Conflicting Theories in Conflict: How do the debates contribute to explaining the long durability-low intensity nexus of contemporary civil conflict in Africa?

Essay from the year 2017 in the subject Politics - International Politics - Topic: Peace and Conflict Studies Security grade: 80 Radboud Universiteit Nijmegen language: English abstract: The field of conflict studies used to be dominated by the search for causes however such grand theories striving for universal laws often cannot properly account for the complex circumstances of long duration/low intensity of contemporary civil wars. The interpretative micro-political turn in conflict studies further contributed to understand conflicts such as the intractable conflict in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). This essay aims to illustrate the contributions and shortcomings of the respective debates with regard to the intractability and low intensity of contemporary civil conflicts in Sub-Saharan Africa. The case of the DRC will be used as exemplary case whereas I start by laying out the framework of the conflict and briefly address the challenges of understanding conflict. I continue by elaborating on the greed vs. grievance debate further focus on group inequalities and contrast it to the debate of identity and conflict. Subsequently I will use this as a bridge to outline the beneficial value of the state-building debate while taking into account the embeddedness into the international system. Hence I will illustrate how institutional explanations can be seen as counterpart to this debate and finally refer to the significant debate about explaining violence.