The Role of the State in Ethnic Conflict: A Constructivist Reassessment

Abstract

The chapter focuses on ethnic conflict & mobilization in Latin America & on the inadequacies of standard leftist, nation-statist, comparative-politics approaches toward understanding indigenous politics. A constructivist international relations perspective is applied to states & institutions as they inform -- & are informed by -- ethnopolitics. "State" & "government" are not mutually reducible terms; their interactions with the ethnic environment are complex, variable, & particular. Understanding the state's complex function has significant policy implications for governance in ethnically diverse & conflicted nations. 55 References. K. Coddon