Lecture Week 3

Question 1

The ethnic wars narrative

Answer 1

A change from politics of ideas to politics of identity. Conflict is seen in simple terms as opposing identity groups (people who wage war based on identity claims or identity differences).

Question 2

Identity

Answer 2

• common social construction
• tenacious and yet hard to grasp
• about sameness and uniqueness
• identity is not something we have, but something we do
• a category of practice

Question 3

Social identities

Answer 3

• shaped and transformed
• are constrained and facilitated by social and political environments and theur definitional powers
• rules of membership, content, boundaries define social identity

Question 4

The unitary trap

Answer 4

Conflict wordt vaak gezien als geweld en moord dat wordt gedaan in de naam van een groep. Echter moet je hier voor uitkijken. Identity based conflict ziet vaak over het hoofd dat identiteit is binairs. The level of groupness differs and is not constant.

Question 5

Perspectives on Identity: Primordialism

Answer 5

Identity is static, emphasis on archaic cultural basis of (ethnic) identities
Socio-biological (genetical links) vs culturalistic (common culture) perspective
Clear boundaries between ‘us’ and ‘them’
Conflict as part of primordial differences; ancient hatreds, and result from difference
Importance of tradition
Solution to conflict: segregation and avoidance

Question 6

Perspectives on Identity: Instrumentalism

Answer 6

Focus on the manipulation of ethnic identities and loyalties for political and economic ends
Functionalistic perspective: moral and material advantages through identity based networks, ethnic voting behavior, …
Source of political mobilisations on the basis of collective interests and identity based solidarity
Identity not fixed but situational, changing and manipulative (context !)
Conflict because of exploitation identity differences by elites

Question 7

Perspectives on Identity: Constructivism

Answer 7

Identity groups are understood as historically emergent, politically constructed, and mutable and flexible rather than static, bounded, and homogenous entities
Identity as social construct – social pact causing feeling of shared identity and individual and collective identification
Identity is flexible and dynamic, is constantly redefined in relation to context, a creative imagination of collective identity
Social identity imagined, constructed trough social interaction, and thus dynamic and changeable

Question 8

Identity Capital

Answer 8

Identity as political resource because it resonates with people’s social space and identity
Identity as key ingredient of political order and one of the symbols and practices giving meaning to competition
Politics confirm identity as criterion for exclusion and inclusion
Result: fragmented, unstable and centrifugal political order

Question 9

Identity as narrative

Answer 9

Identity as narrative – gives meaning to context
Description of ‘experiences’ through real and fictive elements giving meaning to social behavior
Individual and collective identities giving meaning to relations

Question 10

Pillars of identity as narrative

Answer 10

Relation to space
Relation to culture
Relation to past

Question 11

Relation to space

Answer 11

‘one belong where his ancestors are buried’
Reference to where life is possible and power is executed
Conflict when discrepancy between both spaces: when space does belong to ‘us’ but controlled by ‘them’

Question 12

Relation to culture

Answer 12

System of ‘meanings and understandings underlying a unifying logic’ – selection of specific cultural traits as ‘emblems’ of identity – reformulation of these traits strengthens its appealing character and creates cohesion

Question 13

Relation to past

Answer 13

Need to show that group has its roots in past and has been important in history - selective memory and imagination
Violent experiences crucial – collective memories about tragic/traumatic events (real or imagined)

Question 14

How are identity and conflict related?

Answer 14

Conflict hardens identity boundaries; identity increasingly gives meaning to conflict and its stakes
Conflicts are not identity based but become so through discourse of ‘political entrepreneurs’

Question 15

Elite theories of conflict and the role of identity

Answer 15

• conflict is orchestrated and planned by elites and organisations to increase group cohesion and build support base
• why identity card ? Process of scapegoating and to make sense to systemic transformations beyond their control (economic recession f.i.) – it moves away political debate from root of the problem to culture and identity
• why do people follow ? Media, narrative, collective fear of violence, mechanism of social closure (fear of the other)
• identity based violence as a politial strategy to create, increase and maintain group boundaries and political support

Question 16

Alliance theorie of ethnic conflict and the role of identity

Answer 16

• elite theory too narrow and too top-down, no room for agency beyond leaderships and elites
• Kalyvas: ‘civilians cannot be treated as passive, manipulated, or invisible actors: indeed, they often manipulate central actors to settle their own conflicts’
• merging of different agendas, objectives, interests and identites

Question 17

culturalism and the meaning of identity

Answer 17

• identity important for its own sake, not only about interests and instrumental use of it
• emotional power of identity – attachment to ethnic group, love for ethno-nation and culture
• not instrumental mobilization but other way around
• critique: too much emphasis on explanatory power of myths – culture essentialized and reified
• however, emotional value and historical grounding of identity do matter; ethnic attachments are emotionally powerful: can provide answers to fundamental challenges of human existence, sense of destiny, continuity (eg role of ‘nation’)