From voting to violence : democratization and nationalist conflict / Jack Snyder.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Snyder, Jack L.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Democratization.

Nationalism.

Physical Description:

384 pages : maps ; 24 cm

Place of Publication:

New York : Norton, 2000.

Summary:

With the collapse of the Berlin Wall in 1989, many proclaimed the triumph of liberal democracy as they watched democratization sweep through formerly authoritarian countries in Latin America, Eastern Europe, and East Asia. Yet the 1990s turned out to be a decade marked by chronic nationalist conflict, and the sense of democratic triumph turned to frustration. In From Voting to Violence, Jack Snyder shows how democratization can actually exacerbate nationalist fervor and ethnic conflict if the conditions permitting a successful transition are not in place.

Snyder grounds his argument in modern political history, drawing upon four definitive types of nationalism from four different countries: civic Britain of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, revolutionary France, Serbia from 1840 to 1914, and pseudodemocratic Weimar Germany. It is by the light of these examples that Snyder examines the sometimes rash optimism of liberal democracy that would rush to democracy at the cost of freedom.

Recent examples such as Rwanda and Bosnia, which many have resigned as destined to eternal conflict, make all the more painfully clear the human price of misconceived policy. Not content with the mainstream analysis of the American media, that "ancient hatreds" lie at the root of post-Communist conflict, Snyder uncovers beneath the clash of ethnic groups an array of nationalist agendas crafted by a "persuasive elite."

Arguing that international organizations can cause conflict rather than averting it in their drive to establish democratic governments and to punish outgoing leaders, From Voting to Violence closes by prescribing policies that will make transitions less volatile and will give fledgling democracies the support they need in order to flourish.

Contents:

1 Transitions to Democracy and the Rise of Nationalist Conflict 15

Liberal Optimism Confronts the Nationalist Revival of the 1990s 16

What Are Nationalism and Democratization? 21

The Link between Democratization and Nationalist Conflict: Some Evidence 27

Why Democratization Increases the Risk of Nationalist Conflict 31

Making Choices in Today's World 39

The Plan of the Book 42

2 Nationalist Elite Persuasion in Democratizing States 45

Elite Persuasion: Promoting Popular Loyalty to the Nation 46

When and Why Nationalist Elites Are Persuasive 53

How Nationalist Persuasion Causes Violent Conflict 66

Four Types of Nationalism: Their Causes and Consequences 69

Alternative Explanations for the Link between Democratization and Nationalist Conflict 83

Tracing Causal Relationships and Selecting Cases 88

3 How Democratization Sparked Counterrevolutionary German Nationalism 93

War and Nationalism in Germany, 1864-1945 95

Alternative Explanations for Germany's Wars and Nationalism 102

Playing the Nationalist Card in German Democratization 104

Selling Nationalism in Weimar Germany 117

4 Varieties of Nationalism: Civic Britain, Revolutionary France, and Ethnic Serbia 129

British Civic Nationalism 131

French Revolutionary Nationalism 154

Serbian Ethnic Nationalism, 1840-1914 169

Comparisons, Contrasts, and Causes 180

5 Nationalism amid the Ruins of Communism 189

Competing Explanations for Post-Communist Nationalist Violence 191

Nationalist Mythmaking and the Yugoslav Breakup 204

Mass Politics and War in the Caucasus 220

Media Wars in Post-Communist Russia 235

Comparing Post-Communist Nationalisms 250

Civic versus Ethnic Nationalism and the Violence of Post-Communist Transitions 259

6 Nationalism and Democracy in the Developing World 265

Democratization and Nationalist Trajectories in the Developing World 269

Sri Lanka and Malaysia: Opposite Twins 273

India: The Race between Civic Institutionalization and Ethnic Mobilization 287

Rwanda and Burundi: The Perils of Pluralism and Powersharing 296

Conditions That Dampen Nationalist Conflict in the Developing World 306

7 Averting Nationalist Conflict in an Age of Democratization 313

Weaving a Thick Safety Net for Democratic Transitions 316

Strategies for Averting Nationalist Conflict 321

International Impact on Democratization and Nationalist Mobilization 341

Ethnodemocracy: A Threat to the Democratic Peace 352.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

0393048810

0393974812

OCLC:

42476691