September 22, 2021
Forms of ethnic change
Many scholars attempt to understand ethnic politics by taking the choice of ethnic identity from a repertoire as a strategic/intrumental choice.
Posner (2005) formalizes/generalizes these arguments:
Language (1) | Language (2) | Language (3) | |
---|---|---|---|
Tribe (a) | YES | no | no |
Tribe (b) | YES | no | no |
Tribe (c) | no | YES | no |
Tribe (d) | no | YES | no |
Tribe (e) | no | no | YES |
Tribe (f) | no | no | YES |
nested cleavage: when multiple dimensions of ethnic identities are organized such that membership in a smaller group implies membership in a specific larger group
Religion (1) | Religion (2) | Religion (3) | |
---|---|---|---|
City (a) | YES | YES | YES |
City (b) | YES | YES | YES |
City (c) | YES | YES | YES |
City (d) | YES | YES | YES |
crosscutting cleavage: when multiple dimensions of ethnic identities are organized such that membership in a group along one dimension does not imply membership in one specific group along the other dimension
Posner says, assume that…
People ethnicity to form minimum winning coalition
Result of this process may vary depending on the size of groups, nature of cleavage structure (nested, cross-cutting), argues there is underlying rational process driving ethnic identification.
Are you this rational in choosing ethnic identity categories in everyday life?
Are people in general this rational?
It may be that political elites/leaders use ethnic identification strategically…
Begs the question:
Hale (2004) and Brubaker et al (2004) describe how to think about ethnicity as a psychological phenomenon.
Like rational accounts, psychological approaches to ethnicity focus on the individual
Hale:
Humans are motivated to reduce uncertainty
Social categories more useful at reducing uncertainty if:
Compared to other social categories ethnic categories may be…
Thinking “ethnically” may not be conscious
Forms of ethnic change