The roots of intense ethnic conflict may not in fact be ethnic: Categories, communities and path dependence

This article criticizes two theoretical approaches to ethnicity and ethnic conflict. One emphasizes the intense solidarity generated by the ethnic bond and explains this in terms of a deep, quasi-kin feeling. The other emphasizes the contingency and situatedness of ethnic feeling and the fluctuating character of ethnic groupness. We adopt an alternative strategy, locating ethnicity as one factor among many, which may form a path-dependent self-reproductive system generating communal opposition and ethnic conflict.