Lecture Week 2 Flashcards
(27 cards)
Agency based approaches
- individual actions and choices of for example political leaders, perpetrators and movements
- Focus on motivations, decisions and behaviour
- Durkenheim
Structure based approaches
social, economic and political systems like capitalism, patriarchy and colonialism
Focus on patterns, equalities, and power dynamics
Marx and Socialist
Durkenheim tradition
- Key idea: society is held together by shared rules and beliefs, creating order and balance
- Collective or common consciousness: shared beliefs and sentiments that bind people together
- There is a continuous struggle between forces of integration and disintegration: society tries to control individuals through their participation in a shared consciousness
- social change and conflict: rapid social change can disrupt social order, leading to instability
- what is needed: restorative collective action bringing back stability in society end renew collective action
What is a current example of rapid social change leading to conflict or instability?
Een ander actueel voorbeeld is de militaire staatsgreep in Niger in 2023. De snelle verschuiving van een democratisch bestuur naar een militaire junta leidde tot interne spanningen, regionale instabiliteit en internationale conflicten, vooral met ECOWAS en Westerse landen die hun invloed zagen afnemen.
Structuralist perspective
Key idea: conflict arises from inherent inequalities within political, economic and global systems
Political economy and conflict: examining the links between the state system, global capitalism, governance and violence
What is a current example of structural inequalities leading to conflict?
A current example of structural inequalities leading to conflict is the ongoing violence and unrest in Haiti. Deep-rooted poverty, lack of access to basic services, and political exclusion have created widespread frustration. These structural inequalities have fueled gang violence, civilian protests, and a breakdown of state authority, leading to severe instability.
What is manifest violence?
Visible, instrumental or exxpressive acts of violence
For example: war, terrorism, riots and assault
Manifest violence is often the focus of humanitarian aid, peacebuilding, war journalism and related fields.
What is the difference between manifest violence and structural violence?
Structural violence is more focused on violence beyond what is visible like violence embedded in unequal, unjust, and unrepresentative social structures.
They focus on rules and regulations, cultural codes and norms that make up for organization of societies, taken for granted and often inherently violent in ways of exclusion, limitation and repression, which impacts individuals from reaching their full potential and meeting human needs.
Negative peace
Absence of manifest violence; may still involve structural violence. Peace is a sustained form of structural violence.
Positive peace
Overcoming both manifest and structural violence; creating a just and equitable society.
Cultural violence
Its about aspects of culture used to legitimize direct or structural violence like propaganda, hate speech, biased historical narratives
This also contains manifest or structural violence that are legitimized and rendered socially acceptable
Hegemonic culture: dominant cultural norms that maintain power and dominant structures, often presented as natural or common sense.
Identify the three types of violence in the trans-atlantic slave trade
Manifest: capture, transport and killings
Structural: masters/slaves, unequal power, economic exploitation, racial divide
Cultural: racism, dehumanization, beliefs of superiority.
State-making paradox
- Ayoob
- Contemporary conflict is linked to the troubled process of state formation, especially in post-colonial states
- Challenge: post-colonial states are expected to quickly replicate a process that took developed state centuries, often through coercion and warfare forcing populations to accept legitimimact of the sate and its institutions
State formation: Historical Link
State structure arises from rulers acquiring the resources for war, by product of wealth acquiring efforts
State formation: Violence pays
Those who use force gain compliance, which then gives advantages money, goods, acces to pleasures dient to less powerful people.
Post-colonial order
Idea model: the socially cohesive, politically responsive, and administratively effective nation-state of the developed world
Failed states; staes that dont meet this ideal model.
Fragile state
Loss of territorial control and monopoly of violence, erosion of authority, inability to provide services, inability to interact internationally
Failed state
A disqualified state, leading potential transfer of sovereignty.
How did old wars shifted into new wars
Shift in power: From state to market, donors, and transnational actors
Declining legitimacy: political classes lose power to determine socio-economic policies
Identity Politics: cultural field becomes a battleground for identity-based politics and conflict, xenephobia and nationalism.
What are the aims of new wars?
Cosmopolitanism vs. particularism: a growing divide between those included in global processes and those excluded
Identity politics: the claim to power on the basis of a particular identity
Political and social change: in terms of idealized nostalgic or representation of the past
How did financing wars change?
-decentralized economy: low participation, dependent on external sources, and prone to quick destruction of local economies
- financing methods: plunder, extortion, kidnapping, black market activities, taxation schemes, illegal trade
- networks of economic control to be sustained by war.
Whats the difference in mobilizing violence between old and new wars
Old wars are about territorial control -> power through political control of populations instead of military action and prevention of fighting
New wars are not about winning hearts and minds but to spread fear and hatred. These contain radical forms of violence against citizens and explain the high numbers of displaced and casualties. Main actors are gangs, militias, paramilitary groups, etc.
How are new wars tied to economics
There is a rise of war economies and resource competition linked to crisis of state formation as political project
Political economy perspective
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