[{"data":1,"prerenderedAt":-1},["ShallowReactive",2],{"doc-detail-37992-en":3,"doc-seo-37992-105":29,"detail-sidebar-cat-0-en-105":90},{"code":4,"msg":5,"data":6},0,"success",{"doc_id":7,"user_id":8,"nickname":9,"user_avatar":10,"doc_module":4,"category_id":11,"category_name":12,"doc_title":13,"doc_description":14,"doc_content":15,"file_id":16,"file_url":17,"file_type":18,"file_size":19,"view_count":20,"is_deleted":4,"is_public":21,"is_downloadable":21,"audit_status":21,"page_count":11,"language":22,"language_code":23,"site_id":24,"html_lang":23,"table_of_contents":25,"faqs":26,"seo_title":13,"seo_description":14,"update_tm":27,"read_time":28},37992,13056703019662,"Evangeline","https://ap-avatar.wpscdn.com/avatar/be000253a8e92610077?_k=1778726343310543188",8,"Research & Report","Observations on the Study of Ethnic Conflict","The essay outlines the research questions that shaped the Minorities at Risk (MAR) project and that supported the creation of the first global dataset on ethnopolitical groups and their protests and rebellions. Despite accumulating knowledge about ethnopolitics, the work highlights insufficient understanding of how identity, ideologies, leadership, mobilization, and political action connect. It recommends comparative case studies to clarify these linkages and to explain variation in processes and outcomes of ethnopolitical conflict.","Ethnopolitics  \nFormerly Global Review of Ethnopolitics  \nISSN: 1744-9057 (Print) 1744-9065 (Online) Journal homepage: [http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/reno20](http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/reno20)  \nObservations on the Study of Ethnic Conflict Ted Robert Gurr  \nTo cite this article: Ted Robert Gurr (2017) Observations on the Study of Ethnic Conflict, Ethnopolitics, 16:1, 34-40, DOI: 10.1080/17449057.2016.1235345  \nTo link to this article: [http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/17449057.2016.1235345](http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/17449057.2016.1235345)  \n Published online: 25 Nov 2016.  \n\n|  Submit your article to this journal  |\n| --- |\n|  Article views: 49 |\n|  View related articles  |\n|  View Crossmark data |\n\nFull Terms & Conditions of access and use can be found at [http://www.tandfonline.com/action/journalInformation?journalCode=reno20](http://www.tandfonline.com/action/journalInformation?journalCode=reno20)  \nDownload by: [FU Berlin] Date: 19 December 2016, At: 20:54  \nEthnopolitics, 2017  \nVol. 16, No. 1, 34–40, [http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/17449057.2016.1235345](http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/17449057.2016.1235345)  \nObservations on the Study of Ethnic Conflict†  \nTED ROBERT GURR  \nUniversity of Maryland, USA  \nABSTRACT This essay sketches the research questions that motivated the Minorities at Risk (MAR) project, and led to the development of the first global dataset on ethnopolitical groups and their protests and rebellions. Substantial general knowledge about ethnopolitics has accumulated. Yet too little is known about the processes that link identity, ideologies, leadership, mobilization, and political action. A strategy of comparative case studies is strongly recommended to provide such information.  \nIntroduction  \nEthnic conflict is an uneasy marriage of two concepts each of which is in turn ambiguous and contested. It does not define a more objective universe of analysis like the concepts‘the state’ or ‘elections’ or ‘civil war’. Thus researchers need to specify more precisely what is meant by ‘ethnicity’ in different social contexts and circumstances. It is equally important to narrow the concept of conflict to observable kinds of action: usually physical contestation among groups, or between groups and states, over issues of power, resources, and status. My own approach has been to focus in on the more specific concept of ethnopolitical conflict, which I define as political contestation in which one or more parties mobilizes support based on appeals to communal identity and aims to protect or improve the group’s status vis a vis the state or other groups. Some essential questions are these:  \n. Under what circumstances, internal and external to an identity group, do the interests of a collectivity lead to political action either in defence or promotion of group interests? 1  \n. What are the roles of shared grievances, leadership, ideology, opportunities and external threats in mobilizing a group for political action?  \n. What kinds of political strategies are chosen by mobilized identity groups, and why?  \n†Some of the material in this essay is incorporated in my concluding chapter ‘Futures for Conflict Studies’, in Peter Grabosky, Mark Lichbach, and Michael Stohl, eds. (2016) States and Peoples in Conflict: Transformations  \nof Conflict Studies, London and New York: Paradigm Publishers, a division of Routledge.  \nCorrespondence Address: Ted Robert Gurr, 11473 Snow Creek Ave., Las Vegas, NV 89135, USA. Email: [trgurr42@gmail.com](trgurr42@gmail.com)  \n\\# 2016 The Editor of Ethnopolitics  \nStudy of Ethnic Conflict 35  \n. Once an organization based on the claims of an identity group does engage in political action, what determines the outcomes? What are the relative importance of group strategies, domestic and international political context, and regime ideology and resources in determining whether a group’s actions have positive or negative consequences?  \n. What strategies of negotiation, incorporation, and electoral representation can minimi","cbCaiuM7WN0ixVs8","https://ap.wps.com/l/cbCaiuM7WN0ixVs8","pdf",307093,4,1,"English","en",105,"# Introduction\n## Core Concepts and Definitions\n# Research Questions\n## Mobilization and Political Strategies\n## Negotiation and International Factors\n# What Have We Learned?\n## Need for Global Datasets","[{\"question\":\"What motivated the Minorities at Risk (MAR) project and the development of global ethnopolitical data?\",\"answer\":\"The article describes research questions that motivated MAR and led to the first global dataset covering ethnopolitical groups and their protests and rebellions.\"},{\"question\":\"Why does the author argue that researchers must define key concepts more precisely in the study of ethnic conflict?\",\"answer\":\"Because “ethnicity” and “conflict” are ambiguous and contested, researchers must specify what ethnicity means in specific contexts and narrow conflict to observable actions, often physical contestation over power, resources, and status.\"},{\"question\":\"What research approach does the essay recommend to improve understanding of ethnopolitical conflict?\",\"answer\":\"It strongly recommends comparative case studies to reveal how identity, ideologies, leadership, mobilization, and political action processes connect and to explain differences in 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