Cleavages and civil war
An article in the New York Times by Gary J. Bass, an associate professor of politics and international affairs at Princeton, seems to suggest that we resist the appeal of easily apparent causation and look carefully at more complex factors when seeking to explain how things got to be the way they are. Bass also presents some challenges to the popular ideas of Samuel P. Huntington, a favorite of casual and professional political scientists.So, can Belgium, as a multi-ethnic society, offer hope to Nigeria? Are wealth and transparency in government more important than ethnic or religious homogeneity in maintaining civil order? Can you get students to think beyond the popular, generally accepted ideas? Here's a place to begin.
Web searches for Fearon, Laitin, Kaplan, and Huntington will produce some results that are useful in themselves and will also suggest other names and titles to research. Of course, a visit to the library will offer even more -- like articles and books as well as references.
What Really Causes Civil War?
"The commonplace assumption that a more homogeneous society is a more peaceful society certainly sounds reasonable... After all, in a country with numerous ethnic or religious groups, politicians are easily tempted to organize factions along group lines — which can lead to rising tensions and even civil war or the collapse of the state...
"But what if this whole premise is wrong? Odd as it may seem, there is a growing body of work that suggests that multiethnic countries are actually no more prone to civil war than other countries. In a sweeping 2003 study, the Stanford civil war experts James D. Fearon and David D. Laitin came to a startling finding: 'it appears not to be true that a greater degree of ethnic or religious diversity — or indeed any particular cultural demography — by itself makes a country more prone to civil war.'
"Fearon and Laitin looked at 127 civil wars from 1945 to 1999, most often in sub-Saharan Africa and Asia. They found that regardless of how ethnically mixed a country is, the likelihood of a civil war decreases as countries get richer. The richest states are almost impervious to civil strife, no matter how multiethnic they might be... And while the poorest countries have the most civil wars, Fearon and Laitin discovered that, oddly enough, it is actually the more homogeneous ones among them that are most likely to descend into violence... civil wars only begin under particular circumstances that favor rebel insurgencies. The most common situation involves a weak, corrupt or brutal government confronting small bands of rebels protected by mountainous terrain and sheltered by a sympathetic rural population, and possibly bolstered with foreign support or revenues from diamonds or coca...
"The Fearon and Laitin argument has not gone unchallenged. In a 2004 paper, the Oxford economists Paul Collier and Anke Hoeffler noted that when an ethnic group makes up more than 45 percent but less than 90 percent of a population, strife becomes more likely...
"Other scholars have backed up Fearon and Laitin’s general argument. Crawford Young, an African politics expert at Wisconsin and a former dean at the National University of Zaire, maintains that... [in] contrast to the conventional view that violence in Africa is a product of the legacy of arbitrary colonial borders that bundled rival tribes together... recent African civil wars [can be blamed] largely on novel financial and military factors. He points to the illicit sale of arms from the former Soviet Union and the rising professionalism of foreign-trained guerrillas... This argument... helps explain why Colombia’s civil war, fueled by coca profiteering, has dragged on for so many decades. Far from needing ethnic grievances to perpetuate them, some civil wars can perpetuate themselves...
"If true, the notion that ethnic diversity does not make civil war more likely would... call into question the thinking of pundits like Robert D. Kaplan, who has written that that multiethnic Nigeria 'is likely to split into several pieces,' and Samuel P. Huntington, whose book The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order previews a world torn apart by cultural differences between Muslims and other civilizations — ethnic warfare on a global scale. The Fearon-Laitin thesis suggests that the debate over the future of fragile countries should turn from questions of ethnic demography to the need for good government, economic development and adequate policing..."
Foreign Affairs offers this summary of Huntington's thesis:
"World politics is entering a new phase, in which the great divisions among humankind and the dominating source of international conflict will be cultural. Civilizations-the highest cultural groupings of people-are differentiated from each other by religion, history, language and tradition. These divisions are deep and increasing in importance. From Yugoslavia to the Middle East to Central Asia, the fault lines of civilizations are the battle lines of the future. In this emerging era of cultural conflict the United States must forge alliances with similar cultures and spread its values wherever possible. With alien civilizations the West must be accommodating if possible, but confrontational if necessary. In the final analysis, however, all civilizations will have to learn to tolerate each other."
posted by Ken Wedding @ 10:33 AM
1 Comments:
Want another call to think beyond the generally accepted paradigms? How about perceiving the world as divided between old civilizations and new, rather than divided by East and West?
That is what David Gosset (director of Academia Sinica Europaea at the China Europe International Business School, Shanghai, and founding director of the Euro-China Forum) suggests in his op-ed piece published by Asia Times Online.
A symphony of civilizations
"Used to innumerable discourses on the differences between the West and the East, one is not prepared to recognize two facts. First, although Europe and China have been slowly elaborating two distinct civilizations, they cannot be absolutely separated. Having in common long maturations over millennia, the two old worlds have developed affinities and, despite all the exotic representations, the two edges of Eurasia are closer than they seem.
"Second, one should not reduce the West to the US: that country, which from a colony has been rising to the rank of global hyperpower in only 230 years...
"It is precisely based on their affinities that Europe and China have to build a partnership that goes beyond ever-varying trade, scientific or even political interests. In other words, by placing culture as the keystone of their relationship, the two Eurasian civilizations would enter a really stable and meaningful cooperation having over time global constructive impact.
"[This] is a time when various models of society are facing one another and opposite ideas circulating intensively.
"At the two edges of the Eurasian continent, the European Union, a model for cooperation among countries, and China, a reference for developing countries, have a greater role to play in this highly critical global situation.
"It requires on both sides vision and leadership. Helsinki will host the ninth EU-China summit on September 9... Finland's high-level gathering has to be an event marked by a clear definition of the EU/China strategic relationship and by bold decisions on a wide range of issues.
"However, one should not forget that managing the growing interdependence between a post-nation-state Europe and a re-emerging Chinese world is a process that does presuppose time...
"Only a shared awareness of fundamental cultural and historical commonalities can lead to the deepening of the links between the two edges of Eurasia and have a moderating effect on Washington's imperial hubris. Better understanding between Europe and China is also necessary for both sides to take the full measure of what the two ancient civilizations can achieve together...
"In other words, will China tend to behave like the US... or more like the members of the European Union embarked to build a republic of nations?...
"Obviously, a pax Sinica would collide with the pax Americana... But if a cooperative Chinese civilization joins the efforts of a cooperative Europe, not only could an unprecedented area of peace and prosperity be opened on Eurasia, but the US could rediscover the wisdom of the Jeffersonian spirit, or face the risk of being isolated from the dynamics of a post-imperial Eurasian world-continent.
"Beyond more obvious and immediate tactical concerns, or strategic choices... [like] the [Shanghai Cooperation Organization's] SCO's 'Shanghai Spirit' (mutual trust, mutual benefit, equality, consultation, respect for cultural diversity, and common development) might well also be linked with a tradition of having to handle pluralism and to cope with complexity.
"Since it shares with the Old World an accumulation of experiences in dealing with a high level of internal diversity, the Chinese world is more likely to adopt the European quest for equilibrium on the global chessboard...
"The US, which never had to manage internally a multilateral subsystem, is just not well equipped to accept and live within a genuine global multilateral system...
"For Washington the only conceivable alternative is between chaos (to be understood as a world without US leadership) or the leadership of one pole over the others (another way to formulate and justify the pax Americana)...
"By contrast, because of their past internal diplomatic arrangements, Europe and China see almost instinctively the nuances between these extremes and the advantages of maintaining equilibrium among various poles of power. History has trained the two old worlds to deal better with complexity, uncertainty and the art of concessions...
"It is in that context that American analyst and academic Kendall Myers (Johns Hopkins University, Paul Nitze School of Advanced International Studies) is right to affirm: 'China, like Europe, has had its own international system, with a long experience of several thousand years of international relations, for the most part within China...'
"On December 1, 2005, Premier Wen Jiabao gave an interview to the French newspaper Le Figaro. As an introduction, he made a reference to the scholar Gu Hongming (1857-1928): 'It seems that only the French people could understand China and the Chinese civilization because the French share an extraordinary quality with the Chinese, namely subtlety.'
"And Wen added: 'So when I meet French friends, I do not feel there is estrangement between us.' We have also this reference to subtlety to describe the Chinese mind, but this time in Jean Monnet's words; remembering his stay in Shanghai in 1934 and 1935, the father of the European community writes: 'When I reached Shanghai ... I found myself face to face with men who seemed far more subtle and intelligent than Westerners' (Jean Monnet, Memoirs, Collins, English translation 1978, p 110)...
"People not directly in contact with the reality of the Chinese constellation tend to look at China as a homogeneous entity... This is, of course, a stereotype. China is not another nation-state, and an analogy with Europe can help us to frame the Chinese world in a way that is both useful and meaningful...
"Moreover, culture has to stand as the keystone of the Euro-China relationship. Whereas trade, economic or political interests vary and can be sources of tensions, culture is what can maintain the connection between Europe and China, the supporting element without which the Euro-China arch can easily collapse...
"Aware of fundamental commonalities, understanding their respective constraints and looking for cross-fertilizations, it is time now for the two old worlds to join their strengths and wisdoms to open a more cooperative page of history..."
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