The determinants of low-intensity intergroup violence

Abstract

What accounts for low-intensity intergroup violence? This article explores the determinants of low-intensity sectarian violence in Northern Ireland, which has marked the post-1998 peace agreement period. Low-intensity violence comprises a variety of events from riots to attacks against other civilians as well as against homes and symbolic buildings such as churches. We argue that this violence is more likely and prevalent in interface areas where similarly sized rival communities are geographically in contact with each other. Parity and contact spur intergroup competition and threat perception, and they increase the viability of violence. We use original cross-sectional time-series violence data for the 2005-12 period at a disaggregated subnational level, the ward, and a wide variety of social and economic indicators to test our hypotheses. In particular, we assess the impact of within-ward ethnic composition, on the one hand, and the ethnic composition of neighboring wards, on the other. We find that the number of intergroup violent events peaks in wards where there is parity between groups, and in predominantly Catholic (Protestant) wards that border predominantly Protestant (Catholic) wards. The article makes two main contributions: it shows that microlevel dynamics of violence can expand beyond local territorial units, and it suggests that ethnic segregation is unlikely to prevent intergroup violence.

Predicting local violence

“…warned of the dangers of power-sharing (Rothchild & Roeder, 2005) or of cohabitation between equally dominant ethnic or religious groups (Balcells, Daniels & Escribà-Folch, 2016), and have suggested that violence often accompanies minority access to political power (Dancygier, 2010). Our results are more consistent with these latter intuitions.…”

“…Many studies have attempted to predict national-level conflicts -for example, civil war, political instability (Goldstone et al, 2010) or 'irregular regime change' (Beger, Dorff & Ward, 2016). 1 Recently, however, the most active frontier of conflict research has focused on local-level incidents, including murders (Blakeslee & Fishman, 2015), riots (Wischnath & Buhaug, 2014), domestic violence (Sekhri & Storeygard, 2013), 'lowintensity' sectarian clashes (Balcells, Daniels & Escribà-Folch, 2016), conflicts between states and underrepresented groups (Cederman, Wimmer & Min, 2010), and killings of suspected witches (Miguel, 2005). Like its cross-national counterpart, most subnational conflict research has been descriptive or causal.…”

Discrimination and ethnic conflict: a dyadic analysis of politically-excluded groups in sub-Saharan Africa

“…In contrast, ethnic groups that constitute a larger proportion of the national population, but are excluded from the national political system, are more likely to perceive themselves as being unfairly treated and will have a larger potential resource pool from which to recruit Buhaug 2013, Cederman, Wimmer, andMin 2010). Groups who approach demographic parity with each other and who perceive themselves to be under threat, are found to be more likely involved in intergroup violence with each other, because both groups are able to compete for dominance (Balcells, Daniels, and Escribà-Folch. 2016):…”

Civilian resettlement patterns in civil war

“…Clustering itself can also endanger refugees or IDPs (Steele, 2018). However, there may also be a level at which violence associated with segregation reaches a plateau, as Balcells, Daniels & Escribà-Folch (2016) found with Northern Ireland, and Weidmann & Salehyan (2013) in Iraq.…”