Explaining the Radicalization of Ethnic Claims

Review by Peter Vermeersch

University of Leuven

Ethnic Bargaining: The Paradox of Minority Empowerment. By Erin K. Jenne. Ithaca: CornellUniversity Press, 2006. 288 pp., $45.00 (ISBN: 978-0-8014-4498-2).

One way of classifying contemporary theories explaining the mobilization ofethnic minorities is to make a distinction between primordialist, economic, andinstitutionalist perspectives. For primordialists, the ethnic characteristics of themobilized group are the crucial explanatory factors. Although few academicauthors would uncritically take this position, it is still a popular explanationwithin mainstream reporting on ethnic conflict. For economists, the relativedeprivation of an ethnic group is what causes and shapes the process of ethniccompetition (see, for example, Olzak 1992). Finally, for institutionalists, a causallink exists between minority mobilization and the particular institutional or legalarrangements in which minority activists are forced to act and make their claims(see, for example, McAdam 1982). All these perspectives have been discussedthoroughly in political science and sociology, and all of them—although mainlythe primordialist and economic perspectives—have at times been criticized fortheir tendency to essentialize group boundaries or for their inability to explainparticular variations in ethnic mobilization. Why, for example, do minority lead-ers of the same ethnic group mobilize differently in different countries? Why doeconomic disparities along ethnic lines not always lead to the political mobiliza-tion of ethnicity? And why does a state’s willingness to agree to the demands ofa minority not always lead to appeasement? Erin Jenne’s Ethnic Bargaining: TheParadox of Minority Empowerment offers a model that can presumably answer theseand other questions that arise because of variations in the content of minoritydemands (that is, they can be either more radical or more moderate) eventhough the structural circumstances remain the same.

Of course, these questions have been asked by other author, as well. Indeed,a number of theories attempt to account for variation in the content of minoritydemands. Elite theories, for example, look at the interests of power holders andminority leaders who build on existing ethnic loyalties to mobilize political sup-port (see, for example, Brass 1991). These theories argue that variation is causedby shifting interests among the mobilizing elites. Other scholars have argued thatethnic claims are more likely to emerge and radicalize when a power vacuumexists or when an ethnically defined population fears that it will be exploited(see, for example, Posen 1993).

According to Jenne, these theories are not able to capture the whole story,and they need to be complemented by a theory that interprets variation in eth-nic mobilization as the result of a process of bargaining. The ethnic bargainingmodel, Jenne argues, attaches crucial importance to the bargaining betweenputative minority representatives, state institutions, and external lobbies (that is,any other state, organization, or private interest that lobbies directly on behalf ofthe minority). By examining how these actors are linked to each other in a bar-gaining game, one will be able to predict more precisely when and why minoritymobilizers will radicalize their claims. Applying this rationalist theory, Jenne

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International Studies Review (2007) 9, 522–524

investigates and compares different episodes of ethnic mobilization across arange of cases in Central and Southeastern Europe: the Sudeten German claimsin interwar Czechoslovakia; Moravian and Slovak mobilization in post-CommunistCzechoslovakia; the Hungarian movements in post-Communist Slovakia, Roma-nia, and Vojvodina; and Albanian secessionism in Kosovo.

Ethnic Bargaining is an exciting addition to the literature for several reasons. Itnot only offers concise and very precise descriptions of the various cases, it alsoattempts to take seriously the view that ethnic claims are the outcome of pro-cesses of mobilization and not intrinsically connected to the minority popula-tions themselves, to their socioeconomic position, to their political situation, orto their grievances. In other words, Jenne examines ethnic radicalization interms of social movements and, thus, places the phenomenon in the broaderperspective of the processes of group mobilization. Social movement scholarsknow that group claims are the result of a highly complex process that is notonly shaped by a group’s capacity to mobilize, by its grievances, and by the inter-ests of its elites, but also by changes in the institutional environment in whichcompeting group leaders act (that is, the political opportunity structure) and byshifting interpretations and framings of relative power among claimants and stateinstitutions (McAdam, McCarthy, and Zald 1996). Thus, changes and shifts ingroup claims are potentially influenced by a large number of actors. Jenneemphasizes that external actors who lobby for ethnic groups, although oftenneglected in traditional accounts of ethnic mobilization, play a crucial role inthis process. One of her key hypotheses is that, if minority activists are reasonablyconfident of outside support, then it is likely that they will radicalize their claims,even if the state is nonrepressive and willing to accommodate minority demands.Underlying Jenne’s work is the constructivist view that ethnic groups are notfixed entities, but the result of mobilization. Yet, she also tries to take the con-structivist literature a step further by turning its main theoretical assumption intoan empirical question. She tries to identify the crucial variable explaining thetiming of particular types of changes in the process of ethnic mobilization.According to her model, such changes are the result of a rhetorical game of bar-gaining between three sets of actors: those who speak in the name of the minor-ity, the external lobbies, and the state.

How well does Jenne’s model explain the empirical findings described in Eth-nic Bargaining? The empirical material certainly shows that the formation ofminority claims is a process worth thinking about more critically. Minority claimsare clearly not simply reflections of underlying identities and grievances. Jennemanages to pinpoint some crucial moments of change in the cases that she hasselected. For example, the nonradical nature of Hungarian minority mobilizationin Slovakia under the premiership of radical nationalist Vladimı́r Mec̆iar(1995–1998) remains puzzling from traditional primordialist, economic, andinstitutionalist perspectives. The emergence of more radical demands by Hungar-ian activists earlier in the 1990s are equally difficult to interpret. However, if onelooks at the actions of the external lobby (in particular, the actions of the Hun-garian government and its changing discourses on and interpretations of the sit-uation of Hungarians abroad), the regional context (Hungary’s and Slovakia’sattempts to join the European Union), and the position of these actors in rela-tion to each other’s demands and interests, then one can better explain whenthe claims of the Hungarian minority in Slovakia became more radical. Perhapsmore important, one gains a better understanding of the episodes during whichHungarian claims were moderate, and political relations were de-ethnicized. Inthe other cases as well, Jenne’s interpretation of the empirical material clearlymakes sense.

A couple of issues raised in Ethnic Bargaining, however, probably call forfurther theoretical and empirical investigation. One of these questions regards

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Jenne’s policy recommendations. These recommendations are almost solelydirected toward those actors who intervene from the outside. Jenne assumes thatneutral mediators can have a crucial impact on the way in which the relationsbetween state governments and minority claimants develop. She even suggeststhat external actors can defuse and de-ethnicize these relations to a certainextent, as long as they maintain their neutrality. Setting apart the problem thatoutside actors who seek to play the role of neutral mediator are sometimes per-ceived as external lobbies, the question still arises as to the source of the influ-ence of neutral mediators. Such mediators may indeed have an impact ondominant perceptions, but Jenne’s model says little about the relative power ofexternal mediators in relation to such actors as domestic governments, statemedia, ethnic entrepreneurs, or transnational advocacy groups.

Another question that can be raised pertains to the selection of cases. Jenne iscareful to warn readers that her theory is tested only in cases from central andsoutheastern Europe. On the whole, thus, this research project is more a plausi-bility probe than a general test of her theory. Nonetheless, Jenne still suggests inthe first few chapters that her model should be applicable more widely and,therefore, needs to be tested on a global level. This assertion, of course, raisesthe question of how to identify and select instances of minority mobilization out-side central and southeastern Europe. Even if one does not look beyond the bor-ders of Europe, this challenge is still not as easily overcome as one might think.Complex cases of minority radicalization in other parts of the world—in whichdistinctive external lobbies rarely appear to exist (at least not in the form of astate), or in which minority activism is less formally organized, or in which activ-ists make claims that are not easily comparable with the claims for territorialautonomy in central and eastern Europe—seem more difficult to study from theperspective of a bargaining model. The radicalization of some ethnicized groupsin some urban areas of western Europe, for example, actually seems more diffi-cult to understand and explain using only the theoretical tools offered byJenne’s model.

Overall, however, Ethnic Bargaining is an impressive achievement. It is theoreti-cally sophisticated and opens important avenues for new research. In clear andanalytic language, it offers focused descriptions of a number of key cases ofethnic claims-making in central Europe and the Balkans, and it introduces acomprehensive explanatory model that is definitely worthy of further exploration.

References

Brass, Paul R. (1991) Ethnicity and Nationalism: Theory and Comparison. Newbury Park, CA: Sage.McAdam, Doug. (1982) Political Process and the Development of Black Insurgency. Chicago: University of

Chicago Press.McAdam, Doug, John McCarthy, and Meyer N. Zald, eds. (1996) Comparative Perspectives on Social

Movements: Political Opportunities, Mobilizing Structures, and Cultural Framings. Cambridge: CambridgeUniversity Press.

Olzak, Suzan. (1992) The Dynamics of Ethnic Competition and Conflict. Stanford: Stanford UniversityPress.

Posen, Barry R. (1993) The Security Dilemma and Ethnic Conflict. In Ethnic Conflict and Interna-tional Security, edited by Michael Brown. Princeton: Princeton University Press.

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