Forthcoming in Ethnic and Racial Studies

A tenet of modern studies of nationalism is that mobilized nations will want to live separately from members of other groups to achieve ethno-territorial goals. A comparison of attitudes to a question on preferences for ethnic separatism for two zones of conflict, Bosnia-Herzegovina and the North Caucasus of Russia reveals large differences both between and within the regions. For the 2000 respondents surveyed in each region in December 2005, more than half of those in Bosnia-Herzegovina believed that geographic separatism will improve the state of ethnic relations while the comparative figure for the North Caucasus was only 13 per cent. When examining sub-categories of the ethnic groups in each region, traditional social science factors, like religiosity, perceived income and levels of pride yielded significant differences but more so for Bosnia-Herzegovina than for the North Caucasus. Intuitive factors, such as experience with violence during the wars, were not consistently revealing and significant. The best explanations for separatist sentiment in both locations were geographical location (individual towns and counties) and respondents ’ levels of general trust