Partition as a solution to ethnic conflict: Kaufmann, Sambanis, and Schulhofer-Wohl

Partitioning as a Resolution to Ethnic Conflict

Many of the conflicts of the modern era have been the result of nations being formed that contain two or more traditionally separate groups of people, with different ethnic, cultural, linguistic, and/or religious backgrounds creating conflicts when collaboration and unified action/decision-making are required. The conflict in and around Northern Ireland, the heavily Protestant and British/British-descended part of the island that remains a part of the United Kingdom, provides one example of such conflict, which remained ongoing even after the partitioning of the country (though this partition was not truly complete or rigid). In Iraq, which is currently experiencing a much greater degree of conflict and which has (in some ways) more complex problems to solve, no real attempt at officially partitioning the various groups has been attempted, but it is not clear that such a solution would be practically possible or even theoretically effective in this case or any other. Scholars have very different views on the subject of partitioning in a general and historic sense.

Kaufman asserts that partitioning existing nation-states into more homogenous countries is a very viable solution, perhaps the only viable solution, to ending conflicts between ethnicities in such nations. This author contend that all other peacekeeping methods that have been attempted have resulted in a continuation of violence -- at best a suspension of violence during the direct physical enforcement of peace, but a return to violence as soon as such enforcement has ended. By creating separate nations for separate ethnicities/groups, Kaufman contends, inter-ethnic conflicts will decrease simply due to decreased need for collaboration and an increase in the physical distance/mutual isolation of warring groups from each other.

A very different view of partitioning is provided by Sambanis & Schulhofer-Wohl, who argue that the partitioning of nation-states might nominally change the nature of conflict but do nothing to actually resolve inter-ethnic violence. As they see it, creating separate and more homogenous nation states might indeed reduce intrastate violence and conflict, but only with a commensurate increase in interstate violence and conflict. Though the relationship might not be as inversely proportional as this seems to imply, the basic logic is sound: if ethnic diversity is actually causing conflict, then simply adding a new nation while keeping the same ethnic diversity in the region won't really do anything. These authors fail to consider the physical partitioning that Kaufman discusses, which would reduce interaction and therefore the potential for conflict, yet their point remains valid: if ethnic diversity causes conflict, homogenous nations will simply find themselves in conflict with each other rather than within themselves; if ethnicity isn't the root cause of conflict, this cause should be found and addressed rather than treated with the band-aid of partitioning.

Considering both perspectives in the light of Northern Ireland and Iraq yields some additional insight into the viability of partitioning as a means of resolving ethnic conflict. In Northern Ireland, partitioning was attempted and physically enforced to a degree, though there were always ethnic Irish living in the North and even some British/Protestants living in Ireland proper. That partitioning failed to end the ethnic conflict on this island is painfully clear with even a cursory glance at the last decades of the twentieth century (violence tapered off dramatically in the first decade of the twenty-first century due in large part to a changing geopolitical scene): bombings of civilian areas, assassinations, and open resentment and street violence were major problems in Belfast and throughout Northern Ireland, with parts of Ireland proper affects as well. This situation highlights one of the key problems with partitioning as a means of addressing ethnic violence -- creating a new nation and separating the populations in conflict creates a new conflict in the division of land. The Irish still had (and have) a claim to the territory of Northern Ireland, and thus while the conflict changed from intrastate to interstate, it was not fundamentally changed by the partitioning.