Despite implicating ethnicity in everything from civil war to economic
failure, researchers seldom consult psychological research when
addressing the most basic question: What is ethnicity? The result is a
radical scholarly divide generating contradictory recommendations for
solving ethnic conflict. Research into how the human brain actually
works demands a revision of existing schools of thought. Hale argues
ethnic identity is a cognitive uncertainty-reduction device with
special capacity to exacerbate, but not cause, collective action
problems. This produces a new general theory of ethnic conflict that
can improve both understanding and practice. A deep study of
separatism in the USSR and CIS demonstrates the theory's potential,
mobilizing evidence from elite interviews, three local languages, and
mass surveys. The outcome significantly reinterprets nationalism's
role in CIS relations and the USSR's breakup, which turns out to have
been a far more contingent event than commonly recognized.
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Produktdetaljer
ISBN
9780511410901
Publisert
2013
Utgave
1. utgave
Utgiver
Vendor
Cambridge University Press
Språk
Product language
Engelsk
Format
Product format
Digital bok
Forfatter