Gurr Ted Robert - Ethnic Conflict In World Politics

Table of Contents

Table of Figures

List of Tables

DILEMMAS IN WORLD POLITICS

Dilemmas of International Trade, Second Edition
Bruce E. Moon
Global Environmental Politics, Third Edition
Gareth Porter, Janet Brown, and Pamela S. Chasek
Humanitarian Challenges and Intervention, Second Edition
Thomas G. Weiss and Cindy Collins
The European Union: Dilemmas of Regional Integration
James A. Caporaso
The United Nations in the PostCold War Era, Second Edition
Karen A. Mingst and Margaret P. Karns
International Futures: Choices in the Face of Uncertainty, Third Edition
Barry B. Hughes
Global Gender Issues, Second Edition
Spike Peterson and Anne Sisson Runyon
International Human Rights, Second Edition
Jack Donnelly
Democracy and Democratization in a Changing World, Second Edition
Georg Srensen
Revolution and Transition in East-Central Europe, Second Edition
David S. Mason
One Land, Two Peoples, Second Edition
Deborah Gerner
Dilemmas of Development Assistance
Sarah J. Tisch and Michael B. Wallace
East Asian Dynamism, Second Edition
Steven Chan

Acronyms

In 1994, when the first edition of Ethnic Conflict in World Politics was published, it seemed that the world was being overwhelmed by a tide of deadly ethnic conflicts. Book titles warned of conflicts unending and pandemonium. In 2002, more than a decade after the Cold War ended, less than a dozen ethnic wars are being waged compared with more than thirty in the early 1990s. International refugees in need of assistance have declined from about 25 million to 15 million. During the same period many new multiethnic democracies have been consolidated. International doctrine and practices for containing deadly ethnic conflict have evolved. The UN, regional organizations in Europe and Africa, and major powers have become more proactive in responding to ethnic quarrels. The net effect has been not to put an end to ethnic conflict but rather to contain some of its worst consequences and to channel the political energies of mobilized ethnic groups into conventional politics.

This edition points out the continuing challenges faced by multiethnic societies but gives closer attention to the evolution of more effective domestic and international policies for containing ethnic violence and repression. The challenge at the beginning of the twenty-first century is not whether the state system will disintegrate along ethnic or religious lines. Its capacity for adaptation and survival has been demonstrated by developments of the last decade. The question is how well civil societies, states, and the international system will respond to new ethnic and religious challenges.

The first chapter discusses the origins of ethnic conflict and traces some of its major implications for the international system. In Chapter 2, we identify the main types of politically active ethnic groups, discuss their grievances and political strategies, and summarize the historical processes that explain why they have been and continue to be important actors in domestic and international politics.

Chapters 3 and 4 sketch the historical background and conflicts of four peoples. The Kurds in the Middle East and the Miskito Indians of Central America, the subjects of Chapter 3, are examples of groups whose members have a strong sense of communal interest and identity they want to protect by gaining political independence or autonomy. We chose to analyze the Kurds for two reasons. First, their nationalist aspirations continue to be a major challenge to regional stability in the Middle East. Second, Iraqi attacks on the Kurds in 1991 led to a precedent-setting collective response: The United Nations authorized for the first time the use of force to establish a protected zone for victimized people in a sovereign state. Since that time, the Iraqi Kurds have developed an increasingly effective regional government and economy and, with international encouragement, have begun to bridge the factional rivalries that have crippled past efforts at Kurdish unity. The Miskitos are not nationalists, nor have they suffered to the extent of the Kurds. Like most indigenous peoples, the Miskitos are mainly concerned with protecting their traditional way of life, land, and resources. We selected them because unlike most other indigenous peoples, they rebelled against the Nicaraguan government in the 1970s, taking advantage of the U.S.-backed Contra war against the Sandinistas to secure greater autonomy. Autonomy during the 1990s did not bring them as many gains as they had hoped, mainly because of lack of development and renewed efforts by the impoverished Nicaraguan state to exploit natural resources supposedly under the control of the autonomous government.

The Chinese in Malaysia and the Turkish immigrants in Germany, described in Chapter 4, have been concerned mainly with protecting and improving their status in multiethnic societies. The low status and limited citizenship rights of Turks in Germany typify the situation of many immigrants from poorer countries to developed Western societies. During the last decade their status has significantly improved, as we show. We are particularly interested in the Chinese in Malaysia because despite a history of insurgency in the 1950s and victimization in racial rioting in the 1960s, they have secured a limited power-sharing role in a modernizing Asian state. But multiethnic democracy in Malaysia has a clouded future: increasingly autocratic leadership, growing Islamist sentiment, and economic uncertainty.

Chapter 5 begins with a review of some social science approaches to explaining communal conflict; we then propose a theoretical framework for analyzing the ways internal and international conditions lead ethnic groups into open conflict with states. This framework has been developed and used by the first author in undergraduate courses. It takes a scientific approach, one that emphasizes precision and objectivity, which some readers may not find congenial. In her experience it is pedagogically successful because it identifies for students the broad range of factors that need to be taken into account in case studies and helps overcome students tendency to let preconceptions guide their selection and interpretation of evidence on value-laden topics.