Ethnicity Ethnic Conflicts Peace Processes

This volume addresses a set of problems that have retained global salience after the demise of the Soviet world. They are problems related to the cohesion and integration of nation-states having multiple ethnic groups competing for national identity and scarce resources. In some instances, fragile peace processes occur with uncertain outcomes. What are the factors involved in the dynamics of these changes? Scholars from a broad range of disciplines examine the relevant issues of race, ethnicity, ethnic tensions, and nationalism, in a wide variety of settings from South Africa and Indonesia to the Crimea.

Published in 1999, this text examines domestic wars, looking at inter-state relations only in as far as they are directly relevant to understand such wars. The book aims to indicate how intra-state war differs from the inter-state war, and focuses primarily on such domestic armed conflicts that at least have significant ethnonational components. The book assesses how heterogeneous a category "ethnic conflict" is in terms of causes and consequences, and gauges the complex interplay between class, regionalism and ethnicity. It is not limited to description and causal analysis, but also attempts to assess suggestions as to what types of actors may contribute in what ways to avoiding ethnonational mobilization/polarization, avoiding militarization of manifest conflicts, and de-escalating militarized conflicts by looking for tenable generalizations on what types of approaches are fruitful in bringing about de-escalation, ceasefires, political compromises, peaceful division or peaceful integration, reconciliation.

This book follows an approach that combines the viewpoints of both the realists and the idealists in dealing with the issues of conflict and peace. The ideas, models, and peace processes it proposes take into consideration the imperatives of real life without abandoning the dreams of a more peaceful and just world. The shared homeland model, as developed here, provides hope that ethnic conflict can be resolved in a manner that satisfies a group's need for recognition and cultural particularism, as well as its need for economic development, security, and regional activity. The book also defines and integrates steps of political conflict resolution into one theory that produces one of the first textbooks on the subject.

Can power sharing prevent violent ethnic conflict? And if so, how can the international community best promote that outcome? In this concise volume, Timothy Sisk defines power sharing as practices and institutions that result in broad-based governing coalitions generally inclusive of all major ethnic groups. He identifies the principal approaches to power sharing, including autonomy, federations, and proportional electoral systems. In addition, Sisk highlights the problems with various power-sharing approaches and practices that have been raised by scholars and practitioners alike, and the instances where power-sharing experiments have succeeded and where they have failed. Finally, he offers some guidance to policymakers as they ponder power-sharing arrangements.

Ethnic conflict is an elemental force in international politics and a major threat to regional security and stability. Ethnicity as a source of conflict has deep historic roots. Many such conflicts lay dormant, suppressed by the Soviet empire or overshadowed by the ideological competition of the cold war. Both protagonists in the cold war demonstrated unwarranted optimism about their ability to defuse ethnicity and ethnic conflict. Marxists believed that ethnicity would give way to "proletarian internationalism." Social class and economic welfare would determine both self-identity and loyalty to political institutions that would transcend ethnic identification or religious affiliation. Western democracies assumed that "nation building" and economic development were not only vital components in the strategy to contain communist expansion, but that capitalism, economic prosperity, and liberal democratic values would also create free societies with a level of political development measured by loyalty to the state rather than to the narrower ethnic group. Instead, the goals of assimilation and integration within the larger context of economic and political development are being replaced by violent ethnic corrections to artificially imposed state boundaries. The Balkan and Transcaucasian conflicts, for example, are ancient in origin and have as their object the territorial displacement of entire ethnic groups. Such conflicts by their nature defy efforts at mediation from outside, since they are fed by passions that do not yield to "rational" political compromise. They are, as John Keegan describes in his most recent study of war, "apolitical" to a degree for which Western strategists have made little allowance.1 The demise of European communism and the Russian empire has unleashed this century's third wave of ethnic nationalism and conflict. The first came in the wake of the collapsing Ottoman, Russian, and Austro-Hungarian empires which came to a climax after World War I; the second followed the end of European colonialism after World War II.

This volume of essays assembles a diverse array of approaches to the problems of ethnic conflict, with researchers and scholars using pure theory, comparative case studies, and aggregate data analysis to approach the complex questions facing today's leaders.

As ethnic groups clash, the international community faces the challenge of understanding the multiple causes of violence and formulating solutions that will bring about peace. Allowing for greater insight, Jesse and Williams bridge two sub-fields of political science in Ethnic Conflict—international relations and comparative politics. They systematically apply a “levels of analysis” framework, looking at the individual, domestic, and international contexts to better explore and understand its complexity. Five case study chapters apply the book’s framework to disputes around the world and include coverage of Bosnia, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Northern Ireland, Sri Lanka, and Sudan. Never losing sight of their analytical framework, the authors provide richly detailed case studies that help students understand both the unique and shared causes of each conflict. Students will appreciate the book’s logical presentation and excellent pedagogical features including detailed maps that show political, demographic, and cultural data.

This groundbreaking book provides an integrated account of ethnic, nationality and sectarian conflicts in the contemporary world including the role of collective myths, the mass media and the ethnification of identities as contributors to ethnic conflicts and wars. In addition to many examples from the last two decades, Oberschall provides a comprehensive overview of the conflict and peace processes in Bosnia, Northern Ireland and the Middle East. Oberschall analyzes: peace building through constitutional design power sharing governance disarming combatants, post-accord security and refugee return transitional justice (truth and reconciliation commissions, war crimes tribunals) economic and social reconstruction in a multiethnic society. In addition to many examples from the last two decades, Oberschall provides a comprehensive overview of the conflict and peace processes for Bosnia, Northern Ireland, and Israel-Palestinians. He argues that insurgency creates contentious issues over and above the original root causes of the conflict, that the internal divisions within the adversaries trigger conflicts that jeopardize peace processes, and that security and rebuilding a failed state are a precondition for lasting peace and a democratic polity. This book will be essential reading for undergraduate and postgraduate students, researchers and academics interested in the fields of peace studies, war and conflict studies, ethnic studies and political sociology.