Weingast B.R., Wittman D. The Oxford Handbook of Political Economy

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862 ethnic mobilization and ethnic violence

rather than choosing the type of public policy from a continuum (like a tax rate

or policy on abortion), we might expect to see more ethnic and less ideological

politics.

Caselli and Coleman (2002) formally investigate how the ability to “pass” aﬀects

incentives for coalition formation in a distributive politics problem. They consider a

model in which individuals choose whether to mobilize for conﬂict along a particular

cleavage, anticipating that in the second stage they will have the opportunity to switch

identities at a utility cost of c ≥ 0. Zero cost might be a case like party identiﬁcation.

A large (or inﬁnite) cost might represent an ethnic cleavage across which there is no

possibility of passing. They show that mobilization and conﬂict does not occur when

switching identities is easy since it is anticipated that the winning coalition would

expand. Caselli and Coleman suggest that higher switching costs obtain for mem-

bers of groups that are distinguished by skin color or other somatic features. There

are a great many counterexamples, cases of intense ethnic conﬂict between groups

whose members can’t be reliably distinguished by physical features or even language

alone. But it is unclear what a systematic empirical investigation would reveal on

this point.

Chandra (2004) argues that ethnic coalitions are favored in the electoral politics of

“patronage democracies” (that is, democracies with large, pork-ridden state sectors)

because voters ﬁnd it easier to code the beneﬁciaries of patronage by ethnicity than

by other social categories, as the information is more readily available. She suggests

that as a result politicians can most easily develop a reputation as a provider by

distributing patronage goods along ethnic lines.

5 Explanations for Ethnic Violence

.............................................................................

Horowitz (1985) maintains that conﬂicts along ethnic lines are more likely to turn

violent than are conﬂicts along ideological and other political cleavages. He suggests

that because ethnic brethren are understood as metaphorical family members, ethnic

conﬂicts engage intense emotions and a sense of existential threat. Killing may then

appear a more reasonable and justiﬁed reaction.

While many authors have proposed explanations for ethnic violence, Horowitz’s

argument is one of relatively few in which ethnicity per se does explanatory work.

For example, consider a country in which two or more ethnic groups are already

mobilized and can be treated as “unitary actors” because they have leaderships acting

for them. Then the usual rationalist explanations for violent conﬂict are potentially

available—bargaining failure due to private information, and problems of credible

commitment (Fearon 1995). In these cases the only thing “ethnic” about the explana-

tion is the type of actors and possibly what they are bargaining over. The distinguish-

ing features of ethnic groups (and in particular descent rules of membership) play no

role in explaining violence.

james d. fearon 863

Thus, Cetinyan (2001, 2002) models ethnic groups as represented by unitary ac-

tors who bargain over the terms of the minority’s treatment in the state. If the

minority group has private information about its willingness to ﬁght, the majority

group may demand too much, leading to a violent ﬁght. Cetinyan stresses that

this implies that while observable measures of the balance of power between two

ethnic groups should predict the terms of a bargain they reach, they should not

predict the probability of violence (since a weaker minority will simply face tougher

demands).

Fearon (1994, 1998, 2004) considers models in which a majority ethnic group

may not be able to commit credibly to a regional autonomy deal or constitution

that would protect minority rights in the future. Ethnic war may occur when the

minority anticipates that its ability to ﬁght for a better deal will decline in the

future. One could argue that ethnicity per se appears here in the implicit assump-

tion that political coalitions and preferences over public policies will, in the future,

continue to divide along ethnic lines. If there were salient cross-cutting cleavages,

then being in the minority today would not imply being in the minority next

year.

Another set of rationalist explanations for ethnic violence drops the unitary actor

assumption, focusing instead on how interethnic violence may emerge as a conse-

quence of intraethnic politics (see Fearon and Laitin 2000b for a general discussion).

These develop the common claim that ethnic violence is a tool by which political

elites maintain or increase their public support (e.g. Gagnon 1994–5). The central

theoretical puzzle for such “diversionary” arguments is why publics would increase

their support for a leader who takes actions, such as provoking ethnic violence, that

by hypothesis make them worse oﬀ.

Sociological and social psychological arguments invoke biases or non-rational hu-

man tendencies, such as a tendency for external threat to increase in-group cohesion

(Coser 1956) or a tendency to discount negative news about those in one’s in-group

(Tajfel 1982). De Figueiredo and Weingast (1999) show that if members of an ethnic

group are unsure about which side is to blame for an escalation of ethnic conﬂict,

then they may rationally increase their support for the leadership out of increased

fear of the other group. Thus the leadership may ﬁnd it rational to provoke ethnic

violence if it can do so without clear attribution.

Somewhat similarly, Kydd and

Walter (2002) analyze the conditions in which extremists in group B can use ethnic

violence so that group A will come to doubt the commitment of moderates in group B

to a peace process. In their model, group A cannot observe whether extremist violence

occurred because moderates in group B lacked the capability or the will to prevent it.

One implication is that terrorist attacks undermine trust to a greater extent when

¹⁶ As Cetinyan notes, this argument also appears in the game-theoretic literature on interstate

conﬂict (Wittman 1979;Wagner1994;Powell1996).

¹⁷ If the public is made better oﬀ by the ethnic violence, then it makes no sense to blame the

“manipulative” elites for doing what publics would want.

¹⁸ An observable implication of their argument that diﬀers from those of the psychological tradition

is that on seeing an escalation of violence or failure of negotiations, the public should increase their

belief that their own leadership is aggressive and the cause of the trouble as well.

864 ethnic mobilization and ethnic violence

the moderates of group B are seen as strong relative to extremists. Kydd and Walter

show evidence that Palestinian terrorist attacks in the 1990s were timed in a manner

consistent with the implications of their model.

Laitin (1995) and Fearon and Laitin (2000b, 2003) observe that would-be insurgent

groups often hope that their attacks on the state will provoke harsh, indiscrimi-

nate retaliation that will increase anger against the state and thus support for their

cause. Moreover, this expectation often appears justiﬁed. While various arguments

can be made (including those just sketched), it remains a puzzle why people do not

more consistently blame the insurgents for bringing the government down on their

heads. Kalyvas (1999a, 1999b) suggests that rebel and government attacks politicize

highly local, often personal grievances and feuds that are unconnected to the larger

ethnic or ideological struggle. In his analysis, what may appear as “ethnic” or “ideo-

logical” violence mislabels what is better understood as the arming and escalation of

village-level feuds and grudges (see also Brass 1997).

As noted above, apart from Horowitz’s psychological conjecture none of these

arguments use ethnicity per se to explain ethnic violence. Instead, they adapt more

general explanations for violent conﬂict for cases where combatants are organized

(or would like to promote organization) along ethnic lines. This is not necessarily a

problem. It may be that as an empirical matter such theories can do a good job of

revealing the conditions under which ethnic violence is likely. Still, many have the in-

tuition that there is something diﬀerent about ethnic violence—that its unspeakable

cruelties mean that it springs from distinct roots. Horowitz (1985, 140) famously wrote

that “A bloody phenomenon cannot be explained by a bloodless theory” (referring to

rationalist and economic theories of ethnic conﬂict).

Kalyvas’s research raises some questions about this supposition as well. The pat-

terns of extreme violence and cruelty found in ethnic conﬂict are characteristic of

guerrilla warfare in general, whether or not a society is ethnically divided (Kalyvas

1999a).

6 Conclusion

.............................................................................

The politicization of ethnicity attracts our attention in the ﬁrst instance because

it violates the classical liberal norm that political distinctions should not depend

on inherited designations or attributes per se. Liberals view harmful discrimination

along ethnic lines as morally wrong. This is enough to justify the study of politicized

ethnicity, which is extremely common in an age that, paradoxically, views ethnic

groups as natural bearers of sovereignty. In addition, many view politicized ethnicity

or simply ethnic diﬀerences as causing other bad outcomes, such as poor economic

performance, dictatorship rather than democracy, or violence.

The body of empirical work documenting these associations, and of theoretical

work explaining them, is small but growing. We have several papers examining the

james d. fearon 865

relationship between ethnic diversity and economic growth or public goods provi-

sion. The results are mixed but generally ﬁnd a negative relationship (Easterly and

Levine 1997; Alesina, Baqir, and Easterly 1999;Miguel2004;MiguelandGugerty2005;

Posner 2004a). Rabushka and Shepsle (1972) and Horowitz (1985) discussed cases

that they argued showed a tendency for ethnic polarization to undermine democracy,

but the recent wave of cross-national statistical work on determinants of democracy

has not closely examined the eﬀect of ethnic variables.

As noted, there does not

appear to be a strong cross-national association between various measures of ethnic

diversity or demography and the onset of civil war (Fearon and Laitin 2003; Collier

and Hoeﬄer 2004).

For all three dependent variables—economic performance, violence, and especially

democracy—basic empirical work remains to be done. Regarding the ﬁrst, we know

little about the mechanisms linking ethnic demographies to economic outcomes, and

we do not know whether ethnic demographies can reasonably be taken as exogenous

in studies of economic performance or economic policy. If, as suggested by the

European experience, strong states make ethnic homogeneity as much as the reverse,

then the negative relationships found in the small empirical literature may not be

fully causal. Regarding violence, we need systematic work on whether and when

state policies that discriminate against particular groups are associated with violent

conﬂict.

Also, there is no work to date systematically comparing the propensity of

ethnic as opposed to other political cleavages to cause violence. Regarding democracy,

even fairly basic cross-national analyses remain to be undertaken. Work on all three

dependent variables might be helped if we had cross-national survey data on how

people think about their ethnicity and what role it plays in their thinking about

politics.

As discussed above, theoretical work on the politicization of ethnicity and onset of

ethnic violence has proposed a number of logics for why and when these may occur.

Missing, with a few exceptions, are developed formalizations of these arguments that

would allow a deeper understanding of how the logics work and relate to one another.

Models examining how ethnic divisions aﬀect democratic stability and performance

are almost completely absent, and as noted most models examining ethnicity and

violence could just as well be models of, say, class and violence. Finally, we lack a good

baseline model that would formalize the intuition that particular ethnic distinctions

are matters of social coordination and convention rather than simply given by history

and culture for all time.

Much remains to be done.

¹⁹ Przeworski et al. 2001 ﬁnd little evidence for a direct impact of ethnic fractionalization on either

democratic onset or persistence, whereas Boix 2003 ﬁnds that democracy is less stable in ethnically

diverse middle-income countries. Fish and Brooks 2004 ﬁnd no cross-national relationship.

Generalizing from her analysis of India, Chandra 2005 argues that under the right institutional

conditions ethnic diversity might actually support democracy and democratic stability.

²⁰ Cederman and Girardin 2005 ﬁnd some evidence that countries in which ethnic minorities control

the state apparatus are more civil war prone.

²¹ See Bannon, Miguel, and Posner 2004 for an interesting analysis of this sort.

²² Fearon 1999 and Posner 2005 propose simple models of this sort, but neither is fully developed and

analyzed.

866 ethnic mobilization and ethnic violence

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chapter 48

..............................................................

DEMOCRACY,

PEACE, AND WAR

..............................................................

dan reiter

allan c. stam

Why do wars start, and what accounts for their nature? The traditional realpolitik

answer to this question focuses on the distribution of power among nations. However,

much of the recent scholarship on interstate conﬂict has moved beyond the realist’s

myopic focus on power and begun to explore the role of domestic politics in shaping

the nature of war. The result has been the generation of wide-ranging ideas and

ﬁndings about this vital connection. The group of those still doubtful that domestic

institutions systematically aﬀect states’ foreign policies is small and dwindling (see

Gowa 1999;Mearsheimer2001;Desch2002).

This chapter focuses on how variations in domestic political institutions aﬀect

states’ foreign policy behavior. While scholars have not agreed on a single theory of

how institutions aﬀect foreign policy, they agree on the general framework. In this

chapter, we lay out that general framework, and then some speciﬁc theories within

the framework which express diﬀerent visions of how exactly domestic politics aﬀect

matters of war and peace.

1 AGeneral Framework for Domestic

Politics and War

.............................................................................

Why do wars occur? A commonly held view in the international relations literature is

that when states disagree about the nature of a potential war, they will be unable

870 democracy, peace, and war

to reach a mutually agreeable bargain when presenting competing claims on the

distribution of international goods, such as the placement of an international border

or the distribution of military power between them (Fearon 1995; Smith and Stam

2004). A state dissatisﬁed with the territorial status quo or the local balance of military

capabilities may demand that another state make concessions or face war. The target

of the demand may accede or refuse, and from refusal, war may follow. Critically, state

leaders take the steps to war mindful of the costs and beneﬁts of each individual step:

doing nothing, posing a demand, accepting or refusing the demand, and choosing

war or backing down.

Within this conventional approach to war, the traditional realist perspective as-

sumes that calculations of costs and beneﬁts take into account only the state’s national

interest. The domestic politics approach poses a fundamental challenge to this as-

sumption, arguing that when national leaders make foreign policy decisions that may

lead to war they will consider domestic politics as well as the national interest. The

general proposition of the domestic politics approach is that variations in domestic

political conditions, especially variation in domestic political institutions, can aﬀect

decisions for war or peace.

To understand how domestic politics aﬀect foreign policy decisions, the domestic

politics framework begins with three assumptions. The ﬁrst is that all leaders seek

to maintain their hold on oﬃce, and will make foreign policy choices to improve

and defend their domestic political fortunes as well as advance the national interest

(Bueno de Mesquita et al. 2003).

The second assumption of the domestic politics framework is that political institu-

tions matter because they determine how leaders gain and retain oﬃce. In democ-

racies, for example, regular, competitive, and free elections provide the means by

which publics can hold political leaders accountable for their foreign policy decisions.

In dictatorships, the absence of electoral institutions means that leaders face fewer

constraints on their choices, but may also face diﬀerent domestic costs for perceived

policy failures. If domestic political institutions (such as elections) allow publics to

change their leaders frequently and with relatively low cost, then leaders will be more

likely to adopt foreign policies that are popular with voters. Conversely, in states

where it is diﬃcult and/or costly for the public to reselect a leader, then the leader will

feel freer to adopt unpopular policies, knowing that public anger will be less likely to

cause him or her to lose oﬃce.

The third assumption is that political leaders and voters may often have quite

diﬀerent preferences for various foreign policies (see Russett and Oneal 2000).

Democratic institutions provide a means for voters to force leaders to act on the

public’s rather than on the leader’s preferences.

Thus far, the discussion of institutions and selection has focused on the probability

of losing oﬃce. Institutions can also matter by determining the consequences of

losing oﬃce. Elected leaders may face relatively benign personal consequences from

losing oﬃce, as they can look forward to a comfortable retirement writing memoirs

and giving public lectures. Leaders of other states such as dictatorships may face more

dire consequences, such as exile, prison, or even execution (Goemans 2000).

dan reiter & allan c. stam 871

As we noted at the outset there is no unanimous consensus over any single do-

mestic politics model of war. Scholars focus on diﬀerent components of the war

process and employ diﬀerent assumptions to construct models that in some cases

make diﬀerent predictions. We next describe two major variants within this general

framework: public opinion constraints and audience costs. Our goals are to lay out

the basic principles of these models, describe their predictions, and review how well

the empirical record supports them. We should emphasize that these two variants

share important similarities, but we hope that by distinguishing them and avoiding

the temptation to combine them into a single model, the reader will get a sense of the

intellectual depth and ferment within this area of scholarship.

1.1 Public Opinion Constraints

The ﬁrst variant focuses on how institutions can aﬀect the relationship between pub-

lic opinion and foreign policy. The essence of this perspective is that of representative

democracy, that political leaders try to maintain their position by serving the public’s

interests which the leaders gauge by measuring public opinion. Many, but not all

of these arguments are decision theoretic in nature, assuming, for example, that

states targeted for war will necessarily ﬁght back (Reiter and Stam 2002). A critical

question for this variant is: what foreign policies do people prefer? There are three

general answers to this question. First, cheaper policies are commonly more popular.

The principal costs of wars are casualties and the diversion of resources from other

priorities. Because society bears these costs more directly than its leaders, when the

people have more inﬂuence, a state’s foreign policy will reﬂect greater cost sensitivity.

Democracies should therefore be less likely to initiate wars or disputes, and when

democracies do ﬁght, they should try to do so quickly and cheaply (Bennett and Stam

1996;Slantchev2004).

Second, people want success, and elected leaders fear failure. In democracies, voters

often react to past or anticipated policy failure by voting leaders out of oﬃce. This

means that democratic leaders are more fearful than autocrats of policy failure such as

defeat in war, as for the former it means the costs of bad policy outcomes and a greater

risk of losing political power, whereas for the latter it means only the cost of bad

policy outcomes. The principal predictions of this argument are that democracies

are more conservative in launching military ventures, doing so only when they are

conﬁdent of cheap victory, whereas authoritarian leaders are more inclined to engage

in risky wars, knowing that even in defeat they are likely to remain in power. Some,

such as Bueno de Mesquita et al. (2003), focus on the constraints imposed by leaders

anticipating the costs of voters acting prospectively at elections to select leaders out

of oﬃce. Reiter and Stam (2002) focus on the constraint imposed by a need to

generate contemporaneous consent among likely voters for policies leaders would

prefer to choose. By generating consent in advance, leaders can inoculate themselves

against the possible costs of policy failures. In the prospective voting set-up, voters use

information drawn from past events to make judgements about the likely competence

of leaders in the future.