Peoples Versus States: Minorities at Risk in the New Century / Edition 1

by Ted Robert Gurr

Overview

Picking up where Minorities at Risk left off, Peoples Versus States offers an expanded and updated perspective on ethnic and nationalist conflict throughout the world, as well as efforts to manage it.

Ted Gurr surveys the behavior of 275 politically active ethnic groups during the 1990s and pinpoints the factors that encourage the assertion of ethnic identities. Whereas his highly acclaimed 1993 book presented a disturbing picture of spreading ethnic violence, this volume documents a pronounced decline since the early 1990s—a decline attributable, in part at least, to many states abandoning strategies of assimilation and control in favor of policies of pluralism and accommodation.

Nonetheless, Gurr identifies some ninety groups as being at significant risk of conflict and repression in the early 21st century. And he cautions that the emerging global regime of principles and strategies governing relations between communal groups and states is far from perfect or universally effective.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781929223022
Publisher:	United States Institute of Peace Press (USIP Press)
Publication date:	06/28/2000
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	448
Product dimensions:	6.08(w) x 9.06(h) x 0.92(d)

About the Author

Ted Robert Gurr is distinguished professor at the University of Maryland and director of the Minorities at Risk project at the university's Center for International Development and Conflict Management. He has written or edited eighteen books and monographs, including Minorities at Risk: A Global View of Ethnopolitical Conflicts (USIP Press).

Table of Contents

The Ethnic Basis of Political Action
The Rise and Decline of Ethnopolitical Conflict
The Etiology of Ethnopolitcal Conflict
Incentives for Ethnopolitical Conflict
Democratic Governance and Strategies of Accommodation
The Challenge of Resolving Ethnonational Conflicts
Assessing Risks of Future Ethnic Wars
Conclusions: Managing Conflict in Heterogeneous Societies