Some nonsense....

...from the New York Times.

This will not be a particularly thoughtful post, but I do want to return to this theme in greater depth in upcoming posts. For American political scientists, believe it or not, the violence in Kyrgyzstan is a little difficult to explain. In the American academy, the most prominent theories of ethnic conflict claim that cross-cutting cleavages are a crucial factor in ensuring stability in ethnically heterogeneous countries.But there is cross-cutting a-plenty between Uzbeks and Kyrgys in Kyrgyzstan: there is considerable intermarriage, political alliances, schools (although the desire for separate schools amongst Uzbeks seems to be considerable).

If you don't buy the cross-cutting cleavages claim, or rather, you believe that cross-cutting cleavages are themselves more likely to be the product of relatively sustained periods of peace rather than the necessary condition for it, and a fine thing to have but not something that should be relied upon too heavily or made a high priority in conflict resolution, then the current violence in Kyrgyzstan is not particularly surprising: you have a homeland minority (that is, a minority living on what it believes to be its ancestral homeland) that constitutes around 15% of the population, highly concentrated in the south, where they constitute around 50%, and in key strategic valleys; you have a political turmoil in which a regime with concentrated support amongst the dominant majority was overturned and the leadership forced into exile after a revolt sparked by the killing of protesters by the military and replaced by a regime that seems to have support from both elements of the dominant and most of the subordinate segments.

And crucially, you have two different segments that consider themselves to be of different ethnicities, that believe themselves to be of separate political, cultural, and social communities (even as many of them surely believe they also share a political community with each other).

Is this sufficient cause for a riot? Is it sufficient cause for a pogrom? Well no. But very few of the most important causal relations in political science are sufficient causes. Nor is it a necessary cause for deadly riots. But does it greatly raise the likelihood that such violence, targeted not solely at individual protesters but at broader communities often who had no direct relation to the political turmoil that might be the proximate cause, will occur. When this happens, those cross-cutting cleavages become tragic, in the sense that they force families into bitter decisions of loyalty and belonging. Which is not to say that they don't matter at all, nor that they are not a fine thing. If cross-cutting cleavages represent an aggregation of free decisions of individuals and groups to intimately associate with people from a variety of backgrounds, that's great. But if it is not enough on its own to ensure concord, then these cross-cutting ties will often receive an even greater stress and shock when stability breaks down and violence breaks out. This is not novel: this is Romeo and Juliet.

This is all background. It is meant to highlight that there are two broad positions in the political science literature on this matter: one, prominent in the US, believes that cross-cutting ties are the best solution to ethnic conflict, while the other, prominent in any other country that has had ethnic conflict, as well as many that have not, believes that cross-cutting ties are secondary at best, a decent consequence of a peace process and settlement that is more attuned to the reality of ethnic belonging.

It is background for reading this: "Kyrgyz Tensions Rooted in Class, Not Ethnicity, Experts Say." As I see it, there are two main options for political scientists of the cross-cutting cleavage persuasion: given the existence of such ties in Kyrgyzstan, they can either claim that this is not really ethnic conflict, but some other form of conflict in which these ties are less important, or then can claim that these ties were insufficiently developed in Kyrgyzstan. Both of these strategies are likely, but the New York Times presents you the distilled form of the latter. Beginning with the painfully obvious--the violence "is frequently ascribed to ethnic tensions, but regional experts say the causes are more complex"--we move relatively quickly to the bold claim (and common claim in situations of ethnic conflict) that "ethnic distinctions between Uzbeks and Kyrgyz are so slight as to be hardly distinguishable." The rest of the article argues that in reality class, not ethnicity, is driving the resentment, which is presumably driving the violence. 


This is a weak article, and I don't want to impugn Prof. Cooley, the man quoted here. But the point is not whether the ethnic distinctions are themselves obvious to the outside observer, but whether they are obvious to the participants. For instance, there are very very few ethnic differences between African Americans and white Americans: they are both predominantly Christian, have very similar cultural practices (especially when the comparison is appropriate in terms of region and class), have very similar if not identical value hierarchies (which is always a tricky construct, given that there is huge variation amongst individuals). Outside observers could definitely be excused if they felt that there were not significant ethnic distinctions between the two, and that the only real line between them was a patently absurd "racial" line whose contours are the product of a tortuous (and torturing) history of slavery and subordination. But one of the first things we learn as Americans is the difference between white and black; it is not necessarily an objective difference, but rather is a schema of categorization. 


If a comparable schema exists Kyrgyzstan, and all evidence suggests it does, since Uzbeks and Kyrgyzs certainly believe that they are different people with different histories and communal identities, then whether there are sufficient objective differences is immaterial. Prof. Cooley's statement that he doesn't "believe in a narrative of long-simmering ethnic tension", however, is perfectly valid--the current fight did not begin in earnest centuries ago. To claim such would be to deny the agency of those who coordinated the attacks, and we certainly would not want to deny their agency (and legal and moral culpability). But it is perhaps an indication of the poverty of popular understandings of ethnic conflict that this is being raised. 


Ethnic diversity, and even past ethnic antagonism, does not lead to contemporary violence by a mystical process of simmering.  But these are crucial components of the broader context in which violence becomes more likely. As for the class-ethnicity separation, it cannot be stressed often enough that these are mutually constitutive: ethnicity is marked, often rigidly but often quite flexibly, by certain economic roles. Ethnicity often becomes the basis upon which different economic functions are allocated (think Italian Americans and masonry), reinforcing existing ethnic differentiations (which is the cross-cutting cleavages main target) and creating new tension lines in which ethnic belonging can be mobilized as both the object and subject of violence. 


Or put another way, I can think of all sorts of class conflict that is not marked by ethnic divisions, but I cannot think of any ethnic conflict that does not have some economic component. And yet ethnic conflict tends to be much more violent than class conflict alone, suggesting that in practice these are distinct phenomena and that simply asserting that "Kyrgyz Tensions Rooted in Class, Not Ethnicity" greatly misses the point. Class conflict very rarely becomes a targeted pogrom against a group defined not simply as being "rich" or "poor", "workers" or "capitalists", but as fundamentally distinct and outside of the sphere of common membership. That is the special, albeit not exclusive, domain of ethnic conflict. And that is why what is occurring in Kyrgyzstan needs to be understood as an instance of such rather than as driven primarily by class. Recognizing the ethnic dimension's importance does not mean accepting the "centuries old hatred" trope; but it calls for us to look at a different set of agents and a different rationale than one motivated primarily by economic competition and resentment. It calls for different solutions--although economic redistribution should be a major component, if Uzbeks cannot feel secure as a communal group without institutional protections, recognition, and even separate institutions, then redistribution is neither likely to occur nor likely to provide for a lasting peace.