March 3 Lecture Notes

I.Tuesday, March 3 - Ethnicity in Africa: A Tale of Two Countries A.Ways of Viewing Ethnicity 1.primordial: emotional attachment to ethnic identity 2.instrumental: ehtnicity used to obtain material advantage 3.constructivist: ethnicity is a social construction, not given, but created and invented B.some of the worst conflicts in Africa have involved ethnicity in one way or another 1.800000 to 1 million dead in Rwanda 2.300000 Hutu refugees killed in the Congo in 1996-7 3.over 200,000 lives lost in Burundi since the 1993 coup 4.another 3 million died in Congo as a result of dislocations due to war since 1998 C.Why conflict? 1.weak states 2.less international efforts to find the solution a.some reluctance on the part of the international community to engage with Africa, especially after the experience in Somalia (1)especially on the part of the US (a)non-traditional combatants (b)lack of popular support 3.few democracies a.democratic transitions haven't gone very well 4.poverty 5.feasibility hypothesis a.young men b.mountainous terrain 6.ethnicity distribution 7.low per capita income, recent crash of the economy 8.natural resources 9.French security umbrella a.why the Francophone countries have has less conflict/less severe conflict 10.drops in donor aid 11.economic prices in the 1980s a.rising cost of oil b.declining commodity prices in some areas 12.AIDS toll on the labor force D.Why have some countries been so conflict prone and others have not? 1.conflict in Rwanda a.how could genocide occur when ties between Hutu and Tutsi were so strong? E.Why ethnic conflict? 1.statistically African has less risk factors for ethnic conflict than other parts of the world because it is more diverse 2.only 40% of African countries are characterized by ethnic dominance whereas 57% of other developing countries are characterized this way 3.James Fearon and David Laitin a.ethnic violence: pits one group against another b.irrendentism: one ethnic group attempt so secede to join co-ethnic communities in other states c.rebellion: one group takes action against another to control the political system d.civil war: violent conflicts are aimed at creating a new ethnically based political system e.finding: violent ethnic conflict rare 4.James Hayraimana; Macartan Humphreys; Daniel Posner and Jeremy Weinstein study in Uganda a.some say people of the same ethnicity work together because it's more efficient (1)argue that it is because people of the same group expect them to discriminate in their favor (2)found no evidence that people care more for the welfare of individualls from their own ethcnig roups than for others (3)when the knew that other plays would know how they behaved, subjects discriminated strongly in favor of their co-ethnics 5.Alternative Explanations a.suppression of minority? (1)minority group wasn't really being side-lined in Rwanda (2)in this case, the majority were in control (Hutu) and they were perpetrating violence against a minority group (Tutsi) (a)not quite the pattern you would expect (3)and if it was a matter of economics, similar class Hutus should have been targeted in the same way as the Tutsi b.primordial argument (1)doesn't work very well because of timeframe (2)why this violence now? c.obedience to authority (1)perhaps not enough accountability in that explanation d.opportunism, personal gain e.violence begets violence (1)how does something that happened in the 60s spark so much violence in 1994? 6.Factors contributing to genocide a.colonialism b.economic crisis (1)Structural Adjustment Programme (2)agricultural disasters (3)national debt increased from 34% in 1990 to 62% in 1993 c.political discontent d.invasion of the Rwandan Patriotic Front (1)perception of a threat may have fueled some of the violence (2)what precipitated the violence was the shooting down of the plane of the Rwandan president e.hate propaganda f.militarization of society (1)from 1990 to 1992 soldiers increased from 3000/5000 to 30000/40000 g.lack of strong civil society (1)no one was really speaking up against militarization h.sorry role of UNAMIR and UN peacekeeping forces i.manipulation of ethnicity by elites (1)widespread violence being orchestrated by the Hutu elite (2)lots of warning signals (a)none were that big but lots of little things j.clientelism k.impunity: perpetrators of violence were never punished after 1963-64 and 1972-73 l.prejudices of evolues m.increase of French military support after March 1992 FPR offensive n.state legitimacy low o.donors did not stop militarization and violence in society (1)tantamount to condoning it (2)strengthened agencies of repression p.obviously very complicated (1)not just ethnicity 7.Peter Uvin a.structural violence (1)poor nutrition (2)poverty (3)landlessness (4)forced immobility b.precipitated and led to more dramatic violence seen in 1994 8.Why didn't the UNHCR do anything? a.goal was to get people back into Rwanda because they thought it was safe (1)refugees knew it wasn't safe in Rwanda and so didn't want to go (2)UNHCR SOP kind of got in the way F.Why is Tanzania so different? 1.120 ethnic groups but relatively little ethnic conflict a.no dominant group 2.similar colonial history to Rwanda and Burundi: a.Rwanda and Burundi and Tanganyika were colonized by Germans 1886 to WWI b.Tanganyika then taken over as protectorate by British 3.Tanzania implemented institutional mechanisms and provisions that made ethnic tensions almost negligible a.led by Julius Nyerere from 1961-1985 b.institutional mechanisms kept ethnic/religious/racial equations in balance c.after independence: (1)the first institutions that were elminated or quieted were those based on ethnicity or religion (2)abolished native authority system (created by British) and removed chiefs and headmen from power (3)the government forbade the mention of any particular ethnic group in public fora, publications or newspapers d.socialization through: (1)national service (2)schools (a)made very careful calculations to have an even mix in secondary education and colleges e.institutionalization of Swahili and elevation as a national language (1)people didn't seem to be bothered by the fact that the local languages lost out (2)brought people from different ethnicities together f.politics (1)first cabinet appointed in 1960 was a mix of different interests and types of representation (2)ministers and permanent secretaries were drawn more or less evenly from around the country (3)posted local government officials and civil servants outside of their home regions (4)clientelism held at bay in military and other institutions g.policies that distributed resources: (1)Arusha Declaration 1967 (2)Villagization in early 1970s (3)piped water (4)introduction of dispensaries (5)monitoring of secondary school admissions (6)Africanization of civil service (7)while many policies were abandoned and seen as failed policies, there is still a national ethos of equality (8)tradeoffs (a)local languages were consciously ignored (b)no one worries about the success of Swahili (c)made it hard to mobilize along regional or district lines for fear of being regarded as promoting ethnic interests h.created a national culture that promotes tolerance of diversity in religion, ethnicity, and race but... (1)curtailed cultural pluralism and diversity, loss of linguistic pluralism Maria Putzer Document1