Ethnic Conflict

1
Ethnic Conflict

• Niall O Dochartaigh, 2006/07

2
Modernization and ethnic conflict

• Horowitz A fading relic of traditionalism?A
  traditional, but stubborn impediment to
  modernization?An integral part of
  modernization? A modernization gap?

3

• Men enter into conflict not because they are
  different but because they are essentially the
  same. It is by making men more alike, in the
  sense of possessing the same wants, that
  modernization tends to promote conflict
• Melson and Wolpe cited in Horowitz, 100.

4
Economic sources of conflict

• Marxism false consciousness
• Rational working-class competitionSplit-labour
  marketsLabour aristocracyThe ethnic
  insularity of working-class life in the
  developing world is a strong impediment to
  inter-ethnic competitionHorowitz 128

5
Rational action v. culturalist explanations /
instrumentalist v. primordial

• economic theories cannot explain the extent of
  the emotion invested in ethnic conflictHorowitz
  134A bloody phenomenon cannot be explained by
  a bloodless theoryHorowitz 140

6

• no serious culturalist theory today argues that
  violence flows directly from deeply encoded
  propensities to violence or from the sheer fact
  of cultural differenceBrubaker 114

7
Emphasizing the dynamics of mobilization

• Social Movement Theoryviolence as a phase in a
  mobilization cycle rather than as a natural
  expression of social conflict or social
  protestBrubaker 97Tarrow, McAdam, Tilly
  (2001) Dynamics of contention. Cambridge
  University press

8
What makes conflict ethnic?

• A question of framing and coding?The
  contemporary pervasiveness, resonance, and
  legitimacy of ethnic and national frames generate
  a coding bias in the ethnic
  directionBrubaker 93Ethnic networks.
  Ideological conflicts