Racial Conflict in Global Society

John Stone, Polly Rizova

• Publisher: Polity
• Year: 2014
• Print ISBN: 9780745662619, 9780745662602
• eBook ISBN: 9780745686400
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Discrimination & Race Relations
• Index: Social Sciences

Despite global shifts in world power, racial conflict remains one of the major problems of contemporary social life. This concise and engaging book demonstrates the interplay between identity, power and conflict in the creation, persistence and transformation of patterns of race and ethnic relations across the globe.

Stone and Rizova employ a neo-Weberian comparative approach to explore how evolving systems of group conflict have been - and continue to be - impacted by changes in the world system, global capitalism, multinational corporations, and transnational alliances and institutions. The authors analyse critical debates about 'post-racialism', 'exceptionalism', ethnic warfare and diversity management in global organizations, drawing on cases from South Africa to Darfur, and from global migration to the Arab Spring uprisings. In conclusion, the search for effective strategies of conflict resolution and the quest for racial justice are evaluated from multiple perspectives.

Racial Conflict in Global Society provides stimulating insights into the basic factors underlying racial conflict and consensus in the early decades of the twenty-first century. It is essential reading for scholars and students across the social and political sciences, management and international relations.

1

Diversity

Conflicts in the New Millennium

It should be quite clear to any observer of societies in the twenty-first century that major changes in the political, economic and social structure of the modern world are transforming the environment in which all peoples live. This is particularly noticeable in the case of industrialization with the rise of the newly emergent economies in Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa (often referred to collectively as the BRICS countries).¹ The shift from the traditional centres of industrial manufacturing, such as the United States, Japan and Europe, towards these other states has produced a corresponding realignment of political strength. Such trends can only be expected to increase over time. In this book, we seek to demonstrate some of the implications that these global changes are likely to produce on the patterns of race relations and, in particular, on the levels of racial conflict around the world. We are starting from the basic premise that race relations are a subset of power relations so that the two forces are intimately connected. Before we can proceed with this analysis it is essential to define what we understand by race, power and conflict, the three central terms in our approach.

Race, power and conflict

The idea of ‘race’, a concept that has no scientific basis in fact, raises so many of the crucial elements that we will be discussing throughout the book. Sociologists have long recognized that ‘the social construction of reality’ (Berger and Luckmann 1966) implies that ideas or knowledge that may have little or no scientific validity can, nonetheless, be devastatingly important in social life. What the political scientist, Donald Horowitz, has acutely captured as ‘the figment of pigment’ (1971: 244) is yet another variation on W. I. Thomas’s famous dictum that ‘if men (people) define situations as real they are real in their consequences’ (Thomas and Thomas 1928; Merton 1995). In other words, while no serious contemporary student of human biology or genetics would suggest that you can meaningfully divide the world into distinct groups based on visual criteria like the colour of their skin or the shape of their heads or bodies, these ideas were very common in the nineteenth and the first half of the twentieth century. The reason for this lies not in biology but in the differences in the geographical distribution of power and resources which, in turn, superficially suggested a causal connection between certain physical characteristics and so-called ‘levels of civilization’. This, of course, was a convenient rationalization for colonialism and the imperial domination by European states, as well as the emerging powers of the United States and Japan, of much of the rest of the world (Go 2011). Thus, the idea of ‘race’, linked as it was to imperialism and several centuries of racial slavery, came to be used by powerful groups as the justification to exploit those they had been able to conquer and dominate.

Power is a rather different concept, but one that is by no means easy to define. Awareness of the importance of differences in power has not simply been the basis of political sociology but of politics itself from the earliest days of human settlement and the growth of towns. But what exactly is power? One of the most useful basic definitions was provided by Max Weber who argued that power is the ability to make people do what you want, even if it is against their own wishes and interests (Weber 1922). As a starting point this is quite helpful, but there are other dimensions of power that make the concept even more complicated when you start to analyse specific situations. In an influential re-evaluation of these issues, Steven Lukes has pointed to the ‘three faces of power’ (Lukes 1974, 2005; Swartz 2007) that lead from the brutal imposition of control by physical force and violence – tanks, secret police and other draconian measures associated with authoritarian regimes – to the more subtle processes of selective socialization, persuasion and influence. These can run the gamut from media commercials, religious pronouncements and political ideologies to extreme forms of thought control that include indoctrination and brainwashing. The ultimate type of control, as George Orwell pointed out in his political satire 1984, is to persuade people that their interests and those of their rulers are one and the same.²

Conflict, the third of our key terms, is also much more complex than it is often portrayed. The general association of conflict with violence as seen in warfare, genocide and other forms of severely destructive actions is but one type of conflict activity. Another less violent manifestation of conflict, usually referred to as competition, which can take place in economic, political and social realms, is often a more common form of conflict between different groups. In some cases, as Max Weber’s contemporary, German sociologist Georg Simmel, pointed out at the beginning of the twentieth century, such competitive struggles can actually serve to strengthen the long-term stability of the social order by allowing for dissent, innovation, social mobility and the peaceful resolution of group differences under the banner of democratic regimes (Simmel 1908; Coser 1956). This broader conceptualization of conflict is particularly important when considering measures to reduce racial conflict and promote inter-group trust and cooperation. However, even this approach raises a diverse set of issues concerning the desirability, or even feasibility, of maintaining the completely free expression of ideas in an environment recovering from severe forms of racial and ethnic conflict. In other words, what are the limits of free speech in the aftermath of genocidal massacres perpetrated, at least in part, by a relentless barrage of hate speech? The ban on Nazi political parties and the outlawing of anti-Semitic propaganda in post-Second World War Germany, or the prohibition on references to ethnic affiliations like Hutu or Tutsi in post-conflict Rwanda (Straus 2006; Longman 2011; Canellos 2012)), are two such examples of the limits of tolerance towards intolerance.³

A neo-Weberian perspective

So, if ‘race’ is a false idea that has been used historically as a principal explanation for group inequality, and power and conflict are complex concepts that are, nonetheless, valuable to expose the dynamics that underlie group membership and struggle, how can Weber’s formulation unite the three elements? Weber’s basic analysis of racial and other types of group conflicts starts from an analogy between economic and social processes. In his research on economic history, Weber noted the tendency for economic activities to develop in the direction of monopolies. Gaining control over the supply of particular goods or services would allow a producer to fix prices and eliminate unwanted competition. If we apply this tendency to social life more generally, the advantages of creating groups with distinct boundaries for membership, and therefore fostering a related process of monopolizing the benefits for insiders rather than outsiders, become obvious. Such a perspective helps us to understand the similarities between groups whose identities can be based on a whole series of different characteristics. These may include ethnicity, nationalism, religion, language and class (gender and sexual orientation might also be added to the list although they have certain distinctive properties of their own), and such groupings answer the puzzle of why some conflicts are based primarily on race and others on religion, language or ethnicity.

Weber’s explanation for this was that the choice of boundary markers is a result of historical circumstances, almost chance encounters between groups who differ from one another because they happen to speak a particular language, adhere to a specific religion or have a different physical appearance, but who were also very unequal in terms of their control of resources and power. Once the initial contacts have taken place, the more powerful will tend to strengthen group markers and erect boundaries to maintain and increase their control over the less powerful. This helps to explain why in one situation, Belgium, for example, language has become a crucial symbol of group membership; while in another, Northern Ireland, ‘religion’ (nationalism) has been vital; and in yet another, the United States, ‘race’ (skin colour) has been the most powerful boundary marker. Of course, just as these situations emerge out of differential power relations so they will change over the years as groups struggle to alter their position in the power hierarchy or, indeed, strive to eliminate such differences altogether.

While this formulation offers a broad sketch of the often rational underpinnings of group membership, persistence and survival, the reality is much more complicated. Weber’s approach to sociology in general also emphasized the role of the individual’s understanding and interpretation of social life (verstehen), thereby bringing variables like culture and belief systems, non-material factors, into a more rounded and nuanced analysis. Actors do not always think or behave in an entirely rational manner, or at least their ‘rationality’ is imbued by cultural values, traditions and emotions that cannot be reduced to a simple and universal political (or economic) formula. This is particularly true in the area of race relations where a complex amalgam of conflicting values, identities and other factors may be crucial to understanding what is actually going on.

Race, ethnicity and nationalism

Weber’s ideas about race, ethnicity and nationalism evolved over his lifetime. Some of his earliest writings in the 1890s were based on empirical studies of rural life in eastern Germany. These involved comparisons between ethnic Germans and ethnic Poles, both as farmers and as farm labourers. In these early studies, Weber displayed a thoroughgoing German nationalism in which he castigated the Junkers, the landed aristocracy, for using cheap Polish labour that undercut and systematically displaced German farm workers from the great estates of the eastern parts of the country. At this time, Weber had not totally rejected the influential notions in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries of inherent racial differences, as his references to ‘Slavic adaptability’ implied, but he was much too careful a scholar to pursue this line of reasoning without substantial evidence to support it. Time and again, he found concrete historical and social causes to explain observable differences in the economic behaviour and social status of the Polish and German populations, which made the idea of inherent group characteristics redundant. His growing rejection of racial theorizing was not based on a conviction that no such differences could exist, and even in his later writings he always regarded the question, at least in principle, as an open one. What was crucial for Weber was the weight of evidence that the work habits of Germans and Poles were a product of historical circumstances and environmental conditions rather than permanent biological or cultural attributes. As a result, references to such variables increasingly faded from Weber’s subsequent writings on these issues.

There are two other major themes in Weber’s work that illustrate this consistent rejection of racial ‘explanations’ of historical change and national character. In contemporary debates about the factors claiming to explain the decline of the Roman Empire, Weber attacked the notion that ‘barbarian’ blood among the leadership groups could in any manner account for the collapse of this great civilization. Such a hypothesis simply did not fit the facts. At the height of its power and prestige, the Roman Empire acquired many of its most brilliant leaders from the ethnic periphery of its vast territories, and there is no evidence that it was external rather than Roman cultural influences that accompanied the social and political disintegration of the empire.⁴ Explanations had to be found in other, less simplistic causes. In writing about another of the great historical civilizations, that of the Chinese, Weber addressed the same basic issue from a different angle. He considered the question of outsiders’ stereotypes of the Chinese ‘character’ and demonstrated how these were often mutually contradictory or that certain types of behaviour could be interpreted as typical of most groups under similar circumstances. Once again, Weber’s commitment to value-neutral methods to explore and test hypotheses, considered to be eminently plausible by many contemporary scholars, led him to reject racial explanations of social and political events.⁵

Weber’s mature position on race and ethnicity, and the stratification based on these criteria, thus represents a significant and vital shift from the emphasis of his turn-of-the-century writings on rural life in Eastern Prussia. This is further illustrated by his analysis of the Indian caste system and the situation of postdiaspora Jews in Western societies. Manasse provides a balanced assessment, pointing to the crucial change in the type of question that Weber considered to be important in these later studies. The confusion between race and culture was resolved and ‘instead of asking which innate qualities distinguish one Indian caste from another, he raised the question why the solution of the racial problem in India differed so greatly from the solution in analogous situations, such as that in England after the Norman Conquest’ (1947: 207). A similar change of focus could be detected in his attempt to understand the factors inhibiting the assimilation of Jews in the diaspora by their host societies. Turning away from any allegedly hereditary characteristics of the Jews as a minority group, he asked, ‘What historical and sociological experiences shaped those attitudes that caused the segregation of Jews from their neighbours?’ (ibid.).

In both cases, Weber’s interest in the historical development of the caste system or in the remarkable persistence of the Jews as a distinct minority – or ‘pariah group’ to use his more controversial terminology – caused him to focus on the interaction between economics, religion and ethnicity. Economic monopolization provided much of the rationale for the creation of these particular social structures, religion served as a potent source of legitimation, and racial or ethnic characteristics acted as convenient types of group markers. He saw caste as originating in racial conflict, with the dominant, light-skinned conquerors forcing the darker-skinned, indigenous populations out of those occupations that carried social prestige. Understanding the religious doctrine of karma and the taboos against intermarriage and commensality provided, as in his argument about the unique contribution of ascetic Protestantism to the birth of modern capitalism, vital clues to the resilience of the caste system in India. A similar appreciation of the special characteristics of traditional Judaism, such as the emphasis on strict dietary laws, also played an important part in explaining why the Jewish people had preserved their distinct communities in a largely Gentile world.⁶

It can be seen from these illustrations that the scope of Weber’s vision was impressive but the specific contributions that have remained crucial for the field may be considered under the following broad headings: (a) the insight of his basic definitions; (b) the process of group closure and boundary maintenance; (c) the role of racist and other ethnocentric ideas, and the importance of legitimacy; and (d) the centrality of power and domination. When it comes to definitions Weber was as interested in ethnicity as in race. His evident frustration with the elusive quality of ethnicity is well captured by many of his statements on the subject in Economy and Society. Nevertheless, he did not abandon the concept and proceeded with great care to try to isolate its essential character. As a result, he produced a formulation that has been adopted, in most of its basic elements, by many subsequent scholars of the subject. Weber defined ethnic groups as ‘human groups (other than kinship groups) which cherish a belief in their common origins of such a kind that it provides a basis for the creation of a community’ (Runciman 1978: 364). In this definition, he isolates the fundamental characteristics of the phenomenon that centre on a set of beliefs and not on any objective features of group membership such as shared language, religion, and especially biological traits associated with the everyday understanding of race. It is this sense of common ancestry that is vital, but the identification with shared origins often turns out to be largely, if not totally, fictitious.⁷

The elusive quality of ethnicity stems from the minimal core on which ethnic groups are based and accounts for the variety of other elements that are found among the many examples of individual ethnic groups. Weber is adamant that the difference between ethnic groups and kinship groups lies precisely on the question of ‘presumed identity’ (Roth and Wittich 1968: 389). Ethnic membership per se does not necessarily result in ethnic group formation but only provides the resources that may, under the right circumstances, be mobilized into a group by appropriate political action. This leads on to a discussion of nationalism, another closely related concept in the analysis of race and ethnicity. Weber’s view of nationalism was a political extension of the ethnic community that arose as its members and leadership sought to create a unique political structure by establishing an independent state (Smith 1992b: 62–3). However, as Anthony Smith has noted, he did not provide an historical account of the rise of nationalism, but he did, nevertheless, seek to discuss the important relationship between ethnicity and nationalism, which has been a key feature of much subsequent scholarship.

Group closure and boundary maintenance

Apart from providing these basic definitions of race, ethnicity and nationalism, Weber’s discussion of what he termed ‘social closure’ is another particularly helpful contribution to our understanding of the origin and dynamics of ethnic and racial groups, which we outlined earlier. Not all social scientists, however, have agreed that boundary-closing mechanisms are entirely a random product of historical circumstances. Writers such as Murphy (1988) proposed a hierarchy of closure mechanisms rather than the almost random process of group demarcation suggested by Weber. The theme of social closure has become an important element in the neo-Weberian literature; while it has been developed with particular focus on social stratification, it is of equal if not greater relevance to ethnic and racial stratification.

Frank Parkin’s (1979) trenchant critique of Marxism, along with subsequent studies by Murphy and Brubaker, has demonstrated how ‘the mechanisms of closure provide a key to understanding the formation of status groups and social classes engaged in the struggle over the distribution of rewards and opportunities’ (Manza 1992: 276). Although much of this debate has been concerned with aspects of class analysis, many of the examples have in fact been drawn from situations of deep racial and ethnic conflict. This has exposed the limitations of the sociology of stratification that has ignored or downplayed these critical ethnic and racial divisions and it is true of gender as well. As a result, modern stratification theory has steadily regained a wider vision that typifies the approach found in Weber’s writings on these issues rather than being preoccupied by the more restricted view of the mechanisms associated with economic classes found in industrial societies.

Concepts of closure, and the related question of group boundaries, can be seen as...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Contents
• Acknowledgements
• Introduction
• 1. Diversity: Conflicts in the New Millennium
• 2. Power: The Changing Geo-politics of Race
• 3. Boundaries: Identity in the New World Disorder
• 4. Organizations: Challenges Facing Global Institutions
• 5. Violence: Extreme Racial Conflict
• 6. Justice: The Search for Solutions
• Notes
• Bibliography
• Index