Ethnic Polarization, Potential Conflict, and Civil Wars

The impact of ethnicity for the onset of conflicts has often been dismissed in the cross-country empirical literature on civil wars. Recently, however, several studies using disaggregated data have reached different conclusions and highlight the importance of the configuration of ethno-national groups. This article follows the latter approach and investigates a different phenomenon: the impact of ethnic heterogeneity on the severity of violence. Using disaggregated data at municipality level in Bosnia and Herzegovina, we perform a quantitative analysis to assess the impact of various indices of heterogeneity on the number of casualties that occurred in the 1992–95 war in the 109 municipalities composing the country. We argue that in a context where ethnicity plays a key role in shaping rivalry among groups, ethnic polarization, in particular, creates strategic incentives for severe violence as armed groups try to create ethnically homogenous territories in the first phase of the war. By also including the temporal dimension in the analysis, we show that ethnic polarization loses its impact as the war evolves over time; therefore, the geographic location of the municipalities becomes the best predictor of severe clashes because as the war goes on, ethnic groups shift their objective from creating internally homogenous municipalities to consolidating wider areas. As such, municipalities located on politically and militarily relevant frontlines experience the highest levels of violence.

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Ethnic polarization and the duration of civil wars

Economics of Governance ◽

10.1007/s10101-010-0077-8 ◽

2010 ◽

Vol 11 (2) ◽

pp. 123-143 ◽

Cited By ~ 35

Author(s):

Jose G. Montalvo ◽

Marta Reynal-Querol

Keyword(s):

Civil Wars ◽

Ethnic Polarization

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Obstacle to Peace? Ethnic Geography and Effectiveness of Peacekeeping

British Journal of Political Science ◽

10.1017/s0007123418000200 ◽

2018 ◽

Vol 50 (3) ◽

pp. 1089-1109 ◽

Cited By ~ 6

Author(s):

Jessica Di Salvatore

Keyword(s):

Sierra Leone ◽

Civil Wars ◽

Power Asymmetries ◽

Local Sources ◽

Territorial Control ◽

Ethnic Polarization ◽

Ethnic Geography

AbstractUnder what conditions does peacekeeping reduce one-sided violence in civil wars? This article argues that local sources of violence, particularly ethnic geography, affect peacekeeping effectiveness. Existing studies focus on the features of individual missions, yet curbing one-sided violence also depends on peacekeepers’ capacity to reduce the opportunities and incentives for violence. Moving from the idea that territorial control is a function of ethnic polarization, the article posits that peacekeepers are less effective against one-sided violence where power asymmetries are large (low polarization) because they (1) create incentives for escalation against civilians and (2) are less effective at separating/monitoring combatants. The UN mission in Sierra Leone from 1997 to 2001 is examined to show that UN troops reduce one-sided violence, but their effectiveness decreases as power asymmetries grow.

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The British Civil Wars at Sea, 1638–1653

10.1017/9781787442054 ◽

2018 ◽

Author(s):

Richard J. Blakemore ◽

Elaine Murphy

Keyword(s):

Civil Wars

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UN Peacekeeping in Civil Wars

10.1017/cbo9780511840593 ◽

2007 ◽

Cited By ~ 26

Author(s):

Lise Morjé Howard

Keyword(s):

Civil Wars ◽

Un Peacekeeping

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Relationship between conformity of Menyama Braya with potential conflict among Sekaa Teruna-Teruni groups in Bali

PsycEXTRA Dataset ◽

10.1037/e627722013-552 ◽

2013 ◽

Author(s):

I. Nyoman Angga Wirama ◽

I. Gusti Ngurah Dwiputra ◽

Ariesta Handoko Pratama ◽

Supriyadi

Keyword(s):

Potential Conflict

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Through the prism of Spain. Socio-economic causes of different outcomes of Russian and Spanish civil wars

Voprosy Ekonomiki ◽

10.32609/0042-8736-2017-1-142-155 ◽

2017 ◽

pp. 142-155

Author(s):

I. Rozinskiy ◽

N. Rozinskaya

Keyword(s):

Civil War ◽

World War I ◽

Civil Wars ◽

Spanish Civil War ◽

Statistical Data ◽

Well Being ◽

Russian Civil War ◽

World War ◽

Common Features ◽

Economic Well Being

The article examines the socio-economic causes of the outcome of the Spanish Civil War (1936-1936), which, as opposed to the Russian Civil War, resulted in the victory of the “Whites”. Choice of Spain as the object of comparison with Russia is justified not only by similarity of civil wars occurred in the two countries in the XX century, but also by a large number of common features in their history. Based on statistical data on the changes in economic well-being of different strata of Spanish population during several decades before the civil war, the authors formulate the hypothesis according to which the increase of real incomes of Spaniards engaged in agriculture is “responsible” for their conservative political sympathies. As a result, contrary to the situation in Russia, where the peasantry did not support the Whites, in Spain the peasants’ position predetermined the outcome of the confrontation resulting in the victory of the Spanish analogue of the Whites. According to the authors, the possibility of stable increase of Spanish peasants’ incomes was caused by the nation’s non-involvement in World War I and also by more limited, compared to Russia and some other countries, spending on creation of heavy (primarily military-related) industry in Spain.

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Birlikte Yaşama Kültürü Çerçevesinde Avrupa Birliği ve Türkiye Politikaları: Suriyelilere Yönelik Tutumun Sultanbeyli Örneği Üzerinden Değerlendirilmesi

GÖÇ DERGİSİ ◽

10.33182/gd.v4i1.571 ◽

2017 ◽

Vol 4 (1) ◽

pp. 41-61

Author(s):

Pelin Sönmez ◽

Abulfaz Süleymanov

Keyword(s):

Civil Wars ◽

Large Scale ◽

Social Acceptance ◽

Point Of View ◽

The Other ◽

Syrian Refugees ◽

The European Union ◽

International Protection ◽

Legal Structure ◽

Turkish People

Türkiye, Cumhuriyet tarihinin en yoğun zorunlu göç dalgasını 2011 yılından bu yana süren Suriye Savaşı ile yaşamaktadır. Suriye vatandaşlarının geçici koruma statüsü altında Türkiye toplumuna her açıdan entegrasyonları günümüzün ve geleceğin politika öncelikleri arasında düşünülmelidir. Öte yandan ülkeye kabul edilen sığınmacıların kendi kültürel kimliğini kaybetmeden içinde yaşadığı ev sahibi topluma uyumu, ortak yaşam kültürünün gelişmesi açısından önem arz etmektedir. Bu makalede, "misafir" olarak kabul edilen Suriyeli vatandaşların Türk toplumunca kabul edilmeleri ve dışlanma risklerinin azaltılmasına yönelik devlet politikaları ortaya konularak, üye ve aday ülkelere göçmenlerin dışlanmasını önlemek için Avrupa Birliği (AB) tarafından sunulan hukuki yapı ve kamu hizmeti inisiyatifleri incelenmekte, birlikte yaşam kültürü çerçevesinde Suriyeli vatandaşlara yönelik toplumsal kabul düzeyleri ele alınmaktadır. Çalışma iki ana bölümden oluşmaktadır: göçmen ve sığınmacılara karşı toplumsal dışlanmayı engellemek için benimsenen yasa ve uygulamaların etkisi ve İstanbul-Sultanbeyli bölgesinde Suriyeli sığınmacılarla ilgili toplumsal algı çalışmasının sonuçları. Bölgede ikamet eden Suriyelilere yönelik toplumsal kabul düzeyinin yüksek olduğu görülürken, halkın Suriyelileri kendilerine kültürel ve dini olarak yakın hissetmesi toplumsal kabul düzeyini olumlu etkilemektedir. ABSTRACT IN ENGLISHAn evaluation of the European Union and Turkish policies regarding the culture of living togetherThis article aims to determine the level of social acceptance towards Syrians within the context of cohabitation culture by evaluating EU’s legal structure and public service initiatives in order to prevent Syrian refugees from being excluded in member and candidate countries and by revealing government policies on acceptance of Syrians as “guest” by Turkish society and minimizing the exclusion risks of them. This article consists of two main parts, one of which is based on the effects of law and practices preventing refugees and asylum seekers from social exclusion, and the other is on the results of social perception on Syrians in Sultanbeyli district of Istanbul. At the end of 5-years taking in Syrian War, it is obvious that most of more than 3 million Syrian with unregistered ones in Turkey are “here to stay”. From this point of view, the primary scope of policies should be specified in order to remove side effects of refugee phenomenon seen as weighty matter by bottoming out the exclusion towards those people. To avoid possible large-scale conflicts or civil wars in the future, the struggle with exclusion phenomenon plays a crucial role regarding Turkey’s sociological situation and developing policies. In the meaning of forming a model for Turkey, a subtitle in this article is about public services for European-wide legal acquis and practices carried out since 1970s in order to prevent any exclusion from the society. On the other hand, other subtitles are about legal infrastructure and practices like Common European Asylum and Immigration Policies presented in 2005, and Law on Foreigners and International Protection introduced in 2013. In the last part of the article, the results of a field survey carried out in a district of Istanbul were used to analyze the exclusion towards refugees in Turkey. A face-to-face survey was randomly conducted with 200 settled refugees in Sultanbeyli district of Istanbul, and their perceptions towards Syrian people under temporary protection were evaluated. According to the results, the level of acceptance for Syrians living in this district seems relatively high. The fact that Turkish people living in the same district feel close to Syrian refugees culturally and religiously affect their perception in a positive way: however, it is strikingly seen and understood that local residents cop an attitude on the refugees’ becoming Turkish citizens.

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