HOW SOCIAL DOMINANCE THEORY MIGHT CONTRIBUTE TO OUR UNDERSTANDING OF THE LIBERIAN CIVIL WAR (1989-2003)

Abstract

Even though scholars and researchers have suggested that the Liberian civil war arose as a result of socioeconomic and political inequalities, oppression, discrimination, and marginalization of a certain group of people, Social Dominance Theory (“SDT”) suggests an alternate understanding: social group-based hierarchy is produced and maintained in society by legitimizing myths. SDT explains how these legitimizing myths tend to produce discriminatory and/or anti-discriminatory policies that are endorsed by dominant and subordinate groups, which, if left unattended, eventually lead to conflict.