Interactions of political stakeholders in conflict

Actor: enacts power on a situation

Stakeholder: an entity that is impacted by the use of power

 

state actor os bound to a higher degree of international law

Key terms

• Intra-state conflict
  • within state's borders
  • Inter state
    • with other state
  • Differences:
    • intra has a high change destabilizing country within
      • weakening government
      • chaos & disorder, military takeover
    • It is a civil conflict
    • Inter has greater global ramifications (intra can still have it, but at a smaller scale)
• Guerrillas
  • organized groups fighting against a more powerful opponent - often the state
  • resistance to some idea or action
  • recent example: Hezbollah in Lebanon
    • Formed as a response to Israeli occupation
  • Hamas also formed as response to invasion / attacks by Israel
    • as government disbanded, they have since stepped into group as an organized groups
  • Sometimes can have more legitimacy than state – Hezbollah for instance in the population for providing protection
    • If these groups have more legitimacy than state, may lead to a failed state
    • as soon as there is an armed group that gains traction over state, more likely to become fragile / failed state
      • Often why authoritarian states take so many measures to stomp out these organizations
• Fundamental Attribution Error
  • Blaming other's actions on their personality rather than context.
  • More likely to see actions by state we don't agree with as being negative / personality. Actions we defend are more likely to put into context
  • easy to label from our perspectives actions as being bad and violent
  • might use more vague / soft language when talking about countries we support

Understanding parties to conflict

• Perceptions in conflict
  • If see another party as a longstanding bully, shared ethnic/relgious identity, allies, shared national wants
  • shape state of acceleration of violence, how justified the violence is
• Structural Violence
  • if no democracy, no movement of justice, no justice for minorities, no language for condemning violations of human rights
    • more likely to commit heinous actions
  • idon't partake in international peace institutions
    • more likely to commit war crimes, genocides, etc
  • Indications: laws, prison system, if capital punishemnt → if its more racialized, if police used for brutality over protection, more likely to arrest those to assemble in protest, dehumanization, exploitation
    • the institutions have made violence ok
    • more likely to engage in violence / conflict
• Fundamental Attribution Error
  • often groups that stereotyped / vilified / labelled as impure or corrupt etc. 

If talking about cnoflict (paper 1-4, paper 2), use conflict mapping

breaks it down in a way to help understanding, like pin

1. Definition
   1. Conflict mapping analyzes causes, behaviors, and outcomes in a conflict
   2. what is the conflict ultimately about
2. Components
   1. identifying parties involved, roles, and relationships
   2. all the little parts - parties in conflict
3. Application
   1. how we can apply broadly to dynamics in region or globally

 

• Conventional war
  • large scale battles between armies
  • like Russia Ukraine
  • not incredibly asymmetrical
  • are the armies equivalent? do they have other support allies that are powerful?
• Guerilla warfare
  • surprise tactics - like October 7 Israel Gaza attack
  • Small, mobile units using hit-and-run tactics
• Terrorism
  • Use of violence to instill fear, often targeting civilians
  • States can also commit acts of terrorism - targeting schools, hospitals, etc.

 

Non-violent Resistance