The Ties That Divide

Ethnic conflicts have created crises within NATO and between NATO and Russia, produced massive flows of refugees, destabilized neighboring countries, and increased the risk of nuclear war between Pakistan and India. Interventions have cost the United States, the United Nations, and other actors billions of dollars. While scholars and policymakers have devoted considerable attention to this issue, the question of why states take sides in other countries' ethnic conflicts has largely been ignored. Most attention has been directed at debating the value of particular techniques to manage ethnic conflict, including partition, prevention, mediation, intervention, and the like. However, as the Kosovo dispute demonstrated, one of the biggest obstacles to resolving ethnic conflicts is getting the outside actors to cooperate. This book addresses this question. Saideman argues that domestic political competition compels countries to support the side of an ethnic conflict with which constituents share ethnicities. He applies this argument to the Congo Crisis, the Nigerian Civil War, and Yugoslavia's civil wars. He then applies quantitative analyses to ethnic conflicts in the 1990s. Finally, he discusses recent events in Kosovo and whether the findings of these case studies apply more broadly.

Despite dramatic increases in poverty, unemployment, and social inequalities, the Central and Eastern European transitions from communism to market democracy in the 1990s have been remarkably peaceful. This book proposes a new explanation for this unexpected political quiescence. It shows how reforming governments in Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic have been able to prevent massive waves of strikes and protests by the strategic use of welfare state programs such as pensions and unemployment benefits. Divide and Pacify explains how social policies were used to prevent massive job losses with softening labor market policies, or to split up highly aggrieved groups of workers in precarious jobs by sending some of them onto unemployment benefits and many others onto early retirement and disability pensions. From a narrow economic viewpoint, these policies often appeared to be immensely costly or irresponsibly populist. Yet a more inclusive social-scientific perspective can shed new light on these seemingly irrational policies by pointing to deeper political motives and wider sociological consequences. Divide and Pacify contains a provocative thesis about the manner in which political strategy was used to consolidate democracy in post-communist Hungary, Poland, and the Czech Republic. Pieter Vanhuysse develops a tight argument emphasizing the strategic use of welfare and unemployment compensation policies by a government to nip potential collective action against it in the bud. By breaking up social networks that might otherwise facilitate protest, through unemployment and induced early retirement, governments were able to survive otherwise difficult economic circumstances. This novel argument linking economics, politics, sociology, and demography should stimulate wide-ranging debate about the strategic uses of social policy.

A vivid picture of the evolution of one of America's many vital ethnic voices. The nineteenth and early twentieth centuries were times of change within the United States. The influx of immigrants gave the United States a new face as well as a new culture. In Ties That Bind, Ties That Divide, Juliana Puskás, a prominent scholar on immigration, examines the Hungarian-American experience. Often overshadowed by the stories of other immigrant communities, the Hungarian community is finally brought to the forefront in Puskás's thorough discussion. Beginning with a look at the semifeudal state of mid-nineteenth century Hungarian society, the author provides a historical context within which to place the emigrants. She goes on to reveal the gradual process by which immigrants built diverse communities and became Hungarian-Americans, rather than just Hungarians in America. Puskás also chronicles the role of Hungarian-Americans in the Cold War, focusing on the displaced persons who arrived immediately after World War II. Ties That Bind, Ties That Divide melds a lucid, thorough appraisal of the Hungarian migration with first-hand experiences, interviews, and observations, skillfully redressing the general ignorance of the Hungarian-American experience.

Much philosophical work on pop culture apologises for its use; using popular culture is a necessary evil, something merely useful for reaching the masses with important philosophical arguments. But works of pop culture are important in their own right--they shape worldviews, inspire ideas, change minds. We wouldn't baulk at a book dedicated to examining the philosophy of The Great Gatsby or 1984--why aren't Star Trek and Superman fair game as well? After all, when produced, the former were considered pop culture just as much as the latter. This will be the first major reference work to right that wrong, gathering together entries on film, television, games, graphic novels and comedy, and officially recognizing the importance of the field. It will be the go-to resource for students and researchers in philosophy, culture, media and communications, English and history and will act as a springboard to introduce the reader to the other key literature in the field.

Increasingly, ethnic and religious variables are taken into account to explain conflict and relations between nations. However, ethnic and religious groups exist beyond the confines of frontiers. In Africa, for example, hundreds of ethnic groups were divided by colonial borders, and many retained kinship connections to their brethren in other countries, thus creating “cross-border ethnic/religious affinity.” Such cross-border connections affect a variety of foreign policy, from diplomacy to the use of force. An internal problem can spread to other states, or external actors can become involved in domestic disputes due to such factors. Therefore data on cross-border connections are essential to measure and assess their actual or potential effects on foreign policy or conflict. This unique resource serves both qualitative and quantitative researchers. For ease of use, it is divided in sections for each region of world, with the entries organized by pairs of contiguous countries. Each entry for a pair of countries briefly discusses the ethnic and religious groups that are common to both countries and the historical and current connections between these groups. The entries are organized based on the Correlates of War country codes, which are widely used by researchers and allow for country pairs to be organized geographically within each section to facilitate easy use of the data.

This binational reference for U.S. and Mexican policymakers presents the interrelated issues of Mexican immigration to the United States and Mexico's economic and social development. Differences in economic growth, wages, and the employment situation between two countries are critical determinants of immigration, and migration of labor out of Mexico, in addition to economic and social policies, affects Mexico's development.

First Published in 2005. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.