International Conflict Analysis: Structural Violence and Conflict

This essay provides an in-depth analysis of structural violence and its significant role in shaping international conflicts. It begins by defining structural violence as systemic inequalities embedded in social structures that lead to suffering and conflict, differentiating between vertical and horizontal forms. The essay then explores various manifestations of structural violence, including racism, caste-based discrimination, and cultural violence, providing historical and contemporary examples to illustrate their impact on international relations. It examines how practices like slavery, segregation, and the imposition of foreign cultures can lead to widespread conflict. Furthermore, the essay addresses food security as a form of structural violence, highlighting how resource exploitation and marginalization of communities contribute to international tensions and conflicts. The essay draws on various scholarly sources to support its arguments, offering a comprehensive understanding of the complex dynamics of structural violence in the global arena.

Running Head INTERNATIONAL CONFLICT ANALYSIS
International Conflict Analysis
Student’s Name
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Author’s Note

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Structural violence is a term that was coined in the 1960 by Liberation theologians like
Johan Galtung. This term was used for describing the social, political, legal, and religious as well
as the economic structures which prevents individuals, societies as well as groups from
understanding and realising their full potential. In order to define structural violence, Straugstad
highlights that:
“Structural violence is a form of violence which does not hurt or kill through fists, guns or
nuclear bombs, but by means of social structures which becomes the cause of poverty, death as
well as immense suffering. Structural violence can be political, exploitative, economical as well
as repressive; it occurs when the social order directly or indirectly becomes the cause of human
suffering and death”.
In order to understand the significance of structural violence, the term can be dissected in to two.
In this term, structure refers to the social structures which have been imposed upon people,
religious groups as well as societies as well as other entities which make them engage in to acts
of discrimination against each other. As argued by Wilkinson, A. and Leach (2015), there can be
many such structures in the society; however the imposition of pressure from all these structures
come upon one particular group, for evidence a group of any definite religious community or
ethnic society or any sexually divided group.
The turn violence used in this case does not refer to any physical form of violence. On the
contrary it refers to the imposition of rules as well as regulations along with social structures
which in turn becomes the cause of abuse, poverty as well as humiliation leading to harsh
outcomes like death. Structural violence can be perceived as a systemic form of violence which
do not execute any palpable form of violence, rather works through imposition of stringent

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regulations on social groups which make them vulnerable and might cause outcomes like severe
humiliation as well as death (Büscher and Fletcher 2017).
In terms of International violence and conflict, it has been observed that the social structures
which are one of the major causes of structural violence can take the form of age old traditions as
well as legal acts or legislations. During the time when these rules and regulations were
implemented, the entity which was responsible for the in position did not receive that these
regulations will manipulate the people and lead them towards harsh outcomes. The main motive
of development of these regulations was to ensure total control over the entire population.
However, with the passage of time, the imposers of these regulations began to gain ultimate
control over the people by means of these regulations (Ryan 2016). they started to spread the
territory over which they can exercise is regulations and introduced new methods of imposing
these norms like slavery, debt, selective education, bonded labour as well as others.
In terms of international conflict, there are two major forms of structural violence, namely
vertical and horizontal. Vertical forms of structural violence referred to political repression as
well as economic exploitation of a richer and financially developed community over an
economically less potent community (Rylko-Bauer and Farmer 2016). The horizontal forms of
structural violence can be alienation as well as distancing. Sadler et al. (2016), refers to the fact
that the institutionalized structure in any country can give birth to structural violence by
development of gap between those who possess power and those who are objectified by the
ruling class. It is this social structure that differentiates them from one another by creating an
atmosphere of alienation.
One major factor that requires attention here is that the initial period the social gap between these
two communities are not more. So far as the modern political structures are considered, the

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people who run the government are elected by the common people only. This means that the
social groups which are neglected by the regulatory authorities initially had the power to elect
them to the position from where they can dictate them. As informed by Beyer (2016), this form
of social distancing can take other attires also. It can be between two countries also. The
distancing between the two countries, mostly takes the form of economic separation, difference
in popular religion, ethnic as well as cultural differences. Structural violence can be initiated by
any of this form of differences.
Vertical forms of structural violence between countries can take the form of political policy like
segregation. Put, in a particular government there can be a policy which prevents people of a
specific ethnic or religious category from taking the citizenship of that particular country (Darby
2016). This kind of policy prevents a particular social group or class from gaining prominence in
the community and they are forced to exist in the society as second class citizens. Naturally, an
atmosphere of fear and humiliation exists around them which make them in vulnerable and
exposed to several kind of threats.
Structural violence can also be broken down into fragments and then the researcher can highlight
how each of these fragments can potentially lead to International conflicts.
In this context the first element of structural violence that will be highlighted here is racism. This
is an authorised discriminatory practice facilitated by entrenched legislation that it reduces one
portion of the society to the standard of 2nd class citizens and ensures that they are not going to
get favour of rules and regulations that the other group of people in the same territory are going
to enjoy. Racism was explicitly visible in the United States. Until the year 1866, slavery was a
form of accepted business in the country. In fact, majority of the people in the country were
engaged in the slave trade (Kaufhold and Reuter 2019). The concept of racism did not only

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incorporate the Force full entitlement of the Black African to labour by depositing them in
America, but also subjugating the native black Americans by making them serve the White
skinned people free of cost and under any terms and conditions that were fixed by the White
skinned people. In the initial period, the target of slavery was only one group of International
people, namely the black Africans. However, Davies and True (2015), informs that when the
business began to grow more profitable, slavery encompassed other International Group like the
African Americans Italians, Asian, Mexicans as well as Canadian also. Legalized practice of
slavery continued for more than hundred years until in the year 1964 when the Civil rights act of
1964 was implemented. This law rightfully banned the practice of racial discrimination in any
public spaces like theatres, Stadium, restaurant, hotels and so on. This law emphasized that if the
accusation of racial discrimination against any white skin people was proven to be true, he or she
would have to endure a cut off from the federal fund. However, still there was special allowance
for practicing discrimination against the black skinned people in private spaces. Where we get
the greatest example of international conflict caused because of structured violence. if slavery
was the form of structural violence in this case, the Civil rights movement can be termed as the
form of international conflict which resulted out of that. As evidenced by Gebrewold (2016), this
movement was a fully fledged extrinsic conflict over the issue of racial discrimination. Since the
opportunities were not able to rightfully impose a ban on the practice of racial discrimination, the
common people who were circulated as an account of social policy had to take up the step of
protesting against this severe social practice. This shows that government policies, at times
contributed to structural violence which took the shape of large scale International conflict.
Another less recognised form of structural violence is caste based class discrimination among
societies. In the communities of countries like India, Pakistan, Nepal, Bhutan and other

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surrounding areas, the practices like Untouchability, identification of a social section as Dalits
for the broken people were in Vogue. Even after the deliverance of the untouchables act in India,
this policy still remains a social reality in many of the obsolete villages of India.
Cultural violence is defined by Galtung as that form of violence which are exemplified and
characterized by religion, art, language, ideology as well as empirical science. An example of
such culture can be witnessed in the early colonial countries like Siberia, Sierra Leone and so on.
After the ban on slavery, the slaves who were taken to two countries like USA and UK, were
returned to these native countries (Meger 2016). After they were declared free, they began to
settle down in the intrinsic communities and attempted to imitate the culture under which they
were destined to suffer for so long. Although not slavery, the intrinsic people of those countries
where they landed were being treated like slaves by these people who were deported after being
declared as free. In this case, the imposition of outside culture acted as the form of structural
violence. The influence was drawn from UK and USA and the impact caused by such influence
was that the intrinsic culture of the indigenous communities of the countries like Siberia and
Sierra Leone were absolutely destroyed.
Galtung describe the cultural violence as a practice where a socially available form of social
practice is accepted by a culture to be absolutely normal. In this case, the freed slaves had
accepted the culture to which they are exposed and the way of living of their Masters was taken
up as reality by them (Lee 2016).
It is evident that the indigenous people did not normally accept this way of living as slavery has
never been a way of life in these countries. Hence, a confrontation between the community of the
freed people as well as the intrinsic and Indigenous population of these countries was evident. In
the first place, this leads to a small-scale conflict. However, in the latter part, these conflicts

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begin to take political shape and give rise to Civil war in these countries. In fact, Howie (2016),
holds that it is evident that till now, many of the African countries are strife-torn because of civil
war between Political and social groups over the issue of Occupancy of major resources of the
country.
In this case, UK and USA definitely had some good intentions when they freed their slaves.
However the consequence of the practice of slavery becomes terrible for the colonial countries.
in recent times, food security has been identified as a root cause for structural violence. In the
journal of peace research, written by Galtung in 1990, he identified the potential threat of
slashing and burning vast tracts of land identifying it as sustainable economic growth, was
convicted as the cause of future International conflicts. Practices like this only carried out by the
developed nation in the permissible territories of their colonies in the 20th century (Rylko-Bauer
and Farmer 2016). These practices later became the cause of depletion of the non-renewable
resources. Large tracts of land were devoid of Agricultural vegetation for development of
plantations life oil and gas. Practices like this, marginalised communities which have been living
off the natural resources of the forest. As an outcome, these traditional communities were forced
to quit their native land and settle down in the makeshift town. In the Township, they were
neither allowed the patronage of rules and regulations, nor did they have the financial means of
educating themselves so that they can be absorbed in the capitalistic framework of the society.
Examples of practices like these include the cutting down of the traditional Amazonian forests in
countries like Brazil. In order to explore the minerals that were prevalent in that area, large tracts
of forests were burnt down. This not only had an impact on the intrinsic traditional communities,
but also had a global environmental impact also as the territory overreach of the forest fire
happened to be quite large and the emission of harmful gases had a global negative impact.

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Examining the origin of the two truly international events, the first and Second World
War it can be commented that these wars were due to structured systemic violence. The events
which led to commencement of the international conflict were a direct outcome of the structural
violence.
The case that ignited the First World War was the assassination of the heir to throne of
the empire of Austria-Hungary. The groups responsible for this action were an assembly of
student idealists. It was evident that there was political motivation behind this perpetration by a
group of young people (Ryan 2016). Hence, it is proved that there was no direct indulgence in to
physical violence and that is evident from the political outlook of the situation. Hence, it is
evident that it is an idealism of young men that was behind the conflict.
The event that had led to the emergence of the Second World War is also another structured form
of violence. Nevertheless, the German invasion of violence can be perceived to be the first spark
of this war that can be considered as the emergence of the Second World War. However, in order
to identify a structured violence as the root cause of the Second World War, it can be depicted
that before the invasion of Poland by Hitler with his Nazi force, there was a large span of time
when articulation through speeches as well as propaganda in favor of race as well as space was
done. This propaganda was the outcome of racial impunity of the Nazis and it is also evident in
the previous parts of the essay that racial discrimination has acted as a form of structural violence
(Howie 2016). However, why there was such hatred in the minds of the Nazi against the Jewish
population is a mystery. However, it is this hatred that took shape in the form of the zest for
purity of race. This group of Nazis hated the people who had mixed blood in them as impure and
inferior and the same was also applicable in case of the homosexuals also. However, this hatred
against the races was only at a rhetoric level which was practically implemented through the war

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waged in order to kill thousands of Jews as well as others. Analyzing all these facts, it can be
commented with conviction that both the world wars were an outcome of structural violence
only.
Not all the structural violence in modern days has taken the shape of international
conflicts. For evidence, the UN has been constantly appealing to the government of Saudi Arabia
for relieving the women from the ban on them to drive cars. Nevertheless, it can be
communicated that structural violence has the leading role to play in case of international
conflicts. Starting from slavery and ethnic divisions, the structural violence continued as the zest
for pure race in the Second World War and lastly it has accounted to issues like regional sprite
for terror to drive change or the resolution of customs like purdah or ban on Muslim women.

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