3. What is the process by which groups come to be and how do groups forming create conflict? + How do we resolve these issues? (Robbers Cave and Examples)

Question 1

Brief overview of Rwanda

Answer 1

• Belgium colonisers originally introduction of ID cards created deep ethnic division
• Belgian favouritism polarised the ethnicities
• 2 Main ethnic groups held power of President and VP whilst UN remained to oversee powersharing
• Both used power and speech to further polarise ethnicities through ethnocentricism and dehumanising
• President Habyarimana individualised Tutsi as the feudal
• Hutu radio hours before genocide dehumanise Tutsi population as ‘cockroaches’
• 100 days of genocide end result

Question 2

How did ethnocentricism, dehumanisation, deindividuating and mirror imaging occur in the case of Rwanda?

Answer 2

Dehumanisation = Radio depicted Tutsi as ‘cockroaches’

Deindividuating = ID cards handed out by Belgium colonisers

Mirror Imaging/ethnocentricism = both groups engaged in fighting throughout the civil war, with both sides committing atrocities against one another yet only chose to see what the others were doing

Question 3

What is the 3 step process by which groups form through the In-group and out-group theory?

Answer 3

Categorization: What group they are part of
Identification: What it means to be part of that group
Comparison: Comparing one group to another

Question 4

What is the Social Identity Theory?

Answer 4

That we tend to prefer to associate with people we can identify with, our ‘in-group’. E.G. Culture, family, religion. We are biased toward

Question 5

What is the theory of Collective social Identity? (with example)

Answer 5

The grouped identity of individuals to form a social identity of their ethnicity

• The boundaries to this Collective Social Identity are flexible and constantly remould through social interaction
• They can be so strong that individual identity can yield to them

E.G. the Jews during WW2 lost all individual identity and were submitted to this collective social and religious identity, as in Rwanda

Question 6

What was the purpose of the Robbers Cave experiment?

What were its findings in resolving peace between groups?

Group names?

Experimenter name?

What did groups create that can be arguably similar to Rwanda?

Answer 6

• Experimenter: Sherif
• Study of intergroup conflict and cooperation demonstrated how groups strongly favour their own members (ingroup bias),
• how intergroup conflict can be resolved by the groups working together on a common task that neither group can complete without the help of the other group.
• Rattlers and Eagles
• Created flags (ID cards)
• Established territory (RPA fled)

Question 7

How does the process of group forming (Categorising, identifying, comparing) relate to the case of Rwanda?

Answer 7

Categorising and deindividuating: Belgian colonisers created ID cards which separated the population of Rwanda into clear two main groups

Identification: Belgian colonisers considered the Tutsi more intelligent due to their slightly larger stature
Tutsi = ‘Intelligent’
Hutu = ‘Dumb’

Comparison: Tutsi, therefore, portrayed as more intelligent

Question 8

How did the ethnic divide between the Hutu and Tutsi first become polarised?

What did one groups leadership mean for the others?

What did Habyarimana refer to the Tutsi as?

Answer 8

• Began with whoever Belgian favouritised gained power
• Whichever group was able to gain control meant a bringing of suffering to the other through displacement and economic disparity between groups
• Habyarimana constantly regarded Tutsi as the ‘feudal class’

Question 9

Define dehumanisation

Answer 9

when people become ‘animals’

Question 10

Define deindividuating and mirror imaging

Answer 10

People’s individual tendencies gets lost into the people we are around, we merge with their ideas

and

both sides think of themselves as the ‘good’ side whilst the other is acting ‘evil and nastily’

Question 11

What were the three stages implemented through the Robbers Cave Experiment?

Answer 11

• Stage 1: Did not know of each other (group bonding)
• Stage 2: Introduction to another group (name calling and aggressive behaviour)
• Stage 3: Forced the groups to interact (water cut off due to ‘vandals’) = Consociationalism?

Question 12

What does Collier conclude? (Policies should…)

Answer 12

• first: policies for conflict prevention’ should include policies to remedy ‘low income and economic decline’
• second: policies to mitigate the dangers of ‘ethnic dominance’ such as to ‘entrench minority rights in the constitution’

Question 13

What did Azar argue in PSC?

Answer 13

Protracted Social Conflict Theory

Argument: For groups to not become violent toward one another they would need:

• security
• recognition and acceptance,
• fair access to political institutions
• economic participation

Question 14

What were Azar’s 4 preconditioned variables that bring on protracted social conflict and how do they relate to Rwanda?

Answer 14

Communal content: the idea that seperate identities are given to groups (Belgium ID cards)

Deprivation of human needs: economic, security, political, identity (Tutsi displacement)

Governmental domination: whereby the government is dominated by one group which brings a deprivation of human needs to the other (Tutsi unsafe in Rwanda)

International dependence: Reliant on international aid and helping (UN did not react to Rwanda)