Ethnic conflict is the major form of mass political violence in the world today, and it has been since World War II. Dramatic acts of terrorism and calculated responses to them may distract the attention of policymakers and the public, but ethnic and nationalist conflict continues to pose the greatest challenge to peace and security across the globe. Causes of such conflict and ideas about how to address it are hotly debated in the literature that has emerged over the past fifteen years. This volume offers a unique overview of research and policy approaches to ethnic conflicts. It is the first book to bring together experienced policymakers and key scholars from all disciplines. They debate how to best understand the rise and escalation of ethnic conflict, assess different strategies for peacemaking, mediation, and reconciliation, and evaluate the prospects for conflict management through institutional design. In contrast with a more enthusiastic assessment of the willingness and capacity to successfully intervene in ethnic conflict, this volume documents the new realism that has emerged over the past decade. It recognizes the complex and protracted nature of such conflicts and demands a multifaceted, case-by-case approach sustained by long-term political engagement. Published in co-operation with the Center for Development Research, University of Bonn.

Given the pervasive threat of ethnic conflict and the growing incidence of internal wars spilling across borders, understanding the impact of third-party intervention on conflict prevention, durable peaceful governance, and amicable social relations becomes critical exercises for any scholar of conflict management. The purpose of this project is to determine whether intervention strategies undertaken by international, regional, and subregional actors can be devised or improved so as to maximize the likelihood of successful conflict management in the case of internal conflicts, particularly ethnic conflicts. As the literature and empirical evidence suggest, third-party intervention does not always prevent or end violence. Jennifer L. De Maio contends that external involvement is more likely to lead to effective conflict management if it works to alter the perceptions of the antagonists and ensures that the parties truly own the peace. Book jacket.

While wars between nations have taken a staggering toll in human lives, even more people died in the 20th century from violence at the hand of their own governments. Much of this suffering and death has been sparked by tensions and hostilities arising out of ethnic differences. Today's social, economic and political realities, including the weakening of the nation state in a global economy and the disappearance of multi-ethnic nation states such as the Soviet Union and Yugoslavia, mean that ethnic conflict is likely to remain on the international agenda. For the churches, committed to reconciliation but often themselves identified with one party or another in ethnic conflicts, this raises critical questions regarding their mission in the world. The heart of this book is case studies of nine 20th-century ethnic conflicts, in which millions of people have perished. The author illustrates the complexity of these situations as they have evolved over the centuries and highlights the role which religious affiliations and convictions, including Christianity, have often played in worsening relations among ethnic communities. A final chapter suggests four lines of reflection and action for Christian churches confronted by ethnic conflicts in their own contexts and elsewhere. This book is intended to help concerned Christian individuals, congregations and study groups to recognize the complexity of issues of ethnicity and nationalism, reflect biblically and theologically on ethnic identity, and respond pastorally to such situations of tension and conflict.

Ethnic conflict is an elemental force in international politics and a major threat to regional security and stability. Ethnicity as a source of conflict has deep historic roots. Many such conflicts lay dormant, suppressed by the Soviet empire or overshadowed by the ideological competition of the cold war. Both protagonists in the cold war demonstrated unwarranted optimism about their ability to defuse ethnicity and ethnic conflict. Marxists believed that ethnicity would give way to "proletarian internationalism." Social class and economic welfare would determine both self-identity and loyalty to political institutions that would transcend ethnic identification or religious affiliation. Western democracies assumed that "nation building" and economic development were not only vital components in the strategy to contain communist expansion, but that capitalism, economic prosperity, and liberal democratic values would also create free societies with a level of political development measured by loyalty to the state rather than to the narrower ethnic group. Instead, the goals of assimilation and integration within the larger context of economic and political development are being replaced by violent ethnic corrections to artificially imposed state boundaries. The Balkan and Transcaucasian conflicts, for example, are ancient in origin and have as their object the territorial displacement of entire ethnic groups. Such conflicts by their nature defy efforts at mediation from outside, since they are fed by passions that do not yield to "rational" political compromise. They are, as John Keegan describes in his most recent study of war, "apolitical" to a degree for which Western strategists have made little allowance.1 The demise of European communism and the Russian empire has unleashed this century's third wave of ethnic nationalism and conflict. The first came in the wake of the collapsing Ottoman, Russian, and Austro-Hungarian empires which came to a climax after World War I; the second followed the end of European colonialism after World War II.

This book develops and expands on theories that aim at explaining the root causes of ethnic and racial conflicts. The aim is to shift focus from research, policies and strategies based on tackling the effects of ethnic and racial conflicts, which have so far been ineffective as evidenced by the increase in ethnic conflicts, to more fundamental ideas, models and strategies. Contents extend across many disciplines including evolution, biology, religion, communication, mythology and even introspective perspectives. Drawn from around the world, contributors to the book are respected and experienced award winning authors, scholars and thinkers with deep understanding of their special fields of contribution. The book was inspired by the conditions in Kenya, where ethnic violence flared up with terrifying consequences following a disputed election in 2008. Although the conflict was resolved by the intervention of the international community, Kenyans like many other Africans - continue to live in fear of ethnic conflicts breaking out with more disastrous consequences. The book will be useful to policy makers, NGOs and others involved in promoting peace. It will also be useful in guiding research and as a text book in universities and colleges.

Why is it that Catholics and Protestants in Northern Ireland have been in perpetual conflict for thirty years when they can live and prosper together elsewhere? Why was there a bloody civil war in Bosnia and Herzegovina when Croats, Serbs, and Muslims had lived peacefully side-by-side fordecades? Why did nobody see and act upon the early warning signs of genocide in Rwanda that eventually killed close to a million people in a matter of weeks? What is it that makes Kashmir potentially worth a nuclear war between India and Pakistan? In recent years hardly a day has gone by when ethnic conflict in some part of the world has not made headline news. The violence involved in these conflicts continues to destabilize entire regions, hamper social and economic development, and cause unimaginable human suffering. And the extensivemedia coverage of these conflicts all too often raises important questions that it signally fails to answer. This book aims to fill this gap. Drawing on the author's long experience of studying such conflicts around the world and his involvement in attempts to resolve them, it provides an illuminating and accessible introduction to the origins, dynamics, and management of ethnic conflict. In doing so, ithelps explain the fundamental question underlying all these conflicts: why do nationalism and ethnicity still have such terrible power to turn neighbour against neighbour?