Does Globalization Breed Ethnic Discontent?

Abstract

This article examines how different components of globalization affect the death toll from internal armed conflict. Conventional wisdom once held that the severity of internal conflict would gradually decline with the spread of globalization, but fatalities still remain high. Moreover, leading theories of civil war sharply disagree about how different aspects of globalization might affect the severity of ethnic and nonethnic armed conflicts. Using arguments from a variety of social science perspectives on globalization, civil war, and ethnic conflict to guide the analysis, this article finds that (1) economic globalization and cultural globalization significantly increase fatalities from ethnic conflicts, supporting arguments from ethnic competition and world-polity perspectives, (2) sociotechnical aspects of globalization increase deaths from ethnic conflict but decrease deaths from nonethnic conflict, and (3) regime corruption increases fatalities from nonethnic conflict, which supports explanations suggesting that the severity of civil war is greater in weak and corrupt states.

Effects of globalization on peace and stability: Implications for governance and the knowledge economy of African countries

“…Such price fluctuations and unpredictability have led to food insecurity and conflicts. In a related area, Olzak (2011) observed that economic and cultural globalization are associated with deaths from internal armed ethnic conflicts, and that socio-cultural globalization increases ethnic conflicts, but reduces non-ethnic conflicts. By implication, globalization stimulates intra-ethnic competition for scarce resources, but it also creates a new understanding that diffuses interethnic frictions.…”

Explaining Urban Social Disorder and Violence: An Empirical Study of Event Data from Asian and Sub-Saharan African Cities

“…University] at 08:28 03 January 2015 1969), from a breakdown of institutions governing political representation (Olsen 1963), the dissonance between expectations and realities under new social orders (Gurr 1970), or economic globalization more generally (Olzak 2011). The centrality of major cities as centers of political and economic change suggests that this framework may also be relevant to understanding urban disorder and violence more generally.…”

Globalization and Social Transition

“…Additionally, if the abundant factor is concentrated in one particular group, anti-globalization hatred might be leveled against these pro teers of liberalization measures. The aforementioned studies by Chua (2003) and Olzak (2011) pay attention to the di erential impact that globalization might have across di erent ethnic groups. Their reasoning is, however, not solidly based on a political economy model that allows us to di erentiate between the income and redistributive e ects that liberalization has even for the less privileged group.…”

“…Glaeser (2005) develops a formal model of this argument suggesting that the incentive to spread hatred against such a globalizationpro teering minority grows because populists using this rhetoric have more to gain from asking for a redistribution of the integration bonanza. Only the study by Olzak (2011) has moved the empirical evidence in favor of such claims beyond the anecdotal illustrations by Chua (2003) and the descriptive evidence of Glaeser (2005). Distinguishing ethnic from non-ethnic wars and relying on fractionalization as a diversity measure, Olzak (2011: 21, italics suppressed) shows empirically that diversity intensi es the violence stemming from economic integration: "economic globalization actually raises the rate of fatalities from ethnic civil war."…”

“…Only the study by Olzak (2011) has moved the empirical evidence in favor of such claims beyond the anecdotal illustrations by Chua (2003) and the descriptive evidence of Glaeser (2005). Distinguishing ethnic from non-ethnic wars and relying on fractionalization as a diversity measure, Olzak (2011: 21, italics suppressed) shows empirically that diversity intensi es the violence stemming from economic integration: "economic globalization actually raises the rate of fatalities from ethnic civil war." Note, however, that Wiesehomeier, et al (2009) consider di erent forms of diversity and show that the interaction of both fractionalization and polarization with liberalization reduces the risk of civil war.…”