Monica Duffy Toft

The Geography of Ethnic Violence: Identity, Interests, and the Indivisibility of Territory

Illustrations ix Preface xi Chapter 1: The Forgotten Meaning of Territory 1 Chapter 2: Indivisible Territory and Ethnic War 17 Chapter 3: Territory and Violence: A Statistical Assessment 34 Chapter 4: Russia and Tatarstan 45 Chapter 5: Russia and Chechnya 64 Chapter 6: Georgia and Abkhazia 87 Chapter 7: Georgia and Ajaria 107 Chapter 8: Conclusion 127 Appendix Tables 149 Notes 167 References 203 Index 219

Getting Religion? The Puzzling Case of Islam and Civil War

From 1940 to 2000, Islam was involved in a disproportionately high number of civil wars compared with other religions, such as Christianity or Hinduism. To help explain the overrepresentation of Islam in these wars, this article introduces a theory of “religious outbidding.” The theory holds that embattled political elites will tender religious bids when they calculate that increasing their religious legitimacy will strengthen their chances of survival. In combination with three overlapping factors—the historical absence of an internecine religious civil war similar to the Thirty Years’ War in Europe, proximity of Islams holiest sites to Israel and large petroleum reserves, and jihad (i.e., defense of Islam as a religious obligation), religious outbidding accounts for Islams higher representation in religious civil wars. The article includes a statistical analysis of the role of religion in civil wars and tests the logic of the argument of religious outbidding in the case of Sudans two civil wars.

Securing the Peace: The Durable Settlement of Civil Wars

List of Tables and Illustrations ix Preface xi Chapter 1. Introduction: Civil War Termination in Historical and Theoretical Context 1 Chapter 2. Civil War Termination in Perspective 19 Chapter 3. Securing the Peace: Mutual Benefi t, Mutual Harm 39 Chapter 4. Statistical Analysis of War Recurrence and Longer- Term Outcomes 53 Chapter 5. El Salvador: A Successful Negotiated Settlement 70 Chapter 6. Uganda: Rebel Victory Begets Stability 96 Chapter 7. The Republic of Sudan: A Collapsed Negotiated Settlement 116 Chapter 8. The Republic of Sudan: Prospects for Peace 130 Chapter 9. Conclusion 150 Appendix 163 Notes 175 Bibliography 207 Index 223

Indivisible territory, geographic concentration, and ethnic war

HE WORLD IS populated with multiethnic states: 82 percent of all independent states comprise two or more ethnic groups, which are often involved in disputes either with each other or with the state itself.1 Although such disputes do not always lead to war, they frequently do, as we know from recent history in the Balkans, Rwanda, East Timor, and elsewhere. The aim of this article is to explain why some ethnic conflicts turn violent, while others are settled nonviolently. The substantial body of literature on the origins of ethnic violence includes five important theories. Ancient hatreds arguments see violent ethnic conflict as the result of long-standing historical enmity among the warring groups. Proponents of this theory usually place great weight on the language, cultural, racial, or religious ties that unite individuals within a group.2 Violence breaks

Ending Civil Wars: A Case for Rebel Victory?

Since 1990, negotiated settlements have become the preferred means for settling civil wars. Historically, however, these types of settlements have proven largely ineffective: civil wars ended by negotiated settlement are more likely to recur than those ending in victory by one side or the other. A theoretical and statistical analysis of how civil wars end reveals that the type of ending influences the prospects for longer-term outcomes. An examination of all civil war endings since 1940 finds that rebel victories are more likely to secure the peace than are negotiated settlements. A statistical analysis of civil wars from 1940 to 2002 and the case of Uganda illustrate why rebel victories result in more stable outcomes. Expanding scholarly and policy analysis of civil war termination types beyond the current default of negotiated settlement to include victories provides a much larger set of cases and variables to draw upon to enhance understanding of the conditions most likely to support long-term stability, democracy, and prosperity.

Issue Indivisibility and Time Horizons as Rationalist Explanations for War

This paper focuses on two rationalist explanations for war: issue indivisibility and time horizons. It argues that both types of bargaining problems have not only been undertheorized in the international relations literature, but that a non-trivial proportion of the violence witnessed since the end of the Cold War may be explained by these obstacles to non-violent conflict resolution. The paper includes a discussion of nationalism and religious belief and how these relate to issue indivisibility and infinite time horizons. To illustrate the key arguments, it uses the case of Russias two most recent wars in Chechnya.

Grounds for War: The Evolution of Territorial Conflict

In international relations, unlike the natural sciences, there are few fundamental principles or laws. The world map, however, reveals at least one iron law of global politics: human territoriality. Almost every inch of the globe is partitioned into exclusive and bounded spaces that “belong” to specific groups of humans. Any that is not—such as Kashmir, Jerusalem, and the South China Sea—remains hotly contested. Throughout history, territory has led to recurrent and severe conflict. States are prepared to go to war, and individuals are prepared to die, even over land with little intrinsic value. While such behavior presents a puzzle for international relations theory, a broader evolutionary perspective reveals that territorial behavior has the following three characteristics: (1) it is common across the animal kingdom, suggesting a convergent solution to a common strategic problem; (2) it is a dominant strategy in the “hawk-dove” game of evolutionary game theory (under certain well-defined conditions); and (3) it follows a strategic logic, but one calibrated to cost-benefit ratios that prevailed in our evolutionary past, not those of the present. These insights generate novel predictions about when territorial conflict is more or less likely to occur in international relations.

Population Shifts and Civil War: A Test of Power Transition Theory

Do shifts in the distribution of ethnic group populations within a multinational state make civil war more likely? This article tests the proposition that they do using the competing logic of two core theories of interstate politics: power transition (PTT) and balance of power theory (BPT). The universe of potential population transition types are reduced to nine, and the logic of each of the competing explanations of war likelihood are reduced to four testable hypotheses. Overall, PTT fares better than BPT; although the article concludes that, as is the case at the interstate level, the key determinate of war likelihood rests more with how power is perceived than with raw changes in its distribution across the spectrum of meaningful political actors. Finally, the article offers a useful framework for further specifying the conditions under which population shifts alter the likelihood of an escalation to civil war.Do shifts in the distribution of ethnic group populations within a multinational state make civil war more likely? This article tests the proposition that they do using the competing logic of two core theories of interstate politics: power transition (PTT) and balance of power theory (BPT). The universe of potential population transition types are reduced to nine, and the logic of each of the competing explanations of war likelihood are reduced to four testable hypotheses. Overall, PTT fares better than BPT; although the article concludes that, as is the case at the interstate level, the key determinate of war likelihood rests more with how power is perceived than with raw changes in its distribution across the spectrum of meaningful political actors. Finally, the article offers a useful framework for further specifying the conditions under which population shifts alter the likelihood of an escalation to civil war.

The Myth of the Borderless World: Refugees and Repatriation Policy

This essay explores the impact of the end of the Cold War on the counter-refugee-crisis policies of the United Nations and its strongest member states. I argue that during the Cold War, state interests were subordinated to the refugee interests for two reasons. First, refugees were few in number and tended to be educated, skilled, and informed (valuable). Second, the WWII experience of the Holocaust in Europe led to the institutionalization of concern for the fate of persecuted groups at the expense of state interests. After the end of the Cold War, however, a number of the Soviet Unions allies and successor states began to fail, and these state failures, combined with unprecedented access to information about living conditions abroad, led to refugee flows that impacted powerful states. Whereas the preferred counter-refugee crisis policy during the Cold War was resettlement, after the Cold War it shifted to repatriation: voluntary repatriation in the best cases, and forced repatriation in the worst. The ...This essay explores the impact of the end of the Cold War on the counter-refugee-crisis policies of the United Nations and its strongest member states. I argue that during the Cold War, state interests were subordinated to the refugee interests for two reasons. First, refugees were few in number and tended to be educated, skilled, and informed (valuable). Second, the WWII experience of the Holocaust in Europe led to the institutionalization of concern for the fate of persecuted groups at the expense of state interests. After the end of the Cold War, however, a number of the Soviet Unions allies and successor states began to fail, and these state failures, combined with unprecedented access to information about living conditions abroad, led to refugee flows that impacted powerful states. Whereas the preferred counter-refugee crisis policy during the Cold War was resettlement, after the Cold War it shifted to repatriation: voluntary repatriation in the best cases, and forced repatriation in the worst. The essays primary focus is an assessment of the consequences of this policy shift from resettlement to repatriation of refugees. After introducing a number of important empirical findings regarding the frequency and scale of contemporary refugee crises, I conclude that although in some cases the policy of supporting voluntary repatriation is a good thing, it may have the unintended consequence of involuntary or forced repatriations as receiving states feel little compulsion to resettle these refugees within their borders.

Multinationality, Regions and State-Building: The Failed Transition in Georgia

This essay examines Georgia’s stalled transition to democracy following the collapse of the Soviet Union. I argue that Georgia’s failure to build a stable and unified state following its independence cannot be properly understood without considering the impact of regional institutions inherited from the Soviet Union. The dynamic process of independence turned Georgia’s formally functional but largely moribund regional institutions into reactive instruments of fearful ethnic minorities and led to conflict. Ironically, the reactive political mobilization within some of Georgia’s regions was stoked by fear and resentment of Russian neo-imperialism within the central ruling elite in Georgia. Georgia responded to Russian hegemonic leadership of the ‘Commonwealth of Independent States’ with a form of nationalistic chauvinism of its own, which though defensive and integrative in its intent, proved threatening to national minorities within Georgia and disintegrative in its consequences. Abkhaz nationalists, for example, countered Georgian chauvinism with their own and threatened to secede, thus weakening the territorial integrity of Georgia. Ajars accepted that Ajaria belonged within the Georgian homeland, and rather than independence, Ajaria’s primary concern was the maintenance and enhancement of its privileged regional position vis-à-vis the centre. A third group threatened by Georgian nationalism was the Ossetians, whose autonomous administrative status inherited from the Soviet era was threatened by dissolution from Tbilisi. Like the Abkhaz, the Ossetians felt threatened by the Georgian nationalizing state and sought to preserve their autonomy by separation. While Abkhazia and South Ossetia were largely conflicts over national autonomy, Ajaria was almost exclusively a conflict over administrative and economic autonomy. In the end, the combination of the shock of independence, combined with long simmering nationalist resentments and a large, powerful, imperialist neighbour, made it impossible for Georgia to establish stable institutions capable of moving it towards its goal of a strong, multinational and democratic state. This essay proceeds in four parts. In the first part I present a brief theoretical discussion of ‘stateness’, a variable considered ‘seriously