One God, Many Wars: Religious Dimensions of Armed Conflict in the Middle East and North Africa

Abstract

This paper examines the religious dimensions of armed conflicts in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA), a region where the monotheistic religions of Judaism, Islam, and Christianity traditionally dominate. Applying a regional perspective, this study finds that about half of the armed conflicts in the MENA region were between parties, where at least one side had made explicit reference to religion in their basic demands, and this category of conflicts has increased substantially over time. Why are religious civil wars becoming relatively more common over time in the MENA region? I argue that the relatively high frequency of religious armed intrastate conflicts in the region can be explained by three major empirical regularities: (1) the intractability of interreligious conflicts; (2) the spread of several but relatively shorter intrareligious disputes; and (3) the increasingly transnational aspect of religious disputes in the MENA region. Although these trends have been countered by the emergence of institutional settlements of some of the armed conflicts, these types of conflict management and conflict resolution attempts have, so far, been too few to generate a general shift in the basic empirical patterns. This paper provides an empirical overview over the main patterns and ends by identifying some important avenues for future research.

Acknowledgements

The author would like to thank Nicola Strong, the National Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies, University of Otago, Mats Hammarström, and Johan Brosché. This article draws from the book Ending Holy Wars: Religion and Conflict Resolution in Civil Wars, University of Queensland Press, 2012.

Notes

^1. Section 2 of this article will describe previous research, but it is important to mention already here that there are also important primarily conceptual work on the relationship between religion and conflict; see, for in0073tance, Douglas Johnston and Cynthia Sampson, Religion: The Missing Dimension of Statecraft (New York: Oxford UP 1995); Mark Juergensmeyer, ‘The Worldwide Rise of Religious Nationalism’, Journal of International Affairs 50/1 (1996) pp.1–20; David Little, ‘Religious Militancy’ in Chester A. Crocker, Fen Osler Hampson, and Pamela Aall (eds) Managing Global Chaos (Washington, DC: USIP Press 1996); R. Scott Appleby, The Ambivalence of the Sacred: Religion, Violence, and Reconciliation (New York: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers 2000); Andreas Hasenclever and Volker Rittberger, ‘Does Religion Make a Difference? Theoretical Approaches to the Impact of Faith on Political Conflict’, Millennium: Journal of International Studies 29/3 (2000) pp.641–74; Marc Gopin, ‘What Do I Need to Know about Religion and Conflict?’ in John Paul Lederach and Janice Moomaw Jenner (eds) The Handbook of International Peacebuilding: Into the Eye of the Storm (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass 2001) pp.107–14; Cynthia Sampson, ‘Religion and Peacebuilding’ in I. William Zartman and J. Lewis Rasmussen (eds) Peacemaking in International Conflict (Washington, DC: United States Institute of Peace Press 2002); Ron E. Hassner, War on Sacred Grounds (Ithaca, NY: Cornell UP 2009).

^2. David Little, Sri Lanka: The Invention of Enmity (Washington, DC: United States Institute of Peace Press 1994); Michael A. Sells, The Bridge Betrayed: Religion and Genocide in Bosnia (Berkley: University of California Press 1996); Stephen Ellis, The Mask of Anarchy: The Destruction of Liberia and the Religious Dimension of an African Civil War (London: Hurst & Company 2002); John T. Sidel, Riots, Progroms, Jihad: Religious Violence in Indonesia (London/Ithaca: Cornell UP 2006); Jeffrey Haynes, ‘Conflict, Conflict Resolution and Peace-Building: The Role of Religion in Mozambique, Nigeria and Cambodia’, Commonwealth & Comparative Politics 47/1 (2009) pp.52–75.

^3. Jonathan Fox, ‘The Salience of Religious Issues in Ethnic Conflicts: A Large-N Study’, Nationalism & Ethnic Politics 3/3 (1997) pp.1–19; Tanja Ellingsen, ‘Colorful Community or Ethnic Witches’ Brew? Multiethnicity and Domestic Conflict during and after the Cold War', Journal of Conflict Resolution 44/2 (2000), pp.228–49; Tsjeard Bouta, S. Ayse Kadayifci-Orellana, and Mohammed Abu-Nimer, Faith-Based Peace-Building: Mapping and Analysis of Christian, Muslim and Multi-Faith Actors [The Hague: Netherlands Institute of International Relations (Clingandeal) 2005]; Susanna Pearce, ‘Religious Rage: A Quantative Analysis of the Intensity of Armed Conflicts’, Terrorism and Political Violence 17 (2005) pp.333–52; Ragnhild Nordås, Are Religious Conflicts Bloodier? Assessing the Impact of Religion on Civil Conflict Casualties, Paper presented at the Annual Convention of the International Studies Association, ISA (2007); Isak Svensson, ‘Fighting with Faith: Religion and Conflict Resolution in Civil Wars’ Journal of Conflict Resolution 51/6 (2007) pp.930–49; Monica Duffy Toft, ‘Getting Religion? The Puzzling Case of Islam and Civil War’, International Security 31/4 (2007) pp.97–131.

^4. The study on religious dimensions of Asian armed conflicts, David Rangdrol and Isak Svensson, ‘Demos or Deus? Patterns of Religious Dimensions in Asian Armed Conflicts, 1945–2005’, in Ashok Swain, Joakim Öjendal, and Ramses Amer (eds) The Democratization Project: Challenges and Opportunities (London: Anthem Press 2009), is an exception.

^5. There is no consensus on the definition of the MENA region. This study follows the most conventional list of countries and define MENA as consisting of the following countries: Algeria, Bahrain, Djibouti, Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, Iraq, Israel, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Libya, Morocco, Oman, Palestinian territories, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Syria, Tunisia, United Arab Emirates, and Yemen.

^6. Whereas there is research on conflicts in the MENA [Rachel Bronson, ‘Cycles of Conflict in the Middle East and North Africa’, in Michael Edwards Brown (ed.) International Dimensions of Internal Conflict (Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press 1996)], these studies do not focus on the religious dimensions directly, but are of a more general theme. Lai [Brian Lai, ‘An Empirical Examination of Religion and Conflict in the Middle East’, Foreign Policy Analysis 2 (2006) pp.21–36] does examine the religious aspects of conflicts in Middle East, but his study includes only cases up to 1992 and has a primary focus on international rather than on intrastate conflicts.

^7. Isak Svensson, Ending Holy Wars (Brisbane: University of Queensland Press 2012).

^8. Madeleine Korbel Albright and Bill Woodward, The Mighty and the Almighty: Reflections on America, God, and World Affairs (London: Pan Books 2007); John Micklethwait and Adrian Wooldridge, God Is Back: How the Global Review of Faith Is Changing the World (New York: Penguin Press 2009); Jack Snyder, ‘Introduction’ in Jack Snyder (ed.) Religion and International Relations Theory (New York: Columbia UP 2011); Monica Duffy Toft, Daniel Philpott, and Timothy Samuel Shah, God's Century: Resurgent Religion and Global Politics (New York: W. W. Norton 2011); Jonathan Fox, Religion, Civilization, and Civil War: 1945 Through the New Millennium (Lanham, MD: Lexington Books 2004).

^9. Mark Juergensmeyer, ‘The New Religious State’, Comparative Politics 27/4 (1995) pp.379–91; Elizabeth Shakman Hurd, ‘The Political Authority of Secularism in International Relations’, European Journal of International Relations 10/2 (2003) pp.235–62; Timoty Samuel Shah and Monica Duffy Toft, ‘Why God Is Winning’, Foreign Policy (July–August 2006) pp.39–43; Micklethwait and Wooldridge (note 8); Fox (note 8).

^10. Mark Juergensmeyer, The New Cold War? Religious Nationalism Confronts the Secular State (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press 1993); Juergensmeyer (note 1); Little (note 1); Appleby (note 1); Mark Juergensmeyer, Terror in the Mind of God: The Global Rise of Religious Violence (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press 2000).

^11. Appleby (note 1).

^12. Marc Gopin, ‘Religion, Violence, and Conflict Resolution’, Peace and Change 22/1 (1997) pp.1–31; Marc Gopin, Between Eden and Armageddon: The Future of World Religions, Violence, and Peacemaking (Oxford: Oxford UP 2000); Daniel Philpott, ‘Explaining the Political Ambivalence of Religion’, The American Political Science Review 101/3 (2007) pp.505–25; Matthias Basedau and Alexander De Juan, ‘The “Ambivalence of the Sacred” in Africa: The Impact of Religion on Peace and Conflict in Sub-Saharan Africa’, GIGA Working Papers 70 (2008).

^13. Philpott (note 12); Toft et al. (note 8).

^14. David Little, ‘Religion, Nationalism and Intolerance’ in Timothy D. Sisk (ed.) Between Terror and Tolerance: Religious Leaders, Conflict, and Peacemaking (Washington, DC: Georgetown UP 2011).

^15. Andrej Tusicisny, ‘Civilisational Conflicts: More Frequent, Longer, and Bloodier?’ Journal of Peace Research 41/4 (2004) pp.485–98.

^16. Toft (note 3).

^17. Pearce (note 3); Nordås (note 3).

^18. Monica Duffy Toft, Religion, Civil War, and International Order (Cambridge, MA: Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University 2006); Michael C. Horowitz, ‘Long Time Going: Religion and the Duration of Crusading’, International Security 34/2 (2009) pp.162–93.

^19. Svensson (note 3); Svensson (note 7).

^20. Kristian Berg Harpviken and Hanne Eggen Røislien, ‘Faithful Brokers? Potentials and Pitfalls of Religion in Peacemaking’, Conflict Resolution Quarterly 25/3 (2008) pp.351–73.

^21. Michael Sells, ‘Crosses of Blood: Sacred Space, Religion, and Violence in Bosnia-Hercegovina’, Sociology of Religion 64/3 (2003) pp.309–31.

^22. Juergensmeyer (note 1).

^23. Toft (note 3).

^24. Toft (note 18) p.9.

^25. Pearce (note 3).

^26. Jonathan Fox, ‘The Rise of Religious Nationalism and Conflict: Ethnic Conflict and Revolutionary Wars, 1945–2001’, Journal of Peace Research 41/6 (2004) pp.715–31.

^27. Ron E. Hassner, ‘To Halve and to Hold: Conflicts over Sacred Space and the Problem of Indivisibility’, Security Studies 12/4 (2003) pp.1–33; Hassner (note 1).

^28. Jacob Bercovitch and Karl DeRouen, ‘Managing Ethnic Civil Wars: Assessing the Determinants of Successful Mediation’, Civil Wars 7/1 (2005) pp. 84–100.

^29. Johnston and Sampson (note 1); R. Scott Appleby, ‘Religion as an Agent of Conflict Transformation and Peacebuilding’ in Chester A. Crocker, Fen Osler Hampson, and Pamela Aall (eds) Turbulent Peace (Washington, DC: United States Institute of Peace Press 2001); Marc Gopin, Holy War, Holy Peace: How Religion Can Bring Peace to the Middle East (Oxford UP 2002), Sampson (note 1); R. Scott Appleby, ‘Retrieving the Missing Dimension of Statecraft: Religious Faith in the Service of Peacebuilding’ in Douglas Johnston (ed.) Faith-Based Diplomacy: Trumping Realpolitik (Oxford: Oxford UP 2003); David R. Smock (ed.), ‘Religious Contributions to Peacemaking: When Religion Brings Peace, Not War’, United States Institute of Peace, Peaceworks 55 (2006); Sisk (note 14).

^30. Sharon Erickson Nepstad, Nonviolent Revolutions: Civil Resistance in the Late Twentieth Century (New York: Oxford UP 2011).

^31. Hasenclever (note 1).

^32. Gerard F. Powers, ‘Religion and Peacebuilding’ in Daniel Philpott and Gerard F. Powers (eds), Strategies of Peace: Transforming Conflict in a Violent World (Oxford: Oxford UP 2010) p.321.

^33. Jacob Bercovitch and Ayse S. Kadayifci-Orellana, ‘Religion and Mediation: The Role of Faith-Based Actors in International Conflict Resolution’, International Negotiation 14 (2009) pp.175-204; Naomi Johnstone and Isak Svensson, ‘Believers and Belligerents: Exploring Faith-Based Mediation in Internal Armed Conflicts’, Politics, Religion & Ideology 14/4 (2013) pp.556–77; Daniel Philpott, ‘Explaining the Political Ambivalence of Religion’, The American Political Science Review 101/3 (2007) pp.505–25; Matthias Basedau and Alexander De Juan, ‘The “Ambivalence of the Sacred” in Africa: The Impact of Religion on Peace and Conflict in Sub-Saharan Africa’, GIGA Working Papers 70 (2008).

^34. Peter Wallensteen, Understanding Conflict Resolution, 2nd ed. (London: Sage 2007).

^35. Isak Svensson and Emily Harding, [How Holy Wars End: Exploring the Termination Patterns of Conflicts with Religious Dimensions in Asia’, Terrorism and Political Violence 23 (2011), pp.133–49.

^36. The calculations of categories following below is used by taking the numbers from Svensson (note 7), which covers almost exactly the same period as in this study (1975-10), and the unit of analysis is conflict-dyad-year.

^37. Svensson (note 3).

^38. Svensson (note 7).

^39. Little (note 14).

^40. Hassner (note 1), pp.136–51.

^41. Omar Ashour, ‘Post-Jihadism: Libya and the Global Transformations of Armed Islamist Movements’, Terrorism and Political Violence 23 (2011), pp.377–97.