ABSTRACT
Policy-makers and the general public are concerned, however, with the mundane and specific questions that scholars appear to ignore. The purpose of this chapter is to redirect attention to the problems of ethnic/nationalist violence and movements towards secession. The first proposition is that ethnic/nationalist violence and movements towards secession are inevitable in pluri-ethnic or plurinational states. The second proposition is that ethnic/nationalist violence and movements towards secession vary depending on how much antagonism towards other ethnic/national groups characterizes an ethnic/national group's identity. The comparison between the Chiapas and the Kurdish cases provides useful insights about the role of state policies in determining levels of ethnic/nationalist violence. Social constructionists emphasize three sets of factors when explaining the level of antagonism towards other ethnic/national groups contained in ethnic/national identities. The chapter provides an analytical framework and various theoretical propositions about the structural and processual factors underlying support for ethnic/national violence and secessionism.
