The International Dimensions of Domestic Conflict

IGCC's work on the international implications of nuclear proliferation and ethnic conflict has focused attention on concrete aspects of the interrelationships between domestic and foreign policies. Particularly fruitful in cases with high potential for international repercussions are its investigations of effective regulatory policies for managing international refugee and labor migration, and assessments of global economic restructuring impacts on internal institutional reforms.

Ethnic conflict, traditionally regarded as a domestic problem, rapidly became a serious international security issue in the aftermath of the Cold War. As a bipolar world devolved into a multipolar one, five particular regions displayed heightened ethnic schisms and transnational conflicts: Eastern Europe, Africa, the former Soviet Union, the Middle East, and South Asia. IGCC's researchers have examined the impact of global development on domestic security, the potential for inter-ethnic violence to spread across national boundaries, and mechanisms for promoting lasting resolutions to civil wars.

IGCC projects on the International Dimensions of Domestic Conflict

Globalization, Territoriality, and Conflict

The world of the early twenty-first century displays three striking patterns: increasing globalization, strong territorial attachments by citizens to their homelands, and a persistence of violent conflicts over territorial stakes. The coincidence of these patterns brings up the following questions for policymakers:

• Does globalization provide incentives for dampening or resolving territorial conflicts?
• Will the territorial reach of national law require redefinition?
• Can strong territorial attachments to an overseas homeland produce the conditions for resolving territorial conflicts rather than exacerbating them?

IGCC hosted a policy seminar in which participants in a project on globalization, territoriality, and conflict presented their preliminary findings on these questions to an audience of about 50 policymakers, embassy and government officials, scholars, and students at the UC Washington Center. The project was supported in part by a grant from the Carnegie Corporation of New York.

Disaggregating the Study of Civil War and Transnational Violence

The strand of IGCC's research agenda on durable settlements to civil wars was continued in a new initiative, "Disaggregating the Study of Civil War and Transnational Violence," headed by IGCC Research Director for International Relations Kristian Gleditsch and Barbara Walter.

Civil war and related concepts such as state failure have traditionally been studied at the level of nation states, where the nation states are either "at war" or not, and treated as phenomena to be explained by state-level characteristics. Existing studies have generally neglected how local-level characteristics can differ notably from global or aggregate characteristics. Studying civil war and transnational conflict in a more disaggregated fashion offers considerable promise of providing insights into the micro-level processes that make up the aggregate phenomena that are labeled "civil war," "state failure," or "transnational violence."

A 2005 conference brought together UC researchers that either currently work on these issues or have useful skills or experiences that may contribute to research along these themes. In addition to research based on existing projects it was hoped that the conference would also provide a stepping-stone for new collaborative project and grant applications.

Global and Regional Security Governance

The Cold War principle of mutually assured destruction paradoxically provided predictability to east-west rivalry. Today, while the danger of global nuclear war has receded, the stable certainty of that era may have been lost. In the first decade of the post-Cold war period, non-state actors have surfaced prepared to use new forms of terrorism, directed at both military and civilian targets. We have also witnessed an unexpected outbreak of regional conflicts and have become increasingly aware of dangers emanating from so-called "rogue states," whose leaders abide neither by international treaties nor by conventional forms of conflict resolution.

9/11 terrorism underscored the need for achieving a new global system of security governance, but considerable obstacles to achieving such a system remain. These involve a) different threat assessments, b) divergent perceptions of security threats to states, and c) differing response preferences among major states (e.g., ranging from unilateral action, to ad hoc coalitions, and to institutionalized multilateralism. Similarly, we observe variable inclinations toward "hard power" military options and "soft power" diplomatic or economic pressures in response to those security challenges (Nye 2000).

The Global and Regional Security project, sponsored by the UC Institute on Global Conflict and Cooperation and the Institute for International, Comparative and Area Studies (IICAS) at UC San Diego, comparatively analyses the challenges of global and regional security governance and the changed security agendas. It considers the prospects for global and/or regional security governance by focusing on perceptions held by elites in the G8 countries (Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the Russian Federation, the United Kingdom, and the United States) and China. It further seeks to identify areas divergent and convergent interests that may facilitate or inhibit international cooperation.

The Future of United States–India Relations

In collaboration with the Center for Global Security Research at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, IGCC hosted a two-day workshop in 2001 to forecast how Indo-American relations may develop over the next ten to twenty years, what role each country has in developing those relations, and how security and economic factors affect such developments. The short, focused meeting explored how the two countries might improve their ties, especially in light of increased tensions over nuclear tests. Indian officials and strategists responsible for drafting India's new nuclear doctrine were invited to interact in their personal, unofficial capacities with U.S. officials and South Asia area experts. The meeting, funded by the Rockefeller Foundation, produced practical thinking about the future of Indo-American relations.

Durable Settlements to Civil Wars

From 1994-1997, a landmark project directed by Profs. David Lake (IGCC Research Director for International Relations) and Donald Rothchild (UC Davis) slashed through a decade of muddy thinking in examining when and how ethnic conflicts start, and spread, and how best to manage them. "The International Spread and Management of Ethnic Conflict: Fear Diffusion, and Escalation" involved a working group of 40 UC scholars, U.S. officials, and foreign policy-makers who produced a series of publications.

In 1997, Prof. Barbara Walter (IGCC Research Director for International Security) built on this work to launch an examination of civil wars since 1945, to determine what factors are key to building successful, long-term peace settlements. Prof. Walter held a Washington D.C. policy briefing, met with U.S. State Department officials and Congressional staff, and published a book of her findings.

Building Institutions to Regulate Ethnic and Regional Conflicts in the Soviet Successor States

The 1990-91 collapse of the Soviet Union was a remarkably peaceful process marred by only small-scale clashes between the forces of the Soviet state and its secessionists. However, conflicts within the union republics and its successor states were intense and often violent. Three types of domestic conflicts have broken the peace: protracted political conflicts among regionally-based leadership factions, seeking control of the central government; conflicts for autonomy or secession have pitted both regional and ethnic groups against their central governments; and communal conflicts among ethnic communities contesting ownership of land. When outside powers have intervened, in some instances these domestic conflicts have become international confrontations. This escalation has resulted in war between Armenia and Azerbaijan, in tense standoffs between Russia and Ukraine over the Crimea, and diplomatic crises between Russia and the Baltic states of Estonia and Latvia over their Russian-speaking minorities.

Building Institutions to Regulate Ethnic and Regional Conflicts in The Soviet Successor States assembled specialists on the Soviet successor states and specialists on conflict-regulating institutions in order to study the problem of conflict-regulating institutions in the former Soviet Union. The project identified post-Soviet institutional arrangements that have already worked to prevent or diffuse intense conflicts; identify new institutional arrangements on the bargaining table in the search for settlements to intense conflicts; and evaluate the robustness of each institutional arrangement in light of settlements experience in other regions. The project will report findings in policy papers and an edited volume, and authors will present policy recommendations to an invited audience of academic and policy specialists in Washington, D.C.

The Asian Financial Crisis

The Asian financial crisis, which began in July 1997 with the flotation of the Thai baht, proved to be a seminal event in the postwar economic history of the Asia-Pacific. The crisis, with its pronounced regional character, not only raises important issues for domestic economic policy, but also for questions of international economic integration and the international management of crises.

China and Its Provinces

In 1997, IGCC began the research study "China and its Provinces: The Impact of China's Opening on its Economic and Political Integration." Prof. Barry Naughton (UCSD) is building a province-by-province database to help assess the degree to which China's opening to foreign trade and overseas investment has frayed, strengthened, or altered national integration and central control in China. Parallel work in the project is examining China's international environmental commitments and the implications of changing center-provincial relations.

In 2001, Prof. Naughton and Prof. Dali Yang of the University of Chicago briefed representatives from the NSC, Congressional staff, the Departments of State, Treasury, Defense, and Agriculture, the CIA, and a number of universities and think tanks on the progress of the project. The event was hosted by the IGCC Washington office.

IGCC's work extends to the political economy of the Asia-Pacific. IGCC and the Berkeley Roundtable on the International Economy (BRIE) teamed to examine how U.S., Chinese, and Japanese production networks compete and cooperate in the region. In 1998, IGCC's then-director Prof. Stephan Haggard testified before Congress on the financial crisis in Asia.

Building the APEC International Assessment Network (APIAN)

Germany and the United States: Searching for Twenty-First Century Migration Policies

As immigration and integration become subject to heightened public debate and policy attention, Germany and the United States must rethink the policy process in order to promote policy consistency and awareness of its international repercussions. Recent German and U.S. debates and policy changes point to the need for agencies to monitor developments and suggest policy options, and administrative structures that permit some flexibility in administering immigration and integration policies (IGCC Newsletter Spring 1999).

IGCC Policy Paper 50 summarizes Germany's postwar migration history, reviews the major proposals for changes in Germany's immigration and integration policies before the 1998 elections, assesses likely impacts of the SPD-Green proposal, and compares Germany's immigration debates with similar U.S. debates.

Immigration in an Integrating World

Globalization has increased the salience of migration in world politics, presenting a significant challenge to states. While regional integration and globalization of free trade spur migration flows, globalization of liberal notions of human rights place boundaries on the ways in which states may deal domestically with such pressures without damaging the environment of openness and interdependence necessary for creating inter-state cooperation.

Promoting Regional Cooperation in the Middle East

In 1993, after a request from Israel's foreign minister, Profs. Susan Shirk (IGCC) and Steven Spiegel (UCLA) created the project "Promoting Regional Cooperation in the Middle East." This initiative commissioned policy memos and proposals for improving the chances of the multilateral talks on arms control, economic cooperation, environmental issues, refugees, and water resources.

Selected Publications on the International Dimensions of Domestic Conflict

Number: Policy Paper 57
Title: Women, Work, Health, and the Quality of Life: A Summary of the Eleventh International Congress on Women’s Health Issues
Author(s): Teri G. Lindgren, Afaf Meleis
Published by: IGCC
Pages: 27
Year of Publication: 2001
Related PolicyPack: PolicyPack 57