Resorting to a culturalist interpretation of civil war is convenient. It provides a reductive narrative, explaining away modern conflict as the inevitable result of ancient cultural feuds. In his seminal work on the “clash of civilizations,” Huntington (1993) argues that the roots of modern conflict lie in irreconcilable divisions between different peoples (p. 25). With the collapse of the Soviet Union and Yugoslavia, among other countries, such culturalist perspectives became a dominant frame for interpreting conflict (Fearon and Laitin 2003, p. 78). Yet, a wide body of scholarship exposes flaws in Huntington’s thesis. In this paper, I will argue that Huntington’s culturalist explanation of why civil war occurs in diverse countries is weakened by an exclusion of the importance of leadership, financial incentives, and certain key contextual factors.

In the first section, I will demonstrate how leaders can catalyze mild ethnic tensions into violence, often for their own benefit. In the second section, I will show how in several civil conflicts, violence can be better explained by individual financial needs than by ancient ethnic hatreds. In the third section, I will explain how factors more tangible than Huntingtonian ethnic division — such as the economy, geography and political systems — can better explain civil conflict.

THE ROLE OF LEADERS

Since Huntington proposes a bottom-up, sociological reading of civil conflict, he neglects the strong role that the top plays in inflaming civil wars (Lecture, February 26). While Huntington (1993) does assert that leaders arouse mass support, he argues they practice “civilization rallying” to do so, neglecting to mention their use of key tactics like supporter intimidation (p. 38). In the post-2011 Syrian Civil War, the ruling Assad regime has relied on a deliberate strategy of inducing fear and intimidating supporters to rally the country’s main minorities against domestic opposition (Berti and Paris 2014, p. 24). This strategy includes suppressing mass mobilizations, retaliating against anti-regime activism, and arresting, torturing and killing protest leaders (Berti and Paris 2014, p. 24). Many Syrian protesters have resorted to violence after inflammatory attacks by regime forces. This actually benefits the Syrian regime, since authoritarian rulers are better equipped to confront violent opposition than to withstand prolonged, peaceful (and ideological) struggles (Berti and Paris 2014, p. 24).

Leaders also capitalize on citizen needs in civil conflicts, quietly providing them material benefits under the public façade of ethnic rallying. In Yugoslavia in the 1990’s, a rising reformist movement in Serbia threatened to destroy conservatives’ power (Gagnon 1994, p. 120). To shift the public focus away from reform efforts, conservative Serbian leaders like Slobodan Milošević alleged imminent danger to Serb interests by groups like Albanians and Bosniaks (Gagnon 1994, p. 120). While this ethnic inflammation keeps with Huntington’s world view, a closer look shows the top-down sway of the public through material means. Leaders like Milošević often paid sympathetic mobs with free food, transportation and liquor (Mueller 2000, p. 46). In addition, much ethnic violence in Yugoslavia was generated by small groups of opportunistic Serbian thugs, newly empowered by leaders and even freed from prisons to join the effort (Mueller 2000, p. 46-47, 49). Meanwhile, ordinary people of varying ethnicities displayed a general sense of “bewilderment” at the new (leader-generated) hostility between neighbors with whom they had long coexisted, worked alongside and married (Mueller 2000, p. 56; Gagnon 1994, p. 119). The key point from both Syria and Yugoslavia is the demonstration of a top-down incitement of ethnic violence within a largely docile population through intimidation or the promise of rewards. The bottom-up explanation offered by Huntington fails to account for this.

THE ROLE OF FINANCIAL INCENTIVES

Civil war in diverse countries can often be better explained by looking at micro-level, financial choices than by studying fluid ethnic divisions. Ethnicity serves largely as an ordering device rather than as the impelling force which drives conflict (Mueller 2000, p. 62). What does serve as an impelling force are the aforementioned rewards which individuals can gain from participating in warfare. For example in Rwanda in the 1990’s, the Hutu army organized (by leaders) to partake in mass violence against the Tutsi minority largely consisted of foreign drifters, vagrants and other apolitical actors. These fighters, some of whom were destitute, were enticed more by free beer and the chance to loot and rape than by anti-Tutsi sentiments (Mueller 2000, p. 59). When talk of a peace settlement with opposition forces became widespread, increased Hutu mutinies and looting further demonstrated that the desperate fighters were in it not out of ethnic conviction, but for the financial compensation (Reed 1996, p. 491). In Yugoslavia, individuals even took advantage of business opportunities across enemy lines, such as when a Serbian commander sold artillery to a group of enemy Bosnians (Mueller 2000, p. 58). The rebuttal to Huntington’s view as too singular to account for individuals’ varied identities can be easily extended to the power of individual financial opportunism over ethnic division (Sen 2006, p. 45-46). Clearly, individual opportunism trumped Huntingtonian ethnic conflict in Rwanda and Yugoslavia when the right economic incentives arose.

FACTORS BESIDE ETHNIC DIVISION

Huntington largely omits socioeconomic status and geography in his study of civil conflict, instead focusing on civilization clash (Huntington 1993, p. 25). Most directly, data have shown that after controlling for socioeconomic diversity, more ethnically or religiously diverse countries are no more prone to civil violence (Fearon and Laitin 2003, p. 75). Instead, according to Fearon and Laitin (2003), the countries most vulnerable to civil war have conditions favorable to insurgency such as poverty, rough terrain and insurgent-supportive diasporas (p. 80-81). In Yugoslavia and especially Rwanda, citizens’ willingness to commit violence for meager rewards is a clear result of poverty. Secondly, rough terrain like mountains can shelter insurgent groups. This was evident in Rwanda, where the Tutsi Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF) re-assembled in the Vumba mountains near Uganda, which provided natural protection for guerrilla fighters (Reed 1996, p. 490). The case of Rwanda also supports Fearon and Laiton’s (2003) hypothesis that civil war is more likely when insurgents have diaspora support. With no tax base, the only revenue the RPF initially had at its disposal was provided by its supporters in the diaspora (Reed 1996, p. 498). While this example shows clear Tutsi co-ethnic support of insurgents, it is only one of many contributing factors to civil war in Rwanda and may also be strongly correlated to a Tutsi desire for government power, as opposed to a mere ethnic hatred of Hutus.

The desire for a restoration of lost power by an excluded ethnic group in civil wars is often more closely related to a desire for power than ethnic hatred. For example, in colonial Rwanda the Tutsi minority was favored as a superior ethnic group by European powers and afforded a disproportionately large role in society (Lecture, March 4). When the tables turned in 1959, hundreds of thousands of Tutsis fled the newly-empowered Hutu government (Lecture, March 4). Huntington approaches cultural conflict sociologically, arguing that irreconcilable differences like contrasting moral values espouse violence. Yet, in Rwanda, the Tutsi fall from power, domestic discrimination, and violent return in the early 1990’s better exemplifies the theory that ethnic groups that are excluded from power are more likely to challenge the regime through violent means (Cedarman, Wimmer and Min 2010, p.114). Government power structures can also play into the likelihood of such civil violence. Graham, Miller and Strøm (2017) show that countries with dispersive power-sharing methods (decentralized structures) can undermine democratic consolidation by weakening national consensus and encourage ethnic appeals (p. 702). Although this is related to ethnic division, it is within the more important context of government structure — since a constraining power-sharing model modeled on mandatory ethnic inclusion could prevent a fall into civil warfare (Graham, Miller and Strøm 2017, p. 702).

CONCLUSION

Huntington’s culturalist view of the world and its conflicts is weakened by its exclusion of the effect of leaders, financial incentives to engage in conflict, and factors unrelated to ethnic division. In many places, conflicts which masquerade under the veneer of ethnic conflict are actually catalyzed by opportunistic leaders and citizens seeking money or power, regardless of ethnicity. Civil conflicts are also shaped by geopolitical factors and different kinds of government structures, some of which are better at maintaining democracy in fragmented countries. While it may be appealing to reduce global conflict to “civilization clash” and ethnic division, like Huntington (1993) does, it is critical to take other factors into consideration.

Works Cited