Conflicting Theories in Conflict

Kai-Uwe Ratheiser

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Essay from the year 2017 in the subject Politics - International Politics - Topic: Peace and Conflict Studies, Security, grade: 8...

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Essay from the year 2017 in the subject Politics - International Politics - Topic: Peace and Conflict Studies, Security, grade: 8,0, Radboud Universiteit Nijmegen, language: English, abstract: The field of conflict studies used to be dominated by the search for causes, however, such grand theories striving for universal laws often cannot properly account for the complex circumstances of long duration/low intensity of contemporary civil wars. The interpretative, micro-political turn in conflict studies further contributed to understand conflicts such as the intractable conflict in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). This essay aims to illustrate the contributions and shortcomings of the respective debates, with regard to the intractability and low intensity of contemporary civil conflicts in Sub-Saharan Africa. The case of the DRC will be used as exemplary case, whereas I start by laying out the framework of the conflict and briefly address the challenges of understanding conflict. I continue by elaborating on the greed vs. grievance debate, further focus on group inequalities and contrast it to the debate of identity and conflict. Subsequently, I will use this as a bridge to outline the beneficial value of the state-building debate, while taking into account the embeddedness into the international system. Hence, I will illustrate how institutional explanations can be seen as counterpart to this debate, and finally refer to the significant debate about explaining violence.