Beyond Fractionalization: Mapping Ethnicity onto Nationalist Insurgencies

American Political Science Review 101(1): 173–85.

This paper theorizes the link between ethnicity and conflict. Conventional research relies on the ethnolinguistic fractionalization index (ELF) to explore a possible causal connection between these two phenomena. However, such approaches implicitly postulate unrealistic, individualist interaction topologies. Moreover, ELF‐based studies fail to articulate explicit causal mechanisms of collective action. To overcome these difficulties, we introduce the new index N* of ethnonationalist exclusiveness that maps ethnic configurations onto political violence. This formalization is confirmed statistically in regression analysis based on data from Eurasia and North Africa.

URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/S0003055407070086

PDF: http://www.icr.ethz.ch/publications/beyond-fractionalization/BeyondFractionalizationVer2.1.pdf

DOI: 10.1017/S0003055407070086

Cederman, Lars-Erik, and Luc Girardin. 2007. “Beyond Fractionalization: Mapping Ethnicity onto Nationalist Insurgencies.” American Political Science Review 101(1): 173–85.

@Article{beyond-fractionalization,
   title = {Beyond Fractionalization: Mapping Ethnicity onto Nationalist Insurgencies},
   author = {Cederman, Lars-Erik and Girardin, Luc},
   journal = {American Political Science Review},
   volume = {101},
   issue = {1},
   year = {2007},
   pages = {173--185},
   abstract = {This paper theorizes the link between ethnicity and conflict. Conventional research relies on the ethnolinguistic fractionalization index (ELF) to explore a possible causal connection between these two phenomena. However, such approaches implicitly postulate unrealistic, individualist interaction topologies. Moreover, ELF-based studies fail to articulate explicit causal mechanisms of collective action. To overcome these difficulties, we introduce the new index N* of ethnonationalist exclusiveness that maps ethnic configurations onto political violence. This formalization is confirmed statistically in regression analysis based on data from Eurasia and North Africa.},
   doi = {10.1017/S0003055407070086},
   url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/S0003055407070086},
   pdf = {http://www.icr.ethz.ch/publications/beyond-fractionalization/BeyondFractionalizationVer2.1.pdf},
   keywords = {ethnicity, nationalism, peoplehood, political, political-violence}
}