Violent Ethnic Conflict Research Articles

Eco-socio Impact of Mineral Resource Mining in the Karamoja Region of Uganda

Mining is one of the prolific activities geared towards poverty eradication, but an elusive goal for most government leaders in developing countries. Oftentimes, the economic aspect of mining overshadows ecological and social needs in context of host communities. For that reason, Karamoja region has experienced violent ethnic conflicts, which has made it difficult to trust mining activities to transform the area and contribute to healing of the deep-seated animosity within ethnic groups. This study used interviews and focus group discussions among artisanal miners and the data obtained was content analysed. The outcomes indicated that mineral resource mining activities are still in their infancy, yet environmental degradation is visible and human rights violations and escalating disagreements between communities are also evident. Therefore, peaceful co-existence is a prerequisite between mining companies and the Karamajong to achieve sustainable eco-socio development in Karamoja region. Moreover, the local people‘s participation in mining activities is instrumental in achieving sustainable development. Key words · Eco-socio · Mineral resource · Mining · Karamajong

Validating simulation-based models of conflict

This article discusses the Genesis of War project, in which the author employed the PRISONERS' DILEMMA SIMULATION (PDS) to generate data on the etiology of violent conflict and war as a basis for developing theory relevant to better understanding and dealing with violent ethnic conflicts occurring in post-cold war Europe (e.g., former Yugoslavia). Given the simulation basis of the intended theory construction, there was a need to validate the simulation-generated data before going forward, made more acute by the observation that very little validation of simulation-based data seems to have been done or reported in the literature. Accordingly, a comprehensive validation of the multivariate findings generated by the use of the PDS is presented: an assessment conducted through comparisons with findings from other studies in terms of (a) direction of relationship, (b) magnitude of relationship, (c) ranking of dependent variables by proportion of variation explained, and (d) ranking of independent variables by proportion of variation explained. Across comparisons, the level of agreement between PDS and corresponding (mostly real-world) findings was not only relatively high but also consistent, basically falling within the range of the 75% norm established by Guetzkow's assessment of his INTER-NATION SIMULATION (INS). Such triangulation of findings reinforces the view that some simulations are appropriate for investigating real-world conflict processes.

“Is all o’ we one?”: Creolization and ethnic identification in Samuel Selvon’s “Turning Christian”

Samuel Selvon’s fiction reveals the author’s abiding concern with questions of identity and community and his investment in reconciling the seemingly conflicting subjects of creolization and ethnic identification in Caribbean societies, particularly in his native Trinidad. The pervasive and often violent ethnic conflict between Trinidadians of Indian and African heritage is linked to constructions of the nation in which claims to, as well as exclusion from, Creole identities play an important role. In response, Selvon’s fictional interventions position Indian communities (whether peasant, working- or middle-class) in relation to other ethno-racial groups in ways that construct Trinidadian-ness as an inclusive and dynamic negotiation of self and culture across the various communities represented in the nation. Drawing on Kamau Brathwaite’s seminal concept of creolization as well as the work of other theorists (including Mintz, Bolland, and Munasinghe) of Creole identities and the creolization process, the analysis of “Turning Christian” — a short story excerpted from Selvon’s unfinished novel — provides an account of Selvon’s identity politics in this and his other works of fiction.

Citizenship and Resource Competition in Nigeria

ABSTRACTThis article discusses the growing tension between constitutionally defined citizenship and socially accepted practices of “we–they dichotomies” as a turbulent component of the national question discourse in Nigeria. It examines the adoption of dual citizenship across the country as well as how this generates violent ethnic conflict. Importantly, while citizenship refers to one’s full membership of a sovereign political community acquired either by birth, naturalisation or any other process legitimised and recognised by the supreme law of the state, indigeneship, on the other hand, is a discriminatory policy employed by local or provincial governments for protecting the rights of their so–called indigenous populations to employment, political power and other resources of the regions or states against domination by alien populations and outsiders. It is argued that while such distinctions have been made possible inter alia by Nigeria’s multi–ethnic character, the ensuing struggles and tensions have been driven by the normless competition over resource allocation. These have especially been the case in instances where ethno–territorial cleavages have been the primary beneficiaries and targets of such resource allocation. This article discusses land as a major economic resource over which heated ethnic conflicts have taken place in Nigeria. Drawing on the conflicts between Hausa–Fulani pastoralists and Yoruba farmers in South–Western Nigeria, it examines the question of how disputed access to land and water has underlain an almost permanent basis of conflict in Nigeria as well as their implications for the country’s fledgling democracy. How does the struggle over land affect the articulation of the citizenship question in Nigeria? How have scarcity and competition over resources affected the contest over citizenship and the forging of nationhood among natives and settlers in South–Western Nigeria? How have colonial framings of socially accepted practices of indigeneship entrenched an understanding of the state in Nigeria as a representation of permanently defined subnational conceptions of ethnic citizenship? What role can the state in Nigeria play towards transforming the multiplicities of traditional societies into coherent political societies as a basis for (i) eliciting deference and devotion from the individual to the claims of the state, and ultimately for (ii) increasing cultural homogeneity, political integration and value consensus? Drawing on data generated from an ethnographic study carried out in South–Western Nigeria between October 2009 and March 2015, this study interrogates these questions.

Talking Past Each Other: Chinese and Western Discourses on Ethnic Conflict

When violent ethnic conflict erupted in Xinjiang in July 2009, the official Chinese media and most Western news outlets agreed on many basic facts, but contextualized those facts within contrasting discourses. The Chinese media reasserted the established Party line on Xinjiang in discourses that served both domestic and diplomatic purposes. Western accounts, by contrast, were influenced by discourses linked to the West's self-image and world view. This paper will discuss both Chinese and Western public discourses on the riots, and it will make some suggestions about their relationship to opinion beyond the political and media elites.

Incentives and opportunities

Existing research on the causes of violent ethnic conflict is characterized by an enduring debate on whether these conflicts are the result of deeply felt grievances or the product of an opportunity structure in which rebellion is an attractive and/or viable option. This article argues that the question of whether incentive- or opportunity-based explanations of conflict have more explanatory power is fundamentally misguided, as conflict is more likely the result of a complex interaction of both. The fact is, however, that there is little generalized knowledge about these interactions. This study aims to fill this gap and applies crisp-set Qualitative Comparative Analysis (QCA) in order to identify constellations of risk factors that are conducive to ethnic conflict. The results demonstrate the explanatory leverage gained by taking causal complexity in the form of risk patterns into account. It takes no more than four different configurations of a total of eight conditions to reliably explain almost two-thirds of all ethnic conflict onsets between 1990 and 2009. Moreover, these four configurations are quasi-sufficient for onset, leading to conflict in 88% of all cases covered. The QCA model generated in this article also fares well in predicting conflicts in-sample and out-of-sample, with the in-sample predictions being more precise than those generated by a simple binary logistic regression.

Who controls the wealth? Electoral system design and ethnic war in resource-rich countries

Both natural resource wealth and electoral system design are frequently investigated factors in the civil wars literature. So far, however, there is no well-known study which explicitly considers the interaction effect between these two factors on the risk of violent ethnic conflict. We argue that resource-rich countries with a proportional electoral system for the legislature are less prone to ethnic civil war than resource-rich countries with a majoritarian or mixed electoral system, as proportional electoral systems tend to increase the effective number of parliamentary parties and thus the number of groups who can share state control over resource wealth. We find empirical support for this argument using binary time-series-cross-section analysis covering 83 to 140 countries between 1984 and 2007.

Acculturation of Chilean Miners in the Sierra Nevada, Alta California

Chilean miners were among the first foreigners to arrive in California during the Gold Rush of the mid-1800s. They were quickly subjected to violent ethnic conflicts with Euroamerican miners that forced many to withdraw from California. Those who chose to stay made adjustments to their material culture and cultural practices in order to ease tensions and gain acceptance into Euroamerican society. This article presents a three-stage acculturation model for the Chilean population during this time. This model is supported by the historic record and a Chilean archaeological site known as the Black Diamond Mine. The mine was claimed by Chileans in 1856, placing it within stage three of the acculturation model, and reflects adjustments made by the miners for acceptance into Euroamerican society.

Does Climate Change Worsen Resource Scarcity and Cause Violent Ethnic Conflict?

Does climate change create conditions in which ethnic groups, particularly in developing countries, become more likely to struggle for scarce resources which can then spur ethnically motivated violence and serious atrocities? Or is the relation between climate change and atrocities, if there is one, far more complex and perhaps indirect? How should climate change be viewed as a risk factor for the onset of violent ethnic conflict? What practical relevance could climate change effects have on early warning and prevention of serious human rights violations including crimes against humanity and genocide? The author first considers whether climate change science warnings deserve to be taken seriously before reviewing empirical studies focussing on the supposed link between climate change and ethnic conflict. Second, he argues that it is valuable to treat climate change as a possible risk factor for ethnic conflict situations in which crimes against humanity or genocide might be perpetrated, and to reflect upon early warning and prevention in this connection. The author then sets out five considerations that research on the question of a causal link between climate change and ethnic conflict should take into account.

The Kurd Issue in the Middle East

This article surveys the developing situation of Kurdish minority in the Middle East and tries to predict the future of this ethnic group. The emergence of Kurd nationalism is gaining importance nowadays as a challenge for the stability and unity of the states in the region. The Kurdish question is not only connected with the political identity of the Kurds and their willingness to create their own state, but also with their economic weakness and poverty which has caused a violent ethnic conflict between government forces and the Kurdistan Workers Party in Turkey. This paper is aimed at better understanding and analysis of the Kurdish issue in Turkey, Iraq, Syria and Iran, which are Kurds’ homelands in the Middle East.

Tolerance by Surprise: Evidence for a Generalized Reduction in Prejudice and Increased Egalitarianism through Novel Category Combination

Prejudices towards different groups are interrelated, but research has yet to find a way to promote tolerance towards multiple outgroups. We devise, develop and implement a new cognitive intervention for achieving generalized tolerance based on scientific studies of social categorization. In five laboratory experiments and one field study the intervention led to a reduction of prejudice towards multiple outgroups (elderly, disabled, asylum seekers, HIV patients, gay men), and fostered generalized tolerance and egalitarian beliefs. Importantly, these effects persisted outside the laboratory in a context marked by a history of violent ethnic conflict, increasing trust and reconciliatory tendencies towards multiple ethnic groups in the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia. We discuss the implications of these findings for intervention strategies focused on reducing conflict and promoting peaceful intergroup relations.

The Genesis of the Modern Eritrean Struggle (1942–1961)

This article shows how the intra-ethnic, elite-level competition for leadership over the Eritrean ethnic mobilization drive interacted with the economic policies that the Amhara imposed on the Eritreans in the imperial era of the Ethiopian state to generate the potential for violent ethnic conflict. The Eritrean ethnic mobilization drive turned violent when economically dependent Eritreans prodded their ethnic group leaders into a series of bidding wars with each other that made peaceful accommodation with the Amhara leaders of Ethiopia infeasible. To illustrate this argument, this article presents the history of the incorporation of Eritrea into Ethiopia after Eritrea's decolonization, examines intra-Eritrean divisions and their relationship to the Ethiopian imperial centers, shows how the economic policies that the Ethiopians imposed upon Eritrea impacted the Eritrean ethnic mobilization drive, and then shows how economically dependent Eritreans incentivized rival Eritrean political leaders to engage in bidding wars with respect to the Ethiopian authorities.

“A Theme Revisited”? The Impact of the Ethnic Conflict on Women and Politics in Sri Lanka

The 30-year ethnic-based civil war in Sri Lanka between the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) and the Sri Lanka government ended in May 2009. This article analyzes the impact of the violent ethnic conflict on shaping and reshaping the nationalistic ideology of the women of the majority ethnic group—specifically, the Sinhalese. Based on a field survey of urban, educated Sinhala women in Colombo, Sri Lanka, this article argues that women adopted a Sinhala Buddhist ideology to counter what they perceived as a threat to the integrity of a Sinhala Buddhist nation by the Tamil Hindu minority. In particular, this study demonstrates that the ethnic conflict while reinforcing a gendered ethnoreligious identity also seems to have created a political space for their voices to be heard in representative electoral regimes.

The Genesis of the Modern Eritrean Struggle (1942-1961)

My empirical findings demonstrate that although ethnic heterogeneity was important, it was not a sufficient cause for the onset of violent ethnic conflict. Ascriptive identities did not lead to a smooth and effortless ethnic mobilization. Capitalist expansion may have increased national and inter-regional income inequality within Ethiopia, but it did not disadvantage Eritrea. If income inequality and economic marginalization and exploitation by the center were the dominant reasons for the outbreak of ethnic conflict, the southern, coffee-producing regions would have led the ethnic mobilization. If anything, Eritrea benefited from the increased integration of the Ethiopian economy in the international economy far more than other regions. Inter-ethnic, elite-level agreements between Eritreans and Amhara did not break down; at the very least they strengthened over the course of the federation years and in the beginning of the unification period, even incorporating sectarian differences. Finally, in terms of arguments that stress Eritrea’s exploitation by the central Ethiopian state, I rebut this claim by showing that Eritreans commenced an ethnic mobilization drive even when their benefits and assistance from the center were increasing. My argument focuses on the causal relationship between the intra-ethnic elite-level competition for leadership over the Eritrean and the economic policies that the Amhara imposed on the Eritreans in the imperial era of the Ethiopian state. The Eritrean ethnic mobilization drive turned violent when elite-level, intra-ethnic Eritrean divisions interacted with the income effects of the economic policies imposed upon the average Eritrean ethnic group members by the Ethiopian state: economically-dependent Eritreans prodded their ethnic group leaders in a series of bidding wars with each other that made peaceful accommodation with the Amhara leaders of Ethiopia infeasible. To illustrate this argument, I proceed as follows: I present the incorporation of Eritrea within Ethiopia after Eritrea’s decolonization, examine the intra-Eritrean divisions and their relationship to the Ethiopian imperial centers, show how the economic policies that the Ethiopians imposed upon Eritrea impacted the Eritrean ethnic mobilization drive, and then show how economically-dependent Eritreans incentivized rival Eritrean political leaders to engage in outbidding with respect to the Ethiopian authorities.

Paths to Peace and Violence: Democratization and Conflict in Senegal and Nicaragua

Democratization has been heralded as both a “curse” and “cure” for ethnic conflict. Using a comparative analysis of ethnic conflicts in Senegal and Nicaragua, this article makes the case that the breadth of accommodation provided by a central government following democratization is a key variable that can provide a deeper understanding of why conflict sometimes worsens and sometimes ameliorates. By adopting a framework that conceptualizes the range of accommodation provided to territorial minority ethnic groups in advanced capitalist democracies as falling into three general categories, “loyalty,” “voice,” and “recognition,” the article illustrates that using a combination of these three strategies helped Nicaragua quell violent ethnic conflict. On the other hand, the conflict in Senegal continued because the newly democratic government refrained from using strategies to provide “voice” and “recognition” for the Diola minority.

Foreign Wars and Domestic Prejudice: How Media Exposure to the Israeli‐Palestinian Conflict Predicts Ethnic Stereotyping by Jewish and Arab American Adolescents

This study was based on the theory that adolescents view scenes of violent ethnic conflicts in the mass media through the lens of their own ethnicity, and that the resulting social-cognitive reactions influence their negative stereotypes about similar ethnic groups in their own country. We interviewed 89 Jewish and 180 Arab American high school students about their exposure to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, their social cognitive reactions to it, and their stereotypes toward ethnic groups. Beyond the effects of ethnic identity, the degree to which adolescents identified with Israelis and Palestinians in the media was a key variable linking exposure to media depictions of the conflict and the implicit ethnic stereotypes they displayed about Jewish Americans and Arab Americans.

Living with Heterogeneity

Abstract Short of partition, many scholars hold that consociational arrangements are the most effective democratic institutional mechanisms to manage ethnic differences and maintain peace in nations and groups recently engaged in violent ethnic conflict. Many countries have implemented consociational arrangements to redress identity-based conflicts over recognition and resources, but the empirical record is mixed at best. Restoring moderate politics and democratic order in ethnically divided societies after war is difficult. Consociationalism, however, is usually not the best or the only option. Consociationalism fails as a viable post-conflict political system, we argue, because it tends to reinforce centrifugal politics and to reify identity-based cleavages. The implementation of centripetal social and institutional reforms, which foster political and economic incentives for communities to reintegrate refugees, diversify existing populations, and engage in coalition politics, is more likely to restore moderation and minimize the risk of renewed ethnic violence. We explore these arguments using the critical case of Bosnia, drawing on examples from other parts of the world that have faced similar challenges. We argue that efforts to balance majority rule and the rights of the constituent peoples in Bosnia have created an unwieldy power-sharing architecture that satisfies none of the parties and is unable to govern. Post-war and deeply divided democracies, such as Bosnia, require reforms that move towards a centripetal, incentives-based approach to institutional design.

PEREINAMOJO LAIKOTARPIO TEISINGUMO STUDIJOS: IŠTAKOS IR RAIDA

Šiame straipsnyje analizuojama pereinamojo laikotarpio teisingumo studijų būklė, įvertinami atlikti tyrimai, aptariama jų raida, kartu pateikiant atsakymus į kelis probleminius klausimus. Pirmiausia, kas lėmė vyraujančias tyrimų kryptis. Antra, kokios yra esminės šio studijų lauko teorinės bei metodologinės problemos. Trečia, kokių duomenų ir kokio pobūdžio tyrimų šioje srityje vis dar trūksta. Ši analizė grindžiama prielaida, kad tokio pobūdžio akademinė savirefleksija naudinga ne tik patiems pereinamojo laikotarpio teisingumo tyrėjams, bet ir pereinamojo laikotarpio teisingumo strategijas įgyvendinantiems nacionaliniams ar tarptautiniams veikėjams.

In the Midst of Nigeria’s Legal Order Playing Catch Up to Social Unrest and Conflict, Recognising the Rights of Victims and Enforcing Their Fundamental Human Rights

This paper examines the recent violence in Nigeria following April 2011 elections as well as the violent political, ethnic and religious conflicts and unrests to date from a legal perspective. It discusses the culture of impunity prevalent in Nigeria due to the non apprehension of culprits and the state’s lack of responsibility to victims involved in the violence. The paper outlines the state, position and gaps in Nigerian law with respect to the unrests and victims, criminal procedure, constitutional provisions for fundamental human rights and international law. The paper emphasises the need for adopting specific laws for hate crimes in Nigeria, criminalizing violations of fundamental human rights and urging the government to enact without delay these changes in consolidating pending laws to include these class of offences, statutory provisions for the status of victims and compensations for victims.

Avoiding Ethnic Conflict in Iraq: Some Lessons from the Åland Islands

The current struggle to define the basic contours of Iraq's political system pits those who support a loose federal arrangement against advocates of a return to centralized rule. Increasingly, this struggle is being defined in ethnic terms, with (mainly) Kurds defending the constitutional status quo against concerted efforts on the part of (Arab) Iraqi nationalists to reconfigure the balance of power between the center and the regions. The March 2010 election seems certain to strengthen the latter at the expense of the former. This paper outlines an alternative approach to Iraq's federalism dilemma. Using the exemplar case of the Åland Islands, it is argued that a strongly centralized Arab Iraq is not inherently incompatible with an autonomous Kurdistan Region, and that by anchoring the Kurds' autonomous status in international law, a destructive descent towards violent ethnic conflict can be avoided.