Ethnicity in an International Context

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As ethnicity is increasingly influencing the developmental paths of many societies, domestically as well as within inter-nation relations, I have extended my research agenda and teaching interests to Ethnicity in an International Context, broadly embracing statehood, nationalism, and religious fanaticism embedding terrorism, with special emphasis on Africa, Eastern Europe, and the Middle East. Although the ethnic nation cannot yet compete with the state in nuclear warheads, the conversion of ethnic dissatisfaction into ethnic nationalism and ethnic conflict world wide have made their mark on domestic and global politics. In many places, the mass is being disillusioned with the political institutions of the nation-state. An accent on ethnic, cultural, and political identity has reasserted itself in the form of a pathology of cultural fundamentalism. It takes some codes of belief of tradition and, under the pressure of insecurity created by an uneven distribution of power within the state, imposes itself as a self-protective social and political movement.

The spread of burgeoning ethnic conflicts, paired with the likelihood of weapons of mass destruction falling into the hands of non-state actors, compounds the danger of each, especially when some nuclear powers are domestically unstable. The nature and interconnectedness of these threats to global peace have motivated my research agenda and teaching interests on the international security implications of ethnicity. Current insurgencies are vividly positioning non-state actors within the new global setting of politics. The threats to world security of these non-state actors’ demands in terms of secessionist rights of self-determination or the politics of disassociation prompt to ask what latent contexts breed the political salience of cultural cleavages. Why do some cleavages strengthen politically while others remain irrelevant cross-nationally?

 

In analyzing the global security threats of ethnicity, my research agenda and teaching interests do not focus on the traditional theoretical understanding of democratic institutional variations (i.e. the effect of institutional variations in presidential powers on presidential-legislative bargaining over policy). I emphasize instead the rule of law, more precisely, the bureaucracy. Although contemporary manifestations of ethnicity in many parts of the world still carry disputes over myths, symbols, ancient memories and hatreds, the weak bureaucratic rule of law has been an institutional contributor to the perpetuation of inter-ethnic enmity. My dissertation has demonstrated that the current political importance of ethnicity was bureaucratically engineered even in a region such as Africa where the pre-colonial past reflected relatively harmonious cohabitation between most tribes. My research agenda will explore the conditions under which the discretionary power of bureaucratic institutions could shape identity choice or mitigate its importance for political decision-making.