Horizontal Inequality and Political Violence
Open Access
- Author:
- Bseiso, Aya Omar
- Area of Honors:
- International Politics
- Degree:
- Bachelor of Arts
- Document Type:
- Thesis
- Thesis Supervisors:
- Scott Bennet, Thesis Supervisor
Dr. Gretchen G Casper, Thesis Honors Advisor
Theodore Roberts Alter, Thesis Honors Advisor - Keywords:
- Middle East and North Africa
Inequality
Political Violence
Mobilization
Collective Action
Horizontal Inequality
Palestine-Israel - Abstract:
- The Middle East and North Africa remains a region popularly categorized as a “hotbed of conflict.” In this thesis I attempt to breakdown popular and conventional sentiment of the political violence in the Middle East through an analysis of political and economic horizontal inequality in the region as a guiding force to instances of violence. Frances Stewarts (2009) introduces the concept of horizontal inequality defining it as distinct and salient group identities coinciding with enduring group-level inequalities. Stewart (2009) argues that horizontal inequality sheds light on unaddressed and underlying factors influencing conflict onset. A global, and regional analysis of data form Cederman et al. (2011) posits that the existence of horizontal inequality can increase the risk of civil war onset. However, in the Middle East and North Africa the relationship between horizontal inequality and civil war onset appears insignificant. Despite the existence of both documented horizontal inequality and violence in the region. Such a peculiar finding warrants an analysis on the earlier mechanisms of inequality and violence. The literature has primarily tested the link between horizontal inequality and violence. Yet, other mechanisms occur prior to incidences of violence, such as the attitudes of individuals within the group towards forms of collective action. I utilize the case of Palestine-Israel using micro-analysis survey data from Hillesund (2015) to further explore the impact of horizontal inequality on attitudes towards violence and non-violent collective action in the Arab context. The benefit of conducting an analysis on attitudes gives policy makers space to plan adequate interventions that address underlying group-grievances before they erupt into situations of violence.