journal of
peace
R
E S E A R C H
© 2000 Journal of Peace Research,
vol. 37, no. 1, 2000, pp. 107–117
Sage Publications (London, Thousand
Oaks, CA and New Delhi)
[0022-3433(200001)37:1; 107–117; 011055]
A World Flying Apart? Violent Nationalist Conflict and
the End of the Cold War*
R. WILLIAM AYRES
Department of History and Political Science, University of Indianapolis
Recent events around the world have convinced political scientists and policymakers that nationalist
conflicts are an important feature of the post-Cold War world. Conflicts in Bosnia, Chechnya, Kosovo,
and Kurdistan have all been prominent in headlines in recent years; but such conflicts are not just a
post-Cold War phenomenon, and many have been going on for decades. This article outlines the scope
of this phenomenon – violent conflicts between nationalist groups within states – in the post-war
period. It presents a dataset of violent nationalist conflicts within states from 1945 to 1996, measuring
cases in terms of initiation, duration, and intensity of conflict, and comparing this effort to other
intrastate conflict data collections. The characteristics of these conflicts before and after the Cold War
are examined, to test the popular notion that the end of the Cold War has ‘unleashed’ a new era of
nationalist strife. This survey concludes that these conflicts are not simply a post-Cold War phenomenon, nor has the end of the Cold War brought an unprecedented wave of new nationalist conflicts to
the world. On the contrary, many such conflicts do get resolved, and more have been resolved in the
past ten years – particularly by peaceful methods – than in any comparable period in recent history.
Introduction
Conflicts in Bosnia, Kosovo and Kurdistan
have been prominent in headlines in recent
years. But such conflicts are not just a postCold War phenomenon, and many have
been going on for decades. As international
relations scholars, we are told (and we tell
each other) that a ‘new world order’ is
emerging, and that nationalist regional conflict is the greatest threat to the stability,
peace, and prosperity of that order. We need
a more systematic understanding of these
* The author would like to thank David Mason, Manus
Midlarsky, Roy Licklider, Paul Hensel, and Peter
Wallensteen for their helpful comments and suggestions;
responsibility for all errors rests solely with the author. All
statistical results contained herein were generated with
SPSS. The data presented in this article can be downloaded, in either SPSS or Microsoft Excel format, from
http://facstaff.uindy.edu/~bayres/research.htm
conflicts in both Cold War and post-Cold
War settings before we can begin to generalize about either their causes or potential
solutions (Kaufman, 1996).
This article proposes to outline the scope
of this phenomenon – violent conflict
involving nationalist groups within states –
in the Cold War and post-Cold War
periods. This is an effort not to look at all
‘ethnic conflicts’ – a term which has variable
meanings for different people in any case –
but at a particular kind of conflict that
appears to have particular importance:
violent intrastate nationalist conflict
(VINC). In this article I present a dataset of
these conflicts from 1945 to 1996, including
measures of initiation, duration, and
severity. The purpose of this task is twofold:
to build an empirical ‘baseline’ against which
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to measure particular conflicts of this type,
and by which we can compare this particular
type of conflict to other sorts of conflict; and
to explore the hypothesis that the end of the
Cold War has had a measurable effect on the
characteristics of these phenomena.
Much of the popular understanding of
nationalist conflict, particularly in the postCold War era, is based on anecdotal understandings of a few high-profile cases which
happen to have started since the Cold War
ended. In particular, the conflicts in Bosnia
and Kosovo (or, earlier, in Chechnya) are
often used as an exemplar of nationalist conflict; we suddenly see ‘ethnic cleansing’
everywhere, and want to apply the ‘lessons’
of the present crisis elsewhere, whether they
are appropriate or not. While conflicts like
Bosnia or Kosovo demonstrate the importance of this kind of conflict, they may well
not represent other conflicts of similar type.
Even if international relations research has
only recently ‘discovered’ these conflicts, our
analyses should not be driven primarily by a
few post-Soviet headline-grabbing cases.1
Worse still, we may come to see these as a
‘new’ phenomenon rather than as a series of
ongoing occurrences.
This article is divided into three main parts.
The first will briefly outline definitions of the
characteristics of violent, interstate nationalist
conflicts. The second section will lay out a
description of the aggregate characteristics of
the collected group of cases, comparing this
picture to other data collections of different
kinds of conflict. The third part will then
examine whether these conflicts have changed
with the end of the Cold War. In the conclusion I will survey these results and suggest
what they mean for our understanding of
violent intrastate nationalist conflict.
1
A search of the Social Science Index on the topic of
‘nationalism’ turns up only 44 articles and book reviews in
1983; by 1990, this number had climbed to over 100, and
by 1996 there were 167 articles and book reviews relating
to the subject of nationalism.
volume 37 / number 1 / january 2000
Definitions, Measures, and Data
Sources
In this study, a violent nationalist conflict is
defined as one that involves nationalists
(groups of people who give their primary
identity to the group and who think their
group can and should have a sovereign
state), occurs within a state (entities with
governmental institutions which claim sovereignty over a definable territory), and has a
history of violence (organized efforts by
either side to kill members of the other).2
Nationalism
Nationalism is the behavior of a group of
people who identify with a group, give that
group primary, terminal loyalty, and think
that group can and should have a state
(Cottam, 1984). This definition is concerned primarily with behavior, and so it is
to behavior that we should look first. In particular, there are two behaviors which are
necessary for an occurrence of nationalism.
First, a population of individuals (whose
precise boundaries may be unclear, but
whose existence should be easily visible as a
whole) must identify with a group; that is,
they must identify themselves as ‘members
of group X’. We know that there are Kurds
in Iraq, for example, because we see a population, grouped predominantly in northern
Iraq (as well as in other states), which calls
itself Kurdish, organizes groups under that
name and refuses to call itself Iraqi, or Arab,
or anything else. Second, that group must
want, and believe they are capable of maintaining, an independent state for the group.
Organizations of Palestinians make their
2
A comprehensive survey of nationalist conflict should
perhaps include both violent and nonviolent instances,
since clearly not all nationalist movements have violent
histories (e.g. Quebec). I have excluded nonviolent cases
primarily because the introduction of violence fundamentally alters the psychological and political dynamics of a
conflict and makes some kinds of solutions (based on
existing legal structures, for instance) more difficult if not
impossible.
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R. William Ayres
demands for statehood clear; groups of
African-Americans, which may identify primarily as members of their group, lack
similar demands. The former are nationalists
by this definition, the latter are not.3 There
is a subtle but important difference between
demanding a state for one’s own group
(what is generally called ‘self-determination’)
and struggles between groups for control of
an existing state apparatus, such that the
winner can rule the state to its advantage
(and, often, the loser’s disadvantage).4 The
latter is not a nationalist conflict, since the
groups involved do not want a state for their
group; they want power for their group
within an existing state framework in which,
it is generally agreed, members of all groups
will continue to live regardless of outcome.
Thus, the cases to be included in this study
are those of nationalist secessionism from
existing states, or of irredentism to both separate from an existing state and join with
another state or ethnic segments elsewhere
on nationalist grounds (Saideman & Ayres,
1999).
Violence
Violence is defined here as an effort by
members of one group to kill members of
the other, simply because they belong to that
group. For coding purposes, I look for any
act committed by members of one group
which seems to have as its primary intent
killing members of the other group simply
3
An ethnic group which holds the primary loyalty of
members but does not demand a state might be thought of
as being a latent nationalist group. Such ‘latent’ nationalism is excluded from the purview of this study, primarily
because it is so difficult to establish.
4 Gurr (1993b) makes a similar distinction of ‘ethnonationalists’ versus ‘communal contenders’. The former are
groups that want autonomy for themselves, as separate as
possible from the state apparatus under which they currently exist; the latter exist in societies where ‘political
power at the center is based on intergroup coalitions’.
Conflict involving the former is therefore directed at the
end of achieving some form of separation, while conflict
among the latter is over who gets what concessions within
a common state framework.
A W O R L D F LY I N G A PA RT ?
because of their membership in that group
(or because of their membership in an
organization representing the group). Such
behavior is often claimed by nationalist
groups (ETA in Spain, for example), and is
therefore easily distinguished. This definition covers behaviors ranging from the targeting of occupied civilian targets like banks
or pubs (for example, in Northern Ireland)
to the wholesale slaughter of civilian populations (for instance, in Bosnia). It excludes
individual crimes (robbery, murder), although these sometimes have ethnic overtones, and ‘structural violence’ like
discrimination and poverty which, though
harmful, often forms the background to a
conflict rather than its conduct in active
phases (Galtung, 1969). The phenomenon
of violence is observable in a number of
sources, as such violence is usually recorded
both by historians and journalists. Hence, I
measure this characteristic with reference to
both news reports (international and local,
as available) and secondary histories; where
occurrences of intergroup violence are
found, that case is considered violent.5
Intrastate
The final characteristic is that these conflicts
must occur within states. Some nations, and
indeed some nationalist conflicts, exist across
state boundaries; the Kurds, for example,
have struggled against the Turkish, Iranian,
and Iraqi states (although not often in a coordinated fashion) for an independent
Kurdistan. Since the unit of conflict is within
the state, this example is treated as three separate conflicts – one between Kurds and
Turkey, another between Kurds and Iran,
and the third between Kurds and Iraq. I
define ‘state’ as an entity which has a set of
governing institutions and which claims (and
5
There is an element of judgement as to how much violence constitutes a ‘history of violence’. The intent is to find
cases in which violence is a significant part of the conduct
of the conflict.
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is recognized to have) sovereignty over a
definable territory (Spiegel, 1995: 13, 36).
An obvious starting point for measuring this
is the membership of the United Nations, to
which nearly all recognized states in the world
belong; another useful source is the interstate
system membership list compiled as part of
the Correlates of War (COW) project (Singer
& Small, 1994). Entities that make one (or,
usually, both) of these lists are considered
states; self-governing units which do not (e.g.
the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus)
are not considered separate states.
Conflicts within sovereign states could, in
the earlier half of the post-1945 period,
include decolonization conflicts, where local
nationalists struggle against a distant but
theoretically sovereign power. For the purposes of this study I exclude such decolonization conflicts, on the grounds that there
is a qualitative difference between conflicts
involving groups that live in proximity (e.g.
Palestinians and Israelis) and those that do
not (e.g. Israelis and British). The reason is
that groups who will have to live in proximity to each other when the conflict is over
are likely to behave differently from groups
that have other options (Licklider, 1995),
and therefore a study of conflict should
examine the former in a separate category
from the latter.
Case Boundaries
Once it has been established that a particular
group is nationalist, has engaged in violence,
and occurs inside a particular state, we need
to know when that conflict started and
ended. Some scholars of conflict take a
broad view of conflict as ‘conflicts of
interest’ (Rubin et al., 1994). For the purposes of this study, I require active conflict
behavior, that parties are actually struggling
in some fashion. Conflict starts when a
group raises a nationalist demand for statehood and either or both parties actively
attempt to deal with that issue (whether by
volume 37 / number 1 / january 2000
fighting or by discussing), at any time
between 1945 and 1996. Conflict ends when
both sides are no longer either fighting or
talking with each other about what the solution to the conflict should be. The start and
end of conflicts are coded by month and
year, but not by date. Violence must be
involved, but not necessarily at all times.
Any one conflict grouping – say, Kurds in
Iraq – could have a number of cases within
it, separated by periods during which the
parties are doing nothing despite their continued differences.6 Such individual cases
will be known as ‘conflict episodes’.
Generating the Case List – Sources and
Strategy
No list of violent nationalist conflict (as
described earlier) exists in the literature. A
useful starting-point for constructing such a
list is Ted Gurr’s Minorities at Risk dataset
(1993b), which lists over 200 minority
groups in the postwar period, and characterizes them by their demands and goals (for
statehood, for economic autonomy, for political power-sharing, etc.).7 Additional cases
were suggested by other datasets on civil wars,
supplemented by cases reported in more
recent news sources (Licklider, 1995; Mason
& Fett, 1996; Regan, 1996; Wallensteen &
Sollenberg, 1999). This produced a list of
state–nationalist group dyads, for which
specific conflict episodes are then determined.
Data for the start and end points come
6
The time period for these behaviors – how long do
parties have to refrain from fighting or talking before a
conflict episode is ‘over’? – is set at a 12-month interval.
When parties refrain from either fighting or discussing the
conflict for a consecutive 12-month period, two separate
case episodes are coded. Lapses of activity lasting for
shorter periods are considered as part of one episode.
7
Gurr’s ‘ethnonationalist’ classification (1993b) is close to
the concept of ‘nationalist’ used here, and so his list of ethnonationalist groups provides a useful jumping-off point.
Gurr also codes his cases for various forms of nonviolent
and violent protest, but his time intervals – five-year
periods – are too crude to be more than a rough guide to
where conflict episodes within particular dyads might
begin or end.
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R. William Ayres
from news reports and secondary history
sources. Of particular use are Reuters World
Service, Agence France Press, United Press
International, and other wire service news
reports, available in searchable electronic
form from roughly 1980 to the present.
Earlier cases are less frequently found in
primary news sources; for these, secondary
histories are relied upon. In either case, my
approach is to determine when a particular
conflict episode begins by finding a particular event which sparks conflict behavior
– often a declaration of independence, or a
military operation or attack. Conflict
episodes continue as long as one or both
sides continue to engage in conflict behavior,
until both parties cease such activity for a
period of 12 consecutive months. Through
the use of this search strategy, combining
these starting and ending points with the
three criteria for case selection described
earlier, I generate a list of cases representing
a ‘near-universe’8 of the phenomenon from
1945 to 1996 (presented in the Appendix).
Included for each case are the starting and
ending dates, along with each episode’s
outcome type, intensity of conflict, and an
estimate of casualties (where available).
VINC and Other Kinds of Conflict
Numbers, Location, and Recurrence of
Conflict
Nearly all scholars of armed conflict recognize that since 1945 intrastate violence has
8
Three cases – the Afar in Ethiopia, and the Arabs and
Turkmen in Iran – are suspected to fit the three primary
criteria (nationalist, intrastate, and violent), but are left
out, primarily because the data necessary to provide even
basic information are largely unavailable. All three are
coded ‘ethnonationalist’ in the Minorities at Risk dataset,
but Gurr’s data do not provide specific information about
conflict behavior. A fourth suspected case – the Muslims of
northwestern China – is also left out, because information
on it is so thin as to preclude even a basic contention that
there exists a conflict there which fits the definition. The
data presented here are therefore based on all found cases
save these, and thus claim to be a substantial but not fully
complete listing.
A W O R L D F LY I N G A PA RT ?
been a much more prevalent phenomenon
than interstate war (Heraclides, 1997: 679;
Licklider, 1995: 681; Mason & Fett, 1996:
546; Regan, 1996: 336; Wallensteen &
Sollenberg, 1999). The list of conflicts compiled here spans a total of 55 conflict groups
(conflicts that occur between the same set of
actors), with a total of 77 conflict episodes.
Licklider (1995) records 91 civil wars from
1945 to 1994, Regan (1996) 138 civil conflicts including 85 with outside intervention
from 1944 to 1994, and the COW dataset
(Singer & Small, 1994) records 80 civil wars
for the 1945–92 period. Of the 77 cases
found in the VINC dataset, 29 are found in
Licklider’s list, 24 in Regan’s, and only 17 in
the COW list of civil wars. This is largely
due to the differences in definitions of actors
and thresholds of violence; the VINC list
includes only those conflicts involving
nationalist aspirations (and thus excludes
many civil wars fought for other reasons),
but includes cases which fall below the standard threshold of violence of 1,000 battle
deaths/year.
A comparison to a more comprehensive
list of armed conflicts in the post-Cold War
period (Wallensteen & Sollenberg, 1999)
also shows a much higher level of overlap:
out of 47 VINC cases which occur within
the 1989–97 time period, 38 appear within
their list of 108, suggesting that level of violence does account for much of the difference
between the collection of cases presented
here and other civil war datasets. The two
datasets also show a similar range of geographic dispersion; Asia and Africa account
for over 50% of the armed conflicts in any
given year of Wallensteen & Sollenberg’s
list, and roughly 55% of all VINC conflicts.
The only significant geographic difference
is Latin America, where there are roughly
five armed conflicts in any given year
(1989–97), but only one violent nationalist
conflict from 1945 to 1996.
Within the VINC list of cases, only 16 of
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journal of P E A C E R E S E A RC H
the 55 conflict groups contain multiple
episodes where actors stop fighting and
talking for periods longer than a year before
resuming. Of these conflict groups, only
three (China–Tibet, India–Kashmir, and
Iraq–Kurds) have had more than two separate conflict episodes since 1945. Once a
particular nationalist conflict episode has
ended, it is most likely not to recur in the
future.
Another common perception is the belief
that conflict based on ethnicity is much
harder to end than other kinds of conflict.
Like the image of perpetual recurrence, this
seems to be more myth than fact, undoubtedly sustained by a few particularly visible
cases which capture the attention of the
West. Among the 77 conflict episodes in
the collected dataset, only 35% were
still ongoing as of the end of 1996.9 This
mirrors trends in other conflict sets, such
as Licklider (29% were ongoing at the
end of 1993), Regan (25% ongoing in
1994), and COW (20% ongoing as of
1992). While the phenomenon of ongoing
nationalist conflict is a significant one, many
conflicts do end without further recurrence,
and over time the divisions which spawned
those conflicts may become less and less
important.
Length of Conflict
Another frequent perception is that
nationalist conflicts span decades, if not centuries or millennia. Certain difficult cases –
Palestinians in Israel, Catholics and
Protestants in Northern Ireland – lend credence to this picture but the mean length
for the entire list of VINC cases is no more
than 12.8 years, while the median is 7.8
years. This mean is longer that those found
in other datasets: 16.2 years for Licklider’s
9
Of these 27 conflict group endings, ten occurred in the
1992–96 time-frame, suggesting that there may be a subgroup within this group where the potential for recurrence
is still strong.
volume 37 / number 1 / january 2000
conflicts, only 4.4 for the COW list.
Nationalist conflict can last longer than
intrastate conflict of other types, as a few
well-known cases (Palestine, Northern
Ireland) illustrate. But the high violence
threshold for most civil war lists may also
influence this finding.
Dividing the VINC cases into two
groups, we find systematic differences in
length. Conflicts which ended prior to the
end of 1996 have a mean length of 7.7 years,
and a median length of 4.8 years (suggesting
some skewing due to very long conflicts).
However, those that were ongoing in 1996
have a mean length of 22.4 years, and a
median of 20 years. This difference between
groups (as measured by a difference-ofmeans test) is significant below .001. Thus,
the current crop of ongoing conflicts are systematically longer than conflicts that have
come before and been ended. This is a somewhat counter-intuitive result; if conflicts
were randomly distributed across time, we
should expect ongoing conflicts to be systematically shorter than ended conflict
episodes, since the former have not yet ‘run
their full course’. However, ongoing conflicts probably include a disproportionate
number that are extremely difficult to
resolve and which therefore drag on for a
long time. Licklider’s data also show that
ongoing civil wars have a mean length (11.3
years) more than twice that of those that
have ended (4.1 years). Among the longestlasting conflicts in the VINC dataset, ten
have lasted 30 years or more. Four of these
are in Burma alone, while the remainder are
spread across Ethiopia, India, Indonesia,
Israel, Spain, and Thailand.
Type of Episode Ending
Violent nationalist conflict endings are
classified into four categories: Inaction;
Defeat; Ceasefire; and Agreement. The first
refers to conflicts in which both parties
simply cease conflict behavior, without
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R. William Ayres
mutual agreement or other coordination; the
second to situations in which one side clearly
prevails upon the other in a contest of force;
the third to agreements which relate exclusively to a coordinated cessation of military or
paramilitary operations; and the fourth to
agreements covering (at least some of the)
substantive political issues which make up
the core of the conflict.
Among the 50 ended conflicts, there are
22 Defeat endings, 22 Agreement endings,
four Ceasefires and two Inaction endings.
Together, Defeat and Agreement account
for 88% of conflict episode endings.
Conflicts very rarely ‘peter out’ or end
simply by stopping the shooting, without
some further decision being made (either by
agreement or by force) regarding the pertinent issues of the conflict. Defeat and
Agreement endings are also divided evenly
(see also Heraclides, 1997). This stands in
sharp contrast to findings in civil war.
Licklider (1995) found that 26% of the 46
conflicts ended before 1989 were negotiated
settlements. A study based on the COW
data (Mason & Fett, 1996) shows a 23%
rate of settlement endings. And Walter’s
(1997) list of 41 ended civil wars only contains 20% concluded by successful settlement. That civil wars rarely end in
settlements is a near-universal theme across
the literature. This study suggests that
violent nationalist conflict is actually more
amenable to negotiated settlement than civil
war in general.
What Use a New Dataset?
These brief comparisons demonstrate that
the type of conflict contained in the VINC
list is comparable in scope, but different
from, existing data collections on intrastate
conflict. The VINC list is a subset of some
collection efforts (Gurr, 1994), more extensive than others along some dimensions
(Wallensteen & Sollenberg, 1999), and
partly overlapping with some (Licklider,
A W O R L D F LY I N G A PA RT ?
1995; Mason & Fett, 1996; Regan, 1996;
Singer & Small, 1994). It offers more precise
measures of length and intensity than the
only other similar effort by Heraclides
(1997). These conflicts are significantly different from traditional civil wars in that
they last longer, and are more likely to
end in negotiated settlements. The VINC
data list also offers a closer look at the
issue of nationalism and identity. By
focusing on those conflicts which are exclusively about nationalist identity and the
desire for separatism, we are in a better position to test hypotheses about these particular conflicts.
Does the End of the Cold War
Matter?
Are VINC conflicts simply products of the
end of the Cold War and its bipolar world
order? Some scholars have suggested that the
end of the Cold War has brought an
upswing in intrastate conflict (Regan, 1996:
344–345), although others have disputed
the existence of a general trend (Gurr, 1994;
Wallensteen & Sollenberg, 1995). There are
certainly compelling theoretical arguments
for why we might expect this to happen: collapsing empires have been suggested as a
major cause of nationalist secessionism and
irredentism (Chazan, 1991; Saideman &
Ayres, 1999), and some have suggested that
the initiation of some nationalist conflicts
produces processes of diffusion and contagion that can engender others (Ayres &
Saideman, 1998; Gurr, 1993b).
The distribution of starting and ending
years for VINC conflicts is presented in
Table I. Conflict episodes do indeed start in
‘waves’. Comparing these waves to the
numbers of new states in the international
system, and the total number of states, we
see some correspondence. Of the 77 conflict
episodes, 36% occurred in states that had
either gained their independence in the past
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journal of P E A C E R E S E A RC H
volume 37 / number 1 / january 2000
Table I. Distribution of Conflict Starting Dates
Year
1945–49
1950–54
1955–59
1960–64
1965–69
1970–74
1975–79
1980–84
1985–89
1990–96
Beginnings
Total No. States
New States
Endings
16
0
5
9
7
1
8
8
8
14
78
83
90
122
133
143
155
161
161
181
13
5
7
32
12
10
12
6
0
20
5
7
1
3
0
6
1
2
5
20
five years, or were in places about to undergo
separation (e.g. the USSR in 1990).
But these data also confirm that
nationalist conflict is not solely a product of
the end of the Cold War. While the postCold War period has seen a number of conflicts, about half of which are attributable to
the collapse of Soviet communism, several
earlier periods have been equally conflictual.
Has the end of the Cold War changed the
intensity of conflict? Popular commentary
sees ‘ethnic cleansing’ everywhere and portrays this as a new phenomenon, although
serious studies of mass killing suggest otherwise (Rummel, 1994, 1997). To test this, we
need some measure of violence or conflict
intensity. The VINC dataset contains two
measures commonly used in literature on
conflict: total deaths (e.g. Singer & Small,
1994), and the intensity of fighting on a
behavioral scale from occasional guerilla
attacks to protracted civil war (Gurr,
1993b).10 Each conflict was coded for its
highest level of fighting intensity, using
Ted Gurr’s seven-point ordinal scale. Total
death figures were gathered for 61 out of
the 77 conflict episodes; these can be used as
a raw measure, and divided by time and
population to create scores for deaths per
10
Data for casualties and fighting intensity are included in
the Appendix, along with source references for casualties
figures.
month and deaths per population respectively.11 To determine the effect of the end of
the Cold War on levels of violence, cases
were divided into those beginning in 1989
or after (N 18), and those beginning prior
to 1989 (N 59).12 Difference-of-means
tests indicate that neither fighting intensity,
total deaths, deaths per month, nor deaths
per 1,000 population showed any significant
differences between Cold War and postCold War conflicts.
11
In some instances, casualty estimates were only available for a group of cases – for example, the Burmese ethnic
civil war from 1948 on (within which there are a number
of ethnic groups fighting – Mons, Shans, Karens, etc.) In
these cases, the total estimate figure was divided proportionally among groups according to their relative troop
strength, on the assumption that groups with larger militaries would (a) do more damage, and (b) be subject to
more intense attacks by the opposing government, since
they represented a bigger threat. Where further division
was needed into multiple cases over time, it was assumed
that deaths per month would remain constant over the
multiple cases. These calculations were performed for the
first two Iraqi–Kurd cases, and for the Burmese civil war.
While these approximations introduce some ‘noise’ into
the data, they represent rough estimates on a small number
of cases which, in the absence of better data, retain some
validity.
12 One 1988 case – the conflict in Azerbaijan over
Nagorno-Karabakh – was included in the post-Cold War
set, on the grounds that although it began before the 1989
‘end of Cold War’ point, its cause was rooted in the collapse of the USSR and the end of the Cold War events. An
additional series of tests, dividing cases into post-Cold War
cases by the criterion of substance (did the case take place
in Eastern Europe or the [former] USSR as a result of the
collapse of the Soviet empire?), does not produce significantly different results across any of the tests.
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Do conflict endings have any particular
post-Cold War pattern? This period has
already seen a number of ‘peace successes’ in
areas torn by nationalist strife. Is this a
general pattern? Comparable data for conflict episode endings are presented in Table
I. These data seem to suggest that endings
have occurred in three ‘waves’: an initial
wave in the late 1940s to early 1950s; a
second, small group in the early 1970s; and
a third (and largest) in the late 1980s and
early 1990s. These findings confirm that the
post-Cold War period is not one of
unchecked nationalist violence. While 22
conflict episodes began from 1985 to 1996,
25 episodes ended during the same period –
far more endings per year than at any other
time in the post-World War II period.
Indeed, one might refer to a ‘new era of
nationalist peace’ in the aftermath of the
Cold War rather than talking about a new
era ‘unleashing’ nationalist conflict. Some of
the conflicts which ended during this period
were fueled by superpower rivalry. But
others took place in areas unaffected by the
superpowers, although they may have been
affected by a general feeling of a ‘momentum
of peace’.
Has the end of the Cold War changed the
way violent nationalist conflict ends? Data
showing conflict end types over time are presented in Table II. There is a significant
relationship between time and type of
A W O R L D F LY I N G A PA RT ?
ending, particularly between defeat endings
(average year 1968) and agreement
endings (average year 1982). As the table
shows, the greatest concentration of Defeat
endings occurred in the late 1940s and early
1950s, owing largely to the series of defeats
suffered by anti-Soviet nationalist movements (the Baltics and Ukraine) and other
cases which stemmed from the end of World
War II and the consolidation of newly independent, or recently liberated, states. The
greatest concentration of Agreement endings
(a total of 15) has come in the late 1980s and
early 1990s. This suggests that the end of the
Cold War, in addition to contributing some
new nationalist conflicts, has brought a wave
of peacemaking by negotiation rather than
military defeat.
Concluding Thoughts
While there are a number of datasets in the
area of conflict studies, the list presented here
is one of the first to look explicitly at
nationalist conflict, and to look at parties’
behavior in those conflicts and the outcomes
of them (see also Heraclides, 1997). Other
scholars have compiled excellent datasets on
ethnic groups and the origins of conflict
(Gurr, 1993a, b, 1994), or on civil wars across
issue types (Licklider, 1995; Regan, 1996;
Singer & Small, 1994; Wallensteen &
Sollenberg, 1999; Walter, 1997). The list
Table II. Distribution of Ending Types Over Time
Inaction
1945–49
1950–54
1955–59
1960–64
1965–69
1970–74
1975–79
1980–84
1985–89
1990–96
2
Defeat
Ceasefire
3
6
1
1
1
4
1
1
1
5
Agreement
1
1
1
1
2
2
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journal of P E A C E R E S E A RC H
gathered here provides a necessary ‘next step’
beyond studies that examine the origins of
ethnic conflict, since that alone is insufficient
for understanding how such conflicts end
(Kaufman, 1996: 137). It also provides a
useful complement to broader studies of civil
war, both by narrowing the range of issues and
by expanding the range of conflict intensity.
The VINC dataset is therefore not meant
to replace existing efforts, but to complement them by filling in gaps. Every dataset is
designed for its own purposes; different
scholars with different conceptions of conflict, or different ideas about what the
important questions are, will gather and
shape data to suit their own needs. This
effort is directed primarily at understanding
conflict outcomes in ethnic conflict, using
concepts and definitions which reflect that
interest. Conflicts are defined here by their
participants’ political behavior. This
approach fills a gap left between studies of
ethnicity on the one hand, and civil wars on
the other. In the former, efforts have been
focused primarily at understanding the bases
of nationalism, and what it is that generates
nationalist conflict (Anderson, 1983; Brass,
1985, 1991; Conner, 1992; Greenfield,
1992; Gurr, 1993a, 1994; Horowitz, 1985;
Smith, 1993). In the latter, examination is
across a wide range of conflict issues, but
limited to conflicts which achieve a particular threshold of violence (usually 1,000
battle deaths/year). It is hoped that this
dataset provides the basis for research
between these areas, focusing the concerns
and ideas of the study of civil wars on the
subject area of nationalist conflict.
The VINC dataset does not only offer a
list of cases as a basis for future research – it
also provides a useful snapshot of what these
cases look like in the aggregate, around the
world and across time. It answers questions
about what the trends are in this kind of
conflict: when do they start and end, how
long do they last, how do they behave? The
volume 37 / number 1 / january 2000
overall portrait which emerges is that violent
nationalist conflict is a serious problem
which affects many areas of the globe, and
which is more complex than it is often given
credit for. A search for simplistic answers to
questions about such conflicts, or the use of
simplistic assumptions about them in
making policy, is likely to fall short in the
context of this complexity.
References
Anderson, Benedict, 1983. Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism. London: Verso.
Ayres, R. William & Stephen Saideman, 1998.
‘Is Separatism as Contagious as the Common
Cold or as Cancer?’. Paper presented at the
Annual Meeting of the Peace Science Society
International, East Brunswick, NJ, 16–18
October.
Brass, Paul, 1985. Ethnic Groups and the State.
Totowa, NJ: Barnes & Noble.
Brass, Paul, 1991. Ethnicity and Nationalism:
Theory and Comparison. Newbury Park, CA:
SAGE.
Chazan, Naomi, ed., 1991. Irredentism and
International Politics. Boulder, CO: Lynne
Rienner.
Conner, Walker, 1992. Ethnonationalism: The
Quest for Understanding. Princeton, NJ:
Princeton University Press.
Cottam, Richard, 1984. ‘Nationalism in the
Middle East: A Behavioral Approach’, in Said
Amir Arjomand, ed., From Nationalism to
Revolutionary Islam. Albany, NY: SUNY
Albany Press (28–51).
Flackes, William D. & Sydney Elliott, 1994.
Northern Ireland: A Political Directory 1968–
1993. Belfast: Blackstaff.
Galtung, Johan, 1969. ‘Violence, Peace, and
Peace Research’, Journal of Peace Research
6(3): 167–191.
Galtung, Johan, 1980. The True Worlds: A
Transnational Perspective. New York: Free
Press.
Greenfield, Leah, 1992. Nationalism: Five Roads
to Modernity. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
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R. William Ayres
Gurr, Ted Robert, 1993a. ‘Why Minorities Rebel:
A Global Analysis of Communal Mobilization
and Conflict since 1945’, International Political Science Review 14(2): 161–201.
Gurr, Ted Robert, 1993b. Minorities at Risk: A
Global View of Ethnopolitical Conflicts. Washington, DC: United States Institute for Peace.
Gurr, Ted Robert, 1994. ‘Peoples Against States:
Ethnopolitical Conflict and the Changing
World System’, International Studies Quarterly 38(3): 347–377.
Heraclides, Alexis, 1997. ‘The Ending of Unending Conflicts: Separatist Wars’, Millennium
26(3): 679–707.
Horowitz, Donald, 1985. Ethnic Groups in Conflict. Berkeley, CA: University of California
Press.
Kaufman, Chaim, 1996. ‘Possible and Impossible Solutions to Ethnic Civil Wars’, International Security 20(3): 136–175.
Licklider, Roy, 1995. ‘The Consequences of
Negotiated Settlements in Civil Wars,
1945–1993’, American Political Science
Review 89(3): 681–690.
Licklider, Roy, 1998. ‘Civil War Termination
2.1’. Dataset at www.rci.rutgers.edu/~licklide.
Mason, T. David & Patrick Fett, 1996. ‘How
Civil Wars End: A Rational Choice Approach’, Journal of Conflict Resolution 40(4):
546–568.
Regan, Patrick, 1996. ‘Conditions of Successful
Third-Party Intervention in Intrastate Conflicts’, Journal of Conflict Resolution 40(2):
336–359.
Rubin, Jeffrey, Dean Pruitt & Sung Hee Kim,
1994. Social Conflict: Escalation, Stalemate
and Settlement. 2nd edn. New York:
McGraw-Hill.
Rummel, Rudolph J., 1994. Death by Government. New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction.
Rummel, Rudolph J., 1997. Statistics on Democide. Charlottesville, VA: University of Virginia Press.
Saideman, Stephen & R. William Ayres, 1999.
‘Reuniting, When Does It Feel So Good? The
A W O R L D F LY I N G A PA RT ?
Causes of Irredentist Movements’. Paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the International Studies Association, Washington,
DC, 16–21 February.
Singer, J. David & Melvin Small, 1994. Correlates of War Project: International and Civil
War Data, 1816–1992. [Computer file]. Ann
Arbor, MI: Interuniversity Consortium for
Political and Social Research [distributor],
ICPSR #9905.
Smith, Anthony, 1993. ‘The Ethnic Sources of
Nationalism’, in Michael Brown, ed., Ethnic
Conflict and International Security. Princeton,
NJ: Princeton University Press (27–42).
Spiegel, Stephen, 1995. World Politics in a New
Era. New York: Harcourt Brace.
van Bruinessen, Martin, 1994. ‘Genocide in Kurdistan?’, in George Andreopoulos, ed., Genocide: Conceptual and Historical Dimensions.
Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania
Press (141–170).
Wallensteen, Peter & Margareta Sollenberg,
1995. ‘After the Cold War: Emerging Patterns of Armed Conflict, 1989–1994’, Journal of Peace Research 32(3): 345–360.
Wallensteen, Peter & Margareta Sollenberg,
1998. ‘Armed Conflict and Regional Conflict
Complexes, 1989–1997’, Journal of Peace
Research 35(5): 621–634.
Wallensteen, Peter & Margareta Sollenberg,
1999. ‘Armed Conflict, 1989–98’, Journal of
Peace Research 36(5): 593–606.
Walter, Barbara, 1997. ‘The Critical Barrier to
Civil War Settlement’, International Organization 51(3): 335–64.
Wire Service Stories, LEXIS-NEXIS Search; includes Reuters, Agence-France Presse, BBC.
R. WILLIAM AYRES, b. 1969, PhD in
Political Science from Ohio State University
(1997); Assistant Professor, Department of
History and Political Science, University of
Indianapolis (1999– ). Current main interest:
nationalist conflict and conflict resolution.
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Appendix
volume 37 / number 1 / january 2000
Conflict Episodes, 1945–96
Case Name
Start Date
End Date
Outcome 1
Azerbaijan
Bosnia
Burma–Arakanese I
Burma–Arakanese II
Burma–Kachins I
Burma–Kachins II
Burma–Karenni
Burma–Karens
Burma–Mons
Burma–Shams
China–Tibet I
China–Tibet II
China–Tibet III
China–Tibet IV
Croatia
Cyprus
Ethiopia–Eritreans
Ethiopia–Oromo
Ethiopia–Somali I
Ethiopia–Somali II
Ethiopia–Tigray
Georgia–Abkhazia
Georgia–South Ossetia
India–Assam
India–Kashmir I
India–Kashmir II
India–Kashmir III
India–Mizos
India–Nagas
India–Sikhs I
India–Sikhs II
India–Tripuras
Indonesia–East Timor
Indonesia–Papuans
Iran–Kurds I
Iran–Kurds II
Iraq–Kurds I
Iraq–Kurds II
Iraq–Kurds III
Iraq–Kurds IV
Iraq–Kurds V
Israel–Palestinians I
Israel–Palestinians II
Mali–Tuareg
Moldova
Morocco–Saharawis
Nicaragua–Miskitu
Niger–Tuareg
Feb–88
Jan–92
Jan–48
Jun–60
Nov–49
Feb–61
Aug–48
Oct–47
Jan–48
Nov–59
Sep–49
Feb–56
Aug–66
Oct–87
Aug–90
Dec–63
Sep–61
Jun–63
Feb–63
Dec–76
Jun–75
Jul–92
Oct–89
May–85
Aug–47
May–83
Apr–89
Mar–66
Mar–56
Mar–47
Sep–81
Jan–79
Nov–75
May–63
Dec–45
Jan–79
Sep–61
Jun–72
Sep–80
Mar–91
Mar–95
Nov–47
Jan–65
Mar–90
Sep–90
Feb–76
Feb–81
Mar–90
Ongoing
Nov–95
Feb–58
Ongoing
Apr–50
Oct–93
Ongoing
Ongoing
Jun–95
Ongoing
Oct–51
Apr–61
Mar–70
Ongoing
Nov–95
Aug–74
May–91
Ongoing
Mar–64
Ongoing
May–91
Ongoing
Ongoing
Ongoing
Jan–49
Mar–87
Ongoing
Jun–86
Ongoing
Jun–48
Nov–93
Ongoing
Ongoing
Ongoing
Jun–47
Ongoing
Mar–70
Mar–75
Oct–88
Jan–92
Sep–96
Mar–49
Ongoing
Jun–95
Ongoing
Sep–91
Aug–89
Apr–95
9
4
4
9
2
3
9
9
3
9
2
2
2
9
2
2
2
9
3
9
2
9
9
9
3
4
9
4
9
4
2
9
9
9
2
9
4
2
2
1
1
2
9
4
9
4
4
4
Deaths
Data Source 2
Intensity 3
25,000
250,000
600
2,200
700
54,000
2,800
55,000
2,800
40,000
1,000
316,000
Wire
Wire
Licklider
Licklider
Licklider
Licklider
Licklider
Licklider
Licklider
Licklider
Mason/Fett
Licklider
50,000
6,000
350,000
Gurr
Regan
Kaufman
300
30,000
350,000
10,000
1,000
12,000
1,500
Regan
Regan
Kaufman
Kaufman
Gurr
Rummel
Rummel
7
7
6
4
7
7
7
7
5
6
6
6
4
1
7
6
7
5
6
7
7
7
6
4
3
3
5
6
6
6
6
6
7
5
6
6
6
7
6
7
7
7
6
6
5
7
6
5
25,000
Gurr
13,000
Kaufman
40,000
13,000
200,000
18,000
Licklider
Kaufman
Gurr
Gurr
40,000
95,000
31,000
100,000
78,000
2,000
Gurr
Licklider
Licklider
van Bruinessen
Regan
Wire
10,000
500
1,000
15,000
1,000
500
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Regan
Gurr
Gurr
Gurr
Kaufman
Gurr
R. William Ayres
Case Name
Start Date
End Date
Outcome 1
Nigeria–Ibos
Pakistan–Bengalis I
Pakistan–Bengalis II
Papua New Guinea
Russia–Chechnya
Somalia–Issaq
Spain–Basques
Sri Lanka
Sudan I
Sudan II
Thailand–Malays I
Thailand–Malays II
Turkey–Kurds I
Turkey–Kurds II
Uganda I
Uganda II
UK–Northern Ireland
USSR–Armenia
USSR–Azeris
USSR–Estonians
USSR–Latvians I
USSR–Latvians II
USSR–Lithuanians I
USSR–Lithuanians II
USSR–Ukranians
Yugoslavia–Albanians
Yugoslavia–Croatians
Yugoslavia–Slovenians
Zaire–Belgian Congo
May–67
Aug–47
Mar–69
Dec–88
Oct–91
Jun–81
Jun–68
May–76
Aug–55
Sep–83
Feb–48
Dec–59
Sep–75
Aug–84
Oct–62
Jan–86
Oct–68
Aug–90
Dec–89
May–45
May–45
May–90
May–45
Mar–90
May–45
Mar–81
May–90
Jun–90
Jan–60
Jan–70
May–54
Dec–71
Ongoing
Aug–96
May–91
Ongoing
Ongoing
Mar–72
Ongoing
Feb–49
Ongoing
Sep–80
Ongoing
Jul–82
Jun–88
Ongoing
Dec–91
Dec–91
Mar–53
Feb–50
Sep–91
Dec–52
Sep–91
May–54
Ongoing
Jan–94
Jul–91
Jan–63
2
4
2
9
4
2
9
9
4
9
2
9
2
9
4
4
9
4
4
2
2
4
2
4
2
9
4
4
4
A W O R L D F LY I N G A PA RT ?
Deaths
Data Source 2
1,995,000
Licklider
1,259,000
1,000
30,000
60,000
1,000
89,000
316,000
1,250,000
Licklider
Gurr
Wire
Wire
Gurr
Gurr
Licklider
Gurr
21,000
1,300
100
3,300
10
40,000
20
150,000
200
10,000
100
300,000
Intensity 3
Wire
Licklider
Wire
Flackes/Elliott
Wire
Kaufman
Wire
Kaufman
Wire
Wire
Wire
Regan
1 Inaction; 2 Defeat; 3 Ceasefire; 4 Agreement; 9 Ongoing.
For citations of Death Data Sources, see References List.
3
1 Political Banditry; 2 Campaigns of Terrorism; 3 Local Rebellion; 4 Small-scale Guerrilla Activity;
5 Intermediate Guerrilla Activity; 6 Large-scale Guerrilla Activity; 7 Protracted Civil War.
1
2
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7
3
7
4
7
7
2
7
7
7
3
6
6
7
4
4
6
6
6
7
7
3
7
3
7
3
7
5
7
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