Theories of Ethnic Violence (Outside Intervention)
Mgr. Zinaida Shevhuk
28.3.2011.

Vulnerability
•Vulnerability argument versus ethnic ties.
•States vulnerable to secessionism will support host states and oppose secessionists.
•A state is vulnerable to secessionism if:
•A secessionist movement tries to secede in the previous ten years period.
•Members of a group have organized with the goal of independence
•Area studies experts view particular regions to be potentially secessionist.
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Ethnic ties
•Stephen Saideman creates the alternative argument that ethnic ties are more important aspect and
ethnic politics within states influence their polices toward secessionist conflict elsewhere.
•“Ethnic politics within states significantly conditions their policies toward ethnic conflict in
other states”.
•Individuals inside the state prefer their state to take sides in ethnic conflicts elsewhere,
supporting the side with which they have ties.

Ethnic ties
•Saideman creates the following hypotheses:
•States will support those actors internationally that share ethnic ties with decision-makers’
supporters.
•States will oppose those actors that share a history of ethnic enmity with the decision-makers’
supporters.
•States will be neutral or ambivalent toward those conflicts where decision-makers’ supporters have
ties to both sides.
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Third party intervention
•When impartial third party intervenes in a conflict, new relations and structures are created. It
is generally accepted, that third party brings additional minds and problem-solving skills to the
conflict. Third party intervention can be divided into some types:
•Mediation, the most common type of intervention, is a negotiation facilitated by third party. The
aim of the third party is to assist the disputants to reframe the conflict, develop agreement and
to implement it.

Third party intervention
•Mediators differ in their philosophy. Some see its responsibility as simply to facilitate fair and
workable agreement. Most mediators adhere to an impartiality principle, as favoring of one side
over another destroys their role of mediators. Others believe that mediation process should empower
any party that is at an unfair disadvantage. Some of them practice so called “transformative
mediation”, where the intervention of the third party intends not only to reach agreement but to
modify the conflict relationship and setting.
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Third party intervention
•Intermediation – intermediary plays a quite different role than the formal mediator. The
intermediaries aim is to facilitate communication between conflict parties. Their involvement
normally lasts for long period and is useful in very sensitive and potentially explosive conflicts.
•Multimodal Intermediation – includes many types of third parties, which can work simultaneously or
at different points when their form of assistance is needed. It can involve unifiers, legitimates
or facilitators, it is some kind of a team approach. Such a multimodal approach is useful in
large-scale conflicts.
•Interposition- placing of a neutral third party physically between the conflicting parties. Such
presence of the third party need not be to be military or governmental. Presence of unarmed neutral
foreigners deters attacks on civilians in war zones.
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•Is ethnic conflict inevitable?
•Do ethnic divisions inevitably generate violence?
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Ethnic conflict
•Many scholars study ethnicity and ethnic diversity as a generator of ethnic conflict. According to
some of them ethnic nationalism, which stems from the feeling of people to have their own states
will continue to shape world in the twenty-first century. This scholar argues that
ethno-nationalism is a wave of future and will result in more and more independent states.

Ethnic conflict
•The notion one-nation, one-state is unlikely to prevail. We should realize, that government today
are more responsive to their ethnic communities and have more resources at their disposal that the
imperial agglomerations. Besides, the achievement of separate sovereignty today depends on external
recognition and support. Potential new states cannot gain independence without military assistance
and economic aid from abroad. If an ethnic group does not have enough support to win independence
by peaceful election inside its country, its only calls into question the legitimacy of its quest
for independence.
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Ethnic conflict
•The challenge for multiethnic states is to develop political structures that can meet the needs of
a diverse population without suppressing any particular cultural, religious or ethnic group.
Otherwise minorities can find themselves in an apparently unfavourable position in comparison to
other groups. Then there is high probability that they will sick for recognition of their political
status and gaining autonomy. In other words, minority groups often confront their state either for
greater recognition of their identities or for autonomous spaces.
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