The Major Causes Of Ethnic Conflict?

The key obstacle to OBOR in Africa is the state of constant warfare experienced throughout the continent. For as far as can be remembered, war and conflicts have burdened Africa's development. The five types of conflicts that have afflicted Africa include anti-colonial, imperial, international, inter-state and intra-state conflicts. Up to today, many countries in Africa have experienced/are experiencing wars of "regime change" with the Democratic Republic of Congo being a perfect case study, as well as the "War of Devolution" of Greater Sudan that led to the North and South divide. As time passed, South Sudan has also started experiencing its own internal war in what was called "inter-communal insurrection". In addition, African states such

“conflict occurring between individuals or social groups that separated by cultural boundaries can be considered “cross-cultural conflict.” But individuals, even in the same society, are potentially members of many different groups, organized in different ways by different criteria” (Avruvh, 1998, p.6).

Ikechi Mgbeoji’s book, Collective Insecurity examines the hidden causes of West Africa’s civil wars and addresses an important question: “Why has the U.N. system not worked to protect people and to enhance their welfare, as intended, in Africa and elsewhere?” In his book, Mgbeoji proposes, “the solution to African political instability lies in a structural rearrangement of the African polity for the purpose of legitimate governance of African peoples.”

Within any cultural group, a set of behaviors and courtesies becomes the norm and is passed to the next generation. As time passes and the world progresses, cultures adapt and evolve. This is how some groups of humans have been able to go from hunter gatherers to living in modern, high-tech cities. As the human population expanded and began to inhabit areas all over the world, each group developed their own set of languages and cultural norms. As beautiful as it is to see countries have their own identity being defined by their culture, this can also lead to rivaling nations having conflict with others’ ideals or beliefs. Many of the wars in human history have been fought due to such conflicts and that is why it is imperative that people develop cultural awareness to avoid such

The largest cause of ethnic violence seen worldwide is internal ethnic strife brought about from physical and cultural differences. Typically, one notable difference is simply the language in which certain groups speak.

Conflict theory argues that racial conflict is inevitable due to the completion and the lack of resources. According

“The most widely accepted relationship between economic factors and civil war is that high-income nations are less likely to experience civil wars than low-income nations.” (Dixon 714). The disagreements over how to spend money and tax imported goods, and how territories should be distributed, cause this one nation to fight against each other.

Furthermore, cultural conflict reinforces cultural domination or ethno-centricity (Mayer, 2000). According to Mayer (2000), culture are common norms, values, practices, and

Theoretically significant to conflict is social identity theory. It allows “predictions to incorporate who is likely to perceive and act in group terms, to remain committed to the group in times of crisis” Turner (1999), Doosje & Ellemers, (1999). Bar-Tal stresses conflict exists when an incompatible goal exists between two groups. The question of when incompatibility sets become important in understanding the cause of inter-ethnic or communal conflicts for instance, even more importantly; conflict within ingroup. Inter-ethnic or communal conflict because within the scope of peacebuilding, that is the point where building peace thrives the most. There is an assumption that for peacebuilding to be

Africa has a huge problem with dictators not running the country so that it can operate at its fullest potential. In her book Why 28 Stephanie Noland tries to make the population aware of the problem stating, “He dealt the country’s vibrant economy a first harsh blow, making a massive payment to men who claimed to be veterans of the fight for independence…” of Zimbabwe’s dictator Mugabe (Noland 299). This shows that as a ruler he was not concerned in using money to heal his country. His love of power is tearing his country apart, causing his population to dwindle, and driving his economy into the ground. Mugabe “ Sent troops to demolish houses on the slums were he believed people had voted against him,” writes Stephanie (Noland 300). This is essential because it shows the lengths he was willing to go to to stay the head of the country. He was willing to further decimate his population, just to make sure there was never a rebellion. All this oppression, abuse of power, and neglect can not go on for long without the people rising up and fighting back. This is how civil wars are created.

Conflict between and within nations is proven by history to be expected, but the answer to which countries are at a higher risk for conflict depends on whom you are asking. The reading “Ethnicity, Insurgency and Civil War” by James D. Fearon and David D. Laitin, argues that the conditions that favour insurgency are better predictors of which countries are at risk for internal conflict. Determining which countries are at a higher risk depends on multiple logical factors for the perfect environment for rebellion to occur. These factors are based on the political, economic, and organization of the state in question. Fearon and Laitin dissect the formula for rebellion piece by piece over the course of the entire article. By the end it left me in

In the article Containing Fear: The Origins and Management of Ethnic Conflict, Lake and Rothchild sited that the intense ethnic conflict is most often caused by collective fear of the future (Lake and Rothchild 1996, 41). Their explanatory framework is rational choice oriented which based on the instrumentalist theory of ethnic conflict. For instrumentalists, ethnicity mask a deeper core of interests (Varshney 2009, 282). Therefore, along with ethnic lines, all scarce resourses arouse competition and struggles between individuals as well as organized ethnic groups (Lake and Rothchild 1996, 44-45), and such competition movements can only

Modern African states have several problems ranging from corruption, to armed conflict, to stunted structural development. The effects of colonialism have been offered as a starting point for much of the analysis on African states, but the question of why African states are particularly dysfunctional needs to be examined, given the extent to which they have lagged behind other former European colonies in many aspects. In the first section, I will consider the problems with African states from the level of the state. That is, the nature of the states' inceptions and the underlying flaws may explain some of the issues that have been associated with African states today. Next I examine the development of, or lack of, civil

The first of the four traps is the conflict trap. Collier defines civil war, as a development in reverse, where not only the country itself suffers from the outcomes of war but the neighbouring countries are also affected because civil wars tend to spill into its neighbour’s territories. Collier provides economic data to show how civil wars impact economic development, in which he finds that “civil war tends to reduce growth by around 2.3 percent per year, so the typical seven-year war leaves a country around 15 percent poorer than it would have been.” He finds the two main causes of civil war linked to an economic context, comprising of low incomes and slow growth. Low income and civil war bounce off each other because just like civil wars reduce income, low income creates struggles that increase the chance of civil war. A number of studies that sought to identify the fundamental causes of civil conflict, conducted by four university economists from Oxford, Stanford and Yale, in which Paul Collier was one of the researches, concluded with similar results. Collier and Anke Hoeffler found that “countries which do not experience war are characterized by a per capita income that is more than five times higher than in countries in which wars broke out.” The other studies by James Fearon and David Latin, found that “in Africa, the Middle East and Asia, “$1,000 less in income corresponds to 36 percent greater odds of conflict outbreak.” The Final study by

This research work sought to examine the effect of violent conflict and the challenge of food security in the North Eastern region of Nigeria as well as its effects on other part of the country and neighbouring countries. Emphasis was placed on analysing the relationship between violence and agricultural productivity and investments in the region using contextual analysis based on both primary and secondary data. The theoretical perspective that was adopted is the frustration aggression theory which states that people will always resort to violence/aggression whenever they are excessively frustrated. This theory was therefore employed to understand causes of the problem of violent conflict in the North East. It was established that violent conflict has caused a lot of problems for the people living in that region most especially with regards tofood security since most of the inhabitants of this region are subsistence farmers and since they have been displaced, cannot cultivate their farms to feed themselves. The study recommends that government should tackle the root cause of violent conflict and strengthen the fight against insurgency in order to bring lasting peace to the region. The study also suggested that the economy should be highly