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Key Text Major Findings and Conclusions on the Relationship Between Horizontal Inequalities and Conflict

Author: Frances Stewart, Graham K. Brown, Arnim Langer
Date: 2008
Size: 9 pages (1.4 MB)

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Summary

What are the links between horizontal inequalities (HIs) and conflict? This book chapter published by Palgrave Macmillan summarises findings from case studies plus more global analyses. Severe HIs are particularly likely to be a source of conflict when they are consistent across socioeconomic, cultural and political dimensions. While socioeconomic HIs generate fertile ground for conflict and cultural status inequalities bind groups together, political HIs provide incentives for leaders to mobilise people for rebellion.

The case studies used involved eight multicultural countries on three continents. While HIs played a demonstrable role in each context, they also combined with other factors to generate dangerous socio-political situations, or to defuse them. The nature of the state and other local institutions, and how they responded to the conflict, also affected outcomes, as did the distribution of natural resources.

Conflict is more likely where there are significant political or economic HIs, or both, and political mobilisation is especially likely where HIs are consistent. In the cases of Cote d'Ivoire and Nigeria, for example, high political HIs motivated the ethnic leadership in both cases, while high socioeconomic HIs mobilised a larger public. Other findings include the following:

The probability of conflict may increase threefold from the expected onset, if the HIs of assets between different ethnic groups is at the 95 percentile point, comapred with mean values.
Even when socioeconomic HIs are high, inclusive government reduces political HIs and therefore the likelihood of conflict. An additional implication, as seen with the Indian population of Malaysia, is that power-sharing may mollify an ethnic group even in the absence of real socio-economic progress.
The ability to grant, revoke or trample the rights of citizenship can be an important source of political HIs. Denials of citizenship have fuelled conflict in Cote d'Ivoire and local tensions in Nigeria.
Unequal recognition for different cultures motivates conflict.
In conditions of severe HIs, abrupt changes in political HIs, or cultural events in which important cultural or religious symbols are attacked, are strong triggers for conflict.
Perceptions of HIs may bring about conflict, even when the underlying reality has not shifted.

International policymakers too often remain blind to the importance of addressing HIs in order to prevent conflict. The widespread advocacy of multiparty democracy can lead to exclusionary politics in heterogeneous societies.

The importance of natural resources in spurring conflict, often noted in the literature on conflict prevention, often works itself out through HIs.
The state reaction to conflict can lengthen its effects, as happened with the aggressive reactions of governments in Indonesia and Guatemala to separatist challenges.
Certain HIs are extremely persistent, even lasting for centuries, and many have origins in the colonial period.

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Source: Stewart F., Brown G.K., Langer A., 2008, 'Major Findings and Conclusions on the Relationship Between Horizontal Inequalities and Conflict', in Stewart, F. (ed.), Horizontal Inequalities and Conflict: Understanding Group Violence in Multiethnic Societies, Palgrave Macmillan, Basingstoke
Author: Frances Stewart , frances.stewart[at]qeh.ox.ac.uk
Organisation: Palgrave Macmillan Ltd, http://www.palgrave.com/