A Study On Elite Moblization In The Occurring Stage Of Ethnic Separation Movement In Southeast Asia

After second-world war, ethnic separation movements broke outfrequently in many emerging multinational Southeast Asian countries.These ethnic separation movements influenced not only their internalpolitics and development, but also the stability and development of thewhole area. Therefore it is of significant importance to deeply study theethnic separation of these countries.This article mainly focuses on elite mobilization, which is one of thethe most sagnificant aspect in ethnic separation analysis. The conception ofsymbolic politics theory—“mobilization, ethnic, recognition”—wascontracted and its research perspective was generalized. Accordingly,theoretical models focusing on elite dissatisfaction and mobilization meanswas established to figure out why the elite have mobilization desire andwhy the people chose to join the movement.Based on symbolic politicstheory, we compared the differences in different phases of AcehneseSeparation Movement in Indonesia. This case study demonstrates theimportance of elite moblization in ethnic separation and provides new cuesin further studying the ethnic separation movement in some specific countries.