Ethnic strife and democratization in Pakistan : some observations on concepts, measurements and the importance of history

A commonly-held opinion is that modernization and its political expression, democracy, are certain to decrease ethnic conflict, though it is admitted that democratic transitions are often accompanied by a temporary increase in internal violence. These theories are however hampered by a number of methodological and conceptual flaws and are defied by the experience of countries where no correlation between regime type and internal violence seems to exist. One such case is Pakistan, where ethnic - and increasingly religious - violence has been a recurring feature irrespective of the political system. The Pakistani case study, which will be referred to in this paper, provides useful clues for the study of ethnic conflict, pointing in particular to the problematic nature of the concept of ethnicity and to the importance of knowledge of locality and history for the purpose of understanding internal violence and its dynamics