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31. Concessions or Coercion? How Governments Respond to Restive Ethnic Minorities

Author:
Arman Grigoryan
Publication Date:
03-2015
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
International Security
Institution:
Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, Harvard University
Abstract:
Destabilized multiethnic states and empires are environments that are highly susceptible to violent ethnonationalist conflict. Conflicts between states built on the ruins of such empires and their minorities are especially common. James Fearon has famously argued that these conflicts are the result of minorities' rational incentives to rebel, which in turn are the result of newly independent states' inability to guarantee that these minorities will not be discriminated against if they acquiesce to citizenship, as well as expectations that over time the balance of power will shift against minorities as states consolidate their institutions. States can, however, take steps to reassure their minorities. The puzzle is why they often fail to do so. In fact, states often adopt policies that confirm minorities' worst fears, pushing them toward rebellion. Such action may be precipitated by a state's belief that a minority is motivated by a separatist agenda rather than by the desire to have its concerns and grievances satisfactorily addressed. If secession is a minority's primary objective, then concessions intended to demobilize the minority will only make the state more vulnerable to future demands and separatist bids. The existence of third parties with incentives to support minority separatism exacerbates the problem. The violent and nonviolent minority disputes in post-Soviet Georgia illustrate these findings.
Topic:
Ethnic Government, Governance, Ethnicity, and Domestic politics
Political Geography:
Europe, Asia, Georgia, and Global Focus

32. Politics of Ethnicity: A Theoretical Perspective

Author:
Rehana Saeed Hashmi and Gulshan Majeed
Publication Date:
01-2015
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
South Asian Studies
Institution:
Department of Political Science, University of the Punjab
Abstract:
Ethnicity and Ethnic Politics is an important Phenomenon of Plural Societies. In developing world, ethnic politics is one of the main reasons of internal instability. Ethnic conflict leads towards ethnic politics which is often conceived as a conflict among ethnic groups. This study has focused on the theoretical frame work of ethnic politics, and the main argument is that state has a central role in developing, escalating and diffusing ethnic conflict that is why ethnic conflict does not only mean conflict among ethnic groups but group’s conflict with state is also the part of ethnic politics. The study highlights various steps towards the development of politics of ethnicity. A life cycle model of ethnic conflict is also drawn to analyze various stages of conflict, and how the intensity of ethnic conflict with state gradually gain momentum. The debate also focuses that ethnic conflict with state should be handled on priority basis. If state fails to resolve conflict, the reformation of nationality of a particular ethnic group creates serious unrest and threat to the process of nation building.
Topic:
Conflict Prevention, Ethnic Conflict, Political Theory, Ethnicity, and State
Political Geography:
Pakistan, South Asia, India, and Kashmir

33. A Historical Analysis of Trends in Pakhtun Ethno-Nationalism

Author:
Shahida Aman and Muhammad Ayub Jan
Publication Date:
07-2015
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
South Asian Studies
Institution:
Department of Political Science, University of the Punjab
Abstract:
Although, historically, the first political manifestations of Pakhtun nationalism may be traced to Bayazid Ansari’s (1525-85) Roshani movement (Gregorian, 1969 :43-45; and Misdaq, 2006: 36-39) and Khushal Khan Khattak’s (1513-89) rebellion against the Mughal rule, however, its ethno-nationalist roots are usually mapped out from the pre-partition mobilization of common Pakhtun masses by the Khudai Khidmatgar (servants of the God) movement of Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan. Starting off as a social reform society, the Khudai Khidmatgars metamorphosized into first an anti-colonial nationalist movement, evolving on the eve of partition of India, into one of ethnic nationalism. The post-independence period witnessed calls for attainment of either an independent Pakhtunistan or greater autonomy for the Pakhtun regions within a federal structure of the state. The irredentist trend in Pakhtun ethno-nationalist politics manifested itself in the controversial Pakhtunistan issue that strained relations between Pakistan and Afghanistan. Pakistani state’s growth and rise in ethnic Pakhtun share in the civil-military bureaucracy witnessed greater integration of Pakhtuns within the polity of Pakistan and a dampening of separatist tendencies in them. Renaming of NWFP as Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and extension of provincial autonomy under the 18th Amendment further boosted Pakhtun ethnic integration into the state of Pakistan. More recently, however, Pakhtun ethno-nationalist movement is believed to be assuming a distinct fervor. The rise of Taliban phenomenon in the tribal belt and settled districts of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa has been labeled as a violent manifestation of Pakhtun ethnonationalism manifested in an Islamist garb. The paper, besides analyzing the integrationist and the separatist (irredentist) trends in Pakhtun ethno-nationalist politics, also aims at exploring the more recent phenomena of its construction around the conceptual framework of ‘ethnicizing Islam’ in the Pakhtun context. It argues that the current Islamist manifestation of Pakhtun ethno-politics is a product of Pakistani state’s attempts at subduing the irredentist Pakhtun strain (that bothered the state throughout the 1960s and the 1970s in Pakhtunistan issue) through support to the Islamist movement inside Afghanistan, especially in later half of 1970s and in the wake of Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. This paper analyzes the Pakhtun ethno-nationalist struggle, especially in the earlier decades as a South Asian Studies 30 (2) 232 form of class struggle to attain political power in the state. As such, it primarily adopts a Marxist lens to the problem of ethnic nationalism among the Pakhtuns for the beginning phase of it. Most of the analyses are historical in a sense that the paper traces the history of Pakhtun ethno nationalism in Pakistan. Moreover, the paper does not claim to be a consummate effort, rather it proposes that there are alternative explanations as plausible as this one to understand the issue.
Topic:
Nationalism, History, Ethnicity, and Class
Political Geography:
Pakistan, South Asia, India, and Punjab