Ethnicity, democracy and war

Looking at Iraq today, pundits see a civil war based along ethno-religious lines looming in the future. Some say only democracy can mitigate these tensions, and look to states like America as examples of what social institutions can do to repress violence based on ethnic identity.

Ethnic identity exacerbated conflict in the land grabs after decolonization in the 40’s and 50’s, and the collapse of the European and Central Asian communist powers in the 90’s. Since then there have been numerous attempts at statistically analyzing the linkage between ethnic homogeneity/heterogeneity and proneness to conflict. There was a simple assumption that ethnic heterogeneity caused conflict democracy offset this danger.

According to Demet Mousseau’s research¹, medium levels of democracy are correlated with the highest levels of political violence. Both low and high levels of democratic development are associated with low levels of violence.

Ethnic homogeneity, democratization and probability of violence (click to enlarge)

How does this happen? Autocratic regimes clamp down on ethnic dissidence very effectively, and highly developed democracies have infrastructures for groups to express grievances in a non-violent manner. Newly democratic states on the otherhand “increase the availability of political resources for the organization of group demands, facilitating their mobilization” and leading to ethnic clashes. Mousseau:

Diamond, Linz & Lipset (1995) claim that democratic elections in deeply divided societies are often perceived as zero-sum. When ethnic groups or parties lose in the elections, they tend to reject democratic institutions and appeal to violent means. In a similar fashion, Melson & Wolpe (1970) contend that in plural societies democratic procedures and the participation of the masses in the political process encourage political leaders to appeal to communal loyalties. This process is likely to reinforce political competition and mobilization along ethnic lines.

Therefore democracy is not a cure-all for ethnic division, but as it develops tends to become a source of grievance and can lead to conflict. We have already seen this in Iraq, and I expect to see more. But will this lead to civil war? Robert Kaplan thinks we should keep things in perspective:

But keep this in mind when we’re talking about the prospect of civil war: we had civil war in the Balkans, ethnic war, and it took upwards of 200,000 lives. Iraq is a country of over 23 million people. Since this mosque was destroyed, we’ve seen a few hundred deaths. That’s not a civil war. That can ignite one, but it’s still a long way off.

¹ Mousseau, Demet Yalcin. “Democratizing with Ethnic Divisions: A Source of Conflict?”Â? Journal of Peace Research. Vol. 38, No. 5, 2001.