From Claims to Violence: Signaling, Outbidding, and Escalation in Ethnic Conflict
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Open access
Date
2021Type
- Journal Article
Abstract
Do radical political demands increase the risk of ethnic civil conflict? And why do ethnic movements make radical demands in the first place? We contend that when movements are fragmented, individual organizations use far-reaching claims relative to the status quo to attract attention from the government, boost intra-organizational discipline, and outbid rivals. Yet, such radical claims also increase the risk of conflict escalation. We test our arguments at both the ethnic group and organizational levels, using a new dataset on ethno-political organizations and their political demands. Our results show that the scope of demands increases the more organizations exist within an ethnic movement and that radical demands increase the risk of civil conflict onset. This effect is specific to the dyadic government-movement interaction, irrespective of other ethnic groups in the country. Moreover, at the organizational level, radicalization in demands increases the likelihood that an organization becomes engaged in civil conflict. Show more
Permanent link
https://doi.org/10.3929/ethz-b-000495163Publication status
publishedExternal links
Journal / series
Journal of Conflict ResolutionVolume
Pages / Article No.
Publisher
SAGESubject
civil wars; internal armed conflict; conflict; rebellionOrganisational unit
03649 - Cederman, Lars-Erik / Cederman, Lars-Erik
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