Endnotes
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1. Prepared for a workshop in Budapest, Hungary, May 15-17, 1996, in connection with an international research project on Ethnic Conflict, Ethnic Conflict Management and Resolution: International Experience and Lessons for Central Europe. A preliminary version was given at a workshop held in Colombo, Sri Lanka, March 27-29, 1995. A revised version of this paper appeared in the January 1997 number of Ethnic Studies Report.
2. John M. Richardson Jr. is Professor of International Affairs and Applied Systems Analysis and Director of Doctoral Studies at the School of International Service, The American University, Washington, D.C., U.S.A. Shinjinee Sen is a Doctoral Candidate at the School of International Service.
3. Karl Marx had argued that religion was a false consciousness, and that economics was the basis for the only true consciousness that could exist i.e., class. Sociologist Emile Durkheim, no Marxist, also agreed that religious and other traditional identities were incompatible with modern society (1964, 1984). Durkheim and his ideas influenced Talcott Parsons and Neil Smelser (1965), and through them, economic policy-makers such as Walt Rostow (1971) and Simon Kuznets (1971).
4. See The World Bank (1991) and Brautigam (1991 & 1992). A landmark example of this new concern is found in the Bank's 1989 report, Sub-Saharan Africa: From Crisis to Sustainable Growth. However as late as 1990, the linkage between conflict and development was a "non issue." Papers and memoranda written by World Bank officials reflect this blindness toward internal politics, as Klitgard (1990) observes in writing about World Bank and AID loans to Bolivia.
5. Statements of top Mexican government officials attempting to defuse the Chiapas conflict illustrate this.
6. For example, see Klitgard (1991) and Joan Nelson's work on the politics of structural adjustment (1989, 1990). An early contribution to this thinking was made by one of the authors of this paper (Richardson, 1987).
7. Readers will see here the influence of "resource mobilization" theories of conflict that trace their roots to theories of collective action proposed by Karl Marx. Perhaps the most important contemporary scholar writing in this genre is Charles Tilly (1978). Kerbo (1982), provides a useful comparative critique of resource mobilization theory and an alternative that places greater emphasis on conflict as a mass phenomenon, relative deprivation theory.
8. Among general works on ethnic conflict, by far the most comprehensive is Donald Horowitz's massive survey, Ethnic Groups in Conflict (1985). Gurr (1993) and Gurr and Harff (1994) are more recent general contributions to a growing body of literature. Our explanation of the causes of ethnic conflict also owes much to Richardson's participation in numerous workshops and seminars on ethnic conflict sponsored by the International Center for Ethnic Studies, as well as his research on Sri Lanka and the former Yugoslavia. Sen's personal experiences and research on India and nations of the former Soviet Union have also contributed.
9. This term was coined by Cynthia Enloe in an older, but useful work on the rule of security forces in ethnic conflict (1980).
10. This point is emphasized in works of the late Edward Azar (1987, 1990) who labeled the phenomenon protracted social conflict. K.M. de Silva and S.W.R.D. Samarasinghe's edited volume, Peace Accords and Ethnic Conflict (1993) includes a number of case studies that emphasize the difficulties of resolving ethnic conflicts.
11. This is sometimes termed "the green line solution" after the line that divides Greek and Turkish factions in Cyprus. A more extreme version of this approach has motivated "ethnic cleansing" policies, most visibly in nations of the former Yugoslavia.
12. Several of the essays in Samarasinghe and Coughlin, eds., Economic Dimensions of Ethnic Conflict (1991), document this.
13. This latter point is developed in Richardson and Samarasinghe (1991) and in Joyce Francis' unpublished doctoral dissertation, War as a Social Trap: The Case of Tanzania (1994).
14. The struggle of the Sinhalese race to achieve its destiny, its triumphs over its enemies and its eventual dominance over the island of Lanka are told in the epics, Mahavamsa (great lineage) and Culavamsa (lesser lineage).
15. The cultural divide caused by Ottoman rule of the Bosnians and Serbs, while the Austrians ruled the Croats, cannot be sufficiently emphasized. For a general discussion of Yugoslav history in the early twentieth century, see Dmitrije Djordjevic, "The Yugoslav Phenomenon" in The Columbia History of Eastern Europe (1991).
16. Leonard M. Thomson develops this theme in The Political Mythology of Apartheid (1985).
17. de Silva uses this term in Managing Ethnic Tensions in Multi-Ethnic Societies (1986) and several of his other numerous works on Sri Lankan history and politics.
18. The resulting civil war eventually lead to a temporary Indian occupation of Sri Lanka's northern and eastern provinces, which many Sinhalese feared.
19. The basic argument is developed by Gurr in Why Men Rebel (1970) and has been elaborated on by him in many subsequent publications. In a recent work (1994, esp. Chapter 5), Gurr and Harff develop a framework for explaining "Ethnopolitical Mobilization and Conflict" that is similar in many respects to the one presented here.
20. This conflict is discussed in Gill (1993) and Panda (1993).
21. Its recent failure in provincial elections is attributed to its swinging from this role to imitation of the right-wing Hindu parties.
22. Some groups do make the transition from militancy to governance, particularly after winning a decisive military victory. Viet Nam's Viet Minh became the legitimate government of North Vietnam and, eventually, all of Viet Nam. Fidel Castro's guerrillas became Cuba's political leaders. Eritria's Eritrian People's Liberation Front appears to be following a similar path.
23. For example, see Horowitz (1985), especially Chapter 3.
24. See Milia Zarkovic Bookman, The Political Economy of Discontinuous Development (1991) for an analysis of the causes and effects of sectoral and regional variations in northern India, Spain and the former Yugoslavia.
25. This has been a major theme of the "dependency theorists" in writings that have focused particularly on Latin America and Africa. Pakenham (1992) and Hout (1993) are recent works that present this point of view.
26. See especially The Great Transformation (1957).
27. An exception is the models of agriculture-led economic development proposed by John Mellor (1976, 1988).
28. This was a particularly significant factor in Iran's revolution.
29. One variant of the policy did produce good results in Taiwan and South Korea, a fact typically ignored by free market enthusiasts who tout these "Asian Tigers" as success stories. These states used import substitution industrialization in the early stages, but moved rapidly to export-oriented growth.
30. Simon's The Ultimate Resource (1981) and The Resourceful Earth (1984), co-edited with the late Herman Kahn, provide useful statements of this position.
31. An exception noted by his biographers (de Silva and Wriggins, 1994) is Sri Lanka's J.R. Jayewardene who chose not to seek reelection after serving as Prime Minister and Executive President from 1977 through 1988. Jayewardene was 82 years old when he stepped down, however.
32. While significant minorities such as the Berbers in Algeria and the Coptic Christians in Egypt exist, the protagonists in these nations are not rival ethnic groups. The conflicts rather, are between secular, non-democratic governments newer, more radical religious elites, which have replaced imprisoned, exiled or discredited traditional religious elites. They are thus violent conflicts over the role of religion, the meaning of democracy and the distribution of economic benefits.
33. In Sri Lanka, which is now experimenting with federalism, this "solution" to the nation's ethnic conflict was part of the Peace Accord that India imposed in 1987.
34. K.M. de Silva's Managing Ethnic Tensions in an Multi-Ethnic Society (1986) provides a detailed discussion of devolution problems in Sri Lanka.