PO377 Ethnic Conflict and Political Violence

1. PO377 Ethnic Conflict and Political Violence Week 1: Introduction to the Module and Key Concepts

2. My Details • Module Director: Dr Miranda Alison • Office: B1.07 (Social Studies Building) • Office Hours: Mondays 1.30-2.30 and Thursdays 10-11 (Term One) • E-mail address:miranda.alison@warwick.ac.uk • Webpage:http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/fac/soc/pais/staff/alison/ • Telephone ext.: 23104

3. Administrative Matters • Module webpage: http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/fac/soc/pais/currentstudents/undergrad/modules/po377/ • PAIS Undergraduate Handbook: http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/fac/soc/pais/currentstudents/undergrad/ughandbook/ • Seminar groups • Assessment for the module • Lecture and seminar material • Library resources • PAIS Film Club

4. Schedule AUTUMN TERM • Week 1: Introduction to the Module and Key Concepts Case Studies: Socio-Political Histories and Contemporary Conflict • Week 2: Sri Lanka • Week 3: Northern Ireland • Week 4: The Former Yugoslavia • Week 5: Rwanda • Week 6: READING WEEK Theoretical Approaches • Week 7: Ethnicity, Nations and Nationalisms • Week 8: Gender and Nationalism • Week 9: Explaining Ethnic Conflict Political Violence and Non-Violent Strategies • Week 10: Non-Traditional Agents of Political Violence

5. SPRING TERM • Week 11: Sexual Violence in Ethnic Conflict • Week 12: Non-Violent Strategies for Change Resolution: Political Responses to Ethnic Conflict • Week 13: Internal Frameworks for Managing Conflict • Week 14: Institutional Design as Conflict Management: Executive Structures and Electoral Systems in Divided Societies • Week 15: Separation as a Solution? Partition and Secession • Week 16: READING WEEK “Peace” and Afterwards • Week 17: Peace Processes and International Intervention • Week 18: Post-Conflict Reconstruction and Peacebuilding • Week 19: Managing Conflict in the Case Studies • Week 20: Healing Deeply Divided Societies: Reconciliation and Moving Forward END OF TERM & LECTURES SUMMER TERM • Two exam revision sessions (Weeks 21 and 22 probably)

6. Key Contested Concepts • Ethnicity • Ethnic Groups • Nations and States • Nationalism(s) • Ethnic Conflict • Ethno-national Conflict

7. Ethnicity • Term of reference for people who share certain commonalities. • Relational and situational construct. • A process. • Largely arose to replace term/concept of ‘race’.

8. Donald Horowitz (2000, chpt. 1): • Ethnicity is based on ‘a myth of collective ancestry, which usually carries with it traits believed to be innate.’ • Ethnicity ‘is connected to birth and blood, but not absolutely so…’ • Ethnicity ‘embraces… color, language, religion, or some other attribute of common origin.’

9. Ethnic Group • A ‘named human population with a myth of common ancestry, shared memories, and cultural elements; a link with an historic territory or homeland; and a measure of solidarity’. (Smith in Brown (ed.) 1993) • An ethnic grouping is often viewed in terms of kinship. (Horowitz 2000, chpt. 2) • Culture may be central to the social lives of an ethnic group but is not the sole defining characteristic.

10. Nations and States The Nation • Some shopping list definitions; others say national identity comes down to membership in ‘a people’. • Smith: ‘a clearly delimited, compact, and recognized homeland; a mass, public culture; a centralized economy with mobility throughout; and common rights and duties for all conationals, usually to the exclusion of outsiders.’(Smith in Brown (ed.) 1993) • Nations claim political representation. • ‘[T]he major difference between ethnicity and nationalism lies… in their relationship to the state.’ (Eriksen 1991) • To recognise a ‘nation’ entails recognition of ‘its legitimacy as an autonomous political actor.’(Jay in Eccleshall et al. (eds.) 1994)

11. The State • ‘[T]he machinery for control and administration of a given territory, the source of citizenship and rights, and the agency with the sole legitimate use of force.’ (Cynthia Cockburn (1998) The Space Between Us: Negotiating Gender and National Identities in Conflict. London: Zed Books, p. 37) • Most nationalist movements are centred around some kind of claim to a state.

12. Nationalism(s) • Nationalism as a state of mind: ‘a consciousness manifested by members of a group that they belong to a particular nation…’ (Jay in Eccleshall et al. (eds.) 1994) • Nationalism as an ideology: universal claim of the ‘nation’ as being the locus of political rights & duties, & demanding national self-government; particular claims by nationalists about their specific nations. (Jay in Eccleshall et al. (eds.) 1994) • ‘Nationalism is primarily a political principle, which holds that the political and the national unit should be congruent.’ (Gellner 1983)

13. Ethnic Conflict • Ethnic conflict: ‘a dispute about important political, economic, social, cultural, or territorial issues between two or more ethnic communities.’ (Brown in Brown (ed.) 1993) • Ethnicity is politicised and aspects of ethnicity/ethnic differences/ethnic rights are integral to the dispute. • ‘Conflict’ does not necessarily entail violence and not all ethnic conflicts are armed/violent.

14. Ethno-national Conflict • Ethno-national conflict: form of ethnic conflict involving nationalist political claims and entailing a particular kind of nationalism. • Ethno-national conflicts usually involve demands for self-determination and include some kind of claim to territory or statehood.

15. Questions to Consider At this early stage, what do you think is the main cause of conflict between ethnic groups? • Difference leads to hatred. • Difference leads to mistrust and misunderstandings. • Inequality leads to resentment and resistance. • Ethnic conflicts are really about economic greed and power-hungry leaders, not about ethnicity. • Humans have a tendency to form social groups and wherever there are groups there are those who “belong” and those who are excluded.