Ethno-Religious Conflict and the Duration of Peace

• In Event: Religion and Violence

Abstract

How do religion and ethnicity shape the sustainability of peace after civil war? Do religion and ethnicity reinforce group grievances and undermine post-civil war peace duration? Ethnic and religious conflicts have been rising in prevalence over the last half-century, generating larger headlines as they influence every corner of the world. These conflicts occur across faiths, sects, and nations as new technologies and expanded travel makes conflict expansion easier. And they appear to reignite in intervals, devolving into conflict again and again with spells of relative peace in between. In many of these conflicts, religious groups have identities that overlap with ethnic identities, leading countries to face battle with distinct lines drawn across religion, language, ethnicity, and more. Recurring ethnic and religious civil wars dominate media headlines with each new cycle of violence, creating perceptions that they are inexorable, natural hostilities. In places like Northern Ireland, Nigeria, and Lebanon, religious and ethnic groups have engaged in sustained violence. And in some of these cases, conflict stops and restarts. Questions about why these wars relapse after establishing peace has led the United Nations to create the Peacebuilding Commission and Peacebuilding Fund. Policymakers, media members, and academics have viewed the prospects of sustained peace after civil and ethnic wars with great consternation, recognizing achieving sustainable peace as a significant quandary.
Together, the concerns of both religion and ethnicity are reinforcing cleavages rather than cross-cutting cleavages, which influence the duration of post-war peace. Conflict recurrence in religious and ethnic civil wars are driven by three major pathways. First, identity distinctions and representation draw groups to seek autonomy from another group seen as having undue control over them. Second, specific grievances against the state draw rebel groups into conflict recurrence, even if the original conflict was predominantly ideological. Finally, issue indivisibility in territorial claims is driven by religious ideology and historical ethnic ties. Adopting a quantitative approach, this paper utilizes survival models to estimate the effects of identity, grievance and issue indivisibility on peace duration in ethnic and religious conflicts.

Author

• Nathan Tarr, Arizona State University