Power Sharing in Deeply Divided Places

5. A Theory of Accommodation Versus Conflict: With Special Reference to the Israel-Palestine Conflict

CHAPTER 5 A Theory of Accommodation Versus Conflict: With Special Reference to the Israel-Palestine Conflict Ronald Wintrobe Can rational choice provide a model that explains sustained moderate or conflict-regulating power-sharing behavior in deeply divided places? This is the question addressed in this chapter. I start with a model of extremist behavior developed previously (Wintrobe 2006a, 2006b). The first third of the chapter outlines the basics of that model. The second third applies it to the problem of conflict versus accommodation. I then provide two illustrations: a brief discussion of the circumstances under which federalism can work and then a more detailed one of the Israel-Palestine conflict. Specifically, I discuss the erection of the wall between Israel and Palestine and the devolution of Gaza to the Palestinians. With the help of the model I ask whether each of these policies tends to exacerbate or reduce the likelihood of conflict . The last third of the chapter discusses more general solutions to the problem of conflict between groups. In all of this, my basic point of view is that there is a single leadership of each group and that leadership acts rationally. From an economist’s point of view, rationality just means that, whatever the goal, a person chooses the best means to achieve it. The goal itself is neither rational nor irrational; we just take it as given. The leadership of the group may sometimes be extreme : The simplest way to think of an extremist is someone whose goals or views are outside the mainstream on some issue or dimension. In the twentieth century, extremists were typically persons on the extreme right or the extreme 136 Ronald Wintrobe left, but the dimension could also be nationalism, religion, security, or any other politically important issue. However, there is another way to think of extremism in politics, in which it refers to the use of extreme methods of political competition, usually violent ones, such as assassinations or terrorism. What explains the attraction of violence to people with extreme goals? I argue that leaders whose views are outside the mainstream adopt extremist methods when there is indivisibility between what might be called the immediate goal of the group and its ultimate goal. The behavior of followers cannot be explained in the same way as that of leaders. The reason is that the goals of the organization are a pure public good to a follower. Consequently a rational follower would tend to “free ride,” no matter how much he believes in the goal of the group. To explain the participation of followers, one must turn to something else. In this chapter, I suggest that they are motivated by the desire for “solidarity” (or social cohesion or “belongingness”) with a group. Not all participants in conflict-ridden societies are extremist, and these same assumptions—that leaders are motivated by the goals of the organization while followers are motivated by a desire for solidarity—are employed to discuss the behavior of non-extremist- actors as well. Of course leaders may be motivated by other things, such as the desire to stay in office to enjoy the power and prestige that come with it. As long as these desires are correlated with the achievement of the goals of the organization, this simple shorthand description of them is adequate to describe their reasoning. Similarly , some followers may indeed believe in the goals of the regime, but as long as solidarity is obtained more easily for those followers who share the goals of the regime, then again, this suffices to describe their motivation. They will prefer to join an organization whose goals are similar to theirs, even if their only motive is solidarity because in that way they obtain solidarity at the lowest “price.” To illustrate the effects of various events on the tendencies of each of the two groups to use violence, I focus on the construction of the wall (the West Bank barrier) and on the Israeli withdrawal from Gaza. I then enumerate briefly the solutions to group conflict suggested by the model and look in more detail at some of them. The outline of the chapter is as follows. The next section discusses leaders and shows the circumstances under which they are most likely to use violence. The third section briefly describes the behavior of followers. The Accommodation Versus Conflict 137 fourth section integrates the behavior of leaders and...