An influential conventional wisdom holds that civil wars proliferated rapidly with the end of the Cold War and that the root cause of many or most of these has been ethnic and religious antagonisms. We show that the current prevalence of internal war is mainly the result of a steady accumulation of protracted conflicts since the 1950s and 1960s rather than a sudden change associated with a new, post-Cold War international system. We also find that after controlling for per capita income, more ethnically or religiously diverse countries have been no more likely to experience significant civil violence in this period. We argue for understanding civil war in this period in terms of insurgency or rural guerrilla warfare, a particular form of military practice that can be harnessed to diverse political agendas. The factors that explain which countries have been at risk for civil war are not their ethnic or religious characteristics but rather the conditions that favor insurgency. These include poverty—which marks financially and bureaucratically weak states and also favors rebel recruitment—political instability, rough terrain, and large populations.We wish to thank the many people who provided comments on earlier versions of this paper in a series of seminar presentations. The authors also gratefully acknowledge the support of the National Science Foundation (Grants SES-9876477 and SES-9876530); support from the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences with funds from the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation; valuable research assistance from Ebru Erdem, Nikolay Marinov, Quinn Mecham, David Patel, and TQ Shang; sharing of data by Paul Collier.

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Ethnicity, Insurgency, and Civil War

Governance failures are at the origin of many resource management problems. In particular climate change and the concomitant increase of extreme weather events has exposed the inability of current governance regimes to deal with present and future challenges. Still our knowledge about resource governance regimes and how they change is quite limited. This paper develops a conceptual framework addressing the dynamics and adaptive capacity of resource governance regimes as multi-level learning processes. The influence of formal and informal institutions, the role of state and non-state actors, the nature of multi-level interactions and the relative importance of bureaucratic hierarchies, markets and networks are identified as major structural characteristics of governance regimes. Change is conceptualized as social and societal learning that proceeds in a stepwise fashion moving from single to double to triple loop learning. Informal networks are considered to play a crucial role in such learning processes. The framework supports flexible and context sensitive analysis without being case study specific. First empirical evidence from water governance supports the assumptions made on the dynamics of governance regimes and the usefulness of the chosen approach. More complex and diverse governance regimes have a higher adaptive capacity. However, it is still an open question how to overcome the state of single-loop learning that seem to characterize many attempts to adapt to climate change. Only further development and application of shared conceptual frameworks taking into account the real complexity of governance regimes can generate the knowledge base needed to advance current understanding to a state that allows giving meaningful policy advice.

A conceptual framework for analysing adaptive capacity and multi-level learning processes in resource governance regimes

Between 1945 and 1999, about 3.33 million battle deaths occurred in the 25 interstate wars that killed at least 1,000 and had at least 100 dead on each side. These wars involved just 25 states that suffered casualties of at least 1,000 and had a median duration of not quite 3 months. In contrast, in the same period there were roughly 127 civil wars that killed at least 1,000, 25 of which were ongoing in 1999. A conservative estimate of the total dead as a direct result of these conflicts is 16.2 million, five times the interstate toll. These civil wars occurred in 73 states—more than a third of the United Nations system—and had a median duration of roughly six years. 1 The civil conflicts in this period surely produced refugee flows far greater than their death toll and far greater than the refugee flows associated with interstate wars since 1945. Cases such as Afghanistan, Somalia, and Lebanon testify to the economic devastation that civil wars can produce. By these crude measures, civil war has been a far greater scourge than interstate war in this period, though it has been studied far less. What explains the recent prevalence of violent civil conflict around the world? Is it due to the end of the Cold War and associated changes in the international system, or is it the result of longer-term trends? Why have some countries had civil wars while others have not? and Why did the wars break out when they did? We address these questions using data for the period 1945 to 1999 on the 161 countries that had a population of at least half a million in 1990.

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We examine the theoretical implications of the observation that ethnic identities are socially constructed for explaining ethnic violence, distinguishing between two classes of mechanisms. If individuals are viewed as the agents who construct identities, then constructivist explanations for ethnic violence tend to merge with analyses that stress strategic action by both elites and mass publics. In contrast, if discursive formations are the agents that construct ethnic identities, then constructivist explanations tend to merge with accounts that stress internal logics of specific cultures. Using the books under review as a “sample,” we find considerable evidence linking strategic aspects of ethnic identity construction to violence and more limited evidence implicating discursive systems. The most common narrative in these texts has largescale ethnic violence provoked by elites, often motivated by intra-ethnic conflicts. Followers follow, despite the costs, out of increased fear of thugs and armies “let go” by elites (both the other side's and their “own”) and often in pursuit of local grievances that may have little ethnic component. Several other mechanisms are also discussed, including the role of discursive systems in conditioning publics for violence and the role of violent efforts to enforce “everyday primordialism” by policing supposedly primordial ethnic boundaries.

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Violence and the Social Construction of Ethnic Identity

International Security Studies (ISS) has changed and diversified in many ways since 1945. This book provides the first intellectual history of the development of the subject in that period. It explains how ISS evolved from an initial concern with the strategic consequences of superpower rivalry and nuclear weapons, to its current diversity in which environmental, economic, human and other securities sit alongside military security, and in which approaches ranging from traditional Realist analysis to Feminism and Post-colonialism are in play. It sets out the driving forces that shaped debates in ISS, shows what makes ISS a single conversation across its diversity, and gives an authoritative account of debates on all the main topics within ISS. This is an unparalleled survey of the literature and institutions of ISS that will be an invaluable guide for all students and scholars of ISS, whether traditionalist, ‘new agenda’ or critical. • The first book to tell the post-1945 story of International Security Studies and offer an integrated historical sociology of the whole field • Opens the door to a long-overdue conversation about what ISS is and where it should be going • Provides a detailed institutional account of ISS in terms of its journals, departments, think tanks and funding sources

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The Evolution of International Security Studies

This edited volume examines power in its different dimensions in global governance. Scholars tend to underestimate the importance of power in international relations because of a failure to see its multiple forms. To expand the conceptual aperture, this book presents and employs a taxonomy that alerts scholars to the different kinds of power that are present in world politics. A team of international scholars demonstrates how these different forms connect and intersect in global governance in a range of different issue areas. Bringing together a variety of theoretical perspectives, this volume invites scholars to reconsider their conceptualization of power inworld politics and how such amove can enliven and enrich their understanding of global governance.

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Power in Global Governance

The background to 1969 - political violence, rebellion and nationalisms in Ireland the resurgence of Irish nationalisms from peacekeeping to containment - the campaign of the British army in the cities 1969-1974 from containment to Ulsterisation 1974-1980 the search for political solutions - the move to military withdrawal? 1980-1985 stalemate in Ireland - violence institutionalized 1985-1990 reinventing the role of the military - debates over peacekeeping 1990-1995 - the search for peace conclusions - the long retreat.

The Origins of the Present Troubles in Northern Ireland

Two British scholars reassess what they view as the decisive episode in the early Cold War, the Marshall Plan. Far from seeing the Plan as a mere act of generosity by the United States, they argue that it was an integral part of an increasingly aggressive U.S. posture toward the Soviet Union. The Soviet Union was still seeking a cooperative relationship with the United States, but the U.S. decision to establish a European Recovery Program (ERP) without a sincere intention of including the Soviet Union posed a threat to Soviet security interests. Josif Stalin wanted to prevent the United States from luring the East European countries away from the Soviet Union's sphere of influence and into the Western sphere. Although Stalin was reluctant to abandon his bid for close cooperation with the West, the Marshall Plan left him with little choice. As the ERP progressed, Stalin drastically tightened his hold over Eastern Europe and imposed Soviet-style systems on the countries in the region. The Marshall Plan thus had the "tragic" effect of creating a long-term divide in Europe that consigned tens of millions of people to life under tyranny.

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The Tragedy of American Diplomacy? Rethinking the Marshall Plan

(1997). The British army in Northern Ireland 1969–1972: From policing to counter‐terror. Journal of Strategic Studies: Vol. 20, No. 2, pp. 1-24.

The British Army in Northern Ireland 1969–1972: From Policing to Counter-Terror

As debate continues over the conduct, the legality and the morality of the war in Iraq, this article addresses how and why Prime Minister Blair decided on the British road to war in Iraq. The article argues that Tony Blair was working within a mindset at both the domestic and international levels that meant he was predisposed to use military force against Iraq and indeed against other perceived threats to the West. His mindset arose, we will argue, through fear rather than arrogance, through the experiences of the past two decades as much as contemporary events, and this meant that he systematically over-estimated the threat posed by Saddam Hussein. We postulate that Blair was not pressured into invading Iraq by President Bush. Rather, he believed that it was the right path for Britain to take, and that the overthrow of Saddam Hussein was actually the logical outcome of the ‘Doctrine of the International Community’ outlined in his Chicago speech in 1999. We go on to make the claim that by concentrating on supporting the United States in its grand strategy, Tony Blair misunderstood the pattern of politics at home and perhaps more seriously of the ‘threat’ to the domestic security of the United Kingdom. This was not a danger from Iraqi WMD or even from ‘foreign’ terrorists as had happened on 9/11 but from home-grown suicide bombers, some of whom claimed to be inspired by opposition to Blair’s wars. This was the blowback that mattered – and will continue to do so – for the UK.

https://www.cambridge.org/core/services/aop-cambridge-core/content/view/S0260210507007474

Caroline Kennedy-Pipe

Papers

Power in Global Governance

The Origins of the Present Troubles in Northern Ireland

The Tragedy of American Diplomacy? Rethinking the Marshall Plan

The British Army in Northern Ireland 1969–1972: From Policing to Counter-Terror

‘Blowback’ for Britain?: Blair, Bush, and the war in Iraq