International Dimensions of Ethnic Conflicts

Abstract

For a long time it was held that ethnic confticts were to be considered a purely domestic matter and that the international community had no business getting involved in them. Ouring the postwar years, except for confticts related to the process of decolonization, the United Nations Organization and other international regional organizations were not eager to intervene in what were deemed to be internal matters of member states in good standing. In fact, however, ethnic confticts the world over have, in most instances, always had an international component. There is hardly a case in which some neighbouring state, or a regional or world power, has not had a hand in some aspect of these confticts, even when they appear at first glance to be purely 'sub-national' rather than 'inter-state'. Some of the cases of conftict covered by the UNRISO project are typical examples of extern al intervention and the internationalization process. This is not to say that the confticts were actually caused by external interests (though in some cases this might have been the case), but only that other than purely local or national interests have also played a not insignificant role in their origins, their dynamics and their eventual outcome. We shalilook at some of the evidence from the UNRISD case studies, provide some additional material from other areas in the world and attempt some generalizations.