Foreign Military Occupations and Ethnicity

Abstract

Military occupations are one form of dispute settlement. International security studies and military sciences investigate why military occupations occur and why they have been considered necessary. International law reviews the grounds for their justification and provides normative guidelines for military conduct in the field. What the two disciplines lack is an introspection into what tends to happen in occupations and why most military occupations tend to end in failure, dislocation, and social turmoil. By reviewing a number of exemplary cases of occupation, including Japan and Palestine, this chapter focuses on the need to search for the underlying causes, which destabilize occupations and contribute to their deterioration. It argues that we need to draw upon research in ethnic relations, nationalism, and postcolonial studies, which focus on identity construction, reveal the nature of the knowledge/power nexus, and offer strategies for getting over the occupational and postoccupational setting.