College of Behavioral & Social Sciences
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Item To Campaign, Protest, or Take up Arms: Ethnic Minority Strategies under the Shadow of Ethnic Majority Fragmentation(2018) Hultquist, Agatha Skierkowski; Birnir, Johanna K.; Government and Politics; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Why do some ethnopolitical minority organizations use violence to achieve their political goals, whereas others eschew force and engage in nonviolence or take part in elections? The literature leads us to expect that the more fragmented the ethnic minority group is, the more likely it is that ethnopolitical minority organizations will use violence against the state. Ethnopolitical minority organizations, however, vary considerably in their strategies. To explain this puzzle, I argue that an under-explored factor - fragmentation within ethnically mobilized groups that control the state - affects how minority organizations select their strategies. Using two original measures of majority fragmentation in combination with existing data on minority strategies in Sri Lanka for 1960-2005, I find that ethnopolitical minority organizations are more likely to use violence when fragmentation within the political majority is relatively low and more likely to engage in nonviolence or to participate in electoral politics when majority fragmentation is relatively high. I also determine that minority organizations are more likely to use mixed strategies of electoral politics and violence and violence and nonviolence as majority fragmentation increases. Finally, I find that majorities are more likely to outbid in positions and policies against minorities when minorities use violence than nonviolence. These results demonstrate that the shadow of majority group fragmentation impacts the nonviolent and violent strategies of ethnic minorities, and introduce a new avenue for research on the role of ethnicity in conflict processes.Item Civic nationalism in postcolonial states: A comparative analysis of civic nationalism in Mauritus, India and Sri Lanka(2014) Singh, Ila; Tismaneanu, Vladimir; Government and Politics; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md)Civic Nationalism is the development of national identity for a state, rooted in egalitarian post enlightenment concepts emphasizing humanity and individual rights. Post colonialism, many developing states embarked on the path of civic nation creation, while implementing democracy in order to govern successfully. This dissertation, it is an extension of nationalism studies into the process of post-colonial nation-state building. The question is of why some post-colonial states developed civic nationalism while others developed ethnic or religious nationalism. Upon independence from Britain, former colonies Mauritius, India and Sri Lanka each had multinational populations, which they intended to govern with the creation of civic nationalism and liberal democratic principles. Instead, today each of the three states can clearly be placed in a progression from most civic to least civic. Mauritius is a liberal democracy bound by civic nationalism, India is working on civic nation creation, and Sri Lanka abandoned the civic nation creation project. This dissertation traces why these three nations evolved so differently when each started out in similar circumstances. Why was Mauritius successful in creating a civic nation, while India is still struggling and Sri Lanka devolved into ethnic nationalism? Addressing, whether an attempt was made during the process of nation-state building to create a civic nation and whether the founding fathers were successful in creating the desired civic nation bound by civic nationalism and a liberal democratic state. If a civic state was created by the founding fathers did subsequent political generations work to maintain and perpetuate the civic nation or did civic nationalism die, thus yielding way for illiberal nationalisms? The purpose of this dissertation is to draw out variables that are held in common across either success or failure in state consolidation of a common civic national identity. The dissertation has led to support for the following hypothesis that, the more committed to a civic nation the political and intellectual elite, and the better established the state’s civic, intellectual and educational institutions are at the time of independence and over subsequent generations; the more likely a liberal democratic state will be to establish and maintain civic nationalism.Item Managing Discontent: Institutions, Intervention and Ethnic Conflict(2006-03-21) Biswas, Bidisha; Lichbach, Mark I; Government and Politics; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Over the last fifteen years, the number of civil conflicts worldwide has declined and negotiated settlements have increased. The spread of democracy and greater international concern about domestic conflicts have encouraged states to adopt a negotiations-based approach to addressing minority grievances. In many conflicts, international intervention has played a significant role in facilitating dialogue and peace settlements. The complexities of cases of ethno political conflict suggest that a twin track approach, which looks at the domestic and the international levels of analysis, is critical. Yet, the existing literature on conflict management tends to study either international intervention or domestic institutions. Intersections between the two are ignored. Combining a cross-national analysis using the Minorities at Risk (MAR) dataset with a case study of Sri Lanka, this research project examines the relative and combined impact of domestic institutions and international intervention on the management and de-escalation of conflict. Uncertainty and mistrust between the state and minority groups drives political violence. Mitigating this uncertainty and building trust become essential for building peace. The extant literature fails, however, to recognize that the pathways to building trust and reducing uncertainty vary according to domestic political capacity. When the conflict-affected state is facing domestic institutional anarchy, coercive forms of international intervention, such as offering security guarantees through peacekeeping troops, become necessary. In contrast, where conflict co-exists with relative political stability and some measure of democracy, non-coercive intervention, such as mediation, becomes critical. In contrast to collapsed states, the challenge in such countries is to reform, rather than replace or create, institutions. Where the state is not facing a collapse of authority, facilitative intervention, such as mediation, can be a more cost-effective conflict management tool than high-cost, high-impact actions. This class of cases, which includes Sri Lanka, India, Indonesia and the Philippines, has not been adequately investigated in the existing scholarly literature. The arguments and findings presented here make an important contribution by focusing on the interactive role of domestic and international variables, particularly in relatively stable states.