Causes Of Ethnic Conflict

Ethnic Conflict
Ethnic conflict is a term loaded with often legitimate negative associations and entirely unnecessary confusions. The most important confusion is that ethnic conflicts are about ethnicity— ‘ethnicity is not the ultimate, irreducible source of violent conflict in such cases’. It often forms an important part of the explanation, but we do not know of any conflict that can be solely explained by reference to ethnicity, which is itself a hotly contested term. Generally speaking, the term conflict describes a situation in which two or more actors pursue incompatible, yet from their individual perspectives entirely just goals. Ethnic conflicts are one particular form of such conflict: that in which the goals of at least one conflict party are defined in (exclusively) ethnic terms, and in which the primary fault line of confrontation is one of

Whatever the concrete issues over which conflict erupts, at least one of the conflict parties will explain its dissatisfaction in ethnic terms. That is, one party to the conflict will claim that its distinct ethnic identity is the reason why its members can not realise their interests, why they do not have the same rights, or why their claims are not satisfied. Thus, ethnic conflicts are a form of group conflict in which at least one of the parties involved interprets the conflict, its causes, and potential remedies along an actually existing or perceived discriminating ethnic divide. In other words, the term ethnic conflict itself is a misnomer—not the conflict is ‘ethnic’ but at least one of its participants, or to put it differently, an ethnic conflict involves at least one conflict party that is organised around the ethnic