How Governments Shape the Risk of Civil Violence: India's Federal Reorganization, 1950–56

Abstract

Governments are absent from empirical studies of civil violence, except as static sources of grievance. The influence that government policy accommodations and threats of repression have on internal violence is difficult to verify without a means to identify potential militancy that did not happen. I use a within-country research design to address this problem. During India's reorganization as a linguistic federation, every language group could have sought a state. I show that representation in the ruling party conditioned the likelihood of a violent statehood movement. Prostatehood groups that were politically advantaged over the interests opposed to them were peacefully accommodated. Statehood movements similar in political importance to their opponents used violence. Very politically disadvantaged groups refrained from mobilization, anticipating repression. These results call into question the search for a monotonic relationship between grievances and violence and the omission of domestic politics from prominent theories of civil conflict.

Language, Religion, and Ethnic Civil War

“…This analysis shows that the main result exposing the weakness of religious cleavages as an explanation of civil war holds up regardless of whether one controls for temporal heterogeneity (Table D1 and Figures D1 and D2) or introduces alternative specifications of the cleavages variables (Table D2 and D3) and the ethnic dyad (Table D4). By comparing each ethnic group to all ethnic groups in power (EGIPs), we also account for conflicts that occur among two peripheral groups -one of which is a member of the government coalition -and later escalate to civil wars (Lacina, 2013).…”

Why accommodate minorities asymmetrically? A theory of ideological authority insulation

“…See Lacina (2014: 3) for a list of qualitative studies and Dixon (2009) or Hegre and Sambanis (2006) for an overview of the findings in quantitative studies. In earlier times as well as in times of dealignment, issues other than the market-state dimension may have been superimposed on territorial conflict.…”

“…Here we depart from the conflict literature because it cannot explain partisan differences. Lacina (2014) argues that the integration of minorities in the centre explains why some Indian regions received more and others less authority in the 1950s. The claimants, like the Scottish, usually envisage a form of institutionalised asymmetric authority which underlines their distinctiveness (Stepan 2001).…”

“…In case they did, they have stressed the strategic constraints of state-wide governments in order to provide accommodation. Lacina (2014) points to the potential presence of minority representatives in the centre and argues that such representation increases the likelihood of accommodation. Furthermore, the accommodated minorities might be empowered by autonomy to raise further claims in the future, particularly when powerful kin states are involved (Grigoryan 2012).…”

“…There are also theoretical arguments why the centre has incentives to concede. Lacina (2014) points to the potential presence of minority representatives in the centre and argues that such representation increases the likelihood of accommodation. Cunningham (2011) argues that the accommodation of divided movements can flush out separatists from autonomists and radicals from moderates.…”