This article examines patterns in individual attachments towards the nation-state in multiethnic countries. Specifically, we examine the effect of between-ethnic-group political and economic inequality on these attachments. Pairing attitudinal data from the sixth and most recent wave of the World Values Survey, administered between 2010 and 2012, with ethnicity measures from the Ethnic Power Relations dataset, we show that between-ethnic-group political inequality significantly weakens national pride and identity, but betweenethnic-group economic inequality does not have a similar effect. Our findings provide robust support for the view that ethnic-group separatism in divided societies is motivated, not by the quest for economic power, but by considerations of lost status and dignity that can only be recovered through ownership in state institutions. Hence, the binding constraint on national integration in these settings is political, not economic, inequality.
A well-known finding in the literature on ethnic conflict is that new states are more prone to ethnic conflict than old states. What are less well known, however, are the mechanisms through which independence leads to ethnic conflict. This lacuna is surprising since the literature offers different mechanisms to explain the result, each pointing to very distinct policy responses. This article examines these mechanisms by analyzing variations in the time from independence until an ethnic group engaged in armed conflict in ex-British colonies using an original colonial legacies dataset covering 177 ethnic groups in 33 ex-colonies. My analysis reveals that the main group-level triggers of early conflict onset are perceptions of backwardness, exclusion from political power on the eve of independence, downgrading of political status in the immediate aftermath of independence, and being regionally based. More generally, I find that shorter durations of post-independence peace are better explained by subjective evaluations of group worth instead of rational assessments of the costs and benefits of mobilization. These findings indicate that power-sharing arrangements may be a sine qua non for stabilizing new states in divided societies since what is at play in these contexts are complex considerations of group status that cannot be accommodated by non-ethnic institutional arrangements.
Did colonial rule “construct” the “martial races” or do these groups have an innate cultural disposition toward military service? Despite the centrality of this question for evaluating different military manpower recruitment strategies in postcolonial settings, no study has subjected these hypotheses to systematic empirical testing. This article fills this gap using an original data set on the colonial status of 181 ethnic groups across twenty-nine ex-British colonies to examine the origins of colonial “martialness.” The empirical analysis provides robust evidence in support of the constructivist argument.
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