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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Ethnic Conflict Within Western Europe a number of pivotal agencies-principally the educa-
tion system, conscription into the armed forces, and
legislation. These new state-controlled domains struc-
Colin H. Williams tured the range of identities that were to be recognized
Research Professor, and sanctioned in the public realm. As a consequence,
Department of Welsh many of the current conflicts based in part upon ethnic
University of Wales considerations are the result of this historical lack of
College of Cardiff; congruence among self-determination, economic
development, and political representation.
Honorary Professor, I will address several types of ethnic issues facing
Center for Ethnic and Geolinguistic Research contemporary Western Europe, highlight the most
Division of Geography, pressing, and draw implications for multiethnic
Staffordshire University accommodation and adjustment to a changing global
order. My concern throughout will be to emphasize a
spatial perspective at urban, regional, and continental
Introduction scales.
Ethnic conflicts that challenge the existing order are a
recurrent feature of the European political landscape. Ethnic Tensions Along a Frontier Divide: Northern
A critical feature of European history, which has pro- Ireland
duced successive periods of ethnic conflict, has been
the relative lack of congruence among population, set- The Northern Ireland problem-misguidedly labeled
tlement patterns, and the political organization of a religious conflict-is a classic illustration of the jux-
space and territory. Sovereignty over European terri- taposition of two ethnic groups, a common feature of
tory was initially determined by church and dynastic European borderlands. It is also the most persistent,
settlements following periodic warfare and population intractable ethnic conflict at present within the Euro-
transfer. Indigenous majorities usually, albeit not nec- pean Community. As a result of the English coloniza-
essarily, formed the constituent population of essen- tion of Ireland, a process that was contemporary with
tially multiethnic states and often discriminated the English colonization of North America (see
against nonnationals. R. Sack, 1986, pp. 138-140), a major "shatter belt"
was created in Ulster. This belt divided Catholic from
Central to the process of legitimizing some cultures Protestant, Celt from Anglo-Saxon, the gavelkind
and alienating others has been the rise of the "territo- from the primogeniture inheritance system, and an
rial nation-state." Most histories of state formation agrarian economy from an industrial one (see T. Jor-
and nation building have involved the institutional dan, 1988, pp. 89-146, 393-407).
denial of minority rights-initially justified on reli-
gious grounds and more recently reflecting the exigen- A cultural border is evident in Belfast; the neighbor-
cies of state nationalism. During the period of hood divide equates to a national, if not an interna-
chauvinistic nationalism and state expansion- tional, divide. The divide is a permanent focus of
roughly 1789 to 1919-the destruction of-ethnic stress and violence because it is not only a place-
minority cultures was deemed a necessary concomi- specific frontier zone but also the cultural interface
tant of modernity and progress. As the uneven effects between two opposing systems. In an excellent over-
of capitalism penetrated into the marginal, ethnically view of the political geography of Belfast's main
differentiated peripheries of Europe, outmoded cul- troublespot, the Shankill-Falls divide, Boal and Liv-
tures were considered to be anathema to the realiza- ingstone (1983, pp. 138-58) examine the context in
tion of a fully integrated national market. "Nation which the conflict takes place.
states" often sought to socialize their citizenry through
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