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Ethnic Conflict

• Reading: Ethnicity and Ethnic Conflict (Varshney 2007)
• Definition of ethnic conflict: Conflict need not necessarily be violent.
• Conflict can be a common feature of ethnically diverse democracies. There can be conflict over allocation of public goods, which language should be used in schools or whether religious dress can be worn in public spaces.
• Ethnic violence can occur in three forms; riots pogroms, and civil wars.

Schools of thought

Reading: Ethnicity and Ethnic Conflict (Varshney 2007)

Primordialism

• Focus on weaknesses
• Why is there temporal and spatial variation in severity of ethnic violence?
• There have been instances of older inhabitants clashing with new migrant groups.

Instrumentalism

• Ethnic conflict occurs because leaders strategically manipulate ethnicity for the sake of political power, or for extracting resources form the state.
• However, why do masses follow? Why is mobilization successful?
• Free rider problems

Constructivism

• Each society has a historically constructed master cleavage eg. Protestant versus Catholic in Northern Ireland, Hindu versus Muslim in India
• Master narrative is at the national level though. What about regional variation in ethnic conflict?

Institutionalism

• Design of political institutions determine whether ethnically diverse societies experience outbreaks of ethnic violence.
• Consociational or majoritarian polities, proportional representation or first-past the post, federal or unitary governments.

Ethnic conflict regulation

Readings: Constructivism and consociational theory (Lijphart 2001)

A Democratic South Africa (Horowitz 1985)

Consociationalism

• Consociational democracies are characterized by governments comprised of a grand coalition of parties, a proportional electoral system and proportional distribution of jobs in the public sector.
• How to develop power sharing system and how to identify ethnic groups?
• Pre-determination versus self-determination.
• Pre-determination: Ethnic groups identified in advanced and unchanging.
• Self-deterination: Ethnic identities are fluid and unclear. Groups should be allowed to identify and define themselves.
• Lijphart argues that successful consociation should be based on self-determination of ethnic groups.

Formation of multiethnic parties

• Horowtiz argues against consociationalism and proportional representation.
• Grand coalition parties are usually short-lived and ethnic parties have no incentives to compromise over ethnic issues.
• Calls for a preferential voting system with a majority threshold for victory.
• Election will be decided on second and third preferences.
• There is an incentive for parties to reach out to other ethnic groups for second and third preferences.

Regulating conflict outside formal institutions

Reading: Ethnic Conflict and Civil Society (Varshney 2001)

• Lijphart and Horowitz talk about political institutions at the national level. Does not provide regional disparities in ethnic violence.
• Associational life and everyday engagement between different ethnic groups in a community can prevent outbreaks of ethnic violence.
• Civic networks make neighborhood level peace possible by killing rumors, facilitating communication between different ethnic groups.
• No incentive for politicians to mobilize along ethnic lines.
• Everyday engagement insufficeint to maintain peace in larger cities.
• Formal interethnic associations are more important in cities and urban areas.

Ethnic Conflict in Eastern Europe

Reading: Commitment Problems and the Spread of Ethnic Conflict (Fearon 1998)

• Collapse of Communist governments created a "commitment problem" where there is no third party that can credibly guarantee agreements between different ethnic groups.
• Serbs and Croats in Croatia knew war would be costly and did not want to have ethnically pure separate nations.
• Within an independent Croatia, Serbs had no credible guarantees on their political, social and economic status.

Ethnic Conflict and Public Goods Provision

Reading: Public Goods and Ethnic Divisions (Alesina Easterly 1999)

• Different ethnic groups have different preferences on how tax revenue should be spent.
• Each ethnic group's utility level is reduced if other ethnic groups also use the same public good.
• Politicians have incentive to develop private patronage networks.
• Common pool problem leads to higher budget deficits.

Ethnic Conflict Resolution outside formal institutions

Institutionalist arguments for resolving ethnic conflict often focus on national-level institutions and do not account for regional and local variation in ethnic violence within a country. Despite similar levels of ethnic diversity in a country, some towns and cities have often found to be prone to violence than others. Some political scientists have often pointed to the strength of inter-ethnic social ties as a possible factor that could explain differing levels of violence within a country. For example, Ashtosh Varshney, in his study of ethnic violence in India, argues that strong inter-ethnic engagement in villages often disincentives politicians from stoking ethnic violence for electoral gain. Every day engageement between ethnic groups a the village level can withstand national level shocks like an ethnic riot in another part of the country. In times of ethnic tension, these communities can quell rumors, police neighbourhoods and come together to resist any attempts to polarize the community by politicians. However, in cities, where the population tends to be much higher is much higher, everyday forms of engemanet between ethnic groups might not be sufficient to prevent violence. This is because you need many more links to connect everyone and therefore it is much more difficult to form and strengthen interethnic ties. In cities, inter-ethnic formal associations like trade unions, business associations and sports clubs are more effective in encouraging inter-ethnic interaction that could prevent ethnic violence in the future.

Ethnic conflict and public goods provision

A major source of ethnic conflict in multiethnic democracies is over the access to state patronage. Conflicts over state resources between ethnic can increase the likelihood of ethnic violence. In ethnically divided societies, demand for public good decreases as each ethnic group derive more utility from benefits targeted at their ethnic group in particular. These benefits would be less valued if all other ethnic groups had access to them. Targeted benefits are more appealing because ethnic groups can solidify or heighten their social and economic status relative to other ethnic groups whereas broad programmatic policies will not improve their relative worth. Politicians and political parties in turn, have an incentive to favor co-ethnics in their distribution of material benefits. Over the long run, ethnic conflict over access of sate benefits is likely to lead to the ethnification of political parties and the party system as a whole where the political salience of ethnic identity increase leading to a self-fulfilling equilibrium: If politicians only distribute benefits on an ethnic basis, voters will see themselves primarily belonging to an ethnic group and view politicians the same way. They will only vote for the politician belonging to the same ethnic group. In turn, politicians will refrain from providing public goods because it will not serve them well electorally to provide services to people not belonging to their ethnic group. Patronage politics and ethnic politics eventually reinforce each other, leading to what Chandra terms a “patronage democracy.”

The existence of patronage networks between local politicians and ethnic groups make it easier for politicians to mobilize ethnic groups and instigate ethnic violence foe electoral gain since the neighborhood or city is already polarized along ethnic lines. The dependence of ethnic groups on their co-ethnic local politician for access to state resources is likely to make them more responsive to calls of violence against other ethnic groups. Therefore, the existence of these local patronage channels generates incentives for ethnic groups to engage in politically motivated violence.

While the link between ethnic heterogeneity and under provision of public goods is generally accepted, there is little consensus around the causal mechanism underlying this relationship. To identify possible causal stories, Humphreys and Habyarimana ran a serious of behavioral games in Kampala, Uganda that involved several local participants completing joint tasks and allocating money amongst them. Contrary to the conventional wisdom, they find that participants did not favor the welfare of their co-ethnics disproportionally. It was only when anonymity was removed and everyone’s ethnicity was known did co-ethnics decide to favor each other. Humphreys and Habyarimana argue that cooperation amongst co-ethnics is primarily driven by reciprocity norms that tend to be stronger amongst co-ethnics. The possibility of social sanctions compelled those who would not otherwise cooperate with co-ethnics to do so. The authors find no evidence to suggest that co-ethnics display a greater degree of altruism towards each other or have the same preferences. Ethnic cooperation takes place because co-ethnics have common social networks and therefore can monitor each other and can threaten socially sanction any transgressors.  

Informal inter-ethnic engagement

Institutionalist arguments for resolving ethnic conflict often focus on national-level institutions and do not account for regional and local variation in ethnic violence within a country. Despite similar levels of ethnic diversity in a country, some towns and cities have often found to be prone to violence within a country. For example, Ashutosh Varshney, in his study of ethnic violence in India, argues that strong inter-ethnic engagement in villages often disincentivizes politicians from stoking ethnic violence for electoral gain. Informal interactions include joint participation in festivals, families from different communities eating together or allowing their children to play with one another. Every day engagement between ethnic groups at the village level can help to sustain the peace in the face of national level shocks like an ethnic riot in another part of the country. In times of ethnic tension, these communities can quell rumors, police neighborhoods and come together to resist any attempts by politicians to polarize the community. The stronger the inter-ethnic networks are, the harder it is for politicians to polarize the community even if it may be in their political interest to do so.

Formal inter-ethnic associations

However, in cities, where the population tends to be much higher, informal interactions between ethnic groups might not be sufficient to prevent violence. This is because you need many more links to connect everyone and therefore it is much more difficult to form and strengthen inter-ethnic ties. In cities, formal inter-ethnic associations like trade unions, business associations and professional organizations are more effective in encouraging inter-ethnic interactions that could prevent ethnic violence in the future. These organizations force ethnic groups to come together based on shared economic interests that overcome any pre-existing ethnic differences. For example, inter-ethnic business organizations serve to connect the business interests of different ethnic groups which would increase their desire to main ethnic harmony. Any ethnic tension or outbreak or violence will go against their economic interests and therefore, over time, the salience of ethnic identity diminishes.

Interactions between ethnic groups in formal settings can also help countries torn apart by ethnic violence to recover and break down ethnic divisions. Paula Pickering, a political scientist, who studies peace-building efforts in Bosnia, finds that formal workplaces are often the site where inter-ethnic ties are formed. She claims that mixed workplaces lead to repeated inter-ethnic interaction where norms of professionalism compel everyone to cooperate and to treat each other with respect, making it easier for individuals belonging to the minority group to reach out and form relationships with everyone else.