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Who Are the People? Why Ethnic Politics Matter

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Who Are the People? Why Ethnic Politics Matter Dynamics of Dissent Who Are the People? Why Ethnic Politics Matters Tristan James Mabry In the first decade of the twenty-first century, the idea of mass mobilization in order to redirect government is axiomatic. If Tristan James Mabry is a visiting assistant pro- the environment is degraded, then the solution is to educate fessor in the Department and organize concerned citizens. The same can be said of gen- of Government at George- der inequality, racial prejudice, or, in the form of labor move- town University and is writing a book on the ments, class disparity. Yet of all the challenges a society may intersection of ethnicity launch at its state, the most serious are not those that challenge and Islam in regional con- flicts based on field a particular policy or seek redress of a single social issue, but research in Iraq, China, those that challenge the legitimacy of the state itself. This begs Pakistan, India, Indonesia, the question: what makes a state legitimate or illegitimate? The and the Philippines. Mabry has previously produced short answer is whether or not the state represents the will of for CNN and reported for the people. But the long answer demands an answer to anoth- the Wall Street Journal. er question: who are the people? In the global arena, it is implicit that different peoples are different nations, and that different nations have different states. If there is disagreement over the composition of a particular nation, there is by exten- sion disagreement over the composition of the state. If the rai- son d’etre of the state itself is contentious, this can upset the stability of said state, and, by extension, may threaten the equi- librium of international relations. Ethnic politics matter because ethnicity is what makes a nation, and a nation is what makes a state. In the three sections that follow, this essay outlines the underlying principles of the nation-state, identifies the shortcomings of contemporary Summer/Fall 2008 [13] WHO ARE THE PEOPLE? political science in addressing the ques- and most minorities are uninterested, tion of ethnic politics, and considers unwilling, or unable to challenge the contemporary cases of ethnic mobiliza- legitimacy of their country. Their state tion in Europe, Africa, Asia, and Latin may be benign and liberal—welcoming America. In regard to what academics integration and political representation— and policymakers concerned with inter- or malign but formidable—controlling national order can do, the essay con- dissent and suppressing alternate identi- cludes that U.S. citizens need to spend ties. In either case, ethnic heterogeneity more time overseas to understand the is in no way a sufficient condition for subjective perspectives of the politically communal conflict. dispossessed or to at least listen carefully Crises emerge when a subordinate when area experts and diplomats report group has the motive, means, and the problems of a particular people. opportunity to strike against the domi- However, even the best advice is worthless nant nationality and their institutions, if ignored, as when a foreign policy is viz. the government of their nation-state. predetermined by domestic politics. A group may claim its own right to self- determination by repairing the state’s First Define the People, Then institutions, often by ratifying a rewritten Define the State. While settler constitution, or by redefining the state states such as Canada, Australia, and the itself to represent a different nation, as in United States make a best effort to define the case of Blacks in South Africa. If nei- citizenship according to patriotism and ther remedy is possible than the group allegiance to a civic ideal—and thus an may simply remove itself from the state by explicitly non-ethnic identity—most of redrawing its borders. Yet to explain, the world remains comprised of self- anticipate, or manage any one of these described nation-states like Italy or crises, it is essential to understand who is Vietnam. Each justifies its existence who: who is dominant or subordinate? according to the doctrine of national Who lives where, speaks what, worships self-determination: a state for every whom? What, for any aggrieved or agitat- nation and a nation for every state. Of ed group, defines membership or exclu- course, national homogeneity is make- sion? The immediate and obvious answer believe. Few countries may even pretend is ethnicity: Kurds challenge Turks, to claim that every citizen is the same as Basques challenge Castilian Spaniards, everyone else. Aside from voluntary Tibetans challenge Han Chinese, and so immigrant communities, such as Turks on. in Germany, there are also groups who What is alarming, however, is how find themselves in a situation crafted by often the ethnic component of politics is the caprice of history, including indige- ignored or eclipsed, even among inter- nous peoples like the Sami in Norway national affairs experts. It is often and Sweden or the Ainu in Japan; ignored because the people and places in nations divided such as the Hungarians question are unfamiliar or unknown: in Romania or Malay in the deep south of how many academics or analysts really Thailand; and nations trapped, such as had any idea what was happening to the Uighurs in China or Chechens in Albanians in Macedonia before the col- Russia. Yet most nation-states are stable lapse of Yugoslavia, or know now what [14] Georgetown Journal of International Affairs MABRY Dynamics of Dissent the problem is between Madurese and Central Asian “Stans.”4 This was a posi- Dayaks in Borneo?1 Yet even when antag- tive development and applied to research onists are not unfamiliar to informed on many regions. The bi-polar politics observers, the importance of ethnic of the Cold War was apparently replaced identity is often eclipsed by a big, bad by a collision of cultures or “civiliza- idea. tions,” and so new questions were asked— and answered—about the sources of, and Academic Indifference about solutions to, deep social divides. The dis- Ethnicity. In contemporary American integration of Yugoslavia and the geno- political science, it is fashionable to sug- cide in Rwanda, for example, demon- gest that “ethnic conflict” is a layman’s strated it was a good idea to know who term, applied only by amateurs who fail lived where within different countries— to appreciate the real importance of eco- whether Slovenian, Serbian, Croatian, nomic and political institutions.2 Bosnian or Albanian in the former, or Academics and analysts who sideline eth- Hutu or Tutsi in the latter. nic politics do so to no good end. Even as Nonetheless, ethnic politics as a sub- ethnic violence slashes across Kenya, ject lost favor at the start of this century. indigenous mobilizations destabilize In 2000, Ted Gurr argued that ethnic Bolivia, multi-national tensions strain conflict was waning because more groups Malaysia, and bi-national politics threat- were willing to try negotiation instead of en the very existence of Belgium, players bloodshed.5 But a more serious downsiz- in the arena of international affairs ing followed research suggesting that remain too often unprepared, or trou- “ethnic conflict” was a kind of bogeyman, blingly ill-advised, to respond intelli- a term used by journalists to scare readers gently. and by academics or policy experts who Like a meteor smashing into the just did not know any better. Earth, the sudden and surprising col- Consider an Op-Ed in the lapse of the USSR was a mass extinction Washington Post by a pair of political sci- event for a certain species of academic entists: Steven Fish and Matthew What makes a state legitimate or illegitimate? The short answer is whether or not the state represents the will of the people. But the long answer demands an answer to another question: Who are the people? called “Sovietologist.”3 Just as mammals Kroenig. Their explanation of group supplanted reptiles, this afforded a violence in Kenya, which erupted follow- growth opportunity for a range of new ing a contested December 2007 presi- species—area specialists trained in the dential election between candidates from languages and political scenarios of different ethnic groups, begins with the diverse peoples in the Baltics, the proviso that the cause of Kenya’s crisis is Balkans, the Caucasus, or the five “not ethnic.” While they allow that the Summer/Fall 2008 [15] WHO ARE THE PEOPLE? conflict “does indeed run along ethnic nic groups are not all that important. In lines, ethnic diversity is not to blame for this now prominent view, Kenya’s diver- the disaster,” and that the “key culprit” is sity is no more or less important than the a weak system of governance.6 In other diversity of many other heterogeneous words, it is not a question of clashing states because “political scientists have ethnic identities, but a question of faulty found that there is no statistical correla- institutions. Thus, the best plan to repair tion between ethnic diversity and civil the politics of Kenya is to rebuild and war.”10 This claim is valid, and Stanford reinforce the legislature. University’s James Fearon and David In the long term, this is fair enough; Laitin are the political scientists most the institutions are weak. Yet it is safe to often credited with demonstrating this suggest that this is of little comfort to point. They are the co-authors of members of the various communities— “Ethnicity, Insurgency, and Civil War,” a Kikuyus, Kalenjin, Luos, Kisii, and oth- statistical analysis of 127 conflicts between ers—who flee
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