UCL Discovery

Abstract

This article argues that an understanding of "nationalism" provides a less productive means for understanding thnic conflict than does a model that examines the structure of individual communities at the local level, the context within which individuals of various ethnic communities make - or fail to make - contact with each other. In this comparative study, I posit hat communities with higher levels of heterogeneity will exhibit lower levels of ethnic conflict than communities with lower levels of heterogeneity. Here I evaluate heterogeneity in two forms: 1) ethnic diversity, or "simple heterogeneity," and 2) the cross-cutting cleavages of ethnic and religious groups, or "multiform heterogeneity." In the fir4st form, a community with several ethnic groups tending toward equal proportions will exhibit a high degree of ethnic diversity. In the second form a community in which religious groups cut across ethnic lines exhibits a high degree of cross-cutting cleavages. I then evaluate these two forms of heterogeneity in relation to conflict levels between Hungarian minorities and the majority ethnic groups in Romania, Slovakia, and Transcarpathia, Ukraine.