Sambanis, N. (2000) ‘Partition as a Solution to Ethnic War: An Empirical Critique of the Theoretical Literature’

Sambanis, N. (2000) ‘Partition as a Solution to Ethnic War: An Empirical Critique of the Theoretical Literature’, World Politics 52 (4), 437-483

1. Partition theorists have not produced operational criteria for applying their theories consistently across cases.
2. Empirical testing could help elucidate these theoretical debates.
3. Focus on claims that once ethnic violence starts, civil politics can only be restored if ethnic groups are demographically separated into ‘defensible enclaves’ (438) and solutions aiming to restore multi-ethnic civil politics will not work because they do not resolve existing security dilemmas (‘SD’).
4. SDs are at heart of partition theory: when communities distrust each other, one community’s actions to increase its own security is seen as threatening to security of others.
5. Therefore, the claim is that partition in homogenous separate regions becomes inevitable to end conflict.
6. No proof for this has been provided.
7. Will test three core hypotheses:
   1. Partitions facilitate post-war democratization;
   2. Partitions prevent war recurrence;
   3. Partitions significantly reduce low-level ethnic violence.
8. Result: Partitions do not prevent recurrence of ethnic war and may not even be necessary to stop low-level ethnic violence.
9. Criticism of partition:
   1. too limiting a solution: ethnic cooperation may be possible even after a civil war.
   2. too severe a solution: forced population movements cause tremendous human suffering.
   3. Will create undemocratic successor states: repression of residual minorities.
   4. Endorsing some partition will encourage others, leading to wars: not true; this is rare.
10. SD ignores the fact that conflict is often due not to ethnic groups’ security needs, but to ‘predatory’ goals of their leaders; therefore, partition will not solve the SD of partitioned ethnic groups if it exacerbates ‘predatory’ incentives of predecessor states.
11. Civil wars tend not to end in negotiated settlements, unless supported by external security guarantees that prevent predatory predecessor states from restarting wars against successor states (442).
12. Alternative to both Partition (‘P’) and creating a new balance of power is to create a regional hegemon responsible for regional peace.
13. Ethnic diffusion might mitigate the SD (Byman) because it reduces the possibility that a single ethnic group might become dominant (443): ‘ethnic balancing’ against threatening groups is both possible and stabilizing.
14. “The probability of civil war drops significantly at very high levels of ethnic diversity and it is greatest in ethnically polarised societies” (443).
15. Four key questions related to partition must be investigated:
    1. What are the main determinants of P?
    2. Does P create democratic or undemocratic states?
    3. Does P prevent war recurrence?
    4. Does P end low-level ethnic violence?
16. Complied data set with 125 civil wars and 21 partitions.
17. Testable hypotheses.
18. Findings:
    1. Type of war is a significant determinant of partition: ethnicity matters for the onset of partition.
    2. As ethnic heterogeneity increases, probability of partition decreases significantly; as size of ethnic groups increase, so does likelihood of partition.
    3. Partitions are positively and significantly correlated with levels of violence; but violence may well be caused by partition itself.
    4. “Partition is more likely after identity than ideological war, after truce or rebel victory following war, in a country with large ethnic groups and little heterogeneity, and higher levels of economic development.
19. Three critical hypotheses of P theory:
    1. Ps create successor states that are at least as democratic as predecessors: evidence unclear; more research needed.
    2. Ps reduce risk of war recurrence: evidence does not support this. Therefore, separating ethnic groups does not resolve the problem of violent ethnic antagonism.
    3. Ps reduce low-level ethnic violence after war ends: very weak evidence in favor.
20. Ps are coerced, painful, costly, may saw seeds for future conflicts. International policy towards P must rely on rigorous, empirical testing and arguments.
21. New Hypothesis: “The strategy of supporting ethnic diffusion by combining rather than partitioning large ethnic groups may be worth pursuing” after a civil war: “If borders can be credibly and securely redrawn, then combining several large ethnic groups in a larger multiethnic state may reduce the probability of new wars” (479).
22. “Partition, as we have seen, does not help reduce the risk of war recurrence. Partitions are in fact positively (though not significantly) associated with recurrence of ethnic war. The probability of a new war rises in tandem with the human toll of the previous war and with non-decisive outcomes to the war” (480).
23. “Negotiated settlements, a strong government army, and a lengthy previous war all reduce the probability of war recurrence” (481).
24. “To reduce residual violence, it is important to prevent war recurrence, as patterns of large-scale violence over time seem to encourage lower-level violence” (481).
25. “Strategies to support the government’s prewar institutions and its military may also achieve peace, but they may do so at the expense of justice” (481).
26. Empirically-derived strategy for resolving ethnic war: “This strategy demands action by the international community, which must promote democracy as its number one conflict-prevention strategy. If violence does erupt, its priority should be to facilitate a negotiated settlement, as well as to integrate and downsize the government’s military… If border redefinition is a viable option – and it should be an option only if it does not assist one party at the expense of another – then ethnic integration rather than ethnic partition may be a winning strategy. In addition to having the potential for greater success than partition, this strategy is also not loaded with subjective and arbitrary assumptions about the necessity for ethnically pure states and about the futility of interethnic cooperation” (481).
27. “On average, partition may be an impossible solution to ethnic civil war” (482).