Summary Conflictstudies

Conflictstudies

~ Lecture 1: Identity and conflict ~

THE WORLD TODAY
The world today

 Militarisation of Global politics
o Last 10 years
 Authoritarianism
o Democracy is not doing well
 Rise in number of conflicts
o Since 2010-2011, there is a steady stream of new conflicts
 New trends
o New players (private, military groups)
o Communication (means to produce news)
o New crews/organization



Statistics (see ppt for graphics)

 Map with conflict events and countries in 2023
o Conflicts are concentrated in certain regions
 Africa, Middle east (GS)
 Not only in low income countries: now all over the
world
o Maps don’t show certain countries in conflict
 Research labelled them differently
 Current conflicts and trends 2022-2023
o 2022: 277,000 direct victims
 Battle related, most of them in the conflict of Tigray
o 2023: 59 conflicts involving a state and non state actors in
34 countries
o 2023: 75 conflicts between non-state actors
 2010: 32
 1991: 22

o 2023: 92 countries involved in conflict outside territory
 By supporting a rebel group, by placing soldiers
 Number of conflicts and battle related casualties
o Increase in conflicts and a huge increase in casualties
 Forcibly displaced people : 70 million
o Has doubled in the last 20 years
o Most of them internally displaced
 Person who did NOT cross any borders

, o Come from limited amount of conflicts
 Most from Sudan and Ukraine
Conflicts
 Kinds of conflicts
o Colonial conflict
 Not present anymore
o Interstate conflict
 Hardly any
o Civil conflict
o Internationalized conflict
 Organization type
o Formally organised groups
o Informally organized groups
o Communal conflicts


Internationalisation
 Internal conflicts do not really exist, there is always some
external influence
o Northern Mali
 Wagner and Ukrainian instructors
o Libya
 UAE, Turkey, Italy, Qatar, Russia…
o Sudan
 UAE, Chad, Russia, Ukraine…
o Overlapping logics
 Ukraine-Russia is also happening in other locations
than their borders
 Subcontracting security
o PMC Wagner group
 Part of Russian foreign policies
o SADAT
 Part of Turkish foreign policies
 Black Water
o Supporting the American strategy in Iraq


Challenges private military companies (PMC)

 Legitimacy and accountability
o They operate outside of legal boundaries
 With little care for Human Rights
 State sovereignty
o Challenging the monopoly of legitimate force

,  Performance
o Despite high level of experience
 Loyalty might be challenged by financial objectives
 Threat to peace and stability
o More PMCs could mean escalating or prolonging conflicts or
create new ones to support their business model
 Post conflict
o What future for the personnel and their weapons once the
conflict is over?


Fragmented security landscapes

= war zones/ zones affected by conflict has many players involved
o Each groups try to control their own zone
o Hard to find out who is controlling which zone and how
many different groups there are in a particular
country/conflict
 Specific challenges
 Hard for any group to claim a monopoly to any
of the violence


Communication and technology
 War in Ukraine
o Gave the biggest push to use of drones in warfare
 New ways of how news is produced
o Give fake news an easier way to the world


Conflict mapping

 How to make sense of this?
o Legacy of colonialism, economic inequalities, cultural
suppression, religion, political rivalry, ethnicity, resource
exploitation, nationalism, historical claims, security
dilemma’s, historical interests/claims,
international/geopolitical agenda’s, corruption/weak
governance, foreign interference, sectarianism, poverty
(quid ideology ?),
 What do we not understand?
o Position (and coherence) of IC/UN, position of specific
actors/involvement of neighbouring countries, lack of

, attention in media (forgotten wars), protracted nature of
conflict, emotional/psychological aspects, how to find a
solution/stop violence, role of humanitarian aid, how
protest can evolve to civil war, long-term motivations of
parties involved, role of resources, why do peace talks fail,
possible outcomes, complexity of history and geopolitics
behind conflict, failure of ceasefires, lack of response
international community to avoid large scale violence,
number of different actors and their interests and
strategies, use of violence


CONFLICT STUDIES AS A FIELD OF RESEARCH

What is conflict studies?

 Rather new discipline
o Want to understand what is going on (WHY)
o What can be done to avoid a disaster (such as WWII)
 Peace and conflict studies is a transformative interdisciplinary
academic field
o Analytical in nature, nonviolent in actions, theoretical and
a-theoretical in methodological approaches, and global in
scope
 Range of nonviolent strategies
o To address the complex issues of conflicts faced by current
and future generations
 The main motive
o To reduce conflict, whether it is at the micro, meso, macro,
or mega levels of analysis. It is also dedicated to create
positive change and establish just peace (…)
 Organized study of conflicts
o Their causes and consequences in exploring the conditions
of peace. (Showkat Dar)



A discipline or a field?

 Multidisciplinary in scope and appraoch
o Informed by traditional disciplines
 Expanding in scope, scale and space
o Exponential growth of researchers and practioners since
2000s
 Research centers