ABSTRACT
Disagreements as to how to explain nationalist conflicts sometimes focus on which of the three conceptual languages outlined in Chapter 1 to employ, and thence on which facts to isolate as key causal factors. Does explanation begin with the facts of racial or tribal difference, or with those of competing class interests, or with the construction of new myths of identity? Sophisticated observers might respond by saying that complex events surely require all perspectives to be taken into account, but this balanced judgement faces the problem of explaining how the behaviour of those involved can be depicted as being based on primordial instinct and rational choice and ideological prejudice, when these are usually regarded as incompatible mental processes. If good explanation must be clear and consistent, then the task becomes not that of combining the three approaches, but rather that of examining each one so as to show why and how one of them might offer deeper insights than the others.
