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Domestic Instability and Foreign Conflict Behavior in Black Africa

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 May 2014

Richard Vengroff
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Extract

The nature of the relationship between domestic and foreign conflict behavior has been an important concern of students of both international and comparative politics. Scholars attempting systematically to examine this question on a cross-national basis have generally found the hypothesized positive relationship to be weak or non-existent (Rummel, 1963, 1964, 1968; Tanter, 1966; Haas, 1968). Similarly, studies concentrating on this relationship as it applies to a single nation (Burrowes and Spector, 1973) or to a dyadic relationship (Jensen, 1969) have found no support for the hypothesis.

Most of these studies failed to differentiate between types of government and nations at different levels of development. Additional work by Zinnes and Wilkenfeld (1971) and Wilkenfeld (1969, 1973) indicate that when we control for type of government, (i.e., polyarchic, personalist, and centrist), different types of domestic and foreign conflict are positively, although weakly, correlated. The major exception to the general trend of findings in this area appears in the work of Collins (1973). Utilizing a sample consisting of thirty-three African nations, most of which were excluded from all previous studies, he found strong positive relationships between certain measures of internal and external conflict. Similarly, Copson (1973) found a relationship between domestic conflict and foreign conflict within the African region. It is the purpose of this study to reexamine these seemingly anomalous findings for Black African nations. If the relationship holds as both Collins and Copson suggest, is it a function of the level of development or the type of government of these nations? Is there some particular facet of African political culture that lends itself to a linkage between domestic and foreign conflict? Alternatively, can these findings be explained as merely an artifact of the measurement techniques employed in their analysis?

Type
Research Article
Information
African Studies Review , Volume 23 , Issue 3 , December 1980 , pp. 101 - 114
Copyright
Copyright © African Studies Association 1980

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References

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