INTERNATIONAL
RELATIONS
2013–2014 Update
Tenth Edition
Joshua S. Goldstein
Jon C. Pevehouse
Chapter Five:
International Conflict
Anti-Indian protester and Indian security forces in Kashmir, 2010.
5.1 The Wars of the World
Types of War
Theories of the Causes of War
MyLab Media
Simulations:
Conflict: You are a Strategic Analyst
http://media.pearsoncmg.com/long/long_mpsk_me
dia_1/sims_2011/strategic_analyst/player.html
Please log into MyPoliSciLab with your username
and password before accessing this link.
Types of War
Hegemonic
Total
Limited
Raids, low-intensity conflict
Civil
Guerrilla
Violence of War
Transition from war to peace
Theories of the Causes of War
Individual level of analysis
Domestic level of analysis
Interstate level of analysis
Global level of analysis
Competing Theories on all levels of analysis
GIVING UP THE GUNS
Once armed groups stop shooting, a long process of postwar
transition ensues. Disarming and demobilizing militias is the most
critical aspect of this transition, but also the most difficult because it
leaves disarmed groups vulnerable. Here, a major armed group
turns in weapons under an amnesty in the Niger Delta region of
Nigeria, 2009.
WHY WAR?
Political scientists do not agree on a theory of why great wars like
World War II occur and cannot predict whether they could happen
again. The city of Stalingrad (Volgograd) was decimated during
Germany’s invasion of the Soviet Union, 1943.
5.1 The Wars of the World
Q: The goal of which type of war is to force the surrender of the enemy’s government
and replace it with one of the victor’s choosing?
A)
Total
B)
Limited
C)
Guerrilla
D)
Civil
Answer:
A) Total
True-False:
A war over control of the rules of the international system
as a whole is a hegemonic war.
Answer:
True
5.2 Conflicts of Ideas
Nationalism
Ethnic Conflict
Genocide
Religious Conflict
Ideological Conflict
MyLab Media
Video: The Iran-Iraq War
http://media.pearsoncmg.com/long/long_mpsk_
vcs_1/vcs2_08_the_iran-iraq_war.html
Please log into MyPoliSciLab with your username
and password before accessing this link.
Nationalism
Identity-based sources of international conflict
Nationalism
May be most important forces in world politics
Nation
Around 1500 countries began to bring entire nations together
Self-determination
Ethnic Conflict
Ethnic groups
In ethnic conflicts, there is often pressure to redraw borders by
force.
When ethnic populations are minorities in territories controlled
by rival ethnic groups, they may be driven from their land
(ethnic cleansing) or systematically exterminated (genocide).
Causes of ethnic hostility
DRIVING OUT THE OUT-GROUP
Ethnic conflicts play a role in many international conflicts.
Ethnocentrism based on an in-group bias can promote intolerance
and ultimately dehumanization of an out-group, as evidenced by
genocides in Darfur (Sudan), Rwanda, and Bosnia; South African
apartheid; the persecution of Jews and other minorities in Nazi
Germany; and slavery in the United States. In 2008, after decades of
peace and tolerance, Kenya erupted in bloody ethnic violence after a
disputed presidential election. Here, a mob from one ethnic group
attacks and drives away all members of a rival ethnic group from a
formerly mixed town.
President of Liberia,
Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf
Genocide
In extreme cases, governments use genocide try to
destroy scapegoated groups or political rivals.
Rwanda
Sudan
Religious Conflict
Religion is the core of the community’s value system in much of the world.
When overlaid on ethnic and territorial conflicts, religion often surfaces as
the central and most visible division between groups.
There is nothing inherent in religion that mandates conflicts.
Fundamentalist movements
Islamist movements
Armed Islamist groups
RELIGIOUS DIFFERENCES
Religious intolerance can exacerbate tensions between groups,
sometimes increasing violence, with international implications. The
most salient religious conflict today is between Shi’ite and Sunni
branches of Islam, centered in Iran and Saudi Arabia. The split
played out in devastating violence in Iraq around 2007 and now
helps fuel the Syrian civil war (2013).
THE POLITICS OF ISLAM
In some Muslim-populated countries, Islam is a political rallying point—
especially in authoritarian countries in which the mosque is a rare
permissible gathering point. Islamist politicians are developing new
models of government, mixing democracy and Islamic tradition,
especially in the countries most affected by the Arab Spring protests,
which frequently peaked after Friday prayers. Here, Egyptians pray
during a Friday protest against the authoritarian president early in 2011.
Ideological Conflict
Like religion, ideology symbolizes and intensifies
conflicts between groups and states more than it
causes them.
Revolutionary governments typically turn to the pursuit
of national interests above ideological interests.
Ideologies can help to mobilize national populations to
support a state in its international dealings.
IDEOLOGICAL SPLIT
Ideology plays only a limited role in most international conflicts. After
revolutions, ideologies such as Marxism may affect foreign policy,
but over the following decades, countries such as China or the
Soviet Union typically revert to a foreign policy based more on
national interests than ideology. Nonetheless, ideological clashes
still occur, as between the freedom-loving United States and
authoritarian North Korea. Here the different styles of the two
countries are on display as the New York Philharmonic performs a
rare concert in North Korea, 2008.
5.2 Conflicts of Ideas
Q: Ethnic groups do which of the following?
A)
Share ancestral, language, cultural, or religious ties and a
common identity
B)
Want a state of their own
C)
Have a state of their own
D)
Resist ethnocentrism to keep tensions low
Answer:
A) Share ancestral, language, cultural, or religious ties and a
common identity
True-False:
A current example of ethnic conflict is the use of force by
the Sri Lankan government against Tibetans.
Answer:
False
5.3 Conflicts of Interest
Territorial Disputes
Control of Governments
Economic Conflict
Territorial Disputes
Conflicts about territory have special importance because of the
territorial nature of the state
Border disputes
Means of controlling territory
Secession
Interstate borders
Lingering disputes
South American leaders discuss trade, not war, in
Argentina, 2010.
WE WANT OUT
Efforts by a region to secede from a state are a frequent source of
international conflict, but international norms generally treat such
conflicts as internal matters unless they spill over borders.
Increasingly, autonomy agreements are resolving secession conflicts.
Here, a million and a half citizens in Barcelona demand independence
from recession-wracked Spain for the region of Catalonia, 2012.
Leaders of the region promise a referendum in 2014.
LOCATION, LOCATION, LOCATION
Control of islands, and of the large exclusive economic zone (EEZ)
that surrounds them under the law of the sea, has created a
number of complicated interstate conflicts. Japan claims Okinotori,
shown here in 2005, as an island with an EEZ, but China calls it
merely a “rock” without surrounding economic rights.
Economic Conflict
Economic competition is the most pervasive form of
conflict in IR
Economic transactions also contain strong element of
mutual economic gain
Use of violence would for the most part interrupt and
diminish profits
Economic conflicts do still bear on international
security
Drug trafficking
DRUG WARS
Because drug trafficking crosses national borders and involves lots
of guns and money, it is a source of interstate conflict. Afghanistan
supplies most of the opium used to make heroin worldwide, and
this illicit trade funds the Taliban in its fight against NATO and the
Afghan government. Here, a poor Afghan farmer, dependent on
opium poppies to make a living, checks his crop, 2007.
5.3 Conflicts of Interest
Q: Islam has played a role in many recent conflicts because it is
__________.
A)
inherently warlike
B)
less peaceful than other religions
C)
predominant in an area of the world where geographical
and historical circumstances encourage conflict
D)
moving into traditionally secular areas
Answer:
C) Predominant in an area of the world where geographical
and historical circumstances encourage conflict
True-False:
Because positive gains from economic activities are more
effective inducements than negative threats of violence,
economic conflicts lead to violence much less often.
Answer:
True
Chapter Discussion Question
How does nationalism influence IR? Why do
demands for statehood or for the adjustment of
state borders so often lead to conflict? What role
does ethnicity play in context of nationalism and
conflict?