Ethnic Cleavages Research Articles

Predicting Local Violence

This paper tests the feasibility of local-level violence forecasting. We apply standard prediction models to new data from 242 Liberian communities to investigate whether it is to possible to predict outbreaks of local violence with sensitivity and accuracy, even with limited data. We first trained our models to predict communal, extrajudicial, and criminal violence in 2010 using 2008 risk factors. We then made forecasts of violence in 2012, before collecting data. Our model predicted up to 88% of actual 2012 violence. This came at the cost of many false positives, for overall accuracy of 33 to 50%. Policy-wise, states and peacekeepers could use such predictions to prevent and respond to violence. The models also generated new stylized facts for theory to explain. In this case, ethnic cleavages and power-sharing predicted violence, while economic variables typically did not. We illustrate how forecasting can be widely more applied to micro-level conflict data.

The Collectivization of agriculture in communist Eastern Europe: comparison and entanglements

The Collectivization of Agriculture in Eastern Europe: Comparisons and Cross-border Entanglements I. The Soviet Interwar 'Model' and its Application in post-1945 Soviet Union Collectivization in the Soviet Union: Specificities and Modalities The Collectivization of Agriculture in the Baltic Soviet Republics, 1944-1953 II. Land Collectivization in East Central Europe The Collectivization of Agriculture in Poland: Causes of Defeat Collectivisation in Czechoslovakia in Comparative Perspective, 1949-1960 The Forced Collectivisation of Agriculture in Hungary, 1948-1961 Ideology and Asymmetrical Entanglements: Collectivization in the German Democratic Republic III. Land Collectivization in South-Eastern Europe Collectivization in Yugoslavia: Rethinking Regional and National Interests Collectivization and Social Change in Bulgaria, 1940s - 1950s Any other road leads only to the Restoration of Capitalism in the Countryside: Land Collectivization in Albania The Collectivization of Agriculture in Romania, 1949-1962 IV. Axes of Differentiation: Social Conflicts, Centre and Periphery, 'Class Struggle,' Social and Ethnic Cleavages The Appropriation and Modification of the 'Soviet Model' of Collectivization: The Case of Hungary Collectivization as Social Practice: Historical Narratives and Competing Memories as Sources of Agency in the Collectivization Campaign in the GDR Collectivization at the Grass Roots Level: State Planning and Popular Reactions in Bulgaria, Romania, Poland and the GDR, 1948-1960 Eastern European Collectivization Campaigns Compared, 1945-1962 V. Appendix General Bibliography Maps Index List of Contributors

Ending the impasse in Kosovo: partition, decentralization, or consociationalism?

This paper argues that current Western-backed approaches to conflict resolution in Kosovo have failed to alter Serbia's policy toward the region and have contributed to the exacerbation of political tensions between Belgrade and Brussels, while deepening ethnic cleavages between Serb and Albanian communities. While there is no possibility of Kosovo returning to Serbia's control, there is an equal unlikelihood that Serbian-populated regions of Kosovo, especially the north, will submit to Pristina's authority. Most importantly, there is little hope that Kosovo can gain full international recognition and membership in international organizations without a compromise settlement with Serbia. While territorial partition has long been a suggested option, I conclude that the best possible solution for Kosovo, given the positions of all parties involved, is a process of significant decentralization beyond the internationally supported measures in the Ahtisaari Plan. A model of consociational power sharing is one in which Serbian and Albanian municipalities are granted high levels of autonomy similar to arrangements made for Bosnia. While this solution may not be ideal and further weakens central authority, I argue that consociationalism reduces the problems of ethnic conflict, encourages local self-government, and preserves the overall territorial integrity of Kosovo.

Ethnic Politics, Federalism and Anti-Regime Rebellion: An Alternate Theory

Do ethnic political parties in federal countries increase the chance that the groups they represent will rebel against the central government? Some argue that decentralization, segmental autonomy and federalism, can check rebellion by satisfying groups’ desire for control of their own aairs and shifting political competition to the local level, thus shifting the focus of power and potential conict for it outward from the center. Others argue that decentralization leads to the development of regional or ethnic parties which increases the salience of ethnic cleavages, the passage of legislation discriminating against other groups and group mobilization for ethnic conict and secessionism. I

A 'nation' in wilderness: Youth and insurgency in Nigeria

ABSTRACTPrior to and immediately after independence, young Nigerians, under different political and intellectual platforms, had individually and collectively instituted and succeeded in fostering progressive change in the Nigerian polity, most times without being violent and destructive. Through these platforms, they were able to checkmate and monitor the excessiveness of the ruling elites. However, it appears that such spirit of nation-building and patriotism is fast disappearing in contemporary Nigeria. Young Nigerians are increasingly becoming violent and destructive, probably because they are angry and frustrated. The brutal killings of innocent Nigerians in schools and other places by the Boko Haram have thrown the country into a state of pandemonium and mourning. This article examines the emergence of insurgency across the geopolitical zones in Nigeria within the context of social movement theories. It argues that the inherent social structural maladies and/or prevailing sociopolitical environment have provided impetus for the emergence and maintenance of insurgency among the youth in Nigeria. It calls for the need to subject and interrogate the current waves of insurgency across ethnic cleavages in Nigeria to a more nuanced and pragmatic analysis in order to dissect and unravel their sociostructural and political undertones.

Boko Haram Insurgency and the Widening of Cleavages in Nigeria

ABSTRACTThe Boko Haram terrorist group’s philosophy and activities have been subjected to different interpretations among the Nigerian populace. Such interpretations follow traditional lines of ethnic, regional, cultural, and religious cleavages in Nigeria. Some perceive it as war by Muslims against Christians, some as a sponsored conspiracy against the Muslim North, and others interpret it as the Northern war against the emergence of President Jonathan from the south-south geopolitical zone. A few regard it as a generic name for criminal gangs in Northern Nigeria. While overwhelming opinions in the south tilt toward a scorched-earth policy to counter Boko Haram, much of the north favors dialogue. One of the implications of these responses is the widening of already existing cleavages in Nigerian society, thereby further undermining efforts at building unity and coexistence among Nigeria’s varying nationalities.

The Durability of Imposed Democracy

Why do imposed democracies endure and how do policy choices by imposing states affect durability? To study these questions, we formulate expectations linking durability to structural domestic conditions, the level of domestic security in the state into which a polity is imposed, the policies of imposing states, and the regional environment within which an imposed democracy is nested. We use event history to test our expectations on a sample of democracies imposed during the twentieth century. We find that relatively immutable, structural conditions, such as ethnic cleavages, economic development, and prior democratic experience strongly influence the durability of imposed democracies. While some policy choices made by imposing states can impact the survival of imposed democracy, they do so only modestly relative to the environment in which a democracy is imposed.

Do Weak Institutions Prolong Crises? On the Identification, Characteristics, and Duration of Declines During Economic Slumps

This paper defines economic slumps as sequences of structural breaks exhibiting a specific pattern. We identify 58 such episodes between 1950 and 2008 among 138 countries, and then examine the phases of decline and their duration. In some countries declines last extremely long, and we put several likely contributing factors to the test. We find evidence that weak institutions precede crises and, interestingly, positive reforms occur thereafter. Strong institutions shorten the duration of crises, ethnic cleavages do the reverse. However, the negative effects of ethnic cleavages are not insurmountable: an interaction effect suggests they can be offset by appropriate institutions.

Using Manpower Policies to Transform the Force and Society: The Case of the Pakistan Army

Military manpower policies have an impact beyond the garrison. Policymakers have long held that military service can darn social fabrics that have been rent by ethnic, communal, class, and other cleavages, while scholars debate whether and how this occurs. Because military participation has implications for citizenship, marginalized groups have campaigned to be allowed to participate in the military, and leveraged their service to achieve greater enfranchisement. Military service affects the society as a whole in other ways as well: for example, leaders with military experience are less likely than others to prefer military force when other options are available. This paper examines the Pakistan Army, which, with its domination of the state, feared Islamist tendencies, and incessant belligerence toward India, seems to differ markedly from other militaries. But, using army recruitment and household survey data, it shows that even the Pakistan Army has used personnel policies to reshape its force, despite the numerous challenges of such a course. Whereas recent manpower studies dilate upon how socially marginalized groups employ military service to achieve greater access to citizenship, my analysis exposits how an army uses service in its ranks to cajole reluctant citizens into the national project of Pakistan and encumber them with the responsibilities and rights thereof. While this essay provides greater insights into the Pakistan Army specifically by focusing upon this ostensible anomaly, I hope to inform the larger literature on defense politics and the instrumentality of manpower policies.

Associational Involvement, Social Capital and the Political Participation of Ethno-Religious Minorities: The Case of Muslims in Switzerland

This paper looks at the determinants of the political participation of Muslims. We assess the impact of associational involvement on their overall political participation and their involvement in protest activities. We do so using original survey data consisting of a random sample of Muslim residents in Switzerland. Our analysis provides support to the argument that associational involvement is a strong predictor of political participation. The findings suggest that Muslims involved in cross-ethnic organisations are more likely to engage in politics. This holds for the overall political participation and for engagement in protest activities. In terms of social capital theory, our findings confirm that bridging social capital is as crucial when it comes to explaining the political participation of Muslims as it is when dealing with migrants in general. However, we also observe a positive impact of the involvement in religious associations. We interpret this effect as an indication that bonding social capital plays a role in the political participation of ethno-religious minorities, but one based on a religious rather than an ethnic cleavage. Future research should pay more attention to this relationship.

A Historical Trend of Ethnic Cleavages in Contemporary Iran

The goal of this study is evaluation social and historical content of social cleavage in contemporary Iran. Analytical framework rooted in Rokan theory. Rokan believed that social cleavage appearance post of revolutions. Method of study was historical comparatives. The method of this research is comparative historical in which we used of historical documents and data. In this field, I have compared data of indexes of socio-economic of ethnic states. Assessment of data and documents show that social cleavages and particularly ethnic cleavages rise after Reza shah revolution. He established centralized and dictated government and divided society of Iran and institutionalization the inequality in social structure. Sense of deprivation about inequality and suited circumstance activated ethnic cleavage in Iran. Decrease of inequality and justice could decrease of social deprivation and deactivated social cleavages.

Social Cleavages and Civil War Onset

This paper addresses the false dichotomy of ‘greed–grievance’ regarding the onset of civil wars, providing a theory that specifies the interaction of economic and identity-based factors within a two-stage causal process. The sociological concept of overlapping versus cross-cutting social cleavages is applied to explain the origins of the potential for ethnic civil war, as the overlap of ethnic cleavages with material cleavages fuels an in-group/out-group ideology. Such situations can, however, exist for decades without the onset of war, thus it is necessary to delineate this question from the necessarily separate, temporal question of the timing of the outbreak of such wars as a second stage. Catalysts such as economic decline and adverse regime change provide the variables that, in the presence of a social structure of overlapping social cleavages, exacerbate existing intergroup tensions to the point of organized violence, or are mitigated by the lack of major cleavages or the presence of cross-cutting cleavages. Evidence from cases is provided, followed by a discussion of the implications of this theory for further research.

Africa and the prospects of deliberative democracy

Preoccupation with multiparty aggregative democracy in Africa has produced superficial forms of political/electoral choice-making by subjects that deepen pre-existing ethnic and primordial cleavages. This is because the principles of the multiparty system presuppose that decision-making through voting should be the result of a mere aggregation of pre-existing, fixed preferences. To this kind of decision-making, I propose deliberative democracy as a supplementary approach. My reason is that deliberation, beyond mere voting, should be central to decision- making and that, for a decision to be legitimate, it must be preceded by deliberation, not merely the aggregation of pre-existing fixed preferences. I agree with arguments that when adequate justifications are made for claims/demands/conclusions, deliber- ation has the potential to have a salutary effect on people's opinions, transform/ evolve preferences, better inform judgments/voting, lead to increasingly ‘common good’ decisions, have moral educative power, place more burden of account-giving on public officers, and furnish subjects/losers/outvoted with justifications for collec- tively binding decisions. I argue that a deliberative turn in politics in Africa will have a mitigating effect on tribal and money politics.

Seeds of distrust: conflict in Uganda

We study the effect of civil conflict on social capital, focusing on Uganda’s experience during the last decade. Using individual and county-level data, we document large causal effects on trust and ethnic identity of an exogenous outburst of ethnic conflicts in 2002–2005. We exploit two waves of survey data from Afrobarometer (Round 4 Afrobarometer Survey in Uganda, 2000, 2008), including information on socioeconomic characteristics at the individual level, and geo-referenced measures of fighting events from ACLED. Our identification strategy exploits variations in the both the spatial and ethnic intensity of fighting. We find that more intense fighting decreases generalized trust and increases ethnic identity. The effects are quantitatively large and robust to a number of control variables, alternative measures of violence, and different statistical techniques involving ethnic and spatial fixed effects and instrumental variables. Controlling for the intensity of violence during the conflict, we also document that post-conflict economic recovery is slower in ethnically fractionalized counties. Our findings are consistent with the existence of a self-reinforcing process between conflicts and ethnic cleavages.

The origins of military autonomy in Fiji: a tale of three coups

Alongside Thailand and Pakistan, Fiji has gained a reputation as the most coup-prone state in the Asia-Pacific region. Following a succession of coups, Fiji's military eventually established a longer-term authoritarian administration, inviting comparisons with Burma and Indonesia under Suharto, where military rulers also saw themselves as playing an overarching guardian role transcending ethnic cleavages. Yet, unlike Burma and Indonesia, Fiji's military has no heroic history of involvement in a national liberation struggle and faces no serious threat to territorial integrity. This article examines the dynamics of Fiji's three coups and the accompanying shifts in military orientation. During the initial coups, the military served principally as an instrument of the country's ethnic Fijian chiefly elite. Since the third coup, in December 2006, it has not only confronted key institutions of Fijian power, including the Great Council of Chiefs and the Methodist Church, but also dismantled core bases of Fiji Indian politics, including sugar cane farmers’ organisations and municipal councils. International focus on the electoral timetable has distracted attention from these deeper-seated changes. Fiji has reached the end of a long era of bicommunal ethnic politics, with schisms amongst indigenous Fijian factions likely to dominate the country's politics in the future.

Social Identification and Ethnic Conflict

When do ethnic cleavages increase the risk of conflict? Under what conditions is a strong common identity likely to emerge, thereby reducing that risk? How are patterns of social identification shaped by conflict? We draw on empirical results regarding the nature and determinants of group identification to develop a simple model that addresses these questions. The model highlights the possibility of vicious and virtuous cycles where conflict and identification patterns reinforce each other. It also shows how processes of ethnic identification amplify the importance of political institutions and traces the effects of national status and perceived differences across ethnic groups. Finally, we demonstrate how a small but sufficiently potent group of ethnic radicals can derail a peaceful equilibrium, leading to the polarization of the entire population. We reexamine several historical cases as well as empirical correlates of civil wars in light of these results.

Capital and Opposition in Africa: Coalition Building in Multiethnic Societies

Under what conditions can opposition politicians with ethnic constituencies form electoral coalitions? In Africa's patronage-based political systems, incumbents form coalitions by using state resources to secure the endorsement of politicians from other ethnic groups. Opposition politicians, however, must rely on private resources to do the same. This article presents a political economy theory to explain how the relative autonomy of business from state-controlled capital influences the formation of multiethnic opposition coalitions. It shows that the opposition is unlikely to coalesce across ethnic cleavages where incumbents use their influence over banking and credit to command the political allegiance of business—the largest potential funder of opposition in poor countries. Liberalizing financial reforms, in freeing business to diversify political contributions without fear of reprisal, enable opposition politicians to access the resources needed to mimic the incumbent's pecuniary coalition-building strategy. A binomial logistic regression analysis of executive elections held across Africa between 1990 and 2005 corroborates the theoretical claim: greater financial autonomy for business—as proxied by the number of commercial banks and the provision of credit to the private sector—significantly increases the likelihood of multiethnic opposition coalitions being formed.

Using Manpower Policies to Transform the Force and Society: The Case of the Pakistan Army

Military manpower policies have an impact beyond the garrison. Policy makers have long held that military service can darn social fabrics that have been rent by ethnic, communal, class, and other cleavages, while scholars debate whether and how this occurs. Because military participation has implications for citizenship, marginalized groups have campaigned to be allowed to participate in the military, and leveraged their service to achieve greater enfranchisement. Military service affects the society in a whole in other ways as well: for example, leaders with military experience are less likely than other to prefer military force when other options are available. This paper examines the Pakistan army, which, with its domination of the state, feared Islamist tendencies, and incessant belligerence towards India, seems to differ markedly from other militaries. But, using army recruitment and household survey data, we show that even the Pakistan army has used personnel policies to reshape its force, despite the numerous challenges of such a course.

“Corporatism with Adjectives”? Conceptualizing Civil Society Incorporation and Indigenous Participation in Latin America

AbstractEthnodevelopment is a relatively new type of participatory policy that targets the poverty of marginalized ethnic groups with a focus on identity and self-management. While observers have recognized the empirical significance of this new paradigm, little has been done to conceptualize ethnodevelopment. This article argues that national-level ethnodevelopment implementation is a form of corporatism. Examining ethnodevelopment institutions in Ecuador, it shows that the state has structured, subsidized, and partially controlled the indigenous sector through ethnodevelopment policies and agencies. However, certain components of classical corporatism, such as monopolies of representation, do not characterize this paradigm. This article therefore classifies ethnodevelopment as a diminished subtype of corporatism. It challenges corporatism's long association with a particular historical period in the region and finds that Latin American states and social groups have called on historical institutional repertoires in responding to the newly salient ethnic cleavage in the region.

Predicting Armed Conflict, 2010-20501

The article predicts changes in global and regional incidences of armed conflict for the 2010–2050 period. The predictions are based on a dynamic multinomial logit model estimation on a 1970–2009 cross-sectional data set of changes between no armed conflict, minor conflict, and major conflict. Core exogenous predictors are population size, infant mortality rates, demographic composition, education levels, oil dependence, ethnic cleavages, and neighborhood characteristics. Predictions are obtained through simulating the behavior of the conflict variable implied by the estimates from this model. We use projections for the 2011–2050 period for the predictors from the UN World Population Prospects and the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis. We treat conflicts, recent conflict history, and neighboring conflicts as endogenous variables. Out-of-sample validation of predictions for 2007–2009 (based on estimates for the 1970–2000 period) indicates that the model predicts well, with an area under the receiver operator curve of 0.937. Using a p > .30 threshold for positive prediction, the true positive rate 7–9 years into the future is 0.79 and the False Positive Rate 0.085. We predict a continued decline in the proportion of the world's countries that have internal armed conflict, from about 15% in 2009 to 7% in 2050. The decline is particularly strong in the Western Asia and North Africa region and less clear in Africa south of Sahara. The remaining conflict countries will increasingly be concentrated in East, Central, and Southern Africa and in East and South Asia.