ABSTRACT
In recent years, Western political scientists have been increasingly concerned with the resolution of ethnic conflicts by peaceful means. There are a number of reasons for this: (1) the growth in the number of violent conflicts in Western Europe, ex-Communist Eastern Europe, and the Third World; (2) the belief that the alternatives to a peaceful resolution of ethnic conflict that have been tried – expulsion, forcible assimilation, ghettoization, and genocide – do not accord with civilized norms of behavior; and (3) the conviction that if ethnic conflicts are allowed to fester, they will interfere with the processes of democratization and globalization, and introduce regional and global instability.
