Identifying Potential Ethnic Conflict: Application of a Process Model - Softcover

9780833028426: Identifying Potential Ethnic Conflict: Application of a Process Model

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0833028421 ISBN 13: 9780833028426

Publisher: RAND Corporation, 2000

Intrastate communitarian strife, dubbed ethnic conflict, has gained attention in the aftermath of the Cold War. This report outlines a model for anticipating the occurrence of communitarian and ethnic conflict. The model is not a mechanistic tool, but a process-based heuristic device with a threefold purpose. One, to order the analyst's thinking about the logic and dynamics of potential ethnically based violence and to aid in defining the information-collection requirements of such an analysis. Two, to provide a conceptual framework about how ethnic grievances form and group mobilization occurs and how these could lead to violence; and three to assist the intelligence community with the long-range assessment of possible ethnic strife. The theoretical model explains how the potential for strife should be understood, transformed; and how extant state capacities interact through a process of strategic bargaining with mobilized groups to produce varying degrees of strife.

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From the Publisher:

This report outlines a model for anticipating the occurrence of communitarianand ethnic conflict. The intended audience for thisreport is the intelligence community, though analysts and scholarsinvolved in conflict prevention also should find it useful.The model is not a mechanistic tool, but a process-based heuristicdevice with a threefold purpose: (1) to order the analyst's thinkingabout the logic and dynamics of potential ethnically based violenceand to aid in defining the information-collection requirements ofsuch an analysis; (2) to provide a general conceptual frameworkabout how ethnic grievances form and group mobilization occursand how these could lead to violence under certain conditions; and(3) to assist the intelligence community with the long-range assessmentof possible ethnic strife. The framework presented here is notmeant to substitute for the knowledge, reasoning, or judgment ofintelligence analysts. It is simply a tool to help order and organizethe information and identify information gaps.This report is the final product of a multiyear project entitled "EthnicConflict and the Processes of State Breakdown." The projectincluded two stages: model design and development, and modeltesting and validation. The project aimed to improve the Army'sability to anticipate communitarian and ethnic conflict as one aspectof its overall strategic planning and threat assessment. This reportincludes a revised version of most of the initial report on the first partof the project (Ashley J. Tellis, Thomas S. Szayna, and James A. Win-nefeld,Anticipating Ethnic Conflict, Santa Monica, CA: RAND, MR-853-A, 1997).The research was sponsored by the Deputy Chief of Staff for Intelli-gence,U.S. Army, and was conducted in the Strategy, Doctrine, andResources Program of the RAND Arroyo Center. The Arroyo Center isa federally funded research and development center sponsored bythe United States Army.For comments and further information, please contact the editor atTom_Szayna@rand.org.

About the Author:

THOMAS S. SZAYNA (Ph.D., Political Science, University of California, Los Angeles) is the associate director of the Strategy, Doctrine, and Resources Program, Arroyo Center, at RAND. His research includes strategic planning, NATO military force structure and planning, intra-state conflict, peace operations, and democratization and civil-military relations.

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