Ted Robert Gurr and Barbara Harff - Ethnic Conflict in World Politics

The intricate dimension and close ties between organizations, leadership, general political context and external influences in fueling and triggering ethnic hatred and warfare, as well as the underlying reasons and conditions, under which ethnic groups refer to conflicting behavior and collective actions, being organized by leadership, are analyzed by Ted Robert Gurr.[1] As Gurr mentions, “manipulation of ethnic differences mobilizes ethnic groups for the political actions, posing demands to governments. While the future collective action is shaped by both subjective and objective conditions, i.e. by the political context and by cohesion of the group, the strategies and tactics of its leaders, the nature of the political system, that governs it, and outside encouragement”.[2]
[1]Ted Robert Gurr and Barbara Harff. Ethnic Conflict in World Politics. (Boulder: Westview Press, 1994), 78.
[2]Ibid., 84.