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Lecture 2

Lecture 2. Understanding Conflict and Patterns of Contemporary Conflict. A. Conflict and Violence. Conflict is omnipresent It is the norm, not an aberration ‘What’s wrong with conflict?’ (John Darby, cited in Mac Ginty 2008: 59). Conflict does not only refer to direct violence.

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Lecture 2

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  1. Lecture 2 Understanding Conflict and Patterns of Contemporary Conflict

  2. A. Conflict and Violence • Conflict is omnipresent • It is the norm, not an aberration • ‘What’s wrong with conflict?’ (John Darby, cited in Mac Ginty 2008: 59). • Conflict does not only refer to direct violence. • Importance of indirect violence. • Chronic conflicts – ‘These long-lasting conflicts are often deeply embedded within societal structures. They may experience occasional violent upsurges, but a more common backdrop is of inter-hostility that does not escalate into direct violence’ (Mac Ginty 2008: 59).

  3. The Preševo Valley

  4. B. Patterns of Ethno-National Conflict • Ethnicity - identity with one’s own ethnic group based on the bonds of culture, language, common myths, kinship, religion, etc. • Primordial and instrumentalist approaches • Nationalism – the perception of one’s own nation as both threatened and superior; nationalism is an ideology that puts the nation above all other forms of political and social organization. • ‘primarily a political principle, which holds that the political and the national unit should be congruent’ (Gellner). • Distinction between ethnic and civic nationalism. • Ethno-national conflict - conflict between ethnic groups that includes nationalist goals.

  5. Slobodan Milošević

  6. (a) Internal patterns i) Ethno-national conflict heavily targets civilians. • ‘…the least dangerous place to be in most contemporary wars is in the military’ (Nordstrom, cited in Ramsbotham, Woodhouse & Miall 2007: 138). • War in BiH (1992-95), Bosnian Muslims lost 33,070 civilians and 30,966 soldiers. • Prevalence of ethnic cleansing. • After those who are killed or hospitalized, refugees and IDPs in camps are the most directly affected by war and protracted conflict.

  7. (ii) Black and white logic You are part of the ethnically-defined in-group or you are part of the out-group. Anything goes – only ethnicity matters. Those who refuse to participate may be branded as traitors. Killing of Hutu moderates

  8. (iii) Dyadic complexity Many different elements Not a straight fight between two armies. Involvement of militias and paramilitaries – e.g. the Tigers. Breakdown of the ‘codes of a warrior’s honor’ (Ignatieff). Prevalence of war crimes, such as mass rape.

  9. The Interahamwe

  10. The Tigers

  11. (b) External patterns (i) Portrayal of conflict in terms of its impact on civilians • Images of ethnic cleansing, distraught women, crying children, refugees, etc. • Rise of a so-called ‘journalism of attachment’ or ‘advocacy journalism’. • Abandonment of neutrality • A morality play between Good and Evil

  12. (ii) Difficult for outsiders to understand Why do neighbours suddenly kill each other? Portrayal of such conflicts as irrational. ‘There is no rationality at all about ethnic conflict. It is gut, it is hatred; it’s not for any set of values or purposes; it just goes on. And that kind of warfare is most difficult to bring to a halt’ (Lawrence Eagleburger, 1992). Dangers of misunderstanding – UN response to the Rwandan genocide. Misperceived as a civil war.

  13. (iii) Intolerance of impunity Creation of war crimes tribunals – the ICTY, ICTR, SCSL, ICC, etc. Erosion of the principle of sovereign immunity. War crimes will be punished, regardless of the status of those who commit them. Questionable as a deterrent.

  14. Jean Kambanda

  15. Omar Al Bashir

  16. C. Some Common Assumptions (i) Conflict has increased since the end of the Cold War • Huntington’s ‘Clash of Civilizations’ • 1989: 44 conflicts in 36 locations • 1990: 50 conflicts in 37 places • 1991: 51 conflicts in 38 places. • 2003: 29 conflicts in 22 places. • ‘The probability that any particular country is affected by conflict is lower than at any time since the early 1950s’ (Eriksson & Wallensteen, 2004: 625). • Increased media coverage of conflict.

  17. (ii) Intra-state conflicts outnumber inter-state conflicts 1989 – 2003: seven inter-state conflicts and 89 intra-state conflicts. 2007 – no inter-state conflicts for the fourth consecutive year. But internal conflicts can draw in other states – e.g. the DRC – and/or destabilize them. And international intervention adds an international dimension.

  18. (iii) Conflict is a bad thing Dysfunctional views of conflict versus eufunctional views. ‘From the very beginning, the conquest of one people over another has been, in the main, the conquest of the social man over the anti-social man’ (Herbert Spencer, cited in Barash and Webel 2009: 122). ‘War prevents a corruption of nations which a perpetual, let alone an eternal peace would produce’ (Hegel, cited in Barash and Webel 2009: 29). ‘Great modernizing wars’. Liberation wars Wars in pursuit of liberal peace

  19. NATO Bombing

  20. (iv) The utility of typologies Mary Kaldor’s ‘new wars’ thesis. But does it over-simplify? Are typologies helpful? Notion that general explanations of conflicts are possible. Redundancy of mono-causal explanations. Importance of multi-causality.

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