Rational Choice and Progress in the Study of Ethnic Conflict: A Review Essay

Abstract

Through an analysis of eight recent books and a number of articles and papers, this article evaluates recent progress in the study of ethnic conflict, including large scale conflicts and episodic riots. Four main approaches have been applied to the study of ethnic conflict: rational choice, constructivism, essentialism, and structuralism (or realism). This evaluation of recent work includes that rational choice has been the least successful of the approaches; its focus on individuals' pursuit of (mainly) material benefits makes it difficult to recognize or to admit the explanatory power of nationalist feelings that do not depend on the prospect of material benefits. Constructivism has been the most influential approach over the past few decades but until recently has suffered from methodological weaknesses that have hindered testing. Essentialism has been out favor for as long as constructivism has been in, but recent methodological improvements have produced strong work that has resurrected this approach. Structuralism is the youngest approach; it is still immature but has already yielded important new insights. Some eclectic approaches are emerging that combine strengths of the latter three approaches; it remains to be seen whether comparable eclecticism will combine rational choice with one or more of the others. Daniel L. Byman, Keeping the Peace: Lasting Solutions to Ethnic Conflicts (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2002). Donald L. Horowitz, The Deadly Ethnic Riot(Berkeley: University of California Press, 2001). Stuart J. Kaufman, Modern Hatreds: The Symbolic Politics of Ethnic War(Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2001). Roger D. Petersen, Understanding Ethnic Violence: Fear, Hatred, and Resentment in Twentieth-Century Eastern Europe (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002). Monica Duffy Toft, The Geography of Ethnic Violence: Identity, Interests, and the Indivisibility of Territory(Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2003). Ashutosh Varshney, Ethnic Conflict and Civic Life: Hindus and Muslims in India (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2002). Barbara F. Walter, Committing to Peace: The Successful Settlement of Civil Wars(Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2001). Steven I. Wilkinson, Votes and Violence: Electoral Competition and Ethnic Riots in India (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004). Chaim Kaufmann is associate professor of international relations at Lehigh University.