Ethnicity

1. Ethnicity • Definition • A population of shared kinship (real or perceived) and culture • Descent (real or imagined) • Religion, language, customs, historical myths

2. Primordialist approach to identity • Identity • Biologically based (kinship) • Unchanging • Roots in socio-biology • Favorable treatment of the in-group and unfavorable treatment of the out-group may promote survival

3. Primordialist approach to identity • Identity • Explains violence • When pre-existing groups feel under threat

4. Constructivist approach to identity • Identity • Antagonistic identities are products of elite manipulation • Political entrepreneurs seek to activate antagonistic identities

5. Constructivist approach to identity • Identity • Explains violence • Elites provoke violence against out-group to gain or hold power • Sources of competition over power • With out-group • Between in-group moderates and extremists  Violence • Sharpens in-group boundaries • Increases support of mass public for in-group elites who provoked violence in first place