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UNDERSTANDING THE ROOT CAUSES OF CONFLICTS : Why it Matters for International Crisis Management

The analysis of protracted conflicts often fails to properly identify the root causes that lead to violence and broken societies. This paper tries to shed light on the way causal analysis and holistic approaches to examining conflicts can enhance crisis management and conflict resolution methods. The author embraces the human needs theory that considers conflicts as the result of a process driven by unfulfilled needs and collective fears. Understanding the root causes of conflict and its psychological dimension is crucial for sustainable peace building. In this paper, the author identifies some lessons that can be learned from the recent crisis in Côte d’Ivoire as well as from the latest events in the Israeli-Palestinian dispute, and puts emphasis on the significance of human needs approach for conflict resolution in such cases. By analyzing the deep-rooted causes of protracted and violent conflicts, the author argues that crisis management can be successful only when basic human needs are met and collective fears are addressed. UNDERSTANDING THE ROOT CAUSES OF CONFLICTS INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS REVIEW! 2! INTRODUCTION In the aftermath of the Cold War, many scholars analyzed the reshaping of international affairs and the emergence of a new form of conflict. The bipolar world and its proxy wars ended, opening the way to internal conflicts often characterized by extreme violence. Researchers sought to understand these new dynamics, prompting a debate that continues to divide academia and deeply impacts policy-makers. Among the most preeminent scholars who have studied the causes of post-Cold War conflicts is Mary Kaldor, who theorizes the qualitative transformation between the “New and Old Wars.” 1 She explains that the past decades’ conflicts were characterized more by irrational and predatory violence while prior rebellions were mainly rationally-motivated and progressive. Others look at civil wars through an economic lens, like Paul Collier, who developed an econometric model that stresses the statistically significant relationship between strains on natural resources and the outbreak of wars. In particular, this model determines the risk of falling into civil war by looking at variables such as the abundance of natural resources, poor economic performance, lack of democracy, and rent-seeking behaviors. This theorization of conflicts relies on the key distinction between greed (rebellions) and grievances (protest movements), claiming that modern wars are mainly led by greed, joining Mary Kaldor who argues that “the new wars can be contrasted with earlier wars in terms of their goals, their methods, and how they are financed.” These models have been crucial in understanding how the globalized era has impacted conflicts and gained a special resonance in the political sphere. Many policy-makers have been inspired by this analytical framework, which is reflected in several conflict resolution approaches. Although valuable, these models fail to provide a comprehensive explanation of the genuine causes of conflicts. Retrospective views show that the “resource wars” argument only provides a partial analysis of a much more complex set of factors that led countries such as Liberia and the Democratic Republic of Congo into war. Abundant resources and their mismanagement are not the root causes of conflicts but a combination of secondary causes and means for belligerents to prolong the war. Considering resources the main cause of wars seems to be part of a broader tendency to consider the symptoms rather than the causes of conflicts, and to determine causation where there is only a statistical correlation. This argument is made by Dennis Sandole, who analyzes in the extract below the United States’ counterterrorism approach: