National revivals and violence

Abstract

Micro factors that induce violent confrontations amidst national revival movements are identified. These factors include the nature of local social structures, tipping phenomena, and fortuitous events that set off action/reaction cycles. They are shown to he better explanations than reigning macro theories to account for the peaceful nationalist revival in Catalonia in contrast to the violent one in the Basque Country. A robustness test for the micro factors succeeds in differentiating levels of violence in the politics of separation from the Soviet Union in the Ukraine and Georgia.

Explaining Interethnic Cooperation

“…A richer story would surely include those narratives of interethnic injury. It might also include the motivations stemming from indignities suffered by peoples who are considered of lower rank and who seek to overturn a rigid social ordering (Horowitz 1985); the motivations stemming from the angers and frustrations that result from differential rates of economic development and career opportunities (Bates 1983, Gellner 1983); the ambitions of political entrepreneurs within an ethnic group who seek to enhance their power or influence through the political and/or military mobilization of their ethnic group (Gagnon 1994/95, Laitin 1995b; and, as a necessary condition for all ethnic violence, the availability of (usually young) thugs willing to risk their future (possibly to enhance their in-group status as worthy warriors) to become fully engaged in a culture of violence (Laitin 1995b). Finally, a thorough account of how ethnic disputes are contained would more systematically investigate the role of state policing (though we return to this mechanism in the conclusion).…”

Migration and ethnic nationalism: Anglophone exit and the ‘decolonisation’ of Québec

“…They also 'reject the assumption that primordial ethnicity will decline in modern states' (Olzak 1982: 256), highlighting the relevance of ethnic nationalism in industrialised countries. Québec is regarded as an example of peaceful ethnic nationalism (see Laitin 1999), and in this article, I show that responses to ethnic nationalism are not restricted to instances of sustained violence or warfare. In fact, it can be argued that one of the reasons for the peaceful nature of ethnic nationalism in Québec was the relative ease of exit: louder Anglophone voices left, in turn decreasing intergroup conflict.…”

Civil society, radicalism and the rediscovery of mythic nationalism

“…In Spain, civic associations contributed significantly to the spread of Basque terrorism (Laitin 1995).…”