Perspectives on Contemporary Ethnic Conflict

Journal of Third World Studies, Spring 2007 by Udogu, E Ike

Saha, Santosh C. (ed.), Perspectives on Contemporary Ethnic Conflict. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2006. 344 pp.

Theoretically, many students of political ethnicity contend that the politicization of ethnicity that is often made more severe by the particularistic tendencies of ethno-nationalism-i.e., the love for one's ethnic group are major causes of conflict in many polities. ' Moreover, Okwudiba Nnoli has noted that "exclusiveness is an attribute of ethnicity. Ingroup-outgroup boundaries emerge with it and, in time, become marked, more distinct than before, and jealously guarded by the various groups..."2 Hutchinson and Smith assert that "ethnic community and identity are often associated with conflict, and more particularly political struggles in various parts of the world. We should observe, however, that there is no necessary connection between ethnicity and conflict."3 Also, academics contend that nationalistic, and increasingly ethnonationalistic, conflicts are among the most important security problems in the world both in the past and today.4 In fact, it is against the backdrop of the preceding brief analyses that this book, Perspectives on Contemporary Ethnic Conflict, might be visualized.

This work is made up of an introduction, two parts, bibliography and index. After a careful read of the excellent introduction to the text, Toward Contexts More Intricate and Subtle, written by Mark L. Taylor this review may be tautological. But the importance of the subject matter addressed in this provocative book requires pleonasm in order to locate this important issue in the forefront of policy makers and others concerned about political stability and peaceful coexistence. Taylor's call for meta-realism as an approach to the analyses and comprehension of ethnic conflict is well founded (pp. 2-4). In fact, this strategy to the analysis of conflicts that have resulted in the lost of lives of so many and the refugee crisis to boot, must eschew simplistic or monolithic explanation. Scholarly, when one approaches a subject matter, one is nearly always compelled to do so from one's intellectual and ideological stance that might be contradictory to the view/s of others. Thus in alluding to some contending theories of (political) ethnicity, viz. primordialism and constructivism (pp. 5-6), Taylor brings into sharp focus the problems of interpreting the character of the histories of "nationalities" as (major) explanatory variables in inter-ethnic conflicts.

Taylor (p. 5) contends that "primordialists... approximate the process of mythic projection when they interpret group tendencies toward conflict as rooted in the make-up or character of a group5... and constructivists scholars tend to reject primordialist [explication]."6 Indeed, M. Crawford Young notes that:

The constructivist inverts the logic of the instrumentalist and primordialist, both of whom presume the existence of communal consciousness, either as weapon in pursuit of collective advantage or an inner essence. The constructivist sees ethnicity as the product of human agency, a creative social act through which such commonalities as speech code, cultural practice, ecological adaptation, and political organization become woven into a consciousness of shared identity. ...The constructivist thus places higher stress on contingency, flux, and change of identity than the two approaches would concede.7

As theoretical constructs, primordialism and constructivism are useful tools for explaining the character of a nation-state on the basis of how political entrepreneurs wish to pursue their parochial interests by designing the state in such a way as to suit their political and economic purpose. Thus, these theories may not and should not be wished away as mere labels (p. 5). To do so may undermine the astuteness of manipulative political actors-at least as seen through the lens and analyses of some students of ethnicity, political science, anthropology and sociology. Put another way, as opposed to realist school of thought, an idealist scholar may wish to interject what I term the "doctrine of moralism" into the political equation of ethnic conflict. While this view is desirable, it is not always feasible. After all, it was and is the principle of "moralism" that called for the stoppage of the Hutus' extermination of the Tutsis in the letter's quest for political and economic control over Rwanda (p. 11).

Part one, written under the rubric of Explaining Ethnic Violence, is made up of 5 chapters. Ghose and James tackle chapter 1, Third Party Intervention in Ethno-Religious Conflict: Role Theory and the Major Powers in South Asia', chapter 2, Wee and Lang, Ethnic Violence and the Loss of State Legitimacy: Burma and Indonesia in a Context of Posi-Colonial Developmentalism', chapter 3, Hintjens and Kiwuwa, Not Ethnicity, but Race: Unity and Conflict in Rwanda Since the Genocide', chapter 4, Magnarella, The Hutu-Tutsi Conflict in Rwanda; and chapter 5, Saha, Politico-Psychological Dimensions of the Ethnic and Political Conflicts in India: Conflicting Paradigms at Work.