Structure and Strategy in Ethnic Conflict

There is a long-standing difference of approach between those who see ethnic groups as firmly bounded, durable communities inclined toward ethnocentrism, hostility to outsiders, and passionate conflict, and those who see them as social constructs, with a solidarity based on material rewards and conflict behavior based on calculation. This difference of approach ought to yield to a new synthesis based on an understanding of ethnicity as a powerful Gemeinschaft affiliation that can induce both calculative and passionate action. This paper begins with a depiction of these alternative perspectives and an enumeration of 10 often mutually incompatible theories of ethnic conflict. It then advances a view of ethnicity that is grounded in a deep sense of sociality, buttressed by the birth nature of the affiliation, the sense of similarity among group members, and their sense of difference from others. The paper argues that this view of the ethnic group is compatible with changing ethnic boundaries and other claims of social constructionists, although the latitude of elites to steer the process is limited. A powerful affiliation such as ethnicity would certainly attract the interest of those who wish to use it instrumentally, and so ethnic-group behavior is likely to be both passionate and calculative. The recurrent tendency of groups to cleave from other groups and claim a disproportionate share of rewards fits remarkably well with the incentives to bifurcate that typically obtain in democratic politics. This tendency and these incentives make it both easy for political leaders to mobilize along ethnic lines and difficult to break the centrifugal tendencies that prevail in divided societies. In ethnic relations generally, and democratic politics in particular, maximal inclusiveness is a strongly disfavored outcome.