James Anderson School of Geography and

1. PPt SURREY KEYNOTE 12 6 07Nationalism and National Identities Today: Multidisciplinary PerspectivesCRONEM, University of Surrey, 12-13 June 2007A radical response to the intractability of ethno-national conflict:Partition, consociation or border-crossing democracy? James Anderson School of Geography and Centre for International Borders Research www.qub.ac.uk/cibr Queen's University Belfast 1. The Intractability Problem: Territoriality and its limitations - nationalism, ethnicity, sovereignty, representative democracy 2. Conflict Management: Territorial 'solutions' – partition, internal integration or consociation? 3. Conflict Resolution: Through other conflicts, crossing borders, participatory democracy, divided cities?

2. The Arguments The paper, informed by Ireland's national conflict and 'peace process‘, is a critique of the problems underlying such conflicts and the difficulties transforming externally-imposed conflict management into self-sustaining conflict resolution. It is argued that the intractability of these problems is deeply rooted in a thoroughly modern complex of nationalism, ethnicity, sovereignty and representative democracy. These are knotted together in a common denominator of territoriality, and the nub of the problem is the ‘double paradox’ of representative democracy’s undemocratic origins in the present. Territoriality, the use of bordered geographical space, is a powerful and ubiquitous mode of social organisation which simplifies social control. But it can grossly over-simplify and distort social realities, particularly at borders and especially where territory is contested, and thereby it reinforces other distorting simplifications typical of ethno-national conflict. Deep-rooted problems demand radical remedies. Rather than relying on the pieties of remembrance and reconciliation, making ethno-national peace paradoxically requires ‘forgetting’ and making conflict over other issues.

3. 1. The Intractability Problem: Territoriality’s limitations – nationalism, ethnicity, sovereignty, democracy All conflicts have their own particularities, so any comparisons (or ‘lessons from Ireland’) work best at the more abstract level of general structures. Ethno-national problems are often ‘explained’ in terms of the ‘resurfacing’ of ‘primordial ethnicities’ and ‘atavistic hatreds'. But the maincauses are rooted in contemporarysociety & modern state and state-related territoriality. Territoriality - the use of bordered geographical spaces to 'control, classify and communicate' is a powerful and widespread mode of social organisation. It simplifies issues of control, management and administration, and makes power relationships more tangible materially and symbolically -whether in the home, the workplace, or with respect to the state and the nation. But its advantages can become serious disadvantages - over-simplifying, reifying and distorting social realities, de-personalising social relationships, obscuring relations of power, erroneously equatingphysical space with social space, and arbitrarily truncating social processes at territorial borders. Territoriality (with roots related to 'terror‘) actively encourages conflict, generating rival territorialities in a competitive 'space-filling' process. It directly encourages the 'zero-sum game' of national conflict - territory is afinite resource with a fixed total where more for one side really does mean less for the other. But this equation is then inappropriately applied to 'goods' (e.g., economic wealth, cultural capital, political democracy) which do not have a fixed total. ‘Positive-sum games’ where both sides gain are blocked; and we actually get a ‘negative-sum game’ where both lose (though often unequally).  

4. Nationalism and ethnicity • Nationalisms tend to essentialise ethnic identities as ‘natural’, timeless and unchangeable. But they are always socially (re)produced and changeable. • However, contrary to the post-modern emphasis on a free choice between ‘multiple identities', there is limited freedom to choose or change identities in conflict situations, where much effort is expended on reproducing existing identity – you change your identity ‘at your peril’. • Such effort has to be expended, especially where the opponents are very similar and closely intermingled (fixating on the 'narcissism of small differences’ as in Ireland). Ethnic and territorial conflict may be more a means of creating/maintaining difference than a simple reflex of difference. • Conflicts supposedly due to ‘ancient ethnic hatreds’ are more likely contemporary struggles to consciously reproduce ethnic differences. And they are rooted in the distinctly modern and often benign phenomena of national sovereignty and democracy.

5. The doctrine of nationalism • Nationalism's happy ideal of nation and state coinciding geographically in the particular territory of a 'nation-state' has powerful appeal, linking home, freedom, democracy and sovereign self-determination without 'outside interference'. But nationalism 'promises to deceive‘: • Geographic realities conspire against itshappy ideal - the often different/intermingled distributions of ethnic groups, nations and states mean the ideal is not attainable, or trying to make reality fit the ideal is not worth the cost in human lives, misery, & the foreclosing of other more fruitful options. • The ideal itself is 'two-faced' - unifying/divisive, including/excluding, forward-looking/backward-looking (to an invented past?) - only variably progressive. • In class-divided societies the 'national interest' is inevitably an ideological and illusionary unity, often serving the reactionary interests of dominant groups and classes and used for internal control against ‘enemies within’.

6. Limitations of national sovereignty • National sovereignty is also elusive, applying - and as a claim more than a reality - mainly in the ‘political’ sphere, while most of the ‘economic’ sphere - multinational branch plants, foreign direct investment - is conveniently and necessarily excluded from the claim. ‘Self-determination’ is at best partial. • While recognising nationalism's democratic associations, and differentiating between oppressed and oppressor nations, the resolution of national conflict requires a critical stance to nationalism & nationalist doctrine. • But this critical stance is just what ‘conflict managers’ lack - coming from other national governments of ‘great(er) powers’, they are caught in the same national 'territorial trap‘as the protagonists they try to 'manage'. • They pander to them and their shared presumption that ethno-national identities have over-riding importance over all other types of identity.

7. Limitations of territorialrepresentative democracy The most basic problem in ethno-national conflicts is not some easy archaic or atavistic target, but modern and valued representative democracy. National territorial conflicts are not amenable to 'normal' democratic resolution becauseat issue is the territorial framework or ‘shell’ for democracy. These conflicts repeat the paradox of 'democracy's undemocratic origins' in the present – in effect there is a double paradox: 1. Democracy depends on democratic institutions and is absent until they are established, but they cannot be established democratically because initially there are no democratic institutions…. 2. For democracies to have legitimacy there is 'normally' a ‘politics of forgetting’ their undemocratic origins (in, e.g., war, conquest, genocide….). But in national conflicts forgetting is impossible: historical origins are a 'live issue' ('The past is not dead. It's not even past‘ - Wm. Faulkner); and the paradox is repeated in any contemporary (or proposed) re-drawing of borders…..

8. More limitations of conventional democracy Normally 'the electorate decides', but the prior question here is who decides the electorate? What is the appropriate territorial framework? (eg., in the Irish-British conflict is it NI, Britain+NI, NI + R of I, or all three territorial entities?) How the borders of the institutional shell are drawn will determine the outcome of a democratic majority vote, but the contested borders cannot themselves be decided by this democratic means. Instead we get an infinite regression: who decides who decides who decides… which in conventional terms can only be terminated undemocratically: Either one of the protagonists decides (e.g., by unilateral action, in the extreme creating a 'democratic' majority by ‘ethnic cleansing’ - which Michael Mann shows to be 'the dark side of democracy'); Or external ‘conflict managers’ pragmatically enforce a 'solution' (e.g., partition, or more likely ‘internal power-sharing’) - though perhaps with marginal plebiscites, or subsequent legitimation by ‘democratic ratification’. Conventional territorial, representative democracy politicises demography (e.g., Northern Ireland, Israel) and this gives territory added political significance. But representative democracy cannot itself resolve the ensuing conflict.

9. 2. CONFLICT MANAGEMENT: National ‘solutions’ to national problems reproduce divisions - Partition or territorial integrity National ‘solutions’ (usually not endorsed by external conflict managers) include the murder, removal and/or forced assimilation of ethnic minorities. Less malign management strategies include: 1. the territorial (re-)partitioning of states, and 2. internal power-sharing or consociation (‘ethnic partitioning‘) Both in different ways emphasise the ‘management virtues’ of separation/ segregation, whereas conflict resolution requires contact & co-operation. But partition has limited application: subdividing existing territories with completely new borderlines has mostly applied to defeated/collapsing multi-national empires (e.g., Austria-Hungary after WWI; the USSR and Yugoslavia), or retreating empires (the British from Ireland, Palestine, India). Since the 1940s, partition has been out of favour for national states because: it is often impossible to (re)draw ‘national’ borders where ethnicities are geographically intermingled; it can invite ‘ethnic cleansing’; temporary expedients (extensions of ‘divide & rule’, or ‘divide & run’) become permanent, perpetuating conflict (eg., India’s partition: 200,000 deaths, 5 million migrated, several wars, and now nuclear threat); and the partition of national states (unlike ‘multi-national’ empires) threatens the ‘territorial integrity’ of national states in general (hence Biafra not supported), though internal federalisation may be an option. Thus consociational power-sharing in various forms became the ‘international community’s’ preferred conflict management strategy.

10. Consociation versus Integration Consociational power-sharing contains and regulates conflict, but by institutionalising,and therefore cementing, ethnic divisions. The main 'consociational model' (Lijphart/Netherlands) has 4 non-majoritarian devices: a coalition government by representatives of all the ethnic groups; representation proportional to their relative sizes; autonomy in their group organisation; and mutual vetoes to protect particular ethnic group interests. The case for consociation: it accepts the harsh reality of conflicting groups and succeeds in stopping or preventing their open/violent conflict; it is fair and secures the trust of the groups by giving them guarantees about their future; it provides stable democratic government. It is more realistic than ‘wishful thinking’ integrationist illusions about creating a single ‘unified society’ - which would not stop the fighting, and which some groups would see as an assimilationist threat to their own ethnic identity and interests. The integrationist case against: the integrationists mirror-imagetheconsociationalists,arguing that the latterenshrine a bleak view of humanity seeing distrust and antagonism are as inherent & irredeemable. Power-sharing mechanisms & guarantees produce expensive cumbersome gridlock, and static rather than stable government. Secretive elitist dealing replaces open political debate, and blocks effective opposition/alternative government. Consociation is counter-productive:

11. Consociation versus integration (contd.) Consociationfurther entrenches ethnic divisions, increases polarisation and reproduces the basis of the conflict. Its keeps/forces people into one or other ethnic ‘camp’, and excludes other more fruitful bases of political mobilisation (eg., gender, class) which cross-cut ethnic divisions. It further erodes the so-called 'middle ground' of compromise, or 'other grounds' for alternative politics. It conservatively accepts the primacy and permanency of ethno-national categories rather than questioning how and why they are sustained and how they might be superseded. It ignores identity (re)production, and in effect supports ethnic essentialisms. Comment: Both cases are typically over-stated, and presented as a static either/or choice of two mutually exclusive strategies or ideal end-states. This is unfortunate because both have some valid points, and they need to be seen dynamically, not as alternatives but as complementary elements or stages in an historical process of transforming externally-imposed management into self-sustaining conflict resolution – the key ‘post-cease fire’ challenge but it needs to built-into ‘peace-processes’ from the start.

12. Consociation and then ‘integrative’ border-crossing To achieve ‘cease-fires’/end to hostilities, the consociationalists are generally realistic in insisting that elaborate, guaranteed and hence rather static power-sharing arrangements are essential for establishing initial, at least minimal, cooperation. However consociation is necessary but not sufficient. The integrationists’ have the valid point that consociational arrangements reinforce divisions and perpetuate – or at the very least fail to supersede - the conditions of the conflict. And a telling point (from a supporter): consociation is crucially dependent on continuing external enforcement for its maintenance; on its own has no realistic prospect of becoming self-sustaining (in N. Ireland, Lebanon, Bosnia…?). It is thus dependent on the priorities and pace of external forces whose interest/lack of interest varies but whose main interests are always elsewhere. As ‘external managers’ it is they who have the ‘limited ambition’ of stopping the worst of the violence or keeping it to ‘acceptable levels’ (‘acceptable’ to whom?); and their continuing overall responsibility may encourage continuing irresponsible ‘brinkmanship’by rival ethno-national leaders. Such problematical external ‘help’ further supports the argument that the ‘post-cease-fire’ focus should increasingly be on developing cross-ethnic and cross-border contacts and co-operation.

13. 3. CONFLICT RESOLUTION: Through other conflicts, crossing borders, participatory democracy, ‘divided cities’ Self-sustaining conflict resolution requires two moves: From ethnic & territorial separation to border-crossing co-operation and transnationalism; and from ethno-national conflict to more productive struggles over other issues. Cross-border co-operation, whatever its socio-economic advantages, will only lead to conflict resolution if it creates trans-ethnic and cross-border 'political communities' and non-territorial forms of democratic participation. Rather than emphasising ‘reconciliation’, ‘truth commissions’ or ‘identity’ issues (when usually only one type of identity is recognised; and ‘remembering’ can be ‘a continuation of conflict by other means’), it may be more productive to mobilise around (more?) important issues (e.g., of class, gender, and the environment) which cross-cut ethnic and territorial borders (though ethno-national forces will continue to try and draw people back into their particularist and ‘zero-sum’ moulds). The emphasis here is not on building the integrationists’ dream of a single ‘unified society' which does directly threaten (minority) ethnic identities, but instead is on transcending them, by under-cutting and weakening the divisions of the conflict and shifting the whole political terrain away from ethno-national or territorial issues per se – to enable some ‘forgetting’. Here border crossing activities which are valued in and of themselves, without any ‘conflict resolution’motivations, may paradoxically prove to be the most important in resolving ethno-national conflicts. And for this ‘divided cities’ are a promising locale…. … • A. To achieve ‘cease-fires’/end to hostilities,the consociationalists are generally realistic in insisting that elaborate, guaranteed and hence rather static power-sharing arrangements are essential for establishing initial, at least minimal, cooperation. However consociation is ‘necessary but not sufficient’ – a prerequisite for B: • B. The integrationists’ have the valid point that consociational arrangements reinforce divisions and perpetuate – or at the very least fail to supersede - the conditions of the conflict. And a telling point (from a supporter): consociation is crucially dependent on continuing external enforcement for its maintenance and has no realistic prospect of becoming self-sustaining (in N. Ireland, Lebanon, Bosnia…?). It is thus dependent on the priorities and pace of external forces whose interest/lack of interest varies but whose main interests are always elsewhere. As ‘external managers’ it is they who have the ‘limited ambition’ of stopping the worst of the violence/keeping it to ‘acceptable levels’ (‘acceptable’ to whom?); and their continuing overall responsibility may encourage continuing irresponsible ‘brinkmanship’by rival ethno-national leaders. Such problematical external ‘help’ further supports the argument here that the ‘post-cease-fire’ focus should increasingly be on developing cross-ethnic and cross-border contacts (but not on the integrationist/assimilationist goal of a ‘single identity’ – see below). As A works against such contact, the move to B needs to start sooner rather than later and be programmed in from the start.

14. City life versus territoriality There’s a dialectic between the urban social space of mixing, sharing, co-existing (incl. in inter-city networks), and its antithesis in the state & state-related territoriality of ethno-national separation and control. Cities depend on border crossings – there are inherent pressures to (re-)assert urban space over state and ethnic territorialities. Cities are amenable to agon or urban traditions of channelling and negotiating conflict – see www.conflictincities.org Border-crossing activities can achieve their highest density within divided cities (and between cities) - whether contested state borders actually run through the city (e.g., Jerusalem, Nicosia, pre-1989 Berlin), or are contested symbolically at local territorial borders of ethnicity (eg., in Belfast or Mostar). Conflict is often most intense in cities due to density, proximity and symbolism, making them dysfunctional, or terminally threatening their viability as cities. But, by the same token, there is always resistance and border-crossings (e.g., Berlin’s 'wall jumpers‘; divided Nicosia’s single sewage system; war-torn Mostar retaining one tiny shared area (modelled on divided Berlin). Hence the potential of city life for creative border crossings, whether in leisure groupings (e.g., 'Goths' in Belfast), or in political struggles for ‘non-national’ goods (e.g., higher wages, or gender emancipation, or adequate public services), as alternatives to the pre-occupations of ethno-nationalists.

15. Some Conclusions • Ethnicity, nationalism, democracy and territoriality all have powerful appeal. All are problematical, and especially so in ethno-national conflicts where the resulting problems are intractable and sometimes lethal. • Resolving or transcending them demands a critical, radical stance, instead of accepting the presumptions of nationalism, essentialism and territorial integrity; or concentrating on democracy’s territorial shell and neglecting democracy itself; or confining democracy to its conventional (and stunted) territorial representative form – all of which is what conventional conflict management generally does. It manages rather than resolves conflict, and sometimes fails even to manage because of built-in contradictory tendencies to reproduce, even exacerbate, rather than reduce divisions and conflict (as in partition & undiluted consociationalism). • But for governments trying to manage these conflicts, consociationalism has the great advantage of not being radical: just change some of the political institutions and deal with elites, rather than re-structure state and society. Deal with symptoms more than causes. • The powers who ‘manage’ and impose ‘solutions’ are typically caught in same nationalist 'territorial trap‘ and share the same flawed assumptions as the nationalists they are ‘managing’ – may indeed provide them with models of 'national success‘. They are ina weak position to 'preach’ or ‘teach’.

16. Some more conclusions • But we should not simply counterpose ‘resolution’ to ‘management’, or ‘integration’ to ‘consociation’ – in both cases the latter is a prerequisite for the former. • ‘Peace-processes’ are better seen and planned dynamically, as moving from an emphasis on consociational measures to end the more serious violence and conflict, towards concentrating on politics which encourage the growth of ‘political communities’ which straddle, cross-cut, under-cut or transcend ethnic divisions and territorial borders. • The resolution of ethno-national conflict will not come from moral appeals to agree a ‘compromise’ or an ‘integrated identity’. Paradoxically, it will only come through other, more productive disagreements and conflicts about other issues on a non-ethno-national, non-territorial basis. • Good fences do not make good neighbours. Butnor can ‘weak fences’. Only the neighbours themselves can.