Globalisation and Ethnic Conflict
Globalisation and Ethnic Conflict

Summary/Abstract: Globalisation and Ethnic Conflict. At the turn of the 20th and 21st century, ethnic conflict has become one of the most pervasive forms of both violent and non-violent forms of social conflict all over the globe. The situation in many countries suggests that ethnicity is still a salient and potent source of political struggle and claims-making. Ethnicity in the modern world has become one of the basic patterns of organisation of social life, a form of making sense of cultural, religious and linguistic difference. The development of global communications, facilitating and speeding up exchange and cross-fertilisation of ideas is going hand in had with emulation of examples, development of transboundary networks, all having a bearing upon the global spread as well as transformation of ethnic loyalties, identities and interrelated discourses. In this paper I draw attention to the contemporary scholarly discussion on the broader global dimensions of ethnic conflict, emphasising the growing importance of global processes, and their consequences for the dynamics of ethnic relations all over the globe. It points to the fact of how contemporary ethnic identities are constantly recreated as people try to negotiate their identities and interests in the globalising world and how ethnic discourses are an outcome of shifting political, social and economic contexts. The paper thus examines an important level at which ethnic conflicts of the 20th and 21st centuries arise: as a consequence of global forces ranging from the global dissemination of ethnic idioms and “ethnicisation” of the political space, to the connections stemming from the clash between global flows of capital, ideas and people and the principles of the sovereign, unitary and bounded nation-state. Sociológia 2002 Vol 34 (No 6: 533-546)

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