Understanding Ethnic Conflict: Causes, Consequences, and Solutions, Apuntes de Ciencia de la administración

¡Descarga Understanding Ethnic Conflict: Causes, Consequences, and Solutions y más Apuntes en PDF de Ciencia de la administración solo en Docsity! Ethnic Conflicts and Political Violence 1. Introduction to the Module and Key Concepts Introduction: Ethnopolitics: Conflict versus Cooperation -Conflict: situation in which 2 o more pursue incompatible, yet from their individual perspectives entirely just, goals. Ethnic conflict are one particular form of such conflict: that in which the goals of at least one conflict party are defined in (exclusively) ethnic terms, and in which the primary fault line of confrontation is one of ethnic distinctions. Whatever the concrete issues over which conflict erupts, at least one of the conflicts parties will explain its dissatisfaction in ethnic terms. Ethnic conflicts are a form of group conflict in which at least one of the parties involved interprets the conflicts, its causes, and potential remedies along an actually existing or perceive discriminating ethnic divide. The term “ethnic conflict” is a misnomer, the conflict is not “ethnic” but at least one of its participants. Thus Ethnic conflict describe situations in which combatants take recourse to the systematic use of violence for strategic purposes and in which at least one combatant defines itself primarily in relation to a distinctive ethnic identity. Empirically we determine which conflict is ethnic because of their manifestations are violent and their causes and consequences obviously ethnic. Examples: Northern Ireland, Kosovo, Cyprus, the Israeli-Palestinian dispute, the genocide in Rwanda, the civil war in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Kashmir and Sri Lanka. All these conflict have been violent, yet violence in each of them was of different degrees of intensity and duration. Ethnic conflict remains one of the the prevailing challenged to international security in our time. It threatens the very fabric of the societies in which it occurs, endanger the territorial integrity of existing states, wreaks havoc on their economic development, destabilises entire regions as conflicts spill over from one country into another, creates the conditions in which transnational organised crime can flourish, and offers safe havens to terrorist organizations with an agenda beyond and often unconnected, to the conflict in question. Ethnic conflict has been a subject of social scientific inquiry for a long time now, and the subject has become firmly established as a field of study across a range of disciplines from political science and international relations to sociology, anthropology, and psychology. There is a distinction between this conflicts and situation of “tension”, “dispute” and “unease” used to describe the relationship between Estonians and Russians in Estonia and the complex dynamics of interaction between the different linguistic groups in Canada, Belgium and France. And also there are situation of conflicts of interest handled within fairly stable and legitimate political institutions such as Switzerland and Catalonia. Thus, not every ethnic conflict is characterized by violence, but, interethnic violence is always a sing of underlying conflict. Ethnicity is no the ultimate, irreducible source of violent conflict, power and material gain are also strong motivations. Ethnic identities often continues to play an part un day-to-day politics and has often even been politically institutionalized through different systems of proportional allocation of funds, jobs, and seats in parliaments, and/or through qualified voting procedures in legislative and executive organs at the relevant national and regional levels. *Ethnicity-based politics in not in itself a source of conflict and violence. Ethnic conflict remains a threat to peace, stability, and prosperity. Between the causes are also power and material gains, not just the ethnic identity which plays an important part in day-to-day politics and has often been politically institutionalized through different systems of proportional allocation if funds, jobs, and seats in parliaments, and/ or through qualified voting procedures in legislative and executive organs at the relevant national and regional levels. Since there is no single explanation of the dynamics of the ethnic conflict and its management, PAGE 44 settlement, and prevention it is necessary to combine general analysis (general trends and commonalities that cut across a whole range of different conflicts) with specific cases (local dynamics that provide the key to understand a particular conflict). Neither ethnicity or nationalism in itself causes ethnic conflict. Rather, the stakes in ethnic conflicts are diverse, ranging from legitimate political, social, cultural, and economic grievances of disadvantage ethnic groups to predatory ethnic agenda of states and small cartels of elites, to so- called security national interest to name but a few. E.C. are the product of deliberate choices of people to pursue certain goals with violent means such as domestic conflict parties, international organizations, neighbouring states, ethnic/ religion cousins... Actors: The range of conflict parties extends further beyond states and states organizations to diasporas of economically better-off brethren willing to support their “ethnic cousins” struggle with money, arms, and political lobbying. “Religious cousins” are also significant players as well. Reason for cooperation: -The presence of different ethnic groups in the same country or region does not lead to violent conflict, -Ethnic conflict remains a threat to peace, stability and prosperity, Ethnic conflicts do not merely end whenever a peace agreement has been concluded. There is a complex post-agreement scenarios in the Balkans, the Middle East, Northern Ireland, Africa, and South-east Asia. Increasingly post-conflict reconstruction (once an agreement has been signed) is seen as an integral part of the conflict settlement process and involves building acceptable, accountable, and transparent institutions, to generate self-sustaining economic growth, and to create civil society with free and independent media, civic organizations, and a climate in which people once again begin to trust each other and are willing to live together peacefully. Ethnic conflict do not end whenever a peace agreement has been concluded. The international community has been confronted by complex post-agreements scenarios in the Balkans, the Middle East, Northern Ireland, Africa and South East Asia. Increasingly post-conflict reconstruction is seen as an integral part of the conflict settlement process. According to data compiled by the Peace Research Institute Oslo (PRIO, 2009), between 1946 and 2008 there were 174 internal and internationalised internal conflicts. Of these, 90 would fall unto the category of ethnic conflicts, 65 of which were struggles specifically over territorial control. Paying attention to ethnic conflicts in which the overall aim of the combatants is to retain, or attain, control of the state as a whole, the same general trend also applies: since the peak of such conflicts in the early 1990s there have been fewer outbreaks of new conflicts (or re-escalation of previously settled or contained ones) than settlements so that the total number of violent self-determination conflicts has declined significantly. It is unlikely that we will see a complete disappearance of ethnic conflicts in the near future. Such conflicts “remain an important source of violence in the 21th century” according to Duffy Toft and Saideman. Although ethnic conflict pre-date the end of Cold War, proportionally speaking more ethnic conflicts began in the last decade if the twentieth century than in any other. With the end of the bipolar world (and its constrains on international action) the post 1990 period also saw more media coverage of such conflicts and of international effort to resolve them as they happened “closer to home” (ex. Balkans) and they saw unprecedented atrocities committed in ethnic conflict. Ethnic conflict are not an exclusive post-Cold War phenomenon, they just have become more important factor in IR over the past decades and half and inter-state wars have been decreased in frequency (less prevalent since 1990). Since 1990, there has only been one inter-state war in Europe: between 1992 and 1994, Armenia and Azerbaijan fought over the territory of Nagorno-Karabakh, an Armenian-populated enclave in Azerbaijan. **In reference to the break-up of Yugoslavia in the first half of 1990s is a special case. If we pay attention to the recognition of Slovenia and In Croatia and later of Bosnia and PAGE 44 interests. Between this elite → rivality. The quest for political power at the time of independence was rooted in the specificities of the Sri Lankan class formation rather than in ethnicity. 2. Emergence and crises of Democratic Socialism and the politics of alliances This post-colonial political Buddhism has embraced a sense of equity and the importance of utilizing state power to ensure progress towards a populist version of socialism.... The SLFP has been able to reconcile a commitment to socialism with an advocacy of the interest of a section of the indigenous capitalist class-namely its Sinhalese Buddhist section”. Being favorable to both classes, this Sinhalese Buddhist nationalist ideology provided a coherence to the emerging Sinhalese class alliance. → the state took on an active role un the economy after 1956. In this situation the state became instrumental for the social advancement of subordinate groups within the Sinhalese class alliance. Examples of general state policies with great material and symbolic importance: “Sinhala only as the official language from 1956 and “standardized” admission to universities in the early 1970s favored the Sinhalese middle class, employment opportunities in the public sector, welfare system benefits especially to the Sinhalese peasantry and working class.-- Gaining and maintaining political power required a careful working of both political patron-client networks and state institutions. ***This political hegemony of the Sinhalese class alliance and the internal rivalry between competing Sinhalese political networks have been the immediate driving forces behind Sinhalese nationalism and state chauvinism. While early post-colonial Sinhalese politics were dominated by a conservative and Westernized political elite that arose with the colonial economy, this is equally true for Sri Lanka Tamil politics. Tamil politics in the early decades of the twentieth century was virtually monopolized by Colombo- based Tamil elite groups. Following the constitutional provision for territorial representation, there was a gradual transfer of Tamil political hegemony to an equally elitist segment of Jaffna Tamil society. With the rise of Sinhalese nationalism in mid 1950s and particularly with the likely prospect of Sinhala becoming the only official language after the election in 1956, the anger and frustration among the Tamil dominant and the middle classes grew and the political project of the FP gained legitimacy. A broad political alliance under the political ideology of defensive Tamil nationalism came to dominate Tamil politics from 1956, commanded by the FP until the mid-1970 and by the Tamil United Liberation Front (TULF) from 1975 till the early 1980s. Their goal was to achieve some degree of devolution of power for the Tamil dominated areas through parliamentary negotiations and non-violent protest. Whereas the 1950s and 1960s were characterized by the construction of democratic socialism and political alliances, the 1970s were marked by a deepening accumulation crisis of democratic socialism and equally severe legitimation crises fir the Ramil and Sinhaleses class alliance and political networks. 1960s- 1970s Sri Lanka economy in a deep structural crisis (manifested as extremely high unemployment rates, particularly among educated middle and lower middle class youth) → this accumulation crisis provided an immediate basis for a political legitimation of the Sinhalese class alliance → government UF responded with a set of “carrot and stick” policies, a combination of material and symbolic concessions to client groups and coercion agains the political opposition. The concessionary politics were being mote target towards specific client groups rather than being general policies that would benefit all subordinate classes. These policies, which amounted to an indirect ethnic confrontation agains Tamil minority, we imposed without the Tamil elite participation. ...The strategy used by the FP in this situation was “to direct public attention away from the conflict by emphasizing the Colombo government´s insensitivity to Tamil Hindu concerns”. By utilizing this strategy of ethnic confrontation against the Sinhalese-dominated government, the Tamil political elite managed to divert resentments from below and maintain Tamil national unity at a time when this was challenged by internal social conflicts. It was the general youth crisis that posed the strongest challenge to the Tamil political project. In the 1970s, the FP turned away from federalism and began to advocate Tamil separatism. In response to nationalist mobilization by the militant youth, the Tamil political elite joined forces in PAGE 44 TULF in 1975 and adopted a resolution demanding a Tamil separated state, Tamil Eelam, in 1976. The problem for the Tamil elite was the lack of a viable strategy for delivering the sought for Tamil Eelam. TULF´s strategy was to use the separatist demand to obtain a degree of political autonomy for the Tamil-Sinhalese-majority government preoccupied with maintaining its own political legitimacy. Consequently, the Tamil elite politicians were rapidly losing credibility and were soon to be replace by the “boys”, the militant separatist movements of Tamil youth. 3. Economic liberalization, political centralization and the politics of alliances Election in 1977 → UNP. This year marked a shift from democratic socialism t economic liberalization, from political pluralism to authoritarianism and from democratic Tamil nationalism to militant separatism. Likewise, the militant Tamil separatism of the 1980s was a continuation and radicalization of the Tamil nationalist project that had been constructed by the FP and radicalized through the TULF. The period under UNP government from 1977 to 1994 was characterized by a combination of continuation and change, rather than fundamental breaks with the post-colonial political and economic system. Gunasinghe argues that there is a direct causal link between the social impacts of economic liberalization on these groups and the increased anti-Tamil violence in the 1977-1983 period, which in turn triggered the civil war between the Sinhalese-dominated state and militant Tamil separatist movements. Economic liberalization in Sri Lanka did not mean the end of state-led developmentalism and material and symbolic concessions to political client-groups but rather the continuation of such practices in coexistence with a specific kind of economic liberalization. However, the change did mean that the emphasis was shifted from general concessions within class alliances to specific and personal concessions within political patron-client networks. J.R. Jayewardene → use of Buddhist rituals related to Mahaweli development were not just ised to provide legitimation for the state but also for powerful political actors and their networks. Through such symbolic practices, the UNP-government and its individuals ministers sought to mobilize Buddhist tradition to achieve legitimation and maintain political power. The political project of building and maintaining political patron-client networks, held together by Sinhalese nationalist material and discursive practices, was far from being dismantled with the transition to economic liberalization. Instead, the ruling party, and particularly a nationalist faction within the UNP, aggressively promoted Sinhalese nationalism, in response to the social distress associated with economic liberalization, the increased material importance of political position and the intensified challenge from Tamil separatist nationalism. Tendencies towards political authoritarianism that paralleled economic liberalization. New Constitution in 1978 to facilitated a further centralization of power in President J.R. Jayewardene. This overall centralization was justify by reference to the need for a strong and developmentalist state to carry out the economy liberalization program. It seems that centralization of power in Sri Lanka during the UNP.period did not create a developmentalist state, but rather an unaccountable government, with the hegemonic political network busing political position to exclude competing political networks and for the private accumulation of wealth. By early 1980s, the gains from holding political positions were such that an electoral defeat held the pospect of a sharp decline in status and income. The Prevention of Terrorism Act (1979) permitted a range of repressive practices. The riots of 1983 → magnitude, appeared to have the organizational support of centrally placed actors within the state apparatus and even from the government. The rise of militant separatism to a hegemonic position within Tamil nationalist politics, was a direct outcome of the construction and radicalization of Tamil nationalism by the Tamil political elite and the subsequent failure of this elite to obtain sufficient concessions in the face of intensified repression and exclusion by the ruling Sinhalese political network. By turning its back on the concessionary politics of strategic government alliances, the ruling Sinhalese network at this point triggered a civil war that is yet to end more than a decade later. -Conclusion: PAGE 44 Sinhalese and Tamil nationalism should be understood as post-colonial political projects, constituted by nationalist material and discursive practices, not as a matter of congruence between the alleged territoriality of the two nation, dhamma dipa and Tamil Eelam, and the territoriality of the modern Sri Lanka state. In post-colonial period such antinationalist practices have been initiated by segments of the dominant class for the purpose of mobilization within political alliances (3 kind: ethnic class alliances, political patron-client network and strategic government alliances). In the early post-colonial period this politics of alliance ensure a degree of political participation and social redistribution, and as such serve to defuse ethnic and class tensions. In the late post-colonial period, the neglect of the material and the discursive practice of the ethnic class alliance and particularly the strategic government alliance undermined the legitimacy of the political system which led to radicalization of Tamil nationalist demands in the 1970s and the emergence of militant Tamil nationalism from below in the 1980s. Wilson, A Jeyaratnam (2000) Sri Lankan Tamil Nationalism: Its Origins and Development in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries.London: Hurst (particularly chpts 1 and 6-8) Explain the rise of Tamil nationalism in Sri Lanka which evolved gradually, as a defensive reaction to events and passes through 2 phases before reaching its climax in the demand- expressed in an armed struggle- for a separate state. -Beginnings of British rule in 1796. -Change name of the island in 1972: from Ceylon to Sri Lanka. Tamils of Ceylon with Christian proselytisation via Portuguese Catholicism, Dutch Protestantism and British and American Protestant missionary endeavours, about the 7% of Tamil became Christian converters but maintained their indigenous Hindu culture and traditions. Gradually the group consciousness became transformed into national awareness: the Tamil realised that they were a group apart and their distinct culture, civilization and language needed to be preserved. The British rule encourage this separation of the different communities by nominating representatives to the Legislative Council system (introduced in 1833) for each of the major groups: low country Sinhalese, up-country Kandyan Sinhalese, Ceylon Tamils, Muslims, Burghers and the local British. → Communal representation as an method of discerning the views and needs of the different communities. Only in the first decades of 20th century English-educated Sinhalese, Tamils and Muslims come together to agitate for territorial representation to replace the communal system. *Attempts to transpose Western models to complex heterogeneous polities in the Third World have manifestly failed. The “limited pie” syndrome plagues the politics of Third World states. It was the objective of Sri Lankan Tamil Federal Party to have an accommodation of 2 nationalisms within the boundaries of a single island state. The FP´s dream soon faded because after the Island achieve political independence in February 1948, Sinhalese oriented governments proceeded, among other things, to dislodge the Tamils from their traditional homeland on the Northern and Eastern Provinces through a process of state-aided colonisation, with the colonist mainly selected from among the Sinhalese ethnic majority in the overcrowded south-west quadrant of the island. After... FP´s mode of extraparliamentary protest became transformed into a demand for the right of self-determination. The Tamils met in convention in 1976 and adopted a resolution calling for a separate sovereign Tamil state known as “Tamil Eelam”. The debate in those times centred on territorial vs communal representation. The Sinhalese demanded territorial representation, from which they stood to reap great benefits and the Ceylon Tamils were willing to go along with the given framework. However, none of this happened. Once the floodgates of territorial representation and universal suffrage were opened, the promise to preserve Tamil ratios was lost. The Ceylon Tamil response: a demand for safeguards. 1. the campaing of 1938-48 for “balance representation” on 50% for Sinhalese and 50% for the minorities in the seats of the legislature and the executive. 2. Agitation in the period 1949-76 for the federalisation of the constitution. PAGE 44 problem in Rwanda. The Hutus radical are inheritors of the colonial lunacy of classifying and grading different ethnic groups in a racial hierarchy. Tutsis were classified as invenzi (the cockroaches that have to be crushed). Anti-tuts propaganda presented them as a “minority, well-off and foreign” so the ideal scapegoat for all Rwanda´s problems. * The radicalisation of the Hutus began around 1990, when their monopoly of power was first seriously challenged by the army of the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF). *Reinforce by the Arusha Accords (1993) that stablished a power-sharing condition... → the plot was devised within the circle of President Juvénal Habyarimana. With the active complicity of his government, massacres of Tutsi increased and went unpunished. → 2 Hutus parties promoted a racist ideology: • Movement Républican National for Development (MRND) • Coalition for the Defence of the Republic (CDR) → Complice: Army and those in power, they develop a simple strategy for retaining control through the formation of militias and the manipulation of the media, both of which later became a tool of the genocide itself. **In the previous 2, 3 years there was an movement in favour of a multi-party system, the rule of law and a respect for human rights. Factors: F 0 E 0 modern factors: radio as an instrument of propaganda (Radio Mille Collines) / the militias support its slogans and control the population / the monthly journal Kangura help to spread anti- tutsi racism / the machinery of local administration / racist ideology and the determination to exterminate all Tutsi in one all-encompassing blow. Common characteristics of Genocide: 1. Its consequences go beyond the target group and affect to the national psyche. Population displacement wether as a result of force or out of fear of persecution. None of the three regimes that perpetrate genocide survived military defeat. 2. Savage cruelty. 3. Genocide has to be a collective act. 4. International indifference, although the world knew or had the possibility to know what was happening and yet choose to take a stand. 5. The victim has to be identified. The massacre in Rwanda are not the result of a deep-rooted and ancient hatred between 2ethnic groups. In fact, the Hutu and Tutsi cannot even correctly be described as ethnic group for they both speak the same language and respect the same traditions and taboos. There were distinguishable social categories in existence before the arrival of the coloniser, but the differences between them were not based on ethnic or racial divisions. It was by exaggerating such stereotypes and supporting one group against the other that the colonisers reinforced, consolidated and ultimately exacerbated such categorising. *”Tribalism without tribes”, Jean Pierre Chrétien. → Tutsi: cattle (ganado) and Hutus: farmers. Until the colonisers arrived, society in Africa was comprised of identifiable categories, separated social classes or castes that differed in regard to the amount of power each could exercise.It was Germans, and later, Belgian colonisers depeloved a system of categories for PAGE 44 different “tribes” in function of aesthetic impressions. Individuals were categorised as Hutu or Tutsi according to their degree of beauty, their pride, intelligence and political organisation. The categories if Hutu and Tutsi were not invented by the colonisers, the policies practised by the Germans and Belgians only served to exacerbate them. They played an essential role un creating an ethnic split and ensured that the important feeling of belonging to a social group was fuelled by ethnic, indeed racial, hatred. By the end of 1950s, an ethnic awareness had certainly develop among the Rwandan elite. This confusion of a social problem with an ethnic during the period leading up to independence was attested to in an important document produce in 1957 by 9 Hutu intellectuals, “The Bahutu Manifiesto. A note in the social aspect of the indigenous racial problem in Rwanda.” It is an expression of the first open opposition to Tutsi domination, drawing its inspiration from democratic and egalitarian ideas. It seems to be more a plea for democracy than a call to revolution althought it does contain a denunciation of “colonialism by the Hamities (Tutsi) over Hutu”. (Supported by missionaries). **Rwanda was a model of colonial Christianity with almost 65 per cent of the population coverted. 1952: Belgian administration decided that it would from now on support the educated Hutu rather than the Tutsi, now referred as “feudal colonialists”. In a context of raising tide of African nationalism and general retreat (retirada) from the continent by the colonial powers, the Tutsi, deprived of their religious authority, began to question the power of the church and the Belgian authorities. Let down by the Tutsi “Christian aristocracy” that they had cultivated, church leaders and missionaries suddenly began to embrace republican ideas and supported Hutu emancipation. The arrival of a new Swiss bishop, Monseigneurs Perraudin, was an aditional boost (estímulo) to the Hutu cause. At this time the country was in the grip of repeated attacks by the Parmehutu (the political party promoting Hutu emancipation) against the monarchy and the existing structure of social organisation that exclusively advantaged the Tutsi. Rwandan Tutsi were from now on treated as immigrants and the 1959 “revoluctionaries” called for “the return to Ethiopia of the Tutsi colonisers”. Hutu had began to believe that they alone were the native people of Rwanda. Belgium gradually ceded power to the small Hutu elite. The democratic principle of majority rule was cited as justification for the removal of the Tutsi from their previous political policy. The Hutu became the good guys who have been dominated for so long by the Tutsi and the Belgians now expressed sympathy for the cause of the suppressed masses. In 1959, a series of riots (motines, disturbio) directed against the authority if the Tutsi chiefs were allowed by the Belgians to escalate into a revolution accompanied by massacres which killed more than 20.000 Tutsi (educated Tutsi killed by the Hutu majority grouped under the banner of the Parmehutu and well aware that their superior numbers gave them the upper hand). The 1959 revolution represented a turning point in the political history of Rwanda. It led to the exile a large number of tutsi, the exclusion of all Tutsi from the political life and a growing authoritarianism practised by a Hutu power base that was becoming increasingly centralised. Independence was declare in 1962, with the Hutu monopolising power in the country. There were futher massacres of Tutsi the following year and growing violence resulting from Hutu determination to play the ethnic card. From this point on, the Tutsi minority became the scapegoat in every political crisis. ---calm--- 1970 → reborn the ethnic question under the rule of President Kayibanda: -quota of 10% allotted in the schools and universities and in civil posts. -continued the practice of listing racial group membership on identity cards, ..Humanitarian aid, although well-intended and based on sound principles, can never be totally neutral for it represents almost the only source of food, equipment and job in the camps and thus becomes a major stake in the power struggle for control over the refugees. PAGE 44 How to feed the victims without also providing aid to their tormentors. The international humanitarian effort, which saved thousands of lives, risks sowing the seeds of a future conflict where the former government army, like Khmer Rouge, will use their political control over hundreds of thousands of people in order to legitimize their power, their war and their revenge. 7. ETHNICITY, NATION AND NATIONALISM As ethnicity, above all, means identity with one´s own ethnic group everyone has an ethnic identity. Ethnicity acquires power to mobilize people when it becomes a predominant identity and means more than just a particular ethnic origin; define people as speakers of a certain language, belonging to a particular religion, being able to pursue some career but not others, being able to preserve and express their cultural heritage, having access to positions of power and wealth or not. When ethnicity become politically relevant and determines the life prospects of people belonging to distinct ethnic groups, it is possible mobilize group members to change a situation of apparently perpetual discrimination and disadvantage or in defence of a value status quo. The origin of the term “ethnicity” go back to the greek word for nations → ethnos: community of common descent, a kinship group linked by ties of blood. The roots of the word are agreed. Yet, because of its increasingly politicized nature and the more contemporary meaning of ethnicity and its implications for the relationship between people and between them and the states in which they live, definitions of ethnicity vary and are disputed among academics as well as among politicians. There is a basic distinction between different schools of thought on ethnicity: A. Primordial school: holds that ethnicity is so deeply ingrained in human history and experience that it cannot be denied that it exists, objectively and subjectively, and that it should be consider a fact of life in the relations between individuals and groups. B. Instrumentalist school: argues that ethnicity is by not means and indisputable historical fact. Ethnicity is first and foremost a resource in the hands of leaders to mobilize and organize followers in the pursuit of other interests, such as physical security, economic gain, or political power. What both school agree on is that ethnicity has a number of tangible aspects, such a common history, customs, traditions, language, or religion. This markers make it possible to establish differences not only between individuals, but also between groups. Yet, even if we accept that tangible aspects of ethnicity exist, they cannot fully explain the phenomenon in relation to the intense emotions that “ethnic issues” generates. We have to explore the issue of group dynamics in order to arrive to a wider explanation. Ways to avoid violent conflict: 1. Extensive minority rights legislation that recognize and protects differences. 2. Concessions to demands for equal access to resources and equality of opportunity for members of ethnic minorities or in other words for non-discrimination on ethnic grounds. When existing prejudice are widespread in all levels of state and society it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy: the states fails in its duty to provide public services minority groups see their perception of discrimination confirmed and disengage or try to force the issue, whilst majority feel confirmed in their belief that minorities are essentially “enemies of the state” who do not deserve special rights. ** Current perceptions and past experiences function as an escalator in this context Nationalism at the same time is a narrower and broader concept. At its most basic level, it is an ideology that puts the nation first before all other forms of social or political organization, that means that advocates that each nation should have its own state. 1. Nationalism embodies the desire to gain political power for a group that believes that it constitutes a nation. 2. Then, this power is used to preserve the ability of the group to shape its own future, express, PAGE 44 spheres and context) there is nonetheless a tendency to seepage. In deeply divided societies, strong ethnic allegiances permeate organizations, activities, and roles to which they are formally unrelated. The permeative character of ethnic affiliations, by infusing so many sectors of social life, imparts a pervasive quality to ethnic conflict and raises sharply the stakes of ethnic politics. The permeative propensities of ethnic affiliations in divided societies are reflected in -the fact that issues that elsewhere would be relegated to the category of routine administration assume a central place on the political agenda. -the segmented organizational structure. This applies to the structure of economic organization, as it does to political organization. Capital and labor are often organized on ethnic lines (I.g. Cooperatives societies and trade unions are monoethnic with irreconcilable aims) and organizational pluralism is strongly reflected in party systems (in name or in fact exist ethnically based parties). -the tendency of avowedly nonethnic parties to be capture by one or another ethnic constituency (example: Comunism party dominated by Sinhalese in Sri Lanka) . Ethnic affinities constitute an obvious organizational link in divided societies. By the same token, ethnic antipathies dictate that a party identified with one ethnic group repels members if antagonistic groups, who are the attracted to other parties. In societies where ethnicity suffuses organizational life, virtually all political events have ethnic consequences. Where parties break ethnically fragmented, military coups, ostensibly to quell disorder or to end corruption, may be made to secure the power to some ethnic group at the expense of others. Whole systems of economic relations can crystallize around opportunities afforded and disabilities imposed by government policy on particular ethnic groups. In divides societies, ethnic conflict is at the center of politics. Ethnic divisions pose challenges to the cohesion of states and sometimes to peaceful relations among states. Ethnic conflict strains the bonds that sustain civility and is often at the root of violence that results in looting, death, homelessness, and he flight of large number of people. In divided societies, ethnic conflicts are powerful, permeative, passionate, and pervasive. …. As the colonialist departed the new states, constitution-makers accorded protection to minorities and in some cases conclude with a political separation. Such proposal were rejected on the ground that they would foster rather than heal enmities. It was not anticipate that the ethnic cleavage might become the principal line of political division, one that could preempt other cleavages. The study of ethnic conflict has often been a grudging concession to something distasteful because in the West ethnic affiliations have been in disrepute. Until recently, the field of ethnic relations has been backwater or the social science, and the first response to the rising tide of ethnic conflict was to treat it as an epiphenomenon. The need for comparative analysis is compelling on quite independent practical and intellectual grounds. ...Theories of ethnic conflict need to specify what the groups are fighting for-which is not as obvious as it seems-and why ethnic lines of conflict are so important. Horowitz consider limited divides societies in his study: the Hausa, Ibo and Yoruba in Nigeria; Sinhalese and Tamils in Sri Lanka and Malays, Chinese and Indians in Malaysia. In this countries there are major groups meeting at the center. Ethnicity in the West typically does not displace all other forms of group difference so ethnicity is less urgent in the West than in Asia, Africa and the Caribbean. Ethnic violence in the West nearly always takes the form of terrorism, as in Northern Ireland or the Basque country; in the non-West, ethnic riots, direct against the persons and property of member of other ethnic groups, and usually accompanied by mutilations, are far more common. Such riots signify the intensity of mass ethnic sentiment. … The relationship between ethnicity and class has been subject to great confusion which can be dispelled by recognizing a distinction between ranked and unranked ethnic groups (ideal types). The distinction rest upon the coincidence or noncoincidence of social class with ethnic origins. Where the 2 coincide, it is possible to speak of ranked ethnic groups and where groups are cross- class we can speak of unranked ethnic groups. If ethnic groups are order in a hierarchy, with one PAGE 44 superordinate and another subordinate,ethnic conflicts moves in one direction, but if groups are parallel, neither subordinate to the other, conflict takes a different course. -Ranked systems: stratification = ethnic membership. Mobility opportunities are restricted by group identity. In such systems, political, economic and social status tend to be cumulative, so that members of groups B are simultaneously subordinate in each of these ways to members of group A. • The clearest indicator of subordination, on the other hand, is the logical impossibility of an acknowledged upper class among the subordinate group. • Likewise, member of a subordinate group can acquire elite credentials acknowledged within their own community but not cross ethnic lines. • Ranked system have ritualized modes of expressing(miths..) the lower status or contamination of the subordinate groups, whom usually do the dirty work. • There may be a more or less explicit “premise of inequality”, some degree of consensus on the aptitudes, rights and obligations of the respective groups. In many settings, religion plays a role in legitimizing the ethnic hierarchy. Furthermore, there are elements of reciprocity and clientage that underpin the system. Typically, there is an exchange of protecion of the subordinate for service rendered the superior. Adaptive behavior by the subordinate group and a measure of predictability in relationships. • Possess more social cement, but when the cement cracks, the edifice usually colapses: when ethnic hierarchies are undermined, they may undergo fundamental transformations. • ranked systems are produced by conquest or capture. The ensuring domination lends itself to the establishment of upper and lower ranks, clientage relations, and an ideology of inferiority for the subordinate groups. Ex: the highly stratified ethnic system of central Rwanda was the result of invasion and conquest. • Hierarchical groups are well intermixed geographically. Ranked subordination cannot long be sustained without a measure of spatial proximity to enforce it. • Because the boundaries of ranked ethnic groups coincide with class lines, conflict in ranked systems has a class coloration. -Unranked systems: parallel ethnic groups coexist, each group internally stratified. Lack of group autonomy in leadership selection is a sure sing of ethnic subordination. Although the question of group superiority is far from irrelevant in such a system, it is not settled. The groups are not definitively ranked in relation to each other, certainly not across the board. The term polydomainal has been applied to such a society. Example: Malaysia and China. As Webber suggests, the distribution of honor and prestige is a key difference. In ranked systems, the unequal distribution of worth between superiors and subordinates is acknowledged and reinforced by an elaborate set of behavioral prescriptions and prohibitions. In unranked systems, relative group worth are always uncertain, always at issue. Neither type of system is pure, and both are usually in a process of change, about which more shortly. • Despite the blurring, nearly all ethnic relationships can be identifies as ranked or unranked. A key question is whether each group has a full complement of statuses or, to put the point differently, whether each of the groups in contact possesses a legitimately recognized elite. If so, the system is unranked. • there are a mix of evaluations that contrast with the unmitigated denial of prestige and even humanity that is reflected in stereotypes of subordinates groups in ranked systems. • There is a lack of sufficient authority to establish a high level of reciprocity premised on inequality. Less generalized domination and also less generalized collaboration. • Less social cement. • Depending of their differing origins: unranked systems are produced by invasion resulting in less than conquest, by more or less voluntary migration, or by encapsulation within a single territorial unit of groups that formerly had little to do with each other- or by some combinations of these. • Parallel groups may be either intermixed or regionally discrete. Example: migration. • They, too, are susceptible to serious conflict and violence, but with different goals. PAGE 44 Unranked ethnic groups “act as if they were states in an international environment”. Interethnic relations partake of diplomacy. • Unlike ranked groups, which form part if a single society, unranked groups constitute incipient whole societies. When ethnic violence occurs, unranked groups usually aim not at social transformation, but at something approaching sovereign autonomy, the exclusion of parallel ethnic groups from a share of power, and often reversion-by expulsion or extermination-to an idealized, ethnically homogeneous status quo ante. **The relation of class to ethnicity: Ethnic and class conflict coincide when ethnicity and class coincide in ranked systems. Class conflict entails “the arrangement of social roles endowed with expectations of domination or subjection”. Ethnic conflict, however, impedes or obscures class conflict when ethnic groups are cross-class, as they are in unranked systems. There is, under this circumstances, a strong tendency to reject class conflict, for it would require either interethnic class- based alliances or intraethnic class antagonism, either of which would detract from the ethnic solidarity that unranked ethnic conflict requires. Ethnic conflict in unranked systems usually goes hand with conservative politics. 8. GENDER AND NATIONALISM 9. EXPLAINING ETHNIC CONFLICT The Myth of Global Ethnic Conflict, (1996) by John R. Bowen It is wrong the idea that the world´s current conflicts are fueled by age-old ethnic loyalties and cultural differences. There is a tendency to make 3 assumptions: that ethnic identities are ancient and unchanging; that these identities motivate people to persecute and kill; that ethnic diversity itself inevitably leads to violence. All three are mistaken. Ethnicity is a product of modern politics, in particular the period of colonization and state-building. The view that ethnicity is ancient and unchanging emerges these days in the potent images of the cauldron and the tribe. Out of the violence in Eastern Europe came images of the region as a bubbling cauldron of ethnonationalist sentiments that were sure to boil over unless suppressed by strong states. The cauldron image contrasts with the American "melting pot," suggesting that Western ethnicities may melt, but Eastern ones must be suppressed by the region's unlikable, but perhaps necessary, Titos and Stalins. Although it is common to say that they are separated by religion--Croats being Roman Catholic, Serbs Orthodox Christian, and Bosnians Muslim--in fact each population includes sizeable numbers of the other two religions. The three religions have indeed become symbols of group differences, but religious differences have not, by themselves, caused intergroup conflict. Rising rates of intermarriage (as high as 30 percent in Bosnia) would have led to the gradual blurring of contrasts across these lines. The roots of the current Balkan violence lie not in primordial ethnic and religious differences but rather in modern attempts to rally people around nationalist ideas. For their part, Serbs drew on memories of short-lived Serb national states to claim their right to expand outward to encompass other peoples. That Balkan peoples spoke the same language made these expansionist claims all the more plausible to many Serbs. At the same time, Croats were developing their own nationalist ideology, with a twist: rather than claiming the right to overrun non-Croats, it promised to exclude them. It was directed against their strong Serb neighbors. When Serbs dominated the state of Yugoslavia that was created after the First World War, Croat resentment of Serbs grew. The most militant of Croat nationalists formed an underground PAGE 44 with scores to settle, while countries with no such clearly dominating group (such as Indonesia) have an initial advantage in building political consensus. So-called centralized polities, with two or three large groups that continually polarize national politics, are less stable than "dispersed" systems, in which each of many smaller groups is forced to seek out allies to achieve its goals. And if the major ethnic groups share a language or religion, or if they have worked together in a revolutionary struggle, they have a bridge already in place that they can use to build political cooperation. .2 States do make choices, particularly about political processes, that ease or exacerbate intergroup tensions. Malaysia ought to have experienced considerable interethnic violence whereas Sri Lanka, where Tamils and Sinhalese had mingled in the British-trained elite, should have been spared such violence. And yet Malaysia has largely managed to avoid it while Sri Lanka has not. The crucial difference, writes Horowitz, was in the emerging political systems in the two countries: Malaysia and Sri Lanka. Malaysian politicians constructed a multiethnic political coalition, which fostered ties between Chinese and Malay leaders and forced political candidates to seek the large middle electoral ground. In Sri Lanka, Sinhalese-speakers formed a chauvinist nationalist movement, and after early cooperation Tamils and Sinhalese split apart to form ethnically based political parties. Extreme factions appeared on the wings of each party, forcing party leaders to drift in their directions. But political systems can be changed. Nigeria is a good example. Prior to 1967 it consisted of three regions--North, South, and East--each with its own party supported by ethnic allegiances. Region of Biafra´s attempt to break away from Nigeria in 1967 and the following trauma of the civil war led politician to try a new system. They carved the country into 19 states, the boundaries of which cut through the territories of the three largest ethnic groups (Hausa, Yoruba, and Igbo), encouraging a new federalist politics based on multiethnic coalitions. What the myth of ethnic conflict would say are ever-present tensions are in fact the products of political choices. Negative stereotyping, fear of another group, killing lest one be killed--these are the doings of so-called leaders, and can be undone by them as well. Believing and assuming that such conflicts are the natural consequences of human depravity in some quarters of the world, makes violence seem characteristic of a people or region, rather than the consequence of specific political acts. Thinking this way excuses inaction. Kaufman, Stuart J (2006) ‘Symbolic Politics or Rational Choice? Testing Theories of Extreme Ethnic Violence’,International Security, vol. 30 no. 4, pp. 45-86. (Looks at rational choice versus symbolic politics theories to explain extreme ethnic violence and concludes the rationalists are wrong. Looks at Rwanda and Sudan. READ WITH a challenge to this article from Arman Grigorian.) Hate and Narratives and Ethnic Conflict. Arman Grigorian and Stuart J. Kaufman. PAGE 44 WHAT CAUSES ETHNIC CONFLICTS? Ethnic conflict are extremely diverse: organized ethnic groups that confront each other, minorities and majorities, with or without the backing of state institutions and with or without external support. The mere fact of people having an ethnic identity and the presence of nationalist ideologies do not necessarily and inevitable lead to conflict, let alone civil war, ethnic cleansing, and genocide. Ethnicity is sometime no more than a convenient mechanism to organize and mobilize people into homogenous conflict groups willing to fight each other for resources that are at best indirectly linked to their ethnic identity. As the literature on the cause of ethnic conflict has grown at speed over the past two decades, there are many theories about what causes and influences such conflicts. Any theory should explain both elite and mass behaviour, and provide an explanation for the passionate, symbolic and apprehensive aspects of ethnic conflict. From this perspective, two factors are important: comparative groups worth and legitimacy. Conceiving them as a joint function of group entitlement, they allow an explanation that “ethnic conflict arises from the common evaluative significance accorded by the groups to acknowledge groups differences and then played out in public ritual of affirmation and contradictions”. Difference btw groups assumes significance in guiding the actions of leader and their followers. The more a group challenged the status quo and the less another is prepared to allow changes in it, the more likely it that conflict will rapidly escalate changes into violence. Ej: Northern Ireland when a legitimate civil rights movement led to extreme polarization and radicalization in the society and appeared unknown levels of violence / Kosovo. Such a socio-psychological explanations are just part of the story. At another level, ethnic conflict involved rational choices made by individuals. From this perspective we can distinguish: A. underlying causes: are the necessary but not sufficient conditions for the outbreak of inter- ethnic violence. These causes comprise 4 types of factors: 1. Structural factors: are conditions such as weak states (do not control the whole territory), intra-state security concerns (potential secessionist movement with external support from neighbouring states), and ethnic geography (territorial concentration of groups in border areas and ethnic groups that straddle international boundaries). 2. Political factors: discriminatory political institutions (deliberately pursue policies that disadvantage members of ethnic groups), , exclusionary nationalist ideology, and contentious inter-group and intra-group politics at mass and elite levels ( political sphere that is carved up btw ethnic parties that compete with each other on ethnic platforms). 3. Economic factors: 4. Social factors: E and S. factors play an equally important role in setting the scene for potentially violent ethnic conflict. Economic problems, discriminatory economic systems (cultural division of labour with job opportunities determined by ethnic background) and uneven and preferential economic development and modernization. 5. Cultural factors: 6. Perceptual factors: Patterns of cultural discrimination (imposition of an official state language), the outlawing of certain cultural practices and traditions) and problematic group histories… PAGE 44 B. proximate causes: factors that increase the likelihood of conflict in a situation in which all or some of the underlying ingredients are present. There is a distinction btw internal and external factors that operate at the mass level and the elite level. F 0 E 0 Internal elite level causes: bad leaders F 0 E 0 External elite level causes: bad neighbours F 0 E 0 Internal mass-level causes: domestic problems F 0 E 0 External mass-level causes: bad neighbourhoods. Ej: Sri Lanka and the influence of bad leaders. This view of the causes of ethnic conflict and the distinction btw underlying and proximate causes also enable an explanation of why, despite similar basic conditions, not every situations of ethnic tension leads to full-scale civil war. Yugoslavia: In order to understand the motivations of leaders and follower better we have to consider a particular rational choice explanation of ethnic conflict F 0E 0 it is focus on the so-called security dilemma and assumes that individuals make rational choices, weighing the cost and benefits of their actions. David Lake and Donald Rothchild argue that “the fundamental causes of ethnic conflict” are “strategic interactions btw and within groups”. Within the realm of strategic interactions btw groups, “three strategic dilemma can cause violence to erupt: information failures, problems of credible commitment and incentives to use force preemptively (also known as the security dilemma). As for within-group strategic interactions, “ethnic activist and political entrepreneurs may make blatant ethnic appeals and attempt to outbid moderate politicians, thereby mobilizing members, polarizing society, and magnifying the intergroup dilemmas”. Exacerbated by proximate factors such as primordial identities, economic discipline, regime change and bad leaders and bad neighbours, the most significant of these strategic dilemmas is the security dilemma, which “rest on … information failures and problems of credible commitment”. The conditions in which security dilemma emerge need to be investigated carefully, and in this context 5 “fear-producing environments” can be identify: government breakdown; geographical isolation or vulnerability of a minority within a larger group; shifts in the political power balance btw groups; and forced or voluntary demobilization of partisan armies. An additional fear-producing should be added: changes in external patronage or balance of power btw rival patrons. 3 cases: Soviet Union, Abkhaz and South Ossetians in Georgia and the Armenians in Nagorno- Karabakh region of Azerbaijan F 0E 0 2 points: -Patron states do not always have ethnic ties with the group that they protect or by whom they are lobbied for protection. -Patron states who intervened unilaterally, rather than seeking consensual settlements of such disputes with the host state are unlikely to effect permanent “solutions”: the conflicts in Nagorno- Karabakh, South Ossetia, and Abkhasia are merely frozen in a lasting stalemate. Implicitly or explicitly, the notion of the security dilemma is at the core of a wide range of causal explanations of ethnic conflicts. The pre-emptive use of violence is thought to be more likely in conditions of emerging anarchy, which heighten the uncertainty of identity groups about their future. Yet, there is not automatism that leads from an existing security dilemma directly into a violent ethnic conflict. 1. Security dilemma or preemptive use of force: -The essence of the security dilemma is that an increase in one person´s, group´s, state´s security is at the same time perceived as a threat, or decrease in security by another actor. The same dynamic, albeit at different scales, work at the level of groups and states. Agents belief that a condition of PAGE 44 -Inter-ethnic conflicts: conflicts btw different ethnic groups -Conflicts in which one or more ethnic group are in conflict with the state in which they live. From the perspective of individual groups, Eth.groups perceive threats and opportunities. In the relationship btw different eth groups and btw groups and the state, these threats and opportunities relate to their secure survival as a group. For a state what it at stake is their territorial integrity and their ability to enforce law and order. Threat to group survival occurs when states or other ethnic groups deny ethnic group access to the resources that the latter deems essential for its survival as a distinct group (example: access to linguistic, educational, or religious facilities, and to position of power in the institutions of the state. Threats also become manifest in policies of forced assimilation, in discrimination, and in deprivation. At the most extreme (it is not the rule in most ethnic conflicts), they take the form of ethnic cleansing and genocide and the distinction btw inter- ethnic and group-state conflict becomes increasingly blurred (imprecise). *Ethnic cleansing in Darfur region of western Sudan and in the Balkans. Genocide in Rwanda. F 0E 0 states either partially relied on or backed allied ethnic groups to do their dirty job. TERM 2 Week 11: Non- Traditional Agents of Political Violence Focus on female combatants and child soldier both seen as non traditional agents of political violence. Although, sometimes ...they are different kind). Introduction: -The increasing presence of both women and children in the rank as soldier, particularly in asymmetric wars and terrorism. Female tend to make uneasy. Stereotypical ideas talks about.. Theories and explanations about why it is increasing the number of female combatants. Some of these can be apply to child combatants. Both women and children have fought in wars historically (examples). So today this is not something completely new. Despite the assumption that women are more peaceful than men the evidence tell us that women have throughout history supported and participated in conflict involving their communities. Yet the significance os their contributions remains “hidden” and therefore unanalyzed in conventional accounts. Peterson. The fact that this have been unanalyzed is one of the reason why we should be interested on this topic. We did not had the whole picture while we did not account the female and child soldiers. Women have acted in all kind of conflict not just as soldier but also in different forms of participations (included soldiers). The reality is that women have participate as combatants or military roles in many wars but particular in nationalist and intercommunities conflict, so the conflicts that we are looking at. This conflicts produces high numbers of female soldier (and child soldier too). ej. Sri Lanka and Northern Ireland. In Rwanda is a debate in their participation on violence. The number is lower in state military that in non-state military (Difficult to be categorically)... Female combatants challenge our general ideas. In security studies Is Feminity inherently peaceful? The construction of feminity in war. Inger Skjelsbaek. → Scholars of IR have not paid much attention to the relationship between individuals and the conflict in question: their focus has been on states and nations. Nor have psychologists paid sufficient attention to how states and nations relate to the construction of individual identity. This chapter seeks to integrate an understanding of the construction of gender identity within the heart of the study of international politics, namely war. PAGE 44 • Basic premise: gender identity is negotiable, it is not given by nature. For West and Zimmerman Masculinity and femininity are negociated interpretations of what it means to be a man or a woman. These interpretations determine actions, behaviour, perception and rationality. Chapter focus on how women´s experience in war are determined by the fact that they are women, and how women´s responces reveal characteristics of their feminity. Oral testimonies from women from 3 conflicts areas: former Yugoslavia, El Salvador and Vietnam. • Women´s experience have been relegated to the shadows of more “significant” historic events, where man play lead roles and women are in the background. A woman-centre approach to war can provide insight into an “other” experience of war. Nuance the overll picture of war and its impact. Until we take women´s experiences and perceptions into account when conducting research on conflicts, our descriptions and analyses will remain incomplete. • Describing how feminity relates to peacefulness is difficult because they are not claire concepts. Feminity can be seen as being composed of the actions and rationality of motherhood, Peacefulness can be said to be distinguished by specific actions and rationalities. *PEACEFULNEES: the lack of will to use violence (actions) or to sustain enemy images of the other (rationality). → Seminar: -Why is it important to analyse the phenomenon of female and child combatants in contemporary ethno-national conflict? -Why do women and/or children become agents of political violence? (Think in terms both of why militant ethno-national groups employ women and children as combatants and what the voluntary/ involuntary motivations are for women and children to participate.) -New wars -vulnerability -What are the consequences (for themselves, society and our understanding of ‘traditional agents of political violence’) of their active participation in ethno-national conflicts. Women´s roles are diffent, but in general we can observe a comon tend: *Earlier literature was largely gender-blind with women´s participation simply not identified. Notes: The gendering of identities in Northern Ireland is the result of a profoundly antagonist political relationship between Irish /Catholics and British /Protestants since the signing of the 1921 partition treaty → division of Ireland into 2 separate states: The Republic of Ireland, which had earned the right to self-determination by way of bloody revolution, and Northern Ireland, which would remain governed by Great Britain. However, the bitter resentment between Irish nationalist and British loyalists did not become violent until 1969, when a series of civil rights demonstrations and street riots sparked off a period of political violence which Northern Ireland has had to endure for almost thirty years. -the rendering docile of women´s bodies as an strategy of warfare. Ej: The anti-terrorism advertising campaing. -the strategy of promoting weakness of women to infuse a movement with strength is a wartime strategy, shared by a patriarchal political leadership on both sides. **Book: “The Tamil Tigers”, **Movies: “The blood diamond” The soldier children. 12. Sexual Violence in Ethnic Conflict PAGE 44 Seminar Questions: -What is the purpose of sexual violence in ethnic conflict? -Can we account for sexual violence occurring so frequently in wartime yet varying between conflicts? -How has wartime sexual violence been viewed and responded to by international institutions? Hague, Euan (1997) ‘Rape, Power and Masculinity: The Construction of Gender and National Identities in the War in Bosnia-Herzegovina’, in Ronit Lentin (ed.) Gender and Catastrophe. London and New York: Zed Books. (Interesting piece on masculinity and war rape.) → Since practices of extreme sexual violence and systematic rape were usual during the war in Bosni-Herzegovina it has become an important issue of analyses, particularly the policy of “genocidal rape” followed by the military and paramilitary units of the Serb and Bosnian Serb nationalist forces. **Chapter 4 aims: Examine genocidal rape in the war in Bosnia-Herzegovina to evaluate how rape, in whatever context, is founded upon assumptions of power, domination and gender identity. → Genocidal rape has a political aim and is linked to a wider societal gender and power relations. These wider assumptions about certain types of soldierly masculinities provide the basis for the perpetration of these crimes. -GR represent particular relation of power, subordination and masculinity. It is founded in relation with violence, gender and nationalism issues. This policy constructed a concept of masculinity and formulated a military discourse. Another feature is: the sexual crimes were mostly gang and multiple rapes. → creation of “bonding” experience. → Warshaw defined rapes as “the total loss of control by one person to the will of another”. The theorization of rape comes from Western feminist approaches that are not free of contentions such as: they imply that the rape victim is always a woman and also suggest that man´s raison d´être is to rape / an problematic evaluation considering that all that is female is feminine and all that is male is masculine. Grosz argues “Masculine or feminine cannot be neutrally attributed to bodies of either sex”. Rather than a single masculinity, there are multiple masculinities that vary across space, time and context. The same contention applies to feminities. Gender identities are renegociated daily by individuals in their social lives. According to Jackson the plurality of these gender descriptions make them valuable tools for the analysis of multiple patterns of social relations, particularly in assessing “complex patterns of dominations and subordination”. (Jackson, 1991). Terminological dualisms: male/ female... Nordstrom criticizes traditional feminist evaluations of rape, arguing that they are over- simplifications of structure of rape. Britain → masculinities are not unequivocally powerful or inherently violent, but power relations depend on contextual and circumstantial factors. However, masculinities can generally be equated with power-holding and the subordination of feminities. For Jackson this is the “hegemonic masculinity” that operates under patriarchy. Cultural and social reproduction recreated, at all social levels, masculinities as dominant and feminities as subordinates. The Serb and Bosnian Serb military policy of genocidal rape imagined and then constructed a specific type of masculinity, consistently aggressive, violent, powerful and dominating. In this context masculinity is the power-wielding. The Serb and Bosnian Serb military policy of genocidal rape produced a violent and domineering masculinity that accrued to the Serb nationalist forces. Those opposing these powers had their PAGE 44 → Psychological research → rape is a sexual manifestation of aggression, not an agressive manifestation of sexuality. *It does not mean that it does not bring any pleasure to the perpetrator. → Biological research → show that the connection between the male hormone (testosterone) and aggression is complex.It is possible that aggression produce tesosterone rather than the testosterone produce aggression. Within the early feminist explanations for SV are essentialist: The second wave feminist analysis of rape and SV was so universalising that it had essentialist overtones itself.. → rape as a way to keep women under control. Apply this to rape in war: no difference between rape in war and rape in peace. Problems with the universal, indiscriminate male violence explanation for wartime sexual violence: -Not all men rape or commit acts of sexual violence, the extent of SV in different societies and at different times varies (culturally and socially determined) -men sometimes commit sexual violence against other men, -there are case of women committing or directing sexual violence, -this mask the complexities of wars and does not Instrumentalist explanations: sv as a phenomenon of Alison: Sexual violence as the product of intersections between gender and ethnicity? Male victims: attempt to feminines the victim, it is still about asserting power and masculinity. As the sv forms vary in differents societies, we observe the same in male rape: 13. Non-Violent Strategies for Change Seminar Questions: -Critically assess the motivations for non-violent action according to the non-violence literature. -Are non-violent strategies a viable alternative to violence in order to achieve political change in societies divided by ethno-national conflict? (Which factors make the success of non-violent strategies for change more likely?) -Under which circumstances are ethnic contenders more likely to choose non-violent over violent strategies for change? 14. Internal Frameworks for Managing Conflict *Note: Begin by gaining an understanding of centralised power-sharing systems (e.g. Sisk or Reilly) then move to a more detailed understanding of consociationalism specifically. On consociationalism, begin with Lijphart (outlining the model) then proceed to theoretical and normative evaluations of the model (e.g. Barry, Pappalardo, van Schendelen). By now there is quite an extensive literature on applications of the model, especially for Northern Ireland and South PAGE 44 Africa Seminar Questions: -Critically assess the potential of (consociational) power-sharing arrangements to prevent the outbreak or recurrence of violent ethnic conflict. -Why, according to Lijphart, is majoritarian democracy not suitable for multiethnic societies? Do you agree? -In your opinion, what is the biggest shortcoming of consociationalism? Do you think it is a suitable framework for managing conflict? -Sisk (1996) Power Sharing and International Mediation in Ethnic Conflicts. Washington, DC: United States Institute of Peace (chpts 3-4) 3. Democracy and its alternatives in Deeply Divided Societies: A. Management of conflict in non democratic systems: Often, conflict has been managed in divides societies through authoritarian domination of a group or groups over others... “ In many multiethnic states democracy is absent, but governments perform an implicit or even explicit informal balancing act, careful to include members of the key ethnic groups at high levels in central governments and to distribute resources un a balanced manner, but tightly controlling democratic freedoms. Ej: Singapore and Indonesia. B. Management approaches: Within consensual, noncoercive approaches to ethnic conflict management there are 2 broad options: partition or democracy. 1. Partition (or inLijphart terms “solution of the last resort”) is a viable option in deeply divided societies when • ethnic groups are homogeneously concentrate in territory, • the new states themselves do not include significant minorities themselves, • the rump state is willing to allow the secession to ocurr If peaceful partition is unlikely and highly unusual outcome in divided societies, and authoritarian methods are at best short-term solution to the management of ethnic conflict, multiethnic societies need democracy by default. However, a democracy can be stablished only when there is a 2united public opinion” (J.S. Mill) and this requirement lead as to the lack of political culture (prerequisite values) in most multiethnic societies and therefore to the impossibility of a democracy. 2. Democracy: Appealing to the belief that there are not viable alternatives to democracy as a system of just and stable conflict management. *PROBLEMS of the majoritarian democracy: although simple majority rule may be fairest from the theoretical point of view, the scholarly consensus recognizes the principle´s limitation in divided societies. According to Horowitz a procedurally free and fair election can lead to equally exclusive minority rule. In divides societies, electoral competition is a contest for ownership of the state. Minorities equate democracy with the structured dominance of adversarial majority groups (feared the consequences of majority victory) and understand the fact of loosing election as a matter of not simply loosing office but of loosing the means for protecting the survival of the group. Ethnic groups in conflict associated election and referenda and democracy in general with the principle of simple majority rule. Majoritarian democracy is typified by the Westminster system of small single-member district with first-past-the-post (plurality) electoral rules; the party with a majority of the seats form the government while other parties remain in loyal opposition. Analytically, there are 3 problems with simple majoritarian democracy in divided societies: 1- the possibility of permanent exclusion of minority group-based political parties, 2- the lack of “floating” voters with preferences based on other-than-ascriptive criteria such as class, PAGE 44 3- the pervasiveness of radical outbidding on divisive ethnic issues. Lijphart identify the core problem when he refers to the potential for “majority dictatorship”. The absent of Dahl´s prerequisite of mutual security lead to groups in conflict to perceive elections as a Zero-sum game in which the winner-take-all contest. This lead to zero-sum politics. Without an assurance that electoral system will not lead to permanent exclusion the minority group perceives a threat and will not accept the risk of electoral competition. ***Rejection of majoritarian democracy does not mean a rejection of democratic values. Majoritarianism and coalescent democracy (or power sharing) share the belief in the prospect for “political engineering” so the rules of poliitcal game can be structured to institutionalize moderation on divisive ethnic themes, to contain destructives tendencies and to preempt the centrifugal trust create by ethnic politics. Appropriate institutions can nudge the political system in the direction of reduce conflict and greater government accountability. The essence of power sharing is to contain democratic competition within acceptable boundaries so that differences of opinion along ethnic lines do not ineluctably lead to intergroup violence. There are 2 approaches to constructing conflict-ameliorating democratic institutions in deeply divided societies: the consociational model that emphasize assurance for minority group protection associated with Lijphart and thr integrative approach associated with Horowitz which places greater faith in the role of incentives in encouraging interethnic co-operation. But they both belief in the coalescent democracy as an alternative to the adverse effects of majoritarian practices. A. The consociational approach. Power sharing. Relies on elite cooperation. Even in deep differences, overarching integrative elite cooperation is a sufficient condition to assuage conflict. Ex of consociational democracies: Belgium, Netherland, Switzerland, Malaysia. According to Lijphart consociationalism relies on 4 basic principles: • Broad-base or grand coalition executive: power sharing in the executive in a grand coalition ensures that the minority is not permanently excluded from political power. • Minority or mutual veto through which each segment is given “a guarantee that it will not be outvoted by the majority when its vital interest are at stake”. The veto provide an ironclad guarantee of political protection to each segment on issues related to its vital interests. -mutual veto → provides the minority with a negative rule to qualify the majority ability to rule. -minority veto → gives minorities the right to prevent action by others on the most sensitive issues, such as language, cultural rights, or education. It also invest each segment with the power of protecting itself. • Proportionality at every level of government decision making (central, regional and local) to give minority groups power, participation and influence commensurate with their overall size in society. Te principle of proportionality is manifest in 2 ways: -through the electoral → proportional representation seek translate faithfully the demographic strength of the segments into commensurate representation in parliament; parties are awarded seats in parliament in direct proportion to votes garnered in an election. -the allocation of resources by the state (including the appointment of civil servants and public spending) should be doled out according to the proportionality principle. • Segmental group autonomy: through either territorial federalism or “corporate federalism” (nonterritorial autonomy), consociationalism provides internal autonomy for all groups who want it by developing decision-making authority ti the segments. Lijphart distinguishes between those issues that concern the common interest, where decision are made by consensus, and those that primarily concern the segments (to which the issues are delegate in the case they don´t reach an consensus). The principle underlying communal autonomy is “rule by the minority over itself in the area of the minority´s exclusive concern”. The principle of “voluntary affiliation” says that group identification should not be predefined or determined; instead the segments of society would be able to define PAGE 44 mobilization mechanism to drive the parties towards the settlement of the conflict. However, they are effective, only as long as the rival ethnic groups accept the identity of the mediator and indeed the strategies employed. Thus, even when mediation is undertaken by great powers (under propitious timing or ripeness), the ultimate power in the mediation process lies with the disputing parties. 2. Liberal or governance-based approaches which focus on the role of third parties in shaping and developing linkages between states and society. It is rooted in Kantian notions of liberalism and just governance and stress the importance of creating democratic institutions and mechanism of governance. Causes of ethnic conflict are understood as the lack of the authority and legitimacy of pluralis structures, violations of human rights and the breakdown of the rule o law. F 0 E 0 reconstruction of political and security institutions, stablishment of truth and reconciliation tribunals in order to restore faith in the judicial process and to install a new cooperative and peaceful environment. Ej: South Africa, East Timor, Haiti and El Salvador. Like in softer version of realism, the role of a third party may be assumed not only by the great powers, but also by intergovernmental and non-governmental organisations (ventage: apparent neutrality). This approach has strong normative component in that the intervening outside party must stand by those in the conflict who are committed to the liberal democratic way. This normative crusade has been criticized not only for failing to appreaciate the difficulties in introducing democratic practices in unstable and torn societies with no democratic experience, but also because it emphasise procedural and institutional while neglecting the importance of engaged and informed civil society. This may led to a return to violence. While de advance of confidence-building measures such as election and power sharing can reduce violence and increase cooperation, they cannot alter the basic fear and perceptions embedded in individuals and ethnic groups. 3. Social-psychological approaches concern with societal and human security. Its contribution is the added dimension of image formation of the other. The key to understand the root causes of E.C. is not in the security dilemma or the breakdown of the state authority, but rather in the development and reinforcement of “enemy images” or “us versus them” mentality. Domestic and international conditions may help to facilitate the formation of enemy images. Since conflict is caused by deep-rooted stereotypes and ethnocentric views of the other, it does not necessarily follow a rational pattern, and instead must be understood as a subjective and context-dependent social process. F 0 E 0 to manage the conflict third parties must first address the embedded anxieties and identities which inform the rival groups´images of each other. Strategies: reconciliation process, problem- solving workshops and systems compatible with local culture and norms. Third parties must assumed neutral role. Individuals, small informal groups and non-govermental organisations are best suited to perform these activities because of their sensitivity, local expertise and perceived impartiality. Critics: third parties may find difficult to access to the local group and even if the activities are successful, their impact on society at large is not guaranted. Unless high-level officials are informed and engaged with the process these programs have limited effect. The efficacy of conflict management strategies: a. Humanitarian intervention: “the threat or use of force across state borders by a state (s) aimed at preventing or ending widespread and grave violations of the fundamental human rights of individuals others tan its own citizens, without the permission of the state within whose territory force is applied”. Mixed record of success. Interventions in northern Iraq, Somalia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Rwanda, Kosovo, East Timor and Darfut have failed to produce a definitive protocol. The principle of state sovereignty is embedded in international law and calls for humanitarian PAGE 44 intervention, even on humanitarian grounds, raise legal and ethical questions. Nevertheless, the post-Cold war period has witnessed a rise in the number and range of third.party interventions as the demise of Soviet Union has removed the strategic that previously restricted the potential for ethnic clashes. In recent years greater emphasis has been placed on defining the appropriate boundaries for interventions. According to Hoffman, there are 2 categories where intervention may be necessary: -when there is a threat to international peace (ej: Somalia, Haiti and the plight of Kurds in northern Iraq). - in massive violations of human rights (including expulsion of minorities and ethnic cleansing). Ej: Rwanda, Kosovo and East Timor. An attempt to establis norms of intervention was manifested in the International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty´s framework of the The Responsability to Protect F 0E 0concept desing to provide a legal and ethic basis for humanitarian interventions, as well as authorise military interventions if the aim is preventing human suffering. It suggested that the United Nations must asume a primary role in authorising and coordinating such interventions. The UN is the only body in international politics which maintains, albeit not always sucessfully, the image of comunal values and shared responsibility. *Against humanitarian intervention: - realist: it challenge the principle of state sovereignty, harm the national interest, damage state´s reputation abroad (ej: American intervention in Somalia in 1990s), inevitably states will aply selective measures in their choices of interventions (Ej: failed to respond quickly to Rwanda and to the plight of Bosnian Muslims). -pluralist: the problema of forming international consensus on the principles that should guide these interventions, rule consequentialism (principle of non-intervention), the importance of multilateral missions (ideally led by the UN), the proportionality of the misión to the danger it posed in the first place (it means that human suffering must be met with humanitarian response; not do to more harm to human right than the harm the intervention is aimed to prevent). Assesing the proportionality of the response is a difficult task. In assesing the success if interventions it is useful to distinguish btw the short and long-term outcomes of the missions. To prevent the resumption of violent ethnic conflict, there must be a ong- term commitment to address the underlying causes of the conflicto through a combinations of political, social and economic reforms. These 2 interpretations of success are in tensión with each other and implicate different forms of intervention. Intervention of limited objectives and short durations have stronger military component, whereas non-armed humanitarian interventions are more likely to engage with long-term objectives. Notwithstanding the differences between cases of humanitarian intervention, some generic criteria for success are applicable. Brown identifies 3 criteria for determine success: -the fulfilment of the mission´s mandate as specified by the Security Council resolution, -the resolution of the underlying diputes of the conflict, -the contribution to the maintenance of the omternational peace and security. c. militar intervention. b. Mediation: While mediations is often overlooked as an integral mechanism of conflict management, compared to the high profile of peacekeepinf missions, it has proved to be the most popular form of contemporary conflict management. Definition vary, but it is commonly understood as the intervention of a third party in the dispute of 2 or more parties for the purpose of improving the nature of interaction btw the disputants. It is distinct from other forms of intervention by its voluntary, non-forceful and non-coercive nature, but third parties can exercise a significant amount of leverage on the parties to draw them closer to reconciliation. Zartman and Touval suggest that mediators may call upon up to 5 sources of leverage: -persuasion: the ability to depic a more favourable alternative to the present conflict, PAGE 44 -extraction: produce a favourable position from each party, -termination: withdraw –or threaten to withdraw- from the mediation process, -deprivation: deprive sources from one or both disputants, -gratification: reward the parties for good behaviour. Mediation is a useful tool to the UN and non-governmental organisation´s effort at conflicto management. Compared with military and humanitarian intervention it is a cost-effective and flexible strategy which can succesfully support other mechanism of conflict management and resolution. Here there are 2 broad contending conceptualisations of mediation succes: -objective criteria: asses the ultimate consequences of the mediation by observable signpost such as cease-fire, peace treaty or other tangible political settlements, as well as the opening of a dialogue and a marked reduction in the level of violence. This measure is problematic as it fails to account for the effectiveness of the mediation. Ej: 1993 Oslo Accords btw Israelis and Palestinians. -the second measurement of mediation succes attempts to bridge this gap btw results and perpections. This approach explains mediation success by focusing on the process of communication as a means of changing attitudes, largely outside the structures of formal negociation. Sucessful mediation is defined in terms of the subjective perceptions of the disputants and the mediator regarding ther respective efforts to accomplish their aims as they were outlined at the initiation of the process. Despite differences btw the variuos strategies of conflicto management, evidence suggests that the best practice would entail both military and diplomatic components. Third party mediations is more effective when it is backed by actors who posses the will and the power to change the status quo, and conversely military intervention alone is less likely to produce a long-lasting settlement without a viable political process. Third parties must possess staying power and remain fully engaged during negotiations and military operations. 18. POSTCONFLICT RECONSTRUCTION AND PEACEBUILDING Post-conflict reconstruction in ethnically divided societies. Monika Heupel. Post-conflict reconstruction or post-conflict peacebuilding is defined as the “activities undertaken on the far side of conflict to reassemble the foundations of peace and provide the tools for building on those foundations something that is more than just the absence of war”. Reconstruction activities in the aftermath of armed conflict or war are usually divided into four fields of activities that address security-related, political, psychosocial and socioeconomic problems of post-conflict societies respectively. Progress in all 4 fields is required to render post-conflict reconstruction effective and progress in each field of activity depend on progress in the other fields and the provision of security is considered the necessary precondition for progress in other fields. -Security related reconstructions refers to the (RE)transfer of the monopoly of force to the state. It involves disarmament, demobilization of private and parastatal combat units and security sector reform (core element: integration of the former soldier into national security institutions), temporary deployment of multilateral peacekeeping forces endowed with mandates (monitor and enforce cease-fire agreements and provide an environment secure enough to carry other reconstructions efforts). They are meant to ease the security dilemma that is presumed to prevent or at least complicate peacetime co-operation among formerly opposing parties. -Political reconstructions refers to the promotions of the rule fo law and to the (re)building of democratic institutions in post-conflict societies. Ir requires foremost the composition of a Constitution that embodies the basic principles and norms as well as rights. Rule of law involves the establishment of a judicial system open to everybody and shielded against political influence. Democracy promotion is based on the assumption that stable democracies are less likely to become PAGE 44 conflicts in the immediate aftermath of violence (untimely liberalisation). Risks: -Premature democratization in post-conflict situations is risky F 0E 0 states undergoing a transformation from autocracy to democracy are more susceptible to armed conflict or war than stable autocracies and mature democracies. States in limbo btw autocracy and democracy are particularly at risk because the process of democratization enables societal groups to gather and voice their demands while the governing regime is not in a position or willing to accommodate such demands. There are indications that the pacifying effect of maturing democracies is less pronounced in ethnically divided societies than in homogeneous societies. So the introduction of democracy in multi-ethnic societies is likely to stimulate political competition along ethnic lines, facilitate ethnic mobilization and thus foment ethnic conflict. *Premature elections are a gamble, given that ethnic groups often perceive elections as a sum-zero game and may resort to violent means if elections produce undesirable results. -Hasty introduction of free market economies in post-conflict societies is likewise risky because states that are at middle levels of development are exposed to a higher risk or armed conflict than states that are less open to the world economy (or highly developed). The introduction of free- market economy often guided by externally imposed neo-liberal structural adjustment programmes, and integration into the global economy, give rise to social inequality in war-shattered societies and create losers that may resort to violent means. As in the relation btw the degree of democratization and the risk of violent conflict, the relation btw economic openness (and development) and the risk of violent conflict equally applies to ethnically divide societies. Economic development creates more issues than societal groups can compite for and heighten the risk of group conflicts. Moreover, horizontal inequality between ethnic groupd renders societie more prone to armed conflict or war, as it produces grievances that can be used by “ethnic entrepreneurs” to mobilise followers along ethnic lines. Becase of this negative effects, critics call for the “strategic liberalization” F 0E 0 shares the normative underpinning of liberal internationalism but argue for a gradual and controlled implementation of its agenda and long-term commitment by external actors. Instead of focusing on premature elections,tthey emphasise constitution-building and recommend deyaing elections until disarmament and demobilization afforts have made progress, civil society have developed and electoral systems have been crafted with mechanism that reward moderate parties. They also suggest adjustment policies that avoid economic shocks and allocate resources to those negatively affected by adjustment programmes. Other critics questions whether external actors have the right and ability to engage in far-reaching social engineering in post-conflict societies. Rather, they demand for local actors to have a greater stake in deciding the constitutional foundations of the political system and the parameters of the approach to peace-building. Conclusions: while it is tru that some of the measures put forwards by the different approaches countervail one another, it is worthwhile to examine more closely which measure can be combine under particular circumstances. O’Flynn, Ian and David Russell (2011) ‘Deepening Democracy: The Role of Civil Society’, in K Cordell and S Wolff (eds) Routledge Handbook of Ethnic Conflict, Abingdon: Routledge, pp. 225-235. Ch. 18. Democracy means the rule by the people, which, in turn, assumes that ordinary people can hold representatives to account and make them responsive to their preferences and opinions. Represenatives need only be held accountable for the positions and policies they adopt at election time. If voters are dissatisfied they can use their franchise to register that dissatisfaction in the hope of bringing about a change of goverment. Schumpeter. Critics argue that this is an overly recutive understanding of democracy. On an alternative view, a flourish democracy must strive towards achieving greater levels of public participation enabling ordinary people to engage in meaninful deliberation that can inform decisión PAGE 44 making on an ongoing basis. J.S.Mill. The associations of civil society can do much more than enable people to engage with and learn from one another and to talk to government. In doing so they can exercise greater control over the conditions under which they live and act- in effect, to be self-determining- and hence increase the quality of their democracy. The implications for societies deeply divided along ethnic lines are encouraging F 0E 0 if they engage within civil societu they may become to realice that they share many interest in common. It may led them to realise that public opinión, or indeed their own interest, need not necessarily break down along athnic lines. As Larry Diamanond argues, a rich ans pluralistic civil society “tends to generate a wide range of interests that may cross-cut, and so mitigate, the principal polarities of political conflict”. This not only encourage tolerance and healthy respect for difference, but allows representative mush more room to build the sort of composite compromisos necessary to address difficult political questions. In practice, however, the ability of ordinary people to engage in deliberation with one another through civil society associations may be limited. Ethnic groups concentrated in differents in different parts of the country may have ni contact with each other or live within parallel social spheres. The experience of physical, social or political separation may indeed mean that, even if ordinary people do participate in associational life, they may still fail to think beyond the boundaries of their own ethnic group. It may no be posible to créate civil society where none exists. But weak civil society associations can be strengthened through sensitive and apropriate forms of strategic intervention. It is posible to créate institutions that facilitate participation and deliberation btw ordinary people, both within and across different ethnic groups, and that enable them to effectively cannel their views and opinions to government. Definitions of civil society: Diamond F 0E 0 “is the realm of organised social life that is open, voluntary, self-generating, at leasr partially self-supporting, autonomous from the state, and bound by a legal order or set of shared rules”. -must be effectively organised so that their members can: • Exchange information and evaluate alternative perspectives, • Formulate a coherent political otulook or perspective on public issues, • Mobilise sufficient numbers to influence political decisions. -its distinctive: open and voluntary character. The more space there is for expression of diverse interests, larger number of associations. In practice many civil associations cannot be describe as open. Ej: religious group. -aim to influence political decisions (no seek to control the government). Civil associations are not hegemonic, but instead seek to represent particular interests at particular times. F 0E 0 generate its consequence: the profusión of different organisations and, for individuals, multiple organisational ties that cut across and complicate existing cleavages and generate moderating cross-pressures on indivudal preferences, attitudes and beliefs. -be partially self-supporting because otherwise they may become overly dependen ton governmental support which, in turn, comprimise their dependence. They may loose the ability to stand as a critical check on the behaviour of elected representatives. This risk undermining one of the main arguments for civil society, anmely the purported benefits of a more participatory model of democracy -members bound by a legal order or set of shared rules. F 0 E 0 a civil association is one which respects the equal standing of other people within a democratic order. It may disagree with them, or have conflicting interest, but it nevertheless accepts that, as far as democracy is concerned, no one is automatically entitled to get his or her way but must instead PAGE 44 seek to convince or persude rather than merely outmanoeuvre or defeat. Difficulties with civil society: Bredan O´Leary: “there is more than one society and their relations may be far from civil”. Some scholars argue that civil associations are defined by their ability to trascend traditional ties, including ethnicity. Ernest Gellner F 0E 0 civil society is a distinctly modern phenomenon, based strictly upon open and volunaty association. This concept excludes associations that are explicitly ethnic. What makes an association civil is not how is constitued or the interests that it serves, but how it seeks to engage with other civil association and government. Solutions: -Support civil associations whose members come from different sides of the ethnic divide so they can have a vita role in building bridges and in deepening democracy. -Important not to promote a model of civil association (it will be peceived as imposed), -it is necessary to Foster dialogue btw civil associations whose members are exclusive. -creation of institutions that serves as conduits which enable civil associations whose members are exclusively draw from one or other side of the ethnic divide to become better informed about the views of others in society and to greater levels of mutual understanding and respect. Since the support is not provided directly to civil association but instead channelled indirectly though facilitating institutions, the role of the state or the international community is less risky and help to maintain a sense of distance btw state and society. The potential of civil society is not only that shapes the dispositions of ordinary people in more positive directions, but also to reinforce democratic institutions by making it easier for politicians to compromiso across ethnic lines. Civil associations have a vital role top lay in deepening democracy not as an alternative to political engagement at the governmental level, but as a vital supplement to it. They can Foster peace and stability. Seminar: -Is international intervention and mediation in peace processes the most effective way to being about an end to violent ethno-national conflicts? 2 case studies. → international intervention: military forces → cases: Yugoslavia, Rwanda. → mention the possibility of the parties to perpetuate the conflict **Comparative analysis 1. MANAGING AND SETTLING ETHNIC CONFLICTS The timing of peace initiatives: hurting stalemates and ripe moments. William Zartman. Parties resolve their conflict only when are ready to do so- when alternative, usually unilateral, means of achieving a satisfactory result are blocked and the parties feel that they are in an uncomfortable and costly predicament. Stalemate is the most propitious condition for settlement. PAGE 44