ABSTRACT
This chapter examines how various facets of globalization affect ethnic groups' actions toward the state. It aims to fills two important gaps in the literature: by considering globalization's effects—both cultural and economic—on ethnic conflict during and after the end of the Cold War; by examining levels of both violent and nonviolent ethnic conflict rather than the conventional measure of civil war. Ethnic conflict has been most commonly studied in the context of civil war—one of the most extreme forms of violent ethnic conflict. Scholars contend that cultural and social factors such as a society's ethnic composition are more important in determining national conflict than economic or political conditions. Modernization theory and country-level theories provide important insights, but, as theories of cultural and economic globalization underscore, nations can no longer be conceptualized as modernizing in isolation. The world-systems perspective provides a useful analytic frame through which to conceptualize economic globalization, classifying countries as core, semiperipheral, or peripheral.
