2600737

Peoples Against States: Ethnopolitical Conflict and the Changing World System: 1994
Presidential Address
Author(s): Ted Robert Gurr
Source: International Studies Quarterly, Vol. 38, No. 3 (Sep., 1994), pp. 347-377
Published by: Wiley on behalf of The International Studies Association
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International Studies Quarterly (1994) 38, 347-377
Peoples Against States: Ethnopolitical

Conflict and the Changing World System
1994 Presidential Address
TED ROBERT GURR
University of Maryland
The post-Cold War surge in so-called tribal conflict is shown here to be

the continuation of a trend that began in the 1960s. The main issue of
the fifty most serious current ethnopolitical conflicts is contention for
state power among communal groups in the immediate aftermath of
state formation, revolution, and efforts to democratize autocratic regimes. The end of the Cold War contributed to the long-term trend
mainly by increasing the number of states with such power transitions.
Communal conflicts across fault lines between civilizations and religious
traditions are more intense than others but have not increased in relative frequency or severity since the end of the Cold War. Nor is there
a strong global force leading toward the further fragmentation of the
state system: since 1989 no serious new secessionist conflicts have begun
outside the Soviet and Yugoslav successor states, and in 1993-94 the
regional trend is toward accommodation. The most protracted and
deadly ethnopolitical conflicts are likely to occur in poor, weak, heterogenous states like those of Africa. They will continue to pose severe
humanitarian problems but are foreseeable and, in principle, are capable of being contained and transformed through constructive regional and international action. Six general international strategies to
restrain emerging ethnopolitical conflicts are identified.
The resurgence of conflicts centered on ethnic claims in the Balkans and the
Caucasus, Africa and South Asia, has provoked renewed debate among social
scientists about the nature and significance of ethnicity in contemporary societies. From the 1950s through the 1970s it was widely thought that economic
development, the migration of rural people to cities, and growing literacy would
lead to the creation of complex and integrated societies throughout the world.
Modernization theory, which most political scientists accepted more or less on
faith, made a specific prediction about ethnic identities: greater political and
economic interaction among people and the growth of communication networks
would break down peoples' "parochial" identities with ethnic kindred and re-
Author's note: I thank Barbara Harff for encouraging me to deal with these issues, Albert J. Jongman for
providing much of the information on serious ethnopolitical conflicts, Jonathan Fox for analyzing the data, and
the students in my spring 1994 graduate and undergraduate seminars who served as sounding boards and critics
for the evolving ideas. George Quester provided helpful comments on a draft.
C 1994 International Studies Association.
Published by Blackwell Publishers, 238 Main Street, Cambridge, MA 02142, USA, and 108 Cowley Road, Oxford OX4
1JF, UK.
348 Peoples Against States
place them with loyalties to larger communities like Canada or the European
Community or an emerging Pan-Africa (see Deutsch, 1953; Connor, 1972).
Of course it has not worked out that way, and the apparent explosion of
conflicts centered on ethnicity has led to a scramble for theoretical explanations.
One view is that ethnic identities are "primordial," perhaps even genetically
based, and therefore more fundamental and persistent than loyalties to larger
social units. A contrary view is that ethnic identities are no more salient than
any other kind of identity; they become significant when they are invoked by
entrepreneurial political leaders in the instrumental pursuit of material and
political benefits for a group or region. The primordial view is held mainly by
sociologists, especially those influenced by sociobiology. The instrumental interpretation is most common among social scientists who have succumbed to the
lures of rational actor theory. 1 Neither interpretation offers a wholly convincing
explanation for the increase in ethnic claims during the 1980s and early 1990s,
however. If ethnic identities are "primordial," one needs an accounting of why
they are so much more in evidence now than at mid-century. If ethnic identities
and claims are a matter of choice, then an explanation is needed of how the
political opportunity structures of the world have changed so that appeals to
interests defined in ethnic terms are instrumentally more effective now than
they were several decades ago.
I do not propose to resolve this theoretical debate, but to examine the issue
in the larger context of global change. My particular concern is not the nature
of ethnic identification per se but ethnopolitical conflicts in which groups that define
themselves using ethnic criteria make claims on behalf of their collective interests
against the state, or against other political actors. An analysis of ethnopolitical
conflict nonetheless needs to proceed from a plausible set of assumptions about
the nature of ethnicity and the circumstances under which it disposes to conflict.
I assume that culture is the core of the identity of most groups that define
themselves by ethnic criteria. Ethnic identity and continuity are maintained by
the transmission of basic norms and customs across generations. Martin Heisler
characterizes ethnic identities in Western societies as "part-time" (1989); much
the same can be said of most other societies. The boundaries of ethnic groups
and the content of their cultures both vary over time; individuals can adopt or
reject a culture; and cultural identity becomes more or less salient for members
of the collectivity as circumstances change. Structures established and maintained
by dominant groups in stratified societies, and by historical circumstance and
mutual consent among groups in unranked societies, contribute to the perpetuation of cultural distinctions. The greater the competition and inequalities among
groups in heterogenous societies, the greater the salience of ethnic identities
and the greater the likelihood of open conflict. When open conflict does occur it
is likely to intensify, or reify, both perceptions of difference among contending
groups and perceptions of common interest within each group. And the longer
open conflict persists, and the more intense it becomes, the stronger and more
exclusive are group identities. This is both a set of assumptions and a theory
sketch that is developed more fully elsewhere.2
'A major statement of the primordial argument is Van den Berghe (1981); for the instrumentalist view see
Banton (1983). Thompson (1989) provides a critical assessment of these and other approaches; proposed syntheses
are McKay (1982) and Scott (1990).
2This overview has been influenced by presentations given by Nancie Gonzalez (at the Edward Azar Memorial
Conference, University of Maryland, October 1993) and Rodolfo Stavenhagen (at the Workshop on Early Warning
of Communal Conflicts and Humanitarian Crises, also at the University of Maryland, November 1993). The
theoretical framework is developed most fully in Gurr (1993a:ch. 5).
TED ROBERT GURR 349
The Minorities at Risk Project
My understanding of these issues, and of ethnopolitical conflict generally, has

been shaped by seven years' research on the Minorities at Risk project. The
project began as an effort to update a global roster of politically significant
ethnic groups. A total of 233 groups was identified that in the 1980s met one
or both of these two general criteria (Gurr, 1993a:ch. 1):
The group collectively suffers, or benefits, from systematic discriminatory treatment vis-
a-vis other groups in the country or countries in which it resides. Nearly four-fifths of
the groups in the study (183 of 233) were included because of differential status
due to past or present economic discrimination (147 groups) or political discrimination (168 groups), or both.
The group is the focus of political mobilization and action in defense or promotion of
the group's self-defined interests. The histories of each of 233 groups' involvement
in political action were coded from 1945 through 1989. All but twenty-seven
took some action during this period to assert their group interests, either in the
political arena or against other communal groups; the others were included
because of patterns of discrimination.
The Minorities study also profiled each group's distinguishing cultural, ethnic,
and religious traits; absolute and proportional size; residential distribution; cultural, economic, and political differentials vis-a-vis other groups; internal cohesion; and the grievances articulated by their leaders. This coding was done for
the 1980s and was based on a large and diverse accumulation of scholarly and
journalistic source materials.3 The coded data were used to test a complex causal
model of the dynamics of conflict between ethnic groups and states. The model
specified the effects of group- and state-level variables on magnitudes of ethnopolitical protest and rebellion in the 1980s, with special attention to the effects
of collective disadvantages (discrimination, inequalities), strength of group identity, and cohesion. These variables figure prominently in prevailing theories of
politicized ethnicity and, in the model, determine group grievances and mobilization. At a higher level of analysis the model includes characteristics of the
society in which ethnic groups are embedded, including levels of economic
development, state power, democracy, and institutional change. Regressions
were estimated for all 233 groups and various categories of groups; the results
are consistent with the general thesis that the complex interplay of group status
and political context activates group grievances, and has decisive influence on
groups' choices about whether to rely on strategies of protest or rebellion (Gurr,
1993b).
Systemic Change and the Resurgence of Ethnopolitical Conflict

The study sketched above gave little attention to the ways in which changes in
t-he structure and dynamics of the global system affect patterns and trends in
ethnopolitical conflict. This article is an intellectual ground-clearing operation
that uses a new dataset on the global range of serious ethnopolitical conflicts to
test the plausibility of some general cultural, economic, and political propositions
3The dataset and documentation are available at nominal cost from Shin-wha Lee, Minorities Project Coordinator, Center for International Development and Conflict Management, Tydings Hall, University of Maryland,
College Park, MD 20742. Selected variables are listed in the Appendix to Gurr (1993a).
about the new spate of ethnic disorders. It concludes with some observations
about the challenge these conflicts pose for international efforts at conflict
management.
Organized conflict has always clustered along fault lines within and among
states. The end of the Cold War reduced the salience of the East-West ideological conflict and has prompted much speculation about the broad cultural, economic, and political divisions that will shape the emerging conflicts of the early
21st century. Ethnopolitical cleavages figure prominently in most of this speculation. All but five of the twenty-three wars being fought in 1994 are based on
communal rivalries and ethnic challenges to states. About three-quarters of the
world's refugees, estimated at nearly 27 million people, are in flight from or have
been displaced by these and other ethnic conflicts. Eight of the United Nations'
thirteen peacekeeping operations are aimed at separating the protagonists in
ethnopolitical conflicts.4
Some observers have drawn a causal connection between the end of the Cold
War and the escalation of ethnopolitical conflict. Simple versions of the argument
rest on a faulty premise. Walker Connor pointed out in 1972 that "state-building" and economic modernization had increased awareness of ethnic and cultural differences in heterogenous societies throughout the world, and that
interethnic conflict had increased as a result (Connor, 1972:327-332). The Minorities at Risk databank documents that ethnopolitical conflicts were relatively
common, and increased steadily, throughout the Cold War. Table 1 shows that
the greatest absolute and proportional increase in numbers of groups involved
in serious ethnopolitical conflicts occurred between the 1960s and the 1970s,
from thirty-six groups to fifty-five. From the 1980s to the early 1990s the tally
increased only by eight, from sixty-two to seventy. Moreover, as is shown in a
comparison summarized in Table 3, ongoing ethnopolitical conflicts that began
after 1987 are not appreciably more intense than those that began earlier. The
ongoing conflicts that began before 1987 have led to more deaths but fewer
TABLE 1. Numbers of Ethnopolitical Groups Involved in Serious Conflict 1945-1994 by Region

Middle
Latin
Decade Europea Eastb Asiac Africad America Total

1945-49
12
1950-59
15
1960-69
13
15
26
36
17
39
55
1970-79
16
18
19
1980-89
13
20
17
62
1993-94
10
28
23
70
Tabulations for 1945-89 are based on analysis of 233 politically active groups in the Minorities at Risk dataset
(see Gurr, 1993a). Groups are tallied for each decade in which they participated in serious, widespread political
rioting, local rebellions, guerrilla activity, civil war, or intercommunal warfare. Groups participating in more than
one type of conflict in a decade are counted only once. Tabulations for 1993-94 are based on the conflicts listed in
the Appendix. Numbers of contending ethnopolitical groups in 1993-94 are larger than numbers of conflicts in
the Appendix and Table 2 because some of the latter, especially in Asia and Africa, have multiple contenders.
aIncluding the USSR, Eastern and Western Europe, Canada, the U.S., Australia, and New
Zealand.
bIncluding North Africa, Turkey, Israel, Afghanistan, and Pakistan.

cIncluding South, Southeast, and Pacific Asia.
dExcluding the Maghreb, Libya, and Egypt; including South Africa.
4Data on ethnopolitical wars and refugees are summarized in the Appendix and Table 2; information on other
wars is from Colijn, Jongman, Rusman, and Schmid (1993) and Wallensteen and Axell (1993).
TED ROBERT GURR 351
) c oo C) I t o) 0 C o
a~~~~~~L - C) t- It e-
'Zog 00 C) 0 00 on C) cr
=~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~c M.,N
,I
oo C' oo 5: (<; , CH E

TABLE 3. Ethnopolitical Conflicts in 1993-94 by Period of Origin and Mean Magnitude
All Current Began before Began after
Conflicts
Number
Percent
Mean
50
100%
magnitude
1987
27
54%
2,73
1987
23
46%
2.85
2.59
Mean no. of refugees 535,000 408,000 684,000
Mean no. of deaths 80,000 111,000 43,000
refugees; the recent ones thus far have been less deadly on average, but have
caused greater dislocation of populations.
The information analyzed for this article is summarized in the Appendix,
which lists basic data on fifty serious and emerging ethnopolitical conflicts under
way in 1993-94. The general criteria for inclusion follow from the definition of
ethnopolitical conflict: One or more contenders in each conflict defines itself using
communal criteria and makes claims on behalf of the group's collective interests
against the state, or against other communal actors. Three additional points
about the universe of analysis:
The communal criteria used by group members to define themselves may

include any combination of identity traits: shared culture, common history or
fate or place of residence, nationality, language, religion, or race. Such identities
are "constructions" that are reinforced through transactions with other groups,
but are built around an enduring core of shared culture and experiences (see
Barth, 1969; Yinger, 1985; Gonzalez and McCommon, 1989).
The claims on behalf of the group's collective interests reflect material and political
interests as well as cultural, linguistic, and religious concerns. Those who formulate such claims often have instrumental and self-serving objectives. The test
of their authenticity-of claims and leaders who make them-is whether or not
they attract widespread and sustained mobilization among group identifiers.
The list includes all ethnopolitical conflicts in which substantial levels of lifethreatening coercion have recently been used (in 1993-94) by one or all contenders.
Mass repression, genocidal massacres, and forcible resettlement of communal
groups by public officials are symptomatic of serious conflict; so are rebellion,
guerrilla warfare, recurrent rioting, and terrorist campaigns by communally
based political movements. Conflicts that are manifest in protest campaigns and
sporadic acts of communal or political violence are not "serious," at least not
yet.5
The fifty conflicts have caused a cumulative total of four million deaths, the
great majority of victims being civilian noncombatants. Most also have prompted
substantial displacement of populations within and among countries, a total of
5Data from the Minorities at Risk study show that all but two of the 18 ethnopolitical groups that used violent
protest or terrorism between the 1950s and the 1980s in the Western democracies did so following periods of
nonviolent activism. An average of 13 years elapsed between the establishment of political movements representing
communal interests and the first occurrence of violence (Gurr, 1993a: 145).
TED
ROBERT
GURR
353
nearly 27 million people.6 A summary indicator of the magnitude of each conflict

is constructed using information on estimates of fatalities and refugees, the only
two numerical data that are available for most of them. Data on fatalities are
cumulative over the full span of each conflict, several of which began in the 1960s
or earlier. Data on refugees and displaced persons are current as of 1993 or
early 1994; since many refugees of earlier phases in protracted communal
conflicts have already been returned, resettled, or absorbed, these numbers are
indicative of the conflict's recent severity. In the aggregate, contemporary refugees and displaced persons outnumber cumulative deaths by a ratio of about
8: 1. The summary indicator of magnitude gives each factor approximately equal
weight: it is the square root of deaths in tens of thousands and refugees in
hundreds of thousands. The lowest magnitude is 0.32 for several conflicts with
deaths of ca. 1,000 and no reported refugees; the mean for all fifty conflicts is
2.79; the worst case is in southern Sudan where deaths exceed one million and
refugees are approaching five million (magnitude 12.96). The regional breakdown (in Table 2) shows that Africa has the largest number of serious ethnopolitical conflicts and the highest mean magnitude of conflict; Latin America has
the fewest conflicts of this type, and Pacific Asia has the lowest magnitude.
To compare changes over time in ethnopolitical conflict, the cases are divided
between those that began before 1987 (n = 27) and those that began later (n =
23). This year marks a watershed in the recent history of such conflicts. No
serious conflicts started in 1987 except the Intifada, which began in December
with riots and demonstrations (it is labeled M88). The Cold War was not yet
over in 1987 but was winding down; the first distinctively post-Cold War ethnic
conflict began the following year in Nagorno-Karabakh (case E88). Table 3 shows
that the pre-1987 cases have a slightly higher average magnitude of 2.85 than
the post-1987 sets of cases, which average 2.59.
The Collapse of the Bloc System and Ethnic Fragmentation
One macro approach to explaining the rise of ethnopolitical conflict focuses on

the localized consequences of the deconstruction of the bloc system. The emphasis is on the ethnic fragmentation that follows the decentralization of systemic
power; the catchword used by some observers is "tribalism." A number of states,
including the non-Russian successor republics of the USSR, have been weakened
by the loss of political and material support from the superpowers. This means
greater political opportunities for internal challenges by ethnopolitical contenders to seek autonomy or a greater share of state power. Such challenges often
are reinforced by the expansionist objectives of adjoining states that are now
freer than they were during the Cold War to encourage ethnic kindred and coreligionists to rebellion. One specific, testable implication of this argument is
that ethnopolitical conflicts can be expected to be concentrated in the new states
of what was formerly the Second World. Of the twenty-three serious conflicts
that began after 1987, however, only six are in Eastern Europe and the Soviet
6To the best of our knowledge, and that of our sources (especially Colijn et al., 1993), the list includes all
ethnopolitical conflicts in which significant violence or repression occurred in 1993. At the margins the inclusion
of a few cases can be questioned. The Sendero Luminoso movement in Peru does not satisfy the second criterion;
it is recruited largely from indigenous rural people but its leaders use the language of revolutionary class struggle,
not indigenous rights (McClintock, 1993). The indigenously based Zapatista rebellion that began in southern
Mexico on January 1, 1994, may prove to be less "serious" than it first appeared because the protagonists moved
quickly from fighting to negotiation. Other new or little-reported conflicts might qualify for inclusion once additional
information is available; one such instance is rioting in early 1994 between the Nanumba and Konkomba peoples
of Northern Ghana that at the outset left 1,000 dead and 150,000 people displaced. In this case the issues and
circumstances of the conflict are not yet clear.
successor states; nine are in Africa, the world region least affected by Cold War
rivalries.
A second interpretation, often but not necessarily assumed by proponents of

the ethnic fragmentation/political contention argument, emphasizes the persistence of primordial identities behind the facade of state-centered nationalism.
The argument builds on the incontrovertible fact that few contemporary states
are ethnically homogeneous, then makes the more problematic assumption that
ethnocultural identities are intrinsically more fundamental or salient for most
people than identification with a superordinate state: the people of Belgium are
Flemish or Walloons first, Belgians second or possibly not at all (see Thompson,
1989:ch. 3). A testable implication of the argument is that regional and global
power shifts should lead to increases specifically in separatist and autonomy
movements based on primordial loyalties. This hypothesis is not specific to states
in the former Soviet sphere of influence, but the proposed effect should be more
pronounced in those states.
A third testable argument is that communally based contention for state power
can be expected to increase in the aftermath of systemic change, a thesis that is
considered below (see Tilly, 1994).
Three analytically distinct orientations toward state power and toward other
communal groups can be distinguished among the protagonists in serious ethno-
political disputes:7
Ethnonationalism is the central issue that motivates proportionally large, regionally concentrated peoples with a history of organized political autonomy.
Their main political objective is "exit," that is, they proactively pursue independent statehood or extensive regional autonomy. Of the 233 politicized communal
groups included in the Minorities at Risk study, eighty-one pursued ethnonational objectives; their conflicts were on average more intense than those in
which other issues were manifest and increased markedly in numbers and magnitude from the 1950s to the 1980s (Gurr, 1993a: 19, 108-116).
Indigenous rights are the preoccupation of conquered descendants of original
inhabitants of a country whose societies were decentralized, communitarian, and
based on a stewardship relationship with their environment (see Wilmer, 1993).
Their most common objective is "autonomy," sought as a means for the protection of their lands, resources, and culture from the inroads of state-builders and
developers. Some indigenous peoples take a step beyond autonomy to seek
independent statehood; conflicts involving these groups are cross-classified as
involving both issues, indigenous rights and ethnonationalism. Eighty-three of
the 233 groups in the Minorities at Risk study were indigenous peoples; their
conflicts were of lesser magnitude than ethnonationalist ones, but they increased
more rapidly in numbers and aggregate magnitude in the 1970s and 1980s than
conflicts concerned with any other issue.
Contentionfor power is the principal issue in conflict among communal contenders. These are culturally distinct peoples, tribes, or clans in heterogenous societies who are locked in rivalries about the distribution of or access to state power.
Because communal contenders often have a regional base, their leaders sometimes have the choice of opting out; thus groups that seek greater access to state
power in one set of circumstances may pursue ethnonationalist objectives in
another. Several current conflicts in which both issues are salient are crossclassified. Sixty-six politically active communal contenders were identified in the
7A more comprehensive discussion of types of ethnopolitical groups and issues of conflict is included in Gurr
(1993a:chs. 1, 3, and 4).
TED
ROBERT
GURR
355
Minorities at Risk study; they were mainly African, their conflicts were of lower
magnitude than those of ethnonationalists, and their increase through the 1980s
was more gradual.
The distinctions among these three political issues are used to classify the
fifty conflicts and compare their numbers and magnitudes, with the results shown
in Table 4. Ethnonationalism is the most common issue, characterizing thirtyone conflicts; contention for power is the second most common (eighteen conflicts);
indigenous rights are salient in sixteen conflicts. Comparison of the traits of
conflicts that began before and after 1987 tests the general plausibility of the
ethnic fragmentation and power contention arguments. In absolute numbers of
post-1987 conflicts, nationalism and power contention were of equal importance:

each was the central issue in eleven new conflicts, indigenous rights were at issue
in four. In proportional terms, however, nationalism and indigenous rights were
more important sources of new conflicts before 1987 than later, whereas power
contention increased sharply in relative frequency after 1987. It also is evident
that power contention was and is the source of much more severe conflicts than
ethnonationalism or indigenous rights. The power-contention conflicts that began
after 1987 have, on average, more than ten times the fatalities and refugees of
the new indigenous rights conflicts, and are associated with about 50 percent
more deaths and refugees than new ethnonational conflicts.8
This comparative evidence, coupled with examination of the specifics of new
ethnopolitical conflicts in each region, leads to three general observations:
First, tendencies toward ethnic fragmentation have characterized world politics since the 1960s and have long been evident to observers who were not
preoccupied by Cold War issues (e.g., Connor, 1972; Esman, 1977; Horowitz,
1985). Serious new conflicts generated by aspirations for independence and autonomy have thus far been confined almost entirely to the Soviet and Yugoslav
successor states.
Second, power contention is the most deadly and disruptive issue generating
both continuing and new ethnopolitical conflicts. Two protracted communal con-
TABLE 4. Issues of Ethnopolitical Conflicts 1993-94

Number of
Conflicts
and Mean Began before Began after

Issue
Magnitude
1987
1987
All ethnopolitical conflicts N and % 50 54% 46%

Magnitude 2.85 2.72
Contention for power N and % 18 39% 61%*
Indigenous
Magnitude
N and %
rights
3.57* 3.05*
75% 25%
16
Magnitude 2.59 0.32

Ethnonationalism N and % 31 65% 35%
Other
Magnitude 2.75 2.71

and % 3 33% 67%
Magnitude
1.05
1.68
See text for discussion of issue types. Some conflicts are coded for two issues, therefore cells total more than
50. Asterisks signify frequencies of ?10% more than the expected frequency and magnitudes 2.40 greater than
the mean for all conflicts beginning in the period.
8The death and refugee comparisons are derived from the magnitude equivalency factors in Table 9.
flicts were directly affected by the disintegration of the bloc system: in Afghanistan
(As92) and Angola (Af75), ideological depolarization and the cessation of superpower involvement brought old communal rivalries to the surface and gave
new impetus or direction to conflicts which began in Cold War rivalries.9 Most
other communal conflicts, old and new, are in Africa and are manifestations of
nonideological disputes.
Lastly, indigenous rights is subsiding as an issue generating serious ethnopolitical conflict. The only deadly new conflict to make explicit use of the symbolism
of the global indigenous rights movement began in the Mexican state of Chiapas
(Am94) in January 1994. It seems unlikely that indigenous peoples will become
involved in protracted and deadly conflict in the near future, unless they are
mobilized to fight wars of independence as in Kurdistan and the uplands of
Burma, or revolutionary wars as in Guatemala and Peru.
Civilizational Fault Lines
Both kinds of interpretations sketched above zero in on the fact that the principal
sites of serious conflict have moved from higher to lower levels of aggregation in
the state system. A generic alternative to ethnic fragmentation perspectives is to
look for emerging (or persisting) lines of cleavage that cut across states and
continents and thus are likely to structure and provide rationales for future
conflicts.
Left-right ideological conflicts have lost their capacity to mobilize contenders.
Samuel Huntington contends that in coming years "the fundamental source of
conflict . . . will not be primarily ideological or primarily economic. The great
divisions among humankind and the dominating source of conflict will be cul-
tural" (1993:22). His arguments parallel closely those advanced by primordialists

to explain the persistence and reemergence of ethnic identities within states.
The differences among the eight civilizations he lists "are basic. Civilizations are
differentiated from each other by history, language, culture, tradition, and, most
important religion.... They are far more fundamental than differences among
political ideologies and political regimes" (1993:25). Huntington also suggests
why civilizational differences are becoming more salient: the relevant factors
include increasing interactions among peoples of different civilizations, growing
resistance to Western power and culture by elites in other civilizations, the
restructuring of economic competition along regional lines, and a worldwide
revival in religious beliefs to replace weakening local and state levels of identity.
Huntington's thesis is not a categorical one: he distinguishes between macroconflicts, which are increasingly likely among civilizations, and microconflicts (including ethnopolitical conflicts) which will continue to occur within as well as
among civilizations. But he also anticipates that "conflicts between groups in
different civilizations will be more frequent, more sustained, and more violent
than conflicts between groups in the same civilization" (1993:48). Thus, a fair
9The Angola conflict at its outset involved a Western-supported insurgency based on the Ovimbundu people
against a Soviet- and Cuban-supported regime based on the Mbundu and Bakongo peoples. U.S.-led efforts in
the 1980s led to foreign withdrawal, but the outcome of the 1992 elections precipitated a new and more intense
round of fighting between the contenders. The conflict is included in the pre-1987 category because there has been
no change in the basic cleavage between contenders. Ethnopolitical conflict in Afghanistan is included in the post1987 category. The Afghan conflict of the 1980s pitted Islamists of all tribes against the Soviet-supported Marxist
government in Kabul. Soviet withdrawal was followed by overthrow of the Kabul regime and, in 1992, by the
onset of fighting among contending tribally based warlords. The ethnopolitical dimension of conflict emerged after
the counter-revolution.
TED
ROBERT
GURR
357
test of Huntington's thesis is to ask whether or not the trends he foresees are
manifest in data on the most serious contemporary ethnopolitical conflicts.10
A similar but more sharply focused argument is made by Mark Juergensmeyer
(1993), who contends that a fundamental cleavage has emerged between religious nationalism and secular nationalism. The essential idea of religious nationalists, whether they are Islamists, militant Hindus, Buddhists, Sikhs, or
Zionists, is that political communities should be built on shared beliefs. The
growing desire to ground the legitimacy of political authority in religious principles is mainly a reaction to the limitations of secular nationalism-corruption
and inefficiency, moral decline, excessive materialism. Whereas Huntington's
"fault lines" among civilizations can be projected cartographically, Juergensmeyer's cleavages exist in ideational space. But the conflicts they engender are
real, intense, and in some sense irresolvable because they are based on opposed
value systems. It is therefore a fair test of Juergensmeyer's argument to ask
whether or not ethnopolitical conflicts in which one or both protagonists are
religious nationalists have become more frequent and intense.
The fifty serious ethnopolitical conflicts are partitioned in Table 5 according
to alternative specifications of ideological and cultural cleavage. Four of the
conflicts, but only one recent one, are based on left-right rivalries. Eighteen are
"civilizational" by Huntington's criteria, whereas an overlapping set of fifteen
fits Juergensmeyer's characterization of "religious nationalism."11 Also included

is a comparison based on whether the conflict occurs across the cleavage that
divides Islamic from non-Islamic peoples.
TABLE 5. Conflicts along Lines of Ideological and Civilizational Cleavage 1993-94

Number of
Conflicts
and Mean Began before Began after
Issue
Magnitude
1987
1987

Magnitude
2.85
2.59
Left-right ideological N and % 4 75%* 25%

Magnitude
Civilizational
and
5.24*
18
50%
0.32
50%
(Huntington) Magnitude 3.75* 2.65

Religious nationalism N and % 15 47% 53%
(Juergensmeyer) Magnitude 3.26* 2.57
Islamic vs. non-Islamic N and % 15 53% 47%
Magnitude
None
and
25
3.71*
52%
Magnitude
1.96
2.77
48%
2.78
See text for discussion of cleavages. Some civilizational conflicts meet the criteria for two or three versions of
the hypothesis, therefore cells total more than 50. Conflicts are coded Ideological only if no other issues are salient.
Asterisks signify frequencies of 210% more than the expected frequency and magnitudes 2.40 greater than the
mean for all conflicts beginning in the period.
'0Huntington's thesis has attracted much critical attention (Huntington et al., 1993; Alker, 1994) but not yet
any empirical probes of its plausibility.
"IThe codings used to partition the conflicts are shown in the third column of the Appendix. Huntington and
Juergensmeyer both characterize some of these conflicts in their theoretical terms; we have categorized the others
based on inferences or guidelines drawn from their arguments. Eleven conflicts meet both the civilizational and
religious nationalism criteria; 14 of the 18 civilizational conflicts and 9 of the 15 conflicts based on religious nationalism
involve Islamic vs. non-Islamic contenders.
Three kinds of tests of the import of each cleavage can be offered. The first
is whether a particular cleavage characterizes a majority of the conflicts; none do
so. The "civilizational" cleavage, which divided contenders in eighteen of the
fifty cases, is marginally more important than the others. The second is whether
there is a shift over time in the proportion of serious ethnopolitical conflicts that
are related to civilizational or religious cleavages. Again the answer is no: there
is no temporal shift whatsoever, as this summary shows:
Began Began
before 1987 after 1987
Number of non-left/right conflicts 24 22

Number of civilizational or religious
conflicts
11
10
Number of others 13 12
The third test is whether ethnopolitical conflicts based on civilizational or religious

cleavages are more intense than others. Among conflicts that began before 1987
the answer is consistently affirmative: ideological, civilizational, and Islamic
versus non-Islamic conflicts are all substantially more intense than others. For
the more recent conflicts, though, there are no significant differences-except
for left-right conflict, represented by a single lowest-magnitude case. The only
way to save the hypothesis, based on this evidence, is to ask for more time: the
ten trans-cleavage conflicts which began after 1987 may eventually prove to be
more intense and persistent than the twelve others.
In brief, there is no evidence to date that civilizational or religious cleavages
are becoming more important as a source of ethnopolitical conflicts. The one
significant observation is that trans-cleavage conflicts which began before 1987
have been more intense than others-but no such difference is evident in newer
conflicts. The skeptical interpretation is that postulates about an impending increase in communal warfare inspired by civilizational and religious conflicts are
based on hindsight, not foresight.
Material Inequalities
One of the most pronounced and growing cleavages in the contemporary world
system is the widening ecological, demographic, and material gap between North
and South, rich and poor (Pirages, 1994). At the most macro level the cleavage
divides whole regions and continents, but it is also acute within states, especially
those undergoing rapid modernization. Huntington's view, quoted above, is that
economic issues will not be primary sources of future conflict (1993:22). Evidence
from the 1980s suggests this observation also is well-grounded in hindsight:
material inequalities were an underlying issue in some ethnonational conflicts but
not a strong force. For example, global analyses of the Minorities at Risk study
showed that ethnonationalists of the 1980s tended to be only slightly disadvantaged, on average, in comparison with dominant groups; and that material
inequalities and economic discrimination had negligible correlations with ethnonationalist grievances and rebellions.
A stronger case can be made linking ecological stress, inequalities, and conflict
affecting indigenous peoples. In the 1980s politically active indigenous peoples

experienced much greater ecological and demographic stress and economic
discrimination than ethnonationalists, and they also expressed more intense
grievances about economic rights (Gurr, 1993a:chs. 2, 3; Gurr, 1993b). But I
observed above that since 1988 indigenous rights have declined as an issue of
TED
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359
intense ethnopolitical conflict. One can speculate that two factors have combined
to mute the significance of material inequalities as causes of intense ethnopolitical conflict. First, the most disadvantaged communal groups, like the poorest
states of the South, have few resources with which to fight protracted conflicts.
Second, indigenous activists have gained modest concessions as a consequence
of low-level conflicts with states, especially but not only in the Americas (Wilmer,
1993:ch. 5). These concessions-about local autonomy and indigenous control
of resources-may be enough to satisfice some activists and to reinforce the use
of nonviolent political strategies.
At the macrolevel, however, poverty may have an indirect effect on the sites
and intensity of ethnopolitical conflict. The reasons why poor countries can be
expected to have more frequent and intense communal conflict are easy to specify.
Systemic poverty means limited state capacity: substantial concessions to communal contenders therefore are prohibitively costly, military control of secessionist challenges is problematic, and conflicts over power and material issues
tend to be seen by all contenders in zero-sum terms. It also is more difficult to
provide assistance to the refugees and victims of such conflicts. All these concomitants of systemic poverty increase the chances that communal conflicts in the
poorest countries will be intense, protracted, and deadly.
Some empirical evidence is summarized in Table 6, which shows numbers
and magnitudes of ethnopolitical conflicts in countries grouped by per capita
GNP. The wealthier countries have somewhat fewer conflicts; the most intense
conflicts in these countries occur mainly in the former Soviet sphere; South Africa
and Iraq are also in this group. Conflicts in lower-middle-income countries-most
of Latin America, the more prosperous countries of Africa and Southeast Asiaare the least intense in comparisons across each issue of conflict. The poorest
African and Asian countries have thirteen of the eighteen power-contention
conflicts and half the ethnonationalist conflicts, most of which are substantially
more intense than conflicts over the same issues in more prosperous countries.
To summarize, contention over material inequalities is a secondary or latent

issue in most contemporary ethnopolitical conflicts. It is unwise to discount the
present or future significance of economic factors, however, because conflicts
tend to be more numerous and intense in regions and countries where systemic
poverty is greatest. Most African economies are stagnant or in decline; material
inequalities continue to increase between urban elites and the rural poor
throughout most of the South. These conditions may not directly cause future
ethnopolitical conflicts in these regions but imply that their human costs will be
particularly great. Conflicts in poor and peripheral regions also tend to attract
fewer international efforts at settlement than those closer to the Western heartland, which may contribute to their protracted nature and deadly consequences.
Political Transitions
Changes in the power structure of the global system, emerging fault lines among
civilizations, and the impoverishment of entire regions are macroconditions that
shape the larger context within which ethnopolitical conflicts emerge and persist.
It is necessary to complement them with an accounting of the kinds of statelevel political changes that precipitate specific conflicts. Several lines of theoretical
inquiry call attention to political transitions as immediate causes of ethnopolitical
conflict. Barbara Harff has argued that genocides and politicides are likely to
follow from national upheaval, defined as "an abrupt change in the political
community caused . . . by the formation of a state through violent conflict, when
national boundaries are reformed, or after a war is lost" (Harff, 1986:167; see
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GURR
361
also Harff, 1987). She proposes that in societies characterized by sharp preexisting internal cleavages, such upheavals tend to intensify conflict between
regimes and national minorities and often lead to an exaggerated emphasis on
national identity followed by targeting of minorities as scapegoats. Helen Fein
makes a more restricted argument that a predisposing condition for the Holocaust and Armenian genocides was national crisis brought about by defeats in
war and internal strife that brought new elites to power, elites who were committed to a myth of national purity that justified the exclusion of communal
victims from the universe of obligation (Fein, 1979:8-9; also see Melson,
1992:ch. 8). The importance of these arguments for explaining the onset of
ethnopolitical conflict is demonstrated by Fein's comparative evidence that most
post-1960 genocides and politicides were responses to communal rebellions
which were, in turn, reactions to state policies of discrimination and political
exclusion aimed at communal groups (Fein, 1993:88-92).12
Specific predictions that follow from Harffs and Fein's arguments are that,
in societies with preexisting communal cleavages, state formation and defeat in
war both are likely to be followed by what is now fashionably called ultranationalism, increased conflict among communal contenders, and victimization of minorities. Another line of argument and body of evidence links revolutionary
changes of power to increased conflict. States that have undergone revolutionary
political change are much more likely to be involved in international conflict, as
Maoz has shown in a series of papers (e.g., Maoz, 1993). Closer to the present
point, revolutionary transitions open up opportunities for new contenders and
also usually bring to power leaders who have the means and inclination to
respond violently to internal challengers (Gurr, 1988; Goldstone, Gurr, and
Moshiri, 1991:ch. 10).
A third relevant line of argument focuses on the consequences of democratization for ethnic and communal conflict. Transitions to democracy contribute
in complex ways to ethnic and communal conflict. Some ethnopolitical contenders
use the opportunities provided by democratic openings to justify protest and
rebellion as struggles for individual and collective rights, to be achieved and
protected in the political framework. And some ultranationalists who have been
elected to power in the Soviet and Yugoslav successor states use similar kinds
of rhetoric to justify restrictions on the rights of communal minorities in the

name of the "democratic will" of the dominant nationality. The general prediction is that ethnopolitical conflicts should be more numerous and intense in newly
democratic and quasi-democratic states than in institutionalized democracies or
autocracies.
Some effects of power transitions on ethnopolitical conflicts are examined in

Table 7. Half of the fifty conflicts followed in the wake of power transitions,
including nine that began within five years of state establishment and eleven
within three years of revolutionary seizures of power (including coups by radical
reformers). The category "Began following any power shift" includes five additional conflicts: four began as resistance to the forcible incorporation of a
territory by another state (cases M75, P59, P63, and P76), the fifth was the Shi'i
rebellion (case M9 1) that followed Iraq's defeat in the Gulf War.13

Numbers of power-shift conflicts declined between the two periods, from fifteen before 1987 to ten thereafter. The more striking comparison is that ethno-
12The data on genocides and politicides used in this analysis are mainly from Harff s research (Harff, 1992b);
the data on group discrimination are from Gurr and Gurr (1983) and Gurr and Scarritt (1989).
13The Iraqi regime's suppression of the Kurdish rebellion in the spring of 1991 also is consistent with the
thesis that defeat in war prompts intensified communal conflict. This was not a new conflict, however, but a
resumption of a conflict that began in 1960.

TABLE 7. Conflicts following Shifts in Political Power
Number of
Conflicts and Began Began

Issue Mean Magnitude before 1987 after 1987
Magnitude 2.85 2.59
Began within 5 years of establishment of N and % 9 44% 56%*

new
state
Magnitude
4.09*
3.23*
Began within 3 years of revolutionary power N and % 11 64%* 36%

shift
Magnitude
2.08
3.66*
Began following any power shift N and % 25 60% 40%

Magnitude 2.79 3.28*
None
and
25
48%
52%
Magnitude 2.92 2.05
Some power-shift conflicts meet the criteria for two different types, therefore cells total more than 50. Asterisks
signify frequencies of - 1O) more than the expected frequiency and magnitudes ?.40 greater than the mean for
all conflicts beginning in the period.
political conflicts that follow power transitions generally are more intense than
others: this is true of pre-1987 conflicts in newly established states, and all types
of power-transition conflicts that occurred after 1987. On average, the ten post1987 power-transition conflicts were responsible for twice as many deaths and
refugees as the thirteen others.
Harff's contention that political upheaval is linked specifically to gross human

rights violations also is strongly supported by the data. Thirteen of the fifty
serious ethnopolitical conflicts have led to deliberate killings by state agents of
large numbers of communal victims, thus meeting her definition of genocide
and politicide. Nine of these conflicts were preceded by power transitions, only
four were not.14
This comparative inquiry concludes with a look at the correlations between
type of political regime and the occurrence and severity of ethnopolitical conflicts.
Table 8 shows that half of the fifty conflicts began under autocratic regimes,
contrasted with only eight in democratic regimes; India accounts for four of the
latter (As52, As81, As9O, As91). Ethnopolitical conflicts in autocracies also have
substantially higher magnitudes than those in democracies. Arguments about
the effects of transitions to democracy on ethnopolitical conflict are supported:
although transitional regimes are relatively few in number, one-third of all
serious ethnopolitical conflicts began in such regimes, including eleven of the
most recent ones. Six of the latter began in the Soviet and Yugoslav successor
states (E88, E90, E9la, E9lb, E92a, E92b), four others in democratizing African
states (Af88a, Af89a, Af9M, Af92a).
Burundi provides a cautionary example. Genocidal massacres in the early
1990s were a reaction to the policies of a recently elected Hutu-controlled
14Genocides and politicides are defined as "the promotion and execution of policies by a state or its agents
that result in the deaths of a substantial portion of a group" (Harff, 1992b:27-28). The ethnopolitical conflicts in
which such killings occurred are E92b, M60, M79, *M91, As85, P59, P76, P70, *Af75, Af83, *Af88a, AF88b, and
Am72. The three asterisked conflicts are not on Harffs most recent published list of geno/politicides (1992b:32-
36) but meet the general criteria and will be included in subsequent lists. The four that were not preceded by
power transitions are As85, P70, Af83, and Am72.
TED
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363
TABLE 8. Conflicts by Type of Political Regime at Their Onset
Number of
Conflicts and Began Began

Issue Mean Magnitude before 1987 after 1987
Magnitude
2.85
2.59
Autocratic regimes N and % 25 64%* 36%

Magnitude
3.43*
2.91
Democratic regimes N and % 8 63% 37%

Magnitude
2.44
1.30
Transitional regimes N and % 17 35% 65%*

Magnitude
1.67
2.67
See text for discussion of regime types. "Transitional" regimes have mixed autocratic and democratic features,
usually a result of recent shifts toward democratization. The codings are mutually exclusive. Asterisks signify
frequencies of ?10% more than the expected frequency and magnitudes 2.40 greater than the mean for all
conflicts beginning in the period.
government that threatened the status of the once-dominant Tutsi minority.

They were, in other words, an unintended consequence of efforts to democratize
a racially stratified autocracy. Proponents of democratization will find little
comfort either in this case or in the comparative evidence that recent ethnopolitical conflicts in transitional states are far more intense on average than those
in institutional democracies, and on a par with the intensity of conflicts in auto-
cratic regimes.
In summary, the power-transition explanations of the onset of serious ethnopolitical conflict are more strongly and consistently supported than any of the
systemic explanations examined above. Nearly two-thirds of the conflicts-eighteen of the early ones, fourteen of the later ones-began either in transitional
regimes or after power shifts. Six of the recent conflicts erupted in the Soviet and
Yugoslav successor states (E88, E90, E9la, E9lb, E92a, E92b); four followed
abrupt shifts in power in established states (M91, As92, Af88a, Af88b); and four
others began in established states whose regimes were transitional between
democracy and autocracy (Af89b, Af9M, Af92a, Am94). Among the powertransition conflicts are most of those on which global attention has been fixated
in recent years: civil wars in Bosnia, Croatia, and Azerbaijan, genocidal massacres
in Burundi, clan fighting in Somalia, communal warfare in South Africa. The
average magnitude of these fifteen recent power-transition conflicts is 2.96, significantly greater than the 2.34 average for eight recent non-power-transition
conflicts.
Back to the Future
The supposed explosion of "tribal" conflict in the post-Cold War era has provoked much speculation. The long-run trend extrapolated by some observers is
political fragmentation of the global system. The fear is that new, ethnically
more homogenous states will continue to proliferate and that power will be
devolved within existing states as more and more of their constituent peoples
win regional autonomy. Tribal wars of independence and vengeance will lead
to a mounting toll of humanitarian disasters and refugees in need of international assistance (see Etzioni, 1992-93; Kaplan, 1994). The sense of alarm is
due partly to the fact that some of the new conflicts have erupted on Western
Europe's doorstep: the contrast of Sarajevo's televised images from Olympic
Winter Games to deadly siege is jarring. The findings presented above lead to
less pessimistic conclusions:
* The increase in serious ethnopolitical conflict since the late 1980s is a continuation of a trend that first became evident in the 1960s. The deconstruction
of the Soviet bloc nudged the trend upward but did not create it.
* The principal issue of the most intense new conflicts is contention for state
power among communal groups in Third World societies. The end of the
Cold War is implicated in a few of these conflicts: they intensified in Afghanistan and Angola after the superpowers disengaged from what at the
outset were left-right conflicts. Most others, though, occur in the weak and
economically stagnant states of Africa south of the Sahara.
* New secessionist conflicts are confined almost entirely to the Soviet and
Yugoslav successor states.'5 In other world regions such conflicts have declined in salience and intensity since the 1980s.
* Power transitions within states have been the principal immediate condition
of civil and communal warfare, past and present. Two kinds of power
transitions have increased in the aftermath of the Cold War: twenty new or
redesigned states have come into existence, and a number of states are
experimenting with new democratic institutions. Much of the upsurge in
communal conflict has occurred precisely in these states, and as a direct
consequence of the fact that institutional change has opened up opportu-
nities by which communal groups can more openly pursue their objectives.
* Communal conflicts that occur across civilizational and religious fault lines
have in the past proved to be more intense than others and probably will
continue to be so in the future. But civilizational cleavages serve mainly to
structure and reinforce the contention that is concerned mainly with issues
of group power and status. Of the ten "civilizational" conflicts that began
after 1987, six followed power transitions and the other four, including the
Intifada (M88) and Hindu-Muslim rivalries in South Asia (As9O, As9la),
evolved from long-standing ethnonationalist disputes.
* There is no strong global force leading toward the further fragmentation
of the state system. Ethnonational contention has characterized the world
system since the 1960s and has led to the breakup of four multinational
states: the USSR, Yugoslavia, Czechoslovakia, and Ethiopia. Few others
remain.
* The most likely scenario is an increase in communal contention about access

to power in new, weak, heterogenous states like those of Africa: Sudan and
Angola are archetypes, Zaire is on the brink. Though these conflicts unquestionably will continue to pose severe humanitarian problems, they also are
capable of being contained, redirected, and transformed through constructive international action. These situations are foreseeable, concentrated in
a few world regions, and potentially susceptible to management by regional
and international actors-a topic that is examined more fully in the final
part of this article.
Can Serious Ethnopolitical Conflicts Be Managed Successfully?

It is commonly observed that communally based conflicts are more resistant to
settlement than other kinds of intra- and inter-state conflicts. There are at least
15The only exception is case P88, a small-scale secessionist rebellion on Bougainville Island in Papua-New
Guinea.
TED
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365
three general reasons why this is so. Diagnosing the obstacles to their settlement
is the first conceptual step toward making these conflicts more tractable.
Some of the key issues are nonmaterial. Ethnopolitical conflicts are fought not just
about resources or power, but about protecting group status, culture, and identity. Identity and belief are non-negotiable. On the other hand, the means by
which they are protected can be and have been the subject of creative compromises (for overviews of strategies see Montville, 1989:Part V; and Gurr,
1993a:ch. 10).
Most communal groups lack effective governing structures. Ethnopolitical movements can energize group members for sustained collective action but have little
capacity for political control. Therefore, settlements are difficult to reach and
often challenged violently by factions that choose to fight on. On the other hand,
once authentic representatives of communal groups establish their own political
structures, or gain regular access to state power, they acquire the authority and
resources to restrain challengers within the group.
Regional and global strategies for mediating and regulating ethnopolitical conflict have
been slow to develop. The development of techniques of preventive diplomacy and
peacemaking suited to ethnopolitical rivalries has long been handicapped by
two systemic facts. One was the Cold War rivalry, the other was the doctrine of
unqualified sovereignty which inhibited international and regional agreement
about interfering even in the most deadly of communal wars.
Guidelines for Managing Ethnopolitical Conflict

The quest of disadvantaged peoples for greater autonomy or access to power
does not necessarily lead to protracted and violent conflict. It is unrealistic to
think that conflicts over these issues can be resolved for all time, but there is
much evidence that they can be managed or transformed to less destructive
forms. The first general principle is that management of ethnopolitical conflict
requires balancing the interests of communal groups and state elites (see Mikesell
and Murphy, 1991). The second is that the process of creative conflict management should begin as early as possible in the conflict, on the grounds that the
more protracted the conflict, the more resistant the contenders are to settlement.
The good offices, mediation, incentives, and diplomatic pressures provided by

outside parties often play a critical role in the process of accommodation.16
When ethnopolitical disputes escalate into protracted communal conflicts it usually is due to failures of leadership and political imagination on both sides,
combined with international inattentiveness.
Four observations based on the comparative evidence can be offered in support of these assertions.
Ethnopolitical conflict usually begins with limited protests and clashes that only gradually
escalate into sustained violence. The Minorities at Risk project tracked the evolution
of political action by twenty-four minorities in Western democracies between
the 1950s and 1980s, eighteen of which eventually used violent protest or
terrorism. An average of thirteen years elapsed between the emergence of
political movements based on these groups and the first occurrence of violence
(Gurr, 1993a: 144-146). Government responses in the early stages, in these and
other conflicts, usually are critical in whether and how escalation occurs. The
16A number of important comparative studies of the settlement of serious ethnopolitical conflicts have recently
been published, including Montville (1989), Zartman (1989), Licklider (1992), de Silva and Samarasinghe (1993),
and McGarry and O'Leary (1993).

government of Chancellor Helmut Kohl almost certainly contributed to the
escalation of antiforeign violence in Germany in 1992 by not taking a strong
public stand against it at the outset. In marked contrast is the response of the
Mexican government to the rebellion that began on New Year's Day 1994 among
indigenous people in the state of Chiapas. Within a month the government
moved to negotiate with the movement's leaders-reportedly the first such
Mexican response to a local rebellion in this century.
The Western democracies have been relatively successful in devising policies of regional
autonomy, integration, and pluralism that have kept most ethnic protest from escalating
into rebellion. These countries experienced a one-third decline in magnitudes of
ethnopolitical conflict in the 1980s, the only set of countries that ran counter to
the long-run global trend of increasing ethnopolitical conflict (Gurr, 1993a: 100115). I am not dismissing the seriousness of current ethnic conflicts of Western
societies: the point is that, by a world standard of comparison, protest and racial
harassment are far less destructive of human life and institutions than communal
rebellions and massacres, and far more susceptible to accommodation. And
policies of affirmative action and multiculturalism are much more likely to
contribute to civil peace in multiethnic societies than historical patterns of segregation, involuntary assimilation, and suppression of autonomy movements. It
is virtually inconceivable, for example, that the federal government of Canada
would fight a civil war to keep Quebec part of Canada. Democratic governments
like those of Canada, and of Czechoslovakia in 1992, would rather switch than
fight.
Negotiated regional autonomy has proved to be an effective antidote for ethnonational
wars of secession in Western and Third World states. Basque demands for independence were largely undermined in 1980 when the new democratic government
of Spain offered autonomy to the Basque, Catalan, and Galician regions. The
Basque case is one of seven identified in the Minorities at Risk study in which
violent secessionist conflicts were more or less successfully settled through negotiated autonomy arrangements. Most of the "small winners" have been Third
World peoples like the Miskitos in Nicaragua and the Nagas and Tripuras in
India. In several of these instances, including the Basque conflict, settlements
were rejected by factions that continued to fight, but the intensity of conflict
nonetheless declined markedly.17 These successes can be contrasted with failed

attempts of governments to end civil wars through autonomy arrangements, for
example, in Sudan (1972), Iraq (1974), and Sri Lanka (1987). In the first instance
the Sudanese government eventually (in 1983) defected from the agreement
and civil war resumed; in the last two, most rebels rejected from the outset
autonomy arrangements that were unilaterally implemented by governments in
efforts to defuse conflicts.18
All six serious ethnopolitical conflicts of the Soviet and Yugoslav successor states have
been contained, mostly as a result of regional and international intervention. UN diplomatic and peacekeeping efforts ended serious fighting in Croatia in 1992 and,
belatedly, now seem to have taken effect in Bosnia. Concerted regional and U.S.
efforts also have succeeded thus far in preventing civil war in Macedonia. In
the cases of Abkhazia (E92a) and the trans-Dniester republic (E91b), Russiansupported rebels have established de facto autonomy that is no longer chal17Several of the low-intensity conflicts that continued after autonomy agreements were concluded are among
the 50 conflicts analyzed in this article: E68, As52, As75, P70.
18The outcomes of recent secessionist civil wars and autonomy arrangements are compared in Gurr (1993a:ch.
10). The history of failed negotiations for autonomy between Kurds and the Iraqi government are summarized
in Gurr and Harff (1994b:ch. 3). See also case studies in de Silva and Samarasinghe (1993).
TED
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367
lenged militarily by the new states from which they seceded.19 The Georgian
government has accepted a Russian military presence aimed at discouraging
further ethnic and political warfare. Since June 1992 the Russians, Georgians,
and Ossetians have carried out a largely successful trilateral peacekeeping op-
eration in South Ossetia (E90). And in March 1994 negotiators announced a

settlement of the most protracted conflict in the region, between Azerbaijan and
the Armenians of the Nagorno-Karabakh enclave (E88). Scattered fighting continues and may intensify in these and other ethnic conflicts. The general trend,
though, is an unmistakable shift throughout the region from ethnic warfare
toward accommodation-a trend reinforced by international pressures. Another
positive sign is that the two largest states in the region, Russia and Ukraine,
have thus far steered clear of provocative policies and military actions that would
intensify internal and trans-border ethnic conflicts.
International Strategies to Restrain Future Ethnopolitical Conflicts
A great deal of attention has been given by international actors to designing

policies that will forestall and contain future ethnopolitical conflicts. The benchmark for evolving international doctrine is the UN Secretary-General's Agenda
for Peace, presented on 17 June '92 to the General Assembly and the Security
Council (United Nations, 1992). The Agenda focuses attention on threats to
international security arising from "ethnic, religious, social, cultural or linguistic
strife" (paragraph 11) and outlines four kinds of responses: preventive diplomacy, peacemaking, peacekeeping, and post-conflict peace-building that addresses "the deepest causes of conflict: economic despair, social injustice, and
political oppression" (paragraph 15). The UN's capacity to implement the
Agenda has been seriously questioned because of strategic and political errors
in the Bosnia and Somalia operations. The capacity of the international system
to sustain these kinds of activities continues to depend on the political will of
member states of the UN and their willingness to provide resources. Nonetheless
there is a compelling collective interest in anticipating and responding to emerging ethnopolitical conflicts. Let me conclude by identifying six issues that will
have to be addressed as part of the global strategy of moderating ethnopolitical
conflicts.
* International law and policy about the rights of communal groups to autonomy need
to be clarified. What groups, under what conditions, have a right to interna-
tionally supported self-determination? Doctrines of individual rights are

well-developed and widely accepted; doctrines about self-determination are
not (see Halperin and Schaeffer, 1992).
* International law and policy about protecting rights of communal groups within
states should be consistently enforced. Communal minorities supposedly have
the right to individual and collective existence and pursuit of their cultural
interests free of political repression. Those rights ought to be consistently
monitored and their systematic violation should lead predictably to diplomatic pressures and, in severe cases, to sanctions (see Harff, 1984; Bayzler,
1987).
* Systems should be established for gathering information about and issuing early
warning of impending communal conflicts and humanitarian crises. Researchers,
19The nature and extent of Russian support for these breakaway republics is the subject of dispute; the Moscow
government did not authorize the flow of military hardware and "volunteers" to either group but local Russian
commanders probably did so.

activists, and international officials have widely endorsed the objective of
early warning systems. The hard work needed to implement the idea has
just begun: what's required is information networking, developing and testing of early-warning models, and establishing channels to communicate risk
assessments and warnings to those in positions to act on them.20
* Guidelines and instrumentalities for preventive diplomacy in cases of emerging ethno-
political conflict need to be established and widely employed-by the UN, by regional
organizations, by the United States and other powers. This means using traditional
diplomacy directed at states, and providing mediation. It also means developing new mechanisms that give representatives of communal groups incentives to enter into internationally brokered negotiations and agreements
(see International Alert, 1993).
* The peoples and governments of the South need to be actively engaged in identifying
and responding to emerging ethnopolitical crises. The Cold War may be over but
there remains strong resistance among countries of the South to preventive
action by the United Nations, which is sometimes seen as the agent of
hegemonic Northern interests. One alternative is to strengthen the will and
capacity of regional organizations for preventive diplomacy and peacemaking: the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC) has long played a
low-key role of this sort; the Organization of African Unity (OAU) has
recently increased its capacity for preventive diplomacy.21 A parallel strategy
is to involve nongovernmental organizations of the South, for example,
those concerned with human rights, democratization, and women's issues,
in efforts at conflict prevention.
* Finally, international doctrine, early warnings, and the practice of preventive diplomacy need to be backed up with established doctrines of humanitarian intervention.
This emphatically includes the resort to force in cases of gross and persistent
violations of human rights. The Allies did so in Iraqi Kurdistan in 1991,
but only after many thousands died and hundreds of thousands fled to
Turkey and Iran. Somalis are no longer starving to death nor killing one
another in clan rivalries. And the siege of Sarajevo has been lifted. The
lesson is that, once ethnopolitical conflict escalates into intense warfare, international political strategies of reestablishing peace and security are not
likely to work unless backed by the credible threat of force (see Harff,
1992b).
These six issues transcend the division between research and policy formation.
All of them deserve sustained, analytic attention from the global network of
scholars concerned with international studies.
20On the rationale for early warning of communal conflict see Rupesinghe and Kuroda (1992); for an overview
of conceptual, research, and policy issues see Gurr and Harff (1994a).
2IThe actual and potential role of regional organizations of the South in moderating ethnopolitical disputes
has gotten little attention from Western scholars. The OIC brokered agreements between the Moro and the
Marcos government that largely ended the Moro rebellion of the 1970s (Gurr, 1993a:302-303). In 1993 the OAU
established a new authority and mechanism for preventive diplomacy (Mohamed Sahnoun, personal communication); the OAU's mixed record of peacekeeping is described in Kieh (1993).
TED ROBERT GURR 369
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Peoples Against States: Ethnopolitical Conflict and the Changing World System: 1994

International Studies Quarterly (1994) 38, 347-377

Peoples Against States: Ethnopolitical

The post-Cold War surge in so-called tribal conflict is shown here to be

348 Peoples Against States

TED ROBERT GURR 349

The Minorities at Risk Project

My understanding of these issues, and of ethnopolitical conflict generally, has

Systemic Change and the Resurgence of Ethnopolitical Conflict

350 Peoples Against States

TABLE 1. Numbers of Ethnopolitical Groups Involved in Serious Conflict 1945-1994 by Region

Decade Europea Eastb Asiac Africad America Total

bIncluding North Africa, Turkey, Israel, Afghanistan, and Pakistan.

TED ROBERT GURR 351

352 Peoples Against States

Mean no. of refugees 535,000 408,000 684,000

Mean no. of deaths 80,000 111,000 43,000

The communal criteria used by group members to define themselves may

nearly 27 million people.6 A summary indicator of the magnitude of each conflict

The Collapse of the Bloc System and Ethnic Fragmentation

One macro approach to explaining the rise of ethnopolitical conflict focuses on

circumstances of the conflict are not yet clear.

354 Peoples Against States

A second interpretation, often but not necessarily assumed by proponents of

post-1987 conflicts, nationalism and power contention were of equal importance:

TABLE 4. Issues of Ethnopolitical Conflicts 1993-94

and Mean Began before Began after

All ethnopolitical conflicts N and % 50 54% 46%

Magnitude 2.59 0.32

Magnitude 2.75 2.71

356 Peoples Against States

Civilizational Fault Lines

tural" (1993:22). His arguments parallel closely those advanced by primordialists

fits Juergensmeyer's characterization of "religious nationalism."11 Also included

TABLE 5. Conflicts along Lines of Ideological and Civilizational Cleavage 1993-94

All ethnopolitical conflicts N and % 50 54% 46%

Left-right ideological N and % 4 75%* 25%

(Huntington) Magnitude 3.75* 2.65

358 Peoples Against States

before 1987 after 1987

Number of non-left/right conflicts 24 22

The third test is whether ethnopolitical conflicts based on civilizational or religious

affecting indigenous peoples. In the 1980s politically active indigenous peoples

To summarize, contention over material inequalities is a secondary or latent

360 Peoples Against States

.e~~~~C OnG 00 U- Q0 GMI Gn:

01$:; 2 ?' :R2

of rhetoric to justify restrictions on the rights of communal minorities in the

Some effects of power transitions on ethnopolitical conflicts are examined in

rebellion (case M9 1) that followed Iraq's defeat in the Gulf War.13

362 Peoples Against States

Conflicts and Began Began

Began within 5 years of establishment of N and % 9 44% 56%*

Began within 3 years of revolutionary power N and % 11 64%* 36%

Began following any power shift N and % 25 60% 40%

Magnitude 2.92 2.05

Harff's contention that political upheaval is linked specifically to gross human

TABLE 8. Conflicts by Type of Political Regime at Their Onset

Conflicts and Began Began

Autocratic regimes N and % 25 64%* 36%

Democratic regimes N and % 8 63% 37%

Transitional regimes N and % 17 35% 65%*

government that threatened the status of the once-dominant Tutsi minority.

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