Enemies prefer to peacefully hate each other

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Accidents, crimes and wars: we journalists often face the question of why we only report negative things. Well, we declare an emergency – the fact that there was no collision of cars in Brig, there are no murders in Chur, and there are no air raid deaths in Basel is not worth mentioning, because, thank God, this is a normal situation at the moment. In addition, the readership would very quickly lose interest in such non-reporting.

“We are all writing books about major wars and overlooking a rather inconspicuous world everywhere,” writes Canadian economist and political scientist Christopher Blattman (48) in his book, which has just been published in German. “Bloody spectacles, the most shocking events capture all our attention.” Calm moments, if recorded at all, are quickly forgotten.

A Canadian professor at the University of Chicago calls this a distortion of perception and, using the example of Africa, shows that wars are the exception, not the rule: there is one major case of ethnic violence every year, and two thousand potential cases are peaceful. But since this bloody confrontation has made headlines, it seems that “cleansing” is endemic to Africa. But, according to Blattman: “Enemies prefer to peacefully hate each other.”

There is a simple reason for this: “War is destructive.” If he still breaks out, it means that something has interfered with the usual urges to seek a compromise. Blattman identifies five causes of war: uncontrollable interest (“land, booty, or just staying in power”), intangible incentives (“some rulers only care about glory”), uncertainty (Blatman calls Saddam Hussein’s weapons program), commitment issues (“child of anarchy” ) and perceptual errors (e.g. overconfidence).

“If you remember the five mechanisms, you can better predict when a war will break out,” the scientist writes. In principle, one should proceed from the fact that peace will be preserved. In the second part of the book, Blattman shows the paths to return to peace if the enemies retreat from it: economic ties, social networks, the sharing of power and control over power, as well as rules and their enforcement are the stones of these paths.

According to Blattman, hardly anyone writes books about the countless conflicts that have been prevented. “But just as aspiring doctors should not forget that most people are in excellent health when examining the terminally ill,” continues the researcher on violence and crime, “we should not only deal with conflicts that are hot.” Wisdom, nota bene, which he wrote in English before the war in Ukraine.

Source: Blick