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MAGAZINES & JOURNALS

A glance at the May/June issue of "Foreign Affairs": Ethnic warfare is
waning

Events in Kosovo, East Timor, and Rwanda give the impression that ethnic
conflict is emerging throughout the world, but the reality is more
sanguine, writes Ted Robert Gurr, director of the Minorities at Risk
Project at the University of Maryland at College Park. "The overall trend
is unmistakable: ethnic conflict is on the wane," he writes. After
multiplying in the 1950's, and peaking in the early, post-Cold War 1990's,
new ethnic wars are few, and old ones are being settled. For that, he
says, thank improved international practices for managing ethnic strife
that are "one of the signal accomplishments of the first post-Cold War
decade." The chief tenet of those practices, he says, is that states
threatened by secessions or claims to state power and resources should
share some power before armed conflict breaks out, and should recognize
minority rights. Mr.  Gurr recounts how his research center has tracked
300 ethnic and religious groups over half a century, finding that many of
these groups benefit from such an approach -- not just, say, in the new
democracies of Europe, Asia, and Latin America, but even under many
authoritarian governments. Many are allowing limited autonomy -- for
India's Mizo people in 1986, for the Gaguaz minority in Moldova in 1994,
and for the Chakma tribal group in Bangladesh in 1997. Such steps embolden
new claimants, Mr. Gurr acknowledges, but he says the pool of potential
claimants is dwindling. He says: "Those truly looking to reduce ethnic
bloodshed should embrace autonomy, not fear it." That, he says, is the
lesson not just of well-publicized cases like the Oslo accords between
Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization, but also, for example,
the less-publicized power-sharing agreements that Russia reached with some
40 regions. Chechen leaders rebuffed that approach, but few rebels now are
willing to undertake prolonged warfare for total independence because they
recognize that negotiating is just as effective. Sealing the new approach,
Mr. Gurr says, has been the willingness of the international community --
as demonstrated in Kosovo, for example -- to enforce it. The article is
not available online, but information about the journal can be found on
its Web site, at http://www.foreignaffairs.org/
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