Security Provision and Counterterrorism in the Sahel

This chapter discusses the politics of security provision and counterterrorism in the Sahel, in light of the main security challenges facing the region: poverty and structural food insecurity, economic and social grievances, organized crime, protracted crisis derived from territorial and ethnic competition, and terrorism and violent radicalization. It emphasizes the concept of human security against the current background of international policies and academic analysis that favors realpolitik, and it focuses on the characteristics of the contemporary state in this part of Africa to explain both the security challenges and the provision of security. The fragility of institutions and the authoritarian trends observed in Sahelian states affect their capacity and legitimacy. The chapter discusses these two aspects in detail, hinting at paths for security sector reform both by the countries and by regional initiatives such as the G5 Sahel.

The Role of Foreign Policy and Ethnic Politics

This chapter provides the theoretical answer to the puzzles posed in chapter 1. It starts by defining the central dependent variable, asylum policy. To compare asylum policy across countries and refugee groups, it introduces a set of indicators that cover admission at the border, freedom to reside outside camps, access to the labor market, and other aspects of the refugee experience. The chapter then develops the argument that countries’ approaches to refugees are shaped by a two-level dynamic involving foreign policy and ethnic politics. It details the causal pathways whereby relations with the sending country and domestic ethnic competition may result in relative inclusiveness, restrictiveness, or delegation. The chapter concludes by explaining the methods and data used to investigate this theory.

Are refugees really welcome? Understanding Northern Ireland attitudes towards Syrian refugees

In 2018, Northern Ireland (NI) government officials, journalists, and preliminary research declared that NI citizens had provided a ‘welcoming society’ to Syrian refugees settling in local communities across the country. However, this claim starkly contrasted with other reports of growing violence towards foreign-born groups, particularly Muslims, which lead to NI being identified as the ‘Race Hate Capital of Europe.’ Using the 2015 Northern Ireland Life and Times Survey (NILT), we problematize and empirically-test these initial conclusions about NI attitudes towards Syrian refugees by testing four prominent social theories. We first examine whether economic self-interest and social exposure (i.e., contact hypothesis) predict NI attitudes towards Syrian refugees. We also recognize NI's unique conflictual ethnic history by testing whether cultural marginality and ethnic competition theories further explain attitudes. The findings suggest that multiple theories explain NI citizen views towards Syrians. Results provide partial support for economic self-interests and direct and preferential social exposure as predictors. However, when considering racism and sectarianism measures, the results require a nuanced understanding of the context of NI people’s attitudes. We found that identity politics related to NI's citizens' religious and nationalist identity encouraged racist and sectarian disapproval of Syrian refugee resettlement. These findings provide a promising avenue of study in understanding how ethno-identities shape attitudes towards Syrian refugees and other foreign-born groups living in NI. However, we contend more granular research will be needed to highlight these nuances.

History matters: the long-term impact of historical immigrant size on current xenophobia in Japan

Many studies have addressed how current immigrant size affects the strength of xenophobia from the perspectives of intergroup contact and ethnic competition theories. Can native residents’ current xenophobia be explained by historical immigrant size? To explore this question, we use historical immigrant size and a survey dataset to investigate the long-term effects of historical immigrant size on current xenophobia in Japan. The results show that historical immigrant size increases current xenophobia in Japan, which may be due to previous negative contact experiences between immigrants and native residents, and the negative effects persist. The implications of these findings for our understanding of the relationship between immigrant size and xenophobia are discussed.

Macedonia: Troublesome Relations Among Politics, Ethnicity, and the Military

At first sight, relations between politics and the military in Macedonia, one of the ex-Yugoslav republics that gained independence in 1991, seem to resemble the typical evolution of civil–military relations in other countries in transition. Yet, history in Macedonia is far from straightforward and simple. First, the country’s appearance on the world scene was unique: it was practically a demilitarized state with no army! Apart from that, amid the Yugoslav imbroglio it was known as an “oasis of peace.” Only 10 years later, in 2001, Macedonia found itself on the verge of an ethnic conflict, with a powerless (Macedonian-dominated) military that confronted apparently well-organized Albanian paramilitary forces. In March 2020, Macedonia became NATO’s 30th member state. Yet, the dilemma that affects civil–military relations at both the political-military and societal-military levels has not gone away. Theoretically and practically, any meaningful analysis requires detection of the troublesome aspects of each side of the triangle: state/politics/military/society/ethnicity. Though the society–state dimension is far from inconsiderable, on methodological grounds the analysis that follows is restricted to the other two dimensions. NATO membership for a transitional country usually presupposes a successful democratic transition, internal stability, and societal consensus over key national values and interests. Macedonia’s case belies that assumption. The Macedonian military has been practically invisible in internal politics, while it has been widely cited as a key asset for bringing the country closer to NATO by direct involvement in military interventions launched by the United States or NATO, starting with Afghanistan and Iraq and extending to the plans for involvement in Mali’s affairs. Behind the façade, there is silent internal strife within the ranks along political and ethnic lines (i.e., the same lines that sharply divide the state and society, challenging the country’s internal cohesion and democratic prospects). In addition, the military has to make do with scant essential resources, while the military officers’ self-respect is severely diminished by the low societal rewards for their profession. Macedonia’s democratic transition is far from complete, since the country is going through a deep internal crisis related to its societal/security dilemma, and the military is just one of the institutions that suffer because of ethnic competition and unprincipled power-sharing bargaining.

Languages, secessionism and party competition in Catalonia: A case of de-ethnicising outbidding?

This article explores party strategies in electoral competition in Catalonia in order to test the existence of ethnic outbidding ( Chandra, 2005 ; Zuber and Szöcsik, 2015 ). We contribute with original findings on this case by addressing the evolution of political parties’ discourses through a qualitative analysis of their manifestos for the last five regional elections campaigns (2006–2017), covering a period of strong territorial conflict between Catalonia and Spain. Our analysis aims to measure the impact of secessionism growth on parties’ ethnic competition in Catalonia and compares the strategies of secessionist, federalist and centralist parties. In order to measure ethnicity, we focus on language, the most salient identity marker in Catalan politics, and link the evolution of parties’ territorial positions to that of their treatment of national identities and the Catalan and Castilian languages – both official languages in Catalonia – in their manifestos. Our findings include diverse strategies that do not entirely fit in with ethnic competition theories. First, we find that territorial outbidding does not always imply ethnic outbidding: political parties generally do not use the main identity marker in Catalonia (language) for outbidding purposes. Second, we find some evidence of ethnic outbidding in majority nationalist parties, but not in minority nationalist parties.

Fixed-Term Work Contracts and Anti-Immigration Attitudes. A Novel Test of Ethnic Competition Theory

Whether labor market competition is shaping anti-immigration attitudes is a contentious issue. We conduct a novel test of ethnic competition theory by comparing the attitudes towards immigration of workers with fixed-term contracts to those with permanent jobs in Europe. Fixed-term contract workers are particularly at risk of competition as they have to compete for jobs in the foreseeable future. In the first step of our investigation, we analyze cross-sectional data (ESS, 2002–18) from 18 Western European countries. We find that—contrary to our expectation—fixed-term workers are less anti-immigration. The effect is substantively small. In the second step, we use a fixed-effects design with longitudinal data from the German Socio-Economic Panel (GSOEP, 1999–2015) to rule out time-constant unobserved heterogeneity. We find that transitioning from a fixed- to a permanent contract does not affect anti-immigration attitudes. Our combined results thus add to the evidence against labor market competition as an explanation of anti-immigrant attitudes.

The Logic of Violent Ethnic Competition

This chapter provides both quantitative and qualitative evidence from post–Cold War sub-Saharan Africa for how ethnic organizations affect outcomes of equality and peace in decolonized states. It first addresses the group-level relationship between ethnic organizations and ethnic inequality. These analyses show that groups that are politically mobilized through an ethnic party are more likely to become politically dominant than groups that lack the infrastructural power that such parties provide. The following part then moves to the systemic level to analyze the effect of group mobilization on the risk of ethnic civil conflict. The results reveal that it is the concurrence of group mobilization and ethnic inequality that makes the outbreak of violent conflict most likely in Africa’s decolonized states.