Customer Reviews

The Geography of Ethnic Violence: Identity, Interests, and the Indivisibility of Territory

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Professor Toft has written a book I would assign to students of ethnic conflict, comparative politics, strategic and security studies, and international relations theory. She has identified the key reason some disputes escalate to violence while others do not: issue indivisibility. She tells you when different sorts of actors are more or less likely to treat an issue as indivisible in much the same way a geologist might tell you where an earthquate of magnitude seven or greater is most likely to occur. The idea is not to predict a specific earthquake, so much as to tell you why you need to take special measures in some places (along fault lines) more than others. The case studies alone are worth the price of the hardcover edition, but students and policy makers alike will find the theoretical material clear and widely applicable to many of today's important conflicts; ranging from religiously-inspired terrorism and civil wars, to interstate disputes and bargaining problems more generally. Some critics of this book have complained that a few of its key observations are obvious; akin to saying (again, keeping with the geology metaphor) "earthquates happen along fault lines" or, "when earthquakes happen, those living on fault lines get hurt." But this is nonsense. Professor Toft's analysis explains something much more interesting: why do some people living near the epicenter of a magnitude seven earthquake get wiped out, while others remain relatively unscathed? That's neither obvious nor trivial. Do you want to understand why the Palestinian-Israeli conflict has lasted so long? Why Russia is still in Chechnya and why the conflict there is getting worse by the day? Want to understand why Islam is so often involved in civil wars since World War II as compared to other religions? Issue indivisibility explains key aspects of each these conflicts and this book is a must-read for those citizens, scholars, intellectuals, policy makers, or just plain thoughtful people who want to understand these conflicts and who are interested in designing responses that can end on-going violence and prevent (or at least lessen the damage) future violence.

This book is useful, especially for its case studies of the conflicts in Abkazia and Ajaria (separatist regions in Georgia). The thesis, that geography--land itself--is central to ethnic conflict, seems fairly obvious when one is discussing state and national borders, but Toft strangely asserts that it is her original idea!

Overall, the book is useful to those interested in the particular case studies. Too jargony at times, the writing is occassionally repetitive. It is a thin book, and some additional case studies would have been welcome.

Overall, a flawed but still appreciable contribution to the literature on ethnic conflict and separatism.