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demonstratejusthowdifficultitistogaininternationalconsensus for intervention. The Russian involvementin Chechnya might well end in ethnic cleansing; onlythe most tepid of protests are registered on behalf of the hundreds of thousands of innocent refugees fromthe conflict. Even when intervention takes place, it isvery difficult to separate nations peaceably who haveexperiencedtheravages ofethniccleansing. One ofthefallacies of those who justify ethnic cleansing is thatpeace is advanced by forceably creating homogeneousnation-states. Instead, long-term animosities andnationaltraumasareengenderedthatcanexplodeintoviolence and war.Especially in the former communist world, there arenumerous countries with weak state structures, under-developed civil societies, and struggling economies.Wherepoliticalelitesarewillingtoplaythe‘nationalistcard’ in order to mobilize populations on behalf of themodernizing nation-state, ethnic cleansing might welloccur. Under similar circumstances, countries likeTurkey, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Indonesia couldalso be vulnerable to attacks on minority nations.
See also
: Anti-Semitism; Ethnic Conflict, Geographyof; Ethnic Conflicts; Ethnic Conflicts and AncientHatreds: Cultural Concerns; Ethnic Groups
\
Ethnicity: Historical Aspects; Genocide: Anthro-pological Aspects; Genocide: Historical Aspects;Holocaust, The; Race: History of the Concept;Racism, History of; Xenophobia
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Rape Warfare: The Hidden Genocide in Bosnia– Herzego
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Murder in our Midst: The Holocaust, Industrial Killing, and Representation
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Nationalism Reframed: Nationhood and theNational Question in the New Europe
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Genocide in Bosnia: The Policy of ‘EthnicCleansing’ 
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A Witness to Genocide
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Genocide: Its Political Use in the TwentiethCentury
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Ethnic Conflict, Geography of 
Ethnic conflict is a worldwide phenomenon. Much of it is territorially based, entailing disputes over thecontrol of space. It occurs over a wide range of spatialscales, from the interstate level to the urban neighbor-hood. Violence takes place at the extreme, though asignificant amount of ethnic conflict is characterizedbynonviolentbehavior.Causalfactorscanrangefrommaterialwelfareconcernstoidentityissues.Arangeof territorially based solutions or at least attempts atconflict regulation have been put forward.
1. Spatial Scales
It is possible, from a geographical perspective, toclassify ethnic conflicts into three categories—theinterstate, the intrastate and the micro-scale or intra-urban. However it must be stressed that there arepowerful linkages between the various scales. Eventsat the interstate scale can reverberate down into theindividual states and may even have consequences atthe level of urban neighborhoods. Likewise, conflictsat the urban micro-scale can impact at the largerspatial scales, even as far as triggering ill-feeling orworse, in the ‘international’ arena.
1.1 Ethnic Conflict at the Interstate Scale
The geographical distributions of many ethnic groupsdonotconformneatlytoexistingstateboundaries(the4802
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Basques and the Kurds provide clear examples of this). The misfit between state and ethnic groupboundaries may generate claims. As DonaldHorowitz (1985) has put it ‘if irredentism is conceivedas a movement to retrieve ethnic kinsmen and theirterritory across borders, the common disjunction of group boundaries and territorial boundaries offersscope for irredentas aplenty.’ Horowitz further notesthat a decision to attempt to forcibly retrieve ethnicgroup members across a border is, in the main, agovernment decision. This contrasts with secession,which is an ethnic group decision to break away fromthe state that the group currently finds itself pennedinto. Secession may involve an attempt to form aseparatestate,oritmaymeanbreakingawayfromonestate and joining another.Stanley Lieberson (1972) has stressed that an ethnicgroup has the possibility of reducing or eliminatingany disadvantage it may suffer, by opting for politicalseparation. As he points, out such a strategy is notavailable to other disadvantaged groups in a stratifiedsociety (for instance those disadvantaged on groundsof gender, age or economic position). Thus, as Lieber-son outlines it, the most fundamental differencebetween ethnic and other forms of stratification lies inthe fact that the former is nearly always the basis forthe internal disintegration of the existing boundariesof the state. Since the objective is most likely to be theformation of a new state, the best way to describe suchsecessionist groups is to refer to them as ‘ethno-nationalists.’ Such attempts at the disruption of existing states will not be greeted favorably by existinggovernments. Thus secession is likely to be pursuedand to be resisted by the use of violence.Interstateethnicconflictalsomanifestsitselfthroughthe roles of ‘external national homelands’ (Brubacker1996) and ethnic diasporas. With the former a statemayfeelanobligationtowardsitsfellowethnicsinoneor more other states. This obligation may translateinto attempts to influence those other states’ policiestowards the homeland state’s co-ethnics, or to theoffering of immigration and citizenship privileges forreturning members of the ethnic diaspora. Involve-ment, however, may extend to irredentist claims.Ethnic diasporas, on the other hand, may expressconcerns about circumstances in their original (real ormythical) home countries. In this case elements in thediaspora communities will press their ‘own’ govern-ment to adopt policies that are perceived to beadvantageous to fellow ethnics in the ‘old country’ orethnic homeland. Irish Americans vis-a
   '
-vis Ireland,JewishAmericansvis-a
   '
-visIsraelandArabAmericansvis-a
   '
-vis Palestine are clear instances of this. Indeedsome of these groups may well adopt stances that aremore extreme that those taken by their fellow ethnics‘back home,’ or as Samuel P. Huntington has putit, they may be ‘more Catholic than the Pope’(Huntington 1997). He also observes that diasporacommunities become particularly active in the age of electronic communication: ‘the commitments of dia-sporas are reinvigorated and sometimes polarized byconstant contact with their former homes.’Ethnic conflict at the interstate level is also evidentin what Samuel Huntington labels ‘fault line wars.’While these wars erupt at the interfaces between‘civilizations’ (labeled by Huntington ‘Western,’ Is-lamic,’ African’ etc.), they frequently involve localizedethnic groups, acting, as it were, as the standardbearers of their respective global-scale groupings. Of course, some of these fault-line wars occur at theintrastate level. In either case they are struggles forcontrol of people and of territory.Population transfers play a significant role in manyinterstate ethnic conflicts. If borders cannot be ad- justed,peoplesmaybe‘adjusted’instead.Sometimestheethnic territories are ‘purified’ by agreement, as withthe transfer of Greeks and Turks in the early 1920s.Frequently, however, transfers are achieved by ex-pulsion or—the ultimate savagery—by genocide. Fin-ally, it can be noted that some transfers are associatedwith what John McGarry (1998) calls ‘demographicengineering’onthepartofstates.Here‘agents’maybemoved in, being populations allotted special roles onbehalf of the state concerned; on the other hand somegroups perceived as ‘enemies’ may be moved out,enemies being defined as groups whose present loca-tionsposeproblemsfortheauthoritiesandanobstacleto their goals (these goals generally being ones of territorial control). As with all types of populationtransfer, these movements can occur both within andbetween states.
1.2 Ethnic Conflict at the Intrastate Scale
Gurr and Harff (1994), in their book on ethnic conflictin world politics place ethnic groups into four cate-gories—ethnonationalists, indigenous peoples, com-munalcontendersandethnoclasses.Ethnonationalistsare relatively large and regionally concentrated ethnicgroups, which live within the boundaries of a singlestate or straddle several adjacent ones. They are likelyto be seeking a greater degree of autonomy or evenindependent statehood. Indigenous peoples may alsobe seeking some degree of autonomy, but are par-ticularly concerned about the discrimination andexploitation experienced at the hands of the moretechnologically advanced peoples who, by and large,control them. Communal contenders, unlike ethnona-tionalists, do not seek separation or secession, rather,they seek to share power in the governance of the statethey reside in.As with communal contenders, ethnoclasses seekequality. Unlike them, however, they are usuallyspatially dispersed, rarely having a well-defined ter-ritorial base (for example, where ethnic entrepreneursoperate in specialized, spatially dispersed economicniches). Consequently, in their case, strategies aimed4803
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at secession from the existing state or at seeking somedegree of autonomy within it are not relevant.Thus, while some ethnic group conflicts impinge attheinter-statelevel,manyarecontainedwithintheonestate and do not spill over ‘international’ boundaries.The roles played by dominant groups in these situa-tions are crucial—they set the context for the otherethnic groups present. What Hennayake (1992) callsmajorityethnonationalismcangenerateareactioninasituation he refers to as interactive ethnonationalism.In a similar vein Brubacker (1996) writes of ‘national-izing states’ where dominant elites promote thelanguage, culture, demographic position, economicflourishing or political hegemony of their own group,creating an environment disadvantageous to the cul-tural aspirations and material interests of the otherethnic groups present within the state. Indeed hereissues of inclusion and exclusion are met, seen at theirmost general in the distinction between ‘civic’ and‘ethnic’ nationalism. With the former, the nation isethnically inclusive of all those who subscribe to thenation’s political creed. With the latter the claim ismade that an individual’s deepest attachments areinherited, not chosen (Ignatieff 1993). Nationalidentity is defined by ethnic identity—
ein Volk
:
einStaat
.The maintenance of political and social cohesion inmulti-ethnic states will be possible under three con-trasting circumstances: first, where we find civicnationalism to be dominant, second, where one ethnicgroup is dominant and third, where an external powerexerts hegemony. This latter situation has beenparticularly prevalent where imperial powers haveoperated—from the British, French, German, Austro-Hungarian and the Russian empires of the nineteenthandearlytwentiethcenturiestowhatMichaelIgnatieff (1993) refers to as the Soviet and American jointimperium after World War II. However with thecollapse of all but one of these, the lid of the pressurecookerhas beenlifted and apparently solid states havefragmented (the Soviet Union and Yugoslavia beingthe most notable instances). This has led to the (re-)emergence of previously suppressed or slumberingethnic groups. Such a reawakening has threatened thefabrics of many states, generating movements that callfor varying degrees of separation (from secession toregional autonomy).Ethnic struggles at the intrastate level, from time totime, have been characterized both by what may becalled ‘census wars’ and by ‘symbolic strife.’ Withreference to the former Donald Horowitz (1985) hascoined the phrase ‘winning the census’—here there areconcernsaboutexisting(ethnic)demographicbalancesand future trends. As he puts it ‘numbers are anindicator of whose country it is.’ Census watchingbecomes an obsession; arguments occur regarding theaccuracy of census enumerations, and in some casesethnicnumeralbalancesaresosensitivethatthecensusis abandoned (as happened, for instance, in Lebanon).Matters of symbolism also take on a huge im-portance in states with internal ethnic conflict. Ray-mond Breton (1984) argues that the symbolic order isa key component in constructing and maintaining acollectiveentity.Adominantethnicgroupwillattemptto impose its symbolic order on the state—flags,official language, anthems, etc. Other ethnic groupsmay resist this process, with the consequence thatmany symbols become contested and contribute todisunity. Ethnonationally contested spaces, in par-ticular, are notable for their symbolic discensus. Of course symbols may well help create unity within aparticular ethnic group, but in terms of inter-ethnicrelations they divide.Within-state ethnic conflict may arise betweenindigenous or well-rooted populations, on the onehand, and recent, less well-rooted immigrants on theother. If the immigrant flow is overwhelming (nu-merically or technologically) the indigenous ethnicgroup(s) will find themselves marginalized (as was thecase in North America). However many immigrantflows have to accommodate themselves to the pre-existing social and political environment. In this case,conflict will be over equality of treatment—the im-migrant will not expect (or presumably wish) to takeover the state that receives them.
1.3 Ethnic Conflict at the Micro
-
scale
Ethnic conflict gains its greatest intensity at the smallscale—here individuals and small groups interfacewith each other as part of the daily round. Rural,relatively low population density environments canexperience intense conflict (as well as day-to-daycoexistence), but it is usually in the urban, big cityenvironments that ethnic antagonisms can achieve apeculiarly focused, ‘molecular’ nastiness.In the urban context, foreign origin migrants at-tempt to establish themselves as do those from withinthe state, some of which may also have their origins inethnically differentiated regions. While conflict is notnecessarily an inevitable outcome, it is of frequentoccurrence, as the migrants compete with each otherand with the receiving society for scarce resources of housing, employment, educational opportunities andso on. In these circumstances many ethnic newcomersexperience a degree of residential segregation, partbased on the wishes of the immigrant and migrantethnicsthemselves,partbasedonthesomewhathostileresponse of those who see themselves as the ‘hosts.’From a bottom-up perspective, ethnic groups maybe seen to cluster together residentially for reasons of physical defense, from a wish to distance themselvesfrom the embarrassment of contact with ethnocentricothers, and, indeed from a wish to have a base fororganizing politically and thereby gaining a say in thedecisionmaking inthewidersocietythrough judicioususe of the electoral system. In the more extreme4804
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of 00

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