Learning Task 1: From the above graphs, write a paragraph that summarises conflict over the last 70 years. Make sure you make reference to the source.

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Learning Task 2: Create two lists of intra and inter-state conflicts that you are familiar with that have occurred over the last twenty-five years

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                                                                    Interest Based Conflicts

Sometimes conflicts can involve non-participants who are not directly involved but become major drivers of the conflict. It can often be in the interests of certain elements to sustain conflicts as there might be a profit motive involved. For decades the contintent of Africa was the biggest spending area in the world on aramaments. Many of the conflcts that have occured there have been sustained by the sale of weapons systems; the absense of these might have resulted in a shorter and less violent conflicts.

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                                                 Ideological Based Conflicts

 

The twentieth-century can quiet easily be thought of a series of ideological conflicts that culminated in some of history's most destructive wars. First there were conflicts between imperialist powers trying to expand markets and territory and nationalists who were seeking autonomy. This was followed by confrontation between the forces of fascism and liberalism, and finally the cold war saw the struggle between communism and liberal capitalism. At the end of this, Francis Fukuyama wrote a famous essay The End of History, where he argued that liberal-democracy was the highest form of political organisation and it had won out and the era of ideological conflict was over. At the same time Samuel P. Huntington, wrote an equally famous article called The Clash of Civilizations?, which argued that all future conflicts would be based on the incompatibility of neighbouring civilisations. Since the time of these essays the world has seen the arrival of religious based terrorism that has at its centre an ideological foundation as well conceived and thought out as any of the secular ideologies of the twentieth-century. They also appear to have the same capacity to attract followers. So is the era of ideological conflicts really over?

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Task 1. What is the nature of ideological conflict, what is at stake? Write a paragraph describing this.

 

Task 2. Why do ideological conflicts tend to be extremely violent and what aspects of them make them difficult to resolve?

 

Task 3. What do you think would be some of the proposals for resolving ideological conflicts? 

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                                                Identity Based Conflicts

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The most prevailing form of identity conflicts are nationalist based ones. The capacity of the concept of the nation should never be underestimated and still has tremendous sway over how poeple identify themselves and as part of a group. More recently other forms of identity politics has emerged. This has included indigenous populations seeking autonomy and representation, conflicts over gender have also emerged - especially in states where ruling authorites are conservative populists who appeal to tradition. 

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