instructions attached below with a sample paper as an example. no citation page is needed, ONLY footnotes in chicago style please! Notes are attached as well to pick a theory from class.

instructions attached below with a sample paper as an example. no citation page is needed, ONLY footnotes in chicago style please! Notes are attached as well to pick a theory from class.
Objectives of the Assignment I have four objectives in mind for you in this assignment, each of these goals maps to our course objectives on the syllabus. 1) Deepen your understanding of conflict and peacebuilding in the world around you (Objective 1 in the syllabus). 2) Learn how to apply the theories / frameworks and research we study in class to the real world around us (Objective 2 in the syllabus). 3) Critically evaluate potential interventions into conflict (Objective 3 in the syllabus). 4) Improve important job skills, especially research and analytical writing (Objective 4 in the syllabus). III. Assignment Each memorandum must be addressed to me. Imagine that I am considering leading a team of George Mason students to work in a particular ongoing conflict or post-conflict context. I only have a short amount of time to prepare and I ask you, as a student of conflict analysis, to write a brief memorandum based on the most recent news from that conflict context. Each memorandum therefore will discuss recent news on either conflict or a peacebuilding intervention in a locality of your choosing. For example, Based on a brief look at BBC News’ website in late August last year, the conflicts you choose could be about the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC)’s peace process; conflict in Iraq, Syria or Venezuela; the recent attacks on civilians in Germany, France, or India; American Insurrection, meaning of reconciliation in case of post conflict South Africa, Migration to US and /or Europe and many more. The subject matter can be about a conflict that continues or about news of efforts to transform or resolve conflict. Obviously, there’s a broad range of conflicts and interventions that qualify. As we learn in class, global conflict today can involve different combinations of civil war, interstate war, terrorism, transnational crime, local conflict, one-sided violence, etc. Similarly, interventions may include those designed to prevent conflict, protect civilians, mediate between opposing sides, build peace when direct violence ends, reconcile formerly polarized groups, etc. But they may also include interventions by outside actors to help one side win. In other words, not a peacebuilding intervention, but a military one of some kind. Interventions may include the UN, regional bodies, international NGOs, sovereign states, peace constituencies within the conflict itself, etc. 3 Goals The memo must brief me about the most recent news in that conflict context or intervention. What has been happening? Who are the main actors? What have their actions been? Who is intervening? 2. The memo must analyze the conflict in light of the theories and evidence on global conflict that we read in class. What are the reasons for this conflict? How might the theories we study in this class interpret this conflict differently? What have the effects of this conflict been? What does this analysis mean for the success of interventions to resolve the conflict? Do you have any other analytical thoughts that are different from our theories and evidence in class thus far? 3. Have a clear recommendation of the way forward. In the other world what are your suggestion on what should be considered as a part of a solution to this conflict? Memos can be only two pages long, singlespaced. I will not read anything past the second page. They should be single-spaced in a normal font (e.g., Times New Roman) in 12-pt font, with an extra space between paragraphs. Please do not attempt to change the margins and font sizes; I’ll notice the differences. Use the Chicago citation style for your sources, this means using foot-notes to cite your sources; follow the rules carefully. Do not include a bibliography page; the footnotes will be enough.
instructions attached below with a sample paper as an example. no citation page is needed, ONLY footnotes in chicago style please! Notes are attached as well to pick a theory from class.
Student ID: G 000000 Professor Hakizimana CONF 340 – Memo I Implications of Civil Conflict in Cameroon: The Anglophone Crisis Introduction This paper attempt to analyze the Cameroonian conflict between Anglophone and Francophone conflict utilizing Gurr’s theory, frustration aggression as a cause of civil conflict. Historical Context In October 2016, Anglophone leaders from the North and Southwest regions of Cameroon demanded the restoration of a two -state federat ion of the central African country 1 in discourse that can be traced back to 1961 and the country’s independence from British and French colonialism. In February 1961, British leaders from the League of Nations territory of Southern Cameroon in the west, v oted to form a federation with the French territory in the east called the Republic of Cameroon which had claimed independence from France in the prior year, to form the Federal Republic of Cameroon. By 1972, former president Ahmadou Ahidjo transformed the country into a unitary state called the United Republic of Cameroon, which was then once again changed to the Republic of Cameroon (La Republique du Cameroon) by President Paul Biya in 1984 2. This reversal of the country’s name worked to fuel sentiments that would promote the marginalization of the Anglophone regions of the country for decades to come, and ultimately retaliation from those regions against a primarily French government. In the early 1990s, in an effort to protect the interests of Anglopho ne Cameroonians following the control the French had garnered over the political and educational sectors, the Social Democratic Front (SDF), the first oppositional political party to the “francophonisation” of Anglophone regions 3 was formed. Despite Anglo phone efforts, the centralized French governing powers maintained their power over the government and virtually all other aspects of Cameroonian society. In late 2016, lawyers and teachers engaged in non -violent protests across the Northwest and Southwest, decrying the long -standing infiltration of Francophone policies and guidelines into the Anglophone judicial system and schools. French had become the language used in courtrooms in English regions, and French teachers had been assigned to English schools which led to a decline in student performance due to language barriers 4. Peaceful protests were met with aggressive responses from the state’s military, including the arrest and torture of teachers and students from major university and high school campus es in Anglophone regions. By December 2016, the Cameroon Anglophone Civil Society Consortium was formed by activist Agbor Balla. The organization called for an end to Anglophone marginalization, a return to the two -state federation established in 1961, th e preservation of the Anglophone legal and education systems, the release of more than 100 arrested protesters, and the restoration of internet services which had been shut down by the government to limit communication in the protesting regions 5. In Janua ry 2017, Balla declared the movement’s first act of civil disobedience by in Operation Ghost Town Resistance, recognized every Monday and Tuesday in a sit -at-home ritual, virtually pausing all economic and education activities in the region. Multiple other groups were formed in resistance to the government, with the Southern Cameroons Ambazonia Consortium United Front (SCACUF) led by Sisku Julius Ayuktebe overseeing them all. On October 1 st 2017, SCACUF declared Anglophone independence from French rulershi p, with the Anglophone Southern region now referred to as the Federal Republic of Ambazonia 6. Tensions escalated in late 2017 when Anglophone separatists clashed with government military forces deployed by the Biya administration in an effort to staunch opposition to the unofficial separation of the Anglophone regions from the French. In an effort to ease and abate conflict, the Biya administration deployed bilingual teachers to English regions. To exercise more power over the people, however, multiple in filtrations of the government’s Rapid Intervention Battalion (BIR) to both Anglophone regions (North West and South West) were organized , with both state and civilian fighters exercising brute force on each other and on innocent civilians caught in the cr ossfire. With the displacement of almost half a million civilians and numerous separatist, military, and civilian casualties, the Cameroonian government has developed questionable justifications for their initial reaction to protests with 1 Nna -Emeka Okereke, “Analysing Cameroon’s Anglophone Crisis,” International Centre for Political Violence and Terrorism Research , Counter Terrorist Trends and Analyses, 10, no. 3 (March 201 8): 8 –12, https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.2307/26380430. 2 Okereke. 3 Roxana Mates, “CAMEROON’S ANGLOPHONE CRISIS: ANALYSIS OF THE POLITICAL, SOCIO ‐CULTURAL AND ECONOMIC IMPACT,” December 30, 2021, 261 –78, https://doi.org/10.24193/subbeuropaea.2019.2.12. 4 Morgan Tebei Nwati, “The Anglophone Crisis: The Rise of Arms Trafficking and Smuggling, Its Effects on the Two English Region s of Cameroon” (Scientific Research Publishing Inc., January 26, 2021), https://doi.org/10.4236/aasoci.2021.111001. 5 Okereke, “Analysing Cameroon’s Anglophone Crisis.” 6 Okereke. force by referrin g to the opposition as terrorists 7. This raises the question of democracy in the country, and of the state of limited social debate. This poses an even greater question of the validity of the state in this case, as Mates writes, “the discontent of the Ang lophone minority regarding their marginalization and constant discrimination does not represent a novel situation for the Cameroonian authorities, which could have tackled the diversity issue in a more inclusive way 8.” Overall, despite the atrocious turn of events and the scale of conflict in the Anglophone crisis, this instance of civil conflict can be linked to multiple aspects of Ted Gurr’s frustration aggression -theory, as analyzed in the following section. Analysis : Gurr’s Frustration -Aggression In Gurr’s “Psychological Theories of Aggression,” motives behind civil violence are explored, Gurr attributes violent responses or reactions to external cues, and the scale of aggression depends on how wide -spread frustration or discontent is in the correspo nding environment. In the case of the civil response(s) in Cameroon’s Anglophone crisis, the relative deprivation aspect of the frustration -aggression theory applies best. According to Gurr’s relative deprivation theory, value expectations or the “goods an d conditions of life to which people believe they are justifiably entitled,” and value capabilities or the conditions that determine people’s chances of getting and keeping said values encompasses the level at which participants feel deprived of their enti tle goods and conditions 9. Cameroon’s Anglophones experienced group deprivation and collective frustration through their gradual and prolonged marginalization of the Francophone government as their right to comprehensive legal and education systems were c ompromised by the imposition of French policies. Gurr’s concept of relative deprivation also suggests that anger as a result of relative deprivation expressed through civil violence can be satiated through inflicting immediate and severe damage or throug h prolonged “but less severe aggression. 10” This also directly applies to the civil conflict in Cameroon. While Anglophone retaliation to state military was almost immediate, the violent conflict has been going on for almost five years now with no possible end in sight. Violence has also remained contained in Anglophone regions, so casualties have arguable not been as severe as they would have if the conflict was state -wide. The previous point also touches on the variables that suggest the magnitude of ci vil violence as explained by Gurr. These variables include the degree of participation in the affected population, the destruction aggression yields, and the length of time violence persists 11. So far, actors of violence on the civilians’ part have been li mited to a small group of local men funded by members of the Cameroonian diaspora. Destruction has included the displacement of locals, civilian, military, and separatist deaths, and the destruction of property including homes, business, schools, and hospi tals 12. Lastly, violence has persisted for almost five years with intermittent periods of wide and small -scale killings, kidnappings, and property destruction. Gurr also states that discontent is “highest when misery is bearable,” which also accurately por trays the events in Cameroon. Clashes between the military and the opposition have abated in recent months. However, since the government continues to fail to meet the requests and demands of Anglophone Cameroonians, discontent remains at a constant high w hile violence reduces. Evidently, the Anglophone crisis in Cameroon mirrors key elements of Gurr’s frustration -aggression theory, as the occurrence of civil conflict resulted from years of marginalization and ensued in relative deprivation. Conclusion Civil violence in Cameroon at the scale of the Anglophone crisis has been a result of systematic grievances against citizens in the Anglophone regions of the country. Decades of French infringement upon Anglophone legal systems and schools have created sen timents of discontent and dissatisfaction with the Biya administration, which has been in power for over 4 0 years. The government’s failure to adequately address the needs of the entire country have resulted in the isolation and marginalization of the Anglophone majority. Their continued failure to meet these requests, and their violent response to peaceful pro test have created an air of tension that now pervades the nation, questions the integrity of national security, and resulted in the death and displacement of hundreds of thousands of Cameroonians. Reluctance on both sides to secede has resulted in a prolon ged state of unrest that shows no promise of abating, and relative deprivation is likely to stay intact until government and separatist forces come to a compromise that appeases both parties. 7 Mates, “CAMEROON’S ANGLOPHONE CRISIS: ANALYSIS OF THE POLITICAL, SOCIO ‐CULTURAL AND ECONOMIC IMPACT.” 8 Mates. 9 Ted Gurr, “Psychological Factors in Civil Violence” 20, no. 2 (January 1968): 245 –78, http://www.jstor.org/stable/2009798. 10 Gurr. 11 Gurr. 12 Mates, “CAMEROON’S ANGLOPHONE CRISIS: ANALYSIS OF THE POLITICAL, SOCIO ‐CULTURAL AND ECONOMIC IMPACT.”
instructions attached below with a sample paper as an example. no citation page is needed, ONLY footnotes in chicago style please! Notes are attached as well to pick a theory from class.
Basic Human Need –The Political economy of civil conflictCONF 340:Professor Patrick Hakizimana Announcement •Conflict Memoranda –no worries you did well !•Safe Assign •Sauces –news articles Vs. peer review articles •Analysis –theoretical application •Explain/define it –explain the theory in light ofthe case study•Your conclusion draws from the analysis This week’s Questions •Where does civil conflict happen?•International Relation / interstate conflict•Liberalism •Realism •Marxsim•Interstate conflict / intrastate conflict •PSC,HI, Conflict Trap•How does civil conflict begin? •What are the frameworks attempt to explain civil conflict? Psychological Theory of aggression Gurr Gurr’s contribution •Intragroup and Intergroup relations and their role in conflict•Hobbes: thought conflict itself was not important to study, but focused more on political order and political structures•Violence and civil conflict should be studied•We can look at and examine social patterns that lead to violence5 Relative Deprivation•Relative Deprivation is a precondition for violent conflict•Frustration leads to aggression•Defined as “actorsperception of discrepancy between their value expectations and their environment’s apparent value capabilities (conditions).”•Va l u e ex p e c tat i o n s –goods and conditions of life to which people believe they are entitled•Va l u e ca p a b i l i t i e s –conditions that determine people’s perceived chances of getting or keeping the things they legitimately expect to maintain•Collective frustration/deprivation –suppression of a political party (eg: Cambodia, Hong Kong)•Personal frustration/deprivation –not receiving a promotion •More severe relative deprivation the greater the likelihood of conflict6 Relative Deprivation continued7•The greater your belief in a value expectation the greater your anger will be when this is not met. •Social Control -when there is little concern about retribution, the likelihood for civil violence increases•eg: Central American Gangs •Institutions –institutions that provide a way to express anger can reduce the likelihood of violence.•Strong judicial process -•Social Facilitation –violence is more likely if a violent response to anger fits within existing experiences and beliefs (eg: DRC rebels –forming a rebel group could be effective ) Debating The Causes Of Civil ConflictGREED, GRIEVANCE, AND OPPORTUNITY8 Three types of explanations•Think of detectives in a murder mystery:•Need to show motiveand opportunity•Two explanations that rely on motive:1.Grievance•Protracted social conflict (PSC) theory (Azar -John Burton) •Stewart and horizontal inequalities2.Greed: Collier et al•One explanation that relies on opportunity:3.The opportunity school: Collier et al9 Grievance: protracted social conflict theoryStructural to direct violence: process dynamicsCommunal actionsState actionsMechanisms of conflictPreconditions for conflictCommunal contentViolation of basic human needsRole of the stateInternational linkagesAttempt to explain “new wars”10 Protracted Social ConflictJohn Burton•Explaining the new wars•Preconditions for conflict:•Communal content•Violation of basic human needs•Role of the state•International linkages•Structural to direct violence: process dynamics•Communal actions•State actions•Mechanisms of conflict11 PSC in Today’s World•Look for conflict where there is grievanceand failures of human development•Injustice•Poverty•Ethnic exclusion•Political repression •Next week: the argument over these ideas12 horizontal inequalities (HI) Ethnic civil wars -SalientIdentities Arab –Sunni alawiteKurd-SunniDruzeIsmaeliGreek orthodox Christian Armenia –Christian DinkaNuer tribeSyrian conflict What is an ethnic group?Primordialist: Identity is rooted in blood and cultureInstrumental: Identity is based on individual rational choicesConstructivist: Identity is established though human based social constructions Grievance: horizontal inequalities (HI)An attempt to explain ethnic conflict•High proportion of conflict (roughly 50% –p. 6 of Stewart)Types of HIs: political, economic, socialHorizontal vs. Vertical InequalitiesWhat is ethic group?• Primordialist• Instrumental• ConstructivistPrediction: HIs are the source of conflict.Similar toPSC theory16 Grievance summaryThere has been previous conflictPredictions: conflict more likely where:There is enduring injustice•Political •Economic•SocialThat injustice is along identity lines •Sect or religion•Ethnic or racial groups17 Greed: the real source of conflict?•This explanation described in Collier et al (around p. 63)•Assumption: individuals are . . . •Rational: calculating costs and gains•Self-interested (or greedy)•The state as a prize: controlling it gives access to:•Natural resources•Ta xe s•More power •Grievance and ethnic identity = is an illusions used to recruit18 The Effects of Civil Conflict & the Conflict Trap19 Conflict Trap Collier et al.. Opportunity (Collier et al)21•Assumptions:•Human motivations matter less•Grievance and greed are everywhere –conflict isn’t•Insurgencies as organizations•Where is it easier to organize insurgency?•Predictions: conflict more common in places with:•Poverty (lots of places) –more recruits•Good places to hide:•Mountainous terrain (Colombia, Afghanistan)•Isolated territories (peninsulas, islands –East Timor)•Easy funding:•Diasporas (Irish in Ireland, Irish in the United States)•Drugs (Colombia, Afghanistan)•Diamonds/minerals (Sierra Leone) Comparing these perspectives•What do people want?•Economic gain•Justice•Self-actualization as part of a group•The role of grievance and injustice•HIs and PSC: it’s integral•Greed and opportunity: it’s unimportant•Ethnicity’s role:•HIs and PSC: communal discrimination is key•Greed and opportunity: important for recruitment only22 Comparing these perspectives•Role of natural resources:•PSC and HIs: economic domination of them is an HI!•Greed: makes the state more valuable! •Opportunity: makes it easier to fund insurgency!•How to trust narratives of those in conflict?•Collier et al: you can’t!•PSC: narratives are key.•But areas of agreement (if for different reasons)•Greed and grievance: motivations are important•Past conflict àFuture conflict•Poverty àconflict•How to tell the difference between them?23 The conflict trapPoverty causes conflict:Everyone agrees on thisEasier recruitmentPresence of grievancesConflict causes more poverty (development in reverse)Displacement and refugeesSlower investment & economic growth Continuing hatredsMilitary lobbyResult: 44% of conflicts recur within 5 yearsContinuing hatredsVicious cycles24 Conflict as “development in reverse”•Within the country•During the conflict•Political economic•Social•After the conflict (i.e., legacy)•Political economic•Social•In the neighborhood•Economic •Social•Risk of civil war•Global effects25 The conflict trap: Collier et alPovertyConflict26 Consider a case: Colombia? •Colombia is very unequal•PSC: evidence of discrimination•Opportunity: it’s easier to recruit•Colombia has been plagued by drug trafficking•Opportunity: that’s how groups fund themselves.•PSC: but the war started in 1964!•Colombia is mountainous•Opportunity: that makes insurgency easier•PSC: it’s meant people isolated from the state•Lesson: theories may see the same ‘objective’ data and interpret it very differently.•Good lesson for your memos27 Discussion •If we think about Breaking the Conflict Trap on one side and PSC theory and Stewart’s theory of horizontal inequalities on the other, how are these two sets of theories different? •What are some of the big differences in the assumptions they make about what motivates human beings? What are some of the differences in why they think civil war happens?•The last question assumed that PSC theory and Stewart’s theory of horizontal inequalities more or less onthe same side of a debate over the causes of civil war. But how are they different?•One important theme to our week is that of ethnicity or identity. We all belong to identity groups. One way of thinking about our readings this week is that those identities can become the cause of conflict because of horizontal inequalities. Another view is that ethnicity is used by (presumably dishonest) leaders to whip up distrust and justify violence. Which view do you think is closer to the truth?•Collier et al describe man effects of civil war, including global effects. They also describe the various ways insurgent group fund their violent efforts. What are the ways in which civil war touches you, even as you sit in Virginia studying? What are some of the ways your own actions may affect the conduct of civil war thousands of miles away?