POLS UN3619.

NATIONALISM AND CONTEMPORARY WORLD POLITICS

Spring 2022 -- Tuesdays and Thursdays, 10:10 a.m.-11:25 a.m.

Jack Snyder -- jls6@columbia.edu; office hours by appointment.
Teaching assistants: Ayrton Aubry aa4514@columbia.edu, Lawrence Fejokwu
lf2487@columbia.edu, Colleen Larkin csl2174@columbia.edu
9/10/2021

Themes: The causes and consequences of nationalism. Nationalism as a cause of

conflict in contemporary world politics. Strategies for mitigating nationalist and ethnic
conflict.

Requirements: (1) a take-home midterm exam, maximum 7 pages, distributed after class
on Thursday, Feb. 18, before the beginning of class on Tuesday, Feb. 23. (25% of your
final grade), (2) a term paper, about 15 pages, due on Friday, April 16, before 5 pm
(50%), (3) a take-home final exam, maximum 7 pages, distributed on Friday April 16
and due on Wednesday April 21 before 5 pm (25%), and (4) active, informed
participation in discussion sections, small group discussions, and class (borderline grade
tie-breaker). The normal format for the paper will be to use one or more case studies to
test a theoretically grounded hypothesis about nationalism or ethnic conflict. Historical
cases are appropriate, though their relevance to contemporary issues should be explained.
Students may do policy options papers, though these should be informed by relevant
theories. Paper proposals will be discussed in small groups with me or the teaching
assistants on or around March 11. Rough drafts of part of the paper will be discussed in
early April. Late take-home exams and papers will be penalized.

Readings: Required readings on electronic or physical reserve at Lehman Library. Some

supplementary readings are also on reserve either at Butler or Lehman. Asterisk (*)
indicates a paperback ordered at the Book Culture bookstore, 536 W. 112 St. Required
articles are on the Columbia library web course reserves. Some required chapters are
scanned and posted on the “files” section of courseworks. “Supplementary” readings are
mainly intended as suggestions for students doing term papers on the listed topic. While
doing the weekly readings, make sure that you are also getting a grounding in at least
three of the case studies that we will refer to frequently in class. Depending on how
much background knowledge you have, you may want to read ahead in some of the
works assigned in future weeks, in particular:

Rwanda: Power (Jan. 12); De Figueiredo and Weingast (Feb. 4); Straus (Feb. 4),
Prunier (Feb. 4).
Yugoslavia: Petersen (Jan. 26); Gagnon (Feb. 4); Woodward (Feb. 4).
India: Rudolph (Jan. 12); Horowitz (Feb. 11); Brass (Feb. 11); Varshney (Feb. 4);
Wilkinson (Feb. 4); Kohli (Feb. 18), Kumar (April 13).
China: Gries (Jan. 26; Weiss (Feb. 4).

Jan. 12 and 14. THE NATIONALIST REVIVAL AND CONTEMPORARY ETHNIC

CONFLICT.
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National identity, ethnicity, and nationalism: definitions, causes, and

consequences for conflict in today’s world. Why were the 1990s fraught with ethnic
conflict? What can be done about current and future conflicts?

REQUIRED:
Jill Lepore, “A New Americanism: Why a Nation Needs a National Story,”
Foreign Affairs 98:2 (March/April 2019), 10-19.
S. and L. Rudolph, "Modern Hate," New Republic, March 22, 1993. The Ayodya
mosque incident in India: it's not about ancient hatreds.
Samantha Power, A Problem from Hell: America and the Age of Genocide,
chapter 10 on the Rwanda genocide—or read Power, “Bystanders to Genocide: Why the
United States Let the Rwanda Tragedy Happen,” The Atlantic Monthly, September 2001.
*Michael Hechter, Containing Nationalism, ch. 1. What is nationalism?
Kanchan Chandra, "What is Ethnicity and Does It Matter?" Annual Review of
Political Science, 2006, Vol. 9: 397-424.

SUPPLEMENTARY:
Kanchan Chandra, ed., Constructivist Theories of Ethnic Politics, ch. 1-4.
Sumit Ganguly, “An Illiberal India?” Journal of Democracy 31:1 (January 2020),
pp. 193-202. Updates the Rudolphs’ story.

Jan. 19 and 21. COMPETING EXPLANATIONS FOR THE RISE OF NATIONALISM

To what extent is national identity rooted in pre-modern ties of community and

culture? To what extent is it a result of the transition to modernity? What features of
modernity shape nationalism: capitalism, industrialization, mass literacy, mass armies,
democratization, the modern state? How do those features interact with the pre-modern
legacy?

REQUIRED:
*Anthony D. Smith, The Ethnic Origins of Nations, ch. 1-3; browse the rest. Pre-
modern formative experiences that shape ethnic and national identities.
*Azar Gat, Nations, ch. 2, and browse. Kinship’s cultural consequences (e-book).
*Hechter, Containing Nationalism, ch. 2. Collective action, nationalism, the state
(e-book).
*Ernest Gellner, Nations and Nationalism, ch. 1-4 (7-8 supplementary). Modern
economies need a homogeneous culture, triggering a Darwinian struggle to see which
culture survives.

SUPPLEMENTARY:
Philip Roeder, Where Nation-States Come From, chapters 1 and 2. The administrative apparatus
of the state or a state-like territory comes first; preconditions for a successful nation (identity, resources,
grievances, popular mobilization, and international recognition) follow.
Andreas Wimmer, Nation Building: Why Some Countries Come Together While Others Fall
Apart (Princeton 2018), ch. 2. Social network theory applied to Switzerland and Belgium.
 3

E. Hobsbawm and T. Ranger, The Invention of Tradition, ch. 1 and 2. Nations seem old because
nationalists rewrite their history.
John Hall and I. Jarvie, eds., Transition to Modernity, ch. by Michael Mann, "The Emergence of
Modern European Nationalism," pp. 137-166. Repairs Gellner's theory: it’s commercial capitalism, not
industrialization.
E. Hobsbawm, Nations and Nationalism since 1780, ch. 1. The modernity of nations.
B. Posen, "Nationalism, the Mass Army and Military Power," International Security, fall 1993.
How the state fomented popular nationalism to mobilize mass armies. See also Charles Tilly, Coercion,
Capital, and European States, and Lars-Erik Cederman, T.C. Warren, and D. Sornette, “Testing
Clausewitz: Nationalism, Mass Mobilization, and the Severity of War,” International Organization, fall
2011.
Fredrik Barth, ed., Ethnic Groups and Boundaries, read Barth’s introduction. Divisions between
groups are not caused by cultural differences, but the reverse: groups occupying different ecological
niches produce cultural differences to help police boundaries.
Ryan Griffiths, Age of Secession: The International and Domestic Determinants of State Birth
(Cambridge University Press, 2016), extension of Roeder’s argument.
Kurt Weyland, “Firmer Roots of Ethnicity and Nationalism? New Historical Research and Its
Historical Research and Its Implications for Political Science,” Perspectives on Politics 19:2 (June 2021),
564-570, review of Helmut Walser Smith, Germany, A Nation in Its Time: Before, During, and After
Nationalism, 1500-2000, and John Connelly, From Peoples into Nations: A History of Eastern Europe.

Jan. 26 and 28. NATIONALISM: RATIONAL OR NON-RATIONAL?

Are national or ethnic political stances adopted for rational or non-rational

reasons? What is the relationship between instrumental rationality and cultural
motivations? Is ethnic war rational?

REQUIRED:
*Roger Petersen, Western Intervention in the Balkans: The Strategic Use of
Emotion in Conflict, skim chapter 1, read chapters 2, 3, 6, and browse 9-13, 15, 16, 18
(e-book).
James Habyarimana, Macartan Humphreys, Daniel Posner, and Jeremy
Weinstein, “Why Does Ethnicity Undermine Public Goods Provision?” American
Political Science Review, November 2007.
James Fearon, “Rationalist Explanations for War,” International Organization,
summer 1995.
Benjamin Valentino, Final Solutions, ch. 3 and 5 (e-book), condensed in Karen
Mingst and Jack Snyder, eds., Essential Readings in International Relations, 3rd edition,
368-388, on couseworks in files. Strategic reasons for mass killing.
Prerna Singh, "Subnationalism and Social Development: A Comparative Analysis
of Indian States," World Politics 67, no. 3 (July 2015): 506-562.

SUPPLEMENTARY:
Rogers Brubaker and David Laitin, “Ethnic and Nationalist Violence,” Annual
Review of Sociology, Vol 24 (1998): 423-452.
Lee Ann Fuji, “The Puzzle of Extra-Lethal Violence,” Perspectives on Politics, June 2013.
Roger Petersen, Understanding Ethnic Violence: Fear, Hatred, Resentment, ch. 1-4, 6, 10.
Marc Howard Ross, Cultural Contestation in Ethnic Conflict. Importance of narrative,
symbolism, and ritual performance in identity politics—parades, headscarves, statues, etc.
 4

Russell Hardin, One for All, esp. ch. 3 (library web). Self-interested reasons why individuals
come to identify with an ethnic group, and why cultural alignments can be rational. For background on
the theory, see Mancur Olson, Logic of Collective Action.
Ashutosh Varshney, “Nationalism, Ethnic Conflict, and Rationality,” Perspectives on Politics,
March 2003.
Page Fortna, “Do Terrorists Win?” International Organization 69:3 (Summer 2015), 519-56.
Max Abrahms, “Why Terrorism Does Not Work,” International Security, fall 2006. Max
Abrahms, “Why Democracies Make Superior Counterterrorists,” Security Studies 16:2 (April-June 2007),
223-253; also see special issue of Security Studies, Oct-Dec 2009, on motives for terrorism.
Andrew Kydd and Barbara Walter, “The Strategies of Terrorism,” International Security, summer
2006, 49-80. Rational bargaining and strategic approach. Andrew Kydd and Barbara Walter, “The Politics
of Extremist Violence,” International Organization, spring 2002. Rationalist theory of conditions under
which spoilers can wreck peace talks, leading to Palestinian-Israeli violence.
Peter Hays Gries, China’s New Nationalism: Pride, Politics, and Diplomacy, esp. chapters 1-3
(ch. 1 on library web). Face and humiliation. Also Suisheng Zhao, A Nation-State by Construction:
Dynamics of Modern Chinese Nationalism; Susan Shirk, China: Fragile Superpower; Christopher
Hughes, Chinese Nationalism in the Global Era.
Marilyn Brewer, “Ingroup Identification and Intergroup Conflict,” in Richard Ashmore et al,
Social Identity, Intergroup Conflict, and Conflict Resolution, 17-41 (ch. 2 on library web). Outgroup
comparisons may not cause conflict.
R. Abdelal, Y. Herrera, Iain Johnston, and R. McDermott, “Identity as a Variable,” Perspectives
on Politics (2006), 4:4:695-711; and Measuring Identity , ed. Rawi Abdelal, Yoshiko M. Herrera,
Alastair Iain Johnston, Rose McDermott.
Donna Bahry et al, “Ethnicity and Trust: Evidence from Russia,” American Political Science
Review, November 2005. People who trust insiders also trust outsiders.
Daniel Druckman, "Nationalism, Patriotism and Group Loyalty: A Social Psychological
Perspective," Mershon International Studies Review, April 1994. A host of hypotheses.
Walker Connor, Ethnonationalism, ch. 4 and 8. A cultural perspective stressing the non-rational,
non-material basis of ethnic loyalty.
Robert Bates (1973). Ethnicity in Contemporary Africa. Political economy theory.
Bates, R. (1983) ‘Modernization, Ethnic Competition, and the Rationality of Politics in
Contemporary Africa’, in Rothchild, D. and Olorunsola, V. (eds), State Versus Ethnic Claims: Africa
Policy Dilemmas (Boulder, Col.: Westview Press) pp. 152–71.

Feb. 2. INSECURITY: CAUSE OR EFFECT OF NATIONALISM?

What does realist international relations theory have to contribute to

understanding contemporary nationalist conflict? Does anarchy cause nationalism, or
vice-versa? What factors might mitigate the effects of anarchy on ethnic conflict?

REQUIRED:
Barry Posen, "The Security Dilemma and Ethnic Conflict," Survival, spring 1993.
D. Lake and D. Rothchild, “Containing Fear: The Origins and Management of
Ethnic Conflict,” International Security, fall 1996.
Stuart Kaufman, “Symbols, Frames, and Violence: Studying Ethnic War in the
Philippines,” International Studies Quarterly, Dec. 2011.

SUPPLEMENTARY:
R. Jervis, "Cooperation under the Security Dilemma," World Politics, January 1978.
A. Wendt, “Anarchy Is What States Make of It,” International Organization, spring 1992.
J. Mercer, "Anarchy and Identity," International Organization, spring 1995, psychological
interpretation of the security dilemma.
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James Fearon, “Ethnic War as a Commitment Problem,”

https://web.stanford.edu/group/fearon-research/cgi-bin/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/Ethnic-
War-as-a-Commitment-Problem.pdf. Similar argument to Posen, but from a bargaining perspective.
Arthur Stein, “Conflict and Cohesion,” Journal of Conflict Resolution, March 1976. Lit review:
external conflict increases internal cohesion only when the threat affects all group members, some
cohesion existed before the conflict, and group action can parry the threat.
Barbara Walter and J. Snyder, Civil Wars, Insecurity, and Intervention. Predators’ insecurity.
Virginia Page Fortna, Does Peacekeeping Work? Shaping Belligerents' Choices after Civil War,
chapters 1 and 5. How peacekeepers can solve the security dilemma.

Feb. 4 & 9. NATIONALISM: TOP DOWN OR BOTTOM UP?

Is nationalism sold to the masses by elites, or does it grow from grass roots
sentiments? If the elites sell it, why do the masses buy? What is the interaction between
top-down and bottom-up processes?

REQUIRED:
V. P. Gagnon, “Ethnic Nationalism and International Conflict: The Case of
Serbia,” International Security, winter 1994-95. Milosevic the cynical manipulator.
Why did it work?
R. de Figueiredo and B. Weingast, “The Rationality of Fear: Political
Opportunism and Ethnic Conflict,” in B. Walter and J. Snyder, Civil Wars, Insecurity,
and Intervention, ch. 8 (e-reserve). Why it can be a rational hedge to be loyal to
manipulators.
*Steven I. Wilkinson, Votes and Violence: Electoral Competition and Ethnic
Riots in India, chapters 1, 2, 5, and 6 (e-book). Using riots to polarize voters around
identity.
*Scott Straus, The Order of Genocide: Race, Power, and War in Rwanda, ch. 2-6
(e-book).
Eelco van der Maat, "Genocidal Consolidation: Final Solutions to Elite Rivalry,"
International Organization 74:4 (Fall 2020), 773-809.
Jessica Chen Weiss, “Authoritarian Signaling, Mass Audiences, and
Nationalist Protest,” International Organization 67:1 (Winter 2013), 1-35; book
version: Weiss, Powerful Patriots: Nationalist Protest in China’s Foreign Relations
(Oxford, 2014).
Alastair Iain Johnston, “Is Chinese Nationalism Rising?” International Security
41:3 (Winter 2016-17), 7-43.
Stacie Goddard, “Networks and Entrepreneurs in International Politics,”
International Theory, July 2009. Bismarck as brokering a nationalist network. See also
Stacie Goddard, "When Right Makes Might: How Prussia Overturned the European
Balance of Power," International Security 33, Winter 2008/09, pp. 110-42.

SUPPLEMENTARY:
J. Fearon and D. Laitin, “Violence and the Social Construction of Ethnic Identity,” International
Organization, autumn 2000. Rationalists attempt an empirical assessment of constructivist arguments.
Stuart Kaufman, “Spiraling to Ethnic War: Elites, Masses, and Moscow in Moldova’s Civil
War,” International Security, 21, no. 2 (Fall 1996), pp. 108-38; or Stuart Kaufman, Modern Hatreds, ch.
3-5, Karabakh, Georgia, and Moldova cases.
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Brett Fairbairn, “Interpreting Wilhelmine Elections: National Issues, Fairness Issues, and
Electoral Mobilization,” in Larry Eugene Jones and James N. Retallack, eds., Elections, Mass Politics,
and Social Change in Modern Germany: New Perspectives (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
1992), 22–30.
M. Brown and S. Ganguly, eds., Government Policies and Ethnic Relations in Asia and the
Pacific, ch. 1 on India, 3 on Sri Lanka, and/or 6 on Malaysia.
Gerard Prunier, Rwanda Crisis, esp. ch. 1, 5, and 7. Elites resist powersharing and civil society.
Suisheng Zhao, "A state-led nationalism: the patriotic education campaign in post-Tiananmen
China," Communist and Post-Communist Studies, vol. 31:3, Sept. 1998.
Rogers Brubaker et al, Nationalist Politics and Everyday Ethnicity in a Transylvanian Town.
V. P. Gagnon, The Myth of Ethnic War: Serbia and Croatia in the 1990s.
Jessica Chen Weiss and Allan Dafoe, “Authoritarian Audiences, Rhetoric, and Propaganda in
International Crises: Evidence from China,” International Studies Quarterly 63:4 (Dec. 2019), 963-974.
Benefits of bluster.

Feb. 11. MICRO-LEVEL CAUSES OF ETHNIC VIOLENCE

REQUIRED:
Donald Horowitz, The Deadly Ethnic Riot, ch. 13, “The Calculus of Passion,” e-
reserve.
Alexandra Scacco, “Who Riots? Explaining Individual Participation in Ethnic
Violence,” https://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.615.3726&rep=rep1&type=pdf .
Alexandra Scacco and Shana Warren, “Can Social Contact Reduce Prejudice and
Discrimination? Evidence from a Field Experiment in Nigeria,” American Political
Science Review 112:3 (August 2018), 654-677.

SUPPLEMENTARY:
Edward Aspinall, Islam and Nation: Separatist Rebellion in Aceh, Indonesia,
chapter 4, “Rural and Global Networks,” e-reserve.
Brass, Theft of an Idol. How local elites in India construct a system of ethnic
violence.
J. Fearon and D. Laitin, “Explaining Interethnic Cooperation,” American Political
Science Review, December 1996. Ethnic groups’ internal policing of their own thugs.
Macartan Humphreys and Jeremy Weinstein, "Who Fights?" American Journal of
Political Science, Vol. 52, No. 2, April 2008, 436-455.
Gerry van Klinken, Communal Violence and Democratization in Indonesia: Small Town
Wars (Routledge, 2007), esp. ch. 3, 5-7.
Stathis Kalyvas and M. Kocher, “How ‘Free’ Is Free Riding in Civil Wars?” World
Politics, Jan. 2007. Collective action in insurgency in Vietnam and Greece.
Stathis Kalyvas, “Ethnic Defection in Civil War,” Comparative Political Studies, Aug.
2008.

Feb. 16. NATIONALISM: MALLEABLE OR PERSISTENT

Once national identities and nationalism are forged, how malleable are they
through the impact of changing circumstances, incentives, or discourse?

REQUIRED:
*Liisa Malkki, Purity and Exile: Violence, Memory, and National Cosmology
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among Hutu Refugees in Tanzania, esp. ch. 3-5. After the 1972 genocide, refugees in
camps reinforced their identity myths, but those in towns blended in. Chapters 1 and 2
provide conceptual and historical background; a postscript describes the 1993-94 massive
ethnic violence in Burundi.
Daniel Posner, “The Political Salience of Cultural Difference: Why Chewas and
Tumbukas are Allies in Zambia and Adversaries in Malawi,” American Political Science
Review, 98, 4 (November 2004), pp. 529-545; or *Daniel Posner, Institutions and Ethnic
Politics in Africa, ch. 1-5.
D. Byman, “Forever enemies? The Manipulation of Ethnic Identities to End
Ethnic Wars,” Security Studies, spring 2000, revised as Byman, Keeping the Peace, ch.
5. Middle Eastern cases.
Rogers Brubaker, “Ethnicity without Groups,” chapter 2, pp. 34-52, in Andreas
Wimmer, ed., Facing Ethnic Conflicts.
Keith Darden and Anna Grzymala-Busse, “The Great Divide: Literacy,
Nationalism, and the Communist Collapse,” World Politics Vol 59, No 1 (2006): 83-115.
Keith Darden, “Resisting Occupation,”
https://keithdarden.files.wordpress.com/2009/11/book-overview.pdf

SUPPLEMENTARY:
Amy H. Liu and Jacob I. Ricks, “Coalitions and Language Politics: Policy Shifts in Southeast
Asia,” World Politics, July 2012.
David Laitin, Identity in Formation, chapters 1, 5, 6. Changing Russian identities in the newly
independent states of the former Soviet Union. A language-learning tipping game provides a formal,
rational model of identity change, supplemented by survey research and first-hand story telling.
R. Suny, Revenge of the Past. Historical construction of national identities in Russian and
Soviet empires; their emergence during the Soviet collapse.
Rashid Khalidi, Palestinian Identity: The Construction of Modern National Consciousness.
Michael Barnett, Dialogues in Arab Politics: Negotiations in Regional Order.
Michael E. Brown and S. Ganguly, Fighting Words: Language Policy and Ethnic Relations in
Asia. Why do states elites force language homogenization in school when it usually spurs backlash and
resentment?
Benn Eifert, Ted Miguel, and Dan Posner, “Political Competition and Ethnic Identification in
Africa,” American Journal of Political Science, April 2010. Ethnic identification spikes before close
elections, especially among second-generation migrants to the city.

TAKE-HOME MIDTERM EXAM: To be distributed at the end of class on Thursday,

Feb. 18, due at the beginning of class on Tuesday, Feb. 23. Page limit: 7 double-spaced
pages in 12-point Times New Roman font (i.e., exactly like this).

Feb. 18. NATIONALISM AND INSTITUTIONS: ETHNOFEDERALISM

How state institutions can structure politics in ways that favor ethnic political
identity and mobilization. Ethnofederal prescriptions in light of these findings.

REQUIRED:
*Rogers Brubaker, Nationalism Reframed, ch. 2, also in Brubaker, "Nationhood
and the National Question in the Soviet Union and Post-Soviet Eurasia: An
Institutionalist Account," Theory and Society, February 1994. Soviet ethnofederalism
created the impetus of its own demise.
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Valerie Bunce, Subversive Institutions, chapters 5 (e-reserve) and 6.

Ethnofederal structure broke up the USSR, Czechoslovakia, and Yugoslavia, but why the
varying amounts of wreckage?
*Hechter, Containing Nationalism, ch. 3, 4, 5, 7, 8. Direct rule over culturally
alien groups is the problem; ethnofederal indirect rule is the solution.
Dawn Brancati, “Decentralization: Fueling the Fire or Dampening the Flames of
Ethnic Conflict and Secessionism?” International Organization, summer 2006. Are state-
wide parties strong?
Frederick Cooper, Citizenship between empire and nation (2014), “Introduction.”
Adom Getachew, Worldmaking after Empire (2019), Chapter 1: “A political
theory of decolonization.”

SUPPLEMENTARY:
Atul Kohli, ed. The Success of India’s Democracy. Cambridge University Press, 2001, ch. 1 (e-
reserve). Federalism’s success in India.
Katharine Adeney, “Does ethnofederalism explain the success of Indian federalism?” India
Review 16(1), 2017, 125-148.
Bethany Lacina, Rival Claims: Ethnic Violence and Territorial Autonomy under Indian
Federalism (Michigan, 2017). Triangular relationship between the central government and neighboring
regional rival units.
Henry Hale, “Divided We Stand: Institutional Sources of Ethnofederal State Survival and
Collapse,” World Politics, January 2004.
J. Gerring et al, “An Institutional Theory of Direct and Indirect Rule,” World Politics, July 2011.
It depends on whether the subunit was already institutionalized before its state was.
Ted Gurr, Peoples Versus States, ch. 6, on ethnic autonomy agreements.
S. Cornell, “Autonomy as a Source of Conflict: Caucasian Conflicts in Theoretical
Perspective,” World Politics, January 2002.
P. Roeder, "Soviet Federalism and Ethnic Mobilization," World Politics (January 1991). Similar
argument to Brubaker’s.
J. Linz and A. Stepan, "Political Identities and Electoral Sequences: Spain, the Soviet Union,
and Yugoslavia," Daedalus, 121, Spring 1992. Founding elections, if done correctly, can create cross-
cutting or inclusive identities that help federalism to be successful.
Philip Roeder, Where Nation-States Come From, chapters 1 and 2, and browse. The
administrative apparatus of the state or a state-like segment comes first; preconditions for a successful
nation (identity, resources, grievances, popular mobilization, and international recognition) follow.
Michael Hechter, Alien Rule.

Feb. 23. NATIONALISM: CIVIC OR ETHNIC

Types of nationalism, especially civic and ethnic nationalism; their causes and
consequences. Multiculturalism and hybrid types. Civic integration of immigrants.

REQUIRED:
A. Smith, "Ethnic Identity and Territorial Nationalism in Comparative
Perspective," in Alexander Motyl, Thinking Theoretically about Soviet Nationalities, ch.
3, pp. 45-51, 61-62 (courseworks files). Western civic state-building vs. Eastern
ethnocultural nationalism.
Stephen Shulman, “Challenging the Civic/Ethnic and West/East Dichotomies in
the Study of Nationalism,” Comparative Political Studies, June 2002.
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Will Kymlicka, Multicultural Citizenship: A Liberal Theory of Minority Rights,

chapter 5, “Freedom and Culture,” pp. 75-106 (courseworks files). Chapter 3 is also
relevant (e-book).
Jeremy Waldron, “Minority Cultures and the Cosmopolitan Alternative,” in Will
Kymlicka, ed., The Rights of Minority Cultures, 93-122.

AND READ EITHER ONE OF THESE:

Jens Hainmueller, D. Hangartner, G. Pietrantuono, “Catalyst or Crown: Does
Naturalization Promote the Long-Term Social Integration of Immigrants? American
Political Science Review 111:2 (May 2017), 256-276.
Tabitha Bonilla and Alvin B. Tillery, “Which Identity Frames Boost Support for
and Mobilization in the #BlackLivesMatter Movement?” American Political Science
Review 114:4 (November 2020), 947-962.

SUPPLEMENTARY:
Rafaela Dancygier, Immigration and Conflict in Europe (Cambridge, 2010), ch. 1; Dilemmas of
Inclusion: Muslims in European Politics (2017), both available as ebooks.
Sara Wallace Goodman, “Fortifying Citizenship: Policy Strategies for Civic Integration in
Western Europe,” World Politics, October 2012.
Lauren M McLaren, “The Cultural Divide in Europe: Migration, Multiculturalism, and Political
Trust,” World Politics, April 2012.
Amanda Lea Robinson, “National Versus Ethnic Identification in Africa: Modernization,
Colonial Legacy, and the Origins of Territorial Nationalism,” World Politics, October 2014.
E. Gellner, "Nationalism in the Vacuum," in Motyl, Thinking Theoretically about Soviet
Nationalities, ch. 10. In an institutional vacuum, people form groups based on ethnicity and culture by
default.
Rogers Brubaker, Citizenship and Nationhood in France and Germany. Historical origins of
civic France, ethnic Germany.
Alan Patten, “Rethinking Culture: The Social Lineage Account,” American Political Science
Review, November 2011. Proposes a way to escape the paradox of multiculturalism: does it make sense
unless it essentializes culture, in which case it’s empirically and ethically unsustainable?
Paul M. Sniderman and Louk Hagendoorn, When Ways of Life Collide: Multiculturalism and Its
Discontents in the Netherlands (Princeton University Press, 2007); Sniderman, Paul M., Louk
Hagendoorn, and Markus Prior. 2004. Predisposing Factors and Situational Triggers: Exclusionary
Reactions to Immigrant Minorities. American Political Science Review 98(1): 35-49.
Jacobs, Dirk and Andrea Rea. 2007. “The end of national models? Integration courses and
citizenship trajectories in Europe,” International Journal on Multicultural Societies 9 (2): 264-283, and if
you want underlying theory, also read Joppke, C. 2008. “Immigration and the identity of citizenship: The
paradox of universalism.” Citizenship Studies 12 (6): 533-546. Joppke, Christian. 2005. Exclusion in the
Liberal State: the Case of Immigration and Citizenship Policy. European Journal of Social Theory 8(1):
43-61.
Yael Tamir, Liberal Nationalism. Ethnic nationalism can be civic, too. Sammy Smooha,
“Ethnic Democracy: Israel as an Archetype,” Israel Studies 2:2 (Fall 1997), 198-241; Ruth Gavison,
“Jewish and Democratic? A Rejoinder to the ‘Ethnic Democracy’ Debate,” Israel Studies 4:1 (1999) 44-
52.
Judith Kelley, “International Actors on the Domestic Scene: Membership Conditionality and
Socialization by International Institutions,” International Organization, summer 2004, 425-458. Inducing
states to adopt civic principles.

Feb. 25. SOCIAL SCIENCE METHODS AND THE STUDY OF NATIONALISM

Read at least one or two of these:

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ESPECIALLY USEFUL FOR YOUR PURPOSES:

Stephen Van Evera, Guide to Methods for Students of Political Science, ch. 1-2
(on e-reserve).
James Mahoney, “Process Tracing and Historical Explanation,” Security Studies,
April-June 2015, on “hoop tests” and “smoking guns.”
Andrew Bennett and Jeffrey Checkel, eds., Process Tracing: From Metaphor to
Analytic Tool, esp. Schimmelpfennig, “Efficient Process Tracing,” (e-book, 2014).

SUPPLEMENTARY:
Gary King, Robert Keohane, and Sidney Verba, Designing Social Inquiry, ch. 1,
widely used social science methods text (e-book).
James Mahoney, "After KKV: The New Methodology of Qualitative Research,"
World Politics 62:1 (Jan. 2010), pp. 120-147,
http://www.jamesmahoney.org/articles/After%20KKV.pdf
Rawi Abdelal, Yoshiko M. Herrera, Alastair Iain Johnston, and Rose McDermott,
“Identity as a Variable” Perspectives on Politics Vol 4, No 4 (2006): 695-711.
Henry Brady and David Collier, Rethinking Social Inquiry. Qualitative and
mixed-methods critique of and amendment to KKV.

March 2 and 4. NO CLASS. SPRING BREAK.

March 9. NATIONALISM AND DEMOCRATIZATION.

President Clinton urged promoting democratization to promote peace, but might

democratic transitions instead promote nationalism and war? Since its earliest
appearance in 18th century England and France, nationalism has been associated with the
idea of popular sovereignty. Increases in mass involvement in politics have been linked
to aggressive nationalism, as in pre-1914 Germany. Will “the democratic peace” survive
in a world of ethnodemocracies?

REQUIRED:
F. Zakaria, “The Rise of Illiberal Democracy,” Foreign Affairs, Nov. 1997.
*J. Snyder, From Voting to Violence: Democratization and Nationalist Conflict,
chapter 1. Watch out for the early stages of democratic transitions.

SUPPLEMENTARY:
Megan Turnbull, “Elite Competition, Social Movements, and Election Violence in Nigeria,”
International Security 45:3 (Winter 2020/21).
Stefano Recchia, “Should Humanitarian Interveners Promote Democracy after Genocide?”
International Theory 10:1 (March 2018), 1-30.
Carles Boix, “The Roots of Democracy,” Policy Review, February/March 2006, 3-21.
T. Gurr, Peoples Versus States, ch. 5. Successful democratic transitions eased ethnic conflict in
the 1990s, but failed transitions have exacerbated them.
S. Woodward, Balkan Tragedy, ch. 5 on democratization and the Yugoslav break-up.
M. McFaul, “The Precarious Peace,” International Security, winter 1997-98. Why nationalism
remained relatively tame in democratizing Russia under Yeltsin.
 11

Edward Freedman and B. McCormick, What If China Doesn’t Democratize? Implications for War
and Peace. Contributors debate whether democratization or authoritarianism would pose a greater risk of
war.
Michael Doyle, "Liberalism and World Politics," American Political Science Review (December
1986).
Hurst Hannum, Autonomy, Sovereignty, and Self-Determination. A lawyer looks at the right to
national self-determination and ethnic conflict.

March 11. NO CLASS. SMALL GROUP MEETINGS.

Meet in small groups with me or your TA at a mutually convenient time during

this week OR BEFORE to discuss your term paper proposal. The proposal should be
about three pages. Generally speaking, it should state (1) what question you are asking,
(2) why it is important for theory and/or policy, (3) what hypothesis you expect to
advance, (4) what alternative hypotheses you will address, and (5) what evidence you
will examine to test your argument. Provide footnotes or reference list.

March 16. NATIONALISM AND THE MARKETPLACE OF IDEAS

The printing press, mass circulation newspapers, the railroads, and public
education knit together the national consciousness. Often, nationalist propaganda
exploited these tools to sell nationalist myths and aggressive foreign policies. Do present
technologies of communication and propaganda promote or undermine nationalism?
What role do intellectuals play? How should the marketplace of ideas be structured to
make sure that nationalist arguments are scrutinized in open, fair public debate?

REQUIRED:
*Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities, ch. 1-3 (e-book).
Jack Snyder and Karen Ballentine, “Nationalism and the Marketplace of Ideas,”
International Security, fall 1996.
Yochai Benkler et al, Network Propaganda, chapter 3, “The Propaganda
Feedback Loop” (e-book).
Scott Straus, “What Is the Relationship between Hate Radio and Violence? Rethinking
Rwanda's ‘Radio Machete’,” Politics & Society, Vol. 35, No. 4 (2007), 609-637.
Shibley Telhami, The World Through Arab Eyes, ch. 2-3 (e-book).
Jessica Chen Weiss, “Authoritarian Signaling, Mass Audiences, and Nationalist Protest
in China,” International Organization, winter 2013.
Jan H. Pierskalla and Florian H. Hollenbach, “Technology and Collective Action: The
Effect of Cell Phone Coverage on Political Violence in Africa,” American Political Science
Review, May 2013.
Francis Fukuyama, Barak Richman, and Ashish Goel, “How to Save Democracy
From Technology: Ending Big Tech’s Information Monopoly,” Foreign Affairs
(January/February 2021).

SUPPLEMENTARY CASE STUDY: THE DEBATE ON THE IRAQ WAR

Chaim Kaufmann, “Threat Inflation and the Failure of the Marketplace of Ideas:
The Selling of the Iraq War,” International Security, summer 2004.
 12

Ronald Krebs, “Selling the Market Short?” International Security, spring 2005,
and rebuttal by Kaufmann.

SUPPLEMENTARY:
Cass Sunstein, #Republic: Divided Democracy in the Age of Social Media (Princeton 2017).
*J. Snyder, From Voting to Violence: Democratization and Nationalist Conflict, chapter 2, and
sections on media: pp. 121-128, 146-149, 154-157, 213-220, 235-237, 242-250, 334-338.
Margaret E. Roberts, Censored: Distraction and Diversion inside China’s Great Firewall.
Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2018.
Susan L. Shirk, ed., Changing Media, Changing China (Oxford, 2011), ch. 1.
Marc Lynch, “After Egypt: The Limits and Promise of Online Challenges to the Authoritarian
Arab State,” Perspectives on Politics, June 2011.
Jenifer Whitten-Woodring, “Watchdog or Lapdog? Media Freedom, Regime Type, and
Government Respect for Human Rights,” International Studies Quarterly, September 2009).
Eugene L. Meyer, “Media Codes of Ethics: The Difficulty of Defining Standards,” National
Endowment for Democracy, November 2011, at http://www.ciaonet.org/wps/ned/0023616/index.html.
S. Della Vigna et al, “Unintended Media Effects in a Conflict Environment: Serbian Radio and
Croatian Nationalism,” at http://elsa.berkeley.edu/~sdellavi/wp/Croatian_paper_11_04_20.pdf
Miroslav Hroch, Social Preconditions of National Revival in Europe, ch. 6-7 and browse. Stages
in the development of nationalist movements in small European states: cultural revival by intellectuals,
creating a political doctrine, and mass mobilization.
K. Deutsch, Nationalism and Social Communication. The race between assimilation and
mobilization during modernization.
T. Camber Warren, “Not by the Sword Alone: Soft Power, Mass Media, and the Production of
State Sovereignty,” International Organization 68:1 (Winter 2014), 111-142.
P. Kennedy, "The Decline of Nationalistic History in the West, 1900-1970," Journal of
Contemporary History (January 1973), pp. 77-100.
I. B. Colley, "Whose Nation? Class and National Consciousness in Britain, 1750-1830," Past
and Present (November 1986), 97-117; also Colley, Britons: Forging the Nation, 1707-1837. Penny
press, railroads, war.
K. Verdery, National Ideology under Socialism: Identity and Cultural Politics in Ceaucescu's
Romania. Nationalism sold well in the marketplace, socialism didn’t.
J. S. Mill, On Liberty, part 2. Structure the marketplace so that truth will emerge from open
debate.
J. Habermas, “Discourse Ethics,” in J. Thompson and D. Held, Habermas: Critical Debates.
Rules of discourse for the emergence of consensus based on fair, reasonable discussion.
Markus Prior, Post-Broadcast Democracy: How Media Choice Increases
Inequality in Political Involvement and Polarizes Elections (New York: Cambridge
University Press, 2007).

March 18. NATIONALISM, DOMINATION, INEQUALITY, AND ECONOMIC

HARD TIMES.

REQUIRED:
Donald Horowitz, Ethnic Groups in Conflict, ch. 4, pp. 143-9, 166-171. Cultural
comparison as a cause of ethnic conflict.
*Peter Gourevitch, Politics in Hard Times, ch. 3-4. Nationalist versus liberal,
free-trading domestic political coalitions in times of depression in the late 19th and early
20th century.
Edward D. Mansfield and Diana C. Mutz, “US vs. Them: Mass Attitudes toward
Offshore Outsourcing,” World Politics, Oct. 2013. It’s all about nationalism, not
economic interest.
 13

*M. Hechter, Containing Nationalism, ch. 6.

SUPPLEMENTARY:
Lars-Erik Cederman, Andreas Wimmer, and Brian Min, “Why Do Ethnic Groups Rebel?” World
Politics, January 2010. When they’re excluded from power and can mobilize to do something about it.
Christian Houle, “Ethnic Inequality and the Dismantling of Democracy: A Global Analysis,”
World Politics 67:3 (July 2015), 469-505.
Lars-Erik Cederman, N. Weidmann, and K. Gleditsch, “Horizontal Inequalities and
Ethnonationalist Civil War: A Global Comparison,” American Political Science Review, August 2011.
Raphael Franck and Ilia Rainer, “Does the Leader’s Ethnicity Matter? Ethnic Favoritism,
Education, and Health in Sub-Saharan Africa,” American Political Science Review, May 2012.
Karl Polanyi, The Great Transformation, chapters 1-4, 18-21. How the contradiction between
mass politics and unregulated markets gave rise to fascism and imperialism in the first half of the
twentieth century.
Miles Kahler and David Lake, Politics in the New Hard Times: The Great Recession in
Comparative Perspective (e-book).
Joel Hellman, “Winners Take All: The Politics of Partial Reform in Post-Communist Transitions,”
World Politics 50:2 (January 1998), 203-234.
Anthony Marx, Making Race and Nation, chapters 1, 5, 7, on South Africa and Brazil. Coalition
politics and the legal codification of racial domination.
Daniel J. Hopkins, “Politicized Places: Explaining Where and When Immigrants Provoke Local
Opposition,” American Political Science Review, February 2010.
T. Gurr, States Versus Peoples, ch. 3-4. Discrimination causes ethnic conflict, but only if
disadvantaged groups have the capacity to take action.
Ches Thurber, “Social Ties and the Strategy of Civil Resistance,” International Studies
Quarterly December 2019, 974-986. Well-networked Gandhians fight and isolated Maoists sue for peace.
W. Connor, Ethnonationalism, ch. 6. Also available as Connor, "Eco- or Ethno-Nationalism?"
Ethnic and Racial Studies 7 (1984), 342-59. Why economic explanations fail.
Stephen Shulman, “Nationalist Sources of International Economic Integration,” International
Studies Quarterly, vol. 44 (2000), pp. 365-390. Free trade as a route to national autonomy in Quebec,
Ukraine, and India.
Minxin Pei, China’s Crony Capitalism: The Dynamics of Regime Decay, excerpted in The
National Interest, October 2, 2016.
Etel Solingen, Regional Orders at Century’s Dawn, ch. 2. Internationalist versus nationalist
coalitions, includes Middle East case.
Elise Giuliano, Constructing Grievance: Ethnic Nationalism in Russia’s Republics.

March 23. NATIONALISM AND POPULISM.

REQUIRED:
Cas Mudde, “The Populist Zeitgeist,” Government and Opposition vol. 39, no. 4
(2004).
Ernesto Dal Bó, Frederico Finan, et al, “Economic Losers and Political Winners:
Sweden’s Radical Right,” August 2018.
Walter Russell Mead, “The Jacksonian tradition and American foreign policy,”
The National Interest, Winter 1999/2000.
Alastair Iain Johnston, “Is Chinese Nationalism Rising?” International Security
41:3 (Winter 2016-17), 7-43.
Dani Rodrik, "Why Does Globalization Fuel Populism? Economics, Culture, and
the Rise of Right-wing Populism" (2020) http://www.nber.org/papers/w27526.
 14

Paulo Gaubardo, “Social Media and Populism: An Elective Affinity?” Media,

Culture & Society 2018, Vol. 40(5) :745–753.

SUPPLEMENTARY:
Italo Colantone and Piero Stanig, “The Surge of Economic Nationalism in
Western
Europe,” Journal of Economic Perspectives 33:4 (Fall 2019), 128–151,
https://doi.org/10.1257/jep.33.4.128.
Rogers Brubaker (2017) “Between nationalism and civilizationism: the
European populist moment in comparative perspective,” Ethnic and Racial Studies, 40:8,
1191-1226, DOI: 10.1080/01419870.2017.1294700.
Christopher de Bellaigue, “Welcome to demokrasi: how Erdogan got more
popular than ever,” The Guardian, August 30, 2016.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/aug/30/welcome-to-demokrasi-how-erdogan-
got-more-popular-than-ever
Wenfang Tang, Populist Authoritarianism: Chinese Political Culture and Regime Sustainability
(Oxford, 2016), pp. 5-12, ch. 3 on nationalism (pp. 42-57), ch. 9 on populist authoritarianism (pp. 152-
166).
Marlene Laruelle, “Is Nationalism a Force for Change in Russia?” Daedalus 146:2 (Spring
2017), 89-101.
Cas Mudde and Cristóbal Rovira Kaltwasser, eds., Populism in Europe and the Americas: Threat
or Corrective for Democracy? (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012). Ebook. Read selectively
according to your interest.
Benjamin Moffitt, The Global Rise of Populism: Performance, Political Style, and
Representation (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2016), 44–45
Walter Russell Mead, Special Providence: American Foreign Policy and How it Changed the
World (New York: Routledge, 2002).
Anatol Lieven, America Right or Wrong: An Anatomy of American Nationalism (New York:
Oxford University Press, 2004).
Jack Snyder, “The Modernization Trap,” The Journal of Democracy, April 2017, on populist
nationalism.
Matt Golder, “Far Right Parties in Europe,” Annual Review of Political Science 19 (2016), 477-
498.
Jan Rovny, “Where Do Radical Right Parties Stand? Position Blurring in Multidimensional
Competition,” European Political Science Review 5 (March 2013): 1–26.
Alastair Iain Johnston, “How New and How Assertive is China’s New Assertiveness?”
International Security, spring 2013, 7-48.
Dingding Chen and Xiaoyu Pu, and Alastair Iain Johnston, “Debating China’s Assertiveness,”
International Security, winter 2013-14, 176-183.
Andrew Nathan, “The Puzzle of the Chinese Middle Class,” Journal of Democracy April 2016,
5-19.

March 25. MIGRATION, DIASPORAS & NATIONALISM

REQUIRED:
Diana Mutz, “Status Threat, Not Economic Hardship, Explains the 2016
Presidential Vote,” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (May 2018),
https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1718155115 .
Stephanie Schwartz, “Home, Again: Refugee Return and Post-Conflict Violence
in Burundi,” International Security 44:2 (Fall 2019).
Matthijs Rooduijn, “What unites the voter bases of populist parties? Comparing
 15

the electorates of 15 populist parties,” European Political Science Review (2018), 10:3,
351–368.

SUPPLEMENTARY:
Schaffner, Banting K.G. (2015) "Migration, Diversity, and the Welfare State." In: Bean F.,
Brown S. (eds) Encyclopedia of Migration. Springer, Dordrecht.
https://link.springer.com/referenceworkentry/10.1007%2F978-94-007-6179-7_114-1  
MacWilliams, Nteta. 2018. "Understanding White Polarization in the 2016 Vote for President:
The Sobering Role of Racism and Sexism." https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/polq.12737  
Castles, Steven & Alastair Davidson. 2000. Citizenship & Migration: Globalization and the
Politics of Belonging. (New York: Routledge), Chapters 1 & 3. Overview of transnationalism concepts
with respect to nations, states and citizens; brief descriptions of key cases.
Anna Zamora-Kapoor, Francisco Javier Moreno Fuentes & Martin Schain (2017) "Race and
ethnicity in context: international migration, political mobilization, and the welfare state." Ethnic and
Racial Studies, 40:3, 353-368 https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/01419870.2016.1227078 
Oesch, Daniel. 2008. "Explaining Workers Support for Right-Wing Populist Parties in Western
Europe: Evidence from Austria, Belgium, France, Norway, and Switzerland."
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0192512107088390  
Eger, Maureen A. "Even in Sweden: The Effect of Immigration on Support for Welfare State
Spending." European Sociological Review 26, no.2 (April 2010): Pages 203-
217. doi:10.1093/esr/jcp017  
Mau, Steffen, and Christoph Burkhardt. “Migration and Welfare State Solidarity in Western
Europe.” Journal of European Social Policy 19, no. 3 (July 2009): 213–29.
doi:10.1177/0958928709104737.
Becker, Sasha O., Thiemo Fetzer, Dennis Novy, Manuel Funke, Christoph Trebesch, Lewis
Davis, Sumit S. Deole, Carl C. Berning, Alkis Henri Otto, Max Friedrich Steinhardt, Andreas
Steinmayr, Anthony Edo, Jonathan Öztunc, Panu Poutvaara. "Forum: Determinants of Populist Voting."
ifo Dice Report 15, no. 4 (Winter 2017): 3 -33. https://www.cesifo-group.de/DocDL/dice-report-2017-4-
onlineversion-december.pdf
Nikhar Gaikwad, and Gareth Nellis, "The Majority-Minority Divide in Attitudes toward Internal
Migration: Evidence from Mumbai," American Journal of Political Science 61:2 (2017): 456-472. Safety
in numbers.
Lachlan McNamee, “Mass Resettlement and Political Violence: Evidence from Rwanda,”
World Politics 70:4 (October 2018), 595-644.
Wayland, Sarah. 2004. “Ethnonationalist Networks and Transnational Opportunities: The Sri
Lankan Tamil Diaspora.” Review of International Studies 30(03). The role of nationalism among co-
ethnics abroad affecting host-country and homeland outcomes.
Lyons-Padilla, Sarah, Michele J Gelfand, Hedieh Mirahmadi, Mehreen Farooq and Marieke van
Egmond. 2015. “Belonging nowhere: Marginalization & radicalization risk among Muslim immigrants.”
Behavioral Science & Policy 1(2):1–12. The loss of nationalist belonging as an opportunity for
radicalization.
Castles, S., & Schierup, C. (2010-07-15). "Migration and Ethnic Minorities." In The Oxford
Handbook of the Welfare State. Oxford University Press, Retrieved 12 Jan. 2019, from
http://www.oxfordhandbooks.com/view/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199579396.001.0001/oxfordhb-
9780199579396-e-19 
Yossi Shain and Aharon Barth, “Diasporas and International Relations Theory,” International
Organization, summer 2003. Case studies: Armenians and Jews. See also Fiona B. Adamson and
Madeleine Demetriou, “Remapping the Boundaries of `State' and `National Identity': Incorporating
Diasporas into IR Theorizing,” European Journal of International Relations, Vol. 13, No. 4, 489-526
(2007), Gabriel Sheffer, Diaspora Politics, ch. 8; Paul Hockenos, Homeland Calling: Exile Patriotism
and the Balkan Wars. Riva Kastoryano. "Transnational Nationalism: Redefining Nation and Territory,"
pp. 159-178, in Seyla Benhabib, Ian Shapiro and Danilo Petranovich, eds. Identities, Affiliations,
Allegiances. Cambridge University Press (2007).  Mearsheimer, John J., and Stephen M. Walt. 2006.
“The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy.” Middle East Policy 13(3): 29–87.
 16

March 30. RELIGION, NATIONALISM, AND THE STATE

REQUIRED:
*Mark Juergensmeyer, Global Rebellion: Religious Challenges to the Secular
State, from Christian Militias to al Qaeda , esp. pp. 9-17, 26-36, 46-77, 205-211 (e-
book). What seems like fundamentalist transnationalism is actually state-building
nationalism. Middle East and India.
Anthony Marx, Faith in Nation: Exclusionary Origins of Nationalism, chapter 3
in e-book via e-reserves. Nationalism even in “civic” nations started off with 17th
century religious exclusions.
Ron Hassner, War on Sacred Grounds, chapters 3 and 7, pp. 37-50, 113-133,
courseworks files.
Rogers Brubaker, “Religion and Nationalism: Four Approaches,” Nations and
Nationalism, Jan. 2012.

SUPPLEMENTARY:
Fredrik Barth, “Are Islamists Nationalists or Internationalists?” in Kjell
Goldmann, U. Hannerz, and C. Westin, Nationalism and Internationalism in the Post-
Cold War Era, e-reserve by title.
John F. McCauley, “The Political Mobilization of Ethnic and Religious Identities
in Africa,” American Political Science Review, November 2014. An experiment.
Gill, A. Ch. 1 “Introduction: Of Liberty, Laws, Religion, and Regulation” in The
Political Origins of Religious Liberty. Cambridge,
2008.  http://books.google.com/books/about/The_Political_Origins_of_Religious_Liber.h
tml?id=C2CTaVCO-sgC. Rationalist explanation of why and how states regulate
religious practices within their borders. (For a broader contextualization of the 'economic'
approach to the study of religion see Gill 2001 in suggested reading.)
Trejo, G. (2009) “Religious Competition and Ethnic Mobilization in Latin
America: Why the Catholic Church Promotes Indigenous Movements in
Mexico,” American Political Science Review, 103(3).  In this model, churches are like
firms in a market competing for converts; changes in 'religious market structures'
influence politics indirectly. 
McCauley, J. (2013). Africa's new big man rule? Pentecostalism and patronage in
Ghana. African Affairs, 112(446), 1-21. http://scholar.google.com/scholar?
q=mccauley+pentecostal+2013&btnG=&hl=en&as_sdt=0%2C5. Pentecostalism
emerges in Africa to fill voids left by the state. Uses game theoretic experiments to
compare the relational dynamics between Pentecostal preachers, traditional chiefs, and
other religious leaders with their respective followers. 
Monica Toft and Yuri Zhukov, “Islamists and Nationalists: Rebel Motivation and
Counterinsurgency in Russia’s North Caucasus,” American Political Science Review
109:2 (May 2015), 222-238.
Andrew Preston, Sword of the Spirit, Shield of Faith (Knopf 2012), 3-14. US
Evangelicals.

April 1. MILITARY CONFLICT AND NATIONALIZING STATES.

 17

When nationalist movements are mobilized, what strategic and demographic

circumstances promote armed conflict? In cases where ethnonational states have pockets
of co-ethnics abroad, what determines whether an irredentist conflict will occur?

REQUIRED:
*R. Brubaker, Nationalism Reframed, ch. 3, 4, and 6. Chapter 3 is also available
as R. Brubaker, “National Minorities, Nationalizing States, and External Homelands in
the New Europe,” Daedalus, spring 1995.
Timothy W. Crawford, “Pivotal Deterrence and the Kosovo War: Why the
Holbrooke Agreement Failed,” Political Science Quarterly, Winter 2001-2002, pp. 499-
523. The difficulty of simultaneously deterring both sides in a conflict.
John Mueller, “The Banality of Ethnic War,” International Security, summer
2000. The problem is neither elites nor masses, but gangs of thugs who profit from the
fighting.

SUPPLEMENTARY:
Stephen Van Evera, “Hypotheses on Nationalism and War,” International Security, spring 1994.
When does nationalism cause war, when not?
Nicholas Sambanis, Stergios Skaperdas, and William Wohlforth, “Nation-Building through
War,” American Political Science Review 109:2 (May 2015), 279-296.
Adam Kocher, Adria Lawrence, and Nuno Monteiro, “Nationalism, Collaboration, and
Resistance: France under Nazi Occupation,” International Security 43:2 (fall 2018), 117-150.
H. E. Goemans and Kenneth Schultz, “The Politics of Territorial Claims: A Geospatial
Approach Applied to Africa,” International Organization 71:1 (Winter 2017), 31-64.
Adria Lawrence, "Triggering Nationalist Violence: Competition and Conflict in Uprisings
against Colonial Rule," International Security, Vol, 35, No. 2, Fall 2010, pp. 88-122 or Adria Lawrence,
Imperial Rule and the Politics of Nationalism, excerpts.
Monica Toft, “Indivisible Territory, Geographic Concentration, and Ethnic War,” Security
Studies, Winter 2002/2003, pp. 82-119. When both sides see a piece of territory as crucial to their
survival, watch out.
Fotini Christia, Alliance Formation in Civil Wars. Strategic imperatives shape identity rhetoric.
Arman Grigoryan, “Third Party Intervention and the Escalation of State-Minority Conflicts,”
International Studies Quarterly, December 2010, vol. 54, pp. 1143-1174.
Timothy Crawford and Alan Kuperman, eds., Gambling on Humanitarian Intervention: Moral
Hazard, Rebellion and Civil War.
L-E Cederman et al, “Transborder Ethnic Kin and Civil War,” International Organization, spring
2013.
Saumitra Jha and Steven Wilkinson, “Does Combat Experience Foster Organizational Skill?
Evidence from Ethnic Cleansing during the Partition of South Asia,” American Political Science Review,
November 2012.
Enze Han and Harris Mylonas, “Interstate Relations, Perceptions, and Power Balance:
Explaining China’s Policies Toward Ethnic Groups, 1949-1965,” Security Studies, 23:1 (Jan.-March
2014), 148-181.
Costantino Pischedda, Conflict Among Rebels: Why Insurgent Groups Fight Each Other
(Columbia, 2020), or his “Wars within Wars: Why Windows of Opportunity and Vulnerability Cause
Inter-rebel Fighting in Internal Conflicts,” International Security (2018).

April. 6 and 8. POWERSHARING, CROSS-CUTTING ALIGNMENTS, OR

REPRESSION?
 18

To mitigate ethnic conflict within a society, is it better to give each ethnic group a
share of state power, or is it better to create electoral incentives to forge political
alliances that cut across cultural lines? Or is repression the less attractive, but more
reliable route to stability?

REQUIRED:
J. Montville, Conflict and Peacemaking in Multiethnic Societies, ch. 25,
Horowitz, “Making Moderation Pay,” contrasting Malaysia and Sri Lanka, and ch. 27,
Lijphart on powersharing (on courseworks).
Sujit Choudry, Constitutional Design for Divided Societies, chapters 1, 2, and 8.
Arend Lijphart, Power-Sharing in South Africa (1985), exact selections to come
later.
I. Lustick, "Stability in deeply divided societies: consociationalism versus
control," World Politics, April 1979.

SUPPLEMENTARY:
Kanchan Chandra, “Ethnic Parties and Democratic Stability,” Perspectives on Politics, June
2005, 235-252.
*Philip Roeder and Donald Rothchild, Sustainable Peace: Power and Democracy after Civil
War, read overview chapters 1 and 2, and browse 5 (Lake and Rothchild on decentralization), 7 (Reilly
on electoral rules), 9 (Lebanon), and 10 (Varshney on India).
Thad Dunning and Janhavi Nilekani, “Ethnic Quotas and Political Mobilization: Caste, Parties,
and Distribution in Indian Village Councils,” American Political Science Review, February 2013.
Mala Htun, “Is Gender like Ethnicity? The Political Representation of Identity Groups,”
Perspectives on Politics, September 2004, 439-458.
Thad Dunning and Lauren Harrison, “Cross-cutting Cleavages and Ethnic Voting: An
Experimental Study of Cousinage in Mali,” American Political Science Review, February 2010.
D. Byman, Keeping the Peace, ch. 3, on the control model, and ch. 9, on sequencing of different
strategies of conflict prevention.
Donald Horowitz, A Democratic South Africa? Constitutional Engineering in a Divided
Society, ch. 5, 6. Electoral schemes for encouraging cross-ethnic coalitions. See also D. Horowitz,
Ethnic Groups in Conflict, ch. 7-10.
Benjamin Reilly, “Electoral Systems for Divided Societies,” Journal of Democracy, April 2002.
Cases studies where Horowitz’s prescription was tried; verdict: it worked where moderate factions
already existed.
Arend Lijphart, “The Alternative Vote: A Realistic Alternative for South Africa?” Politikon:
The South African Journal of Political Science 18:2 (June 1991), 91-101. Rebuttal to Horowitz.
Elizabeth Carlson, “Ethnic voting and Accountability in Africa: A choice Experiment in
Uganda,” World Politics 67:2 (April 2015), 313-352.
Ian Lustick, “Lijphart, Lakatos, and Consociationalism,” World Politics, October 1997. Critique
of Lijphart for making his theory non-falsifiable.
A. Lijphart, Democracy in Plural Societies. The classic statement on consociation.
Ashutosh Varshney, Ethnic Conflict and Civic Life: Hindus and Muslims in India. Cities with
cross-religious civic organization avoid riots, others don’t.
Hanna Lerner, “Permissive Constitutions, Democracy, and Religious Freedom in India,
Indonesia, Israel, and Turkey,” World Politics, Oct. 2013. Allow identity group representation, but don’t
lock it in.
Kanchan Chandra, Why Ethnic Parties Succeed. Argues that ethnic parties are most likely to
succeed in "patronage-democracies" when they have competitive rules of intraparty advancement and
when the size of the group they seek to mobilize is larger than the threshold of winning or leverage
imposed by the electoral system. Case study of India.
 19

April 13. ETHNIC PARTITION VS. ETHNIC INTEGRATION

Is it better to partition a war-torn multiethnic territory like Bosnia or to try to
reintegrate it into a single, unified, multicultural state?

REQUIRED:
C. Kaufmann, “Possible and Impossible Solutions to Ethnic War,” International
Security, spring 1996.
R. Kumar, “The Troubled History of Partition,” Foreign Affairs,
January/February 1997, rebuttal to Kaufmann.

SUPPLEMENTARY:
Cyrus Samii, “Perils or Promise of Ethnic Integration? Evidence from a Hard Case in Burundi,”
American Political Science Review, August 2013. Sophisticated research design.
Nadar Shelef, Homelands: Shifting Borders and Territorial Disputes (Cornell, 2020). When
partitions happen.
Carter Johnson, “Partitioning to Peace,” International Security, spring 2008, 140-170.
C. Kaufmann, “When All Else Fails: Ethnic Population Transfers and Partitions in the Twentieth
Century,” International Security, fall 1998; also in Walter and Snyder, Civil Wars, Insecurity, and
Intervention. Surrebuttal to Kumar.
N. Sambanis and J. Schulfer-Wohl, “What’s in a Line? Is Partition a Solution to Civil War?”
International Security, fall 2009.
N. Sambanis, “Partition as a Solution to Ethnic War,” World Politics, July 2000. A statistical
test of the partition hypothesis.
Alexander Downes, “The Holy Land Divided: Defending Partition as a Solution to Ethnic
Wars,” Security Studies, summer 2001. General argument along Kaufmann’s lines, rebuttal to Sambanis,
Israel/Palestine case.

April 15. NATIONALISM AND THE LIBERAL INTERNATIONAL ORDER

John Mearsheimer, The Great Delusion: Liberal Dreams and International

Realities, ch. 4, pp. 82-119, on nationalism as a fatal foil to liberalism (courseworks
files).
G. John Ikenberry, A World Safe for Democracy: Liberal Internationalism and
the Crises of Global Order (Yale, 2020), ch. 8, “The Crisis of the Post-Cold War
International Order,” or Ikenberry, “The End of Liberal International Order?”
International Affairs (London), vol. 94, no. 1 (January 2018), 7-23.
Jeff D. Colgan; Robert O. Keohane, “The Liberal Order Is Rigged: Fix It Now or
Watch It Wither,” Foreign Affairs 96:3 (May-June 2017).