Ethnicity: A Trojan Horse for the Perpetuation of Armed Civil Cinflicts in Africa

Result code in IS VaVaI

<a href="https://www.isvavai.cz/riv?ss=detail&h=RIV%2F62690094%3A18460%2F25%3A50021851" target="_blank" >RIV/62690094:18460/25:50021851 - isvavai.cz</a>

Result on the web

<a href="https://brill.com/view/journals/ijgr/aop/article-10.1163-15718115-bja10180/article-10.1163-15718115-bja10180.xml" target="_blank" >https://brill.com/view/journals/ijgr/aop/article-10.1163-15718115-bja10180/article-10.1163-15718115-bja10180.xml</a>

DOI - Digital Object Identifier

<a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/15718115-bja10180" target="_blank" >10.1163/15718115-bja10180</a>

Result language

angličtina

Original language name

Ethnicity: A Trojan Horse for the Perpetuation of Armed Civil Cinflicts in Africa

Original language description

Purpose: The prevalence of armed conflicts in Africa seems commonplace, with little possibility to their end. This study aims to challenge a narrative that seem to consider ethnicity, or ethnic differences as the main causes of armed civil conflicts in Africa. This study argues that while ethnicity might play a role in conflict formation, ethnicity is simply a Trojan horse that is impishly presented as the main cause of armed conflicts in Africa.Design/Methodology: Data were collected from both primary and secondary sources. To evaluate the ethnicity vs. conflict nexus more conscientiously, this study provided two case examples: Ethiopia and Kenya, each providing distinct political trajectories.Findings: The study finds that ethnicity is not the main cause of armed conflicts in Africa; rather, the main causal factors are embedded in bad governance practices by political elites and their cronies. Notable is the practice of politics of power grab and marginalisation of certain groups to achieve Machiavellian ends. The additional causal factor is tied to external imperial exploitative motives of looting Africa’s natural resources, often using African puppets, bagmen and traitors of their own homeland. Thus, a combination of bad local governance practices and external economic interests is mainly what has led to a surge in armed civil conflicts in Africa.Originality/Value: The novelty of this study is that it challenges conventional political standpoints on the causes of ethnic-related conflicts and the solutions needed to end/reduce them. The study has achieved this by pushing the cloak of appreciating the scope and scale of Africa’s armed conflicts by advancing the argument that conflict management solutions lie inward rather than outward through the utilisation of local or homegrown conflict resolution mechanisms. Such local mechanisms must focus on addressing bad governance practices. The current penchant of relying on international or foreign mediatory systems as solutions is done merely at the behest of global politicking and, as such, only provides cosmetic solutions, hence themselves responsible for those protracted ethnic-related conflicts.

Czech name

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Czech description

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Type

J_imp - Article in a specialist periodical, which is included in the Web of Science database

CEP classification

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OECD FORD branch

50601 - Political science

Project

—

Continuities

I - Institucionalni podpora na dlouhodoby koncepcni rozvoj vyzkumne organizace

Publication year

2025

Confidentiality

S - Úplné a pravdivé údaje o projektu nepodléhají ochraně podle zvláštních právních předpisů

Name of the periodical

International Journal on Minority and Group Rights

ISSN

1385-4879

e-ISSN

1571-8115

Volume of the periodical

32

Issue of the periodical within the volume

3

Country of publishing house

NL - THE KINGDOM OF THE NETHERLANDS

Number of pages

34

Pages from-to

556-589

UT code for WoS article

001554504300005

EID of the result in the Scopus database

2-s2.0-85208363083