Preventing Violent Conflict in Africa

Inequalities, Perceptions and Institutions

Y. Mine, F. Stewart, S. Fukuda-Parr, T. Mkandawire, Y. Mine, F. Stewart, S. Fukuda-Parr, T. Mkandawire

• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
• Year: 2013
• Print ISBN: 9781137329691
• eBook ISBN: 9781137329707
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: African Politics
• Index: Politics & International Relations

Horizontal inequalities are root causes of violent conflict in Africa. Yet, people take actions not because of statistical data on inequalities, of which they might not be aware, but because of injustices they perceive. This volume analyses the results of original surveys with over 3, 000 respondents in African cities and towns, exposing clear discrepancies between objective inequalities and people's subjective perceptions. The contributors examine experiences in country pairs and probe into the reasons why neighbouring countries, sharing common historical traits, sometimes took contrasting pathways of peace and violent conflict. Combining quantitative analysis and qualitative anatomy of historical experiences of conflict and reconciliation in Rwanda, Burundi, Ghana, Côte d'Ivoire, South Africa, Zimbabwe, Uganda, Tanzania, Kenya and Nigeria, the study brings forward a set of policy recommendations for development practitioners. This work further addresses the issue of institutional choice and reveals how sustainable power-sharing and decentralisation contribute to political stability in Africa.

1

Introduction: Disentangling the Linkages between Horizontal Inequalities and Political Institutions

Sakiko Fukuda-Parr, Arnim Langer and Yoichi Mine

1.1 Introduction

In the period following the end of the Cold War, violent conflicts have marred the African continent; since 1980, more than half of the countries of sub-Saharan Africa¹ have experienced armed conflict, sometimes multiple conflicts taking place simultaneously in different parts of the country and sometimes lasting for decades (Fukuda-Parr et al., 2008). Over the last decade, the number of active violent intra-state conflicts has declined from 17 in 2001 to 10 in 2010 according to the Uppsala Conflict Data Program (UCDP).² Despite this modest progress, political unrest and violent conflicts continue to wreak havoc and delay (or even reverse) development in countries, including, for example, Nigeria, Sudan, the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), Guinea and Mali.³ Most contemporary violent conflicts are identity-based and have been labelled ‘ethnic’ (Stewart and Brown, 2007). They tend to have a history of conflict recurrence, which is hardly surprising given that countries emerging from conflict typically remain ‘very fragile in the short-to-medium term, with a high risk of return to conflict or of its transformation into other forms of social violence (such as crime or domestic violence)’ (Langer et al., eds, 2011: 3).⁴

Yet all of this is a historical anomaly. Africa has largely been a continent of peace. As Julius Nyerere commented, the ‘surprising thing is not that there has been so much political instability in Africa but that there has been so much stability, although this fact is less publicized internationally’ (Nyerere, 2000: xiv). Indeed, while the history of East Asia and Europe are characterised by successive wars, violent revolutions and aggressive state-building (Tilly, 1992; Wong, 1997), most African states and empires emerged peacefully and vanished quietly in pre-colonial times (Herbst, 2000; Connah, 2001; Iliffe, 2007).

Violent conflicts are not inevitable. Thanks to an increasing amount of research on the causes of intra-state violent conflicts, in particular by political scientists and economists, over the last two decades, we now have a much better understanding of the origins and risk factors contributing to the emergence of these conflicts, and the ways in which they can be prevented. An important challenge for most African governments and their development partners is to design and implement development interventions and policies that enhance the prospects for durable peace instead of aggravating the risks of violent conflict. It is for this reason that the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) has commissioned this research project on horizontal inequalities (HIs), focusing in particular on the role of political institutions and people’s subjective perceptions of their situation. The aim of this study is to contribute to an understanding of the forms of political and economic governance that would assist in the prevention of political violence that can undermine or reverse development.

This study explores the relationship between group inequalities and political institutions. It focuses in particular on the role and interlinkages among three factors: subjective or perceived inequalities among identity groups, objective inequalities and the participation of groups in political institutions. A major finding of recent research on sources of violent conflicts is that one of the most important underlying causes is the presence of HIs or group-based inequalities in access to political power and economic resources. Severe HIs can provoke feelings of frustration and discontent that may instigate violent group mobilisation and conflict along ethnic, religious or regional lines (Stewart, 2000, 2002). While much has been learned about the nature of HIs, two critical issues that remain unclear are how HIs are perceived and what are the main influences on people’s perceptions, and the way in which political institutions affect the relationship between HIs and the emergence of violent conflicts. In Section 1.3 we will discuss these issues in more detail.

The findings of the study have important policy implications in relation to the strengthening of economic and political governance and the prevention of violent conflicts. One objective of the project is therefore to translate any new insights into actionable policy recommendations. It should be noted in this respect that these policy recommendations are relevant not only for ‘conflict’ countries but also for other countries that want to address their objective and subjective HIs constructively, thereby reducing the risk that they may become a cause for group mobilisation, violent or otherwise, at a later stage. Before discussing our framework of analysis, we will look more closely at the concept of HIs and the evidence linking them to the emergence of violent conflicts.

1.2 HIs and violent conflict

As mentioned in the previous section, research has shown that the presence of severe HIs or inequalities between ‘culturally defined’ groups such as ethnic, religious or regional groups in terms of access to political power and economic resources is often an important contributing factor or cause for the emergence of violent intra-state conflicts.⁵ In contrast to the relative deprivation theory (see Gurr, 1970), the HI hypothesis points to the fact that it can be the relatively rich, and not just the relatively deprived, who initiate conflict (Stewart, 2002). One should not assume that it is always the socioeconomically disadvantaged groups that cause political instability and initiate violent conflict. While this appears to have been the case in many disputes and conflicts around the world, sometimes relatively privileged groups have attacked and violently suppressed underprivileged groups in order to safeguard their political and economic power.

The concept of HIs and its theorised relationship with political instability and violent conflict was first developed by the Oxford-based development economist Frances Stewart in the early 2000s and was subsequently extensively researched by the Centre for Research on Inequality, Human Security and Ethnicity (CRISE) based at the University of Oxford.⁶ The concept of HIs differs from the ‘normal’ definition of inequality, which Stewart (2000) has termed ‘vertical inequality’, because the latter type lines individuals or households up vertically and measures inequality over the range of individuals rather than groups. HIs, in contrast, are inequalities among groups of people that share a common identity (for example, ethnic, religious and regional identities). The HI literature broadly takes a constructivist approach to ethnicity, which considers ethnic groups to be constructed socially and historically according to various identity markers, such as ancestry, language and region of origin. Although the constructivist view on ethnicity conjectures that ethnic boundaries are malleable and fluid, it also assumes that the reshaping of group identities is costly and that group boundaries therefore tend to have some continuity over time (see Stewart, 2002; Bates, 2004; Stewart ed., 2008). And ‘it is because of [these] continuities, which go along with the limited choices most people have to switch identities, that inequalities among groups [can] become a source of unhappiness and resentment, and a cause of social instability’ (Stewart, 2002: 8).

HIs are conceived of as inherently multidimensional and encompass economic, social, cultural status and political dimensions:

• Economic HIs include inequalities in access to and ownership of assets – financial, human, natural resource-based and social. In addition, they comprise inequalities in income levels and employment opportunities, which depend on such assets and the general conditions of the economy.

• Social HIs include inequalities in access to a range of services, such as education, health care and housing, as well as in educational and health status.

• Political HIs include inequalities in the distribution of political opportunities and power among groups, including control over the presidency, the cabinet, parliamentary assemblies, the bureaucracy, local and regional governments, the army and the police. They also encompass inequalities in people’s capabilities to participate politically and to express their needs.

• Cultural status HIs include disparities in the recognition and standing of different groups’ languages, customs, norms and practices.⁷

The relevance of any element depends on whether or not it is an important source of income or well-being in a particular society. For instance, the distribution of housing (an important source of discord between Catholics and Protestants in Northern Ireland in the 1970s) is likely to be more relevant in an industrialised country than in a country where people build their own homes.

Evidence in support for the relationship between HIs and violent conflict is drawn from both case studies and econometric studies. Case studies research has been conducted in a range of countries, including, among others, Côte d’Ivoire (Langer, 2005), Burundi (Ndikumana, 2005), Kenya (Muhula, 2009;Stewart, 2010a), Peru (Paredes, 2007), Ghana (Langer, 2008), Nigeria (Langer and Ukiwo, 2008), Malaysia (Brown, 2005) and Guatemala (Thorp et al., 2006). An important conclusion that can be drawn from these case studies is that violent conflicts are more likely to arise in regions or countries where economic, social, political and cultural status inequalities occur simultaneously and where some groups are deprived across every dimension (see, in particular, Langer, 2005, 2008; Langer and Ukiwo, 2008). As argued by Langer (2005), the simultaneous presence of severe political HIs and socioeconomic HIs forms an extremely explosive sociopolitical situation, because in these situations not only do the excluded political elites have strong incentives to mobilise their supporters for violent conflict along ethnic lines but they are also likely to find it relatively easy to gain support among their ethnic constituencies.

Despite important data limitations, a substantial amount of quantitative cross-country and within-country research has found a significant link between the presence of HIs and the emergence of violent conflicts (see, for example, Murshed and Gates, 2005; Brown, 2008; Mancini, 2008; Østby, 2008; Cederman et al., 2011). Thus, for instance, Østby’s (2008) analysis of 55 countries from 1986 to 2003 shows that countries with severe economic and social HIs have a significant higher probability of experiencing violent intra-state conflict. Similarly, Cederman et al. (2010: 24) show that ‘groups with wealth levels far from the country average are indeed more likely to experience civil war’. This result appears to hold regardless of the fact whether the group is richer or poorer than the average. Alternatively, Brown’s (2008) study of the determinants of separatist conflict has found that the likelihood of separatist conflict increases the richer or poorer a region is in terms of GDP per capita, compared to the national average.

Due to the emerging consensus in academic circles regarding the causal relationship between HIs and violent conflicts, in recent years the concept and theory have also gained purchase in donor agencies and the broader international development community, particularly in the context of specific countries undergoing or having recently emerged from violent conflicts in which such inequalities appear to have played an important role (Brown and Langer, 2010). While this is a positive evolution, there remain important issues yet to be analysed and fully understood.

1.3 HIs, perceptions and political institutions: A framework of analysis

Despite the increased understanding and recognition of the causal linkages between the presence of HIs and violent conflicts, there are at least two important issues that deserve closer attention. A first issue that requires more detailed analysis concerns how HIs are perceived by ‘the people in the street’ and to what extent ‘objective’ HIs and perceived or ‘subjective’ HIs are indeed the same. The latter issue is a particularly important empirical issue to be investigated. Brown and Langer (2010: 30) argue in this respect:

If groups do not perceive the prevailing socioeconomic and political inequalities as unfair or unjust, severe objective horizontal inequalities might not provoke conflict. The converse situation in which for instance political horizontal inequality is perceived to be severe, yet, objectively political exclusion appears to be relatively small or non-existent can also occur. In order to gain political support among their ethnic constituents, opportunistic politicians or ‘ethnic entrepreneurs’ sometimes actively promote these misperceptions. To what extent people’s perceptions of horizontal inequality accurately reflect a country’s objective political and economic reality is an important empirical question.

A second issue that has so far received insufficient systematic analysis is the question of how political institutions interact with various dimensions of HIs and to what extent they affect the likelihood of violent conflicts. Political institutions condition the modalities of political representation of identity groups and thereby determine the structure of political HIs in a country. While the direct link between exclusionary political institutions and violent conflict has been extensively analysed and is well documented (see, for example, Stewart ed., 2008; Cederman et al., 2011), the effects of different types of political institutions on conflict proneness and people’s perceptions on HIs have received much less attention. While during the 1990s most African countries adopt...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Contents
• Figures and Tables
• Foreword
• Preface
• Acknowledgements
• Notes on Contributors
• 1. Introduction: Disentangling the Linkages between Horizontal Inequalities and Political Institutions
• 2. Comparing Political Institutions: Institutional Choice and Conflict Prevention in Africa
• 3. ‘Twin Countries’ with Contrasting Institutions: Post-Conflict State-Building in Rwanda and Burundi
• 4. Horizontal Inequalities, Ethnic Politics and Violent Conflict: The Contrasting Experiences of Ghana and Côte d’Ivoire
• 5. Beyond Ad hoc Power-Sharing: Comparing South Africa and Zimbabwe
• 6. Is Ethnic Autonomy Compatible with a Unitary State? The Case of Uganda and Tanzania
• 7. The Politics of Identity, Horizontal Inequalities and Conflict in Kenya
• 8. Managing Horizontal Inequalities and Violent Conflicts in Nigeria
• 9. The Relationship between Objective and Subjective Horizontal Inequalities: Evidence from Five African Countries
• 10. Findings and Implications: The Role of Development Cooperation
• References
• Author Index
• Subject Index