G8844x: NATIONALISM
[Fall 2006]
Jack Snyder,
jls6@columbia.edu
Day/Time: Wednesday, 2:10–4:00
Room: 1302 international Affairs Building
Office hours: Monday & Wednesday 4:10-5 p.m.
Phone: 212-854-8290
Themes:
Nationalism as a cause of conflict in contemporary world politics. Strategies
for mitigating nationalist and ethnic conflict.
Requirements:
One research paper, and active participation in class discussion. The normal
format for the paper will be to use one or more case studies to test a
theoretically grounded hypothesis about nationalism or ethnic conflict.
Historical cases are appropriate, though their relevance to contemporary issues
should be explained. SIPA students may do policy options papers, though these
should be informed by relevant theories. Paper proposals will be discussed in
small groups. Secondary sources are adequate, but PhD students seeking
9000-level seminar credit for the course should talk to me about what is
required. Due Dec. 21.
Readings:
Required readings are on reserve at Butler Library, because of the overlap between readings for this course and for W3619. Many readings, including supplementary ones, are also on reserve in Lehman. Asterisk (*) indicates a paperback ordered at the Labyrinth bookstore, 536 W.112 St. Most required articles and some individual book chapters are available electronically through the library web on Courseworks. For information relevant to term papers on current topics, go to: Columbia library web, e-resources, databases, CIAO.
Sept. 6. THE NATIONALIST REVIVAL AND CONTEMPORARY ETHNIC CONFLICT.
National identity, ethnicity, and nationalism: definitions, causes, and
consequences for conflict in today’s world. Why were the 1990s fraught with
ethnic conflict? What can be done about current and future conflicts?
Required:
*Michael Hechter, Containing Nationalism, ch. 1-5. What is nationalism?
Nationalism and the state.
S. and L. Rudolph, "Modern Hate," New Republic, March 22, 1993. The Ayodya
mosque incident in India: it's not about ancient hatreds.
Supplementary:
T. Gurr, Peoples Versus States, ch. 1 and 2. Good summary of ethnic conflict in the 1980s and 1990s: statistics and some stories.
Ashutosh Varshney, “Understanding Gujarat Violence,” and Paul Brass, “The Gujarat Pogroms of 2002,” in Items and Issues (Social Science Research Council), vol. 4, no. 1, winter 2002-2003. Updates the Rudolphs’ article on the latest violence.
Samantha Power, A Problem from Hell: America and the Age of Genocide, chapter 10 on the Rwanda genocide—or read Power, “Bystanders to Genocide: Why the United States Let the Rwanda Tragedy Happen,” The Atlantic Monthly, September 2001.
Mark Juergensmeyer, The New Cold War? Religious Nationalism Confronts the Secular State, ch. 1, 2, 3, 6. What seems like fundamentalist transnationalism is actually state-building nationalism. Middle East and India.
Fredrik Barth, “Are Islamists Nationalists or Internationalists?” in Kjell
Goldmann, U. Hannerz, and C. Westin, Nationalism and Internationalism in the
Post-Cold War Era.
Sept. 13. COMPETING EXPLANATIONS FOR THE RISE OF NATIONALISM
To what extent is national identity rooted in pre-modern ties of community and
culture? To what extent is it a result of the transition to modernity? What
features of modernity shape nationalism: capitalism, industrialization, mass
literacy, mass armies, democratization, the modern state? How do those features
interact with the pre-modern legacy?
Required:
*Anthony D. Smith, The Ethnic Origins of Nations, ch. 1-3; browse the rest. Pre-modern formative experiences that shape ethnic and national identities.
*Ernest Gellner, Nations and Nationalism, ch. 1-4, 7-8. Modern economies need a homogeneous culture, triggering a Darwinian struggle to see which culture survives.
*Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities, ch. 1-3.
Supplementary:
E. Hobsbawm and T. Ranger, The Invention of Tradition, ch. 1 and 2. Nations seem old because nationalists rewrite their history.
John Hall and I. Jarvie, eds., Transition to Modernity, ch. by Michael Mann, "The Emergence of Modern European Nationalism," pp. 137-166. Repairs Gellner's theory: it’s commercial capitalism, not industrialization.
B. Posen, "Nationalism, the Mass Army and Military Power," International Security, fall 1993, reprinted in *Brown, Nationalism and Ethnic Conflict. How the state fomented popular nationalism to mobilize mass armies. See also Charles Tilly, Coercion, Capital, and European States.
E. Hobsbawm, Nations and Nationalism since 1780, ch. 1. The modernity of
nations.
Sept. 20. NATIONALISM: RATIONAL OR NON-RATIONAL?
Are national or ethnic political stances adopted for rational or non-rational
reasons? What is the relationship between instrumental rationality and cultural
motivations?
Required:
*Daniel Posner, Institutions and Ethnic Politics in Africa, chapters 1, 4, 5, 7, 8; chapter 1 on library web, and browse.
*Roger Petersen, Understanding Ethnic Violence: Fear, Hatred, Resentment, ch. 1-4, 6, 10.
*Stathis Kalyvas, The Logic of Violence in Civil War, introduction, pp. 1-14, and chapters 7 and 8, pp. 173-245; browse elsewhere.
Supplementary:
Robert Pape, “The Strategic Logic of Suicide Terrorism,” American Political Science Review, August 2003, pp. 343-362. They try to undercut domestic political support for the military occupation forces of democracies, and it works.
James Fearon, “Rationalist Explanations for War,” International Organization, summer 1995.
Andrew Kydd and Barbara Walter, “The Politics of Extremist Violence,” International Organization, spring 2002. Rationalist theory of conditions under which spoilers can wreck peace talks, leading to Palestinian-Israeli violence.
D. Horowitz, Ethnic Groups in Conflict, ch. 3-6. Economic rivalry, cultural comparison, and other causes of ethnic conflict.
Jon Elster, “Motivations and Beliefs in Suicide Missions,” in Diego Gambetta (ed.), Making Sense of Suicide Missions.
*M. Hechter, Containing Nationalism, ch. 6, on ethnic economic rivalry.
Walker Connor, Ethnonationalism, ch. 4, 6, and 8. A cultural perspective stressing the non-rational, non-material basis of ethnic loyalty. Ch. 6 is also available as Connor, "Eco- or Ethno-Nationalism?" Ethnic and Racial Studies 7 (1984), 342-59. Why economic explanations fail.
Daniel Druckman, "Nationalism, Patriotism and Group Loyalty: A Social Psychological Perspective," Mershon International Studies Review, April 1994. A host of hypotheses.
Peter Hays Gries, China’s New Nationalism: Pride, Politics, and Diplomacy, esp. chapters 1-3 (ch. 1 on library web). Face and humiliation.
Marilyn Brewer, “Ingroup Identification and Intergroup Conflict,” in Richard Ashmore et al, Social Identity, Intergroup Conflict, and Conflict Resolution, 17-41 (ch. 2 on library web).
Donna Bahry et al, “Ethnicity and Trust: Evidence from Russia,” American Political Science Review, November 2005. People who trust insiders also trust outsiders.
Russell Hardin, One for All, esp. ch. 3 (library web). Self-interested
reasons why individuals come to identify with an ethnic group, and why cultural
alignments can be rational.
Sept. 27. INSECURITY: CAUSE OR EFFECT OF NATIONALISM?
What does realist international relations theory have to contribute to
understanding contemporary nationalist conflict? Does anarchy cause nationalism,
or vice-versa? What factors might mitigate the effects of anarchy on ethnic
conflict?
Required:
Barry Posen, "The Security Dilemma and Ethnic Conflict," Survival, spring 1993.
D. Lake and D. Rothchild, “Containing Fear: The Origins and Management of
Ethnic Conflict,” International Security, fall 1996, reprinted in *Michael E.
Brown, Nationalism and Ethnic Conflict.
Supplementary:
R. Jervis, "Cooperation under the Security Dilemma," World Politics, January 1978.
A. Wendt, “Anarchy Is What States Make of It,” International Organization, spring 1992.
J. Mercer, "Anarchy and Identity," International Organization, spring 1995, psychological interpretation of the security dilemma.
Arthur Stein, “Conflict and Cohesion,” Journal of Conflict Resolution, March 1976. Lit review: external conflict increases internal cohesion only when the threat affects all group members, some cohesion existed before the conflict, and group action can parry the threat.
*Barbara Walter and J. Snyder, Civil Wars, Insecurity, and Intervention.
Stephen Van Evera, “Hypotheses on Nationalism and War,” International
Security, spring 1994, reprinted in *Brown, Nationalism and Ethnic Conflict.
When does nationalism cause war, when not?
Monica Toft, “Indivisible Territory, Geographic Concentration, and Ethnic War,”
Security Studies, Winter 2002/2003, pp. 82-119, and Toft, The Geography of
Ethnic Violence. When both sides see a piece of territory as crucial to their
survival, watch out.
James Fearon and David Laitin, “Ethnicity, Insurgency, and Civil War,”
American Political Science Review, Vol. 97, No. 1 (February 2003), pp. 75-90.
The problem is terrain, not ethnic grievance.
*R. Brubaker, Nationalism Reframed, ch. 3, 4, and 6. Chapter 3 is also available
as R. Brubaker, “National Minorities, Nationalizing States, and External
Homelands in the New Europe,” Daedalus, spring 1995.
Timothy W. Crawford, “Pivotal Deterrence and the Kosovo War: Why the Holbrooke Agreement Failed,” Political Science Quarterly, Winter 2001-2002, pp. 499-523. The difficulty of simultaneously deterring both sides in a conflict; and see Alan J. Kuperman and Timothy Crawford, Gambling on Humanitarian Intervention.
Oct. 4. NATIONALISM: TOP DOWN OR BOTTOM UP?
Is nationalism sold to the masses by elites, or does it grow from grass roots
sentiments? If the elites sell it, why do the masses buy? What is the
interaction between top-down and bottom-up processes?
Required:
V. P. Gagnon, “Ethnic Nationalism and International Conflict: The Case of Serbia,” International Security, winter 1994-95, reprinted in *Michael Brown, Nationalism and Ethnic Conflict, 2d ed. Or read V.P. Gagnon, The Myth of Ethnic War: Serbia and Croatia in the 1990s (Cornell, 2004). Milosevic the cynical manipulator. Why did it work?
R. de Figueiredo and B. Weingast, “The Rationality of Fear: Political Opportunism and Ethnic Conflict,” in *B. Walter and J. Snyder, Civil Wars, Insecurity, and Intervention, ch. 8 (library web). Why it can be a rational hedge to be loyal to manipulators.
J. Mueller, “The Banality of Ethnic War,” International Security, summer 2000, in *Michael Brown, Nationalism and Ethnic Conflict, 2d edition. The problem is neither elites nor masses, but gangs of thugs who profit from the fighting.
Supplementary:
J. Fearon and D. Laitin, “Violence and the Social Construction of Ethnic Identity,” International Organization, autumn 2000. Rationalists attempt an empirical assessment of constructivist arguments; bottom-up explanations.
Paul Brass, Theft of an Idol. How local elites in India construct a system of
ethnic violence.
J. Fearon and D. Laitin, “Explaining Interethnic Cooperation,” American
Political Science Review, December 1996. Ethnic groups’ internal policing of
their own thugs.
Stuart Kaufman, “Spiraling to Ethnic War: Elites, Masses, and Moscow in Moldova’s Civil War,” in *Brown, Nationalism and Ethnic Conflict; or Stuart Kaufman, Modern Hatreds, ch. 3-5, Karabakh, Georgia, and Moldova cases.
M. Brown and S. Ganguly, eds., Government Policies and Ethnic Relations in Asia and the Pacific, ch. 1 on India, 3 on Sri Lanka, and/or 6 on Malaysia.
G. Prunier, Rwanda Crisis, esp. ch. 1, 5, and 7.
Hobsbawm, Nations and Nationalism, chapters 2 and 3. Popular proto-nationalism and state-led nationalism.
Anthony Marx, Making Race and Nation, chapters 1, 5, 7, on South Africa and Brazil. Elite coalition politics and the legal codification of racial domination.
Suisheng Zhao, "A state-led nationalism: the patriotic education campaign in
post-Tiananmen China," Communist and Post-Communist Studies, vol. 31:3, Sept.
1998.
Oct. 11. NATIONALISM: MALLEABLE OR PERSISTENT
Once national identities and nationalism are forged, how malleable are they through the impact of changing circumstances, incentives, or discourse?
Required:
*Liisa Malkki, Purity and Exile: Violence, Memory, and National Cosmology
among Hutu Refugees in Tanzania, esp. ch. 3-5. After the 1972 genocide, refugees
in camps reinforced their identity myths, but those in towns blended in.
Chapters 1 and 2 provide conceptual and historical background; a postscript
describes the 1993-94 massive ethnic violence in Burundi.
*David Laitin, Identity in Formation, chapters 1, 5, 6. Changing Russian
identities in the newly independent states of the former Soviet Union. A
language-learning tipping game provides a formal, rational model of identity
change, supplemented by survey research and first-hand story telling.
D. Byman, “Forever enemies? The Manipulation of Ethnic Identities to End Ethnic
Wars,” Security Studies, spring 2000, revised as Byman, Keeping the Peace, ch.
5. Middle Eastern cases.
Rogers Brubaker, “Ethnicity without Groups,” chapter 2, pp. 34-52, in Andreas Wimmer, ed., Facing Ethnic Conflicts, on library web under chapter title.
Supplementary:
C. Cruz, “Identity and Persuasion: How Nations Remember Their Pasts and Make Their Futures,” World Politics, April 2000. Early formative experiences continue to shape national political identities for good or ill in Central America.
R. Suny, The Revenge of History. Historical construction of national identities in Russian and Soviet empires; their emergence during the Soviet collapse.
Mark Beissinger, Nationalist Mobilization and the Collapse of the Soviet State, chapters 1, 4, and 5. Social movements and “agency” make the impossible inevitable.
Rashid Khalidi, Palestinian Identity: The Construction of Modern National
Consciousness.
Michael Barnett, Dialogues in Arab Politics: Negotiations in Regional Order.
O. Patterson, "Context and Choice in Ethnic Allegiance," in N. Glazer and D.
Moynihan, Ethnicity. Excellent Jamaican case showing ethnicity is not a given,
but chosen and contextual.
Yossi Shain and Aharon Barth, “Diasporas and International Relations Theory,”
International organization, summer 2003. Case studies: Armenians and Jews.
Oct. 18. NO CLASS; SMALL GROUP MEETINGS.
Meet with me in small groups at various times during this week to discuss your paper proposals. The proposal should be three to five pages. Generally speaking, it should state (1) what question you are asking, (2) why it is important for theory and/or policy, (3) what hypothesis you expect to advance, (4) what alternative hypotheses you will address, and (5) what evidence you will examine to prove your argument.
For those who need to brush up on basic principles of research design, see Gary King, Keohane, Verba, Designing Social Inquiry; Alexander George and Andrew Bennett, Case Studies and Theory Development in the Social Sciences; James Mahoney and Dietrich Rueschemeyer, Comparative Historical Analysis in the Social Sciences; or Stephen Van Evera, Guide to Methodology for Students of Political Science. Non-positivist research designs are ok, too.
Oct. 25. NATIONALISM: CIVIC OR ETHNIC
Civic and ethnic types of nationalism; their causes and consequences.
Multiculturalism versus cosmopolitanism.
Required:
A. Smith, "Ethnic Identity and Territorial Nationalism in Comparative Perspective," in Alexander Motyl, Thinking Theoretically about Soviet Nationalities, ch. 3, pp. 45-51, 61-62 (library web). Western civic state-building vs. Eastern ethnocultural nationalism.
Anthony Marx, Faith in Nation: Exclusionary Origins of Nationalism, ch. 3 on library web. Nationalism even in “civic” nations started off with 17th century religious exclusions.
Will Kymlicka, Multicultural Citizenship: A Liberal Theory of Minority Rights, chapter 5, pp. 75-106 (library web). Chapter 3 is also relevant.
Jeremy Waldron, “Minority Cultures and the Cosmopolitan Alternative,” in Will Kymlicka, ed., The Rights of Minority Cultures, 93-122.
Stephen Shulman, “Challenging the Civic/Ethnic and West/East Dichotomies in the Study of Nationalism,” Comparative Political Studies, June 2002.
Supplementary:
E. Gellner, "Nationalism in the Vacuum," in Motyl, Thinking Theoretically
about Soviet Nationalities, ch. 10. In an institutional vacuum, people form
groups based on ethnicity and culture by default.
Stephen Saideman, B. Dougherty, And E. Jenne, “Dilemmas of Divorce: How
Secessionist Identities Cut Both Ways,” Security Studies, Oct.-Dec. 2005.
International and domestic incentives for territorial versus ethnic identity
choice.
Yael Tamir, Liberal Nationalism. Ethnic nationalism can be civic, too. And related empirical pieces: Yoav Peled, “Ethnic Democracy and the Legal Construction of Citizenship: Arab Citizens of the Jewish State,” American Political Science Review 86:2 (June 1992) 432-43; Gershon Shafir and Yoav Peled, Being Israeli: The Dynamics of Multiple Citizenship (Cambridge University Press, 2002) chap. 4; Nadim Rouhana, Palestinian Citizens in an Ethnic Jewish State: Identities in Conflict (Yale University Press, 1997); Sammy Smooha, “Ethnic Democracy: Israel as an Archetype,” Israel Studies 2:2 (Fall 1997), 198-241; Ruth Gavison, “Jewish and Democratic? A Rejoinder to the ‘Ethnic Democracy’ Debate,” Israel Studies 4:1 (1999) 44-52.
Rogers Brubaker, Citizenship and Nationhood in France and Germany. Historical origins of civic France, ethnic Germany.
Judith Kelley, “International Actors on the Domestic Scene: Membership Conditionality and Socialization by International Institutions,” International Organization, summer 2004, 425-458. Inducing states to adopt civic principles.
Nov. 1. NATIONALISM AND INSTITUTIONS: ETHNOFEDERALISM
How state institutions can structure politics in ways that favor ethnic political identity and mobilization. Ethnofederal prescriptions in light of these findings.
Required:
*Rogers Brubaker, Nationalism Reframed, ch. 2, also in Brubaker, "Nationhood and the National Question in the Soviet Union and Post-Soviet Eurasia: An Institutionalist Account," Theory and Society, February 1994. Soviet ethnofederalism created the impetus of its own demise.
Henry Hale, “Divided We Stand: Institutional Sources of Ethnofederal State Survival and Collapse,” World Politics, January 2004.
Valerie Bunce, Subversive Institutions, ch. 5 (on library web) and ch. 6.
Ethnofederal structure broke up the USSR, Czechoslovakia, and Yugoslavia, but
why the varying amounts of wreckage?
*Hechter, Containing Nationalism, ch. 7-8. Evaluating ethnofederal solutions.
Supplementary:
Gurr, Peoples Versus States, ch. 6, on ethnic autonomy agreements.
Dawn Brancati, “Decentralization: Fueling the Fire or Dampening the Flames of Ethnic Conflict and Secessionism?” International Organization, summer 2006.
S. Cornell, “Autonomy as a Source of Conflict: Caucasian Conflicts in Theoretical Perspective,” World Politics, January 2002.
P. Roeder, "Soviet Federalism and Ethnic Mobilization," World Politics (January 1991). Similar argument to Brubaker’s.
Atul Kohli, ed. The Success of India’s Democracy. Cambridge University Press, 2001. Read Kohli’s introduction (on library web). Federalism’s success in India.
Check the websites of the International Crisis Group http://www.crisisgroup.org and Ted Gurr’s Minorities at Risk project http://www.cidcm.umd.edu/ for information on the status of proposed regional ethnic autonomy agreements in Indonesia, Sri Lanka, and elsewhere.
Nov. 8. INSTITUTIONS, ELECTORAL COMPETITION, AND THE POLITICIZATION OF ETHNICITY
What effect do institutional arrangements, electoral rules, and boundaries have on the politicization of ethnicity? What arrangements help stabilize democracy in multiethnic states?
Joseph Montville, Conflict and Peacemaking in Multiethnic Societies, ch. 25, by Donald Horowitz contrasting Malaysia and Sri Lanka (on library web).
*Steven I. Wilkinson, Votes and Violence: Electoral Competition and Ethnic Riots in India, chapters 1, 2, 5, and 6 (chapter 1 on library web).
Daniel Posner, “The Political Salience of Cultural Difference: Why Chewas and Tumbukas are Allies in Zambia and Adversaries in Malawi,” American Political Science Review, 98, 4 (November 2004), pp. 529-545.
Kanchan Chandra, “Ethnic Parties and Democratic Stability,” Perspectives on Politics, June 2005, 235-252.
Mala Htun, “Is Gender like Ethnicity? The Political Representation of Identity Groups,” Perspectives on Politics, September 2004, 439-458.
Supplementary:
Donald Horowitz, The Deadly Ethnic Riot, ch. 13 (on library web). Rational and emotional factors in the choice to riot. Read along with Wilkinson.
Donald Horowitz, A Democratic South Africa? Constitutional Engineering in a Divided Society, ch. 5, 6. Electoral schemes for encouraging cross-ethnic coalitions. See also D. Horowitz, Ethnic Groups in Conflict, ch. 7-10.
Arend Lijphart, “The Alternative Vote: A Realistic Alternative for South Africa?” Politikon: The South African Journal of Political Science 18:2 (June 1991), 91-101. Rebuttal to Horowitz.
Benjamin Reilly, “Electoral Systems for Divided Societies,” Journal of Democracy, April 2002. Cases studies where Horowitz’s prescription was tried; verdict: it worked where moderate factions already existed.
J. Linz and A. Stepan, "Political Identities and Electoral Sequences: Spain, The Soviet Union, and Yugoslavia," Daedalus (spring 1992). Electoral sequence causes identity, or vice versa?
Kanchan Chandra, Why Ethnic Parties Succeed. Argues that ethnic parties are most likely to succeed in "patronage-democracies" when they have competitive rules of intraparty advancement and when the size of the group they seek to mobilize is larger than the threshold of winning or leverage imposed by the electoral system. Case study of India.
Fredrik Barth, ed., Ethnic Groups and Boundaries, read Barth’s introduction. Divisions between groups are not caused by cultural differences, but the reverse: groups occupying different ecological niches produce cultural differences to help police boundaries. Read along with Posner’s article on effects of boundaries.
Nov. 15. NATIONALISM AND DEMOCRATIZATION.
President Clinton urged promoting democratization to promote peace, but might
democratic transitions instead promote nationalism and war? Since its earliest
appearance in 18th century England and France, nationalism has been associated
with the idea of popular sovereignty. Increases in mass involvement in politics
have been linked to aggressive nationalism, as in pre-1914 Germany. What effect
is democratization having on nationalism in the former Soviet empire? Will “the
democratic peace” survive in a world of ethnodemocracies?
Required:
F. Zakaria, “The Rise of Illiberal Democracy,” Foreign Affairs, Nov. 1997.
*J. Snyder, From Voting to Violence: Democratization and Nationalist Conflict, chapter 1. Watch out for the early stages of democratic transitions.
*Daron Acemoglu and James A. Robinson, Economic Origins of Dictatorship and Demcracy, chapters 1 and 2; for “extra credit” browse pp. 203-207, 246. Focuses on class conflict and democratization. How might ethnic or sectarian cleavage interact with their analysis?
Supplementary:
T. Gurr, Peoples Versus States, ch. 5. Successful democratic transitions have eased ethnic conflict in the 1990s, but failed transitions have exacerbated them.
S. Smooha, “Minority Status in an Ethnic Democracy: the Status of the Arab Minority in Israel,” Ethnic and Racial Studies, July 1990.
S. Woodward, Balkan Tragedy, ch. 5 on democratization and the Yugoslav break-up.
M. McFaul, “The Precarious Peace,” International Security, winter 1997-98. Why nationalism has remained relatively tame in democratizing Russia.
Michael Lund, Barnett Rubin, and Fabienne Hara, “Learning from Burundi’s Failed Democratic Transition, 1993-1996: Do International Initiatives Match the Problem?” in Barnett R. Rubin, ed., Cases and Strategies for Preventive Action, chapter 3.
Edward Freedman and B. McCormick, What If China Doesn’t Democratize? Implications for War and Peace. Contributors debate whether democratization or authoritarianism would pose a greater risk of war.
Michael Doyle, "Liberalism and World Politics," American Political Science
Review (December 1986).
Peter Gourevitch, Politics in Hard Times. Nationalist versus liberal,
free-trading domestic political coalitions in times of depression in the late
19th and early 20th century.
Etel Solingen, Emerging Regional Orders. Nationalist versus liberal, free-trading coalitions in developing countries today.
Stephen Shulman, “Nationalist Sources of International Economic Integration,” International Studies Quarterly, vol. 44 (2000), pp. 365-390. Free trade as a route to national autonomy in Quebec, Ukraine, and India.
Nov. 22. NATIONALISM AND THE MARKETPLACE OF IDEAS
The printing press, mass circulation newspapers, the railroads, and public
education knit together the national consciousness. Often, nationalist
propaganda exploited these tools to sell nationalist myths and aggressive
foreign policies. Do present technologies of communication and propaganda
promote or undermine nationalism? What role do intellectuals play? How should
the marketplace of ideas be structured to make sure that nationalist arguments
are scrutinized in open, fair public debate?
Required:
*J. Snyder, From Voting to Violence: Democratization and Nationalist Conflict, chapter 2, and sections on media: pp. 121-128, 146-149, 154-157, 213-220, 235-237, 242-250, 334-338. Also, if necessary, review B. Anderson, Imagined Communities.
Supplementary CASE STUDY: THE DEBATE ON THE IRAQ WAR
Chaim Kaufmann, “Threat Inflation and the Failure of the Marketplace of Ideas: The Selling of the Iraq War,” International Security, summer 2004.
Ronald Krebs, “Selling the Market Short?” International Security, spring 2005, and rebuttal by Kaufmann.
Michael O’Hanlon and Nina Kamp, “Is the Media Being Fair in Iraq?” Washington Quarterly, autumn 2006.
Anatol Lieven, America Right or Wrong: An Anatomy of American Nationalism, browse.
Supplementary:
Miroslav Hroch, Social Preconditions of National Revival in Europe, ch. 6-7 and browse. Stages in the development of nationalist movements in small European states: cultural revival by intellectuals, creating a political doctrine, and mass mobilization.
K. Deutsch, Nationalism and Social Communication. The race between assimilation and mobilization during modernization.
I. B. Colley, "Whose Nation? Class and National Consciousness in Britain, 1750-1830," Past and Present (November 1986), 97-117; also Colley, Britons: Forging the Nation, 1707-1837. Penny press, railroads, war.
Nov. 29. POWERSHARING, CROSS-CUTTING ALIGNMENTS, OR REPRESSION?
This week and next we will examine the most prominent solutions to the problem
of governing a multiethnic society offered in academic literature and in the
policy world. This week: To mitigate ethnic conflict within a society, is it
better to give each ethnic group a share of state power, or is it better to
create electoral incentives to forge political alliances that cut across
cultural lines (as we discussed on Nov. 9)? Or is repression the less
attractive, but more reliable route to stability?
Required:
J. Montville, Conflict and Peacemaking in Multiethnic Societies, ch. 27, Arend Lijphart on powersharing; and review Horowitz, ch. 25 (both on library web).
*Philip Roeder and Donald Rothchild, Sustainable Peace: Power and Democracy
after Civil War, read overview chapters 1 and 2, and browse 5 (Lake and
Rothchild on decentralization), 7 (Reilly on electoral rules), 7 (Lebanon), and
8 (Varshney on India). Ian Lustick, "Stability in deeply divided societies:
consociationalism versus control," World Politics, April 1979. Note that almost
all the supposedly successful, repressive “control” cases he mentions
subsequently turned violent. Are there smarter control strategies that rely less
on repression and more on cooptation and “the second face of power”?
Supplementary:
Ian Lustick, “Lijphart, Lakatos, and Consociationalism,” World Politics, October 1997. Critique of Lijphart for making his theory non-falsifaible.
A. Lijphart, Democracy in Plural Societies. The classic statement on
consociation.
Ashutosh Varshney, Ethnic Conflict and Civic Life: Hindus and Muslims in India.
Cities with cross-religious civic organization avoid riots, others don’t.
Dec. 6. ETHNIC PARTITION VS. ETHNIC INTEGRATION
Is it better to partition a war-torn multiethnic territory like Bosnia or to try
to reintegrate it into a single, unified, multicultural state?
Required:
C. Kaufmann, “Possible and Impossible Solutions to Ethnic War,” International Security, spring 1996, reprinted in *Brown, Nationalism and Ethnic Conflict.
R. Kumar, “The Troubled History of Partition,” Foreign Affairs, January/February 1997, rebuttal to Kaufmann.
N. Sambanis, “Partition as a Solution to Ethnic War,” World Politics, July 2000. A statistical test of the partition hypothesis.
Supplementary:
Security Studies, summer 2004, special issue on “Living Together After Ethnic Killing: Exploring the Chaim Kaufmann Argument,” esp. chapters by Alexander Downes, “The Problem with Negotiated Settlements to Civil Wars,” 230-279, and Alan Kuperman, “Is Partition Really the Only Hope? Reconciling Conflicting Findings About Ethnic Civil Wars,” 314-349; browse articles by Fearon, Laitin, et al.
C. Kaufmann, “When All Else Fails: Ethnic Population Transfers and Partitions in the Twentieth Century,” International Security, fall 1998; also in *Walter and Snyder, Civil Wars, Insecurity, and Intervention. Surrebuttal to Kumar.
Alexander Downes, “The Holy Land Divided: Defending Partition as a Solution to Ethnic Wars,” Security Studies, summer 2001. General argument along Kaufmann’s lines, rebuttal to Sambanis, Israel/Palestine case.
Check the website of the International Crisis Group http://www.intl-crisis-group.org/
regarding current cases that are plausible candidates for partition.
Additional Supplementary Readings On Post-Conflict Justice
Some people argue that establishing peace after ethnic conflict requires
justice, and that perpetrators of crimes against humanity must be put on trial.
Some people argue that amnesty is acceptable, but only if the truth comes out
and the perpetrators admit to their actions. Others argue that it’s better to
forget the past, not obsess on it. Who’s right under what conditions?
Gary Bass, Stay the Hand of Vengeance: The Politics of War Crimes Tribunals,
“Epilogue: Do War Crimes Tribunals Work?” pp. 284-310.
Jon Elster, “Coming to Terms with the Past. A Framework for the Study of Justice in the Transition to Democracy,” European Journal of Sociology (Archives européenes de sociologie) 39:1 (1998), 7-48.
Jack Snyder and Leslie Vinjamuri, “Trials and Errors: Principle and Pragmatism in Strategies of International Justice,” International Security, winter 2003-04.
Neil J. Kritz, Transitional Justice: How Emerging Democracies Reckon with Former Regimes (United States Institute of Peace Press, 1995), esp. excerpt from Huntington, Third Wave, and browse elsewhere.
Henry Kissinger, “The Pitfalls of Universal Jurisdiction,” Foreign Affairs 80:4 (July/August 2001), 86-96.
Kenneth Roth, “The Case for Universal Jurisdiction,” Foreign Affairs 80:5 (September/October 2001), 150-54. Director of Human Rights Watch.