"Collapse or Destruction? The Construction of the Yugoslav Wars"
Chip Gagnon

Paper presented at National Convention of AAASS, Boston, Mass., November 15, 1996

Draft: Please do not cite without author's permission

Ethnicity and Politics

The term collapse reflects the assumptions behind the major approaches to the outbreak of violence along ethnic lines and how they deal with questions of war. Realists, who tend to dominate the field of international relations and the study of war, have trouble integrating notions of culture and ethnicity into their worldview. They tend either to see ethnicity as a mere façade for power interests, perhaps as a way to mobilize domestic support behind foreign policy strategies of expansion and war,[1] or to impose their model onto a world of "ethnic groups"; that is, just as state actors face threats from other states, security dilemmas, etc., so too ethnic groups are unitary actors facing the anarchical environment of inter-ethnic relations.[2] The existence of clearly bounded "ethnic groups" with objective and identifiable interests vis-à-vis other groups, and in which "ethnic interests" predominate, is assumed. That is, just as states are reified into the "real" actors in the traditional realist approach, so too are ethnic groups reified despite the fact that such "groups" do not possess the institutional realities that make up the state (except in the case of "ethnic states," in which case we are talking about inter-state dynamics rather than inter-group). This reification of ethnic groups and their purported interests is strikingly similar to the logic underpinning ethnic cleansing.

Realism also says nothing about the meaning of ethnicity or of culture in general; they are taken as attributes or interests of the putative group. The group is defined by the assumption of a common ethnic identity which determines the group's interest vis-à-vis other similarly defined groups, which in turn leads to conflict. Besides the tautological nature of this approach, this focus on the state or group as the unit of analysis also overlooks the fact that culture's importance and meaning are to be found within communities and societies. By reducing culture to merely an attribute of a group, Realists are unable to understand the dynamics of conflicts described and justified in cultural terms, and indeed are driven to the conclusion that difference in culture causes conflict, which is often violent; thus groups of different cultures will come into conflict because of that difference.[3] But these cultural terms have their main meanings within communities. Indeed, most definitions of ethnicity and culture focus on this concept of shared meaning, language, history, system of communications.

The liberal approach, including arguments about the "democratic peace," also tends to focus on ethnicity and culture as an interest. Particularly striking is how examples of ethnically- defined conflict in the literature on democratization are portrayed as pre-democratic phases; thus the Yugoslav case is not included in discussions of the waves of democratization because it is exceptional: ethnic heterogeneity and conflict prevented institutionalization of real democracy. From this perspective, ethnic violence is seen as the result of democratization: when a country democratizes, the assumption is that now, finally the citizens can express their interests. Violent conflict along ethnic lines is thus seen as an expression of long-pent up interests, and shows that the "real" or "natural" fault lines of interest in the society are ethnic.[4] The assumption is that the effect of democratic institutions is to allow the open and free expression of societal interests. If, once people are allowed to express their interests democratically, ethnic conflict results, these ethnic interests are assumed to be the overriding concern of the population. Until these "ethnic" interests are dealt with, true democracy is impossible. An explicitly stated implication of this analysis is that ethnic homogeneity is a prerequisite for stable democracy.[5] Another conclusion is the need for consociational models that reify ethnic groups institutionally on the assumption that such institutionalization will respond to the ethnic interests and concerns of the population and allow them to move on to the more "modern" or "rational" interests that are the mainstay of liberal democracy.[6]

Here too, culture in the form of ethnicity is conceptualized as a given "interest" of society. This focus on culture as merely a fixed and relatively homogeneous interest of all who share that culture does not address culture as meaning, nor does it recognize the contested nature of culture within cultural communities. It thus hinders our understanding of how ethnicity interacts with politics: few answers are provided to the question of why this "given" varies over time in its intensity, in the boundaries it constructs and in the behavior it elicits.

Much of the literature on "ethnic conflict" reflects similar assumptions and conclusions. This is true of both the primordial approach and constructivists. Primordialists stress that the "interest" of the ethnic group is based on ties of solidarity and affect, and that because these ties are nonrational, they are the object of loyalty and override mere material interests. Thus ethnic politics is the most effective because the group behavior is motivated by affective ethnic ties.[7] From this perspective ethnic mobilization and violence are seen as coming from below, that is, as an expression of these primordial ties and sentiments bursting forth from the ethnic masses; or from above, as a powerful instrument in the hands of "ethnic entrepreneurs," where ethnic violence and wars are just a logical next step in the manipulation of feelings of solidarity.

Although constructivists take a different view of the origins of ethnicity, pointing out that it is an instrumental and flexible identity, they argue that elites construct this identity which in turn is a very powerful tool with which to manipulate the masses. Here the power of appeals to ethnicity is as a constructed commonality of interest. Violent conflict is just one more step along the line of ethnic mobilization to achieve the interest of the ethnic group or of the ethnic elite as a whole. The ability of elites to mobilize the masses by pushing the (constructed) "ethnic button" is assumed.

From all of these perspectives, in which culture or ethnicity is reduced to an interest (either affective or material), the term "collapse" makes sense: the ethnic interest was present all along at a level intense enough to destroy the state and society once it was unleashed, either by the passions of the ethnic masses, or by the manipulations of the ethnic entrepreneurs and constructors. But close analysis of the Yugoslav case reveals the weakness of these explanations. In fact, the violence along ethnic lines was not an expression of the interests of the wider population, neither the result of the "passions of the masses" (interest as affect and solidarity) nor the expression of the material interests of these people as ethnic individuals (expressed in democratic elections). Nor was it a case of elite manipulation in order to mobilize support among the ethnic masses.

Forward to part 3, From Below

Back to part 1, Introduction

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