The Missing Link: How Languages Can Influence Conflict

Abstract

Abstract The purpose of this thesis research was to explore and assess the extent to which language diversity and conflict are related. For this global exploration, language diversity was measured by the number of languages used within countries. Conflict was measured by six different measures. Relationships between language diversity and the six conflict measures were explored for each of four years, 2004, 2010, 2015, and 2020 to account for changes over time. In addition to the visual geographical analysis of each of these measures, non-spatial regressions were conducted to determine whether statistically significant correlations were present. Given the limited amount of prior research that incorporates conflict data into geographical analysis, this is exploratory research. This research drew upon multiple conflict data sets to create the six conflict measures, including monadic armed conflict, dyadic armed conflict, one-sided violence, non-state conflict, battle-related deaths, and deadly electoral conflict to illuminate what aspects of conflict may be related to the number of languages spoken. The regression results identified three conflict measures with statistically significant correlations with language diversity, but the level of explanation was modest at best, with just 11% and 12% of the variance explained. The three measures that showed promise in explaining conflict were monadic conflict, one-sided violence, and non-state conflict. Further research is needed with additional years to build upon these exploratory results.