Theory Of Grievance

Grievance as conflict drivers

Theories of Grievance:

The following section looks into the evidence of grievance and social inequality as the source of violent conflict. In contrast to the theory of greed proposed by Collier and Hoefller (2004), many argue that the theory of grievance allows for the better explanation of the occurrence of the violent conflict. Central to grievance is identity and group formation (Murshed and Tadjoeddin, 2009). Theories of grievance can be divided into (i) relative deprivation, (ii) polarization and (iii) horizontal inequality (Murshed and Tadjoeddin, 2009).

(i) Relative deprivation:

As defined by Ted Gurr (1970), relative deprivation “is he discrepancy between what people think they deserve, and what

Horizontal inequality can arise between groups clustered by ethnicity, religion, linguistic, history, culture and tribal affiliations.

Four primary sources of horizontal inequality and examples regarding violent conflict that has arisen due to them are highlighted below:

Primary sources of horizontal inequality Violent conflict example
Discrimination in public spending Discrimination in public spending on education and healthcare leading to lack of development in rural and already disadvantaged areas of Burindi, Nepal have been the source of civil war in the country (Murshed and Gates, Murshed and Tadjoeddin, 2009).

Asset inequality Asset inequality in agrarian countries as El Salvador, Guatemala, Phillippines and Zimbabwe have shown civil unrest and civil wars (Russett, 1964).

Economic mismanagement and recession Following prolonged economic downturn and absence of economic growth many African, Latin American and FSU countries have suffered internal

Vertical grievance can be viewed in terms of generally poor economic position of the population, high corruption and perception of weak political influence . On the other hand, horizontal grievance exists between different regions of Ukraine and between citizens with different social identities.

As many terms used in the dissertation, the term identity has to be defined. Identify implies a sense of belonging to a certain group, a unity with its members. It can be argued that in addition to the national identity, in the case of Ukraine, one should look at the language-influenced identity that creates the sense of belonging and closeness with other language carriers and is shares between its members regardless of their citizenship and country of origin (Laitin, 1995; Laitin, 1998). It may also be interesting to further test this theory in more detail by looking at the national identity, voting patterns and political views in other FSU countries with high Russian speaking population levels i.e. Belarus, Latvia, Estonia, Lithuania, etc (Cheskin,