Shared Space: Ethnic Groups, State Accommodation, and Localized Conflict
Kathleen Gallagher Cunningham and Nils B. Weidmann, 2010
International Studies Quarterly 54 (4)
Abstract
Why does ethnic violence occur in some places but not others? This paper argues that the local ethnic configuration below the national level is an important determinant of how likely conflict is in any particular place. Existing studies of ethnicity and conflict focus on national-level fractionalization or dominance, but much of the politics surrounding ethnic groups' grievances and disputes takes place at a more local level. We argue that the existence of multiple ethnic groups competing for resources and power at the level of sub-national administrative regions creates a significant constraint on the ability of states to mitigate ethnic groups' grievances. This in turn increases the likelihood of conflict between ethnic groups and the state. In particular, we argue that diverse administrative regions dominated by one group should be most prone for conflict. Using new data on conflict and ethnic group composition at the region level, we test the theory and find that units with one demographically dominant ethnic group among multiple groups are most prone to conflict.
Additional Information
Replication data
GIS Dataset of First-level Administrative Units
The "Shared Space" paper relies on a global GIS dataset of first-level administrative units for states with a population of more than 500,000. We make this dataset available for download here. The dataset is a revised version of ESRI's First-level Administrative Units dataset (1998 version), which however does not reflect political boundaries for a consistent date. We revised this dataset such that the boundaries now reflect the 1991 status for all countries in our sample. When using these data, please cite our ISQ article.
Fields in the dataset: Name of administrative unit, country name, country COW code, unique unit identifier. WGS84 with lat/long coordinates.