Ethno-populist Protest and Riot: The Role of Inequality within Ethnic Groups

• In Event: Non-Violent Resistance and Protests

Abstract

Scholarship devotes much attention to when politically disadvantaged ethnic groups use protest and violence to act politically. Disadvantaged ethnic groups face inequalities and thus use costly non-conventional politics. Yet, we also observe some members of ethnic groups with political power that participate in ethnic protest and riot—despite its costliness and their ethnic group’s political status. Some White Americans in the U.S., Arab Muslims in Egypt, and Sinhalese in Sri Lanka, for instance, have protested and used violence while making claims on behalf of their ethnic groups. What explains, then, why members of the ethnic group in power use costly protest and violence? Because an ethnic group maintains unclear boundaries, I focus on the behavior of ethno-political organizations that make claims on behalf of a country’s ethnic group in power. I argue that organizations making claims on behalf of the ethnic group in power use protest and violence when there is high economic inequality within the ethnic group. High inequality within the ethnic group limits conventional political opportunities for some members and organizations—despite the fact that other members of the ethnic group enjoy political power. An original dataset identifies political organizations that make claims on behalf of each country’s ethnic group with political power from 2003 to 2015. Using statistical analysis, I find that political organizations for ethnic groups in power are more likely to (A) protest nonviolently and (B) riot under conditions of high within-ethnic group inequality. This article contributes to our understanding of ethno-populist contentious mobilization, a critical phenomenon for which existing literature does not provide a clear explanation. Moreover, understanding the protest and riot behavior of organizations making claims for the ethnic group in power offers new approaches to inter-ethnic group relations.

Author

• Brandon Ives, Seoul National University