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International Security
Spring 2008
Partitioning to Peace: Sovereignty, Demography, and Ethnic Civil Wars
Carter Johnson.
Carter Johnson is a Ph.D. candidate at the University of Maryland,
College Park, where he is writing his dissertation on population
migration during and after war. He received his M.Sc. from the London
School of Economics and was Visiting Fellow with the Civic Education
Project at the University of Uzbekistan and State Pedagogical
University of Moldova. He is the former Project Coordinator of the
Minorities at Risk Project.; For their helpful comments and
suggestions, the author would like to thank Mark Lichbach, as well as
Christian Davenport, Diana Dumitru, Chaim Kaufmann, Corinne Lennox,
Maren Milligan, Jillian Schwedler, the anonymous reviewers, and the
participants of the DC Area Workshop on Contentious Politics.
Some scholars have proposed partition as a way to solve ethnic civil
wars. Partition theorists advocate the demographic separation of
ethnic groups into different states, arguing that this is the best
chance for an enduring peace. Opponents argue that partition is costly
in terms of its human toll and that its advocates have yet to
demonstrate its effectiveness beyond a limited number of self-selected
case studies. This analysis systematically examines the outcome of
partition, highlighting the centrality of demography by introducing an
index that measures the degree to which a partition separates ethnic
groups. This index is applied to all civil wars ending in partition
from 1945 to 2004. Partitions that completely separated the warring
groups did not experience a recurrence of war and low-level violence
for at least five years, outperforming both partitions that did not
separate ethnic groups and other ethnic war outcomes. These results
challenge other
studies that examine partition as a war outcome. The results also
have direct implications for Iraq's civil war, postindependence
Kosovo, and other ethnic civil wars.
Since the early 1950s, civil wars have been longer lasting and more
frequent than international wars, producing high levels of death and
disability. 1 Ethnic wars have been especially common, comprising 55
percent (70) to 72 percent (91) of all civil wars between 1945 and
1999. 2 Moreover, cross-national evidence suggests that ethnic wars
last longer than nonethnic wars. 3 These numbers are even more
troubling given that, during the 1990s, more than 200 ethnic
minorities and subordinate majorities throughout the world were
contesting their political status. 4 In addition to the challenge of
ending civil wars, one of the most vexing problems has been their high
recidivism rate, with postconflict countries facing up to a 50 percent
chance of experiencing renewed war within the first five years of
establishing peace. 5
Since the mid-1990s, one solution to preventing the recurrence of
ethnic civil war that has gained international policy and scholarly
attention has been partition. 6 The debate surrounding partition
emerged at the end of the Cold War, as ethnic conflicts came to the
forefront of Western policymakers' attention and international
boundaries were once again open to large-scale change. Still, Western
governments have demonstrated a certain ambivalence toward
partition. Although they have opposed the recognition of several de
facto partitions, such as Nagorno Karabakh in Azerbaijan, they have
promoted the incorporation of partitions into the peace plans of Sudan
and Papua New Guinea. 7 The negotiations surrounding the final status
of Kosovo further reflected Western ambivalence, with the independence
of Kosovo from Serbia fiercely contested within the European Union;
there is also the possibility of a further partition of Kosovo into
majority Albanian and
Serbian regions, which is the de facto political composition of
independent Kosovo. 8 In addition, policymakers have increasingly
proposed partition as one way to solve the civil war taking place in
Iraq. 9
Scholarly debate about the relative merits of partition is not new. 10
Since the end of the Cold War, however, the debate over partition has
primarily emphasized humanitarian issues. When scholars and
policymakers have proposed partition, it has been as a last resort, to
end ethnic wars when widespread massacres and forced population
transfers have already begun to occur and where long-term military
commitments by the international community are either not forthcoming
or are unable to produce peace. 11 Partition advocates argue that
under these conditions, partitioning groups into separate states where
they can protect themselves militarily provides the best chance for
ending ethnic wars and establishing an enduring peace. They do not,
however, support the blanket application of new borders to solve
ethnic civil wars. Rather they argue for the need to separate warring
populations--with population transfers where necessary--in an effort
to create
relatively homogeneous units where ethnic groups' security fears are
reduced and demobilization and reconstruction efforts can begin
without the need for long-term commitments of international troops.
Studies on the debate over partition have largely remained theoretical
or focused on case studies and policy prescriptions. 12 Evidence has
pointed to some successes, such as the 1974 partition of Cyprus, which
led to decades of peace, and some failures, such as the partition of
British India, which led to widespread massacres and ultimately
resulted in war. This article offers a systematic, cross-national test
of all partitions that followed ethnic civil wars between 1945 and
2004. It finds that partition is a uniformly effective tool in
preventing a recurrence of war and low-level violence, but only if it
includes the physical separation of ethnic groups. This finding
challenges that of Nicholas Sambanis. who, in 2000, produced the first
empirical study of partition using a large-n, cross-national
database. 13 Based on his results, Sambanis concluded that "partition
does not significantly prevent war recurrence [, which] suggests, at
the very least,
that separating ethnic groups does not resolve the problem of violent
ethnic antagonism." 14
Sambanis's analysis helped to further scholarly understanding of
partition's relationship to the recurrence of conflict, but it did not
test the core theoretical argument of partition advocates. The
Sambanis analysis suffers from a methodological error because it
identified new borders (i.e., sovereignty) as the critical independent
variable to represent partition, and not the demographic separation of
warring ethnic groups. Testing the relationship between sovereignty
and conflict recurrence does not capture, and therefore cannot refute,
the position of partition advocates. 15 This article, in contrast,
introduces an index to calculate the amount of unmixing of ethnic
groups that occurs with partition, therefore capturing partition
advocates' core argument.
The article is divided into six sections. First, I review the
theoretical and empirical literature on partition. Second, I examine
partition's empirical record and raise critical questions about
Sambanis's main conclusion that partition is not particularly
effective at preventing war recurrence. Third, I propose an
alternative variable--the Postpartition Ethnic Homogeneity Index
(PEHI)--for testing whether partition is a viable solution for ending
ethnic wars. Fourth, I demonstrate that, where the index shows warring
ethnic groups were in fact separated, neither war nor low-level
violence reoccurred for at least five years, suggesting that partition
advocates are correct. Fifth, I compare complete partitions with both
incomplete partitions and other forms of ethnic war termination, such
as government victory. Sixth, I discuss some of the policy
implications that follow from the analysis, in particular for the
final status of Kosovo and proposals to
partition Iraq.
Partition as a Means to End Civil Wars
Since the mid-1990s, scholars have produced a number of theoretical
and empirical studies on how civil wars end and how to create an
enduring peace. Factors that can influence the termination of civil
wars and help to prevent their recurrence include the length or cost
of the war, the ability of a central government to make credible
commitments, the presence of mediators, the strength of state security
forces, and a willingness to address grievances. 16
In cases where long-term military commitments by the international
community are not forthcoming or do not establish interethnic peace,
some scholars have suggested partition. 17 Further, given the high
percentage of civil wars that recur within the first five years of the
establishment of peace, advocates of partition argue that it may be
the best way to bring about an enduring solution to at least some
kinds of intractable ethnic conflicts. 18
Partition theory rests on two primary principles. First, ethnic civil
wars are qualitatively different from other kinds of civil
war. Second, warring ethnic groups confront a security dilemma that
prevents them from de-escalating and demobilizing. As a result, ethnic
groups must be separated and given sovereignty to produce long-term
peace.
ETHNIC CIVIL WARS
In the social science literature, "ethnic conflict" refers to
conflicts involving ascriptive group identities, identities that are
very difficult, if not impossible, to change and that are often based
on an individual's descent (e.g., language, religion, or race). 19
Wars involving groups with different communal identities (e.g., Sunni
and Shiite Arabs in Iraq) or linguistic identities (e.g., Ossetian and
Georgian groups in Georgia) fall into this category. It is this
component of an ascriptive identity, and the politicization of that
identity, that distinguishes ethnic civil war from other forms of
civil war. The ascriptive component can lead militant organizations to
identify entire ethnic groups as loyal or disloyal within a country's
population in a way that ideological conflicts cannot. 20 In fact,
ethnic group members often go to great lengths to find out who is a
member of an "enemy" group, including the use of census data in Nazi
Germany,
electoral lists in Sri Lanka, and identity cards in Rwanda. 21
The concept of ethnic civil war does not assume primordial identity in
the sense that groups are fixed and unchanging, nor does it require
fixed individual identities. 22 In fact, the concept of an "ethnic
war" is still compatible with mainstream constructivist understandings
of individuals sharing multiple, overlapping identities, some of which
become more salient than others depending on the context. 23 Advocates
of partition need not accept ethnic identity as given, only that it
becomes given under certain conditions. In pre-colonial Rwanda and
Burundi, for example, Hutu and Tutsi identities were flexible, but
this was certainly not the case during the 1994 Rwandan genocide, when
some Hutus targeted all Tutsis because of their ethnic identity. 24 In
the words of one individual caught up in the Bosnian ethnic civil war,
"I am a Croat. . . . I was Yugoslavian, and now I am a Croat. I always
knew that I am a Croat, but I didn't feel it so much. Now, you
have to be Croat, Serb, Muslim, xxxish, or whatever.... For me
personally, these identities didn't interest me at all: my being a
Croat wasn't important. But now, you have to be." 25
In contrast to ideological wars, where loyalties are more fluid both
during and after combat, in ethnic wars, members of one ethnic group
are far less likely to fight for the opposing side, 26 dividing
communities and making postwar reconciliation in an intermingled state
very difficult--some would argue impossible. 27 As Chaim Kaufmann
states, "War hardens ethnic identities to the point that cross-ethnic
political appeals become futile, which means that victory can be
assured only by physical control over the territory in dispute. Ethnic
wars also generate intense security dilemmas, both because the
escalation of each side's mobilization rhetoric presents a real threat
to the other, and even more because intermingled population settlement
patterns create defensive vulnerabilities and offensive
opportunities. . . . Once this occurs, the war cannot end until the
security dilemma is reduced by physical separation of the rival
groups. 28
........
International Security
Spring 2008
Partitioning to Peace: Sovereignty, Demography, and Ethnic Civil Wars
Carter Johnson.
Carter Johnson is a Ph.D. candidate at the University of Maryland,
College Park, where he is writing his dissertation on population
migration during and after war. He received his M.Sc. from the London
School of Economics and was Visiting Fellow with the Civic Education
Project at the University of Uzbekistan and State Pedagogical
University of Moldova. He is the former Project Coordinator of the
Minorities at Risk Project.; For their helpful comments and
suggestions, the author would like to thank Mark Lichbach, as well as
Christian Davenport, Diana Dumitru, Chaim Kaufmann, Corinne Lennox,
Maren Milligan, Jillian Schwedler, the anonymous reviewers, and the
participants of the DC Area Workshop on Contentious Politics.
Some scholars have proposed partition as a way to solve ethnic civil
wars. Partition theorists advocate the demographic separation of
ethnic groups into different states, arguing that this is the best
chance for an enduring peace. Opponents argue that partition is costly
in terms of its human toll and that its advocates have yet to
demonstrate its effectiveness beyond a limited number of self-selected
case studies. This analysis systematically examines the outcome of
partition, highlighting the centrality of demography by introducing an
index that measures the degree to which a partition separates ethnic
groups. This index is applied to all civil wars ending in partition
from 1945 to 2004. Partitions that completely separated the warring
groups did not experience a recurrence of war and low-level violence
for at least five years, outperforming both partitions that did not
separate ethnic groups and other ethnic war outcomes. These results
challenge other
studies that examine partition as a war outcome. The results also
have direct implications for Iraq's civil war, postindependence
Kosovo, and other ethnic civil wars.
Since the early 1950s, civil wars have been longer lasting and more
frequent than international wars, producing high levels of death and
disability. 1 Ethnic wars have been especially common, comprising 55
percent (70) to 72 percent (91) of all civil wars between 1945 and
1999. 2 Moreover, cross-national evidence suggests that ethnic wars
last longer than nonethnic wars. 3 These numbers are even more
troubling given that, during the 1990s, more than 200 ethnic
minorities and subordinate majorities throughout the world were
contesting their political status. 4 In addition to the challenge of
ending civil wars, one of the most vexing problems has been their high
recidivism rate, with postconflict countries facing up to a 50 percent
chance of experiencing renewed war within the first five years of
establishing peace. 5
Since the mid-1990s, one solution to preventing the recurrence of
ethnic civil war that has gained international policy and scholarly
attention has been partition. 6 The debate surrounding partition
emerged at the end of the Cold War, as ethnic conflicts came to the
forefront of Western policymakers' attention and international
boundaries were once again open to large-scale change. Still, Western
governments have demonstrated a certain ambivalence toward
partition. Although they have opposed the recognition of several de
facto partitions, such as Nagorno Karabakh in Azerbaijan, they have
promoted the incorporation of partitions into the peace plans of Sudan
and Papua New Guinea. 7 The negotiations surrounding the final status
of Kosovo further reflected Western ambivalence, with the independence
of Kosovo from Serbia fiercely contested within the European Union;
there is also the possibility of a further partition of Kosovo into
majority Albanian and
Serbian regions, which is the de facto political composition of
independent Kosovo. 8 In addition, policymakers have increasingly
proposed partition as one way to solve the civil war taking place in
Iraq. 9
Scholarly debate about the relative merits of partition is not new. 10
Since the end of the Cold War, however, the debate over partition has
primarily emphasized humanitarian issues. When scholars and
policymakers have proposed partition, it has been as a last resort, to
end ethnic wars when widespread massacres and forced population
transfers have already begun to occur and where long-term military
commitments by the international community are either not forthcoming
or are unable to produce peace. 11 Partition advocates argue that
under these conditions, partitioning groups into separate states where
they can protect themselves militarily provides the best chance for
ending ethnic wars and establishing an enduring peace. They do not,
however, support the blanket application of new borders to solve
ethnic civil wars. Rather they argue for the need to separate warring
populations--with population transfers where necessary--in an effort
to create
relatively homogeneous units where ethnic groups' security fears are
reduced and demobilization and reconstruction efforts can begin
without the need for long-term commitments of international troops.
Studies on the debate over partition have largely remained theoretical
or focused on case studies and policy prescriptions. 12 Evidence has
pointed to some successes, such as the 1974 partition of Cyprus, which
led to decades of peace, and some failures, such as the partition of
British India, which led to widespread massacres and ultimately
resulted in war. This article offers a systematic, cross-national test
of all partitions that followed ethnic civil wars between 1945 and
2004. It finds that partition is a uniformly effective tool in
preventing a recurrence of war and low-level violence, but only if it
includes the physical separation of ethnic groups. This finding
challenges that of Nicholas Sambanis. who, in 2000, produced the first
empirical study of partition using a large-n, cross-national
database. 13 Based on his results, Sambanis concluded that "partition
does not significantly prevent war recurrence [, which] suggests, at
the very least,
that separating ethnic groups does not resolve the problem of violent
ethnic antagonism." 14
Sambanis's analysis helped to further scholarly understanding of
partition's relationship to the recurrence of conflict, but it did not
test the core theoretical argument of partition advocates. The
Sambanis analysis suffers from a methodological error because it
identified new borders (i.e., sovereignty) as the critical independent
variable to represent partition, and not the demographic separation of
warring ethnic groups. Testing the relationship between sovereignty
and conflict recurrence does not capture, and therefore cannot refute,
the position of partition advocates. 15 This article, in contrast,
introduces an index to calculate the amount of unmixing of ethnic
groups that occurs with partition, therefore capturing partition
advocates' core argument.
The article is divided into six sections. First, I review the
theoretical and empirical literature on partition. Second, I examine
partition's empirical record and raise critical questions about
Sambanis's main conclusion that partition is not particularly
effective at preventing war recurrence. Third, I propose an
alternative variable--the Postpartition Ethnic Homogeneity Index
(PEHI)--for testing whether partition is a viable solution for ending
ethnic wars. Fourth, I demonstrate that, where the index shows warring
ethnic groups were in fact separated, neither war nor low-level
violence reoccurred for at least five years, suggesting that partition
advocates are correct. Fifth, I compare complete partitions with both
incomplete partitions and other forms of ethnic war termination, such
as government victory. Sixth, I discuss some of the policy
implications that follow from the analysis, in particular for the
final status of Kosovo and proposals to
partition Iraq.
Partition as a Means to End Civil Wars
Since the mid-1990s, scholars have produced a number of theoretical
and empirical studies on how civil wars end and how to create an
enduring peace. Factors that can influence the termination of civil
wars and help to prevent their recurrence include the length or cost
of the war, the ability of a central government to make credible
commitments, the presence of mediators, the strength of state security
forces, and a willingness to address grievances. 16
In cases where long-term military commitments by the international
community are not forthcoming or do not establish interethnic peace,
some scholars have suggested partition. 17 Further, given the high
percentage of civil wars that recur within the first five years of the
establishment of peace, advocates of partition argue that it may be
the best way to bring about an enduring solution to at least some
kinds of intractable ethnic conflicts. 18
Partition theory rests on two primary principles. First, ethnic civil
wars are qualitatively different from other kinds of civil
war. Second, warring ethnic groups confront a security dilemma that
prevents them from de-escalating and demobilizing. As a result, ethnic
groups must be separated and given sovereignty to produce long-term
peace.
ETHNIC CIVIL WARS
In the social science literature, "ethnic conflict" refers to
conflicts involving ascriptive group identities, identities that are
very difficult, if not impossible, to change and that are often based
on an individual's descent (e.g., language, religion, or race). 19
Wars involving groups with different communal identities (e.g., Sunni
and Shiite Arabs in Iraq) or linguistic identities (e.g., Ossetian and
Georgian groups in Georgia) fall into this category. It is this
component of an ascriptive identity, and the politicization of that
identity, that distinguishes ethnic civil war from other forms of
civil war. The ascriptive component can lead militant organizations to
identify entire ethnic groups as loyal or disloyal within a country's
population in a way that ideological conflicts cannot. 20 In fact,
ethnic group members often go to great lengths to find out who is a
member of an "enemy" group, including the use of census data in Nazi
Germany,
electoral lists in Sri Lanka, and identity cards in Rwanda. 21
The concept of ethnic civil war does not assume primordial identity in
the sense that groups are fixed and unchanging, nor does it require
fixed individual identities. 22 In fact, the concept of an "ethnic
war" is still compatible with mainstream constructivist understandings
of individuals sharing multiple, overlapping identities, some of which
become more salient than others depending on the context. 23 Advocates
of partition need not accept ethnic identity as given, only that it
becomes given under certain conditions. In pre-colonial Rwanda and
Burundi, for example, Hutu and Tutsi identities were flexible, but
this was certainly not the case during the 1994 Rwandan genocide, when
some Hutus targeted all Tutsis because of their ethnic identity. 24 In
the words of one individual caught up in the Bosnian ethnic civil war,
"I am a Croat. . . . I was Yugoslavian, and now I am a Croat. I always
knew that I am a Croat, but I didn't feel it so much. Now, you
have to be Croat, Serb, Muslim, xxxish, or whatever.... For me
personally, these identities didn't interest me at all: my being a
Croat wasn't important. But now, you have to be." 25
In contrast to ideological wars, where loyalties are more fluid both
during and after combat, in ethnic wars, members of one ethnic group
are far less likely to fight for the opposing side, 26 dividing
communities and making postwar reconciliation in an intermingled state
very difficult--some would argue impossible. 27 As Chaim Kaufmann
states, "War hardens ethnic identities to the point that cross-ethnic
political appeals become futile, which means that victory can be
assured only by physical control over the territory in dispute. Ethnic
wars also generate intense security dilemmas, both because the
escalation of each side's mobilization rhetoric presents a real threat
to the other, and even more because intermingled population settlement
patterns create defensive vulnerabilities and offensive
opportunities. . . . Once this occurs, the war cannot end until the
security dilemma is reduced by physical separation of the rival
groups. 28
........
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