The sources of ethnic violence: A comparative case study analysis of Yugoslavia, Nagorno-Karabakh, and Kurdistan

The Sources of Ethnic Violence seeks to elucidate what factors prompt ethnic groups to adopt strategies of interethnic violence over non-violent forms of interethnic bargaining and competition. Employing the "focused comparison" method developed by Alexander George and Richard Smoke (1974), this study analyzes three cases of violent ethnic conflict, using the results to develop a conceptual framework for understanding the sources of violence in ethnic conflict.;In Section I, a review of the literature (Chapter 1) is followed by three chapters which look at the question of ethnic violence from a different locus of initiative, the group level (Chapter 2), the state level (Chapter 3), and the interstate level (Chapter 4). In this section, ten propositions and related subpropositions establishing a link between ethnicity and violence are developed. These propositions are then tested in Section II across three cases studies, Yugoslavia (Chapter 5), Nagorno-Karabakh (Chapter 6), and Kurdistan (Chapter 7), to determine which of these propositions establishes a clear causal link between ethnicity and violence and which only indicates a tendency or potential for violence.;Based upon the case study findings, a conceptual framework for understanding what triggers violence in ethnic conflict is developed in the final section (Chapter 8). Four of the ten propositions identify critical sources of ethnic violence in all three cases studies, one at the group level (ethnic group leadership), one at the state level (the weak state), and two at the interstate level (international support and access to arms and financial resources). Where one or more of these critical sources of ethnic violence are present, ethnic conflict will escalate rapidly to full scale interethnic war. The remaining six propositions identify important sources of ethnic violence, but the relationship between each of these factors and the outbreak of ethnic violence is not as critical or as direct. Taken together, these ten propositions identify the critical sources of violence in ethnic conflict and are thus relevant not only to understanding the outbreak of violence in the cases examined herein, but also to identifying the sources of ethnic violence in conflicts beyond the scope of this dissertation.