Prepared By: Wondwosen Lukas Gonto

Tatek Legesse Bulcha

Kim Majiok Logn
Ismail Abdisalan Hashi
Shewanesh Tadesse Lemma
Kassahun Mesele Worku

Submitted To: Andargachew Tilahun Eshete (PhD)

Acknowledgement

We greatly owe our heartfelt gratitude to our dedicated instructor, Andargachew Tilahun (PhD)
for his incredible teaching and for letting us gain knowledge by working on this term paper.

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Table of Contents

Acknowledgement....................................................................................................................... I

1. Introduction ......................................................................................................................1

2. Arguing in Support of Constructivist Approach of Ethnic Conflict ................................2

2.1. Defining the Constructivist Approach ......................................................................... 2

2.2. The Main Argument .................................................................................................... 2

2.3. Arguments Against the Constructivist Theory ............................................................ 6

3. Conclusion .......................................................................................................................6

REFERENCE ..............................................................................................................................8

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 1. Introduction

Identity is "shaped, refabricated, and deployed in accordance with prevailing cultural scripts
and centers of power," according to the social constructivist perspective. People fall into
different social groups based on their actions and words. Social categories "may and do change
over time" because they are the "product of human conduct," including their "membership rules,
content, and valuation." Approaches that are constructivist view ethnicity as "a social
phenomenon" that serves requirements on both a political and social psychological level.
Importantly, the "politically salient identity" is a result of the "collective consciousness."

In terms of conflict and tensions, “constructivists do not see ethnicity as inherently conflictual.”
Ethnicity is “that part of a person’s identity which is drawn from one or more ‘markers’ like
race, religion, shared history, region, social symbols or language.”(Gilley, 2004). Anthony
Smith, one of the most well-known researchers of nationalism, describes an ethnic as having a
proper name, common ancestral myths, shared memories, shared culture, and a connection to a
homeland. An ethnic community is based on an ethnic identity (Smith, 2001). Consequently,
an ethnic group "is a group of individuals held together by a belief in mutual kinship and group
difference, frequently strengthened by religion, language, and history" (Byman, 2002). As
highlighted by Milton Esman, ethnic sentiment is "an expression of who I am, how I identify
myself, to what group of individuals I belong," which ethnic groups experience. The concept
of ethnicity is relational, which means that having an in-group identity implies that there are
individuals of an out-group who are from a different ethnic group (Jesse & Williams, 2011).

Ethnic conflict, a highly contested phenomenon, has been a part of international politics
throughout history and is still a common form of contemporary armed conflict around the world
(Nguyen, 2010). The roots of ethnic conflict are hotly disputed by academics from various
fields, however these discussions can be divided into three main theories: constructivism,
instrumentalism, and primordialism. These theories all make unique assumptions about the
origins of ethnic identities, and as a result, they each reflect various factors that contribute to

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ethnic conflict. The constructivist theory is then defended in this term paper as being the best
one for elucidating key concepts in ethnic conflict among the competing theories.

2. Arguing in Support of Constructivist Approach of Ethnic Conflict

2.1. Defining the Constructivist Approach

Constructivism focuses on the central role that shared ideas and norms play in social and
political life. The core tenants of constructivism are: ‘(a) human interaction is shaped primarily
by ideational factors, not simply material ones; (b) the most important ideational factors are
widely shared or “intersubjective” beliefs, which are not reducible to individuals; and (c) these
shared beliefs construct the interests and identities of purposive actors’ (Ellingsen, 2000).
Applying this framework to ethnic politics centers not on whether identity matters, but on what
an ethnic identity is (if it is inherited, or it is something to be constructed).

Constructivist perspectives highlight that not only an ethnic label is a signal emitted to others,
but that it constitutes a costly signal. Although actors have the ability to rationally decide
whether to ‘play the ethnic card’ if they have incentives to do so, this set of possible ethnic
identities is limited. As stated by Olzak, ‘there are limits to someone claiming to be, say,
‘Chinese American’, without some reference to valid family ties (Olzak, 2006). As summed up
by Finnemore & Sikkink, (2001), ‘actors construct or choose these identities from a menu of
existing choices. The menu is historically and culturally constructed, but individuals choose
rationally from the items that are on the menu at any given point’. In this sense, constructivists
conceptualize ethnicity as both flid and situationally bounded (Posner, 2005).

2.2. The Main Argument

Constructivist perspective focus on when ethnicity is made politically salient by different

actors. These might be politicians in the context of ongoing conflicts or rivalries in an electoral
setting, or disenfranchised citizens if they perceive it might help their cause to frame an issue
that has ethnic undertones. Ethnicity is thus conceptualized as just one of the many identities

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that can be made politically salient. Ethnicity is somewhat flid, but not entirely so, as the set of
possible ethnic identities for each actor is finite. A possible micro-foundation, which would
facilitate ethnic identity to become politically salient, has been offered by (Hale, 2008). He
emphasizes the role that identifying along ethnic lines can have in reducing uncertainty, as it
can help navigate the social world, in part due to its correlation with other factors such as values,
and socio-economic indicators in some cases.

Even if certain ethnic cues like skin color do not usually change, Horowitz, (1993) argues that
specific contextual variables determine if individuals will be categorized according to these
cues or other ones. He argues that, even highly visible cues are not necessarily the primordial
coding scheme employed by individuals at particular points in time. For instance, ‘in
seventeenth century North America, the English were originally called ‘Christians’, while the
African slaves were described as ‘heathens’’. Only after 1680, when many slaves
were converted to Christianity, ethnic distinctions take center stage.

He thus concludes that, ‘it is not the attribute that makes the group, but the group and the group
differences that make the attribute important’ (Horowitz, 1993). Conceptualizing ethnicity as
an identity that can become salient at specific moments in time (as opposed to a fixed trait that
is monotonically influential in people’s political decisions), means a change in the type of
research questions asked. Ethnicity is no longer an independent variable to explain the onset of
some other political phenomenon, but a political phenomenon to be studied in itself. This poses
certain challenges. As highlighted by Posner, (2005), ‘from the standpoint of theory building,
the discovery that ethnic identities are flid and situation bound, has been paralyzing. The
recognition that ethnic identities may shift from situation to situation has made students of
ethnicity hesitant to propose general hypotheses.’

The fluidity of identity activation has allowed scholars to explain outcomes that were previously
regarded merely as outliers. For instance, the correlation between poverty and violence
highlighted by Collier, (2007), could now be analyzed in more detail. Sen, (2008) explains that
Calcutta is the poorest city in India but has very low crime rates because local politicians have
historically activated class-based political identities (instead of ethnic ones). Ethnically

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‘engineered bloodshed (…) results from the fomenting and cultivation of targeted differences,
rather than being just a spontaneous outcome from an inescapable ‘clash’’.

Research emerging from this constructivist conceptualization of ethnicity has, for the most part,
focused on explaining the effect of institutional settings on determining when ethnic identities
will become politically salient. The mechanism at work follows the logic of Tilly’s more
general notion of boundary activation. This mechanism ‘consists of a shift in social
interactions such that they increasingly (a) organize around a single us-them boundary and (b)
differentiate between within-boundary and cross-boundary interactions’ (Tilly, 2003). This
boundary is frequently an ethnic one, and the key variable is not ethnicity per se, but particular
institutions that will motivate politicians to make ethnic-based claims and motivate constituents
to vote along ethnic lines. When institutionally activated, ethnicity has important behavioral
implications. When ethnicity becomes politically salient, voters will privilege voting for co-
ethnic candidates (Posner, 2005).

Ethnicity is considered an ‘informational shortcut’ in incomplete-information environments (as

elections certainly are) due to its inherent ‘stickiness’. Horowitz notes that, ‘ethnic affiliations
provide a sense of security in a divided society, as well as a source of trust, certainty, reciprocal
help, and protection against neglect of one’s interests by strangers. This could prove especially
consequential in newly democratized countries in which voters do not have many other cues,
like political parties, to rely on. Citizens in patronage democracies, due to the severity of the
informational constraints come election time, would also be particularly susceptible to employ
schemes of ethnic categorization (Horowitz, 1993).

The behaviors of both politicians and voters frequently become self-reinforcing. Furthermore,
formal institutions may be created as an effect of ethnic politics, ‘over time this equilibrium
should also generate additional reinforcing mechanisms that allow it to persist even after the
initial informational constraints that gave it birth are lifted. For instance, both voters and
politicians have an incentive to create and maintain networks and institutions in order to reduce
the transaction costs of communicating demands and delivering benefits’ (Chandra, 2007).

The constructivism theory, which can be traced back to historical arguments made by French
and English philosophers, states that ethnic identities are constructed, reconstructed, and

4
mobilized in accordance with social and political factors. For instance, the English language is
a result of the linguistic influences of the various groups of people (the Celts, the Danes, the
Romans) who invaded and settled down in the country. In other words, according to
constructivism, the primordialism approach of understanding a group’s attributes as natural
characteristics which emerge from physiological traits and psychological predispositions, is
incorrect. Moreover, constructivists argue that it is wrong to assume that an ethnic group’s
members have an internalized “singular social experience” that everyone in the group is
exposed to through their group consciousness (Thomson, 2018).

Instead, they suggest that ethnic groups are a social construction, which means that they are
fabricated and refabricated based on reigning cultural norms. For example, in 1992, 31% of the
population living in Britain considered themselves to be English; however, less than a decade
later, this number increased to 41% of the population even though there were no exceptional
rates of fertility or migration in the area. To put this another way, the increase in the number of
English people in Britain was due to the fact that the number of people who identified
themselves as English increased (Thomson, 2018). Constructivists also argue that individuals
do not belong to only one ethnic category. Chandra, for example, maintains that when analyzing
a single ethnic group, one notices that this supposed single ethnic group is actually a mixture
of several other cultural identities. In other words, ethnic groups are made up of several different
identities that are unified under one salient category (“Why Ethnic Parties Succeed”).

Furthermore, according to this theory, ethnicities are not inherently conflictual. In fact, most
ethnic groups accomplish their goals in a peaceful manner through established political
channels (Lake, D. & Rothchild, 1998). That being said, constructivists argue that it is possible
to use the concept called the security dilemma to predict the probability of a conflict amongst
different ethnic groups. First, ethnic conflicts are likely to happen when political regimes
collapse because they often leave behind a number of no cohesive cultural groups who are
forced to compete with one another in order to gain a sense of security. Second, ethnic conflicts
can arise due to competitive elections that utilize ethnic-based political parties. This is the case
because the minority ethnic group could perceive the election results as a threat to their group’s
identity. Third, ethnic conflicts can take place during times of modernization if an ethnic

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group’s expectations are not met and if an ethnic group believes that they are at a disadvantage
relative to another ethnic group (Ellingsen, 2000).

2.3. Arguments Against the Constructivist Theory

There are scholars who believed that the constructivist theory has several flaws. First, the
constructivist theory cannot explain how some ethnic groups are able to remain the same for
very long periods of time, even during times of changing political and social.(Jesse & Williams.,
2011). Second, the constructivists fail to recognize that mass literacy hardens people’s ethnic
identities, which makes it very unlikely that the ethnic group can be reconstructed (Van Evera,
2001). Third, scholars argue that the constructivist approach does not reveal why some ethnic
identities persist even though they harm the members of the group instead of benefiting them
(Jesse and Williams 2011).

3. Conclusion

Ethnicity is "that part of a person's identity which is drawn from one or more 'markers' like race,
religion, shared history, region, social symbols or language". The causes of ethnic conflict are
densely debated by scholars across disciplines but these arguments can be categorized into three
major theories. This term paper argues supporting constructivist approach as the strongest
theory among the opposing approaches in explaining ethnic conflict central concepts.
Constructivism argues that an ethnic label is a signal emitted to others, but that it constitutes a
costly signal. Although actors have the ability to rationally decide whether to 'play the ethnic
card' if they have incentives to do so, this set of possible ethnic identities is limited. In this
sense, constructivists conceptualize ethnicity as both flid and situationally bounded.

Constructivist perspective focus on when ethnicity is made politically salient by different

actors. These might be politicians in the context of ongoing conflicts or rivalries in an electoral
setting, or disenfranchised citizens if they perceive it might help their cause to frame an issue
that has ethnic undertones. Ethnicity is conceptualized as just one of the many identities that
can be make politically salient. Ethnically 'engineered bloodshed' results from the fomenting
and cultivation of targeted differences, rather than being just a spontaneous outcome from an
inescapable 'clash'. The key variable is not ethnicity per se, but particular institutional settings

6
that will motivate politicians to make ethnic-based claims and motivate constituents to vote
along ethnic lines.

Ethnicity is considered an 'informational shortcut' in incomplete-information environments (as

elections certainly are) due to its inherent 'stickiness'. The constructivism theory, which can be
traced back to historical arguments made by French and English philosophers, states that ethnic
identities are constructed, reconstructed, and mobilized in accordance with social and political
factors. For example, in 1992, 31% of the population living in Britain considered themselves to
be English; however, less than a decade later, this number had increased to 41%. Constructivists
argue that individuals do not belong to only one ethnic category. Chandra, for example,
maintains that a supposed single ethnic group is actually a mixture of several other cultural
identities. According to this theory, ethnicities are not inherently conflictual. Most ethnic
groups accomplish their goals through established political channels.

There are some scholars who argue against this approach. They claim that the constructivist
theory cannot explain why some ethnic groups are able to remain the same for very long periods
of time, according to scholars. It fails to recognize that mass literacy hardens people's ethnic
identities, which makes it very unlikely that the ethnic group can be reconstructed.

7
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Hopkins University Press.

Chandra, K. (2007). Counting Heads: a theory of voter and elite behavior in patronage
democracies. In H. Kitschelt & S. Wilkinson (Eds.), Patrons, Clients, and Policies. (pp.
84–100). Cambridge University Press.

Collier, P. (2007). The Conflct Trap. The Bottom Billion: Why the Poorest Countries are Failing
and What Can be Done about It. Oxford University Press.

Ellingsen, T. (2000). Colorful Community or Ethnic Witches’ Brew? Multiethnicity and

Domestic Conflict during and after the Cold War. The Journal of Conflict Resolution, 4(1),
228–249.

Finnemore, M., & Sikkink, K. (2001). Taking Stock: The Constructivist Research Program in
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391–416.

Gilley, B. (2004). Against the Concept of Ethnic Conflict. Third World Quarterly, 25(6), 1158.

Hale, H. (2008). The Foundations of Ethnic Politics: Separatism of States and Nations in
Eurasia and the World. Cambridge University Press.

Horowitz, D. (1993). Democracy in Divided Societies. Journal of Democracy, 4.

Jesse, N. G., & Williams., K. P. (2011). Ethnic Conflict: A Systematic Approach To Cases of
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Jesse, N. G., & Williams, K. P. (2011). Ethnic conflict : a systematic approach to cases of
conflict / (1st ed.). CQ PRESS. https://www.ptonline.com/articles/how-to-get-better-mfi-
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Lake, D. & Rothchild, D. (1998). The International Spread of Ethnic Conflct: Fear, Diffusion,

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 and Escalation. Princeton University Press.

Nguyen, M. (2010). Causes of Ethnic Conflict : Examining the Role of Religious Diversity and
Contagion Effects.
http://www.creighton.edu/fileadmin/user/CCAS/docs/Mai_Nguyen.pdf

Olzak, S. (2006). The Global Dynamics of Race and Ethnic Mobilization. Stanford University
Press.

Posner, D. (2005). Institutions and Ethnic Politics in Africa. Cambridge University Press.

Sen, A. (2008). Violence, Identity and Poverty. Journal of Peace Research, 45(1), 5–15.

Smith, A. D. (2001). Nationalism: Theory, Ideology, History. Polity.

Thomson, C. P. (2018). Instrumental and constructivist conceptualizations of ethnicity:

implications for Latin American social movements research. 189.

Van Evera, S. (2001). Primordialism Lives! APSACP.