Review

Reviewed Work(s): Ethnic Groups in Conflict by Donald L. Horowitz

Review by: Donald Rothchild
Source: The International Journal of African Historical Studies , 1989, Vol. 22, No. 2
(1989), pp. 295-297
Published by: Boston University African Studies Center

Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/220036

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 BOOK REVIEWS 295

ETHNIC GROUPS IN CONFLICT. By Donald L. Horowitz. Berkeley: University

of California Press, 1985. Pp. xii, 697.

Although the literature on ethnicity continues to grow and gain in sophistication,

there is little consensus among researchers about definitions, theoretical
approaches, the process of conflict, or the means of conflict management and
resolution. Writers vary noticeably in their emphases upon psychological,
political, and economic factors; the linkages among ethnic, class and religious
identities; the role of the state; the significance of elites; and the possibility and
means of reducing intense conflicts. It remains a relatively open field, gravely in
need of systematic comparative analysis. Donald L. Horowitz's massive study,
Ethnic Groups in Conflict, contributes enormously to our current need for synthesis.
In this important attempt to weave together theory and experience across
cultures, Horowitz has produced a landmark study that will give an impetus to
further research on this subject in years to come.
Ethnic Groups in Conflict is so wide-ranging in its sweep that no short
review can possibly do justice to it. With this in mind, I propose to focus
primarily upon its theory of ethnicity and ethnic conflict and its proposed means
for dealing with this challenge. In doing so, it will be necessary to play down the
sections on party and military politics. This seems a pity, as I regard these as
some of the best examinations available on these critically important subjects.
Arguing, somewhat controversially, that ethnicity has "a generally less
urgent character" in the West than in Asia, Africa, and the Caribbean, Horowitz
chooses at the outset to focus his attention upon parallel or unranked groups in
the "severely" divided societies of the Third World. These ethnic groups are
defined broadly in terms of ascriptive differences that include color, appearance,
language, religion, or some other indicator of common origin (pp. 17-18, 41). Yet
he observes that the common origins of groups may be more myth than reality.
"Ethnicity," notes Horowitz, "is based on a myth of collective ancestry, which
usually carries with it traits believed to be innate. Some notion of ascription,
however diluted, and affinity deriving from it are inseparable from the concept
of ethnicity" (p. 52).
What follows is a theory of ethnic conflict that is both innovative and
challenging to some of the most widely held assumptions in the field. Horowitz,
emphasizing the "intractable" nature of ethnically-related conflicts (pp. 196, 564),
not surprisingly plays down the economic dimensions in ethnic group politics.
The emphasis throughout is on the intense rivalries between groups that "see
their vital interests threatened by other groups" (p. 565). The expression of such
"intense passions" leaves little room for interest group competition regulated by
understood norms of political exchange and reciprocity (p. 104). For Horowitz, it
is necessary to dig deeper in order to gain a full appreciation of the mass
emotions involved in such conflicts; "a bloody phenomenon," he contends, "cannot
be explained by a bloodless theory" (p. 140).
In coming to grips with the forces he sees at work in ethnic group
conflicts, Horowitz goes beyond modernization and economic-interest
perspectives to stress the psychological determinants involved in zero-sum
politics. Noting evidence that less advantaged peoples are frequently willing to
sacrifice economic gain for comparative advantage, he explains this behavior
largely in terms of the fundamental collective needs for self-esteem and for

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296 BOOK REVIEWS

reducing the threat of domination by a rival collectiv

groups have frequently exhibited severe anxiety abou
other groups" (p. 175). Such anxieties, he writes, take
fears about survival, swamping and subordination; mo
which arise from a diffuse sense of danger of exaggera
effect of limiting and modifying perceptions, and ther
extreme collective reactions. As Horowitz summarizes the matter: "The contest
for worth and place is the common denominator of ethnic conflict among
unranked groups" (p. 186). His theory is anything but bloodless. Nevertheless, it
does help us to understand some of the worst-case scenarios of recent times - in
Western Europe as well as the Third-World!
If ethnic conflict is "often" zero-sum (p. 196), what advice can Horowitz
give for coping with this irrational and emotionally-laden phenomenon?
Arguing that "ethnic problems are intractable," he nonetheless concludes that
"they are not altogether without hope" (p. 600). What is the source of this
cautiously expressed hopefulness? Horowitz places little reliance upon the
manipulation of material resources to manage psychologically based or symbolic
conflicts. Rather, hope arises in those situations where societies are able to
change the structure of relations to promote conciliation. He sees five
mechanisms available for the reduction of interethnic conflict: the dispersion of
political power, at the center or between the center and the regional units;
arrangements that emphasize intraethnic competition and conflict; policies on
elections and territorial distributions of power that create incentives for
interethnic cooperation; measures that encourage alignments based on interests
other than ethnicity; and the restructuring of conflict behavior through programs
of interethnic redistribution. Of critical importance here is the utilization of
structural incentives to promote conciliatory relations. In particular, he
emphasizes the importance of such territorial devices as federalism and regional
autonomy and such electoral institutions as constituency delimitation and
proportional representation to alter political framework in which ethnic relations
take place.
This important analysis is supported with an impressive array of data. It
links theory and process and provides an overarching view of conflicts in deeply
divided societies. Yet to recognize its many strengths is also to take cognizance
of what has been downplayed or neglected. A balanced perspective requires some
consideration of where Horowitz has situated himself in the field of ethnic
studies.

Despite the broad coverage of his work, it is important to keep in mind

that Horowitz does not focus on the full range of interethnic relations, but upon
highly intense conflicts among unranked groups in Asia, Africa and the
Caribbean countries. Such a focus has various consequences. It dramatizes the
central role of the ethnic variable, while downplaying the significance of
economic distributions in reducing intergroup tensions. There is little discussion
of the state's capacity to mediate between ethnic groups in accordance with
implicit norms on proportionality and autonomy. In actual fact, many
interactions between ethnic leaders and groups never developed into the kind of
zero-sum game situations that Horowitz is writing about precisely because state-
society relations have shown an ability to balance state or party control with
limited scope for reciprocity (what I refer to elsewhere as "hegemonic exchange").

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 BOOK REVIEWS 297

The
The emphasis
emphasis
upon theupon
intensity
the
of ethnic
intensity
conflicts seems
of ethnic
overdrawn.
confl
The exceptional, terrible as it sometimes is, becomes the normal. Is ethnic
conflict "often" (or only sometimes) in the zero-sum category (p. 196); have
troublesome secessions been "abundant" (p. 229); did the Kenyatta government fail
to include Luos as "partners" in the central cabinet (p. 436); were all Baganda
"excluded from the Uganda government early on" (p. 501; many Baganda I
interviewed in 1980 were still resentful over the role that their ethnic kinsmen
played years earlier in designing laws that they regarded as damaging t
interests) and so on? Most important, under what situations are ethnic c
intractable? For Horowitz, the use of proportionality is "rare" (p. 508), an
embracing national government is no solution (p. 630). These statement
a broader point: that is, a tendency on the part of the author to perceive
case scenarios, when in fact, situations are frequently more complex, inv
wide range of reciprocities and quiet transactions across groups - withi
or no-party contexts as well as within two or multiparty systems.
In pointing to the complexities in interethnic exchange relations,
trying to raise some issues of perspective, not to question the value of w
as an important addition to the literature on ethnic theory and relations.
Groups in Conflict, Donald Horowitz's broadly comparative study of eth
represents a much needed overview. His case studies (and most particular
on Sri Lanka, Malaysia, and Nigeria) are carefully drawn and complement the
theoretical analysis in an effective manner. Clearly the book represents a major
contribution to the ongoing dialogue on issues relating to ethnic conflict and
conflict management.

DONALD ROTHCHILD
University of California, Davis

SEX ROLES, POPULATION AND DEVELOPMENT IN WEST AFRICA.

Edited by Christine Oppong. London: James Currey Ltd., and P
NH: Heinemann Educational Books, for the International Labour
Organisation, 1987. Pp. 242. $40.00.

Compared to the veritable banquet of important offerings in Oppong's 19

collection, Female and Male in West Africa, this new book is much thinner
somewhat less interesting to the academic. It contains two chapters on wom
work, five on population topics, and six on women and government or fa
planning policies. The unifying thread is that almost all of the articles are
policy-related.
The lead article by Renee Pitten argues energetically that the term
"household" just does not make descriptive sense in the case of the Hausa in
Katsina, northern Nigeria. She points out that the farming unit of production is
not coterminous with the co-resident compound group, that wives do not reside
with their husbands at all times, that co-consumption does not necessarily
correspond to coresidence, and that many non-kin inhabit domestic units. She
argues that the term household suggests joint husband/wife endeavors, when in

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