Ethnic Conflict Essay

The genocide in Rwanda, the wars in Northern Ireland, Bosnia, and Syria all have something in common: civil war and ethnic conflicts. We know that fights, battles and wars can start because of power crazy leaders, territory hungry countries and the fear of threats such as potential nuclear war. Looking at the past and now, many wars are actually caused by differences in ethnicity or religion. There are many factors that go with all of reasons above including race, language, and shared history. Ethnic Conflicts and many other articles written by various authors have contributed to bringing many views on the idea of civil war and ethnic conflict and this allows the common person to be able to weigh in with current issues and be more aware of

Ethnic kin that live in another state can give support like material or emotionally for ethnic groups in an ethnic conflict. This group can be part of a diaspora, which is “an international actor, or external party, that can fuel ethnic conflict (&W 63)”. States may still give support to their ethnic kin in other states, thus having an international ties within another country. When a country supports one side of an ethnic conflict, it can threaten enemy groups and cause a security dilemma. Aid and support from foreign actors can help assist like in development projects, International actors can play a huge role when it comes to protecting minorities rights, settling ethnic conflicts but military interventions may be needed. International countries can come in and be third mediators. They can “promote confidence-building measures (such as elections, autonomy, power sharing, and demonstrations of respect) for warring parties (J&W 66)”. A down side to this, is that if the negotiations fail, then the third party will take a hit on their reputation and economics if they are trading partners. In a sense of ethnic conflicts, states should do that internally instead of having a third party. At the end of the day, international actors can play three roles: they either protect and help the victims of the oppressive government, help balance the power on the ground and allowing a group to protect

From an article, Ethnicity, Insurgency and Civil War, written by James Fearon and David Laitin, they did research on many civil wars but made a certain criterion to help them define what intra-state war in considered a civil war. There are three requirements. According to F&L, they are “first, they involve fighting between agents of (or claimants to) a state and organized, nonstate groups who sought either to take control of a government, to take power in a region, or to use violence to change government policies. (1) They involved fighting between agentsof(or claimants to) a state and organized, nonstate groups who sought either to take control of a government, to use violence to change government policies. (2) The conflict killed at least 1,000 over its course, with a yearly average of at least 100. (3) At least 100 were killed on both sides (including civilians attacked by rebels) (F&L 76)”. Now, the last condition is in there to help distinguish from a civil war from a genocide. A genocide is one when side dominates the others and is considered a mass killing like Adolf Hitler in Europe or the Hutus and Tutsis in Rwanda. There are factors that can influence and lead up to a civil war. Having $1000 or less in per captia income on average for the state, can increase the odds of civil war. Some other factors are political instability (if there was any instability in the government in the