Mueller’s “The Banality of ‘Ethnic War’” Essay

Mueller’s “The Banality of ‘Ethnic War’” discusses the plausibility of interpreting intrastate conflicts that unfold under nationalist agendas as rooted in the deep-seated ethnic prejudice. The author posits that interpreting ‘ethnic’ conflicts as uncompromising struggles between ethnic groups in their totality or even a significant proportion of said groups is deeply misleading. Instead, Mueller insists that such conflicts are usually waged by relatively small groups of combatants “that purport to fight and kill in the name of some larger entity” while the population stays largely passive.¹ The author assesses election data and popular polls from Yugoslavia in the 1990s to show that, even at the height of nationalist successes, they only had a very moderate popular and electoral support.² Similarly, Mueller analyzes the case of the Rwandan genocide of 1994 to highlight that the main participants in the Tutsi killing were relatively small organizations. These included the Hutu-controlled police force, Presidential Guard, and “militia bands… created and trained by Hutu extremists.”³ The author concludes that the concept of ethnic warfare obscures the fact that ethnic killings are largely perpetrated by small bands of delinquents rather than the population at large.

Among other things, the article discusses how ethnic cleansing may open additional recruitment opportunities for the groups involved in it. As the author notes, when a small armed band took control of a given locality, members of the persecuted groups “would usually flee to areas protected by their own ethnic ruffians.”⁴ Once there, some of those who have fled persecution would wish t fight back and “join like-minded armed bands” of their co-ethnics.⁵ Thus, Mueller suggests that territorial control exercised by one side in an ethnic conflict may boost the numbers of the other side, although these would still remain small compared to the population in general.

The article could have further strengthened its approach to refuting ethnic-based explanations of intrastate conflicts by assessing the possibility of ethnic defection. While the bands of armed ruffians kill and persecute based on the people’s ethnic identity, the latter can be fluid, and territorial control may be an important factor in this process.⁶ In “Ethnic Defection in Civil War,” Kalyvas draws on a broad range of examples to show how defection can occur in ethnic conflicts. A telling example is the Turkish government creating Kurdish militias in Turkish-controlled territories to oppose the Kurdistan Workers’ Party that relies heavily on Kurdish nationalism.⁷ This example, as well as many others, demonstrates that territorial control can promote collaboration among the population “irrespective of initially adverse preferences,” such as ethnic ties. Thus, while Kalyvas confirms Mueller’s assessment that ethnicity does not determine ‘ethnic’ conflicts, it also complements the latter’s analysis by showing how territorial control may boost the controlling side’s numbers instead of its opponent’s.

To summarize, Mueller’s “The Banality of ‘Ethnic War’” openly denies ethnic explanations of civil wars waged under nationalist slogans as reductionist and misguiding. Instead, the author argues that the conflicts known as ‘ethnic’ usually involve small groups of armed delinquents who use ethnic slogans as an excuse to engage in looting and persecution. Mueller also explains how territorial control of one side of an ethnic conflict may boost the numbers of the opposing side by providing it with the newly dispossessed recruits. However, the author’s analysis could have been further strengthened by considering the possibility of territorial control bolstering the numbers of the controlling side as well through the process of ethnic defection.

Natural Resource and Split Homelands, and State Capacity: Why Some Countries Are More Prone to Civil Wars

While the absolute number and the relative prominence of interstate wars reduced since the end of the Second World War and especially after the end of the Cold War, it did not bring perpetual peace. Instead, the second half of the 20^th and the early years of the 21^st century have seen a significant increase in the number of civil wars. Keeping decolonization in mind, it should not come as a surprise that Africa provides most of these wars. Still, even African states vary in capacity to resist the threat of the civil war or, at the very least, end violence relatively swiftly. This difference in the prevalence of civil wars brings forth a reasonable question of why some states are more prone to civil wars than others. Answering this question requires identifying major theoretical frameworks explaining the causes for the emergence of civil wars and applying these frameworks to specific case studies. The examples of the Democratic Republic of Congo and Sierra Leone demonstrate that natural resources and split homelands are strong predictive factors, but one should use them carefully to avoid misleading oversimplifications.

Major Theoretical Frameworks

Over the years, political scientists have suggested numerous causal explanations for civil wars. Most of these explanations are contributions to a ‘greed vs. grievance’ debate supporting one of these two paradigms. The ‘grievance’ perspective posits that real or perceived injustice experienced by a certain group is the main cause of civil wars. The ‘greed’ perspective, on the other hand, maintains that groups engage in civil war seeking control over valuable resources. This section will briefly cover these perspectives and also list some of their shortcomings.

The grievance perspective rests on the common-sense assumption that people rebel when they feel like their interests are ignored or infringed by the current government in the existing status quo. In the case of modern African states, which supply most of the civil wars, the reasons for this infringement, whether real or perceived, often go back to “the influence of Europeans during the colonial period.”⁸ Arbitrary colonial borders paid little, if any, attention to the ethnic composition of the population. This disregard for African political geographies resulted in drawing borders that split ethnic groups between different states. As noted by Michalopoulos and Papaioannou, split groups tend to have “fewer household assets, poorer access to utilities, and worse educational outcomes” as well as face higher discrimination risks from the government.⁹ This fact makes them more disgruntled, and as a consequence, more likely to rebel. Additionally, neighboring countries are also more likely to use split ethnicities as their proxies to incite civil war, which suggests they are more susceptible to rebellion.¹⁰ Thus, the grievance perspective posits that infringing upon the interest of certain groups is the main factor in sparking civil wars.

The greed perspective takes a different approach to the subject and insists that actors in civil wars are primarily motivated by material gain rather than their proclaimed ideological cause. This view is put forth with the greatest clarity in Collier and Hoeffner’s “Greed and Grievance in Civil Wars.” The authors point out that rebel groups “must raise considerable finance to meet their expenses” and, as such, have to find sufficient sources of revenue by sheer necessity.¹¹ Collier and Hoeffner note that rebel forces, typically composed of low-skilled armed laborers, are “particularly suited to raise finance through the extortion of primary commodity exports.”¹² This tendency is all the more prominent in rebel groups that cannot rely on significant support from abroad, whether from diasporas or sympathizing governments. It is important to note that Collier and Hoeffner did not completely reject the grievance perspective in favor of the greed perspective but, rather, proposed to use the two in accord.¹³ Still, their contribution has made the greed perspective much more prominent than before in explaining the occurrence of civil wars.

One particularly notable case of using the greed model as an explanation for a higher or lower probability of civil wars is associating the risk of internal conflict with the natural resource endowment. According to this perspective, valuable natural resources and governments that rely on them to a large degree for their revenue can serve as a strong predictor of the civil war likelihood. In his study, Ross posits that “natural resources have contributed to the onset, duration, and intensity of many civil wars.”¹⁴ He admits that lootable resources, such as gems or drugs, and unlootable ones, such as oil, tend to correlate with different types of conflict.¹⁵ Yet the main premise remains the same: natural resource endowment and reliance on their exports as a source of revenue may serve as a robust predictor of civil war risk. From this perspective, civil wars are more likely to begin when and where a rebellion can be profitable, in full accordance with the greed paradigm.

While both greed and grievance models have been shown to possess explanatory and predictive power for various conflicts, one should still be aware of their inherent tendency to oversimplify conflicts. It should be remembered that causal explanations for the likelihood of civil wars often emerge not due to sheer intellectual curiosity but as scientific guidelines for political decision-making. Policymakers will naturally tend to favor the explanations that are simple, lead to feasible and easy-to-implement measures, and allow appealing to their power base. As a result, a theoretical approach can become prominent not because it possesses the greatest explanatory power but because it “suggests a simple solution to the complex issue.”¹⁶ Hence, if one strives for scientific clarity rather than merely political expedience, one should be careful in applying any of the major theoretical perspectives to a given case study. It is necessary to pay attention to the specifics of the conflict to avoid oversimplifying theorizations that can overshadow the essential features of a given civil war.

Finally, yet another explanatory model for the likelihood of civil wars not related directly to either greed or grievance is the state capacity perspective. Koren and Sarbahi point out that the state presence in a given region may serve as a predictive factor for the likelihood of a civil war. Moreover, internal conflict may actually be more likely to begin in the areas where the government’s presence is the strongest.¹⁷ The reasons for this seemingly paradoxical tendency may include the greater prevalence of government targets to strike at, elite fragmentation, and expansion reaction.¹⁸ Thus, this explanation suggests that the higher degree of a weak state’s presence in a given area can increase the likelihood of a civil war there.

Case Study: Sierra Leone Civil War, 1991-2002

As mentioned above, the greed perspective is a very influential approach to explaining the causes of civil war and the likelihood of a given state to succumb to one. A prolonged civil war in Sierra Leone that lasted from 1991 to 2002 and was only ended after a foreign intervention may serve as a useful case study in this respect. It is also a suitable example of the state capacity explanation – namely, its elite fragmentation aspect. This part will analyze the Sierra Leone civil war to demonstrate how reliance on natural resource exports and fragmented elites may make a country more prone to a civil war.

The case of Sierra Leone offers some evidence to support the greed perspective, as the country’s rich mineral deposits played a significant role in the course of the conflict. While particularly rich in diamonds, the country “had never succeeded in controlling or properly taxing the valuable primary products” even in peacetime, much less in wartime.¹⁹ The illegal shadow economy surrounded the mining and export of diamonds before the outbreak of war and flourished even more when the hostilities began. Both rebels from the Revolutionary United Front (RUF) and soldiers of the official Sierra Leone government actively engaged in illegal diamond mining for profit’s sake. Collier and Hoeffner refer to the civil war in Sierra Leone as one of the most prominent examples of how rebel groups raise funds “through the extortion of primary commodity exports.”²⁰ From this perspective, one can indeed view the Sierra Leone civil war as a greed-driven conflict prompted by the profitability of extorting natural resource exports.

However, the case of Sierra Leone also demonstrates the limitation of the greed model – or, at the very least, the necessity to use it in a careful and nuanced manner to reflect the complex reality. Diamonds, as well as other gemstones and most drugs, have a high cost-to weight and cost-to-volume ratio, meaning that even a small amount of either could be extremely valuable. These qualities make them a precious prize not only for organizations that possess sufficient logistical capabilities but also for individuals. In other words, diamonds correspond perfectly to the definition of lootable natural resources as those that can be “easily appropriated by individuals or small groups of low-skilled workers.”²¹ Ross associates the prevalence of lootable natural resources with non-separatist civil wars, as opposed to the separatist ones.²² The civil war in Sierra Leone confirms this assumption, as the RUF, at least in its declarations, contested the power over the entire country rather than aimed to engineer a successful secession. Yet the diamonds’ lootability also casts a shadow of doubt on the major premise of Collier and Hoeffner’s account of greed as a causal factor.

As mentioned above, the main premise of the greed perspective, as outlined by Collier and Hoeffner, is that the profitability of appropriating natural resources leads to an increased risk of internal conflict. From this perspective, the exploitation of natural resources serves “to raise finance through” and cover the operating costs of the rebel group.²³ However, the more lootable a certain commodity is, the easier it is to keep and use it for one’s personal enrichment rather than the organization’s goals. This was precisely the case in Sierra Leone when even individual rebels and soldiers profited from appropriating diamonds.²⁴ With this in mind, Fearon is most likely right to note that the prevalence of primary commodity exports does not necessarily provides “for easier rebel start-up finance.”²⁵ While the diamonds of Sierra Leone made the civil war profitable, they largely benefited individuals actors rather than organizations due to the sheer ease of appropriating them. Thus, the case of Sierra Leone demonstrates that reliance on primary community exports can make a country more susceptible to civil wars, but one should remember that lootable and non-lootable resources have different implications.

Apart from the greed perspective, the case of Sierra Leone shows the importance of state capacity in making the country more or less prone to a civil war. State capacity refers to a given polity’s ability to penetrate social life and exercise territorial control and is assessed through different aggregate measures. Common sense would suggest that civil wars are more likely to begin in the weaker countries with a low overall level of state capacity. Koren and Sarbahi stress this point when mentioning that “civil war is likely to arise in countries that have lower degrees of state capacity.”²⁶ This overall weakness in terms of exercising control over territories and influencing populations was fairly evident in the Sierra Leone civil war. Government troops were usually underpaid, underequipped, and poorly trained, which made them less efficient in controlling territories on the state’s behalf.²⁷ Moreover, the soldiers often shared the rebel’s dissatisfaction with the corrupt government, meaning the state could not even adequately penetrate the prevailing discourse in the military.²⁸ Thus, Sierra Leone of the 1990s may serve as a textbook case of a country with low state capacity.

Still, the overall national level of state capacity is not the only factor relevant to the possibility of a civil war, as the state’s local and regional presence also correlates with it. Koren and Sarbahi demonstrate that, however paradoxical it may seem, civil wars are more likely “in locations within the country where the state exercises greater control.”²⁹ Once again, this was precisely the case in Sierra Leone, as the war raged hardest in the diamond-producing regions contested by the army and the rebels. Undersupplied, unappreciated, and presented with an opportunity to enrich themselves, government troops tuned to appropriating natural resources instead of fighting the RUF. It created a self-sustaining system of exploitation with both sides aiming to “preserve the benefits of warfare,” and this system emerged precisely because of the heavy presence of the government’s military forces.³⁰ In this respect, the civil war in Sierra Leone confirms that an increased presence of a generally weak state may make a region more prone to civil war.

Another specific mechanism of state capacity influencing civil war risks illustrated by the Sierra Leone civil war is elite fragmentation. In this case, warring parties are led by political actors who were a “part of the same political group” that rules the country or cooperated with it in one way or another.³¹ In Sierra Leone, “disgruntled politicians and chiefs,” including those previously involved with the government, lent their support willingly to the rebel cause because for one reason or another.³² Thus, the case study demonstrates how a combination of low state capacity combined with high state presence and elite fragmentation makes the country more prone to civil wars.

Case Study: Democratic Republic of Congo, 1996-2003

While having lost come of its prominence to the greed perspective, the grievance paradigm is still a prominent explanation for the outbreak of civil wars. Internal conflicts in the Democratic Republic of Congo during and in between the First and Second Congo Wars of 1996-1997 and 1998-2003. This part will demonstrate how the greed perspective can prove insufficient to explain the country’s susceptibility to civil wars, and the grievance perspective still retains considerable explanatory power, especially in the regions with split ethnicities.

On the surface level, internal conflicts in the Democratic Republic of Congo can also be explained through the greed paradigm and reliance on natural resource exports. According to some, the conflict in some parts of the country was driven to a significant degree by “the profitable local section of the ‘marketing chain’ for tantalite.”³³ From this perspective, civil wars in Congo might as well have been caused by the rebel groups’ interest in obtaining resources for personal and organizational gains.

Yet a closer look demonstrates that this explanation is highly simplistic and reductionist because it reflects the political priorities of external actors rather than the complex reality of the civil war. Researchers have already noted that the “conflict minerals” narrative has become the most prevalent in explaining internal conflicts in the country, but not necessarily due to its explanatory power.³⁴ Rather, it has achieved such remarkable persistence in the public discourse because “it resonates with non-Congolese audiences.”³⁵ Associating mineral resources with the cause of conflict offers a simple solution of not buying conflict minerals to dry out the sources of financing for the armed groups who depend on them. Moreover, this explanation allows the population to personally participate in the resolution of the conflict by boycotting the companies that buy conflict minerals. As such, the greed perspective is the perfect causal explanation for foreign policymakers because it provides a clear avenue of approach and allows to appeal to the audiences at home. However, applying the greed perspective to Congolese conflicts too vigorously tends to overshadow the importance of grievances.

Evidence suggests that the presence of split ethnicities in different regions of the Democratic Republic of Congo correlates closely with the incidence of internal conflicts. For example, Congolese regions populated by Rwandan minority split between the borders account for nearly 20 percent of all conflict while only constituting 6 percent of the population.³⁶ The same applies to split Hunde ethnicity, which, while accounting for merely 2.2 of the country’s population, demonstrates approximately 20 percent of all conflict.³⁷ Thus, the Congolese example suggests that split ethnic homelands have a high potential for internal conflicts, and having one or more split ethnicities within the national borders makes a country more prone to civil wars.

Conclusion

To summarize, both sides of the greed and grievance debate, as well as the state capacity approach, possess considerable explanatory power for assessing civil wars. Reliance on the exports of natural resources, such as diamonds in Sierra Leone, makes insurgency profitable and civil wars more likely. Low levels of state capacity combined with a high degree of state presence and elite fragmentation increase the likelihood of internal conflicts as well, as demonstrated by the case of Sierra Leone. The case of the Democratic Republic of Congo shows how grievances – namely, difficulties faced by split ethnicities in the countries dominated by other groups – make a region more susceptible to civil wars. Hence, countries can be more prone to civil wars due to numerous factors, including reliance on natural resource exports, grievances of specific population groups, and high presence of a weak state with fragmented elites.

Work Cited

Autesserre, Severine. “Dangerous Tales: Dominant Narratives on the Congo and their Unintended Consequences.” African Affairs, vol. 111, no. 443, 2012, pp. 202-222.

Collier, Paul, and Anke Hoeffner, “Greed and Grievance in Civil War.” Adobe PDF File.

Cramer, C. “Homo Economicus Goes to War: Methodological Individualism, Rational Choice and the Political Economy of War.” World Development, vol. 30, no. 11, 2002, pp. 1845–1864.

Fearon, James D. “Primary Commodity Exports and Civil War.” The Journal of Conflict Resolution, vol. 49, no. 4, 2005, pp. 483-507.

Keen, David. “Since I am a Dog, Beware my Fangs”: Beyond a ‘rational violence’ framework in the Sierra Leonean War.” Crisis State Programme, Working Paper 14, 2002.

Koren, Ore, and Anoop K. Sarbahi. “State Capacity, Insurgency, and Civil War: A Disaggregated Analysis.” International Studies Quarterly, vol. 62, no. 2, 2018, pp. 274-288.

Michalopoulos, Stelios, and Elias Papaioannou. “The Long-Run Effects of the Scramble for Africa.” National Bureau of Economic Research, Working Paper 17620, 2011.

Ross, Michael L. “Oil, Drugs and Diamonds: The Varying roles of Natural Resources in Civil War.” The Political Economy of Armed Conflict: Beyond Greed and Grievance, edited by Karen Ballentine and Jack Sherman, Lynne Rienner, 2003, pp. 47-72.

Kalyvas, Stathis N. “Ethnic Defection in Civil War.” Comparative Political Studies, vol. 41, no. 8, 2008, pp. 1043-1068.

Mueller, John. “The Banality of ‘Ethnic War’.” International Security, vol. 25, no. 1, 2000, pp. 42–70.

Footnotes

1. Mueller 42.
2. Mueller 45-46.
3. Mueller 59.
4. Mueller 43.
5. Mueller 56.
6. Kalyvas 1061.
7. Kalyvas 1050.
8. Michalopoulos and Papaioannou 1.
9. Michalopoulos and Papaioannou 3.
10. Michalopoulos and Papaioannou 2.
11. Collier and Hoeffner 6.
12. Collier and Hoeffner 6.
13. Collier and Hoeffner 22.
14. Ross 48.
15. Ross 56-9.
16. Autesserre 11.
17. Koren and Sarbahi 283.
18. Koren and Sarbahi 283-285.
19. Keen 3.
20. Collier and Hoeffner 6.
21. Ross 47.
22. Ross 59-61.
23. Collier and Hoeffner 6
24. Keen 3.
25. Fearon 504.
26. Koren and Sarbahi 275.
27. Keen 3.
28. Keen 3.
29. Koren and Sarbahi 275.
30. Keen 4.
31. Koren and Sarbahi 273.
32. Keen 3.
33. Cramer 1849.
34. Autesserre 10.
35. Autesserre 10.
36. Michalopoulos and Papaioannou 35.
37. Michalopoulos and Papaioannou 35.