PO377 Ethnic Conflict and Political Violence

1
PO377 Ethnic Conflict and Political Violence

• Week 17 Separation as a Solution? Partition and
  Secession Federalism and Autonomy

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Lecture outline

• Introduction Territorial solutions to violent
  ethnic conflict
• Methods of ethnic conflict regulation (again)
• Types of ethnic wars
• Outbreak of intrastate conflicts by type and
  period, 1946-2004
• Territorial solutions to ethnic conflict in our
  case studies (?)
• Separation as a Solution Partitioning to Peace?
• Concepts and clarifications
• Secession and the right of national
  self-determination
• Pro-partition arguments
• Criticisms of partition theory
• An inconclusive debate
• Federalism and Autonomy Arrangements as Means of
  Conflict Management
• Definitions and types
• Federalism and autonomy
• Merits of federalism (and autonomy arrangements)
• Dangers of federalism (and autonomy arrangements)
• Another inconclusive debate
• Summary

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• Part I
• Introduction
• Territorial solutions to violent ethnic conflict

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Methods of ethnic conflict regulation (again)

• I. Methods of eliminating differences
• genocide
• forced mass-population transfers
• partition and/or secession focus of today
• integration and/or assimilation.
• II. Methods of managing differences
• hegemonic control
• arbitration (third-party intervention)
• cantonisation and/or federalisation secondary
  focus of today
• consociationalism or power-sharing.
• (McGarry and OLeary, 1997)

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Types of ethnic wars

• Ethnic wars between an incumbent government and
  ethnic challengers can be distinguished according
  to the goals of the insurgents whether they want
  to replace the existing government with a new
  regime, or to create a new sovereign nation-state
  or autonomous region out of a portion of the
  existing one (see Mason and Fett 1996).
• Ethnonational conflicts whose protagonists aim
  at establishing a new ethnic state or autonomous
  region are among the most deadly and protracted
  of all ethnopolitical conflicts (Gurr 2000
  276). (Although not all think about Quebec,
  Slovakia, Slovenia, Macedonia, Montenegro.)

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Outbreak of intrastate conflicts by type and
period, 19462004 (Buhaug 2006)
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Territorial solutions to ethnic conflict in our
case studies (?)

• Sri Lanka Prime Minister Solomon
• Bandaranaike disavows 1926 promises
• of federalism as option to devolve power
• to the Tamils, following violent protests
• surrounding the Sinhala Only Act from
• 1956 (Rudolph 2003)
• federalism remains the political goal of
• moderate Tamil leaders until 1976
• Tamil insurgents fight for an independent
• and, since 2002, an autonomous Tamil
• homeland in a large-scale ethnic war
• between 1983 and 2009.

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Territorial solutions to ethnic conflict in our
case studies (?) (2)

• The former Yugoslavia
• federal from 1943 until its
• disintegration in the 1990s
• from its successor states,
• only Serbia and Montenegro,
• and Bosnia and Herzegovina
• adopted federal structures
• - although it can be argued
• that the Dayton Agreement
• also established a de facto partition of BiH
  (OLeary 2007).

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Territorial solutions to ethnic conflict in our
case studies (?) (3)

• Northern Ireland The partition
• of Ireland goes back to the
• Government of Ireland Act of 1920
• the Anglo-Irish Treaty of 1922
• establishes the Irish Free State as a
• British dominion, and gives the six most
• heavily unionist and Protestant northern
• counties the - soon utilised - option
• to opt out
• in 1949, the Republic of Ireland is declared, but
  Northern Ireland
• remains part of the United Kingdom as it
  does until today.

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Territorial solutions to ethnic conflict in our
case studies (?) (4)

• Rwanda With nearly one million
• victims of the 1994 genocide, the
• destruction of trust and the perpetuation
• of the security dilemma, is the
• physical separation of Hutus and Tutsis,
• and the establishment of an ethnically
• Tutsi state (with Tutsis from both
• Rwanda and Burundi) the only
• alternative to another genocide
• (cp. Kaufmann 1996)?

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• Part II
• Separation as a Solution Partitioning to Peace?

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Concepts and Clarifications

• Movements for territorial self-governance
  typically described as separatist or secessionist
  movements. Used as interchangeable terms which
  can embrace movements seeking a separate region
  within an existing state, as well as those
  seeking a separate and independent state
  (Horowitz 2000 232), though more usually
  referring to independence movements.
• Partition closely related to secession
  secession involves withdrawal from an existing
  state whilst partition is imposed or agreed.
• Terms are sometimes used interchangeably and
  sometimes entail imposition of a new
  international boundary whilst other times they do
  not (depending on whom one is reading!).

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Concepts and Clarifications (2)

• For Kaufmann (1998), secessions are new states
  created by the unilateral action of a rebellious
  ethnic group.
• In contrast, partitions are separations jointly
  decided upon by the responsible powers either
  agreed between the two sides (and not under
  pressure of imminent military victory by one
  side), or imposed on both sides by a stronger
  third party (ibid. 125).
• Partition theory does not argue for the
  dissolution of any/all multi-ethnic states but
  only of those that have already produced mass
  violence. Partition and separation are hence seen
  as a last resort to solve the most intense
  ethnic conflicts (Kaufmann 1998 120).

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Concepts and Clarifications (3)

• Partition
• Some historical e.g.s Ireland, India, Pakistan,
  Palestine/Israel, Cyprus. All have seen ongoing
  ethnic conflict.
• Irish case partition instituted at time of
  granting independence to the south as a way to
  avoid threatened civil war by Irish unionists,
  but the way borders were drawn and the political
  structure that was set up paved the way for
  ongoing ethno-national grievances and violence.

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Concepts and Clarifications (4)

• Secession
• Secessionist claims to statehood can often be
  placated with much less regional autonomy,
  federalism, power-sharing at the centre. BUT
  agreements hard to reach and often collapse.
• Timing if such proposals come after war/violent
  action, may foster continued secessionism. An
  early, generous offer of autonomy, made before
  extreme separatist organizations outflank
  moderate leaders, may avert secession (Horowitz
  2000 625).
• Disincentives to secession dispersion of
  separatist groups population outside borders of
  separatist region and regional subsidies/investmen
  ts that secessionist area would lose if it left
  the state (Horowitz 2000).

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Secession and the Right of National
Self-Determination

• Contemporary political philosophers have
  neglected question of secession and act as though
  states are eternally fixed. More commonly
  discussed in 16th/17th century works on the state
  (Beran 1984).
• Question of secession now subsumed into concept
  of national self-determination right of peoples/
  nations to rule themselves through the laws and
  governmental apparatus of their own independent
  state, which presupposes a right to secede from
  an existing state (George 1993).
• Doctrine of right of national self-determination
  developed in Europe in 19th century from idea of
  individual self-determination. Recognised by UN
  but ambiguously (Dahbour 1993).

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Secession and the Right of National
Self-Determination (2)

• Problems with notion of a right to national
  self-determination
• Implied right to secession clashes with principle
  of territorial integrity of states
• No agreed and universal criterion of nationhood
• No agreed procedure for determining the national
  territory where independent nation-state is to
  be
• Presumption that best socio-political system is
  one ethnically conceptualized nation per
  territorially bounded state can lead to more
  clearly drawn distinctions between groups and
  more conflict and violence.

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Pro-partition arguments

• Chaim Kaufmanns (1996 1998) arguments for
  partition
• Unlike ideological identities, ethnic identities
  are difficult (if not impossible) to change
  these ethnic identities are reinforced at times
  of violent ethnic conflict
• ethnic wars foster security dilemmas that
  intensify violence and motivate ethnic
  cleansing these security dilemmas are greatest
  where ethnic settlement patterns are intermixed

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Pro-partition arguments (2)

• Chaim Kaufmanns (1996 1998) arguments for
  partition
• Stable resolutions of ethnic civil wars are
  possible, but only when the opposing groups are
  demographically separated into defensible
  enclaves. Separation reduces both incentives and
  opportunity for further combat, and largely
  eliminates both reasons and chances for ethnic
  cleansing of civilians (Kaufmann 1996 137)
• ethnic civil war destroys possibilities for
  ethnic cooperation in a multi-ethnic state
  solutions that aim both to restore multiethnic
  civil politics and to avoid population transfers,
  such as institution building, power sharing, and
  identity reconstruction, cannot work during or
  after an ethnic civil war because they do not
  resolve the security dilemma created by mixed
  demography (Kaufmann 1998 122).

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Pro-partition arguments (3)

• Arguable advantages of partition
• facilitates postwar democratisation
• prevents war recurrence
• significantly reduce residual low-level violence
  (Sambanis 2000).
• If the short run is so problematical, if the
  constraints on policy innovation are many, if
  even grand settlements need patchwork
  readjustment, perhaps it is a mistake to seek
  accommodation among the antagonists. If it is
  impossible for groups to live together in a
  heterogeneous state, perhaps it is better for
  them to live apart in more than one homogeneous
  state, even if this necessitates population
  transfers (Horowitz 2000 588).

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Criticisms of partition theory

• Criticisms of Kaufmann specifically
• His analysis is methodologically flawed (Sambanis
  2000)
• he bases his arguments too much on the security
  dilemma as motivation for ethnic violence
  (ibid.), and assumes that it is
  self-perpetuating
• relies on primordialist assumptions that ethnic
  identities are fixed, and assumes ethnic groups
  to be homogeneous entities
• underestimates the possibilities of institutional
  design (Horowitz 2003).

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Criticisms of partition theory (2)

• Criticisms of partition theory more broadly
• Horowitz (2000) secession/partition are unlikely
  to produce ethnically homogeneous or harmonious
  successor states because
• Majority of secessionist regions are ethnically
  heterogeneous, not homogeneous. Ethnic identity
  is not static changes with social and political
  environment and esp. with territorial boundaries.
• Ethnic diversity within secessionist region is
  often what triggers secession in first place
  this diversity is made a political issue by
  secessionist movements. Bad treatment of
  ethnically different populations after
  independence is expected and increased conflict
  likely.

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Criticisms of partition theory (3)

• Question of what happens to co-ethnics whom
  secessionists leave behind in the rump state. As
  in the successor state, the rump state faces a
  new political context where old cleavages are
  deepened and new ones opened.
• Secessionist warfare exacerbates ethnic tensions
  within the secessionist region. Contending groups
  within the region may fight each other as well as
  one or more fighting central government reduces
  prospects for post-secession/partition good
  relations.

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Criticisms of partition theory (4)

• Since successor states are unlikely to be
  ethnically homogeneous, there may arise new
  majority-minority antagonisms within them
  (Horowitz 2003)
• tensions between conflicting parties might
  continue in the form of interstate war (Sambanis
  2000) since partition places an international
  boundary between former domestic antagonists and
  creates 2 states and 2 militaries, domestic
  conflict may be transformed into international
  one (Horowitz 2000)
• demonstration effects might cause new ethnic wars
  (Fearon 2004)

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Criticisms of partition theory (5)

• forced population transfers are too costly in
  terms of human rights and human suffering (Kumar
  1997 Sambanis 2000)
• carving up of sovereign states and
  establishment of rump states may create greater
  risks than benefits for the international system
  (Fearon 2004)
• Sambanis (2000), based on his work with a huge
  civil war data set, argues that partition does
  not help prevent recurrence of ethnic war or
  violent ethnic antagonism concludes that ethnic
  diffusion in a larger multiethnic state is more
  likely to prevent war recurrence and violent
  ethnic antagonism.

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An inconclusive debate

• There is no conclusive empirical evidence to
  support either those arguing in favour or against
  partition
• whether we argue for or against partition as a
  solution to intense ethnic wars ultimately
  depends on what we believe are the causes of
  ethnic identity formation and ethnic conflict
  emergence, and whether reconciliation in postwar
  societies is possible
• and even if we were to agree that partition is
  the best means to solve ethnic wars, it is
  usually unlikely to be feasible from a
  policy-making perspective.

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• Part III
• Federalism and autonomy arrangements as means of
  conflict management

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Definitions and types

• Federal political systems combine principles of
  shared rule and self-rule, i.e. shared government
  and autonomous action by distinct constituent
  units of government (Watts 1998 Fleiner et al.
  in Blindenbacher et al. 2003).
• Territorial autonomy describes self-governance
  of a demographically distinct territorial unit
  within an existing unitary state (Wolff 2010
  note that his definition is in fact more
  sophisticated than this).

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Definitions and types (2)

• Various types of federal arrangements
• Symmetric and asymmetric federal arrangements
  (Watts 1998)
• polycommunal aka ethnofederal, mixed or
  non-communal federal arrangements (Sisk 1996).

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Federalism and autonomy

• There is an unusual consensus in the academic
  debate that federalism and/or autonomy
  arrangements are a suitable means to manage
  violent ethnic conflict
• Consociationalists favour federalism/communal
  autonomy (particularly polycommunal federalism),
  as it reinforces the plural nature of society and
  deviates from majority rule by allowing the
  minority to rule over itself in specific areas of
  exclusive concern (Lijphart 1977)
• proponents of integrative power-sharing argue
  that federalism/autonomy arrangements can foster
  ethnopolitical stability by creating multiple
  levels of government (Horowitz 1985 Reilly 2006
  Roeder 2009) BUT are often critical of
  ethnofederalism (Roeder 2005 2009).

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Merits of federalism (and autonomy arrangements)

• Federalism localises ethnic conflict
• fragments and crosscuts ethnic identities as
  long as they are not strictly polycommunal
• protects ethnic minorities from the direct
  hegemony of larger ethnic groups
• promotes state-based identities as a cleavage
  that is independent of and competitive with
  ethnic identities
• and devolves federally controlled resources to
  territorial constituencies.
• (Suberu, 2001, on federalism in Nigeria)

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Merits of federalism (and autonomy arrangements)
(2)

• They increase the number of settings for peaceful
  bargaining (Bermeo 2002)
• by creating multiple levels of government, they
  disperse points of political victory, decrease
  thresholds for political gains and increase
  opportunities for political representation (Cohen
  1997)
• combines the best of both worlds, as it allows us
  to preserve the larger state whilst recognising
  minority national identities (Kymlicka 2007).

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Dangers of federalism (and autonomy arrangements)

• Federalism serves to foster competition over
  powers and resources between the centre and
  periphery as well as among constituent units
  (Suberu 2001)
• regional parties can foster regional identities
  that may be mobilised for ethnic conflict or
  secessionism (Brancati 2009)

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Dangers of federalism (and autonomy arrangements)
(2)

• federalism and autonomy arrangements, especially
  if designed along ethnic lines, may encourage
  secessionism (Roeder 2009)
• ethnofederalism cements ethnic cleavages and
  thereby keeps ethnic conflict alive (ibid.
  remember similar criticisms against
  consociationalism)
• problems of majoritarianism can develop within
  federal/autonomous units (Sisk 1996).

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Another inconclusive debate

• There has been surprisingly favorable attention
  (Roeder 2009 203) to federal or autonomy
  arrangements as means to manage ethnic conflict,
  but surprisingly few analyses to investigate the
  merits of such arrangements compared to unitarism
  (Bermeo 2002).
• Ultimately, one may agree with Horowitz that
  federalism can either exacerbate or mitigate
  ethnic conflict (Horowitz 2000 603).

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Another inconclusive debate (2)

• Federalism or autonomy arrangements are unlikely
  to be an effective or ineffective tool for
  conflict management per se. Rather, their effects
  ultimately depend on factors such as
• their design (including state boundaries and the
  competencies of constituent units) (Zagar 2005)
• their ethnic composition (Horowitz 2000)
• the origins of federalism (Bermeo 2002)
• the regime type (ibid.)
• and the behaviour of political elites (Malesevic
  2000).

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• Part IV
• Summary

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Summary

• All our case studies are affected by questions
  about the feasibility of territorial solutions to
  violent ethnic conflict.
• Federal and autonomy arrangements have received
  much positive attention as means to manage ethnic
  conflict because they foster minority rule and
  increase opportunities for political
  representation.
• Partition, as a last resort to solve intense
  ethnic wars, promises to solve the ethnic
  security dilemma, and to enhance the prospects of
  both sustainable peace and stable democracy.

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Summary (2)

• Proponents of either federal and autonomy
  arrangements or partition as territorial
  solutions/management tools of violent ethnic
  conflicts have been criticised for similar
  reasons, e.g. that the endorsement of such
  strategies encourages further secessionism and
  that they merely transfer conflicts to a
  different level (but do not solve ethnic
  antagonisms).
• Not surprisingly, the debates about the merits
  and pitfalls of federal and autonomy arrangements
  on the one hand, and of partition on the other
  have remained inconclusive to date, as their
  effects ultimately depend on a variety of
  contextual factors, such as the ethnic
  composition of federal units or the pervasiveness
  of the ethnic security dilemma.