Managing ethno-national conflict: towards an analytical framework

Abstract

The management of ethno-national conflict remains an important issue on the security agendas of states and international organisations alike, from the Western Balkans to the Middle East and Asia Pacific, from sub-Saharan Africa to Central Asia and the Far East. The practical need to manage ethno-national conflict has also resulted in thorough academic engagement with the subject, which has generated a range of different theories of conflict management. This contribution will provide an overview of the current debate and examine the differences and similarities between three different theories – liberal consociationalism, centripetalism, and power-dividing. Based on this examination, an analytical framework is developed to identify the conditions under which ethno-national conflict management can succeed in providing settlements in the framework of which sustainable peace is attainable.

Keywords:

• ethno-national conflict
• conflict management
• consociation
• centripetalism
• power-dividing
• power-sharing
• territorial self-governance

Notes

In the context of ethnic parties in Europe, political leadership and how it is shaped by institutional incentives are discussed in greater detail in Ishiyama and Breuning (1998) (see also Van Houten and Wolff, 2007).

Compare O'Flynn (2007), Taylor (2009), and Wolff (2007a, 2010b, 2010c) for recent surveys and critiques of the literature. Other approaches to conflict management in the literature that are not discussed here for reasons of space include control techniques (Lustick, 1979, 1980, 1993) and ethnic democracy (Smooha, 1990; Smooha & Hanf, 1992; Smooha & Järve, 2005).

Apart from the principal works and authors covered below, see also the various engagements with ethno-national conflict management by Bastian and Luckham (2003), Benedikter (2007), Choudhry (2008), Darby and McGinty (2003), Ghai (2000), Hechter (2000), Henrard (2000), Jarstadt and Sisk (2008), Lapidoth (1996), Noel (2005), Norris (2008), O'Flynn and Russell (2005), O'Leary et al. (2005b), Reynolds (2002), Schneckener and Wolff (2004), Taylor (2009), Weller and Metzger (2008), Weller and Wolff (2005b), Wilford (2001), Woelk et al. (2008), and Wolff (2003).

Schertzer and Woods' contribution reviews both the different forms of territorial self-government and looks in depth at the case of Canada in this context. For another comprehensive overview of different forms of TSG and a discussion of the relevant literature, see Wolff (2010a).

The following three sections draw on Wolff (2010c).

On this basis, O'Leary (2005a: 12–13) distinguishes between three sub-types of democratic (i.e. competitively elected) consociation: complete (executive composed of all leaders of all significant segments), concurrent (all significant segments represented, and executive has at least majority support in all of them), and weak (all significant segments represented, and executive has at least one segmental leadership with only plurality support).

Corporate consociationalism, however, is still evident to some extent in political practice: for example, Bosnia and Herzegovina under the original Dayton Accords, Northern Ireland under the 1998 Agreement, Lebanon under the National Pact and under the 1989 Ta'if Accord, Cyprus under the 1960 constitution, and the proposed (but rejected) Annan Plan display features of pre-determined arrangements based on ascriptive identities.

On this point, see also the contribution by Schertzer and Woods, which raises concerns with regard to the development of territorial autonomy based on group identities understood as fixed and internally homogeneous.

In the context of Iraq, McGarry (2007b: 175–176) explains how this process has been enshrined in the Iraqi constitution: ‘Kirkuk can choose to join Kurdistan if its people want. Governorates in other parts of the country are permitted to amalgamate, forming regions, if there is democratic support in each governorate. In this case, a twin democratic threshold is proposed: a vote within a governorate's assembly and a referendum. … It is also possible for Shi'a dominated governorates that do not accept SCIRI's [Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution] in Iraq's vision to remain separate, and, indeed for any governorate that may be, or may become, dominated by secularists to avoid inclusion in a sharia-ruled Shiastan or Sunnistan.’

Note, however, that empirically, collective presidential systems are as widespread in existing functioning consociations than parliamentary ones. Personal communication from O'Leary.

For details on the d'Hondt rule, see O'Leary et al. (2005a).

This is termed ‘regional consociation’ (McGarry & O'Leary, 1993; Wolff, 2004).

See also Reilly (2011) for a more recent discussion and defence of centripetalist theory.

O'Leary (2005b) develops this argument in great detail in the context of constitutional design in Iraq. Lijphart (2002: 39–45) made a similar point when revising his original theory and treating power-sharing and autonomy (i.e. grand coalition government and segmental autonomy) as primary characteristics of consociationalism. Weller and Wolff (2005b) in their conclusion to a collection of essays on Autonomy, Self-governance and Conflict Resolution also emphasise the need for balance between self-governance and joint governance.

Roeder (2011) provides a recent update of power-dividing theory.

For the purpose of this contribution, power-sharing is defined as a governance arrangement whereby representatives of different groups make decisions jointly in one or more branches of government. Power-sharing can occur as a result of guaranteed arrangements, for example, particular parliamentary election (reserved seats, quotas) and/or government appointment procedures (d'Hondt mechanism, guaranteed posts for members of particular groups) in combination with specific decision-making procedures in relevant branches of the government (qualified or concurrent majorities) or emerge as a result of the electoral process as part of coalition formation.

Following Wolff and Weller (2005), I define TSG as the legally entrenched power of territorially delimited entities within the internationally recognised boundaries of existing states to exercise public policy functions independently of other sources of authority in these states, but subject to their overall legal order. Conceptually, this definition of territorial self-governance (TSG) applies its meaning as a tool of statecraft to the specific context of conflict management in divided societies and encompasses five distinct governance arrangements – confederation, federation, autonomy, devolution, and decentralisation.

For a more detailed discussion of this, see Cordell and Wolff (2009: ch. 2).

Occasionally, the following terms are used synonymously: essentialism and perennialism for primordialism and instrumentalism or modernism for constructivism.

For example, Brubaker (1996) and Hardin (1995) may be the two most prominent exceptions here. Arguably, Collier and Hoeffler (1998) and Fearon and Laitin (2000) also subscribe to a very strong constructivist tradition.

On the role of ethnic activists and political entrepreneurs, see Lake and Rothchild (1996). More general examples of this kind of constructivist approach are Aronoff (1998), Brass (1985), and Laitin (1998).

Among some US-based political scientists, Connor and Smith are not considered mainstream constructivists, but rather find themselves at the ‘[e]xtremes within this general perspective’ of constructivism (see Lustick, 2000: §1.1).

An empirical discussion of this point is provided in Csergo and Wolff (2009), Weller and Metzger (2008), and Wolff (2009) (see also McGarry & O'Leary, 2004b; Taylor, 2009).

The practical manifestation of conflict settlements of this kind has been termed ‘complex power-sharing’ by Kettley et al. (2001). O'Leary (2005a: 34–35) uses the term ‘complex consociation’ in a similar manner. For an empirical analysis, see the contributions in Weller and Metzger (2008). Gurr (1993: 292) offered the initial empirical evidence that ‘some combination of […] autonomy and power sharing’ offers reasonable prospects to accommodate minority demands.

See Lijphart (1995, 2002), McGarry (2007b), McGarry and O'Leary (2004b), O'Leary (2005a, 2005b), and Weller and Wolff (2005b). Wolff (2011) discusses consociationalism as a theory of both power-sharing and (territorial) self-governance.

Advocates of centripetalism and power-dividing generally reject the idea of TSG for communities seeking self-determination as destabilising, and variably propose ‘non-ethnic’ federalism or at least splitting communities across several territorial entities for a more nuanced account of the utility of federalism. See, for example, Horowitz (1985, 1990), Reilly (2001), Roeder and Rothchild (2005), Sisk (1996), and Wimmer (2003). But see Horowitz (2007) for a more nuanced account of the utility of federalism.

As noted earlier, there is no universal consensus on the utility of territorial approaches to conflict management. For example, Cornell (2002: 252) in his analysis of ethnic conflicts in the Caucasus argues that the ‘institution of autonomous regions is conducive to secessionism’, a point that Roeder (1991) made more than a decade earlier in relation to Soviet ethnofederalism and later reiterated in a broader empirical study in Roeder (2007), in line with similar findings by Hale (2000, 2004) and Treisman (1997).

By ‘territorially compact communities’, I refer to groups of people who share a sense of identity that is distinct from other communities in the same state, who are neither dominant nor a numerical majority, and who live predominantly in their historic homeland or an otherwise delineated territory. Apart from adding the characteristic of territorially compact settlement, I thus rely primarily on the definition by Capotorti (1979), who defines a minority as ‘… a group numerically inferior to the rest of the population of a state, in a non-dominant position, whose members – being nationals of the state – posses ethnic, religious or linguistic characteristics differing from those of the rest of the population and show, if only implicitly, a sense of solidarity, directed towards preserving their culture, traditions, religion, or language’.

Compare Wolff (2004) for a comparative analysis of these three cases.

Sovereign consociations are also possible without provisions for TSG, for example, Lebanon.

The Constitution of Iraq, http://portal.unesco.org/ci/en/files/20704/11332732681iraqi_constitution_en.pdf/iraqi_constitution_en.pdf; General Framework Agreement for Peace in Bosnia and Herzegovina, http://www.ohr.int/dpa/default.asp?content_id=380

Transnational links potentially also shape institutional design as an additional contextual factor. For reasons of space, this cannot be discussed in greater detail here, but see Wolff (2007b) for a more in-depth reflection on ‘para-diplomacy’.

If the focus was instead on why a set of institutions was established under a given settlement, a whole raft of other factors would need to be considered in addition to the structural factors I am focusing on, including especially questions related to the nature and structure of the negotiation process leading to an agreement (cf. e.g. Bercovitch, 1991; Bercovitch et al., 1991; Jackson, 2000; Gartner & Bercovitch, 2006; Kydd, 2006).

For a detailed discussion of two such factors – the distribution of labour and capital – see Green's contribution below. While I cannot discuss them at greater length here, they do, however, underscore my general point that context does, and should, inform the choice of specific conflict management mechanisms.

This long list of conditions, of course, is central to their critique of consociationalism, arguing that the presence of these conditions is highly unlikely, at least in post-civil war settings, thus dooming consociational approaches.

Pearson (2001) uses the notion of ‘quality’ in a similar context and meaning: ‘whether they made sense from a social, geographic, or political perspective’.

This point is also made by Beardsley (2008), Werner (1999), and Werner and Yuen (2005).

On the ‘spoiler problem’ more generally, see Stedman (1997).

Northern Ireland is a key case in point in this context. See generally the work by McGarry and O'Leary (2004a). However, as Rampton's contribution on Sri Lanka shows below, there are also cases in which domestic factors are so powerful that they can override any external factors.

Zartman (2007: 476) goes as far as stating that ‘Peacemaking rests squarely in the hands of third parties’.