Ethnic Conflict and State-Making

Abstract

By definition, nationalism is anti-cosmopolitan: its central premise is that different nationalities should live in different polities. Unsurprisingly, therefore, its articulation and dissemination frequently results in severe friction between two or more different ethnic groups occupying a single geographic area. A wide range of cultural and material issues, ranging from competition over scarce economic resources to demands for mother-tongue education, can result in vocal demonstrations against ethnic opponents. These in turn can often lead to sustained, violent campaigns on behalf of the paramount nationalist goal of constructing an ethnicity-based nation-state. As we have already seen, struggles of this nature combine with, and provide extra impetus for, the process of national mobilisation. What is rarely recognised, however, is how this process is directly linked to the nationalist movement’s administrative and military organisational capacity. Ethnic competition played a critical role in the three movements under discussion. For the Irish, Afrikaners and Zionists alike, the nationalist struggle was waged simultaneously against two different ‘others’ — the British on one side and, respectively, the Protestants, Palestinians and blacks in the other three. How these relationships impacted on each movement and its strategies for statehood will be the focus of this chapter.