Providing security or protecting interests? Government interventions in violent communal conflicts in Africa
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 4959313 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Emma Elfversson (0000-0001-5673-9056, Uppsala University, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2015 |
| Volume | 52 |
| Issue | 6 |
| Pages | 791-805 |
| Publication date | 2015-11-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Journal of Peace Research (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0022-3433 • E-ISSN: 1460-3578 |
| Publisher | SAGE Publications Inc (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.1177/0022343315597968 |
| OpenAlex | W2208101591 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 26 |
| References cited | 51 |
What factors drive governments' decisions to intervene in local conflicts within their borders? Communal conflict - that is, organized violence between non-state groups that are mobilized along a shared communal identity - kills thousands each year and severely impacts local livelihoods, at times threatening to spread and affect entire regions. Given the state's assumed monopoly over the legitimate use of force, we should expect the concerned governments to be critical actors of the overall effort to restore peace in cases of local communal conflict, but empirical evidence indicates that central states tend to only intervene in some cases but not in others. This phenomenon has so far been understudied and the variations in states' efforts to manage these conflicts remain unexplained. This article presents the first quantitative study of state intervention in communal conflicts. Building on existing scholarly work, I argue that state intervention is explained by a combination of strategic interests and state capacity, and that interests related to ethnic constituencies and land control play an important part in explaining governments' strategies. These propositions find support in a statistical analysis covering sub-Saharan Africa from 1989 to 2010
Conflict resolution · Conflict resolution research · Development economics · Economics · Ethnic group · Geography · Government (linguistics) · Intervention (counseling) · Livelihood · Monopoly · Political economy · Political science · Politics · Psychological intervention · Security forces · Sociology · State (computer science) · International Development and Aid · Law · Political Conflict and Governance · Psychology · Religion, Society, and Development
Behind the intractability of communal conflicts in Africa
Climate Change and Violent Conflict in East Africa
Taming an Intermittent Volcano
Conflict Over the Commons
Stabilization and Local Conflicts
Rethinking Inter-Communal Violence in Africa
From Bullets to Boreholes
Climate variability and individual motivations for participating in political violence
Keeping communal peace in the shadow of civil war
Issues and Actors in African Nonstate Conflicts
The pursuit of inclusion
Resilient Communities
What we Don't see
Choosing Whom to Target
The Political Conditions for Local Peacemaking
Perceptions of Local versus National Factors in Religious and Tribal Conflict
Come rain, or come wells
Floods, communal conflict and the role of local state institutions in Sub-Saharan Africa
Peace from below
Spatial patterns of communal violence in sub-Saharan Africa
Which groups fight? Customary institutions and communal conflicts in Africa
Territorial Autonomy and the Trade-Off between Civil and Communal Violence
The Relevance of Traditional Mechanisms of Conflict Resolution to End Localized Communal Conflicts in Africa
The Cursed Promised Land? Demographic Risk Factors for Homegrown Extremism in the Squatter Enclaves of Mount Elgon Region of Western Kenya
The Labyrinth of State Intervention in Communal Conflict in Africa
Cattle Rustling and Competing Land Claims
Property and Political Order in Africa
When Things Fell Apart
Political Topographies of the African State
Local Politics and the Dynamics of Property in Africa
Geography and macroeconomics
Clarify
Insurgency and Inaccessibility
International mediation in theory and practice
Votes and Violence
States and Power in Africa: Comparative Lessons in Authority and Control
The Ties That Divide
Guns and Governance in the Rift Valley
The Logic of Political Survival
Greed and grievance in civil war
Political Marginalization, Climate Change, and Conflict in African Sahel States
A Crucial Link. Local Peace Committees and National Peacebuilding
Dude, Where’s My Conflict
Sons of the Soil, Migrants, and Civil War
Warfare, endemic violence & state collapse in Africa
Socioeconomic Inequality and Communal Conflict
Violent Internal Conflict and the African State
Responding to State Failure in Africa
Responding to State Failure in Africa
Climate clashes? Weather variability, land pressure, and organized violence in Kenya, 1989–2004
No Shelter Here
Deciding to Keep Peace
A Supply Side Theory of Mediation1
Regime Change and Ethnic Cleavages in Africa
Ties Versus Institutions
Making the Most of Statistical Analyses
Institutional Inconsistency and Political Instability
Guns, land, and votes
Ethnicity, Patronage and the African State
Property and constitutional order
Why Do Ethnic Groups Rebel? New Data and Analysis
Climate triggers
Introducing the UCDP Georeferenced Event Dataset
The law of the land
Inter-Ethnic and Religious Conflict Resolution in Nigeria
A Curse from God? Religious and political dimensions of the post-1991 rise of ethnic violence in South Sudan
Prio-Grid
Introducing the UCDP Non-State Conflict Dataset
A Participatory Approach for Local Peace Initiatives
International System and Technologies of Rebellion
Ethnicity, Insurgency, and Civil War
Citizen and Subject
The patrimonial state and inter-ethnic conflicts in Nigeria
| Unique citing works | 26 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 2,6 |
| Citation span | 2016 - 2025 (10) |
| Citation velocity | recent |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 25 |