Klaus Schlichte

Der Staat und einige seiner Zeitgenossen. Zur Zukunft des Regierens in der »Dritten Welt«

Über die Realität, die Novität und die konkreten Gehalte des Ausdrucks »Globalisierung« kann man streiten. Für die Staaten der »Dritten Welt« ist die Prägung durch externe Einflüsse jedenfalls ebenso eine Konstante ihrer Formation wie ihre bisher nur prekäre Konsolidierung. Dennoch lassen sich in der jüngeren Vergangenheit deutliche Verschiebungen der Modi des Regierens in diesen Staaten beobachten. Die Veränderungen politischer Herrschaft außerhalb der OECD werden in diesem Beitrag basierend auf den Thesen der Ausbildung paralleler Strukturen, der Zunahme intermediärer Herrschaft und der Bifurkation der Sicherheitssysteme diskutiert. Ob diese Veränderungen einen langfristigen Verlust staatlicher »Autorität« bedeuten, ist eine Frage der Interpretation. Daß sie sich wenigstens teilweise neuen Opportunitäten der internationalen Einbindung verdanken, kann als sicher gelten. Versuche, auf internationaler Ebene Regierungsmodelle zu installieren, in denen der Staat eine Schlüsselstellung einnimmt, müssen diese Veränderungen politischer Herrschaft berücksichtigen.

Armed Groups and the Politics of Legitimacy

This article serves as an introduction to a special section on the question of the legitimacy of non-state armed groups. Starting with a short discussion of the literature on armed groups as political actors, the authors emphasize the importance of the often-underestimated dimension of legitimacy. After having conceptualized legitimacy in more detail, the article addresses three key challenges armed groups usually face regarding the politics of legitimacy: first, they need to legitimize the use of violent means; second, for moral and material support, they depend on beliefs of legitimacy; and third, they need to simultaneously address various domestic and international audiences. Finally, the authors highlight a number of pending questions for further research on armed groups.

With the State against the State? The Formation of Armed Groups

Non-state war actors have trajectories. While recent research contributions stress the role of material interest as the driving force for the formation of non-state war actors, this article attempts to sketch an alternative explanation for their formation. Based on a data-set of 80 cases and comparative case discussion it focuses on the relationships that leaders and staff members of armed groups entertain before the actual formation of such groups. Three mechanisms of formation are consecutively distinguished, depending on the degree and kind of social relationships that precede their formation. The article discusses the causal settings of each mechanism and reveals in how far state policies in medium term and long run horizons produce what they want to curb: the formation of violent challenges.

Na krilima patriotisma—On the Wings of Patriotism: Delegated and Spin-Off Violence in Serbia

This article addresses the causes and dynamics of spin-off violence by paramilitary groups that developed in Serbia in the early 1990s. It shows that some forms of violence that challenge the state’s monopoly come into being due to decisions of state agencies. But delegated violence easily develops a life of its own, and therefore the decisions of state leaders are not the only variable, perhaps not even an important one, needed to explain the dynamics of violence once the turmoil of war has started. In retrospect, it seems as if warfare was just an episode in the political life of militias or the political groupings behind them. Violence was just one means among others in the fight for political chances. Therefore, the emergence and the life of these groups have to be explained as attempts of single political entrepreneurs to achieve the accumulation of power through the exertion of violence.

Is ethnicity a cause of war

Since the end of the Cold War, the vocabulary of politics has changed. The violent decay of Yugoslavia, the separatist movements in Ethiopia, and the small wars in the Philippines indicate that an era of ethnic conflicts has replaced the former East‐West rivalry. Since the outbreak of violent conflicts in the former Soviet Union, the phrase “ethnic conflict” has ruled the titles of newspapers and magazines and has even found its way into the discourse of political science. “Ethnic nationalism,” mere “nationalism,” even such linguistic monsters as “ethno‐nationalism” have recently become central concerns. The emergence of so many violent clashes between ethnic groups in the last few years has perplexed the public, and even social scientists have had difficulty explaining nationalism and ethnic conflict. In trying to explain these conflicts, some authors point to cultural differences. In 1993, Samuel P. Huntington proclaimed the beginning of an era of clashes between cultural entities. But explaining these ...

Uganda, Or: The Internationalisation of Rule

Statebuilding is the declared objective of international donors in many African contexts and elsewhere. Uganda, where a civil war ended 20 years ago, can serve as a showcase in order to see what the outcome of internationalised post-war policies is. Analysing the dynamics around the states armed forces and the problems of taxation, this article argues that the outcome is not statebuilding but the internationalisation of rule. This constellation, nowadays euphemistically called ‘global governance’, may show the future of other current post-war interventions.

Staatsbildung und Staatszerfall in der „Dritten Welt“

Vom Ende des Staates wird uberall gesprochen. Auch in der Politikwissenschaft, besonders in der Teildisziplin der Internationalen Beziehungen, ist die Bedeutung des Staates als zentrale politische Organisationsform in den neunziger Jahren zu einem Kernthema avanciert. Wachsende Interdependenzen zwischen allen Teilen der Welt und zwischen sozialen Akteuren auf allen Ebenen, die zunehmende Bedeutung internationaler Arrangements und die Diskussion um die Liberalisierung politisch gesetzter Grenzen zugunsten marktformiger Regelungen — diese Tendenzen und die Debatten darum scheinen vor allem eines zu zeigen: das die Epoche des Nationalstaats sich ihrem Ende zuneigt.

Profiteure und Verlierer von Bürgerkriegen: Die soziale Ökonomie der Gewalt

Nach dem Ende des Ost-West-Konflikts hat es zwei Wellen der Interpretation des weltweiten Kriegsgeschehens gegeben. Die erste, die vor allem unter dem Eindruck der Konflikte in der zerfallenden Sowjetunion und der Kriege in Jugoslawien stand, glaubte im Begriff der „Ethnizitat“ oder des „Ethnonationalismus“ die Schlusselkategorie fur die Erklarung bewaffneter Konflikte gefunden zu haben. Einige Vertreter dieser Richtung meinten gar einen „dritten Weltkrieg“ der Ethnien ausmachen zu konnen (Scherrer 1993). Diese Interpretationsrichtung sah sich einer wachsenden Kritik ausgesetzt und hat nur noch wenige Unterstutzer. Sie ist aber in der Form des von Samuel Huntington (1993) und Robert Kaplan (1996) vertretenen Kulturalismus eine politisch einflussreiche Wahrnehmung zeitgenossischer Kriege und Konflikte geblieben.

Ongoing Wars and their Explanation

In 1994, there was a depressing number of ongoing wars and armed conflicts being waged in the world: 43 wars and 18 other major armed conflicts just below the threshold of war. Since the end of the Second World War, the world has experienced only two weeks, in September 1945, without the plagues of war. Since then, the number of wars and major armed conflicts has been steadily increasing.

Another Weber: state, associations and domination in international relations

While there has arguably been a partial reception of Weber in international relations (IR), we argue here that his ideas have either been misunderstood or neglected. In order to highlight the most valuable Weberian insights, we focus on two topics of crucial importance to IR. First, in our view, Webers crucial contribution to the study of states is not his alleged emphasis on the monopoly of violence but his concern with the problem of legitimacy, which is the key to understanding why individuals actually orient an action according to their beliefs in the idea of a state. Second, Weber conducted seminal historical investigations on religion, the rationalization of economic ethics, and organizations that show that the diffusion of isomorphism has little to do with supposedly uninterested and persuasive scientific and professional associations. Instead, more attention should be paid to rational domination and less to reified concepts such as John Meyers ‘rationalized otherhood’. These arguments are also examined empirically.