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Beyond Fractionalization: Mapping Ethnicity onto Nationalist Insurgencies

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 February 2007

LARS-ERIK CEDERMAN
Affiliation:
ETH Zurich
LUC GIRARDIN
Affiliation:
ETH Zurich

Abstract

This paper theorizes the link between ethnicity and conflict. Conventional research relies on the ethnolinguistic fractionalization index (ELF) to explore a possible causal connection between these two phenomena. However, such approaches implicitly postulate unrealistic, individualist interaction topologies. Moreover, ELF-based studies fail to articulate explicit causal mechanisms of collective action. To overcome these difficulties, we introduce the new index N* of ethnonationalist exclusiveness that maps ethnic configurations onto political violence. This formalization is confirmed statistically in regression analysis based on data from Eurasia and North Africa.

Type
FORUM
Copyright
© 2007 by the American Political Science Association

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