INTRODUCTION TO CONFLICT STUDIES READINGS
Week 1:
Ramsbotham Woodhouse and Miall 2006
➔ simplified model of Johan Galtung’s seminal thinking on the relationship
between conflict, violence and peace. As described in chapter 2, Galtung was
one of the founders of the field, and the breadth of his understanding of the
structural and cultural roots of violence is ahalilo corrective to those who
caricature conflict resolution as purely relational, symmetrical or
psychological.
➔ In the late 1960s Johan Galtung (1969; see also 1996: 72) proposed an
influential model of conflict that encompasses both symmetric and
asymmetric conflicts. He suggested that conflict could be viewed as a triangle,
with contradiction (C), attitude (A) and behaviour (B) at its vertices
➔ Here the contradiction refers to the underlying conflict situation, which
includes the actual or perceived ‘incompatibility of goals' between the
conflict parties generated by what Mitchell calls a ‘mis-match between social
values and social structure”
➔ In a symmetric conflict, the contradiction is defined by the parties, their
interests and the clash of interests between them. In an asymmetric conflict,
it is defined by the parties, their relationship and the conflict of interests
inherent in the relationship.
➔
➔
➔ Attitude includes the parties’ perceptions and misperceptions of each other
and of themselves. These can be positive or negative, but in violent conflicts
parties tend to develop demeaning stereotypes of the other, and attitudes are
often influenced by emotions such as as fear, anger, bitterness and hatred.
1
, ➔ Attitude includes emotive (feeling), cognitive (belief) and conative (will)
elements. Analysts who emphasize these subjective aspects are said to have
an expressive view of the sources of conflict.
➔ Behaviour is the third component. It can include cooperation or coercion,
gestures signifying conciliation or hostility. Violent conflict behaviour is
characterized by threats, coercion and destructive attacks. Analysts who
emphasize objective aspects such as structural relationships, competing
material interests or behaviours are said to have an ‘instrumental’ view of the
sources of conflict.
➔ Galtung argues that all three components have to be present together in a full
conflict. A conflict structure without conflictual attitudes or behaviour is a
latent (or structural) one. Galtung sees conflict as a dynamic process in which
structure, attitudes and behaviour are constantly changing and influencing
one another. As the dynamic develops, it becomes a manifest conflict
formation as parties’ interests
➔ Eventually, however, resolving the conflict must involve a set of dynamic
changes that involve de-escalation of conflict behaviour, a change in attitudes
and transforming the relationships or clashing interests that are at the core
of the conflict structure.
➔ A related idea due to Galtung (1990) is the distinction between direct
violence (children are murdered), structural violence (children die through
poverty) and cultural violence (whatever blinds us to this or seeks to justify
it).
➔ We end direct violence by changing conflict behaviour, structural violence by
removing structural contradictions and injustices, and cultural violence by
changing attitudes. These responses relate in turn to broader strategies of
peacekeeping, peacebuilding and peacemaking.
➔ Galtung defined ‘negative peace” as the cessation of direct violence and
“positive peace' as the overcoming of structural and cultural violence as well.
2
,Kaldor In Defence of new wars 2013
➔ This article reviews the literature on ‘new wars’. It argues that ‘new wars’
should be understood not as an empirical category but rather as a way of
elucidating the logic of contemporary war that can offer both a research
strategy and a guide to policy
➔ It addresses four components of the debate: whether new wars are ‘new’;
whether new wars are war or crime; whether the data supports the claims
about new wars; and whether new wars are ‘post-Clausewitzean
➔ the obsession with the ‘newness’ of wars misses the point about the logic of
new wars; that there is a blurring of war and crime but it is important to
address the political elements of new wars;
➔ Various terms have been used to conceptualise contemporary conflict – wars
among the people, wars of the third kind, hybrid wars, privatized wars, post-
modern wars as well as ‘new wars’
➔ This article1 defends the concept of ‘new wars’. Engaging with and
countering the various criticisms that have been brought forward against the
term ‘new’, it makes the argument that the ‘new’ in ‘new wars’ has to be
understood as a research strategy and a guide for policy. Because the ‘old’ is
enshrined in the concept of the ‘new’ the term enables us to grapple with the
overall logic that is inherent in contemporary violent conflicts and that makes
them different in kind from ‘old wars’.
➔ Such claims include the identification of new wars with civil wars, the claim
that they are only fought by non-state actors and only motivated by economic
gain, or that they are deadlier than earlier wars
➔ New Wars are the wars of the era of globalisation. Typically, they take place
in areas where authoritarian states have been greatly weakened as a
consequence of opening up to the rest of the world. In such contexts, the
distinction between state and non-state, public and private, external and
internal, economic and political, and even war and peace are breaking down.
➔ Moreover the break down of these binary distinctions is both a cause and a
consequence of violence
➔ New wars have a logic that is different from the logic of what I call ‘old wars’
– the idea of war that predominated in the nineteenth and twentieth
3
, centuries. In the original version of the argument, I derived this logic from
the differences between old and new wars in actors, goals, methods and
forms of finance. These are:
➔ Actors: Old wars were fought by the regular armed forces of states. New wars
are fought by varying combinations of networks of state and non-state actors
– regular armed forces, private security contractors, mercenaries, jihadists,
warlords, paramilitaries, etc.
➔ Goals: Old wars were fought for geopolitical interests or for ideology
(democracy or socialism). New wars are fought in the name of identity
(ethnic, religious or tribal). Identity politics has a different logic from geo-
politics or ideology. The aim is to gain access to the state for particular groups
(that may be both local and transnational) rather than to carry out particular
policies or programmes in the broader public interest.
➔ Methods: In old wars, battle was the decisive encounter. The method of
waging war consisted of capturing territory through military means. In new
wars, battles are rare and territory is captured through political means,
through control of the population. A typical technique is population
displacement – the forcible removal of those with a different identity
➔ Forms of Finance: Old wars were largely financed by states (taxation or by
outside patrons). In weak states, tax revenue is falling and new forms of
predatory private finance include loot and pillage, ‘taxation’ of humanitarian
aid, Diaspora support, kidnapping, or smuggling in oil, diamonds, drugs,
people, etc. It is sometimes argued that new wars are motivated by economic
gain, but it is difficult to distinguish between those who use the cover of
political violence for economic reasons and those who engage in predatory
economic activities to finance their political cause. Whereas old war
economies were typically centralising, autarchic and mobilised the
population, new wars are part of an open globalised decentralised economy
in which participation is low and revenue depends on continued violence
➔ The implication of these differences is that, whereas old wars tended to
extremes as each side tried to win, new wars tend to spread and to persist or
recur as each side gains in political or economic ways from violence itself
rather than ‘winning
4
Week 1:
Ramsbotham Woodhouse and Miall 2006
➔ simplified model of Johan Galtung’s seminal thinking on the relationship
between conflict, violence and peace. As described in chapter 2, Galtung was
one of the founders of the field, and the breadth of his understanding of the
structural and cultural roots of violence is ahalilo corrective to those who
caricature conflict resolution as purely relational, symmetrical or
psychological.
➔ In the late 1960s Johan Galtung (1969; see also 1996: 72) proposed an
influential model of conflict that encompasses both symmetric and
asymmetric conflicts. He suggested that conflict could be viewed as a triangle,
with contradiction (C), attitude (A) and behaviour (B) at its vertices
➔ Here the contradiction refers to the underlying conflict situation, which
includes the actual or perceived ‘incompatibility of goals' between the
conflict parties generated by what Mitchell calls a ‘mis-match between social
values and social structure”
➔ In a symmetric conflict, the contradiction is defined by the parties, their
interests and the clash of interests between them. In an asymmetric conflict,
it is defined by the parties, their relationship and the conflict of interests
inherent in the relationship.
➔
➔
➔ Attitude includes the parties’ perceptions and misperceptions of each other
and of themselves. These can be positive or negative, but in violent conflicts
parties tend to develop demeaning stereotypes of the other, and attitudes are
often influenced by emotions such as as fear, anger, bitterness and hatred.
1
, ➔ Attitude includes emotive (feeling), cognitive (belief) and conative (will)
elements. Analysts who emphasize these subjective aspects are said to have
an expressive view of the sources of conflict.
➔ Behaviour is the third component. It can include cooperation or coercion,
gestures signifying conciliation or hostility. Violent conflict behaviour is
characterized by threats, coercion and destructive attacks. Analysts who
emphasize objective aspects such as structural relationships, competing
material interests or behaviours are said to have an ‘instrumental’ view of the
sources of conflict.
➔ Galtung argues that all three components have to be present together in a full
conflict. A conflict structure without conflictual attitudes or behaviour is a
latent (or structural) one. Galtung sees conflict as a dynamic process in which
structure, attitudes and behaviour are constantly changing and influencing
one another. As the dynamic develops, it becomes a manifest conflict
formation as parties’ interests
➔ Eventually, however, resolving the conflict must involve a set of dynamic
changes that involve de-escalation of conflict behaviour, a change in attitudes
and transforming the relationships or clashing interests that are at the core
of the conflict structure.
➔ A related idea due to Galtung (1990) is the distinction between direct
violence (children are murdered), structural violence (children die through
poverty) and cultural violence (whatever blinds us to this or seeks to justify
it).
➔ We end direct violence by changing conflict behaviour, structural violence by
removing structural contradictions and injustices, and cultural violence by
changing attitudes. These responses relate in turn to broader strategies of
peacekeeping, peacebuilding and peacemaking.
➔ Galtung defined ‘negative peace” as the cessation of direct violence and
“positive peace' as the overcoming of structural and cultural violence as well.
2
,Kaldor In Defence of new wars 2013
➔ This article reviews the literature on ‘new wars’. It argues that ‘new wars’
should be understood not as an empirical category but rather as a way of
elucidating the logic of contemporary war that can offer both a research
strategy and a guide to policy
➔ It addresses four components of the debate: whether new wars are ‘new’;
whether new wars are war or crime; whether the data supports the claims
about new wars; and whether new wars are ‘post-Clausewitzean
➔ the obsession with the ‘newness’ of wars misses the point about the logic of
new wars; that there is a blurring of war and crime but it is important to
address the political elements of new wars;
➔ Various terms have been used to conceptualise contemporary conflict – wars
among the people, wars of the third kind, hybrid wars, privatized wars, post-
modern wars as well as ‘new wars’
➔ This article1 defends the concept of ‘new wars’. Engaging with and
countering the various criticisms that have been brought forward against the
term ‘new’, it makes the argument that the ‘new’ in ‘new wars’ has to be
understood as a research strategy and a guide for policy. Because the ‘old’ is
enshrined in the concept of the ‘new’ the term enables us to grapple with the
overall logic that is inherent in contemporary violent conflicts and that makes
them different in kind from ‘old wars’.
➔ Such claims include the identification of new wars with civil wars, the claim
that they are only fought by non-state actors and only motivated by economic
gain, or that they are deadlier than earlier wars
➔ New Wars are the wars of the era of globalisation. Typically, they take place
in areas where authoritarian states have been greatly weakened as a
consequence of opening up to the rest of the world. In such contexts, the
distinction between state and non-state, public and private, external and
internal, economic and political, and even war and peace are breaking down.
➔ Moreover the break down of these binary distinctions is both a cause and a
consequence of violence
➔ New wars have a logic that is different from the logic of what I call ‘old wars’
– the idea of war that predominated in the nineteenth and twentieth
3
, centuries. In the original version of the argument, I derived this logic from
the differences between old and new wars in actors, goals, methods and
forms of finance. These are:
➔ Actors: Old wars were fought by the regular armed forces of states. New wars
are fought by varying combinations of networks of state and non-state actors
– regular armed forces, private security contractors, mercenaries, jihadists,
warlords, paramilitaries, etc.
➔ Goals: Old wars were fought for geopolitical interests or for ideology
(democracy or socialism). New wars are fought in the name of identity
(ethnic, religious or tribal). Identity politics has a different logic from geo-
politics or ideology. The aim is to gain access to the state for particular groups
(that may be both local and transnational) rather than to carry out particular
policies or programmes in the broader public interest.
➔ Methods: In old wars, battle was the decisive encounter. The method of
waging war consisted of capturing territory through military means. In new
wars, battles are rare and territory is captured through political means,
through control of the population. A typical technique is population
displacement – the forcible removal of those with a different identity
➔ Forms of Finance: Old wars were largely financed by states (taxation or by
outside patrons). In weak states, tax revenue is falling and new forms of
predatory private finance include loot and pillage, ‘taxation’ of humanitarian
aid, Diaspora support, kidnapping, or smuggling in oil, diamonds, drugs,
people, etc. It is sometimes argued that new wars are motivated by economic
gain, but it is difficult to distinguish between those who use the cover of
political violence for economic reasons and those who engage in predatory
economic activities to finance their political cause. Whereas old war
economies were typically centralising, autarchic and mobilised the
population, new wars are part of an open globalised decentralised economy
in which participation is low and revenue depends on continued violence
➔ The implication of these differences is that, whereas old wars tended to
extremes as each side tried to win, new wars tend to spread and to persist or
recur as each side gains in political or economic ways from violence itself
rather than ‘winning
4
