Suchergebnisse

Ethnic conflict seems to be common in all countries of the world where people are divided into separate ethnic groups, that may have a racial, national, linguistic, tribal, religious or caste basis. In this article it is proposed that a significant part of the universality of ethnic conflict can be explained by our evolved predisposition to ethnic nepotism, which can be regarded as an extended form of nepotism. Evolutionary theories of inclusive fitness and kin selection explain the origin and universality of nepotism. The members of an ethnic group tend to favour their group members over non-members because they are more related to their group members than to outsiders. This disposition to favour kin over non-kin becomes important in social life and politics when people and groups of people have to compete for scarce resources. Two hypotheses on political consequences of ethnic nepotism are presented: (1) significant ethnic division tends to lead to ethnic interest conflict in all societies and (2) the more a society is ethnically divided, the more political and other interest conflict tend to become channelled into ethnic lines. These two hypotheses are tested by empirical evidence for 183 contemporary states. The hypothetical concepts `ethnic division' and `ethnic conflict' are operationalized into empirical variables. The results support the two hypotheses. Deviating cases underline the importance of other relevant factors behind ethnic conflict and violence.

It is argued in this article that democratization is causally related to socioeconomic variables indicating the distribution of economic and intellectual power resources among competing groups. This assumption has been deduced from an evolutionary theory of politics, according to which politics is principally a struggle for scarce resources. Consequently, democracy is assumed to emerge in conditions in which power resources have become so widely distributed that no group is any longer able to suppress its competitors or to maintain its hegemony. Empirical variables were formulated to measure hypothetical concepts 'democracy' and 'power resources'. The hypothesis is tested by empirical data covering 147 states of the period 1980–85. The results of correlation analysis show that the principal explanatory factor, the Index of Power Resources, statistically explains about 70 percent of the variation in the Index of Democratization. Regression analysis is used to disclose how well the general relationship applies to single countries and which countries deviate from the general pattern. High negative residuals are interpreted to mean that the level of democratization should be much higher than it actually is, and high positive residuals can be interpreted to mean that the level of democratization is much higher than expected on the basis of the country's social conditions.