In popular perception cultural differences or ethnic affiliation are factors that cause conflict or political fragmentation although this is not borne out by historical evidence. This book puts forward an alternative conflict theory. The author develops a decision theory which explains the conditions under which differing types of identification are preferred. Group identification is linked to competition for resources like water, territory, oil, political charges, or other advantages. Rivalry for resources can cause conflicts but it does not explain who takes whose side in a conflict situation. This book explores possibilities of reducing violent conflicts and ends with a case study, based on personal experience of the author, of conflict resolution.

Contents: PART I: INTRODUCTION Chapter 1. Why we Need a New Conflict Theory Chapter 2. The Question Chapter 3. How this Volume is Organised PART II: THEORETICAL FRAME Chapter 4. A Decision Theory of Identification Chapter 5. The Necessity for Strategies of Inclusion and Exclusion Chapter 6. The Conceptual Instruments of Exclusion and Inclusion: Social Categories and their Overlapping Relations Chapter 7. On the Sociologisation of Economics and the Economisation of Sociology Chapter 8. Markets of Violence and the Freedom of Choice Chapter 9. Ethnicity Emblems, Diacritical Features, Identity Markers - Some East African Examples Chapter 10. Purity and Power in Islamic and Non-Islamic Societies and the Spectre of Fundamentalism Chapter 11. Language and Ethnicity PART III: PRACTICAL FRAME Chapter 12. Conflict Resolution: the Experience with the Somali Peace Process Chapter 13. On Methods: How to be a Conflict Analyst Chapter 14. An Update from 2007: Reconsidering the Peace Process List of Acronyms References Index

Gunther Schlee was a Professor at Bielefeld until 1999. He currently is the director of the section Integration and Conflict at the Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology, Halle, focusing on Africa, Central Asia, and Europe. His publications include Identities on the Move: Clanship and Pastoralism in Northern Kenya (International African Institute, 1989), How Enemies are Made (Berghahn, 2008), Rendille Proverbs in their Social and legal Context (with Karaba Sahado) and Boran Proverbs in their Cultural Context (with Abdullahi Shongolo) (both Cologne: Rudiger Koppe).