Evolutionary Theory and Ethnic Conflict (Praeger Studies on Ethnic and National Identities in Politics)

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Evolutionary Theory and Ethnic Conflict

Recent Titles in Praeger Studies on Ethnic and National Identities in Politics

Using Force to Prevent Ethnic Violence: An Evaluation of Theory and Evidence

David Carment and Frank Harvey The International Politics of Quebec Secession: State Making and State Breaking in North America

David Carment, John F. Stack, Jr., and Frank Harvey, editors

Evolutionary Theory and Ethnic Conflict Patrick James AND David Goetze

EDITED BY

Praeger Studies on Ethnic and National Identities in Politics JOHN F. STACK, JR., Series Adviser

Westport, Connecticut London

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Evolutionary theory and ethnic conflict p.

I edited by Patrick James and David Goetze.

cm.-(Praeger studies on ethnic and national identities in politics, ISSN

1527-9901) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0-275-97143-0 (alk. paper) 1. Ethnic conflict. evolution.

2. Ethnicity-Political aspects.

I. James, Patrick, 1957-

GN496.E89

3. Nationalism.

II. Goetze, David, 1949-

4. Social

Ill. Series.

2001

305.8-dc21

00-049179

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data is available. Copyright © 2001 by Patrick James and David Goetze All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced, by any process or technique, without the express written consent of the publisher. Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 00-049179 ISBN: 0-275-97143-0 ISSN: 1527-9901 First published in 2001 Praeger Publishers, 88 Post Road West, Westport, CT 06881 An imprint of Greenwood Publishing Group, Inc. www.praeger.com Printed in the United States of America

The paper used in this book complies with the Permanent Paper Standard issued by the National Information Standards Organization (Z39.48-1984). 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2

I

Copyright Acknowledgment Chapter 6 in this volume includes selections from Frank P. Harvey, "Primordialism, Evolu tionary Theory and Ethnic Violence in the Balkans: Opportunities and Constraints for Theory and Policy,"

Canadian Journal of Political Science 33(1) Canadian Journal of Political Science.

(2000): 37-65. Reprinted by per

mission of the

Every reasonable effort has been made to trace the owners of copyright materials in this book, but in some instances this has proven impossible. The author and publisher will be glad to receive information leading to more complete acknowledgments in subsequent printings of the book and in the meantime extend their apologies for any omissions.

To Carolyn and Linda

Contents

Preface

lX

I.


1

1.

What Can Evolutionary Theory Say About Ethnic Phenomena ?

3

David Goetze and Patrick james 2.

The Roots of Ethnic Conflict: An Evolutionary Perspective

19

Gary R. Johnson 3.

A Defense and an Extension of Pierre van den Berghe 's Theory of Ethnic Nepotism

39

Frank Salter 4.

Contributions of Evolutionary Thinking to Theories of Ethnic Conflict and Its Management

71

Marc Howard Ross II.

Skeptical Views

95

5.

From Ontology to Analogy: Evolutionary Theories and the Explanation of Ethnic Politics

97

Robert His/ope 6.

Primordialism, Evolutionary Theory, and the Timing of Ethnic Conflict: Opportunities and Constraints for Theory and Policy

Frank Harvey

115

Contents

vm

7.

Evolution, Ethnicity, and Propaganda: Why Negotiating with the Innocent Makes Sense

133

Kristan]. Wheaton Ill.

8.

Applications

151

National Identity in the Balkans: Confessionalism to Nationalism

153

Peter Mentzel 9.

Regionalism and Evolutionary Theory in the Former Soviet Union: Russian Kaliningrad, 199 1-2000

165

Joel C. Moses 10.

Evolutionary Models, Third-Party Intervention, and Ethnic Conflict: Does Tough Love Really Work?

195

David Carment and Dane Rowlands 11.

An Evolutionary Approach Toward the Drafting of Autonomy Agreements: Applying Theory to Reality in the Search for Resolution of Ethnic Conflict

217

Michael Patrick Tkacik Bibliography

235

Index

265

About the Contributors

2 71

Preface

In April 1997, Patrick James and David Goetze organized and conducted a workshop entitled "Evolutionary Theory and Its Critics: Toward a Greater Understanding of Ethnic Conflict. " This gathering occurred at Utah State University under the auspices of the Merrill Chair Endowment. James and Goetze invited a distinguished group of scholars to wrestle with a general and challenging question: Does evolutionary theory offer any new insight and understanding regarding the issues of ethnic identity, ethnic conflict, or its management? The choice of scholars was not random. Some individuals warranted inclusion because of their long-standing competence in explicating issues of ethnicity and because of their interest in-but a relative lack of exposure to-recent developments and strains of thought in the evolutionary paradigm. Other individuals received invitations to the workshop because they were fairly steeped in the evolutionary literature, had devoted much of their careers to addressing the role of evolutionary approaches to social and political phenomena, and had shown past schol arly interest in how ethnicity might be informed by evolutionary ap proaches. Within relevant ranges, we promoted variation in the background of the participants and were curious about how they would react to some common stimuli, not the least of which was the aforementioned question about evolutionary theory and ethnicity. In addition, the entire group was exposed to a reading list compiled from knowledge of the workshop organizers and consultation with well-known scholars who work at the interstices of evolutionary ideas and social be havior. Among the readings all participants were asked to peruse were Tooby and Cosmide's ( 1 992 ) already classic article "The Psychological Foundations of Culture, " in which the authors excoriate what they call the

X

Preface

standard social science approach to the study of human behavior and cul ture and introduce the evolutionary psychology approach; Buss's ( 1 995 ) elaboration of the essentials of the evolutionary paradigm; and van den Berghe's ( 1 9 8 1 ) The Ethnic Phenomenon, wherein he develops kinship the ory to explain ethnicity. The list provided the participants with a broad spectrum of theories derivable from the fundamental evolutionary para digm that might have relevance for illuminating ethnic phenomena. The reading list also included classic works in the field of ethnic identity and conflict. Horowitz's ( 1 985) Ethnic Groups in Conflict-a thorough and an elegant discussion of the proximate causes of ethnic identity and ethnic conflict-is very worthy of praise and helped all of the participants in the workshop. Also included were classic treatments of ethnic phenom ena by Smith ( 1 986a), Brass ( 1 99 1 ) , Connor (1994), and Esman ( 1 994 ) . Most participants in the workshop were already familiar with these works, but their inclusion provoked an awareness of the crucial issues and prob lems in the field: What are the origins of ethnic identity and conflict ? How can we explain and predict the timing and severity of ethnic conflicts ? What are the best methods for preventing or managing conflicts so as to avoid their often calamitous consequences ? These are no small matters. As Car ment and Rowlands note in this volume, ethnic conflicts or conflicts be tween an ethnic group and the state have become the most common and, at least numerically, tragic form of human conflict. Inevitably, the preparation of the workshop's organizers and their con sultants was hardly sufficient for the tasks at hand. Our knowledge was limited, and the need for closure meant that many important areas of thought would not be represented. One reviewer of this volume noted, for example, that " foraging theory" might prove to be a fertile ground enjoin ing biology to the study of ethnicity, a body of thought we clearly failed to bring to the attention of the participants. We regret not having been more thorough. Nevertheless, we pooled our knowledge, and we believe that participants were exposed to a meaningfully wide variety of ap proaches derived from evolutionary theory and applicable to ethnic phe nomena. Our ultimate hope was for a meaningful appraisal of the contribution that aspects of evolutionary theory might make in fostering an understand ing of ethnic phenomena rather than a specific affirmation or disavowal of evolutionary theory. The authors most certainly took up that cause and generated a wide variety of conclusions. In the end ( actually, the introduc tory chapter of the volume), James and Goetze could not resist submitting their own conclusions, which were drawn mostly from the work of the contributors, about the role that evolutionary theory can play in construct ing explanations of ethnic phenomena. We hope that indulgence will be forgiven.

Preface

XI

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

The Milton R. Merrill Endowment of the Political Science Dep artment of Utah State University provided financial support for a conference on " Evolutionary Theory and Its Critics: Toward a Greater Understanding of Ethnic Conflict," held in Logan, Utah, on April 25-26, 1997. We are most grateful for that support. Many of the papers presented at the conference made their way into this volume. We owe a special thanks to Carolyn James, who played a huge role in organizing the conference and covered superbly for the administrative inadequacies of the editors. Rachel Hurst at Utah State University also provided organizational assistance in the early stage of the conference planning. We also are grateful to Bev Christenson, Barb Marvick, and Joyce Wray at Iowa State University for their invaluable assistance with the text, figures, and tables in this book. Latrice Blair, Ryan Larson, and Daniel Merriman provided superb research assistance, and we thank all of them as well. In addition to the authors included in this volume, the individuals who participated in the conference and contributed mightily to the refinement of ideas found in the present volume include: James Hanley, Roberta Herz berg, Jing Huang, Eric Hyer, Carolyn James, Janet Landa, Amal Kawar, George Marcus, John Orbell, Randy Simmons, and Veronica Ward. We would also like to thank John Stack, whose leadership and sponsorship were invaluable in guiding us through the editorial process.

Pari I

EVOLUTIONARY THEORY AND ETHNIC CONFLICT

Chapter 1

What Can Evolutionary Theory Say About Ethnic Phenomena? David Goetze and Patrick James

This volume attempts to answer a basic question: What can evolutionary theory say about ethnic phenomena ? Most notably, what does an evolu tionary approach have to offer in explaining ethnic conflict that is not already available through other models ? These are difficult questions, and it is not clear that either can be answered fully in a single volume, no matter how talented and diverse the research team assembled. What follows, how ever, is a broad-based attempt to identify what evolutionary theory has contributed to understanding ethnic phenomena, along with its potential to do even more. This introductory chapter will unfold in five sections. First, evolutionary analysis is distinguished and placed in context. The basic nature of evolu tionary theories of human behavior is identified, along with the potential for application to sub stantive problems such as ethnic conflict. The second section provides an overview of Chapters 2 through 4, which focus on explaining broad classes of ethnic phenomena. Issues such as nationalism, ethnic identity, and conflict management are at the forefront of those three chapters. In the third section we describe Chapters 5 through 7, which probe for limitations of the usefulness of evolutionary theory in explaining ethnic phenomena. These chapters address issues that include general meth ods, cause and effect, and explanatory scope. The fourth section provides an overview of Chapters 8 through 1 1 , which apply evolutionary theory to a wide range of ethnic conflict behavior. The substantive matters covered in these chapters include the development of nationalism and conflict res olution in the Balkans, radical political decentralization in Russia, third party intervention in ethnic conflicts, and autonomy agreements. The fifth

4


and final section of this introductory chapter offers some observations about the results of the evaluations attempted in this book. EVOLUTIONARY THEORIES

Variants of evolutionary theory tend to share several premises that serve to distinguish evolutionary analysis from other analyses. First, the focus of explanation is on change in traits, whether the traits are the structure of organisms, the behaviors of primates, or the ideas held by populations of humans. Second, traits often vary in the present (or varied in the past), and analysts typically are interested in which traits and what proportion of traits will be held by future (present) generations. The method of trans mission of traits to succeeding generations can be clonal reproduction, sex ual reproduction, or cultural transmission. Third, traits that tend to prosper in future generations are those that enhance the survival and reproductive or transmittal success of the organisms that reproduce or transmit the traits. Fourth and finally, environmental conditions determine which traits have an edge in promoting successful reproduction or transmission. A number of distinct theories share these premises and appear to have at least surface relevance for studying ethnic phenomena. The respective missions of the workshop held at Utah State University in 1997 and of this volume are to determine and report on which variants of evolutionary the ory, if any, the authors found to be useful in confronting the general prob lems posed by ethnic phenomena or in understanding and managing ethnic conflicts. At the outset, three major areas of theory derived from evolu tionary premises need to be acknowledged: kinship theory, in-group/out group theory, and evolutionary psychology. Kinship theory builds on the work of Hamilton ( 1 964 ), who first enun ciated the concept of inclusive fitness the foundation for an evolutionary understanding of the emotional and cooperative bonds of family. In at tempting to explain the persistent social and altruistic behavior of some insect species, Hamilton argued that, under conducive ecological condi tions, natural selection favors the propagation of genes that dispose organ isms to behave altruistically toward others who have a high percentage of like genes. These ideas imply that humans had acquired evolved capacities to engage in altruistic behavior toward close relatives and would do so when appropriate environmental stimuli triggered their activation. Inclusive fitness explains why parents would devote so much concern and care to the rearing of children but also why siblings would, at times, sacrifice their own well-being and reproductive potential to further the welfare of broth ers, sisters, and maybe even more distant cousins and other clan members. Van den Berghe ( 1 9 8 1 ) utilizes the inclusive fitness concept as the core for constructing a kinship theory of ethnic identity-an explanation for the cooperative ties of ethnic group members that appear to resemble the in-

What Can Evolutionary Theory Say About Ethnic Phenomena?

5

tense, emotional, and relatively permanent bonds of family. Van den Berghe insists that the ties of ethnic groups resemble family ties, because ethnic groups are, in fact, extensions of family. Common descent is both an ide ology and, at least, a loose or historical reality. The larger the ethnic group, the more kinship becomes putative and mythological. For van den Berghe, however, the kinship basis of ethnicity is always based on at least a kernel of truth. Another theory, argued by Alexander ( 1 979) and reviewed nicely by Mel otti ( 1 9 86), contends that humans have strong predispositions to form groups and to compete with other groups for resources. These predisposi tions evolved in ancestral environments as humans developed technologies (i.e., tools and organizations ) to dominate other large-scale species that previously had competed with humans for food resources or targeted hu mans for predation. Once humans had gained the upper hand, the only remaining competitors of note were other groups of humans. Hence, hu mans acquired predispositions to cooperate intensely with in-groups (often ethnic groups ) and to be wary of, or even express hostility toward, out groups. This in-group/out-group theory has been criticized for sometimes relying on a controversial process of group selection to explain the evolution of the necessary predispositions (Melotti 1 9 8 6 ) . Nevertheless, social psycho logical research has generated a considerable amount of robust empirical support for the presence of in-group/out-group behaviors among humans (Billig and Tajfel 1 973; Billig 1976 ) . A third approach, evolutionary psychology, attempts to explain a more comprehensive list of human behaviors, specifically those that are thought to be universal or to have significance for universal human functions (Tooby and Cosmides 1992 ) . In contrast to sociobiological theories, evo lutionary psychology explicitly avoids positing that human behaviors are the product of a central mental processor that evaluates the contribution of all potential actions to survival and reproduction success. Rather, it char acterizes the human animal as possessing a large multitude of mental mech anisms, each designed to cope efficiently with a particular survival or reproduction problem encountered repeatedly over the long time spans of human existence (Tooby and Cosmides 19 92; Hirschfeld and Gelman 1994; Baron-Cohen 1995; Buss 1 995 ) . Each of the mechanisms is "domain specific, " meaning that it addresses only a specific problem that was once involved in adaptive activities . One mechanism has given us a " sweet tooth," for example, that makes high-protein food resources attractive to the taste. By noting the contributions of high-protein food to survival in hunter-gatherer societies, evolutionary psychology provides an account of why high-protein food acquired a "rewarding" character. Another mech anism related to reproductive success might be called a "mating" mecha nism since, given the appropriate triggering circumstances, it disposes us to

6


behaviors that often result in mating. A kinship mechanism may dispose us to cooperation directed at the extraction or provision of local public goods when we perceive ourselves to be in the vicinity of family members or individuals who possess the right "recognition" markers (van den Berghe 1981; Johnson 1 9 8 6 ) . Most psychological mechanisms are distinct from instinct-driven urges that dispose humans to particular behaviors oblivious to environmental circumstances. Rather, these mechanisms evolved precisely to generate re sponses to specific environmental stimuli. In effect, the mechanisms sift through the stimuli available in the environment in search of information that defines a problem and is relevant to the mechanism's function. Results are processed, and appropriate behaviors are selected. The selection of spe cific behaviors takes place because these behaviors gave an advantage to the organism in efficient problem resolution for such a long time that they are now algorithmically connected to the environmental stimuli. With re spect to ethnic phenomena, the research task is to identify relevant mech anisms, the environmental stimuli that trigger their activation, and the behaviors expected to follow. Hypotheses about the causes of ethnic iden tity and change, ethnic conflict, and the consequences of conflict prevention and management strategies can be built with these understandings. EXPLAINING BROAD CLASSES OF ETHNIC PHENOMENA

The chapters in Part I of this volume essentially explore the contribution that evolutionary theory can make to the explanation of broad classes of ethnic phenomena. Salter's chapter focuses on ethnic identity and Johnson's on the causes of ethnic conflict, while Ross examines the contribution of evolutionary theory to both the causes and management of ethnic conflict. In Chapter 2, Johnson attempts to build a theory of ethnic conflict by first examining the psychological mechanisms that are heavily involved in generating human cooperation and ethnic group identity. He views ethnic groups as alliances built upon the foundations of kinship, reciprocity, and even exploitation. Johnson does not examine the intricacies of psycholog ical mechanisms but, based on relevant literature, he summarizes their func tion, the circumstances that activate them, and the behaviors that follow. Based on these summaries, he constructs a theory that uses these mecha nisms as the core of an explanation of large-scale group cooperation and group identity. Accepting that group-level competition is fundamental among humans and that kinship is the most important form of group identity, Johnson concludes that kin recognition mechanisms play crucial roles in the devel opment of ethnic conflict. We develop bonds with groups larger than family because the mechanisms we employ to recognize kin, such as similarity and association, are imperfect, manipulable, and subject to socialization pro-


7

cesses that expand the scope of individuals that we recognize as part of our clan. These large-group identifications become the basis for group compe tition and conflict, and their construction may be facilitated by socialization processes (themselves evolved capabilities ) that fan ethnocentric flames. In Chapter 3, Salter concentrates specifically on kinship theory as ex pressed in the work of van den Berghe ( 1 9 8 1 ) to explain ethnic identity. He makes a spirited case that kinship is the fundamental basis for ethnic identity and that kinship and ethnic boundaries are correlated. Responding to criticism that has surfaced since the release of van den Berghe's classic book, Salter carefully and persuasively defends the kinship thesis. Whatever quibbles a reader may have with specific points, it is difficult to complete a reading of this chapter without concluding that kinship is a powerful part of what makes ethnic group identity distinct from identification with other types of social groups. Salter recognizes that a kinship basis for ethnicity implies an impervious capacity for boundary change and that empirical reality is more fluid and dynamic. He allows for the fact that individual interests sometimes can contradict ethnic loyalties and lead to variation in assertions of identity and the localized "fission and fusion" of groups-phenomena that also are ex plicable via evolutionary processes. In the end, choices and assertions of membership in ethnic groups and perhaps all social groups may depend on tradeoffs between kinship concerns and the functionality or instrumentality of the groups encountered. In focusing on the management of ethnic conflict, Ross ( Chapter 4) may be tackling the most pro blematic class of phenomena, since prescription as well as explanation is inherent in management evaluation. Ross begins his analysis by distinguishing between interest- and identity-based theories of ethnic conflict. The former presume that individuals and groups are moti vated to join or assert membership in ethnic groups by the costs and ben efits associated with ethnic group membership and the activities of those groups. Ethnic groups are instruments for promoting individual and group interests, and ethnic group conflict is merely a form of competition for resources. An evolutionary underpinning of some interest-based theories is sociobiology and its presumption that individuals relentlessly calculate which alternative behaviors will best promote their individual reproductive success. Identity theories presume that individuals form strong emotional attach ments to groups and equate their own success and status with that of their groups. Ross points out that experimental evidence is very supportive of the existence of this form of behavior. Group bonding can develop out of kin recognition mechanisms, reciprocal altruism, and fundamental mecha nisms that dispose us to form in-groups and to depersonalize out-groups. Further, Ross argues that cultural evolution plays an important role, with processes such as group conformism helping to generate identity behaviors.

8

Euolutionary Theory and Ethnic Conflict

Citing the work of Campbell ( 1 975, 1 9 83, 1 9 8 8 ) , Ross assigns pride of place to the cultural evolution of human moral systems as the key to man aging conflicts that may be driven by these other evolutionary processes. Humans can rise above their evolved dispositions by introducing structural sanctions and other moral devices to constrain tendencies that lead to con flict. They must do so, however, with an appreciation of how the evolved human creature functions and the goals that are promoted by evolutionary processes. For example, in conflicts that arise out of concerns for relative distribution of status and resources, we can emphasize instead absolute gains, and we can seek out alternative game structures that are positive sum rather than zero-sum. Recognizing group-forming tendencies and an inclination for group competition, we can attempt to reduce the salience of particular group identities that appear headed for collision, perhaps by en couraging other cross-cutting identities and finding new identities that en compass old ones or by exploring through communication and contact the bases for the fear generated by opposed identities. All of the factors that appear to trigger cooperative behavior within groups also can be brought to bear to foster intergroup cooperation-even the evocation of a common enemy. Managing conflict does not mean ending it forever or providing permanent solutions. Instead, a realistic goal is to use what we know about evolved human nature to avoid the most heinous manifestations of conflict. LIMITS ON THE USEFULNESS OF EVOLUTIONARY THEORY

Part II takes a more critical look at evolutionary theory. Hislope, for instance, evaluates general methods. Harvey a sks whether these methods can help construct explanations involving ultimate causation on the one hand and proximate causation on the other. Wheaton goes a step beyond and challenges the explanatory scope of evolutionary theory. In Chapter 5, Hislope argues that the evolutionary paradigm has taken three broadly defined forms: as sociobiology, cultural evolution, and rea soning by analogy. Introducing a theme discussed in detail by Harvey, His lope suggests that if sociobiology confined itself to providing "distal" explanations rather than proximate ones, then its critics might be muted. In understanding where culture came from or where human behavior pat terns such as ethnic phenomena originated, sociobiology has much to offer, but very little when it comes to explaining variation in extant behaviors. Sociobiology relies on genetic explanations for current behaviors and, at best, assigns secondary status to cultural variables. Hislope sees no reason to invoke genetic variables in such explanations, however, since cultural variables or autonomous choices of individuals alone are sufficient to ac count for observable behavioral patterns. Universal behavioral patterns are explained just as easily by cultural diffusion. Hislope has even less tolerance


9

for reasoning with evolutionary analogies, noting that " analogies are easy to find, but difficult to sustain. " Some similarity to an evolutionary process does not mean that a social process is alike in many or most respects. Part of the attention of anthropologists has been precisely on the iden tification of societies that are unlikely recipients of cultural diffusion. Chomsky ( 1 9 75, 1980) and Pinker and Bloom ( 1 990) find, for example, that widely dispersed, disparate, and sometimes isolated societies all possess remarkably similar language capacities, reminding us that there exist em pirical claims for universals that are not easily fashioned from cultural dif fusion. In Chapter 6, Harvey asks whether evolutionary theory is useful in ( 1 ) explaining the origins of ethnically relevant behaviors and (2) the precise timing and severity of particular ethnic conflicts. Harvey equates the con cept of primordialism (Stack 1981, 1986, 1994; Stack and Hebron 1999) with kinship or nepotist theory, and with theories about human disposi tions to form competitive, even conflictual, in-groups and out-groups. He acknowledges that the primordialism concept has added to our insights about the origins of ethnic identity and ethnic cleavages. However, he finds that neither primordialism in its sociobiological form nor in the form of evolutionary psychology is capable of explaining the timing and severity of conflicts, and that a traditional focus on environmental factors is still pref erable for such explanations. Harvey revisits the Balkans conflict to illustrate his points. The recent outbreak of war between the Serbs and Croats often is attributed, for ex ample, to ancient hostility between the Serb and Croat ethnic groups, es pecially the threat to Serbian security and identity posed by Croatian independence. Yet other threats to security both before and after the war did not lead to the outbreak of war. A complete explanation of the Balkans conflict must include a host of other factors that, at first glance, appear to be stock and trade of traditional social science with its devotion to envi ronmental factors as the primary source of explanation. Harvey notes, for example, that the reputation of the United Nations and the United States in responding weakly to similar conflicts led belligerents to believe that they could seek the benefits of war with impunity. At other times, third parties that had the capacity to prevent or constrain violent ethnic conflict had rather different and more formidable reputations. Clearly, the evolutionary psychology paradigm, in its current elabora tion, is incapable of supplying an off-the-rack explanation of a particular event or even a small class of events where multiple sources of causation are involved. However, Harvey may have underrated its potential for ex planation in claiming that "we can never really get much beyond environ mental factors as opposed to biological sources of behavior. " Evolutionary psychology rarely precludes the influence of environment. What it claims is that many specialized mental mechanisms have evolved as part of our

10


psychological architecture and that these mechanisms react to specific en vironmental stimuli among the infinite array of stimuli encountered, filter the stimuli to be processed, and prepare appropriate behavioral responses. Each mechanism is specialized, in that it evolved to cope with a particular type of problem related to survival and reproduction that was encountered repeatedly over evolutionary time spans. The claim of evolutionary psy chology is that nearly all behaviors result from the interaction between environmental stimuli and our specialized mechanisms. Different environ mental stimuli trigger different mechanisms, and we may have a rather large number of such mechanisms. If indeed this is the correct way to understand human psychology and associated behaviors, then any complete explana tion will necessarily involve a discussion of environmental stimuli and ac tivated mental mechanisms. Psychological mechanisms may always be involved in generating conflict-related behaviors. However, we may not know enough about them, at present, to generate hypotheses directed at specific conflicts that add to traditional social science explanations, and on this point the Harvey and Hislope critiques strike home. Ostrom ( 1998 ) and Wilson ( 1997) have begun to rectify this dearth of knowledge about psychological mechanisms by exploring reputation building mechanisms as a response to the problem of needing partners for joint social enterprises. It may be no accident that Harvey identified the reputation of various actors and the perception of reputation by belligerent parties as a crucial factor in the outbreak of the Balkans conflict. Under standing how human mental mechanisms process information relevant to reputation eventually could enhance theorizing about the antecedents of ethnic conflict. An appreciation of other relevant mental mechanisms might even lead us to isolate environmental stimuli that have yet to be indicted as relevant causal factors. In Chapter 7, Wheaton challenges evolutionary theory on two grounds: ( 1 ) that it does not account for all of the complexity of structure in human institutions and behavior and ( 2 ) that it inappropriately ascribes superiority to those traits and ethnic groups that have survived over evolutionary time. He is right on the first point. Traits exist in populations that did not give their possessors any reproductive advantages. These traits tend to persist because of coincidental connections with other traits that do confer advan tage or because there is no selection pressure operating on them at all. In any case, they appear to be less important for study than traits that are subject to selection pressure. Wheaton also raises concerns about the use of linear models in evolutionary analysis when the enormous complexity of the natural world calls for nonlinear models that generate less obvious and predictable patterns . He refers to a problem that will surely be debated in the years ahead, not just in evolutionary science but in all of the sciences. Wheaton also is right in noting that social theorists such as Spencer passed moral judgment on groups that have persisted in evolutionary time.


11

Derivations of Spencer's ideas that attributed superiority to any group have been largely discredited. Since all surviving groups apparently have adopted successful strategies, none would seem to have a clear advantage over the others. Moral superiority is not, in any case, implied by evolutionary suc cess. Few contemporary practitioners of evolutionary theory pass moral judgments on evolved outcomes, at least not from any imperatives derived from evolutionary theory. In most of its uses, evolutionary theory is posi tive, not nonnative, and its users are concerned about explanation and prediction. As Ross and Tkacik suggest in this volume, results from evo lutionary analysis certainly can inform normative judgments, but they do not provide the basis for the moral components of those judgments . With justification, Wheaton condemns Serb and Croat elites who assert the su periority of their ethnic group over others and offers interesting suggestions for how interveners should address the problems posed by those attitudes. Ethnocentrism is a surprisingly common phenomenon that merits more ef fort in constructing explanations of its persistence. DEMONSTRATIONS

Part III includes chapters that use or "demonstrate " some aspect of ev olutionary theory to illuminate a specific type of ethnic conflict behavior. The chapters by Mentzel and Moses ( Chapters 8 and 9 ) , utilize ideas as sociated with kinship theory to help explain respectively ( 1 ) helps and hin drances to consolidation of national identities in the Balkans and (2) the radical political decentralization occurring in Russia. In Chapter 10, Car ment and Rowlands examine the effects of conflict salience, reputation, and repeated interaction on the behavior of third-p arty "interveners " and "combatants" in conflict circumstances. In Chapter 1 1 , Tkacik seeks to identify the "triggers" for cooperative behaviors that are needed to counter the centrifugal forces inherent in agreements that encourage ethnic group autonomy or separatism. In Chapter 8, Mentzel argues that development of national identities in the Balkans depended on the co-optation of kinship symbols and rhetoric that once characterized the early clan-based societies of the region and were later co-opted by religious institutions, though not in every case. Successful efforts toward the creation of national identities needed to incorporate in termediate institutions such as religion that had co-optive kinship symbols but also had successfully challenged the clan-based organization of society. Consistent with kinship theory, Mentzel saw clans as the strongest, most primordial units of human association-too strong to serve as the direct bases for forging national identities . The religious "millets " of the Ottoman Empire served to undermine clan-based society and eventually became the bases for development of national identities in Serbia, Bulgaria, Greece, and Croatia, and for the confusion of identities in Bosnia. In its historical de-

12


velopment, Albania apparently lacked any strong or pervasive religious identity. As a result, Albania had more difficulty developing a national identity than did many of the other people in the Balkans. Albanian na tionalism had to struggle directly (and appears to be struggling still) with a clan-based organization of society that lacked an intermediate association to provide the groundwork for the construction of a superordinate identity. In Chapter 9, Moses applies Masters 's ( 1993) argument that positive individual assessments of future benefit are critical in avoiding a reversion to provincial, kin-imbued political arrangements. The absence of such an assessment in the former Soviet Union explains the decline of central power and the growth of regional authority. He adroitly documents these devel opments in the Russian province of Kaliningrad from 1991 to 1997. Moses concludes that regionalism may be the best hope for constructive identity building in the struggling political units that once comprised the USSR. Ethnic in-fighting, characteristic of the former Yugoslavia, remains the sa lient and disturbing alternative. Through a static and dynamic game model, Carment and Rowlands ( Chapter 1 0 ) explore the efficiency of strategies utilized by third-party in terveners and combatants in abstracted group conflict scenarios. Of partic ular interest from the standpoint of evolutionary analysis is the focus on reputation-building in the dynamic version of the game. Strategies that ap pear rational from a static perspective may lose their attractiveness when conflict scenarios are repeated over time and the interveners are thought to be concerned with building their reputations as "tough" interveners. Being "tough," even when the saliency of a conflict is low and intervention is costly, can be sensible to an intervener because tough actions dissuade bel ligerents in future conflict scenarios. Much in the way that psychological mechanisms evolve, reputations are built as responses to problems that share common features, are repeatedly encountered in the environment, and are important to resource acquisition or survival. Frank ( 1 988), Tooby and Cosmides ( 1 992), Wilson ( 1 997 ), and Ostrom ( 1 998) have suggested that reputation-building is so important in human interactions that an evolved psychological architecture may exist in our neurological structures that sup ports relevant behaviors. In Chapter 1 1 , Tkacik focuses specifically on the question of autonomy agreements, which spell out conditions under which an ethnic minority may coexist within a state structure and recognize at least some political group rights. For Tkacik, the critical issue is how to encourage intergroup coop eration, given that an autonomy agreement, by its nature, actually encour ages some manner of separation. He notes that cooperative behavior is clearly within the human repertoire and, again, using an evolutionary psy chology theme, he asks which environmental stimuli are most likely to provoke it. Cooperation is often discussed in the evolutionary literature under the categories of inclusive fitness, reciprocal altruism, and indirect


13

altruism, with each category representing a separate theory about what provokes cooperative behavior: the presence of close relatives; a social structure where repeated interactions of an undetermined number are likely with the same individuals; and a stable social structure where reputation is valued. Tkacik considers the plausibility of engendering these environmental con ditions through an autonomy agreement, and he concludes that efforts to convince members of different ethnic groups that they are kin are not vi able, that indirect reciprocity is not desirable because it usually involves ethnic discrimination to work, and that reciprocal altruism is the only re maining option that is both nondiscriminatory and viable. He proposes that conditions stimulating the necessary social interaction across ethnic groups be spelled out in autonomy agreements. In this and in other discussions, he appears to be promoting the preconditions for something akin to a "civic culture, " yet he does so with some sensitivity to the algorithms that evolved in human mental architecture to link environmental stimuli with specific behavioral patterns. Hence, his recommendations have an air of substan tiation to them-a sense of reasonableness about what is feasible. CONCLUSION: EVALUATING THE USEFULNESS OF EVOLUTIONARY THEORY IN EXPLAINING ETHNIC PHENOMENA

Evaluation of evolutionary theory as an instrument for elucidating ethnic phenomena is certainly a pronounced activity in this volume. Arguments in favor of particular variants of evolutionary theory and arguments op posed are evident. Evolutionary theory is used to construct explanations of broad and intermediate classes of ethnic behaviors and to illuminate our understanding of particular events. The variant of evolutionary theory that appears most frequently in ex planations is kinship theory. This is explicit in the chapters by Salter, John son, Mentzel, and Moses, and is less openly adopted elsewhere in this volume. At its core, the theory is simple and straightforward and may be attractive for that reason alone. Implications drawn from the theory are more far-flung and have generated diverse propositions: kinship as a direct cause of ethnic identity, kinship as one of multiple factors involved in ethnic conflict, kinship as a provocation for political decentralization, and kinship as an obstacle to national political identities. Each of these propositions has a plausible ring to it, but they must stand for the moment as untested explanations awaiting the compilation and analysis of relevant data. Evolutionary psychology constitutes a popular approach to theory con struction, but by its very nature it lacks common themes in its elaboration. Evolutionary psychology po sits the existence of hundreds of different psy chological mechanisms, each designed to address different environmental

14


problems. At first glance, we might think that there is little reason to expect commonality in the propositions generated. However, since the volume is concerned with common obj ects of explanation, namely ethnic phenomena, it should not be surprising to find some of the same mechanisms being discussed. Several chapters, notably those by Johnson, Ross, and Tkacik, em phasize in-group/out-group mechanisms as being involved in cooperative be havior. More surprisingly, three chapters-those by Harvey, Carment and Rowlands, and Tkacik-implicate reputation-building mechanisms in expla nations of ethnic behaviors. These chapters take some first steps in identify ing the mechanisms that may be at work in generating ethnic phenomena. Taken together, these chapters could be considered affirmations of the usefulness of evolutionary theory in enhancing understanding of ethnic phe nomena. Traditional debates about the sources of ethnic identity and con flict have been taken up by "primordialists" and "instrumentalists" -each side employing an arbitrary view of human nature. If nothing else, evolu tionary theory brings to the analysis of ethnic phenomena a view of human nature that is grounded in developments in biology, anthropology, neuro science, and cognitive science. As the chapters here attest, that grounding seems to add to the explanatory enterprise. Part II does, however, mount an impressive theoretical challenge to the explanatory scope of evolutionary theory. The main thrust of that challenge is that evolutionary theory emerges as strong in offering ultimate or distal causes of ethnic phenomena but weak in offering proximate causes of re cent events, especially the timing and severity of ethnic conflict. It offers cultural variables and autonomous choice behavior as better and more par simonious sources of proximate causation. However, giving evolutionary processes a role in explaining origins leaves open an important question: What has happened to the mechanisms that evolved to initiate ethnic behaviors since their initial fixation? Unless they have become sharply maladaptive, one would expect them to maintain a legacy and continue to operate in contemporary environments . The mech anisms that initially inspired expressions of ethnocentrism probably still operate among humans, and it is no small matter for us to try to understand what triggers those expressions. Evolutionary psychologists such as Tooby and Cosmides ( 1 992, espe cially 73-77) emphasize that evolutionary theory accounts for the acqui sition of our mental mechanisms by invoking the process of natural selection-a process that plays out over an extremely long time span. Accounts of how we acquire our mental mechanisms thus belong in the category of distal explanation. Accounts that pertain to how traits and mechanisms express themselves as an individual organism progresses through its lifetime are more proximate, as are descriptions about how mechanisms operate, the triggers that activate them, and their algorithmic connections to behaviors. These latter accounts are used to explain behav-


15

iors given the evolved psychological architecture that natural selection has created. Hence, there exists at least a conceptual basis for using evolution ary theories to develop proximate explanations. But as Hislope implies, the possibility of creating proximate theories through an evolutionary paradigm does not automatically make those the ories better than theories that rely solely on cultural variables or autono mous choice behaviors. We need to ask which theory is a better explanation of ethnic phenomena. To address this question with respect to culture and evolution, one must assume that there exists a meaningful dichotomy be tween cultural and evolutionary explanations. We argue that the dichotomy may not be quite so real-that cultural processes do not operate autono mously from evolutionary processes. In order for the substance of cultural processes to be a cause, it must first be transmitted and acquired by individuals. Perhaps the principal means by which culture is thought to be acquired is emulation. Humans imitate the behaviors of the people they encounter in their lives. Indeed, common experience suggests that we do have an emulation mechanism of some sort. Of course, most of us would reject the idea that we sim ply emulate whichever behaviors we observe or encounter, like an uncon strained copy machine. We imitate the behavior of others imperfectly. Some behaviors we emulate, and others we ignore. Like insolent teen agers, we may even choose behaviors that are the opposite of what we observe. The behaviors of others are part of our social environment. Why do we choose to emulate some of them and not others? One possible answer is that the algorithms that make up our evolved psychological mechanisms direct our mental attention only to relevant environmental information information that defines a problem or task related to survival and repro duction (perhaps threats from an aggressive group in the area)-and then select behaviors that help resolve the problem (group bonding and organ ization of defense against possible attack) . In surveying the environment, a mechanism may serve to focus attention on observed behaviors that could have relevance to resolution of the problem (gathering arms, engaging in altruist acts toward other group members, etc. ). The emulation of these behaviors may have been so efficient for such an extended length of time that the mechanisms that encouraged this emulation became part of our inherited psychological architecture. The bottom line is this: What we copy from others or accept as social learning is not random. Our evolved psychological mechanisms shape what we identify as relevant information from the infinitely complex environ ments we confront, define particular tasks, and fashion responses-some times from cultural models provided by that very same environment. Tooby and Cosmides ( 1 992, 82-8 7) even argue that our psychological mecha nisms and the narrowing and filtering of information that we perceive from

16


the environment are processes that evolved in tandem. In any case, the research tasks remain the same: identification of the environmental triggers that activate mechanisms (which problems or tasks the environment is pre senting that are perceived as relevant to the organism) as well as other relevant information related to task resolution that a mechanism might process (including but not confined to observed behaviors or alternative strategies presented to us by others ), identification of the algorithms that represent mental mechanisms (neurologists can figure out how the algo rithms are encoded ), and the behaviors that each algorithm selects. Tooby and Cosmides ( 1 992) make a strong case that many, if not most, of our evolved psychological mechanisms are species-universal. General explana tions of behaviors are, hence, quite likely to be developed through this research enterprise. Marcus, Theiss-Morse, and Wood ( 1 9 9 8 ) have con ducted a compelling study of ethnocentrism and threat behavior along these very lines. There is a great deal to learn about how culture influences behavior, but to suggest that it operates independently of our evolved psychological ar chitectures is questionable. Our brains are not empty black boxes that merely mirror the behaviors ob served around them. They impact upon our behavioral profiles in significant ways, more often than not in ways con sistent with the imperatives of natural selection. Natural selection created our psychological architecture over the long run. Much of that architecture will not change in our lifetimes. In the short run, we are stuck with what ever set of psychological mechanisms the long run has left us. To change behaviors, we need to understand how the mechanisms work and which environmental factors trigger them. Just as in much of social science, policy prescription is about manipulating the environment in which we operate. How, for example, do we remove and mitigate threats from the environ ment that trigger groups to initiate violent conflict? These are conclusions that often do not sit well with people conducting standard social science. They presume that their work is rendered obsolete by this paradigm, and some practitioners of evolutionary psychology con cur. However, obsolescence is rarely the result of recognizing value in ev olutionary theory. Even a purely inductive search for connections between causes and effects often ends up identifying key elements in the complete explanation of behaviors. Moreover, research is rarely done in a truly in ductive way, and most researchers accept generality as a goal of explana tion and a criterion for judging what should be researched. A concern with generality is likely to lead to the empirical discovery of many of the same processes hypothesized through evolutionary theory. Standard research also makes presumptions about the existence of mental mechanisms, though common procedure is to posit just a single mechanism (e.g., a rational choice calculator or a group bonding mechanism ) . Typically, this one mech anism is applied in too general a manner to all human situations and of-


17

fered as a characterization of human nature as a whole. The research conducted in this fashion may be valuable in exploring the operation of a mechanism and its associated behaviors in the circumscribed area of re search. Evolutionary psychology can add to such research by providing a needed perspective on when a particular mechanism is likely to be active. Horowitz ( 1 985 ) and Harvey, Carment and Rowlands, and Tkacik (this volume) have contributed significantly to explanations of ethnic conflict by noting that actors in ethnic conflict situations are very concerned about their own status and reputation and the status and reputation of the groups with which they identify. They develop some hypotheses ( and empirical support) about the behaviors that follow from activation of a reputation building mechanism. We disagree with any contentions that status is the sole or primary motivation in ethnic-related behaviors, but we wholeheart edly agree that humans possess a mental mechanism very much absorbed with the building of reputations. Why reputation-building is part of the human behavioral complex makes little sense without reference to the role it likely played in addressing particular types of social problems. Reputa tion is enormously functional to humans. Those who are successful in es tablishing a "good" reputation are seen by others as excellent candidates for partnering in future efforts to extract or produce goods that require joint or collective efforts. The same is true for groups as well as for indi viduals who acquire status from membership in a group. Political parties with good reputations are allowed into political coalitions, while others arc not. Moreover, a reputation for toughness prevents an actor from being unduly exploited. Future research about reputation-building might ask: Which environ mental stimuli trigger the activation of a reputation-building mechanism (perhaps circumstances that hold the possibility of a sudden and abrupt loss of status may activate highly salient concerns about the place of one's group in a status hierarchy ) ? Which behaviors are selected to respond to the problem of building a reputation (perhaps good deeds, carrying through with threats, and even deception about past performance and future inten tions ) ? How are behaviors selected? Are they copied from observed behav iors ? Recently, Pakistan carried out tests of nuclear warheads in emulation of India's nuclear testing in the preceding week-presumably as a way to shore up Pakistan's reputation as a country that would not sit idly by as a neighboring nation expanded its military capability. Under what circum stances is emulation of observed behaviors likely ? What criteria determine which behaviors are to be copied? Answers to these and other questions about ethnic conflict begin as the oretical speculation and, indeed, that is what we find most frequently in this volume. We are rather long on theory and short on evidence, but this is what might be expected in a nascent field. The case studies presented in

18


this volume provide some material for future comparative analysis but for now rest on existing theory to give meaning to the case material. In sum, many of the chapters contained in this volume can be viewed as an effort to stimulate more work at the nexus of evolutionary theory and ethnic phenomena. Further theoretical exploration must follow and more empirical study must be generated before evolutionary theory can provide thorough and solid explanations of ethnic phenomena. The approach is currently resting on a sparse research foundation, but the work that builds on this foundation may very well make more efficient progress than the alternatives.

Chapter 2

The Roots of Ethnic Conflict: An Evolutionary Perspective Gary R. Jo hnson

In the twentieth century alone, tens of millions of people have lost their lives in ethnic conflicts. Countless others have lost their limbs, homes, live lihoods, or loved ones. Ethnic conflict is surely one of this century's most notable phenomena. Despite some special features associated with the rise of large-scale territorial states, however, this sanguinary phenomenon is not new. Indeed, we have good reasons, both empirical and theoretical, to be lieve that ethnic conflict is an ancient phenomenon and that its roots lie deep in human nature. This chapter will explore the possible evolutionary roots of ethnic con flict. I approach this task with considerable humility. In the first place, there is already a rich descriptive and analytical literature on ethnic conflict by erudite scholars who have devoted most of their professional lives to this subject (e.g., Horowitz 1985; Connor 1994 ) . I do not presume to speak with this kind of substantive expertise. On the other hand, the existing theoretical framework for explaining ethnic conflict is rudimentary, at best. It is here that an outsider may be able to make some contribution-not on the basis of wide or deep knowledge of the subj ect-but by bringing a different perspective. Second, this is not the first attempt to examine the evolutionary roots of ethnic conflict. Pierre van den Berghe's excellent The Ethnic Phenomenon ( 1 981; see also Salter, this volume) holds pride of place there, and others have contributed additional insights (including the contributors to Reyn olds, Falger, and Vine 1987; Ross 1981, 1991; Shaw and Wong 19 89; Warnecke, Masters, and Kempter 19 92; Fox 1994 ) . Nevertheless, the ap plication of evolutionary theory to the study of human behavior is still in its infancy. Pioneering work may need to be extended and refined, and in

20


some cases amended. Moreover, no scientific theory is ever final and com plete. Indeed, the best that any scientifically oriented analyst can hope for is to make some useful ( and contingent) contribution to the ongoing col lective effort of advancing scientific understanding. An examination of a phenomenon's evolutionary roots might reasonably begin by defining the phenomenon and then working backward to its roots. It may be more useful in this case, however, to begin with the roots of conflict itself and then to work forward, attempting to generate the phe nomena we refer to as "ethnic conflict. " I will begin, therefore, with an analysis of the origins of conflict. I will then proceed to examine the roots of cooperation, the mechanisms through which allies and enemies are rec ognized, and the ways in which these mechanisms may have been manip ulated to allow humans to build larger alliances, including those we refer to as ethnic groups. This leads me, finally, to reexamine, from this evolu tionary perspective, a number of important issues regarding our under standing of ethnic conflict.

THE ROOTS OF CONFLICT Assumptions about the nature and origin of conflict are fundamental to virtually all theories of human behavior. Evolutionary theory suggests-in contrast to both Marxist theory and many standard social science ac counts-that there are conflicts of interest among all humans, because the ultimate (or distal) interest of any organism is its genetic fitness. It is genes that are transmitted across generations, and genes are therefore the ultimate currency in natural selection. From this perspective, the observable obj ects of human conflicts-territory, property, resources, power, privilege, wealth, security, status-are not ends in themselves. They are, instead, the variable and proximate means by which individuals pursue their ultimate interest maximizing the reproductive rate of the genes they carry (Dawkins 1976, 19 82; Alexander 1987). These inherent, genotypic conflicts of interest are grounded in sexual reproduction. In contrast to asexual organisms, which (ignoring mutations ) produce genetically identical daughter cells, humans and other sexually re producing organisms produce offspring that carry only a proportion of each parent's genes (50% for humans and most other sexually reproducing species ) . Every human, then, with the exception of monozygotic twins, is genetically unique. Sexual reproduction, therefore, by its very nature, pro duces individuals who have conflicting genetic interests (Alexander 19 79, 1987). This is true even of parents and offspring. Parents and offspring share substantial genetic interests, but since offspring are related to each parent by a factor of only .5, there are also sub stantial conflicts of genetic interest between them. These conflicts manifest themselves in a variety of


21

ways, depending upon the species and its ecological circumstances, but they are always present in a sexually reproducing species (Trivers 1974 ) . Given the nature of sexual reproduction, then, conflict would be expected among all individuals except monozygotic twins. And we can expect con flict even among these rare exceptions to genetic uniqueness. First, since monozygotic twins may actually differ slightly because of mutations that occur during cell division, even they may have slightly conflicting genetic interests . Second, and even if they were truly identical, we must remember that monozygotic twins are relatively uncommon. Since evolution produces proximate mechanisms to serve ultimate (distal) ends, and since these prox imate mechanisms evolve on the basis of statistically normal conditions, genetically identical organisms in a sexually reproducing species will not "know" that their interests are identical. Their behavior-generating mech anisms evolved under conditions in which virtually every other conspecific was at least a partial genetic competitor. For this reason, monozygotic twins will come into conflict despite their genetic identity. Consequently, we may assert that conflicts of interest exist among all members of a sex ually reproducing species. This would certainly include those who are bonded together in ethnic groups. Shared ethnicity, therefore, is no guar antee of cooperation and amity. THE ROOTS OF COOPERATION

Conflicts of interest may be ubiquitous in a D arwinian world, but that is not necessarily a recipe for a Hobbesian war of all against all. Effective competition need not be a solitary enterprise. Organisms often compete more effectively by collaborating with other organisms. Competition with some is suspended, restricted, or rechanneled in order to more effectively compete with others (whether of one's own or a different species). When such cooperation assumes regular, complex patterns over extended periods of time, new kinds of units are created. Thus, all complex organ isms, as well as the cells of which those organisms are composed, are prod ucts of enduring patterns of cooperation among lower-level units. Among humans, such relatively enduring alliances become families, clans, busi nesses, professional associations, and whole societies. The collectivities we refer to as "ethnic groups " have the potential to become such an enduring alliance; when they do, they have become a "nation. " Ignoring for now the possibility of group selection, all cooperation ap pears to be built on one or more of three foundations: nepotism, reciproc ity, and exploitation. Most complex instances of cooperation probably involve a complicated mix of all three. Nevertheless, it is important to distinguish among these three foundations of cooperation. Nepotism, of course, is favorable treatment of kin. This route to social collaboration is a product of kin selection, a type of natural selection in

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which gene frequencies in a subsequent generation are influenced by the effects of the behavior of an individual on the reproduction of relatives, either lineal or collateral (Hamilton 1964; Maynard Smith 1964, 1976 ) . Kin selection can produce cooperation and altruism among relatives, be cause relatives share genes. Cooperation with a relative-even life sacrificing altruism-may therefore enhance the reproduction of these shared genes . At the genetic level, these behaviors are competitive and ego istic-they enhance the individual's genetic interest. At the phenotypic level, however, these same behaviors are cooperative and altruistic (Alexander 1974, 19 79; Dawkins 1976 ) . The most obvious example of phenotypic altruistic behavior is parental care. Parental care entails phenotypic sacrifice by the parent (for example, in energy expended and danger encountered in gathering food for off spring). Parents may even sacrifice their lives for their offspring. Neverthe less, it has always been easy to understand how such behavior on behalf of offspring could be established by natural selection. What was not so easy to understand, at least until William Hamilton's pathbreaking analysis in 1964, was that this same logic applies to collateral as well as lineal relatives. Hamilton recognized that the evolutionary foundation of parental behavior is shared genes, and that such a sharing of genes applies to rela tives other than offspring, even if in reduced proportions. Hamilton demonstrated that the probability of altruistic behavior being directed toward a conspecific depends upon two factors: ( 1 ) the coefficient of relatedness (r) of the parties, that is, the proportion of genes shared by common descent, and (2) the ratio of recipient benefits to altruist costs. Thus, when r is high, altruistic behavior becomes highly probable if the recipient's benefit is high and the benefactor's cost is low. The result of Hamilton's work was a revised concept of fitness, "inclusive fitness . " In contrast to the traditional concept of fitness, inclusive fitness refers to one's genetic contribution to future generations through both lineal and collateral relatives. Inasmuch as genes are shared by both kinds of kin, altruism to ward siblings, cousins, and other collateral relatives could be expected to evolve when circumstances produce a favorable cost-benefit ratio. Kin selection explains much of the cooperation and altruism observed in a wide variety of species, from ants to humans. However, it does not ex plain all cooperation and altruism, for these may be found among non relatives as well as relatives. The foundation for this other type of cooperation and altruism is reciprocity (Williams 1966; Trivers 1971; Al exander 1974, 1979 ) . When interactions between organisms are frequent, and the cooperation or exchange of altruistic behavior would be mutually beneficial, evolution should produce a capacity to make cost-benefit anal yses as a basis for engaging in such behavior. This type of cooperation and altruism, labeled "reciprocal altruism" by Trivers ( 1971 ), has been found among and between many species of animals. It appears to be especially


23

important among humans. Indeed, these genetically based predispositions are almost certainly the foundation for much of the behavioral analyses found in the literature of public choice and game theory (e.g., Olson 1965; Margolis 1982; Axelrod 1 9 84 ) . 1 Kin-selected cooperation and altruism entail immediate sacrifice for the benefactor but deferred genetic benefits across generations. Reciprocal al truism, by contrast, confers benefits during an organism's own lifetime, benefits that may indirectly result in greater reproductive success . Relatives may practice both kinds of cooperation and altruism among themselves, and for their ultimate genetic benefit. Among nonrelatives, only reciprocal altruism may be practiced for benefit; cooperation and altruism that do not produce lifetime benefits are practiced among nonrelatives only at a genetic cost, and therefore only as evolutionary "mistakes." A third foundation for social collaboration is exploitation-social be havior that benefits one party at the expense of another. For our purposes, these benefits must be of potential relevance to reproduction, thus tending to enhance the reproductive success of one party while diminishing that of the other. In some cases, the effect of exploitation on reproductive success may be direct and obvious. Thus, the cuckoo's practice of laying its eggs in the nests of other birds, often referred to as "social parasitism, " is a clear-cut case of reproductive exploitation. This practice creates a social relationship ( between cuckoo chick and surrogate parents) that clearly ben efits one party (the mother cucko o ) while harming the other (the surrogate parents ) . Castration for the purpose of creating court eunuchs is another example. Barring benefits to kin that enhance their reproductive success enough to offset the loss of all personal reproduction, this practice tends to reduce the inclusive fitness of the eunuch while providing reproductively relevant benefits to the master. In other cases of exploitation, effects may be indirect and more subtle. This is true of many cases of recognized parasitism, and it is no doubt true of some relationships within animal societies founded primarily on nepo tism and reciprocity. In human societies, for example, dishonest business practices transfer from one party to another resources that might in the long run be converted into reproduction. Thus, those manipulated into buying a bottle of " snake oil" may not be harmed directly by the ineffective product that they have purchased. However, if they are actually ill, the purchase of this product may distract them from seeking treatment that might be genuinely effective, thereby increasing the probability of incapac itation or death. Or even if they are healthy and the product is harmless, they will have transferred reproductively relevant resources to another per son without receiving a return benefit (assuming that there are no repro ductively relevant psychological benefits ) . This kind of social exchange, then, is exploitation. Social relationships based solely upon exploitation are probably short-

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lived, relatively simple, or both. Thus, if the exploited party continues to reproduce within the context of the relationship, it will often evolve either to resist the exploitation or to garner some benefit from the relationship, thereby converting what began as exploitation into a relationship of mutual benefit. Even in instances in which exploitation is relatively enduring, coun terselection should keep the relationship relatively simple. Thus, it seems unlikely that exploitation by itself could ever produce the complex web of relationships required to create animal societies. However, even if exploi tation by itself is an inadequate foundation for social life, exploitation at some level should be found wherever social life is found. Even if an instance of social life appeared solely on the basis of kin selection or reciprocity, some participants in the social relationships would almost inevitably evolve to exploit those relationships at some level. Ex ploitation will therefore normally evolve in tandem with the other two forms of social relationship. Thus, it is widely recognized that overt cheat ing will always be a problem in any system based upon reciprocity. The behavior of free riders is also exploitative, for free riders accept benefits from a relationship without contributing, thereby depriving other parties of the full benefits of the relationship. These three evolutionary forces appear to account, singly or in combi nation, for most (if not all) cases of social life, from interspecific symbioses to ant colonies to ungulate herds to human societies. Nepotism and reci procity both operate on a foundation of overlapping interests. In the case of kin selection, the overlapping interests are genetic and intergenerational. In the case of reciprocal altruism, the overlapping interests are nongenetic and intragenerational. In most cases, both forces will probably be operat ing, and they will probably also interact (Trivers 197 1 ) . Whenever either of these forces is at work, some level of exploitation should also emerge. For these reasons, all cases of complex social life are likely to involve a complicated mix of nepotism, reciprocity, and exploitation. Kin selection and selection for reciprocal altruism produce long-term benefits for individuals. The cooperation and altruism that flow from such situations are therefore purely instrumental-they advance the interests of the component individuals. This means that all alliances, including whole societies, are instrumental entities-they exist to advance the interests, shared though they may be, of their component members. 2 Since ethnic groups are alliances (or potential alliances ), it is therefore likely that nep otism and reciprocity are the underlying sources of the cooperative behav ior and identification processes responsible for ethnic identification. If we wish to understand ethnic conflict, then, we should investigate the mech anisms necessary for producing nepotism and reciprocity.


25

RECOGNIZING ALLIES AND ENEMIES

Humans bond to one another for the ultimate evolutionary reasons dis cussed above-there are advantages either across generations of kin (nep otism) or within generations of kin or nonkin (reciprocity) that enhance reproductive success (on average) . These ultimate advantages, however, can be realized only if there are proximate psychological mechanisms that trig ger bonding based upon nepotism or reciprocity. Of course, mechanisms that identify threats and opportunities and assess costs and benefits mu st also be involved, but these mechanisms would have to work in conjunction with mechanisms that identify potential allies . Nepotism appears t o b e the primary foundation for all societies o f ani mals, from colonial invertebrates to "eusocial" insects to early humans (Wilson 19 75; Alexander 1987). Thus the most important source of co operation and altruism in all of these systems appears to be kinship (even though reciprocity has also become important for some, especially hu mans ) . Kin-based cooperation and altruism, however, depend upon a ca pacity to recognize kin. If one is to bestow favors on kin, one must be able to discriminate between kin and nonkin, as well as between various degrees of kinship. In other words, there must be mechanisms of kin recognition. Kin recognition does not require a cognitive awareness of kinship; it re quires only that an animal discriminate behaviorally on the basis of some cue or cues that reflect levels of kinship. Hamilton recognized the impor tance of such mechanisms in his pathbreaking article ( 1 964), and he pro posed four possible mechanisms. The first of these mechanisms, direct genetic recognition ( " recognition alleles " ), is theoretically improbable. The other three mechanisms-association, phenotypic matching, and location all work indirectly through observable cues that are correlated with kin ship. Since the publication of Hamilton's article in 19 64, the existence of these three indirect mechanisms of kin recognition has been confirmed. On the basis of one or more of these mechanisms, capacities for kin recognition have been empirically demonstrated for widely diverse species, including many species each of slime molds, sponges, insects, fish, amphibians, birds, and mammals (Holmes and Sherman 1983; Sherman and Holmes 1985; Hepper 1986; Fletcher and Michener 1987; Waldman 1988; Alexander 1990; Pfennig and Sherman 1995 ) . These mechanisms, working together with other mechanisms, direct the social interactions of individuals with other individuals. Theoretically, these mechanisms should influence the cal culus underlying all social behavior. They will therefore be among the fac tors that determine, under particular circumstances, whether another animal will be considered a potential collaborator or a potential competi tor. Under the right circumstances, operation of these mechanisms will prompt cooperation with those identified as kin; under the same circum-

26


stances, these mechanisms could prompt exploitation of those identified as nonkin. If ethnic identity is rooted in kinship or pseudo-kinship, as is often claimed, these mechanisms may be important generators of ethnic differ entiation. Association

For humans, as for many other species, typical arrangements for rearing offspring and for co operative living in general bring kin into close associ ation. Under such arrangements, those with whom one is most familiar are likely to be kin. On the basis of this correlation between familiarity and kinship, kin selection can act to produce kin-based cooperation and altru ism by creating predispositions to "love," care for, cooperate with, and make sacrifices for close associates. The actual physical cues used for dis tinguishing familiar from unfamiliar conspecifics vary across species. Thus, many mammals rely especially ( although not necessarily exclusively) on olfactory cues. Birds often rely on the unique characteristics of their com rades' vocalizations, and some species, including humans, depend heavily on visual cues. Regardless of which physical cues are used, however, kin recognition by association works through an empirically existing correla tion between level of familiarity and level of kinship. Of course, since this is a probabilistic relationship, use of this mechanism is subj ect both to evolutionary "mistakes" and manipulation. Association is probably the most important kin recognition mechanism for humans. This seems likely, first, because hominids spent over 99 percent of their existence in small, relatively cohesive bands of kin. Second, daily living and rearing arrangements for most of human history would normally have made association the most reliable index of kinship. Third, humans are very good at recognizing and remembering the specific individuals with whom they associate. It seems likely, then, that the most important post partum kin recognition mechanism for humans is association. Further sup port for this assumption is provided by the great value of face recognition among humans. Humans are predisposed to pay special attention to the unique features of human faces . This is such an important function for humans that a specialized region of the brain is devoted to carrying it out ( Geschwind 1979). Association must have been a potent source of cohesion in band societies. With the temporary exception of those who married into the band from outside, the closest associates of everyone in the band were other band members. Initially, those who married into the group would be bonded through a lifetime of close association with those in another band-their native band. However, through cooperative living in the new group, and especially through rearing their own children within this group, even these outside members would have become bonded over time to that group.


27

Phenotypic Matching Association is probably the most important kin recognition mechanism for humans, but phenotypic matching is probably another mechanism of considerable importance. It may also be a mechanism whose operation is an important key to understanding ethnic identification and conflict. Phenotypic matching can serve as a mechanism of kin recognition, be cause there is often a correlation between genotype and phenotype-those who are related are more similar phenotypically than those who are not, at least on average. Thus, for the purposes of discriminating between kin and nonkin, an animal can compare its own characteristics (or those of its close associates, who are probably kin) with the characteristics of other animals. The greater the similarity, the higher the probable level of kinship. The actual characteristics used for comparison vary across species. Ap pearance might be important for a visually oriented species, while vocali zations or smell might be important for other species. This mechanism of kin recognition is found widely in nature. Thu s, cur rent evidence suggests that social insects such as honey bees and ants rely on it exclusively for distinguishing fellow colony members from the mem bers of other colonies (colony recognition) and for distinguishing varying degrees of relatedness within colonies (Winston 1987; Holldobler and Wil son 1990 ) . The matching takes place on the basis of pheromones, chemical substances produced in special glands and used for a variety of communi cation functions. In carpenter ant colonies, for example, this function is apparently coordinated by the queen, who distributes a pheromone that uniquely identifies members of the colony. By means of this chemical uni form, guards make decisions about whether to admit or repel an individual seeking admittance to the colony. These pheromonal cues are so important in governing the life of carpenter ant colonies that experimental manipu lation can lead colony members to reject genetic sisters and accept not only unrelated individuals from other colonies but even unrelated individuals of other species (Carlin and Holldobler 1 9 8 3 ) . Phenotypic matching i s probably a n important mechanism of kin rec ognition among humans, even if it is secondary relative to association (Al exander 19 79; Essock-Vitale and McGuire 1980; van den Berghe 19 8 1 ) . While association provides useful cues for behavior when one is interacting with individuals of varying levels of familiarity, phenotypic matching would provide cues for behavior even when everyone was a total stranger. It would also serve as a useful supplement to association cues-among those whom I know equally well, those who are similar to me are likely to be more closely related than those who are dissimilar. Since an animal's phenotype includes its behavior, phenotypic matching could be based on behavior as well as on physical characteristics. Among humans, this would even include behaviors that are heavily dependent upon

28


experience, because those who share experience that affects future behav ior-especially early in development-are often kin. Among humans, then, phenotype includes language, accent, idioms, customs, gestures, manners, dress and ornamentation, rituals, and other cultural characteristics . All of these phenotypic characteristics can serve to distinguish groups of people from one another. The various elements of this phenotypic uniform can set those allied together apart from others, and in nested sets based upon where interests overlap and diverge. All such phenotypic signals serve to distin guish those who are allied (originally because of kinship ) from those who are external to the alliance and are either threats to the interests of those in the alliance or (from an evolutionary point of view) acceptable obj ects of exploitation. Location

The third empirically confirmed mechanism of kin recognition depends upon a correlation between kinship and location. If individuals found in a particular location (e.g., a nest) are more likely to be kin than those in other locations, selection can produce behavioral discrimination based on location. Thus, prior to the time when their offspring fledge (when recog nition by ass ociation can take over ), birds use the location of their nests as a cue for kin recognition. Based upon this cue, they invest their energy and perhaps even their lives-in caring for and defending the eggs or chicks who occupy that nest. Of course, it is this simple mechanism that the cuckoo exploits when she deposits her eggs in the nests of other birds. Given that human hunter-and-gatherer bands were relatively mobile, it could be argued that location is an unlikely kin recognition mechanism for humans (Johnson 1 9 8 6 ) . However, we have several reasons to believe that humans retain some modest propensity to use location as a kin recognition device ( see Johnson 1 9 89, 64-65). Such a capacity would help explain what seems to be a tendency to hold the place of our rearing in special affection. It would also help explain why words, symbols, and images associated with this place are emotionally evocative. Thus, in addition to their association with kin, part of the power of such terms as "homeland, " "hometown, " and "land of our birth" may arise because location can act as a supple mental cue for altruistic dispositions. Reciprocity

Assuming that conditions are right for cooperative behavior based upon reciprocity, and holding kin recognition cues constant, humans seem to rely heavily on experience as a guide for choosing who should be trusted as a cooperative partner. We obviously use our own experience as a guide (Ax elrod and Hamilton 1 9 8 1 ) , but we also obviously attempt to make infer-


29

ences from the experience of others (Alexander 1 9 8 7 ) . That is why reputation-building is such an important phenomenon, as several contrib utors to this volume recognize. A reputation, which is built upon the ex perience of others with an individual's behavior, can be used to make inferences about future behavior. Of course, given the high level of shared interest with kin, we are likely to depend more heavily upon cues from kin than from others. ALLIANCE EXPANSION

These mechanisms of identifying allies and enemies must have worked reasonably well for most of human existence, during which humans lived in relatively small bands of mostly kin. More importantly, for our pur poses, however, these mechanisms-working together with other mecha nisms-must have preadapted humans for building larger, more complex alliances. A trait is a preadaptation when it may be put, with or without refinement by natural selection, to uses other than those for which it orig inally evolved. Beginning at least 12,000 years ago, after the earth had been widely populated with small hunting-and-gathering bands, the size of the units in which many humans lived began to increase. In addition, more complex bonds were being forged between groups that lived apart, but in proximity. These developments were probably a response, within circumscribed envi ronments, to population pressure, ecological change, and hostilities with other groups ( Carneiro 1970 ) . Despite numerous side effects that had to be dealt with (e.g., through the growth of government-see Johnson 1995 ), these new alliances allowed for the accomplishment of new kinds of tasks in pursuit of overlapping interests. These broader alliances eventually cre ated tribes, chiefdoms, states, and empires. The easiest allies to make in this process, of course, would be those with whom one already had bonds under the operation of kin recognition mech anisms. This would certainly include other bands into which relatives had married. Prior association could therefore help generate stronger bonds be tween groups, but these bonds could be strengthened even further through phenotypic matching. Groups more recently fissioned from a common an cestor group would probably be more similar in language and in a wide variety of cultural characteristics than groups that had been separated longer. Other things being equal, those most phenotypically similar (keep ing in mind that phenotype includes all behavior, not just physical appear ance) would be easiest to unite. If a permanent alliance with other groups is needed, the socialization process can be adjusted to manipulate both sets of powerful human kin recognition mechanisms. Thus, as in the case of patriotism, kin terms can be used fictively to help create emotional attachments to those toward

30


whom one would not be naturally bonded by personal experience (Johnson 1986, 1 9 87, 1997b; Johnson, Ratwik, and Sawyer 1987). And, drawing on the power of phenotypic matching, the attention of children may be drawn to the phenotypic similarities of these allies rather than their phe notypic differences. Likewise, when attention is drawn to dissimilarities between "us" and other groups-"them"-these others are identified as enemies (i.e., as threats to "us" and as evolutionarily acceptable objects of exploitation ) . We may view such manipulation of kin recognition mecha nisms as a "social technology" ( see Salter, this volume) . Skipping forward for now, this brings us to use of the term "ethnic group, " which is typically defined through some connection to kinship (e.g., van den Berghe 1 9 8 1 ; Horowitz 1985; Connor 1 994 ) . From the perspective advanced here, ethnic groups are alliances or potential alliances that depend for their coherence on an orchestrated application of kin recognition mech anisms to individuals beyond the extended family. " Ethnic identity, " therefore, should be the active or residual product of an alliance-building effort in which kin recognition mechanisms play an important role. This is not to suggest that other mechanisms are not important. Reciprocity-based mechanisms would also be important, as would mechanisms for recogniz ing collective goods, threats, and collective entities as units (see Johnson 1997b ) . Nevertheless, what distinguishes ethnic groups from other kinds of human alliances is the relative importance of kin recognition mechanisms in the construction process. If this position is correct, a number of phe nomena widely observed about ethnic groups and ethnic identification are easily understandable. Thus, ethnic groups viewed in this way are clearly both "primordial" and "instrumentalist" (as van den Berghe pointed out, 1981; cf. Eller and Coughlan 1993; McKay 1 982). Also, if ethnic groups are alliances, and if alliances are the instruments of individuals pursuing their interests, we would also expect that ethnicity would be situational ( Okamura 1 9 8 1 ) ; that ethnic group boundaries would be flexible (Horo witz 1 9 8 5 ) ; that operative phenotypic markers would be variable across ethnic groups and flexibly applied within ethnic groups according to need (Horowitz 1 9 8 5 ) ; and that formerly antagonistic ethnic groups would often amalgamate over time to form new ethnic groups (Connor 1994 ) . Of course, even if this perspective is correct, an adequate understanding of these and other ethnic phenomena will require careful study of the pro cesses through which kin recognition mechanisms-along with other mech anisms-are utilized.

ISSUES IN UNDERSTANDING ETHNIC CONFLICT

I turn now to a number of specific issues that relate to interpreting ethnic conflict from this perspective.


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Phenotypic Matching-Pervasive Use, and Not Just Physical

It is important to emphasize two things about phenotypic matching as a human kin recognition device. First, it must again be emphasized that "phe notype" does not refer just to physical characteristics, but to all of an organism's observable physical and behavioral characteristics, including, in the case of humans, language, dialect, customs, diet, and so on. In other words, a human phenotype includes all of those "cultural" markers that are often used to distinguish ethnic groups. Second, phenotypic matching almost certainly did not evolve to facilitate the formation of what we would today refer to as "ethnic group s . " Its fundamental processes would have evolved originally simply to guide daily decision-making within and between the small kin-based groups in which humans have spent most of their existence. Once these mechanisms were in place, however, they would have helped guide behavior in situations that were relatively new, or even that had never before been encountered. Thus, it is probably not relevant that most humans, until recently, did not have contact with those of different races (cf. van den Berghe 1981, 240 ) . If humans possess mechanisms designed by natural selection to be able to " detect" the relatively subtle differences that constitute what we refer to as "family resemblance, " these mechanisms surely would have been activated when they began encountering those with very different physical (not to mention cultural) phenotypes . While these mechanisms certainly did not evolve, then, to make humans racists, they are probably partly responsible for what many of us see as the dismaying pervasiveness and persistence of raCism. Multiple Mechanisms

If this perspective suggests new lines of research on the foundations of ethnic conflict and the socialization of ethnic identity, it should be empha sized that there are probably hundreds of mechanisms involved in produc ing and regulating ethnic conflict-and not just kin recognition mechanisms. Indeed, each of the kin recognition mechanisms referred to here in the singular could easily be composed of multiple component mech anisms. And there may also be mechanisms that govern how kin recogni tion mechanisms interact with each other (e.g., to regulate which takes precedence according to circumstance), how they interact with the mech anisms of reciprocity, and how they interact with experience (for a valuable discussion of the reasons for thinking of the human mind as a complex of many distinct mechanisms, see Tooby and Cosmides 1992 ) . Common Descent

Analysts of ethnic conflict frequently discuss a "myth of common de scent" as binding together the members of an ethnic group, and this is

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occasionally the crucial defining characteristic. From an evolutionary per spective, the "myth of common descent" has at least an element of truth. Many (but certainly not all) of those who are included within the self identified ethnic group are indeed descendants of people who have banded together across multiple generations (through ties of kinship or reciprocity, and often both) . This is no doubt one of the reasons that "myths of com mon descent" are so common-indeed, a defining characteristic, according to Connor ( 1 994)-they reflect the fact that many of the people in question and many of their immediate forebears have been part of an alliance that extends across generations. An ethnic group is, at best ( and even when it is small), a highly diluted kin group. Nevertheless, its veiled core almost certainly consists of the descendants of a long-term, cross-generation alli ance. New groups may have been added over the centuries-through peace ful alliance-making or conquest-but there is quite likely an unbroken series of links back through time to one or several original groups (even if not a single ancestral couple) . These links are more than biological, for new members of the group in each generation have typically been socialized by their own kin, creating an unbroken chain of socialization across many generations. The resulting similarities in a broad range of phenotypic (phys ical and cultural) characteristics, along with direct and indirect ties of as sociation, can generate feelings of kinship among members of ethnic groups, especially when there is competition with those of differing phe notypic characteristics . There may be no identifiable common ancestor indeed, the people in question may be an assimilated amalgam of different peoples, as the English are an amalgam of the Celts, Angles, Saxons, Jutes, Danes, and Normans (Connor 1994, 2 1 4 ) . There is, nevertheless, a genuine cross-generation continuity that reaches beyond the memories of even the oldest living members of the group, and probably far beyond, into what would be-from a folk perspective-the mists of the past. Biological kinship may therefore be weak within large ethnic groups, but there are long, branching lines of intimate kin connections within these cross-generation alliances. These kinds of kin connections do not exist within many other kinds of alliances, which are formed primarily on the basis of relatively short-term mutual advantage. Thus, in contrast to mem bers of ethnic groups, members of labor unions are ( at least typically) nei ther born into the union nor socialized as members of the union by their own kin. Since humans should be predisposed to accept socialization efforts of kin over nonkin, these differences in group origin should result in im portant differences in group structure, cohesion, and behavior. Let us now turn to the "myth" part of the "myth of common descent. " Those who stress the kinship-related origin of nationalism or ethnicity (e.g., van den Berghe 1 9 8 1 ; Horowitz 1985; Connor 1994) seem to have a much better appreciation of its roots than other analysts, and they also under stand the tremendous emotive power of ethnicity. I greatly admire their


33

work. However, I question whether it is a belief about common descent that provides the primary motive force behind ethnicity or nationalism. Why should an abstract claim about a common relationship to some long dead ancestor move people to acts of both enormous self-sacrifice and bru tality ? Millions of Christians from a variety of ethnic groups believe that they are ancestrally related through Adam and Eve. This belief, however, does not seem to have bound these believers together into a nation; indeed, those who profess this belief have slaughtered one another by the millions over the centuries. So, is it really a "belief" that is relevant, or is it perceived phenotypic similarity and other kin recognition triggers (such as the use of kin terms in speech, songs, and poetry ), under specifiable conditions (especially threat), that create the bonds of ethnicity? If the latter, a "belief" or a "myth" of common descent is not the real foundation of ethnicity-the causal force-but rather is only a manifestation of the underlying kinship identifying mechanisms. It is not really the myths, then, that we need to study. We need to begin carefully investigating the day-to-day interactions and paraphernalia that build national consciousness. Thus, I wholeheart edly agree with Connor that those interested in understanding nationalism should carefully study nationalist poetry, speeches, pamphlets, and other such communications (Connor 1994, 75-76 ) . They should also be studying the speech, gestures, and facial expressions of parents, other kin, and teach ers as they socialize children to ethnic identity. Rather than searching for "beliefs " in those communications, however, they should be looking for the evocative use of kin terms and other triggers of kin recognition, interest identification, threat identification, and so on. Thus, there is an important difference between attributing causal impor tance to "myths of common descent" or "myths of fictive kinship " (Masters 1993) and "fictive use of kin terms " (which I have investigated in relation to patriotism-see Johnson 1987, 1997b; Johnson, Ratwik, and Sawyer 1987). If we conceptualize fictive kinship as involving beliefs about kinship, it is presumably the idea of motherhood that creates the evocative influence of the term motherland in patriotic and nationalist speech and literature. As I conceptualize the process, however, there are no ideas or beliefs that travel between heads. Instead, what is at work in creating emotional sig nificance for the term motherland is a multistep process founded in kin recognition. The word for "mother" is presumably an inherently neutral auditory stimulus in all human languages. However, this neutral auditory stimulus is generally applied to the person in one's experience who func tions as one's mother-one's closest and most intimate caregiver early in life. One will be emotionally bonded to this most intimate associate through the kin recognition mechanism of association. Once this bonding has oc curred, regular use of the word "mother" to represent this person should through the simple process of classical conditioning-attach emotional sig-

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nificance to this word. The term itself therefore becomes capable of evoking powerful kinship-related emotions. This explains how kin terms such as mother, father, sister, and brother acquire their evocative significance. Thereafter, higher-order conditioning on the kin term can transfer some of a kin term's emotional significance to the names of countries ( "Mother Russia" ), the names of ethnic groups (Tutsi brothers and sisters ), and cul tural symbols ( "flag of your fathers "; see Johnson 1997b). To make the contrast clear, Roger Masters-in an article I admire-says that the French revolutionaries of 1789 openly proclaimed fictive kinship. The resulting spirit of community in what had been a highly diverse feudal monarchy with strong provincial and regional attachments generated the extraordinary dynamism of France after 1789. A hitherto untapped will ingness to pay taxes and die for the state, repeated military successes both under the Republic and the First Empire, the forcible expulsion or killing of those who resisted (especially in the Terror), economic growth, and the development of centralized bureaucratic institutions-in short, the forging of a modern nation-state-coincided with the fiction that all members of the community . . . were "brothers" (Masters 1 993, 1 1 3-14; emphasis added) . As sympathetic a s I am to the general import of this analysis, it seems an overstatement to attribute so much of the French Revolution to a myth of fictive kinship. On the other hand, the fictive use of kin terms probably did play a role, along with a great many other mechanisms. The difference in the two perspectives lies in whether one believes that a myth of kinship evoked all of this behavior, or whether-under the right circumstances the application of kin terms toward nonkin, institutions, and systems is capable of associating some of the emotions felt toward kin with these nonkin, institutions, and systems. It is doubtful, after all, that the French revolutionaries believed that they were kin. If this theory is correct, one need not "believe" a myth of kinship to be influenced by the fictive use of kin terms. If an ethnic leader proclaims that all members of an ethnic group are brothers and sisters who must work and sacrifice together to establish a homeland,' his or her listeners are un likely to believe that several million people-most of whom they do not know-are their siblings. However, if they have been socialized properly, this use of kin terms may arouse emotions that could not be aroused merely on the basis of an appeal to shared interests. Natural Selection and Proximate Mechanisms

Experimental research has shown that humans assigned randomly to ar tificially created groups will quickly display many of the characteristics we associate with the in-group-out-group mentality of ethnocentrism. Neither kinship nor familiarity is necessary. This could be interpreted as suggesting


35

that these characteristics are not founded in the kinds of processes analyzed here (e.g., Ross 1991; Tullberg and Tullberg 1997). However, it must be remembered that natural selection is not a supernatural engineer that works from scratch and on short notice to create a product of perfect design for an organism's current environment. Natural selection works, over relatively long periods of time, on materials that are themselves the imperfect product of earlier selective compromises, and it designs on the basis of past expe rience, not current needs. Thus, for the period in which human psychological mechanisms were designed, humans were seldom, if ever, thrown randomly into groups of people with whom they had had no previous contact. In the rare cases in which they might have been, they would have responded in terms of mech anisms "designed" for their customary social environment. Thus, it is not the least bit surprising that humans thrown into artificially created groups would quickly employ behavioral mechanisms normally used in other sit uations-they have no mechanisms designed by natural selection for the artificial situation. Individual Level Selection versus Group Selection

There has been renewed interest recently in the possibility that human cooperation and altruism are at least partially a product of group selec tion-that is, differential extinction and reproduction of groups (e.g., Wil son and Sober 1994 ) . In contrast to kin selection and selection for reciprocal altruism, group selection could produce behavior that is individ ually disadvantageous, even at the genetic level, so long as the behavior advanced the competitive interests of the groups whose members displayed these behaviors. This is appealing to some, because altruism generated by group selection could be thoroughly altruistic (not "tainted" by selfishness, even at the genetic level ), and societies and other human alliances would not be merely instrumental. Of course, if group selection were implicated in the evolution of human altruism, our approach to understanding eth nicity and ethnic conflict would be correspondingly different. Even though a contribution by group selection may not be ruled out, it seems doubtful that group selection has played a significant role in the evolution of human cooperation and altruism. If the kind of human loyalty that is displayed toward countries and ethnic groups had been built by group selection (overwhelming the effects of individual counterselection), then loyalty to one's birth group should be genetically fixed. It makes little sense to suggest that group selection-which would build group loyalty even when it was individually disadvantageous-would endow individual humans with a capacity for strategically flexible loyalty. And yet that is exactly the kind of behavior that humans often display. This suggests that even if group selection sometimes reinforced the effects of individual selec-


36

tion, it has not been the primary force in the evolution of the human ca pacity for group loyalty. Culture versus Biology

It is often said that ethnic identity is "socially constructed. " Indeed, it is, but it is not constructed from nothing. We may not be born with an ethnic identity, but we are born with-in fact, conceived with-complex genetic blueprints that will, in relatively normal circumstances, help construct a mind sensitive to some environmental influences and insensitive to others. And, while we are not born a member of this or that ethnic group, we are born into nonrandom groups of compatriots (most often kin) who are pre disposed to interact with us over the course of our development in ways that will instill in us a group identity. To say, then, that ethnic identity is "socially constructed" is, by itself, to say very little-only that ethnic identity is not genetically fixed. To un derstand ethnic identity as a social construction, therefore, we must under stand, among other things, the psychological mechanisms of those whose identities are being constructed and of those who are doing the construct ing. Since those mechanisms are the long-term products of natural selection, we are likely to gain our best insights into these mechanisms by studying them from an evolutionary perspective. And, since contemporary human groups and societies seem to design elaborations on the small hunting-and gathering bands built by processes that included kin selection, we have good reason to think that some of the mechanisms harnessed for this pur pose were built by kin selection. This reinforces a point made in Chapter 1 by Goetze and James: " Cul tural processes do not operate autonomously from evolutionary processes . " The traditional dichotomous distinction between culture and biology (or human nature) is artificial and misleading. Culture is not the antithesis of biology; culture is the expression of human biology under variable social, historical, and ecological conditions. For that reason, we are not abandon ing culture when we employ an evolutionary perspective in our investiga tions; we are simply expanding the scope of our explanatory framework. CONCLUSIONS

It has sometimes been claimed that evolutionary theories are inherently supportive of racism and ethnocentrism (not to mention sexism, imperial ism, capitalism, and any other "ism" that the anti-evolutionist opposes ) . This is, of course, absurd. An attempt t o understand the evolution o f HIV does not commit one to supporting AIDS. Only the most simple-minded ideologues take this position seriously. This is not to deny, however, that racists, imperialists, and others have sometimes attempted to draw support


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from evolutionary theory for their particular values; they have. But there is nothing unusual in this-the human mind seeks support for its prefer ences in any body of thought that may seem to lend authority to those preferences, whether that body of thought is science, religion, or the sup posedly inspired insights of some social and political prophet. More seriously, critics have often suggested that evolutionary theories commit one to accepting the world as it is (for example, that "racial and ethnic inequalities are to be expected and, for some at least, to be lived with "-Thompson 1989, 5 ) . Again, there is no denying that some who prefer the world the way it is have sought support in evolutionary theory. However, revolutionary thinkers have also attempted to use evolutionary theory as support for their views (e.g., Marx, Engels, Bakunin, and Kro potkin). There is nothing in evolutionary theory that necessarily commits one to a defense of the status quo, just as there is nothing in evolutionary theory that would require bacteriologists and virologists to approve or pas sively accept tragedy and death from the diseases they study. On the con trary, these scientists are often passionately committed to fighting disease and they believe, rightly, that understanding the evolutionary roots of these diseases ( and of immune systems) will assist them in their fight. We now know-seemingly without reasonable question-that human bodies and human brains are the long-term products of natural selection. We will therefore almost certainly formulate better theories about all forms of human behavior when we adopt an evolutionary perspective. The study of ethnic conflict should be no exception. If we can erect a new and better framework for studying this common and frequently violent phenomenon, then those with genuine substantive expertise in the area may see new pat terns in their data, and they and their students may design new studies that will advance our understanding of ethnic conflict. We may even reasonably hope ( along with Ross, this volume) that a better understanding of the evolutionary roots of ethnic conflict may eventually help resolve some of those conflicts more peacefully. ACKNOWLEDGMENT

Numerous passages in this chapter have been incorporated from Johnson ( 1 995, 1 997a, 1997b ) . NOTES

1 . Authors sometimes distinguish among different kinds of cooperation/altruism based upon mutual benefit, depending upon such variables as whether an actual exchange takes place ( simple mutualism may not involve an exchange), how soon reciprocation takes place, and whether reciprocation is made by the original recip ient or by others who are involved in a complex system of indirect reciprocity, and

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so on (e.g., Corning 1983; Alexander 1987). These distinctions are important for some purposes, but for the purposes of this chapter, all such instances will be considered special cases of the broad phenomenon of cooperation and altruism that is not dependent upon cross-generation genetic benefits. For convenience, I refer to all such cases as instances of reciprocal altruism. 2. This is not to say that the benefits of an alliance are equally distributed. Some members may benefit more than others, and some may be exploited but have no reasonable alternative; they must accept the exploitation, because the alternatives are worse. 3. Since the word "home" will be linked by classical conditioning to the people in one's home-typically one's kin-"homeland" itself is an indirect kin term.

Chapter 3

A Defense and an Extension of Pierre van den Berghe's Theory of Ethnic Nepotism Frank Salter

Pierre van den Berghe's ( 1 978, 1 9 8 1 , 1995) sociobiological theory of "eth nic nepotism" seeks to explain the central features of ethnicity as manifes tations of nepotism, a behavior shared by all social species and coded in the genes. The theory has had considerable influence on evolutionary ap proaches to the study of ethnicity, nationalism, and racism (Rushton 1989; Shaw and Wong 1989; Vanhanen 199 1 ) . It has also been roundly criticized and has not been broadly accepted within the field of ethnic and racial studies. In this chapter, I describe van den Berghe's theory and I review criticisms of it, including some relevant criticisms of primordialist theories of ethnicity. In general, I find the criticisms misdirected or erroneous. How ever, I conclude that ethnic nepotism theory is incomplete. The addition of social technology theory fleshes out van den Berghe's ideas about cultural devices for defining and mobilizing groups, and cultural group selection theory helps explain the nonethnic side of ethnocentrism. Before proceeding with the defense, I want to comment on the relation ship between ethnic nepotism theory and primordialism. The distinction is necessary because the field of ethnic and racial studies is riven by a debate between the primordialist view of ethnicity as ancient and relatively fixed, and the instrumentalist and circumstantialist views of it as a labile, highly contingent category. Where does ethnic nepotism theory stand in this de bate? The first point to make is that sociobiological theory, on which van den Berghe bases his argument, is not a priori committed to the primor dialist position. It is true that a straightforward reading of sociobiological and ethological theory favors the primordialist claim that common descent is a core element of ethnicity, but common descent is also recognized as being crucial by many nonprimordialist and nonbiological theorists (e.g.,

40


Fishman 1996/1980; Scott 1990; Spicer 1 971; Weber 1968 1 ) . In his land mark introduction of the concept of ethnicity as a primordial tie, Geertz ( 1996/1 963) in one place resorts to hyperbolic characterization that falls short of positivist and thus biological standards,2 but most of his analysis confirms biological theory in its description of commonalities of descent, language, religion, and so on as bases of ethnicity. At the same time, pri mordialism overlooks much evolutionary biology. Leading exponents, such as Smith ( 1 986a), a historian, and Connor ( 1 994 ), a political scientist, treat processes falling within their disciplines, although the latter's study of kin ship terminology is ethological in its behavioral focus. But these scholars have not yet attempted to link historical or political processes to biology sociobiology, ethology, anthropology, primatology. If they did so, they would find support for aspects of primordialism. But while elements of historical and political primordialism are often reducible to biology, the reverse is not feasible. Primordialism can be extended to include biological processes, but it cannot explain them. Rather, primordialism is one among many facets of human sociality, the understanding of which biological the ory can assist. But then biology can also help advance our knowledge of instrumental and circumstantial aspects of ethnicity, as will be argued be low. Thus, in the primordialism debate, ethology and sociobiology are to be found in both camps. Where they do take sides is in opposing radical constructionism, the notion that there are few if any limits on sustainable human social arrangements (e.g., Sociobiology Study Group 1978/1 976, 2903 ) . ETHNIC NEPOTISM THEORY

Van den Berghe's thesis is straightforward and can be stated in three propositions: ( 1 ) Nepotism, the favoring of kin, is a universal not only of human behavior but has been found to characterize all social organisms (Wilson 1 975 ) . Eons of natural selection have resulted in discriminatory behavior that skews altruism toward family and other relatives and away from non-relatives, because this favors the inclusive fitness of discrimina tors. Inclusive fitness refers to genes shared by kin. A childless individual can achieve high inclusive fitness by helping kin survive and reproduce. This is because in sexually reproducing species, parents contribute a ran dom sample of their genome to each child, so that, on average, siblings share 50 percent of their distinctive genes. Grandparents and grandchildren share one-quarter of their genes, while cousins who have two grandparents in common share one-eighth, and so on. To give a spectacular (and over simplified) example, saving two siblings from drowning is the genetic equiv alent of saving one's own life, as is saving four nieces or nephews, four grandchildren, eight cousins, and so on. It is all the better if the effort does not cost one's own life, and sociobiologists expect altruism to begin at

Pierre van den Berghe's Theory of Ethnic Nepotism

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home with instincts of self-preservation and promotion.4 (2) Among social species, genetic relatedness is assessed by kinship markers, biological or cultural. Assessment is quite reliable, especially in the environments for which they evolved. Humans go by a number of biological and cultural features, the former being more difficult to fake than the latter, but usually less distinctive to the group. ( 3 ) Ethnicity and race are categories, according to van den Berghe, that are socially defined according to perceived common descent, real or imagined. The only difference between them is the type of marker that indicates group membership. With ethnicity the markers are cultural; with race they are biological. Despite this difference, in both cases the socially significant point is that the markers designate to which descent group an individual belongs, and hence whether he or she warrants nep otism. Emphasis is laid on cultural markers in the case of ethnicity because racial differences are too slight to be reliable indicators of group member ship. However, when there are distinct biological differences (such as when populations evolved for different climatic conditions) brought into prox imity by colonialism, these are preferred as markers over cultural ones, ultimately because they are difficult to imitate. As a result of the priority given to group markers, conflict is more probable between racially defined groups than between culturally defined ones. The theory has received considerable criticism, despite van den Berghe's protestation that his views do not contradict mainstream descriptive and proximate explanatory approaches, but merely continue causal explanation to ultimate evolutionary mechanisms, and thus to a "higher level of theo retical generality" ( 1 995, 362 ) . Vernon Reynolds, a physical anthropologist at Oxford University and an authority on social aspects of hominid evo lution (e.g., 1966), including human ethnocentrism (e.g., Reynolds, Falger, and Vine 1987), has published a much-cited critique of an earlier but rep resentative version of van den Berghe's theory ( 1 978 ) . Reynolds's essay, "Sociobiology and the Idea of Primordial Discrimination" ( 1 980), raises several important criticisms which I discuss below, including related criti cisms and data. These points are followed by two further criticisms raised by other scholars. Criticism from Peaceful Hunter-Gatherers

Kalahari Bushmen and most hunter-gatherers are relatively peaceful, both within and between groups. If these and other contemporary hunter gatherers have retained the social patterns typical of the species for most of its evolution, then this counts strongly against any notion of genetically determined aggressive discrimination based on group membership (Reyn olds 1980, 308 ) . Reply: The example of the Bushmen, now known to be one of many hunter-gatherer societies with high levels of intergroup vio lence, was an unfortunate choice by Reynolds. But then any choice drawn

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from the standard list of "peaceful natives" would have yielded the same result (Bigelow 19 75; Konner and Shostak 19 86; Keeley 1996 ) . Criticism from Fictive Kinship i n Traditional Societies

Van den Berghe argues that ethnic and racial solidarities are due to the extension of the "idiom of kinship," yet group definitions were always in part fictive, so that putative descent groups were not always blood kin. Reynolds pounces: "Unless his primordial inter-group theory based on so ciobiology can explain why the new non-genetic transmission of kinship and group affiliation has to follow the logic of the old genetic one, it breaks down" (Reynolds 1980, 3 1 1 ) . How, Reynolds wonders, can van den Ber ghe so casually concede that nepotistic motives need not refer to actual kin? Reynolds is urging van den Berghe into the jaws of a more general argument against sociobiology, that kinship in traditional societies is often socially rather than biologically defined, and that intergroup relations often contradict kin selection theory (Sahlins 1976). The forepart of these j aws has no teeth and in fact provides a footing for van den Berghe's position. The latter wants to claim that the "idiom" of kinship has strong effects on human motivation. As Sahlins stated, this is known to occur in the eth nographic record as socially defined kinship. But as Alexander ( 1 979, 1 5 3 ) has noted, i f kinship were not such a powerful motivator, why would it be used so widely in attempts to bond men as " blood brothers," more gen erally, to invoke an obligation to assist socially defined kin? Also, " [i]t does not follow . . . that the individual will necessarily treat the other like a true brother in every social circumstance, or, least of all, actually confuse the other with his brothers " (Alexander 1979, 1 54). Instead of constituting counterfactuals, instances of classificatory designations being used as social tools powerfully confirm the importance of kinship motivation to human sociality. Only Sahlins's rear molars present a danger to van den Berghe. A demonstration that socially defined kinship often selects against those who freely participate in it would falsify kin selection theory in the case of humans. In attempting to disprove the relevance of sociobiology to human sociality, Sahlins ( 1 9 76, 22-5 3 ) offers a general critique of inclusive fitness theory, followed by what he believes to be a particularly telling case, adop tion. His empirical examples are ethnographic, and he devotes many pages to reviewing the widespread instrumental use of kinship terms. This sets the scene for his intended coup de grace, the Pacific atoll of Rangiroa in the Tuamotus, inhabited by Polynesians. In Rangiroa, and among Polyne sian society in general, adoptees are often only marginally related to their stepparents, Sahlins reports. Reply: Subsequent review of the ethnographic data disproved Sahlins's contention and supported kin selection theory. Silk ( 1 980) found that by far the overwhelming maj ority of cases of adoption were accounted for by uncles, aunts, and grandparents, followed by first


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cousins. Furthermore, adopting parents tended to discriminate against adoptees in apportioning land among their children and, in other respects, in the direction predicted by kin selection theory, namely, favoring closer genetic kin over more distant kin. A similar conclusion is reached by Daly, Salmon, and Wilson ( 1 997) in their recent review of Sahlins's book. Recent research findings confirm cross-culturally that stepparents typically invest less in stepchildren than do parents in their genetic children (Daly and Wilson 1999 ) . A separate study conducted from an economic perspective finds that stepparents buy less food for their households than do genetic parents ( Case in press ) . Sahlins's demonstration that kinship systems do not correlate perfectly with biological kinship falls very much short of his mission of showing that they are completely arbitrary. Thus it appears that Reynolds has no good reason to be dissatisfied with van den Berghe 's view that, despite socially defined kinship in traditional societies, "The kinship was often real enough to become the basis of these powerful sentiments we call nationalism, tribalism, racism, and ethnocentrism" ( 1 978 ) . In other words, the cultural manipulation of kinship symbols need not have frus trated kin selection so long as there was an overall trend correlating altru istic behavior and genetic kinship . As we have seen, when tested, the ethnographic record supports this contention. Reynolds interprets the last quotation by van den Berghe to mean that contemporary ethnic solidarity is based on real kinship. Van den Berghe has sub sequently clarified this part of his argument by focusing on the verisimilitude of kinship cues ( 1 995 ) . In his model, genetic kinship usually gives rise to belief in kinship among group members because of the realism of the kinship markers and knowledge of shared descent. However, the motivating condition is not actual but perceived kinship . As van den Berghe states, humans are intel ligent beings who cannot be readily fooled. But if fooled into believing that another person is a relative, they are likely to be more altruistic toward that person than toward a stranger. Criticism of Emphasis on Violent Emotion and Instinct

Reynolds also objects to van den Berghe's rejection of the view that the sentiments of kin relations are due to shared interests ( 1 980, 3 1 2 ) . In par ticular, he obj ects to the reference to the "blind ferocity" and "orgies of passion" of ethnic conflict as opposed to the cool calculation expected if the motive were shared interest. Reply: The reference to the emotionality of ethnic conflict is a valuable point by van den Berghe, made more pal pable by the butchery accompanying the breakup of Yugoslavia and the recent mass killings in Central Africa. It is a strength of ethnic nepotism theory that it can explain the passions attainable by ethnic conflict, passions that historically have taken precedence over class solidarities. At the micro level, the kin selection theory (Hamilton 1964), on which van den Berghe

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based his theory, even explains the priority of familial loyalty over that between friends. For example, Sime ( 1983) studied the movements of peo ple escaping from a major fire in a large holiday complex on the Isle of Man in 1 973 that killed fifty people when the exits became choked with the sudden rush. Of groups separated at the time the alarm was given, half of the families took the risk of finding one another before emerging, while none of the nonfamily groups did so. Initially, 66 percent of the families and 54 percent of the nonfamily groups were together. While over two thirds of the families emerged intact, only one-quarter of the nonfamilies did so. When it came to the "crunch, " the people caught in this emergency showed a greater willingness to take risks for kin than for kith. Self-report studies conducted by Burnstein and colleagues have compiled evidence indicating that the more biologically important a decision, such as that involving a life-and-death risk or the allocation of large resources, the more likely individuals are to take account of relatedness in apportion ing support (Burnstein, Branigan, and Wieczorkowska-Nejtardt, in press; Burnstein, Crandall, and Kitayama, 1994). This analysis might also apply to the tendency of ethnic solidarity to become aroused in response to per ceived threat. A clear and present danger to an ethnic group as a whole is analogous to a threat to a whole primordial b and or tribe. In both cases, there is a large fitness risk to the typical member,5 despite varying relat edness within the group, a reason to suppose that group loyalty is more adaptive in times of crisis. Recent findings in developmental psychology and anthropology point to the existence of evolved psychological mechanisms for distinguishing and processing ethnic categories as descent groups, which is what one would expect if ethnic groups are treated as extended families. Hirschfeld ( 1 996) conducted a series of psychological experiments with young children and found that knowledge of race is not derived from ob servations of physical difference, nor does it develop in the same way as knowledge of other social categories. Three-year-old children distinguish inherited characteristics from noninherited ones. Thus, racial thinking is the product of a special-purpose cognitive ability-a domain-specific com petence-evolved for understanding and representing heritable traits. One might call this competence an innate descent-group module, a concept that might have been made to order for a psychological version of ethnic nep otism theory. It follows that race is not a purely social construct but is constrained by a hardwired commonsense theory about humankind that emerges in early childhood. A common set of abstract principles underlies all systems of racial thinking across cultures and history. Hirschfeld's ad herence to domain-specific mechanisms is implausible, since there is over whelming evidence of the human ability to learn and apply domain-general ability to solving problems (Jensen 1998 ) . However, his findings indicate


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how important descent groups, both families and ethnies, have been in human evolution. While Hirschfeld's findings are wholly compatible with ethnic nepotism theory, recent research by Gil-White (2000) offers a psychological theory of ethnic categories which, if true, technically falsifies van den Berghe's contention that ethnic groups are conceptualized as families. Gil-White's account might help explain the violent emotions and murderousness that often attend ethnic conflict. Gil-White's linguistic field research in Mongolia confirmed Hirschfeld's hypothesis that humans process ethnies as natural living kinds. Interestingly, he found that ethnies are categorized not only as endogamous descent groups but as species. The thesis resurrects in rig orous form Erikson's ( 1 966) idea that ethnic groups are conceptualized as different species. Erikson thought that the violence of ethnic conflict was due to "pseudospeciation, " in which antagonists come to view one another as less than human. Similarly, Gil-White concludes that in thinking about other ethnic groups, humans use the mind's "species module" rather than a broader descent-group module. The module concept belongs to the sub field of Lorenzian psychology known erroneously as "evolutionary psy chology% (Tooby and Cosmides 1 989; Barkow, Cosmides, and Tooby 1992), which postulates domain-specific competencies or modules for solv ing problems that recurred in the environment of evolutionary adaptedness. The difference between this and Gil-White 's version of pseudospeciation is that Erikson thought that dehumanization occurred only during periods of heightened intergroup hostility. Gil-White considers such thinking as nor mal. What are the implications of Gil-White's thesis for ethnic nepotism the ory? The thesis challenges the validity of the term nepotism, since in Gil White's view, ethnies are conceptualized as nonhuman species, not different lineages. The implications might not be significant. If the species module does inform decision-making about interethnic behavior, we should expect the altruism gradient between intraethnic and interethnic relations to be abrupt, essentially disj unctive. However, interethnic affairs fluctuate from warfare to intermarriage, and in a manner consistent with the situational element of van den Berghe's theory as well as his postulate of a negative relationship between genetic distance and altruism. How can a pseudo speciation theory of ethnic classification cope with such fluctuation? And how can it cope with the deliberative management of interethnic affairs, which indicates the operation of domain-general intelligence rather than a mental module that ineluctably classifies out-groups as subhuman? Humans are capable of treating other species affectionately, as with pets. Papuan Highlanders feed their piglets at the breast, on the opposite side to their own suckling offspring. But they nevertheless butcher and eat their pigs, often with tears it is true, without the ritual absolutions offered for human victims of intertribal conflict. Van der Dennen ( 1 995, 532-34) reviews the

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anthropological literature on the reluctance of primitive warriors to kill even members of hated out-groups. Tribal societies invest a great deal of effort indoctrinating warriors to prepare them for the hurdle of killing other human beings. After the killing, further investment is made in disculpation rituals, taboos, and purification ceremonies, all speaking of guilt. If humans do conceive of other ethnies as separate species, they must treat them as a special case, as a genetically proximate lineage akin to an ethnic group. But let us assume for the sake of argument that Gil-White's thesis is true. Gil-White has not yet elaborated the theoretical implications of his thesis, but the distinction he makes between ethnie-as-species and ethnie-as-lineage might lack consequences for ethnic nepotism theory, except perhaps as an overly harsh predictor of interethnic brutality. The two theories agree that ethnies are perceived as descent groups, and Gil-White concedes that kin ship terms are used to mobilize ethnic groups. Given this closeness, there might be no theoretical or practical implication for van den Berghe's ac count, except that Gil-White 's is a radical form of ethnic nepotism theory in which ethnic partisans treat all out-groups as separate species. Criticism of the Evolutionary Scenario

Reynolds advances a general critique of the sociobiological argument. He seeks to cast doubt on the evolutionary scenario forming the basis of the theory that altruism declines with genetic distance. To do so, he makes two empirical claims which I shall address in turn. First, although it is almost certain that in their evolutionary history hu mans lived in small groups, Reynolds claims a lack of evidence that these groups' genes "were less fully represented in neighbouring groups than in their own groups" (Reynolds 1980, 3 1 2 ) . He continues by suggesting that if baboons and chimpanzees are any guide, early groups of humans would have met and exchanged members, implying that there was no significant genetic gradient between primordial hunter-gatherer groups. Without such a gradient, there would be no inclusive fitness benefit of in-group amity and out-group enmity, and group identity could not become genetically fixed as a mental template releasing kinship motivation, as suggested by Hamilton ( 1 975 ) . Reply: The problem with this criticism is that a genetic gradient would seem inevitable, given the universal familial basis of hunter gatherer and indeed of all traditional small-scale societies. In these societies the basic unit is the nuclear family, usually extended to include in-laws. A typical group of between fifteen and thirty individuals consists of one or two extended families, with a few marriage partners who have come from other groups. Some group members have married out and live in neigh boring groups, but overall, relatedness is greater within than between groups. The lineage basis of primitive groups has been documented among the


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Yanomama Indians of South America, where communities are founded by one or a few extended families (Chagnon 1980, 1 9 8 8 ) . Hamilton ( 1 975 ) provided a mathematical model for elevated intratribal relatedness that is robust in the face of low migration rates. He argued that intratribal genetic relatedness allowed for the adaptiveness of self-sacrificial heroic acts in de fense of the group. Large modern ethnic groups are also genetically distinct, even within relatively small regions such as the Middle East (Hammer et al. 2000 ) . Thus, if one considers an average individual for any group, he or she has greater genetic stake in the group to which he or she belongs than to any other group. Kinship within tribes is closer than between them. Migrants are the exception, but an ambiguous one because the web of extra-group relationships is mostly based on kinship ties (Wiessner 1 9 8 1 , 19 82, in press), confirming kin-selection theory. Conflicts of loyalty with one's group often derive from solidarity with kin in other groups. Second, Reynolds returns to his earlier contention that early humans were not hostile to strangers. " [I]t is not clear from any evidence that groups would be hostile to each other in the early phases of human evo lution, nor indeed that hostility would tend to increase in times of shortages of scarce resources " (Reynolds 1980, 3 1 2 ) . He then goes on to give eth nographic examples of groups combining in times of shortage and sharing food, describing the Kalahari Bushmen as grouping around the few re maining water holes in dry seasons. Different kin groups combine rather than cleave unto their own, contradicting kin selection theory. Reply: The evidence for early human behavior comes from descriptions of near primate relatives and contemporary hunter-gatherers. The best studied of the great apes, chimpanzees and gorillas, maintain group territorial boundaries. In tergroup migration occurs, but so does predation in the case of chimpan zees. A chimpanzee community has been observed systematically exterminating its neighbor, and chimpanzees "patrol" their borders, cau tiously approaching the territory of other groups ( Boehm 1992; Wrangham and Peterson 1996 ) . As for hunter-gatherers, I have already referred to their endemic intergroup strife, resulting in homicide rates much higher than the worst-case Western societies (Konner and Shostak 1986; Keeley 1996 ) . The Bushmen follow this pattern. Neither do they offer much help for Reynold's assertion of the irrelevance of kinship. Whether in adversity or plenty, so cial organization centers on kinship, and the more territorially extensive an exchange network, the more likely it is to be comprised of kin (Wiessner 1981, personal communication ) . One could add that in cultures with ag riculture and larger group sizes, internal group conflict tends to occur along genetic cleavages, and when group fissioning occurs, it does so along fa milial and clan lines (e.g., Chagnon 1 9 8 0 ) . A more plausible criticism of van den Berghe's evolutionary scenario is based on the free rider effect, a criticism raised by Rushton ( 1 989). If ethnic nepotism has persisted for many millennia, it must be evolutionarily stable,

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meaning that the gene coding for the behavior must not be selected out of the gene pool. The problem parallels that of investment in kin. In both cases, two problems confront the would-be nepotist: how to identify kin/ coethnics and choosing a type of investment likely to increase the fitness of the altruist's genes. Ethnic nepotism has the added problem of avoiding free riders. Recognition is close to foolproof between close kin, especially for moth ers, who track the identity of children from birth. The recognition problem is more difficult in the case of coethnics, because there is the possibility of impersonation. An unrelated individual might adopt the dress, habits, or speech of a group and thus gain the benefits of its member's altruism. Van den Berghe discussed the issue and suggested that ethnic nepotism is more likely to manifest itself when group markers are difficult to fake, such as accents imprinted in childhood or racial differences. Rushton ( 1 989) takes this idea one step further and argues that shared genes can be detected by their phenotypic effects, both somatic and behavioral. The well-known ten dency for friends and spouses to be similar across a broad range of char acteristics is evidence for channeling of altruism toward genetically similar individuals, a tendency that might mitigate the free rider problem. 7 Cultural strategies for combating free riders include traditions of ritual indoctrina tion, which are effective in expanding in-group identification to encomp ass the tribe as defined by cultural group markers (Eibl-Eibesfeldt 1998; Wiessner 1998 ) . Markers partly evolve culturally (Boyd and Richerson 1987) and are partly adopted as deliberate social technologies (Wiessner and Tamu 1998 ) . In modern, multiethnic societies, enculturation to the dominant language and customs blurs ethnic boundaries, raising the sali ence of racial markers. In the United States, assimilation is occurring within the races (Alba 1985), leaving the racial boundary as a major visible de marcation of group identification. Racial boundaries usually mark disjunc tive genetic difference. Finding a way to invest in a large group such as an ethnie is at least as difficult as identifying its members. The danger of overinvesting is as great as underinvesting, since anonymous coethnics are weakly related compared to close kin. How to benefit an ethnic group as a whole by individual action? Individuals cannot usually benefit a large group by distributing some personal resource, because the average benefit is too low to be sig nificant. Goetze ( 1 999 ) argues that ethnic groups have persisted because of public goods. A public good is some benefit possessing two properties, jointness of supply and nonexcludability. Jointness of supply means that the good is not diminished by consumption, so that any number can benefit. Nonexcludability means that no member of the group can be prevented from consuming the good. The classic example of a public good is a light house, whose warning beams can equally assist any number of boats and


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which no boat can be excluded from utilizing. Public goods invested in particular groups are better labeled collective goods. The issue of how best to provide collective goods in the face of free riders was brought before a large audience with Olson's ( 1 965 ) book, The Logic of Collective Action. As a solution, Olson argued that enlightened self-interest should encourage individuals to voluntarily contribute to collective goods. However, from an evolutionary perspective, collective goods represent an opportunity for en lightened free riding. Others such as Hardin ( 1968, 1999) maintain that only external sanctions such as social controls imposed by the state can prevent free riding and the "tragedy of the commons. " Goetze focuses on ecologies containing resources that can be jointly pro visioned, what he names "nonsubtractable resources. " Such resources in clude large-game animals well beyond the capacity of an individual or a family to consume, and mutual defense against predators. His example is that of the sentry who risks his life to warn the group: every member benefits, making the warning a collective good. Heroism in battle also qual ifies as a jointly provisioned good, because most or all within the home group benefit. Goetze concludes that the advantages of joint provision to a genetically related population made the ethnic group a potentially evo lutionary stable unit from tribal to modern times. Organization is one powerful means for providing collective goods, and both social controls on free riders and the provision of public goods are more effective or possible when performed by coordinated groups. Thus one strategy for investing in the ethnie is to voluntarily participate in some type of ethnically directed organization, or not to resist authoritative con scription to such bodies. Examples include tribal hierarchies, informal net works, community service bodies, and national armies and bureaucracies. How best to prevent free riding? The free rider problem was first rec ognized by political thinkers as a problem of public goods. Since no mem ber of the society could be prevented from consuming a public good, it was vulnerable to free riders who contributed nothing to maintaining the public good. As already hinted at above by Hardin, the free rider problem can be solved by social controls. The aim is to guarantee that unrelated group members do not benefit without contributing in return, so that altruism is replaced by reciprocity. Monitoring and punishment of free riders is re ported by Eibl-Eibesfeldt ( 1 982 ) as part of primitive group strategies and theorized in a similar vein by Boyd and Richerson ( 1 992 ) . Hunter-gatherer societies, primitive horticulturalists, and other small-scale societies exercise intensive mutual monitoring and punishment of deviance from group norms that arguably have been sufficient to solve the free rider problem during human evolution (Myers 1986; Henry 1988; Rayner 1988; Boehm 19 93, 1996 ) .

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Evolutionary Theory and Ethnic Conflict Criticism of Ultimate Analysis

Reynolds criticizes van den Berghe for taking a special interest in evo lutionary causes and recommends that ethnic actors be asked why they behave the way they do, since " a close historical analysis [of] the decisions and statements of individuals . . . provides better evidence and should be taken as the best reasons why the situations we find do in fact exist" (Reyn olds 1980, 314 ) . Reply: While models based on self-reports will help ex plain immediate or "proximate" causes, they do not complete the explanatory process. All sciences strive toward constructing ever-more gen eral theory, and evolutionary theorists are no different. They aspire to elu cidate causal chains from behavior back to the ultimate level of causation where it can be linked to the laws of probability and the physical sciences. From the evolutionary perspective, proximate causes are necessary but are themselves in need of explanation.

Criticism from Social Construction Theory

lin sociology] man is conceived of as constructing his realities and constructing his society, and constructing the screen through which he views other people and in deed the screen through which he views himself. [He is] a largely self-constructed agent and in his construction of himself, others, the surrounding social world and even to some extent the surrounding physical world, the use of language and the categories of his cultures are the decisive elements . . . . This set of causes and this set of directional processes is familiar to all sociologists, social anthropologists, and social psychologists. (Reynolds 1 980, 3 1 3 )

Reply: Vicious circularity i s evident in this version o f radical construc tionism. Man constructing himself? Who or what constructed the original unconstructed person? From which vantage point does man the constructor perceive himself and the world? If the very act of perceiving is itself con structed, why bother perceiving as opposed to imagining? The use of the term reality in the quotation instead of environment hints at ontological relativism. However, a less radical version of constructionist theory has no difficulty incorporating biological concepts. The basic analytic approach of social technology theory is to study the ways in which cultural inventions manipulate the biological givens of behavior (Caton 1988; Geiger 1988; Salter 1995 ) . Van den Berghe's theory is a contribution to scientific con structionism which, along with a handful of seminal contributions, includ ing one by Reynolds ( 1973 ), presaged a growing corpus of ideas on the subject. The core idea is that modern humans have evolved sufficient "polytechnic intelligence " or generalized tool-making-and-using ability to begin fashioning social relations in a deliberate manner (Caton 1988, ch. 1 ) . Elements of the behavioral repertoire, such as dominance and affiliative


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signals, can be deployed deliberately to coordinate group efforts. Initially, social construction was guided by intuition and folk knowledge of human nature, and intuition still informs most small-scale social experiments in businesses, parenting, or politics. Our social and political institutions are amalgams of the more successful of these experiments, selected through cultural evolution (Salter 1995 ) . In the twentieth century, the psychological and sociological sciences became sufficiently sophisticated to provide fairly reliable advice to advertisers and politicians, elevating the ancient art of rhetoric to new heights of persuasiveness. Professional social technologists take the form of advertisers, political consultants, politicians, administra tors, and other practitioners of the manipulatory arts and sciences . One topical example is the rock-for-a-cause campaigns, concerts used as inter national mobilization strategies. These attract attention with celebrity ap pearances and form a medium and an arena for political campaigns couched in the rhetoric of moral protest, using demographically targeted narrative, graphic design, and music (Lahusen 1996). Van den Berghe's discussion of the flexibility of ethnic markers overlaps with social technology theory. Cultural markers such as dress, ritual, grooming, and ideology offer the possibility for imposture, of an individual or a group imitating the dress or manners of another group and as a result receiving resources or cooperation from them. An evolved countermeasure is to give priority to markers that are difficult to fake, such as race and dialect. The concept of socially defined or fictive kinship based on ethnic markers to which van den Berghe has contributed is well developed in anthropological (e.g. Silk 1980; Wiessner 1 998 ), ethological (Eibl Eibesfeldt 1972 ) , sociobiological (Alexander 1979; Shaw and Wong 1989), and political (Johnson, Ratwick, and Sawyer 1 9 8 7; Masters 1989; War necke, Masters, and Kempter 1992; Holper 1 996) research. The point is that ethnic nepotism theory allows for strategies of ethnic imitation and exclusion, as individuals and groups seek to adapt to the group terrain. We can expect ethnic markers to be sensitive to circumstances and to be used strategically. The most sophisticated rendering of ethnies as constructed entities is cul tural group selection theory, as formulated by Boyd and Richerson ( 1 985, 1987, 19 92; Richerson and Boyd 1998 ) and applied by MacDonald ( 1 994 ) . Groups can adopt cultural elements, including group markers of dress and material culture, that demarcate them from other groups. Other cultural elements can cause group members to monitor and regulate one another's behavior so as to ensure endogamy and cooperation while minimizing free riding on that cooperation. Cultural group strategies can be so effective that they select for phenotypes that manage best in the culturally estab lished milieu. As Boyd and Richerson title their 1 992 paper, " [p]unishment allows the evolution of cooperation (or anything else) in sizable groups. " MacDonald ( 1 994 ) observes that, in principle, any group could initiate a

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cultural group strategy for differentiating themselves into what would be come an ethnic group within several generations of panmixia within the group. But his examples, from ancient Sparta to medieval European Cath olics to traditional Jewish communities, are all previously existing ethnic groups. No examples exist of the deliberate creation of a new ethnic group from disparate elements, apart from minority assimilation into a majority group. The latter indicates a dominant role for the maj ority group strategy. In practice, cultural group selection is an ethnic or a subethnic group strat egy that suppresses individual-level competition to boost group competi tiveness or to achieve some other group goal. The probable reason for the conservativism of a social technology that in principle could create novel types of groups is that all social manipulations must work with the existing human biogram, a limited repertoire of social behaviors. The biogram sets limits on social engineering that result in certain social forms such as hi erarchy, the nuclear family, and ethnocentrism, arising in diverse ecological and cultural settings (Salter 1995). Based on cultural group selection theory, it can be argued that group strategies override kin selection, causing tribal members to give priority to nonkin over kin interests. Such prioritizing is necessary if free riding is to be controlled. But no researcher in this field has produced an evolutionarily stable example of a group strategy that radically blocks inclusive fitness of group members while still reproducing itself over many generations. All examples are tribal, that is, ethnic, in which most individuals are able to personally reproduce and in which they have a strong genetic interest in group continuity. Certainly cultural group strategies can in principle over ride kin selection at both levels, preventing personal reproduction and (as a result) group reproduction. But Hamilton ( 1 9 7 1 ) argues that even limited sacrifice of personal fitness, as when a warrior sacrifices his life in defense of the group, is only evolutionarily stable when such behavior amounts to investment in inclusive fitness, by maintaining or raising the frequency of the hero 's genes in the group. As Reeve (2000) argues, all group selection theories are constrained by the inclusive fitness theory. By 1986, Reynolds had softened his criticisms of sociobiology. One set of data still not available by that date should be mentioned here, since it attests to the deep biological wellspring of ethnic behavior. Psychological and ethological studies of group discrimination during face-to-face inter actions have revealed that much prejudice is subconscious, indeed, that it operates much too quickly for conscious deliberation. Frey ( 1 998) reviews some of these data, noting that they confirm the ethological theory of innate releasers that affect motivation in an almost automatic sequence (Eibl Eibesfeldt 1 9 8 9 ) . The speed with which individuals categorize others ac cording to affective categories led Zajonc ( 1 980) to coin the phrase "preferences need no inferences . " In original research, Frey and his asso ciates found that subjects did not appreciably change their character judg-


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ment based on photographs if the picture was shown permanently or if it was shown for only one-quarter of a second. Another interesting devel opment in psychology that supports kin selection theory is the finding that human reasoning does not strictly follow the normative models set out in logic, being instead structured in such a way as to favor inclusive fitness (Wang in press). Is Flux

a

Problem for Ethnic Nepotism Theory?

An initially plausible criticism of biological theories of ethnicity is the claim that they do not allow for the observed flux in ethnic solidarity. A related but less convincing criticism will be considered, which claims that ethnic identity itself is labile. The strong argument is that if ethnic identity is biological, and competition between groups is rooted in the genes, then identity should be impervious to change, and group competition should vary only as a function of perceived genetic distance. The argument seems good and only requires the addition of data on ethnic change to invalidate or seriously qualify the image of ethnic identity and sentiment as inexpun geable and unchangeable. The same challenge is directed at primordialist theory by instrumentalists, who contend that ethnicity can be chosen as a strategy to defend or seize resources, and by circumstantialists, who show how ethnic sentiment waxes and wanes depending on external contingen cies. This is a valid obj ection to ethnic nepotism theory when it is inter preted to entail stasis, and I now review some of these arguments with an eye to better defining the factors to be accommodated, if at all pos sible. Fisher's ( 1 978) study of ethnic politics among Indian immigrants to the United States is cited as exemplifying the situational approach to ethnic identity ( Scott 1990 ). Fisher claims to have documented "the conscious creation of a new ethnic group in the American tradition" (283 ) . What she actually observed was an attempt by Indian (not Amerindians) ethnic ac tivists to forge a unified pan-Indian ethnic organization able to lobby the federal government for affirmative action benefits and foreign policy out comes favorable to India. She offers no evidence other than an instrumental adoption of a single name and change of meeting style. Lopez and Espiritu ( 1 990) also studied panethnicity among Indian Americans, but in compar ison with three other U.S. racial minorities: Asian Americans, Latinos, and Native Americans. They found different success rates for panethnicity among these groups, but even the most successful groups balked at crossing the racial boundary (213 ), despite the economic and political benefits of cooperation. Tactical cooperation was not accompanied by assimilation, a phenomenon most noticeable among racially diverse Latinos. The differ ential success of panethnic organizations observed by Lopez and Espiritu is probably attributable in part to economic and political factors. But they have made an exceedingly weak case for excluding ethnic nepotism as a

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factor, considering that according to their own data, panethnicism is neg atively related to genetic diversity or, as they put it, " [t]hose three groups that from an outsider's point of view are most racially homogeneous are also the groups with the greatest panethnic development. " Let us now turn briefly to another approach that seeks to explain ethnic flux. Rational choice theory applied to ethnicity attempts to explain asso ciated phenomena as the outcome of individual utility-maximizing deci sions (Banton 1983; Hardin 1995 ) . It is thus a type of instrumentalism. While it is obvious that individuals formulate and pursue strategies to achieve goals, without a primordial or biological account, this tells us noth ing about the persistence of ethnicity and the intense emotions and self sacrifice that punctuate ethnic relations (van den Berghe 1978; Connor 1993, 1994, ch. 6; Geertz 1996/1 963 ) . Van den Berghe ( 1 981, 254-56) argues that ethnic nepotism is quite consistent with individual strategizing. Nepotism does not monopolize humans' social repertoire, and since we are flexible strategizers, our decisions regarding ethnicity probably fall into fitness-maximizing patterns analogous to classical microeconomics. I have deliberately chosen especially blatant examples of conscious manipulation of ethnicity for personal gain. This is not to say that ethnic politics are always a thoroughly conscious and cynical game, or that people do not often have deep ethnic attachments that they take seriously. Indeed, I have repeatedly emphasized the depth of primordial ethnic attachments, suggesting a biological basis for its nonrationality . . . . [N]epotism itself is a fitness-maximizing game, albeit often an unconscious one. There are circumstances under which the benefits to be derived from nepotism are superseded by other forms of sociality. Because humans have a considerable capacity for making conscious cost/benefit calculations, ethnicity can be rationally manipulated or indeed superseded by other considerations. (van den Berghe 1 98 1 , 255-56)

The rational choice detour helps examine Okamura's ( 19 8 1 ) version of "situational ethnicity, " another challenge to the permanence implied by "primordialism" that might be turned against ethnic nepotism theory. This approach emphasizes "the differing criteria for ascription of ethnic identi ties, the fluidity of ethnic boundaries, and the varying relevance of ethnic and other social identities " (452 ) . Okamura argues that under the apartheid regime in South Africa, ethnic identity was a strong determinant of social relations because it was imposed externally. The normal fluidity of group identity originating from individual choice was thus structurally con strained. When choice is available, when group identity is up to "self ascription, " an actor chooses from one of the ethnic groups to which he or she belongs, or even to that which he or she has not previously belonged (454 ) . The motive driving a choice is individual " advantage " or "interests," and these can lead an actor to assert or obscure his or her ethnicity.


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However, in some situations, including whole societies for a period of history, individuals can have little room to maneuver, especially when a dominant ethnie refuses to acknowledge the claimed identity of members of subordinate groups (45 5 ) . On the face of it, Okamura's formulation confounds externally and subjectively defined ethnicity. Sub ordinate groups are often sincere in claiming an ethnic identity and retain that claim even when it disadvantages them economically or socially (Spicer 197 1 ) . Oka mura advances no examples to support his contra assertion, though Lopez and Espiritu ( 1 990) point to ascribed Latino identity by the American news media as an imposed identity. It is, however, an empirical matter whether and under which conditions a group accepts the identity imposed upon it by outsiders, and Lopez and Espiritu concede that Latino identity is racially fragmented. The assertion of the primacy of individual interests challenges the orig inal primordialist claim that ethnic group identity is somehow compulsive in demanding loyalty ( Geertz 1 996/1 963 ) . The criticism is valid for this early form of primordialism but not for the developed theory. In particular, ethnic nepotism theory has no trouble with the idea that the salience of ethnic identity can fluctuate between situations. Individual welfare and val ues should be expected to carry considerable weight much of the time in determining action. From this perspective, ethnic identity can be an indi vidual advantage or disadvantage, depending on circumstance. Members of persecuted minorities can be tempted to conform by suppressing group markers, a social-technological adaptation. The diplomatic value of sup pressing identity is humorously expressed in the T-shirt message written in Arabic and intended to be worn by tourists in the Middle East: "I am not an American. " In most circumstances, individual interests coincide with inclusive fitness interests, and even more so if one defines personal interest to include the welfare of close kin. And that is the point. Although Oka mura's thesis rests on the concept of interests, he offers no theory of how people define their interests prior to adopting an instrumental or a forced ethnicity. Again, the alternative position to ethnic nepotism soon runs out of causal links and makes do with proximate mechanisms. From an evo lutionary perspective, individual utility seeking is to be expected as adaptive behavior whose ultimate function is reproduction of the actor's genes. The question is whether, in situations of heightened ethnic competition, there is a broad tendency for individuals to extend the entity on whose behalf they strategize to kin and then their whole ethnie. A biologically informed version of Okamura's position comes from Sil verman and Case ( 1 998 ), who concede that close kinship is a universal basis for group strategizing and self-sacrificial behavior. They do not op pose the everyday observation that parents sacrifice for their children and that this has an evolutionary origin. But they apply Okamura's individual-

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utility argument in the case of ethnicity. It is to this more credible argument that I now turn. Silverman and Case ( 1 998) challenge the ethnic nepotism theory of van den Berghe ( 1 9 8 1 ) with two arguments. The first is based on original psy chological research in which they put hypothetical choices to undergradu ates. These involved scenarios in which the decision maker could favor his or her own individual or "pragmatic" interests or those of his or her ethnic group. Scenarios differed in the hypothetical risks or costs posed to those who chose to show group solidarity, varying from zero risk to inconven ience to substantial risks of physical injury and financial loss. When the risk of helping the group was zero, more than 90 percent of respondents expressed ethnocentrism toward their own groups. But as soon as risks began to apply to solidarity, the frequency of support fell away. Silverman and Case conclude that ethnocentrism, and hence van den Berghe's ethnic nepotism theory, does not explain ethnic warfare and communal strife in which individuals kill and run the risk of being killed. Instead, they reiterate Silverman's ( 1 987) theory that beyond the bonds of close kin, social deci sions evolved to be based on pragmatic concerns or individual utility: The premise . . . resides in the prominent function of intra- and inter-group alliances in hominid evolution. [N]atural selection would have favoured the ability to form the most effective alliances; that is, to find allies best suited to meet the specific goals of specific endeavours, either cooperative or competitive. Further, the for mation of effective alliances would be enhanced by plasticity, meaning the capacity to forge the most beneficial allegiances for a given set of circumstances and to shift allegiances as circumstances changed . . . . Plasticity, defined in this manner, will be naturally constrained by invariant commitments to a specific class of others based on genetic factors; thus, ethnic nepotism would have been a maladaptive charac teristic. ( Silverman and Case 1998, 390; emphasis in original)

The question is, effective for what? In evolutionary analysis, an attempt is made to identify the fitness effects of behavior. Given individual mortal ity, ultimate success resides in reproduction, spreading one's genes . Inclu sive fitness can be increased by helping relatives reproduce, creating a common genetic interest among kin groups to cooperate in advancing their group interests. This is not to say that competition does not exist within families. From the perspective of the neo-Darwinian genetic calculus, a be havioral predisposition will become more frequent in the population if it enhances inclusive fitness. Thus, brothers are notoriously loyal because over the course of human evolution, this has generally served to increase their shared inclusive fitness. But brotherly love is not an infinite quantity. Broth ers have been known to kill one another when competing for some valuable resource able to confer great individual repro ductive benefit, such as an inheritance or a throne (Dunbar, Clark, and Hurst 1995 ) . Within families


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and communities, age and sex categories influence decisions to show altru ism (Burnstein et al. 1994, in press). And individual reproductive benefit can override even familial loyalty. To count as an evolutionary argument, and thus as one able to oppose or support ethnic nepotism theory, Silverman and Case's pragmatism hy pothesis needs to be recast in terms of a choice between an individual or a kin-solidarity strategy as opposed to a strategy of ethnic solidarity. Put thus, their position is that as soon as some significant cost (including risk) is imposed on group solidarity, individuals defect and fall back on individual- or kin-benefiting choices. Silverman and Case indirectly concede that family solidarity can be justified in sociobiological terms of kin selec tion, as "naturally constrained by invariant commitments to a specific class of others based on genetic factors " (390). In fact, family squabbles can turn violent as any police officer can attest, and family solidarity is relatively, not invariably, strong. The interesting question raised by Silverman and Case is whether ethnic solidarity is ever strong enough to cause interethnic violence. Their data indicate that in Canada in the 1990s college students do have ethnic identities and are willing to admit to nominal solidarity, but they go no further, certainly nowhere near killing or risking being killed. But this should come as no surprise, given the social and political climate. Silverman and Case's study lacks verisimilitude. It does not tap the in tense group identification and mobilization that precede ethnic conflict, or the emotional events and propaganda responsible. What is needed are cor relations between group ethnocentrism and solidarity where the two are measured independently. Ethnocentrism could be measured in terms of per capita contributions to ethnic organizations, or the circulation of ethnic newspapers, or the degree of bloc voting. Solidarity in highly mobilized individuals and groups needs to be compared to that of the unmobilized kind studied by Silverman and Case. The fact that solidarity falls away as associated risks increase is wholly consistent with ethnic nepotism theory. What would disconfirm the theory is a finding that more ethnocentric in dividuals and groups are no more willing to take risks, but this test was not performed because ethnocentrism was operationalized as acts of soli darity. This led them to write that ethnocentrism declined with risk. It is more plausible to assume that individuals possess a degree of ethnocentrism that is sensitive to the cultural climate (e.g., propaganda and indoctrina tion ), threats to the group ( Spicer 197 1 ) , and peer-group pressure to con form. These factors probably coalesce prior to ethnic strife, producing extreme ethnocentrism. This initial escalation is local but spreads in re sponse to initial outrages. Leaders, whether at the national or local level, exploit the situation to add the crucial organizational ingredient, which legitimizes, coerces, and coordinates acts of intergroup violence (Milgram 1974 ) . As Bell ( 1 9 75, 169) has suggested, manipulation of ethnicity is often potent " because it can combine an interest with an affective tie. Ethnicity

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provides a tangible set of common identification-in language, food, music, names-when other social roles become more abstract and impersonal. " Whatever model is adopted, it must allow for the rapid shifts in ethnic commitment and the ways it is marshalled or dampened by events, leaders, and institutions. The point I am making here is that ethnic nepotism theory and behavioral-biological approaches in general are not only consistent with such models but should be taken into account in developing them. Recognizing the volatility of ethnic solidarity is not limited to nonprimor dial or nonbiological theories. For example, Fishman ( 1 996/1980, 168-69) accepts a limited role for biological factors in ethnicity, observing that eth nicity is a powerful need, and remarks: "The immemorial nature of un mobilized ethnicity and its power when mobilized are patent and potent in Eastern Europe. " One strength of Silverman and Case's study is that it offers a view of the pervasive ethnocentric bias characterizing peacetime life in multicultural societies. Everyday acts of ethnic bias involve conditions of such low risk that they approximate the no-risk condition in their study. It would have been interesting if very slight risks had been presented to respondents, risks that were commensurate with the low degree of ethnic mobilization and the slight kinship represented by ethnicity and the somewhat higher level represented by race. 8 Yet arguably they did not provide examples of risks low enough to match the ethnic kinship distance. Neither the 5 percent risk of death in the seventh scenario or even the 1 percent risk in the fourth scenario is commensurate to the slight degree of kinship shared with av erage ethnic group members. And, as noted, none of the scenarios simulated (or could simulate, given the choice of student Canadian respondents in the 1 990s) the highly aroused climate in which individuals take risks and kill others in time of war. Another problem is that, even when confidenti ality was assured, it was difficult to control for the effect of official dogma and moral climate, in the case of Canada, the ideology of multiculturalism. It is possible that, despite anonymity, students were reluctant to express strong ethnic commitment, such as the willingness to hurt or seriously dis advantage out-groups, in order to benefit the in-group. The second argument made by Silverman and Case is historical and sociological, based on the 1994 genocide of the Tutsi by the Hutus in Rwanda and on the recent brutal ethnic war that occasioned the breakup of Yugoslavia. These examples contradict the theory that ethnic conflict serves genetic interests, they argue, since in both cases there was little if any genetic distance between the antagonistic groups. In the case of Rwanda, Silverman and Case have chosen a most unfortunate example to argue against van den Berghe, since in his main formulation of ethnic nep otism theory he offers an analysis of this situation and predicts bad times ahead. Despite some intermarriage, the two groups have distinct ethnic


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identities, with a pronounced racial difference bolstering cultural and his torical elements. The Tuzi . . . are a racially and socially self-conscious ruling group . . . [who] dom inate and exploit the Hutu peasantry. They developed a genuine racist ideology, taking pride in their slender, tall stature (some 15 em taller than the Hutu, and 30 em taller than the Twa, on average) and their distinctive facial features (such as their aquiline nose) and looking down on both the Hutu and Twa as coarse, ugly and inferior. . . . The Tuzi, headed by the Mwami (king), are the ruling aristocracy. They specialize in warfare and administration, despise manual labor and endeavor to spend as much of their lives in conspicuous leisure as possible. (van den Berghc 1 9 8 1 , 72-73 )

When Belgium granted independence to Rwanda in the late 1950s and a democratic system was installed, Tutsi rule faced a legitimacy crisis, in van den Berghe's view because the ethnic-kinship basis of monarchical au thority did not extend to the Hutu masses. Soon the Hutu peasantry over threw their Tutsi masters, resulting in the massacre and mass exodus of the latter into neighboring countries, retaliatory raids, and an estimated death toll of 12,000 during 1962-1963, involving " arson, pillage, rape, torture, and mutilations characteristic of ethnic conflicts" (van den Berghe 1981, 75 ) . In short, the Rwandan genocide of 1994 is one of the clearest confir mations of ethnic nepotism that can be imagined. The Yugoslav example is equally weak, but for a different reason. It is true that Bosnians, who converted to Islam under pressure from the ruling Ottomans, are genetically close to the Serbs. However, this misses the point that what counts according to ethnic nepotism theory is the percep tion of shared descent or other cues of kinship. As noted earlier, nationalist and racist propaganda seeks to exaggerate existing differences in descent, or to invent them where necessary. Emerging nations typically deploy "fic tive kinship" ideology and rituals, from revolutionary France to the Eastern European states newly liberated from communist rule (Masters 1993 ). Fic tive kinship at the national level works on cultural markers described by van den Berghe ( 1 9 8 1 ) and Geertz ( 1 996/1963 ), usually giving priority to shared language, religion, and customs to imply shared blood. The prop aganda task is eased by any factors suggesting different ancestry. The phys ical difference between Tutsi and Hutus and widespread knowledge of their different origins worsened hostilities by strengthening the impression of unrelatedness. There were other cues to unrelatedness in the Yugoslav case, even if exaggerated by propaganda. As Silverman and Case point out, only 26 percent of Bosnian residents are of mixed ancestry after centuries of coexistence with other groups. This indicates considerable endogamy, con sistent with the perception that Bosnians and Serbs are different descent groups. It also fits genetic analysis, which finds a sharp genetic gradient

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corresponding to the linguistic boundary between northwestern and south eastern Yugoslavia (Barbujani and Sokal 1990). The markedly different religions and associated contrasts in dress and rituals added to the sense of unrelatedness, embittered by persistent memories of long-past insults. There were thus existing ethnic distinctions and sentiment on which nationalist propaganda and reactions to fresh atrocities could build. The task of con structing fictive kinship was greatly eased by the fact that the fiction was not that great. Silverman and Case offer an alternate interpretation for Serb aggression: " [They] were motivated by impending economic isolation and the aggres sion was an attempt to increase their territorial domain and material resources." But this is quite compatible with ethnic loyalty being an im portant factor in the escalation of the conflict. If shared economic destiny was the real motivation behind the leadership's decisions and/or the pop ulation's support for them, why was there pronounced ethnic rivalry within economically privileged and disadvantaged regions and classes ? Why did the Serbian and Bosnian elites care if their people suffered economically ? elites can usually protect their personal interests. The instrumentalist view that group identification can be based on shared economic status or pro spective status ( "class consciousness " ) has less plausibility than the conten tion that such shared interests increase solidarity based on preexisting ethnic identity. However, such rational solidarity would hardly explain the risk-taking and passions that characterize ethnic conflict. Heroism is not good business practice. Another criticism from Silverman and Case is that in neither Rwanda nor Yugoslavia did conflict emerge from the grass roots, where ethnic nep otism theory would predict, but was whipped up from above by politicians: "The war was fuelled continuously and relentlessly by ethnic hate mongering. " But to reiterate the response to criticism number two above, made by Sahlins ( 1 976) , on what does such mongering work ? If there was no predisposition to identify with some group on the basis of ethnicity and to pursue group interests as opposed to purely individual interests, how can we explain the historical success of ethnic hate mongering ? Simple genetic determinism certainly fails to explain varying levels of ethnic soli darity, but it seems inconsistent to say that ethnic wars are fuelled by hate propaganda and then to state that ethnic attitudes were more an outcome than a cause of the conflict. If differential ethnic loyalty-in-group versus out-group-is an epiphenomenon, why have so many leaders, including consummate politicians, chosen ethnic identity as the preferred vehicle of united action ? Why have they chosen to invest limited propaganda re sources in ethnic themes ? It is no defense to claim that such an investment is functional because it provides justification or rationalization of an oth-


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erwise pragmatic policy; the issue is still reduced to the question of why appeals to ethnic solidarity have succeeded so often. The social technology theory of ethnic mobilization grapples with pre cisely the sort of indeterminacy that Silverman and Case document-bio logical predispositions are a weak basis on which to predict the particulars of history, including political decisions; such particulars are biologically "underdetermined" (MacDonald 1995 ) . Rather, leaders and the institutions they marshall manipulate evolved predispositions for various purposes. This is not a reason to deny that such predispositions exist but to better understand them and their combinatory grammar. Van den Berghe ( 1 981, ch. 12) describes the ways in which individuals manipulate ethnicity for personal gain, such as adopting elements of a dominant group's culture to gain resources. Individuals also strategize on behalf of their groups, and the resulting system of patronage can also satisfy individual goals. In other words, humans are highly intelligent, flexible strategizers for whom ethnic ity, that of others as well as self, is one more factor to manipulate for various ends. This fits quite well with social technology theory. Indeed, van den Berghe 's text is a founding contribution to the social technology theory of ethnicity. To summarize this section, the preceding critics are right to point to historical examples of large swings in ethnic solidarity and assertiveness and even in individual expressions of ethnicity between situations. How ever, the case for the changeability of group identity is weak, since the examples offered do not go beyond fission and fusion of closely related groups. The veto that race exercises over panethnicity supports this view. The same veto applies to the United States as a whole, where recently arrived European immigrants are rapidly assimilating to the broad category "European American" (Alba 1 990). All of this is quite in accordance with primordialism and sociobiological theory. The latter positions are not to tally unprepared for the phenomenon of flux. Among the primordialists, for example, Connor ( 1993 ) discusses the instrumental use of kinship terms by ethnic leaders to elicit "massive, popular responses, " implying that eth nic sentiment changes depending on circumstance. Connor's approach is implicitly reductive to psychology and biological processes. The sociobiol ogical position also has no problem in principle dealing with flux, with van den Berghe ( 1 981, 62; see also 255-56) remarking: "Nationalist move ments are volatile and highly responsive to historical opportunities such as wars, revolutions and the breakdown of imperial systems. " He also notes that any two populations thrown into close proximity tend to assimilate one into the other, due to intermarriage. The process occurs faster with closely related groups, but in the long run, fusion occurs even between constrasting ethnies because they come to share a common descent and

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ethnicity markers. As a relatively slow process predicated on shared de scent, this presents no difficulties for biological theory.

Is Arbitrary Content a Problem for Ethnic Nepotism Theory?

Ethnic nepotism theory can accommodate rapid change in ethnic identity because such change is, in reality, limited to the expansion or contraction of group boundaries between related peoples. A different challenge comes from the view that the content, rather than the boundary, of ethnic identity is arbitrary with regard to ethnic group formation. This view received its impetus from Barth ( 1 969 ), who shifted attention away from the content of ethnic identity-the culture, history, and other characteristics by which a people identify themselves-and toward the processes by which group borders are established and maintained ( Cornell 1996 ) . The analyses dis cussed in the previous section reflect Barth's influence. The challenge is this: If content is arbitrary, how valid is the definition of ethnicity as putative shared descent? Van den Berghe's answer is that cultural characteristics can signal putative kinship, but he suggests that priority is given to cultural traits that are difficult to acquire. Anyone can don local clothing, but after puberty only a few individuals are able to imitate a local accent sufficiently close to escape detection as an outsider to the culture. Knowledge of complex rituals and folklore is also difficult to acquire, and these are probably also favored as ethnic markers, van den Berghe ( 1 9 8 1 ) argues. Knowledge of family histories gives direct insight into matters of descent but is limited to small communities and by the degree of literacy.9 As argued earlier in this chapter, more recent sociobiological theory takes the process further. Rushton ( 1 989) argues that ethnic and racial solidarity are mass versions of the "like attracts like" rule found to apply to the way humans discriminate in choosing friends and spouses. Attraction is strong est in those traits that are most heavily genetically loaded. This, he argues, is why racial divisions are more enduring than cultural ones. The argument resembles van den Berghe's, and indeed Rushton acknowledges the debt. He summarizes his basic idea as follows: Despite enormous variance within populations, it can be expected that two indi viduals within an ethnic group will, on average, be more similar to each other genetically than two individuals from different ethnic groups. According to genetic similarity theory, people can be expected to favor their own group over others. (Rushton 1989, 5 1 6)

Van den Berghe expresses cautious support for this radical version of his own radical theory.


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The evidence tends to show that whenever intergroup variation in heritable phe notypes is greater than intragroup variation, such phenotypes are used as group membership markers . . . . [T]here is much observational evidence that, when put to a discriminating test, the more heritable markers tend to "win" over the less heri table ones in situations where heritable markers significantly correlate with ethnic ity. (van den Berghe 1 989, 545)

One difference between the two theories is Rushton's omission of the concept of group identity, emphasized by van den Berghe. But as the latter indicates, there is no difficulty in principle in adapting genetic similarity theory to knowledge about identity processes. Rushton's theory might be more useful in generating some different hypotheses than van den Berghe's, such as by ranking priority of group membership markers more finely. Following Barth ( 1 969), sociologists have usually discounted the partic ular content of ethnic identity as being of any great importance. According to this view, any shared set of symbols can be invested with special meaning for group solidarity. This approach was adopted by Spicer ( 1 9 7 1 ), and I shall review his argument. Spicer conceives of long-lasting ethnies as "eth nic identity systems" that sustain themselves by developing cultural devices to oppose assimilation. The systems are comprised of symbols with shared meanings, including shared ethnic history, often mythical. The meanings are longer lasting than the symbols-it is the meanings that are functional and are retained, while actual symbols can change. Spicer studied several persistent ethnic groups, including American Indian nations. Persistent eth nies survive cultural change, especially immersion in dominant state sys tems, and have successfully resisted assimilation into those larger systems. They maintain continuity in a diversity of sociocultural environments. "Each has developed well-defined symbols of identity differentiating it from other peoples, especially from the peoples controlling the state programs that they opposed" ( Spicer 1971, 79 7). One basic symbol is the group name, and opposed groups must have commonly known titles. Identity symbols include a defined territory, not necessarily occupied but once oc cupied in ethnic mythology. Language is another important identity sym bol, and ethnic resurgences typically preserve or resuscitate bits of language identified with the group. Apart from land and language, there is probably no universally present specific symbols associated with identity systems . " [T]here is great flexibility with regard to the kind of cultural element which can be included . . . . What becomes meaningful is probably a func tion of the oppositional process" (798 ) . Identity can be maintained wholly through language and "moral participation" or support for the group's values, and these together do not fluctuate as much as ethnic mobilization, what Spicer calls "political participation." And it is this fluctuation that largely causes the "fluctuations in the intensity of sentiments associated with the symbols . " That is, ethnic identity persists through language and

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moral systems. Political participation, mobilization, or ethnic political or ganization (depending on one's terminology) is built on the persistent iden tity system. Political participation grows "to realize obj ectives in relation to opposing peoples" (799). Without political mobilization, an ethnie's per sisting identity tends to have low visibility to outsiders. It is political par ticipation that produces episodes of intense ethnic conflict and attracts the attention of historians and sociologists. Studies of nationalism usually deal with the mobilization phase and ignore the deeper processes of ethnic con tinuity. Spicer does not discuss the recurring role of kinship symbols, which might be a subset of persistent group symbols. His analysis, though ex emplifying Barth's focus on boundaries, does not contradict evolutionary theory, since he does not rule out shared descent as one special meaning attached to a group 's identity symbols. Van den Berghe also stresses the cultural nature of many ethnic symbols, such as language, a point com patible with Spicer's formulation. Eibl-Eibesfeldt ( 1 9 82) also contends, from an ethological perspective, that group selection led to indoctrinability to arbitrary symbols of group identity. One testable difference between Spicer and van den Berghe is that racial markers are, according to the latter, not arbitrary ethnic content, since they are given high priority as identifying markers whenever racially distinct ethnies come together. Spicer's analysis, particularly his distinction between group identity and mobilization pro cesses, is compatible with ethnic nepotism theory. His model is also com patible with primordialism, since his subject matter consists of persistent cultures. The content of ethnic identity can be arbitrary in the sense of being sociologically determined, but that does not mean that distantly re lated groups rapidly coalesce without intermarrying. Adding the factor of putative common descent to Spicer's model would probably help explain ethnic persistence. Cultural group selection theory, discussed earlier, also focuses on bound ary maintenance. Like Spicer ( 1 97 1 ) , Boyd and Richerson ( 1 985, 1987) and MacDonald ( 1 994, 1998) posit an ethnic identity system with a cul turally regulated process of political participation. But they add a genetic dimension by postulating intragroup selection exerted by the group cultural strategy. And in their theory, groups gain or lose in competitiveness due to their cultural strategies. The latter is thus a more encompassing, integrative concept than Spicer's ethnic identity system. Nevertheless, one end result is the same-persistence of ethnies as descent groups. The preceding discussion has served to canvas a sample of criticisms directed at the notion that ethnic identity has a primordial, familial char acter. In describing van den Berghe's ethnic nepotism theory and criticisms of it, I have traversed several debates and generally have found the criti cisms wanting. That is not to suggest that the theory is complete, but that it explains a considerable range of ethnic phenomena. In the next section,


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I describe features of ethnocentrism that are not obviously explicable by kin selection, and I suggest an additional evolutionary mechanism. MOBILIZATION AND GROUP-AS-VEHICLE SELECTION

While the role of putative kinship in ethnic identity is well supported, the empirical support for kinship terminology as a mobilizing device is not so finn. Johnson ( 1 9 87) and Holper ( 1 996) found higher frequencies of kinship in patriotic speeches but did not distinguish an identity function from a mobilizing one. The most direct test of the hypothesis that kinship terms arouse commitment came from Johnson et al. ( 1 987), who took be fore and after physiological measures of students who read patriotic speeches. The speeches were identical except for substituted kinship and nonkinship rhetoric. The results were inconclusive. In my own analysis of U.S. ethnic publications, kinship terminology was in evidence but was used much less frequently than oppositional ideas (Salter in preparation ) . Although van den Berghe ( 1 9 8 1 ) acknowledges and allows for fluctuat ing levels of mobilization, he offers little analysis. The question yet to be resolved by cross-cultural research is, which events or social techniques solidify and mobilize a people? Must mobilizing rhetoric, for example, re flect the kinship content of group identity, or is perceived threat sufficient once ethnic identity is formed, as Spicer ( 1 971 ) suggests ? Eibl-Eibesfeldt ( 1 982) points out how nationalist indoctrination can induce people to bond to arbitrary symbols, such as flags, and concludes that only group selection can account for this abnegation of individual interests. Campbell ( 1 972 ) and E . 0 . Wilson ( 1 975, 562) also note the extra-kin solidarity that can result from indoctrinability, and they suggest an evolutionary cause of group selection. So do Boyd and Richerson ( 1 985 ) , Soltis, Boyd, and Rich erson ( 1 995 ), and Richerson and Boyd ( 1 998 ), who argue for the cultural group selection model discussed above. In making his argument based on group selection, E. 0. Wilson distin guishes between groups as replicators and as vehicles ( see also Dawkins 19 82; Wilson and Sober 1994 ) . The classical criticisms of group selection have targeted the notion that groups are replicators. To produce genetic effects through differential group reproduction requires a high rate of group extinctions with little intergroup migration, the l atter condition especially being unrealistic in the human case, given the documented exogamy of hunter-gatherer groups (Maynard Smith 1 976 ) . But this criticism does not apply to individual adaptations to group living ( see also Shaw and Wong 1 9 8 9 ) . Groups have been crucial vehicles for individual human survival and reproduction. This has selected for individual traits attracting individuals to groups and holding them there, such as cooperativeness, ranking behav ior, ethnocentrism, and indoctrinability. Individuals who did not manage to fit into a group and conform to social controls on group loyalty would

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have been disadvantaged. As a long-term feature of the species' environ ment, basic elements of primordial groups (composed of thirty to fifty peo ple; face-to-face familiarity; high level of average relatedness; sexual division of labor; egalitarianism; resources attached to identifiable territory bordered by competitive human groups, etc . ) provided information on a reliable basis that did not need to be carried in the genome. In these pri mordial settings, forming an attachment to a larger territorially defined group probably increased fitness as a behavior independent of kinship at tachment. Humans are absurdly easy to indoctrinate-they seek it. If we assume for argument that indoctrinability evolves, at what level does natural selection take place? One extreme possibility is that the group is the unit of selection . . . . The competing, individual-level hypothesis is equally sufficient. It states that the ability of individ uals to conform permits them to enjoy the benefits of membership with a minimum of energy expenditure and risk. Although their selfish rivals may gain a momentary advantage, it is lost in the long run through ostracism and repression. The con formists perform altruistic acts, perhaps even to the extent of risking their lives, not because of self-denying genes selected at the group level but because the group is occasionally able to take advantage of the indoctrinability which on other oc casions is favorable to the individual. (Wilson 1 975, 562)

It is thus reasonable from an evolutionary perspective to look for causes of ethnic solidarity in addition to nepotism. One shortcoming of ethnic nepotism theory is that ethnocentrism, an activating element of intergroup affairs, does not require kinship or ethnicity. Tajfel ( 19 8 1 ) reports a study of group identification in which negative stereotyping of outgroups devel oped spontaneously, in the absence of intergroup competition. Tajfel ran domly assigned subj ects to groups that had no conflict of interest and no history of hostility between them. Even when subj ects were informed of the random composition of the groups, they still attempted to maximize group differences, apparently in an attempt to outcompete other groups. At least in Western cultures, group competition is thus easily triggered. The triggering threshold is lowered and the double-edge effect is intensified when there is a conflict of interest between groups. The seminal research in this area was conducted by Sherif ( 1 966), who randomly assigned boys to groups and then set these groups against one another in a series of competitions. Group membership became a salient aspect of the boys' per sonal identities. Furthermore, the boys negatively stereotyped members of other groups and acted on these evaluations with aggressive conduct (see also Triandis 1990 ) . Emotional attachment to in-group and rejection of out-group members is implicated in these processes. Ethnic-like factors pro duce an exaggerated group identification but are not necessary. However, if one adds the insights provided by Hirschfeld ( 1 996) about an innate


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descent group module, it is clear that people will sort the social environ ment according to kinship and ethnicity and thus be prone to identify with the group to which they belong. There appears to be a critical period in group identity formation in child hood, which involves adoption of the local dialect, enculturation to the mannerisms and appearance of the local population, and in adolescence a surge of loyalty to the community, not just to the extended family (Eibl Eibesfeldt 19 82, 1998 ). Family and group attachments overlap in natural settings, but the tribe encompasses many individuals who are not close kin. In tribal societies, indoctrination is directed in opposition to familial eth nocentrism, and usually succeeds in enhancing tribal solidarity, augmenting group ties with a wider circle of allies (Wiessner 1998 ) . Wiessner argues that this wider solidarity is activated by the kin mimic device of homoge nizing the appearance and behavior of many families, creating a socially defined kinship. She thus posits no bonding motivation in addition to nep otism. But her account is also compatible with group-as-vehicle selection, which could, in principle, have selected for identification with a nonkin group in some circumstances. In the evolutionary environment, this sort of group-as-vehicle selection would not have counteracted kin selection but augmented it. Essentially the same point is made by Corning ( 1 9 8 3 ) , who argues that compatability of egoistic, kin, and group cooperation was due to their synergy. Submerging familial loyalty in a larger tribal solidarity would have redirected some investment previously earmarked for immediate kin, but the wider spread of investment was more optimal, given the threats posed by other groups. Completely self-regarding families could not have defended their territory, but tribes could have. The question then becomes whether this extended group identity can be explained by the cultural manipulation of kinship symbols, or whether in addition a distinct form of identification with and indoctrinability to a wider group evolved. Another test of the two-bonds idea works on the notion that the bond whose ultimate cause is group-as-vehicle selection should have different releasing conditions than the bond caused by kin selection. Between close kin, altruism is relatively insensitive to reciprocity, because part of the pay off is the reproduction of the kinsman, a payoff that does not show up in a transfer of resources but in reproduction and thus the boosting of shared inclusive fitness (Wilson 1 99 1 ) . But submerging individual and family iden tity in an extended nonkin group bears the risk of nonreciprocity from genetic competitors-the free rider problem. Identification and subsequent investment would be more contingent on strategic factors, such as being facilitated and strengthened by evidence of group status, whether a glorious history of conquest or any other history of excellence, such as myths of being a chosen people (Akenson 1992; Smith 1996/1 992 ) . Maintenance of group loyalty should also have been contingent on continuing evidence of

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reciprocity, which underlies much morality. " Moral" conduct toward the in-group would be selected for (or "immoral" conduct selected against) by social controls backed by punishment, in the last resort by expulsion (Eibl Eibesfeldt 1982; Boyd and Richerson 1992 ) . The importance of competence and morality as components of group competitiveness was stated by Dar win: It must not be forgotten that although a high standard of morality gives but a slight or no advantage to each individual man and his children of the same tribe, yet an increase in the number of well-endowed men and advancement in the standard of morality will certainly give an immense advantage to one tribe over another. A tribe including many members who, possessing in a high degree the spirit of patriotism, fidelity, obedience, courage, and sympathy, who were always ready to aid one an other, and to sacrifice themselves for the common good, would be victorious over most other tribes; and this would be natural selection. (Darwin 1 87 1 , 203 )

CONCLUSION

Pierre van den Berghe's ethnic nepotism theory is supported by ethno graphic data on the centrality of kinship as an organizing principle able to release altruism in hunter-gatherer societies. Unlike pure instrumental mod els, the theory explains the powerful emotions, both positive and negative, that punctuate ethnic affairs. By drawing on evolutionary theories of social evolution, the theory offers ultimate explanations of the proximate mech anisms analyzed in the nonevolutionary social science literature. It is com patible with social technology theory and cultural group strategy theory that accept the reality of innate universals of human nature and the ability of humans to construct group strategies for marking ethnic boundaries and pursuing group interests, including the social control of free riders. Ethnic nepotism theory is compatible with rapid changes in ethnic mobilization but predicts relatively slow changes in ethnic boundaries. It also allows for arbitrary content in ethnic identity but posits a ranking of group markers as an evolved mechanism for excluding free riders from altruistic relation ships. Highest priority is given to genetically loaded markers, explaining the invidious nature of interracial relations compared to intercultural re lations. Ethnic nepotism theory might be incomplete from an evolutionary perspective, since in experimental settings ethnocentrism can occur in the absence of shared descent, real or putative, and individuals show a pro nounced degree of indoctrinability to arbitrary group symbols. However, outside of the psychological laboratory, ethnicity is a robust group identi fication. Consideration should be given to group-as-vehicle selection models to augment the kin selection model on which ethnic nepotism theory i s based. Despite some incompleteness, ethnic nepotism theory is parsimonious in


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explaining several key features of ethnic and race relations and is compat ible with or falsifies different approaches held by various critics to be in imicable to it. It is unique in offering an evolutionary causal analysis that also explains kin altruism cross-culturally and in nonhuman species. In addition, it explains the central aspects of the macro-phenomenon of eth nicity in terms of the micro level of kin selection. The theory thus achieves a level of generality and causal depth not achieved by nonevolutionary theories. One major contribution is that the theory addresses the genetic dimension of ethnicity, a fact about which mainstream theory remains si lent, even as the human genome is sequenced and knowledge of human biodiversity rapidly accumulates. Ethnic nepotism theory provides insights that constrain and refine nonbiological theories of both ethnic change and primordialism. Theories of ethnicity that do not take nepotism or other forms of genetic altruism into account forgo important insights, at best are incomplete, and at worst are invalid.

NOTES

1 . Weber ( 1 968, 389), hardly a biological determinist, defined ethicity as: "Those human groups that entertain a subjective belief in their common descent because of similarities of physical type or customs or both or because of memories of col onization and migration." 2. "These congruities of blood, speech, custom, and so on are seen to have an ineffable, and at times overpowering, coerciveness in and of themselves. One is bound to one's kinsman, one's neighbor, one's fellow believer, ipso facto; as the result not merely of personal affection, practical necessity, common interest, or incurred obligation, but at least in great part by virtue of some unaccountable absolute import attributed to the very tie itself. The general strength of such pri mordial bonds, and the types of them that are important, differ from person to person, from society to society, and from time to time. But for virtually every person, in every society, at almost all times, some attachments seem to flow more from a sense of natural-some would say spiritual-affinity than from social in teraction" (Geertz 1996/1963, 42). Eller and Coughlan's ( 1 993) criticism of this language as mystical, spiritual, and nonsociological goes too far, I think. Perhaps because Geertz's concepts or theory were limited, he resorted to hyperbole. The descriptive gap can be filled by information on the relative strength of kinship bonds (Salter in preparation) and the theoretical gap by kin selection theory and perhaps by evolutionary theories proposing the group as the unit of selection (Wilson 1975, 562) . In either case, there is no doubt that Geertz fundamentally advanced this field of inquiry. 3. "Determinists assert that the possibility of change in social institutions is lim ited by the biological constraints on individuals. But we know of no relevant con straints placed on social processes by human biology. There is no evidence from ethnography, archaeology, or history that would enable us to circumscribe the lim its of possible human social organization" ( Sociobiology Study Group 1978/1976, 290) .

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4. There are species in which selfishness is minimal compared to humans. In social insects such as many wasp and ant species, reproduction is monopolized by a queen. The other members of the hive are sterile workers who can only get their genes into the next generation by assisting their royal sister, who carries their own genes (Hamilton 1 964; Wilson 1975 ) . The same system has evolved only once among mammals-in the naked mole rat (Jarvis 1 9 8 1 ) . 5 . In the case o f the hunter-gatherer band, the fitness risk i s loss o f status, life, or territory for close relatives numbering in the tens. In the case of an ethnic group, the risk applies to distantly related, generally anonymous individuals numbering in the thousands or millions. 6. Lorenzian psychology is a more accurate label for a subfield commonly re ferred to as "evolutionary psychology." The title "evolutionary" is inappropriate because adherents eschew the study of individual differences, which lies at the heart of Darwinian theory (Charlesworth 1 999) . However, their near-exclusive focus on species universals is a psychological rendering of classical Austro-German ethology pioneered by Konrad Lorenz and others. Lorenz himself can be considered the "grandfather of evolutionary psychology" because of his pathbreaking work on evolutionary epistemology in which he viewed the Kantian a priori as the product of evolution (Grammer 1998). The name "Lorenzian psychology" is thus more descriptive while avoiding parochialism and recognizing the continuity of this branch of evolutionary thinking. 7. Rushton also maintains that assortative mating and friendship boost inclusive fitness in modern mass societies. This idea is superficially vulnerable to the criticism, made in at least one commentary to his 1989 paper, that phenotypic resemblance is often coded by different alleles on different gene loci. Two individuals could cooperate due to some resemblance but could be genetically distinct. Genetic sim ilarity theory is plausible only within extended families, these critics contend, be cause then phenotypic resemblance stands a good chance of being due to the same gene. However, by the same logic, Rushton's theory is most likely to apply to small, endogamous minorities. And even if the fitness-boosting component of his theory applies mainly to primordial societies, networking based on similarity does appear to be an important cause of micro-ethnic solidarity in Western societies (White 1 993) and could very well provide important insights into mass ethnic phenomena when combined with van den Berghe's identity-based theory. Rushton's own re sponse to critics is to point to confirmation of his theory by data showing mate and friend choice in modern societies correlating with genetic similarity (see a re view Rushton 1989). 8 . A worldwide survey by Cavalli-Sforza, Menozzi, and Piazza ( 1 994) confirms that the geographic races are genetically much more distant than are intraracial ethnic groups. Barbuj ani and Sokal ( 1 990; see also Cavalli-Sforza et a!. 1 994, 271 ) found that thirty-three zones of sharp genetic change in Europe correspond to lin guistic boundaries. Despite hundreds of years of migrations and invasions, tradi tional national boundaries also tend to be genetic boundaries. Since ethnic identities in immigrant societies such as Canada are retained from the Old World, ethnicity probably has the same genetic dimension as found by Barbuj ani and Sokal. 9. Ethnies with long histories of literacy are able to formalize family histories. Among traditional Jewish societies, long genealogies validated by recognized au thorities were important in finding high-status marriage partners within the com munity (MacDonald 1994, ch. 4 ) .

Chapter 4

Contributions of Evolutionary Thinking to Theories of Ethnic Conflict and Its Management Marc Howard Ross

INTRODUCTION

Ethnic conflict is widely viewed as the most significant source of turmoil in the post-Cold War world (e.g., Carment and Rowlands, this volume) . While deadly conflicts such as the Middle East, Sri Lanka, or Northern Ireland are decades old, the more recent attention given to quarrels such as those in Rwanda, Bosnia, Tajikistan, and Chiapas makes it clear that ethnic conflict is not confined to one or two regions of the world and cannot easily be explained in terms of a single cause (Gurr 1993 ) . In fact, as social scientists, our understanding of these conflicts has developed far more slowly than the disputes themselves or our ability to manage them constructively. While all ethnic conflicts can be described in terms of cultural differences between groups, it is crucial to recognize that cultural differences per se do not cause conflicts and, in fact, there are many places in the world in which culturally diverse groups live together in relative harmony and manage to settle disputes relatively peacefully and constructively over long periods of time. Any good theory of ethnic conflict then must account not only for the highly visible intransigent, violent intergroup conflicts but also those situations, such as Scandinavia, Catalonia, Malaysia, Canada, and Andhra Pradesh, where intergroup conflicts are far less intense and groups manage differences much more constructively. In short, an adequate test of any theory must examine the full range of cases, not just those from one tail of the distribution (Fearon and Laitin 1996 ) . Theories of ethnic conflict seek to explain their origin, persistence, inten sity, and termination. Different theories can be distinguished in terms of their degree of focus on each of these questions, the key explanatory mech-

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anisms they employ, and how proximate an explanation for ethnic conflict they offer. While I identify a number of theories of ethnic conflict in this chapter, I emphasize two major groupings-interest and identity theories and consider their central assumptions about ethnic conflict and its man agement. Most commonly, proponents of both interest and identity theories pay relatively little attention to questions of either biological or cultural evo lution. To some extent, this is because their emphasis is on much more proximate forces than those identified in evolutionary theory. At the same time, these theories of ethnic conflict contain unstated assumptions which may or may not be consistent with how evolution is understood. I try to make some of these unstated assumptions explicit and suggest how the broad perspective of evolutionary theory might enrich both interest and identity theories of ethnic conflict while also recognizing some of the am biguities and weaknesses in evolutionary theory. My analysis builds on Donald Campbell's ( 1 983) concern about the relevance of evolutionary mechanisms beyond kin selection. This draws our attention to conditions under which group selection and cultural, as opposed to biological, evo lution affect ethnic conflict and its management. While my analysis does not deny the relevance of the genetic interests kin selection theory identifies as ultimate causes of behavior, I suggest that there are important limitations to the kin selection's explanatory power in light of a strong predisposition to identify with social groups, not just those involving close kin, and con ditions under which cultural evolution and group selection may be more dominant than kin selection processes. I focus on cultural and psychological mechanisms as proximate causes of behavior built upon sociality predis positions rather than emphasizing those behaviors arising from kin selec tion imperatives. While my argument is not necessarily directly at odds with Salter's (this volume), its emphasis is very different indeed. Finally, I turn to questions of ethnic conflict management, first recogniz ing that all theories of conflict make assumptions, often implicit, about conflict management, and all peacemaking proposals contain assumptions about the causes of conflict (Ross 1993a, 1993 b ) . Then I examine the ways in which conflict management proposals, whether they grow out of an in terest or an identity perspective, might be better understood and more likely to succeed when they are consistent with what we know about biological and cultural evolution. To do this I examine the implications for peace making, which accept a deeply rooted ethnocentric human propensity to form in-groups and out-groups and the possibility that intergroup conflict can take a variety of constructive forms. Cultural practices that produce integrative outcomes for antagonistic groups should offer important ad vantages for long-term adaptation, and we need to explore how such pro cesses can be developed and nurtured.

Contributions of Evolutionary Thinking to Theories of Ethnic Conflict

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INTEREST AND IDENTITY THEORIES OF ETHNIC CONFLICT

There are, without doubt, many social science theories explaining the origin, course, and termination of ethnic conflict. LeVine and Campbell ( 1 972 ) discussed nine major theories of ethnocentrism and group conflict, divided into societal and sociopsychological theories .1 A decade and a half later, Ross and Campbell ( 1 989) proposed that at least five additional the ories had not been considered in the earlier work and were worthy of serious attention. 2 My concern here is less with what constitutes the most viable theory of ethnic conflict than the broadly shared elements and potential links to ev olutionary theorizing in these many apparently incompatible perspectives, each of which employs its very special language, operates at different levels, identifies distinct key variables and mechanisms, and relies on dissimilar evidence. 3 To do this I distinguish between interest and identity theories and make reference to four within each group. Ethnicity and Ethnic Conflict

Humans ( and other species as well ) have a strong propensity to form contextually defined social groups and often develop multiple, nested iden tities whose salience varies across settings (Brown 1986; Turner 1988; Howell and Willis 1 9 8 9 ) . Ethnicity is one such principle and is the focus of the theories I discuss here, although I see these theories as being relevant to other kinds of group identity as well (Ross 1 993a ) . Ethnicity is char acterized by people sharing institutions and practices, holding an ideology of descent (Horowitz 1985) and a sense of distinctiveness which is marked by one or more cultural practices such as language, religion, kinship or ganization, lifestyle, or dress. Conflict occurs in all communities, but communities differ widely in the ways in which conflicts that occur are managed (Ross 1993 b ) . Conflicts are not simple social events . They center around explicit interests and iden tities; they have an impact at the societal, group, individual, or intrapsychic levels; and they involve distributive, cultural, and psychic processes. Con flicts are dynamic phenomena, which means that who is involved, what is at stake, and what adversaries do to each other change over time. All of this makes conflicts hard to understand and difficult to manage. The con flicts that are of particular interest to me are collective actions, not indi vidual acts, and the actions that parties take to deal with a perceived divergence of interests or incompatibility of goals among them. Ethnocentrism, a group identification process that polarizes in-groups versus out-groups, is a key element in almost all group conflict (Ross and Campbell 1 9 8 9 ) . Ethnocentrism is variously seen as a cause of intergroup

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conflict or as a product of conflicts once they are underway. Yet even if the ethnocentric imagery used to mobilize support is only a symptom of a deeper conflict, it points to ways that individual economic or other interests include the maintenance of the social organization per se. Thus, a key el ement in intergroup conflict is the idea of group identification that "re wards" individuals in terms of esteem derived from the group 's status vis-a-vis other groups. It draws attention to the equation of individual with group interests, and it forces us to ask about the conditions under which high individual costs are justified in terms of long-term group gain (Hardin 1995 ) .

Interest-Based Theories4

Interest-based theories of conflict in general (and ethnic conflict more particularly) emphasize competition between individuals and/or groups over scarce resources, and although they differ concerning the specific in terests at stake, the four theories I consider-rational choice theory (Banton 1983; Hardin 1995 ), social structural theory (LeVine and Campbell 1972; Ross 1993a), realistic group conflict theory (LeVine and Campbell 19 72; Taylor and Moghaddam 1987; Stephan and Stephan 1996), and socio biological theory (van den Berghe 1 9 8 1 ; Shaw and Wong 1989 )-share a number of common assumptions that I emphasize here. At the core of rational choice, and other interest theories that have been applied to ethnic conflict, are assumptions that humans are interest maximizers, able to link means and goals, and that cooperation and competition result from indi viduals' efforts to minimize costs and maximize benefits (Banton 1983; Hardin 1995 ) . While self-interest i s at the core o f microeconomic theory, interest the ories of ethnic conflict extend this idea to groups asking when and how individual interests are maximized through in-group cooperation and out group hostility. At the same time, the four theories cited here emphasize different mechanisms and focus on somewhat different interests. Social structural theory emphasizes common individual and group interests arising from positions in the social organization of society and pursued through collective action (Ross 1 993a, ch. 3 ) . Rational choice theory says that when groups control key resources such as land or jobs, individuals perceive their interests as coterminous with the group (Banton 1983; Hardin 1995 ) . Re alistic group conflict theory emphasizes the role of ethnocentrism, out group threat, and in-group loyalty, which results in increased in-group identity, lowered defection, and greater punishment of deviants in compe tition over scarce resources (LeVine and Campbell 1972, 3 1-33 ). Socio biological theory argues that in-group cooperation among closely related kin sharing a high proportion of their genes ( as is the case in small, eth-


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nically homogeneous communities ) maximizes inclusive fitness (van den Berghe 1 9 8 1 ; Shaw and Wong 1 9 8 9 ) . Interest theories focus on how incompatible goals and competition for scarce resources cause and perpetuate intergroup conflicts that are seen as rational contests for those reasons (LeVine and Campbell 1 972, 29).5 Per ceived threats, LeVine and Campbell ( 1 972, 36-37) hypothesize, will be greatest where valuable resources are in short supply, when the economies of neighboring groups are most similar, and among groups that are least isolated from outsiders. Each of these conditions makes groups vulnerable to threats of potential enemies which, in turn, raises the pressure for in group solidarity. Not surprisingly, these hypotheses are very similar to those that Hardin ( 1 995 ) offers in his rational choice account of ethnic conflict, which emphasizes the power of incentives for in-group coordina tion. Interest theories are fundamentally structural in nature, starting with the organization of a society or the rules under which it allocates resources to analyze different actors' incentives and to explain who competes, cooper ates, and coordinates with whom. 6 A particularly clear example of this are social structural theories in sociology and anthropology, which assume that people occupying similar positions in the social structure share common interests and are likely to pursue them through collective action (Ross 1993a, ch. 3 ). A core proposition in many interest theories is that cross cutting ties linking diverse groups inhibit and reinforcing ties exacerbate the severity of intergroup conflict (LeVine and Campbell 1972 ) . Where there are strong cross-cutting ties, individuals cannot count on a large core of fixed supporters who share the same interests, since people mobilized on the basis of one loyalty, such as ethnicity, may be opposed on the basis of another one, such as economic ties, residence, or religious affiliation. In contrast, in societies with a social structure in which various dimensions of social differentiation reinforce each other, the mobilization of one's core group is relatively easy, so that conflict is expansive and difficult to contain. Conflict-limiting, cross-cutting ties are built in a variety of ways. In pre industrial societies, a common mechanism is through ritual groups, such as cults or age organizations, whose membership regularly brings together individuals in different communities, or systems of kinship and marriage that disperse closely related males who might provide the core of fighting groups. In contrast, in societies with weak cross-cutting ties, high conflict occurs where localized groups of related males-called fraternal interest groups by some anthropologists-defend common interests in land, live stock, and women and their offspring (Paige and Paige 19 8 1 ) . Interest theories (with the partial exception of sociobiology) say relatively little about the nature of groups, group versus individual interests, or how particular groups came into being in the first place. Rather, they focus on ways in which groups ( acting like individual utility maximizers) pursue

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interests once the groups holding them and their interests have been de fined. Interest theories ' core assumptions are found in experimental gaming research, which is particularly interested in the relationship between stra tegic choices and interest maximization (Taylor and Moghaddam 1987; Carment and Rowland, this volume ) . Because interest theories, such as rational choice, emphasize the pursuit of antagonistic interests, an important question for them is to explain why we ever see within-group and between-group cooperation and constructive conflict management and when conflict becomes overt (Deutsch 1 9 73; Ax elrod 1 9 84; Fearon and Laitin 1996 ) . Sociobiological theory explains co operation in terms of inclusive fitness among closely related individuals and reciprocal altruism among unrelated individuals, a mechanism akin to exchange in microeconomic ( and rational choice) theory. Other interest theories point to the identification of superordinate goals that can be achieved only through intergroup joint action (Sherif et al. 1987 [1961] ), the development of a common outside enemy, prior cooperative experiences (Worchel 1986), and constitutional arrangements that encourage minorities to build cross-ethnic coalitions (Horowitz 1990). The most common theme running through these theories emphasizes that cooperation is most likely to develop when structures exist that provide incentives for cooperation. Interest-based ethnic conflict theories are not without their difficulties ( see, e.g., Caporael et al. 19 89; Mansbridge 1 990). They are often better at predicting likely opponents in a conflict than determining if a conflict is likely in the first place. Not all potential lines of division are converted into open disputes, and there are many situations where the hypotheses of social scientists ( and other observers) about which lines of social cleavage will achieve political significance have proved to be wrong. Lines of cleavage that at first seem to be firm later can turn out to be ephemeral as events unfold. In great part, this is because we have too weak of a notion about what interests are, and we too readily attribute them to actors without first making sure that they perceive their interests as observers suppose they do. Another difficulty arises from the assumption that actors necessarily pursue their own interests in a rational manner by creating a situation where one must either decide a priori what actors should do, or by declaring that whatever they did was necessarily rational. Many interest explanations suffer from the difficulty of making problem atic action seem self-evident, largely because they are asked to explain more than they can. An important question that few address is why individuals so easily equate their self-interest with that of the group in certain situa tions. 7 This means that while the identification of social structural and eco logical interests in a conflict is rarely wrong, at the same time explanations for conflict built on them often are incomplete and therefore misleading in important ways. Interests are rarely as self-evident to either participants or observers as structural conflict theories make them seem; similarly, the in-


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tensity of affect associated with many interests is so much higher than a "rational" observer might expect that something else clearly is involved. Here identity theories can fill in important gaps in our understanding of group conflict. Finally, some criticisms of interest theories focus on evidence inconsistent with the theories' predictions. For example, Caporael et al. ( 1 989) review a series of important experiments involving social dilemmas, which show that individuals consistently fail to act in ways that are individualistic and selfish as economic and sociobiological theory predicts. Monroe ( 1 994, 1 996) explores limits to self-interest assumptions in her studies of altruism, which examine behavior in a wide range of settings that is inconsistent with self-interest expectations ( see also Green and Shapiro 1994 ) . Identity Theories

In contrast to theories that focus on interests as the source of group conflict, identity theories emphasize how ethnic conflict is rooted in group attachments and recognition needs and is most severe when substantive issues are transformed into perceived threats to existence. Identity theories of ethnic conflict, such as psychocultural interpretation theory (Ross 1995 ), social identity theory (Tajfel 1 9 8 1 ; Brown 1986; Taylor and Moghaddam 1 9 87), relative deprivation and reference group theory (Runciman 1966), intercultural communication theory (Hall 1966; Cohen 199 1 ) , and theories of prejudice and discrimination (Allport 1954; Brown 1 986; Stephan and Stephan 1996), emphasize both subj ective, psychological processes to ex plain how individuals make sense of the world, and cultural dynamics, which define group interests, enemies, fears, and threats. As in the case of interest theories, here I emphasize shared elements among identity theories while recognizing important differences in the key concepts and mecha nisms that each of these theories draws upon. Identity theories posit a close linkage between individual and group iden tity, although specific theories differ on how this occurs. Social identity theory emphasizes that enhancement of individual self-esteem depends upon group achievements . Relative deprivation and reference group theory contend that individuals evaluate their situations by comparing their own groups with others who provide a standard or reference. Psychocultural interpretation theory draws attention to shared worldviews that emphasize perceived threats to a group' s existence. Theories of prejudice and discrim ination examine the social consequences of the merger of individual and group judgments. The linkage between the individual and the group in identity theories is affective and most often viewed as a cultural construction, although specific theories differ in how they spell this out and in the underlying dynamics that they identify. Social identity theory, for example, built on Tajfel's

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( 1 9 8 1 ) minimal group experiments, argues that even the weakest suggestion of shared social identity produces in-group bias. Psychocultural interpre tation theory, in contrast, utilizes object relations theory in contemporary psychoanalytic theory to explain the social and cultural bases of internal ized images of the world. Such images are established in family contexts and are extended to larger social aggregates, which later provide a template for intergroup relations in which high-anxiety intergroup conflicts occur (Ross 1995 ) . Identity theories of ethnic conflict offer a subj ective view of conflict, em phasizing what one group thinks or feels that another group is doing, trying to do, or wanting to do. These theories emphasize the context of suspicion, surrounding most conflicts with their presumptions about opponents' in tentions and meanings behind their actions (or inactions ) . In few conflict situations, these theories suggest, do external events provide clear expla nations for what is occurring; as a result, individuals turn to internal frame works and perceptions, which then shape subsequent behavior. This is what makes ethnic conflict so difficult to contain and manage, since in any dis pute participants can often tell someone "j ust what the conflict is about," and this precision is often illusory (Roy 1994 ) . A striking feature of so many identity-based ethnic conflicts is the emo tional investment that parties make in what, to outsiders, often seem like unimportant matters. The fact is, however, that any matter invested in emotional significance is no longer trivial to the parties, and intransigent intergroup disputes quickly become characterized by threats to group self esteem and legitimation, as the group feeling threatened places its identity at the core of other groups ' concerns (Horowitz 1985; Northrup 1 9 8 9 ) . The fact that each side feels the same intense emotions makes it difficult to recognize what is, in fact, shared. For example, although both Protestants and Catholics in Northern Ireland see themselves as a threatened minority, each has trouble acknowledging the other's view. One party's own emo tional concerns make it very difficult to accept another's account, especially when its own action may be the root cause of an adversary's behavior. The same factors that push actors to make sense of a situation also lead to cognitive and perceptual distortion in identity conflicts, because the de sire for certainty often is greater than the capacity for accuracy. Not only are disputants likely to make systematic errors in the " facts" underlying interpretations, the homogeneous nature of most social settings and cultural amplifiers reinforces these self-serving mistakes (Mack 1983 ) . What is most crucial, however, about interpretations of a conflict is the compelling, co herent account they offer to the parties by linking discrete events to general understandings. Central to such interpretations is the attribution of motives to parties. Once identified, the existence of such motives seemingly makes it easy to predict another's future actions, and through one's own behavior to turn such predictions into self-fulfilling prophesies. Rather than thinking


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about particular objective events which cause conflicts to escalate, we ought to be thinking about the interpretations of such events associated with es calation and those which are not. Shared identity is linked to commonly held images of the world and plans for action predicated on a shared conception of the difference between one's own group and other groups. The strong and opposing identities involved in intense conflicts emphasize in-group homogeneity, sometimes using small objective differences to mark large social distinctions. Outsiders can then serve as objects for externalization, displacement, and projection of intense negative feelings, while internal dissent is denied or stifled (For nari 19 75; Volkan 1 9 8 8 ) . Psychocultural interpretation theory argues that group members share common developmental experiences, including the incorporation of shared group experiences into one's own personal identity (Volkan 1 9 8 8 ) . Ander son ( 1 99 1 ) writes of imagined communities, which link a person to collec tive identities . Typically this process of within-group identity formation overemphasizes what group members actually share, giving greater emo tional weight to the common elements, reinforcing them with an ideology of linked fate and frequently with an overvaluation of the uniformity within groups (Turner 1 9 8 8 ) . Group identity, and its role in ethnic conflict, is often revealed in the stories that parties locked in struggle recount about past experiences, pres ent difficulties, and future aspirations. These narratives are valuable for showing how participants think about and characterize a conflict. In fact, as we listen to them, it is important to consider the extent to which stories from different sides of the same conflict differ, without necessarily directly contradicting each other. Each side selects key events which come to have a central meaning for its own community. Volkan ( 1 9 8 8 ) uses the term chosen trauma to refer to a specific experience which comes to symbolize a group's deepest threats and fears through feelings of helplessness and victimization (Volkan 1991, 13, 1997 ) . 8 In escalating intergroup conflicts, key metaphors such as the chosen trauma serve both as a rallying point and as a way to make sense of events which evoke deep fears and threats to existence (Kelman 1978, 1987; Horowitz 1 9 8 5 ) . Only when the deep seated threats that these stories represent are addressed, Volkan suggests, is a community able to begin to formulate a more peaceful future with its enemies . While identity theories of ethnic conflict are able to address important questions such as the intensity and durability of intergroup conflict which interest-based theories fail to consider, they have limitations as well (Ross 1993a, 67-68, 1995 ) . While subjective, identity explanations such as psy choanalytic analyses usually offer plausible explanations for outcomes, once they have occurred they are far less able to predict which particular dimensions of identity are likely to be invoked in a conflict or how they

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are involved. Another problem is that identity explanations may do a better job of clarifying the role of more distant factors than the proximate causes of conflicts and how they unfold. Finally, in multigroup settings, while identity theories agree that hostility will be projected onto outsiders, they often are vague in specifying which outsiders are likely to serve as ethno centric targets. EVOLUTIONARY CONTRIBUTIONS TO INTEREST AND IDENTITY THEORIES

Of the nine interest and identity theories of ethnic conflict just cited, only sociobiological theory draws significantly on evolutionary ideas. Therefore, I want to explore the ways in which evolutionary thinking may be relevant to both interest and identity theories of ethnic conflict and to its construc tive management. I do this in the following discussion through a consid eration of the evolutionary nature of interests and identities, through a discussion of evolutionary mechanisms beyond kin selection which affect the nature of interests and identities and how they are pursued, and through a discussion of how culturally evolved moralizing systems define interests and identities and how they are pursued. Saying that ethnic conflict is about interests and/or identities means that either or both provide motives for action. At first glance, interests are seen as straightforward motives, are easy to articulate as political claims, and provide a basis for group (or individual) goals. Interests are generally quite concrete, and given the pervasive use of economic metaphors in our culture, saying that people pursue or are motivated by their own self-interest seems noncontroversial. Our public discourse legitimizes interest claims such as, "We are seeking more and better jobs for our people . " However, while interests are presented as objective, they have important subjective dimen sions as well. For example, when groups make claims concerning such things as jobs, seats on government boards, or positions in universities, they are invoking implicit notions of justice and assessments of what they feel entitled to receive. Often, specific entitlement demands involving high-level political positions or public display of flags or street signs are tests that gauge how the group is viewed. Any analysis which ignores the intense subj ective elements of such demands is going to be incomplete.9 Identity is a more complicated basis for political claims. For one thing, identity concerns are not always something about which groups are fully aware. Operating at a subconscious level, perceived threats and deeply rooted fears are often difficult to talk about and hard to specify. As a result, groups often assert identity claims in strident ways which are hard for opponents to hear and which emphasize firm positions, while deeper, un derlying needs remain diffuse and implicit. When identity-based demands do become explicit, however, they are often stated in ali-or-nothing, mor-


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alistic terms which makes them difficult to address through the give-and take of everyday political life. In fact, interests and identities are more interconnected than the analytic distinction between them suggests. People involved in specific conflicts in tuitively understand their linkage. For example, it is easy to see how the achievement of certain interest goals, such as gaining a political office or improving one's job opportunities, can address a group' s identity and rec ognition concerns. To the extent that interest claims are tests of a group's acceptance as a legitimate political player, then achievement of the interest claims also addresses concerns about identity. Similarly, when identity based fears of exclusion diminish, groups may lower the level of interest claims that they make. It is therefore necessary to understand intense ethnic conflicts as involving both interests and identities ( Ross 1 993a, 1993b), and that each of these can be understood in terms of both biological and cul tural evolution. Any analysis which focuses on j ust one of these will be incomplete. From an evolutionary perspective, what can we say about interests and identities as motives for intergroup conflict? Certainly interests are easiest to understand. After all, inclusive fitness theory is built on the pursuit of self-interest, which enhances the survival of an individual's genes. Individ uals with greater resources will have higher repro ductive success than those who are resource poor. The same, of course, is true for groups, and inclu sive fitness theory describes how individual selection and group success are linked when in-group members are closely related. However, to explain cooperation among unrelated individuals, biosocial theory turns to recip rocal altruism, arguing that by pursuing self-interest through exchange or cooperation, individuals can also strengthen themselves and, at the same time, the group (Trivers 197 1 ) . This linkage between individual and group interests, when combined with conformist cultural transmission processes, is sometimes consistent with group selection, even in groups of unrelated individuals (Campbell 1983; Boyd and Richerson 1985, 1990b). Identity, and the dynamics of identification, is a more complicated and less completely understood motive in the literature on evolution. To con sider it, I raise two issues: first, identity and recognition, and second, the development and maintenance of identification, which extends far beyond close kin. Identity and recognition concerns the capacity to easily distin guish between in-group members and outsiders and to act differently to ward each. There is no doubt that the ability to recognize familiar persons develops very early in life. For example, from the first hours a child is able to recognize its mother's smell (Stern 1985 ) . In addition, the use of cultural cues and markers such as language and clothing, physical traits such as hair, bone structure, or skin color, body scarification, food, religion, music, and rituals facilitates classification. Finally, the growing literature on kin recognition suggests that humans and other species have a built-in ability

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to pick out close kin with whom they have had no contact for a long period of time. These mechanisms are consistent with inclusive fitness theory and emphasize an evolved capacity to distinguish between close relatives and others and to adjust behavior accordingly (Johnson 1 9 8 6 ) . More problematic to inclusive fitness theory, however, i s the develop ment and maintenance of ethnic and racial identification with large groups that include millions of people. Both the construction of interests in large groups and the mobilization of large groups' actions are inconsistent with narrowly defined kin selection and not easily explained in terms of recip rocal altruism either. Why do people feel great emotional satisfaction, for example, when a co-ethnic wins an Olympic medal or attains a visible political office (Brown 1 9 8 6 ) ? We might argue that kin selection could still be consistent with such behavior and explicable in terms of a relatively simple heuristic more similar, more different. Yet when differences between those who are perceived as similar and those who are seen as different are very small, the explanatory power of hardwired kin selection is relatively weak. Rather than making kin selection do all of the work here, we should turn to other plausible mechanisms. Consider how social evolution might "take advantage " of (or build on) a capacity to identify and classify individuals to extend identification far beyond the small groups of related individuals in which humans have lived for most of their evolutionary history. 10 Neither kin selection nor reciprocal altruism (exchanges in complex societies are much more often examples of generalized rather than reciprocal exchange ) can easily account for the high level of in-group identification, cooperation, and coordination in large groups. A number of people have argued that patriotism in particular and in-group identification more generally are built on cultural learning and moral systems using proximate psychological mechanisms which extend cooperative or altruistic behavior to nonkin (C ampbell 1975, 1983, 1 9 88; Johnson 1986, 19 89, ch. 2; Hinde 1 9 8 9 ) . Campbell ( 1 975 ) hypothesized that religion ( and other moral systems ) can be understood in social evolutionary terms as cultural innovations to limit the narrow selfishness found in kin selection dynamics which extend cooperation more widely within large, complex communities: "For the so cial system to work best, the participants in it should have behavioral dis positions optimizing social system purposes rather than individual purposes where these differ" ( Campbell 19 75, 1 1 1 7 ) . Religions and other moralizing systems emphasize a limited notion of interests and extend identity widely. Built on a cap acity to readily form social groups (in-groups ) and facilitated by a "benevolent" confounding of cultural and biological relatedness, these dynamics involve cultural, not just biological, evolution and mechanisms which encourage within-group conformity and the punishment of rule breakers, not unlike what Trivers ( 1971 ) calls "moralistic aggression. " While kin selection emphasizes cooperation among closely related indi-


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viduals, in the modern world, explaining ethnic solidarity involves a ca pacity to develop emotionally and behaviorally significant extended social identities which include nonkin (Tajfel 1981; Sherif et al. 1987 [1961]; Carrithers 1989; Trevarthen and Logotheti 1989). Large ethnic groups are particularly adept at exploiting this capacity, and they develop clear social recognition mechanisms such as language, religion, dietary practices, cloth ing, and body markings which can be widely understood as cultural sur rogates for biological relatedness, often "falsely" confounding cultural and biological relatedness. Such "mistakes" are perhaps explainable in terms of both the historical distribution of human populations and the structure of contemporary groups . At the same time, it is significant to note the system atic character of the "errors," always in the direction of conflating cultura l and biological relatedness. We extend the designation of close kin widely consider the kin-laden language of ethnic solidarity. We are prone to favor those with whom we share even the most arbitrarily defined social identity, as Tajfel has demonstrated, and to develop high solidarity among recent acquaintances as the Robber's Cave research found. Cultural practices built on an evolved capacity to form social groups extend identification and promote cooperative behavior in the absence of close kinship ties. Johnson ( 1986, 1989) considers four mechanisms which might use socialization to extend recognition in a way that confounds bi ological and social relatedness. After rejecting the likelihood that humans have genetically coded phenotypic traits tied to a genetically coded basis for recognizing these traits, he looks at ways in which particular locations, association and familiarity, and phenotypic matching all can contribute to the development of broadly based identities such as patriotism. Combined with a generalized propensity toward sociality, Hinde ( 1989) discusses la beling and association, which enhance differences between groups and build within-group cohesiveness and cooperation. Kin selection, he sug gests, could be independent of these dynamics but not incompatible with it. Focusing on association and phenotypic matching, Johnson hypothesizes that socialization mechanisms extend shared identity through shared sym bolic repertoires, collective ritual experiences, and the use of kin terms in patriotic speech. 1 1 There are, however, important limits to the proposition that behavior is consistent with narrowly defined self-interest. In a series of important ex periments, Caporael et al. ( 1 989) and Dawes, van de Kragt, and Orbell ( 1 990) report results that are inconsistent with self-interest, showing that even under conditions of anonymity, individuals consistently make choices which fall short of maximizing individual gains. The authors suggest a deeply rooted human capacity for sociality which reflects culturally in formed ideas about group welfare. They consider how group identity could have evolved "under selection pressures on small groups for developing and maintaining group membership and for predicting and controlling the be-

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havior of other group members " ( Caporael et al. 19 89, 683 ) . Once evolved, they suggest, these mechanisms are applied in domains for which they were not specifically adapted. This is highly consistent with Campbell 's ( 1 975 ) theory about the importance of religion and equivalent moral systems in extending altruistic behaviors to nonkin without expecting short-run reci procity. Monroe's ( 1994, 1996) studies of altruism offer further limitation to self interest theories . She argues that both biological and economic explanations of altruism conceptualize it too narrowly in terms of costs and benefits to individual actors. Such a view, she says, fails to account for a wide range of self-sacrificial actions, such as rescuers of Jews in Europe during World War II. She offers a cognitive-perceptual approach, similar to what I call worldviews (Ross 1 995 ), which emphasizes how people see themselves in relation to others and come to undertake actions growing out of a shared identity. EVOLUTIONARY CONTRIBUTIONS TO ETHNIC CONFLICT MANAGEMENT Theories of Conflict and Ethnic Peacemaking

All theories of conflict contain assumptions, often implicit, about ways to manage conflict (Ross 1993 b ) . Interest and identity theories are, not surprisingly, quite different in the specific proposals and styles of conflict management that they emphasize. While interest theories lead to steps which alter incentives for the parties in conflict or find formulas which emphasize mutual gain, identity theories promote efforts to address the conflicting interpretations and worldviews and to alter the salience of per ceived threats to existence which drive so many ethnic conflicts. Let me briefly suggest the kinds of peacemaking actions that each approach might recommend and then ask how evolutionary thinking might enhance how we understand these. Interest-Based Proposals

Interest conflict theories build conflict management strategies which focus on each party's gains and losses. They take one of three forms. The first emphasizes "the rules of the game," such as constitutional proposals which it is hoped can ameliorate, if not end, the conflict. Common are proposals for power sharing, as in the 1974 British proposal for a power-sharing executive for Northern Ireland, the devolution of power to regional au thorities, as in the India-Sri Lanka agreement of 1987 to give increased autonomy to the Tamil-dominated North and East, or the creation of a Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza.


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A second kind of interest conflict management proposal addresses groups' specific grievances through changes in the distribution of benefits that each receives. By decreasing specific deprivations, it is hoped that greater intergroup cooperation can develop and that communal conflict can diminish. In Northern Ireland since 1969 this has taken the form of pro viding Catholics with greater access to housing and j obs and fairer repre sentation on local councils-all major grievances of the Catholic community. In Sri Lanka, distributional grievances produced the Sinhala only language proposals in the 1 950s, which soon after affected the com position of the state bureaucracy, while other changes lowered the number of Tamil and raised the number of Sinhalese university students. In the Israeli-Arab conflict, Israeli leaders long tried to gain Arab support within Israel (and even the occupied territories ) by providing a higher standard of living than Arabs enjoyed in the neighboring Arab states. A third interest-based solution is to redefine what the parties view as competing interests into a broader context which emphasizes superordinate goals (such as mutual security), which can only be achieved through joint agreement and perhaps post-agreement cooperation ( Sherif et al. 1987 [ 1 96 1 ] ) . One version has two or more groups in conflict coming together in the face of a common enemy. Using approaches such as "principled negotiation, " Fisher and Ury ( 1 9 8 1 ) suggest that groups in conflict can explore possibilities and develop mutual-gain options which they had pre viously failed to identify. In such processes, groups in conflict redefine a situation such that goals, often previously unarticulated, are identified which provide for joint gain and require cooperation for either party to attain them. Identity-Based Proposals

Conflict management proposals which follow from identity theories have a very different emphasis. Their most basic aim is getting each side to modify critical elements in its interpretation of the situation and to recog nize common underlying needs such as security and recognition. To be effective, identity-based conflict management does not ask parties to aban don their fears but seeks to alter their salience and to place them within a broader context. This approach to conflict management does not necessar ily directly address their parties' substantive differences but focuses on low ering tension and perceived threat and building empathy and trust to create the preconditions which allow the groups in conflict to negotiate with each other directly. Getting the parties to utilize different language or view a conflict through other metaphors is often central to conflict management rooted in identity theories . A wide range of specific ways exists in which conflict resolution practitioners try to achieve these goals. More psychoanalytically informed identity theories, such as psychocul-

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tural interpretation theory, stress the need for the mutual acknowledgment of loss and past hurt. This enables each community to complete a grieving process and to establish a new relationship while altering intergroup per ceptions about each other's motives (Volkan 1 9 88, 1997; Montville 1990 ) . Central to these proposals is attention to acknowledging and mourning past losses in a manner that produces mutual assurance, not heightened threat. Ritual events and memorials can play a central role in such dynamics. Vol kan and Montville also suggest that a "walk through history, " in which members of each community share their own interpretation of past events and acknowledge, without necessarily accepting, that of adversaries, can be an important component in the process. Less explicitly psychoanalytic are more cognitively oriented identity based efforts to help each group develop a clearer understanding of the other's worldview and core fears. Only when each side better understands what motivates the other as well as the existence of common needs will the parties to a bitter dispute begin to discuss concrete proposals which address the specific interests of each community. White ( 1993 ), for example, sees a need for an explicit effort to alter the content of enemy images by sug gesting that the analogies linking culturally shared intra-individual anxieties are inappropriate. He stresses the importance of developing realistic em pathy to help each side better understand the deepest fears of the other. Only when there is sufficient assurance that the fundamental acceptance of each side's right to exist is not at stake can peacemaking proceed (Kelman 1978; Horowitz 1985 ) . Some proponents of this approach utilize problem solving workshops to bring together members of different ethnic commu nities to share their points of view and to discus s matters of common needs as well as differences (Kelman and Cohen 1986; Burton and Dukes 1 990). In general, the workshops do not include high government officials, but rather involve second-level political and administrative figures or opinion leaders who will express the central concerns and hopes of each community but will not be under the severe constraints faced by political leaders. The workshops aim less to develop specific proposals for resolving the conflict than to help each side better understand the common needs of all of the parties, how the other side interprets the actions and beliefs of one's own community, and a more complex, nuanced view of the conflict than many people involved in it often feel. 1 2 Social identity theory's emphasis on the strong human propensity to de velop distinct social identities leads to proposals which attempt to diminish the salience, but not existence, of any particular identities. This can mean encouraging multiple or cross-cutting identities or developing joint goals that groups pursue together. Prejudice theory suggests a number of pro posals whose effectiveness in isolation is less effective than in combination. It suggests that intergroup contact, communication, and knowledge of each other's practices and traditions can facilitate cooperation, particularly in


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situations of low threat and equal status, especially if there is institutional support for such cooperation (Brown 1 9 8 6 ) . Identity-based approaches which emphasize problems of intercultural communication suggest two different kinds of peacemaking proposals. The first accepts the idea that communication across cultural boundaries is bound to be fraught with difficulties, especially when threats and fears surrounding identity are great. It seeks to involve third parties in the peace making process who can, in effect, " translate" between the parties even when they are ostensibly speaking the same language. Cohen ( 1 990) says that this is critical in Arab-Israeli negotiation, and it is fortunate, he says, that each of these cultures has no problem with the idea of third-party involvement. A second series of proposals arising from intercultural communication theory is aimed more at the causes of intercultural miscommunication than at their effects. There are efforts, for example, to make disputants more aware of the problematic aspects of intercultural communication and al tering patterns which are tension producing ( Gudykunst 199 1 ) . Other steps include the exchange of information about practices and concerns of the two communities in areas ranging from mundane daily routines to cultural and religious practices. The goal here is to weaken negative stereotypes of the out-group and to question the core assumptions which underlie them (Messick and Mackie 1989, 70 ) . A particularly interesting proposal in this same framework is Tambiah's ( 1 986) suggestion that an important step in peacemaking in Sri Lanka needs to involve the deconstruction of historical accounts of ethnic origins, differences, and traditions which will permit the two communities to better understand their common experiences, not just those that diverge. Cultural rituals and traditions are a focus of some identity-based conflict management efforts. In Northern Ireland, for example, there are many ex amples of how one group, marking and celebrating its ethnic identity, evokes, at the same time, threats and fears from the other. Particularly well known are the Protestant parades to celebrate the victory of King William of Orange over the Catholic James II in 1689. Marches through Catholic neighborhoods produce anger and resentment, continually reminding Cath olics of their suffering under Protestant domination. In such a tension-filled situation, any collective expression of cultural identity can spark deep hurt and resentment. In response to this situation, during the 1980s an organi zation called the Cultural Traditions Group was formed. Its aim was to increase cross-community exploration of key symbols and rituals through discussions and public exhibits in a manner which recognized the symbols and rituals of each tradition but decreased the fears raised (Crozier 1 9 89; Bryson and McCartney 1994 ) . This kind of effort, consistent with identity theories, calls for members of each community to try to better understand the other's reactions to particularly powerful symbols and perhaps to de-

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velop ways to evoke them that are less threatening to the other commu nity. U Evolutionary Connections

For the most part, explicit consideration of evolutionary dynamics is absent from the literature on ethnic conflict resolution and peacemaking. In fact, this work often rejects an evolutionary perspective out of hand for viewing ethnic conflicts as primordial and therefore inevitable.14 To the extent that there is attention to evolutionary issues, it is on how to "over come" what seems like "human nature" and relatively little appreciation of evolutionary dynamics, which can be mobilized in the service of the settlement of ethnic conflicts . Here I explore the hypothesis that this is overly simplistic and that when we consider mechanisms beyond kin selec tion, including cultural as well as biological evolution, it is possible to enrich the discussion of how ethnic conflict management can address com peting interests and incompatible identities constructively. Following from the discussion of ethnic conflict above, it should be clear that there is good reason to understand that both interests (self-interest and certain group interests ) and identities have important evolutionary roots ( Stern 1995). While descriptions of interest-motivated behavior emphasize barriers to extended cooperation, identity-motivated action explains the development of larger social aggregates. Here I try to emphasize the dif ferent dynamics of each and argue that any consideration of ethnic conflict management needs to take into account the ways in which interest- and identity-driven imperatives lead to somewhat different steps which may at times be incompatible, while at other times may reinforce each other. Interest imperatives emphasize individual and group competition over scarce resources. As a result, interest-based conflict management stresses the development of formulas that move away from direct competition over the same limited resources to ones that either allocate scarce resources in such a way that each gains much of what it wants because of different rankings each holds (Raiffa 1 9 82), or the expansion of available resources through co operative actions so that a po sitive-sum model is more relevant than a zero-sum one ( Susskind and Cruikshank 1987). An important as sumption in most interest-based conflict management is that each party is primarily concerned with doing as well as it can in absolute, more than relative, terms. Axelrod ( 1984 ), for example, employs decision rules in which Tit-for-Tat (TFT) wins his Prisoner's Dilemma computer tourna ments by amassing the larger point total across all rounds without ever winning a head-to-head confrontation against any of the other competitors. By not worrying about the opponents' scores, TFT employs rules in which the total rewards accumulated are as high as pos sible (the pie is expanded) because it shares the total gains evenly with others. However, in a more


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competitive environment with attention to relative, rather than absolute, gains, TFT would not be as effective a strategy, and the development of greater total wealth in a community would be of less importance, than controlling as high a proportion of existing resources as possible. The dilemma here is that by pursuing short-run advantages, individuals forego greater joint gains that make the entire society richer. Collective choice dilemmas, such as the tragedy of the commons or the free rider problem regarding participation in large organizations ( Olson 1965 ), take the same form. Solutions to these problems include the imposition of cen tralized authority to regulate the commons (or require participation) and the use of side payments to encourage desired behavior (Dawes et al. 19 90, 98). Axelrod, however, advocates neither o f these potential solutions for in stitutionalizing reciprocity. Instead, he advises potential cooperators "Don't be envious" and to recognize that most of life is not zero-sum ( 1 9 84, 1 1 01 3 ) ,15 However, he also notes that he has had to instruct players in his classes to focus only on their own scores. Simply stating his suggestion as a moral injunction alerts us to consider why employing such moral reason ing might not be people's first reaction and how the pursuit of self-interest may often produce absolute, not relative, gains. The balance between the two can be shifted, and the chances of such a moral injunction being ef fective can be increased, Axelrod suggests, when we "teach people to care about each other" ( 1 984, 1 34-3 6 ) . To view this advice a s more than just additional moralizing, we need to explore the conditions under which people are less likely to be envious and more caring about each other, such as when they share a common identity and fate. Shared identity can temper the effects of narrow self-interest and is consistent with the situations we have already considered, where people make decisions that apparently do not maximize individual gains as they are generally understood, where cultural ideas about justice and fairness seem to shape action, and where there is a pattern of favoring in-group members with whom one has only minimal acquaintance (Tajfel 1981; Ca porael et al. 1989; Monroe 1996 ) . The relevance of social identity to con structive conflict management is that it offers a mechanism by which groups and individuals can make decisions which temper the effects that a nar rowly defined self-interest, relative gains strategy would produce (Monroe 1 996). Conflict management grounded in an understanding of identity impera tives is not simply asking individuals or groups to make decisions counter to their dispositions. Rather, it recognizes the disposition to identify with others, and that such identification can extend well beyond closely related kin and temper narrow self-interest ( Stern 1995 ) . Dawes et al. ( 1 990 ), for example, have shown in a series of experiments how group identity raises cooperation rates. Conflict management, from this perspective, might aim

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to diminish the salience of adversaries' incompatible identities (Worchel 1 9 86) and/or develop some shared identity to link previous enemiesY When the salience of an identity diminishes, it becomes easier to hold more nuanced views of opponents, to have a greater appreciation of their core needs, and to articulate joint concerns (White 1 993 ) . For example, since 1945, without abandoning an attachment to French or German culture, most people in each country have also come to understand common inter ests and identities within the European community. Identity imperatives, like interest imperatives, are deeply rooted in our evolutionary heritage, which has both biological and cultural dimensions (Dawes et al. 1990; Stern 1995 ) . Moralizing injunctions, grounded in re ligious ( and other) institutions, can be mobilized to direct conflict in both destructive and constructive directions. At times, as Campbell ( 1 975 ) em phasizes, cultural practices can favor one biological propensity, such as sociality, over another biological drive, such as individual selfishness. He also emphasizes the role of "mutual monitoring, forcing altruism on fellow group members who cannot survive without cooperative group member ship, and a cultural evolution of norms and beliefs at least partially inhib iting a biological residual of tendencies toward self-serving and nepotistic behavior" ( 1983, 3 7). In addition, I have drawn attention to how group identity provides its own rewards and leads people to limit the pursuit of purely narrow gain while obtaining rewards from the success or happiness of others (Monroe 1996 ) . It seems plausible to hypothesize that such an expanded identity occurs most easily in contexts where identity is not highly threatened and where multiple identities exist. Of course, just how to create such contexts is one of the crucial challenges to modern peace makers, and I have tried to suggest some possible directions here. A major part of my argument is that self-interest and identity imperatives are partially independent of each other and that each has both biological and cultural components. I have emphasized how cultural practices affect the situational relevance of both interest and identity imperatives (Ross 1997a, 1997b ) . They can define interests in broader or narrower terms, can identify larger and smaller in-groups, and can emphasize or deemphasize the salience of group differences and the actions that are taken in the name of the group. While there seems to be a universal tendency for human groups to exhibit ethnocentric beliefs and behaviors (LeVine and Campbell 1972), at the same time we can see how the intensity and actions that ethnocentrism motivates vary widely. Cultural practices that teach reci procity, encourage a non-zero-sum worldview, and stress absolute, rather than relative, gains ought to facilitate the constructive management of in terest differences. Where these orientations and the specific skills associated with them can be taught and transmitted across generations, individuals and groups should prosper. In the case of group identity, the situation is perhaps more complicated. On the one hand, when cultural practices can


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help build a wider social identity, individual tendencies toward short-term selfishness can be countered and long-term group beneficial behavior en couraged.17 At the same time, unless this is also accompanied by the establishment of intergroup linkages, the development of multiple identities, and a decrease in perceived threats, groups will continue to mobilize re sources and compete with each other in the destructive fashion we can easily find throughout the world. After all, moralizing systems which en courage "good" behavior within the group often also endorse, in the name of the group, the most horrendous actions toward outsiders. For many obvious reasons, ethnic conflicts receive far more attention than those situations in which groups live together more or less peacefully for long periods of time. At the same time, our theories of intergroup re lations should not only be based on those cases of extreme conflict and violence, but also must consider cases where ethnic relations are construc tive (Ross 1 993b; Fearon and Laitin 1996), although there is not room to develop this theme here. Expectations that such conflicts are inevitably de structive or strong beliefs on the part of participants so that their very existence is at stake can be of particular importance when these interpre tations of a conflict then result in escalating violence toward an opponent. We need to better understand how, despite competing interests and incom patible identities, some groups manage to live together in relative peace, and we also need to understand the role that redefined interests, expanding resources, and acceptance of each other's core identity needs play in this dynamic. The interplay between "within" and "group" processes in this dynamic is likely to be of crucial significance. CONCLUSION

Theories of ethnic conflict and their management identify a great range of causes and potential solutions. I have analyzed the very different per spectives found in interest and identity theories and have described how neither group of theories draws a great deal on evolutionary thinking. After identifying the core assumptions in each set of theories, I have tried to suggest ways in which evolutionary ideas might enrich each. In doing this, I have emphasized that evolutionary imperatives underlie both the pursuit of self-interests as well as a propensity toward sociality and the develop ment of group identity. Cultural as well as biological dynamics are involved (Boyd and Richerson 1985, 1990a; Richerson and Boyd 1 9 8 8 ) , and more attention must be paid to how these processes are each involved. Attention to only the interest dimensions of ethnic conflict, as in rational choice the ory when it simply defines identity as a particular kind of interest, produces very incomplete analyses of what groups fight about and how such conflicts can be settled. Rather, we need to develop a richer understanding of how interests and identities are both relevant in ethnic conflict and how the

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human propensity toward sociality-not just self-interests-shapes ethnic conflict and its management. An evolutionary perspective on ethnic conflict and its management must understand that both interests and identities are significant motivators for group behavior and that good peacemakers can not ask groups to just set them aside. Any proposal to broaden and/or redefine interests and identities must resist the idea that the solution to intergroup conflict lies in the adoption of universalistic norms which deny group identity and differences, for both the deeply rooted imperatives of self-interest and group identification constitute an important part of being human. While it is easy to focus only on the conflict between interests and identities, the argument here suggests that there may be important ways in which the different dynamics of each offer possibilities for intergroup con flict management. This in turn allows for the redefinition of interests to emphasize absolute rather than relative gains, and in-group identities that do not require violent actions toward out-grou ps.

NOTES

1 . They devoted individual chapters to societal theories-realistic group conflict theory, social structural theories of conflict in anthropology, reference group theory, societal evolutionary theories, and sociopsychological theories-frustration aggression-displacement theory, other theories of a psychoanalytic origin, percep tion of out-group attributes, cognitive congruity theories, and transfer and reinforcement theories. 2. They are biosocial theory, social identity theory, modern psychoanalytic the ory, with an emphasis on object relations, social choice (and other microeconomic) theory, and intercultural communications theory. 3 . When LeVine and Campbell examined discord and concord among the the ories, that is, situations that led to competing predictions, their analysis revealed relatively few direct explicit incompatibilities ( 1 972, 205-23 ) . It is clear that dif ferent theories often emphasize what particular analysts or approaches regard as important without considering the variables or concerns of other approaches. 4. Parts of this and the following section are built from an argument I first presented in Ross ( 1 993a, ch. 1 0 ) . 5 . If we take each group as an "individual actor, " then much of rational choice theory can be applied (Taylor and Moghaddam 1987). However, we should rec ognize that in doing so, one has violated the fundamental assumption of rational choice theory that biologically individual persons are the sole unit on which theory should focus. Sacrificing these person-level interests for the sake of group interests often will be "irrational" for the person. Thus, an analogical borrowing from ra tional choice theory for application at the groups-as-actors level must be done with this caveat. 6. Interest theories of conflict differ strongly, however, in the identification of those particular interests. Much of this is attributable to differences in underlying assumptions about the connection between individual and group interests and the sources of social solidarity. For a fuller discussion of this issue, see Ross ( 1 9 9 1 ) .


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7. See Campbell ( 1 983) for an excellent discussion of the linkage between in dividual and group interests and their role in biosocial theories of conflict and cooperation. 8. Volkan and his collaborators provide many examples of such events, includ ing the Turkish slaughter of Armenians, the Nazi Holocaust, the experience of slavery and segregation for African Americans, and the Serbian defeat at Kocovo by the Turks in 1 3 89. If a group feels too humiliated, angry, or helpless to mourn the losses suffered in the trauma, Volkan suggests that it then incorporates the emotional meaning of the traumatic event into its identity and passes on the emo tional and symbolic meaning from generation to generation. The flip side is the chosen glory in which a group perceives triumph over the enemy; this is seen clearly in the Northern Irish Protestant celebration of the Battle of the Boyne in 1689 every July 12. See the special issue of Mind and Human Interaction ( 1 992), devoted to the question of ethnic and nationalistic traumas and Volkan ( 1 997) for a discussion of the meaning of Kosovo for Serbs. 9. Horowitz ( 1 985, chs. 4-5 ) discusses the designation of advanced and back ward groups and claims of entitlement advanced by groups in each position. 1 0 . Campbell ( 1 966) considers how pattern matching is essential in the produc tion of distal knowledge and places the question in an evolutionary context. While his examples emphasize visual perception and the coordination of motor behavior, there is a clear relevance of the argument to social knowledge and the identification of group similarities and differences as well. 1 1 . Johnson ( 1 986) emphasizes that patriotism in large-scale societies is a brand of manipulated altruism whose roots are biological. However, Hinde ( 1989) and Johnson ( 1 989) argue that while kin selection may have a role in explaining patri otism, there may be other mechanisms involved independent of the argument I pursue here. 12. An obvious question about workshops and similar activities which succeed in altering the mutual negative interpretation of the small number of participants is how they can have an impact on the larger conflict. Kelman ( 1995) addresses these issues in the context of the Middle East and points to the development of new metaphors, changing images, and the increasing ability of the parties to con ceptualize a joint future as feeding into the Oslo process and the famous Arafat Rabin handshake, and the eventual agreement signed between Israelis and Palestinians on the White House lawn in 1 993. 13. An example of how this might be done is the Catholic Church's efforts since Vatican II to recognize the anti-Semitic content of parts of its ideology and practice. By first trying to understand why the particular content was offensive to Jews and then to alter it in ways consistent with the Church's doctrine, the two religious communities have gone a long way to remove an important source of tension be tween them. 14. Of course, hardwired arguments such as Shaw and Wong's ( 1 989) reinforce this view. 1 5 . It is plausible to suggest that there will be individual, situational, and cross cultural variation in the emphasis on absolute versus relative gains (Dawes et a!. 1 990, 100). 1 6 . It is important to note that neither of these suggestions asks groups to either abandon their identity or to merge into a new group with a single identity, a step

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which is about the last thing participants in identity conflicts want to hear. For example, telling Israelis and Palestinians that their grandchildren will be marrying each other without any regard to their current differences is not in any way the same as saying that because their grandchildren will be living in the same region, they will only prosper if they learn to share scarce resources such as water and to respect each other's right to exist with security. 17. Boyd and Richerson's ( 1 985) identification of cultural conformist transmis sion as a mechanism under which group selection is possible raises the possibility that groups which are particularly adept at developing and teaching such culturally evolved strategies will be especially successful over time.

Part II

SKEPTICAL VIEWS

Chapter 5

From Ontology to Analogy: Evolutionary Theories and the Explanation of Ethnic Politics Robert His/ope

The plan of this chapter is to assess evolutionary theory on two levels. First, its philosophical dimensions are explored by surveying the theory's chang ing configuration over the years. Since the 1970s there has been a veritable "punctuated" explosion of evolutionary theories. It will be shown that the evolutionary paradigm has taken three broadly defined forms: evolution as ontology, as cultural evolution, and as analogy. Each type advances differ ent units of analysis, causal mechanisms, and modes of explanation. The sheer volume of studies operating under the mantle of evolutionary theory undoubtedly causes confusion among scholars working outside of the par adigm. It is likely that many critics reject the entire paradigm after a first encounter with an inferior representation.1 The first part of this chapter, therefore, will simply trace evolutionary theory's "descent with modifica tion" and make comparative judgments on its various expressions. I hope to make a convincing argument that the various guises of sociobiology represent a "degenerating problemshift" ( Lakatos 1970), and that the fail ure of this program has led to two alternative conceptions-evolution as analogy and cultural evolution. I then turn to a brief empirical test of how well cultural evolutionary theory can render intelligible different patterns of ethnic politics represented by South Africa's transition from apartheid and Croatia's secession from Yugoslavia. I conclude that cultural evolu tionary theory provides an insufficient account of the causal factors that determined regime transition outcomes.

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Skeptical Views

THE EVOLUTION OF EVOLUTIONARY THEORY: FROM ONTOLOGY TO ANALOGY

Evolutionary theory has experienced a number of changes and develop ments over the years. From the 19 70s-when sociobiology was announced as the new paradigm of the social sciences-to the present time, it is pos sible to chart a philosophical evolution of the doctrine. Essentially, it has evolved from a position of monocausal genetic determinism to current for mulas in which either culture has equal epistemic value to genes or the ontological linkage to a biological base is severed in favor of treating ev olutionary theory in analogical terms . The plan in this section is to delineate in broad terms the main forms of evolutionary theory and to evaluate each in terms of its core concepts, causal mechanisms, and potential for heuristic and explanatory success. This study identifies four research programs that fall within the general rubric of evolutionary theory: ( 1 ) the monocausal genetic determinism model, or what Durham calls "Sociobiology I"; (2 ) the genetic influence model (Durham's "Sociobiology II " ) , in which culture may also influence behavior, although culture remains epiphenomenal and tied to the genetic "leash" (Durham 1991, 156-59); ( 3 ) cultural evolution, which treats cul ture as an independent variable distinct from biological factors and, in some cases, subsumes culture within evolutionary processes; ( 4 ) evolution as analogy, in which biological processes serve as the source of concept formation and theory building for the study of human behavior. This typology is best conceived as a series of ideal types that the writ ings approach but do not fully cohere. Given that the relationships among fundamental concepts ( such as genes and culture ) are often quite obscure in the literature, some of the categorizations below are necessar ily approximate rather than definitive. Another important aspect of this typology is that the models are ranked from the most ontological to the least. The first two sociobiological models are predicated on the notion that genes constitute the fundamental, universal building blocks of hu man behavior. This is evolutionary theory as ontology; the emphasis is on locating ontologically primitive units that can account for the genesis, development, and mechanics of all human behavior. The proponents of cultural evolution ground culture in biology but allow for the indepen dent explanatory role that culture has in human societies. The last type evolution as analogy-refrains from any direct linkage between actual bi ological processes and politics. Instead, biology is treated heuristically as a source of insight for constructing theories of politics. Let us now turn to a more detailed examination of each model.

Evolutionary Theories and the Explanation of Ethnic Politics

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Evolution as Ontology

Sociobiology I

The first group of thinkers includes straightforward genetic determinists. Durham labels this the "narrow definition of sociobiology, " or " Socio biology I" (Durham 1991, 17-20). The scholars of this research program accord little explanatory role to culture and prefer instead to reduce human behavior to genetic foundations. Culture, in fact, is little more than an epiphenomenal expression, or what Barash called the "whisperings within" (Barash 1979 ) . The relationship between the genotype (the genetic consti tution of an organism) and the phenotype (the manifest characteristics of an organism) is considered to be direct and automatic. Essentially, "phe notypes differ because genotypes do" (Durham 1991, 1 5 7 ) . This group represents the first wave o f sociobiologists who announced a new paradigm for the 1970s. The Wiegele ( 1 982) volume on sociobiology, which includes contributions from across the fields in the social sciences, contains many samples of this type. Most of the essays in this work reflect the belief that the social sciences are on the brink of a "progressive prob lemshift" (Lakatos 1970 ). Hence, a revolutionary rhetoric prevails among its proponents, who champion new methods ( "cross-species" comparison, psychophysical and psychophysiological tests ), new disciplines ( " biopoli tics," "bio behavioralism " ) , and new forms of training for the social sci entist (i.e., " substantial mastery" of medicine, psychopharmacology, neuroanatomy, biochemistry, human endricology, and related fields) (Wie gele 1982). Among the political science contributions in the Wiegele volume, those from John Wahlke and Glendon Schubert epitomize the genetic determin ism of Sociobiology I. Both thinkers reduce culture to psychophysical im pulses which, if studied via galvanic skin response, pulse, heart rate, and blood pressure, "reveal more" about the meaning of political symbols and concepts than the verbal reports of human agents (Wahlke 1982, 198-99 ) . Directions for further research include examining such topics as the artic ulation of a human need or the incidence of violence on the basis of neural substrates and psychophysical and hormonal systems ( Schubert 1 9 82, 238, 242 ) . The problem with this approach is that it neglects the widely recognized role that human language and culture play in constituting and constructing reality. Furthermore, genetic arguments alone cannot explain the diversity of human behavior, given that humans share over 99 percent of their ge netic material (Washburn 1982, 1 0 1-5 ) . The absence of sufficient varia tion in the genetic structure to explain behavioral diversity leads one to the role of language and culture. In the words of Gibbons ( 1 987, 1 3 8 ) , " [l] anguage is the expression of a mode of being in the world; language,

1 00

Skeptical Views

in some fundamental sense, helps constitute our social life, practices, and our world. Hence, it is only through language that we come to know, reflect upon, and act upon the world. " Similarly, Edward T. Hall suggests that "people from different cultures not only speak different languages but, what is possibly more important, inhabit different sensory worlds" (quoted in Masters 1 9 82, 208 ) . It is in consideration of the immense role of speech and culture in mediating human behavior that Washburn ( 1 9 82, 1 1 0 ) con temptuously defines human ethology as " the science that pretends humans cannot speak . " Rather than representing a new wave of scientific advance, the sociobiologists' clarion call to " return to our biological roots" (van den Berghe 19 82, 14) appears terribly retrograde. Sociobiology II

"Sociobiology II" represents a theoretical advance over the preceding level. It speaks the language of genetic influence rather than determinism, and it permits the role of culture, although culture remains tied to the genetic "leash . " Genes influence behavior in one of two ways: either they constrain the development of certain traits or they add evolutionary pos sibilities. The relative strength of genes and culture varies over time, such that, to quote van den Berghe, "We can legitimately argue about whether we are dealing with a Great Dane held by a toddler, a Chihuahua held by a Sumo wrestler, or some more likely pairing in between" (quoted in Dur ham 1991, 1 5 8 ) . In the final analysis, however, genotypes impose limits on culture (Durham 1991, 34-35, 157-59 ) . Roger Masters's work consistently falls within the parameters of this model. A point of departure for Masters ( 1 982, 206) is that "neither cul tural norms nor individual learning can be reduced simply to the infor mation coded in human chromosomes, for both a verbal language and the central nervous system can function, within limits, as an autonomous, open information system." In his explanation of the "evolution of political com munities," Masters focuses on strategies of cooperation and competition and on how such strategies (nepotism, direct or indirect reciprocity, help ing, and altruism) may expand or contract the recognition markers of a community. Culture is capable of either temporarily opposing or enhancing such strategies. Ultimately, it must yield to calculations of inclusive fitness (i.e., how a given policy benefits one's family and close kin ) .2 Thus, states may successfully rely on a cultural myth of "fictive kinship" during periods of economic growth or abundance. The onset of more difficult economic times calls the myth into question. Masters writes, a "period of pessimism follows, marked by declining investments, increased internal conflict and coercion, emigration, or conquest by foreigners and-in historical examples from ancient Mesopotamia, Egypt, or Rome to contemporary states like Lebanon, Ethiopia, or Cambodia-the collapse of central governmental au thority" (Masters 1993, 1 1 4 ) . 3


1 01

Cultural myths, in this scheme, are powerless vis-a-vis the genetic pull to benefit only real kin. At certain times, the "leash " connecting genes and culture can be stretched very long, giving culture the semblance of auton omy (e.g., states successfully relying on the myth of fictive kinship ) . When culture begins to contradict the genetic program, the gene-culture leash quickly recoils. Van den Berghe's writings are also indicative of Sociobiology II. In his account of human aggression, he mentions the " cultural elaboration on our biological propensities " and assures the reader that any credible explana tion of human affairs must involve " both biogenic and sociogenic" factors (van den Berghe 1974). While he acknowledges that culture may manifest "maladaptive" outcomes for the species and that the role of culture com plicates any simple relationship between biological drives and behavioral outcomes, his entire analysis of aggression is predicated on the idea that just below the multifarious forms of cultural excrescence lies "biogenetic determination" (van den Berghe 1974, 782 ) . In fact, culture itself is not a genuinely independent variable in that it "is part and parcel of nature and cannot be dissociated from it" (van den Berghe 1 9 8 1 , 1 0 ) . No better in dicator of the tautness of the leash between genes and culture is given than in his book The Ethnic Phenomenon ( 1 9 8 1 ) , in which, out of 26 1 pages, culture is only mentioned nine times (index-based count ) . Gary Johnson's work on patriotic speech sits on the dividing line between Sociobiology II and cultural evolution. On the one hand, culture and "clas sical conditioning" play a decisive role in his explanation, but on the other hand Johnson relies on sociobiological premises and kin selection deter minism to frame the problem of his study (Johnson 1987). The problematic he poses is that given the genetic drive of humans to benefit either close kin (kin selection) or, under certain conditions, nonrelatives (for the exchange of benefits, known as reciprocal altruism ), how is sacrifice to the nation possible ? Johnson argues that the exploitation of kin terms in pa triotic speech helps to induce sacrificial behavior, but he concedes that their presence in nationalist rhetoric and literature "cannot be explained by kin selection theory alone" (Johnson 1987, 1 6 8 ) . Thus, socialization is intro duced as an intervening variable that reinforces emotional attachment to kin terms and transfers allegiances from kin to nation. When nation-states don the attire of "motherland" and "fatherland, " they elicit powerful un derlying biological dispositions otherwise geared solely toward close kin (Johnson 1987, 169). One problem with Johnson's argument (a problem germane to Socio biology II) is the assumption that individuals are motivated by kin regarding, sociobiological calculations of survivability and reproduction. Is it plausible to believe that the rich diversity of human motivations-relig ion, morality, aesthetics, power, lust, love, hate, and so on-is hardwired to operate on the basis of kin selection?4 Marshall Sahlins, for one, thinks

1 02

Skeptical Views

not. His study finds that "there is not a single system of marriage, post marital residence, family organization, interpersonal kinship, or common descent in human society" that follows the sociobiological calculus (Sahlins 19 76, 26). If models based on economic, political, social, ideational, psy chological, and historical factors provide widely accepted explanations of why individuals identify with society, one wonders what additional ex planatory value can be gained by the inclusion of biological variables. In Johnson's framework, sociobiological dilemmas (why do humans sacrifice for nonkin ? ) create the question to which culture provides the answer. Why then invoke genetic explanations if culture accounts for the variance (Den nett 1995, 486-9 1 ) ? The response to this question would appear to be twofold. First of all, sociobiologists reason that if a certain type of behavior is manifest univer sally among people in different cultures, this is strong evidence to suggest " at least partial biogenic determination" (van den Berghe 1974, 782; Ma zur 1 9 82, 302; Johnson 19 87, 173 ) . Such a conclusion, however, is not forced by the evidence. As Daniel Dennett observes, " [s] o far as I know, in every culture known to anthropologists, the hunters throw their spears pointy-end-first, but this obviously doesn't establish that there is a pointy end-first gene that approaches fixation in our species" (Dennett 1995, 4 8 6 ) . 1 In other words, recourse to genetic explanations for the prima facie universality of a given behavior is only sensible if one can rule out or circumscribe the role of innovation and learning, the cross-cultural diffu sion of ideas, and what Dennett calls "the bland possibility of the inde pendent rediscovery of forced moves" (Dennett 1995, 490 ) . A second reason for the inclusion o f genetic factors when a dependent variable appears explained by culture revolves around the difference be tween proximate and distal explanations. While culture may stand in an unmediated and direct causal path to any given behavioral trait, what makes the cultural factor possible could be a certain biological predispo sition, gene, or novel turn in the evolutionary history of the species. Hence, exploring distal causal factors helps complete the chain of causation and provides an understanding of why things are the way they are. If socio biologists were to frame their study in such exploratory "distal" terms, it is likely that they could silence some of their more severe critics. The think ers of Sociobiology II, however, exhibit a strong tendency to regard genetic factors as primary and culture as secondary. This can be seen in Johnson's insistence on a dichotomous framework of "genes and environment" (John son 1987, 166), van den Berghe's view that culture "cannot be divorced from either ecology or genetics" (van den Berghe 1 9 8 1 , 6), and van den Berghe's efforts to downplay the significance of culture (van den Berghe 1974, 786-87, n. 9).6 It is apparent, therefore, that Sociobiology II thinkers are committed to keeping the leash between genes and culture short and taut.


1 03

The best evidence that this model is in trouble comes from the socio biologists themselves. A 1986 publication, The Sociobiology of Ethnocen trism, edited by Vernon Reynolds, Vincent Falger, and Ian Vine, bears the markings of sociobiology in retreat. The tone and tenor of most of the contributions reflects the avalanche of criticism heaped on sociobiology after its first expression in the 1970s. Reynolds, Melotti, Vine, and others recognize the limits of genetic determination and the explanatory difficulties facing sociobiology (Melotti 1986, 1 1 1 ; Meyer 1 9 86, 93; Reynolds 19 86, 2 14-15; Silverman 1986, 1 1 6; Vine 1986, 79 ) . Gone are the bold pro nouncements of a new paradigm, the denigration of traditional social sci ence theories as pre- or quasi-scientific, and the supreme confidence of those riding the wave of a progressive problemshift. Sociobiologists appear to have undergone a "reality check" and now acknowledge "that the phe nomena dealt with can be approached from so many different points of view, from so many disciplines, and on so many levels, that a unitary com prehensive theory is hardly to be expected in the near future" (van der Dennen 19 86, 47). Even more humbling is Vernon Reynolds's remark that "man has thought, talked, and acted himself out of the stream of processes that sociobiology as a branch of science can explain" (quoted in Ike 19 86, 232 ) . Consequently, efforts are made by scholars such as Dunbar ( 1986, 54) to recast sociobiology in terms of the study of "evolutionary conse quences " without any presumption that behavior is "under strict genetic control. " Cultural Evolution

The common denominator of cultural evolutionary models is the premise that behavioral diversity is a product of both biology and culture. Culture, in this model, constitutes a second inheritance system with a potentially large capacity to shape behavior. Another common point of agreement is the premise that an exclusive reliance on the mechanism of kin-regarding inclusive fitness by sociobiologists is an empirical dead end (see the excel lent critique offered by Ross 199 1 ) . Naturally there are many differences among the thinkers grouped here. The degree of cultural autonomy from the biological base is a matter of contention, as well as whether culture itself is subject to evolutionary change. Kevin MacDonald's 1994 book, A People That Shall Dwell Alone, has little to do with evolution as a process or mechanism and more to do with evolution as the outcome of cultural factors. What MacDonald hopes to explain is the "uniqueness of Judaism and its persistence in its uniqueness over long periods of historical time" (MacDonald 1994, 227 ) . How he attempts to explain it is by ideology and social controls, both of which arc "underdetermined by evolutionary theory" (MacDonald 1994, 4-5 ) . This conception of evolution as an outcome of the interplay of group strategies

1 04

Skeptical Views

is far removed from the role granted to genes in both Sociobiology I and II. Genetic factors do not show up in MacDonald's work until the last chapter, and then only in a highly speculative manner. MacDonald's central point is that "strategies [of group survival may] be the result of natural selection, but may be a completely invented or 'made up' product of the human mind. The conclusion must be that we cannot develop a determin istic theory of a creature whose behavior can be significantly manipulated by 'voluntary symbolic meanings' " (MacDonald 1 994, 8 ) . Other models of cultural evolution, however, demonstrate that the articulation of values and the role of culture can be understood in a more structured, evolution ary manner. Marc Howard Ross's ( 1 99 1 ) work is a case in point. Ross provides a convincing refutation of sociobiology and substitutes cultural forces for the explanatory limitations of inclusive fitness. Following the efforts of Rich erson and Boyd ( 1988 ) , Ross identifies two cultural-level constructs-so ciality and identity-that account for in-group amity/out-group enmity and the human capacity to transcend ethnic cleavages. Sociality (the propensity for affective interpersonal relations ) and identity (the ability to identify one self with a group and demarcate outsiders from insiders ) are both "genet ically transmitted psychological predispositions " which have explanatory " autonomy" (Ross 1991, 1 75-77 ) . The evolution of these two predispo sitions in a given environment can account for maladaptive behaviors, such as ethnic conflict. At the same time, due recognition of these traits makes possible their manipulation for the purpose of conflict management. Thus, "sociality" is suggestive of techniques which promote the development of intercommunal bonds and friendships, and "identity" calls for the recon struction of ethno-identities to larger state entities or the promotion of common interests (Ross 1991, 1 8 1 ) . Ross's ideas have further application to processes of democratic consolidation, as we shall see below. William Durham's ( 1 99 1 ) model of "coevolution" is the last theory to be examined under the cultural evolution type. It is an impressive attempt to take seriously both genes and culture as co-determinants of human be havior. Neither factor is given causal priority. Instead, both are conceived as symmetrical inputs to phenotypes. Culture, unlike many versions of so ciobiology, is disentangled from "environment. " As a result, a genuine "tri chotomous" framework (genes, culture, environment) is articulated in which no factor is reducible to the other. Another novelty of Durham's theory is that culture is treated in evolutionary terms, which is to say that culture is understood to evolve in a manner similar to all biological phe nomena.7 Accordingly, Durham's coevolution project proceeds on multiple levels: ( 1 ) determine to what extent culture and genes separately and inter actively account for human diversity; (2) demonstrate that culture evolves similarly to biological evolution; and ( 3 ) examine the relationship between culture and inclusive fitness.


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What is particularly intriguing about Durham's model is that the causal arrows point in both directions. For example, culture influences genotypes in such cases as the effects of dairying on the genetic evolution of adult lactose abs orption, and genes help to explain the cultural evolution of basic color terms .8 Moreover, Durham is prepared to consider a number of dif ferent outcomes between culture and inclusive fitness. Thus, culture may " enhance" the survivability and reproduction of the species. The "incest taboo" is a prime example of such an enhancement. In other cases, culture may be "neutral" or even in "opposition" to inclusive fitness. An instance of opposition is seen in the cultural practices of cannibalism among the Fore people of New Guinea, a practice associated with the spread of a lethal nerve disease (Durham 1991, 436-44 ) . By considering multiple, interactive relationships between genes and culture, Durham brings intellectual so phistication to evolutionary theory. Furthermore, his theory recommends itself because he establishes grounds for falsification. Too often evolution ary theories fall prey to "j ust so" stories. These are tautological proposi tions that find adaptation in whatever exists, the "proof" being that the entity does indeed exist. In contrast, Durham takes the time to formulate null hypotheses and even explicitly states the conditions that "would be sufficient to refute my arguments" (Durham 1991, 454, 457). The heart of Durham's theory is his mechanism of transformation, "cul tural selection. " He describes cultural selection as "the single most impor tant force of cultural evolution" (Durham 1991, 432 ) . What exactly is it ? Cultural selection is a matter of human beings " choosing" or "imposing" (or having imposed upon them) values. Values come in two forms. "Pri mary values " are evaluations that emanate from the nervous system and amount to built-in responses to external stimuli.9 " Secondary values" are evaluations based on reference to the culture itself. As culture develops, they begin to supplant primary values ( becoming ascendant by the time of the Upper Paleolithic period) as the most influenti al mechanism of cultural evolutionary change. The evolutionary consequences that any particular set of values has for inclusive fitness are determined by empirical investigation. In a general sense, the capacity for culture greatly aids human evolution, because cultural selection has a more rapid response time than natural se lection to changes in the environment. If specific secondary values hamper reproduction and survival, human agents will make a rational, conscious attempt to locate the source of their problems. If they discover the second ary values responsible for their plight, they will alter their values (Durham 1991, 432, 455, 457). In this way, a "principle of congruence" between secondary and primary values unfolds over time. In Durham's words: "For most of the last two million years, the average net effect of secondary values has been to promote decisions that enhanced the reproductive fitnesses of those who guided the evolutionary descent of cultural systems" (Durham 1991, 448 ) . In other words, culture is not arbitrary or the product of rad-

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ical free choice. On the contrary, it is "structured" in that it faces the constraints of power relations, technology, and its own symbolic reference system, and it is "functional" in that it tends to enhance the inclusive fitness of the cultural "selectors" (Durham 1 991, 445 , 452, 45 8 ) . Instances of opposition between culture and inclusive fitness are pre dicted by Durham to be rare. When opposition is found, it is expected to be a product of "imposition. " Imposition occurs when one group imposes the values that increase its inclusive fitness on another group that receives no such benefit (Durham 1991, 451, 455, 457, 464 ) . The conditions facing impoverished peasants in El Salvador and Fore women who practice can nibalism are offered as examples of imposed " opposition" (Durham 1991, ch. 7 ) . Although Durham does not extend his analysis of imposition and opposition beyond these two cases, he does note in passing that "in soci eties with state-level organization I am convinced that imposed opposition is commonplace" (Durham 1991, 451, n. 22 ) . A brief attempt to apply Durham's insights on this matter to contemporary ethnic politics will com prise the final section of this chapter. Evolution as Analogy

Since the critique of socio biological theories another reformulation of evolutionary theory has occurred, this time in analogical terms. In evolution as analogy, biological processes provide concepts, exemplars, and models by which social phenomena may be classified and "contained. "10 No effort is made to link genes and biological predispositions to specific political behaviors. Instead, the goal is to rely on the inferential power of the anal ogy, that is, the inference that if two different phenomena resemble each other in one dimension, they are also similar in others. The hope is that the developmental sequences, modes of interaction, and casual mechanisms embedded in specific biological phenomena will generate productive in sights and applications in the social sciences . George Modelski's presentation o f the evolutionary paradigm for the study of international politics represents an analogical heuristic strategy. He writes: "The question is not how much like biological systems are social systems, or how much social behavior is rooted in biology. Instead the question is what additional useful analogies might there be for the social sciences, if the social system is viewed as subject to evolutionary processes ? " (Modelski 1996, 327; Modelski and Poznanski 1996, 3 1 6 ) . Contrary to earlier sociobiologists, who sought to reduce politics to biological processes and who regarded such explanatory reductions as the sine qua non of sci ence (van den Berghe 19 82, 14-1 5 ) , Modelski adopts a more tolerant po sition by rejecting any privileged status for the four major types of evolution, namely, physical, biological, social, and cultural. In his words, " [t ]here are important differences between biological organisms (not to


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mention the physical universe, and culture) and societies, and they argue for keeping, at this stage, the several realms analytically distinct" (Modelski 1996, 322-23, 327). Recent evolutionary applications in fields as diverse as human rights (Fiorini 1996) and economics (Hodgson 1993 ) also refrain from ontological statements and instead seek to exploit evolutionary meta phors. The problem in relying on evolution solely as an analogy is that all anal ogies eventually break down. Analogies are easy to find but difficult to sustain. Moreover, the mere identification of an analogy does not, ipso facto, produce "real analytic value" and "substantial meaning" (Durham 1991, 1 0 ) . As Allan Mazur ( 1 9 82, 303-4 ) has remarked, " [o]ne can al ways form analogies between any two species, " but this does not entail that the analogies are "meaningful . " The major disanalogies between genes and culture, as documented by Durham ( 1 991, 197-99, 422-25), include the scale and organization of what is being transmitted ( a length of DNA co ding versus a concept, idea, or value), the source of constraints (organic endogenous contraints versus exogenous social constraints, such as power) , and the greater foresight and adaptive speed of cultural agents. Even the mode of selection differs. As Durham succinctly puts the matter, nature selects " by consequences " ; cultural agents choose " according to conse quences " ( 1 991, 432, 460 ) . The fact that humans can anticipate conse quences and rapidly alter behavior and genes cannot makes the latter a poor "data container" ( Sartori 1970) for cultural dynamics. Ann Fiorini's study of human rights reflects the tensions of trying to capture human behavior with a genetic analogy. On the one hand, she recognizes that "norms and genes are not perfect parallels" in that " [p ]eople, unlike nature, can reason" (Fiorini 1996, 3 77). But on the other hand, she feels compelled to minimize the role of conscious deliberation in norm adoption. She writes: "The evolutionary argument is based on a fun damental assumption that human 'choices' about behavior are based far more on simple imitation, encoded in the form of a norm, than on delib erate weighing of well-considered and well-understood options" (Fiorini 1996, 378 ) . In truth, there is no logical necessity that compels evolutionary theory to reduce complex value judgments to unconscious processes of "im itation" and "emulation . " As we have seen, Durham places rational, con scious human choice at the centerpiece of his analysis. Fiorini's erroneous reduction, therefore, is driven solely by her obdurate adherence to a spent analogy. THE EXPLANATORY LIMITS OF CULTURAL EVOLUTIONARY THEORY

In this final section, I advance a brief argument on the explanatory limits of cultural evolutionary theory. Croatia's descent into ethnic chaos in 1991

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and South Africa's ascent to democracy in 19 94 represent diverse trajec tories of ethnic politics. Accordingly, they constitute excellent cases for a "plausibility probe" (Eckstein 1975) on the merits of cultural evolutionary theory. Cultural Evolution Applied

Core constructs and premises of culture evolution actually have a com fortable applicability to the cases. In Croatia, for example, war had con siderable "cultural fitness . " Defined by Durham, cultural fitness is meant to describe the " suitability for replication and use" that a proposed value has vis-a-vis the extant cultural system (Durham 1991, 194-95 ) . World War II brought horrendous ethnic slaughter to the Balkans as the fascist government of Croatia conducted genocide against the minority Serb com munity. The postcommunist government of Franjo Tudjman unwisely ap propriated the symbols of Croatia's fascist past and instituted ethnically discriminatory measures, both of which produced visceral reactions in the Serb community. Serb culture, for its part, is informed not only by a long standing martial tradition (dating back to the military frontier erected by the Austro-Hungarian Empire to thwart Ottoman advances ) but by the living memory of massive destruction perpetrated by the Croats (Judah 1997). Not a few contemporary Serb military leaders had immediate family members liquidated by the quisling Croatian government ( Glenny 1993) which, in evolutionary terms, makes for a tight nexus at the individual level between the selection of war and kin-regarding inclusive fitness interests. In a word, "cultural self-selection, " or "the capability of the cultural system to influence the direction and rates of its own evolutionary change" (Dur ham 1991, 20 1 ) , would seem to be operative in Croatia. In several other critical ways, the interactive effects of culture and envi ronment in Croatia made war highly likely. The political geography of Croatia is actually a complex assortment of distinct cultural traditions. The evolutionary force of geographic "isolation" accounts for this variation. The Krajina region (which was administered by Austria during the reign of the Austro-Hungarian Empire) is the home of militant Serb nationalism in Croatia. It is only here that Serbs comprised a demographic majority and overwhelmingly supported the " chetnik" movement (guerrilla group loyal to the Serbian crown ) during World War II. In contrast, Slavonia (which was historically under the hegemony of Hungary) is marked by an ethni cally heterogeneous population in which Serbs were, for the most part, demographic minorities. During World War II, Slavonian Serbs enjoyed good relations with Croats and contributed to the "partisan" (i.e., communist) cause (Glenny 1993; Hislope 1995 ) . If culture is "inherited" and " allomemes" (Durham's label for values) instruct political behavior, then one should expect region-


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specific responses as tensions mounted in the republic. This was indeed the case. Slavonian Serbs sought "voice, " and Krajina Serbs opted for "exit." When the former made overtures for dialogue to the Croatian leadership, a clear case of "imposition" occurred as Krajina Serb pressure on the Sla vonian Serb leadership resulted in a coup (Hislope 1 995 ) . As a result, war was selected for both regions. However, this outcome amounted to " cul tural fitness" only in the case of Krajina; in Slavonia, the political impo sition of allomemes from an external selector made for "opposition" with the local cultural system. A final cultural evolutionary mechanism favoring war in Croatia was "migration" (Durham 1991, 1 9 1 ) . Following the devastation of World War II, Tito resettled war-ravaged peasants from Hercegovina and Dalmatia into the homes of recently ejected Germans in Slavonia. Consequently, the historically peaceful Pannonian plains of Slavonia had injected into them the carriers of violent Dinaric mountain traditions. In this way, a funda mental "transformation" occurred that altered the hitherto prevailing culture-environment algorithm. The ramifications of this alteration are disclosed by Slavonian police records, which indicate that dosljaci (migrant) villages had ten times more violent outbreaks than did non-dosljaci villages (Vasic 199 1 ) . If war found a supportive environment in Croatia, conditions favored interracial consensus in South Africa. The April 1994 election in South Africa was preceded by four years of negotiation between Nelson Man dela's African National Congress (ANC ) and F. W. de Klerk's National Party (NP ) . Both parties were committed to ending apartheid and trans forming the regime in a democratic direction. A consensus on these allo memes by two powerful selectors was a major contribution toward the success of South Africa's democratic transition. A basic puzzle that confronts any transition to democracy is how to convince authoritarian holdouts from the old regime to agree to play the game of democracy. One key for success is the emergence of structural integration, defined as the development of overlapping communication and influence networks among elites (Burton, Gunther, and Higley 1992; Gun ther 1992 ) . The idea behind this construct is that if elites meet regularly in private settings to discuss issues, friendships will be forged and mutual interests recognized. Marc Howard Ross's work on cultural evolution spec ifies the biological predispositions-sociality and identity-which make structural integration possible. All humans are capable of developing new affective personal relations and identities that bridge the chasms separating politically organized groups. The consultative practices of the ANC and the NP demonstrate how sociality and identity can be beneficially exploited to integrate structurally previously warring elites and to attain "consensual unity" (Burton, Gunther, and Higley 1992 ) . In comparative terms, South Africa's political environment was condu-

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cive to a negotiated transition. Ethnic settlement patterns-most notably, the scattered and minority status of white communities-made the sepa ratist and partition plans of extremist parties unfeasible (Lijphart 1985 ) . In addition, international economic pressure coupled with domestic instability prompted important shifts in Afrikaner public opinion. Over the course of the 19 80s, an increasing percentage of whites began to fear for their phys ical security, and the system of apartheid was singled out by many as an important source of insecurity (Manzo and McGowan 1992 ) . In the words of Manzo and McGowan, "The fact that Afrikaners' traditional source of security has now been turned into a reason for their insecurity may rep resent the greatest hope for meaningful change in the country, as well as explain the current 'reform' policies of the de Klerk government" (p. 1 1 ; emphasis in original ) . As Durham suggests in his long-term study of the interactive effects of genes and culture, threats to inclusive fitness prompt the search for alternative allomemes that better serve the survival and re productive interests of the groups involved.

Explanatory Limits The preceding discussion provides a strong case that cultural evolution ary theory is capable of explaining diverse political outcomes by drawing on underlying causal mechanisms. The dynamic interplay between inclusive fitness, cultural self-selection, imposition, isolation, migration, and sociality and identity provides a plausible storyline for the unfolding drama of each case. At the same time, alternative accounts of the cultural inheritance sys tems that point to different outcomes are possible. If one were charged with describing the modal allomemes present in Yugoslavia prior to the postcommunist transition, without the aid of hind sight, an accurate description would have to include Tito's multicultural emphasis on "brotherhood and unity, " the institutionalized political habits of inclusion and consensus, the liberalized political environment of Yugo slavia compared to its Soviet bloc neighbors, and the participatory demo cratic experiences engendered by the system of workers' self-management. Likewise, a fair description of South Africa would have to give due place to the near-thirty year armed struggle waged by the ANC, the martial traditions of both Zulus and Boers (Keller 1994), the desperation found in the impoverished black townships, and the alarming levels of violence that made South Africa one of the most violent places in the world in the early 1990s ( Shapiro 1993 ) . Essentially, alternative case descriptions can be prof fered that raise doubts that things had to happen the way they happened. Cast in this light, the causal evolutionary storyline developed above takes on an ex post facto or "j ust so" hue. If the triadic formula of inclusive fitness, culture, and environment fails to narrow the range of historical


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alternatives, it is possible that additional causal factors tip the balance in cases with competing allomemes. One such factor is the quality of political elites. Nelson Mandela is a figure of extraordinary talent who has an uncanny sense of timing, a knack for turning enemies into friends, the foresight to make strategic concessions, and a willingness to strike deals without the consent of his colleagues-all the while maintaining the loyalty of his party and his constituency (Man dela 1994 ) . How Mandela managed the various obstacles to the South African transition is truly a lesson in statesmanship. He publicly chastised the ANC rank and file for acts of violence; he cultivated relations with the Zulu king, Goodwill Zwelithini, as a way to put pressure on the recalcitrant leader of the Inkatha Freedom Party, Mangosuthu Buthelezi; he under mined the white Afrikaner Resistance Movement by forming a powerless commission to discuss a white homeland; he guaranteed civil service jobs for five years; he offered immunity to white policemen responsible for hu man rights violations; and he flatly told the white bourgeoisie that the ANC "does not believe in socialism" (Hislope 1995). A reasonable counterfactual to consider is the fate of the South African transition if Mandela had died during his long incarceration at Robben Island Prison. One scenario is that the mantle of moral leadership would have fallen to his then-wife, Winnie. In this event, a more uncompromising, confrontational, and populist-style leadership would certainly have emerged (Keller 1 995 ) . In the case of Yugoslavia, one can only wonder what course postcom munism would have taken if Slobodan Milosevic had not accidently stum bled upon the power of the nationalist card at a party meeting in Kosovo Polje in 1 9 87 (Ramet 1991; Djilas 1993 ) . The historical ramifications of such random, accidental events lie beyond the conceptual purview of evo lutionary theory. To be sure, this is not an argument for the "great man" theory of history, nor would I contend that elites are the most decisive factors in a regime transition. Rather, my point is that evolutionary theory's highly structured rendering of political change affords little explanatory space for an intangible, unpredictable, but nonetheless important, proxi mate causal force; namely, the political skills of statecraft-vision, bold ness, intelligence, cunning, oratory-that Machiavelli called virtu. Several evolutionary theorists do allow for the possibility of "the influence of chance events " (Durham 1991, 434). For example, Salter (in this volume) speaks of the role of "events, leaders, and institutions," and there is a growing division in evolutionary theory between causal monists who rely exclusively on the demiurge of natural selection and those who emphasize "causal pluralism" and "inefficient histories " (Taylor, 1987, 1997; March 1994; Gould 1997a, 1997b). However satisfactory such developments are for the purpose of explanation, the admission of nonevolutionary causes weakens the "hard core" of evolutionary theory and invites skepticism about its ability to trump traditional social science theories.

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CONCLUSION Evolutionary theory has taken many forms since the sociobiological de bate of the 19 70s. It is possible to demonstrate its theoretical transforma tion over time from a model of monocausal genetic determinism to cultural and analogical conceptualizations. The argument advanced herein is that the articulation of cultural evolutionary theory represents theoretical prog ress over sociobiology, but its explanatory payoff remains limited due to the role of contingency in human affairs and the significance of nonevo lutionary, proximate causal factors. While evolutionary theory undoubtedly elucidates the development of all organic life, it would seem to operate best at macro-levels of analysis and "distal" points of explanation, and from the perspective of the long term. Hence, it is bound to display shortcomings at micro-level events that are highly contingent in nature. The specification of areas where the explanatory reach of evolutionary theory is limited thus constitutes an important upshot of this chapter.

NOTES 1 . Hechter's ( 1 995, 53-68) dismissal of evolutionary theory fits this description. 2. Inclusive fitness may be formally and technically defined as the "total ex pected contribution of genetic 'offspring equivalents' to the next generation" (Dur ham 1991, 1 3 ) . It is linked to "kin selection, " in that an individual will engage in self-sacrificing behavior toward close kin if it promises to preserve and pass on his or her genes. 3. It must certainly come as a surprise to traditional historians that world his tory can be captured in such a pithy statement. Philip Kircher succinctly depicts this tendency of sociobiologists: " Sociobiology has two faces. One looks toward the social behavior of nonhuman animals. The eyes are carefully focused, the lips are pursed judiciously. Utterances are made only with caution. The other face is almost hidden behind a megaphone. With great excitement, pronouncements about human nature blare forth" ( quoted in Dennett 1 995, 48 1 ) . 4. The often-repeated story of geneticist J.B.S. Haldane certainly makes kin regarding inclusive fitness appear incredulous. "Asked if he would be prepared, on evolutionary grounds, ever to sacrifice his life for another, Haldane is supposed to have grabbed a beer mat and a pencil and, after a few quick calculations, to have declared that he would willingly lay down his life if he could save more than two brothers, four half brothers, or eight first cousins" ( quoted in Durham 1991, 14). 5 . At the same time, while Dennett's example rules out genetic determinism for this behavior, it does suggest a possible biological motivation, namely, the pointed end kills prey necessary for survival. The genetic encoding for specific behaviors is conceptually distinct from a "biologically determined capacity" for a behavior. The problem of Sociobiology II is that it fails to differentiate between these two types of explanations. A tip of the hat to Dan Friedman and Melinda Kanner for this insight. 6. Faced with countervailing evidence that in Japan the relationship between


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population density and crime falls apart, he simply dismisses the significance of the finding and asserts " [h] owever, within a society (i.e., controlling for culture), the relationship between violent crime and the population density seems to hold" (van den Berghe 1 974, 786-87, n. 9 ) . 7. The difference between Richerson and Boyd, on the one hand, and Durham, on the other, is that the former see culture developing independently of biology and often in opposition; the latter sees a close fit between culture and biological imper atives and accordingly finds opposition rare. Durham in fact makes a strong case for the "cooperative evolution of genes and culture " (Durham 1991, 444-54 ). For Durham's critique of Richerson and Boyd, see Durham ( 1 991, 463-66) . 8 . In contradistinction to the extravagant claims of the sociobiologists, the role of genes for Durham is circumscribed: "I do not expect major genetic mediation to be a common mode of relationship in human populations" (Durham 1991, 206 ) . 9. More formally defined, primary values are " 'sensations [that] are experi enced as intrinsically good or bad, pleasant or unpleasant.' They include feedback from the senses, from the internal reward system of the brain, and from organically evolved cognitive processes. They develop within each individual out of the inter action between nervous system and environment, and they characteristically require no input from social transmission" (Durham 1991, 200-2 0 1 ) . 1 0 . I allude here to Giovanni Sartori's view of concepts as "data containers " (Sartori 1 970 ) .

Chapter 6

Primordialism, Evolutionary Theory, and the Timing of Ethnic Conflict : Opportunities and Constraints for Theory and Policy Frank Harvey

INTRODUCTION

Building on contributions by Hislope (this volume ) and Wheaton (this vol ume), this chapter explores the logical errors, theoretical weaknesses, and empirical anomalies that plague evolutionary explanations of ethnic vio lence and war. The collapse of the former Yugoslavia is used as the primary source of evidence, although references to other ethnic conflicts are cited to help support the main arguments. A comprehensive assessment of evo lutionary and primordial theories is important for three reasons: ( 1 ) crises characterized by ethnic rivalry are a major source of violence and war in a post-Cold War system; (2) there is widespread acceptance in academic and policy communities that primordial explanations are sufficient to ac count for the violence; and ( 3 ) officials in the United States, Europe, and Canada continue to depend on these explanations to establish limits on their intervention strategies and to justify their collective reluctance to get involved in wars motivated by this kind of ethnic rivalry. To begin, there are three distinct sets of empirical puzzles which confront scholars who wish to explain ethnic conflict and violence from the per spective of evolutionary psychology, sociobiology, or cultural selection the ones: 1. Macro, or long-term selection processes associated with basic human preferences for individual or group survival, ethnic identity, or kinship affiliations (see, e.g., van den Berghe 1 9 8 1 ; Johnson 1 986, 1987, 1989, 1 997a, 1 997b; Warnecke, Masters, and Kempter 1 992; Bennett, Hanley, and Orbell 1 997; Salter 1997). 2. Intermediate selection mechanisms associated with the fitness and adaptability of specific cultures, religions, or belief systems in different regions of the

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world-for example, the former Yugoslavia (Hislope 1 997; Silverman and Case 1997) and the former Soviet Union (Moses 1 997) . 3 . Micro, or short-term selection processes and fitness mechanisms that account for the escalation and/or duration of ethnic hatred, violence, or war at a partic ular point in time (Hislope 1997).

Most of the literature on evolutionary theory addresses ethnicity from the perspective of the first two puzzles, while comparatively less time has been spent addressing micro-evolutionary questions about the timing, es calation, and duration of ethnic violence. This, of course, is entirely un derstandable-an evolutionary perspective furnishes a very useful framework for studying biological, sociocultural, and systemic change and transformation over relatively long periods of time, while explanations for specific choices, events, or behaviors tend to focus on environmental stimuli in the context of standard social scientific models ( SSSM). In sum, research on cultural selection provides an excellent source of information about why and under what conditions certain beliefs (and hatred) survive, but the link to ethnic violence is not as well developed. The chapter unfolds in five parts. The first part reviews the contributions and limitations of the dominant evolutionary explanation of ethnic conflict, namely, primordialism. A more sophisticated evolutionary model is de scribed in the second part. The model is assessed in terms of its ability to account for the timing, escalation, or duration of ethnic violence in the former Yugoslavia between 1993-1995 and its capacity to address the ten sion between biological and environmental explanations for the violence. The concept of "developmentally relevant environments" (Tooby and Cos mides 1992, 83-84) is introduced to help bridge the gap between biological and environmental perspectives. Tooby and Cosmides make a compelling case for why behavior "is fully and equally co-determined by the interaction of the organism's genes (embedded in its initial package of zygotic cellular machinery) and its ontogenetic environments . " Natural selection, in other words, " adaptively organizes gene-environment interactions," making the environment as evolutionary as genes. Problems with this line of argument are discussed in the third part. Part four addresses the most important problem, namely, it overlooks the impact of coevolutionary forces (e.g., the evolution of NATO and other international organizations ) that reestablish the predominance of environmental stimuli and, therefore, the utility of standard social scientific models when explaining ethnic conflict. The chap ter concludes with a few observations about the barriers that researchers inevitably confront when applying evolutionary models to this, or any, form of violence.

Primordialism, Evolutionary Theory, and the Timing of Ethnic Conflict

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PRIMORDIALISM, EVOLUTIONARY THEORY, AND ETHNIC CONFLICT: TAKE ONE

The dominant "evolutionary" explanation for ethnic conflict is primor dia/ism. Proponents argue that peoples' ethnic and religious identities "have deep social, historical, and genetic foundations , " and that the motivation for ethnic and kinship affiliation comes from these subjective, psychological forces internal to the individual and related to basic human needs for se curity and, more importantly, survival ( Geertz 1 9 73; Isaacs 1975; Smith 1981; Stack 1981, 1986, 1994; van den Berghe 1 9 8 1 ; Horowitz 1 9 85; Johnson 1997a, 1997b ) . Individuals are bound to an ethnic group by some "absolute import attributed to the very tie itself" ( Geertz 1973, 259 ) . In other words, there is something fundamental about the nature of ethnicity that ties individuals together and provides a sense of communal anchorage and protection lacking in other forms of organization. One might ask why "ethnic" ties are any more important than others when satisfying these needs-presumably one could accommodate a desire for affiliation and security in several ways that have little to do with cultural or ethnic traits (e.g., political, class, occupational, or functional identities ) . The answer, from an "evolutionary" perspective, is that ethnic ties are inherently more potent as an organizing ( and, by implication, an evolu tionary) force than, say, ties based on class or occupation (Horowitz 1 9 85; Johnson 1987). Elegant explanations for why ethnic bonds are more important are part and parcel of evolutionary approaches (van den Berghe 1981; Masters 1989; Spriggs 1996; Johnson 1997a, 1997b). As Spriggs ( 1 996, 2 ) points out, " Since the battle being fought was for the survival of 'self,' the enemy became the 'non-self,' the 'other. ' These 'others' were not of your immediate genetic line. The easiest method of determining 'others' was to see, to hear, and to smell them . " Johnson ( 1 997a, 1 997b) makes a similar argument-phenotypic matching of an organism's physical and be havioral characteristics (e.g., language, dialect, customs, diet, etc. ) "is prob ably the most important kin recognition mechanism for humans, . . . because there is often a correlation between genotype and phenotype those who are related are more similar phenotypically than those who are not, at least on average. " In sum, humans bond to one another for evo lutionary reasons that enhance reproductive success (Johnson 1997a, 1 997b ) . Enhancing reproductive success, therefore, i s the key to evolutionary ex planations of ethnic conflict. The war in Bosnia, for example, was fought between two different genetic and cultural lines. The conflict escalated as the groups' affinities were challenged and their existence threatened, as demonstrated by Serbia's reaction to Germany's acceptance and subsequent promotion of Croatian and Bosnian independence. Memories of the Cro atian slaughter of Serbs during World War II played an important role in

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the Serbian decision to mount such an intense offensive (Midlarsky 1994, 2 9 ) . The war also took place amidst the economic collapse of Eastern Eu rope, creating additional threats from "others " and greater incentives to fight for security. Research on evolutionary theory, phenotype matching, and kinship af filiations is extremely useful for understanding the root causes of patriot ism, nationalism (both ethnic and nonethnic ), xenophobia, and even racism. But it cannot explain ethnic war-that particular subset of human social interaction that involves a high level of intergroup violence and hos tility. Nor can it account for variations in the severity and timing of ethnic violence more generally. Stronger explanations for this variability focus on environmental forces, some of which underscore the prominent role played by ethnic elites in the mobilization process (see, e.g., Barth 1969; Bell 19 75; Rothschild 1 9 8 1 ; Nagel and Olzak 19 82; Olzak 1983; Nielsen 1985; O'Sullivan See 19 86; Zald and McCarthy 1987; Mason 1994 ) . These "in strumentalists" posit that ethnicity is a resource that becomes politicized by the ethnic elite in the competition for power, prestige, and authority (Rothschild 19 8 1 ) . In fact, ethnicity enhances the ability of group leaders to mobilize support by "facilitating identification of potential supporters," thereby making it easier to detect and sanction free riders (Mason 1994, 9 ) . The ethnic elite often intentionally promote feelings of cultural and economic inequality for political gain in the hope of establishing a strong, unified base for action. The strategy often involves tapping economic griev ances and reframing them in the discourse of ethnonationalism (O'Sullivan See 1 9 8 6 ) . In Yugoslavia, for instance, a deteriorating economy magnified the inequalities between the more prosperous North (Slovenia and Croatia) and the poorer South (Serbia and Montenegro ) , a problem that was aggra vated even further by Croatia' s reluctance to bankroll the Serb-dominated federal army (Midlarsky 1994, 2 8 ) . Both Milosevic and Karadzic were able to exploit these historic grievances in their attempt to mobilize nationalist support for a military response to Bosnian and Croatian separation. Others conceptualize the mo bilization of ethnicity in the language of pluralism and the competition over scarce economic and political resources (Furnivall 1948; Gellner 1964; Smith 1965; Hechter 1975; Despres 1967, 19 75; Horowitz 1985 ) . Where culturally divergent groups inhabit a com mon society, there is a "structural imperative " in which one group becomes subordinate to another ( Smith 1965, 62 ) . This is especially common when ethnic cleavages are reinforced by differences in class and status (Hechter 1975; Valdez 1994) or when labor markets are divided along ethnic lines ( Smith 1981, 1986a). The inequalities often result in exploitation, discrim ination, and blocked mobility of members of subordinate groups, which create the grievances, the feelings of relative deprivation and, by implica tion, the motives for ethnic mobilization and violence ( Gurr 19 70, 199 1 ) . Pluralism promotes ethnonational sentiments by making the " ascriptive ba-

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sis of ethnicity a functional and effective vehicle" for promoting individu al and group interests (Stack 1986, 6 ) . Notwithstanding the debates in the literature, most agree that ethnic con flict requires at least three necessary and sufficient conditions: economic, political, or military threats to the identity and/or existence of the ethnic group (primordial attachments ), an elite with the political skills and re sources to play on those fears (instrumentalism), and third-party military, political, or economic support for the cause ( Crighton and Mac lver 199 1 ) . Van Evra ( 1 994) addresses the interdependence of a similar set of causal factors in his study of nationalism and war, focusing on structural (geo graphic and demographic), political/environmental (institutional ), and per ceptual (nationalist self-image or primordial) variables. While primordial and evolutionary factors are very helpful in understanding root causes, the evidence appears to suggest that they are less relevant to the timing, esca lation, and duration of ethnic violence. The question is whether this evi dence is sufficient to make final judgments about the ability of primordial/ evolutionary theories to explain more than just root causes. PRIMORDIALISM, EVOLUTIONARY THEORY, AND ETHNIC CONFLICT: TAKE TWO

The approach developed here is different from most applications of ev olutionary psychology and sociobiology, in two ways: first, it goes beyond analogy by tying explanations for this particular subset of international behavior more directly and explicitly to evolutionary theory and cultural selection, second, it moves beyond traditional applications by exploring the relationship between evolutionary theory and the timing of ethnic violence in a particular case. A few words on the distinction between " analogy" and "theory" are in order. Most applications of evolutionary theory in the social sciences ( and, more specifically, international relations ) attempt to explain behavior with reference to analogies derived from the biological sciences. Contributions to the recent symposium, "Evolutionary Paradigms in the Social Sciences,"1 for example, all use the evolutionary processes of selection, fitness, and adaptability to explain (describe) everything from foreign policy decisions (Farkas 1996), the development of international institutions and norms (Fiorini 1996), long-term economic growth (Hodgson 1996), and the "eco nomic evolution of national systems" ( Gilpin 1996). Each article presents a detailed account of how both behavior and institutions are selected be cause they are more adaptive for individuals or groups within particular environments. Except in the most general sense of " survival of the fittest, " there is no attempt to link this behavior to specific biological forces that compel individuals or groups to select one type of behavior over another. Modelski and Poznanski even acknowledge that the key question that

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guided the entire project was whether there were "conditions such that an evolutionary analogy is justified" (Modelski and Poznanski 1996, 326 ) . The problem with analogies, as Tooby and Cosmides ( 1 992, xvii) point out, is that they may indicate some general underlying historical or psy chological processes, but they do not prove the existence of underlying biological or evolutionary forces . Evolutionary psychology and sociobiology, on the other hand, are more explicit about the role of biology in the development of human social be havior. This approach explains behavior by reconstructing problems that our ancestors faced in their primitive environments in order to identify specific problem-solving behaviors they developed to meet those particular challenges (Spriggs 1996 ) . From these reconstructed problem-solving ad aptations, "The science then attempts to explain how those common be havioral roots are manifested today in a variety of cultures, beliefs, and behaviors . " The key difference between evolutionary analysis (analogy) and evolutionary theories is the belief that humans behave for reasons that have less to do with the environment and more to do with biological forces that help individuals or groups adapt to local environments. 2 The research pro gram is driven by the conviction that nothing moves us to act in particular ways more strongly than elements of our psyche, of which we are com pletely unaware (Tooby and Cosmides 1986, xvi ) . The vast literature on cultural selection i s most relevant t o this position and has developed along several different tracks: basic evolutionism (La marck 1 8 09; Darwin 1 869; Spencer 1873, 1 8 76 ), social Darwinism (Mc Dougall 1908, 192 1 ), and its critics (Keller 1 9 1 6 ) , functionalism (Radcliffe-Brown 1952; Bock 1963 ), neo-evolutionism (Sahlins and Service 1960), diffusionism (Harris 1969), sociobiology (Wilson 1975 ) , and so on. Many of these works explore the interaction between genetic and cultural selection (Dawkins 19 76; Durham 1 99 1 ) , and have identified crucial sim ilarities between biological and cultural evolution, examples of which are summarized in Fog ( 1 996, 1-3 ) :

People with certain lifestyles or attitudes get more children on average than others, and if these lifestyles are transmitted to the children, they are likely to spread more than other forms. Societies with certain religions have higher chances of winning wars and conquering new land than others, and consequently these religions are likely to spread. People with certain ideas or behavior patterns have higher chances than others of becoming leaders, teachers, or idols, and thereby transmitting their behavior patterns to a high number of cultural descendants . . . . Certain stories or discourses have a particularly high propensity for being told and passed on, because they appeal to certain feelings, because they are suited for working through psy chological conflicts, because they serve as negative identification models, or because alternative discourses are hindered by cultural taboos or by incompatibility with existing preconceptions.


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Fog ( 1 996, 4 ) goes on to point out that, "These unconscious and ' auto matic' selection mechanisms . . . are not planned and their consequences are not consciously intended or foreseen. " With this in mind, the next question is whether the approach can help explain ethnic violence in the former Yugoslavia. Melotti's ( 1 9 8 6 ) comprehensive review of research on in-group/out group relations is as an excellent source of information about the relation ship between evolutionary processes and ethnic violence at particular points in time. Citing works by Spencer ( 1 893) and Sumner et al. ( 1 927 ), inter group conflict often results from the interaction between two different ge netic codes: " a code of amity towards members of one's own group, and a code of enmity towards members of other groups" (Melotti 1986, 97). Codes are selected (in an evolutionary sense) depending on whether they confer a strong or weak selective advantage to individual or group survival. The question then becomes this: When and under what conditions is one or the other strategy more or less likely to get selected? When the security, safety, and survival of the group is not an issue, amity (even among ethnic groups ) is expected to be a more fit strategy, as was the case with the Serbs and Muslims prior to the outbreak of ethnic violence in 1990. Alternatively, when security is not ensured, the survival of the individual, group, or state dictates that enmity is a more fit approach to social behavior, because it more effectively accommodates the group' s interests and allows members to direct a larger pool of resources toward withstanding " Other" individ uals, groups, cultures, or states. A similar argument is put forward by Grieco ( 1 9 8 8 ) in his response to Keohane's ( 1 984, 1986) observation that growing levels of global economic cooperation among states render obsolete the traditional, state-centric "re alist" paradigm. Grieco points out that a high level of mutual cooperation between states (or, by extension, ethnic groups ) is not evidence that anarchy is no longer a defining characteristic of interstate (or intrastate) politics. Such high levels of cooperation are expected when security is not an issue. If security is scarce, on the other hand, cooperation becomes more difficult, precisely because states (or ethnic groups) would, for security reasons, begin to measure benefits on the basis of relative, not absolute, gains. Under these circumstances, states are more likely to reject co operation, all else being equal, even if it produces absolute benefits, since an opponent may obtain a higher yield. 3 Van den Berghe ( 19 8 1 ) makes a similar argument in the context of ev olutionary theory and intergroup conflict-when man had mastered the forces of his environment (e.g., hunger, cold, predatory animals, etc. ), war became a key selective factor in human evolution. Prior to that point, sur vival was dependent on cooperating to combat common enemies. With respect to ethnic conflict in Bosnia, then, the changes in the former Yugo slavia around 199 1-1 992-that is, the decision by the European Com-

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munity, urged by Germany, to recognize Slovenian and Croatian independence-may have created the conditions for a shift in strategy, making enmity a more fit alternative to amity. This also explains why eth nicity was readily politicized in 199 1-1992 and not earlier, and why Bos nian Serbs and Muslims were persuaded, at that point in time, that the environmental stimuli (e.g., ethnic hatred, religious division, economic dis parities, and a long history of ethnic cleansing and genocide by both sides ) were now relevant, when prior to that point the same environmental fac tors, signals, and stimuli were apparently irrelevant. An equally convincing, although somewhat more sophisticated, evolu tionary explanation for the timing of ethnic violence in the former Yugo slavia downplays the influence of environmental forces by reevaluating their relative impact from the perspective of evolutionary theory. This explana tion is derived from what Tooby and Cosmides ( 1 992, 84) refer to as the " developmentally relevant environment"-"those particular aspects of the world that are rendered developmentally relevant by the evolved design of an organism' s developmental adaptations. " More specifically, recurrent organization of the environment contributes a biological inheritance par allel to that of the genes, which acts co-equally with them to evolutionarily organize the organism throughout its life. Every time one gene is selected over another, one design for a developmental program is selected over another as well; by virtue of its structure, this developmental program interacts with some aspects of the envi ronment rather than others, rendering certain environmental features causally rel evant to development. So step by step, as natural selection constructs the species gene set (chosen from the available mutations) it constructs in tandem the species developmentally relevant environment (selected from the set of all properties of the world) .

The authors go on to question the almost automatic assumption held by proponents of the SSSM, "that traits and behaviors can be divided into genetically versus environmentally controlled sets, or arrayed along a spec trum that reflects the relative influence of genes versus environment. " Be havior "is fully and equally co-determined by the interaction of the organism's genes (embedded in its initial package of zygotic cellular ma chinery) and its ontogenetic environments . . . . Natural selection actually adaptively organizes gene-environment interactions over time." In other words, "the environment is just as much the product of evolution as are the genes" ( 1 992, 83-84). With respect to ethnic conflict, then, we are all programmed to select both amity and enmity but are preprogrammed to select the approach that best serves the individual or group under different sets of circumstances. In the case of the former Yugoslavia, for instance, the environmental stimuli used by the elite following the breakup of Yugoslavia (economic divisions


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along ethnic lines, religious hatred, memories of ethnic cleansing in World War II, etc . ) were all present before and after the war but were selected as the developmentally relevant environment ( and stimuli ) because now this same information provided a better fit, under changing conditions, as an adaptive mechanism for group identity and survival. Beliefs, like genes, are selected because of their fitness, defined as adaptability to changing envi ronmental circumstances so that the survival of the individual or the group is enhanced. To the extent that ethnic hatred and violence (enmity) is more likely than not to help individuals cope, adapt, and survive, violence be comes a more acceptable behavioral trait. ENVIRONMENTAL FORCES RECONSIDERED

Although these admittedly more sophisticated applications of the pri mordial thesis help clarify many of the linkages between evolutionary the ory and the timing of ethnic conflict, several explanatory deficiencies remain unresolved. Consequently, substantive explanations for manifest ethnic conflict in particular regions will continue to depend on standard social scienctific models derived from a rigorous analysis of historical, cul tural, and environmental conditions. The key problem with primordial and evolutionary explanations is that they depend on forces and processes that are ubiquitous to human social behavior-they explain everything. For example, proponents claim that rel evant evolutionary forces are a product of specialized mental mechanisms, which have "evolved as part of our psychological architecture " and which "react to specific environmental stimuli among an infinite array of stimuli encountered, filter the stimuli to be processed, and prepare appropriate behavioral responses. Each mechanism is specialized in that it evolved to cope with a particular type of problem related to survival and reproduction that was encountered repeatedly over evolutionary time spans" ( Goetze and James, this volume) . According to evolutionary psychology, then, nearly all behavior results from the mutually reinforcing interaction between our specialized mecha nisms and environmental stimuli. The difference, of course, is that while environmental stimuli vary, evolutionary processes and associated "spe cialized" mechanisms do not; they are ubiquitous. If evolutionary processes of fitness, adaptation, and selection produce a set of specialized mechanisms that is not really that different, and if they can be invoked to explain con flict and/or cooperation between and among ethnically homogenous and/ or heterogeneous groups or individuals, then, in comparison to standard social science models, how helpful is the framework for describing, explain ing, or predicting ethnic conflict? By extension, proponents of evolutionary explanations also are forced to acknowledge the relative potency and impact of other environmental stim-

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uli (or external conditions ) that arguably play a far more fundamental role. Structural and economic changes in Eastern and Central Europe, for ex ample, established conditions under which ethnicity became readily politi cized. The conflict expanded and contracted as a result of foreign intervention, some aspects of which served to escalate tensions and hostil ities (recognition of Croatian and Slovenian independence, the arms em bargo against Muslims, weak threats of retaliation by NATO, UN rules of engagement, the European Community's lack of support for a "federalist" alternative, etc. ), while other elements of intervention served to control hostilities (large-scale NATO air strikes in 199 5, humanitarian assistance, economic sanctions against Serbia, etc.). Domestic political pressures played a role in determining when and under what conditions external powers became more or less involved. In fact, a key lesson of the Balkan war was that major powers will not become heav ily involved in preventing ethnic violence until it is clear that substantial political, military, or humanitarian benefits will be gained from the inter vention. Since there rarely is any direct proof that these diplomatic efforts are responsible for accomplishing anything significant (even if they have ), leaders are confronted with a particularly difficult task when trying to mount a large-scale "preventive diplomacy" effort. The problem is obvi ous-if there is no war to stop, or, for that matter, any other concrete measure of diplomatic success, leaders are not likely to make the first (often essential) move, even if early involvement is cost effective over the long run. There also is substantial evidence from Harvey ( 1 997) that the protracted nature of the fighting in Bosnia-Herzegovina was a direct consequence of strategic decisions by political and military officials. Ethnicity and religion may have accounted for the mutual hatred underlying the fighting, but the war was waged with specific objectives in mind-for example, territory, access to key waterways, and transportation and trade routes. Decisions made by Mladic and Karadzic to escalate the fighting depended on the prospect of winning and losing particular battles. Whenever U.S. and Eur opean leaders mounted a prolonged, stable threat of retaliation (through NATO ), backed by ultimatums, deadlines, and a clear commitment to pun ish, credibility was high and coercive diplomacy worked. Weak threats, on the other hand, promoted violence. A related problem was that interna tional law (including UN and NATO rules of engagement) affected the capacity of an intervening force to mount a sufficiently credible threat to control hostilities . Finally, it should be noted that Milosevic and Tudjman were able to obtain almost complete control over the media to the point of using it to persuade hundreds of thousands of citizens that their security depended on a successful and harsh military retaliation against the " Other" ethnic groups in the region, an absolutely crucial component of the mobi lization efforts on both sides.


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These are just some of the hundreds of external factors cited in the lit erature that explain ethnic violence in the region. The brief summary does not even address the many barriers that often prevented U.S., NATO, and UN forces from mounting a successful preventive strategy. Some of these impediments are specific to the Bosnian case, but most are endemic to in ternational politics in a post-Cold War world. The ability to generate the international consensus required to mount an effective, credible Deterrent and Compellent (DC) threat is becoming increasingly limited. In Bosnia, divisions within NATO forced many of the retaliatory threats to be diluted. The Europeans were reluctant from the outset to use air strikes against the Serbs, fearing retaliation against their peacekeepers. Initially, Britain and France agreed to participate in the UN force, only if the United States refrained from introducing air power in the region. The presence of their troops on the ground gave them what amounted to a veto over U.S. policy. The split created by continued European rejection of several key U.S. de mands (e.g., lifting the arms embargo against the Muslims) had a direct effect on the peace process.4 As Weiss ( 1 994, 123 ) observed, Inadequate military and humanitarian action, combined with half-hearted sanctions and a negotiating charade, constituted a powerful diversion. They collectively im peded more vigorous western diplomatic and military pressure to lift the arms em bargo for Muslims to help level the killing field.

The United States was in the difficult position of having to negotiate with the Bosnian Serbs, Serbia, Croatia, Bosnia, Europeans, Canadians, Rus sians, NATO, and the UN, all with their own agenda and special concerns. As domestic pressure in each capital became paramount, no single group of leaders had the power to generate a consensus on key issues (Lieber 1994 ) . During the Cold War, when bargaining efforts were directed against a single opponent over a relatively straightforward set of issues, interna tional politics was less complex. In a post-Cold War era, demands for an international consensus are increasing, but our capacity to generate it is diminishing. This is precisely why it is so difficult to replace the current strategies to establish short-term commitments designed to reach quick so lutions to complex problems with only a minimal risk of casualties. In addition to debates within NATO, there were equally important di visions in (and between ) the White House and Congress. Colin Powell and Warren Christopher constantly pushed for a more restrained, cautious ap proach to the crisis, while Les Aspin, Madeleine Albright, and National Security Council (NSC) Adviser Anthony Lake were convinced that air strikes were needed to control the fighting. These debates promoted an ambiguous strategy of establishing short-term commitments to impose quick solutions to complex problems with only a minimal risk of casual ties.5 It was only after Congress began to demand that the Clinton admin-

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istration clearly outline official U.S. policy that the "lift and strike" strategy was promoted (Berdal 1994 ) . But of all the alternatives considered, there was never any real commit ment to send U.S. ground forces to the region. The exclusion of this option from the outset gave European and Bosnian Serb leaders the impression that there would never be a moral imperative pushing the Americans to become more formally involved. As Secretary Christopher stated, "Bosnia may be a human tragedy, but it does not affect our vital security interests except as we're concerned about humanitarian matters and except as we're trying to contain it" (quoted in Berdal 1994, 3 7 ) . Even when there was a moral imperative to respond (as in the aftermath of the February 5 market bombing ), the American public remained highly sensitive to casualties and continued to reject the deployment of American troops. Clinton was placed in the po sition of having to "reconcile two conflicting aspirations: dem onstrating resolve while avoiding measures that would place American lives at risk" (Berdal 1994, 3 7 ) . The Bosnian dilemma was particularly dam aging to Clinton, because there was never any real political capital to be gained, even if the policy succeeded. Unlike the Republicans, the Democrats consistently rank foreign policy low on their list of priorities, come election time (Lieber 1994 ) . The tone and tempo of ethnic war in the region had little to do with underlying primordial or evolutionary forces . Waltz's ( 1 979) explanation for the relative importance of "structure" in explaining international poli tics is appropriate here. Waltz uses the analogy of our desire for wealth and prosperity to argue that we might all want a million dollars (for se curity, survival, etc. ), but that a very small fraction of the population is prepared to rob a bank to achieve that objective. If the police were to go on strike, however, the number of bank robbers and robberies would mul tiply. Similarly, individuals and groups may be persuaded by the ethnic elite to hate and fear members of " Other" groups, but the probability of war, violence, ethnic cleansing, and genocide depends on the opportunities and constraints that present themselves to the warring factions. In fact, the analogy of a police strike is quite appropriate when accounting for the escalation of ethnic violence in Bosnia. Cultural traits can account for the motivations behind demands for po litical, social, or territorial separation based on distinct national identities and can explain why each side may end up fighting, but the approach is less successful in establishing whether the violence is a product of animos ities produced by the fears associated with ethnic differences or interna tional forces and environmental stimuli. As Reynolds, Falger, and Vine ( 1 987, 27 1 ) observe, "Even if ethnocentrism and group conflict have their origins in our evolutionary past, and even if our genes predispose us to make in-group/out-group distinctions and behave accordingly, we can hope at least that through greater knowledge and understanding we can sub-


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stantially overcome those tendencies . " If they can be overcome, perhaps through effective crisis management and peacekeeping efforts, then envi ronmental factors would, by definition, provide a stronger empirical and theoretical foundation upon which to develop explanations for the timing and escalation of ethnic conflict. In fact, SSSM are likely to be far more useful in understanding human social violence in general. CO-EVOLUTION AS AN IMPEDIMENT TO EVOLUTIONARY THEORIES OF ETHNIC CONFLICT

Problems with evolutionary theories of ethnic conflict become even more apparent when one considers the role and impact of coevolutionary forces. Cultural and biological traits rarely develop (i.e., get selected) in isolation, and these coevolutionary forces can either be mutually reinforcing, mutu ally exclusive, or mutually incompatible. As Modelski points out ( 1 996, 339), "conditions that favor political evolution in turn depend on other evolutionary processes that are exogenous to it. " A multiplicity of political, economic, cultural, and societal evolutionary processes drives human social behavior, and all of these processes play a role in some evolutionary system. Moreover, coevolutionary processes can be constructive or destructive in their fitness qualities. Tobacco and altruism are usually cited as examples tobacco smoking has a positive fitness in cultural selection but a negative fitness in genetic selection. Altruism can be both constructive to the group and destructive to the individual. Humans have a long evolutionary history of living in groups, and key psychological mechanisms evolved to meet the social needs of group living. These mechanisms cause humans to occasion ally put group loyalty above their own individual self-interests. The same coevolutionary forces apply to cultural selection and ethnic conflict. Evolutionary processes associated with cultural selection take place alongside other evolutionary processes, which themselves can either be de structive or constructive, depending on the environment, time, and circum stances. The evolution of international organizations may affect the fitness of certain behaviors and the selection of ethnic violence as a strategy for securing ethnic group survival. But institutions and organizations are not the only things that evolve; by 1995, the evolution of NATO 's reputation for responding to ethnic violence created a set of conditions that made escalation of the fighting unacceptable to all sides in the dispute. Whenever the United States had NATO backing and was able to bypass the UN's "dual key" approach to crisis management, retaliatory threats were per ceived by the Bosnian Serbs as credible, and Mladic was deterred from fighting. The United States backed down, however, in the absence of Eu ropean, NATO, and UN support. The Bosnian Serbs behaved exactly as one would expect under these conditions-they probed for weaknesses, attacked when they were apparent, and retreated whenever the United

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States was able to mount a credible retaliatory threat. As a result, the United States acquired a reputation for being "wishy-washy" under certain conditions, and the behavior that this reputation provoked from the Bos nian Serbs, Muslims, and Croats was consistent with expectations. Since evolutionary theory can now be used to clarify both conflict (the fitness and selection of enmity as a coping mechanism) and peace (the result of evolving reputations for resolve), its explanatory power becomes less clear cut. It is true that shared historical experiences and cultural traits are likely to strengthen ethnic identities, but the pressure that such forces exert on individuals and groups is likely to vary from individual to individual and from group to group .6 As Holsti ( 1 989, 12) points out, Everyone identifies groups to which they do not belong as the "Other." But this does not allow us to make predictions about resulting attitudes, much less about behavior. Some people embrace the " Other" to the point of engaging in rapturous admiration of their culture, learning their language, promoting their political sys tem(s)-in general, integrating. Other people adopt racist and belligerent attitudes towards the " Other," but probably not to all relevant " Others. "

The point here i s that there i s a great deal o f variability with both attitudes and behavior resulting from the acknowledgment of "difference." In fact, as Holsti points out, most multicultural communities throughout the world coexist peacefully, including Bosnian, Serbs and Croats. 7 Finally, there are important differences between cultural and biological evolution that should be noted prior to making judgments about the utility of evolutionary theories in the social sciences. Some differences are not "theory" damaging, but others are. With respect to human social behavior, selection, adaptability, and fitness, all essential features of the evolutionary processes, are not linear as they generally are in biology. This is especially relevant to explaining ethnic conflict, since changing environmental con ditions can reverse (in very short periods of time when compared to genetic evolutionary processes ) the fitness and adaptability of cultural preferences. The following are among the more central differences described by Fog ( 1 996, 6-8 ) : 1 . Biological mutations are blind and random, but cultural process innovations are seldom completely random, may be planned, and are often advantageous to the inventor (e.g., ethnic elite ); 2. The probability of a barrier crossing in genetic evolution is small, but in cultural evolution barriers can be overcome by intelligent planning; 3 . Cultural innovations occur more frequently when needed (elite mobilization in the midst of economic deprivation to establish a stronger base of political power);

Primordia/ism, Evolutionary Theory, and the Timing of Ethnic Conflict 4.

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Cultural reproduction is not necessarily connected with human reproduction a habit can be transmitted from parents to their children, but also to other humans unrelated to the inventor. Humans can also re-choose or convert beliefs, religions, etc. several times during a lifetime;"

5. In cultural selection, one meme can enter the mind of a person without displac ing other memes.

Evolutionary theory has contributed a great deal to our understanding of the cultural selection processes, but given these key differences, we are not yet equipped to move beyond analogy when applying evolutionary the ory to international politics or ethnic conflict. We can never really get much beyond the influence of environmental factors ( as opposed to biological sources of behavior) , even in the developmentally relevant environment sense. Darwin never claimed that natural selection was suitable for explaining all traits-only the adaptive ones. Selection cannot explain nonadaptive cultural traits (such as altruism, heroism, or ethnic war) without reference to alternative explanations derived from SSSM. There may be a paradigm shift away from SSSM-where the individual is viewed as a learning ma chine, and where behavior is a product of learning and culture-toward an evolutionary psychology model-where the individual is viewed as having a cultural and an evolutionary history, and where the mind is com posed of learning devices that have evolved and have been selected for the purpose of solving specific problems. But until we can move beyond anal ogy and develop the tools to explore and identify the primary biological sources of human social behavior, the SSSM offers the best hope for un derstanding and preventing ethnic conflict and war. CONCLUSION

Researchers must address two additional questions when applying and testing evolutionary models of ethnic conflict. First, and most important, how should "ethnic" conflicts be identified for purposes of empirical test ing? Many conflicts, crises, and wars involve two or more ethnic groups but should not be classified as " ethnic " disputes. Woodward ( 1 995 ) makes a compelling case for how the crisis in the former Yugoslavia was inter preted by Western officials as an "ethnic" war in their attempt to under stand and deal with the violence. This in turn legitimized the political and military leadership in Bosnia and made criminals like Karadzic and Mladic the focus of diplomatic activity. This is not to suggest that the conflict was not "ethnic, " only that we should begin to think about the criteria we use to evaluate the "ethnic" dimensions of each case. Was the Falklands war between Britain and Argentina "ethnic" ? Was World War I, II, Korea, Vietnam, the Gulf War, and so on?

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A somewhat related question is, who exactly is fighting whom? Were the Bosnian Serb and Muslim armies representative of the ethnic groups on whose behalf they were dying ? It appears that the political and military leadership on all sides of the war went to great lengths to hide evidence of ethnic cleansing and genocide, not only from the international community but from their own citizens as well-perhaps because they were convinced that a significant maj ority of Serbian, Bosnian, and Croatian civilians would have been vehemently opposed to the atrocities. If that is true, what does it suggest about the nature of ethnic hatred in the region?

NOTES

1. International Studies Quarterly 40(3) (September 1996). 2. This sociobiological position often has been misrepresented in a very pessi mistic light because it is so fatalistic. It also explains why these views have so often been rejected as racist. 3. Others have tried to establish a middle ground between these two ap proaches, arguing that it is not necessarily the preference for absolute versus relative gains that marks the differences between realist and liberal internationalist theories of cooperation, but that states' preference for relative versus absolute gains is a product of changes in the constraints facing the states with respect to a war versus a status quo decision. 4. There were serious problems with the policy to begin with; re-arming the Muslims threatened to escalate the fighting and provoke an immediate Serbian of fensive to win the war in order to gain advantage before the weapons reached the Muslims. There were also several logistical problems related to delivery and training that would be difficult to overcome. 5. The strategy will continue to produce a variety of outcomes, depending on the region and the politics in question. Some cases will be easier to handle and sell to the public (e.g., protecting famine relief was easier in Somalia than in Bosnia; enforcing a no-fly zone around Iraq was easier than it was in Sarajevo and Gor azde). Although Iraq's army was more formidable, much more credible threats were mounted. 6. Ethnonationalism has also been interpreted as a defense against the forces of modernization (i.e., contemporary conditions of rapid social and technological change, intrusive state institutions, impersonal bureaucracies, an absence of political consensus, etc.) that tend to create a sense of "anomie" and a "loss of identity" (O'Sullivan See 1986). Under these conditions, people may rediscover their ethnicity as a way of establishing the emotional security that comes from communal asso ciation (Rothschild 1 9 8 1 ) . Valdez ( 1 994) applies a similar thesis to the case of Yugoslavia, claiming that Serbian efforts to prevent democratization and market reforms were essentially antimodernizing. 7. There are anomalies that do not mesh with expectations about the almost automatic grouping of individuals on the basis of ethnicity, even when faced with a common threat from "other" ethnic groups. The division among gangs in the United States is not based on the phenotypic matching of skin color, probably the


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most relevant and potent phenotype. Instead, the division i s almost entirely terri torial, with only the color of one's clothes identifying which side one is on-red or blue. The rivalry between the Bloods and the Crips suggests that a somewhat dif ferent set of forces is at play in this particular ethnic battle. 8. The custom of entering convents and monasteries, for example, has spread, despite the fact that monks and nuns do not have children. Another important difference between the two processes is that acquired traits can be transmitted by cultural inheritance, but not by genetic inheritance.

Chapter 7

Evolution, Ethnicity, and Propaganda: Why Negotiating with the Innocent Makes Sense Kristan ]. Wheaton

Ethnicity is a survival decision. This is clear to any Hutu or Tutsi living in Rwanda, any Kurd living in Turkey or Iraq, or any Serb, Muslim, or Croat living on the "wrong" side of the Inter-Entity Boundary Line in Bosnia. All of the members of each of these ethnic groups have had to make decisions about who they were that could determine whether they would live or die. It is, however, considerably less clear that ethnicity is a survival character istic-that one race will be favored over the other across evolutionary time scales-despite what nationalists would like their constituents to believe. I intend to explore this volatile and emotionally charged line of thinking. In the end, I hope to make three points. First ( and complementing the work of both Hislope in Chapter 5 and Harvey in Chapter 6), there are a number of problems with ethnicity as a concept and with evolution as a theory. Ethnicity, itself rooted in ancient Greek ideas of the world, is primarily a set of cultural differences that can have only random impact on natural selection over evolutionary time scales. Recent scientific evidence suggests that evolution, on the other hand, is insufficient, in and of itself, to account for the variety found in nature. Finally, both ethnicity and evolution operate today on an ever-changing "landscape" that effectively randomizes their impact. To understand either the diversity of life or the essence of ethnicity, the linear thinking of Darwin and others must first be replaced with complex, iterative models. Completely outside of this useful but academic discussion of ethnicity and evolution lies a second and more important point: The perception of a strong link between these two concepts is the essential propaganda weapon of the potential nationalist leader. In order to successfully pursue a hard-line nationalist agenda, the nationalist leader must aggressively (if

1 34

Skeptical Views

incorrectly ) assert what amounts to a perceived evolutionary superiority for his or her ethnic group. In short, he or she must link these two concepts as closely as possible across political, historical, and-most importantly economic scales in order to be successful. The bulk of the evidence for this section will come from the upheavals in the Balkans over the last several years. Despite the regional nature of the information, I intend to draw some general conclusions. Finally, I intend to discuss the implications of this line of thinking for foreign policy. To date, policy makers in the West have attempted to deal with nationalists directly. Whether through hard-line policies or policies of appeasement (or something in between) , these policies are usually directed at the leader and at his or her most ardent supporters. I intend to argue that there is a better way that bypasses the leader and his or her followers, discarding the flawed strategy of dealing with the guilty in favor of a more subtle, effective approach-negotiating with the innocent. ETHNICITY AND EVOLUTION

Ethnicity is a poorly defined concept when compared to the precision of modern genetics . The spectrum of plausible definitions includes, for ex ample, not only racial but also cultural, historical, religious, and linguistic differences . It is hard to imagine a specific genetic sequence that would account for any of these variations. In fact, the reasonably successful in tegration of both Vietnamese and Eastern European adoptees into Ameri can society argues directly against such a connection. 1 This lack of definitional precision is likely due to its roots. The ancient Greeks invented both the concept of ethnicity and its closely linked cousin, barbarism. Ethnos is the sense of one's own identity, while barbaros is an awareness, real or imagined, of the inferiority of others. While barbaros started out as a fairly neutral word, designed only to distinguish the intel ligible from the unintelligible, it quickly gained its modern, pej orative con notations .2 The sense that one's own culture is good and that all other cultures are bad clearly arose from the essentially political confrontation between the Greeks and the rest of the world. It was, in fact, one of the primary justifications for the struggle (Ascherson 1995, 60-64 ) . Thus, ethnicity, used in any sense in which it implies superiority, is a flawed concept-incorrectly connecting political goals with evolutionary advantage. True, in a perfectly predestined world it is possible to imagine genetic causes for social behaviors that in turn could manifest themselves as political agendas (see Hislope's critique of this line of thinking in Chapter 5 ) . In this way and only in this way, an ethnic or a political stance might confer some survival advantage to a certain group. The fundamental flaw with this line of reas oning derives from the fact that evolution is an iterative process-that is, a process that not only re-

Evolution, Ethnicity, and Propaganda

135

Table 7 . 1 An Iterative Process

Iteration

10 decimal places

12 decimal places

1

0.0397

0.0397

2

0.1 5407173

0.1 5407173

3

0.5450726260

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4

1 .2 8 8978001

1 .2 8 897800 1 1 9

5

0 . 1 71 5 1 9 1421

0 . 1 7 1 5 1 9 1 42 1 00

10

0. 7229143012

0. 7229 1 43 0 1 7 1 1

15

1 .270261 775

1 .27026178 1 1 6

20

0.5965292447

0.596528770927

25

1 . 3 155 87846

1 . 3 1 55843 5 1 8 3

30

0.3742092321

0.3 74647695060

35

0.923321 5064

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40

0.003 1 143643

0 . 1 43971503996

45

1 .2 1 9763 1 1 5

1 .230600865 5 1

50

0.003661 6295

0.225758993390

peats itself but in which the output of one cycle provides the input for the next cycle. All evolutionary cycles are iterative. Recent mathematical re search has shown that all iterative processes, such as evolutionary cycles, are sensitively dependent on initial conditions (Peitgen, Jurgens, and Saupe 1992, 4 8 ) . In short, extremely small changes in values ascribed to the initial variables will dramatically alter the outcome over time. A short example should suffice. Imagine that the equation Pn +l Pn ) is the Pn + rpn ( 1 equation for the relative importance of political science professors in the overall survival potential for certain ethnic groups over time.3 The initial value of Pn is set to .01, while the initial value of r is set to 3 . The answer, Pn+l ' is cycled back through the equation iteratively. Running the program twice, once rounding the answer at the l Oth decimal point and once round ing at the 12th decimal point (errors, I believe, that most social scientists would consider infinitesimal and unimportant), causes significant differ ences in output over time ( see Table 7. 1 ) . It might seem that sensitive dependence on initial conditions demands only rigorous accuracy in establishing those conditions-that it is possible to establish the survival advantage of a certain feature if one gets the initial conditions "right. " The practical problems with this are immense ( see Har vey's discussion of short-term selection processes in Chapter 6 ) . Weather forecasting, which has a well-defined set of equations and sensitive instru=

-

136

Skeptical Views

ments available to measure the variables, is only accurate for a limited period of time, usually measured in days (Peitgen et al. 1992, 4 8 ) . It may, in fact, b e mathematically impossible o r (more precisely) mean ingless to exactly determine initial conditions. This is certainly the impli cation of the Mandelbrot Set. This mathematical object is the result of an iterative function system created with relatively simple mathematical for mulae (similar to the one described above ) . At every scale this object main tains its inherent level of complexity (Peitgen et al. 1992, 878-8 6 ) . Thus, whether the equation has variables accurate to the 4th or the 100th decimal place is immaterial. It is clear that some iterative function systems have an inherent complexity that they maintain throughout. In fact, some mathe maticians suggest that iterative function systems that do not exhibit this deep complexity are the exception rather than the rule (Peitgen et al. 1992, 52). Ultimately, for every variable and every iterative equation there is a practical and quite possibly a mathematical predictive horizon over which we cannot see, with each set of variables having its own unique horizon. The operative iterative cycle for human evolution is a generation. There are a number of generations each century. Over 2 million years (20,000 centuries ) passed between the advent of Australopithecus and Homo Ha bilis ( Gore 1997, 8 7 ) . Even if the number of generations per century is set at the low end of the scale-say five-1 00,000 generations came and went before evolutionary change could be noticed. Anyone wishing to rely on the difficult argument that ethnic traits are the outgrowth of a very com plicated genetic dance must then contend with this enormously distant pre dictive horizon before it is possible to make even one useful assertion about the relative advantage of one trait over another. The problems of ethnicity pale in comparison to those of evolution. Clas sic Darwinism has come under increasing attack by both biologists and mathematicians in recent years. No one, of course, doubts that evolutionary change occurs. The evidence exists all around us. Each new antibiotic resistant strain of virus or pesticide-resistant roach reminds us that evolu tionary processes are alive and well. What critics of evolution seem to be saying is that evolution by itself is not enough to explain either the known history or current diversity of life on earth. In the first place, there has not been enough time to create life by chance-by several orders of magnitude. According to Robert Shapiro ( 1 9 86), the total number of possible attempts (in the 4 billion years of earth's history) to get life started by chance is 2.5 X 1051• The odds of getting even a functioning enzyme to occur, however, are something vastly larger, 1 X 1040•000 (Kauffman 1995, 43-45 ) . Evolution, it would seem, is not enough. Furthermore, evolution does not adequately explain the way life devel oped on earth. If evolution were the only mechanism at work, one would expect a relatively orderly progression of forms, from simple or inefficient


137

to complex and streamlined. This has not been the case. Life on earth has gone through large "explosions" and mass extinctions. The best known is the extinction of the dinosaurs caused (as scientists now believe) by an asteroid colliding with the earth 65 million years ago. The most important, however, is the Cambrian explosion of 550 million years ago and the Per mian extinction of 245 million years ago (Kauffman 1995, 199). Over 100 phyla came into being in the Cambrian period, with the species that estab lished the phyla occurring first rather than branching off from earlier phyla. Successful members of each of these phyla drew toward each other over the next tens of millions of years until, by the Ordovician period, there were only thirty-two phyla remaining, exactly the number that exists today (Kauffman 1995, 199). Three hundred million years after the Cambrian explosion, 96 percent of all species died in the Permian extinction, but members of all of the phyla survived. During the rebound of life that fol lowed, many new species and one new order was formed, but no new phyla. Such an expansion and contraction cycle over super-evolutionary time suggests that the linear, evolutionary model, which sees species going from less well-adapted types to better-adapted types, is only a subset of a much larger, more influential model of self-organization (Kauffman 1995, 71-92 ) . Evolution is also taking a beating at the hands of several critics who argue from-of all things-the perspective of architecture. In particular, Goodwin ( 1 994, 1 8-4 1 ) and Gould and Lewontin ( 1 979, 58 1-9 8 ) have made this point. They argue that genes are merely the catalysts that initiate patterns of growth. These patterns of growth determine the nature of the species. Evolutionists focus too much on the successes of evolution and not enough on the large number of failures or unimportant adaptations which have no survival benefit but are merely outgrowths of a catalytic-type re action, say these critics . Numerous features have little to do with genes but everything to do with the relation between one major feature and another. Finally, both evolution and ethnicity only work as a theory or as a sur vival characteristic if they operate on a singular mathematical landscape. This landscape, Kilimanj aro-like with only one "mountain," as it were, greatly increases the utility of the theory of evolution and of the survival characteristics that operate within the bounds of that theory. No matter where a species is on the landscape, its mission is simple-move up! Each move up represents a successful adaptation to existing conditions (Gould and Lewontin 1979, 149-8 9 ) . The evolutionary landscape does not seem t o have a singular peak, how ever. It is much more realistic to imagine a mountain range over which species, randomly distributed, must climb to some local peak, one that is likely not the tallest on the landscape. Furthermore, this landscape appears to be constantly shifting, bringing even the most highly evolved, in a loca l

138

Skeptical Views

sense, species into contact and competition with other highly evolved life forms. Darwin recognized this (although not in these terms) as a result of his study of barnacles from 1 846-1 8 5 1 . Each of these creatures was funda mentally similar, living under fundamentally similar conditions, but had moved up the evolutionary landscape to a local peak that was determined by the specific conditions under which it was forced to survive (Miller and Van Loon 1992, 120-22 ) . As the "geography" shifts, it brings species at their local peaks into direct competition. Examples abound: early hominids likely coevolved with ( and ultimately outevolved) their common ancestor, the australopithecines ( Gore 1 997, 85-87). Zebra mussels, brought to the United States in the ballast of ships, are attacking shellfish beds throughout the nation (Konop and Quigley 1996, 1 1-96 ) . Ethnicity and evolution are both flawed concepts currently under attack. Ethnicity is, at its roots, a political concept, lacking the specificity necessary to be seriously studied as a survival characteristic. Even if, for the sake of argument, one assumes that ethnicity has some survival benefit, the sensitive dependence on the initial conditions of the evolutionary system turns the most exacting analysis into guesswork. The same holds true for evolution in general. Not only is it insufficient to explain the way things are but also, for multiple reasons, there is no ability to forecast, beyond some misty but certain predictive horizon, the outcome of the genetic dance. Without the ability to predict, all assertions of superiority are only so much astrology. Evolutionary theory seems to be trying to force linear thought processes (I should say typical thought processes) onto a biological process that is essentially iterative and nonlinear. Fifteen years ago, the argument, quite rightly, would be that no other tools were available to the social scientist. Today, those same scientists are woefully behind the times. The following example explains the problem. Confronted with the array of data points in Figure 7.1, for example, the typical social scientist would likely be intrigued by the arrangement. This hypothetical scientist would almost immediately see the potential (if only for further study) of such an array. He would almost certainly do some sort of regression analysis on the points ( after complaining about the lack of data ) . The heavily qualified statistical analysis might well look like the picture in Figure 7.2 but, if we pushed him hard, he might be willing to make some general comments, perhaps even a prediction or two concerning the next data point. He would likely be extremely surprised if we pointed out that the slope between any two consecutive points was exactly 2 or %. He would be stunned to learn that the next data point would fall exactly 2.236 units away from the last point. He would probably leave the room in anger after we told him that no point in this data set would ever exceed 8 units on either the x or y axis.

Evolution, Ethnicity, and Propaganda Figure

139

7. 1

Non-Linear Movement

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The reasons for this are simple. The obj ect of the study i s the movement of a knight on a chessboard (see Figure 7. 3 ) . This example makes two important points. First, in most people's minds, there is a presumption that linear regression tells us something useful about a particular set of data. Clearly, there are some problems where statistical analysis (no matter how well it is done) does nothing to explain the actions of the object under study. Second, the data points in this example are rel atively meaningless. That is to say, as long as the data points conform to the pattern of a knight moving across the chessboard, it matters little where those data points are on the chessboard. The phenomenon is the same regardless of the data. It can be explained completely only by focusing on the pattern of events and not on the data itself. This in turn is the essence of complexity and chaos theory. Iterative sys tems give themselves up much more readily to a nonlinear, dynamic, pattern-based analysis than they do to a stereotypical, linear, regression analysis. This, then, would appear to be the better path to understanding and controlling ethnic conflict-certainly better than the linear thinking embedded within evolutionary theory as it stands today.

Skeptical Views

1 40 Figure

7.2

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THE NATIONALIST'S ARGUMENT

Harvey, Hislope, and I all agree: The value of evolutionary theory in examining ethnic conflict is questionable. Yet, evolutionary theory does indeed impact on ethnic conflict in a fundamental, practical, and wholly unexpected way-as a weapon. Ethnic conflict is always about "us" versus "them." In this fight, the outlines of which are always carved by an eth nocentric leadership, the popular definition of evolution (i.e., " survival of the fittest" ) underlies the propaganda that whips up ethnic hatred. The degree to which the nationalist is able to make this linkage between the popular image of evolution and a perceived ethnic advantage in the minds of the people he or she is trying to influence largely determines his or her success or failure. Without some expanded sense of cultural and historic superiority (implying, as it does, racial superiority) , there is little justifica tion for either a Third Reich or a Greater Serbia. Coupled as they so often are with an environment of dwindling economic resources, nationalist

Evolution, Ethnicity, and Propaganda Figure

141

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claims to ethnic superiority appeal strongly to the masses while confusing the intelligentsia. Part of this confusion, as was discussed in the first section, comes from an incomplete understanding of evolution. Even sophisticated nonspecial ists cannot be expected to understand the distinctions between "distal" and "proximate" explanations of evolutionary theory. Likewise, part of this confusion also comes from the language of evolution itself. Consider, for example, the title of Darwin's 1 859 edition of his famous On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection or The Preservation of the Fa voured Races in the Struggle for Life (emphasis added) (Mukerjee 1 997, 70 ) . While scientists look for specific kinds of differences as evidence of evolution, nationalists twist this same language and use evolution as an explanation for any and all differences . Antipathy between ethnic groups exists elsewhere in Europe,4 but the most dramatic case of the use of "survival of the race" type propaganda in stirring ethnic conflict in recent times has been the violent breakup of

1 42

Skeptical Views

the former Yugoslavia in general and the wars in Bosnia and Croatia in particular. Born of a debt crisis in the mid to late 19 80s, the Yugoslavs saw a dramatic contraction of their standard of living as inflation began to destroy their economy. As the pie began to shrink, factions began to fight to maintain their share, which in the dramatically shrinking economy meant taking from some other group. The most important lines rapidly became ethnic ones as the true nation alist, Franjo Tudjman, gained control of Croatian politics while the op portunist, Slobodan Milosevic, dominated Serbian politics. The international community, engaged as it was in defeating Saddam Hussein, looked for easy solutions. In so doing, it argued that the ethnically ho mogeneous but politically and economically integrated Slovenian Republic should be allowed to secede. This in turn destroyed the careful balance of power that existed between the republics, the federal government, and the people. More importantly, it played into the nationalists' hands. If Slovenia could secede, so could Croatia and Serbia, they argued. Furthermore, rea soned the Serbs, if Croatia could secede from Yugoslavia-primarily for ethnic reas ons-then the Serbs in Croatia and Bosnia could likewise secede. All of this was complicated by the heavy-handed attempts of the Yugoslav Peoples Army to implement Belgrade's agenda and the activities of the semiofficial paramilitary groups ( on all sides ) that sprung up. In the course of various criminal activities, these groups resorted to torture and murder in order to ethnically cleanse large areas of the country.5 Ethnically based hatred, actively promoted by all sides, has been a hall mark of this war since its beginnings. Serbs are commonly referred to as " Chetnicks, " a derogatory reference to the monarchist resistance group that fought against both the Germans and Tito during World War II. Most historians have claimed in the past that the Chetnicks and their leader, Draza Mihailovic, also collaborated with the Germans (Held 1992, 32425 ) . With the Chetnicks unwilling to fight the Germans, the allies shifted all of their aid to Tito, helping him win his war and come to power. Re visionist Serb historians over the last several years have tried to rehabilitate Mihailovic. Earlier calls by Serb opposition leader Vuk Draskovic to bring the king back to Serbia are rooted in this revised version of history (Elgood 1997). Both Muslims and Serbs called the Croats the "Ustashe. " The Ustashe were Croatian fascists. Under the Nazi puppet state, the Independent State of Croatia, the Ustashe committed heinous war crimes during World War II. The Serbs claim that up to 700,000 died at the hands of the Croats, while most independent sources claim that some 300,000 were summarily executed (Held 1992, 325 ) . Interestingly enough, Tudjman, a Holocaust revisionist, claims that only 30,000 died during the reign of the Croatian Nazis (Woodward 1995, 240 ) . When the nationalists came to power in Croatia, they immediately adopted Croatian nationalist symbols to repre-


143

sent them. These symbols had also been used by the Ustashe and, in 1991, helped drive a wedge between the Serbs living in Croatia and the Croatian government. Finally, the Muslims are uniformly referred to as "Turks . " The Slavs began to convert to Islam after the coming of Ottoman Turkish rule to the Balkans in the fourteenth-century. There were good economic reasons for this conversion-"true believers " were treated differently in court than were Christians or Jews. The Serbs and Croats who did not convert, how ever, took a dim view of those who did. There are suggestions that the Turks were not as hard on the Balkans as is often claimed.6 Despite this, the common attitude of the Christian people of the region today is best summed up in the epithet (which I have heard is several different Balkans languages ) : " No grass grows where the foot of the Turk has trod. " While the image of Turkish rule is strong, what has created even more fear in Bosnia is the threat of Islamic fundamentalist rule. President Alija Izetbegovic's party, the Party for Democratic Action ( SDA), is inextricably linked with Islam. 7 Press reports concerning the removal of the Bosnian Deputy Defense Minister, Hasan Cengic, and his ties to Iran as well as the report that Izetbegovic himself took some $ 500,000 from the Iranians in order to help his 1996 presidential campaign (Woodward 1997a, 1997b) only serve to, among other things, reinforce the fears and feed the propa ganda machines of the other two sides. Nationalist propaganda, highlighting both ethnic unity and survival, cou pled with the terrible atrocities committed by a very small minority served to create an environment of fear that drove people into ethnic camps. In many cases it forced people to choose what they were. I can remember reading personal e-mails from Yugoslavs in which they were wrestling with this very decision. Many of them had no particular affiliation with a reli gion-they had rarely gone to mosque or to church-but they felt obligated to pick a side in order to increase their chances of survival. One of the clearest empirical pieces of evidence that this occurred can be found in a comparative analysis of 1 9 8 1 and 1 991 census data. Between the 1 9 8 1 and 19 91 census, the number of individuals in Bosnia claiming to be "Yugo slavs" dropped approximately 22 percent (Yugoslavia 1988; Central Intel ligence Agency 1992). Nationalist leaders capitalized on and promoted this environment of fear. The question was no longer political or economic. It had little to do with establishing a reasonable compromise that would take into account the legitimate political grievances of all sides. The environment of fear allowed the nationalists to couch the discussion in terms of survival. Ordinary peo ple, confronted with what they believed to be a survival decision, inevitably picked the closest, strongest side. The results of this decision, forced on these people by circumstances ex acerbated and used by nationalists, have been disastrous. Croatia lost al-

1 44

Skeptical Views

most 50 percent of its GDP as a result of its loss of a free market of 25 million people (Rohatinski 1994, 205 ) . Serbia is on the brink of economic collapse brought about by sanctions (not to mention bomb damage) against it as a result of these wars. The billions of dollars poured into Bosnia seem to have made little difference. The roads and other items of infrastructure are in shambles, heavy industry is virtually closed down and unemployment is over 50 percent (Rohatinski 1994 ) . It would seem that a compromise, any compromise, would have been better than this. Compromise, however, is not the goal of nationalists. Their activities are characterized by a will ingness to sacrifice the people they represent in order to stay in power and achieve their hard-line agendas. They can maintain their power only as long as there is a threat to the " survival of the race. " In addition, the nationalist must also convince the people that he or she is the best person or represents the party most capable of protecting the masses against the threat of ex tinction. Thus, for the nationalist, the continued existence of the crisis is of vital interest.

NEGOTIATING WITH THE INNOCENT

The policy implications of this line of reasoning are enormous. Virulent nationalism, despite its shallow and weak intellectual roots, represents a continuing threat to peace, not only in Europe but elsewhere where ethnic differences are exacerbated by economic stress. More importantly, the na tionalist leader must build his or her entire power base off of this flimsy structure and must at least maintain the facade in order to retain that power. Finally, in order to avert a crisis (according to traditional rules of foreign policy ), a strategy must be devised that will cause the nationalist leader to give up this source of power-to abandon this vital personal interest. The difficulties encountered when trying to accomplish the latter are im mense, and the failures are legion. Neither economic consequences nor in ternational ostracism were sufficient to avert war in the former Yugoslavia; neither Milosevic nor Tudjman could afford to compromise on what were diametrically opposed ethnic positions. Economic sanctions, an arms em bargo, and UN intervention were likewise insufficient to stop the war in either Bosnia or Croatia. Even the signing of the Dayton Peace Agreement and the deployment of the Implementation and Sustainment Forces (IFOR/ SFOR) is likely only a bandage through which blood will once again seep. Given that the same nationalist leaders, representing the same nationalist agendas, were reelected in the 1996, 1998 and, to a large extent, the 2000 national elections in Bosnia, it seems unlikely that the approximately $50 billion8 that Dayton will have spent by December 2000 will show any return on investment. In fact, as events in Brcko and Mostar9 over the last


145

few years have shown, the assumptions 10 on which Dayton was built seem to be fatally flawed. In Albania, Kosovo, and elsewhere, these same kinds of nationalist sen timents run strong among one or more of the factions. Efforts by the United Nations, the European Union, the Organization for Security and Cooper ation in Europe, and other international organizations have met with lim ited success. In short, they seem to be able to postpone conflict but not resolve it. The stumbling block to peace in all of these situations is clear. The na tionalist leadership is largely responsible for the environment of fear (it is the basis for its power), and it is at least indirectly responsible for the economic hardship (the instability caused by nationalist regimes discour ages foreign investment and creates economic insecurity ) . If not for the nationalist's compelling linkage to the current conditions and the survival of the race, there would be little reason to join in with their cause. Traditional foreign policy approaches fall into this trap. By negotiating with the nationalist leader, the international community reinforces that leader's position as the legitimate broker of the people's desires. The leader, however, likely only represents one of those desires-to survive. For ex ample, under the old Yugoslav system of government, based on the 1974 Constitution, most of the powers of the government devolved to the re publics and autonomous regions of Yugoslavia rather than to the federal government. The international community recognized this and spent a good bit of time directly confronting both Milosevic and Tudjman. The federal government of Ante Markovic was ignored, certainly by the press and to a lesser extent by the diplomats.U This only served to strengthen Milo sevic's and Tudjman's positions, as the international community chose to project its power through these leaders. This strategy of working through the leader himself can only work if it is possible to change the behavior of the nationalist leader. This is unlikely, given that changing the nationalist's undesired behavior means, for the nationalist, abandoning his or her source of power. As the international community ups the ante and begins to apply non military pressure, it feeds the nationalists' base claim-that it is an "us" versus "them" world-strengthening rather than weakening the nationalist leader's position. Factions on all sides objected to the arms embargo in the former Yugoslavia, claiming a right to self-defense. This allowed Iran to significantly increase its influence among the Bosnian Muslims who, prior to the war, were notoriously secular (Malcolm 1 994 ) . In Serbia and Mon tenegro, the UN economic sanctions were seen as particularly unfair, based on an incomplete view of the Balkans conflict. In this sense it became pa triotic to break them ( as well as necessary for survival) . Nearby countries, asked to cut themselves off from one of their major trading partners with little or no compensation, turned a blind eye to much of the " smuggling. " 12

146

Skeptical Views

All of this only served to destroy the international community's facade of unity while at the same time strengthening the nationalist regimes and pro longing the conflict. The ultimate solution in these cases-military intervention-likewise has little to recommend it. It is very expensive, is unlikely to solve the central issues in the conflict, and is absolutely the wrong tool for building a civil society. The cost of the Dayton Peace Agreement has been discussed at length earlier in this chapter. By way of additional comparison, however, it is interesting to note that the $ 3 .45 billion spent by the Department of Defense in supporting the Dayton agreement in 1996 is more than the U.S. government spent on its judiciary and legislative branches or on the Sec retary of Commerce in 1995. It is more than three times what the United States spent on its Small Business Administration or General Services Ad ministration (Malcolm 1994, table 2-4 ) . Despite the success that NATO and its allies has had in executing the military mission envisioned under Dayton, it is likely to have little long term impact. The absence of war, even if coupled with democracy and economic prosperity1\ is not enough to guarantee continued peace in an ethnically charged atmosphere. This is particularly true where the power bases of the leaders largely depend on maintaining the illusion that survival is the issue. Most importantly, military forces are primarily designed to kill people and break things. Despite advances in technology, surgical strikes do not exist. Tanks are very useful in destroying other tanks but are largely useless in the face of angry women and children-particularly if those women and children are being filmed by CNN. Like trying to build a house with a garden hose, mistaking the military's efficiency and resources for the proper tools with which to build a civil society is futile. What then is the solution? Nationalist leaders, because they represent the will of the people on only one issue-survival-claim that they represent the will of the people on all other issues. This is false and should be the first point of attack of all foreign policy. In order to determine, however, what the people of the target country really want and what they are really afraid of, it will be necessary to engage them directly. Specifically, this would mean expanding diplomatic missions, placing of fices in key nodes throughout a problem country. While this might seem problematic at first, if viewed as merely an expansion of the already existing embassy, such a deployment (coupled with some diplomatic arm twisting) is likely to meet with success. These missions would have to be well and permanently staffed with diplomats, economists, linguists, and even mili tary representatives. The decision to deploy these offices would be better made if made early, but they would be deployed even if there was a sudden crisis. The mission of these offices would be to establish a direct connection


147

between the populace and the international community-to negotiate, in effect, with the innocent-bypassing the nationalist leader altogether. In addition, these missions would have to take maximum advantage of mod ern technology, particularly modern communications. This would help them know, within the confines of their own region, more than the na tionalist leadership. Their ability to convey this information to some central combined office representing the interests of the international community would allow the international community's interlocutors to get inside the decision-making cycle of the nationalist leadership (there is a significant difference, from a negotiator's point of view, in having to say, when con fronted with some new fact, "I will have to check that out" and being able to say, "I have just spoken with my team down there and I can tell you absolutely that you have incorrect information" ) . These missions would attempt to influence the pattern of the conflict. As discussed earlier, pattern is more important in complex, iterative processes ( such as ethnic conflict) than is cause and effect. The European Union established missions similar to the ones just de scribed throughout Bosnia. These missions provided detailed and accurate information concerning the situation throughout the country, not just Sa rajevo. Their success as a mission was, however, clearly overshadowed by the EU's inability, at this stage in its development, to deal effectively with the complexities of Bosnia. The UN also tried to understand the Balkans through its own stations. Depending as it did largely on military forces of mixed quality, the UN's reporting had some reliability problems but was comprehensive. Again, the failure of the UN to resolve the Balkans crisis was largely due to the inability of the organization itself to deal effectively with the political side of the problem rather than with a failure to under stand it. For good or ill, this leaves the bulk of the responsibility for executing such a bold plan to the United States. The United States' interests, vital and otherwise, are involved in virtually every crisis around the globe. In addi tion, the United States, with its constitutional definition of citizenship, pro vides a useful example to countries embroiled in ethnic conflict. Finally, most, if not all, countries in the world today recognize the United States as the ultimate broker of peace and economic prosperity. This is not to say that the United States will have to go it alone. Quite the contrary; the United States should, for policy and economic reasons, actively include regional allies in the process. The single salient lesson of the Balkans, however, is that without U.S. leadership, post-Cold War crises have a tendency to spin out of control. Negotiating with the innocent would undoubtedly be expensive, but it would be vastly less expensive than even a single Bosnia.

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Skeptical Views

NOTES

1 . Hard evidence of the success of Eastern European adoptees is hard to come by, given that significant numbers only began to come from these countries in the last several years. For anecdotal evidence regarding the assimilation of Eastern Eur opean children, see the international adoption home page at http://www. rainbowkids.com. 2. Homer, for example, uses barharophonos only once in the Iliad (ninth cen tury B.C., time approximate) to distinguish the Carian army from the rest, while Aeschulus, in his Persae (472 B.C.), details a long list of "barbarous" characteristics. 3 . This is not, of course, such an equation. It is the equation used to determine population changes given a constant environment over time. This experiment and others like it can be found in the marvelous book Chaos and Fractals (Peitgen et a!. 1 992). I use it here because it simply and dramatically illustrates the concept of sensitive dependence on initial conditions. The survival advantage conferred by political science professors can, I believe, be assumed. 4. Several outstanding cases exist. Macedonia must deal not only with outside threats to its sovereignty but also with potentially destabilizing influences inside the country. Ethnic violence in Kosovo, tensions between Greeks and Turks and be tween Greeks and Albanians living in southern Albania, and skinhead violence in Germany against the Turks and other foreigners and in Britain against the Pakis tanis are other examples of ethnically based violence in Europe. 5. This version of the breakup of the former Yugoslavia is derived from mul tiple sources and from my own experience with the region. Primary among the academic sources are Malcolm ( 1 994) , Owen ( 1 995 ) , and Woodward ( 1 995 ). 6. Malcolm ( 1 994) does a credible job of undermining, if not completely de stroying, some of the myths that surround the Turkish occupation of the Balkans. 7. Driving from Tuzla to Brcko, one passes through the town of Srebrenik. Srebrenik is little more than a wide spot in the road and a gas station. Despite this, erected over the main highway is a large green and white neon sign advertising the SDA. Included on the sign is the SDA's motto: "In your faith, in your country." There are those who routinely deny the SDA's connections with radical Islam. They are uninformed. See also Owen ( 1 995, 45) and Woodward ( 1995, 301, 3 3 8 ) . 8 . Exact numbers that detail the cost of implementing Dayton are hard to come by. The $50 billion price tag over five years is based on a few specific numbers and some scientific guesswork. According to the Government Accounting Office (GAO NSAAID-96-204BR, July 25, 1 996), the United States had spent, in military costs alone, $3.45 billion by September of 1 996. This was some $450 million over budget, and further increases were reported as possible. Current estimates of costs in 1 997 would likely be exceeded as well, according to the GAO report. Given that the mission was not significantly downsized until 1 999, costs to the United States have likely held over the last several years. The other major partners, France and the United Kingdom, probably spent similar amounts. The other thirty-odd con tributing nations also spent substantial, albeit significantly lesser, amounts. Two billion dollars of direct, international aid went to the two entities of Bosnia in 1 996 (although 9 8 % of that aid went to the Muslim-Croat Federation ) . Nearly another billion dollars is to be spent to equip and train the Muslim-Croat Federation. Nu-


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merous nongovernmental organizations supported humanitarian relief efforts in Bosnia. Finally, several West European countries supported large refugee popula tions. Germany supported, for example, with food and housing, over 300,000 ref ugees from the former Yugoslavia (there are over a million total) . Even at a conservative estimate of $5,000 per year, Germans would have to pay $ 1 . 5 billion to feed and house these refugees. Even with the reduced force structure and aid expenditures, numbers such as these make the $50 billion price tag seem on the low side. 9. The issue of Brcko has finally been resolved to, predictably, few people's satisfaction. None of the issues that made the issue so intractable have been gen uinely resolved. In the southern Bosnian town of Mostar, Croats and Muslims, putatively allies, continue to spar with one another, with NATO-led stabilization forces ( SFOR) caught in the middle. 1 0 . Dayton is an agreement between two entities. Inherent in this statement are both of the assumptions on which the current shaky peace is founded. First, there is an assumption that there are only two entities-the Republika Srpska and the Federation. One of these two, the Muslim-Croat Federation, established in Wash ington, DC, in March 1 994, has always been on uncertain ground. The fundamen tal goals of Bosnian Croats and Bosnian Muslims were and are diametrically opposed. The second assumption-that there was an agreement or, more correctly, a good faith agreement-is likewise flawed. The current leadership on all sides in the conflict seems to respond only to coercion. There appears to be no true will to abide by the terms of the agreement but rather only to use the agreement to compel the other side to comply. 1 1 . During the early days of the war, attention was focused on either the events in Croatia or Bosnia or on the leaders that drove them, Milosevic and Tudjman. Even then, however, Ante Markovic, the federal prime minister, was seen as an equal by Yugoslav insiders-someone to be disparaged-rather than as the leader of the country (see Woodward 1 995, 1 3 5 ) . 12. Seventy-five percent o f Macedonia's trade went to Serbia before the war. It was unrealistic to expect them to cut themselves off from this market while at the same time suffer under an embargo imposed by Greece. In fact, on several occasions during the summer of 1994, I witnessed a peculiar phenomenon at the Macedonian border. A number of high-ranking visitors came to Macedonia at that time. Inevi tably, these visitors were taken to U52, a UN outpost manned by American soldiers, along the main highway leading into Serbia. From this outpost it was possible to see both the Macedonian and the Serb customs stations. During the visits, there was rarely any traffic at either of these stations. It seemed that about thirty minutes before the helicopters lifted off from Skopje to visit the site, the border guards had begun to wave all of the trucks-the line was often over a mile long-through the stations. 1 3 . The existence of either democracy or prosperity is also still in question in much of the former Yugoslavia.

Part III

APPLICATIONS

Chapter 8

National Identity in the Balkans : Confessionalism to Nationalism Peter Mentzel

Much of the current literature on the development of national identities has been based largely (if only implicitly) on the work of Benedict Anderson and Eric Hobsbawm, among others (Anderson 1 99 1 ; Hobsbawm 1991 ) . 1 Their work argues that national (or ethnic) identities and nationalist sen timents are "constructed" or taught. These identities can then be used by elite groups or states, frequently for warfare. The "central problem of na tionalism" for most students of nationalism is how "the shrunken imagin ings of recent history [i.e., nationalism] " have been able to induce millions of people to kill and be killed in their service (Anderson 1991, 7 ) . Many sociobiologists and evolutionary psychologists are likewise concerned with explaining the apparent evolutionary paradox of altruism. In other words, if evolution selects for fitness, then altruism (such as sacrificing one's life for the "Fatherland" or "Nation " ) is difficult to explain. Most students of this question explain this paradox either by arguing that altruism is totally learned (S. J. Gould and D . T. Campbell take this approach) or that it is based on an evolved tendency toward cooperation or reciprocity (Axelrod's work is especially important) .2 Johnson and van den Berghe have argued that altruism, especially in the form of patriotism and/or nationalism, grew from a socialization process based on kin rec ognition (or "consciousness of kind " ) , which relies on both association and phenotypic matching (Johnson 1986; van den Berghe 1 9 8 6 ) . That is, we learn to recognize our "kin" both by spending time with them and by learning how they "look different from us." Similarly, Masters has argued that humans react to "recognition markers "; various cues which indicate whether another person is likely to reciprocate a friendly or helpful act (Masters 1993 ) . Masters ( 1 993, 104) develops this idea further by noting

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that "our species seems specialized in shifting not only allegiances within groups, but the definition of social units themselves . " That is, people can use (or presumably be taught to use) a wide variety of "recognition mark ers " besides kinship cues. Van den Berghe puts this argument in a more forceful manner by arguing that kin recognition mechanisms are "hijacked" in the service of nationalism. To put it another way, nationalists use various kinds of socialization to transfer kin recognition responses toward nonkin (e.g., the nation ) . Assuming that kin recognition i s a product of human evolution can help to explain the altruistic behaviors associated with nationalism/patriotism. This thesis does not explain, however, why nationalism has been so suc cessful at replacing other kinds of associations or other constructed iden tities. Furthermore, this model does not elaborate on any of the mechanisms used in the socialization process which teach people to think of the nation as a surrogate family. To put it another way, why do people come to regard the nation ( at least to some extent ) as their family? This chapter will argue that nation-building projects are successful insofar as they can mimic or co-opt already existing associations, especially those which are themselves based on real or imagined kinship. That is, one would expect to find na tionalists building upon associations already in place. A corollary would be that nation-building projects are hindered if they have to confront gen uine kinship-based systems directly instead of through the medium of an ersatz kinship group. I should point out that I am leaving aside the problem of the biological " authenticity" of kin groups. For the purposes of this investigation, I am assuming that the biogenetic reality of kin groups (such as clans) is much less important than the perception of such a reality among the members of the kin group. This problem touches on a point made by Goetze and James in Chapter 1 of this volume, namely, that "cultural processes do not op erate autonomously from evolutionary processes . " If our psychological ar chitecture has evolved to include a strong attachment to kin, it does not necessarily mean that the kinship link has to be genetic. As long as there is a strong belief in one's kinship with a group, the evolved feelings of attachment and loyalty could be engaged, regardless of any objective ge netic reality. The development of national identity in the Balkans provides an intrigu ing test case for this hypothesis. In particular, the importance of religion in the development of nationalism in the Balkans is a subject of consider able debate. One position, usually held by Balkan nationalist historians and also prevalent in the older literature, is that religion (especially the Ortho dox church) was a "guardian" of the national spirit through the long period of Ottoman occupation and then became the foundation of the modern national states. 3 The opposing view argues that religion did not become an important force in defining national identity until after the establishment


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of the Balkan national states. The main line of argument with this view is that the "imagined community of religion" is incompatible with the imag ined community of the nation (Todorova 1996, 6 7 ) . The theories of people such a s Johnson, van den Berghe, and Masters might provide a way to reconcile these two arguments . Nationalists clearly used religious symbols to strengthen their nation-building enterprises, but in so doing these became national symbols, and their earlier role as rec ognition markers of membership in a religious family became transferred to a national one. The religious community acts, in effect, as an interme diate step between a frankly kin-based identity (such as a family or clan) and the ersatz kin association of the nation. Many religions, Christianity and Islam among them, use kin terms as part of their language (e.g., "fa ther, " "brother," "son, " etc. ) . In other words, " religion," though not nec essarily the churches themselves, was very important in the construction of national identities in the Balkans. To put this hypothesis in other terms, the nationalists generally did not attempt to mimic kin associations directly (although one certainly finds some evidence of this ) but nested their na tionalist discourse within a previously existing confessional one which was itself based on a mimicry of kinship relationships. When confronted with unadulterated kinship loyalties, nationalists found themselves in a more difficult situation. This chapter will explore how the various national iden tities of the Balkans built on previously existing confessional identities (though not necessarily on religious organizations), themselves frequently connected in some way with real or perceived kin relationships. First, the chapter will discuss the importance of confessional identities and religious organizations in Balkan history. It then will show how nationalists built upon these religious identities, transforming them into national ones. As a result of this transformation, the nationalities which developed in the Bal kans during the late nineteenth century correspond quite closely to the region's religious communities . The development of national self consciousness among the South Slavs is a good example of this process, while the correspondingly slow growth of nationalism among the Albani ans provides an interesting counterexample. Why were religious symbols so attractive to Balkan nationalists in their efforts to construct their ersatz-kinship associations ? After all, other asso ciations (such as guilds ) used kinship terms, and some important aspects of rural life in the Balkans, especially the zadruga (a kind of extended family farm), were in fact based on family groups . Over and above these other kinds of associations, religion played a tremendously important role in the lives of the peoples of the Balkans during the five centuries of Ot toman rule. The importance of religion during the Ottoman period resulted from the so-called millet system which the Ottomans developed as a means of ruling their religiously diverse empire. The millet system developed over the course of several hundred years,

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Applications

beginning (supposedly) with the Ottoman conquest of Constantinople in 1453. It has been thought that during the Ottoman " Classical Period" (fif teenth to sixteenth centuries), there were three millets; the Orthodox, the Armenian, and the Jewish. "Each millet had its own organization under its religious leaders. Individual millet members related to the central govern ment through their millet, which was responsible for, among other things, tax allocations and collection, community education, and intra-communal legal matters, especially those dealing with personal status, such as mar riage, divorce, and inheritance" (Itzkowitz 1 972, 59). While most scholars of the Ottoman Empire agree that the different non-Muslim confessional groups enjoyed considerable autonomy during most of the empire's exis tence, the history and actual structure of the millet system is the subj ect of considerable debate. Most scholars now agree that before the seventeenth century ( at the earliest) there probably was no institutionalized system which oversaw and regulated the different non-Muslim communities of the empire. Rather, it is argued, the autonomy which the various non-Muslim confessional groups enjoyed varied greatly with time and place, and the arrangements which guaranteed this autonomy were probably of an ad hoc or personal nature. Furthermore, it is now generally accepted that only during the early nineteenth century was the millet system institutionalized and regulated.4 Whatever the case may be, it is clear that some sort of corporate identity based on confessionalism was an important foundation of Ottoman society. It is important to note that the "millets " (or whatever one chooses to call their pre-nineteenth-century counterparts) were explicitly non-national, or perhaps a-national. That is, according to the " classical" description of the millet system, the Orthodox Patriarch of Constantinople/Istanbul was the millet leader of all Orthodox Christians in the empire, from Belgrade to Baghdad. All Orthodox Christians in the empire belonged to the Orthodox millet, whether they spoke Greek, Arabic, or a Slavic language ( Shaw 1988, 1 5 1-53; Eryilmaz 1 992, 2 1 ) . Even if this description of the millet system is too idealized, it is clear that the Ottomans tried to interact with their subj ects according to some sort of religious taxonomy. Indeed, the Otto mans usually privileged the Patriarch of Constantinople over the "national" orthodox churches (e.g., the Serbian Patriarch of Pec/Ipek) . The " autono mous confessional communities " (a term perhaps preferable to "millets " ) were therefore nonterritorial. Or, to put it another way, their territory was coterminous with the empire as a whole. The system was one of personal rather than territorial autonomy. The organization of the non-Muslims into some sort of confessional cor porations enabled them to maintain their religious identities and whatever cultural or linguistic characteristics they might have had. When the system functioned properly, the average non-Muslim's legal existence, and thus in a way his or her political life as well, was expressed through his or her


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membership in a millet. In terms of van den Berghe's or Masters's theories, the recognition markers used by Ottoman subjects before the nineteenth century were religious/confessional ones. Naturally, Ottoman subjects (like people everywhere) had a wide variety of identities. Place of birth, family background, and occupation provided only a few other sets of identities for the people of the empire. Some of these other means of identification were actually at odds with confession alism. For example, certain guilds seem to have been multiconfessional, and many of the dervish orders (mystical fraternal organizations ) were noted for their religious heterodoxy (Sugar 1977, 52-53, 227 ) . Another impor tant basis for identity was class. The most important class division in Ot toman society was between the small Ottoman ruling elite, the "Professional Ottomans, " and everyone else. The Professional Ottomans comprised not only the Sultan, the imperial bureaucracy, and most of the military establishment, but the millet officials as well ( Sugar 1977, 33-43, 45-47). While the upper-class Professional Ottoman elite does present an important counterexample to the importance of confessional identities in the Ottoman Empire, it does not negate entirely the significance of those identities. The Professional Ottomans represented a tiny minority of the empire's population and, moreover, even they were bound legally to their millets . This remained true even if they in fact felt more in common with the other members of the elite, regardless of religion. During the second decade of the nineteenth century, the Ottoman state embarked on a series of ambitious reform plans, collectively known as the Tanzimat. Insofar as the development of the National Question in the em pire was concerned, the Tanzimat reforms sought to equalize the relation ship between the Muslim and non-Muslim Ottoman subjects by promoting the idea of equality under the Sultan and later the concept of Ottoman patriotism (Ottomanism). While most of the Sultan's Christian subj ects ap plauded the growing spirit of egalitarianism, they were extremely reluctant to endorse the abandonment of their ancient autonomous status. Paradox ically, therefore, the Tanzimat reforms enunciated the idea of equality for all Ottoman subjects while at the same time they systematized the old pat terns of the autonomous millets. It was in fact during this period that the term millet began to be used officially to refer to the non-Muslim peoples of the empire. Thus, during the nineteenth century, "The patterns of au tonomous confessional communities [i.e., the millet system] coexisted with the official policy of egalitarian Ottomanism, and both were challenged in turn by the separatist nationalisms that threatened the integrity, not just of the empire, but also, in some cases, of the religiously defined communities " (Findley 1980, 23 ) . While the Orthodox Patriarchate (if not the Orthodox Millet ) functioned as an organ of the Ottoman government for the first three centuries of its existence, it began to change subtly during the first few decades of the

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Applications

eighteenth century. Certain wealthy Greek-speaking families of Istanbul (the Phanariotes) began to think in terms of a neo-Byzantine Empire to replace the Ottoman one. While a detailed review of the Phanariotes and their plans is beyond the scope of this chapter, a brief examination of this episode is important. The Phanariotes and the Orthodox Patriarchate came to share a somewhat similar set of goals. These included strengthening control over the Orthodox churches of the empire and the appointment to those churches of Greek-speaking clerics loyal to the Patriarchate. Thu s, the Serbian Church, which had been reestablished during the mid-sixteenth century, was once again absorbed by the Patriarchate of Constantinople. The project of the Phanariotes and their allies in the Patriarchate was not one of Greek nationalism but rather a sort of Byzantine revivalism. They were profoundly hostile to the linguistic-ethnic nationalism which began to gain ground among Western-educated Greek intellectuals and merchants during the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries (Karpat 1 973, 73 ) . For their part, the Greek nationalists were happy to use religious symbols but had no use for the Patriarchate ( Clogg 19 82, 192 ) . For ex ample, during the Greek Revolution ( 1 821-1 830), the speaker of the rev olutionary Assembly meeting at Troezen in 1 827 declared: "We are fighting against the enemies of Our Lord nor shall we ever form a common society with them anywhere . . . . Our war is . . . of the Christian religion against the Koran [sic] " (Karpat 1973, 77-78 ) . Similarly, the "War Hymn" of the famous Greek revolutionary Rhigas Pherraios embodies the ideas of fight ing for Christianity, as well as one's family. But it is not at all clear whether that family is Christian or Greek: Losing our land, brothers, and parents, our friends, our children, and all our relations . . . Come now with zest, take the oath on the cross . . . Then with hands raised to the sky, let us swear this oath to God from our hearts . . . How did our forefathers surge like lions, leaping for liberty into the fire ? So we, brothers too, must seize our arms and cast off at once this bitter slavery . . . Let the Cross shine on land and sea, let justice make the enemy kneel, let the world be healed of this grievous wound, and let us live on earth as brothers-free. (Pherraios 1957, 36-37)

As these lines show, Pherraios made use of religious symbols as well as kinship terms to stir people to revolution. His revolutionaries are fighting for their families but also for the Cross. Even though the Greek nationalists


1S9

made free use of religious language and symbols, they had no desire to remain subject to the Orthodox Patriarchate, linked as he was to the Ot toman state, and they established an independent Greek Orthodox church in 1 833 (the autocephalous Church of Greece was recognized by the Pa triarchate only in 1 850) (Clogg 19 82, 193 ) . The use of Orthodox symbols by the Greek nationalists in their efforts to create a Greek nation stimulated the development of national self consciousness among the Slavic Orthodox peoples of the Balkans, partic ularly the Bulgars. Significantly, in the Bulgarian case, the growth of national identity originally took the form of a religious schism within the Orthodox millet. As early as 1 849, the Sultan had granted the Bulgarian millet the right to construct a church in Istanbul. By 1870, Bulgarian na tionalism had grown to the point where the Sultan established an " auto cephalous " Bulgarian orthodox church (the exarchate ), separate from the main Orthodox church of the empire (Karpat 1973, 90). The exarchate's administrative boundaries were fixed at the same time, along with the pro vision that these boundaries could be expanded if two-thirds of the inhab itants of a district wanted to join (Jelavich and Jelavich 1977, 134). This new church and its jurisdictional boundaries rapidly became the focus of Bulgarian national aspirations. On the other hand, the desires of both the Greek nationalists and the Patriarchate in Istanbul worked against the ex pansionism of the exarchate. The Patriarchate was loath to lose more ter ritory to the exarchate, and the Greek nationalists very frankly saw loyalty to the Patriarchate as a mark of Greek nationality. Since identification with the "national" church in the Greek kingdom was not a realistic option for Orthodox Christian Ottoman subjects, loyalty to the Orthodox Patriar chate in Istanbul was an acceptable alternative. Such an identification would still prevent the Orthodox Ottoman subjects in the Balkans from developing a Bulgarian national consciousness . Greek and Bulgarian na tionalists quickly began a campaign of terror among the Christian villages of Macedonia in an effort to force them to declare for one or the other church (Danforth 1995, 5 8 ) . The story of the development of national self-consciousness among Greek- and Slavic-speaking Orthodox Christians demonstrates the ways in which nationalists used religion as a means to construct national identities. The previously existing confessional organization of the Orthodox millet served as one of the bases for the development of Greek national self consciousness . The Greek nationalists were happy to use membership in the Patriarchate as part of their irredentist goals in Macedonia, even though they had no love for the Patriarchate itself. This strategy in turn stimulated the Bulgars to develop their own national movement. This nascent proto nationalism initially expressed itself as a schismatic church, which in turn became the carrier of Bulgarian national identity. It was certainly no ac cident that the borders of the first ( short-lived) independent Bulgarian state

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Applications

in 1 8 78 corresponded almost exactly to the borders of the Bulgarian ex archate. The reestablishment of the 1 8 78 borders of San Stefano Bulgaria (so named after the treaty which established the state) remained the demand of Bulgarian nationalists well into the twentieth century. Another example of the power of confessionalism in determining na tional self-consciousness is the case of the people of the former Yugoslavia, especially Bosnia-Herzegovina. In this case, the confessional communities of the Ottoman period served as the main foundation for the establishment of separate Serbian, Croatian, and finally Muslim nationalities during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. As is frequently noted, there is little difference in the language spoken by Serbs, Croats, and Bosnian Muslims (or for that matter, between these and other South Slav peoples ) . Religion, or more exactly religious symbols, became important in the construction of national identity. This phenomenon is neatly expressed by the Serbian proverb "Nema Srpstva bez tri prsta" ( " There is no Serbianess without three fingers " ) in reference to the manner in which Serbs cross themselves ( Sorabji 1996, 54). For the Croats, Catholicism became a link with Western Europe and an important element in their national self-identification. Perhaps the most striking example of the transformation of a confes sional identity into a national one is the case of the Bosnian Muslims. Like the other peoples of the Ottoman Empire, the Bosnian Muslims interacted with the state and with other people, largely on the basis of membership in a confessional community. They called themselves Turci (Turks ), Mus limani (Muslims ), or Bosnjaci (Bosnians ), more or less interchangeably ac cording to the circumstances (Rusinow 19 96, 93 ) . Importantly, the Bosnian Muslims did not use any of these terms in a national sense before, at the earliest, the late nineteenth century. That is, their identity was religiously or geographically based. Furthermore, the level of identification with the Ottoman Empire varied greatly depending on time and place as well as on the social and economic status of the person (Donia and Fine 1994, 25, 73-74; Friedman 1996, 42-45 ) . The use of the term Turci for the Bosnian Muslims is very pro blematic. Before the nineteenth century, Muslims and Christians alike used it more or less synonymously with the word Muslim (or perhaps even Ottoman) but not as a national or an ethnic term. For the Bosnian Muslims as well as for the Catholics and Orthodox, Muslims were "Turks," whether they spoke Turkish or not (Todorova 1996, 6 8 ) . However, the word "Turk" was viewed by none o f these groups a s having an ethnic or a primordial quality. Indeed, as Catholic and Orthodox Slavs began to construct identities as Croats and Serbs, respectively, during the early nineteenth century they also came to the conclusion that the Bosnian Muslims were simply renegade members of their own nations. For example, many Croat nationalists asserted that the Bosnian Muslims were Croats of the Muslim religion. Similar statements come from Serb nationalists. The story of the development of a Bosnian Muslim national identity was


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further influenced by the occupation of Bosnia-Herzegovina by Austria Hungary in 1 878 and its subsequent annexation by the Dual Monarchy in 1908. The new political order intensified the proselytizing of both Croat and Serb nationalists among the Bosnian Muslims with some success. Dur ing the late nineteenth century, some Muslims began to call themselves Croats or Serbs, although the degree and intensity of national self consciousness involved in such declarations is extremely pro blematic (Ru sinow 1996, 94 ) . The secularization of Bosnian society under Habsburg rule helped lay the foundation for a Muslim national identity. By the late nineteenth century, certain Muslim intellectuals had begun to call themselves Muslims (Mus limani) instead of Turks ( Turci) (Friedman 19 96, 7 5 ) . These "secular Mus lim nationalists" also attempted to develop a "national" Bosnian Muslim literature first written using Arabic letters and later written using Latin letters (Rusinow 1996, 94 ) . At approximately this same time, Bosnian Mus lim notables in Sarajevo and Mostar had formed Muslim political parties and clubs which paralleled the Croat and Serb organizations (Pinson 1994, 109-1 0 ) . As such, the political realities of Habsburg Bosnia "hastened the transformation of self-identification as 'Muslim' from the narrowly reli gious to the national" (Burg 1983, 12, quoted in Rusinow 1996, 94 ) . After the establishment o f the "First Yugoslavia" in 1918, the develop ment of a distinct Muslim national identity among the Bosnian Muslims continued. During the interwar period, the Bosnian Muslims formed several political parties based on a Muslim particularist identity. In 1968, the League of Communists of Yugoslavia recognized the Bosnian Muslims as a constituent nation of Yugoslavia (Ramet 1989, 1 0 7). These developments show that, like the Croats and Serbs before them, the Bosnian Muslims based their ultimately secular national identity upon their earlier confes sional one. The final case study which this chapter will examine is the development of Albanian national self-consciousness. The Albanian case would seem to argue against the confessional basis for national identity in the Balkans. The Albanian nation is, after all, divided into three religious communities (Muslim, Orthodox, and Catholic, in roughly that order) (Jelavich and (Je lavich 1977, 222-23; Friedman 1996, 27). These religious distinctions tended, however, to be rather mutable. For example, travelers to what be came Albania frequently remarked that many Albanians had both Christian and Muslim names, and that most celebrated both Christian and Muslim holidays (Norris 1993, 4 8 ) . Two important aspects of any group identity are naming customs and communal holidays, and the amorphous quality of both in the Albanian case is significant. One cause, or effect, of this attitude toward religion was the widespread extent of the Bektashi order of dervishes. The Bektashis were perhaps the most heterodox of all Islamic

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mystical orders and freely combined Islamic, Jewish, and Christian rites and beliefs (Norris 1993, 82-1 00). It is, therefore, no coincidence that the Albanians were among the last of the Balkan peoples to develop a sense of nationalism. Indeed, the con struction of a nationally self-conscious Albanian nation has been one of the central themes of modern Albanian history. The lack of a shared reli gion prevented the growth of an Albanian national consciousness around a confessional community. On the other hand, the religious divisions were not deep enough to serve as the basis for the development of different national identities among Albanian speakers. That is, different Catholic, Orthodox, and Muslim Albanian-speaking national identities did not de velop (unlike what happened among the Catholic, Orthodox, and Muslim South Slavic speakers, who became the Croats, Serbs, and Bosnian Mus lims, respectively) . The anomalous nature of the development of Albanian nationalism might become more understandable within the context of the kinship the ories of Johnson, van den Berghe, Masters, and others. This is because the importance of the clan or tribe ((is) in Albanian society remained very great well into the nineteenth century, especially in the northern areas. Albanian intertribal relations were governed according to rules and customs which had little to do with the religion that each tribe professed ( Swire 1971, 2229; Marmullaku 1975, 82-8 6 ) . The other significant divider among Alba nians has been the linguistic separation of Albanian speakers between the northern Ghegs and the southern Tosks (Joffe 1 996, 8 5 ) . The different dialects reinforced the separateness of the northern and southern Albanians and also worked against the construction of a single Albanian national language. Indeed, a common alphabet did not emerge until after 1908 ( Skendi 19 82, 225 ) . To restate all of this, one could argue that Albanian nationalists faced such a difficult task precisely because they needed to confront (and at tempted to co-opt) kinship relations such as the Albanian clans directly without being able to use confessional group attachments as an interme diary or disguised kinship association. Hence, Albanian nationalist intel lectuals stressed linguistic nationalism in their attempts to build an Albanian national consciousness, an effort made difficult because of the Gheg/Tosk division. The examples given in this chapter demonstrate the close connection between confessional and national identities . In each of the cases noted above, it would seem that nationalities established themselves on the basis of their confessional groups, though not necessarily directly on their millets. In each of the case studies, national identities emerged earliest and strongest when they were based on clearly established confessional bases. For ex ample, the Serbs and Greeks were the first peoples of the Balkan peninsula to develop national self-consciousness. Both peoples used their preexisting confessional identities as a source of national symbols and images . The


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Bulgars developed a "national church" and a national identity after these groups. The case of Bosnian Muslim national identity is very similar. It is sometimes remarked that it is strange to use "Muslim" as a term of national identification. However, the Bosnian Muslim intellectuals who developed the idea of a Muslim nationality were simply using the methods that the Christian peoples of the Balkans had used before them. Albanian nation alists, on the other hand, could not use religion as a source for national myths and symbols because of the division of Albanian speakers into three religions. Nation builders had to rely instead on language, while challeng ing the clan loyalties of Albanians. The historic weakness of the Albanian nation-state is probably evidence that kinship associations, undiluted by some other kind of identity, present formidable obstacles to the creation of broader national identities. Current events in the Balkans have demonstrated the continuation of these kinds of identity formation. The Bosnian Muslims have continued to solidify a national identity based on their earlier confessional one. As part of this effort, the Bosnian Muslims now (officially, at any rate) refer to themselves as "Bosniaks" and their language as " Bosnian. " This develop ment has been paralleled, however, by a renewed religiosity on the part of many Muslims as well as the increased use of Islamic symbols and rhetoric by some of the the country's Muslim political parties, especially the Party of Democratic Action, led by Alija Izetbegovic (see Wheaton in this volume and Poulton 2000, 5 7 ) . While the Bosnian Muslim national project continues to link Islam to national identity, the ongoing tensions in Kosovo are reflective of the non confessional basis of Albanian nationalism. Kosovo's small Albanian Cath olic population identified with the Kosovar Albanian nationalist movement, dominated as it was by Muslims (Babuna 2000, 79 ) . On the other hand, Kosovo's other Muslim communities (Roma, for example) were lukewarm at best in their support of Albanian aspirations ( Crowe 2000, 1 1 0-1 1 ) . Thus the Balkan nationalists (except the Albanians ) used the preexisting confessional identities, which had themselves become ersatz kinship groups, as the basis for the national "families" they wanted to build. To put it another way, the story of nation building in the Balkans shows that na tionalists do not necessarily need to hijack or co-opt kinship associations directly (which, in the Albanian case at least, seems very difficult) but can also do so indirectly by using the symbols and vocabulary of a preexisting identity.

NOTES

1 . For a thorough review of modern theories of nationalism, see Haas ( 1 986). 2. See the discussion of these theories of altruism in Johnson ( 1 986); see also Axelrod and Hamilton ( 1 9 8 1 ) .

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3 . See, for example, Arnakis ( 1 963); for a critique of this approach, see Karpat ( 1 973, 34). 4. A good summary of the scholarship on the millet system is Ursinus ( 1 985, 61-64; see also Braude ( 1 982, 69-89).

Chapter 9

Regionalism and Evolutionary Theory in the Former Soviet Union: Russian l(aliningrad, 1 9 9 1-2000 Joel C. Moses

The collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 into fifteen nation-states has pro duced an ambiguous, unstable, and insecure new political context for many of the former Soviet population. With the exception of the three Baltic states, independent for two decades ( 1 919-1 940 ) , none of the other twelve new countries that emerged out of the Soviet Union ever existed within their boundaries as nation-states. Within this political context, regionalism by choice and necessity more than nationalism has become the principal anchoring identity for many peoples in these new countries to conceive of themselves and to interact. Regionalism has become the core of political identification and interaction since 1991 in the Russian Federation, the largest post-Soviet country, devolving sovereignty from the national level to subnational political communities . In this chapter, the Russian province of Kaliningrad on the Baltic Sea exemplifies the centrifugal political forces nationally, internationally, and locally affecting the reconfiguration toward regionalism throughout Russia since 1991. To provide a semblance of psychological predictability, eco nomic stability, and international security, Kaliningraders have increasingly come to identify themselves with their wider geographical locale of the Baltic Sea Basin and within the basin as Russian Balts. This cross-national regional identification has been asserted both as a calculated rational choice to optimize their economic future through investment and trade with other countries in the Baltic Sea Basin and as a need for security. The status of Kaliningrad is insecure because of its isolated locale, unique historical or igins, Russian population in non-Russian surroundings, and still-disputed boundaries with its neighboring countries along the western border of Rus sia since 1991.

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REGIONALISM IN RUSSIA

Evolutionary theory seems particularly relevant with its insights into the psychological dynamics and problematic nature of forming nation-states in the post-Soviet universe of these twelve new countries (Masters 1 993, 991 3 0 ) . Evolutionary theory contends that the political communities in which human beings cooperate are constantly changing, expanding, or contracting in response to the subtle play of advantages and disadvantages perceived in cooperating or fighting in the name of abstractions called nations, tribes, religions, and other group identities. Centralized political institutions gov erning large anonymous populations as countries can only survive if they can mobilize their populations into the belief that it is rational for them to sacrifice for the abstract broader community. What attaches them to sac rifice for the "collective good" of their abstract communities as nation states is a combination of nepotism, reciprocity of benefits ( either direct or indirect ), legally enforced obligations toward others, and pure altruism (Masters 1993, 125-26). The twelve new post-Soviet countries have confronted almost insuperable problems in attempting to generate their own sense of a "collective good" among their citizens, based on a presumed common historical, lingual, and cultural legacy. This mythical legacy of "fictive national kinship groups " for political communities that were nonexistent prior t o 1 991 requires something of an irrational leap of faith. Several inherited as their Soviet legacy large pockets of ethnic minorities different from the titular ethnic group which constitutes the majority of their national population. Over 25 million ethnic Russians and an additional 5 million Russophones alone live in countries other than the Russian Federation since the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991. Generating a sense of nationalism among these di verse ethnic minorities and trust in a national government dominated by members of the titular ethnic majority has been problematic at best. Only Russia presumes citizenship in its political community based solely on ge ography rather than ethnicity. All of the other post-Soviet countries ration alize their very name and existence as political communities on the ethnicity and common language of their titular majority. Even if ethnic minorities share little in common with the titular majority in many post-Soviet countries, evolutionary theory contends that national political communities would still be more likely to form when their pop ulations are psychologically optimistic about their future and therefore will ing to cooperate and interact as one in achieving projected future values higher than the present for themselves, their descendants, and fellow anon ymous members of their fictive national kinship group (Masters 1993, 1062 0 ) . The problem is the post-Soviet universe since 1991. Public optimism about their own future or that of their descendants has been in short sup ply, and the transition to postcommunist market economies and stable de-

Regionalism and Evolutionary Theory in the Former Soviet Union

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mocracies has been anything but smooth. For all of the post-Soviet countries, their gross domestic economies have been halved since 199 1 . Any purported direct or indirect reciprocity of benefits from independence has seemed at best remote for many. The early stage to a market economy has produced glaring inequalities in their societies, seeming to benefit only a small stratum (in Russia, sardonically coined the "new Russians " ) at the cost of impoverishing a third to a half of their populations, many of whom do not receive wages or pensions for months at a time. Pessimism about their economic future coincides with cynicism about their current status as citizens of new nation-states and transitional de mocracies. Altruism and public service for the collective good are not the characteristics commonly associated with post-Soviet national govern ments. There is a widespread public perception that all of their elected officials are corrupt and that political parties are lobbying fronts, created by politicians merely to allow their leaders to share in the spoils of dividing up the newly privatized wealth of their countries among themselves. This general disillusionment erodes public support for the new national demo cratic institutions, associated with making or condoning the very policies that have led to the immiseration of many in these societies . Since 1991, widespread political apathy and despair, limited economic resources with which to organize, distrust and disunity among potential members, negative stereotypes and societal attitudes from the past communist era, and the instability of governing institutions have all undermined efforts to establish viable interest group associations, such as trade unions for workers or civil rights movements for women (Clark, Fairbrother, and Borisov 1995; Sper ling 1999 ) . Other than voting, small membership groups in a few cities like Moscow and St. Petersburg, and periodic outbursts of spontaneous dem onstrations with little effect, citizens in post-Soviet countries like Russia at the end of the first decade of its independence do not participate politically. The wide gap distinguishing the state and a politically atomized society, manipulated and controlled at will by its rulers from the Soviet communist era, has been resurrected under the facade of democratic forms such as elections since 199 1 . Low public confidence in weak national governments coexists with real fear over public safety. Violent crime has become rampant in post-Soviet societies. The Mafia seem to own or control much of private enterprise in this early stage of capitalism and to run the government behind the scenes in collusion with elected officials and billionaire oligarchs like Boris Bere zovskii. The oligarchs effectively run the state behind the scenes by financ ing the reelection of their supporters in return for being allowed to embezzle billions of dollars in foreign loans and to take over formerly nationalized economic assets privatized under their ownership since 1991. Protecting the billionaire oligarchs and their mafia cohorts is a thoroughly corrupted police force. The Federal Security Service, which succeeded the State Se-

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curity Committee (KGB) and is formally vested with the responsibility of rooting out corruption, has changed very little in its personnel or opera tional methods other than in its covert protection for some of the same former retired KGB officials who now head the mafia organizations (Ap plebaum 2000 ) . In this environment, legal nihilism-not legally enforced obligations to ward others under a rule of law-has replaced authoritarian communism since 1991. Judges not paid for months at a time are even more susceptible to outside pressures or bribery than before 199 1 . Public officials, business people, and bankers are frequent targets of gangland assassinations. Prison conditions are just as bad or worse than the previous Soviet communist era. Torture is widely used to extract confessions and to gain convictions, and half of the prison inmates malnourished in overcrowded conditions suffer from incurable forms of tuberculosis and other diseases. The image is one of lawless, frontier societies in which organized crime reigns with the connivance of many public officials ( Sedov 1995; Betaneli 1997 ) . 1 It is an image that only further undermines any sense of obligation by the public or local government officials to comply with laws passed by the same il legitimate national political institutions. Along with AI Capone free-market capitalism, communism has been replaced in post-Soviet countries by kleptocracies, not democracies. A nostalgia for the safety, order, and predictability of the bygone ap parent unity of the Soviet Union consistently appears in Russian national public opinion polls. In national polls conducted annually since 1992, 85 percent of those polled said that the breakup of the Soviet Union was the greatest catastrophe in their lifetimes (Sedov 1995; Unattributed 1999a ) . Growing public sentiment in Russia and in several other countries for closer economic, military, and political integration of the countries under the aus pices of the Commonwealth of Independent States has come to reflect this undertow of disillusionment and cynicism about citizens' newly achieved national independence and a nostalgia for the Soviet past of one nation. This sentiment prevails, even as little change other than a union of Russia and Belarus proceeds fitfully amidst a prevailing mood of mistrust among the other ten countries regarding reintegration. Many fear domination by the Russian Federation and ethnic Russians in any revived union and single government. In a climate of pessimism, cynicism, disillusionment, and distrust, it is therefore even more significant that individuals have made a conscious, quite different active political commitment in the post-Soviet space. By choice and necessity, subgroups in several of the countries have reidentified themselves and acted to form regional political communities as alternatives to the new post-Soviet countries. Ethnic separatist movements in Moldova (Transdniester Republic), Russia ( Chechnya ) , Georgia (Abkhazian and South Ossetian Republics), and Azerbaijan (Nagorno-Karabakh Republic)


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have successfully waged civil wars against their national governments since 1991, forcing them at a minimum to concede de facto sovereignty to these breakaway regions through truces or cease-fires. In Tajikistan, a civil war raged unabated from 1 992, until fighting ended in 1997 with an insecure peace and power-sharing arrangement in Dushanbe between the two sides. An uncertain peace ended the conflict which for six years had pitted the northern half of the country against the southern half because of funda mental ethnic, language, religious, and tribal differences, with an unstable balance of power among paramilitary leaders and their armed units. Even these ethnic conflicts pale in comparison to two civil wars by the Russian republic of Chechnya for independence in 1994-1996 and 19992000. The first Chechen war resulted in upwards of 100,000 civilian deaths before it ended with Chechen forces driving the Russian military from the region and an ambiguous treaty setting aside a determination of the region's status in Russia until 200 1 . The second Chechen war, launched by the Russian government because of terrorist bombings in Russian cities blamed on Chechen militants in September of 1 999, resulted in tens of thousands of additional civilian casualties and over 200,000 Chechen refugees ex pelled from the ethnic republic by Russian bombing of their villages. The Russian military victory by the early spring of 2000 was achieved by de stroying the capital of the republic entirely and by murdering the inhabi tants of Chechen villages, the equivalent of a "scorched earth" policy against the whole Chechen region and civilian population. These separatist movements and civil wars represent the visible extreme, but they only reflect a more universal underlying trend in the erosion of central government authority to subnational political communities since independence in most of the post-Soviet countries. Ethnic separatism rep resents a threat to the very existence of these countries, but regionalism has emerged as the major challenge to the national governments of post-Soviet countries like Russia. Political-economic elites in many Russian geographical locales have co alesced in bargaining for more authority over taxation, foreign economic relations, and overall sovereignty for their particular locales, at the exclu sion of other competing regions ( Slider 1994; Hughes 1 996; Paretskaya 1997a, 1 997b, 1997c; Alexeev 1999 ) . In Russia, there are eighty-nine fed eration subjects, all presumably with equal rights and sovereign authority under the 1993 constitution. In reality, under Russia's asymmetric federalist arrangement since 1991, special advantages and privileges have been granted to thirty-one of these eighty-nine federation subjects, including twenty-one autonomous ethnic republics and ten autonomous ethnic ter ritories and districts set aside for non-Russian ethnic minorities. These special powers and rights for the thirty-one ethnic " autonomies " have con tinuously stirred bitter resentment and demands for equal treatment by the other fifty-eight "non-autonomies." Non-autonomies are the nonethnic fed-

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eral administrative territories, regions, and cities (Moscow and St. Peters burg) in Russia. Faced with their own locally impoverished population and deteriorating economies, they resent that many of the thirty-one ethnic au tonomies pay little of their taxes to Moscow while receiving federal sub ventions, freedom to negotiate their own foreign and economic relations, and other privileges more typically ass ociated with independent countries . For many o f the non-autonomies, a special status for the ethnic auton omies due to their minorities seems unnecessary and unfair. In nineteen of the thirty-one ethnic autonomies, ethnic Russians and other nationalities actually constitute a majority of the population, from 50 percent to 83 percent, while there are more non-Russians living in several of the non autonomies than in their neighboring ethnic republics or districts. In Bash kortostan, for example, which describes itself in its republic constitution as a " state" of Russia and requires local candidates to be fluent in the Bashkir language to run for office, titular ethnic Bashkirs actually make up only 23 percent of the republic's population, while ethnic Russians ( 3 8 percent) and Tatars (27 percent) constitute the maj ority of the population. The most financially prosperous non-autonomies have particularly re sented their unequal status under Russia's asymmetric federalism. Char acterized as federation "donors , " these ten to twelve federation subjects annually raise most of the national tax revenue for the federal budget. Some of these, such as Sverdlovsk, have been the most vocal critics of a fiscal arrangement which requires them to send most of their revenue to Moscow, while they receive much less per capita in return through federal programs. Since 19 94, several of the non-autonomies like Sverdlovsk have period ically attempted, unsuccessfully, to equalize their status under Russian fed eralism by threatening to declare themselves sovereign republics. Other regions have persistently lobbied to be designated special "free economic zones." Status as a free economic zone would abs olve them of having to pay most national tariffs and duties on goods exported and imported into their regions, would authorize them to provide special incentives for foreign investors who would not have to pay federal income and property taxes, and would leave a very high percentage of the tax revenue raised in their locales. Even the threat by local legislatures and governors to support the move toward republic sovereignty by their region has been sufficient to wrest additional financial support from Moscow or concessions of taxation autonomy over their local revenues. Of the fifty-eight non-autonomies, those who represented the biggest political threat to Moscow during Pres ident Boris Yeltsin's term from 1992 to 1999 were appeased by the central government. In subsequent budget years, they were required to send less tax revenue to Moscow and were rewarded with a higher per capita level of federal support for their populations (Treisman 1996, 45-49). Complicating the political configuration of Russia, eight interregional


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political-economic associations coinciding with the major geographical sub divisions of the country have formed. These associations unite some of these otherwise competing ethnic and nonethnic political enclaves on the basis of their purported shared interests and common fate as distinct Rus sian locales (Klimanov 1 999). They include eleven ethnic republics and non-autonomies known as Northwest Russia and seventeen ethnic enclaves and non-autonomies in Siberia known as the Siberian Accord. Northwest Russia only further blurs the actual extent of political authority over their locales by the central government in Moscow, and its purpose in the words of its chair is nothing less than ultimately to "bring about a new territorial division of Russia" (Borisevich 1997). The Siberian Accord has its own elected executive council, and there has been wide public sentiment within Siberia since 1991 to have the entire region reconstituted as an autonomous republic of Russia with its capital the city of Novosibirsk ( Orttung 1997a, 1 997b, 1 997c ) . Several factors cumulatively account for the rise of regionalism as the basic core of political identification and community for many Russians. They include a weak and corrupt national Russian government; no national integrating political parties, other than the Russian Communist Party; eco nomic decline equivalent to a massive depression over a decade; and the growing impoverishment and insecurity of millions (Urban, lgrunov, and Mitrokhin 1997, 29 1-3 10; Alexeev 1999 ) . Regionalism fills the psycholog ical void created by the low level of public confidence in the national gov ernment and by the government's own limited political authority to induce compliance with its laws. Regionalism has become the only politically vi able means to organize politically, given the absence of any real national political parties to unify Russia and to effectively represent the interests of different national groups in Russian society. Regions and interregional as sociations have been characterized as the "third force " in national Russian politics and alternative power base to the two contending wings of the national political establishment (the " Communists" and the "Democrats " ) (Paretskaya 1996a, 1996b). The Russian national leadership under President Boris Yeltsin at various times cynically embraced regionalism for short-term political advantages and support. As far back as 1990, in his political rivalry for power in the Soviet Union with Mikhail Gorbachev, Yeltsin attempted to outbid Gor bachev and secure the support of ethnic enclaves in Russia by urging them to "take as much freedom as you can swallow. " In the years after 1990, Yeltsin continuously played on the rivalry and asymmetric rights of the eighty-nine federation subjects by promising more sovereignty and special financial and political dispensations from the central government to certain locales in return for their support of him and his administration (Hughes 1996 ) . Beginning with the Russian republic of Tatarstan in 1994, Yeltsin, on his own initiative, signed a series of treaties with the ethnic non-

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autonomies never ratified by the Russian parliament. These treaties granted the autonomies retention of their special rights and privileges since 1992, in direct contradiction to the only recently ratified 1993 constitution. Two years later, in the 1996 Russian presidential election, Yeltsin, in a blatant appeal for votes during his campaign stops in certain non-autonomies, signed special "power-sharing treaties " by presidential edict with their re gional governments, allegedly granting them some of the same special rights and privileges vested in the Russian ethnic autonomies by the unconstitu tional treaties signed with them in 1 994. Some of the special privileges included in the presidential "treaties" is sued as presidential edicts in the spring of 1 996 were revoked by presiden tial decrees soon after Yeltsin won reelection, but the wave of highly publicized power-sharing treaty signings with non-autonomous federation subj ects continued unabated until his resignation in 1999. By the time Yelt sin resigned on December 3 1 , 1999, there had been forty-six separate trea ties signed between the federal government and Russian locales. 2 Yeltsin's decision to sign a treaty and grant certain kinds of allowances to a region was politically calculated solely by his own shifting priorities during the years 1994-1 998. Depending on when they signed the treaty and how Yelt sin needed their support at the time, by 1999 the forty-six Russian regions did not have to pay as much in federal taxes to the central government as to each other, and several had informal arrangements or even just verbal commitments by Yeltsin to receive special funds or assistance from the central government. This special dispensation only stirred renewed bitter ness among the regions left out, an increasing number of which threatened not to pay any of their federal taxes. Yeltsin himself violated the very equality presumed in the Russian Con stitution of 1993 for all eighty-nine federation subjects by arbitrarily sin gling out certain locales over others for preferential treatment in treaties. The transparent attempt to co-opt regions by the central government only politicized relations among all federation subjects and undermined any min imal obligation of regions to respect constitutional authority. The conse quence was periodic threats of full-scale tax rebellion against the federal government by some regional leaders, who threatened to keep all federal tax revenues collected in their locales for themselves. The politicization of federal-local relations by Yeltsin only legitimated regions conceiving of their primary group loyalty and identification with their locales rather than with any common Russian nation and state. Yeltsin's advisers and closest political confidants openly endorsed the eight interregional associations since their inception. They reasoned that large interregional associations would be easier to control by the center, forcing their members to bargain among themselves and thus undermining efforts by individual locales to pursue outright political sovereignty from Moscow. The proposal had growing support, even among some regional


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leaders. Their own national influence would increase by combining the eighty-nine federation subj ects into a smaller number of large interregional associations, which they could dominate because of their forceful person alities and the disproportionate size of their local economies relative to those of the other locales in such interregional associations. Boris Yeltsin resigned on December 3 1 , 1999, but Vladimir Putin, his designated successor, elected on March 26, 2000, early in his administra tion consistently cited the weakness of the national government as Russia's major problem ( Corwin 2000; Smirnyagin 2000 ) . For Putin, regionalism since 1991 has undermined the authority of the national Russian govern ment and contributed to the open political warfare, pitting federation su b jects against each other for additional advantages and independence from the center. Putin has linked his own solutions with ending the inequality arbitrarily favoring certain ethnic enclaves over other Russian Federation subjects and enforcing national laws and responsibilities uniformly for cit izens, regardless of where they reside within the locales of the country. If Putin is serious about strengthening the national government by taking away the power of Russia's locales and tightening central controls through out Russia, he confronts numerous obstacles. On the national governmental level, regionalism has almost become politically institutionalized. In the Federation Council, the upper chamber of the Russian national parliament (Federal Assembly ), the 178 seats are assigned ex officio, two each to the elected chief executive and speaker of the legislature in each of the eighty nine locales. Elections for the chief executives of the fifty-eight non autonomies were held in most of them for the first time periodically throughout 1 996-1998, and reelections were held in almost all throughout 1999-2000. The gubernatorial and assembly elections have only further politicized the movement toward regionalism. The most successful candi dates for governors typically win on anti-Moscow and pro-regional plat forms, promising that they will actively represent and defend their local interests against the central government. With their popular mandates, this new generation of elected governors has become a real elite counterweight to the central government (Paretskaya 1996a, 1 9 96b; Vinogradov 19 96; Orttung 2000 ) . The power base of several local chief executives in Russian regions was only further evidenced by the ability of several to manipulate the timing of gubernatorial elections and their own dictatorial control over the local media to assure their reelection as incumbents during the guber natorial elections held in 1 999-2000. As a result, the Federation Council has been transformed into a forum for the eighty-nine Russian federal subdivisions to bargain for more auton omy for themselves from the center through the laws which they pass and to lobby the national government ministries for additional revenue and programs for their locales. The changed composition of the Federation Council with the popular local mandates for anti-Moscow chief executives

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and legislative leaders led periodically during Yeltsin's presidency to an open revolt by the upper chamber against the authority of the central gov ernment, especially against its already limited power to collect federal taxes from the eighty-nine Russian subj ects (Paretskaya 1997a, 1997b, 1997c; Unattributed 1997a). Interregional associations like Northwest Russia co ordinate legislative strategies among their chief executives and speakers, who then pursue them and bargain with senators representing other inter regional associations as members of the Russian Council. National policy making in Russia by 2000 had become regionalized. By the end of President Yeltsin's term as president, the transparency of Russian sovereignty obscured any clear distinction between the powers of the federal government and the eighty-nine federation subjects. A number of Russian cities, regions, and all ethnic republics aggressively competed against each other and against the federal government by floating Euro bonds through international banks to raise capital for their own locales ( Grushina 1996 ) . Some of the ethnic republics snub the authority of the federal government by imposing their own custom duties on goods from other Russian regions, and regions in Siberia post their own guards along the border with Mongolia (Orttung 1997a, 1 997b, 1997c, 1997d; Unat tributed 1997a ) . Other Russian regions with cash shortages to pay their employees and workers have printed their own promissory notes (vekselya), exchanged as the equivalent of Russian currency within their locales. All ethnic republics and many non-autonomies enforce local laws denying civil rights and liberties to their residents in direct violation of federal laws and the federal constitution which guarantee those very same rights and liberties to all Russian citizens. Several Russian ethnic republics and non autonomies have offices in Moscow, considered their "embassies," to re negotiate directly with the presidential administration and the Russian government the terms of the "treaties" for their locales (Komarova 1999 ) . Bypassing the federal government, all eighty-nine federation subj ects sign economic contracts with other countries and conduct the equivalent of their own foreign policies independent of Moscow ( Goble 1 999). Twenty of the eighty-nine federation subjects have opened their own foreign missions in other countries equivalent to mini-embassies (Unattributed 1997a ) . President Putin inherited from his predecessor Boris Yeltsin a Russia which had already become a de facto confederation. The prevailing view of Russian locales reflected by their governors and speakers in the Feder ation Council seemed to be " everyone for himself" (Helmer 1997). REGIONALISM AND RUSSIAN KALININGRAD3

The one safe generalization is that a weak central Russian government since 1991 has provided both the incentives and opportunities for the lead ership of regions to strike out on their own and develop their own political identity and unique combination of political models (Alexeev 1999 ) . Re-


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gional differentiation to some extent has led to eighty-nine types or models of political development in Russia since 1991. These political models have been adaptations necessitated by an inept federal government, a collapsed economy, and the constellation of factors affecting change differently in all eighty-nine regions. These factors reflect the geographical situation, popu lations, histories and political cultures, and economic realities that are somewhat unique to each Russian locale. They have forced decisions and limited the options for whomever has come to power in regional elections during the first decade of Russian independence. The most evident examples are Russian border regions since 1991, such as Maritime, Pskov, and Kaliningrad, which have followed a distinctively similar political model. The model has been conditioned by geography and much less influenced by the personalities or political inclinations of their leaders. By choice and necessity, the border regions have come to identify themselves with the wider cross-national area or sea basin of which they are part, for example, the Baltic Sea and Pacific Rim. As a consequence, the leaders of Russian border regions have insisted on greater economic independence from the federal government and have developed extensive cross-border economic trade and investment ties with the surrounding countries and populations in their common sea basins (Alexeev and Troy akova 1999; Alexeev and Vagin 1999 ) . The very same border regions have also constituted the core of a "xenophobic belt," with fears and hysteria about non-Russians and immigrants (Chinese for Primorye, Latvians for Pskov, Germans for Kaliningrad) skewing their political evolution and re sponses. The border regions of Russia have confronted additional insecurities, leading them to strike out on their own. The disintegration of the former Soviet Union left these border regions isolated from the central govern ments. A maj ority of their populations are ethnic Russians or Russophones in areas dominated by non-Russians, and they inherit territory from the former Soviet Union, whose inclusion is contested by their postcommunist neighbors. These disputes over borders were subsumed for five decades, after Stalin forcibly redrew the boundaries of the Soviet Union at the end of World War II. With the collapse of the Soviet Union and the European communist empire, however, the issue of territorial sovereignty has resurfaced with a vengeance. It undermines the legitimacy and threatens the very existence of these border regions. Nothing better illustrates the problems and psycho logical responses dictated by necessity and choice than Russian Kaliningrad. International Context

Kaliningrad's post-1991 inclusion in Russia in many ways was an un anticipated by-product of World War II and the Potsdam Conference of 1945. The city and region of Kaliningrad is separated geographically from

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Russia by 300 kilometers and the post- 1991 independent countries of Be larus, Latvia, and Lithuania. With only 15,000 square kilometers and a total population of 935,000, Kaliningrad is actually located within the bor ders of Lithuania along its western Baltic coast. Kaliningrad's origins and cultural ties until 1945 for centuries were German, not Russian. The region known as Konigsberg until 1945 had been first settled in the thirteenth century by German crusaders concurrent with their conquest and Christian conversion of other pagan ethnic tribes living along the eastern Baltic littoral. As the capital of the Baltic trading alliance of the Hanseatic League in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, Konigsberg became a vassal state of the Catholic Polish Kingdom in 1640, until it was annexed into Prussia with the dismemberment of Poland in the 1770s. Steeped in Prussian-German culture over the subsequent 170 years, Konigsberg (literally, "city of kings " ) became synonymous with German history. As the capital of Prussia, it was the site where Prussian rulers tra ditionally were crowned; it was the renowned military garrison over gen erations for the training of the elite Prussian officer corps; it was the university where Immanuel Kant taught and wrote in the eighteenth cen tury; it was the birthplace of many pan-Germanists, who in the nineteenth century provided the ideological rationale for German nationalism and the integration of ethnic Germans in one country by 1 8 7 1 ; it was the tourist summer region for the German aristocracy, over decades renowned for its resorts and beachfront manors; and it was the home for centuries until 1945 for German farming, commerce, and shipping. With the defeat of Nazi Germany by the advancing Soviet forces in 1944-1945, the region and its important military and commercial ports on the Baltic were annexed by the Soviet Union, becoming a political subdi vision of the Russian union republic under the terms of the Potsdam agree ment, signed by the great powers in July 1945. The western two-thirds of former German Prussia became part of Poland under the same agreement. Renamed for Mikhail Kalinin, the nominal head of state under Stalin dur ing World War II, Kaliningrad was systematically de-Germanized under Soviet rule for the subsequent four decades. Traditional German-Prussian buildings were razed, the remaining German population was imprisoned and later deported to the Federal Republic of Germany, streets and villages were all renamed in Russian, and privately owned German farms and es tates were collectivized. The major military port of the province renamed Baltiysk became the home port for the Baltic Fleet of the Soviet navy. The economy after 1945 was transformed into a virtual military garrison, with the deployment of a large contingent of Soviet troops and arms. The entire city and province became a closed security zone, and all foreigners were forbidden to travel to the city-province until its security status was dropped in 1991. The com mercial face of the city-province was also converted to Soviet needs. Kali-


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ningrad became the home of the Soviet Baltic merchant fleet, providing 10 percent of all fish and fish products consumed in the Russian union republic alone. Along with commercial ports in the other neighboring Baltic repub lics and in Leningrad ( St. Petersburg), the Baltic merchant fleet ported in Kaliningrad provided the Soviet Union with its major shipping and trans portation linkages to Europe. Given its military and commercial value, Kaliningrad was claimed by the newly constituted independent Russian government in December 1991. The ethnic composition of the region and its military units closely linked Kali ningrad to Russia. More than three-fourths of Kaliningrad are ethnic Rus sians, another approximately 16 percent are closely related ethnic Slavs (Belarusians and Ukrainians ), and only 2 percent are ethnic Lithuanians. An estimated 60 percent of Kaliningrad's entire population in 1991 had been born outside of the region, and approximately 100,000-200,000 of these were Soviet military personnel stationed in the army and naval facil ities. In March of 1992, the Kaliningrad military garrison and the Baltic Fleet were integrated into the newly formed armed forces of the Russian Federation. Lithuania, which had only become reindependent after a half century four months earlier, did not raise any loud protests over Kaliningrad in December of 1991. In contrast to Latvia and Estonia, which inherited large ethnic Russian and Russophonic populations, Lithuania's "Russian prob lem" was solved by the Russian government's unilateral assumption of its right to Kaliningrad. By excluding the 900,000 ethnic Russians and Rus sophones in Kaliningrad who automatically became citizens of Russia, Lith uania was left after independence with a homogenous ethnic population that was over 80 percent Lithuanian. Lithuania granted its remaining res ident ethnic Russians and Poles automatic citizenship in 1991. With a very homogenous population, Lithuania has not confronted the same international criticism about its treatment of minorities and its citi zenship laws and the same problems in integrating large ethnic Russian and Russophonic communities as have Latvia and Estonia. Also unlike Latvia and Estonia, embroiled in conflict with Russia over the removal of Russian troops from their territories until their withdrawal in August of 1 994, the issue of Russian troops never became as divisive an issue in Lithuania be cause of Kaliningrad. Most of Lithuania's Russian military forces already had been redeployed when Lithuania became reindependent, merely be cause they were stationed in the Russian territory of Kaliningrad. International law and the precedent of the previous forty-six years seemed to endorse the unilateral action by the Russian government by 1991 in claiming Kaliningrad rightfully as its own. The Helsinki Conference in 1975 of thirty-five nations ending World War II reafffirmed Russia's legit imate claim to the region, internationally recognizing the western bound aries of the former Soviet Union from 1 945. The "two plus four" treaty

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between the two Germanys and the four occupying powers of Berlin in 1990, resulting in the unification of Germany, also indirectly affirmed Ka liningrad's legal status as Russian territory. The treaty bound unified Ger many to accept the territorial changes from 1945, by which eastern Prussia was incorporated into Poland and northern Prussia (Kaliningrad) into Rus sia. The Russian Federation, through diplomatic agreements reached with the other former Soviet republics on their respective borders in 1992-1994, merely assumed the continuity and legality of its international borders, based on those for all of the union republics in the former Soviet Union at the time of its dissolution and internationally established before 1991 by the Potsdam and Helsinki conferences. If little obj ection was raised at the time, Kaliningrad's status as a feder ation subj ect of Russia since 1991 has been anything but noncontroversial or certain. On the Russian side, nationalists like Vladimir Zhirinovskiy consider retention of the province almost a matter of Russian patriotism and have warned that any concession by an elected Russian official on sovereignty over the region would be considered equivalent to treason. Ka liningrad was deliberately selected in 1994 for the founding congress by Russian nationalists of an organization called "Russian Border from Kali ningrad to the Kuriles, " and a symbolic identification with the region has almost become a rite of passage by all nationalist Russian parties and can didates to certify themselves for their constituency among Russian voters. Embracing Kaliningrad as a symbol of Russian national pride in the 1996 presidential campaign, former President Yeltsin and even liberal democratic politicial leaders needed little prodding by Russian nationalists (Yeltsin 1996 ) . The political campaigns for the Russian parliament and Russian presidency will by routine witness all of the major political parties and candidates at some time making their perfunctory nationally televised trips and photo opportunities to the region, outbidding each other before public rallies and groups of Russian soldiers and sailors in Kaliningrad in their pledges to always preserve and defend Kaliningrad as an inalienable Rus sian land. On the other side have been the political leaders and public of Lithuania. The Kaliningrad issue has been a political barometer of Lithu anian-Ru ssian relations since 199 1 . When relations are good, Kaliningrad never comes up. Unlike Latvia and Estonia, Lithuania has rarely been criticized by Rus sian politicians for its alleged mistreatment of ethnic Russians, all of whom obtained automatic Lithuanian citizenship and full rights in 1991. Lithu ania and Russia both have a long-term vested economic interest in each other. Russia remains an important trading partner for Lithuania and a market for Lithuanian exports, and it is the principal supplier of gasoline and oil for Lithuania and uranium for Lithuania's lgnalina nuclear power plant, the country's primary source of electricity. Kaliningrad, in turn, by


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1999, received 100 percent of its electricity from the Lithuanian Ignalina power plant. When relations are tense, however, Kaliningrad becomes the lightning rod, focusing on each other's still-inherent mutual fears and suspicions. Nationalists affiliated with political parties, such as the Lithuanian center right Homeland Union or conservatives under Vytautas Landsbergis, have always remained suspicious of Russian ulterior motives toward their coun try because of Kaliningrad. For them, Kaliningrad is an unacceptable " anachronism." At a minimum, it mocks Lithuanian national sovereignty. At a maximum, it poses a constant Russian military threat to Lithuanian independence. They have supported a hard-line attitude in Lithuanian gov ernment policies to isolate Kaliningrad from the Russian mainland and to make it economically nonviable for the Russian government to sustain the region. Conversely, they have supported policies to integrate Kaliningrad by trade and investment into a greater economic dependency on Lithuania than mainland Russia. Lithuanian government measures to isolate Kaliningrad have included control over the adjacent airspace, protests over Russian naval exercises in the Lithuanian-Kaliningrad coastal border region, and regulations on the transit of Russian military personnel and equipment across Lithuania. De pending on the state of Russian-Lithuanian relations, Russian citizens trav eling to Kaliningrad by train or automobile across Lithuania are harassed by Lithuanian passport and custom officials. All commercial rail and truck transports from the Russian mainland to Kaliningrad across Lithuania have been levied special Lithuanian tariffs and transit duties. The regulations on Russian military transit and the commercial tariffs and duties on Russian goods have been particular sore points between the two governments since 1991, at various times threatening to escalate into economic and political reprisals by both sides ( Girnius 1996, 19).4 Despite the economic deterioration of the Russian armed forces, the large Russian military and nuclear-armed naval presence in Kaliningrad was still estimated throughout the first decade after 1991 to be within the range of 100,000 soldiers and sailors. By various estimates, the total percentage un der the direct or indirect command of the Russian armed forces constitutes anywhere from one-tenth to one-fifth of the entire regional population, along with those in the armed forces and their family dependents. This more than anything is the threat to regional Baltic security and stability for Lithuanian nationalists and their counterparts in L atvia and Estonia. More radical Lithuanian nationalists have favored not just the demilitarization of Kaliningrad but its direct annexation by Lithuania. The pretext for their claim is that the region actually is historic Lithuania, since it was part of the Lithuanian-Polish kingdom from 1640 until the 1770s. Radical nationalists in Poland have decried the threat posed to their country by the large Russian military garrison and navy in Kaliningrad

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across from Poland's northeast border, and they object to Kaliningrad for what they perceive as the simultaneous "re-Germanization" of Kaliningrad and their northeastern border through heavy German financial investment in the region since 1991. Like their counterparts in Lithuania, Polish na tionalists have made the same historic claim to argue for the annexation of Kaliningrad as historic Poland, even though it would bring up the seem ingly settled issue of Poland's legal right to have annexed the other two thirds of historic German Prussia at the end of World War II. In one widely publicized episode of Polish-Russian tension over Kaliningrad in 1996, the Russian government was forced by Polish public opinion to withdraw a proposal to finance the construction of a new highway and railroad across the Polish corridor from Belarus to Kaliningrad. Russia was willing to fi nance the corridor in order to avoid having to ship goods to the region solely through Lithuania with the expensive tariffs and duties levied by the Lithuanian government. Various floated alternatives since 1991 have proposed making the city region an independent "fourth" Baltic country or internationalizing Kali ningrad under joint Russian, Lithuanian, Polish, and even German sovereignty. A very broad Russian political consensus from hard-line Rus sian nationalists to liberal democrats in Russia rejects any proposal for an independent or internationalized Kaliningrad as a direct threat to Russia itself, already challenged by NATO 's eastward expansion. Articles in the Russian national press by Russian military analysts have reflected the anx iety and paranoia shaping the national Russian political consensus at the beginning of the twenty-first century (Paretskaya 1997a, 1997b, 1997c; Krickus 1999 ) . Russian military analysts contend that NATO, the Baltic countries, and the international nongovernmental organizations are actively conspiring to revise the status of Kaliningrad and that Germany encouraged ethnic German migration to Kaliningrad by buying up local real estate and setting up German organizations in Kaliningrad. All of these latter actions would be consistent with the intent of several German parliamentarians and government leaders to reestablish Germany's cultural and economic hegemony over the region. Moscow would outrightly oppose independence. The reasons are not just because St. Petersburg and Kaliningrad are Russia's only commercial and military ports on the Baltic Sea and because Kaliningrad is Russia's only ice-free outlet for year-long trade and commerce in the region. However tenuous the claim to Kaliningrad as Russian land from a historical stand point, Moscow's fear is the precedent of granting independence under ex ternal pressure. If Kaliningrad became independent, Chechnya could not be refused its own freedom, the Kurile islands would have to be returned to Japan or internationalized, and the Maritime territory and historic Chi nese lands in Eastern Siberia would have to be reincorporated by China. From these concesssions, Russia itself would soon disintegrate.


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Local Context The reality is that economic forces from Lithuania, Poland, Germany, and other Baltic countries since 1991 have already obtained a significant international influence in Kaliningrad. The irony is that the local Kalinin grad leadership and public have actively encouraged and sought their pres ence in the region to leverage their own greater economic and political autonomy from Moscow. Kaliningrad has been particularly attractive to foreign economic investors in the Baltic region because of its potential as an international financial transportation metropole and gateway to the potentially lucrative Russian market (Hoff and Timmermann 1993 ) . The promise of special duty-free custom privileges and tax concessions in Russia under Kaliningrad's status as a free economic zone has been a particular incentive for them. The po litical leadership of Kaliningrad since 1991 under both of its governors has consistently lobbied the central government in Moscow to grant the region and city special dispensations to make it more appealing to prospective foreign investors. Boris Yeltsin himself, as far back as 1989, had promised Kaliningrad leaders that he would use his influence in Moscow to support them. In the fall of 1991, even before Russia's independence, Kaliningrad was one of only three non-autonomous federation subjects by Yeltsin's presidential decree and administrative actions of government agencies con stituted formally as free economic zones. If Kaliningrad merited special consideration in 1991, those factors only magnified after Russian independence. Kaliningrad's isolation from the Russian mainland has meant that the population and local industry have suffered even greater economic hardship in making the transition to a mar ket economy than other Russian regions. The military core of Kaliningrad's economy has effectively collapsed, leaving many of those employed by the armed forces or the military-industrial sector of Kaliningrad unpaid or un employed. The problems were only exacerbated in 199 1-1 992 by the re deployment of naval and military personnel from former Soviet ports in the reindependent Baltic countries and from former Soviet troops with drawn from Eastern Europe. Russian soldiers and sailors in Kaliningrad are not paid for months at a time, and many live in poverty without ade quate housing and below the minimum monthly income subsistence level for food. Their hardships are shunted on to the Kaliningrad government, which must use its own limited revenue to care for them with social welfare programs. The costs of living and manufacturing are higher in Kaliningrad than in other regions with the additional charges on all goods shipped by sea, rail, or truck across Lithuania. Kaliningrad's economy cannot survive without trade. Over 70 percent of everything produced in the region is exported, and despite some local oil and timber reserves, the region has to import

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almost everything required by its population and local manufacturers. An economic-political orphan after 1991, the region in effect lost its natural geographical economy with the end of communism and the collapse of the Soviet Union as a single country. Both disrupted the economic linkages that had indirectly subsidized Kaliningrad's economy through trade with the other former union republics of the Soviet or other communist countries in Eastern Europe based on a common exchangeable Russian ruble cur rency zone in effect until 19 89-1 991. Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Belarus, and Poland-Kaliningrad's natural Soviet geographical economy-have imposed customs tariffs and duties on trade with Kaliningrad Russia or have otherwise reduced their economic transactions with the region because of alternative market opportunities in the Baltic basin or because of their conflicts with Russia. On the other hand, the Russian government's commitment to retain Ka liningrad as a frontline military outpost on the Baltic has constricted the authority of the regional and city governments to privatize local enterprises. By 1996, only 35 percent of Kaliningrad's local enterprises had been pri vatized, as the state and Defense Ministry have resisted commercializing industries or sectors still deemed vital to national defense in the region. The maritime port facilities and fishing fleet would be particularly attractive as joint ventures for prospective foreign buyers. The city and regional govern ments have been unable to generate sufficient local revenue from privati zation to offset the additional costs of having to provide for the basic needs of the many unemployed and unpaid military-industrial personnel, and they have been denied the right to auction off much of the military sector to create jobs for them in the private sector. At the same time, the local government is owed trillions in rubles for electricity and consumer services by the Russian Defense Ministry, unable to pay for its own military garrison, naval port, and personnel in the region. The only alternative for the Kaliningrad government has been to turn off the electricity for the local military facilities because of the unpaid bills and to essentially blackmail the central Russian government into paying off the debts of the Defense Ministry for its local military garrison and naval fa cilities . The Kaliningrad government has little choice other than blackmail, given its own international dependency. Kaliningrad receives all of its elec tricity from Lithuanian power companies, and the region has been threat ened by them with the shutoff of electricity for its own overdue bills . In turn, the Lithuanian government and power companies have been threat ened by Russian energy suppliers with a cutoff of gas and oil because of their overdue payments. Aware of Kaliningrad's perilous economic situation and isolation from the mainland, the Russian national government from the outset of inde pendence has treated the region differently than the others. Kaliningrad's international status was reflected in the very fact that the Russian Ministry


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of Foreign Relations since 1993 has assigned an official full-time Russian ambassador to the region. Yurii Matochkin, appointed governor of Kali ningrad by Yeltsin in 199 1-1 996, became almost an unofficial roving am bassador of the region in his dealings with the neighboring national and local governments of Lithuania, Poland, and Belarus. Matochkin was au thorized by the national Russian government, within limits, to visit these other countries and to negotiate with their officials and their own business sectors a wide range of agreements on trade, fisheries, and joint venture investments in Kaliningrad. Notwithstanding the periodic flare-ups between the national govern ments of Lithuania and Russia over the status of Kaliningrad, the region on the local level has expanded its ties economically and culturally with the Baltic basin. The borders between Kaliningrad and its Baltic neighbors under Matochkin's governorship became very transparent. Lithuanian con struction crews construct apartment buildings for demobilized Russian sol diers in Kaliningrad, and the Baltic military garrison pays off its debt for housing construction to the Lithuanian government with surplus military supplies. Ship repair facilities in Latvia renovate vessels of the Kaliningrad Baltic Fleet. A common vested interest in promoting tourism and its revenue has also bonded Kaliningrad to its Baltic neighbors. Even absent any formal treaty and border between Lithuania and Russia, Kaliningrad and Lithu a nian border and custom officials have made their own informal arrange ments to cooperate in easing the transit for the many (especially German) tourists who flock to their common beaches and sites along the Baltic coast during the spring and summer. German cultural integration of the region has been particularly evident. By 1993, 75 percent of students at the Kaliningrad university had enrolled in German language courses, and a survey of public opinion in Kaliningrad found a majority who favored renaming the city and province Konigsberg (Elon 1 993 ). Tens of thousands of German tourists annually visit the re gion; German entrepreneurs are flocking to open businesses and to buy land; a new highway is being built to Berlin; a German-language newspaper is published and distributed locally; and an estimated 25,000 ethnic Ger mans from various parts of Russia were already new residents of Kalinin grad three years after independence, by 1 997, subsidized in their relocation by the German government (Bohlen 19 94; Vinogradov 1994; McFaul and Petrov 1998, 544 ) . Bypassing the central Russian government, the Dres dener Bank of Germany, in November of 1997, signed an agreement with the Kaliningrad government, promising the equivalent of a $30 million loan to fund small businesses and to rebuild the infrastructure of the region (Unattributed 1997c), and German regions such as Brandenburg signed special economic cooperative agreements with Kaliningrad (Unattributed 1 999c ) . Especially the younger generation of Kaliningraders born in the region

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has welcomed the influx of Germans and German capital. This generation identifies itself as residents of "Konigsberg" and conceives of itself as "neo Prussians" (Kibelka 1992 ) . In a 1993 poll, 5 8 percent of Kaliningraders supported reconstituting the region as a Baltic republic, either within Russia or as a completely independent country, and 74 percent favored some form of special status for the region (Dubnov 1993; Olshanskiy 1993 ) . The political leadership o f Kaliningrad since 1 9 9 1 has both mobilized and led the local public, which increasingly conceives of itself as being as much regional Baltic as ethnic Russian. Governor Matochkin first gained local political prominence in his successful campaign for a seat in the Rus sian parliament from the region in 1990 by calling for reconstituting Ka liningrad as an autonomous Baltic republic of Russia, if the central government failed to grant real economic autonomy to the region. On the eve of his bid to be elected governor in 1996, Matochkin reflected in an interview about the uniqueness of his position, which since 1991 had come to combine aspects of a governor, an unofficial roving ambassador of the Russian government to Poland and Lithuania, and the leader of a quasi independent Baltic republic (Matochkin 1996 ) . The geographical location of Kaliningrad required him to spend much of his time visiting Poland and Lithuania and negotiating with their governments or business leaders over some aspect of either foreign economic or international relations directly affecting Kaliningrad. A good deal of his other time was taken up traveling to Moscow to lobby with government officials about additional concessions of economic or political autonomy to the region. During the 1996 gubernatorial campaign, Matochkin was accused by his opponents of corruption and of having ties to organized criminal syndi cates, and some in the communist camp even charged him with promoting political separatism and the reincorporation of Kaliningrad by Germany ( Orttung 1996a, 1996b ) . Yet even Yuriy Semenov-the communist can didate for governor in the first round of the election and deputy chair of the Kaliningrad parliament-endorsed Matochkin's efforts since 1991 to achieve economic free-zone status for the region. Semenov came in third in the first round of the Kaliningrad gubernatorial election, but his general views on Kaliningrad's autonomy were considered compatible enough to Matochkin that he even offered to make Semenov his vice-governor after the first round in order to swing Semenov's voters to him in the runoff. Matochkin lost the election in the runoff to Leonid Gorbenko, director of the Kaliningrad fishing port, who actually wound up being endorsed by Semenov and the local Communist Party and who appointed Semenov as his vice-governor after the election. The runoff between Matochkin and Gorbenko was generally viewed as one between two "pragmatists " rather than alternative approaches to Kaliningrad's status, on which both candi dates agreed. Matochkin accused Gorbenko of being "pro-Moscow" and less supportive of Kaliningrad's autonomy, but Matochkin was actually


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endorsed by Russian Prime Minister Viktor Chernomyrdin and his Our Home Is Russia political party, which helped finance his campaign. Gor benko, on the other hand, was supported in his campaign by Matochkin's erstwhile ally on autonomy for Kaliningrad, the pro-Yeltsin Vladimir Shu meyko and his Regional Reforms-New Deal Party. Shumeyko was elected from Kaliningrad as one of its two senators to the Federation Council in December of 1993, at a time when seats were still contested from each of the eighty-nine federation subjects to the council before they became ex officio for the locally elected chief executive and speaker of the local legislative assemblies in all federation subjects in Sep tember of 1995. A Yeltsin protege and former governor from the Northern Caucasus, Shumeyko chose to run in Kaliningrad in 1993 because it was a region that typified his vision of strong regional governments in the Rus sian federal state. A nationally ambitious politician, Shumeyko leveraged his senate seat from Kaliningrad into being elected speaker of the Federa tion Council in 1994-1995. Thus, little change seemed likely with Gorbenko's victory from Ma tochkin's policies of promoting Kaliningrad's transnational integration with its Baltic neighbors. Despite the rivalry between Yurii Semenov, Yurii Matochkin, Vladimir Shumeyko, and Leonid Gorbenko for governor of the region, the campaign and election only reaffirmed the wide basis of support across the political spectrum of leadership in Kaliningrad for its autonomy from Moscow. Indeed, Gorbenko's first visible action after being elected governor was to lead a delegation of Kaliningrad officials and business leaders to Vilnius in the newly formed Lithuanian-Kaliningrad economic cooperation council ( Girnius 1997). Symbolic continuity with Matochkin was apparent in nothing less than the fact that, like Matochkin, Gorbenko assumed his official residence as Kaliningrad governor in the former private estate of the Minister of Finance of East Prussia, when Kaliningrad as Ko nigsberg was still part of Germany. Both a maj ority of the Kaliningrad public and its local leadership came to a political consensus and reidentification as Russian Balts from a self evident truth. Despite some upturn in Kaliningrad's economy by 19961 997, the region as a powerful Russian military outpost with a great con centration of troops funded by Moscow is a thing of the past and generally recognized as having an unfeasible future. The principal source of capital and job growth in the region has come from foreign investors. Their in centive to locate in Kaliningrad has closely depended on the demilitariza tion of Kaliningrad's economy and on the financial and political support for Kaliningrad's free economic status by the central government in Mos cow. Unfortunately for them and the Kaliningrad leadership, the national gov ernment under President Yeltsin wavered in its willingness and ability to make the region truly viable as a free economic zone. Even the original ten-

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year grant to Kaliningrad in 1991 as the Yantar (Amber) Free Economic Zone was nothing more than a presidential edict. By 1998, the Russian parliament had still failed to compromise with the government in passing a federal law on free economic zones in the country. Lacking the binding legal authority of a law passed by the Russian parliament, Kaliningrad's free economic status was subject to presidential whim in revoking original edicts. Central governmental ministries in Moscow also countermanded or simply ignored the presumed rights of Kaliningrad as a free economic zone, because presidential edicts are not judicially enforceable. Moreover, as the Russian saying goes, the " devil is in the details . " Free economic zones in China and other countries have prospered, but only with government financial subsidies and private-sector capital for communica tion, roads, and other infrastructure. Kaliningrad until 1991 was a closed economy whose telephones, roads, railroads, and airport were designed for military use to repulse an invasion by NATO . Since 1 992, the Russian government has lacked the capital to modernize and upgrade the commer cial development of Kaliningrad's communication and transportation net work. The Russian government also does not have the money to compensate prospective foreign investors in the region for the additional costs of transporting goods across Lithuania to the Russian mainland. As a consequence-and despite foreign investment in the region, which at $70 per capita by 1999 far exceeded the Russian national ratio-Kaliningrad, even as an economic free zone, has suffered in comparison to more desir able nearby areas for foreign investors. In Lithuania, the ratio of foreign investment by 1999 was $563 per capita (Lobj akas 2000 ) . National political support for the region's economic autonomy has also fluctuated since independence. In June of 1993, all of the Russian special economic zones lost their customs benefits and privileges with the adoption of a parliamentary law on customs tariffs. Kaliningrad was made an ex ception and was allowed to retain its special Yantar zone through an amendment to the law, but only through the political intercession of Vla dimir Shumeyko, who later became one of Kaliningrad's two senators and the speaker of the Federation Council in 1994-1995. The declaration of Kaliningrad as a free economic zone in 1 991 already began to show promise over the period 1992-1994 (Petrov 1995; Kozyreva 1996; Unattributed 1996). Foreign trade turnover in Kaliningrad increased 100-150 percent each year, and consumer prices for food products and consumer goods in the region fell to average Russian levels. By the begin ning of 1995, there were 771 enterprises with foreign capital in the region, led by Polish firms with 37 percent and German firms with 22 percent. In March of 1 995, however, Yeltsin issued an edict revoking his previous presidential edicts that had authorized special duty-free and other economic privileges to twelve regions and a few nongovernmental organizations run by his close political cronies. The major reason for Yeltsin's revocation had


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been political opposition by the maj ority of regions that had been excluded. In addition, scandals at the time disclosed that nongovernmental organi zations led by some of Yeltsin's cronies had used their privileges as a cover with the Russian mafia to import contraband goods. With the March edict, Kaliningrad effectively lost its own free economic zone status, even though Yeltsin and his advisers hastened to promise a special federal law reinsti tuting Kaliningrad's somewhat reduced economic autonomy as a "special economic zone . " Nevertheless, multinational corporations and countries that had signed contracts or had otherwise committed themselves to invest in Kaliningrad with its incentive of a free economic zone status lost confi dence and pulled out in 1995-1996. The Kaliningrad economy fell into an even worse depression throughout the rest of 1995 and early 1 996. The Kaliningrad leadership with its supporters in the Russian Chamber of Commerce and Industry and influential politicians in Moscow lobbied for a federal law on special economic zones and submitted it to Russian agencies for consideration.5 In October of 1995-despite opposition by the government of Prime Minister Chernomyrdin-the federal law on special economic zones was adopted in its first reading by the lower house ( State Duma) of the Russian parliament. The December election for a new State Duma stalled the bill before it could be voted upon again. Before the Rus sian parliament ended, however, the Federation Council voted to reinstate Kaliningrad's economic autonomy as a "special economic zone" in a bill pushed by the pro-Kaliningrad lobbyists. The lobbyists were headed by the outgoing council speaker and the Kaliningrad senator himself, Vladimir Shumeyko. Yeltsin and his advisers, who had opposed a federal law on free economic zones and the council's vote, acted to preempt any further legislative action on January 12, 1996, by signing special governmental "federal-regional compacts" with Kaliningrad and Sverdlovsk, authorizing " duty-free" status for both regions. With the upcoming Russian presidential election an im mediate consideration, these compacts for Kaliningrad and Sverdlovsk were the prelude to Yeltsin's widely publicized "power-sharing treaties," with certain regions signed during his campaigning in May and June. Yet the terms in many of these heralded treaties granting regions a form of greater economic autonomy or special privileges by the center government were never implemented after his reelection, because of their cost in lost tax revenue to the national treasury and because of the resentment of the many regions that had been excluded. The compacts and treaties that give more rights to certain regions are also both unconstitutional, violating the ex plicit guarantee of equality for all eighty-nine federation subjects in the 1993 constitution. Indicative of his opposition to granting any real auton omy to regions not subject to his personal whim, Yeltsin, on July 23, 1997, vetoed a law passed by the Federal Assembly, setting down even standard procedures to establish free economic zones in Russia.

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Thus, even at the beginning of 1998, Kaliningrad's status as a special economic zone through a legally unenforceable and constitutionally dubi ous governmental compact remained uncertain, subj ect to the vacillations of President Yeltsin and the vagaries of Russian national politics. Kalinin grad's very security and future also resurfaced as an issue, given the like lihood of renewed tensions between Russia and its three Baltic neighbors of Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia, which were denied NATO membership in 1997 because of the Russian military and naval forces in the region. The irony was that the prospects for the region as a Baltic metropole never seemed more promising. Pepsi-Cola announced plans to open a major bottling plant in Kaliningrad, which coincided with a major new expansion on its part in the entire Baltic region, and South Korean Kia Motors had already converted a former shipbuilding facility in Kaliningrad to assemble automobiles for the burgeoning car market in Russia and in other countries in Central and Eastern Europe ( Orttung 1997a, 1997b ) . Both had been actively pursued by former Governor Matochkin of Kaliningrad in his at tempt since 1991 to reposition and redefine Kaliningrad as a transnational Baltic political-economic community. Despite inconsistent and erratic be havior during his first year as Kaliningrad governor, which theatened to undermine Kaliningrad's vital agricultural imports from Poland and Lith uania (Unattributed 1997b ), Leonid Gorbenko, on February 22, 1998, signed an accord with the five neighboring Baltic regions of Poland, Den mark, Latvia, Lithuania, and Sweden to promote cooperation in economics, agriculture, transportation, environmental protection, and education as a common "Baltic Euro-Region" (Unattributed 1 998b). Poland renewed its construction of a highway connecting Kaliningrad across northeast Poland to all of Western Europe (Lysenko 1998), and the German automaker BMW signed an agreement to take over an abandoned shipyard in the region to manufacture luxury automobiles and land rovers, primarily be cause of the tax- and other duty-free advantages for foreign investors in the special economic zone (Unattributed 1999 b ) . Kaliningrad i n the Twenty-First Century

From 1998 through the first half of 2000, Kaliningrad's national, local, and international political context changed qualitatively, making its future status even more uncertain and the Baltic reidentification of its population even more problematic. On the national level, the Russian economy, on August 17, 1 998, deteriorated even below its depression level as the Rus sian government, to prevent an imminent economic crash, was forced to impose a moratorium on the payment of foreign debt and devalue the Rus sian currency. All Russians were even more impoverished than they had been before August of 1998, but the isolated region of Kaliningrad, almost totally dependent on foreign imports for its consumer items and foodstuffs,


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was now threatened with a complete economic collapse. Kaliningrad could no longer afford goods whose cost had increased five to six times since August of 1998 with the devaluation of the Russian ruble. On the local level, whatever political support for Kaliningrad's special economic status had built up over a decade in Moscow soon dissipated. Widespread corruption linked to Kaliningrad's Governor Gorbenko polar ized the region's political leadership, pitting the regional legislature against Gorbenko and undercutting the regional political elite solidarity which had consistently promoted a special economic status for the region with the central Russian government since 1991 (Vasileva 1999a, 1999b, 1999c ) . The disclosure of scandals, along with allegations of assaults on local jour nalists and contract murders to silence each other by the contesting sides in Kaliningrad, created a new, widely conveyed negative image of the region in the national Russian media. Kaliningrad became an object lesson of what could happen if regions were given too much political and economic au tonomy by the central government. Kaliningrad was termed the Russian "Black Hole" -a region in which its political leaders since 1991 had taken advantage of their special economic status solely to enrich themselves and to siphon off millions in Russian tax revenue in collusion with organized criminal structures. Local Kaliningrad crime bosses, heavily armed with military equipment stolen from the region's military bases, had used the cover of the region's special economic status and loose custom controls to smuggle goods and drugs in and out of Russia and to organize prostitution and automobile theft rings. In the national media, the region became notorious as Russia's unofficial capital for illicit drugs, smuggling, embezzlement, and prostitu tion, and for having the highest per capita AIDS-infected population in the country ( Specter 1997 ) . President Putin, who was already threatening to clamp down on regional autonomy and eliminate special economic and political preferences allowed to certain Russian locales since 1991, now had additional justification to impose more direct Russian central control over Kaliningrad. Governor Gorbenko, whose election in 1996 had suggested little change in course from his pro-Baltic predecessor Matochkin, reacted irrationally and desperately to the charges of corruption against him. His isolationist actions eroded any continued support in Moscow for the region's special economic status and autonomy. Gorbenko attempted to divert attention away from charges against him by posing as a patriotic defender of Russian national security. He alienated Kaliningrad's vital neighboring governments along with their private sectors, which provide most of the imports and investments for the region, by claiming that they represented a heightened threat to the region's sovereignty with NATO's eastern expansion and their willingness to join the military organization. At the same time, he attempted to court expanded economic and political ties with President Aleksandr

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Lukashenka of Belarus, whose brutal dictatorship and human rights vio lations were viewed as creating the major threat to Central European re gional stability and democratization by the governments of Poland, Lithuania, and all of the countries in the European Union (EU). Further more, Gorbenko imposed illegal duties and economic restrictions on the import and export of goods with neighboring B altic countries. Ostensibly, he justified the economic restrictions to protect local dairy and grain farm ers, but they were blatantly timed by him to win the support of rural dep uties in the regional legislature against the majority of legislators demanding his resignation. Desperate to curry political favor in Moscow and to stop further criminal investigation of his administration, Gorbenko blamed his predecessor Matochkin for all of his problems and sought emer gency economic relief from Moscow. He implicitly conceded in exchange for that emergency relief, ending the region's special economic status and autonomy achieved during the previous decade. If national economic collapse, local elite polarization, and widespread criminality and corruption threatened to end the region's status as a Rus sian Baltic exclave, Kaliningrad, on the international level after 1998, found itself even further isolated (Fairlie 1998 ) . Poland, its immediate neighbor to the west and major trading partner, became a full member of NATO in 1999, and both Poland and Estonia were slated for imminent membership in the EU sometime in the first five years of the twenty-first century. Thus, with Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia, all probably future members of NATO, and with Lithuania an additional likely candidate for EU mem bership, Kaliningrad would now be completely surrounded by countries with closed custom and visa borders as EU members and with military forces in an alliance opposed to Russia. Economically, Kaliningrad would be completely cut off from Poland and Lithuania, Kaliningrad's principal trading partners, sources of investment, and transportation links to main land Russia. Kaliningraders would no longer be able to travel and trade freely in these other countries, required under their EU membership to en force rigid Schengen immigration and entrance controls over non-EU coun tries which they border. In turn, President Putin, when he assumed office in 2000, had under scored a foreign policy which would resist any further eastern expansion by NATO of Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia, and which would emphasize the protection of allegedly discriminated against ethnic Russians in Latvia and Estonia as a major priority of his presidency. The implications were that Russia's relations with its former three Baltic republics would be in creasingly tense, and that Kaliningrad, geographically located inside Lith uania and bordering Latvia, would be even further militarized with the deployment of additional Russian forces in the region to deter any NATO eastern expansion. The scandals of the Gorbenko administration, linking


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its special economic status to organized crime, would provide Putin with an additional excuse to reimpose central control over the region. When Putin was elected president, Governor Gorbenko's regional polit ical opponents were demanding his arrest, the suspension of the guberna torial election in the region scheduled for the fall of 2000, and the appointment of an acting governor with emergency powers by Putin to root out the widespread corruption in the region and to thwart NATO 's east ward expansion (Vasileva 2000 ) . The removal of Kaliningrad's elected gov ernor by someone directly accountable to the Russian president was joined in Moscow by long-term national opponents of Kaliningrad's special Baltic economic autonomy. Even before Putin, they had criticized the fact that the Russian government was losing over 50 percent of its annual custom duties through the duty-free ports of Kaliningrad and that it had long ad vocated the elimination of all duty-free special economic zones in the coun try. By 2000, they had ample evidence that the duty-free ports in Kaliningrad had become access points for the Russian mafia to smuggle goods and drugs in and out of the country. The governments of Lithuania and Poland could not help but view the moves to tighten political and economic controls over the region by Pres ident Putin as a renewed threat to their own national security. Their re sponse, as well as that of NATO, would potentially make Kaliningrad's ambiguous and unresolved status a major source of East-West conflict very early in the twenty-first century. Pragmatists in the EU, along with all Scan dinavian countries, attemped to ease rising tensions with Russia (Vasileva 1999d; Lobjakas 2000 ) . They proposed making Kaliningrad an associate member of the EU through a special treaty with the region. Under the terms of Kaliningrad's special status as an EU associate member, Kaliningrad would have economic rights and privileges somewhat equivalent to EU member countries, even though it would remain a territory of the Russian Federation, which would not become an EU associate member. Under the treaty, Kaliningraders would have eased visa requirements to travel and trade freely in EU-countries (like a future Poland and Lithuania) equivalent to those granted to citizens in other EU-affiliated member countries. The one positive note by the beginning of the new century found Lith uanian relations with Kaliningrad mellowing. In October of 1997, Russia and Lithuania signed a treaty formally recognizing each other's borders, including the legal recognition by Lithuania of Kaliningrad as a Russian territory. Valdas Adamkus, the newly elected president of Lithuania in Jan uary of 1998, went out of his way in his first few years in office to make speeches and comments accepting without question Russian sovereignty over Kaliningrad and considering the good relations with Russia as one of his highest priorities (Lashkevich 1998; Unattributed 1998a). Even Vytau tas Landsbergis, speaker of the Lithuanian parliament and long the most nationally prominent anti-Russian politician in Lithuania, disassociated

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himself openly with the few "radical Lithu anian nationalists" who still questioned Russia's sovereignty over Kaliningrad (Unattributed 1998c ) . Following Kaliningrad's even graver economic condition with the near crash of the Russian economy and the devaluation of the Russian ruble in August of 1998, Lithuania led other international Western governments and international philanthropists like George Soros in offering special economic aid and other emergency relief programs to ease the near desperate plight of many Kaliningraders (Corwin 1 998a, 1998b, 1998c, 1998d, 1999 ) . On the other hand, Lithuania's olive branch of economic aid and emergency relief programs to the Kaliningrad population was un likely to be received with gratitude in Moscow, given the changed inter national and national political circumstances for Russia by 2000. The central Russian government under President Putin would tend to view the alleged generosity of Lithuania and others and their concern over the plight of Kaliningraders as nothing more than a clever ploy in a Western-inspired plot to absorb the region and to break up Russia as a whole. This was a Russian government that was already paranoid at the beginning of the twenty-first century about the disintegration of the country on its western Baltic Sea border, as it fought a civil war with excessive military force against an entire civilian population to prevent its collapse on its southern Caucasus border in Chechnya. CONCLUSION

However insightful evolutionary theory may be in explaining group for mation in the new post-Soviet countries, regionalism, not ethnicity, has become the primary basis for individuals in Russia to differentiate them selves and to interact since 1 9 9 1 . The reason is that evolutionary theory must take into account environmental factors-the national, local, and in ternational political context-directly influencing the specific kind of group identifications which arise. Consider only the national political context under which the public has lived since independence. In Russia, there is little advantage to think and act in terms of a national identity. Economic disintegration, widespread official corruption, and lawless violence have impelled regionalism as an instrumental necessity rather than an inevitable primordial choice, given the lack of any justifiable reason for large segments of their publics to trust their own national government. Transparent national sovereignty in Russia has given rise to regional loyalty as an alternative sense of political com munity-one even cynically encouraged and manipulated by national po litical leaders like Yeltsin in Russia to consolidate his own authority in 1992-1999. On the local level, the economic self-interest of both the public and the elites has encouraged an "us versus them" mentality against other locales


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and their national governments. Ethnicity in a Russia with over 80 percent of the population being ethnic Russians is a weak basis to differentiate between friends and enemies, but regionalism directly affects their eco nomic future in competition with all of the other administrative subdivi sions in Russia. In Russian federal autonomies, ethnic Russians account for a plurality if not a majority of their populations, yet they have supported the non-Russians because they have been able to wrest special economic privileges and rights for everyone living in these ethnic enclaves named after them. In the terminology of Roger Masters, regionalism has become the one overriding predictable and secure "recognition marker" for individuals to differentiate themselves and base their future. Karl Marx once wrote that "conditions determine consciousness . " In the post-Marxist western border region of Kaliningrad, its political context with disputed borders has led its population and leadership since 1991 to conceive of themselves and act relative to their geographical sea basin. In terms of evolutionary theory, this transnational regional identity promises security, tolerance among ethnic nationalities, optimism about their com mon future, and mutual direct and indirect benefits for themselves and their descendants in economic cooperation across national boundaries. This in strumental self-identification as Baits, based on a presumedly common ge ographical linkage, would be a positive alternative to the negative conflict and warfare that afflicted so much of Central and Eastern Europe over the past decade. This has been a pattern of conflict and warfare exacerbated by widespread insecurity, fear, and pessimism but sparked by a belief in the supposedly immutable biological differences and inherent rivalry among ethnic groups like Russians, Lithuanians, and Poles. Evolutionary theory posits that the balance of optimism and pessimism in a population explains the expansion and contraction of political iden tities in any context. Evolutionary theory has never seemed more relevant in the twenty-first century than for a public in Kaliningrad who feel them selves Russians but not of Russia. Their attitudes about their own preferred "fictive kinship groups " are probably best summed up in a form of Kali ningrad gallows humor. As Kaliningraders on the street joke about their ambiguous future political status, "optimists " learn German, and "pessi mists" learn Polish, but "realists " learn how to shoot a Kalashnikov sub machine gun ( Elon 1 993 ) . NOTES

1 . By 1 998, 80 percent of Russians surveyed nationally cited "criminal struc tures" as having the greatest influence in the country. 2. The total of forty-six treaties excludes a forty-seventh signed with Chechnya ending the war in 1 996 but subsequently broken by Moscow's invasion of the region in September of 1 999. The forty-sixth and last treaty signed by Yeltsin with a federation subject was with the city of Moscow in June of 1998.

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3 . The general overview of Kaliningrad's historical origins and political context during the first half decade after 1991 is based in part on Rasmussen and Moses ( 1 995) and McFaul and Petrov ( 1 99 8 ) . 4. Lithuania has an additional ulterior motive t o levy high transit duties and fees on Russian manufacturers sending their goods through Lithuania to Kalinin grad for overseas shipping. Loading fees at the docking facilities of Lithuanian Baltic ports such as Klaipeda are a major source of national revenue for Lithuania. The major Baltic economic competitors for Lithuanian docks include those in nearby Kaliningrad. The fees and duties imposed on Russian manufacturers make it much more profitable for them to ship out of Lithuanian ports such as Klaipeda. Until the controversy between the two governments over the regulations on military transit was amicably resolved in 1995, the Russian government threatened to cancel Lithuania's most-favored-nation trade status, to suspend negotiations over a Lith uanian-Russian treaty, and to punish Lithuania by cutting back on electricity and energy supplies from Russian power companies. 5. On the lobbying in Moscow for Kaliningrad-headed by, among others, the speakers of both houses of the Russian parliament-see Kochkurov ( 1 995) and Volynets ( 1 995).

Chapter 1 0

Evolutionary Models , Third-Party Intervention, and Ethnic Conflict: Does Tough Love Really Work ? David Carment and Dane R owlands

INTRODUCTION

In this chapter we construct a series of models in order to show how rep utation and dissimulation parameters assigned to ethnic leaders and to par ties that intervene in ethnic conflicts can influence the size of forces that interveners bring to bear on conflict resolution and the willingness of ethnic belligerents to resist or challenge those forces. For would-be interveners, our model makes clear that there is considerable value in establishing a reputation for forceful intervention and that initial high investments pay long-term dividends. Conversely, interveners who have trouble mustering forceful, effective interventions would do well to avoid intervening alto gether in low salience conflicts that have little strategic value for them. We also construct a dynamic model that utilizes a selection principle to posit how levels of commitment by interveners and, alternately, success in resisting interveners' efforts can shape the proportion of belligerent versus negotiation-oriented individuals available to assume leadership positions. A clear implication for policy making in ethnic conflict situations is that a growing pool of belligerents may make conflicts harder to resolve for some time into the future, even when other rational assessments of conflict sit uations would argue otherwise. More specifically, the research agenda for this chapter is, in the first instance, to assess the usefulness of evolutionary theory for modeling in tervention into ethnic conflict. Second, we identify the kinds of intervention equilibria that arise, and we specify those conditions. Third, the value of different strategies in generating preferred outcomes is identified. Finally, the model is used to replicate changes in the international system.

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This approach provides several advantages. First, it allows us to identify the conditions necessary for the successful reduction of tensions at different points in the life of a conflict. It also allows us to show how learning behavior among ethnic belligerents has meaning not only within specific conflicts but between them. It is not enough for a third party to develop a strategy for the management of a single conflict. Belligerents observe the kinds of conflictual behavior around them and learn from the mistakes of other challengers. In preparing to meet such challenges, third-party inter veners must be highly flexible, adaptive, and above all selective in their choice of a strategy. Our focus is on the management of intrastate ethnic conflict. These strug gles involving civil wars, secessions, and ethnic violence have since the early 1990s far outnumbered those stemming from external aggression or conflict between states. These conflicts over identity, government, and territory are arguably more difficult to resolve through peaceful negotiation than their interstate counterparts ( see Ross, this volume ) . As a consequence of these recent developments, there have been fundamental changes in the nature of third-party intervention. During the Cold War, a period of unprece dented stability in this century, many internal conflicts were contained be cause their diffusion represented a potentially destabilizing effect on East-West relations. Other, less salient conflicts were left to languish on the sidelines.1 On the one hand, with the importance of the Cold War rivalry reduced significantly, the opportunity to intervene forcefully has increased dramat ically (Carment and James 1998 ) . On the other hand, with the loo sening of ideological bonds and the commensurate weakening of state centers aided by foreign governments, bloody civil wars have returned with a re newed vengeance (Wallensteen and Sollenberg 1995 ) . Given past restric tions on activities in internal conflict, it becomes self-evident why it is important to understand the consequences of these two changes for the evolution of third-party intervention and the management of ethnic con flicts. UNDERSTANDING INTERVENTION IN ETHNIC CONFLICT: INSIGHTS FROM THEORY

In this section we assess the strengths and shortcomings of several exist ing conflict management frameworks in order to explain the process and content of third-party intervention. One of the first attempts to explain the limitations of third-party intervention was Zartman's ( 1 989) influential as ses sment of successful mediation strategies. His concept of the "hurting stalemate" is an important contribution to the literature on third-party involvement in conflict, but it is an idea which seems to suggest that such involvement will only be effective when a "ripe moment" exists. This ripe

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moment occurs when there i s a mutually hurting stalemate, when unilateral solutions are blocked, and when the parties recognize that continuing vi olence will damage all sides. Zartman ( 1 989, 273 ) claims that: Conceptually, the moment stands out, but in reality it is buried in the rubble of events . . . . Like any metaphor, the idea of the ripe moment should not be taken too literally. Moments, when ripe, do not fall into one's hands; they have to be taken with skill. . . . Thus, for the conciliating power, it is a question not only of correctly identifying the right times to move but also of moving the times with skill.

In essence, Zartman argues that the elimination of alternative regimes by the groups in conflict, the readjustment of power relations between these groups, and the identification of a ripe moment are necessary for successful conflict reduction. Zartman's insights are useful for two reasons. First, his approach sug gests that third parties can, in theory, induce ripe moments through the creation of hurting stalemates . With sufficient leverage, third parties can reduce the likelihood of intransigence on the part of a belligerent who resists bargaining in order to seek large anticipated gains to continued con flict ( Carment and Rowlands 1996 ) . Furthermore, vigorous third parties may also prevent an ascendant party in a conflict from imposing unilateral solutions. One implication of the idea of the hurting stalemate is that con structive involvement before this point in the conflict is reached is not likely to be fruitful. However, with the prospect that one party might be elimi nated (or at least have its power sufficiently reduced) by a third party, ethnic groups would, in theory, be more open to a negotiated solution as opposed to continued war. Third parties can speed up the movement to ward negotiation through the imposition of deadlines and other crisis related strategies in order to decrease the perceived attractiveness of military options. Thus, the emergence of a resolving formula follows on a readjustment of the belligerents' power relations and the elimination of alternative strategies through concerted coercive efforts by third parties. Following on Zartman' s concept of timing, phase-based approaches to third-party intervention build on the work of Brecher ( 1 994), Bercovitch ( 1 996 ), Dixon ( 1 996 ), Lund ( 1 996 ), and Kriesberg ( 1 997), among others. Collectively, they draw attention to the fact that conflicts occur through cycles in which different third-party strategies are more likely to be effective than others at different points in a conflict. This insight has both empirical and theoretical validity. Empirically, it is extremely unusual for a single strategy to be implemented over the life of a civil war. In the context of internal conflicts, rare is the intervention where third parties have not relied on some form of coercive diplomacy to bring the belligerents to the nego tiating table. Intervention does not refer simply to the physical presence of a "managing agent," intent on using coercion to dissuade belligerents from

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using force to solve their differences (Dixon 1 996, 3 5 8 ) . For example, in his assessment of a range of cases that extend beyond internal conflicts, Regan ( 1996) concludes that, in any given conflict, third parties generally will employ as many different strategies as possible, including economic and military initiatives. These findings suggest that intervention into inter nal conflicts encompasses both pacific and coercive strategies. Theoretically, phase-based approaches highlight the fact that in intrastate conflicts, es pecially ethnic ones, the main impediments to negotiated solutions consist of strategic and structural factors that limit options, narrow choices, and make compromise impossible ( see Moses, this volume ) . An important con sideration when assessing these impediments to ethnic conflict resolution is their level of complexity (see Harvey, this volume ) . It is not unrealistic for as many as five or more "multiple sovereignties " to be engaged in a conflict at any given time. In some instances, these groups may be insurgent move ments, representatives of legitimate political parties, factions within ethnic groups, or clans allied on some issues and divided on others. Ethnic conflicts are further complicated by the presence of divergent iden tities that evolve very slowly. Such fundamental cleavages are most appar ent in cases involving secessionist movements, an extreme form of ethnic conflict. For example, the usual justification for extremist secessionist ten dencies is repression by the state center; in the secessionists' view, the exit option is viable, given the alternatives. Collective identities in politically underdeveloped societies are particularly conflict-prone, because identities are derived from fundamental, incontrovertible, and nonnegotiable values such as language, history, and religion. In turn, the development of eco nomic and political structures in politically underdeveloped states can lead to an exclusion of ethnic minorities who believe that their values are not incorporated into state structures. Minorities who rebel are those who per ceive a systematic denial by the modern state of their values, aspirations, and goals (see Ross, this volume ) . It i s also the case that the weaker side i s usually less likely than its stronger opponent to be convinced of the virtues of a negotiated solution. Consistent with Zartman's insights, the weaker side in any ethnic conflict will seek out a third-party guarantor (Fearon 1 996). Without some signif icant act of good faith from the stronger side, the weaker side is unlikely to commit to a negotiated solution. There are several reasons for this re luctance. First, getting to an agreed solution is a two-step process consisting of a series of "nested" political games. In situations of open hostility, mi nority groups will resist personal costs, even if it means foregoing imme diate gains. As Lake and Rothchild ( 1 995 ) argue, if a less powerful group is to agree voluntarily to abide by a dominant group's rules, its interests also must be assured, including safeguards that the more powerful group cannot exploit it. Indeed, it is the minority, distrustful of the interests of the maj ority, that ultimately determines the viability of any agreement. Un-


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fortunately, the contractual agreements between minorities and maj orities in many new states are so weak that minorities cannot be convinced that their interests are best served through accommodation. Where information deficiencies denote the centrality of third parties in helping to identify a resolving formula, problems of credible commitment point to a potential role for more robust measures. In principle, third par ties can act as guarantors of weak parties in the absence of a willingness to resort to peaceful measures on the part of the belligerents (Fearon 1996 ) . Addressing the issue within the context of UN activity, Ruggie ( 1 993) argues that there is a need to fill the "doctrinal void " between peacekeeping and peace enforcement. Missions that involve goals clearly beyond those of traditional peacekeeping, such as seeking to neutralize local forces and to push belligerent parties toward the negotiating table, require different strategies (Carment and Rowlands 1996 ) . Ruggie proposes that interna tional forces be given the means and mandate to " deter, dissuade, and deny" (D3) the use of force by local protagonists (Ruggie 1993 ) . If deter rence of violence fails, Ruggie argues, deployed forces attempt to dissuade parties from continuing military activities. Failure on this level necessitates the use of force to deny any one side military victory in a conflict. Despite their significant contribution to an understanding of third-party intervention, these phase-based approaches can be criticized on several grounds. First, they ignore the fundamental question of whether third par ties would want to-or have to-absorb the high costs of implementing such a broad range of strategies. In sum, these approaches assume that third parties, like their ethnic counterparts, are far more farsighted than circumstances permit (Carment and Rowlands 1996). A second shortcoming in explaining how ethnic groups respond to third parties is the belief that the choice of strategy follows from an actor's eval uation of all of the possible strategies within which he or she must interact. However, this approach cannot explain how, for example, violence emerges or how to manage violent interactions over time in order to reduce the probability of continued war.2 Third, these approaches discount the reverberations of failed policy ven tures on subsequent interactions between interveners and ethnic combat ants, either in the same theater of conflict or in a separate one. With uncertainty, the outcome of one intervention can affect each side's assess ment of the other. Reputations can be won and lost in a single encounter, with potentially profound effects on subsequent missions. Finally, the costs of third party-imposed solutions are underestimated. All strategies involve risk to the intervener. Doing nothing may precipitate undesirable outcomes. Forceful intervention may lead to further escalation and unnecessary costs for the intervener. Finally, a weak response may not only produce undesirable results for the third party but may also lead to

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further gains for belligerents in the present conflict and in separate, sub sequent ones ( Carment and Rowlands 1996 ) . The next section provides a discussion of evolutionary game theory, how it has been used by other researchers, and how it might be applied in the case of third-party intervention in ethnic conflict to overcome the short comings identified above. DYNAMIC MODELS AND BASIC INSIGHTS

Dynamic modeling builds on the concepts and tools of standard, non cooperative evolutionary game theory. In addition to the basic notions of strategy choices, payoffs, and Nash equilibrium, evolutionary game theory has introduced ideas such as "evolutionary stability" and "replicator dy namics. "3 The fundamental question addressed by evolutionary game theory is how particular strategies fare in a series of repeated interactions with other strat egies. The basic structure of evolutionary games is to have the members of a large population endowed with a predisposition to adopt a particular strategy. Different proportions of the population, however, may have pro pensities to adopt different strategies. Members of the population are then randomly paired off in a noncooperative game, and the outcomes of their competition are determined. The game's outcome, however, is assumed to affect the ratio of the population which adopts a particular strategy. The evolutionary game framework necessarily has elements of uncer tainty, as the large population ensures that one does not know what stra tegic predisposition one's opponent will have. Specifically, strategies which fail to "win" with sufficient frequency will tend to disappear as a character trait in the population. In evolutionary game theory, the proportion of a population which adopts a particular strategy depends on whether it leads to a high or low payoff relative to other strategies. In its most simple form, those members who adopt an inefficient strategy either die or fail to rep licate themselves, and the predisposition to adopt the strategy gradually diminishes in proportion, or disappears. A slightly different approach to the dynamics allows agents to learn from their environment. Bayesian updating is a process by which agents can learn about the behavior of other agents and alter their strategy choices accord ingly to maximize their expected utility under conditions of uncertainty. These situations are essentially small-population games, or repeated game scenarios, where at least one player will have information on his or her opponent. 4 Thus the issue of reputation becomes crucial in affecting a game's outcome. The basic process can be described heuristically. Two players with in complete information about each other meet in a competitive game. On the basis of their incomplete information, they choose a strategy, and an


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outcome is observed. The specific outcome may in turn be used to update beliefs about opponents, new information which both sides may try to use to their advantage in subsequent encounters (depending on the nature of the game's repetition ) . In the next encounter, the game's outcome will be affected by the previous game's results. Thus it is clear that a path de pendence may be created, a result which may not occur in a purely evo lutionary game structure due to the large number of random interactions and absence of learning about opponents. Some researchers already have attempted to address the deficiencies of static models by garnering insights from evolutionary game theory. Ac cording to Morrow ( 1 985 ) and Signorina ( 1 996 ) , players in evolutionary models do not optimize all of their strategies but instead adapt or modify to the successful strategies that they see around them. Players incorporate some mechanism for the reproduction or spreading of successful strategies. They can do so through ecological evolutionary adaptation, whereby better performing strategies are those that are adopted by the population.5 Using territory analysis, Axelrod ( 1984) argues that there is no single best strategy, because it depends on what the other players are likely to be doing. The performance of each player's strategy is assessed on the basis of how it is accomplished compared to its neighbors in a fixed territory. Therefore, an effective strategy depends on the characteristics of a partic ular strategy, but also on the nature of the other strategies with which it must interact. Unlike the ecological approach, the territorial explanation, a variant of evolutionary theory, suggests that an effective strategy must be able to take into account the history of the interaction as it has developed thus far against its neighbors rather than the population as a whole.6 Signorina ( 1 996 ) illustrates how dynamic game theory can be used in the analysis of group interactions. In a model of bounded rationality, he shows how the formation of norms and the construction of institutions can occur. These behavioral arrangements are reflections of the convergence of strategy choices. According to Axelrod ( 1 984), Morrow ( 1 9 8 5 ), and Maoz ( 1 990) ( among others ), factors influencing the choice of strategies in evo lutionary game theory include the following:

1 . Status hierarchies, which help identify how different players will behave, with "labels" identifying fixed characteristics before the game begins. Thus, third parties are expected to behave in certain ways, as are ethnic belligerents; 2. Reputation, which is established on the basis of previous actions; 3. Deterrence, so that when third parties are watching, the stakes of the current situation expand from those immediately at hand to encompass the influence of the current choice on the reputations of the players; 4. Conflict abatement, which is achieved through a central authority to police both sides. When this is not possible, the best solution is self-policing (i.e., limited

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provocability, wherein response is slightly less than the provocation, for exam ple, the mobilization of troops in response to other troop movements).

Given these insights, it seems appropriate to further explore the use of game theory as a modeling approach for third-party intervention in ethnic conflict. A simple static game of intervention is described in the next sec tion. Subsequently, the dynamics of repeating that game are then consid ered. THIRD-PARTY INTERVENTION UNDER UNCERTAINTY

Third-party intervention is modeled here as a modified version of Kreps's "Quiche" game. 7 Elements of the game described by Carment and Row lands ( 1996) also are used, and they provide a detailed discussion justifying their modeling choices. 8 The difficulty for the intervener is that while it would like to see the conflict end, it may not consider the problem to be particularly important. Thus the salience of the conflict to the intervener, relative to the costs of intervention, is the key determinant of whether or not it will eventually rise to the task, or back down, in the face of resistance. It is this underlying "relative" salience which the interveners know but the combatants do not, and which the game assigns probabilistically.9 When the intervener enters into the conflict, it is not clear to the com batants how committed the intervener is to sorting out the problem. The intervener can choose from two forms of intervention. In one case, it can send a signal of a high degree of operational capability, for example, a large, well-equipped intervention force. On the other hand, the intervener can choose to send a less capable force. The costs and benefits of each strategy are clear: a strong force sends a signal that may deter a challenge but which is expensive. A weaker force will be less expensive but may invite confrontation. If the combatants are uncertain about the degree of the in tervener's commitment, however, it may be profitable for the intervener to send a weak force into an important conflict to save on costs. Similarly, an intervener with little interest in a conflict may still choose to send in a relatively large force in the hope of securing a peaceful solution through negotiation. 10 Although the description here uses the relative size of the intervention force as the decision variable, it i s important to understand that the role played by force size is as a signal only. Having committed resources to solving the conflict, the intervener faces two possible responses from the combatants: they can resist the intervener, or they can negotiate a solution. The preference of the intervener is to have the combatants negotiate. If a combatant resists, then the intervener be comes involved in a costly confrontation which it will win if it is deter mined, and lose if it is not. 1 1 Since the intervener is assumed to be seeking


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a cessation of violence and initiation of a negotiated solution, it is sensible to assume that the side which was "winning" the conflict prior to the in tervention will be the most likely challenger to the intervener. Thus, for simplicity, the game is structured as a two-party interaction between the intervener and the ascendant combatant. Upon observing the strength of the intervener and taking into account any other information about the salience of the conflict, the combatant must choose between resisting or negotiating. Its preferred outcome is to resist and to have the intervener back down, thereby creating an oppor tunity for it to pursue its fight against the weaker opponent. There may also be other resource and psychological advantages to this outcome, such as the gain in prestige among that part of the general population which is not strongly committed to either side of the conflict. Resisting a committed intervener, however, can bring disaster. Even if the current intervention force is weak, high salience may drive an intervener to commit to more resources. Assuming that the resources of the intervener are large relative to the combatants, 12 the model assumes that a committed intervener will eventually defeat a challenger, whose defiance will then be punished with the imposition of a settlement which favors the other side. The strategy of negotiation leads eventually to a solution which the as cendant combatant ranks below the resist-and-win outcome and above the resist-and-lose result. Thus in the presence of uncertainty, many game struc tures will have neither " always resisting" nor " always negotiating" as a dominant pure strategy. Several important issues arise with our assumption about third-party and ethnic group behavior. Foremost among them is the question of whether the preferences of ethnic groups and third-party interveners can be sum marized in a single, unitary decision-making process. We base this assump tion on the following three prior assumptions. First we recognize that the decisions of third-party interveners represent considerable pulling and hauling, if not within each state's bureaucracy then between the states themselves . Nevertheless, third-party intervention is identified with a key decision maker, either the head of a coalition of like-minded states or the head of a regional or international organization such as NATO or the United Nations. For analytic convenience, we can treat the choice of strategy of that decision maker as reflecting the sum total of the preferences of those whom they represent. A similar argument holds for ethnic elites who, out of fear of being replaced, will go along with the population they represent. Discordance between the preferences of ethnic elites and ethnic masses generally does not persist long. Second, before we accept the abstraction of third parties and ethnic groups as rational unitary actors, we should identify the main objectives of their decision makers. Arrow's ( 1963) theorem suggests that, although states unified under a multilateral coalition and members of an ethnic group

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may act as though they are unitary decision makers, they may also act incoherently in the sense of not revealing a complete set of transitive pref erences . It may be impossible to argue that any collection of persons or states is acting as if they were pursuing an identifiable goal. Nevertheless, we assume that in our model they act as if they share readily discernible goals. For the third party, the primary goal is the cessation of violence with minimal costs. For the ethnic belligerent, the goal is the maximization of gams. Finally, although ethnic conflicts are clearly very complex ( as the previ ous discussion has demonstrated), we maintain that the simplification of a two-player game structure still yields results that are theoretically and em pirically useful. The tradeoff in reducing the number of players to two in any given game has both advantages and disadvantages. On the plus side, as noted above, is the merit of using the game as an analogy or approxi mation of real-world events . The heuristic discussion is fundamentally less complex, while retaining the same core logic of conflict management pre cepts. In any given interaction between a belligerent and a third party, there will always be an ascendant internal force relative to the other groups. This was clearly the case in Bosnia (the Serbs) and Somalia (Aideed's forces ), for example. In both scenarios, conflict abatement was premised upon the assumption that peace would be impossible without first securing the as cendant group's quiescence. On the negative side of the ledger, also noted above, is some loss in nuance and detail. However, this investigation is premised on the assump tion that the consequences of actions are as important as their content. For example, we can look at the decision by a third party to intervene forcefully in order to prevent an ethnic belligerent from making significant gains against a weaker group, ignoring for the time being whether such interven tion requires armed conflict or whether it requires a combination of eco nomic, political, and military measures.13 With this approach, we deliberately ignore the minutiae of bargaining tactics and the precise mech anisms that third parties might employ to induce conflict reduction within any specific real-world conflict. However, the sacrifice in tactical detail al lows us to better predict strategy behavior and outcomes where stable equi libria occur. In sum, our basic approach focuses on two decision makers, the first representing a third party coalition faced with a decision of whether and how to intervene in an intrastate ethnic conflict, and the second represent ing the head of an ethnic belligerent group faced with a decision of whether to resist or capitulate to that third party. Our obj ective is to specify the sequence of events in which each tries to maximize gains via the decisions entailed in confrontation and cooperation. The one-shot game is presented in Figure 1 0 . 1 . As discussed, the first step in the game is the prob abilistic determination of whether the intervener


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Figure 10.1 The One-Shot Game

CHANCE

high salience (p)

( 1 - p) low salience

I

I

WEAK

STRONG

weak

strong

c

c

c

c

resist negotiate RESIST NEGOTIATE resist negotiate RESIST NEGOTIATE A

B

C

D

E

F

G

H

The combatant's preference ordering is based on the outcome only, and is assumed to be: E=G>B=D=F=H>A=C The intervener's rankings are assumed to be more complex. The three determining factors are the outcome, the salience of the conflict, and the costs of the intervention (signal). We assume that it is more costly to support a weak force than a strong one when resistance occurs in a high salience conflict, and that it is better to have a negotiated solution than to have to defeat a challenge. Thus the following preference ranking is used for the intervener: B>D>F>H>C>A>E>G

is prepared to commit sufficient forces to overcome resistance or, essen tially, the conflict's relative salience to the intervener. At the next stage, the intervener chooses between a relatively weak or relatively strong interven tion force. Having observed the intervention force's capabilities, the dom inant combatant must choose whether or not to resist the intervener. Confronting a determined intervener leads to the worst outcome for the combatant. If it resists a weakly committed intervener, however, it achieves the best outcome. Negotiating leads to the same peaceful settlement re gardless of the strength of the intervention force. Insights are drawn from the static game by assigning numerical values to the outcomes. The model then is solved for a pure or behavioral equi librium, with the solution being dependent on the initial probability that the conflict is of high salience to the intervener.

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The game then can be solved for a range of salience probabilities. The final step of the static game analysis is to allow the outcomes to vary and to evaluate the consequences for the equilibrium. The first proposition is derived from allowing the probability of high salience to vary in the preliminary game (as defined by the initial outcome values ) . In this case, the proposition can be proven analytically in the spe cific context, but must be evaluated in the context of other payoff struc tures. PROPOSITION 1: Increasing ( decreasing) the probability of high sa lience increases (decreases) the likelihood of a negotiated settlement.

This proposition is intuitively straightforward. When the salience of the conflict is relatively high, the outcome is favorable to the intervener, since the combatant will believe that any resistance i s more likely to be defeated. Similarly, when salience is very low, combatants realize that the chance of having an intervener overpower any resistance is unlikely. The initial assignment of outcomes, however, reveals more information. When the probabilities of high salience are allowed to approach either limit ( 1 or 0), then pure strategy Nash equilibria emerge. In fact, as soon as p > 0.5 in the initial game, three pure strategy Nash equilibria emerge, all leading to a negotiated settlement. Two of the three equilibria involved having the intervener always choose a weak intervention force, regardless of the conflict's salience, while the third involved having the intervener always choose a strong intervention. 14 As soon as the probability of high salience falls below 0.5, there are no pure strategy Nash equilibria until p 0, at which point the combatant always resists. For cases where the probability of a conflict being regarded as high sa lience to the intervener is 0 < p < 0.5, any equilibrium in the initial game is the outcome of behavioral strategies . 15 The behavioral strategy in the first static game has the intervener always sending in a strong force when the conflict is of high salience. When the conflict is less important, the intervener will sometimes play strong and sometimes play weak. In this case, the combatant will always resist a weak intervener but will occasion ally negotiate with a strong intervener. Changing the probability of high salience (p) within the range of behav ioral equilibria has effects that can be characterized in the following prop osition: =

PROPOSITION 2: In the range of solutions for which there is no pure strategy Nash equilibrium (0 < p < 0.5), an increase in the value of p leads to an increase in the probability that the intervener will use a strong force in a low salient game.


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The intuition behind the proposition is somewhat more complex than in the previous case. When the probability of high salience is zero, the ethnic group will always challenge the intervener. Knowing this, the intervener seeks to minimize its intervention costs by minimizing its intervention (i.e., it will always choose the weak intervention form ) . As the probability of high salience increases, the combatant will know that resistance will have a higher chance of leading to its worst outcome. Thus, it chooses to ne gotiate more frequently than in a situation in which the salience is likely to be lower. Under these conditions, the intervener will select a random strategy that includes more strong interventions in an attempt to persuade the combatant of its commitment. Solving the general game form for the behavioral equilibrium also pro vides insight into the role of the payoff structure. Thus, for the restricted domain of outcomes and probabilities for which a behavioral equilibrium occurs in the game, the following proposition can be made: PROPOSITION 3: As the combatant's benefits of winning a challenge increase relative to the benefits from a negotiated settlement, the less likely it is that the intervener will choose a strong intervention in a low salient conflict. COROLLARY: As the combatant's benefits of a negotiated settlement increase relative to the benefits of losing a challenge, the more likely it is that the intervener will choose a strong intervention in a low salient conflict.

The intuition behind Proposition 3 and its corollary is again very clear. With higher potential gains from successfully resisting an intervention, or the lower the potential losses from losing a challenge, the more likely the combatant will be to choose to resist. If the probability of resistance is high, then there is less incentive for the intervener to absorb the costs of a strong intervention. Thus the basic structure of the game yields intuitively appealing results. The game can be modified in several ways to produce different types of equilibria. Specifically, four types of general equilibria can be produced: the intervener can play a pure strategy in high salient conflicts and a mixed strategy in low salient conflicts, a pure strategy in a low salient conflict and a mixed strategy for high salient conflicts, a pure strategy in both types of conflict, or a mixed strategy in both types of conflict. When the intervener plays a mixed strategy, the combatant must also be playing a mixed strat egy, and similarly a pure strategy by the intervener will induce a pure strat egy response from the combatant. The difficulty with analyzing the game from the perspective of Nash equilibria is that, as Binmore ( 1 9 92) clearly indicates, the game requires

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each side to be able to derive the other opponent's strategy. Thus, actual observed outcomes may vary considerably, depending on each side's beliefs about its opponent, beliefs which may or may not be accurate representa tions of true payoff structures or probabilities. The game's insight and for malization are still extremely valuable, however, for two reasons. First, repeated interactions allow players to learn about their opponents, as de scribed in the next section. Second, rational players will still inform their strategy choice with their beliefs in order to derive the "best" strategies under uncertainty. As the previous propositions illustrate, the formal game structure can identify how these strategies will vary according to different information sets. Since the solution concepts considered thus far are Nash equilibria, there is already an implicit element of "learning" and "evolution" embedded in the model. In the next section, however, we consider how the static game would be transformed in a repeated framework.

THIRD-PARTY INTERVENTION UNDER UNCERTAINTY: A DYNAMIC MODEL

The static game is intuitive and versatile. In analyzing the game in a dynamic context, it can be interpreted as one of a series of interactions within a single conflict, or as a complete intervention in a sequence of separate conflicts. The analytical difference between these two frameworks arises in how the learning process occurs.

Dynamics within a Single Conflict

Within a single conflict, the intervener will learn about the combatant and the combatant will learn about the intervener. Each party, in a sense, will be able to acquire information about the other's payoffs and, therefore, strategies . Within this context, the notion of the Nash equilibria described in the previous section makes more sense, since Nash equilibria under un certainty can be best thought of as an iterative process. With imperfect information and a "Bayesian" type learning process, the actual outcomes of a repeated game will take on interesting dynamic char acteristics. Consider a high salience contest (defined here as a single inter action out of a sequence of interactions between an intervener and a combatant within a single conflict) in which the players' a priori belief about the probability of the contest being salient is p 0.4. The original game solution required the intervener to send in a strong intervention force, but because the intervener may also send in a strong force into a low sa lience contest, the combatant's best strategy is to occasionally resist a strong intervener. This mixed strategy leads to a probabilistic outcome: in the =


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specific game, the combatant resists a strong force once out of every seven confrontations. One random occurrence, presumably one which would occur more fre quently, is for the combatant to agree to negotiate with the intervener and to settle that round of the conflict peacefully. Doing so yields no infor mation to the combatant regarding the actual level of salience. Hence the combatant would have no reason to adjust their perception of probability of salience (i.e., their evaluation of the probability p remains unchanged). The second possible-though less likely-outcome is for the combatant to challenge the intervener. In this case, the intervener will overpower the combatant and impose its desired settlement with respect to the issue at stake. So the combatant learns clearly that the contest, and perhaps the conflict as a whole, is salient to the intervener, and its revised optimal strategy is to simply negotiate on all future issues. Then a pure strategy of negotiation by the combatant would also induce the intervener to reduce the costs of intervention by committing to fewer troops. Similarly, if the combatant challenges once in a nonsalient contest, it will learn of the intervener's true absence of commitment and therefore adopt an aggressive strategy in all circumstances . Once again, the optimal re sponse would be for the intervener to reduce its commitment of forces. These conclusions are useful in emphasizing why combatants frequently will choose to challenge interveners at some point in a conflict. Other as pects of these two portraits are clearly inaccurate, however. If salience be comes known, then indeed the outcome of the game becomes deterministic, and both sides will follow the strategy which yields that solution at the lowest cost. Thus, there are two additional complications that need to be considered. First, the salience of any particular issue in a sequence of interactions could be partially independent of each other. Thus, discovering salience in one issue area may only give you partial information on salience on another issue. Subsequent strategy choices, hence outcomes, may use beliefs about probabilities and payoffs that are modified only s lightly from original per ceptions and that reflect the retention of some uncertainty. Second, and more important, the prospect of repeated interactions means that players now have an incentive to disguise their true preferences. Spe cifically, a weak intervener may choose to increase the strength of their forces in the face of a challenge, even in a low salience contest. By pre tending to be committed early on, the intervener may deceive the combatant into believing that the conflict is of high salience and, therefore, that resis tance in subsequent encounters is futile. Knowing that the intervener has this incentive, of course, makes the combatant more likely to challenge a well-equipped intervention force. This process would then be evaluated through successive rounds of escalation (or negotiation ) . How can the dynamic game b e evaluated in light o f several potential

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interactions and iterations ? Two elements are crucial in terms of determin ing the eventual outcome: reputation of the intervener and chance. A rep utation for being tough in the face of resistance would lead combatants to evaluate the probability of high salience as being more likely and would in turn make negotiations a more likely outcome. Similarly, if an intervener has a reputation for backing down, then the probability of resistance will mcrease. The benefits of a tough reputation are clear in terms of ability to win future contests at minimal cost. The magnitude of these benefits will depend on expectations about how frequently the contests will arise in the future. Not only will these expectations reflect the specific circumstances of a con flict situation, but they will reflect the intervener's beliefs about the attitude of the combatants. For example, risk-averse combatants will be less likely to challenge an intervener if the latter 's response is not known. There are costs of acquiring a reputation, however, and determining the "best" level of reputation must take these into account as well. Acquiring a reputation often will entail using strong forces and overcoming challenges by combatants, even in contests of little interest to the intervener. If these costs become too burdensome, then the investment in reputation will be correspondingly low. What determines whether these costs become too high? The second cru cial feature of the problem, and the one highlighted by the game structure, is the role of prob abilities. Under uncertainty, outcomes are probabilistic. An "unlucky" outcome for an intervener will raise the costs of acquiring reputation by raising the likelihood of being resisted. Thus the game struc ture suggests that there is a degree of path dependence in the course of an intervention, which may have a strong influence on the outcome. A series of poor outcomes at the beginning of an intervention may doom it to failure if the intervener then perceives that it will be challenged on every issue that arises in the future. Consequently, the intervener may conclude that large investments in reacquiring its reputation will simply be too expensive, and it will abandon the effort.

Dynamics between Conflicts

The previous discussion applies largely unchanged to the context of se quential, independent conflicts. The key differences with the previous case are that interveners will be less able to translate lessons about combatants from earlier conflicts into a new theater, and combatants may reasonably expect the salience of consecutive conflicts to be more independent between theaters than within them. The issues of reputation and probabilities still arise in the case of successive conflicts . Path dependence is again likely to arise. When an intervention force fails in one conflict, possibly due to un-


21 1

favorable random events, then the logic of game theory suggests that the intervener is more likely to be challenged elsewhere. A more formal evolutionary game theoretic approach to the question is to use the "replicator approach. " In traditional replicator games, each member of a population is imbued with a specific character trait that de termines its behavior in interactions with other members . The result (pay off) of an interaction is a function of these characteristics of the players, which in turn determines the relative probabilities of survival, or "repli cation." In the context of the model of third-party intervention, the standard approach must be modified to incorporate the fact that the crucial inter action is between two different "populations" (i.e., interveners and bellig erents ) . For example, consider the following simple model, which focuses on the traits of the belligerents in a conflict. These belligerents are predis posed to either challenge or defer to a third party. As before, the third party's reaction depends on the salience of the conflict. The story under lying the replicator model can be told in terms of how successful the leader of a belligerent group is in managing the conflict. A leader who successfully challenges a third-party intervener encourages other potential leaders to emerge who also have a predisposition to challenge. When a challenge leads to defeat by a third party (i.e., in conflicts of high salience to the intervener) , the tendency to challenge i s reduced. Leaders who tend t o defer to the third party attract some conciliatory members into the pool of potential leaders, regardless of the conflict's salience to the intervener, but the attraction is less than that exercised by successful challengers. Formally, the number of conciliatory potential leaders present after the end of a period of repeated interactions is N( 1 - p ) ( 1 + D't), where N is the total number of leaders present at the beginning of the period ( assumed to be constant throughout the game ), p is the proportion of confrontational leaders in the initial pool, D is the "coefficient of attraction" that concili atory leaders exercise over potential leaders, and 't is the length of the time period under consideration. The equivalent function for the confrontational leaders is Np ( 1 + qL't + ( 1 - q)W't), where q is the proportion of highly salient conflicts and L and W are "coefficients of attraction" ass ociated, respectively, with losing or winning a challenge to an intervener. The ratio of confrontational-to-conciliatory leaders who actually emerge to lead the N belligerent groups is assumed to be equal to their proportion in the potential leadership pool. These two equations can be substituted into the standard "replicator equation" (for details, see Binmore 1992, 4 1 8-19 ) . It is straightforward to show that in this simple case the dynamic equation governing the change in the proportion of confrontational leaders over time is: dp/dt

=

p ( l - p)(qL + ( 1 - q)W - D).

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Applications

Two extreme cases, which emerge as a consequence of the game's sim plicity, can be dealt with immediately. If p 0 (i.e., no confrontational leaders ) or p 1 (i.e., no conciliatory leaders ), there is no subsequent change in the proportion, and the game is " at rest." This result is a com mon feature of standard replicator games because of the traditional em phasis on "genetic " replication; if a behavioral tendency is not present, it cannot be replicated or, in this game's structure, emulated. Such a structure could be modified, however, to yield different results. The key difference between this game and the standard replicator game is that the success of a strategy depends on the external environment rather than on the proportion of each characteristic in the leadership pool. Spe cifically, the probability of high salience conflicts ( q) determines the other rest point, as does the relative values of D, L, and W. For example, when L 0, D 1, and W 2, it is easy to see from the previous differential equation that an interior rest point will always occur if q 0.5, regardless of the value of p (i.e., any proportion of conciliators to challengers could be an equilibrium if q 0.5 ) . For q < .5, dp/dt > 0 and the proportion of confrontational leaders would increase continuously until conciliators became extinct. For q > 0.5, confrontational leaders gradually disappear. The salience of the conflict in this model clearly becomes a key determinant of stability. Although highly stylized, the results of this simple replicator model have some empirical potential. In a world in which all conflicts are salient, ag gressive leaders would consistently lose challenges to powerful third parties, making that character trait less useful. With relatively passive belligerents, interveners could deploy minimal resources in the expectation of negotiated settlements. This equilibrium may be relevant to the Cold War era in ref erence to internal ethnic conflicts. Of course, as the probability of high salience declines, aggressive com batants will begin to do better than their passive counterparts . While a balanced mix of passive and aggressive leaders may emerge, so might an equilibrium in which there are only confrontational leaders. Negotiation will disappear as a tactic, and interventions will all be weak or, in the extreme, will not occur at all (i.e., the weakest form of intervention ). It is arguable that in the post-Cold War world, more aggressive leaders have indeed increased in number in conjunction with what is arguably a decline in the salience of most conflicts to potential interveners. Evolutionary game theory, therefore, may have a contribution to make in explaining third party intervention and may be useful in evaluating intervention strategies. =

=

=

=

=

=

=

CONCLUSIONS AND POLICY IMPLICATIONS

As we enter the first decade of the new millennium, questions of conflict management are becoming more central in an increasingly decentralized


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global village. Destruction of national identities, whether through "ethnic cleansing" or assimilation, stands in the way of acquiring shared values that could provide a basis for intergroup cooperation (see Tkacik, this vol ume ) . What is the precise role for third parties in cases where a state fails or is weakened because political participation and opportunities become de fined along narrow bands of ethnic sensibility? In a perfect world, the best strategy would be to prevent ethnic tensions from leading to violence in the first place. However, on occasion, it may be necessary for international forces to intervene directly in an ethnic conflict as peace enforcers. On occasion, early and judicious use of force may be necessary, while impar tiality may be both impossible and undesirable. Recent events in Kosovo and Bosnia have demonstrated that the military and command requirements for conventional missions are distinct from those required to quell ethnic conflicts (see Harvey, this volume) . This chap ter has provided theoretical support for that argument. It is valuable to consider more closely what the evolutionary model of third-party interven tion means for the real-world management of ethnic conflict. The first observation is quite straightforward. At key turning points in the structure of global relations, state and substate actors are likely to face greater uncertainty regarding the motivations and capabilities of others, hence greater opportunities for conflict. At these crucial junctures, estab lishing reputations is a crucial determinant of subsequent behavioral pat terns. Acquiring a "good" reputation may also be less expensive in terms of resource commitments (Wilson 1 997). In Bayesian terms, agents will have weaker prior beliefs and will therefore be more likely to consider initial behavior as a strong signal of inherent characteristics. Positive signals early on, therefore, may have important later benefits. In this respect, third-party intervention in ethnic conflicts during the post-Cold War era has not started off particularly well. Observers would be hard pressed to identify unqualified UN-led interventions in this decade. By failing to ensure that initial interventions were overwhelmingly success ful, interveners and the UN in particular may well have crippled their long term capability to successfully discourage combatants to adopt more aggressive strategies. Overcoming the burden of this initial poor reputation has proven quite costly in two ways. Intervening forces under UN guidance have had to either redouble their efforts to reestablish their lost credibility and resolve (through, for example, s anctioning but not leading intervening forces, as is the case in West Africa and Bosnia), or they have been circumvented al together by regional efforts and coalitions of the willing (such as in Kosovo and East Timor). Consider, for example, the recent intervention in Kosovo. Having learned from its bitter experiences in Bosnia (see Harvey, this vol ume), NATO, the organization assigned to stop the violence in Kosovo,

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demonstrated much greater resolve in responding to the violence than it had under UN guidance in Bosnia. NATO did not waiver from its threats to use force to expel Serb forces from Kosovo. The net result was a com paratively short campaign that succeeded in achieving most of the original objectives: stopping the violence, separating the belligerents, and providing a secure environment for the return of refugees. In brief, the lesson learned from Bosnia and applied in Kosovo is simple: if an organization responds quickly and effectively, it will generate a corresponding reputation for being resolute. Three further policy-relevant lessons for the international security insti tutions may be drawn from the analysis. First, consider the impact that failed interventions have had on the UN's reputation as a security organi zation. Having acquired a reputation in this decade for relative "weakness " (compared t o NATO's intervention i n Kosovo or the coalitional interven tion in East Timor), the UN may find it useful to avoid areas of low salience and to concentrate its resources on conflicts which it is determined to "win." By avoiding circumstances in which it is unlikely to stand up to a challenge, the global organization at least avoids sending any more embar rassing signals of weakness, while simultaneously conserving limited re sources. Second, the structure of UN-based interventions may also be worth ex amining. If the command structure, and its reliance on a coalition of forces (with obvious implications for free-riding incentives), has been a factor contributing to the failure of UN missions, then UN interventions need to be reconsidered. Either their structure must change, or the UN should con tinue to refrain from leading high-intensity interventions, at least temp o rarily, until some means can be found to build up its reputation. Interventions in East Timor and Kosovo stand out as being comp arative and relatively successful missions which essentially sidetracked the UN consensus-based approach. This finding is consistent with Ostrom's ( 1 998) work on the effect of institutional arrangements on performance. Indeed, the presence of large-scale peacekeeping missions should not be taken as an automatic guarantee of success . A variety of peacekeeping missions both large and small, which match the extensive array of belligerent strat egies-may be more appropriate. Sometimes the problems in the world create a need for a large-scale, high-intensity mission. But that does not mean that we should seek to eliminate less intense forms of intervention. Finally, we have found that the evolution of organizational reputation and strategy choice is clearly a determining factor affecting the selection of ethnic violence as a strategy for securing group security. We have argued that, similar to Harvey (this volume ), institutions and organizations are not just things that evolve structurally. Their reputations and credibility also change over time. In brief, the lesson is simple: If an organization responds only when fundamental values and interests are threatened, then regardless


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of its capabilities, i t will generate a corresponding reputation for being resolute (see Harvey, this volume) . The organization's reputation may be enhanced, but the cost of being selective is a potential erosion of the norms which the organization sought to uphold in the first place. Similarly, if an organization always responds to a challenge regardless of its interests, it too would generate a corresponding reputation. However, the immense cost in responding to every challenge could undermine the long-term effective ness of the organization. With the consequent suboptimal investment in reputation, interventions will become increasingly costly and therefore less likely. In this case, the costs of conflict will fall not just overwhelmingly but exclusively on the average citizen in "unimportant" regions of the world. Under these circum stances, there is an obvious and a recurring dilemma for organizations when confronted by intrastate ethnic conflict: the coevolutionary organi zational forces that work to stem violence cannot be in play everywhere, all of the time. Until they are, the best that we can hope for is to improve the quality of response through a better understanding of why interventions succeed and fail.

NOTES 1 . Today there is a heightened sense of collective responsibility to respond to internal conflicts, small and large, based on the fear that many conflicts will lead to internal instability or worse; noncombatants are at risk of large-scale violence; armed militias, generally operating outside the purview of traditional authority structures, endanger post-conflict stability. Many internal conflicts spill over into the international domain, making greater complexity an additional drain on over burdened crisis management resources. Potential sources of diffusion and escalation range from refugee flows to terrorism. 2. For example, Ward and Luterbacher's ( 1 985) analysis of game theory con siders a number of aspects of the dynamic behavior crucial to any study of ethnic conflict. They are ( 1 ) each side's time preference; (2) showing how different values attached to future versus present outcomes can lead to different decisions; ( 3 ) the interactive play of crisis tactics; and ( 4) the need to specify how actors can change their actions and when they will want to change their actions. Similarly, Maoz's approach ( 1 990) incorporates several dynamic factors. They are: measure of risk disposition into the excepted utility calculations; measure of combat-related costs; and measure of intangible (moral and diplomatic) costs associated with aggression. 3. Weibull ( 1 996) is one of many texts to which the reader can refer for greater detail. 4. Weibull ( 1 996) indicates that the concepts of evolutionary stability can be applied directly to finitely repeated games. 5. A strategy's performance is determined not just by its score against other strategies but also by the proportion of those strategies currently in the population. This process is conducted until the population dynamics stabilize ( Signorino 1996).

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6. According to Signorina ( 1 996), the process continues until the territory con verges to a steady-state population. 7. See Binmore ( 1 992) for a description of the original Kreps's game. 8. Specifically, Carment and Rowlands ( 1996) construct a game in which the key determinants are the salience of the conflict to the intervener, the strength of the intervention, the strength of the ascendant combatant, and the expected gains to the combatant of pursuing the conflict. The game illustrates how these features affect the likely success or failure of an intervention in a nonrepeated game. 9. This assumption may be regarded by some as being highly objectionable. What must be kept in mind, however, is that the game structure is implicitly stan dardizing conflicts in terms of magnitude. Therefore, in terms of interpreting the model, it is not only salience which matters but salience relative to the amount of resources necessary to subdue the combatants. Thus Rwanda may be viewed as an unimportant conflict by some states, but the resource costs of intervening may sim ilarly be quite low. While it may be possible to rank conflicts according to their salience, ranking them according to how interveners regard the salience-to-resource requirement tradeoff will be considerably more difficult. It is this more difficult ranking which the game is treating as essentially random. 1 0 . It should be noted that an evaluation of the size of the intervention force must be made relative to the combatants. What constitutes a small intervention force in one conflict (e.g., Bosnia) may represent a powerful intervention in another conflict (e.g., Rwanda ) . 1 1 . Carment and Rowlands ( 1 996) include a further round of interaction (the intervener can withdraw or resist a challenge) and allow chance to determine the outcome of any confrontation. To keep this game as simple as possible, Kreps's approach is used (in which probabilities determine the players' characteristics), but the outcomes of strategic choices are deterministic. 1 2 . The assumption that the intervener possesses superior resources could be modified and the outcome of a challenge made probabilistic. Recent history, how ever, suggests that most interventions of the type we are considering involve the United Nations generally, and the United States specifically, as the intervener. Thus, the assumption seems justified. 1 3 . Intervention has economic as well as military traits, and therefore we do not restrict ourselves to military interventions as a bargaining strategy. Military inter vention does not preclude economic measures. However, the benefits of applying these restrictions to multilateral interventions are clear: this allows us to separate out military strategies that are appropriate under a given set of conditions that include low and high salience for the mission. This assumption is consistent with current policy perspectives on third-party intervention in intrastate conflicts, which calls for measures that lay somewhere between peacekeeping and peace enforce ment. 14. At the extreme of p 1 , the game collapses into a two-by-two strategic form with two Nash equilibria. In the game, however, the eventual solution actually will be for the intervener to send in a weak force and the combatant to negotiate, since the combatant's weakly dominant strategy is always to negotiate. 1 5 . See Binmore ( 1 992) for a discussion and an example. =

Chapter 1 1

An Evolutionary Approach Toward the Drafting of Autonomy Agreements : Applying Theory to Reality in the Search for Resolution of Ethnic Conflict Michael Patrick Tkacik

INTRODUCTION

This chapter makes a preliminary attempt at applying evolutionary theory toward reducing ethnic conflict. This is achieved by illuminating the draft ing of autonomy agreements (instruments designed in part to reduce ethnic conflict) with insights from evolutionary theory. Even in its weaker incarnations, evolutionary theory suggests that hu mans have acquired characteristics, dispositions, and capacities. Some of these capacities appear to encourage cooperation ( such as a capacity for reciprocal altruism; an increased likelihood of cooperation, with an increas ing number of contacts; an increased likelihood of cooperation when fur ther contacts appear likely; greater cooperation among groups exhibiting similar recognition markers; an ability to recognize such markers; greater cooperation in times of abundance) . Other capacities seem to impede co operation (an appreciation for familiar recognition markers making coop eration less likely in their absence; a tendency for hostility toward others in times of scarcity; a susceptibility to conformism; in-group amity/out group enmity dispositions ) (on encouraging and discouraging cooperation, see Dennen 1987; Dunbar, 1987; Tonnesmann 1 9 8 7; Vine 1987; Tooby and Cosmides 1992; McGuire 1993b; Troisi 1993 ) . Drafters of autonomy agreements might increase the agreements' chances of successfully mitigat ing ethnic conflict by recognizing those positive characteristics and dispo sitions and taking advantage of them. Similarly, agreements should, to the extent practicable, negate those dispositions that serve to increase ethnic conflict. This chapter attempts to demonstrate methods by which drafters can take such insights into account. These insights may allow the thought-

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ful drafter to create an environment relatively more conducive to cooper ation than one lacking such insights. The chapter thus attempts a preliminary application of evolutionary psychology to ethnic conflict res olution. It does this by examining the interaction between evolutionary mechanisms, their triggers in the environment, and how each impacts upon autonomy arrangements. ANALYSIS Autonomy Agreements

The autonomy agreement is an instrument that allows a minority to en gage in certain limited self-rule. It is not an independence agreement. It allows, to a lesser or greater extent, control over local affairs. Such control might include areas as varied as culture, education, security, and judicial affairs. This chapter references the following agreements : •

•

•

•

•

•

•

the Aland Islands/Finland case (including the Convention Relating to the Non Fortification and Neutralization of the Aland Islands [the " 1 921 Aland Conven tion"], the Agreement between the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics and Finland Concerning the Aland Islands [the " 1940 Aland Agreement"], the 1951 Autonomy Act of Aland [the "1951 Aland Act"], and the 1991 Act on Autonomy of Aland [the " 1 991 Aland Act"] ) ; the Basque/Spanish case (the Statute of Autonomy of the Basque Country, 1983the "Basque Agreement " ) ; the Gagauz/Moldova case (a 1 994 Moldavian law entitled "The Special Legal Status of Gagauz Eri/Gagauzia"-the " Gagauz Agreement" ); the Israeli/Palestinian case (the 1993 Declaration of Principles on Interim Self Government Arrangements [the "DOP"] and the 1 995 Israeli-Palestinian Interim Agreement [the "Interim Agreement"] ) ; the Sri Lanka/Tamil case (the Bandaranaike-Chelvanayagam Pact [the " 1 957 Pact"], the Dudley Senanayake-Chelvanayagam Pact [the " 1 965 Pact"], and the Indo-Lanka Accord [the " 1 987 Indo Accord" ] ) ; the Southern Sudan case (the Southern Sudan Provinces Regional Self Government Act, 1972-the " Southern Sudan Act" ); and, the 1994 Constitution of South Africa (the "South African Constitution " ) . Preliminary Questions

It is useful to examine certain preliminary questions. First, one might ask whether ethnic conflict is appropriately analyzed in connection with evo lutionary theory. A few points are instructive. First, "humans, like other species, enter the world with many predisposed behaviors; and, these pre dispositions are the consequences of genetic information" (McGuire 1 993a,

The Drafting of Autonomy Agreements

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4 ) . It is also apparent that certain aspects of ethnocentrism have existed throughout human history and across humanity, and that ethnocentrism is one of those predispositions that natural selection shaped in ancestral en vironments and is still part of our makeup (Vine 1 987, 60; McGuire 1993a, 4 ) . It seems likely that ethnocentrism, and thus ethnic conflict that has its roots in ethnocentrism, is cross-cultural and probably subject to evolution ary pressures. " [I]f we are willing to accept that man has evolved from the animal kingdom, there are now good reasons to believe that both selfishness and altruism are part of human nature and that conflict and cooperation between human beings (i.e., the very core of human sociality) can at least be partially explained within a Darwinian framework" (Tonnesmann 1987, 177). Hence, evolutionary theory ought to be able to help explain human cooperation as well as ethnic conflict. Since ethnocentrism is an evolved trait, it should be subject to some channeling. Of course, this begs the question of the extent of channeling possible and what action is necessary to begin such channeling. Still, min imally, "the biological view can add to the politician's and the economist's base of knowledge in the quest to determine the most efficacious means for favoring cooperation" (Troisi 1993, 9 ) . Indeed, this final sentence identifies a worthy goal-not to create cooperation or eliminate conflict, but rather to improve the environment for cooperation; to make it "cooperation friendly. " Even if a combination of evolutionary theory and the study of ethnic conflict makes sense, it still is not entirely clear that autonomy agreements lend themselves to evolutionary analysis. At its heart, the autonomy agree ment is about separating people, not bringing them together. If one of the primary contributions of evolutionary theory to the study of ethnic conflict is how cooperation may be enhanced, and if such enhanced cooperation generally requires more contact rather than less, we appear to have a prob lem. The very purpose of autonomy agreements seems to fly in the face of much of what is implicit in a cooperativist approach, the strand of evolu tionary theory that appears most applicable to managing ethnic conflict. However, evolutionary theory can still illuminate the effective drafting of an autonomy agreement in a number of ways. First, evolutionary theory has more to offer the study of ethnic conflict than simply a means of cooperation. While in my view the primary area in which evolutionary theory and the study of ethnic conflict meet is co operation, evolutionary theory also makes useful points regarding institu tional design, dispute settlement, judicial systems, and election laws. Each of these areas will be examined in more detail. Second, if we assume that the initial situation is one of violence or near violence, then the autonomy agreement should be an improvement over this situation and may yield even greater integration, relative to the im mediate past. If the autonomy agreement can buy us a little time, can lay

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the groundwork for more involved cooperation at a later date, then evo lutionary theory would appear to have utility in connection with autonomy agreements, even if only in reaching these more limited, short-term goals. If indeed the autonomy agreement is simply a stepping stone to a more mature institutional environment, such as an evolutionarily influenced con stitution, then certainly evolutionary theory can be of use in designing and drafting this intermediate instrument. Before discussing drafting strategies, it is useful to briefly note the ease with which ethnocentrism arises. To say that our understanding of ethnic conflict is incomplete is clearly an understatement. It has been "shown that categorizing people on the basis of trivial, almost meaningless criterion was sufficient to induce intergroup discrimination" (Tonnesmann 1987, 1 8 3 ) . Many factors probably cause ethnic conflict, from rationality to elite ma nipulation for mobilization to historical hatred. Whether primordial or learned, however, this behavior still should be vulnerable to the manipu lation of preexisting evolutionary mechanisms. We should be able to make educated guesses about cooperative mechanisms within individuals and their triggers. Similarly, we should be able to avoid triggering at least some ethnocentric mechanisms. At a minimum, we should be able to better draft autonomy agreements to avoid unintended evolutionary responses. The question remains, how are autonomy agreements best designed to take advantage of the insights provided by evolutionary theory? The next section sets forth a number of ways to design autonomy agreements so as to enhance cooperation and in this fashion to reduce the incentive for ethnic violence. These approaches are both general and specific. General Cooperation

Cooperation can often provide greater benefits than conflict. "We are a highly social species. Our evolutionary strategies depend intimately on co ordinating our behavior with that of other individuals" (Dunbar 1987, 5 6 ) . I f these benefits can be made clear, cooperation might become the dominant strategy among parties (I use dominant in something less than the game theoretical sense) . The goal is to move from an antisocial or asocial state to one of cooperation. We need to create incentives to encourage or trigger this movement as well as methods to maintain cooperation once established (Axelrod and Hamilton 1981, 1391 ) . Unfortunately, some cooperation-enhancing strategies are not readily adapted to autonomy agreements . Cooperation can occur or can be en couraged in at least five ways: nepotism, direct reciprocity, indirect reci procity, legal obligation, and altruism (Masters 1993; see especially 126 2 7 ) . Nepotism, for example, simply does not seem malleable to the pres sures that an autonomy agreement might bring to bear; autonomy agree ments cannot really create nepotistic relationships (and it is not clear -


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whether an autonomy agreement can take advantage of those nepotistic relationships that already exist ) . Reciprocity holds more promise than nepotism for encouraging cooper ation. Direct reciprocity (reciprocating among known parties) may work on the elite level (Masters 1993, 126 ) . If, pursuant to the autonomy agree ment, elites from competing groups spend significant time together (on committees or otherwise ) working to solve mutual problems, they may gain respect for each other. It may also be possible to develop or encourage a contagion effect vis-a-vis the masses, although the intensity may be weak. Indirect reciprocity (reciprocating among more general and possibly un known individuals such as the broader ethnic group-see Masters 1993, 126) is a significant part of the overall problem we seek to avoid-pref erences to some individuals over other individuals based largely on group membership. Such discrimination should be outlawed and penalized, though it is not clear that making such laws in autonomy agreements is preferable to just referencing them, or indeed whether such a national law would not be at cross-purposes with an autonomy agreement. Still there is no reason of logical necessity that an autonomy agreement must discrimi nate. It can prevent discrimination against locals without creating discrim ination against nonlocals. Directly related to the previous point is legal obligation (Masters 1 993, 126 ) . Legal obligations can be created so as to minimize discrimination and any evolved tendency for noncooperation, thereby encouraging coopera tion. This is easier to discuss in abstract rather than specific terms . Nev ertheless, a few examples can be provided. First, the makeup of legal panels should be considered carefully. If these are seen as discriminatory, the foun dation of the legal process is seriously, perhaps fatally, weakened. Substan tively, discrimination in terms of jobs and property ownership often is sought by local groups. For example, both the 1 9 5 1 and the 1991 Aland agreements provide for discrimination by discouraging non-locally owned businesses and real property ( 1 9 5 1 Aland Act, Sections 4-5; 1991 Aland Agreement, Sections 9-1 2 ) . From the point of view of evolutionary theory, this is unwise inasmuch as it triggers out-group discrimination. Rather than encouraging cooperation, it legally sanctions discrimination. Instead, legal support should be given to less offensive signs of autonomy such as lan guage and cultural education, especially in schools, and should guarantee some form of representation at the national level. Where plausible and relevant, all five general approaches should be taken into account in draft mg prov1s1ons. One of the tricks to cooperation in an anarchic or a near-anarchic en vironment is initiating cooperation itself. Cooperation generally is held to be easiest among those individuals most closely related (Axelrod and Ham ilton 1981, 1394 ) . Yet sometimes ethnic groups perceive of themselves as being almost polar opposites; there is often no relationship that they will

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accept with the other group; none of the five above-referenced categories seems obviously applicable. This makes beginning cooperation among eth nically differentiated groups challenging. There is at least one strategy that can be suggested for getting around this problem, however. Leaders or elites share more in common than even many with common ethnicity. If these similarities can be stressed, it may be possible to make these elites feel that they are related ( at least in some broad sense) . Con sistent with lessons drawn from animal studies that show the positive co operative benefits from stable, long-term contact (Bohannan 1993, 86), human elites could be encouraged to cooperate by stressing similarities and by increasing elite contacts, both in aggregate numbers and in amount of time. A similar mechanism may exist among humans. During World War I, soldiers who faced one another for an extended period of time over the same "no-man's land" front began to cooperate. Artillery shellings became regularized so that they were predictable, and each side could avoid casu alties . Familiarity bred not contempt but cooperation. Similarly, autonomy agreements can call for extensive elite-level contacts so as to create famil iarity and possibly cooperation. For example, the Israeli/Palestinian agree ments call for elite contacts across an entire spectrum of issue areas. Elites meet regarding security, economic cooperation, and even water rights. While the peace process in the Middle East is undoubtedly under stress, these contacts may play some small role in its maintenance, in part because the elites know one another and interact regularly. Similarly, other agree ments provide for elite-level interaction (King 1995, 23 ) . Finally, it might be possible to link in some way the survival or at least the political and economic fortunes of elites to the agreement's success . If even minor cooperation can be achieved among elites, this may posi tively influence the masses, where cooperation is really wanting. Following the encouragement of elite cooperation, programs for mass level interac tions could be created with economic incentives such as tax breaks, low interest loans, and so forth. Western societies use tax codes and govern mental incentives and disincentives to encourage certain action all of the time; there is no reason that similar options should not be available and effective pursuant to autonomy agreements . These programs do not have to be exceptionally expensive (low interest loans must still be repaid). Another strategy for enhancing cooperation is to iterate the game of ethnic interaction and make this iteration obvious to all. Iteration enhances cooperation, because continuing play yields less incentive to defect and more incentive to take advantage of continued play, lest one is harmed, Tit-for-Tat (Axelrod and Hamilton 19 8 1 ) . Game iteration means that there is no end point. Any game with a known number of plays creates an in centive to defect on the last turn, and hence the turn before that, all the way back to the first turn (Axelrod and Hamilton 1981, 1392 ) . In an it-


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erated game, no such strategy exists. When individuals are forced to deal with one another on a repeated and never-ending basis (or at least an un known ending ), they will see more of the benefits of cooperation. Thus the autonomy agreement should have no clear end point, and when it does end, there should be a provision for some more encompassing replacement instrument such as a constitution. Another way of enhancing cooperation is by minimizing the severity of response, that is, encouraging less harsh responses to perceived slights and wrongs. This is done in an attempt to avoid an uncontrollable spiral of response. Rather than in-kind retaliation, dispute resolution under the au tonomy agreement, as well as under whatever legal system exists, should be used to provide any necessary retaliation. This has the effect of taking retaliation out of the hands of the groups and putting it into the hands of third parties or at least jointly representative groups (but cf. Fearon and Laitin 1996 ) . Such panels should be cross -fertilized with members of each group, and perhaps with third-party members such as United Nations' ob servers or some other international organization representatives. These third parties may have the added benefit of increasing trust. Reciprocity, already discussed in brief, can be direct or indirect. "Direct reciprocity refers to reciprocal helping in which two persons help one an other at different times . . . . Indirect reciprocity is investing one's time, en ergy, and resources in ways that benefit others when the identity of others is not always known" (McGuire 1993b, 22-23 ) . If we can design the au tonomy agreement to increase the likelihood of direct reciprocity, then co operation is more likely to occur. The autonomy agreement's contribution here is reducing social instability, thus increasing the probability that acts of reciprocation will occur and that reciprocators can be identified. One way that this can be done is by enhancing economic prosperity and pro viding a predictable legal system (such as contract law). Indirect reciprocity is also favored where reputations can develop and are valued. This occurs most often in small societies rather than large ones where cheating is less noticeable and more rampant (Troisi 1993, 1 2 ) . Even so, with a properly functioning legal system, it may be possible to punish egregious violators. Fair government and fair legal systems should encour age the use of indirect reciprocity (McGuire 1993b, 2 1 ) . Unlike cooperation, where individuals expect some form of reciprocity, altruism occurs without reward to those engaging in the behavior. Pure altruism (indiscriminate helping) may also create social cooperation (Mas ters 1993, 126 ) . Initially, it does not appear that this can be incorporated into an autonomy agreement. However, in certain limited circumstances, altruism may be encouraged. As already noted, altruism is most easily de veloped among clans. Altruism and cooperation occur more frequently within than outside of groups . It then becomes important to be able to identify members of the in-group.

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People tend to look for cues or recognition markers to identify in-group members (Masters 1993, 1 0 1 ) . Assuming that one can identify recognition markers, the question arises as to whether these markers can be manipu lated. Tonnesmann ( 1 987, 1 8 1 ) suggests that ethnicity cannot easily be created but that it can be manipulated unless reliable cues are invented. If cues can be manipulated, then we should seek ways to manipulate them in autonomy agreements to make different groups think that they are part of the same group. This is a problematic recommendation, however, as au tonomy agreements are essentially separatist instruments . So while it seems possible to modify recognition markers, there is concern over whether the autonomy agreement is the proper instrument by which to make such an attempt. In my view, the attempt cannot hurt. It may fail, but it is unlikely to exacerbate the overall situation. To determine the po tential approaches to modification, we must examine which types of cues exist. Masters ( 1 993, 103) suggests that we can modify cooperative behavior based at least in part on recognition by "changing perceptions of cost and benefits . " We can learn to recognize new friends based on new situations. "We are all aware, of course, of flags, uniforms, and passports. Such sym bols of community define States and, often, elicit the emotions of patriotism and nationalism. " But local groups usually demand their own symbols. Autonomy agreements therefore often allow the local group its own sym bols, separate from national symbols, thereby seemingly discouraging in tegration vis-a-vis overarching recognition markers. It thus might make more sense to include national symbols among local ones. This allows local groups to maintain group pride but also increasingly links the local to the national group. It is unclear, however, whether such a compromise would be acceptable to either group, although some agreements seem to point in that direction. For example, the Gagauz Agreement provides Gagauzia with "its own official symbols, which are to be used on an equal basis with Moldova's state symb ols " ( Socor 1994, 23 ) . We should also seek a special place for the display o f local symbols among national ones, both to decrease the fear of the center by the pe riphery and to incorporate the two into a greater whole, even while osten sibly providing autonomy. Hence the local group becomes an important part of the greater state.1 Unfortunately, many markers are far less mal leable than flags. Still, to a lesser or greater extent, anything should be malleable by changing costs and benefits (Masters 1993, 127 ) . Specifically, it may be possible to impose certain legal obligations toward others, or at least a legal obligation not to discriminate. We can thus allow autonomy without ethnocentrism, self-rule without discrimination. It may also be possible to modify the incentive/disincentive structure of the environment in which elites operate and thereby enhance its cooperative potential. Elites often seek to increase personal power by mobilizing the


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masses on an ethnonationalist basis. It is ironic that this is one of the apparent side effects of democracy. We should seek to discourage and min imize such ethnonationalist mobilization. This issue contains a familiar di lemma: autonomy agreements are instruments of separation rather than integration. There are no perfect solutions, but one can attempt to maxi mize the antiviolence powers of the autonomy agreement and grant certain self-rule, yet discourage the enmity that can arise from separation according to ethnic terms. There may be electoral methods, for example, of moving elites away from ethnocentric support bases. Perhaps this is a constitutional issue, but one should at least avoid rewarding ethnocentric mobilization within the autonomy agreement. Scholars such as Linz ( 1 993 ), Lijphart ( 1 993 ), and Horowitz ( 1 990 ) de bate electoral laws. This debate may have bearing on how to draft election rules in autonomy agreements. For local elections, we should strive to avoid allowing extremist groups to win and should instead draft rules that sup port broader-based, more accommodating strategies. There are also ways to draft national election rules so as to avoid ethnic mobilization, although this is a constitutional issue beyond the scope of an autonomy agreement. Finally, there may be room to actually prohibit "hate" parties, as the Israeli-Palestinian agreements attempt to do (Interim Agreement, Annex II, Article III, 1-2 ) . A well-drafted autonomy agreement may also help reduce uncertainty and transaction costs, and thereby promote greater gains from trade and broader economic prosperity. Agreements do this by expanding the number of potential trade partners, not by making everyone part of the same group but by allowing successful and safe trade and exchange among groups. It is not so much that Tutsis and Hutus would want to trade with one another after an autonomy agreement was put into place, it is that they could, and some, because of economic incentives, would. Any such exchanges would be an improvement over the pre-autonomy agreement situation, when trade is very close to nonexistent. "In a world of contract uncertainty, other things being equal, we prefer to trade with fellow club members rather than non-members. The lower transaction costs are one of the main ad vantages to belonging to such a club" (Carr and Landa 1994, 126 ) . A goal then becomes to reduce contract uncertainty. We retain a world of uncer tainty with the autonomy agreement, but it is a world of relatively less uncertainty, hence more trade and improved economic performance. In turn, we have increased by some measure the time and space for a further, more complete solution. The solution may simply be continued autonomy and uneasy lack of war, or it may be further institutional evolution, cul minating in an acceptable constitution, even peace. In the meantime, fairly significant problems remain. People still prefer to trade among their own, but recognizing club members can be costly ( Carr and Landa 1994, 126 ) . Ethnicity is a recognition marker that enables iden-

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tification of fellow club members. It signals valuable information about how good a trading partner might be ( Carr and Landa 1994, 1 3 1 ) . Given that autonomy agreements encourage separation rather than integration, it is unlikely that they can eliminate this function of ethnicity. Still, it should be possible to limit the advantage gained by such signaling and to limit overt discrimination. The autonomy agreement should therefore make dis criminatory action illegal. Still, it is impossible to eliminate all signaling devices. Language, religious symbols, and other markings of ethnic iden tification are likely to continue to exist. Indeed, autonomy agreements often grant them special status. Recognition markers and the like effectively create boundaries among groups. Van der Dennen ( 1 987, 9 ) notes that the ability to survive as a group without sharp boundaries allows the existence of more cooperative and less defensive communities. The creation of regional economic free zones that break down local boundaries, such as the European Community and the North American Free Trade Agreement, implies that autonomy can coexist with economic cooperation. Autonomy agreements should thus at tempt to maintain free economic trade, except where it can be demon strated that cultural autonomy is threatened and outweighs the benefits of free trade. Freedom of economic transactions, in addition to increasing prosperity, creates cross-cutting allegiances so that those locals prospering economically (the powerful ) will not desire any retrenching that might in crease transaction costs. In this way, the autonomy agreement can be viewed as a truly transitory, evolutionary instrument. Yet, we should rec ognize that at some level there will be demands for local protectionism. These demands should be resisted, and elites should be made to understand that such protectionism and boundaries only hinder overall economic pros perity. In summary, groups may still not love each other, but we can at tempt to lower boundaries, decrease the costs of interaction, and increase the costs of ceasing interaction. All of these should create disincentives to ethnonationalist violence. Another way to increase the likelihood of cooperation is to increase the importance of the future. When the future is valued, actors shy away from violence and rather look to play iterated games where they can deal with and benefit from other actors repeatedly. Violence tends to reduce the num ber of actors with whom one can interact. A high-value future also bodes well for one's progeny, hence one's genes, and thus encourages cooperation. Consequently, we must seek ways to create an environment in which the future has high value. When players understand the fable of the Golden Goose, they will value and care for it. "To maintain a reasonable chance for a stable, relatively high [value future,] governments must not only ar ticulate their views of the future, but also act on them, assure a reasonable distribution of resources, develop and enforce acceptable employment prac tices, limit crime, and so forth" (McGuire 1 993b, 29). Autonomy agree-


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ments, correctly drafted, may begin this process among different ethnic groups, with an eye toward a broader, more general instrument. Autonomy agreements inherently increase the value of the future, insofar as they are a step away from current violence and toward coexistence, if not peace. They allow economic transactions, which also tend to increase the value of the future, especially when trade based. Trade generally implies the as sumption of relative tranquility so that a profit can be made by trading with others, now and in the future. Hoarding, on the other hand, would be an example of devaluing the future. Problems with using the autonomy agreement as an instrument to en hance cooperation have been noted throughout this chapter. The instru ment is flawed and certainly not the ideal instrument with which to encourage cooperation. The autonomy agreement has its place, but it is an instrument of limited overall potential. Cooperation is difficult, even in the best of circumstances. First, it is problematic in that natural selection often favors selfish behavior and free riding (Masters 1 993, 1 0 8 ) . Hence, on one level, cooperation can be viewed as swimming against the evolutionary stream. Even if cooperation improves the fitness of groups in which it is practiced, free riders often reap greater benefits. Second, cooperation as an applied, real-world goal can be difficult to achieve. If it occurs most often among smaller or even related groups, it should become more difficult as the size of groups increases. This chapter concerns itself with groups larger than "ethnies" in the quest for cooper ation. It focuses on bringing two or more ethnies together, thus further decreasing the likelihood of cooperation and increasing the difficulties in herent in its achievement. Finally, even if cooperation can be achieved, it is difficult to maintain for a number of reasons. Even assuming that we can use the "fictive kin ship" notion to encourage community members to cooperate, as time goes on, costs rise and this notion comes under attack (Masters 1993, 1 14 ) . This is the problem of sustaining cooperation once begun. The notion that we are all somehow related becomes vulnerable. Cooperation may also come under attack from a number of other directions, including, but not limited to, resource scarcity or historical reality. In Sri Lanka, for example, the colonial powers practiced "divide-and-rule" tactics. All of these problems appear exacerbated by a market-based economic system that stresses com petition, yet this appears to be the only system with the potential to stim ulate prolonged growth. Assuming cooperation is helped by economic prosperity generally facil itates cooperation because it creates a larger pie of resources, but it may also create new fissures that accompany growth in inequality and demands for redistribution. Officials of the state often use state power to promote their own selfish ends and aggravate rivalries deriving from inequality even more (Masters 1993, 1 14 ) . Significant anecdotal evidence from the former

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communist states supports this view. So even if we achieve cooperation, the very success of the endeavor may cause its own collapse (Masters 1993, 1 1 5 ) . As time passes, the benefits of cooperation become less apparent and incentives arise to move away from broader notions of myth or other rec ogmtwn markers (nation-state) and back toward narrower recognition markers (ethnicity ) . Old markers make fewer demands (Masters 1993, 118). We have now examined some of the broader, generic issues of drafting autonomy provisions, and we next need to look at specific issues and com ment on actual provisions. Specific Issue Areas

The following section discusses only a few of the specific provisions one might find in an autonomy agreement. Introductory Provisions: Preamble

While it may be tempting to dismiss an autonomy agreement's preamble, this provision provides the drafter with an opportunity to lay the founda tion for a positive process. The preamble should acknowledge the right of each party's existence and the importance of each group 's unique culture. At the same time, it should also acknowledge the existence and indeed the necessity for a single state that represents and protects all of its citizens. Citizenship for all individuals should be noted, as well as the desire for mutual cooperation. As many similarities among groups should be noted as possible. If similar religious principles exist, these should be acknowl edged. At this juncture, one could even include room for group elites (es pecially those that command some moral authority or respect among the masses) to signal their support for the agreement. Symbolic Provisions

Language. It would be inappropriate not to discuss language in this chap ter. Language serves as a primary recognition marker among groups. Not surprisingly, then, language differences often drive the very demand for autonomy. Language is almost never negotiable from the autonomous com munity's standpoint, yet it has assorted deleterious effects on cooperation such as a reduction in economic efficiency (Hardin 1995; see especially p. 59). It is separatist in nature and acts as a marker to allow out-group discrimination. "The diversity of language obviously undercuts the effi ciency of a free trade area. The European Community itself devotes-ac cording to some reports-50 percent of its budget to translation costs. The local costs are even greater" (Fletcher 1993, 1 3 2 ) . It reduces regional labor mobility (thus harming the local region), which in turn drives down income (Fletcher 1993, 132). Yet, as noted, local language may be insisted upon.


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Given this state of affairs, the drafter's goal should be to minimize the negative effects of local language. This can be done in assorted ways. First, as much as possible, the local language should be limited to cultural matters and matters of necessity: Teach it in school, celebrate it in holiday, but avoid it in everyday transactions (economic and otherwise) .2 Joint street signs and the like can be provided. If the minority insists upon using the language in a broader range of transactions such as the judicial process, communications with the center, or economic transactions, the use of local language should not be required at all times. Instead, a right to insist on its use should be provided. If a party to judicial proceedings cannot understand the maj ority language, then clearly the use of both languages should be provided. Similarly, the trans lation of business contracts into the local language can be provided for, though perhaps the center should not have to pay for this. Rather, the individuals who insist on the translation should be forced to pay. Here, economic disincentive mitigates against multiple languages, though this may reduce the total number of economic transactions entered into initially. Ultimately, however, the use of one rather than two or more languages should decrease costs even among locals, and thus increase the aggregate number of transactions. A single language should also increase labor mo bility. In the end, a good general rule may be that the center pays for cultural and educational opportunities for local language but that other costs must be born by the locals. Payments by the center will demonstrate good will and may help bring the groups closer rather than farther apart. If some level of demonstration is met, such as the good of the entire state, the center could pay additional costs. The autonomy agreement's dispute resolution system (see below) could resolve differences in these matters. Beyond this, one could recognize the local language and make provisions for its use when practicable. For example, autonomy provisions within the South African Constitution ( 1 994 ) allow that all persons may be addressed in dealings with the central government in any South African language (there are ten recognized) when practicable ( South African Constitution, Chapter 1, Section 3, Paragraph 3; emphasis added ) . Here, it is allowed, not required, that local languages be used. One might modify this with the requirement discussed previously. Symbols. Again, when dealing with symbols, the negotiator/drafter is forced to balance the desire for separate symbols with the desire to enhance cooperation. Ultimately, autonomy is the primary purpose of the agree ment. The question is how to maximize the opp ortunity for cooperation given autonomy. Symbols will be demanded but might be limited in un obtrusive ways. For example, rather than grant the autonomous region a "capital," it can be provided with an "administrative center. " The Gagauz/ Moldova Agreement does exactly this ( Socor 1 994, 24). The Basque Agree-

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ment provides for a "seat of common institutions of the Autonomous Community" (Basque Agreement, Article 4; emphasis added). Beyond the capital, flags and other symbols will be desired by the locals. One way to mitigate the noncooperative tendencies here is to co-opt such symbols into the national realm so that local symbols are proudly dem onstrated by the center. In return, locals can make room for national sym bols alongside their own. Allowing for local symbols should also enhance the position of those moderate locals supporting cooperation with the cen ter and should act as a confidence-building measure by demonstrating the center's good faith. It is important to avoid symbols that advocate racism or some inherent local superiority. Rights and Powers: Local Security

Local security refers to police control within the autonomous region. Although the broader division of general rights and powers between the center and the periphery does not obviously lend itself to the insights of evolutionary theory, local internal security issues are susceptible to such analysis. From the viewpoint of evolutionary theory, one way to improve the environment for cooperation is to allow some significant level of local control over the autonomous region's security. Such an approach improves the image of the center in the eyes of the local region's populace, which in turn encourages cooperation. It also improves the political position of those local elites supporting the agreement by giving them some demonstrated political victories. It decreases the chance for inflammatory sparks of oc casional violence. And when such violence occurs, it requires that locals confront the violence. It also should increase confidence between the central and local elites. If an improvement in the security situation follows, con fidence is likely to be engendered among the central elites as well. Governmental Processes: judiciary

This category deals with the implementation of rights arising under an autonomy agreement. One could imagine an agreement granting enormous de jure rights yet because of insufficiently designed procedures granting few de facto rights. Hence, this category, while perhaps a bit tedious, is as important as any other one. The local judiciary may or may not have a more general resolution role for disputes arising out of the agreement. Most likely, the local judiciary will concern itself with local disputes, while those arising under the agree ment are settled either on a national level or by a mechanism specifically created by the agreement. At any rate, the local judiciary provides certain cooperation-enhancing opportunities. The sheer volume of issues in this area requires a truncated discussion. Some relevant points may be noted. Mimicking the national judiciary on a local level is likely to be prohibitively expensive, though clearly the locals


23 1

would prefer such an approach. It may be possible, however, to enhance cooperation without completely duplicating the national system. For ex ample, local trial courts probably would be necessary in any event. Provi sion of such courts should be made explicit in the autonomy agreement, thereby plausibly placating local interests to some extent. Further, to the extent possible, such courts should be staffed (from court reporters and security to judges and everyone in between) with locals. But such appoint ments should be made by competitive exam, perhaps in the local language. Some level of independence for both local and central courts is also prudent inasmuch as it enhances fairness and balances other elements of govern ment. Local authorities should also probably pay for the local judicial sys tem.3 The approach sketched here should increase local confidence, yet the competitive nature of appointment should ensure high-quality justice. It may be possible for both sides to win and allow for greater cooperation. Finally, there might be local representation in the national appellate system, again to build confidence and in this way to enhance cooperation. Public Finance

Local control of public finance is a fundamental method for the local region to assert control over internal matters. From the point of view of evolutionary theory, this should be encouraged, but with local financing of such control. Central financing of local matters tends to create mistrust and bitterness toward the autonomous region (Moses, this volume) . The region should receive its share of national revenues with whatever restrictions ap ply generally. (The 1951 Aland Act, Sections 2 1-30, and the 1991 Aland Act, Sections 44-5 1 , each make similar provisions . ) Beyond this, it should be clear that further expenditure decisions are a local matter and must be financed locally ( as in the Basque Agreement, Article 42 ) . Neither side should have the opportunity to direct blame toward the other for financial woes. Procedures Regarding the Agreement: Dispute Resolution

A final important though easily overlooked area is procedures regarding the operation of the agreements. It might be easy, in the jubilation of reach ing some sort of autonomy arrangement, to overlook the mundane aspects of daily management. This would be a mistake. An agreement is likely to be only as strong as the procedures by which it must operate on a daily basis. The dispute resolution mechanism of an autonomy agreement usually differs from the more general ju dicial system, in that the dispute resolution mechanism is intended to resolve only those disputes arising directly out of the autonomy agreement. In the interest of intergroup cooperation, the dispute resolution mechanism should include members from all group s. The types of dispute resolution ( arbitration, courts, or international dispute

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management ) would hinder cooperation only insofar as their demographic representation is overly skewed, which would be perceived as creating dis criminatory or unfair solutions. If the settlement system is viewed as fair it is more likely to be used, and further cooperation should be engendered. The Israeli/Palestinian case allows for evolution. The Interim Agreement provides for numerous "co ordination and cooperation mechanisms" re lated to various subject areas of the agreement. Disputes under any section of the agreement first are referred to the operational committee having jurisdiction over said subject matter (Interim Agreement, Article XXI ) . This is useful, because these " committee" parties best know each other and the subj ect matter. They should thus be able to reach a compromise without invoking formal adjudication. This in turn avoids cooperation-debilitating actions. A specific dispute resolution body can next resolve those disputes that committees cannot reach agreement upon. If any or all of the previ ously outlined schemes proves too expensive, it may be necessary to give central appellate courts dispute resolution authority over the agreement ( see, e.g., Socor 19 94, 26). A hybrid system with both agreement-specific dispute resolution and recourse to some appellate system is yet another approach. 4 International dispute resolution is problematic in its general lack of enforcement capabilities, but it may provide some measure of trust not otherwise available. CONCLUSION

The primary contribution of an evolutionary approach toward the anal ysis of autonomy agreements is the ability to make more explicit methods of enhancing cooperation among parties. Evolutionary theory does this by helping the drafter to consider both the positive and negative implications of identity and interest-based ethnic theory (Ross, this volume) . Many pro visions may be modified so as to create a more "cooperation friendly" environment, as this chapter has tried to demonstrate. There are various ways in which the cooperative environment can be enhanced through autonomy agreements. For example, the agreement can call for increased meetings of elites, both in terms of the number of elites meeting and the subj ects on which they meet. This in turn may have pos itive diffusion effects on the masses, thereby increasing cooperation. Ad ditionally, elite-level contacts offer a convenient point at which to jump-start cooperation. Evolutionary theory also suggests that iterating the game enhances co operation. This means that the autonomy agreement should be open ended and replaced with another institution if terminated. Additionally, evolutionary theory can help the drafter recognize nonco operative variables. Consequently, the drafter can be cognizant of such hazards and thereby can avoid some future problems. For example, the


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drafter familiar with evolutionary theory will understand the tendency to ward discrimination favoring the in-group. The drafter can thus consider provisions prohibiting "local only" ownership of property. The drafter may eventually decide to allow such discrimination, but this decision will be made explicitly and with as much information as possible. Clearly, evolutionary theory has value and should not be denigrated. That said, we would be remiss not to acknowledge the weaknesses of ev olutionary theory as applied to autonomy agreements. Some offerings of evolutionary theory are either less fully understood or equally available from other social theory. For example, though it may be theoretically pos sible to modify recognition markers through an autonomy agreement, the approach toward such a scheme is less clear. Similarly, while a high-value future sounds good in theory, it is not entirely clear how one quantifies such a future. Certain insights of evolutionary theory, such as the benefits of economic growth, are available from other schools of study. Finally, and perhaps most tellingly, the autonomy agreement is an in strument of separation, while the aspect of evolutionary theory I have sought to emphasize, namely, cooperation, seeks the very opposite result. This is, to be fair, a criticism of my own work rather than evolutionary theory. Still, it demonstrates a problem with attempting to apply the in sights of evolutionary theory to ethnic conflict analysis, more specifically the autonomy agreement. So then, one could take issue with using autonomy agreements as a ve hicle for applying evolutionary theory. While much of evolutionary theory is cooperative in its goals, autonomy agreements are essentially separatist in nature. Indeed, separation rather than autonomy may ultimately be the best solution for certain conflicts. Moreover, there would seem to be more effective instruments by which to apply evolutionary theory. Nevertheless, the choice of the autonomy agreement as an instrument of application is not without merit, on at least two levels. First, evolutionary theory does offer co operation-enhancing recommendations, and since the autonomy agreement is not an instrument of independence, cooperation has value. Second, if we assume that this is less than the ideal instrument for evolu tionary application, then any success here is likely to strongly imply that success may be found elsewhere, among instruments better yet suited for the application of evolutionary theory. It is my hope that this chapter will challenge those who study instruments and institutions to learn from the insights of evolutionary theory. Many instruments are more cooperation friendly and thus should be better able to make use of evolutionary theory. If I could find some minimal level of success in combining evolutionary theory and the autonomy agreement, surely there are those who could reach greater levels of success using in struments such as constitutions. It also is my hope that this faltering first step forward will encourage others to take larger, steadier steps.

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Applications

AUTONOMY AGREEMENTS AND CONSTITUTIONS

The Autonomy Act for Aland. December 28, 1 95 1 . Repealed 1 9 9 1 . Government of Aland: Finland [hereinafter, the " 1 9 5 1 Aland Act"] .

The Act on the Autonomy of Aland. August 16, 199 1 . Government of Aland: Finland [hereinafter, the " 1 991 Aland Act"].

Constitution of South Africa. 1 994. [hereinafter, the " South African Constitution" ] . Declaration of Principles on Interim Self-Government Arrangements. September 1 3 , 1 993. Israel-Palestine Liberation Organization, p. 2 1 [hereinafter, "DOP" ] .

Israeli-Palestinian Interim Agreement. September 2 8 , 1 995. Israel-Palestine Liber ation Organization [hereinafter, "Interim Agreement " ] .

The Southern Sudan Provinces Regional Self-Government Act, 1 972. Abrogated 1983. Sudan.

The Statute of Autonomy of the Basque Country. 1 9 83. (Spain) [hereinafter, the "Basque Agreement" ] . Translated in Eusko ]uarlaritza, Euskal Herriko Au tonomia Estatutoa ( Gasteiz 19 83). NOTES 1 . One potential problem with this approach, beyond the fact that it might not work, is that it may work; the solution appears to encourage nationalism. It is not clear whether ethnocentrism is more dangerous than nationalism, though the com bination seems most dangerous (to wit, national socialism). 2. For a similar view, see the solution offered by Jurgen Habermas, who urges that the "European Community should seek unity behind one language at the same time that each ethnic and national community cultivates its parochial language and literature " (quoted in Fletcher 1 993, 1 3 5 ) . 3 . An approach similar to the one taken in this paragraph was set forth in the Basque Agreement, Article 3 5 . 4. For a hybrid approach (usually retaining ultimate appeal t o central courts), see the Basque Agreement, Articles 14 and 21; the 1951 Aland Act, Section 43; and the 1991 Aland Act, Section 60.

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