1. The Geography of Fear: Regional Ethnic Diversity, the Security Dilemma and Ethnic War.
- Author
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MELANDER, ERIK
- Subjects
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DECISION making in political science , *MATHEMATICAL models of decision making , *PREEMPTIVE attack (Military science) , *ETHNIC conflict , *SOCIAL conflict , *WAR & society - Abstract
This article explores to what extent the security dilemma through geographically induced first-strike advantages is a contributing cause of ethnic warfare. If there are possibly decisive advantages to be gained from striking the first blow, both temptation and fear may shortcut efforts to resolve a conflict in less costly ways, and trigger massive violence. Theoretical work and case studies suggest that in ethnic conflicts intermingled settlement patterns give rise to such first-strike advantages. I test whether ethnic groups in conflict are more likely to become involved in ethnic warfare if their main region of settlement is ethnically diverse. I also include controls intended to capture other aspects of the security dilemma. In robustness tests, I add indicators of group concentration and local majority status that have been found to increase the risk of ethnic violence in previous quantitative studies. I find a strong, statistically significant association between regional ethnic diversity and ethnic warfare. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
- Published
- 2009
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