Diversity by Fiat: How Historical Displacement Shapes Contemporary Politics

• In Event: Mobilization and Religion in Armed Conflict

Abstract

Population movements, either voluntary or coerced, have long been a prominent feature of politics. Internal population displacements often occur as a result of civil war or international agreements that accompany the conclusion of armed conflicts, and are often discussed somewhat euphemistically as being a part of the "state-building process". Population displacements that are supported by states tend to attempt to sort people of different ethnicities, religions, or other relevant social characteristics into different geographic areas. For example, following the Turkish War of Independence, Greece and Turkey agreed to exchange populations between their newly delineated territories, where the goal was explicitly to eliminate significant Greek (or Christian) populations in the new Turkish state, and to eliminate significant Muslim populations in the Greek state. The transfer of population within Poland and Germany to accommodate the new (and significantly repositioned) post-World War II boundaries was similarly aimed at cultural homogeneity. In sum, these forced migrations were meant to homogenize different jurisdictions in a way that reduced the diversity of the affected regions.

In this article, we examine a rather unique historical instance of population displacement: Emir Abd-al Rahman's displacement of a significant number of Pashtuns from the southern and eastern regions of Afghanistan to the north in the 1880s. This displacement took place over several phases and inserted the dominant Afghan ethnic group, the Pashtuns, into an area that had previously been populated almost exclusively by groups such as Uzbeks and Tajiks. The long-term consequence of this displacement for the demography of northern Afghanistan and the experience of the displaced Pashtuns are profound; in short, the Pashtuns in the north have been exposed to ethnic and linguistic diversity that Pashtuns in the south have not. However, the consequences of this displacement for the political attitudes and behavior of Pashtuns ensconced in the relatively diverse northern provinces remain largely unexplored. We use a precisely geo-coded village level survey and two sets of geo-coded data over elections and affected villages' reactions to political violence to demonstrate that the political outlook of Pashtuns in the north have sharply diverged from those of their kin in the south. These findings have numerous implications for understanding patterns of civil conflict and politics in contemporary Afghanistan.

Authors

• David B. Carter, Washington University in St. Louis

• Luwei Ying, University of California, Los Angeles

• Austin L. Wright, University of Chicago