Ethnic Identities and Conflict (original) (raw)
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Ethnic Conflicts and the role of the media
Conflicts between ethnic groups are one of the most destructive and devastating forms of conflicts. In the beginning of the Third millennium the world and humankind are still suffering due to conflicts between ethnic groups. Sudan, Rwanda, Yugoslavia, UK-Northern Ireland, Spain, Sri Lanka, and Turkey are some of current examples of these conflicts that caused mass human rights violation and loss of human lives and strained economy and damaged the environment. Therefore preventing conflicts is an important issue that must be addressed and studied. This paper aims to examine, first, ethnicity, ethnicity making situations, causes and forms of ethnic conflicts. Second, it explores what are the main features of ethnic conflict prevention, what is the conflict prevention approach of EU and how EU functions in conflicts. Finally the study concludes that establishing a minority rights protection system is the most effective and humanitarian way to prevent ethnic conflicts.
2005
With Enlightenment age, many thinkers beginning from Kant were believed a project of perpetual peace in a rational world order which is contrary to world order of previous era which was based on religious dogmas and superstitions. However the instrumentalized religious otherness of previous era could not be abolished and also new notions of otherness-such as national, ethnic and linguistic-were articulated in to the system of exclusion and postponed the perpetual peace. While this period including I. and II. World Wars and Cold War came to an end all indicators were showing the Western democracies as the victors of previous era and founders of next generation world order. However at the end of this displeasing period criticisms over Western reason, and aims and consequences of conceptualizations lying beneath were began to question. Thus a new world order, which would be able to analyze and respond newly emerging solid conditions of Post-Cold War era, based on a new way of thinking and system of values began to construct. The thesis aimed to analyze the evolution process of ethnic identity in interpretation system of institutionalized international relations beginning from the efforts of secularization. Articulation of evolving basic concepts of ethnic identity with regards to effects of solid conditions of contemporary times in to our social lives and their projections to political and juridical processes will be viewed. The role of ideological transformations and resistances due to the articulation process of re-interpreted forms of ethnic identity fact in to institutionalized international system will be evaluated and lastly articulation of ethnic identity in to ix social life in European Union will be analyzed as a sample formation in international system. x LIST OF ABBREVATIONS
The role of the protection of minority rights in conflict prevention
The report focuses on the role of the protection of minority rights in conflict prevention. Among the essential elements of a strategy to prevent conflicts involving minorities are respect for minority rights, particularly with regard to quality in access to economic and social opportunities; effective participation of minorities in decision-making; dialogue between minorities and majorities within societies; and the constructive development of practices and institutional arrangements to accommodate diversity within society. Significantly, the independent expert emphasizes that attention to minority rights at an early stage — before grievances lead to tensions and violence — would make an invaluable contribution to the culture of prevention within the United Nations, save countless lives and promote stability and development. Among the recommendations included in the report is the suggestion that expertise in minority rights should be strengthened and integrated comprehensively across the United Nations system.
Conceptual Bases of the İmpact of Ethnic Conflicts on Regional and İnternational Security
The article examines the impact of ethnic conflicts on regional and international security. It is noted that during the Cold War, it was impossible to conduct serious research in this area. Because ethnic conflicts were seen as an internal affair of states. However, with the end of the Cold War, the collapse of absolute sovereignty intensified the interaction between the domestic life of the country and the international community. Such a development in the context of globalization has turned ethnic conflicts into a problem of international politics, taking them out of the context of the internal affairs of states. The globalization of ethnic conflicts has strengthened its impact on regional and international security and laid the groundwork for the "ethnicization of international relations". The impact of ethnic conflicts on regional and international security can be studied in the context of instrumentalism, neomondialism, the Brubaker's Triangle, ethno-political movements, and theories of protracted conflict. In the theory of instrumentalism, ethnic conflict is seen as a means of struggle by elites. Even this struggle serves the interests of the ruling forces not only within the country, but also abroad. In the theory of protracted social conflicts, the main processes revolve around internal conflicts and identities. The Brubaker's Triangle and theories of the ethnopolitical movement play an important role in the study of the external resources of separatism and its transformation into an interstate war. In the context of neomondialism, S. Huntington's theory of "clash of civilizations" tried to justify the fact that future conflicts will occur between religious and civilizational systems stemming from cultural factors.
Ethnicity as a variable in war and challenge in the peace
Ethnicity as a variable in war and challenge in the peace, 2022
In most modern wars, ethnic issues appear to be one of the main instigators or at least a constituent element of war. In this respect, any distinction can be hardly made when considering parts of the world separately. Ethnicity, whether as political ambition or intolerance, turns out to be many times clearer in mobilizing the masses than most other factors. The instrumentalization of various goals through ethnicity has taken on dimensions whose consequences dilute the multiethnic functioning of the institutions even if peace is achieved meanwhile. Ethnicity as a desire to dominate becomes a burden for several segments of political and social life and a challenge for the conceivers of national security. Societies need to find a concrete solution to properly address the demands when they are justifiable. The lack of a political solution has usually produced conflicts and even armed ones. Therefore, ethnic conflicts, even in the form of animosities, remain a serious threat to national security itself.
Beyond Ethnicity: The Global Comparative Analysis of Ethnic Conflict
International Journal of Comparative Sociology, 2004
Conflicts that are reported as being between ethnic groups are often described as "ethnic conflicts." The implication is that such conflicts belong to a general type of ethnic conflict with certain repeated and predictable features. This type of conflict is seen as being motivated by ethnic sentiments, as being grounded in deeply set hatreds, and as being virtually inescapable. By applying the epithet "ethnic," it is as if the conflict were already explained. However, there are many reasons to be suspicious of these implications. Ethnic groups presently embroiled in fierce conflict may have been, at a previous point in time, peacefully co-existent. Frequently, the very lines of ethnic difference become blurred through intermarriage and cultural change. Therefore, in order to understand conflict described as "ethnic" we need to uncover the reasons why (in a given conflict situation) there is heightened awareness of ethnic difference. Then we need to explain what I have termed "the conditions of ethnicity," that is, the external conditions which lead to severe conflict; and those external circumstances that make it likely that the conflict will follow lines of ethnic differentiation. Two of these conditions are the strength of the state system and the ability of the state to manage ethnic conflict.