Collaborative Research: The Political Economy of Localized Communal Conflicts in Ethiopia

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Under what conditions does violence erupt in multiethnic communities? Why does conflict break out between groups in some communities but not in others? Such questions are investigated through a study of communal conflicts in Ethiopia, a poor country where local order often breaks down as neighboring groups take up arms to resolve their disputes. By examining patterns of conflict at the district level, this research project aims to explain how institutions of local governance influence tensions produced by social divides and resource scarcity. Specifically, this study examines to what extent the outbreak of violence depends on the representation of different groups in district-level administration and the intensity of weather-related shocks to local crop production or animal rearing.Ethiopia provides an ideal context for studying how communal conflicts arise through the interaction between institutions, identities, and resources. While the country's districts vary considerably in levels of ethnic diversity and land productivity, decentralizing reforms adopted in the past 15 years have empowered all districts to make decisions over budget expenditures, land use, and agricultural inputs. The distribution of district resources may not affect the welfare of citizens during normal times, but a district's authority over land and water use becomes a critical issue during the prolonged periods of scarcity often confronted in a country that depends on rain-fed agriculture. Whether local groups monopolize or share control of district administration could therefore influence the outbreak of violence between them.To assess the causes of communal conflict in Ethiopia, this project will develop a dataset of conflicts found in all districts and undertake ethnographic studies of two selected districts over a two-year period. First, the project will draw on government and non-government sources of information to assemble a dataset of local conflicts across Ethiopia's 550 districts between 1995 and 2006. The district-level data will allow for a statistical analysis that tests whether the outbreak of violence can be attributed to institutional, demographic, or economic factors. Second, the project will use the district-level dataset to identify two districts for in-depth ethnographic study. Interviews and focus groups will be organized with members of selected communities to establish how, in practice, administrative authority, demographic pressures, and resource constraints heighten fear or competition between groups. These ethnographic studies will further help to establish how episodes of communal conflict are understood in their local socio-cultural context, overwhelming traditional mechanisms of dispute resolution and possibly creating cycles of recurrent violence. This project is relevant to the stability of countries in Africa and other developing regions, which share many of Ethiopia's economic and political characteristics. Its research will directly address the impact of decentralizing reforms, which are often promoted as an institutional solution to the competition over resources in multiethnic countries. Yet, it remains to be shown how decentralization affects the outbreak of violence between groups, particularly when those reforms can bring about a realignment of power at the local level. This project's findings will provide a better understanding of how institutional changes interact with demographic and resource pressures in fragile states. The lessons derived from this research will permit scholars and policymakers to craft institutional reforms better suited to preventing communal conflicts that often degenerate into complex humanitarian crises.