Ethnic Conflict: A Global Perspective

by Stefan Wolff

Why is it that Catholics and Protestants in Northern Ireland have been in perpetual conflict for thirty years when they can live and prosper together elsewhere? Why was there a bloody civil war in Bosnia and Herzegovina when Croats, Serbs, and Muslims had lived peacefully side-by-side for decades? Why did nobody see and act upon the early warning signs of genocide in Rwanda that eventually killed close to a million people in a matter of weeks? What is it that makes Kashmir potentially worth a nuclear war between India and Pakistan?
In Ethnic Conflict , Stefan Wolff draws upon eye witness testimonies, reports by Human Rights organizations, theories of conflict and conflict management, and his own long experience in working to resolve ethnic conflict to offer compelling answers to these questions. In recent years hardly a day has gone by when ethnic conflict in some part of the world has not made headline news. The violence involved in these conflicts continues to destabilize entire regions, hamper social and economic development, and cause unimaginable human suffering. Wolff goes beyond superficial media coverage of these crises to illuminate the broad similarities between ethnic conflicts around the world and to engage the fundamental question underlying them why do nationalism and ethnicity still have such terrible power to turn neighbor against neighbor? Wolff also explores the crucial-and growing-links between ethnic conflict and other security challenges, such as terrorism and organized crime.
No issue is more pressing in the world today than the ongoing and seemingly intractable tragedy of ethnic conflict. Stefan Wolff's new book sheds vitally important new light on both the causes and the potential solutions to one of humanity's darkest behaviors.

Genres: International Relations, Nonfiction

266 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2006

Reviews

[Maja Šoštarić · Rating 2 out of 5]

Highly interesting topic; unfortunately not a highly interesting book.
The conclusions are merely reinventing the wheel.
The style is everything it should NOT be: dry, with long sentences, with no subtitles, perfect to kill every possible enthusiasm.

However, efforts were expended into case studies, making this a three-star book.

[Simon · Rating 3 out of 5]

Wolff makes the rather obvious point that so-called "ethnic conflicts" are not merely about ethnicity, but are also about the ways in which ethnicity affects the distribution of political, economic and social opportunities in a given society. He pads this observation into a 200+ page book by expounding on a *lot* of banal theses, e.g. "The success of multi-ethnic states is thus predicated on their ability to prevent the emergence of state-seeking nationalisms among their constituent groups" (p. 55). (Translation: ethnic conflict is less likely to break out when people feel more loyalty to the government than to their own particular ethnic group -- an argument so utterly unremarkable that it must be true).

I don't want to sound unduly harsh on this book. For students new to the subject, "Ethnic Conflict" provides a simple and well-written overview of the conventional wisdom on the topic. Wolff supports his arguments with a wide range of historical examples (mostly drawn from the 20th century), some of which may be fascinating to new students of the subject. For those readers already familiar with the subject, I would recommend at least skimming pp. 68-85, which provide a useful and concise review of the major structural and proximate causes of ethnic warfare. (Call it the Cliff Notes version of all those long-winded journal articles you had to read). The rest of the book can probably be safely ignored by advanced students and scholars.

I give it 3 stars because it is well-written and mostly accurate, if not particularly revelatory. And any book that attempts to puncture the tired cliche of ethnic conflicts being caused by nothing more than "age-old hatreds" always has some inherent value.

[Gnarmac · Rating 3 out of 5]

Decent survey of major ethnic conflicts around the world. Offers no good solutions to conflicts. Basically says there is nothing you can do about ethnic conflict unless the conflicting parties themselves and their leaders want to do something about it.

[Khairul Anuar]

good