Interethnic conflicts: characteristics, causes and main classifications

In the modern world there are practically no completely ethnically homogeneous countries. According to statistics, only twelve percent. Residents of other states have to co-exist in one way or another within the same territory. Naturally, in such conditions, peaceful life will not always evolve - often there are interethnic conflicts. Let us dwell on their characteristics, causes and classification in more detail.

Conflictology lacks a single conceptual approach to identifying the causes of their occurrence. Interethnic conflicts are analyzed from the standpoint of socio-structural changes in the contacting ethnic groups, the problems of their inequality in prestige, status or reward.

There are concepts that focus on the behavioral mechanisms associated with fears for the fate of the nation - and not only for the loss of cultural heritage, but also for the use of resources and property.

As a result, several classifications have developed.

In accordance with the approach of G. Lapidus, we can distinguish:

1. Conflicts that occur at the interstate level.

2. Clashes originating within the country:

• Conflicts in which aboriginal minorities are involved;
• Countermeasures provoked by the communities of the newcomers;
• Conflicts arising from the involvement of forcibly imported minorities;
• Counteractions that appear as a result of a review of the existing relations between the autonomous republic and the government of the state.

In addition, a popular group in the classification are conflicts that are related to the presence of community violence in Central Asia. They were deduced by the researcher G. Lapidus in a separate category, because the leading role in them was played not by an ethnic but an economic factor.

According to J. Etinger's complete classification, interethnic conflicts can be of the following types:

1. Territorial, which are closely related to the reunification of the previously disunited ethnic groups. Their source is the political (often armed) conflict between a movement supported by a neighboring state and the government in power.

2. Conflicts, which are generated by the desire of a small ethnic group to realize their right to create an independent state.

3. Confrontations that are associated with the restoration of the rights of deported peoples to any territory.

4. A military clash, which is based on claims on the territory (or part of it) of a neighboring state.

5. Interethnic conflicts arising as a result of territorial arbitrary changes in the USSR.

6. Clashes of economic interests, which are veiled by national contradictions. In fact, similar ethnic conflicts are provoked by the ruling political elites, who are dissatisfied with the share allocated to them in the nationwide "pie".

7. Counteractions, which are based on historical facts, and which are due to the traditions of a long struggle.

8. Interethnic conflicts in Europe, which arose as a result of the long stay of deported peoples in the territory of another republic.

9. Counteractions in which, for certain disputes (about the state language, about religious differences), most often conceal serious disagreements between ethnic communities.

Consequently, the ethnic conflict is a result of both objective and subjective reasons. In such a situation, there is a frequent occurrence of a conflicting position or interests of the parties on a certain problem or task, as well as on the objectives, methods or means of resolving them in specific circumstances.