Conflict

Questions 

1.0 How and why does migration lead to violent conflict? Why did Kashmiri Hindus not adopt violent conflict?

2.0 Which case has dehumanization? Which case has humanization?

3.0 Which case does not have rapes? 

4.0 Which case has killings of defenseless people?

5.0 Violence against non-combatants. It happens in most cases. It is too broad.

6.0 Which type of violence changes from time to time and place to place? Violent and cruel goes beyond to defeat cannibalism (eating enemies' hearts)

7.0 In the case of undisciplined militia, sexual violence, and cutting ears of victims, all types of torture occur to demean the enemy.

8.0 Is Indian democracy unnecessarily demonized? Salvatore Babones claims "Data CherryPicked" to demonize India in foreign reports. Journalists and NGOs can demean India or any unfriendly state but academics must inform facts. 

 Conflict

Conflicts are 

1.0 a) Conflict: 

Conflicts are much more localized, fighting for political power, using homemade arms and weapons. These can be brutal, and deadly. 

 b) Violent Conflict: 

Violent conflicts are mostly religious. 

 c) Ethnic Conflict: 

Ethnic conflicts are ethnic and religious. It keeps the minority in their place. 

 d) Ethno nationalism: It occurs when the political and national units are contiguous (sharing the common borders / same aim).

e) Ethnic + Separatist Conflict 

One party / ethnic community fighting to secede from the state. Goal of the ethnic conflict 

1. Create a new independent state 

2. join the other state 

Conflict is fought between militia claiming to represent the ethnic community and the state.

It causes casualties on both sides. Mostly civilians of the state of majority are often targeted by the minority. Most often it occurs in a region of the state where the minority is concentrated. In other words, it constitutes the majority of the minority in that region. For example, Muslims are concentrated in some areas of Loni, Sahibabad, and Ghaziabad / or Punjabi Indians in south hall London. Telengana separated from Andhra Pradesh.

f) Genocide: United Nations defines Genocide as "Acts committed with the intent to exterminate in whole or in part a racial, ethnic, national or religious group". It occurs normally by the state with the help of the dominant ethnic group.

2.0 Riots 

Riots are less than Genocide. Riots cause more casualties than any form of ethnic violence. Riots are short of outright warfare. Riots are Ethnic riots, Religious riots, and Ethno religious riots.

What is a riot?

Ethnic mob attacking members of another community

It is short in length, ordinarily one to three days.

It happens with incidents, periods of quiet (lull), rumors, triggering incidents, and then riots occur.

Who riots?

Horowitz:  Ordinary people enraged at other community

Brass and Tambiah:  Those connected to politicians and other members of the elite seeking to provoke violence.

Sacco: Working poor in response to a threat 

Reason for Grievances

Most backward regions likely to try and secede  (Secessionist Conflicts) - Horowitz 

Horizontal inequalities - Frances Stewart 

Political exclusion - Cederman et al.

Explanations of Riots

Riots are mostly spontaneous, in the heat of the moment - Horowitz 

Horowitz further explains the theory of riot. "an intense, sudden, though not wholly unplanned, lethal attack by civilian members of one ethnic group on civilians members of another ethnic group. Victims are chosen because of their group membership.

According to Horowitz sense of backwardness stimulates resentment and aggression. It causes frustration due to inequality and marginalization. Marginalization, lack of jobs, expropriation of resources, and environmental degradation cause anger in communities particularly indigenous communities. Backward groups are anxious they will be dominated

According to Varshney Riots will occur in cities where there are no civil networks between the communities.

Sacco writes that riots occur when state authorities are unable to maintain public order. Poor people have an interest in participation because they are vulnerable to attack once a riot is triggered.

Theorists for riots:

Paul Brass wrote "Institutionalised Riot System". 

Wilkinson: "Electoral Incentives".

Tambiah: "Focalisation and Transvaluation" "Elite provocation"

Brass, Tambiah and Wilkinson: "Politics by other means".

Gagnon and Snyder: Communal conflict due to power retention

Valentino: The search for the causes of mass killings should begin with the capabilities, interests, ideas, and strategies of individuals in positions of political and military power.

Monica Duffy Toft:  Territory or land gives the power of identity and causes material competition

Collier and Hoeffler: Economic factors, greed, and opportunity are the main causes of rebellion and civil war. Politics and grievances are unimportant.

Phillip Jenkins: the rival concept of God is at the core of conflict.

Huntington or Dawkins etc: Clash of Civilizations 

Kaplan's Balkan Ghosts: Ancient Hatred is the cause of ethnic differences and conflict.

Dinesh D'Souza: Atheism, not religion is a real force behind mass murder.

Jerry - Muller:   "Us versus Them Syndrome causes conflict." When state and ethnic boundaries do not coincide then politics is apt to remain ugly.

Horowitz explains four variables for conflict: a hostile interethnic relationship, an event that stimulates rage, a sense of justification for the killings, and reduced risk of government action by the rule of law of the state.

Walker Connor: Ethnic nationalism poses the most serious threat to the political stability in a host of states. Man is a national animal, not a rational animal.

Gurr: Relative Deprivation Theory: Aggression stems from frustration, which comes when one's expectations can not be met with one's current capabilities. 

3.0 War 

War has two types: 

a) Civil War: A violent struggle for domestic political power and control of existing state institutions between two or more domestic actors. It involves the state military, other security forces, and militia. It can occur across the entire state. It is normally measured by more than thousands of deaths per year.

b) Ethnic War    

c) National War   

d) Ethno national war

4. Revolution: 

An attempt to overthrow and dramatically alter the institutions of the state involving mass mobilization of noninstitutionalized action and an ideology of a dramatically new polity. Need not be violent and need not achieve anything.

What is the structure of conflict?

Conditions and patterns of human behavior that heavily influence human behavior, such as PIRI (Poverty, Identity, Religion, and inequality).

What is the agency of conflict?

Individual actions and interests

What is a conflict trap? 

Poverty helps cause conflict, and conflict undermines economic development. Greed trumps grievance. 

What are common patterns for conflict?

These are Identity, Interests including personal and group interests, and Inequality cause conflict.

Conflicts involve different actors with varied identities and interests. Identity interacts with interests in certain institutional contexts. Identity is a cage looking for a bird.

What is the "Niche Overlap" of Olzaki? 

Migration brings groups together and creates competition.

Approaches to understanding ethnic conflict:

Primordialism: 

Ethnic identity is given and enduring;

Ethnic ties are deep-seated and powerful; 

often override objective material interests; 

explains why people fight and why ethnic conflict is so brutal and passionate.

Instrumentalism

Ethnic identity is strategic, ethnic conflict is goal-driven, and leaders use ethnicity for political and other goals. Human beings are utility maximizers. They make decisions based on cost-benefit calculations.

Constructivism

Identities are powerfully felt but are created, not given. Identities are constructed socially through interactions with others. Identities and interests are mutually constitutive. Tyagies relate to Mohyals

 Institutionalism 

Poor institutions of governance lead to violent conflict. Some institutions are better at managing ethnic relations than others.

What is perspective? Aerial perspective? and Perspective distortion?

Perspective: The state of one's ideas, the facts known to one, etc, in having a meaningful interrelationship. " you have to live here a few years to see the local condition in perspective". 

A technique of depicting volumes and spatial relationships on a flat surface.

Representing the effects of visual perspective in graphic arts.

Aerial perspective: the effect the atmosphere has on the appearance of an object as it is viewed from a distance

Perspective distortion: the way that viewing a picture from the wrong position gives a perceived distortion. The context for opinions, beliefs, and experience (in philosophy). Point of view in literature by Narrator.

Literature: First explain the reasons for violent conflict, then come to the theory, then Case no. 1 and Case no. 2 or cases conflicting with each other.

Chris Wilson: Class Notes 

Susan Olzec. "The Global dynamics of racial and ethnic mobilization." 

Susan Olzac:  " The dynamics of ethnic competition and conflict." 

Nigel Harris. "The immigration myth exposed. Why control immigration? Reaction to Argument. Thinking the unthinkable."  

Myron Weiner:  Sons of the Soil - Migration & Ethnic Conflict in India. 

Migration, Cultural Conflict, Crime, and Terrorism