the Muslim‐majority countries which force Muslims to search refuge. Hijrah in the Qur'an The Qur'an emphasizes to search for refuge, a new home, when living in a country of birth becomes terrible. The Qur'an stands for freedom of worship, protection of human rights, and human dignity. The Qur'an says: And he who forsakes the domain of evil for the sake of God shall find on earth many a lonely road, as well as life abundant. And if anyone leaves his home, fleeing from evil unto God and His Apostle, and then death overtakes him—his reward is ready with God: for God is indeed much‐forgiving, a dispenser of grace. (Surah 4:100) Another verse emphasizes: Behold, those whom the angels gather in death while they are still sinning against themselves, [the angels] will ask, “What was wrong with you?” They will answer: “We were too weak on earth.” [The angels] will say: “Was, then, God's earth not wide enough for you to forsake the domain of evil?” For such, then, the goal is hell—and how evil a journey's end! (Surah 4:97) These and other such verses relate to the period when Muhammad and his companions sought refuge in Madinah. However, the early Muslim history records that even before his migration to Madinah, Prophet Muhammad had asked his companions to seek refuge in Ethiopia, a Christian country at that time, from the persecution of the Meccans (Makkah) (Brown , 76). The Muslim calendar did not begin from the birthday of the Prophet, or his death day, or the day God appointed him to be the messenger. Instead, it started from his migration (hijrah) to Madinah. Hijrah in Islam stands for freedom from oppression, strength from weakness, and protection of human rights. Hijrah is like Exodus in the Bible, which stands for spiritual purity along with liberty and freedom from oppression. Most of the Qur'anic verses about hijrah are about the migration to Madinah. Finding a new home at Madinah, the Qur'an asked Muslims who stayed behind in Makkah to migrate to Madinah: BEHOLD, as for those who have attained to faith, and who have forsaken the domain of evil and are striving hard, with their possessions and their lives, in God's cause, as well as those who shelter and succor [them]—these are [truly] the friends and protectors of one another. But as for those who have come to believe without having migrated [to your country]—you are in no wise responsible for their protection until such a time as they migrate [to you]. Yet, if they ask you for succor against religious persecution, it is your duty to give [them] this succor‐except against a people between whom and yourselves there is a covenant: for God sees all that you do. (Surah 8:72) The Qur'an praises the Muhajirun (the migrants) and those who shelter them (Al‐Ansar) with abundance of rewards: And as for the first and foremost of those who have forsaken the domain of evil and of those who have sheltered and scoured the Faith, as well as those who follow them in [the way of] righteousness—God is well‐pleased with them...

Community Plan Making in the Face of Ethnic Conflict in Israel: Lessons for Collaborative Planning Processes

Problem, research strategy, and findings: I focus on community plan making in Israel in the face of ethnic conflict, examining ways in which community-level planning processes are embedded into larger decision systems and how attention to multiscale, institutional linkages and parallel processes can determine the success of collaborative planning efforts. I present a community development case about a dispute over a local Bedouin land claim in a Jewish community in northern Israel, mediated over more than a decade. My research is based on a longitudinal 12-year case study of this planning dispute. There were three phases to the plan making: facilitated strategic plan development, facilitated collaborative decision making, and direct negotiations. Community planning is inevitably a lengthy endeavor, embedded in concentric decision contexts. The first 10 years of the dispute were devoted to achieving shared agreements among community members at the table, ignoring the interfacing and partnerships with state, national, or other nonlocal stakeholders. Only in the last two years did the community finally forge these relationships and reach an understanding of the impacts that parallel processes (occurring outside of the community) would have on the local dispute, leading to a community plan and resolution.Takeaway for practice: Community planning agendas must consider the interests of all relevant stakeholders, paying attention to multiscale, nonlocal players. Planners need to maintain and understand the links to and knowledge of other ongoing planning processes to understand how they might affect the community plan-making process at hand. Ethnic conflict cannot be ignored. Continuing with the business of community planning in the face of ethnic conflict in some ways helps minimize the importance of the ethnic dispute.

The Battle for the Rule of Law: The Case of the Western Balkans and the EU

Since the successful integration of the Central and Eastern European states into the European Union in the early to late 90’s, the EU wanted to try to replicate the same success in the poorer South Eastern (Balkans) states. However the long standing ethnic disputes, wide-spread corruption, little history with democracy, weak civil societies and the failure of the integration of Bulgaria and Romania, have created many barriers for the policy’s achievement. I aim to explore why the European Union’s enlargement policy integration in Western Balkans has not been nearly as successful in the Central and Eastern European states. At the heart of the enlargement policy is the establishment of democratic institution of rule of law. I will argue that the countries of the Western Balkans that have better infrastructure, cooperation with political elites and clear political incentives have the greatest rule of law acceptance. By looking at four Western Balkans states, Albania, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Croatia and Serbia, this paper will determine and access the various rule of law institutions, such as protection of minorities, the independence and efficiency of the judicial system, the fight against organized crime, the weakening of corruption, the acceptance of international laws and norms, the control of private violence, and impunity. With a combination of new data provided by the Watchdog organizations like Freedom House, European Commission reports, and various scholars’ works, I will provide a complete picture on why the enlargement policy has been half-heartedly implemented.

Three Tongues and Two Identities: A Case Study of Ersu Ethnic Identities in Sichuan, China / 三种语言和两种认同 中国四川藏族尔苏人族群认同的个案研究

Abstract Apart from their mother tongue, most Ersu people can speak their two neighboring languages, Mandarin and the Nuosu Yi language, fluently. Therefore, the Ersu people have three languages. In the beginning of the 1980s, two ethnic identities among the Ersu people emerged. Some of them recognize themselves as being of Tibetan nationality, while others requested to be recognized as a distinct minzu (nationality or ethnic group). The writing system used by the Ersu people played an essential role in the dispute. The Tibetan canons used by the religious practitioners of the Ersu people, Shuvuer, strengthened the Ersu people’s identification with the Tibetans, while the Shaaba hieroglyph used by another type of religious practitioners of the Ersu people, Shaaba, stressed the uniqueness of the Ersu culture. Focusing on the use of the two writing systems of the Ersu people, this paper offers an analysis of this kind of ethnic dispute which is based on “subjective identification” and “imagined communities” from the perspective of reconstructionist ethnic theory in anthropology.

Elite Discourses, Nationalism and Moderation: A Dialectical Analysis of Turkish and Kurdish Nationalisms

Scholars of nationalism and ethnicity have long studied when and how nationalist discourses on the one hand and national and ethnic identities on the other are often socially constructed along with their outcomes of ethnic disputes and nationalist polarizations. However, studies on the deconstruction processes of the nationalist discourses, their evolution over time and degrees of ethnic peace and moderation have mostly been limited. By taking the case of Turkish and Kurdish nationalisms in Turkey, this article argues that two competing elite discourses of nationalism have moderated rather than aggravated each other. The article explores the dialectical relationship between the nationalist discourses of the Turkish and Kurdish political elites, especially since the 1980s. Theoretically framing Turkish and Kurdish nationalisms in Michael Hechter's typology of state-building nationalism versus peripheral nationalism, respectively, it is argued that while the Turkish state has become distant from forced assimilation and homogenization goals, pro-Kurdish political mobilization, particularly the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), has become distant from claims to independent statehood and ethnic autonomy along with respect for Turkey's territorial integrity. These evolving agendas are discussed within the interdependent relationship of both nationalist discourses.

English in India’s National Development: Hindi-Dravidian Politics and the Retention of a Colonial Language

The widespread usage of the English language in India today has been explained in numerous ways. Theorists most commonly view it as a consequence of structural forces such as colonialism or contemporary globalization. Others stress local initiative in the form of prescient top-down language policy decisions or individual rational choice on the part of language learners. Although cultural diversity is occasionally mentioned as a factor promoting English in India, the role inter-ethnic language conflict has played in the process has been downplayed or received less attention. Focusing on Indian political developments in the colonial and postcolonial eras and assessing the impact of key actors and events on language policy formulation, this paper argues that sustained resistance from the Dravidian-speaking South to New Delhi’s plans to make Hindi India’s sole official language and eliminate English in education and government after independence was the key factor that laid the foundations for the spread of English in postcolonial India. If globalization in more recent years has encouraged Indians to learn and use English in ever increasing numbers, earlier linguistic and ethnic disputes between the North and South and the ad hoc language policy decisions they engendered were pivotal for making this possible. With this in mind, the paper recommends that social theorists revisit Indian history and reflect more deeply on the role played by ethno-linguistic discord in conditioning local and global patterns of English language diffusion.

Inventing Balkan Identities: Finding the Founding Fathers and Myths of Origin – The Montenegrin Case

Inventing Balkan Identities: Finding the Founding Fathers and Myths of Origin – The Montenegrin Case Dragana Lazarević 1. Addressing National Identity in the Balkans “To this very day ethnicity strikes many Westerners as being peculiarly related to ‘all those crazy little people and languages out there,’ to the un-washed (and unwanted) of the world, to phenomena that are really not fully civilized and that are more trouble than they are worth.”1 Despite a substantial reservoir of Western knowledge about Southeast Europe, public debate about national policies adopted in the Balkans is “full of false dichotomies, flawed analogies, gross historical exaggerations, and well-worn shibboleths with little foundation in historical reality.”2 The national question in the Balkans became an explosive issue in the foreign policies of major European powers, which coincided with the creation of the first post-Ottoman Balkan states in the 19th century. The states of Greece, Serbia, Montenegro, and Bulgaria emerged in the period when the most desired state structure was a nation-state modeled on the great powers of Western Europe, such as Britain and France. However, discontinuity of state traditions and the acquisition of national narratives based on often incomplete material evidence from the past caused a persisting divisiveness between the new nations and states, thus giving the Balkans a notorious nickname as “the powder keg of Europe.” The Greek national narrative, formed on ancient roots and considerable material heritage from various pre-Ottoman époques, had various degrees of support from West European intellectual circles, and as such, is excluded from this inquiry. On the other hand, the Serbs of Serbia and Montenegro and [End Page 171] the Bulgars, influenced by romantic ideas related to South Slavic nationalism deriving from the intellectual circles of the Habsburg and Russian empires respectively, developed their narratives in accordance with the prevailing methods of nation-creation in those countries. While the Bulgarian national narrative relied almost exclusively on the Russian school of nation-creation, Serbian nation-creation rested predominantly on the academic inquiries of Serbian scholars from various Austrian universities. Unsurprisingly, the territorial claims and ethnic disputes between the Serbs and Bulgars that arose against the Ottomans and each other later in the 19th and at the beginning of the 20th century strikingly correspond to the designated spheres of influence of both empires. Throughout this period, the Bulgarian national narrative hardly changed from the one originally conceived in the second part of the 19th century. Because of that, as a case study for the analysis of nation-building in the post-Communist Balkans, Bulgaria is not an obvious example. However, the Serbian national narrative that was originally devised and maintained amongst the early-19th-century educated Serbs of the Habsburg Monarchy once transferred to the Serbian and Montenegrin principalities began a process of transformation that was influenced both by the growing elites in the two Serbian states and by political circumstances within an empire that was experiencing the growth of nationalism in its many constituent nations. Furthermore, as Austro-Hungarian advances throughout the Balkans after 1878 coincided with the growth of nationalism in the Serbian ethnic territories, the nation-creation of the Serbs was affected by the political decisions of both Vienna and Belgrade. Following the complicated religious and ethnic composition of the South Slav Austrian territories, the imperial policies of Vienna rested on the attempt to divide the Serbian nation into several smaller nations and states that would be unable to function as a unified national corpus over the long run. Belgrade, in an attempt to defend its much weaker position in relation to Vienna, endorsed the unifying narrative not only of the Serbs themselves but also of the Croats and Slovenes, eventually leading to the creation of Yugoslavia. However, up to and immediately after the First World War, the Serbian national narrative in all Serbian ethnic territories remained largely unaffected by the divisive theories of nation-creation introduced by Austro-Hungarian intellectuals promoting imperial policies in the Balkans.3 The situation changed after 1918, when the Yugoslav government [End Page 172] faced political opposition from the Croats, who desired their own nation-state, and some elements of the disappointed Montenegrin elite, who withdrew support for the...