1995-10-01a- CIA Conference Report: THE CHALLENGE OF ETHNIC CONFLICT TO NATIONAL AND INTERNATIONAL ORDER IN THE 1990S GEOGRAPHIC PERSPECTIVES 01-Oct-95

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the Baltic countries or the Germans in Eastern Europe later, helps explain the negative reactions that the plan
cannot necessarily be viewed as one group. Russian engendered. Similarly, a detailed understanding of the
and German migrations into these regions took place distribution of Tamils in Sri Lanka sheds light on the
over long periods of time, and those who came earlier problems facing the Sinhalese-dominated government
have distinctly different perspectives from those who in its efforts to quell separatist threats through the dev-
migrated during the past few decades. olution of power to regional governments. As regional
governments grow in power, ethnically heterogeneous
Once the issue of defining ethnic groups has been administrative districts such as Puttalam and Ampara
addressed, there is much to learn from a careful analy- increasingly become the focuses of conflict.
sis of group location and distribution. This can be seen
through an examination of the effects of different dis- The forgoing examples suggest that a geographical
tributions at a large scale. As Marvin Mikesell and I perspective on location involves more than simply
demonstrated in a recent article (Mikesell and Murphy identifying where the members of ethnic groups live.
1991), the basic distribution of a minority group within It is concerned with a group's location in relation to
a state influences the types of demands the group is other physical and human phenomena of importance.
likely to raise. We posited three scenarios (figure 1), Analyzing a group's "relative location" can provide
each involving a dominant group (A) that constitutes insight into the likelihood that one group will seek to
90 percent of the population and a minority group (B) exert control over another, the opportunities and cata-
that constitutes 10 percent of the population. In the first lysts for ethnic group mobilization, the strategies
scenario, group B is concentrated in one area within employed by groups during times of overt conflict,
the state. In the second scenario, group B is intermixed and the possibilities for a conflict to spill beyond state
with group A throughout the state territory. In the third boundaries. A brief examination of each of these
scenario, a significant portion of group B is concen- points is instructive.
trated in one territory, but many members of group B
live in other parts of the state. We went on to show that Attempts by one ethnic group to exert control over
if a minority group feels marginalized or repressed, in another often occur when one group lives in an area
the first scenario it is likely to make demands for sepa- that is highly prized by another (see, for instance,
ration (S), autonomy (A), or even independence (I). a number of the essays in Johnston, Knight, and
This was the case for the Basques in Franco's Spain . Kofman 1988). This is evident in the history of rela-
and is still the case for the Tibetans in China. In the tions between dominant and minority groups in states
second scenario, by contrast, the demands are likely to as diverse as Australia, Turkey, and France. In each
be for recognition (r), access (a), and participation (p), case, minorities concentrated in areas thought to have
as exemplified by African-Americans in the United little value or importance were generally left alone or
States. The third scenario, which corresponds to the ignored. Those living in areas of economic, military,
situation of the French speakers of Canada, is likely to political, or cultural significance, however, often
yield a mixture of demands and a greater heterogeneity encountered interference and domination by the
of ethnic group aspirations. group in power, which in turn frequently led to
conflict. In making this point, it is important to stress
An understanding of ethnic patterns at a variety of that the perceptual importance of an area is not simply
scales can tell us much about the nature of conflict and a function of its economic and strategic attributes;
about the viability of proposals to ameliorate conflict. places with great historical-cultural meaning or
Take the case of Bosnia, for example. Generalized eth- political significance can become focuses of conflict
nic distributions shown on large-scale maps became as well. Thus, the presence of Albanians in Kosovo
the basis for the Vance-Owen plan to divide up the and of French speakers in the communes around
country into discrete ethnic territories. A closer exami- Brussels have generated serious discord because of
nation of ethnic patterns, however, reveals distribu- the historical-cultural significance of Kosovo to Ser-
tions that are much more nuanced than those reflected bians and the political-cultural significance of the
in the Vance-Owen plan. Awareness of these, together communes around Brussels to Flemings.
with some of the territorial issues that will be raised
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