IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/jocore/v65y2021i7-8p1278-1307.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

From Claims to Violence: Signaling, Outbidding, and Escalation in Ethnic Conflict

Author

Listed:
  • Manuel Vogt
  • Kristian Skrede Gleditsch
  • Lars-Erik Cederman

Abstract

Do radical political demands increase the risk of ethnic civil conflict? And why do ethnic movements make radical demands in the first place? We contend that when movements are fragmented, individual organizations use far-reaching claims relative to the status quo to attract attention from the government, boost intra-organizational discipline, and outbid rivals. Yet, such radical claims also increase the risk of conflict escalation. We test our arguments at both the ethnic group and organizational levels, using a new dataset on ethno-political organizations and their political demands. Our results show that the scope of demands increases the more organizations exist within an ethnic movement and that radical demands increase the risk of civil conflict onset. This effect is specific to the dyadic government-movement interaction, irrespective of other ethnic groups in the country. Moreover, at the organizational level, radicalization in demands increases the likelihood that an organization becomes engaged in civil conflict.

Suggested Citation

  • Manuel Vogt & Kristian Skrede Gleditsch & Lars-Erik Cederman, 2021. "From Claims to Violence: Signaling, Outbidding, and Escalation in Ethnic Conflict," Journal of Conflict Resolution, Peace Science Society (International), vol. 65(7-8), pages 1278-1307, August.
  • Handle: RePEc:sae:jocore:v:65:y:2021:i:7-8:p:1278-1307
    DOI: 10.1177/0022002721996436
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0022002721996436
    Download Restriction: no

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1177/0022002721996436?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Saideman, Stephen M., 1997. "Explaining the International Relations of Secessionist Conflicts: Vulnerability Versus Ethnic Ties," International Organization, Cambridge University Press, vol. 51(4), pages 721-753, October.
    2. Brancati, Dawn, 2006. "Decentralization: Fueling the Fire or Dampening the Flames of Ethnic Conflict and Secessionism?," International Organization, Cambridge University Press, vol. 60(3), pages 651-685, July.
    3. Kathleen Gallagher Cunningham, 2013. "Actor Fragmentation and Civil War Bargaining: How Internal Divisions Generate Civil Conflict," American Journal of Political Science, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 57(3), pages 659-672, July.
    4. Barbara F. Walter, 2006. "Building Reputation: Why Governments Fight Some Separatists but Not Others," American Journal of Political Science, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 50(2), pages 313-330, April.
    5. Horowitz, Michael C., 2010. "Nonstate Actors and the Diffusion of Innovations: The Case of Suicide Terrorism," International Organization, Cambridge University Press, vol. 64(1), pages 33-64, January.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Nicholas Sambanis & Micha Germann & Andreas Schädel, 2018. "SDM: A New Data Set on Self-determination Movements with an Application to the Reputational Theory of Conflict," Journal of Conflict Resolution, Peace Science Society (International), vol. 62(3), pages 656-686, March.
    2. Nils-Christian Bormann & Burcu Savun, 2018. "Reputation, concessions, and territorial civil war," Journal of Peace Research, Peace Research Institute Oslo, vol. 55(5), pages 671-686, September.
    3. Tim Heinkelmann-Wild & Marius Mehrl, 2022. "Indirect Governance at War: Delegation and Orchestration in Rebel Support," Journal of Conflict Resolution, Peace Science Society (International), vol. 66(1), pages 115-143, January.
    4. Alexander Libman, 2015. "Words or deeds: what matters? On the role of symbolic action in political decentralization," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 49(3), pages 801-838, November.
    5. Shanna A. Kirschner, 2010. "Knowing Your Enemy: Information and Commitment Problems in Civil Wars," Journal of Conflict Resolution, Peace Science Society (International), vol. 54(5), pages 745-770, October.
    6. Haikun Zhu, 2018. "Social Stability and Resource Allocation within Business Groups," Working Papers Series 79, Institute for New Economic Thinking.
    7. Rob Williams, 2022. "Turning the lights on to keep them in the fold: How governments preempt secession attempts," Conflict Management and Peace Science, Peace Science Society (International), vol. 39(4), pages 422-446, July.
    8. Katherine Sawyer & Kathleen Gallagher Cunningham & William Reed, 2017. "The Role of External Support in Civil War Termination," Journal of Conflict Resolution, Peace Science Society (International), vol. 61(6), pages 1174-1202, July.
    9. Stefan Wolff & Simona Ross & Asbjorn Wee, 2020. "Subnational Governance and Conflict," World Bank Publications - Reports 34436, The World Bank Group.
    10. Zachary Liscow, 2012. "Why fight secession? Evidence of economic motivations from the American Civil War," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 153(1), pages 37-54, October.
    11. Yannis Karagiannis, 2014. "Communication effects, ethnicity, and support for secessionism in stateless nations: results from a survey experiment in Catalonia," EUI-RSCAS Working Papers p0386, European University Institute (EUI), Robert Schuman Centre of Advanced Studies (RSCAS).
    12. Klaus Abbink & Jordi Brandts, 2016. "Political autonomy and independence: Theory and experimental evidence," Journal of Theoretical Politics, , vol. 28(3), pages 461-496, July.
    13. Ezequiel Gonzalez-Ocantos & Chad Kiewiet de Jonge & Carlos Meléndez & David Nickerson & Javier Osorio, 2020. "Carrots and sticks: Experimental evidence of vote-buying and voter intimidation in Guatemala," Journal of Peace Research, Peace Research Institute Oslo, vol. 57(1), pages 46-61, January.
    14. Vassilis Tselios & John Tomaney, 2019. "Decentralisation and European identity," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 51(1), pages 133-155, February.
    15. Thierry Madiès & Grégoire Rota-Grasiozi & Jean-Pierre Tranchant & Cyril Trépier, 2018. "The economics of secession: a review of legal, theoretical, and empirical aspects," Swiss Journal of Economics and Statistics, Springer;Swiss Society of Economics and Statistics, vol. 154(1), pages 1-18, December.
    16. Emir Yazici, 2020. "Transborder identities, bias, and third-party conflict management," Conflict Management and Peace Science, Peace Science Society (International), vol. 37(4), pages 490-511, July.
    17. Amit Bhaduri, 2018. "A macroeconomic perspective on Asian development," WIDER Working Paper Series 91, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).
    18. Luis Diaz-Serrano & Enric Meix-Llop, 2019. "Decentralization and the quality of public services: Cross-country evidence from educational data," Environment and Planning C, , vol. 37(7), pages 1296-1316, November.
    19. Efe Tokdemir & Evgeny Sedashov & Sema Hande Ogutcu-Fu & Carlos E. Moreno Leon & Jeremy Berkowitz & Seden Akcinaroglu, 2021. "Rebel Rivalry and the Strategic Nature of Rebel Group Ideology and Demands," Journal of Conflict Resolution, Peace Science Society (International), vol. 65(4), pages 729-758, April.
    20. Basedau, Matthias, 2011. "Managing Ethnic Conflict: The Menu of Institutional Engineering," GIGA Working Papers 171, GIGA German Institute of Global and Area Studies.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:sae:jocore:v:65:y:2021:i:7-8:p:1278-1307. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: SAGE Publications (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://pss.la.psu.edu/ .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.