Identity and Culture in International Security

Jonathan Leader Maynard, New College

jonathan.leadermaynard@politics.ox.ac.uk

Cultures, Ideologies and Identities

CulturesKatzenstein,

Huntington, Lebow

IdeologiesGeorge, Hunt,

Malešević, Cassels, Owen, Snyder

IdentitiesKaldor, Huntington,

Anderson, Katzenstein

Procedures and

Strategies

Norms and Values

Interests and

Objectives

Interpretive Schemes

and Perceptions

Causal and Consequentialist

Beliefs

DefinitionsCulture: “the overall way of life of a people…[involving] the ‘values, norms, institutions, and modes of thinking to which successive generations in a given society have attached primary importance.’”

- S. Huntington, citing Adda Bozeman (1994)

Ideology: “A set of fundamental beliefs, a belief system that explains and justifies a preferred political order for society, either one that already exists or one that is proposed, and offers at least a sketchy notion of strategy… for its maintenance or attainment.”

- A. George (1987)

Identity: “The new identity politics is about the claim to power on the basis of labels.”

- M. Kaldor (2012)

Constructed definitions or conceptualisations of the self, or usually group selves. Also: structures of mobilisation around lines of relevant difference.

Scales of magnification

Culture Ideology Identity

International blocs/Civilizations

Western culture, Asian culture, Islam

Capitalism, liberalism

Western, European, Sinic, Asian

States Britishness liberalism, political Islam, communism

British, English, French, Russian

Broad domestic groups

London cosmopolitanism, British Indian, LGBT culture

Socialism, Liberalism, Conservatism

Londoner, Gay, Middle Class, Cornish

Specific domestic localities/institutions

Reuters, ‘The City’, ‘The Bar’

The Economist’s Libertarianism,

Oxonian, McKinsey, Man Utd, Doctor

Culture, Ideology and Identity are all unspecific as to generality/abstraction/scale/size

Beyond the Manufacture of Difference1. Culture, ideology, identity create divisions –

conflicts can thus be created between cultures/ideologies/identities.

Anthropologist Alexander Hinton: “manufacturing difference”.

Either a) creating conflict; b) exacerbating/reshaping conflict

2. But culture, ideology and identity can also influence conflict in ways beyond the manufacture of difference.

Norms; Interests; Perceptions; Procedures; Causal/Consequentialist beliefs

The New Wars/Changing Nature of Security

(At least) five heavily interrelated elements:1. Identity-based conflict (though a vague category)2. Globalising processes: economic transformations,

new technologies (esp. communication), porous borders, refugee flows, etc.

3. The privatization of violence: not (only) states (which are being eroded) but sub-state/transnational actors are agents of violence.

4. New conceptions of security: environmental, human security, cyber-warfare, transnational criminal activity.

5. Prominence of non-traditional tactics: terrorism, atrocities, genocide, insurgecy, WMDs

Major examples of identity-based conflictConflict Parties

Nagorno-Karabakh War (1988-1994) (Christian) Armenia;(Muslim) Azerbaijan

First (1994-6) and Second (1999-2009) Chechen Wars and continued violence since.

(Christian) Russia;(Muslim) Chechnya

Soviet-Afghan War (1979-1989) (Christian/Communist) Russia;(Muslim) Afghan Mujahedeen

Yugoslav Wars (esp. Croatian Independence 1991-95 and Bosnia 1992-95)

(Catholic) Croatia; (Orthodox) Serbia; (Muslim) Bosnia

Civil War in Tajikistan (1992-1997) (Ex-Communist) Government;(Muslim/Liberal) Opposition

Xinjiang violence (esp. Jul 2011) by Uyghur groups resisting Chinese secular policies.

(Muslim) Uyghur groups;(Communist) Chinese state

Israeli-Arab Conflicts (incl. Second Intifada 2000-2005; Lebanon War 2006; Gaza War 2008-9)

(Jewish) Israel;(Muslim) Arab states

Kargil War between India and Pakistan (May-July 1999) and ongoing insurgency in Kashmir (running since at least 1987).

(Muslim) Pakistan;(Hindu) India

The Second Sudanese Civil War (1983-2005) and subsequent secession of South Sudan (2011)

(Muslim) North Sudan;(Christian/Animist) South Sudan

Kosovo War (February 1998 – March 1999) and subsequent secession of Kosovo from Serbia (17 February 2008)

(Orthodox) Serbia(Muslim/Christian) Kosovo

Major examples of identity-based conflictConflict Parties

Eritrean War of Independence (1961-1991) and Eritrean-Ethiopian War (1998-2000)

(Christian) Ethiopia(Muslim) Eritrea

Sri Lankan Civil War (1984-2009) (Hindu) Tamil(Buddhist) Sinhalese

Egyptian Revolutions (2011 & 2013) Various

Syrian Civil War (15 March 2011 – Present) (Alawite Muslim/Christian) pro-government forces; (Sunni Muslim) opposition

Congo Wars (1996-7 & 1998-2005) Lingalaphones; Swahiliphones; Rwandophones

Rwandan Genocide (April 1994 – July 1994) (Christian) Hutu; (Christian) Tutsi; (Christian) Twa

Iraqi insurgency (2003-2011) (Shia Muslim) Iraqis, (Sunni Muslim) Iraqis, (Christian) Coalition forces, (Shia Muslim) Kurds

Somali Civil War (1991 – Present) Various

N.B. All religious characterisations of groups are very vague generalisations.

Theories of Identity-Based Conflict

Samuel Huntington – The Clash of Civilisations (1993/1996)

Many elements to Huntington’s argument, but three distinct components:

1. General argument for the critical importance of culture and identity.

2. Operationalization of culture through concept of civilizations and civilizational identities. Particular focus on ‘fault line wars’.

3. Characterisations of particular civilizations and their relationships (esp. West vs. Islam).

Samuel Huntington – The Clash of Civilisations (1993/1996)

The Role of Culture

“The years after the Cold War witnessed the beginnings of dramatic changes in peoples’ identities and the symbols of those identities. Global politics began to be reconfigured along cultural lines.” [p.19]

“Spurred by modernization, global politics is being reconfigured along cultural lines… Alignments defined by ideology and superpower relations are giving way to alignments defined by culture and civilization. Political boundaries and increasingly drawn to coincide with cultural ones: ethnic, religious, and civilizational. Cultural communities are replacing Cold War blocs, and the fault lines between civilizations are becoming the central lines of conflict in global politics.” [p.125]

“The philosophical assumptions, underlying values, social relations, customs, and overall outlooks on life differ significantly among civilizations.” [p. 28]

“The interests of states are also shaped not only by their domestic values and institutions but by international norms and institutions. Above and beyond their primal concern with security, different types of states define their interests in different ways. States with similar cultures and institutions will see common interest. ” [p.34]

Samuel Huntington – The Clash of Civilisations (1993/1996)

Avoiding a caricature of Huntington

“Tribal wars and ethnic conflicts will occur within civilizations.” [p. 28]

“This picture of post-Cold War politics… is highly simplified. It omits many things, distorts some things, and obscures others.” [p. 29]

“Nation states remain the principal actors in world affairs.” [p. 21]

“The West won the world not by the superiority of its ideas or values or religion (to which few members of other civilizations were converted) but rather its superiority in applying organized violence. Westerners often forget this fact; non-Westerners never do.” [p. 51]

“[Egocentric] illusions and prejudices… live on and in the late twentieth century have blossomed forth in the widespread and parochial conceit that the European civilization of the West is now the universal civilization of the world.” [55]

“Will political and economic alignments always coincide with those of culture and civilization? Of course not.” [128]

Samuel Huntington – The Clash of Civilisations (1993/1996)

Islam in Huntington’s Account

“These ethnic conflicts and fault-line wars have not been evenly distributed among the world’s civilizations… The overwhelming majority of fault line conflicts… have taken place along the boundary looping across Eurasia and Africa that separates Muslims from non-Muslims.” [p.255]

“Wherever one looks along the perimeter of Islam, Muslims have problems living peaceably with their neighbours.” [p.256]

“Muslims make up about one-fifth of the world’s population but in the 1990s they have been far more involved in intergroup violence than the people of any other civilization. The evidence is overwhelming:” [p.256]

“Muslim bellicosity and violence are late-twentieth-century facts which neither Muslims nor non-Muslims can deny.” [p.258]

Samuel Huntington – The Clash of Civilisations (1993/1996)Three main pieces of evidence Huntington uses to confirm ‘Muslim bellicosity’. By contrast with Muslims making up 20% of the World’s population, they:1. Are involved in 52% of ethnopolitical

conflicts in 1993-4 and 47% of Ethnic Conflicts in 1993.

2. Average ‘force ratios’ of Muslim countries are double those of Christian countries (11.8 vs. 5.8).

3. Use of violence in resolution of crises:

Muslim states 53.5%

UK 11.5%

US 17.9%

USSR 28.5%

China 76.9%

Stuart Kaufmann – Symbolic Politics or Rational Choice? (2006) Decisions primarily based on emotion, not

rationality. Ethnic conflict is therefore driven by the most

emotionally powerful ‘myth-symbol complexes’. So three preconditions for ethnic war:

1. Group mythology that justifies hostility2. Sense of existential threat3. Political opportunity, both in terms of political space to

mobilise, and territorial base to concentrate in.

And three processes through which it occurs:1. Extreme mass hostility2. Chauvinist mobilization by elites3. Security dilemma

This visible in Rwanda 1994 and Sudan 1983-2005, which do not fit rational choice models.

Michael Mann – The Dark Side of Democracy (2005)

1. “Murderous cleansing is modern, because it is the dark side of democracy.”a) Ideal of rule by the people began

to entwine the demos with the ethnos.

b) Settler democracies especially murderous. Usually, authoritarian regimes aren’t – though some key exceptions

2. “Ethnic hostility arises where ethnicity trumps class as the main form of social stratification.”

3. “Danger zone” of ethnic cleansing occurs when:a) Movements claiming to represent

different old ethnic groups lay claim to the same territory and…

b) This claim seems to them to be legitimate and efficacious.

4. “Brink” of murderous cleansing occurs when:a) Less powerful side believes it

will receive outside support.

b) Stronger side believes it has overwhelming strength and will suffer little physical or moral costs.

5. Going over the brink requires factionalisation and radicalisation through crisis.

6. Murderous cleansing rarely the initial intent.

7. Three main levels of perpetrator:a) Radical elites

b) Militants/paramilitaries

c) Supporting constituencies

8. Ordinary people come to be killers.

Edward Mansfield and Jack Snyder, ‘Democratization and the Danger of War’ (1995)

Nationalist violence a product of democratising processes.

Lack of developed political culture makes politics of comparative policy formulation difficult.

National identity the best way for elites to mobilise political support.

Nationalist mobilisation encourages nationalist out-bidding.

Barry Posen, ‘The Security Dilemma and Ethnic Conflict’ (1993)

Ethnic conflict occurs because of sub-state security dilemmas.

After collapse of imperial powers, or higher state structures, a power vacuum of uncertainty throws subordinate groups into such a security dilemma.

These are exacerbated by:1. Interchangeability of offensive and defensive forces2. Offensive forces have the advantage over defensive

(exacerbated by islands & irredentism)3. And also, oral histories of hate and/or fear.

John Mueller, ‘The Banality of Ethnic War’ (2000)

Those who participate in ‘Ethnic War’ are not in fact motivated by ‘ancient hatreds’ or ethnic identities.

Most of the violence is instead conducted by paramilitary criminal groups motivated by personal gain and a violent ethos in contexts of state failure.

“…spawned not so much by the convulsive surging of ancient hatreds or by frenzies whipped up by demagogic politicians and the media as by the ministrations of small—sometimes very small—bands of opportunistic marauders recruited by political leaders and operating under their general guidance. Many of these participants were drawn from street gangs or from bands of soccer hooligans. Others were criminals specifically released from prison for the purpose.” [p.42-3]

“Rather than reflecting deep, historic passions and hatreds, the violence seems to have been the result of a situation in which common, opportunistic, sadistic, and often distinctly nonideological marauders were recruited and permitted free rein by political authorities. Because such people are found in all societies, the events in Yugoslavia and Rwanda are not peculiar to those locales, but could happen almost anywhere under the appropriate conditions.” [p.43]

Some other theories in brief

Psychological Approaches Herbert Kelman Philip Zimbardo (Irving Janis) (Henri Tajfel)

Rational Choice Approaches Stathis Kalyvas

Ideological Approaches Siniša Malešević

− Anderson, B. (2006). Imagined Communities. London: Verso.

− Cassels, A. (2002). Ideology and International Relations in the Modern World. London: Routledge.

− George, A. L. (1987). Ideology and International Relations. The Jerusalem Journal of International Relations, 9(1), 1-21.

− Harff, B. (2003). No Lessons Learned from the Holocaust? American Political Science Review, 97(1), 57-73.

− Hinton, A. L. (2002). Introduction: Genocide and Anthropology. In A. L. Hinton (Ed.), Genocide: an anthropological reader. Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishers.

− Hunt, M. H. (1987). Ideology and U.S. Foreign Policy New Haven: Yale University Press.

− Huntington, S. P. (2002). The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order. New York: Free Press.

− Janis, I. (1982). Groupthink. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company.

− Kaldor, M. (2012). New and Old Wars (3rd ed.). Stanford: Stanford University Press.

− Kalyvas, S. N. (2006). The Logic of Violence in Civil War. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

− Katzenstein, P. (Ed.). (1996). The Culture of National Security. New York: Columbia University Press.

− Kaufman, S.J. (2006), Symbolic Politics or Rational Choice. International Security 30(4), 45-86.

− Kelman, H. C. (2007). Social-Psychological Dimensions of International Conflict. In I. W. Zartman (Ed.), Peacemaking in International Conflict (Revised ed.). Washington D.C.: United States Institute of Peace.

− Malešević, S. (2010). The Sociology of War and Violence. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

− Mann, M. (2005). The Dark Side of Democracy: Explaining Ethnic Cleansing. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

− Mansfield, E. D., & Snyder, J. (1995). Democratization and the Danger of War. International Security, 20(1), 5-38.

− Mueller, J. (2000). The Banality of ‘Ethnic War’. International Security, 25(1), 42-70.

− Owen, J. (1997). Liberal Peace, Liberal War. Ithaca: Cornell University Press.

− Posen, B. (1993). The Security Dilemma and Ethnic Conflict. Survival, 35.

− Straus, S. (2007). The Order of Genocide. Genocide Studies and Prevention, 2(3).