Cederman, Wimmer and Min (2010) ‘Why Do Ethnic Groups Rebel?’ Citation: Cederman, Lars-Erik, Wimmer, Andreas and Min, Brian (2010) ‘Why Do Ethnic Groups Rebel? New Data and Analysis,’ World Politics, 62:1, pp. 87-119.
Time Period Covered:
Theory, Research Question, Hypothesis:
Cederman, Wimmer and Min (2010): Nationalism is absent from many studies of civil war and ethnic conflict, in part because a focus on conditions of state failure means the state is not considered part of the argument, in part because of presumptions that the state is ethnically neutral. Seek to examine ethnic wars as competition between competing ethnonationalist claims to power.
Hypothesis #1a: “The probability of ethnonationalist conflict increases the more representatives of an ethnic group are excluded from central executive power.” Hypothesis #1b: “The probability of ethnonationalist conflict increases following a fall in power status that decreases access to central executive power by representatives of an ethnic group.” Hypothesis #1c: “The probability of ethnonationalist conflict increases if the ethnic group represented by a power-sharing partner is larger compared with that of more powerful coalition partners.” Hypothesis #2: “The probability of ethnonationalist conflict increases with the ethnic group’s relative demographic size.” Hypothesis #3: “The probability of ethnonationalist conflict increases with the number of prior conflicts fought in the name of the same ethnic group.”
Relationship to Other Research/Ideas Contested/Noted Gaps:
Cederman, Wimmer and Min (2010): Security dilemma approaches focus on conditions of state failure and therefore neglect the state as an actor in ethnic conflict and civil war. Minority mobilisation approaches, such as the widely cited Minorities at Risk project dataset, ignore the ethnic group in power by focusing on minorities. Other approaches presume that the ethnic groups specified by anthropologists and linguists are important, or try to use demographic proxies to capture ethnopolitical discontent.
Cederman, Wimmer and Min (2010): Start with Tilly’s polity model featuring a government and contenders seeking to maximise access to power. Presume that incumbents and challengers are ethnic groups and their leaders.
Concepts and Definitions:
Cederman, Wimmer and Min (2010:98): Ethnicity: “any subjectively experienced sense of commonality based on the belief in common ancestry and shared culture.”
Cederman, Wimmer and Min (2010:101): Ethnic/Nonethnic: “Conflicts were distinguished by the aims of the armed organization on the one hand and their recruitment and alliance structures on the other hand. Ethnic aims include self-determination, more influence for one’s group over government, autonomy, and language and other cultural rights. Regarding recruitment and alliance structures, we defined ethnic wars as fought by armed organizations who predominantly recruit fighters among their leaders’ own ethnic group and who forge on the basis of ethnic affiliation. For a conflict to be classified as ethnic, armed organizations must both explicitly pursue ethnonationalist aims and recruit fighters and forge alliances on the basis of ethnic affiliations.”
Method:
Primary/Original Data:
Cederman, Wimmer and Min (2010): Use Ethnic Power Relations data set examining major global ethnic groups in world and their access to power between 1945 and 2005. Use UCDP/PRIO Armed Conflicts Dataset to code conflict.
Argument/Conclusion:
Cederman, Wimmer and Min (2010:88): Ethnonationalist claims to the state are the driving force behind post-WWII internal conflicts. “conflict with the government is more likely to erupt (1) the more representatives of an ethnic group are excluded from state power, especially if they experienced a loss of power in the recent past, (2) the higher their mobilizational capacity is, and (3) the more they have experienced conflict in the past.”
Limitations/Flaws:
Cederman, Wimmer and Min (2010): [The presumption that incumbents and challengers are ethnic groups and their leaders presumes ethnicity to be a salient feature in the construction of identity. Their definition of ethnicity draws on subjective understandings, but then fails to unpack how those subjective understandings are derived. As Sanín and Wood note with regard to Wimmer’s work, “Co-ethnics must be mobilized into supporting rebel groups, which raises the question: What is the role of ideology in such mobilization?” They acknowledge themselves that a shortcoming of the study is a focus on structural conditions rather than contention and mobilisation.]
Abstract:
Notes:
Cederman, Wimmer and Min (2010:94): Drawing on Wimmer’s institutionalist approach to nationalism, argue that rulers “are expected to care for their own, ethnically defined people,” and therefore have institutional incentives to favour their coethnics. Other actors in the system, such as voters, are similarly expected to favour coethnics.
Cederman, Wimmer and Min (2010:95): Propose “a direct relationship between the degree of state power and the likelihood that an armed rebellion will be instigated in the name of that particular group. The most excluded groups will thus be most likely to support armed organizations that challenge the government.”