ABSTRACT
One of the major advances in scholarly writings about Southeast Asia in the past few decades has taken place in the study of ethnic riots (under the rubric of nation-state formation). From this perspective, episodes of mass violence involving two or more distinct ethnic groups are said to have been caused primarily by the ideological, structural, psychological, economic and social strains faced by local communities in their struggles to preserve their cultural traditions and civil rights amidst regime transitions and rapid political change. While acknowledging the interplay of regional and global processes as precipitants of ethnic riots, scholars subscribing to such a paradigm have tended to give primacy to the roles of endogenous forces in the perpetuation of conflicts that were already brewing in Southeast Asian societies.
