"Чеченская молитва" (Chechen's prayer) by Mikhail Evstafiev depicts a Chechen man praying during the battle of Grozny in 1995.
A refugee camp for displaced Tutsi in Zaire following the Rwandan Genocide of 1994.
_2.jpg)
Detained children and juveniles lying on matresses within a caged area in the Ursula detention facility in McAllen, Texas. The apprehension of thousands of immigrants coming mainly from Central America in detention camps as a result of the Donald Trump's administration family separation policy has been seen as a type of racial conflict by many.
An ethnic conflict is a conflict between two or more contending ethnic groups. While the source of the conflict may be political,
social, economic or religious, the individuals in conflict must
expressly fight for their ethnic group's position within society. This
final criterion differentiates ethnic conflict from other forms of
struggle.
Academic explanations of ethnic conflict generally fall into one of three schools of thought: primordialist, instrumentalist or constructivist.
Recently, several political scientists have argued for either top-down
or bottom-up explanations for ethnic conflict. Intellectual debate has
also focused on whether ethnic conflict has become more prevalent since
the end of the Cold War, and on devising ways of managing conflicts, through instruments such as consociationalism and federalisation.
Theories of causes
The causes of ethnic conflict are debated by political scientists and sociologists.
Explanations generally fall into one of three schools of thought:
primordialist, instrumentalist, and constructivist. More recent
scholarship draws on all three schools.
Primordialist accounts
Proponents
of primordialist accounts argue that "[e]thnic groups and nationalities
exist because there are traditions of belief and action towards
primordial objects such as biological features and especially
territorial location". Primordialist accounts rely on strong ties of kinship among members of ethnic groups. Donald L. Horowitz argues that this kinship "makes it possible for ethnic groups to think in terms of family resemblances".
Clifford Geertz,
a founding scholar of primordialism, asserts that each person has a
natural connection to perceived kinsmen. In time and through repeated
conflict, essential ties to one's ethnicity will coalesce and will
interfere with ties to civil society. Ethnic groups will consequently
always threaten the survival of civil governments but not the existence
of nations formed by one ethnic group. Thus, when considered through a primordial lens, ethnic conflict in multi-ethnic society is inevitable.
A number of political scientists argue that the root causes of ethnic conflict do not involve ethnicity per se
but rather institutional, political, and economic factors. These
scholars argue that the concept of ethnic war is misleading because it
leads to an essentialist
conclusion that certain groups are doomed to fight each other when in
fact the wars between them that occur are often the result of political
decisions.
Moreover, primordial accounts do not account for the spatial and
temporal variations in ethnic violence. If these "ancient hatreds" are
always simmering under the surface and are at the forefront of people's
consciousness, then ethnic groups should constantly be ensnared in
violence. However, ethnic violence occurs in sporadic outbursts. For
example, Varshney points out that although Yugoslavia broke up due to
ethnic violence in the 1990s, it had enjoyed a long peace of decades
before the USSR collapsed. Therefore, some scholars claim that it is
unlikely that primordial ethnic differences alone caused the outbreak of
violence in the 1990s.
Primordialists have reformulated the "ancient hatreds" hypothesis
and have focused more on the role of human nature. Peterson argues that
the existence of hatred and animosity does not have to be rooted in
history for it to play a role in shaping human behavior and action: "If
"ancient hatred" means a hatred consuming the daily thoughts of great
masses of people, then the "ancient hatreds" argument deserves to be
readily dismissed. However, if hatred is conceived as a historically
formed "schema" that guides action in some situations, then the
conception should be taken more seriously."
Instrumentalist accounts
Anthony Smith
notes that the instrumentalist account "came to prominence in the 1960s
and 1970s in the United States, in the debate about (white) ethnic
persistence in what was supposed to have been an effective melting pot".
This new theory sought explained persistence as the result of the
actions of community leaders, "who used their cultural groups as sites
of mass mobilization and as constituencies in their competition for
power and resources, because they found them more effective than social
classes". In this account of ethnic identification, ethnicity and race are viewed as instrumental means to achieve particular ends.
Whether ethnicity
is a fixed perception or not is not crucial in the instrumentalist
accounts. Moreover, the scholars of this school generally do not oppose
the view that ethnic difference plays a part in many conflicts. They
simply claim that ethnic difference is not sufficient to explain
conflicts.
Mass mobilization of ethnic groups can only be successful if
there are latent ethnic differences to be exploited, otherwise
politicians would not even attempt to make political appeals based on
ethnicity and would focus instead on economic or ideological appeals.
For these reasons, it is difficult to completely discount the role of
inherent ethnic differences. Additionally, ethnic entrepreneurs, or
elites, could be tempted to mobilize ethnic groups in order to gain
their political support in democratizing states.
Instrumentalists theorists especially emphasize this interpretation in
ethnic states in which one ethnic group is promoted at the expense of
other ethnicities.
Furthermore, ethnic mass mobilization is likely to be plagued by
collective action problems, especially if ethnic protests are likely to
lead to violence. Instrumentalist scholars have tried to respond to
these shortcomings. For example, Hardin
argues that ethnic mobilization faces problems of coordination and not
collective action. He points out that a charismatic leader acts as a
focal point around which members of an ethnic group coalesce. The
existence of such an actor helps to clarify beliefs about the behavior
of others within an ethnic group.
Constructivist accounts
A third, constructivist, set of accounts stress the importance of the socially constructed nature of ethnic groups, drawing on Benedict Anderson's concept of the imagined community. Proponents of this account point to Rwanda as an example because the Tutsi/Hutu distinction was codified by the Belgian colonial power
in the 1930s on the basis of cattle ownership, physical measurements
and church records. Identity cards were issued on this basis, and these
documents played a key role in the genocide of 1994.
Some argue that constructivist narratives of historical master
cleavages are unable to account for local and regional variations in
ethnic violence. For example, Varshney highlights that in the 1960s
"racial violence in the USA was heavily concentrated in northern cities;
southern cities though intensely politically engaged, did not have
riots".
A constructivist master narrative is often a country level variable
whereas we often have to study incidences of ethnic violence at the
regional and local level.
Scholars of ethnic conflict and civil wars have introduced theories that draw insights from all three traditional schools of thought. In The Geography of Ethnic Violence,
Monica Duffy Toft shows how ethnic group settlement patterns, socially
constructed identities, charismatic leaders, issue indivisibility, and
state concern with precedent setting can lead rational actors to
escalate a dispute to violence, even when doing so is likely to leave
contending groups much worse off.
Such research addresses empirical puzzles that are difficult to explain
using primordialist, instrumentalist, or constructivist approaches
alone. As Varshney notes, "pure essentialists and pure instrumentalists
do not exist anymore".
Study in the post-Cold War world
The
end of the Cold War thus sparked interest in two important questions
about ethnic conflict: whether ethnic conflict was on the rise and
whether given that some ethnic conflicts had escalated into serious
violence, what, if anything, could scholars of large-scale violence
(security studies, strategic studies, interstate politics) offer by way
of explanation.
One of the most debated issues relating to ethnic conflict is
whether it has become more or less prevalent in the post–Cold War
period. At the end of the Cold War, academics including Samuel P. Huntington and Robert D. Kaplan predicted a proliferation of conflicts fueled by civilisational clashes, Tribalism, resource scarcity and overpopulation.
The post–Cold War period has witnessed a number of ethnically-informed secessionist movements, predominantly within the former communist states. Conflicts have involved secessionist movements in the former Yugoslavia, Transnistria in Moldova, Armenians in Azerbaijan, Abkhaz and Ossetians in Georgia. Outside the former communist bloc, ethno-separatist strife in the same period has occurred in areas such as Sri Lanka, West Papua, Chiapas, East Timor, the Basque Country, Catalonia, Southern Sudan and Hazaras in Afghanistan under the Taliban.
However, some theorists contend that this does not represent a rise in the incidence of ethnic conflict, because many of the proxy wars fought during the Cold War as ethnic conflicts were actually hot spots of the Cold War. Research shows that the fall of Communism and the increase in the number of capitalist states were accompanied by a decline in total warfare, interstate wars, ethnic wars, revolutionary wars, and the number of refugees and displaced persons. Indeed, some scholars have questioned whether the concept of ethnic conflict is useful at all.
Others have attempted to test the "clash of civilisations" thesis,
finding it to be difficult to operationalise and that civilisational
conflicts have not risen in intensity in relation to other ethnic
conflicts since the end of the Cold War.
A key question facing scholars who attempt to adapt their
theories of interstate violence to explain or predict large-scale ethnic
violence is whether ethnic groups could be considered "rational"
actors.
Prior to the end of the Cold War, the consensus among students of
large-scale violence was that ethnic groups should be considered
irrational actors, or semi-rational at best. If true, general
explanations of ethnic violence would be impossible. In the years since,
however, scholarly consensus has shifted to consider that ethnic groups
may in fact be counted as rational actors, and the puzzle of their
apparently irrational actions (for example, fighting over territory of
little or no intrinsic worth) must therefore be explained in some other
way.
As a result, the possibility of a general explanation of ethnic
violence has grown, and collaboration between comparativist and
international-relations sub-fields has resulted in increasingly useful
theories of ethnic conflict.
Public goods provision
A
major source of ethnic conflict in multi-ethnic democracies is over the
access to state patronage. Conflicts over state resources between
ethnic groups can increase the likelihood of ethnic violence. In
ethnically divided societies, demand for public goods decreases as each
ethnic group derives more utility from benefits targeted at their ethnic
group in particular.
These benefits would be less valued if all other ethnic groups had
access to them. Targeted benefits are more appealing because ethnic
groups can solidify or heighten their social and economic status
relative to other ethnic groups whereas broad programmatic policies will
not improve their relative worth. Politicians and political parties in
turn, have an incentive to favor co-ethnics in their distribution of
material benefits. Over the long run, ethnic conflict over access to
state benefits is likely to lead to the ethnification of political
parties and the party system as a whole where the political salience of
ethnic identity increase leading to a self-fulfilling equilibrium: If
politicians only distribute benefits on an ethnic basis, voters will see
themselves primarily belonging to an ethnic group and view politicians
the same way. They will only vote for the politician belonging to the
same ethnic group. In turn, politicians will refrain from providing
public goods because it will not serve them well electorally to provide
services to people not belonging to their ethnic group. In democratizing
societies, this could lead to ethnic outbidding and lead to extreme
politicians pushing out moderate co-ethnics. Patronage politics and ethnic politics eventually reinforce each other, leading to what Chandra terms a "patronage democracy".
The existence of patronage networks between local politicians and
ethnic groups make it easier for politicians to mobilize ethnic groups
and instigate ethnic violence for electoral gain since the neighborhood
or city is already polarized along ethnic lines. The dependence of
ethnic groups on their co-ethnic local politician for access to state
resources is likely to make them more responsive to calls of violence
against other ethnic groups.
Therefore, the existence of these local patronage channels generates
incentives for ethnic groups to engage in politically motivated
violence.
While the link between ethnic heterogeneity and under provision
of public goods is generally accepted, there is little consensus around
the causal mechanism underlying this relationship. To identify possible
causal stories, Humphreys and Habyarimana ran a series of behavioral
games in Kampala, Uganda, that involved several local participants
completing joint tasks and allocating money amongst them.
Contrary to the conventional wisdom, they find that participants did
not favor the welfare of their co-ethnics disproportionately. It was
only when anonymity was removed and everyone's ethnicity was known did
co-ethnics decide to favor each other. Humphreys and Habyarimana argue
that cooperation among co-ethnics is primarily driven by reciprocity
norms that tend to be stronger among co-ethnics.
The possibility of social sanctions compelled those who would not
otherwise cooperate with their co-ethnics to do so. The authors find no
evidence to suggest that co-ethnics display a greater degree of altruism
towards each other or have the same preferences. Ethnic cooperation
takes place because co-ethnics have common social networks and therefore
can monitor each other and can threaten to socially sanction any
transgressors.
Institutional ethnic conflict resolution
A number of scholars have attempted to synthesize the methods available for the resolution, management or transformation of their ethnic conflict. John Coakley, for example, has developed a typology of the methods of conflict resolution that have been employed by states, which he lists as: indigenization, accommodation, assimilation, acculturation, population transfer, boundary alteration, genocide and ethnic suicide. John McGarry and Brendan O'Leary
have developed a taxonomy of eight macro-political ethnic conflict
regulation methods, which they note are often employed by states in
combination with each other. They include a number of methods that they note are clearly morally unacceptable.
With increasing interest in the field of ethnic conflict, many
policy analysts and political scientists theorized potential resolutions
and tracked the results of institutional policy implementation. As
such, theories often focus on which Institutions are the most appropriate for addressing ethnic conflict.
Consociationalism
Consociationalism is a power sharing
agreement which coopts the leaders of ethnic groups into the central
state's government. Each nation or ethnic group is represented in the
government through a supposed spokesman for the group. In the power
sharing agreement, each group has veto powers to varying degrees,
dependent on the particular state. Moreover, the norm of proportional
representation is dominant: each group is represented in the government
in a percentage that reflects the ethnicity's demographic presence in
the state. Another requirement for Arend Lijphart
is that the government must be composed of a "grand coalition" of the
ethnic group leaders which supposes a top-down approach to conflict
resolution.
In theory, this leads to self governance and protection for the ethnic group. Many scholars
maintain that since ethnic tension erupts into ethnic violence when the
ethnic group is threatened by a state, then veto powers should allow
the ethnic group to avoid legislative threats. Switzerland is often
characterized as a successful consociationalist state.
A recent example of a consociational government is the post-conflict Bosnian government that was agreed upon in the Dayton Accords
in 1995. A tripartite presidency was chosen and must have a Croat, a
Serb, and a Bosniak. The presidents take turns acting as the forefront
executive in terms of 8 months for 4 years.
Many have credited this compromise of a consociational government in
Bosnia for the end of the violence and the following long-lasting peace.
In contrast to Lijphart, several political scientists and policy analysts have condemned consociationalism.
One of the many critiques is that consociationalism locks in ethnic
tensions and identities. This assumes a primordial stance that ethnic
identities are permanent and not subject to change. Furthermore, this does not allow for any "others" that might want to partake in the political process.
As of 2012 a Jewish Bosnian is suing the Bosnian government from
precluding him from running for presidential office since only a Croat,
Serb, or Bosniak can run under the consociational government.
Determining ethnic identities in advance and implementing a power
sharing system on the basis of these fixed identities is inherently
discriminatory against minority groups that might be not be recognized.
Moreover, it discriminates against those who do not choose to define
their identity on an ethnic or communal basis. In power sharing-systems
that are based on pre-determined identities, there is a tendency to
rigidly fix shares of representation on a permanent basis which will not
reflect changing demographics over time.
The categorization of individuals in particular ethnic groups might be
controversial anyway and might in fact fuel ethnic tensions.
The inherent weaknesses in using pre-determined ethnic identities
to form power sharing systems has led Ljiphart to argue that adopting a
constructivist approach to consociationalism can increase its
likelihood of success. The self-determination of ethnic identities is more likely to be "non-discriminatory, neutral, flexible and self-adjusting".
For example, in South Africa, the toxic legacy of apartheid meant that
successful consociation could only be built on the basis of the
self-determination of groups. Ljiphart claims that because ethnic
identities are often "unclear, fluid and flexible,"
self-determination is likely to be more successful than
pre-determination of ethnic groups. A constructivist approach to
consociational theory can therefore strengthen its value as a method to
resolve ethnic conflict.
Another critique points to the privileging of ethnic identity over personal political choice. Howard has deemed consociationalism as a form of ethnocracy and not a path to true pluralistic democracy.
Consociationalism assumes that a politician will best represent the
will of his co-ethnics above other political parties. This might lead to
the polarization of ethnic groups and the loss of non-ethnic
ideological parties.
Horowitz has argued that a single transferable vote system could
prevent the ethnification of political parties because voters cast their
ballots in order of preference. This means that a voter could cast some of his votes to parties other than his co-ethnic party.
This in turn would compel political parties to broaden their manifestos
to appeal to voters across the ethnic divide to hoover up second and
third preference votes.
Federalism
The
theory of implementing federalism in order to curtail ethnic conflict
assumes that self-governance reduces "demands for sovereignty".
Hechter argues that some goods such as language of education and
bureaucracy must be provided as local goods, instead of statewide, in
order to satisfy more people and ethnic groups. Some political scientists such as Stroschein contend that ethnofederalism,
or federalism determined along ethnic lines, is "asymmetric" as opposed
to the equal devolution of power found in non-ethnic federal states,
such as the United States. In this sense, special privileges are granted
to specific minority groups as concessions and incentives to end
violence or mute conflict.
The Soviet Union divided its structure into ethno-federal sub-states termed Union Republics.
The sub-state was named after a titular minority who inhabited the area
as a way to Sovietize nationalist sentiments during the 1920s.
Brubaker asserts that these titular republics were formed in order to
absorb any potential elite led nationalist movements against the Soviet
center by incentivizing elite loyalty through advancement in the Soviet
political structure.
Thus, federalism provides some self-governance for local matters
in order to satisfy some of the grievances which might cause ethnic
conflict among the masses. Moreover, federalism brings in the elites and
ethnic entrepreneurs into the central power structure; this prevents a
resurgence of top-down ethnic conflict.
Nevertheless, after the fall of the USSR
many critiques of federalism as an institution to resolve ethnic
conflict emerged. The devolution of power away from the central state
can weaken ties to the central state.
Moreover, the parallel institutions created to serve a particular
nation or ethnic group might provide significant resources for Secession from the central state. As most states are unwilling to give up an integral portion of their territory, secessionist movements may trigger violence.
Furthermore, some competing elite political players may not be in
power; they would remain unincorporated into the central system. These
competing elites can gain access through federal structures and their
resources to solidify their political power in the structure. According to V.P. Gagnon this was the case in the former Yugoslavia
and its violent disintegration into its ethno-federal sub-states.
Ethnic entrepreneurs were able to take control of the institutionally
allocated resources to wage war on other ethnic groups.
Non-territorial autonomy
A
recent theory of ethnic tension resolution is non-territorial autonomy
or NTA. NTA has emerged in recent years as an alternative solution to
ethnic tensions and grievances in places that are likely to breed
conflict. For this reason, NTA has been promoted as a more practical and state building solution than consociationalism. NTA, alternatively known as non-cultural autonomy (NCA), is based on the difference of jus solis and jus sanguinis, the principles of territory versus that of personhood.
It gives rights to ethnic groups to self-rule and govern matters
potentially concerning but limited to: education, language, culture,
internal affairs, religion, and the internally established institutions
needed to promote and reproduce these facets.
In contrast to federalism, the ethnic groups are not assigned a titular
sub-state, but rather the ethnic groups are dispersed throughout the
state unit. Their group rights and autonomy are not constrained to a
particular territory within the state. This is done in order not to
weaken the center state such as in the case of ethnofederalism.
The origin of NTA can be traced back to the Marxists works of Otto Bauer and Karl Renner.
NTA was employed during the interwar period, and the League of Nations
sought to add protection clauses for national minorities in new states. In the 1920s, Estonia
granted some cultural autonomy to the German and Jewish populations in
order to ease conflicts between the groups and the newly independent
state.
In Europe, most notably in Belgium, NTA laws have been enacted and created parallel institutions and political parties in the same country. In Belgium, NTA has been integrated within the federal consociational system.
Some scholars of ethnic conflict resolution claim that the practice of
NTA will be employed dependent on the concentration and size of the
ethnic group asking for group rights.
Other scholars, such as Clarke, argue that the successful
implementation of NTA rests on the acknowledgement in a state of
"universal" principles: true Rule of Law, established human rights,
stated guarantees to minorities and their members to use their own
quotidien language, religion, and food practices, and a framework of
anti-discrimination legislation in order to enforce these rights.
Moreover, no individual can be forced to adhere, identify, or emphasize
a particular identity (such as race, gender, sexuality, etc.) without
their consent in order for NTA to function for its purpose.
Nonetheless, Clarke critiques the weaknesses of NTA in areas such
as education, a balance between society wide norms and intracommunity
values; policing, for criminal matters and public safety; and political
representation, which limits the political choices of an individual if
based solely on ethnicity. Furthermore, the challenge in evaluating the efficacy of NTA lies in the relatively few legal implementations of NTA.
Cultural rights
Emphasizing
the limits of approaches that focus mainly on institutional answers to
ethnic conflicts—which are essentially driven by ethnocultural dynamics
of which political and/or economic factors are but elements—Gregory Paul
Meyjes urges the use of intercultural communication and cultural-rights
based negotiations as tools with which to effectively and sustainably
address inter-ethnic strife. Meyjes argues that to fully grasp, preempt,
and/or resolve such conflicts—whether with or without the aid of
territorial or non-territorial institutional mechanism(s) -- a cultural rights approach grounded in intercultural knowledge and skill is essential.
Ethnic conflict resolution outside formal institutions
Informal inter-ethnic engagement
Institutionalist
arguments for resolving ethnic conflict often focus on national-level
institutions and do not account for regional and local variation in
ethnic violence within a country. Despite similar levels of ethnic
diversity in a country, some towns and cities have often found to be
especially prone to ethnic violence. For example, Ashutosh Varshney, in
his study of ethnic violence in India,
argues that strong inter-ethnic engagement in villages often
disincentivizes politicians from stoking ethnic violence for electoral
gain.
Informal interactions include joint participation in festivals,
families from different communities eating together or allowing their
children to play with one another.
Every day engagement between ethnic groups at the village level can
help to sustain the peace in the face of national level shocks like an
ethnic riot in another part of the country.
In times of ethnic tension, these communities can quell rumors, police
neighborhoods and come together to resist any attempts by politicians to
polarize the community.
The stronger the inter-ethnic networks are, the harder it is for
politicians to polarize the community even if it may be in their
political interest to do so.
Formal inter-ethnic associations
However,
in cities, where the population tends to be much higher, informal
interactions between ethnic groups might not be sufficient to prevent
violence. This is because many more links are needed to connect
everyone, and therefore it is much more difficult to form and strengthen
inter-ethnic ties.
In cities, formal inter-ethnic associations like trade unions, business
associations and professional organizations are more effective in
encouraging inter-ethnic interactions that could prevent ethnic violence
in the future.
These organizations force ethnic groups to come together based on
shared economic interests that overcomes any pre-existing ethnic
differences. For example, inter-ethnic business organizations serve to
connect the business interests of different ethnic groups which would
increase their desire to maintain ethnic harmony. Any ethnic tension or
outbreak of violence will go against their economic interests and
therefore, over time, the salience of ethnic identity diminishes.
Interactions between ethnic groups in formal settings can also
help countries torn apart by ethnic violence to recover and break down
ethnic divisions. Paula Pickering, a political scientist, who studies
peace-building efforts in Bosnia, finds that formal workplaces are often
the site where inter-ethnic ties are formed.
She claims that mixed workplaces lead to repeated inter-ethnic
interaction where norms of professionalism compel everyone to cooperate
and to treat each other with respect, making it easier for individuals
belonging to the minority group to reach out and form relationships with
everyone else.
Nevertheless, Giuliano's research in Russia has shown that economic
grievances, even in a mixed workplace, can be politicized on ethnic
lines.
Examples of ethnic conflicts
United States
- "War" or "possible war" is how the conflict between European Americans and African Americans has been thought of. Before the Civil War, many believed that it would be impossible for (free) blacks and whites to live together in the same country, what at the time was called "amalgamation". Since it was impractical to transport all the free blacks to Africa — aside from the fact that they didn't want it, there weren't enough ships even to keep up with the birthrate — they had to be kept in slavery, or exterminated. Slaves were afraid of this, while whites, even more so after Nat Turner's ferocious attack in 1831 on women and children, were also unsure of victory in a "race war".
.png)
