The 1994 Rwandan Genocide was undoubtedly one of the most horrendous conflicts in recent human history. Within a span of 100 days, about 800,000 people largely from the Tutsi ethnic group were dead with little to no humanitarian intervention by the international community (Uvin, 2001) . By the time the conflict came to an end with the intervention of Paul Kagame’s Rwandan Patriotic Front, about 70% of the entire Tutsi population was dead and an additional 30% of the Pygmy Batwa people. Primarily planned and perpetrated by the Hutu elite many of whom occupied senior positions within the national government and military, and armed militia, the genocide was one of the fastest massive massacres in human history (Uvin, 2001). The horrendous killing once again agitated the minds of thinkers as to the basis of conflict in society.
For a long time, the fundamental basis of conflicts in society has been heavily debated amongst scholars leading to a proliferation of various conflict theories. Some analysts of history have noted its pervasiveness in man’s past leading them to quip that man is inherently conflictual. In as much as human societies have existed, then conflict has thrived (Wieviorka, 2010) . The family unit and the conflicts therein led sociologists like Talcott Parsons to assert the conflictual nature of man. Others thinkers have moved beyond explaining the sources of human conflicts to examining their role in integration, disintegration , and general changes in society. Thus, while some have underscored the importance of conflict as an instrument of human progress, others have been more aware of its disruptive effects. Talcott Parsons, for instance, viewed conflict as primarily disruptive and underscored its dysfunctional and dissociating consequences. One of the leading founders of sociology, Emile Durkheim, argued that conflict had more capacity to disrupt than contribute to progress (Wieviorka, 2010) . With this context, prevention of conflict, rather than its instigation, becomes an imperative. A proper conflict theory becomes crucially important in such an enterprise.
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Weber’s conflict theory remains one of the most persuasive attempts at explaining the conflict in society. The Weberian theory stresses the basis of conflict as social divisions and the distribution of means of violence amongst those classes. It is the struggle between these social classes based on religion and ethnicity among other factors, which lead to conflict. The faction with the greater monopoly of violence, contended Weber, is likely to impose its will on the weaker factions leading to conflict. Weber offers a thoroughly nuanced account of conflict accounting for how cultural factors shape emotional reactions and exacerbating or diminishing conflict (Randall, 2001) . At the core of conflicts for Weber , however, are social divisions though these are mediated by other factors.
The Weberian theory is manifestly different in approach from the Social Darwinist or even Spencerian accounts that analyze society based on outcome and, therefore, end up defining society in competitive terms that lead to natural selection. Weber’s account, however, sits comfortably with the Marxist account of conflict though it is much more nuanced. Marx and Engels saw class struggles as the fundamental basis of conflict. To them, it is the capitalist exploitation of the middle class that brings about the conflict in society. It is this struggle that Marx saw between the capitalist and the proletariat that led him to proclaim in the Communist Manifesto that ‘The history of all hitherto existing Society is the history of class struggle’ (Randall, 2001) . While it is true that Marx did on occasion see society as being stratified along various social classes, he categorized them primarily in economic terms. Thus , for instance, in The Class Struggles in France, he lists the various classes as the financial bourgeoisie, the financial aristocracy, the industrial bourgeoisie, the petty bourgeoisie, the proletariat, the peasantry, and the lumpenproletariat (Wieviorka, 2010) . In brief , therefore, for Marx conflict derives from the worker confronting the master.
While the Weberian framework acknowledges that social classes can instigate conflict, it also appreciates a broad of other social divisions that can cause conflict. To this extent, while Marx and Engels focused on just class struggle, Weber focused on other struggles as well including those of ethnic and religious nature (Wieviorka, 2010) . While Marx was convinced that emancipation of the proletariat would rid the society of conflict, Weber would be skeptical and see conflicts emerging from other directions. Additionally, while Marx would be primarily interested in ownership of means of production as an approach of eradicating conflicts, Weber would be concerned with bureaucracies and their rationalization within society.
The Weberian framework has enormous value in understanding the Rwandese genocide. Weber underscores the need to look at various social divisions as potential sources of conflict. In the case of Rwanda, it was the ethnic cleavage between the Hutu and Tutsi that was at the core of the conflict. After the shooting down of the plane carrying Juvénal Habyarimana in Kigali, the conflict officially erupted for fear that either ethnic group would occupy the power vacuum. In other words, it was the fear of political domination by the Tutsi that led them to take up arms and butcher thousands of Tutsis (Uvin, 2001) . It is instructive that Hutu militia targeted Tutsi political and military leaders who could have assumed control of the country before starting mass killing of ordinary people.
Weber was keen to note that culture and emotions do mediate in conflicts between socially divided groups, which is quite evident in the Rwandese genocide and partly explains why the massacre of thousands took place too fast. For years before the genocide, Rwanda had been embroiled in a bitter civil war with forces coalescing along ethnic lines. The Rwanda Patriotic Front was, for instance, largely made up of Tutsis and received considerable support from Tutsis within Rwanda in its guerrilla attacks against the Rwandan Army. This history of animosity and suspicion between the Hutu and Tutsis precipitated the killings when the conflict started in 1994. As some scholars have rightly noted, as early as 1990, the Rwandan army had started arming civilians with machetes and had trained the youth, mostly the Hutus, in combat (Uvin, 2001) . These pre-existing tensions undoubtedly had a huge bearing on the trajectory and speed of the conflict. For instance, Radio Rwanda becoming the chief propagandist tool since it had a wide audience amongst the Hutus pointed to the already existing bad blood that was easily tapped. Thus, while Weber was right in pointing to the role of social divisions as a basis of conflict, he was equally insightful in underscoring the role emotions, shaped by the culture of history, play in conflicts, a lesson perhaps learned from his analysis of the Russian Revolution.
Weber was a strong advocate of bureaucratic rationalization. He thought that the state ought to have clear hierarchical structures that were rational. The transformation of the Rwandan state from being an objective and rational entity into a tool for ethnic chauvinists bent on power consolidation helps to understand the trajectory of the conflict leading into genocide. It is conceivable that if Rwanda were an impartial state with a rational bureaucracy in existence, then it would have helped mediate the conflict or reduce the bloodbath. In a nutshell, the Weberian conflict theory has enormous utility in understanding the Rwandan Genocide and possesses considerable predictive power with respect to the genocide. It nonetheless has severe limitations in explaining the trajectory of the conflict and more so why the genocide ended up to be one of the fastest in modern history.
References
Collins, R. (2001). Weber and the sociology of revolution. Journal of Classical Sociology, 1 (1).
Uvin, P. (2001). Reading the Rwandan Genocide. International Studies Review, 3 (3), 75-99.
Wieviorka, M. (2010). Social Conflict. Sociopedia.isa , DOI: 10.1177/205684601054.
