Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: Much of the literature that discusses the benefits of intrastate conflict has focused on rebel leaders, the militia, and warlords who want war to continue so as to continue collecting gains in status, power, and resources. While an important start for explaining the escalation and perpetuation of internal conflict, this literature has been too limited in scope. Rarely are government actors viewed as spoilers. Instead, governments are depicted as providers of stability and stationary bandits, where systemic pressures to attract foreign direct investment compel states to seek peace and stability. This paper argues that government actors--whether politicians or military leaders, incumbents or opposition--can have strong incentives to create, perpetuate, or neglect communal conflict within their borders. Drawing on research of state-Muslim minority conflicts in China, Burma, Thailand, and the Philippines, I identify conditions under which government actors are most likely to benefit from and thus perpetuate internal conflict. Concentrated minorities living in the periphery are most often affected because states can contain the conflict, limit its impact to a politically insignificant population, and more easily manipulate knowledge of the conflict and its dynamics. The paper discusses the resources that governments and individual state actors accrue as a result of low-intensity conflicts, how governments take advantage of international political opportunities in framing conflicts, and how conflicts are used to consolidate power and protect institutional interests. Conflict types include communal riots, insurgency, and separatism.