Intractable Conflicts: a Proposal for the Analysis of Interstate Territorial Disputes
Elvira Alejandra Vázquez Barbosa
Master’s Thesis in Peace and Conflict Studies Department of Political Science
University of Oslo Spring 2021
Word count: 34,600 words
Intractable Conflicts: a Proposal for the Analysis
of Interstate Territorial Disputes
i
Abstract
This research defines intractable conflict as a disagreement between two or more states over the legal status of a territory, whose parties have not been able to find a solution for a long time and that have had periods of violence, but the conflict is not necessarily violent nor disruptive to international security. This renewed definition seeks to offer a foundation for analyzing interstate territorial disputes that are often miscatalogued as impossible to solve. This work discusses the importance of territory for state formation and argues that territorial disputes are more difficult to solve than other issues. The concept of “intractable conflict” is narrowed to highlight the fundamental importance of territory and to provide alternatives for understanding deep, complex, interstate territorial disputes and their causes through a multiple- case study. The definition is applied first in a comparative study of two cases that can be qualified as having once been intractable: the Ethiopia/Eritrea border dispute and the Cambodia/Thailand dispute over the Preah Vihear Temple. Additionally, this thesis studies the still intractable conflict between Argentina and the United Kingdom over the Falklands/Malvinas.
ii
Preface and acknowledgments
This dissertation was first inspired by the desire to explore how intractable conflicts – conflicts that appear doomed, condemned, and impossible to solve – might be effectively mediated. I soon discovered that there is no agreed-upon definition of intractable conflict; the term appears in scholarly studies but even more often shows up as a label in popular media. In trying to bring some clarity on the meaning of this term, I hope this investigation contributes to the understanding of a complex phenomenon and inspires ways of settling conflicts that seem intractable.
This dissertation was written in peculiar times that have challenged us all; therefore, I want to thank my supervisor, Professor Gregory Reichberg, whose guidance, encouragement, advice, and contributions have been vital for this work; thank you so much for the discussions, exchange of ideas, and fulfilling conversations that made me think and reflect beyond my stubbornness. Additionally, I express my deep gratitude to Dr. Eric Stollenwerk for the guidance in the methodological section of this thesis.
A notable recognition to Dr. Anne-Kathrin Kreft, who led an outstanding seminar in which we could solve our doubts, share frustrations and have a sense of friendship.
Thanks to my classmates for the community created that made this master a much more enjoyable project despite the pandemic.
Thanks to my friends Fernanda Carvallo, Victor Genina and René Rejón for the rich political and academic conversations that challenged my perspective and made me improve my arguments for this thesis. I make an especial mention to my friend Douglas Kalagian, whose review, comments and questions made this work stronger.
Additionally, I express my gratitude to my friends Sofie Gilbert for all the academic support during this master; and Chandler Williams for proofreading some of the drafts of this thesis.
The most important acknowledgment is to Adriana and Minaluaztekatl, my parents, and Adrián, my brother, it is because their love and encouragement that I got here.
Thank you for supporting my dreams, being my shelter and my source of strength.
iii Thank you to all my extended family that keeps me in their thoughts, for their wishes and uplifting words.
Thanks to my friends Araceli, Dani, Dany, Lalo, Mariana, Melissa, Nacho, Pamela, and Paulina for being there for me despite distance and time zones and making me feel as if I had never left; to Francis for his friendship, company, and food during the first lockdown of this pandemic that made me feel I had a place I could call home in Oslo;
and my deep appreciation for Adela, Charlotte, Eloi, Håkon, Inés, Jaione, Laila, Margie, Marlena, Mirha, Pablo, Paul, Piera, and Sol, wonderful people who enriched my life during these two years in Norway.
Finally, my eternal gratitude to the University of Oslo for letting me be part of a prestigious program that has made invaluable contributions to my academic and professional life.
iv
Contents
Abstract... i
Preface and acknowledgments ... ii
Contents ... iv
1. Introduction ... 1
2. Methodological Foundations, Theoretical Discussion and a Renewed Definition of Intractable Conflict ... 6
2.1 Methodological Approach ... 6
2.2 Territory, Property, and Violence ... 8
2.3 Fundamentals of the state ... 11
2.4 Territory and Conflict ... 14
2.5 Intractable Conflicts: Search of a Definition ... 17
3. Exploring the causes of intractable conflicts ... 21
3.1 Violence, Borders, State, and Stable Borders ... 21
3.2 Natural Resources and Territorial Disputes ... 23
3.3 Religion and territorial conflicts ... 25
3.4 Nationalism and territorial disputes ... 29
3.5 Time and intractability ... 33
3.6 Third-Party Interests ... 36
4. Settled Territorial Intractable Conflict ... 38
4.1 Comparative Perspective on Distant Territorial Disputes ... 38
4.2 The Border Conflict between Ethiopia and Eritrea ... 38
4.2.1 Historical Overview ... 39
4.2.2 The 1998-2000 War ... 43
4.2.3 Ceasefire but No Border and No Peace ... 44
4.2.4 An Intractable Conflict? ... 46
4.2.5 The Ethiopia-Eritrea Border Settlement ... 48
4.2.6 Collateral Consequences of Unfinished Peace ... 50
4.3 The Preah Vihear Temple dispute between Cambodia and Thailand. ... 51
4.3.1 Territory a Sufficient Condition for Intractable Conflicts ... 53
4.3.2 State v. State ... 54
4.3.3 The fight over a pile of stones ... 55
4.3.4 Towards the Second ICJ Judgment ... 59
4.3.5 Negotiation and Settlement ... 60
v
4.4 Diverse Characteristics of Intractable Conflict ... 63
4.4.1 Contrasting features; same outcome ... 64
5. The Falkland Islands (Malvinas Islands) ... 66
5.1 Discovery ... 67
5.2 This Land is Mine. ... 69
5.3 Persistent Argentinian Claim, Continued British Possession ... 73
5.4 1982 War and Damage Caused... 76
5.5 This Land Belongs to Our Nation ... 77
5.6 Resources in that little ice-cold bunch of land down there ... 80
5.7 Possible Solutions ... 84
5.7.1 Can International Law Solve this Intractable Conflict? ... 84
5.7.2 From Intractable to Tractable ... 87
5.7.3 Not discussing the same issue ... 88
5.7.4 Alternatives ... 91
6. Conclusions ... 94
6.1 Common observations ... 95
6.2 The unpredictable cause of intractability... 96
6.3 Towards settlement of intractable conflicts and future research ... 97
References ... 99
0
1
1. Introduction
Conflicts and disputes are generally perceived as part of our everyday lives: they range broadly from a disagreement between individuals to warfare between states – a violent and organized way of achieving a political objective (Ferguson 1990). Some conflicts are more complicated than others in finding a solution to the point that they seem to lack one. Conflicts where the parties’ interests are diametrically opposed, and consequently a possible settlement is perceived as a loss, are examples of conflicts that seem to lack solutions. Conflicts like the wars against the Taliban in Afghanistan, against the FARC in Colombia, or the Israel-Palestine dispute immediately come to mind. Often such conflicts are labeled as complex, challenging, unsolvable, intractable. But, why are some conflicts considered unsolvable or at least seem to be as such?
This thesis studies interstate territorial disputes, i.e., where the parties in conflict are internationally recognized states. In this sense, it is vital to specify there is a fine line between an interstate conflict and an intrastate conflict to the point that they can roughly be divided into two kinds. For instance, one or more parties in a dispute may be externally recognized (by other states) as having statehood, while others are not.
Additionally, both interstate and intrastate conflicts can have international dimensions and implications. The situation of the divided Cyprus is a good example of an intrastate conflict. Here, the negotiation is not between two states but between two communities within one internationally recognized state. Additionally, this conflict has an international dimension because the approval of Greece, Turkey and the United Kingdom is fundamental in finding a settlement.
Conflicts are complex phenomena, and there is always more than one factor that provokes them. The following research question will guide this investigation:
• Why do some interstate territorial disputes become virtually impossible to solve, and what causes give rise to this intractability?
I aspire to contribute with a foundation for analyzing conflicts that are particularly difficult to resolve, usually cataloged as intractable. Why do conflicts occur in the first
2 place? In the literature reviewed for this investigation, I encountered diverse propositions trying to clarify the origins of war and conflict. There is not an agreed narrative that conclusively explains the causes of these phenomena. Is conflict a natural part of human nature? If so, is violence a natural way to resolve disagreements?
It appears that whenever humans face a behavior that is hard to be explained, the general tendency is to attribute it to human nature. Philosophers, anthropologists, political scientists, and sociologists have theorized about the origin of conflict, whether it is an intrinsic condition of humanity and its distinction from the socialization of other animals. Appealing to human nature as some sort of explanation has turned it into a polemic or meaningless label, mainly because it faces contradictory arguments regarding the causation of specific outcomes.
Alleging human nature to explain a situation fails to explain the same human nature when the situation does not occur (Mitchell 2014, 27). When the origins of something cannot be adequately understood, it tends to be perceived as inevitable. When explaining why something occurs is reduced to a simplistic human nature, academics and students may result in oversimplification that prevents understanding and resolving problems. If a certain behavior is inherent to human nature, does that make that problem inevitable?
I became aware of uncountable philosophical questions that arise when trying to explain human behavior. I recognize the anthropological debate regarding violence and human nature and the need to understand why humans act the way we do, whether individually or as part of specific societies. Despite some disagreements, many modern anthropological studies agree that violence is not inherent to the human condition, and neither is war, situating this phenomenon closer to modern times and product of specific political, organizational structures (Ferguson 2013; D.
P. Fry 2006; Gat 2008; Otterbein 2004; Richerson et al. 2016). The previous discussion suggests that organized violence, such as war, is a product of the structured political agency of certain actors.
3 Without a doubt, the debate involving humanity’s instinctive tendency towards violence or destruction or its inherent will for peace and cooperation is of high relevance to understanding the origins of war and, with that, finding alternatives to more peaceful societies; however, for limitations in the investigation, I will not address such inquiries. Whether conflict is natural or not for humanity, conflict is a reality of our time. Conflict can emerge from just about any sort of disagreement between two or more actors. Some other conflicts arise because one actor starts it by attacking another, a situation in which one actor takes something from another or attempts to do so. In some cases, the belonging of certain actors to some disputes is perceived as natural or normal. On other occasions, some other actors include themselves because their interests revolve around the dispute.
To narrow down the sort of conflicts to be considered below, I will focus on the more limited category of intractable conflict. This term has been used in international relations to describe a long-standing dispute whose resolution seems impermeable to a rational solution. Are there some conflicts that simply cannot be resolved because what would be a minimally acceptable solution for one side in dispute is considered wholly unacceptable to the other side? This inherent insolvability often seems implied by the term “intractable conflict”. Thus, this project proposes to define an intractable conflict as a disagreement between two or more states over the legal status of a territory whose parties have not been able to find a solution for a long time and that have had periods of violence, but the conflict is not necessarily violent nor disruptive to international security.
Related terms such as ‘frozen conflict’, ‘recurring conflict’, or ‘enduring rivalries’ are used to describe conflicts that are hard or seemingly impossible to resolve; this variety in terminology points to a lack of consensus in political science and international relations vis-à-vis attempts at describing these sorts of conflicts. In what follows, I survey the relevant literature, and in so doing, discuss the different conceptions of “intractable conflict” while recognizing that not all such conflicts amount to disputes over territory; this study is limited to examining the territorial component of conflict intractability.
4 Despite an international system that is settled into states, many states still claim the authority over more territory than their neighbors or the system recognize. The research pays special attention to unclear, unrecognized, or contested borders that have reached a stalemate and are perceived as hard or impossible to resolve. To explain the strong link between territory and state, I consider the views of some authors (Bates 2010; Spruyt 1996; 2011; Tilly 1975) that provide theories on how the state results from a long and specific process of certain societies, comprises a production system, and a particular interpretation of modernity, development, and prosperity.
Undeniably, not all conflicts over territory become intractable, and not all intractable conflicts revolve around a territory. However, I found that territory adds a layer of intractability that makes conflicts easier to emerge or more complex to solve (Vasquez 1995; Hensel 1996; Huth 1996; Toft 2006; Hassner 2007). Indeed, an intrastate conflict over territory can also be described as intractable, but such conflicts have other implications in the international system that set them apart from conflicts between actors juridically recognized as states. Therefore, it is vital to clarify that separatist or secessionist movements, civil wars, and indigenous peoples’ rights over their land or their right to self-govern are not included within the scope of this thesis, which is first and foremost about inter-state disputes involving territory.
Chapter 2 discusses state formation and its link to territory, and chapter 3 considers some identified characteristics linked to territory that contribute to a conflict becoming intractable. Three cases will be analyzed to illustrate the proposed definition: the Ethiopia-Eritrea border dispute, the Cambodia-Thailand dispute over the Preah Vihear Temple, and the Falklands/Malvinas dispute between Argentina and the United Kingdom. Chapter 4 contemplates a comparative study of two long- standing disputes that seem to be solved, whose situation made them merited the label “intractable”: the Ethiopia-Eritrea border conflict and the Preah Vihear dispute between Cambodia and Thailand.
The cases are analyzed from a historical, social, political, and economic perspective, and which conditions enabled solutions after previous years of failure will be explored. The variety of cases should give perspective and should lead to pause
5 before labeling any dispute as “intractable,” at least in the strongest meaning of
“impossible to resolve.” The study of these two cases serves as food for thought as to what can be considered a resolved issue; the situation of the Ethiopia-Eritrea border will be a particular example of that.
Labeling a conflict as “intractable” matters. A label fixes the mind in a particular direction and can adjust the lens through which academics, negotiators, and mediators perceive a conflict and work toward generating solutions. The way internal protagonists and outside observers conceptualize a dispute contributes to the degree of external attention it gets, influencing its possible settlement.
Finally, chapter 5 studies the intractable conflict between Argentina and the United Kingdom over the Falkland/Malvinas Islands. The causes that make this conflict still unresolved are explored. The dispute over the Falkland/Malvinas Islands represents a lasting dispute with traces of colonialism, conflictive features of self-determination and decolonization, fierce nationalism, failed mediation, and modern imperialism.
Even though every case is unique, this thesis aims to bring greater clarity to the notion of intractable conflict so that my findings are potentially pertinent for approaching other interstate territorial disputes. Reaching a settlement and a peace deal depends a lot on the unique circumstances of each case; however, I hope that my work can contribute to a better diagnosis of intractable conflicts and, with that, to an enhanced understanding of how such conflicts can be resolved.
6
2. Methodological Foundations, Theoretical Discussion and a Renewed Definition of Intractable Conflict
The way we perceive the world and live in it is a political construct inherited by those who came before us (Rutjens and Brandt 2018). This chapter will first establish the methodological approach for the study of cases, highlighting the importance of territory for constructing human societies and its role in conflicts. Afterward, I will point out the vitality of territory for the process of state formation, culminating in the state as it is understood in the realist strand of modern International Relations theory.
Then, through exploring diverse sources, I will narrow down the definition of intractable conflicts. The concept will be applied in subsequent chapters to three selected cases.
2.1 Methodological Approach
It has been a regular finding that interstate wars have generally declined (Fearon and Laitin 2003; Szayna et al. 2017; Spagat and van Weezel 2020), and the scholarly focus has shifted towards the analysis of intrastate conflicts. However, the decreased frequency of interstate wars has not meant their complete disappearance. Non or less violent conflicts tend to be overlooked, maybe because they do not pose a threat to regional or international security. This decline in interstate wars might be due to the consolidation of the state’s figure (Vasquez 1995; Bates 2010).
My approach is guided toward understanding the complexities of intractable conflicts. Using existing theory about the establishment of borders and state formation, I try to bring precision to the notion of “intractable conflict”, a concept that does not have an agreed definition in the field of international relations. I seek to make the concept applicable to actual cases to show how the characteristics of disputed territory help explain why the related conflicts were, and still are, so difficult to resolve. After evaluating the advantages and disadvantages of single-case and multiple-case studies, the design that best fits this investigation is a multiple-case study, whose results are considered more convincing and, therefore, the study is
“more robust” (Yin 2003, 46).
7 Some researchers are skeptical of case studies because generalizations are difficult or impossible to make. Lijphart (1971, 691) argues that case studies cannot establish generalizations about the explained phenomenon but recognizes its importance for the “establishment of general propositions and thus to theory-building in political science.” Yin (2018) and Gerring (2004; 2011; 2017) have emphasized the importance of case studies for applying concepts that reflect the profound specificities of a phenomenon. For example, Tsang (2014) finds that case studies help build concepts and theory and, therefore, contribute to general knowledge.
The use of three cases will allow a level of comparison, first through a comparative study of the territorial dispute of Cambodia-Thailand and Ethiopia-Eritrea. Even though the main goal here is pursuing the applicability of the concept of intractable conflict and not the extensive comparison of the two cases, the most different system design is the rationale behind the election of the cases. The most different system design seeks to explain the same outcome in cases with different characteristics, i.e., having an intractable conflict (Anckar 2008, 389–90; Rich 2018, 209).
Finally, to further apply the narrowed concept, the selection of the Falkland/Malvinas Islands dispute between Argentina and the United Kingdom is based on the least likely case design (Levy 2008), not only because interstate territorial conflicts are becoming less frequent and this is still a non-settled dispute, but also because this is an atypical case of the phenomenon given that the most common feature is that wars happen between neighbors (Vasquez 1995). Of course, it can be argued that the disputants are somehow neighbors - as the community on the Islands is entirely British- however, the British and Argentinian states sit geographically far apart on the globe.
The three cases are examples of interstate territorial disputes coming from distinct situations, time frames and geography. In the three selected cases, I seek to discover the characteristics of territory that are the leading causes of intractability. To clarify this issue, I will explore the particularities of each case, the significance of those territories, history, and context.
8
2.2 Territory, Property, and Violence
World history tends to be centered in the Western1 narrative of events, disputes, and conflicts that shaped and culminated in the political institutions most of the modern world today accepts as established. State formation is usually depicted as a process in which tribal communities shaped their societal, economic, and political organization to more complex structures dealing with the territories they used and excluding other groups that might want to take them.
A delimited territory is one of the most important aspects of the state's existence whose “authority is defined uniquely as territorial rule with fixed geographic boundaries” (Spruyt 2011). I will consider the definition of the state from a Weberian perspective “as a human community that successfully claims the monopoly of the legitimate use of physical force within a given territory” (Gerth, Weber, and Mills 1997, 78).
The model of state today –and its legitimacy– is a product of the political, societal, and economical history of Europe. For the communities of the world outside of Europe, the right to constitute a state was in many cases a result of revolt processes –as the fight for the independence of the Americas shows—, and later as a matter of administrational improvement – shown by the process of decolonization in Africa and East-Asia—. Space, both physical and figurative, is used by those who spread and implemented their way of being; in fact, “it is hard to find a single international boundary that has not been inspired by the example and practices of an originally European statehood” (Agnew 2008, 180).
Robert Bates (2001) uses the process of state formation in Europe to explain today’s modern industrial developed societies against rural, agrarian, and poor societies.
Gellner (1983, 39-40) agrees that nationalism emerged in the transition from agrarian to industrial societies. According to this view, society evolved and grew from small clans to populations that settled due to agriculture, which gave land an increased value, and with that, the need to protect it. Investment became a viable alternative to alleviate future uncertainties and secure survival. Certainty influenced
1 I am referring to the tendency of perceiving or assuming that world history is Western history.
9 people to create wealth and invest it to create more, creating greed from others wanting to take it by force. In consequence, the state emerged as a powerful actor to guarantee property rights.
A sophisticated economic and political order was established, and it was based on the protection of new attached properties: territory and its production. The idea of property most likely became central to human societies when they permanently inhabited a specific piece of land. Blomley (2016, 597–98) argues that territory is intrinsically bonded with property, a matter of ownership and exclusion within the limits of a given territory, and notes that to adequately explain territory, it is necessary to consider the economic, calculative, and political-legal practices of the society it develops in.
As Blomley (2016, 606) himself mentions, this is related to Locke’s vision of the rise of property which comes to be explained as a natural and pacific process. In contrast, Rousseau views the same process as an imposition rather than an agreement. Bates (2010) follows Locke’s argument when he explains how development occurred due to the need to guarantee property protection through the creation of institutions;
however, Bates does not see the process as pacific but violent. Among the more relevant things for this investigation theorized by Locke is the surrender of free individuals to a civil government to assure the natural right of humans to appropriate things in the world (Snyder 1986, 724&735).
Following Blomley’s take on Locke’s and Rousseau’s view, Siroky and Sigwart (2014, 388) point out that for Rousseau, “property rights in land are strictly relational phenomena, and thus founded not on “nature” but on society and society is founded upon (among other things) the institution of private property.” The discussion here is if territory should automatically belong to those who inhabit it or even be owned by someone. The lines above illustrate the contrast of opinions of where the property of territory originates, even if those are eminently part of a Western philosophical debate.
The study of the origins of the European state shows that its validity and legitimacy implied power and that power relied on territorial control (Black 1997, 134–35). The
10 territory has an indisputable association with the figure of the state that leads to two different perspectives, one that delimits and allows organization within a community, and the other that means exclusion, which can offer prosperous and challenging scenarios (Agnew 2008, 176). Since the power of the state relies on territorial control, the delimitation of territory is vital because its work is “to decide who is inside and who is outside in an essential opposition between the ‘friends’ and ‘enemies’ (or Romans and barbarians) into whom the world is divided for these theorists” (Agnew 2008, 180).
The defense of territory aids in explaining the formation of the state through violent means. States in Europe became protectors against violence from the outside and developed a highly specialized military branch that allowed them to either deter enemies or conquer more territories (Bates, 2001). Therefore, it was essential for the state to have the capacity to defend the territory claimed as its own in front of other external forces that could take it by force – particularly other states. State formation was not a peaceful process but a violent appropriation. Thus Charles Tilly affirmed that “war made the state, and the state made war” (Tilly 1975, 42).
With the Peace of Westphalia of 1648, an international system of independent states arose that were, in principle, equal in rights and obligations. This event is broadly accepted by international relations’ literature of the highest political importance because it “formalized relations between modern sovereign states” whose sovereignty relied “on the internal monopolization of the means of violence, translated into rulers’ exclusive control of the instruments of foreign policy” (Teschke 2003, 2–3). Westphalia thereby established which actors should be deemed legitimate to participate in the state system.
The international system operates in a structure of mutual legitimation, a political model of actors interacting with each other as equals as long as they are recognized by other states. A fundamental part of this recognition is the respect for the other state's territory (Spruyt 1996, 30–33). In this sense, “borders were often understood simply as boundary lines between self-evident states whose existence was presumed to reflect physical features or international treaties” (Agnew 2008, 177).
11 The state became visibly violent to the outside and on the inside. In modern ways, this violence has been transformed into the legitimate use of force the state – as a recognized authority – implements to maintain order within the authority of its jurisdiction, that is to say, within its borders. Yet, the state – and its functioning – is considerably more complex than those elements. The legitimate use of violence comes with an intricate institution system that ideally makes a state a productive and prosperous entity. The state has administrative purposes and serves as a representative for the people that inhabit its territory. Over time, ideas of what constitutes a state became more intricate by adding up elements regarding economy, citizenship, development, rights, or administration, among others.
The state is the political administration of a territory, its inhabitants, and the resources inside it. In many ways, the state is supposed to reflect the social being of the community that inhabits it, how they live from the land, and the cultural and emotional attachments they have for it. Territory can become inalienable because it is a site of meanings. Rituals of birth, life, and death are circumscribed to a specific land that distinguishes it from any other in the world.
2.3 Fundamentals of the state
Humans provide meaning to the territory they inhabit, use, and administer as part of a political process. Therefore, territory is the central issue in the conflicts I analyze.
John Agnew’s (2018, 38) take on territory is worth mention, considering it as a “unit of contiguous space that is used, organized, and managed by a social group, individual person or institution to restrict and control access to people and places.”
‘Territory’ is a concept loaded with political meaning, and it is not the same conception for all organized communities, at least not until the political figure of the state imposes a unique way to conceive it.
Toft (2003,1) summarizes the complexities of territory and why it is at the center of many conflicts. Furthermore, she examines why territory is an issue of many unresolved conflicts because “[it] is simultaneously a divisible, quantifiable object and an indivisible and romantic subject” that cannot be divided or substituted.
Inherent to the theorization of territorial disputes is the idea that delimitation of space allows the implementation of authority over it, an authority that is recognized by
12 others who identify themselves as equal. The power and possession of territory are recognized to the extent that it can be used and defended. This recognition comes with reciprocity for one’s own space. It is a system in which the actors themselves legitimize others as they seek their own survival.
To properly perform its functions, a state must effectively exercise its authority over its territory and its population. An effective state is one that successfully imposes its authority and maintains order within its borders. “[A] state’s territory provides both the base and the frame for the exercise of power” (Knight 1992, 312), and is so fundamental that a state does not exist if the territory they claim for their own group is not recognized by other states (Agnew 2020; Held et al. 2002), and therefore they cannot be a full right actor in the international system. Hence, the fight for territory becomes not just a whim but a means for survival.
Kolers (2009, 32) argues that the way territories are administered “are morally justifiable, if at all, only by appeal to the equal interests of all individuals everywhere”;
this helps explain how is that the state is the political system that prevailed, and it did so by the use of force. But this does not nullify other conceptions of territory; in fact, this might be the underlying cause for many conflicts. Other forms of administering territory preceded the state: feuds, principalities, kingdoms, city-states, and empires were ways of managing territories. All those territorial entities relied on various control methods and perceived territory differently, depending on its inhabitants’
relationship with it and the political and economic dynamics.
Territory is evermore linked to the state’s definition, as the legal actor administering it and the main group that possesses it. Transcendental for this investigation is the acknowledgment of how fluid and malleable a border can be, despite the legal recognition of states, borders “are complex human creations that are perpetually open to question,” and they matter “because they have real effects and because they trap thinking about and acting in the world in territorial terms” (Agnew 2008, 176).
The territory is reconfigured according to human needs because the people are those who transform it, as Flint (2005, 6) refers it “the changing nature of borders and the continued dynamism of existing ones are examples of the way in which
13 geographical construction through war is one of the basic components of exercising politics.”
The formation of the state is indeed the history of disputed land between two or more authorities; “the imagination of territorial statehood rests on imitation and diffusion of established political models that define what is and what is not possible in the world at any particular time and in any particular place” (Agnew 2008, 180).
The formation of the modern state relied upon the appropriation of territories by some states that were – and are – not always accepted and therefore contested, sometimes in violent ways. Even if war is generally frowned upon in recent times, conflicts have not ceased to exist, sometimes coming to violent outbreaks or very hostile periods of peace and constant political bargaining.
Given the historical importance of creating a state, its figure has codified a legal system that guarantees its existence and protects it. One of those legal bases is the principle of territorial integrity. However, the principle is problematic by itself because it must deal with many incompatible and contradictory rights that have changed just as the figure of the state was extended through the world:
First, there was the delineation of frontiers between European and non- European societies; secondly, the delineation of frontiers between European states in areas where there were no long-standing European settlements. In European eyes, non-European lands could appear empty (Black 1997, 130).
The principle of territorial integrity is what holds together a state and can create so many problems within it. Territorial integrity is a political-in-origin-claim turned into an international legal principle mainly by states or people(s) that wanted to change the status quo or defend their right to constitute a state. Once the international community recognizes certain frontiers, it is hard to think of them as changing because it interferes with the system. In this sense, “states are defined by borders and therefore tend to view challenges to those borders as threats to their very existence” (Toft 2003, 19).
If the principle of territorial integrity is constantly broken by prioritizing the principle of self-determination, it would destabilize the international system by increasing the number of new states, and “there is only room for a limited number of such states on
14 this earth” (Gellner 1983, 48). Cases like Kosovo, South Sudan, Somaliland, and Palestine illustrate how self-determination can introduce this instability2. The latter proves how “most potential nationalisms must either fail or, more commonly, will refrain from even trying to find political expression” (Gellner 1983, 47). The state is a rigid political entity, in contrast with the communities that inhabit it that change constantly.
2.4 Territory and Conflict
Conflicts over territory are usually harder to resolve than those not involving territory because the interests of opposing parties clash when trying to obtain the sole property over a particular territory. The imposition of the state as a rigid political entity has perhaps contributed to the conflictive disagreements the modern world keeps witnessing. The state does not just use the territory but has constructed, fabricated, or even imposed –in some cases– narratives or dynamics that rely on the possession of territory, with the limitations and exclusions that are the foundation of the international system. In the more simplistic explanation, conflicts over territory are a product of the international state system that dictates a unique way on how territories are to be handled, therefore constricting possible solutions.
Historical research argues that “territorial issues are more apt to give rise to disagreements and that those disagreements have more often ended in war than disagreements over other issues” (Vasquez 1995, 285). Besides, “many of these disputes last longer than the material benefits attached to the territory seem to merit [and] parties seem increasingly reluctant to compromise, or even negotiate, over disputed territories” (Hassner 2007, 108). Toft (2006) argues that one possible reason is that the disputed good is perceived as inalienable.
The goal of the parties is intrinsically incompatible: having full sovereignty over a territory which by default excludes the possibility of sharing it with the other party.
Bar-Tal (2013, 39) sees this in terms of “contradictory goals” in multiple domains.
Even though I agree that conflicts that are not strictly over territory can also be intractable, territoriality is the central aspect contributing to this condition. Goertz
2 This sentence pretends to give examples of the fight of some people for self-determination and in no way means the oversimplification of very complex scenarios.
15 and Diehl (1996) and Vasquez (1993) have argued that states are less likely to settle a territorial dispute than any other issue. I take Vasquez’s (1995, 283) definition of territoriality as “the tendency for humans to occupy and, if necessary, defend territory”, essential to the rise of the European state.
Throughout this thesis, the importance of territory for the state’s existence is emphasized; this holds even when the whole territory assumed by the said state is not recognized. In the case of disputed territory with another state, that does not necessarily jeopardize the existence or disappearance of that state, but it can influence the perceptions of power it has in the international system and with its neighbors, in fact, “territorial issues are the single most dangerous issues any state will face” (Vasquez 1995, 289). Interstate disputes about a territory usually do not ordinarily discredit the other party’s authority in conflict nor negate its existence, but rather the intractability lies over the disagreement about who has the authority over a specific territory.
Disputes over territory are distinctive insofar as they are usually given much weight by the states involved, even if the territory itself might be considered of little worth from an economic point of few, or if few or no people reside on it, for example. When studying the causes for this intractability, Mitchell (2014, 51) finds that “parties indulge in conflict over some “good” that is in limited supply which both or all perceive that they cannot simultaneously own, possess or enjoy” (Mitchel 2014, 29).
Territory adds a particular layer to intractable conflicts because it is not just the dispute over a scarce good, but this particular asset helps to provide legitimacy – internal and external – for the actor disputing it, making it more difficult to agree on its legitimate use and revenue by one party instead of the other. In this sense, territorial conflicts can come “from the interactions states take in their attempts to demark boundaries and/or maintain and expand their territory” (Vasquez 1995, 283).
Territory, as a material good, could be split, ceded, or bought, but all of these actions that could be perceived or proposed as solutions to an intractable conflict would require the will of the parties and their “flexibility regarding the boundaries of the territory” (Hassner 2007, 112). This lack of flexibility is part of what makes a conflict
16 start and keep going. Aall, Crocker, and Hampson (2005, 5) claim that these types of conflicts have not found a solution “because leaders believe their objectives are fundamentally irreconcilable […], they see their battle as a zero-sum game.” Once the triumph of the opposing party is perceived as a total loss – real or imaginary – there is little room to finding solutions to a territorial dispute.
Toft identifies this as one of the main causes for continuous territorial conflicts: “as long as both sides represent the issue of control over the disputed territory as indivisible” (2003, 29). Indivisibility is crucial because it increases the chances of violent outcomes (Toft 2006, 29). Bar-Tal (2013, 40) sees violence as the “most critical characteristic in turning intergroup conflict into intractable conflict.” Indivisibility implies that the only way to win in a territorial dispute is through the total defeat of the other party; this usually occurs through violent means.
Indivisibility is closely related to inalienability because it reflects the value of the territory as a whole and incomplete when divided. Sometimes dividing a territory is not even possible. Rather than the territory being “indivisible” due to nationalistic views (nationalism will be further discussed in the following chapters), it is more likely that it is indivisible because of power structures, namely, the existing state system;
this hypothesis will be explored in the cases. Accepting the division of the state’s territory makes us question the viability of the state itself. The secession of the territories of existing states to create new states is out of the scope of the present investigation; nonetheless, it is worth mentioning since it is in this interpretation of territory that the state's power relies on.
The configuration of the world into states that administrate their territories might happen to be just a convenience for management purposes imposed by powerful actors and not a natural outcome of political maturity at all. States may be a result of a particular way of exercising power. The modern state may be the cause of the intractability of territorial conflicts because its structure implies, first, that every territory is open for appropriation to be taken over by a human community; second, that said community is unified and loyal to a specific state; and third, it establishes territory as a scarce good that cannot be shared with those that do not belong to
17 one’s own community. A particular economic system sustains the state as a political entity, or perhaps the state legitimizes the current economic system.
Once explained the state and territory as its inseparable quality, I will take the following definition of a territorial dispute as “a disagreement between states over where their common homeland or colonial borders should be fixed, or, more fundamentally, the dispute entails one country contesting the right of another country even to exercise sovereignty over some or all of its homeland or colonial territory” (Huth 1996). I estimate that this definition is consistent with the type of conflicts I aim to explain in this investigation, and to this concept, I will add the feature of intractability.
2.5 Intractable Conflicts: Search of a Definition
Groups of people fight against other groups to exclusively use, occupy, and live in a territory. There is a duality between the territory being inalienable as purely a material entity and as having a profound identity bond. The fight over territory can have different motives; the focus of this investigation will be on those territorial disputes that are very hard to resolve, regardless of their cause, to the point that they are intractable.
As established, there is no concept in the literature of political science that is broadly accepted to describe territorial conflicts that are complex and difficult to resolve.
Intractable conflict is a tag usually thrown around without much care in casual conversations about international politics, hidden in academic texts, and often in media headlines to describe violent, long-lasting, but mostly, for controversial cases in the international system; however, there is not an agreed definition of the term.
According to Oxford Dictionary, “intractable” is an adjective used to describe something “very difficult to deal with.”
As a concept, I track down its use in the field of psychology – but not limited to it — to describe “conflicts that are recalcitrant, intense, deadlocked, and extremely difficult to resolve” (Coleman 2003). Coleman provides different examples to illustrate what he considers an intractable conflict; they range from personal experiences to interstate conflicts. Coleman enlists some characteristics that make a
18 conflict intractable: it has persisted over the years with no foreseeable solution, involves extremely polarized actors against their opponent, and inflicts personal or communal trauma.
Bar-Tal (1998, 23) characterizes intractable conflicts “as protracted, irreconcilable, violent, of zero-sum nature, total, and central. They are demanding, stressful, exhausting, and costly both in human and material terms” and cites as examples of those “of severe violent confrontations that threaten the wellbeing of the peoples involved and the international community”. Bar-Tal constructs the idea of an intractable conflict around a specific example: Israel-Palestine.
It is undeniable that the utilization of an example can illustrate the characteristics helping to define a concept, which is precisely one of the main goals of the present research; some single-case studies have become trademark references for further studies and generalization. Thus, Bar-Tal enriches the discussion of intractable conflicts, but it is important to keep in mind that his investigation is focused more on the implications of intractable conflicts at a societal level than the state-level study proposed here.
In a more ambiguous spectrum, Hassner (2007) pictures intractable conflicts as those over territory and argues that time is one element that contributes to a conflict becoming intractable, not because the conflict is intractable in origin. He attributes intractability due to entrenchment, “a process in which disputes become increasingly resistant to resolution over time, marked by an enhanced reluctance to offer, accept or implement compromises or even negotiate over territory” (Hassner 2007, 108–9).
Mitchell (2014, 60) depicts intractable conflicts as those that “continue for a long time and resist efforts to resolve them” and lists characteristics that distinguish them from tractable conflicts. In discussing concepts, Mitchel finds consensus that intractability is present in conflicts that are fundamentally different in their origin and objectives, which have distinct goals that irremediably oppose the other party’s goals.
Paul (2006) uses the term intractable almost interchangeably with the term enduring to describe the India-Pakistan rivalry because he attributes time as the essential characteristic. However, by calling it enduring, there is an underlying risk of
19 condemning it to a status of perpetuation. Even though some definitions of intractable include “impossible to resolve”, I think the ambiguity and scarce utilization of the word allows a window of opportunity to bring attention to its complexity. Using intractable permits to recognize a conflict is hard to deal with but releases the weight of forgetfulness that, over time, other terms have.
Coleman focuses on how to perceive this type of conflict and to study them from what other actors can do with them, and Bar-Tal explores them from the perception of intractability held by the communities that actually live the conflict and describes intractable conflicts as those that “are long term and severe and have serious implications for the involved societies and the world community” (2013, 35). Hassner pays attention to territory and time, but he does not properly address those conflicts whose intricate origin is hard to deal with by prioritizing time in his explanation. The latter is a feature not to be neglected; later, I will discuss in more detail whether time constitutes a cause for intractability or not.
I will focus on territory as the disputed issue that is often central to the presence of intractability. Although there can be many causes for intractable conflicts, this investigation will consider those that involve a dispute over a territory and whose territory the parties refuse to relinquish. Of course, like almost any other, these conflicts are a fight for power that confronts the will of two or more parties, however as it has been explained, territory has particularities that trigger or continue the conflict.
For example, Coleman evaluates a conflict as intractable because it is “inherently irresolvable.” In this sense, academics and experts gathered by the United States Institute for Peace pointed out that the term was generally used “to refer to a conflict that is unresolvable rather than one that resists resolution” (Aall, Crocker, and Hampson 2005, 5). I agree with Coleman in the label qualifying these conflicts as inherently irresolvable, but I would add to that layer the word “allegedly” as a fundamental characteristic of an intractable conflict, but not as a deterministic statement.
20 The tag conveys a sense of determinism that would set these conflicts apart from all others. Later on, the same group gathered by the United States Peace Institute warned that the label would affect “the attitudes and perceptions of the parties to the conflict and the third-party peacemakers”, therefore characterized intractable conflicts as those “that have persisted over time and refused to yield efforts to arrive at a political settlement” (Aall, Crocker, and Hampson 2005, 5). This definition insists on citing time as a fundamental characteristic that would confront some theories3 that consider time as necessary to solve conflicts.
After the discussion considering the authors that have reflected upon the topic and framing the concept in international relations and related disciplines, for this investigation, an intractable conflict is a disagreement between two or more states over the legal status of a territory, whose parties have not been able to find a solution for a long time and that have had periods of violence, but the conflict is not necessarily violent nor disruptive to international security.
3 Like Zartman’s ripeness theory.
21
3. Exploring the causes of intractable conflicts
In chapter 2, I wrote about the importance of territory for the construction of the state as a political entity that only exists because other states recognize it as such; it administers land and is the ultimate guarantor of contracts. The state was constructed as a rigid entity with geographic limits whose aim – among others – is to include those allowed in and repel those out. However, states were sometimes formed before the communities within their limits were assigned to that state.
Territorial disputes turn intractable because their solutions are limited to a system that reflects territory, and the way territory is used, in zero-sum terms. The latter, however, does not explain the reasons why territory becomes inalienable and indivisible. In the previous chapter, I explained the characteristics of territory as an indivisible good that can turn a conflict intractable. This chapter will examine related causes of territory that lead to intractable conflicts, including antagonistic nationalistic views, economic motives, and third-party interests.
3.1 Violence, Borders, State, and Stable Borders
Borders and demarcation of territories are older than the state system. The state as a political form of organization is not that ancient if one thinks of the timeline of humanity. But borders, as conceived today, are one of the fundamental aspects of state-making because the state was institutionalized through the respect of those borders. The international system is apparently steady but also a target of change regarding the people, foreign and domestic economy, government, and territory.
Sometimes states accept those borders, and sometimes they contest them; they can accept or reject the creation of new states and re-negotiate borders.
The process of contesting borders can be violent or can be a stable disagreement.
In a sense, contested borders are a residue from state-making; the demarcation of borders among neighbors is still an unfinished process. For example, Agnew (2008, 182) maintains that “the perpetual instability of the border is precisely what gives it such symbolic power in the mind’s eye of the nationalists who favor/challenge it.”
The latter is evident in cases with contested borders or claimed territory because the parties believe and trust they can make or provoke changes.
22 Backing the explanation of the formation of the state through violent means, Vasquez (1995,282) argues that territory is a cause of war among states and that its practice might have been used as an efficient way to deal with territorial conflicts and “once these [territorial] disputes are resolved the probability of warfare becomes less”
(Vasquez 1995, 285). This finding backs up one of the most important aspects of the international state system, thereby demonstrating the importance of territoriality for the constitution of a state and the need for juridical recognition by other states to legitimate each other.
In current times, territorial conflict is more absent in countries whose formation and delimitation phase has passed and have been able to establish and acknowledge territorial boundaries with their neighbors despite past claims: “once boundaries are established, peaceful relations between neighbors can become commonplace”
(Vasquez 1995, 287). Vasquez’s argument helps justify the study of interstate territorial disputes; they are important because contested borders are a source of instability, even if the number of those conflicts has decreased after World War II and now the primary threat to security are intrastate conflicts (Fearon and Laitin 2003).
Vasquez (1995, 290) proposes that “a system that has stable norms regarding who has a right to territory and under what circumstances territory can be claimed or transferred will experience less war than a system that has competing norms or vague norms.” Even though I agree with Vasquez’ key idea, I consider his position too optimistic given the historical evidence of state formation; in any case, his reasoning could help explain why interstate conflicts over territory would be less prone to occur; but would fail to explain the increase in intrastate territorial conflicts.
Additionally, Vasquez’ argument implies that the system would indeed be made of rules and not influenced or controlled by powerful actors seeking to achieve their own agenda regardless of the ownership of a particular territory. Furthermore, the system with stable norms that Vasquez suggests already exists, and frequently powerful actors overcome those norms; they can oppress and deny rights for both recognized states and communities still pursuing self-determination.
23 The state merged through violence, and this needs to be reiterated because, even once institutionalized, violence has not disappeared. The state was a political entity almost exclusive of Europe until it was broadly enforced or fought for, after years of brutal colonialism, in the rest of the world. European colonization was a process mainly initiated by the need for resources. The way many non-European states came to exist were conflicts in the making, among other reasons, because of the arbitrary divisions of land made by colonial powers. Those territorial administrations that were
“created for multiple nonstate purposes were somehow to become carbon copies or prototypes of the European territorial states that had created them” (Holsti 1995, 328). The study of conflicts – of any kind – in former colonies cannot omit their colonial baggage.
3.2 Natural resources and territorial disputes
Humans, like any other species, live off the land they inhabit. Whether because there is a direct profit from it, such as cultivating lands that provide food, or because that territory provides resources for profit. The way humanity has used resources has shifted over time because new technologies have shaped the demand. Two states may dispute a territory because that territory has resources; it is also plausible that the conflict gets aggravated due to the states’ refusal to reach an agreement that would allow the other party to enjoy the resources contained in that territory.
Koubi et al. (2014) analyze theoretical arguments and empirical findings of natural resources as potential conflict triggers, both intrastate and interstate. They found that resource abundance influences conflict outbursts; however, the literature centers on intrastate conflict. Regarding the potential for interstate conflicts over resources, Koubi et al. (2014, 228-9) find that the studies are focused mainly on water where
“joint democracy and […] institutions facilitate cooperative solutions,” and if a conflict is present, “it occurs in the form of political disputes and political tensions.”
Studies on the potential of interstate conflict over resources focus on oil as an fundamental supply of the global economy (De Soysa, Gartzke & Lie, 2010; Colgan, 2010; Caselli, Morelli & Rohner, 2013; Meierding 2016). Most of those articles find an increasing tendency of interstate war over oil but show little evidence on the likelihood of conflict among neighbors or over the territory in which oil is found.
24 Overall, oil revenues in the hands of non-democratic governments or governments that got to power through revolutionary wars have a higher tendency to destabilize regional and international security, not only in terms of border changes. De Soysa, Gartzke, and Lie (2010) warn for future disputes among neighbors, given that oil production is now moving downwards due to its finite availability.
Colgan (2010) talks about the higher risk of conflict among bordering states but does not place natural resources -oil- as the cause for interstate territorial conflicts, instead concludes that a revolutionary government taking control over an oil-exporting country will generally lead to more interstate conflict, not only with their neighbors.
Colgan does not address the case of bordering states disputing a territory over oil - or any other resource. Instead, the study shows that oil is not a direct cause of conflict, but oil revenues can be used to fund wars.
Caselli, Morelli, and Rohner (2013) find that conflict is expected when natural resources are present. Their study focuses on oil as causal for conflict, discovering that when only one country possesses it -and that resource is closer to the border- conflict is at least three times more likely. And in the case of both neighboring states having oil, “the probability of conflict increases very markedly with the asymmetry in the two countries’ oil locations relative to the border.” The results of their empirical study also show “that the presence and location of oil fields have some predictive power for border changes” (Caselli, Morelli, and Rohner 2013, 16).
Meierding (2016) seeks to dismantle the myth of wars over oil, arguing through four cases that the aggressor’s desire to take over oil fields was not the principal cause of the war. The results show that even a resource as valuable and important as oil does not pay off an invasion. Therefore, “a territory’s petroleum endowments are a poor predictor of its ability to inspire interstate conflict” (Meierding 2016, 287). The results show a low propensity for resources being the sole cause for conflict. Even though those results are optimistic, states might still have other motivations to claim the ownership of a territory.
According to the reviewed studies, states believe oil is a resource worth fighting for.
Evidence suggests that oil is a relevant factor that may cause territorial disputes, but
25 it is still unclear if it is a determining factor for intractability. The literature shows that when a state’s motive for claiming territory is to take control over a specific resource or set of resources, this is usually a conflict of opportunity and product of a particular economic and political scenario. If the main reason for a dispute initiated by aggression is the greed of one state, the international community most likely will condemn the action. The aggressor state has fewer chances of making a border change unless it has enough resources to impose it for a long time.
Unfortunately, studies on the probable effect of resources other than oil in interstate conflict are scarce. These results lead me to infer that natural resources are a minimal cause for intractability in territorial disputes. It is, of course, undeniable that natural resources have influence in conflict, and indeed natural resources can motivate the fight or claim over territories, though those are not the chief cause of what makes a conflict intractable. The fight over resources can have a role to play in an intractable territorial dispute, but this is in addition to other causes that do not allow a solution.
3.3 Religion and territorial conflicts
Religion can be both a cause of war and a cause for peace but when either of them occurs depends on the particularities of each case and diverse circumstances (Hartwell and Syse 2014, 1). The three Abrahamic religions have shaped and built cultural, social, and political structures that impact today’s territorial conflicts. Of course, it cannot be neglected the role of Buddhism and Hinduism and other religions with fewer followers in shaping the world, whose views and clashes influence today's world.
Religion and territory are sometimes linked. Not all religions fight for or control territories, but by studying the formation of the state, the important role played by Christianity merits attention. Hastings (1997) argues that Christianity played a fundamental role in the formation of the state and claims that the nation-state got its structure from Judaism, which he calls the “true proto-nation” (Hastings 1997, 186).
Additionally, Hastings (1997, 179) argues that Christianity was fundamental in the transition from ethnicities to nations; furthermore, he claims that nations are
“characteristically Christian.”
26 When writing about religion and beliefs in supernatural deities not belonging to the physical world, I faced a similar disjunctive when describing whether conflict is instinctual to human beings. Several questions arise when tracing back religion, but more controversially, trying to trace back beliefs. This research does not attempt to explain beliefs nor try to prove or deny the existence of any supernatural deity but to show one plausible explanation of the foundation of religions. In other words, the approach attempts to explain how religion originated in historical terms and its political implications, but it does not and should neither approve nor disapprove beliefs.
According to archeological evidence, the oldest human religious ritual goes back 70,000 years in the territory of what today is Botswana; that discovery suggests earlier human’ capacity of abstract thinking beyond just instinctive survival abilities (Vogt 2006). There is a theory that the need to believe in something spiritual is a product of our evolutionary history and that religion is a product of thousands of years of survival mechanisms (Atran 2004; Graffin 2010; Norenzayan 2016). In line with this view, it is likely that certain procedures that were first required for the survival of prehistoric humans had turned into needed rituals despite any logical basis; those rituals allowed to form community and institutions.
Religion is more than just beliefs, even though closely related. Religion is a set of beliefs that significantly impact the way people handle personal affairs and handle what is right and wrong (Hartwell and Syse 2014, 2). Even though there is not an agreed scholarly definition for what religion is (Toft, Philpott, and Shah 2011;
Nongbri 2013), I will consider Durkheim’s description as “a unified system of beliefs and practices relative to sacred things, […] which unite into one single moral community called a Church, all those who adhere to them” (Durkheim, Cosman, and Cladis 2008, 46).
Religion involves a political structure with agency and growing influence over what might seem truly secular decisions (Toft, Philpott, and Shah 2011). The scientific explanations of the origin of religion are still theories, but what can be traced back are emblematic historical facts that serve as proof of the involvement of religion in territoriality and how that can be pictured in contemporary conflicts. The greatest