■ Cramer, Christopher, 2006. Civil War Is Not a Stupid Thing: Accounting for Violence in Developing Countries. London: Hurst. xiii + 329 pp. ISBN 9781850658214
| Date | 01 July 2009 |
| DOI | 10.1177/0022343309334813 |
| Published date | 01 July 2009 |
| Author | Øystein H. Rolandsen |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
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DOI 10.1177/0022343309334813
BOOK
NOTES
Cramer, Christopher, 2006. Civil War Is
Not a Stupid Thing: Accounting for Violence in
Developing Countries. London: Hurst. xiii + 329 pp.
ISBN 9781850658214.
‘There is no barbarism and no anarchy’ (p. 31).
This statement sums up the point of departure of
Christopher Cramer’s Civil War Is Not a Stupid
Thing, as it critically engages with two major cur-
rents within the study of civil armed conflict: ‘new’
wars as ‘barbarism’ and quantitative comparative
econometric studies. Cramer’s main argument is
that there is an element of rationality in every war
and that individuals do not make choices in iso-
lation or uninfluenced by surrounding structural
factors. With this point of departure, the book
deals with the following topics: philosophical
foundation for analysing both motives for and
large-scale violence itself; how (not) to operation-
alize studies of violence; the relationship between
modernization and war, with special emphasis on
financing wars; and, finally, post-conflict strate-
gies. In his discussion of these topics, Cramer uses
a broad range of examples and cases spanning
almost 500 years, with Angola being the most
prominent case. Despite its grisly topic, Civil War
Is Not a Stupid Thing is brimming with scholarly
enthusiasm and dedication. Unlike most criti-
cism of quantitative civil war studies, Cramer’s
book goes deeply into the premises and method-
ology of these studies as well as discussing them in
relation to specific cases and, consequently, ‘the
more these theories and variables appear to quiver
like mirages and then evaporate’ (p. 164). There
is still a clear element of structuralism in the book
as it grows out of a neo-marxist fixation on capi-
talism as a driving force in modernization and
warfare alike. Regardless of the reader’s political
leaning, this book is difficult to ignore for anyone
interested in understanding today’s civil wars.
Øystein H. Rolandsen
Hale, Henry E., 2008. The Foundation of Ethnic
Politics: Separatism of States and Nations in Eurasia
and the World. New York: Cambridge University
Press. 278 pp. ISBN 9780521719209.
The first sentence of this book makes a trivial
yet illustrative statement: next to most ‘ethnic
hotspots’ is another ‘ethnic spot’ that remains
cool. Explaining this variation is at the core of the
research on ethnic conflict, and Hale is certainly
not the first researcher trying to do that. How-
ever, he argues that more focus on psychologi-
cal research on human behaviour is needed to
advance existing theories and develop new ones
on ethnicity and ethnic politics. Drawing on
this argument, he makes two core propositions:
(1) ethnicity is about uncertainty-reduction,
whereas (2) ethnic politics is about interests.
Humans face a large amount of uncertainty in
the social world, and thinking in terms of eth-
nicity is one instrument that helps them to inter-
pret their world. How people choose to behave
in their less uncertain environment depends on
individual interests. These typically include secu-
rity, power and economic welfare, and ethnic
politics is one way of pursuing these ends. The
empirical evidence focuses on the role of ethnicity
and ethnic politics in the breakup of the USSR.
Hale shows that ethnic divides were not the driv-
ing force behind secessionism; the choice to pur-
sue a separatist strategy was rather the result of a
fear of being exploited in a union. He employs
both qualitative and quantitative methods: a case
comparison of Ukraine and Uzbekistan and a
statistical analysis of 45 USSR ethnic regions.
However, this is not a book about the collapse of
the USSR, but about the general foundations of
ethnic politics. This book is a rewarding read for
everyone interested in psychological approaches
to ethnicity and ethnic politics.
Johan Dittrich Hallberg
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