There’s an old Jewish saying that says “Two Jews, Three opinions”. The same can be said about political scientists. When it comes to complex topics such as the causes of civil wars, many in the field of political science have differing opinions on how they start and how to classify them. Many of the written material read for class, such as Jesse and Williams’ “Ethnic Conflict”, stride more towards a constructivist side of civil war, reinforce more of a primordialist view on Civil Wars. Some political scientists look more towards the actual details and side more with the qualitative side of political science, others want broad generalizations based on numbers given by the quantitative side of political science, and some, like Collier, Hoeffler,
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According to Jesse and Williams, constructivism “clams that identities are ‘molded, refabricated, and mobilized in accord with reinging cultural scripts and centers of power” (Jesse & Williams 11). In essence, a person’s identity is changed due to the way society functions and has been constructed. In the text, Jesse and Williams back this idea with the study of the Bosnian conflict, in particular in the person of Slobodan Milosevic, who, through his words, “assured (himself) a place in Serbian mythology” (Jesse & Williams 149) and used his being a Serbian to climb up the power ladder and try to gain control of the Bosnian government through the Serbians living in the country. Through the political power structure that was in place, he was able to find a large backing of the Serbian population to try to topple the already-present Bosnian government, with Franjo Tudjam, a Croat living in Bosnia, trying to do the same with the Croatians living in the area. Ruth Seifert, in her paper “Second Front: The Logic of Sexual Violence in War”, argues that rape that occurs in civil war is “not the sum total of a couple of hundred thousand genetic predispositions for aggressiveness.”, that it must be looked at as a social tool used against another’s enemy (Seifert …show more content…
This fear can stem from a variety of causes, fear of uncertainty, fear of change, and, ultimately, fear of security. “In short” Barbara Walter puts in her book, “civil wars can also erupt inadvertently from the uncertainty and fear that arise when the domestic environment suddenly changes, leaving groups nervous and insecure about their future” (Walter 2). A large part of this fear occurs from a concept known as the security dilemma. According to Walter, there are 5 situations in which fear is at a point in society high enough to reach a breaking point and have a civil war occur. These 5 include: when the government breaks down or collapses; a minority group becomes geographically isolated within a large ethnic community; the political balance of power shifts from one group to another; economic resources rapidly change hands; or groups are asked to demobilize partisan armies (Walter 4). Each of these, Walter continues, “represents a period of change”, which in turn brings uneasiness upon an individual ethnic group or group of cultures and may force them to take measures into their own
According to Jesse and Williams, constructivism “clams that identities are ‘molded, refabricated, and mobilized in accord with reinging cultural scripts and centers of power” (Jesse & Williams 11). In essence, a person’s identity is changed due to the way society functions and has been constructed. In the text, Jesse and Williams back this idea with the study of the Bosnian conflict, in particular in the person of Slobodan Milosevic, who, through his words, “assured (himself) a place in Serbian mythology” (Jesse & Williams 149) and used his being a Serbian to climb up the power ladder and try to gain control of the Bosnian government through the Serbians living in the country. Through the political power structure that was in place, he was able to find a large backing of the Serbian population to try to topple the already-present Bosnian government, with Franjo Tudjam, a Croat living in Bosnia, trying to do the same with the Croatians living in the area. Ruth Seifert, in her paper “Second Front: The Logic of Sexual Violence in War”, argues that rape that occurs in civil war is “not the sum total of a couple of hundred thousand genetic predispositions for aggressiveness.”, that it must be looked at as a social tool used against another’s enemy (Seifert …show more content…
This fear can stem from a variety of causes, fear of uncertainty, fear of change, and, ultimately, fear of security. “In short” Barbara Walter puts in her book, “civil wars can also erupt inadvertently from the uncertainty and fear that arise when the domestic environment suddenly changes, leaving groups nervous and insecure about their future” (Walter 2). A large part of this fear occurs from a concept known as the security dilemma. According to Walter, there are 5 situations in which fear is at a point in society high enough to reach a breaking point and have a civil war occur. These 5 include: when the government breaks down or collapses; a minority group becomes geographically isolated within a large ethnic community; the political balance of power shifts from one group to another; economic resources rapidly change hands; or groups are asked to demobilize partisan armies (Walter 4). Each of these, Walter continues, “represents a period of change”, which in turn brings uneasiness upon an individual ethnic group or group of cultures and may force them to take measures into their own