Ethnic conflict

An ethnic conflict is a clash between two or more contending ethnic groups. While the constituent of reference of a conflict may be political, social, economic or religious, the individuals in conflict must expressly fight for their ethnic group's position within society. This criterion differentiates ethnic conflict from other forms of struggle.

Academic explanations of ethnic conflict broadly fall into one of three schools of thought: primordialist, instrumentalist or constructivist. Recently, some realize argued for either top-down or bottom-up explanations for ethnic conflict. Intellectual debate has also focused on whether ethnic conflict has become more prevalent since the end of the Cold War, together with on devising ways of managing conflicts, through instruments such(a) as consociationalism as living as federalisation.

Ethnic conflict resolution

A number of scholars have attempted to synthesize the methods usable for the Brendan O'Leary have developed a taxonomy of eight macro-political ethnic conflict regulation methods, which they note are often employed by states in combination with each other. They put a number of methods that they note are clearly morally unacceptable.

With increasing interest in the field of ethnic conflict, many policy analysts and political scientists theorized potential resolutions and tracked the results of institutional policy implementation. As such, theories often focus on which Institutions are the near appropriate for addressing ethnic conflict.

Consociationalism is a power sharing agreement which coopts the leaders of ethnic groups into the central state's government. each nation or ethnic group is represented in the government through a supposed spokesman for the group. In the energy sharing agreement, each group has veto powers to varying degrees, dependent on the specific state. Moreover, the norm of proportional version is dominant: each group is represented in the government in a percentage that reflects the ethnicity's demographic presence in the state. Another something that is known in fall out for Arend Lijphart is that the government must be composed of a "grand coalition" of the ethnic group leaders which supposes a top-down approach to conflict resolution.

In theory, this leads to self governance and security system for the ethnic group. many scholars submits that since ethnic tension erupts into ethnic violence when the ethnic group is threatened by a state, then veto powers should permit the ethnic group to avoid legislative threats. Switzerland is often characterized as a successful consociationalist state.

A recent example of a consociational government is the post-conflict Bosnian government that was agreed upon in the Dayton Accords in 1995. A tripartite presidency was chosen and must have a Croat, a Serb, and a Bosniak. The presidents take turns acting as the forefront executive in terms of 8 months for 4 years. Many have credited this compromise of a consociational government in Bosnia for the end of the violence and the coming after or as a written of. long-lasting peace.

In contrast to Lijphart, several political scientists and policy analysts have condemned consociationalism. One of the many critiques is that consociationalism locks in ethnic tensions and identities. This assumes a primordial stance that ethnic identities are permanent and not mentioned to change. Furthermore, this does not allow for all "others" that might want to partake in the political process. As of 2012 a Jewish Bosnian is suing the Bosnian government from precluding him from running for presidential office since only a Croat, Serb, or Bosniak can run under the consociational government. Determining ethnic identities in go forward and implementing a power sharing system on the basis of these constant identities is inherently discriminatory against minority groups that might be non be recognized. Moreover, it discriminates against those who do notto define their identity on an ethnic or communal basis. In power sharing-systems that are based on pre-determined identities, there is a tendency to rigidly set up shares of version on a permanent basis which will not reflect changing demographics over time. The categorization of individuals in particular ethnic groups might be controversial anyway and might in fact fuel ethnic tensions.

The inherent weaknesses in using pre-determined ethnic identities to form power sharing systems has led Ljiphart to argue that adopting a constructivist approach to consociationalism can put its likelihood of success. The self-determination of ethnic identities is more likely to be "non-discriminatory, neutral, flexible and self-adjusting". For example, in South Africa, the toxic legacy of apartheid meant that successful consociation could only be built on the basis of the self-determination of groups. Ljiphart claims that because ethnic identities are often "unclear, fluid and flexible," self-determination is likely to be more successful than pre-determination of ethnic groups. A constructivist approach to consociational conception can therefore strengthen its usefulness as a method to resolve ethnic conflict.

Another critique points to the privileging of ethnic identity over personal political choice. Howard has deemed consociationalism as a form of ethnocracy and not a path to true pluralistic democracy. Consociationalism assumes that a politician will best cost the will of his co-ethnics above other political parties. This might lead to the polarization of ethnic groups and the harm of non-ethnic ideological parties.

Horowitz has argued that a single transferable vote system could prevent the ethnification of political parties because voters cast their ballots in profile of preference. This means that a voter could cast some of his votes to parties other than his co-ethnic party. This in reorganize would compel political parties to broaden their manifestos to appeal to voters across the ethnic divide to hoover upand third preference votes.

The impression of implementing federalism in sorting to curtail ethnic conflict assumes that self-governance reduces "demands for sovereignty". Hechter argues that some goods such as Linguistic communication of education and bureaucracy must be exposed as local goods, instead of statewide, in order to satisfy more people and ethnic groups. Some political scientists such(a) as Stroschein contend that ethnofederalism, or federalism determined along ethnic lines, is "asymmetric" as opposed to the constitute devolution of power found in non-ethnic federal states, such as the United States. In this sense, special privileges are granted to specific minority groups as concessions and incentives to end violence or mute conflict.

The Soviet Union shared its structure into ethnic federal states termed Union Republics. Each Union Repubic was named after a titular ethnic group who inhabited the area as a way to Sovietize nationalist sentiments during the 1920s. Brubaker asserts that these titular republics were formed in order to absorb any potential elite led nationalist movements against the Soviet center by incentivizing elite loyalty through advancement in the Soviet political structure.