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This paper posits that settler-colonial states impose structural conditions that institutionalise ethnic political and economic inequalities, which create ethnic grievances that result in violent resistance once peaceful contention of the colonial order is deemed impossible. In contrast to primordial explanations that attribute ethnic conflict to “ancient tribal animosities” or “warring gods,” this paper argues that said conflict is systematically produced by settler-colonial states. To advance this proposition, this paper develops a theoretical framework that treats settler-colonialism as a structural condition which institutionalises ethnic inequality, generating the political exclusion and identity antagonisms that Cederman, Fearon, and Laitin identify as proximate causes of ethnic violence. Such causes of ethnic violence are argued to be activated only once peaceful conflict contention in the state is exhausted. Subsequently, this paper will examine this framework through the analysis of two paradigmatic cases: occupied Palestine and Northern Ireland. This argument proceeds in three steps: First, by developing a theoretical framework for the outbreak of violent conflict in settler-colonial states; second, by examining this framework through the analysis of the Palestinian and Northern Irish cases; and third, by comparing the operation of the theoretical mechanisms in both cases.

Theoretical Framework

Structural Conditions of Settler-Colonial States

Settler-colonial states are constituted by structural arrangements that institutionalise ethnic political and economic inequalities. Wolfe classifies Settler-colonialism as a structure which seeks to erect a colonial society on an expropriated land base (Wolfe, 2006). Such societies are characterised by a relationship between the settler and native that follows Wolfe’s logic of elimination. He describes settler-colonialism as a means of territory expansion through the elimination of the native society. This is embodied by Theodor Herzl’s, the founding father of Zionism, allegory, “If I wish to substitute a new building for an old one, I must demolish before I construct” (Wolfe, 2006, p.388). To achieve this expansion, the logic of elimination posits that native repression structures settler-colonial societies. Settler hierarchical dominance is produced through law, property regimes, labour segmentation, and political exclusion, making inequality a constitutive feature of settler-colonial regimes. McGarry and O'Leary extend this structural analysis to its inter-group consequences. Where settlers are neither assimilated nor natives eliminated, "the relations between rival communities develop into hierarchical and hostile forms" (McGarry & O'Leary, 1995, p.334). The initial act of dispossession bequeaths a legacy of inequality that poisons inter-group relations across generations, as the caste structures of settler-colonialism perpetually channel privilege toward settlers and discrimination toward natives.

Theories of Ethnic Conflict

These structural conditions produce ethnic grievances that theories of ethnic conflict identify as proximate causes of violence. Fearon and Laitin argue that large-scale ethnic violence is provoked by elites who construct antagonistic identities to consolidate political power (Fearon & Laitin, 2000). In settler-colonial contexts, identity differences are embedded into a colonial hierarchy that privileges settlers and marginalises natives. Political and economic inequalities construct mutually exclusive and antagonistic identity categories that are conducive to violence. Cederman sharpens this argument by specifying the mechanism through which structural exclusion generates violence. He posits that “large ethnic groups that are excluded from state power are much more likely to challenge the regime's insiders through violent means” (Cederman, Wimmer, & Min, 2010, p.114). Conceptualising ethnic politics as the struggle over control of the state, he contends that political officeholders have institutional incentives to favour co-ethnics vis-à-vis the distribution of public goods and government jobs. Under the conditions of pervasive ethnic favouritism, excluded ethnic groups are motivated to overturn ethnic dominance by the material advantages of representation and symbolic advantages such as prestige. He also posits that “sociological theories of emotions suggest that negative emotions are especially likely to be aroused following the loss of power and prestige” (Cederman, Wimmer, & Min, 2010, p.95). Negative emotions such as anger and resentment are evoked in the excluded group, increasing their readiness to fight. This relates to Fanon’s argument in Wretched of the Earth. He argues that the psychological and structural violence of colonial rule is aggressive by nature, causing violence to become all-encompassing within the native psyche (Fanon, 1963). Settler-colonialism intensifies the dynamic that Cederman outlines through its structural conditions that systematically exclude native groups. The political and economic hierarchies that are embedded in settler-colonialism’s foundational logic position native groups as subordinate actors, resulting in the desire of said groups to undergo violent resistance.

Transition to Violence

However, the translation of grievance into organised violent conflict is not immediate. Cederman stipulates that “it may take decades until perceived humiliation and unfair ethnic status hierarchies give rise to political mobilisation and conflict” (Cederman, Wimmer, & Min, 2010, p.97). Past conflict is a critical accelerant in this process. Specifically, this paper posits that the repression of previous instances of non-violent resistance is a strong predictor of violence. Non-violent resistance, as classified by Chenoweth, is a “civilian-based method used to wage conflict through social, psychological, economic, and political means without the threat or use of violence” (Chenoweth & Stephan, 2008, p.9). The use of non-violent action is inherently vulnerable to repression, particularly when using methods of concentration such as rallies, as the large number of protestors in one specific area makes them prime targets for attack by state forces (Davies, 2014). Such forceful repression of non-violent action actively radicalises a conflict by deepening antagonisms between settler and native. Furthermore, when nonviolent resistance is repressed without producing meaningful structural change, the native group concludes that peaceful contention cannot alter the colonial order, thus shifting the group's accepted repertoire of action. Taken together, the repression of nonviolent resistance and lack of meaningful change in the structure of the colonial order exhaust strategic alternatives available to the native group and result in the transition to the use of violence by the native group.

It is the convergence of structural inequalities, accumulated grievances, and the exhaustion of nonviolent alternatives that this framework identifies as the causal pathway to violence in settler-colonial contexts. This paper examines these dynamics through two paradigmatic cases: occupied Palestine and Northern Ireland. In both contexts, native populations endured institutionalised ethnic inequality, faced sustained state repression of nonviolent resistance, and ultimately turned to organised armed campaigns. These cases allow for an empirical test of whether the theoretical conditions outlined above consistently explain the onset of ethnic violence across distinct settler-colonial settings.

Violence in Occupied Palestine:

The case of occupied Palestine illustrates how the structural conditions of settler-colonialism produced endemic political and economic inequalities that led to the onset of violent resistance. The establishment of a Zionist Israeli state in Palestine represented the founding of a colonial society on an expropriated land base, embodying Wolfe's logic of elimination from its inception. The occupied territories of the West Bank and Gaza, inhabited by 700,000 and 360,000 Palestinians respectively, came under Israeli administration in 1967, deepening and extending the structural inequalities that had characterised the colonial relationship since 1948. Several attempts to peacefully resolve the grievances created by such inequalities were ignored or repressed by the Israeli state. It is within this context of institutionalised dispossession, political exclusion, and the failure of non-violent resistance that the Second Intifada, a sustained campaign of violent resistance, emerged.

Structural Inequalities in Occupied Palestine

From the onset of Israeli administration in the West Bank and Gaza, Palestinians were subject to systematic economic and political inequalities that produced hardened antagonistic identities and widespread grievances. Israeli control was enforced through a discriminatory legal regime, which extended distinct and unequal sets of rights to Israelis and Palestinians, respectively (International Human Rights Clinic, 2022). The state granted superior citizenship and legal status to Israeli settlers over native Palestinians, stripping Palestinians of political agency. Instead of a democratic process, the commander of Israeli military forces in the West Bank acted as the supreme lawmaker and enforcer in the territory, using military orders to administrate (International Human Rights Clinic, 2022). Israeli military commanders have issued over 2,500 military orders to date, selectively targeting Palestinians, as Israelis were protected by their fundamental rights enshrined in Israeli law. The Harvard International Human Rights Clinic described this policy as the operation of two separate justice systems, “with the national identity of an individual determining the substantive law that applies” (International Human Rights Clinic, p.9)

This legal discrimination was compounded by systematic illegal settlement construction that dispossessed Palestinians of their own land. Within three months of the occupation, the first Israeli settlement was constructed in the West Bank. By 1987, 40% of the land in the West Bank and Gaza had been appropriated, with Israel establishing 125 settlements and transferring 60,000 citizens to the region (Gordon, 2008). Palestinian water supplies were similarly expropriated and diverted towards Israeli settlements. The result was agriculture in the occupied territories being severely affected, “with the amount of irrigated West Bank land declining by 30% between 1967 and 1987” (Tessler, 2009, p.681). Roy posits that the economic consequences of these policies were indicative of a relationship between Israel and the occupied territories characterised by de-development, being “the deliberate, systematic deconstruction of an indigenous economy by a dominant power” (Roy, 2016, p.4). She argues that Israel dispossessed Palestinians of important economic resources, namely land, water, and labour, with the “ultimate aim of removing them from the land, making possible the realisation of the ideological goal of building a strong, exclusively Jewish state” (Roy, 2016, p.5). By 1987, over 39% of the Palestinian workforce was employed in Israel and a series of restrictions and constraints obstructed the development of the local economy (Gordon, 2008), reflecting the extent to which Palestinian economic autonomy had been dismantled.

The cumulative effect of legal subordination, dispossession, and economic de-development was the construction of a deeply marginalised native identity characterised by ethnic grievances. Palestinian-American scholar Emile Nakhleh described the occupied territories in the buildup to the first Intifada as "a pressure-cooker ready to explode” (Tessler, 2009, p.685), citing poverty, anger, and frustration as drivers of growing Palestinian resentment and rebelliousness. Gordon further argued that Israeli structural conditions "not only repressed the Palestinian national subject, but also helped construct it, thereby empowering the Palestinian resistance movement within the occupied territories" (Gordon, 2008, p.34). This dynamic previously discussed theories of ethnic violence: Institutionalised inequality actively constitutes Palestinian identity in opposition to the dominant power, generating grievances and antagonisms from which violence emerges.

Transition from Non-violent Resistance to Armed Conflict

Despite these grievances, organised violent resistance did not emerge immediately. It was only after the forceful repression of nonviolent resistance and subsequent failure of negotiated settlement to produce meaningful structural change that violence became an accepted aspect of the Palestinian repertoire of action. The first Intifada, beginning in 1987, represented a form of Palestinian nonviolent resistance. The uprising included tactics such as commercial strikes, boycotts of Israeli products, raising the Palestinian flag, tax strikes, burning tires, and most notably, throwing stones (Pressman, 2017). Despite a general perception of the uprising as non-violent, Israeli leaders perceived it to be an act of war. Defence minister Vitzhak Rabin labelled stone-throwing and mass demonstrations as “terrorism and violent distributions” and Israeli soldiers regarded the conflict as “yet another attempt to kill Jews” (Pressman, 2003, p.129). These attitudes resulted in a strong military response against predominantly civilian protestors, leading to the deaths of over 1,000 Palestinians. The Oslo accords succeeded the conflict as a means to address Palestinian grievances, however this negotiated settlement achieved no meaningful change. As Gordon outlines, the Oslo accords stipulated how Israeli power would be reorganised rather than withdrawn in the Occupied Territories, and should be understood as “the continuation of the occupation by other means” (Gordon, 2008, p.35). Building upon Gordon’s argument, Pressman posits that continuing Israeli occupation after the Oslo agreements was the underlying cause of the second intifada. Popular Palestinian discontent grew during the Oslo peace process as the ”reality on the ground did not match expectations created by the peace agreements” (Pressman, 2003, p.114). While Palestinians expected positive changes vis-à-vis their freedom of movement and socioeconomic standing, both worsened, causing significant resentment to build up in Palestinian society that would lay the groundwork for popular support for a more confrontational approach with Israel (Pressman, 2003). Taken together, the repression of the First Intifada and the failure of the Oslo process to produce substantive structural change created the conditions under which peaceful contention of the colonial order lost credibility, making violent resistance appear as the only remaining means of addressing Palestinian grievances. This resulted in the emergence of the Second Intifada, a violent Palestinian uprising that led to the deaths of over 1,000 Israelis and over 3,000 Palestinians.

Violence in Northern Ireland:

Similarly to the Palestinian case, the structural conditions of settler-colonialism in Northern Ireland produced endemic political and economic that led to the onset of violent resistance once peaceful contention of the colonial order was repressed.

Structural Inequalities in the Northern Irish State

The large-scale introduction of settlers into Northern Ireland in the 16th and 17th century established a heterogenous state divided between a Catholic native community and a Protestant settler community. The relationship between settler and native was characterised by inequality throughout the history of the state. Settlers ensured the natives remained in subordinate economic and political positions and the failure of the catholic emancipation process blocked efforts to integrate the two communities. The settler exclusionary system of control created an atmosphere that led to the prevalence of segregation, endogamy, and segmented labour markets in Northern Ireland. Despite no extreme socio-economic differences between the two communities, the inequalities rooted in the relations of dominion and exploitation established during the settler planation were sufficient to sow immense distrust and discrimination between Catholics and Protestants (McGarry & O'Leary, 1995).

The government of Ireland Act in 1920 institutionalised the state’s systematic discrimination. As Ó’Dochartaigh argues, “Catholics were excluded from the exercise of political power at virtually every level in Northern Ireland” (Ó'Dochartaigh, 2005). Proportional representation was abolished in 1929, which weakened minority parties and provided a structural prop to the communal divisions of Northern Ireland (Whyte, 1983). The local government franchise was limited to owners or tenants of a dwelling and their spouses, which disproportionately disenfranchised Catholics due to their lower socio-economic position. Furthermore, widespread gerrymandering practices manipulated Catholic communities out of control in a number of councils where they had a majority of the electorate (Whyte, 1983). Catholics were also widely discriminated against vis-à-vis economic outcomes. The community was systematically underrepresented in public employment posts above manual labour levels. For example, in the Northern Ireland civil service in 1969, only 7.2 % of officers down to the rank of Deputy Principal were Catholic, despite the community constituting roughly one third of the state. Moreover, Catholics were more likely to be lower in the socio-economic scale relatively to Protestants, a disparity that Whyte attributes to systematic discrimination and inequalities in education. Finally, there are broad Catholic claims that the community was discriminated against in terms of regional development and policing, however these claims cannot be fully substantiated. The Northern Irish system of exclusion lasted for nearly five decades without major resistance, creating antagonistic identities and broad ethnic grievances between the two communities. This is reflected by Ó’Dochartaigh describing sectarian discrimination being at the heart of Catholic disaffection in Northern Ireland and a principal focus of the early civil rights movement (Ó'Dochartaigh, 2005). Similarly to the Palestinian case, this process reflects previously discussed theories of ethnic conflict: Institutionalised inequality actively constitutes Catholic identity in opposition to the dominant Protestant community, generating grievances and antagonisms from which violence emerges.

Transition from Non-violent Resistance to Armed Conflict

However, the structural inequalities and subsequent ethnic grievances embedded in the Northern Irish state did not immediately produce violent resistance. Instead, accumulated ethnic grievances first manifested in a broad-based civil rights movement that aimed to peacefully contend the inequalities within the state. Founded in 1967, the Northern Ireland Civil Rights Association (NICRA) peacefully campaigned for structural change, organising written protests and street demonstrations. The state responded to this peaceful process by banning marches and partaking in violent dispersal of protestors, labelling the organisation as “a subversive organisation intent on destroying the state” (McKenna, 1978). On the 5th of October 1968, the violent dispersal of a NICRA march in Derry by the Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC) left almost ninety demonstrators requiring hospital treatment. Another march in January 1969, organised by a group called People’s Democracy, was ambushed at Burntollet Bridge by approximately two hundred loyalists, including off-duty members of the Ulster Special Constabulary (USC). The march was again attacked in Derry later that day by loyalists, and areas of the Catholic Bogside area of Derry were attacked by RUC officers. This event was described by Melaugh as confirmation to the Catholic community that the RUC could not be trusted to provide impartial policing, and alienated many Catholics from the Northern Irish State (Melaugh, 2025). Following these RUC crackdowns on the civil rights movement, Protestant Prime Minister Terence O’Neill was summoned to Westminster and compelled to announce a reform package to address Catholic grievances. However these efforts failed due a lack of Protestant political support for the changes, slow and uneven implementation, and the reforms incomplete nature; as universal suffrage in local government elections was absent. Furthermore, the reforms came at a time when ethnic conflict in the state had already advanced to a dangerous level. As Ó’Dochartaigh notes, “once the Catholic community had mobilised and conflict had broken out, it was already too late to resolve the situation through reforms” (Ó'Dochartaigh, 2005, p.10). It was within this context of state repression of peaceful protest and the failure of the state to provide structural change that resulted in the outbreak of violent conflict between the IRA, a Catholic paramilitary group, and the Northern Irish state.

Case Comparison

The Northern Irish and Palestinian cases exhibit strikingly similar causal mechanisms in the production of violent conflict, broadly consistent with the theoretical framework advanced in this paper. In both cases, settler-colonial arrangements generated durable structures of ethnic inequality that systematically subordinated the native population. These structural conditions produced deep ethnic grievances that were expressed through organised non-violent political resistance. It was only upon the repression and exhaustion of peaceful conflict contention that violence emerged as an accepted form of native action. Across cases, armed resistance was not primordial or inevitable, but was structurally produced by the state. The key distinction between the cases, however, lies in the magnitude and intensity of the inequality involved. The Palestinian experience of inequality was considerably more total than the Catholic experience, as they faced mass appropriation of resources and land alongside severe political exclusion whereas Catholic inequality, though institutionalised and substantial, operated within a framework in which the minority retained a degree of civic presence. This difference in severity is reflected in the divergence of outcomes: Northern Ireland ultimately proved amenable to a negotiated settlement, culminating in the Good Friday Agreement of 1998, in which the reform of state institutions and the accommodation of communal identities within a shared framework proved sufficient to demobilise armed resistance. The Palestinian case, by contrast, has resisted resolution because the structural conditions of settler-colonialism remain considerably more deeply entrenched.

Conclusion

This paper has argued that settler-colonial states systematically produce the conditions for violent conflict. In both Occupied Palestine and Northern Ireland, settler-colonial structural conditions generated ethnic inequality that institutionalised the political and economic subordination of the native populations. These structural conditions created the deep ethnic grievances that Cederman and Fearon and Laitin identify as proximate causes of ethnic violence, and in both cases violence emerged only once peaceful contention of the colonial order had been repressed or exhausted. The divergence of eventual conflict resolution in both cases reflects not a difference in causal logic but a disparity in the magnitude of structural inequality. This paper therefore contends that primordial explanations fundamentally misrepresent ethnic conflicts. Ethnic conflict in not inherited but rather produced by deliberate structural arrangements that systematically create inequalities between groups.

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