Abstract
This thesis outlines and presents an alternative hypothetical process to the emergence of ethnic conflict. Ethnic conflicts, rather than being dependent upon pre-existing ‘ancient hatreds’, are instead the result of a congruence between ethnic and political identity which grants individuals the ability to use ethnicity to identify and eliminate political threats. This hypothesis is formed by the examination of three case studies of ethnic conflict: Lebanon, Northern Ireland and Croatia. This hypothesis is then formalised and tested using an agent based simulation in which agent interactions are dependent upon ethnic and political identity and the congruence between the two. As predicted there was a strong positive correlation between how accurately ethnic identity reflected political identity and the level of ethnically motivated violence in the simulation, although the relationship was not linear. Furthermore the effect of a shift in congruence was found to be roughly comparable to the effect of initialising agents with a moderate level of pre-existing ethnic antagonism.
Highlights
The prevalence of ethnic conflict in the latter half of the 20th century has sparked a good deal of interest in explaining the phenomenon, its processes and its roots
These runs were contrasted against the control set of congruence ratio 60:40 with zero initial ethnic antagonism and the 70:30 ratio with zero initial ethnic antagonism, which were generated in the previous set of runs
Overall the results show a general positive correlation between ethno-political congruence and the dominance of ethnic violence and indicate that the former has a causative relationship with the latter
Summary
The prevalence of ethnic conflict in the latter half of the 20th century has sparked a good deal of interest in explaining the phenomenon, its processes and its roots. During the 1990s with the emergence of the various Yugoslav conflicts, theories arguing that the players in these wars were driven by ‘ancient hatreds’ stemming from their ethnic identity became popular explanatory paradigms. I argue that an ethnic conflict can emerge in the absence of initial hatreds and during times when interethnic relationships appear strong. Rather ethnic identity can become politicised, causing political issues to become ethnic issues. The political antagonism stemming from the polemic can be directed at individuals based on their ethnic identity
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