The role of a minority's reference state in ethnic relations

Houten, Pieter van

doi:10.1017/s0003975600007815

Cited by 32 publications

(12 citation statements)

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“…Similarly, Saideman and Ayres (2000), Jenne (2001), and Fearon and Laitin (2003) note a statistical correlation between foreign patronage and minority demands for secession or irredentism. In contrast, Van Evera (1994: 40–41) and Houten (1998) argue that an active and powerful lobby state may actually forestall minority secessionism by deterring the majority from overt discrimination.…”

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confidence: 99%

A Bargaining Theory of Minority Demands: Explaining the Dog that Did not Bite in 1990s Yugoslavia

Jenne

2004

Int Studies Q

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This article develops a general theory of bargaining between a minority, its host state, and outside lobby actor to explain why minorities shift their demands from affirmative action to cultural autonomy to secessionism and back, often in the absence of clear economic or security incentives. This paper uses a simple game tree model to show that if a minority believes that it enjoys significant support from a powerful national homeland or other external actor, it radicalized its demands against the host state, even if the center has credibly committed to protect minority rights. Conversely, if a minority believes that it enjoys no external support, then it will accommodate the host state, even in the presence of significant majority repression. As a general theory of claim-making, this model challenges structural theories of demands that rely on static economic differences or historical grievances to explain claim-making. It also challenges security dilemma arguments that hold that minority radicalization is mainly a function of ethnic fears. The model's hypotheses are tested using longitudinal analysis of Hungarians in Vojvodina during the 1990s, as the Yugoslav dog that ''barked but did not bite.'' Careful examination of claim-making in this case demonstrates the superior explanatory power of the ethnic bargaining model as compared with dominant theories of minority mobilization in the literature.

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confidence: 99%

A Bargaining Theory of Minority Demands: Explaining the Dog that Did not Bite in 1990s Yugoslavia

Jenne

2004

Int Studies Q

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“…25 At the same time, the presence of a kin state also does not appear to dampen minority rebellion in any of the three periods. These results would seem to contradict Van Houten's (1998) claim that the presence of a kin state serves as a credible guarantee of minority protection, effectively deterring majority aggression and thereby diminishing the minority's incentives to rebel. Van Houten qualifies this argument, however, by noting that the kin state promotes ethnic accommodation only when it sends ambiguous signals of support to the minority, generating the requisite uncertainty on both sides to induce a compromise solution.…”

Section: Bargainingmentioning

confidence: 71%

Separatism as a Bargaining Posture: The Role of Leverage in Minority Radicalization

Jenne

Saideman

Lowe

2007

Journal of Peace Research

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Why do some minorities seek affirmative action while others pursue territorial autonomy or secession, given similar conditions at the substate level? This article attempts to unpack the puzzle of minority radicalization, focusing on group claim-making as an important dynamic that has been overlooked by much of the recent quantitative literature on ethnic conflict. To address this gap, the authors introduce a new 'claims' variable, which codes the demands made by groups in the Minorities at Risk dataset for three five-year periods from 1985 to 2000. The authors examine the relationship between minority claim-making and rebellion and conclude that they are similar but distinct forms of group mobilization. Groups use claims as a means of bargaining with the center; relative power, therefore, has a critical influence on the extremity of demands that groups advance against the government. The authors test this model against alternative arguments using ordinal logit analysis and find that factors related to strategic power -including a history of autonomy, outside military support, and territorial concentrationare all positively correlated with a group's propensity to advance more extreme demands. This study shows that minorities with greater power vis-à-vis the center are more likely to both rebel and mobilize around separatist demands. However, minority rebellion -unlike separatist claims -may also be triggered by group deprivation, indicating that violent resistance may be driven by grievances as well as opportunities.* The dataset is available at

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“…Following Brubaker (:111) and his emphasis on the competing and opposing nationalistic claims of “ownership” by the kin‐state and home‐state over the same set of people, the antagonistic approach argues that competing claims between the home‐state and kin‐state toward the kin community could be a potential cause of conflict (Laitin, , ; Fearon, ; Saideman and Ayres, ; van Houten, ; Smith, ). The former Soviet Union, in particular, was a key location where these theories were tested with this space imagined as a “cauldron of ethnic conflict” (Figueiredo and Weingast, :262) because it was the site of the “potentially most dangerous” of modern kin‐state claims, given Russia's large diaspora spread across former Soviet territory (Brubaker, :108).…”

Section: From Kin Minorities From Above To Kin Majorities From Belowmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…While Fearon (:124) framed Russia as having a pathological potential to be the “most likely danger” in the region, he identified that Russia suffered a “commitment problem” that inhibited Russia from actually engaging in conflict to protect its diaspora. Fearon (:124) explained that, even in the presence of antagonism, kin‐states could be “self‐limiting,” constraining the spread of conflict that might otherwise be conceived as able to spread like “wildlife.” Hence van Houten () argued that kin‐states were key in tipping the balance from antagonistic claims to conflict‐inducing intervention, leaving conflicts in some triadic relations (e.g., Croatia and Serbia, following Serbian intervention) but not in others (e.g., Estonia and Crimea vis‐à‐vis Russia).…”

Section: From Kin Minorities From Above To Kin Majorities From Belowmentioning

confidence: 99%

What Does it Mean to Be a Kin Majority? Analyzing Romanian Identity in Moldova and Russian Identity in Crimea from Below

Knott

2015

Social Science Quarterly

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Objective. This article investigates what kin identification means from a bottom-up perspective in two kin majority cases: Moldova and Crimea. Methods. The article is based on ß50 fieldwork interviews conducted in both Moldova and Crimea with everyday social actors (2012)(2013). Results. Ethnic homogeneity for kin majorities is more fractured that previously considered. Respondents identified more in terms of assemblages of ethnic, cultural, political, linguistic, and territorial identities than in mutually exclusive census categories. Conclusions. To understand fully the relations between kin majorities, their kin-state and home-state and the impact of growing kin engagement policies, like dual citizenship, it is necessary to analyze the complexities of the lived experience of kin identification for members of kin majorities and how this relates to kin-state identification and affiliation. Understanding these complexities helps to have a more nuanced understanding of the role of ethnicity in post-Communist societies, in terms of kin-state and intrastate relations. Introducing the Kin Majority ProblemIn post-Communist states there has been an emergence of new and renewed cross-border ties where kin-states reach out to those they claim as co-ethnic (kin communities). In the 1990s, kin-state relations were considered as increasing the likelihood of conflict, yet kinstates' territorial claims failed to materialize. Instead kin-states moved toward institutional engagement with external kin communities by facilitating their acquisition of citizenship and quasi-citizenship. Despite the proliferation of these policies, little research engages with the kin community by exploring how they identify and the lived experience of kin-state policies. Similarly, there has been a focus only on kin minorities and little consideration of the phenomenon of kin majorities, defined in this article as a community claimed as co-ethnic by a kin-state, which form a majority in the state or substate unit in which they reside.This article examines and compares two post-Communist/Soviet examples of kin majorities in Moldova and Crimea. This phenomenon of kin-states and kin

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The role of a minority's reference state in ethnic relations

Cited by 32 publications

References 14 publications

A Bargaining Theory of Minority Demands: Explaining the Dog that Did not Bite in 1990s Yugoslavia

A Bargaining Theory of Minority Demands: Explaining the Dog that Did not Bite in 1990s Yugoslavia

Separatism as a Bargaining Posture: The Role of Leverage in Minority Radicalization

What Does it Mean to Be a Kin Majority? Analyzing Romanian Identity in Moldova and Russian Identity in Crimea from Below

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