A Society’s Resilience to Conflict: An Analysis of Its Key Determinants in Conflict-Prone Rakhine State of Myanmar

Abstract

This study explored contributors to a society’s resilience to conflict in a multiethnic community in Rakhine State of Myanmar. It examined how a society’s resilience to conflict was related to economic and sociocultural interactions between diverse communities, presence of security forces in a community’s neighboring areas, physical isolation from outsiders, people’s rumour verification practices, presence of civil society organizations (CSOs) and community based organizations (CBOs), and efficient community leadership. A survey of 1,668 respondents in 27 conflict-unaffected and conflict-affected villages and interview with 1,200 respondents was conducted among members of diverse ethnic groups across Rakhine State. Results suggested that there was a significant and positive correlation between a society’s resilience to conflict and each of ‘economic interactions’ (P = .000), ‘sociocultural interactions’ (P = .000), ‘presence of security forces in a community’s neighboring areas’ (P = .000), and ‘efficient community leadership’ (P = .000). Despite each individual of these independent variables being weakly correlated with the dependent variable, their combined effect strongly correlated with the dependent one. On the other hand, a society’s resilience to conflict negatively correlated with each of ‘physical isolation from outsiders’ (P = .001) and ‘people’s rumour verification practices' (P = .000). However, a society’s resilience to conflict hardly correlated with ‘presence of civil society organizations (CSOs) and community based organizations (CBOs)’, with only less than 1% of respondents in both conflict resilient and vulnerable areas articulating the significant role of these organizations in preventing intercommunal conflict in their areas.