Settlers in Contested Lands: Territorial Disputes and Ethnic Conflicts

by Oded Haklai (Editor), Neophytos Loizides (Editor)

Overview

Settlers feature in many protracted territorial disputes and ethnic conflicts around the world. Explaining the dynamics of the politics of settlers in contested territories in several contemporary cases, this book illuminates how settler-related conflicts emerge, evolve, and are significantly more difficult to resolve than other disputes.

Written by country experts, chapters consider Israel and the West Bank, Arab settlers in Kirkuk, Moroccan settlers in Western Sahara, settlers from Fascist Italy in North Africa, Turkish settlers in Cyprus, Indonesian settlers in East Timor, and Sinhalese settlers in Sri Lanka. Addressing four common topics—right-sizing the state, mobilization and violence, the framing process, and legal principles versus pragmatism—the cases taken together raise interrelated questions about the role of settlers in conflicts in contested territory. Then looking beyond the similar characteristics, these cases also illuminate key differences in levels of settler mobilization and the impact these differences can have on peace processes to help explain different outcomes of settler-related conflicts. Finally, cases investigate the causes of settler mobilization and identify relevant conflict resolution mechanisms.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780804796521
Publisher:	Stanford University Press
Publication date:	10/14/2015
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	256
File size:	4 MB

About the Author

Oded Haklai is Associate Professor in the Department of Political Studies at Queen's University, Canada. Neophytos Loizides is a Reader in International Conflict Analysis at the University of Kent.

Read an Excerpt

Settlers in Contested Lands

Territorial Disputes and Ethnic Conflicts

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By Oded Haklai, Neophytos Loizides

STANFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS

Copyright © 2015 Board of Trustees of the Leland Stanford Junior University
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-0-8047-9652-1

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CHAPTER 1

Settlers and Conflict over Contested Territories

Oded Haklai and Neophytos Loizides

Now, Israel is going to have to take some difficult steps as well, and I shared with the [Israeli] prime minister the fact that under the roadmap and under Annapolis, there is a clear understanding that we have to make progress on settlements. Settlements have to be stopped in order for us to move forward. That's a difficult issue and I recognize that. But it's important and it has to be addressed. — Barack Obama, May 18, 2009

LESS THAN TWO YEARS AFTER PRESSURING A RESISTANT Israeli government to halt all settlement activities, the administration of the United States abandoned its demand. Proponents of a halt to settlements were dismayed by this about-face and denounced the recalibrated policy. In retrospect, it appears that the newly elected Barack Obama may not have fully appreciated just how thorny the settlement issue was, despite recognizing its political significance.

Settlements in contested territories are by no means unique to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. In fact, they have presented major challenges in many conflicts around the world in the contemporary era. To name only a few, the ramifications of settlers from Turkey in Cyprus remain a central concern in ongoing negotiations over the future governance of the island; Luzon settlers in the Mindanao islands of the Philippines are a profound source of contention; the future of French settlers in Algeria proved to be one of the toughest obstacles the French government had to overcome when it sought to withdraw from its North African colony; and Javanese settlers in Aceh, Arab settlers in Kurdish populated parts of Iraq, and Chinese settlers in Tibet have all been viewed as significant aspects of inter-communal and inter-nation conflicts.

That settlers and settlements will cause contention is not a given, however. Population movements from one part of the world to another have characterized much of modern history. In many instances, especially in Anglo-Saxon settler societies, migration is celebrated as a source of cultural vibrancy and a desirable resource for a cosmopolitan society (Pearson 2001). Elsewhere, for instance, in the Baltic Republics, the presence of settlers has been initially contested by indigenous populations, but the latter have gradually, if reluctantly, come to accept Russian speakers as permanent inhabitants (Laitin 1998; Hogan-Brun et al. 2008). At the same time, there is little doubt that in many instances, population movements referred to as settlements, particularly those on a large scale, are accompanied by protracted, sometimes violent, ethnopolitical conflict.

Relationships between "old" and "new" populations have been examined from several angles, with immigration and "sons-of-the-soil" literatures often providing contrasting evaluations of relationships between "newcomers" and "indigenous" groups. On the one hand, immigration studies emphasize that newcomers, particularly migrants, almost never fight civil wars. Kymlicka (1995, 67–68) and, more recently, Laitin (2009) argue that international migrants are less likely to mobilize for self-government or other political reasons and are almost never implicated in civil war violence, even when they face security threats in their new communities. Ultimately, however, there is a significant analytical distinction between immigrants "effectively permitted" into a non-disputed territory and settlers introduced, as we argue in this volume, purposefully, with the explicit aim of gradually transforming patterns of sovereignty in a disputed region.

Sons-of-the-soil studies, on the other hand, emphasize hostile relations between migrants and native populations. Fearon (2004) and Fearon and Laitin (2011), for example, argue that sons-of-the-soil conflicts engender the most protracted civil wars worldwide. This literature typically focuses on domestic population movements involving the migration of members of one or more ethnic groups into a region inhabited by a different ethnic group in search of better material opportunities. Ensuing conflicts are, thus, generally understood to be primarily about scarce resources. To the extent that sons-of-the-soil conflicts invoke identity, it is usually only in an instrumental way, to serve the interests of self-utility maximizing (and mobilizing) elites.

Thus far, the politics of settlers and settlements in contested territories has not been studied as a principal phenomenon in its own right. Considering that settlements have been a conspicuous feature of many protracted conflicts around the world, the scarcity of comparative and theoretical studies published on this topic is puzzling. Settlements, as this book shows, are a distinct phenomenon whereby demographic engineering is put into play in order to consolidate territorial control, and where identity questions often play a primary role. Indeed, as Ron Hassner (2006/07) usefully demonstrates, in many protracted conflicts over territory, the disputed territory actually has little material value.

The remainder of this introductory chapter provides the comparative framework of analysis for the rest of this volume. Our overarching purpose in this book is to provide a comparative investigation of how settler-related conflicts have unfolded in different parts of the world, identify common patterns and case-specific peculiarities, and generate insights into this highly important phenomenon. There is much to be learned by comparing and contrasting the ways settler-related conflicts emerge, evolve, and resolve (or not). Why and how are settlement endeavors initiated and pursued? How do sending states and settler populations respond to ensuing conflicts in the settled contested territories? How do the relations between sending states and their settler populations transform over time, particularly if their preferences diverge and the sending state reassesses its settlement policies? Bringing together cases from around the world with many similar characteristics as well as revealing differences, this book's various chapters address these interrelated questions. Ultimately, settlers may not be the only factor fueling protracted conflicts over territories — but their influence is certainly powerful.

Settlers and Settlements

We define settlement as political action involving the organized movement of a population belonging to one national group into a territory in order to create a permanent presence and influence patterns of sovereignty in the settled territory. It is largely because of their political and ideological attributes that settlements are distinct from other forms of population migration and have become such an intensely contentious issue worldwide. Simply stated, in the modern era of nationalism, settlers and settlements have served as mechanisms of control and territorial expansion over disputed territories.

Settlement endeavors can take many shapes and forms. Settlements can take place in scarcely or already densely populated territories. Settlers can arrive in relatively early stages of state-building processes, like the Anglo-Saxon settlers in the United States, Canada, and Australia, or during advanced stages of expansion of existing states, including empires, like the French and British settlers in their respective empires. Settlement projects can take place in internationally disputed territories, like Western Sahara or the West Bank, or in territories contested between ethnic groups within the borders of a recognized state, like Kirkuk in Iraq. Settlers can remain linked to their sending states, but they can also gradually disengage from them and build a post-settlement state, like Rhodesia, Canada, and New Zealand (Pearson 2001). Settlers can be mostly civilians, like Turks in Cyprus, or primarily military personnel, as in the case of Polish soldiers in territories that Ukrainians claimed as their own following World War I.

One thing our definition of settlements immediately reveals is the close relationship between the demographic makeup of a population in a given territory and the processes of state formation and the shaping and reshaping of territorial boundaries. Unlike conventional immigration, settlement projects are closely tied to the physical expansion of a core state into contested lands. Indeed, the processes of modern state formation and state expansion, including imperial states, have typically relied heavily on this close relationship. The boundaries of the contemporary Chinese state, for example, were largely shaped by the movement of the Han population to outlying areas starting in the 15th century (Shin 2006). Bureaucratic institutions followed the population movements, allowing the Ming Empire to expand the territory under its control. The story of state-construction in North America is comparable. Population movements westward in both Canada and the United States shaped the boundaries of these two polities (Weinberg 1935; Frymer 2014). So significant was settler presence in the U.S. state-building project that the 1787 Northwest Ordinance decreed that 60,000 inhabitants constituted the minimum population required for a new state to be admitted to the Union. The presence of this number of residents must have seemed to the authors of the Ordinance as necessary for ensuring a permanent American hold on the settled territories. Likewise, as touched on above, Poland sought to expand to Galicia following World War I through settlements of military personnel in the territories, while some Israeli governments have sought to influence the position of Israel's eastern border through the instrument of settlements in the territories captured from Jordan in the war of 1967.

What has always been important for shaping the patterns of sovereignty is for the settler population to be identified as belonging to the racial, ethnic, or national community to which the sending state belongs, thus boosting the prospect of settler loyalty to the settlement project. The purpose of settlers, therefore, has typically been to perform the function that Brendan O'Leary (2001, 101) calls "right-peopling" the territory. Thus, to return to our earlier example, for the Ming Empire's expansion endeavor to be successful, its settler population had to be Han. Several centuries later, on the other side of the Pacific, most U.S. state-builders sought settlers who were white Anglo-Saxons. Incorporating territories that were not dominated by white Anglo-Saxon Americans was undesirable (Weinberg 1935, 160–189; Onea 2009; Frymer 2014). Hence, when the non-Anglo-Saxon Dominican Republic sought accession to the Union in 1869, it was rejected. Similarly, the settlement projects studied in this volume typically identify settlers as belonging to the "core group" or "titular nation" that dominates the sending state, such as Jews in Israel, Arabs in Iraq, or Javanese in Indonesia.

Yet although states have a definite objective in right-peopling, it ought to be noted that settlers can fail to form an ethnically or politically homogeneous group. French settlers in Algeria were not exclusively "French" but included Spaniards, Italians, Maltese, and Greeks (Lustick 1985). British settlers in Northern Ireland included both Anglicans and Scottish Presbyterians, a distinction that has shaped modern Irish history and remains prevalent in Ulster politics. Similarly, settlers in modern U.S. history have been diverse, as indicated by the introduction of "othering" terms, such as "hillbillies" to refer to those of Ulster-Scottish background in the Appalachian mountains, "butternut settlers" for southerners competing for land with northern Yankee settlers, and "carpetbaggers," a pejorative term for Yankee colonists moving south after the American Civil War. The chapter by Mundy and Zunes on Morocco's settlers in Western Sahara identifies how the plans of the sending state can be derailed when the settlers do not belong to the "right" group. According to Mundy and Zunes, Morocco had to reconsider its planned referendum on the future of the contested lands — a referendum about which it had made international commitments — when it realized the settlers might not vote in accordance with the desires of state elites.

The demographic imperative underpinning settlement projects also suggests population movement in the other direction (O'Leary 2001, 33–37). In some cases, the infusion of settlers from the "right" ethnicity or national group is accompanied by the forcible removal of the "wrong" people in attempts to alter the demographic balance (McGarry 1998; Ron 2003). For example, Greek Cypriots were forced out of Northern Cyprus following the Turkish invasion in 1974. Likewise, Kurds were forced out of ancestral lands in Iraq. And as Stefan Wolff (2004) reminds us, 20th-century Europe witnessed millions of people forcibly moved in population transfers related to redrawing territorial boundaries, including relocations during a number of Balkan wars and the expulsion of Germans from several central and eastern European countries following World War II. In his work on ethnic cleansing, James Ron (2003) concludes that since the second part of the 20th century, the forcible removal of unwanted populations has been more common in areas not yet incorporated into the legal sphere of the expanding state (e.g., Serbia in Bosnia). In contrast, strong states sensitive to strengthening international norms will avoid outright expulsion of unwanted populations in areas already included in their legal sphere of influence (e.g., Israel in the West Bank).

Settlers have been more than an instrument for creating demographic facts on the ground and improving the sending state's claim to sovereignty over the contested territory. They have also been incorporated into the governance structures of acquired territories (Lustick 1985, 81). Examples include Japanese settlers in Korea and Russian-speaking populations moved by the Soviet Union, effectively a Russian empire, to the Soviet republics. Arabs in the Kurdish area of Iraq too, as discussed in the chapter by Natali, played a significant role in staffing local administrations, and of course, French direct rule throughout its empire was characterized by French officeholders settling in the acquired territories.

In many cases, in fact, settlers have assumed a "higher status" in a disputed territory, effectively "transforming natives into serfs," as in Algeria, South Africa, or Smith's Rhodesia; the latter is one of the last cases of a polity to be explicitly ruled by a settler minority (Guelke 2012, 231). But the opposite can be observed, as well. The chapter by Loizides discusses instances of settlers forming an underprivileged group among natives, as for instance, Anatolian Turkish settlers did among Turkish Cypriots in the northern part of Cyprus. In this case, settlers provided demographic reinforcement as they settled among their "own people" (i.e., fellow "Turks") rather than the rival ethnic group (i.e., Greek Cypriots) and into an already established institutional order created by their group, namely, a Northern Cyprus state.

In any event, settler experiences are not uniform. Different categories of settlers in different contexts play different roles and relate to their settled territories and sending states differently. At least one important distinction exists between ideologically driven settlers who are politicized and justify their actions in identity terms, on the one hand, and underprivileged populations who are less interested in territorial politics and have migrated for economic reasons, especially if they have been promised an easy life and access to "empty land," on the other hand. The former category, comprised of settlers who are ideologically driven agents of settlement activity, like some Jewish settlers in the West Bank, tend to view their activity through an identity prism and are more likely to politicize. In his chapter, Haklai explains that Jewish Israeli settlements cannot be fully understood by focusing only on Israeli-Palestinian relations. Rather, in a triad relationship, settlers comprise one distinct actor whose independent actions, sometimes in defiance of the central government of the sending state, are consequential for shaping the settlement endeavor and the overarching territorial conflict. Their actions largely derive from a fundamental understanding of themselves as belonging to the settled territory; they view the land as an integral part of their Jewish being.

(Continues...)

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Table of Contents

Contents and Abstracts1Settlers and Conflict over Contested Territories chapter abstract

This chapter introduces an innovative theoretical framework for investigating settlers in contested territories. Defining settlements as political action involving the organized movement of a population belonging to one national group into a territory to create a permanent presence and influence patterns of sovereignty, the theory explores diverse trajectories relating to how demographic engineering is used in state-building and state-expansion endeavors. A number of observations are made about the relationship between the principle of "right-peopling," sovereignty, and territorial boundaries. The diverse contours of conflict that emerge with pre-existing populations who make claims on the settled territory are then explored, with particular attention paid to the accentuated ethnonational dimension, the time factor, international constraints, and the variable agency of the settlers as a consequential factor for conflict resolution.

2The Decisive Path of State Indecisiveness: Israeli Settlers in the West Bank in Comparative Perspective chapter abstract

In contrast to common perceptions that view this case as sui generis, Israeli settlements exhibit important familiar patterns observed in other cases. First, settlement activity is a means to influence territorial boundaries through demography. Additionally, bureaucratic institutions accompany population movements. Furthermore, settler identity is consequential, thus highlighting the relationship between "right-peopling" a territory and sovereignty. But the Israeli experience also has distinctive characteristics. Israeli governments have not adopted a consistent policy regarding settlements. This lack of coherence stems partly from the dynamic interplay of variable international and regional conditions, the attributes of Israeli domestic politics, and contested notions about the relationship between territorial and socio-national boundaries. Furthermore, Israeli settlers have proven to be a consequential agent that influences practices beyond what is observed in most other cases. Ultimately, political outcomes have been influenced by the dynamic and mutually constitutive interaction between state (and central government) and settlers.

3Moroccan Settlers in Western Sahara: Colonists or Fifth Column? chapter abstract

Since occupying the former Spanish Sahara in 1976, Morocco has pursued active and passive settlement policies resulting in significant changes in the territory's population, both quantitatively and qualitatively. Though the territory now boasts a large Moroccan population (perhaps outnumbering the indigenous Sahrawis by as much as three-to-one), very little is known about the demographic composition of these settlers and their relationship to the broader political question of Western Saharan independence. Not only are there strong reasons to question many of the assumptions about the politics of settlers and of natives in Western Sahara but there are also unique dynamics at play in this conflict that hold insights for understanding the politics of settlement in contested territories more broadly.

4Settlement, Sovereignty, and Social Engineering. Fascist Settlement Policy between Nation and Empire chapter abstract

Was Mussolini's settlement program in Libya in the 1930s merely a further installment of European settler colonialism? The chapter explores the program in light of broader demographic policies implemented by the Fascist regime, not only on the North African shore but also in the newly annexed territories in northern Italy. Rooting Italian families in contested soil, the Fascist state became the primary motor: initiating, organizing, and financing the settlements with the stated aim of nationalizing contested lands. While resembling strategies of colonial settlement, these programs aimed at consolidating and expanding the Italian nation, thus marking a transition to the use of population settlement as a tool of nation- rather than empire-building.

5The Indonesian Settlement Project in East Timor chapter abstract

On December 7, 1975, Indonesia invaded East Timor, and controlled the region for the next twenty-four years. Alongside military control, Jakarta transferred into the territory tens of thousands of Indonesian nationals. This chapter analyzes the Indonesian population transfer into East Timor. Placing the settlement project in the broader context of the Indonesian claim to East Timor, it explores the fundamental aspects of the population transfer. It also explains why the Indonesian settlement project was initiated and pursed, including an investigation of the manner in which Indonesia used the settlers as part of its effort to subdue local resistance and deflect international opposition to its rule in the area.

6Settlers and State-Building: The Kirkuk Case chapter abstract

This chapter examines the migrations of Arab settlers to Iraqi Kurdistan after 1963 and their impact on negotiating the disputed territory of Kirkuk. It argues that demographic shifts and the actual numbers of Arab settlers have played a key role in framing Kurdish claims to Kirkuk, particularly as they have affected population percentages and distribution of resources. However, while the presence of settler communities may have played a key role in the early phase of the Kurdish authorities making claims to Kirkuk, their influence has weakened over time as the Kirkuk issue has taken on a life of its own. Changes in the nature of the Kirkuk problem and the framing processes linked to it will provide the basis for conflict resolution strategies.These will include issues of power sharing between Kurds and Arabs, as well as with other minority groups, governance issues, and revenue sharing.

7Settlers, Immigrants, Colonists: The Three Layers of Settler-Induced Conflict in Sri Lanka chapter abstract

This chapter analyzes the role of settlers and settler-related rhetoric in ethnic conflict in Sri Lanka, illustrating the different layers and shades that such conflicts can involve. It distinguishes between a discursive element (rhetoric and accusations of "settlers" and "settlement"), a temporal element (the historical time frame in which population movements took place) and a structural/situational element (whether this movement was driven by market forces or whether it was state-sponsored, as well as the material condition of the people introduced to the land). Sinhalese agitation against the Indian Tamil plantation workers and the policy of expelling them to India (which was halted in the 1980s) is compared with Sri Lankan Tamil agitation against Sinhalese irrigation and settlement projects in the so-called dry zone which significantly contributed to inter-communal violence before and during the civil war.

8Settlers, Mobilization, and Displacement in Cyprus: Antinomies of Ethnic Conflict and Immigration Politics chapter abstract

The post-1974 Turkish colonization of Cyprus is seen as a violation of Article 49 of the Geneva Convention of 1949 and an obstacle to the future reunification of the island. Yet settlers in Cyprus are not monolithically attached to expansionist nationalism and often share comparable concerns about and vulnerabilities to migrant populations. This chapter examines the causes of non-politicization among the Turkish settlers and sets the Cypriot experience apart from the current literature on colonization and displacement in contested territories. It also presents a set of novel institutional arrangements aiming to balance humanitarian and justice considerations focusing on the territorial and human rights aspects of peace settlements.

9Conclusion: The Political Dynamics of Settlement Projects: The Central State–Settler-Native Triangle chapter abstract

The studies in this volume explore the complex legacies of state-sponsored settlement of outlying and not-fully-absorbed territories. The starting point was the expectation flowing from Lustick's work that effective settler mobilization combined with clumsy state policies and antagonistic reactions by natives would produce long-term problems of oppression by the settlers, violent reaction by the natives, and destabilization of the central state. On the whole, the authors show that the Israeli-Palestinian case, however similar in detailed dynamics to the British-Irish and French-Algerian relationships, is in important ways misleading as a framework for anticipating the impact of settlement elsewhere. Although the settler-native-central state triangle does appear in each episode, the emphasis in each case is mainly on one side.

Editorial Reviews

"Settlers in Contested Lands represents a significant contribution to the literature on ethnic and communal conflicts. The outstanding introduction by the editors should be required reading for anyone examining the resolution of conflicts with a settlement dimension. The multitude of forms these conflicts take is very well illustrated in the volume's case studies."—Adrian Guelke, Queen's University of Belfast

"This is an invaluable collection. The volume is a very important contribution to understanding a highly significant but understudied phenomenon in the world of ethnic conflict."—Donald L. Horowitz, James B. Duke Professor of Law and Political Science Emeritus, Duke University

From the Publisher

"Settlers in Contested Lands represents a significant contribution to the literature on ethnic and communal conflicts. The outstanding introduction by the editors should be required reading for anyone examining the resolution of conflicts with a settlement dimension. The multitude of forms these conflicts take is very well illustrated in the volume's case studies."

Queen's Universityof Belfast - Adrian Guelke

"This is an invaluable collection. The volume is a very important contribution to understanding a highly significant but understudied phenomenon in the world of ethnic conflict."

Duke University - Donald L. Horowitz