Introduction and Summary
Many political studies on civil war have focused on the role that institutions play in ethnically divided societies. While 'constitutional engineers' have claimed that certain rules and institutional arrangements, like proportional representation or decentralization, help divided societies to maintain peace (Lijphart 1977, 1999; Fearon/Laitin 2003; Reynal-Querol 2005), political sociologists have argued that they only reflect the cleavage lines within such societies (Lipset/Rokkan 1967; Collier/Hoeffler 2004). However, most of the researchers' results are neither robust nor replicable across studies (Hegre/Sambanis 2006).
Examining this contradictory role of political institutions, Schneider/Wiesehomeier (2008: 184) state that, in general, institutions help to reduce conflict, but that this positive effect might be weakened by certain forms of ethnic diversity, namely by polarization, fractionalization, and dominance. They find that the impact of the three diversity indicators on the outbreak of civil war varies across different types of political regimes (ibid.: 199). In addition, Schneider/Wiesehomeier demonstrate that power-sharing institutions are able to relax tense intrastate relations in strongly divided societies (ibid.: 199). Furthermore, presidential systems seem to be the most war-prone institutional settings among the studied democratic regimes (ibid.: 184). Thus, they conclude that rules matter (ibid.: 199).
Although the idea and the way of exploring the research question are exemplary, the research design displays two critical problems, which will be portrayed below. Therefore, I argue that the authors' synthesis of the two conflicting schools of thought suffers from the incompleteness o...
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... Analysis of the Empirical Literature on Civil War Onset. Journal of Conflict Resolution 50 (4): 508–535.
Lijphart, Arend, 1977: Democracy in Plural Societies: A Comparative Exploration. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.
Lijphart, Arend, 1999: Patterns of Democracy: Government Forms and Performance in Thirty-Six Countries. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.
Lipset, Seymour M./Rokkan, Stein, 1967: Party Systems and Voter Alignments: Cross-National Perspectives. New York: Free Press.
Reynal-Querol, Marta, 2005: Does Democracy Preempt Civil Wars? European Journal of Political Economy 21 (2): 445–465.
Schneider, Gerald/Wiesehomeier, Nina, 2008: Rules That Matter: Political Institutions and the Diversity-Conflict Nexus. Journal of Peace Research 45 (2): 183-203.
Wolff, Stefan, 2006: Ethnic conflict. A global Perspective. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Given the nature of man, factions are inevitable. As long as men hold different opinions, have different amounts of wealth, and own different amount of property, they will continue to fraternize with people who are most similar to them. Both serious and trivial reasons account for the formation of factions but the most important source of faction is the unequal distribution of property. Men of greater ability and talent tend to possess more property than those of lesser ability, and since the first object of government is to protect and encourage ability, it follows that the rights of property owners must be protected. Property is divided unequally, and, in addition, there are many different kinds of property; men have different interests depending upon the kind of property they own. For example, the interests of landowners differ from those who own businesses. Government must not only protect the conflicting interests of property owners, it must, at the same time, successfully regulate the conflicts that result from those who own, and those who do not own, property.
Taking Two Of The Theoretical Approaches To Social Research Discussed In The Module, Demonstrate The Connections Between Their Ontological, Epistemological And Methodological Assumptions. Which Method Or Methods Would Proponents Of Each Theory Favour As A Result Of Their Assumptions.
The aim of this paper is to explore and critically analysing two research articles. The critical analysis will explain the importance of the study, evaluate design and research method used in those articles. To identify any gaps it will provide the literature review in those researches and possibility for the new study. The project plan, for the possible research will be developed on a potential gaps and the essay will finish with the conclusion.
The structure of the configuration of ethnic groups, ranked or unranked, has a direct and significant impact on the ability and willingness of these groups to mobilize for collective action. Indirect administrative rule by the British left traditional patterns of social organization in place, which indicates that ethnic conflict should be more frequent and intense in former British colonies, as these structure facilitated aggravated mobilization. French colonial rule focused on centralized administration, and destroyed the pre existing power structures. This left different ethnicities without the means to mobilize and challenge grievances, which would then lead to lower instances of inter-ethnic conflict in the post-colonial era.
Farber, H. S., & Gowa, J. (1997). Common Interests or Common Politics? Reinterpreting the Democratic Peace. Journal of Politics 59 (2): 393-417.
Based on the constructivist view, the Civil War in Syria is initiated by the identity conflict between two groups which are the Assad’s regime and the rebel. Assad’s regime originates from minority Alawite, who made up 12 percent of the Syria population and also dominates most of the position in Syria government (citation). However, this identity conflict is not on religion based as the rebel’s side consists variation of group such as Sunni sect, Free Syrian Army (FSA) and other citizens. Besides, the Assad’s regimes as well consist of other society despite of the Alwite. Based on this condition, it is clearly portray that, even though a group is made up of multiple identities, they still can pursue t...
In comparing the average citizen in a democratic nation, say the United States, to that of a non-democratic nation, for instance Egypt, it will be found that the citizen in the democratic nation is generally better off – free of persecution, free from fear of the authorities, and free to express his opinions on governmental matters. And while national conflicts occur everywhere, incidents like violent revolts have shown to be more prevalent in nations where citizens are not allowed to choose who governs them. It is slightly paradoxical that democracy, so inherently flawed in theory, can lead to such successful outcomes in practice. The question, then, becomes: “If democracy has so many weaknesses, why does it work?”
Weak and failed states share many common characteristics. One of the most common features of a weak state is the presence of persistent violence. This violence is in the form of civil wars and civil unrest, this is an indicator that a government has lost legitimacy as well as control over some parts of territory. Other features include a weak bureaucracy that is very susceptible to corruption especially corruption from non-state actors such as terrorists and warlords. As the government’s power and influence continues to decline, citizens turn to these non-s...
Democratic states are perceived to be more peaceful because “democracies do not attack each other.” The proposition that democracies never (or rarely; there is a good deal of variation about this) go to war against one another has nearly become a truism. Since Michael Doyle’s essay in 1983 pointed out that no liberal democracy has ever fought a war with another democracy , scholars have treated pacifism between as democracies, “as closest thing we have to an empirical law in international relations.” The democratic peace proposition encourages hope for a new age of international peace. Over the years since Michael Doyle’s essay a lot of literature has been written about “democratic peace theory”. A lot of analysis has focused on the claim- that liberal democracies do not fight each one another. There is a lot of action- reaction sequence in the academic arguments. As an idea catches on it accumulates adherents. The more popular an idea, there is more likehood of a critical reaction that raises serious and strong reservations about the validity of the new idea. In this essay, I would like to examine the claim- that democratic states are more peaceful as democracy causes peace. In this essay I draw on the writings of John M. Owen, Michael Doyle, Christopher Layne, Mansfield and Snyder, Alexander Wendt, Robert Keohane and Lisa Martin for their views on why democracies do not fight one another and then deduce my own conclusions.
Now within the rest of this paper you will be finding a few different things getting discussed. Staring it off we will be discussing the articles that we have found to make our arguments and hypotheses. After wrapping up the literature reviews we will be discussing the hypotheses thus continuing onto our variables and indicators. Once we discuss our hypotheses we will be moving onto the research design. The research design will have our general issues, sampling, and methods.
To lose complete independence, resources, and the ability to defend rights is extremely inexcusable. In almost every part of the world numerous cultural and ethnic factions live together, and therefore it is almost unmanageable to draw a series of boundaries that encircles people from only one ethnic group. In addition, it is tremendously hard to integrate everyone who is unalike with a leading ethnic group. Irredentism always has an irritating effect on minority or majority struggles. By developing common distrust and animosity, it regularly causes violence, and occasionally, even war.
The democratic peace theory was not always seen as the substantial argument and significant contribution to the field of International Relations that it is today. Prior to the 1970’s, it was the realist and non-realist thought that took preeminence in political theoretical thinking. Though the democratic peace theory was first criticized for being inaccurate in its claim that democracy promotes peace and as such democracies do not conflict with each other, trends, statistical data, reports have suggested and proved that the democratic peace theory is in fact valid in its claim. Over the years having been refined, developed and amended, it is now most significant in explaining modern politics and it is easy to accept that there is indeed a lot of truth in the stance that democracy encourages peace. The democratic peace theory is a concept that largely influenced by the likes of Immanuel Kant, Wilson Woodrow and Thomas Paine.
Research philosophy, refers to the development of knowledge adopted by the researchers in their research (Saunders, Lewis and Thornhill, 2009). In other words, it is the theory that used to direct the researcher for conducting the procedure of research design, research strategy, questionnaire design and sampling (Malhotra, 2009). It is very important to have a clear understanding of the research philosophy so that we could examine the assumptions about the way we view the world, which are contained in the research philosophy we choose, knowing that whether they are appropriate or not (Saunders, Lewis and Thornhill, 2009). According to Saunders, Lewis and Thornhill (2009), three major ways of thinking about research philosophy are examined: ontology, epistemology and axiology. Each of them carries significant differences which will have an impact on the way we consider the research procedures. Ontology, “is concerned with nature of reality”, while epistemology “concerns what constitutes acceptable knowledge in a field of study and axiology “studies judgements about value” (Saunders, Lewis and Thornhill, 2009, p110, p112, p116). This study is intent on creating some “facts” from objective evaluations which are made by the subjects. Therefore, epistemology will be chosen for this study as the way of thinking about the research philosophy.
Ross, Mark Howard. “The Relevance of Culture for the Study of Political Psychology and Ethnic Conflict”. Political Psychology, Vol. 18, No. 2, Special Issue: Culture and Cross-Cultural
After establishing the research problem and what results are wanted, it will define how it will find the answers. Research is a form of collection and interpretation of information that will form the basis of finding answers to questions. The research uses theories and methods that h...