The Foundations of Ethnic Politics: Separatism of States and Nations in Eurasia and the World (Cambridge Studies in Comparative Politics)
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About this book
Despite implicating ethnicity in everything from civil war to economic failure researchers seldom consult psychological research when addressing the most basic question: What is ethnicity? The result is a radical scholarly divide generating contradictory recommendations for solving ethnic conflict. Research into how the human brain actually works demands a revision of existing schools of thought. At its foundation ethnic identity is a cognitive uncertainty-reduction device with special capacity to exacerbate but not cause collective action problems. This produces a new general theory of ethnic conflict that can improve both understanding and practice. A deep study of separatism in the USSR and CIS demonstrates the theorys potential mobilizing evidence from elite interviews three local languages and mass surveys. The outcome is a significant reinterpretation of nationalisms role in the USSRs breakup which turns out to have been a far more contingent event than commonly recognized. International relations in the CIS are similarly cast in new light.
