Causes of Interethnic Conflicts

What are the causes of inter-ethnic conflicts? They are not directly caused by inter-group differences. More often there is a situation in which ethnic groups defend interests peacefully.

But the reason, according to some scientists, is the fall of the authoritarian regime. As an example, the situation is developing in the Eastern European space, where disagreements and interethnic conflicts appeared, after the fall of the Soviet Union and the collapse of the authoritarian regime. There is common sense in this.

However, this argument gives an incomplete picture of the causes of interethnic conflicts. Basically, scientists explain them based on 2 levels of analysis - systemic and national.

Analysis of the causes of interethnic conflicts at the domestic level.

In this case, domestic factors that influence the emergence of ethnic conflicts are considered :

• Democratization,
• Nationalism,
• Effectiveness of solutions to voter problems

The people need to see that the state. Power can create an effective security system and economic growth of the country.

Nationalism reflects the need to create a state that can achieve these goals.

There is an increase in nationalism and the risk of interethnic conflicts, when the state does not meet the emerging military and economic threats to the people of the country and is not able to create effective governance institutions.

An example is the situation with the collapse of the USSR and the Eastern European communist states, which in turn led to a new round of nationalism and this led to inter-ethnic wars in the post-Soviet countries and in the Russian Federation itself, to the growth of nationalistic sentiments.

Another factor in the emergence of ethnic tensions is democratization, which is also capable of causing interethnic conflicts.

In reality, democratization can reduce ethnic tensions in society by allowing open-ended management tools for all ethnic groups in the country to solve the problems of all the peoples of the country, but, in one way or another, it is problematic for a multi-ethnic society, especially in the first stage, after the fall of the old regime and birth New - democratic regime.

With the development of democracy in society, if the previous regime was built on forced assimilation, including ethnic expulsions, the destruction of companies aimed at resolving interethnic conflicts, democratization in this state of affairs will be complicated.

Another important point is the comparative size of ethnic groups in society. When one group is bigger than the others, it can have more influence in disagreements about something. And this means that the interests of smaller groups will not be properly observed.

Read more analysis of the cause of inter-ethnic conflicts at the system level.