Living Together After Ethnic Killing

This volume attempts to critically analyze Chaim Kaufman's ideas from various methodological perspectives, with the view of further understanding how stable states may arise after violent ethnic conflict and to generate important debate in the area. After the Cold War, the West became optimistic of their ability to intervene effectively in instances of humanitarian disasters and civil war. Unfortunately, in the light of Bosnia, Somalia and Rwanda, questions of the appropriate course of action in situations of large scale violence became hotly contested. A wave of analysis considered the traditional approach of third parties attempting to ensure that the nation was built on the basis of a ruling power-share between the opposing sides of the conflict to be overwhelmingly problematic, and perhaps impossible. Within this movement Kaufman wrote a series of articles advocating separation of warring sides in order to provide stability in situations of large scale violence. His theorem provoked extreme responses and polarized opinion, contradicting the established position of promoting power-sharing, democracy and open economies to solve ethnic conflict and had policy implications for the entire international community. This book was previously published as a special issue of Security Studies.

This book examines whether partition is an effective means to resolve ethnic and sectarian civil wars. It argues that partition is unlikely to end ongoing ethnosectarian civil wars, but it can increase the likelihood of preventing civil war recurrence, as long as the partition separates civilians and militaries. The book presents in-depth case studies of Georgia–Abkhazia and Moldova–Transnistria, in addition to cross-national comparisons of all ethnosectarian civil wars between 1945 and 2004. This analysis demonstrates when partitioning a country can help transform an identity-based civil war into a lasting peace. Highlighting practical and moral challenges of separating ethnosectarian groups, the book contends that complete partitions cannot be easily implemented by the international community, and this limits their applicability. It also demonstrates that ethnosectarian civil wars are driven less by inter-group antagonisms and more by state breakdown, meaning displaced minorities can reintegrate peacefully after partition as long as a minimal level of state-building has been completed. The book ends by examining whether partition would be useful for five contemporary conflicts: Iraq, Ukraine–Donbass, Afghanistan, Sudan–South Sudan, and Serbia–Kosovo. This book will be of much interest to students of civil wars, ethnic conflict, peace and conflict studies, and international relations.

This examination of the 1991 uprisings in Iraq demonstrates how external intervention by the UN and other actors in ethnic conflicts has contributed to the problems with democratization experienced in the post-Saddam era.

Featuring fresh contributions from leading scholars, this new volume considers a varied range of post-war, post-Dayton and post-9/11 problems and issues, reminding readers that Dayton is not the only challenge to the safety, stability, and long-term viability of the post-war Bosnian state. Drawing together all the latest research, this book covers new ground in its discussion of post-9/11 security concerns, and in its leading-edge analyses of crime, corruption, and terror in a transitional state. It takes Bosnia-Herzegovina seriously as a subject of regional and international affairs, and is a critically important contribution to scholarship, showing how redefined global security concerns have heavily altered international and domestic security priorities in Bosnia-Herzegovina, with corresponding implications for post-war justice and identity politics, foreign intervention, and state-level institution building. This is essential reading for scholars of the Balkans, peacebuilding and reconstruction, European politics and of security studies in general.

Ethnicity is one of the most salient and enduring topics of social science, not least with regard to its potential link to political conflict/violence. Despite, or perhaps because of, the concept’s significant use, all too seldom has the field paused to consider the state of our knowledge. For example, how do we define and conceive of ethnicity within the context of political conflict? What do we really know about the causal determinants of ethnic conflict? What has been the most useful development within this literature, and why? This volume comprises reflections from an international range of prominent political scientists all engaged in the study of ethnicity and conflict/violence. They attempt to synthesize what the field does and does not know with regard to ethnic conflict, as well as draw out the research directions for the immediate future in unique and interesting ways. This book was originally published as a special issue of the journal Ethnopolitics.

The dispute between Georgia and Abkhazia is not a conflict of equals. In international conflicts, adversaries may differ de facto on the ground, in terms of population, territory and capability, among other things. As internationally recognized states, however, they have equal de jure status, and fears that inviting the other side to the negotiating tablemight be construed as recognition, for example, rarely intrude. The question of status does pose problems, however, when a conflict is being fought between a recognized state and an unrecognized entity, and these problems may contribute to increase the intractability of such conflicts.This study explores how and to what extent the difference in status between a sovereign state and an unrecognized entity hinders conflict resolution activities. Based on intensive fieldwork and unedited negotiation material, the book provides an in-depth analysis of the negotiations, informal dialogues and grassroots activities that took place in Abkhazia and Georgia between 1989 and 2008.

A critical study of incentives commonly used to induce non-state armed groups to engage in peace negotiations. Offers a closer analysis of these incentives, which offer such groups a place or a stake in governance, suggesting that not only are they frequently ineffective, but that they can have unintended and dangerous side effects.