Ethnic Conflict: Looking Inside Groups
Journal: Ethnopolitics
Year: 2016

This article sketches the premises of a relational orientation to understanding ethnic conflict. Following on the work of Charles Tilly and others, it prioritizes relations and interactions in the dynamics of ethnic boundary preservation, rather than individual entities. The author first outlines the role of boundary activation mechanisms in ethnic conflict. The author then presents the interactions between elites and masses of ethnic groups in mixed settings that preserve coexistence, noting ho