Ethnic/racial movements & conflict
NOTE: I have a larger bibliography of sources on this topic that I have not posted.
Hechter, M. and D. Okamoto (2001). “POLITICAL CONSEQUENCES OF MINORITY GROUP FORMATION.” Annual Review of Political Science 4(1): 189-215.
Abstract: Given the global trend of increasing ethnocultural diversity and the outbreak of nationalist movements based on cultural, linguistic, and territorial identities, this review focuses on social and political mechanisms that lead to the emergence of minority group collective action. This kind of collective action is seen as a function of three necessary conditions: the formation of distinctive social identities, the overcoming of free riding, and the development of institutional structures promoting the demand for greater autonomy. The article examines the debates, theories, and empirical evidence concerning these three conditions. We conclude by noting that the most important impediment to progress in this field is the relative paucity of historical and cross-national databases that are required to test many of the theories in the literature.
Okamoto, Dina G. (2003). “Toward a Theory of Panethnicity: Explaining Asian American Collective Action.” American Sociological Review 68(6): 811-842.
This analysis extends theoretical models of ethnic boundary formation to account for the shifting & layered nature of ethnic boundaries. It focuses on the underlying structural conditions that facilitate the expansion of ethnic boundaries or the construction of a pan-national identity, & explores how organizing along an ethnic boundary affects collective efforts at the panethnic level. Two processes could be occurring: (1) Competition with other ethnic or racial groups could lead groups with different national origins to engage in collective action based on a pan-national boundary, or (2) occupational segregation could foster pan-national interests & networks that lead groups to participate in pan-national collective action. Using a new longitudinal data set of collective action events involving Asian Americans, the analyses indicate that the segregation of Asians as a group raises the frequency of pan-national collective action, while the segregation among Asian subgroups depresses the rate of pan-Asian collective action. The results also show that intragroup competition discourages pan-Asian collective action, & organizing along ethnic lines generally facilitates it. Overall, these findings are consistent with the cultural division of labor theory, which suggests that segregation processes influence panethnic collective action due to intragroup interaction, common economic interests, & membership in a community of fate. 6 Tables, 1 Figure, 3 Appendixes, 136 References. Adapted from the source document.