La présence magrébine en France
La laicité et le porte du voile
     fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voile_islamique_dans_les_écoles_en_France
La controverse autour du porte du voile intégral (cf. l’émission radio d’Alain Finkielkraut sur le sujet)
Les émeutes à Paris en 2005 (timeline) et en 2007 et la réaction du gouvernement

Les émeutes à Grenoble et à Saint-Aignan de juillet 2010 et la réaction du gouvernement (l’explusion des Roms; la retraite de la nationalité française; le discours de Grenoble de Sarkozy)
Les quotas d’explusion de personnes en situation irrégulière (Brice Hortefeux 2008)
Le regroupement familiale
L’immigration choisie
La controverse autour de la question de l’identité nationale lancée par Éric Besson

Topic statement

Kelly Cocuzza

Italy has always been thought of as a country of emigration having sent millions of the nation’s best and worst all over Europe, the Americas, Australia and other small corners of the globe. It has been many years, decades even, since the tide of emigration has started to retreat back towards the shores of Italy, making it a new destination for the tired, poor masses. Italy’s position as the back door to Europe is no secret, nor is the daily arrival of thousands of new immigrants who face the same challenges Italians did during their journey for a better life. The shock that integration has brought to the Italian peninsula is indeed ironic, though it may be a part of the natural path to multiculturalism no matter how much certain groups are detested, ghettoized or demonized. The records of and literature on these cultural clashes are manifold and all start to play a similar tune: either there is smooth integration, or, and more likely, there is resistance to it, especially by the Italians who seek to perverse their italianità. This arrives at several very large questions, namely ‘what is Italianness?’ What does it mean to be an ‘authentic’ Italian? (What does it mean to be an ‘authentic’ anything?) Without immediately diving into those black holes, one avenue of elucidation shines through: the Italian diaspora. Culture is always evolving which is why it is often the case that it receives a time stamp at the moment of departure from its native setting, and is typically preserved in its new, small, nostalgic communities. I would like to examine the relationship between Italy and its 2nd and 3rd generation descedents abroad. The Italian-American community, due to its sheer size, diversity and vicinity, is likely to be the focal point of my research, but I would like to include Italian-Canadians, Argentines, etc when possible.  I have still not addressed a critical question, i.e. the identity or ‘authenticity’ of these removed communities or in fact their reacculturation into Italian societies, but by commencing the research through other scholarly works the focus will become more narrow. I have not decided on a methodology, though it is likely oral histories and quantitative analysis of official statistics will  play a large part.

KM Cocuzza

please ignore grammatical errors, superfluous comma usage, and formatting errors.

Slovakia: Keeping up With the Neighbors

Literature on transitology espouses as many theories as there are exceptions and with time, those theories instead of becoming more certain tend to evoke more questions about the nature of the transition or other defining characteristics than previously. In order to adhere to a structural analysis for instance, it may be necessary to forego examination of proximate events and vice versa, leaving considerable room for argumentation. On the other hand, a case-by-case investigation can be too individual to provide any helpful insight for understanding other transitioning countries. The following inquiry into the conflicting paths of the Czech and Slovak Republics will look at conditions that are specific to the two new states, especially to Slovakia, in order to comprehend which factors are able to account for this divergence.

I commence with a discussion of prevailing competing theories on Czechoslovak regime change and then juxtapose the cases of a separate Czech and Slovak Republic following a table of variables provided by Grigore Pop-Eleches in order to determine which avenue of argumentation to pursue. The rest of the paper will lend itself to describing the outcome of Czechoslovakia’s experience with the imperial Austro-Hungarian kingdom and how this adversely affected Slovakia’s ability to forge a national identity. I support this by presenting a study whose intention is to prove empirically theories that suggest nations without a legitimate identity will struggle to consolidate democracy. It shows that Slovakia fits this model, and accounts for the country’s ability to ‘catch up’ once it has found its identity.

Structural, actor-behavioral and institutional aspects of the separation are all significant grounds to explain the variation, but it would require a lengthy investigation to highlight the features of all three. Research conducted by authors Kopecky and Mudde prefer to think of the divergence in terms of elite competition as the sole agent capable of shaping democratic consolidation. They single-handedly reject all other arguments from civil society, to economic, constitutional, electoral, institutional and others and flatly refuse to accept that the two nations are ‘that different’ on the grounds that “there is little empirical evidence to support propositions about their deep cultural differences” (72). The distinguishing feature between the two new democracies rests on the characteristics of Meciarism in Slovakia would have been unheard of in the Czech Republic. For example, the cancelations of mandates, the rejection of recommendations from the Constitutional Court and the bitter institutional conflicts know no Czech equivalent, and if the Czech state finds itself in crisis, it has the ability to auto-correct. The Slovak state cannot perform this function because it lacks a legitimate system of vertical and horizontal accountability and the national questions which divide politics are more or less absent in the Czech half. Kopecky and Mudde also downplay the popular notion that nation building is Slovakia’s primary obstacle by deemphasizing ethnic issues as existing primarily between Slovaks (rather than Hungarians) even though their conclusion contradicts the rationale of the article by citing the Czech’s relative homogeneity and “traditions of statehood and nationhood” as reasons for its success. They inadvertently establish that historical arguments do matter.

Jiri Musil approaches the problem from the opposite angle, perhaps even overreaching by use of far-fetched structural arguments and subsequently exaggerates the cultural differences between the nations. According to Musil the proximate cause of the division of the federation was that a unique Czechoslovak civil society had never developed, without any mention of the economic disagreements over decentralization which were at the center of Czech and Slovak disagreements immediately prior to the dissolution. Musil is successful in demonstrating where demographic, social and economic differences do exist, but fails to explain how they make a difference. Most of Musil’s arguments follow the same pattern of presenting evidence without implication and absconding from attempting to make any correlation, for example, his commentary on age is abstruse. Musil points out that due to a ‘late demographic transition, Slovak society is younger’ by about 3 years and that “these differences are quite considerable” (485) before he moves on to the next equally perplexing discussion. Nonetheless, he provides an array of information pertaining to the two societies that can support or discredit other more complex assessments of the Czechoslovak division. It is also worth mentioning that Musil pays somewhat more attention to identity conflicts with the Czechs by making several allusions to Slovaks being of the Eastern type, Czechs of the Western type; Slovaks being local and Czechs cosmopolitan; Slovaks preferring luck and Czechs striving for success.

Karen Henderson argues that Slovakia’s actions have been taken out of historical context and have been analyzed by outsiders without much knowledge of Slovak affairs. Slovakia’s democratic inadequacies were the result of state and nation building. She attempts to salvage

Slovakia from the wreck of defective democracies by criticizing the democratization bias in literature and using Carothers argument oppose a Kopecky-Mudde type analysis, which ignores preconditions. Henderson also notes that it is difficult to explain Slovakia’s speedy recovery without understanding the nation’s capabilities and motivations. It is evident that Henderson agrees to a certain extent with some of Kopecky and Mudde’s hypotheses, and she confirms several of Jiri Musil’s facts. One that Slovakia did contain qualities of an illiberal democracy (though not an ideal type) because of lacking accountability for starters and that institutionally they had an “optimal design inherited from Czechoslovakia” (Henderson 138) without which Meciar’s autocratic tendencies would have been much more pronounced because he could have survived without a coalition in other electoral settings. Henderson also aligns with Kopecky and Mudde by affirming that Slovakia’s post-communist malaise could be solely attributed to the actions of Meciar’s government, but she concludes that the decisions one parliamentary tenure can hardly undermine the democratic standing of an entire nation.

As demonstrated above, there are enough, structural, institutional, economic, etc, differences between the Slovak and Czech Republic, though certainly not all are sufficient to establish a strong link with democratization. Using Pop-Eleches overview of variables (911), it is possible to eliminate several indicators of variation. Pop-Eleches lists 21 different variables that may account for post-communist regime diversity and he uses cross-sectional regressions to establish which variables are the most significant across the region. The exclusion of variables that have little to no effect on democracy across the post-communist world does not negate their ability to reveal causes for variation on a case-by-case basis. For this reason I cross check each variable with the corresponding figures for Slovakia and the Czech Republic and come to several conclusions about what is driving this case’s divergence.

First, Slovak and Czech macro-economic indicators can be mostly excluded from the discussion on post-89 variation, as they are all almost identical between 1989 and 1991. They are both considered to have poor natural resources with the same low score for energy intensity (World Bank). Slovakia’s per capita GDP at PPP is only $1,000 fewer than the Czech’s (de Melo et al. 5) though still more than in Hungary or Poland and data used to measure their reform scores (Frye 75) also put the Czech Republic at only slightly higher. Data from the World Development Indicators measure Slovakia’s rate of urbanization in 1990 at 57% which is a substantial margin from that of the Czech Republic at 75%. However, figures from the World Bank found in de Melo et. al 2001 put the numbers much closer, at 57% and 65% respectively. Urbanization figures taken out of context, like those for Belarus and Azerbaijan, are analogous to the Czech Republic and Slovakia with much different results democratically. However, Belarus and Azerbaijan have a number of other negative economic indicators, therefore when the gap in urbanization is considered along with all other economic indicators in the CR and SR, it is the only outlying figure. Urbanization is seldom mentioned as a root cause of divergence in post-communist Czechoslovakia, but a more detailed investigation will be necessary.

Another claim that will require more thought is that Slovak industry was more profoundly distorted than the Czech’s, relying greatly on heavy industry (Musil, Pop-Eleches). Slovakia industrialized during the years of socialism, dominated by antiquated Stalinist-style heavy industry plans, while the Czech Republic was able to modernize during years of booming capitalism. However, data from the World Bank in de Melo et al. show that each side had nearly the same percent shares of industry as a part of GDP and Musil admittedly observes the intensity with which Slovakia was able to catch up in its industrialization relative to the Czech Republic.

Geographically there is also little variation between the two new republics. They both had an EU border, though Slovakia only shares a diminutive one with Austria, while EU countries surround the Czech Republic’s western confines. On the other hand, Slovakia is actually closer to western benchmark cities that are supposed to account for ‘distance to the West.’ Bratislava and Vienna are the two closest capitals in Europe with just 49 miles between them while Prague in this respect can be said to be more isolated. Neither nation has a Muslim majority and is both Western Christian (despite the Czech Republic’s proud secular tendencies). Pop-Eleches also demonstrates the ability for ethnic heterogeneity to be an important ingredient for a transition towards democracy. The Czechs mainly opposed a dominating Austrian presence, which developed into an anti-German stance around the time of the Second World War, after which the majority of Germans were expelled. Since then the Czech Republic is around 95 percent Czech (including a small portion of Slovaks) and 4 percent ‘Other’ (CIA). Slovakia is one of the more heterogeneous countries of Central Europe, though it is difficult to ascertain with precision Slovakia’s true ethnic composition. The CIA uses official census statistics that show Slovaks comprise around 84 percent of the total with a ten percent Hungarian minority and a much smaller Roma (1.7 percent) and Ruthenian (1.5 percent) presence. Outside agencies like the European Roma Rights Center often suggest a much higher figure for the Romani community, sometimes at as much as ten percent of the population.

Ethnic homogeneity has the obvious implication that a less fractured society should be able to enact potentially divisive legislation or difficult reforms with relative ease, but does not tend to explain when bitter polarization exists within a homogeneous society. When standing alone ethnic composition, like the urbanization data for Slovakia, amounts to little and its effect can be minimized by authors like Kopecky and Mudde who think the divisions among Slovaks themselves are more telling than their ethnic divisions. Nonetheless, the presence of outsiders in Slovakia has been crucial to its identity dating back to its experience as an incorporated territory of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. The lack of compromise with or interest in the Hungarian minority is a continuation of Slovakia’s collective memory, which now regards any Hungarian articulation as irredentist schemes. Inquiry into the imperial legacy bestowed upon Slovakia and the Czech Republic provides a way to describe for cultural differences without needing to make normative statements. The most glaring result of imperial rule in Czechoslovakia is the way in which each half pursued a national identity, specifically how Slovakia has not been able to form one on its own.

A focus on the imperial history is not intended to negate the actor-behavioral argument by Kopecky and Mudde. The authors justly illustrate that the actions of advantageous elites in a highly personalized system and endogenous institutional quarrels are a much more plausible explanation for the perceived democratic decay than any other deep historical analysis; Henderson abstains from blaming everything on the decisions of one parliamentary period. Doing so would be looking at isolated incidences out of their historical context producing a somewhat empty analysis. Furthermore, what is considered a transition away from democracy is a sum of these individuals’ ‟choices and does not account for what is driving them. After having considered potentially influential factors on a country’s regime transition, in the case of the Czech and Slovak path, it is clear that many of those factors can be eliminated in favor of focusing on their imperial legacies and experiences with interwar statehood. It would be preferable to avoid what Kitschelt would deem an “excessively deep” causation, but many of Slovakia’s divisive grievances, standing at the core of harsh criticism on their state of democratic consolidation, stem from experiences with or as the ‘other’ throughout its recent history.

It would appear that before 1989 Czechoslovakia would have undergone ‘national’ events in unison as having always been under the same umbrella but reality is in fact the contrary. Despite their “personal union since 1490, the political border between them resulted in different historical consciousness” (Rychlik 99) defined by rule by either Hungary or Austria in the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Without being able to obtain precise population statistics for the population of the Czechoslovak region within the Empire, it is generally accepted that Slovaks were the minority being quite outnumbered by Germans, Hungarians and Czechs (therefore, Czechoslovakia is rather a misnomer) and the Slovaks were constantly having to defend themselves from Czech or Hungarian assimilation attempts. The Czechs superior attitude and historical claim to Bohemia regarded the Slovaks as merely “an extension of Czech identity” and that “Slovaks would be willing to give up their history and culture to adopt a Czech identity‟ (Hudek). On the other hand, tensions between intended Magyar political expansion and emerging Slovak national consciousness date back to the 19th century, hindering their emancipation (Rychlik 99). Slovaks elites felt they had few identity options if they wanted to keep their alliances with the Hungarians that kept them afloat, but there were further disagreements within Slovak society that inhibited national identity construction. Other competing ideas included a pan-Slavic identity (Buncak and Piscova 291) and religious divisions had Protestant Slovaks choosing loyalty to Hungary and Catholics not wishing to have a Czechoslovak union (Hudek).

This is not to say that the relationship the Czechs had with their Austrian counterpart was harmonious. John DeGree admits that there was animosity between Austrians and Czechs, but he declares that the Germanization, also a part of the imperial program in the Czech lands, was unlike its Magyar counterpart in Slovakia in that it did not contain elements of overt nationalism. Historically, Bohemia was very densely populated and “the most productive and wealthiest part of the [Austrian] state at that time” (DeGree 55) which could offer a supplementary explanation to the one that is missing in Jiri Musil’s claim that Czechs are more ‘success-oriented’ than the Slovaks who prefer situational luck. Since Czech peasantry was financially capable, they were seen as “economically viable,” valuable and their political vision of nationhood “modern” (Albrecht 319). This was quite different from the resource-dependent rural regions of Slovakia whose national consciousness was often referred to as the ‘Slovak problem,’ a term absent in Czech national discourse. In addition to Bohemian efficiency, Czech nationals had also developed a considerably literate and industrialized society with an articulate party system based on a firm national identity. At the outset of the 19th century, Slovakia manifested none of these qualities. The “lack of clarity” (Suda 107) surrounding what it means to be Slovak exalted Czech status and completely belittled its own.

Persistent weak national identity has been negatively correlated with democratic consolidation, especially in the new Central and Eastern European states where stability and legitimacy is key to forming a secure establishment. Rusanna Gaber conducts a study to support this theory by combining empirical evidence to account for the association. Specifically, she looks at identity from an ethnological perspective and deducts her conclusion from surveys, which measure national pride across ethnic lines and preferences/satisfaction for democracy (or communism). Her findings indicate that a legitimate national identity stabilizes democratic consolidation because it supposes a high degree of mutual trust, familiarity and solidarity. The problem with trying to explain Slovakia’s identity crisis through her model is that she investigates only one domain of identity, and that is ethnic. She bases her research on the assumption that titular nationalities in heterogeneous societies (or those with one specific large minority) will not have a strong identity. This assumption holds true in certain cases, in Belarus and in the Ukraine for example, but it fails to explain the strong identity of Estonians or Albanians where a sizeable presence of a dominating other helped to solidify ethnicity.

Slovakia’s struggles with identity are not only contingent on an opposition with the Hungarian minority, but are the result of vacillating loyalties drawn from differing religious ties, forced identification for fear of domination, and geographical proximity to both the East and West. Gaber admits that answers in Slovakia could have been affected due to the ambiguous mode of questioning (“Are you proud to be a …?”) because being Slovak has several different meanings (from political to legal to ethnic). Despite the overall one-dimensional conception of identity used in her argument, nuanced reasons for confusion over identity should not discredit her conclusion that issues with national identity will obstruct democratic consolidation; however, the framing of the question is suspect. Can pride really determine stable identification? Consider an Italian-American who answers yes to the above question about the United States—does it negate the existence of blurred loyalties, confused allegiance and articulate communities? It is very possible to be proud of one’s country and yet maintain competing identities.

Also, it must be considered when the question was posed, as lack of pride may be indicative of shame, but a feeling of it can also be a defense mechanism against incessant criticism. Post-89 Slovakia was a consistent outlier among the Visegrad Four and when the country was not invisible in the international context, it was the focus of much scrutiny. Therefore, when an outsider asks if Slovak citizens are proud to be Slovak, an affirmative response can be equal to concealing the shame of recent criticism to the very outsiders who judge their society. The reason why it is necessary to question the methodology is because Graber’s results show the Czech and Slovak Republic as having near equal levels of pride (Slovakia is actually higher, and they both constitute the third and fourth highest figures out of fifteen Central and Eastern European Countries at just over 90 percent) and because Slovakia is lumped in the middle of post-Communism’s typical success stories, Poland, the Czech Republic and Hungary. Lastly, the study was published in 2006, which means that it is likely that the survey was conducted during the honeymoon phase after accession to the European Union causing an augmentation of pride.

If the question were revised in a way that offered a more flexible understanding of identity issues and were posed in the mid-1990s, it would be likely that Slovakia descended the hierarchy. Interviews conducted in 1996 by two Slovak sociologists explore different dimensions of national pride and manifest less concern for ethnicity (Buncak and Piscova). The most telling responses relate to social security and democracy, which only around 21 percent of Slovaks view with pride. Fewer Czechs were proud of their social security, but they were sufficiently more satisfied with their state of democracy than the Slovaks. The Czechs also manifested their historic assertiveness in their responses to how they perceived their political influence in the world at nearly 50 percent (just below the Austrians) while just 17 percent of Slovaks were proud of their standing in an international context. This additional information places Slovakia in an interesting position. The term ‘catching up’ is often used in connection with Slovakia, not only surrounding recent democratization, but throughout its history. Since the mid-1800s, Slovakia has established its own pattern of rapidly advancing out of a disadvantaged starting point with a period of doubt and delay in between[1], which all of a sudden makes a cursory assessment of Slovak pride at 90 percent plausible.

Before Slovakia’s democratic turn around, numerous authors had questioned its position in Europe or used the country’s circumstances to justify pessimistic adjectival forms of ‘democracy’ (Zakaria; Krastev); on the other hand, when authors observe Slovakia’s progress in the post-accession years, it is often in bewilderment without comprehending that Slovakia in particular has a national history of procrastination and that they have a “remarkable motivation to catch up on the neighbors—especially Czechs and Hungarians” (Mihalikova 537). Before Slovakia could compete with the neighbors, it needed unity, solidarity, and trust, all of which are the civic skills in Gaber’s understanding of why democratic consolidation is incumbent upon a legitimate national identity, because it fosters all of the above. This explanation correlates to why Slovakia was impelled to evolve but it is not precisely what brought about this change.

Before the Velvet Divorce, Slovakia had never existed as a democratic self-governing state and its claimed right to statehood is rooted in Czech antiquity. When Slovak cultural elites sought equality and more union with the Czechs, their propositions were always haughtily dismissed; oppositely, when the same elites endeavored to form a separate national identity, in an expression of desire to shift away from this partnership, the Czechs became “angered by what they considered Slovak ingratitude” (Hilde 659). After the dissolution of the federation, the Czechs ‘inherited’ the state’s flag, their political symbols, institutions, capital, etc. and Slovakia as a newborn needed to not forge an identity, but grow into a legitimate one. European Union accession was the seminal marker in bringing about Slovak identity, which led to its swing away from autocracy.

European Union accession does not mean E.U. conditionality, which has been shown to be more farce than genuinely influential (Hughes and Sasse). Here the return to Europe is for Slovakia the “crisis moment of rupture and formation of a new political regime representing fertile ground for the total transformation of myths, symbols, and values” (Mihalikova 531). Because Slovakia has always existed in conjunction with a larger governing structure, the decade without clear oversight stalled this development more than the suppressive nature of life under socialism or the affiliation with the Czechs. Once Vladimir Meciar was permanently out of office, all roads led to Europe, which was considered by Slovaks the body capable of protecting their national identity since 1991 and that belief increased throughout all of the 1990s (Buncak and Piscova 307-308). The combination of Slovakia’s identity consolidation in coordination with its progress as an active participant in the European Union has renders it highly unlikely for it to revert back to any form of ‘diminished democracy.’ The nation as a whole has become a more assertive international player, making its most recent mark as being the only country to vote no on Greek bailouts. Though Slovakia still needs to overcome obstacles concerning better treatment of the Roma population (as do the Czechs), the country on its own has had a democratic score of 10 (highest) by Polity IV since 2009 and a political rights and civil liberties score of 1 (highest) by Freedom House since 2005 and is improving steadily.

An argument that advocates national identity as an impetus for delayed democratic consolidation could be strengthened if it were supplemented by consistent polling data on national identity in order to establish a clear timeframe with its democratization progress. This type of investigation will also be able to shed light on another question that has been raised in the process: Did Slovakia forge its own identity or did the EU accomplish that for them? Thus far, the case is such that an attempted explication of Slovakia’s divergence from the Czech Republic in terms of consolidating democracy cannot forego a contextual analysis. After examining several theories on why Slovakia and the Czech Republic took different directions after their separation and then discussing which variables are significant to the individual case, it was clear that issues with national identity were what distinguished the two nations the most.

Slovakia, under Magyar domination, was continually dismissed by its supposed Czech counterpart as being a legitimate nation. Slovak nationals constantly felt threatened by both Czech and Hungarian assimilation attempts, but divisions among themselves impeded any forging of an identity. Even as a part of a federation, the nation itself was invisible or considered a continuation of Czechs, a fact that continued to suffocate nation-building. With each attempt to break away from Czech life, Slovak cultural elites were met with resistance throughout the years under socialism until the dissolution in 1993. Slovakia’s past experience with self-governance did not look promising, as their only endeavor resulted in a Fascist puppet-state that left the Slovak government with no democratic tradition at the commencement of its journey. It has been shown the weak national identity blocks democratic consolidation, but it was the reunion with Europe that was able to donate a new partnership to Slovakia that enabled them to create a fresh identity, a framework for democratic consolidation and to ‘catch up’ with the neighbors.

Works Cited

Albrecht, Catherine. “Rural Banks and Czech Nationalism in Bohemia, 1848-1914.” Agricultural History 78.3 (2004): 317-45.

Buncak, J., and M. Piscova. “Modern National Identity of Slovaks and their Attitude Towards Europe.” Sociologia 32.3 (2000): 289-310.

De Gree, John Joseph. “The Origin and Development of Czech Nationalism.” 2001.

de Melo, Martha, et al. “Circumstance and Choice: The Role of Initial Conditions and Policies in Transition Economies.” World Bank Economic Review 15.1 (2001): 1-31.

Frye, Timothy. Building States and Markets After Communism : The Perils of Polarized Democracy. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2010. Print.

Gaber, Rusanna. “National Identity and Democratic Consolidation in Central and Eastern Europe.” International Journal of Sociology 36.3 (2006): 35-69.

Henderson, Karen. “The Slovak Republic: Explaining Defects in Democracy.” Democratization 11.5 (2004): 133-55.

Hilde, PS. “Slovak Nationalism and the Break-Up of Czechoslovakia.” Europe-Asia Studies 51.4 (1999): 647-65.

Hudek, Adam. “Between Czechs and Hungarians: Constructing the Slovak National Identity from 19th Century to the Present.” History compass 9.4 (2011): 257-68. OnlineLibrary.

Hughes, James. “Monitoring the Monitors: EU Enlargement Conditionality and Minority Protection in the CEECs.” Journal on Ethnopolitics and Minority Issues in Europe JEMIE 4.1 (2003): 1-37.

Kopecky, Petr, and Cas Mudde. “Explaining Different Paths of Democratization: The Czech and Slovak Republics.” Journal of Communist Studies and Transition Politics 16.3 (2000): 63-84.

Krastev, I. “The Strange Death of the Liberal Consensus.” Journal of Democracy 18.4 (2007): 56-63.

Mihalikova, S. “Political Symbolism of Slovakia: Between the Cross and European Star.” Sociologia 37.6 (2005): 529-52.

Musil, Jirí. “Czech and Slovak Society.” Government and Opposition 28.4 (1993): 479-95. Print.

Pop-Eleches, Grigore. “Historical Legacies and Post-Communist Regime Change.” The Journal of Politics 69.4 (2007): 908-26.

Rychlik, Jan. “National Consciousness and the Common State (A Historical-Ethnological Analysis).” The End of Czechoslovakia. Eds. Ji Musil and Central European University. Budapest: Central European University Press ;, 1995. x, 283 p. Print.

Suda, Zdenek. ” Slovakia in Czech National Consciousness. The End of Czechoslovakia. Eds. Ji Musil and Central European University. Budapest: Central European University Press ;, 1995. x, 283 p. Print.

Zakaria, F. “The Rise of Illiberal Democracy.” FOREIGN AFFAIRS 76.6 (1997): 22-43.

C.I.A. World Factbook | https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/

World Bank Data Indicators | http://data.worldbank.org/indicator

Abstract

Slovakia has always existed as the nation with a question mark, from Magyarization attempts to lopsided federation, from a puzzling Fascist state to a semi-autocratic one. Despite its relative invisibility, the nation has always demanded much international attention as consistently being the outlier, most recently in the domain of democratic consolidation. Researchers have tried to figure out how Slovakia with an almost analogous institutional framework and national history could have deviated from its driven and successful partner, the Czech Republic. This paper reveals that the Slovak experience has been far from equal to the Czech Republic’s and investigates national identity formation as the cause for its delayed democratization.

Terrorism in Post-Fascist Europe: The Italian Case
Kelly Cocuzza  
Introduction

The Red Brigades of Italy were the most prolific terrorist organization in Western Europe yet their timely disintegration collates with other radical organizations of Europe whose ideologies appear to be the end of a trend in revolutionary thinking. On the surface, it is natural to comprehend why violent, morally and conceptually impoverished and highly unorganized attempts at razing functioning democracies in Western Europe failed to attract enough of a following to accomplish anything that superseded terroristic scaremongering. However, the Italian Red Brigades should have had a solid campaign that radically changed the notion of Italy and structure of its government because conditions in Italy were much more permissive than in Germany or Japan who harbored analogous militant movements. First, Italy has a long history of violence and clandestine agents who act against the state with almost equal force on behalf of popular resentments, economic inequalities and deep seeded North-South antagonisms that would have made the Red Brigades merely a part of that custom. Second, a weak sense of civic duty caused by the discouraging activities and partnerships made by the Italian government itself and its disconcerting attitude for rule of law and Western norms of statehood are cause to believe Italians in positions of authority would have been very easy to negotiate with. When domestic conditions and international Zeitgeist were ripe to accommodate another clandestine political force, why did they fail? When the founding members of the Red Brigades became active in armed struggle, the content of their beliefs were still flexible and their actions had objectives, which are characteristic of successful left-wing campaigns with a long life span according to terrorist conflict resolution theories. I intend to explore what may have caused their demise relying on historical information and theory, setting aside many specific events as they are well recorded in the literature on the Red Brigades.

Who were the Red Brigades?

The timeline most often associated with Italian terrorism are the years between 1970 and 1988, which experienced over 13,000 (Jamieson p. 19; Weinberg, p. 2) acts of political violence. Most of them are not attributed to the leftist Red Brigades as Italy harbored more than one hundred (Bocca, p. 7) organizations of both left and right wing extraction that used violence to achieve political goals, but the Red Brigade were the most visible, known for attacking the “heart of the state.” In the early 1970s, it was neo-Fascist groups who quantitatively and qualitatively dominated the press with the latest stragi and cataclysmic attacks, but the disparate groups who would form the Red Brigades later configured their own methods earning themselves international notoriety and their decline.

The founding members of the Red Brigades were Renato Curcio, Margherita Cagol and Alberto Franceschini all Italians in their 20s from different parts of the country who had an idea of social justice. Renato Curcio, born in 1941, grew up in Monterotondo, a suburb just northeast of Rome in the fatherless home of Yolanda Curcio, his mother. During his youth, he became close with his uncle Armando who fought for the Italian Resistance but was killed during the war which left the concept of resistance embedded in his young mind. During his formative years, he developed a natural credence in the teachings of the Catholic Church, attended school regularly and graduated in 1962. He worked before thinking about attending university where he eventually decided on the University of Trent in 1964 where he went to study at the newly founded Institute of Sociology. He became deeply involved with the revolutionary classics, especially those written by Marx about injustice and inequality. He was a very theoretical thinker who constantly posed ideas and questions about existing social structures, which gave him enough material to start diffusing his own publication, Lavoro Politico (Political Work), based on Marxist-Leninist principles. It was on campus in the midst of a student strike at the Faculty of Sociology that he met Margherita ‘Mara’ Cagol, another likeminded student.

Margherita was not from a working-class or leftist background. Her father owned a small business and her mother practiced pharmacology and they had a relatively stable family life in a small community close to Trent. Even though Margherita was often characterized as quiet and austere, she was “politically naïve” and “vulnerable” (Meade, 1990, p. 8) to new ideas at the outset of her studies at the Institute of Sociology at Trent. Her political activities amounted catchy student movements of the times and she did not start to become militant in her beliefs until after meeting Renato Curcio. “Margherita was impressed by his intellectual rigor and righteous anger” (Meade, p. 9) and was easily influenced by the budding of this relationship. The two united in their beliefs about the Italian university and social issues which turned into radicalism. At Trent, her thesis was entitled “Qualification of the work force in periods of capitalist development” based on Marx’s Outlines of the Critique of Political Economy, while Renato dropped out. After her degree was conferred, the two married and moved to Milan.

Unrelated to these two at the time, Alberto Franceschini from Reggio Emilia was the youngest of the three, born in 1947 into another family with Resistance ties and also strong Communist values. Franceschini’s grandfather was a founding member of Italy’s Communist Party in 1921 and his father was an anti-Fascist partisan. Alberto himself was also the rebellious type, but attended university in Bologna, another epicenter for Communist thought. Alberto did not fancy the idea of a “bourgeois degree” (Meade, p. 12) so he too dropped out and focuses his attention the Italian CommunistYouth Federation (FGCI) until he could form his own group, which he did, known as the ‘Apartment Group.’ His time spent with FGCI was understanding the teachings of Guevara much like Curcio had devoted himself to Marx and Lenin specifically. Unlike Curcio, Franceschini’s ‘Apartment Group’ was already practicing extreme politics between Turin and Milan, which is where he eventually met Renato and Margherita.

The tumultuous year they crossed paths was 1969, in the aftermath of the failed student revolution in France, a huge disappointment to left-thinking students in Italy, and right around the so called ‘Hot Autumn’ in Italy, a year of incessant worker strikes that renewed the spirit of class struggle. Before the Red Brigades gave themselves that appellation, there were many disparate groups that were vaguely connected to each other, including Giangiacomo Feltrinelli’s GAP of which Mario Moretti, leader of the second round of Red Brigades, was a member. Mario Moretti was also a student, but of Milan’s private Catholic University, born in 1946, raised in Milan by an old money Milanese family. He was a product of Italy’s unfair system of raccomandazioni (recommendation over merit) which is how he obtained his job at the SIT Siemens factory. He became involved in politics and the factory and was generally considered the ‘hothead’ of the Red Brigades. Even though the neo-fascist terrorist organizations’ tactic of stragismo (slaughterism) prompted the small Red Brigade group to take action after the Strage di Piazza Fontana in 1969, their main practice was sabotage and it was not until 1971 that they began to use violence as a tactic, after which they “redefined and hardened their opposition to the State” (Jamieson, p. 79). Their target was the one party system maintained by the Christian Democrats and asthmatic civil society that they despised. Bombings, robberies and kidnapping were their preferred tactics, until 1974-1976 when Renato and Alberto were incarcerated and Margherita was killed in a shoot-out.

History

            In 2007, the Rome New York Times correspondent, Ian Fisher, wrote a piece entitled “In a Funk, Italy Sings an Aria of Disappointment” that sent shockwaves through the nation. In the midst of yet another political crisis, Fisher quotes Walter Veltroni “it’s a country that has lost a little of its will for the future” which was a modest way of saying, Italians had given up. Fisher explains that there is much more behind the picturesque wineries and antique civilization: “the problems are, for the most part, not new — and that is the problem. They have simply caught up to Italy over many years, and no one seems clear on how change can come — or if it is possible anymore at all.” These statements put Italians into a state of emotional confusion, because since the Red Brigades no one else has tried with such zeal, and even foolishness, to restructure the government. These problems date very far back in Italian history.

Italy has many grievances that have been stewing in the Italians’ collective memory that date back to before one could say they technically had a national memory. Anarchism and divided politics appear in history several decades before the invention of Italy in 1861, a period characterized by uprisings, popular revolts, state-sponsored massacres, corruption, pervasive brigandage and mistrust of authority. Insurrection did not halt, national fraternity did not commence with Unification and civic loyalty was practically non-existent. The voting middle class elites were a minority and fractured at that, while the peasants lived under a criminal code that offered more protection than the state, were illiterate, without voting rights, politically exploited and did not believe in the legitimacy of the new nation.

The problem of this fragmented society gave precedence to the policy of trasformismo under the governments of Agostino DePretis in the 1870s and 1880s. The function of trasformismo was to maintain parliamentary majority but its execution was based on ‘private agreements with individual deputies… with no alternation of parties in power’ (Cento Bull, 42). The slippery sense of Italian identity and loyalty combined with the visible corruption and staleness of trasformismo did not help the following Francesco Crispi governments achieve reform goals. At the time of the Unification, Italy’s economy was well behind that of Western Europe’s, but had just started to expand in the 1880s, only to standstill in the early 1890s (Malanima and Zamagni, 2). Strong political opposition contingencies were able to aggregate their ideas and form groups around them in this brief period of stagnation. Nationalism, Socialism, Catholicism and Anarchism had existed but now all began to exert a level of regional influence, along with the emergence of the ‘Southern question,’ that contributed further to dissuade Italians from unifying, but they would be useful later on as a pillar of Italian cultural identity.

Emigration was yet another cause for resentment; Italians were emigrating in droves, especially from the South where stingy reforms seldom arrived except in the form of excessive tariffs and repressive rule under Giovanni Giolitti. A rapidly rising population living on lands scarce of resources left them impoverished and without work while the society at large was susceptible to an institutionalized lack of rule of law. Giovanni Giolitti was Italy’s longest-serving prime minister[1] subsequently leading the country straight into violence and dysfunction in the aftermath of a bloody national campaign and failed colonial interests in Ethiopia by Crispi. All of this is not to say that Italians were passive bystanders whose only escape was to leave the country and work as manual laborers or fruit venders without ever thinking back to the political struggles they left behind. Anarchist groups across Europe and in the United States

The heavy hand of King Umberto I and his alliance with Austria were very unpopular among the majorities and with two failed assassination attempts, it seemed as if unconcerned politicians were untouchable. Worker demonstrations in Milan in 1898 over inflation led to what is known as the Bava-Beccaris Massacre, eponym for the General who ordered cannons to be shot on the crowds. For one Italian man living in Paterson, New Jersey, this was all his people could tolerate. Gaetano Bresci, a man from Prato but living in New Jersey, was a regular patron of Paterson’s Anarchist meetings and publications but went about his plans for revenge quietly for the next two years before traveling back to Italy with the express purpose of regicide. In the New York Times article that reported on the assassination, his Paterson neighbors who said, “Humbert never did anything for us… he does not kill us with revolvers and swords, but with hunger and prisons. We have a fine country, but have to leave it all… it would be better if all the Old World rulers were dead, for they give the poor nothing but privation and misery” (New York Times) sympathized with him.

This element of sympathy for the assassin is very important, and this will be no exception for the Red Brigades. What is significant about these statements is that Gaetano Bresci was a man from the North and even neighborhoods and streets in the ‘new country’ were divided along regional lines, though embittered Southerners were the majority. His sympathizers, as noted in the article, came from various sections and streets of Paterson, from the North and the South of Italy, which exhibits what is likely to be some of the earliest examples of spontaneous class loyalty over familism and regionalism. The first 50 years of Italian statehood can be characterized by poor national unity and by weak citizen-to-state (and vice versa) relations, the apex of which being the assassination of the King. Using World War II as a reference point, the following 50 years can be thought of in the same terms only with different interlocutors.

In between these 50-year periods, two world wars marked the open and close of Benito Mussolini’s Fascist Party which experienced a comfortable rise to power due to paranoia in Italy over a potential Communist government in the early years. By the time il Duce took office, the assassination fared little against the repetition of repressed civil liberties as “the Fascist regime contributed not only to halting political and economic development, but also to remodeling the image of the South on old stereotypes” (Gribaudi, 80). What did remain was the Italians’ inclination towards resistance; during the Second World War, pro-Allied partisan fighters waged their own offensive against the Fascist regime, eventually deposing of Mussolini in similar fashion to the Umberto assassination. Even though Paolo Pezzino puts limits on the Resistance’s effect on national identity, he does admit that the legacy of the Partisans holds a place of “pride” and is “portrayed as the struggle of an entire population to liberate the country from the German invader” (Pezzino, 3).

Resistance or state repression, the citizen to state mistrust fueled a generation of left-wing organizations in Italy, but in 1970s Germany the “relative absence of radical strategies reflected the reformist attitude of the social-liberal government and a tolerant, selective, and ‘soft’ protest policing” (Della Porta, 1995, p. 80). Yet, the Red Army Faction was able to muster many sympathizers without a universal symbol of oppression the nation could identify with, but the Italian ideology after the regime change posting Moretti as leader did not promote mass action to reinstate a fair and just government. Perhaps for the fact that Moretti benefited from the Italian government’s irregularities and would not have obtained his position in SIT Siemens without that. I have yet to see this mentioned in the literature as a possibility, but it seems that Moretti did not understand the worker and his struggle was not even in his lexicon.  

Corruption

The corruption gave breath to Moretti is another hallmark of Italian society on which the Red Brigades should have capitalized was the entropy within the state itself, not just for being a squabbling vociferous governing body but also for a) its tolerance of organized crime and b) its cooperation within organized crime. The controversy over what is known as the Mafia (or La Cosa Nostra, A Camorra, ‘Ndrangheta in particular) is nothing new and organized crime is not unique to Italy, but as Leonard Weinberg describes, “ideologically motivated terrorism” could flourish in Italy because of an overarching “nonacceptance of the democratic rules of the game by the Italian population” (Weinberg, 1987 p. 15). What is astonishing is that Italy may be the only Western country to harbor such a visible criminal subculture, to which its subjects are mostly jaded, that has become more powerful with rise of industry, democratic government, education and living standards, instead of less powerful. In the mid-19^th century, the Sicilian Mafia, among other things, was a protective body to which the peasants could turn in times of need and in which they confided to administer a level of law and order in an unlegislated land. To them, the Mafia was familiar; they were local family-oriented groups that gave voice to those draped in silence, nevertheless, its brutish and destructive forces knows loyalty only to its own existence, suffocating its closest allies for petty cash and power.

In 1875 Chief Prosecutor of Palermo, Diego Tajani observed that the ‘instrumentalization of Cosa Nostra by local government has made it dangerous and invincible, but it is not that on its own’ (Balsamo, p. 373). The Mafia’s influence remained fairly local for the next few decades but the Mezzogiorno was exporting entrepreneurial criminals en masse to the United States increasing LCN’s iron grasp to a level Tajani likely did not anticipate. Italian organized crime in the United States was pervasive and alarming, but what is important is how the Americans politically utilized the Mafia for its power and intelligence and the implications that had on the Italian criminal organization. At the peak of the Allied Invasion, the American government considered Sicily a platform in its war games and Italo-American Mafiosi cleverly picked pawns who could deliver the decisive blow on their way to victory.

It was also a tactic to get rid of some of the more noticeable figures of the American criminal underworld by generously offering impunity towards pending charges for serving the U.S. forces and by encouraging their criminal life, only elsewhere. Alison Jamieson writes that, “by the time the Americans left at the end of the war…the entire western half of Sicily was in the hands of criminals whose self-serving use of power had become not only legitimate but institutionalized” (Jamieson, p. 14).  Jamieson also adds that what tightened the Mafia stronghold at the time was its inclusion and highly regarded partnership in the potential for Sicily to secede. When plans changed along with war strategy, the crime syndicates sought to plant their seeds on the Italian government, that is, on the Christian Democratic Party.

When Tajani said that the Mafia’s invincibility would arise from intermingling with government, he did not mean the Mafia’s attempt to obtain political positions to solidify their power and expand it. He was referring to the practice of local campaigners who used the boss’ influence over his village to obtain votes, and then, office. Except, once one accepts the hand of the Mafia one time, it is nearly impossible to escape. At the national level, the Christian Democrats appropriated this local custom and “made routine use of the mafia” in an exchange of “self-interest” (Wood and Farrell, p. 137), as the politicians want power and Mafiosi crave money. In the immediate post-war years, visibility of corruption grew out of implications by those on trial of government involvement in public massacres and murders but these interlocutors typically die mysteriously. The mob uses blatant violent means to rid itself of enemies, but quiet deaths, and this is speculation, are indicative of involvement with figures who cannot afford to be exposed to be seen with the organization. Anti-mafia reports point to key figures of the Christian Democrats operating in Sicily at this time were able to remain somewhat under the radar due to the uplifting economic boom of the 1950s.

The government in Italy was easily exploited because it lacked a strong civic foundation in the first place and promoted itself not only through criminal enterprise, but also with the ‘lay’ traditions of raccomandazioni¸ clientelism and nepotism. The original leadership of the Brigades did not last long enough to test new strategies, but Moretti’s crew never thought critically on how to best manipulate the State using its own weaknesses. The Red Brigades should have infiltrated the government in the same way the Mafia did before acting on their flawed antiestablishment principles if they wanted to succeed. They would have had accumulated a level of involvement with politicians that could have served as blackmail, among other resources, and provided them with the information that they got from kidnapping, something which eventually hurt their reputation. They could have then predicted how the State would react to their demands in the upcoming negotiations.

Theory and Ideology

Conflict resolution theory adheres to a strict no negotiation policy concerning terrorists, their actions and their demands; however, this is only theory, which is known to differ considerably from practice. One of the claims against negotiations is that recognition of these organizations through talks, even in moments of political emergencies, legitimizes their existence and rewards illegal actions. Not all terrorism is of the same character as terrorists vary in degrees of ideology, types of goals and preferred tactics, which is why the negotiations do occur but as a last resort, though they may be successful depending on these differentiations. Combining the work of William Zartman and Dean Pruitt, one can begin to distinguish between the varying categories that determine how the state will treat their demands and see where the Red Brigades belonged and how they could have achieved a more fruitful relationship with the state.

Zartman identifies two strains of terrorists by the intended proximate goal of their actions whether that is to produce a general destabilization of the affected area without any visible purpose or to compel the state into conceding to a specific demand. The former, absolutist terrorists, and the latter, contingent terrorists, can be further broken down but the empty acts of absolute terrorists leave no platform for negotiations and it is this kind of terrorism that negotiations encourage. On the other hand, negotiation talks can dampen violence from contingent terrorists because they want to start a dialogue and achieve something, attacking something specific to the enemy in order to provoke an exchange. Terrorists who use kidnapping for this type of attention are the most susceptible to negotiations, an idea Zartman mentions from Dolnik, because hostages make good “capital” or better, “bargaining chips” (Faure quoted in Zartman, p. 446). The actions carried out by the Red Brigades are in line with contingent terrorism because they do not employ suicidal methods and usually seek an immediate gain, furthermore, as revolutionaries they seek to renew society according to their ideal vision, not destroy it like absolute terrorists.

This distinction would categorize the Red Brigades as a group who would benefit from negotiating, but they did not make it easy for the Italian government to do so. Negotiations imply a level of compromise, with the greater compromise coming from the illegitimate non-state actor, but any compromise from either side was rare. In the beginning the state conceded to the Brigades’ demands, which is not a negotiation, it is a plain concession, and in the later period the state ceased to negotiate at all which pushed the militants into a desperate dead-end whose only way out was by murdering its hostage. In exchange for a living Judge Mario Sossi, kidnapped in 1974, the Red Brigades demanded the release of foreign political prisoners, which Sossi’s representatives arranged, sparking a national debate on terrorist appeasement and exalting the status of the Red Brigades. It can be agreed that the fears of talking to terrorists does legitimize them, as it did for the Brigades on an international level at that, but losing one life was not worth it at the time. Additionally, it was not their first kidnap and they had been involved in the armed struggle for the previous four years so there is no indication that ignoring them would have produced adverse effects.

At first glance, it seems as if the Red Brigades enjoyed a level of success, and they did—they were a very competent body who achieved international notoriety within a few years—but the sensation they caused after the Sossi kidnap was short-lived as was the positive reinforcement they received. This supplied them the confidence they needed to carry out the Aldo Moro kidnap in 1978, and to revise their strategy in order to yield a higher gain. The problem this time was that the Christian Democrats would not budge, as the Brigades had hoped. They again demanded the release of political prisoners, other Red Brigade members, but their requests were ignored. Aldo Moro was kept for 55 days and was subsequently murdered by Moretti when they realized their luck had run out. Moro’s popularity had been suffering, but news of his death shocked the citizens of Italy and at that point, the Brigades lost almost all the credibility they had within the country.

 The next distinction to apply to the Red Brigades is in Dean Pruitt’s work on types of terrorist groups where he creates two subclasses based on ideology and representation. He classifies the Red Brigades with the Red Army Faction as being more ideological and less representative, which poses a different kind of problem from those deemed less ideological and more representative. The latter gives the state difficulty because they are “hard to beat;” they have strong local support and clear leadership (representation) and their beliefs are more practical. Pruitt continues to say that groups stemming from the opposite pole “are usually unsuccessful in the long run because they lack significant support and are unwilling to compromise with authorities” (Pratt, p. 2), which is precisely contrary to what Red Brigade leaders believed before the kidnap of Aldo Moro. They drew from and analyzed the Mario Sossi experience deciding that they “had climbed down too easily in 1974 with the simple release of their hostage, and were determined” (Jamieson, 1989, p. 109) to take a harsher stance with Moro.  Considering that their mass loss of any support they had occurred after the Moro sequence and it was the Moro case that caused their decline, representation was not the issue at the time they made their demands—it was ideology.

Violent tactics receive attention, but if there is nothing valid to say whilst holding that attention, increasing the ferocity of illegitimate acts will not restore an audience. Good states want to put an end to terrorist threats in order to provide security and stability by mainstreaming the agents into legal means of voicing their thoughts when they possess an intrinsic value. If the opposite is true, the good state is more determined to halt terrorism and will assiduously campaign against them. In Pruitt’s eyes, the reason why ethno-nationalist/secession organizations are the most successful is that the “non” ideology transforms rhetoric into clearly defined goals that the state can accept (even if reluctantly). This explains the trend observed in the operations of the IRA and ETA to “move away from violence” (Neumann, p. 137) towards more appropriate legal channels.  On the other hand, when the Red Brigades were given the floor, their maladjusted applications of Marx and Lenin and mettre en bloc of unrelated radical ideas from the previous two decades were insubstantial.

The Red Brigades had doctrines which they repeated and acted on; the problem is they had too many and these self-professed appropriated beliefs were irrelevant to the problems facing Italian society, many of which were described earlier in this paper. Since the creation of the Italian state, the same incessant crises have suffocated ordinary citizens. What was different this time around was that the masses lacked a collective voice, something they always had. The local Mafia families were the first custodians of the peasants since protecting them generated income until they became so potent that they expanded to those who could pay more—politicians. The masses’ struggle with soaring prices, scarce commodities and a violent and visibly corrupt government that habitually acted out against workers took refuge under Anarchism and the formation of new political parties. The Anarchist assassination of King Umberto I was solidly applauded by Italians and justified by others. William Nickel explains Tolstoi’s response to the killing as understandable “actions of revolutionaries who carry out political assassinations as a form of revenge for state-sanctioned violence” (Nickell, p. 563). During the Second World War, the Partisans of the Resistance hunted and executed their Fascist leader, continuing a tradition noble defense. When the time came to challenge universities, unemployment, economic decline, gender inequalities and the same rotting government the people had no voice.

Instead, the Red Brigades focused their contempt on the “Imperialist State of the Multinationals,” the crowning achievement of their theoretical endeavors to justify redefining the state. Italy was (and still is) in desperate need of restructuring—they were not incorrect about this—but the conspiratorial idea that lies at the center of this ‘imperialist state’ including the “construction of concentration camps (a reference to new maximum security prisons the government was building) for the repression of the working class victims of capitalist exploitation” (Weinberg, p. 8) is fantasy and farfetched. The Red Brigades identified their enemies as NATO and Imperialism, which in reality has little effect on the working class, not to mention that Italy was hardly an imperial power. Crispi completely embarrassed the country suffering a defeat at the Battle of Adwa (Ethiopia) in 1896 and later any other possessions fell out of Italy’s hands as a stipulation of peace treaties signed after the Second World War.

What is curious is that Alberto Franceschini does not even so much as hint at NATO, the police state or the ‘crisis of imperialist countries’ at all in the book length interview published as Che cosa sono le BR? In fact, there is little ideology in the entire interview except where Franceschini elaborates on their admiration of Latin American revolutionary ideals. He says

the armed struggle could not be something too political or ideological. It needed to link up with the problems of the people and needed to be conceived as a series of acts of justice … justness, this was the theme [Corghi] insisted on. The armed struggle, in brief, should have made sense if it were used to reach immediate and concrete objectives, read by the people as acts of justice.[2]

This passage indicates that the people were at the center of Franceschini’s ideas and that he understood the limits in utility of the armed struggle and for him it was a necessary component to a point; it was not to be used a scare tactic or for adventurism, but as a concise method to ameliorate the conditions of mass society. Franceschini and Curcio were the only leading members to come from a working-class family of genuine Communist values and it was Curcio’s fear that the Brigades’ image risked being reduced to a group of tempermental unstable people who ordered killings of MSI members[3].

One must recall that the original leadership had completely dissipated by 1976 to be replaced primarily by Mario Moretti whose ideas lay in stark contrast to those of the founding members. In the same interview with Franceschini, he admits that the beginning of the Brigades’ escalation of violence precisely coincides with Moretti’s arrival[4], who clearly had a different conception of the Red Brigades from the doctrine “strike one to educate one hundred” and the initial pamphlets of Lotta Continua that Mara and Renato circulated in the early years. In an interview with Moretti it is clear how much his thoughts deviated from the group’s incipient beliefs. When asked what their ideological and historical aspirations are, Moretti responds:

Our points of reference are Marxism-Leninism, the Chinese cultural revolution and the experiences of metropolitan guerrilla movements; in a word, the scientific tradition of the workers’ movement and international revolution. This also means that we do not accept en bloc the layouts that have guided European Communist parties in the revolutionary phase of their hsitory especially as of the question of the relationship between political and military organization.[5]

In a follow up interview, he is questioned on the dubious nature of these claims, not that he cannot believe in them, but that they are contradictory and misinterpretive of the Leninist ideas of mass actions, and that Marx and Lenin have nothing to do with the Cuban revolution, except in some basic inspiration. The interviewer was projecting his reading of revolutionary ideas, nonetheless, it can be seen in the previous citation that Moretti says nothing of his own peoples and their struggles. He is someone who was swept up in the glory of fighting, feeding off of ideas and courage that was not his own. He was in no way a vanguard of the people, nor sought to educate the masses and his guerilla tactics neither adhered to Guevera’s principles of preserving innocent lives for the cause and not making useless enemies, nor did he act as the ascetic or spiritual savior of the people that Guevara advocated. 

Conclusion

The Red Brigades were one of the last chances Italy had at preserving one of its few unifying features by means of a young, politically motivated and passionate group intent on being the spokespersons for the working classes, just as they always had.  The domestic conditions in which the group evolved would have permitted them to thrive. The age old Southern Question, euphemism for the putative backwardness of Italy’s Mezzogiorno was still very alive as were problems of nationhood which were the products of the Risorgimento. Despite Italy “economic miracle” in the early 1960s, industry took another downturn amplifying class struggles and historic worker exploitation. Corruption at the highest levels made very little endeavors to hiding itself and most were aware that playing the game of private talks and individual exchange would further one’s goals. Politicians were as impressionable as ever, having already been heavily infiltrated by the Mafia and Freemasons. On the other hand, the State’s violence, which had been at one time regularly practiced and institutionalized through authoritarian government had subsided in the 1950s but was replaced with neo-fascist, ultra right wing ‘Black Terrorism’ and student occupation of universities. In fact, most of the globe seemed like it was involved in a revolution and Italy was not the only country to see the rise of leftwing terrorism that chose the armed struggle as their method of communication.

 Why then did they fail? I used basic tenets of conflict resolution theory for terrorist negotiations to demonstrate where the Red Brigades could not produce a meaningful relationship with the State, and by that not in a productive sense, but in an auditory one. The overly ideological rhetoric and impractical demands made by the second round of the Red Brigades made it impossible for the State to understand or accept their demands, resorting to combating them rather than mainstreaming them into legitimate political channels. Specifically, when the original leadership of the Red Brigades were no longer able to perform their duties, Mario Moretti, a violent hothead who did not concern himself with truly understanding the working class, took over. His messages are so convoluted and his mastermind plan to kidnap and murder former Prime Minister Aldo Moro so horrifying to the public, that is lost the group any nominal amount of support they had left, and with this they committed only a few more acts of political violence, but mostly faded away.

References

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Zartman, I. William. “Negotiating with Terrorists.” International Negotiation 8.3 (2003): 443-50. Print.

[1] Five separate terms from 1891-1921, totaling around 10 years.

[2] Fasanella and Franceschini, p. 47 “diceva che la lotta armata non poteva essere una cosa troppo politica o ideologica. Doveva legarsi ai problemi della gente e doveva essere concepita come una serie di atti di giustizia… del giustizialismo, questo era il tema sul quale lui insisteva. La lotta armata, insomma, avrebbe avuto un senso se fosse servita a raggiungere obiettivi immediati e concreti, «leggibili» dalla gente come atti di giustizia.”

[3] Curcio quoted in Galli, p. 62 “C’era il rischio di stravolgere l’immagine delle BR, riducendola a quella di un gruppo di scalmanati che davano ordine di andare ad ammazzare la gente nelle sedi missine”

[4] Fasanella, p. 110, “Guardi, se dovessi datare l’inizio dell’escalation della violenza brigatista, direi che coincide proprio con l’arrivo di Moretti.”

[5] Moretti, 1971,  Autointervista – Prima Intervista a se stessi. “I nostri punti di riferimento sono il marxismo-leninismo, la rivoluzione culturale cinese e l’esperienza in atto dei movimenti guerriglieri metropolitani; in una parola la tradizione scientifica del movimento operaio e rivoluzionario internazionale. Questo vuol dire anche che non accettiamo in blocco gli schemi che hanno guidato i partiti comunisti europei nella fase rivoluzionaria della loro storia soprattutto per quanto riguarda la questione del rapporto tra organizzazione politica e organizzazione militare.”

K Cocuzza

The distinction between just and unjust forms of terror lies in its legitimization by the state. When non-state actors apply violence to influence government it is considered by Western norms to be terroristic, when for those who utilize terror as means see that it has a just end or cause. When states respond violently, it is of an internationally accepted variety, or, in a domestically institutionalized form, and is therefore just because it seeks to contain violence. Justice in this case is not relative, but is subject to a perceived tyrant: evildoers, Capitalist pigs, bourgeois oppressors and the like. Most casual violence in response to tyrannical regimes is not likely qualify as terrorism, and not all terrorism must be antiestablishment but here I mean the embedding of psychological fear by systematic violence or ‘coercive intimidation[i]’ operating outside political norms aiming to yield influence over government.

Max Weber in Politics as a Vocation coins the “monopoly of the legitimate use of physical force”[ii] and that of the three justifications for domination, one is by ‘virtue of legality and by virtue of the belief in the validity of the state’s legal status, based on rationally created rules’[iii]. From the time of the state’s conception, the establishment of the cartel on violence entails a one-sided membership: only the state participates in violence. Any other actors who wish to use violence, i.e. for self-defense or other purposes, must be granted the moral permission from the state by legal outlet. If the state chooses to employ a terroristic regime, it is justified because it has been granted the belief of the people in its virtue. For Robespierre, terrorism and virtue were a necessary combination; ‘virtue is powerless without terror. Terror is nothing other than justice… an emanation of  virtue’[iv]. Terrorizing was much more a means of sending the message of the virtue of liberty than the bloodthirsty crusade associated with the ‘Reign of Terror.’

The more contemporary vision of terrorizing, before today’s common conception of Islamic-fundamentalist terrorism, is one of clandestine groups (RAF, BR) who operate under the umbrella of Marxist-Leninist ideals in the fighting spirit of Guevara and Mao against the Western imperialist and puritanical tradition. Marx and Engels however have very little to say about this type of terrorism, though they did analyze France’s totalitarian terror. Of revolutionary terror, Lenin believes this singular ‘individual terror is a resort only for those who do not enjoy mass support’[v] and is not in line with his doctrine of mass action. Guevara, whom they regard with the highest esteem, has also mentioned the futility of terrorism as an efficacious tactic, but is only ‘valuable when it is used to put to death some leader of the oppressing forces well known for his cruelty…’[vi]. The aforementioned authors generally denounce terrorism for its tactical ineffectiveness, but not for lacking a certain moral code. However, Guevara’s position accepts terror because it delivers justice by condemning to death a cruel tyrant from the guilty tribe after the fact, though these single acts aimed at a specific person may not fit the definition for terror.

The scheme of contemporary terrorism offered by Jeremy Waldron[vii] in which H₁ is harmed before the fact as an example of what may happen to H₂, H₃ is different from a directed vengeful murder, and says little about justice. Even though groups like the Red Army Faction or Red Brigades did believe they were acting justly at their inception, their targets (at least for the  Red Brigades) never fit Guevara’s description of a “leader noted for his cruelty, his efficiency in repression…”[viii]. They often targeted small-time factory managers and low-clout politicians. Their most powerful detainee and murder victim, the Prime Minister of Italy Aldo Moro, was not the tyrant the Guevara envisioned. The last few words of Guevara’s previously cited statement was a leader well-known for “[an]other quality which makes his elimination useful[ix]” and this is very open to vastly misconstrued interpretation. In the way that many movements of that period were grasping at any ideology that could justify their actions, this is one. In reality, groups like the Red Brigades and the Red Army Faction are murderers without a case for any ethics explaining their violence.

[i] OED Online, terrorist (2)

[ii] Weber, Max. Politics as a Vocation, (1919)

[iii] Ibid.

[iv] Robespierre, Maximilien. Justifications on the Use of Terror, (1794)

[v] Lenin, VI. Interview Given to The Correspondent of Folkets Dagblad Politiken, (1918).

[vi] Guevara, Ernesto. Guerilla Warfare, (1963)

[vii] Waldron, Jeremy. Terrorism and the Uses of Terror. The Journal of Ethics, (2004)

[viii] Guevara. GW, (1963)

[ix] Ibid.

…

‘Every state is founded on force,’ said Trotsky at Brest-Litovsk. That is indeed right. If no social institutions existed which knew the use of violence, then the concept of ‘state’ would be eliminated, and a condition would emerge that could be designated as ‘anarchy,’ in the specific sense of this word. Of course, force is certainly not the normal or the only means of the state—nobody says that—but force is a means specific to the state. Today the relation between the state and violence is an especially intimate one. In the past, the most varied institutions—beginning with the sib—have known the use of physical force as quite normal. Today, however, we have to say that a state is a human community that (successfully) claims the monopoly of the legitimate use of physical force within a given territory. Note that ‘territory’ is one of the characteristics of the state. Specifically, at the present time, the right to use physical force is ascribed to other institutions or to individuals only to the extent to which the state permits it. The state is considered the sole source of the ‘right’ to use violence. Hence, ‘politics’ for us means striving to share power or striving to influence the distribution of power, either among states or among groups within a state.

This corresponds essentially to ordinary usage. When a question is said to be a ‘political’ question, when a cabinet minister or an official is said to be a ‘political’ official, or when a decision is said to be ‘politically’ determined, what is always meant is that interests in the distribution, maintenance, or transfer of power are decisive for answering the questions and determining the decision or the official’s sphere of activity. He who is active in politics strives for power either as a means in serving other aims, ideal or egoistic, or as ‘power for power’s sake,’ that is, in order to enjoy the prestige-feeling that power gives.

Like the political institutions historically preceding it, the state is a relation of men dominating men, a relation supported by means of legitimate (i.e. considered to be legitimate) violence. If the state is to exist, the dominated must obey the authority claimed by the powers that be. When and why do men obey? Upon what inner justifications and upon what external means does this domination rest?

To begin with, in principle, there are three inner justifications, hence basic legitimations of domination.

First, the authority of the ‘eternal yesterday,’ i.e. of the mores sanctified through the unimaginably ancient recognition and habitual orientation to conform. This is ‘traditional’ domination exercised by the patriarch and the patrimonial prince of yore.

There is the authority of the extraordinary and personal gift of grace (charisma), the absolutely personal devotion and personal confidence in revelation, heroism, or other qualities of individual leadership. This is ‘charismatic’ domination, as exercised by the prophet or—in the field of politics—by the elected war lord, the plebiscitarian ruler, the great demagogue, or the political party leader.

Finally, there is domination by virtue of ‘legality,’ by virtue of the belief in the validity of legal statute and functional ‘competence’ based on rationally created rules. In this case, obedience is expected in discharging statutory obligations. This is domination as exercised by the modern ‘servant of the state’ and by all those bearers of power who in this respect resemble him.

…

Read the full version

http://www.ne.jp/asahi/moriyuki/abukuma/weber/lecture/politics_vocation.html

Marx sardonically asks whether “it require[s] deep intuition to comprehend that man’s… consciousness changes with every change in the conditions of material existence” and that intellectual production is collinear with material production, which often lies at the mercy of those with material, the ruling class. Consciousness, the consistent tipping point for radical theory to develop into action, therefore is fluid and mutating, but arises only at the mercy of the shareholders of intellectual production. Lenin is of a similar opinion that “consciousness comes from without”; it is passed down to the lower strata from the intellectuals who need it to convert their ideology into a massive reality. The necessity for a consciousness, political, social, self or otherwise, is applicable not only in cases of widespread social movements, but now for the philosophy of Herbert Marcuse, who is not trying to kindle consciousness to ignite action, fears for its survival in the face of positivist reasoning.

It is ironic to think that when the masses finally achieved the blessed consciousness of which they have been deprived, they actually picked the wrong one as Marcuse suggests a false consciousness, which is pervading society. If one agrees with Marx and Lenin about the source of consciousness, then it is not the fault of the blind consumer to possess a ‘false’ one, but the responsibility of prominent thinkers to must it. The fact that the former proletariat integrates with other classes and forms a pan-consumer does not negate the cycle where he becomes only another modified pawn of different elite. It is not that Marcuse values the consciousness in itself, but he, like those before him, values it as a tool for change. His use of the passive voice and an ambiguous “they” as the actor who imposes the commodities admits at the very least that there is an external agent who manipulates consciousness, false or not. Therefore, his fear that true consciousness will be overtaken by the ersatz version can be corrected by an inverse manipulation, which is what he attempts to demonstrate by enlightening the consumer that his satisfaction is surreal.

Except the consumer’s satisfaction is delusory because it stems from “superimposed needs”, “granted by an unfree society”, supposing that each individual assumes Marcuse’s subjective vision of satisfaction and freedom (and happiness, to add a third). Since what the individual can choose is limited, because his inner dimension has been invaded and since he is happy because of sublimation, it means that he is not actually free. However, Marcuse’s own valued definitions of satisfaction, happiness and freedom are equally as limiting when imposed as the only options. How is it not invasive to deconstruct and falsify another person’s satisfaction? Marcuse says, “all liberation depends on the consciousness of servitude” but what if the servitude is voluntary? As Lefort proclaims “the people have become their own enemy” and the supplication to not think offered by voluntary servitude “signified not wanting to think”.  

Marcuse is combating precisely this breakdown in critical ‘negative’ thinking, but it ignores that the masses were seldom involved in higher thinking, despite its potential auxiliary function. The idolization of commodity is the same “identification with the tyrant” which Lefort appropriates from a text dating back to the 16^th century as grounds for the consent to be dominated and that “somepeople even draw from their enslavement”. Marcuse acknowledges that their identification is in fact a ‘reality but it is one that is questionable due to that it is with an existence that is imposed upon them’, which suggests that a person must avoid persuasion in order to be existing. Advertisements that seduce the consumer are in the same realm as a convincing conversation with a friend, but it does not negate the consumer’s existence. Ultimately, the consumer freely chooses to be seduced, chooses servitude and chooses enslavement to an easier sublimated existence.

One of the contradictions that arises in Communist/revolutionary literature is that pertaining to bourgeois involvement in the proletariat struggle. Several questions can then be posed surrounding the relationship the two sides have to the movement: whose side would offer the best leadership for the movement? Who is more important, more powerful? Who is dependent on whom? It is also possible to ask which of the prominent writers (of Marx, Luxemburg, Lenin, Zedong, Guevara) was the most genuinely tied to the working class and cared the most for their advancement.

In thinking about leadership, members of the bourgeois class have set a precedent for taking the initiative and I think without their allegiance large-scale multinational social movements would not have the same uniting force. The bourgeoisie are primarily literate, educated and most importantly articulate. Members of lower strata may be able to formulate the same ideas, as we’ve discussed that theoretical knowledge is less necessary than outright indignation, but those with the gift of the plume and the ability to concisely express (and manipulate) the written and spoken word monopolize the diffusion of ideas. Marx and Luxemburg in particular utilize a very literary language closer to Romanticism than a political speech and their use of imagery (“a specter is haunting Europe;” the opening passages of The Junius Pamphlet) makes their writings universally comprehendible.

Another significant feature of the ruling/upper classes is the horizontal nature of their mobility. Ernest Gellner in Nations and Nationalism illustrates that the social structure of the ruling classes in agrarian societies (including the commercial class) is horizontal and that the structure of the agricultural producers are vertical. What is created by a vertical structure are small insular groups of people that lack interlocality communication as opposed to the merchant and other classes who have the means to expand and develop beyond their own settlement. In these layers, cultural homogeneity was not functional to the state at the time (also rare at the outset), so there was little need for encouraging horizontal communication between the peasants, and thus interlocality communication for the upper layers became the norm. In the transition from agrarian to post-agrarian/semi-literate, peasants had no reasonable expectation of having the same broad social circles or the same expansive reach, and therefore would absolutely need to profit from bourgeois connections.

Wondering whose patronage of the movement is more important for its success depends on whom the movement actually benefits. If it is to the benefit of the bourgeois program developers, then their unification is more important; conversely, if it is to assistance of the working class, then they are the more important group to bring together. The idea that socialism was not simply to benefit the working class may seem unlikely since all of the previously mentioned authors seek to emancipate the workers from some form of oppression (capitalist, colonialist) but it is an interesting thought nonetheless. Rosa Luxemburg’s attack on Bernstein and on revisionism is what inspires my opinion that the proletariat was not the sole beneficiary. The reason for Luxemburg’s outrage is that Bernstein’s belittlement of scientific socialism renders socialism useless, “superfluous” or “utopian” as Luxemburg puts it. It seems as if she is horrified by the idea that this incredible innovation is actually not a necessity. I think that she has removed the dialogue from the realm of the working class to a much larger and more impersonal desire for a radical revolution in general. I am of the opinion that she cared about the credibility of the movement and the humiliation that would strike her and her contemporaries if the movement were flawed, more than she cared about the workers themselves. That is why, for her, and for the success of Marxism, it is of the utmost importance that the bourgeoisie itself be united, to keep it from falling.

On the other hand, Mao and Guevara do not necessarily stress a sweeping unification of all working peoples alone, but want to fuse the revolutionaries with the lower strata. I think this is a big difference between the earlier Marxist-Leninist concepts, which acquired a downward strategy as opposed to the upward direction of Zedong and Guevara’s campaigns. Even though Che Guevara comes from a bourgeois family, and Zedong from a well-to-do peasant family, I think they are the most genuinely tied to the working class and to truly emancipating them. I think this is why Lenin and the others had trouble with the idea of discipline, because they were not only combating the merchant class, but a much larger scheme of Capitalism. Therefore, discourse deviated from the conditions of the working classes to an ideological debate. For Zedong and Guevara, there was only one fight: oppression. Their tactics differed to a degree, but the level of discipline was quasi spiritual (especially in Guevara’s writing) that it is as if they became ‘one’ with the movement. This reverence generated by their unwavering discipline is perhaps a reason why Communist China and Cuba still stand.

​Perhaps it is too early in this course, or even simply mistaken, to be thinking about why Communism failed, but it is the question which has struck me the most thus far. Communism has not exactly failed; it was the most powerful ideology opposite Capitalism, engulfed more than fifteen countries in Central and Eastern Europe for half a century and is still the operative force in Cuba and China. Therefore, a better way to phrase the thought would be what contributed to the decline of Marxist-Leninist Communism in Europe. I had wanted to deviate from this idea of human nature without doubting that it is an important, or the most important, factor contributing to Communism’s decline. However, I believe that there has to be (a) other reasons and (b) that the other reasons be of a more tangible quality, i.e., lack of agricultural productivity, even famine (the Ukrainian Holodomor) brought on by land reforms, political oppression, or inherent theoretical gaps in the Manifesto.
​In the last session, we took a look at a short passage from the Manifesto and whoever read it aloud ‘blah blah-ed’ through the first few sentences, essentially skipping the real weight of those sentences.
“The Communists are further reproached with desiring to abolish countries and nationality. The working men have no country. We cannot take from them what they have not got. Since the proletariat must first acquire political supremacy, must rise to the leading class of the nation, must constitute itself the nation, it is so far, itself national, though not in the bourgeois sense of the word.”
At this stage, I cannot offer a list of concrete reasons for the decline of Communism, but I can say Marx’ and Engels’ view of nationality and its insignificance is unconventional and extremely flawed and that is well demonstrated in this paragraph. It may have been their intent to reshape the definition of nation and nationality to fit their purposes, well-knowing that it was not the standard “bourgeois sense of the word,” which I take to mean as pertaining to a group of shared language, territory and cultural myths, to an economic sense in order to unite all the workers across national borders. I see several problems. One is the presupposition of one massive working-class identity, except, the way humans identify is extremely complex and subjective, and often takes on a hierarchical arrangement depending on context. In local commerce, one may identify by his working occupation, i.e. as a fisherman, in the scheme of the town or village he may be seen by others as the lower stratum or on a massive regional scale he may decide he’s a proletariat. Furthermore, to assume that the average working-class man even had access to a pan-proletariat identity would be to assume that his everyday life was of borderless opportunity. I cannot agree that the lives of isolated and uneducated workers reached this level, especially if they are as oppressed as Marx and Engels claimed.
The second problem I find is that Marx and Engels also presage that the working man will be able to give up his national loyalty for a loyalty with this new identity. However, in the hierarchical image of identity, national identity in post-industrial societies is at almost always at the top and this cannot be ignored. When one is in his community, he may identify as a male or a student, when he is outside he may identify as a New Yorker and when abroad he identifies in that ultimate stage as an American as the foremost identity. When the Manifesto was written, this idea of national unity was very new, but just like class antagonisms, nations too are perennial. National identity may be constructed, but there is a further sociobiological idea of extended kinship which many take to be true. Then you must think about the values the Manifesto preaches and what is of tradition importance to the working-man, i.e. family. The average working man, whether he produced children for manpower or not, still believed in the family tradition, so to betray national loyalty would be in essence to betray a loyalty to an extended family. Where family is concerned, class means little. The fact is that working men did and do have a country and more so they have their own nation.
What I ultimately find is that in order to diffuse the proletarian revolution, it was necessary to unite all workers across borders and then to create a system not based on ethnicity or nationality, but work. I think the failure of them to realize the significance of national loyalty, whether constructed or perennial, is a starting point in attempting to analyze the theoretical shortcomings of the Communist Manifesto. I agree it is human nature to be inherently selfish and to seek to increase his share by whatever means, therefore Communism is not feasible, but in addition to this, breaking long held beliefs and strong loyalties based on something as fluid as the workday is not realistic. In the end, the lack of party loyalty for more important and intimate identities is an equally important factor in the demise of the ideology.

K.M. Cocuzza

There is no precise recipe for handling internal nationalist conflicts, and to try to endorse one over another in a few pages would ignore Michael Brown’s consistent refrain that the theories on ethnic relations have been gravely oversimplified, and that the varieties of nationalism are multiple. Every nationalist conflict is different—there is no single solution. The other contributors to Nationalism and Ethnic Conflict devote their analyses to methods of international intervention, and more often than not, emphasize the problems associated with these methods more than the successes. The authors suggest modifying the implementation of intervention tools to correlate with well-organized patterns of conflict, but much less is said of non-intervention as a solution. After considering the risks associated with foreign intervention, I contend that the best way to handle nationalist conflicts is with a non-intervention strategy as the method least likely to cause more damage, to waste more finances and to lose more lives. It seems that “peacekeeping” missions are at best intrusive when successful, and at worst fatal when not, and yet they are becoming the norm for handling nationalist conflicts.

The high costs and low success rate is not enough to ask that the international community stop making peacekeeping efforts, so I would like to speak about the irony which surrounds the intervention versus sovereignty debate. In order to explain my opinion I will mention three international documents: the Treaty of Westphalia (1648), the United Nations Charter (1945), UN Genocide Convention (1948).  The principles of interventionist policy promoted in the latter two texts evolved during the post Second World War ideological crises into the ‘Responsibility to Protect’ Doctrine, which is a reiteration of the very same principles. The problem I find is that the rhetoric defending interventionism is based on these texts, but is taken out of context and now includes any peace violation that obstructs a powerful state’s interest. Therefore, the issue of self-interest is not only a matter of domestic elites and their nefarious intentions, but of the peacemakers.

I derive the idea that the risks of foreign intervention are costly mostly from Brown and Oudraat’s Internal Conflict and International Action: An Overview and Barry Posen’s Military Responses to Refugee Disasters, though Stedman and Kaufman present interesting theories on the obstructions to the peace process. Of the ten policy instruments examined by Brown and Oudraat the most successful (with the least amount of problems) was fact-finding and the most problematic were mediation, arms embargoes/economic sanctions and military force. The other six were also riddled with failures. Posen’s explication increases the list of problematic tools to include safe havens, safe zones, and strategic bombing since they (a) promote de facto secession (b) are difficult to protect and (c) only make the targets more angry. Chaim Kaufmann follows these arguments with the futility of military aid since it does not prevent aggressors from killing and Michael Hechter is of the opinion that air power is a joke.

Then, the question of whether to intervene at all is not as evasive as it seems when considering how to handle a nationalist conflict. The cases for both intervention and non-intervention are strong and have solid foundations in officially and internationally recognized doctrines and resolutions. The Treaty of Westphalia, whose exaltation of state sovereignty now forms the backbone for the non-interventionist argument, dates back to 1648 and serves as the precedent for respecting the integrity of a state’s sovereignty.  It is clear much has changed since 1648, and though I lean towards supporting a non-interventionist approach for general, I recognize the developments in the relationships states have with each other, in addition to explicit historical circumstances calling for a review of Westphalian principles and thus an evolving definition of and value upon sovereignty.

The peace made in 1648 concerned today’s Western European democracies and the intended outcome concerned the integrity of state borders and the right to rule without interference from neighboring states in order to avoid war. I do not think the treaty was capable of mitigating or anticipated to mitigate future global interstate relationships, especially between non-democracies and competing ethnicities. The explosion of ethnic tensions that divided the world in two wars completely reframed what it meant to be a sovereign state, and that abuses of sovereignty would warrant international attention and the right to act.

In the evolution of these democracies, from newborns to protectorates, the value of sovereignty seems to have diminished from right to privilege, from principle to responsibility, which would render the norms established at Westphalia archaic. This is the terminology used by Responsibility to Protect supporters, which I will come back to. Therefore, it is essential to mention the Charter of the United Nations (1945) and the United Nations Convention on Genocide (1948) which provide the legal basis for breaching another state’s sovereignty and intervening in its affairs. The Charter and the Convention promote peace by means of international intervention, instead of abstaining from it, contrary to the Treaty of Westphalia, but I think what is often disregarded are the exceptional circumstances that preceded them, that is the genocides committed in the Second World War, which demanded a rethinking of international relations. The Charter was conceived of the necessity to legalize the military involvement, covering many different aspects. For this, the wording in the Charter, especially in Chapter 7 Article 39[i], is very vague. An open interpretation of the terms peace, breach and aggression grants an exceptional amount of leverage to any party hoping to fix its presence in other regions.

In contrast, the role of the Convention is much more specific in offering a working definition of genocide and making clear that the international community will not simply stand by mass atrocities, but will utilize all legal means to halt them.  Responsibility to Protect is strikingly similar to the Convention; it was drawn up in the aftermath of the Rwandan Genocide and suggests that the state has a duty[ii] to defend those suffering mass crimes against humanity. Being that R2P, as it’s called, is almost a reiteration of the Convention, I wondered why the document was drafted. One of the defining differences between the two is that Responsibility to Protect highlights the duty for states to act, whereas in the Convention it is a right, but the rest is strikingly similar. Why was R2P necessary if the Charter and the Convention have historically been in good standing?

To commence, neither the Charter nor the Convention have been followed accordingly. The application of Article 39 of Chapter 7 has deviated from justifying intervention in genocidal states to a clarion call for action anywhere governments are hostile towards civilians and ideological conflicts of great powers meet. Even the fundamentals of the Convention are not as solid as they appear where in Article 2 one of the elements of genocide is listed as (d) imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group,[iii] yet no measures were taken to suppress forced sterilization of Europe’s Roma (except tardy nonchalant condemnations). Responsibility to Protect was the response to the negligence of the genocide taking place in Rwanda in what Samantha Powers explains as ‘sitting around’ “without being gripped by the unfolding human tragedy” with national interests in mind. It is clear that genocide is not always the primary concern of peacemakers, unless they have what to gain from the investment. This is one of the questions that is shaping US involvement in Libya: what are our national interests there?

National interests of the state in question have been the root of critical decisions on intervention measures. This is why Rwanda was off the map for the Clinton administration until after the genocide was already under way, yet, we have been present in other peacekeeping missions that have not only failed but also caused civilian casualties. In theory, the international agreements that stand behind interventionism both respect Westphalian principles and provide a distinct code of action that has been updated to meet the requirements for dealing with modern international conflicts. However, this is not always the practice. Intervention methods should not deal with national interests, but with loss calculation. It is absolutely necessary to intervene militarily in the cases described by the Convention and R2P as the losses suffered are far greater than the risk involved but interventionism in border conflicts and nationalist conflicts where there are peacemaking state acts to gain influence in the region and where potential for civilian losses inflicted by the military are high should be curbed.

[i] Charter of the United Nations. “The Security Council shall determine the existence of any threat to the peace, breach of the peace, or act of aggression and shall make recommendations…”

[iii] United Nations Convention on Genocide 1948

Exhaustive outlines of the contents of Michael Brown’s International Security Reader.

Nationalism and Ethnic Conflict: an International Security Leader.

Michael Brown et al.

Aim of book: Nationalistic and ethnic conflicts are among the most important world security issues. This volume intends to advance the understanding of these conflicts and to propose options for dealing with them.

It is a compilation of fourteen different essays arranged in three parts. The first part of the book deals with the causes of nationalistic and ethnic conflicts. The second is dedicated to international options and the third emphasizes political challenges that complicate efforts at conflict resolution.

Part I: Causes of Nationalistic and Ethnic Conflicts

Michael Brown. The Causes of Internal Conflict.

1. The Causes of Internal Conflict, Michael Brown.
   1. The “ancient hatreds” theory for internal ethnic conflict proposed by policymakers and journalists is neither substantial nor sufficient. It does not account for why violent conflict does not arise in all situations with historical ethnic grievances. It does not explain why some disputes are more violent and harder to resolve.
   2. Four main arguments while over viewing scholarly literature:
      1. Literature focuses on factors that make some places/cases more predisposed to violence than others. Four factors:
         1. Structural factors
            1. Weak states- starting point for analyzing internal conflict
               1. States born weak, those carved out of colonial empires (Africa, SE Asia); out of Soviet Union, Yugoslavia
                  1. Lack political legitimacy
                  2. Politically sensible borders
                  3. Political institutions capable of meaningful control
               2. Weakening states- violent conflict follows
                  1. Weakened externally (drops in commodity prices, reduction in foreign aid)
                  2. Internal weakness (corruption, administrative incompetence, inability to develop economically)
                  3. Oppressed ethnic groups assert themselves politically, protected ethnic groups become vulnerable.
                  4. Criminal organizations prevail (Caucasus, Afghanistan); borders are controlled less effectively, human rights violations, disintegration of the state
            2. Intra state security concerns
               1. Weakening states incite groups to worry about themselves. They take security into their own hands.
               2. Defensive mobilization, especially military, can be perceived as offensive.
               3. Neighboring groups then feel threatened and seek to diminish the security of the other group.
                  1. This leads to the security dilemma
            3. Ethnic geography- states with ethnic minorities are more prone to conflict than others. Ethnically homogeneous composition can account for stability in some states (Poland, CR, Hungary) but is not a guarantee (Somalia)
               1. Ethnic intermingling - less likely to face secessionist demands, if demands do happen in intermingled states, ethnic groups seek to control territory
                  1. Results in guerilla warfare, cleansing, genocide
               2. Ethnic segregation - more likely to face secessionist demands, but warfare less intense.
         2. Political factors
            1. Discriminatory political institutions - closed systems with uneven or unfair ethnic representation generate considerable resentment.
               1. Internal conflict is likely if state oppression/violence are common and if in a political transition period
            2. Exclusionary national ideologies - conflict is more likely when ethnic conceptions of nationalism predominate
               1. (Snyder) Ethnic nationalism appears spontaneously when a institutional vacuum occurs. It depends not on institutions but on culture. It predominates when institutions collapse, when satisfactory alternatives are not available. (Balkans, ECE, former SU)
            3. Inter group politics - changes in inter group balances of power can be destabilizing
               1. Prospects of violence are strong if groups have ambitious objectives with possible success that are incompatible with those of other groups, inspiring the fear and anxiety of the possibility of being dominated.
            4. Elite politics - opportunistic and desperate politicians’ tactics in times of turmoil
               1. They provoke ethnic conflict by scapegoating and bashing, using the media, in order to fend off domestic challengers. (Milosevic/Serbia; Tudjman/Croatia)
         3. Economic/social factors - three broad sources of internal conflict:
            1. Economic problems - transitions from centrally-planned market-based economic systems create societal frustrations, tensions and are a breeding ground for conflict. (Unemployment, resource competition, inflation)
            2. Discriminatory economic systems - generate feelings of resentment
               1. Unequal economic opportunities, vast differences in standards of living (Sri Lanka)
               2. Economic development is not necessarily the solution, economic growth benefits some more than others. Those on top take advantage of the downtrodden.
               3. Growing inequities aggravate intra state tensions - lag in development of political institutions behind social and economic change
                  1. Industrialization brings about profound social changes, disrupts traditional order
                  2. Better education, higher literacy brings about awareness of social statuses and strains existing social and political systems
            3. Struggles during economic development/modernization
         4. Cultural/factors
            1. Cultural discrimination against minorities
               1. Inequitable education opportunities
               2. Constraints on the teaching of minority languages, religious freedom
               3. Draconian efforts to assimilate (cultural genocide) (Stalin policies in the Caucasus; Chinese policies in Tibet, Slovaks to Hungarians)
            2. Group perceptions of themselves and others
               1. Some grievances may be legitimate, whether ancient or recent, but groups also whitewash and glorify their own histories while demonizing their neighbors (Hutus and Tutsis)
               2. When two groups in proximity have mirror images of each other, the slightest provocation confirms the deeply held beliefs (Serbs and Croats)
      2. Scholarly literature weakly analyzes proximate causes of internal conflicts. Brown contends internal conflicts are triggered in four different ways:
         1. Internal/mass level factors (bad domestic problems)
            1. Rapid economic development and modernization (Punjab)
            2. Patterns of political and economic discrimination (Nagorno-Karabakh)
         2. External/mass level factors (bad neighborhoods)
            1. Swarms of refugees or fighters crossing borders bringing violence with them
            2. Radicalized politics sweeping throughout regions
            3. “spill over effect”, resettling in neighborhoods where tensions are already mounting
         3. External/elite level factors (bad neighbors)
            1. Discrete, deliberate decisions by governments to trigger conflicts in neighboring states for purposes of their own. (Soviet invasion of Afghanistan)
         4. Internal/elite level factors (bad leaders)
            1. Power struggles by civilian leaders (Georgia)
            2. Power struggles by military leaders (Nigeria)
            3. Ideological contests on how the country’s affairs should be organized (Algeria, Peru)
            4. Criminal assaults on the state (Colombia)
      3. Scholarly literature does not give enough attention to domestic elites who aggravate violent situations into deadly ones. Different kinds of conflicts:
         1. Decisions and actions of domestic elites often determine whether political disputes veer towards war or peace
         1. Ideological conflicts
            1. Ideological struggles over the organization of the country’s affairs
            2. Cold War ideological struggles defined in class terms with Marxist agendas,
               1. today the underlying causes are the same
                  1. Discrimination, widespread dissatisfaction with the pace of economic development, inequalities
               2. Proximate causes are different
                  1. No longer class based but indigenous and ethnic based
         2. Criminal assaults on state sovereignty
            1. Drug and criminal cartels can accumulate enough power to challenge state control
            2. Ethnic groups and political movements can use criminal organizations to fund their activities
         3. Raw power struggles (between and among elites)
            1. The most common type
            2. Some are sustained gov’t campaigns to repress ethnic minorities
            3. They play the ethnic card very aggressively
            4. The starting point for the pernicious power struggles of Yugoslavia and Rwanda is lack of elite legitimacy, leading to their vulnerability. They are determined to fend off political challenges, shift discourse from civic nationalism to ethnic nationalism
            5. Control over media is very effective
      4. There are many different types of internal conflicts with many different causes
      5. Why do followers follow?
         1. Emergence of elite competitions might be proximate causes, but hostilities escalate only because of the existence of other underlying problems or permissive conditions.
         2. All three factors must be present for conflict to explode
         1. Existence of antagonistic group histories
         2. Mounting economic problems
      6. Policy implications
         1. Conflict prevention should have two tracks:
            1. Series of long-term efforts aimed at underlying conditions
            2. Focus on proximate causes of internal conflict
         2. Efforts need to take into account the fact that internal conflicts can be triggered by any of the four sets of proximate causes
         3. Conflict prevention efforts should focus on the decisions and actions of domestic elites

Stephen Van Evera. Hypotheses on Nationalism and War.

“twenty one hypotheses about nationalism and the onset of war: structural, political and perceptual factors”

1. Scholars speak about causes of nationalism and less about effects, effects are taken for granted
   1. Article explores the nexus between nationalism and war
   2. Nationalism:
      1. Loyalty to own ethnic group or national community
      2. Ethnic or national communities desire own state
   3. Seven questions:
      1. Does nationalism cause war, if so, which ones? Those which cause war depend on:
         1. Political Status: statehood?
            1. Movements without states pose greater risk of war
            2. Regional wars of secession can become international
            3. National freedom struggles can displace populations
            4. New national freedom creates immature player in international system
            5. The proportion of nation to state is roughly equal to level of risk
         2. National diaspora: immigration or expansion?

            1. Disapora accepting

               Less troublesome

               Content with partial union

               Immigrationist

               Easy to accommodate

               Pursue union by seeking immigration

               Expansionist

               Most dangerous

               Engages in territorial conflict to include diaspora population

         3. Other nations: respect or deny?
            1. Symmetrical: all nationalities deserve states
            2. Asymmetrical: only our nationality deserves a state
            3. Hegemonistic: right to rule them
         4. Own minorities: respect or abuse?
            1. Minority-respecting: equal rights to others within its own state
            2. Minority-oppressing: subjugates, denies rights
               1. Provokes violent secessions
               2. Spurs kin-states to forcefully free their co-nationals
      2. How and why?
         1. One, Two and Three define the scope of nationalist movements’ claims against others
         2. Four determines the scope of others’ claims against the movement, the larger they are, the more they will collide with the movement and risk war
         3. The Four together create a danger scale
      3. What causes the war-causing nationalisms?
         1. Structural (demographic arrangement)
            1. Balance of power between stateless nationalisms and central states
               1. Unattainable statehood will lie dormant, danger arises when statehood appears attainable
            2. Degree/scope/pattern of ethnic intermingling
               1. Intermingling can trap co-ethnics outside boundaries
               2. Raise danger of diaspora recovering expansionism
               3. Intensified if nationality is dispersed abroad
               4. Regional
                  1. Regions heterogeneous, communities homogeneous
                  2. Easily managed, elites negotiate inter group
               5. Local overall more dangerous
                  1. Small heterogeneous communities
                  2. Elites lose control at this level
                  3. But conflict dampening personal friendships
               6. Most dangerous
                  1. Both groups at the mercy of the other with insecurity
                  2. possibility of rescue (secession or intervention)
                     1. Impossible- abandoned goal of secession or reunion, lowers risk of war
                     2. Easy- threat of rescue deters the abuse of the diaspora
                     3. In between situations- rescue possible under optimal conditions are dangerous. Any window of opportunity is tempting
                        1. Most troublesome when diaspora is separated from the homeland by lands inhabited by others
            3. Legitimacy/defensibility of borders
               1. Fragmentation of states can deepen peace, in some cases or the creation of new states can create anarchy leading to war
                  1. Indefensible borders: warlike
                  2. Highly defensible: peaceful (new states less anxious to expand, defers others from attacking)
            4. Correspondence of borders with ethnic boundaries
         2. Political-environmental (past or present conduct of neighbors)
            1. Memories of great crimes/cruelties determine treatment
            2. Power in the hands of the victims or victimizers
               1. Danger in the power of the victims
         3. Perceptual (self-image, image of others) (and mythmaking)
            1. Self-glorifying: claim special virtue, competence, false claims of beneficence towards others
            2. Self-whitewashing: denial of past wrongs against others
               1. Most common. Dangers are proportional to level of whitewashing
            3. Other-maligning: claims of others’ cultural inferiority, false claims of crimes and bad intentions
            4. In economic crisis, myths scapegoat domestic/international malefactors
            5. Societies lacking free speech allow permissive conditions for mythmaking
      4. Under which conditions are they most dangerous?
      5. How can the war-causing attributes be suppressed?
      6. How large are the risks to peace posed by nationalism in Europe?
   4. Causes of war of peace:
      1. Proximate (direct)
      2. Remote (background)
   5. Twenty One Hypotheses:
   6. 
   7. 
   8. 

Jack Snyder and Karen Ballentine. Nationalism and the Marketplace of Ideas.

New democracies—>increased openness—>exploitation of supply/segmented demand/lack of regulation—>mythmaking—>conflict.

“propaganda and political manipulation of the media often play central roles in causing nationalistic and ethnic conflicts. They take issue with the antidote usually prescribed by scholars and they maintain that promoting unconditional freedom in public debates in democratizing countries often makes stability problems worse. Sudden liberalization of press leads to violence outburst.”

2. Intro-
   1. Conventional thoughts on ethnic conflict is propaganda which manipulates public opinion
   2. They agree media manipulation is a central component to this conflict, but unconditional freedom of the press makes problems in transitory societies worse.
      1. Newly democratizing states lack institutions to break up information monopolies, to professionalize journalism
      2. Mythmakers can hijack public discourse
3. Definitions
   1. Nationalist mythmaking at its finest: Hitler, French Revolution, Hutu radio
   2. Myth- assertions that would lose credibility if their claim to a basis in fact were exposed to rigorous disinterested public evaluation. “The Holocaust never happened”
   3. Mythomoteur- story about origins, special character, and destiny of a nation “it is good to be a Ruritanian; Ruritanians deserve their own state”
      1. +justifications: “We ruled this territory six centuries ago”
      2. Myths overemphasize uniqueness, exaggerate perceived threats
   4. Conditions of “perfect competition” do not exist in waning authoritarian states. This leave mythmakers unchecked. (Imperfect Competition)
   5. Theory of Competition: Mythmakers convince conationals in the same way suppliers persuade consumers with advertisements. Low cost, high value.
   6. “Marketplace of ideas,” as in the economic model, is in newly democratized states reflective of a young poorly regulated industry, the nationalist suppliers can flourish in this.
   7. Elites:
      1. Old elites and rising counter elites both use nationalism to compete against each other. They criticize each other in national terms (i.e. you denied civil rights, you favored a cultural group)
   8. New democracies tend to have segmented marketplaces of ideas meaning individuals lack exposure to ideas expressed in other segments
      1. This is problematic because the more segmented (the more narrow the segments) the greater the possibility of a mythmaker at monopolizing it. They need to monopolize it because they need to compete (slightly different from a true monopoly). (Oligopoly)
         1. Result- no common marketplace of ideas—>parallel monopolies create illusion of market pluralism
      2. Market segmentation by:
         1. Pre-existing preferences/common group outlook
         2.  language or ethnicity to split local populations
         3. By political boundaries
   9. Lastly, regulatory institutions in the marketplace of ideas are weak
4. How to integrate the market
   1. International community might need to break up the suppliers’ monopolies, especially in weak civil societies with weak journalistic traditions
   2. Civic-territorial conceptions of national identity should be promoted by expressing a variety of outlooks on the same pages
   3. And the institutionalization of norms should be promoted well before the full opening of mass political participation

John Mueller. The Banality of “Ethnic War”

The leading literature “mistakenly characterizes violence as manifestations of ‘ethnic conflict’. He maintains that violent conflicts are administered by small bands of opportunistic marauders (recently out of prison, street gangs) operated under and recruited by political leaders and that nationalism is not the compelling force. It is simply ‘banal’ political and criminal opportunism. He focuses on Yugoslavia and Rwanda.

“one could argue that Bosnia shows how weak and how fluid political identity really is” p 110

1. The concept of “ethnic warfare” is extremely misguided as, under appropriate conditions, the violence in Yugoslavia and Rwanda can happen almost anywhere.
2. One common theory is that ethnic hatreds had been kept in check by communism, but afterwards could not be contained.
   1. But, nationalism was not the impelling force, in Croatia and Bosnia the conflicts were not spurred by the “ethnic hatreds” but its participants were drawn from street gangs, prisons and drunken soccer clubs under the general guidance of political leaders to make up for the disintegrated Yugoslav army.
      1. Serbs were unwilling to fight outside their own republic, many men were draft-dodgers and fled to safer places
      2. The collapse of the army led to the privatization of the war; hooligans compensated what was left of the army. Others joined paramilitary groups (Arkan’s tigers) or became something closer to warlords.
   2. Milosevic’s party, for example, paid mobs with free food, transport and liquor.
   3. In Rwanda a Hobbesian all-against-all idea of ethnic warfare is more visible, though the killings were carried out by a relatively small number of Hutus allied with criminals and drunks.
   4. Thus the mechanism of violence in these two places is banal, and not reflective of deep passions and hatreds.
   5. Also flawed is the idea that each member of each national group is deeply united.
3. Support for militant nationalism in Yugoslavia was not deep during its time of maximum notice.
   1. A poll in late 1990 shows that 61% (an overwhelming majority) responded negatively to the idea of every (Yugoslav) nation having a state
4. Four stages to the war and ethnic cleansing
   1. Takeover:
      1. Recruited thugs emerged in a police friendly area where civil order ceased to exist
      2. Members of other ethnic groups without protection fled without much persuasion
      3. Co-ethnics who opposed were forced out, killed, or cowed into joining.
   2. Carnival:
      1. These small groups of criminals looted, destructed, raped, murdered, were paid in liquor and tobacco and reveled in their atrocities
      2. Tim Judah “real psychopaths were rampaging across the countryside”
      3. Others joined for several reasons:
         1. It might seem sensible to not oppose the thieves
         2. Those seeking revenge or adventure, (police also) might join
         3. Those seeking excitement (teenagers)
         4. Those seeking material profit
   3. Revenge:
      1. Many were advised to flee with their co-ethnics and join similar bands
      2. The choice was often be dominated by vicious persons of one’s own ethnic group, or the other
   4. Occupation/desertion
      1. Political aims of the war became intertwined with day-to-day existence, regardless of ethnicity.
5. Rwanda-
   1. On the surface seems like an all-against-all war, but shares many similarities to the Yugoslav war.
6. Conclusion-
   1. Ethnicity is important, but as an ordering device rather than an impelling tool. Wars were not inevitable, and could have been easy to police.

David Lake and Donald Rothchild. Containing Fear: Tbe Origins and Management of Ethnic Conflict.

Lake and Rothchild use the “rational choice approach to argue that intense ethnic conflict is often caused by collective fears which are driven by safety and security concerns.”

Intense ethnic conflict is caused by collective fears of the future

1. Security dilemmas
2. Information failures, weakened state
3. Groups driven apart
4. Ethnic conflicts can be contained but not entirely resolved
   1. Confidence building measures (power sharing, elections, regional autonomy) mitigate strategic dilemmas
   2. International intervention effectiveness limited
5. Besides rational choice factors, there are non rational choice factors
   1. Political myths
   2. Emotional responses to dilemmas

Part II: Options for International Action

Michael Brown and Chantal de Jonge Oudraat. Internal Conflict and International Action: An Overview.

Brown and Oudraat examine “ten main policy instruments in order to identify the conditions under which different kinds of international actions are most likely to succeed and then to develop some policy recommendations”

1. Humanitarian Assistance
   1. Problems
      1. Broken down societies lack respect for humanitarian law
      2. Humanitarian agents are forced to negotiate to protect personnel/resources with local leaders
      3. Humanitarian relief supplies have been seized by warring factions
2. Fact-finding
   1. Problems
      1. Findings not always publicized
   2. Successes
      1. Lead to other initiatives (mediation, peacekeeping, employment of coercive instruments)
      2. When carried out before violence, have considerable ability to prevent conflict, as well as after violence
3. Mediation
   1. Problems
      1. Local parties enter negotiations in bad faith, to buy time, agreements fall apart in the implementation phase
      2. Benefits of agreements can be overestimated
      3. Local parties tend to cheat when implementing peace agreements
      4. Leaders of factions are unable to exercise control of the followers
   2. Successes
      1. Success occurs when mediators have clear political objectives, are timed well when all parties want to talk, and exhibit substantial leverage over the talks
4. Confidence-building measures
   1. Problems
      1. Does not help groups with malign intentions towards each other
   2. Successes
      1. Reduces uncertainties leading to arms measures
      2. Creates buffer zones
      3. Provides forum for open discussion between local parties
5. Traditional peacekeeping operations
   1. Successes
      1. Bring peace
   2. Problems
      1. Deployed under challenging circumstances
      2. Only under traditional cease fire
6. Multifunctional peacekeeping operations
   1. Problems
      1. Ample room for mishap (inadequate planning, equipment shortages, insufficient finances)
      2. Local parties are not serious about peace
   2. Successes
      1. Can address more complicated situations
7. Military and economic assistance
   1. Problems
      1. Can aggravate security concerns
   2. Successes
8. Arms embargoes and economic sanctions
   1. Problems
      1. Embargoes have a limited effect on violence
      2. Sanctions hurt innocent people
      3. Complying with them is difficult as it is difficult to produce the intelligence required for such missions
   2. Successes
      1. Effective against illegitimate groups (Haiti)
      2. Effective against an interfering neighboring state (Serbia)
9. Judicial enforcement measures
   1. Problems
      1. Met with skepticism about capacity to bring justice
      2. Depends on the extent to which authorities are willing to hand over guilty parties and provide evidence
   2. Successes
      1. Moves quickly since there is no permanent international criminal court, international tribunals applied ad hoc
      2. Promotes reconciliation
10. Military force
    1. Problems
       1. Chaos returns when forces withdraw
       2. Does not address political roots
    2. Successes
       1. Can create secure environment for humanitarian relief

Tasks

1. Conflict prevention
   1. Adopt two tracks strategy
      1. Sustained long term efforts focusing on underlying problems
      2. Aggressive efforts on proximate causes
   2. Neutralize proximate causes of internal conflicts
   3. Act early to keep violence from escalating
   4. Keep internal conflicts from becoming regional ones

Barry Posen. Military Responses to Refugee Disasters

Posen “analyzes military options available to interveners. Military capabilities have generated misplaced optimism about the usefulness of military power with respect to refugee crisis. Military power is effective only with difficulty.

Categorizes causes and remedies of refugee flows and combines them to assess applicability as all remedies are not appropriate for all causes.

1. Causes of refugee flows
   1. Genocide/politicide
   2. Ethnic cleansing
   3. Repressive conquerors/regimes
   4. Dangerous environment of war
   5. Impoverishment
2. Military remedies
   1. Strategic bombing- popular punishing measure carried out typically until refugee producing behavior is stopped.
      1. Problematic tool, seldom accomplishes its purpose of changing the target’s behavior
      2. Bombing makes the targeted population angry, increased people’s dependence on the state for survival purposes, makes it difficult to then overthrow
      3. Target problems
         1. Assailant and victim populations are dispersed and intermingled
         2. Industrial base bombing pointless
            1. Many countries today do not have an industrial base to lose
            2. New light weaponry mobilizes base
            3. Assailants stake out all around victims
         3. Leader assassinations, not a good idea.
      4. Causes
         1. Genocide/politicide- least plausible
         2. Ethnic cleansing- plausible with risk of enraging the assailant into murdering victims instead of displacing them
   2. Safe zones- area where the victims live is cordoned off from the assailant.
      1. Rarely attempted
      2. Produce de facto secession
      3. Causes
         1. The threat can be several of the causes but the remedy is practical only when the settlement places the population at risk in one or two geographically limited areas.
   3. Safe havens- the displaced can seek protection close to their homes, but not in them. Their normal life has been destroyed
      1. Good because it does not look like secession
      2. Can arise in intermixed regions (most common anyway), but difficult because surrounded by assailant territory
      3. Causes
         1. Ethnic cleansing- provide refuge for people toughing out the situation, open possibility that assailant’s gains will be reversed
         2. Harsh occupation- difficult unless occupier is weak which opens up a strategy for liberation with other people occupying the country
         3. Internal war- risk they will become strategic assets or liabilities
         4. Starvation- excellent, a more tradition humanitarian mission
   4. Enforced peace- outsiders seize elements of sovereignty, act as sheriff and protect both sides
      1. Causes
         1. Genocide/politicide and Ethnic cleansing-
            1. Weak majority strong enough to terrorize, too underdeveloped for bombing, too intermixed for safe havens/zones
   5. Full scale war- change regime, destroy military power of assailant

Daniel Byman and Matthew Waxman. Kosovo and the Great Air Power Debate..

Byman and Waxman “argue that the current debate over air power’s effectiveness confuses more than it enlightens. They contend that air power can make several important contributions to coercive campaigns.” Serbia, Kosovo

Herbert Howe. Lessons of Liberia: ECOMOG and Regional Peacekeeping.

“strengths and weaknesses of regional efforts at peacekeeping”

Roland Paris. Peacebuilding and the Limits of Liberal Internationalism.

“argues that liberal internationalism has guided most international efforts since the end of the Cold War and that it has not been very effective because political and economic liberalization has often produced destabilizing effects. International actors should embrace liberal internationalism but need to anticipate its negative effects and limit them”

Liberal internationalism is the single paradigm guiding peacekeeping efforts and he argues it not effective.. It has destabilizing effects.

Liberal internationalism - belief that establishing liberal democratic political systems and market-oriented economies is the best way to promote peace in war torn countries

Does peacebuilding build peace?

Of the eight peacebuilding missions since 1989 only one (Namibia) seems to be on peaceful path.

(Bosnia, Rwanda, Mozambique, Angola, El Salvador, Cambodia,

Part III

Alan Dowty and Gil Loescher. Refugee Flows as Grounds for International Action.

“traditional notions of sovereignty are beginning to give way to a growing international awareness. States often have security issues that justify international intervention in internal affairs of state from which refugees are fleeing”

1. Refugee flows across national borders impose increasing burdens/peace threats on countries of refuge
2. International law provides a basis for international action to prevent such flows
3. Refugee flows, as a security threat, legitimize UN enforcement action
4. Intervention, military and otherwise, is becoming the norm

Stepehen Stedman. Spoiler Problems in Peace Processes.

“spoilers—political leaders and groups who use violence to undermine the peace process in their own interests—obstruct conflict resolution efforts. He offers a framework for analyzing spoilers and assesses counter-spoiler strategies.”

Dimensions of spoilers

1. Position
   1. Inside
      1. Signs a peace agreement, seems willing
      2. Then fails to implement key measures
   2. Outside
      1. Excluded from peace process (by own volition or not)
      2. Use violence to attack peace process
2. Number
   1. The presence of more than one spoiler creates a compound challenge for potential custodians
3. Type
   1. Limited
      1. Goals- recognition of grievance, share of power
      2. Strategies
         1. Inducement is appropriate but depends on bargaining range
   2. Greedy
      1. Goals limited or total depending on costs and risks
      2. Strategies
         1. Requires long term socialization
         2. Because they are not total spoilers, they can be brought into the peace process
         3. Inducements alone will whet their appetite
   3. Total
      1. Pathological intentions
      2. Espouse radical ideologies
      3. Total power, violent transformation of society
      4. Strategy
         1. Inducements and socialization risk rewarding the spoiler, and the spoiler cannot be appeased in these processes
         2. Two versions of coercion are counterproductive
         3. Best is use of force or departing train strategy

Spoiler management strategies

1. Inducement-
   1. positive measures addressing grievances
   2. Meeting costly demands of spoilers
   3. Convenient strategy not depending on type of spoiler
2. Socialization
   1. Provides norms for acceptable behavior for those seeking peace
3. Coercion
   1. Threat of punishment to alter unacceptable spoiler behavior
   2. ‘departing train’ peace process will go forward whether spoiler joins or not
   3. ‘withdrawal’ threatening to withdraw international support because spoiler wants international presence during peace process
   1. Rebuild institutions, power-sharing arrangements, reconstruct ethnic identities to be more inclusive
   2. Primordial hatreds cannot be reduced, they are long ingrained in memory

Barbara Walter. Designing Transitions from Civil War: Demobilization, Democratization, and Commitments to Peace.

“A key to ending civil wars is designing credible guarantees about the terms of the agreement. The biggest obstacle is creating a framework that convinces combatants to get rid of their partisan armies and surrender conquered territory. International assistance is key.

Chaim Kaufmann. Possible and Impossible Solutions to Ethnic Civil Wars.

“Ethnic identities become so hardened that rebuilding states becomes impossible. Violence can be stopped only if these intermingled populations are physically separated. The international community must abandon attempts to restore war-torn multiethnic states.”

Two leading thoughts on ethnic wars are wrong

Why? How?

Hardened ethnic identities (1)

Security dilemmas (2)

1. Ethnic identities become rigid. The key to understanding the difference between ethnic civil wars and other types of civil war is the flexibility of loyalties is different. Other types of civil war are based on ideology, those identities are fluid. Ethnic civil wars are based on a supposed primordial identity, and they become more rigid along the way due to several factors.
   1. Identities harden:
      1. The scope for individual identities shrinks. Identity is imposed by others (i.e. we didn’t think of ourselves as Muslims until they started attacking us). Sanctions are imposed on those who do not contribute; fear of genocide eliminates identity choice.
      2. Ethnicity (as opposed to ideology) is very easily identifiable.
2. Those involved in ethnic wars do not seek to sway other members, they instead seek to control territory, this creates a security dilemma, and there is greater risk of battle.
   1. The war cannot end until the content of the security dilemma (caused by each side’s mobilization rhetoric) is reduced. Groups must be physically separated
   2. Incentives to expand territory since recruiting co-ethnics can only occur in friendly zones. Military control of an entire territory is equated to total victory
   3. The military capability acquired for defense, is then used offensively. This is due to lack of state protection, and the danger is heightened by nationalist rhetoric.
   4. Security dilemmas have levels of severity
      1. The more intermingled, the stronger the offensive
      2. The more separated, the stronger the defense.
3. Ending the war, restoring peace
   1. Security dilemmas and war can cause ethnic unmixing.
   2. The war cannot end until the populations are separated into homogeneous regions
      1. No guarantee of peace, but war is no longer mandatory. Attempts to seize territory would require huge military offensives.
      2. Data supports that separation is key
         1. Objections to separation
            1. Encourages splintering of states- but states are breaking up anyway, reduces loss of life
            2. Population exchanges cause human suffering- spontaneous refugee flows are worse than planned ones
            3. Civil wars become international ones- international wars are less dangerous to civilians
            4. Rump states not viable
            5. Does nothing to resolve ethnic hatreds- it is unlikely that once atrocities have occurred that any agent can reduce these hatreds, separation in the long run can reduce the antagonism.
   3. Other methods of ending civil wars:
      1. Suppression- victory for one side, suppression for the other. Not a recommended tool.
      2. Reconstruction of ethnic identities- very ambitious, using constructivist model, elites can reshape loyalties. The problem is recent history, it matters even if ancient doesn’t, literacy promotes memory, ethnic institutions still stand.
      3. Power-sharing- Components:
         1. Joint exercise of governmental power
         2. Proportional distribution of funds and jobs
         3. Autonomy on ethnic issues
         4. Minority veto on issues of their importance
            1. Power sharing may avert conflict, but they do not necessarily bring peace if intense violence, ethnic mobilization were to occur again. Power sharing is not a resolution to wars because elites must consciously and voluntarily cooperate. Group leaders under mobilization are unlikely to respond.
      4. State-building- International groups administer official functions until they can come up with a fair election. But this requires occupying the country, coercion, and military risks. Outcome of elections still may not guarantee safety.
4. Intervention
   1. Settlements must aim at physically separating the warring communities, establish balance of strength eliminating profit from any attempts at revising the territory.
   2. Direct military intervention necessary to stop genocide, or to halt a potential offensive from the stronger side.
   3. If there is a stalemate, the international community should strengthen it, but if one side is stronger or weaker, external forces should act on behalf of the weaker. Intervention should not be undertaken if both sides are seen as villains.
   4. Tools
      1. Economic sanctions- limited leverage
      2. Military aid- cannot prevent aggressors from killing, does not restrain possible atrocities by the client group if their military improves.
      3. Military intervention- if the client is took weak to achieve separation with aid, if both sides cannot be trusted. “Conquer and divide”