This article investigates the structural causes of ethnic rebellion among the indigenous populations of Latin America. It aims to fill three important gaps in the current understanding of ethnic violence. First, the article's geographical focus brings a broad theoretical literature to a region with which it has had little experience. Second, the article acknowledges and incorporates Fearon and Laitin's argument that theories of ethnic violence should also explain instances of peace and cauterization. Third, the article offers evidence suggesting that democracy reduces the probability of rebellion. This and competing hypotheses are evaluated qualitatively with evidence gathered from secondary sources and historiographical accounts and, quantitatively, with Ted Robert Gurr's Minorities at Risk Phase III Dataset. Based on the finding that regime type is a strong predictor of ethnic violence in Latin America, the author calls for a reevaluation of the link between regime type and violent political behavior.
Get full access to this article
View all access options for this article.
References
1.
Arias, Arturo . (1990). Changing Indian identity: Guatemala's violent transition to modernity. In Carol A. Smith (Ed.), Guatemalan Indians and the state, 1540 to 1988 (pp. 230-257). Austin: University of Texas Press.
2.
Arizpe, Lourdes . (1996). Chiapas: The basic problems. Identities: Global Studies in Culture and Power, 3(1-2), 219-234.
3.
Atrocity case in Amazon is botched. (1995, June 29). The New York Times, p. A6.
4.
Baratta, Robert Thomas . (1987). Political violence in Ecuador and the AVC. Terrorism, 10(3), 165-174.
5.
Bennett, Vivienne . (1992). The evolution of urban popular movements in Mexico between 1968 and 1988. In Arturo Escobar & Sonia E. Alvarez (Eds.), The making of social movements in Latin America (pp. 240-259). Boulder, CO: Westview.
6.
Booth, John A. (1991). Socioeconomic and political roots of national revolts in Central America. Latin American Research Review, 26(1), 33-74.
7.
Burger, Julian . (1987). Report from the frontier: The state of the world's indigenous peoples. London: Zed Books.
8.
Butler, Judy . (1997). The peoples of the Atlantic Coast. In Thomas W. Walker (Ed.), Nicaragua without illusions: Regime transition and structural readjustment in the 1990s (pp. 219-234). Wilmington, DE: Scholarly Resources.
9.
Collier, George . (1994). Basta! Land and the Zapatista rebellion in Chiapas. Oakland, CA: Institute for Food and Development Policy.
10.
Dudley, Ryan , & Miller, Ross A. (1998). Group rebellion in the 1980s. Journal of Conflict Resolution, 42(1), 7-96.
11.
Fearon, James D. , & Laitin, David D. (1996). Explaining interethnic cooperation. American Political Science Review, 90(4), 715-735.
12.
Fearon, James D. , & Laitin, David D. (1997, May 22). Explaining “ethnic violence.” Paper prepared for presentation at the Juan March Institute, Madrid, Spain.
13.
Gurr, Ted Robert . (1993a). Minorities at risk: A global view of ethnopolitical conflicts. Washington, DC: United States Institute of Peace Press.
14.
Gurr, Ted Robert . (1993b). Why minorities rebel: A global analysis of communal mobilization and conflict since 1945. International Political Science Review, 14(2), 161-202.
15.
Gurr, Ted Robert. (1996). Minorities at Risk Phase III dataset: User's manual. College Park, MD: Center for International Development and Conflict Management.
16.
Gurr, Ted Robert , Jaggers, Keith, & Moore, Will H. (1991). The transformation of the Western state: The growth of democracy, autocracy, and state power since 1800. In Alex Inkeles (Ed.), On measuring democracy: Its consequences and concomitants (pp. 69-104). New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction.
17.
Gurr, Ted Robert , & Moore, Will H. (1997). Ethnopolitical rebellion: A cross-sectional analysis of the 1980s with risk assessments for the 1990s. American Journal of Political Science, 41(4), 1079-1103.
18.
Haber, Paul Lawrence . (1996). Identity and political process: Recent trends in the study of Latin American social movements. Latin American Research Review, 31(1), 171-188.
19.
Hale, Charles R. (1994). Resistance and contradiction: Miskitu Indians and the Nicaraguan state, 1894-1987. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.
20.
Hale, Charles R. (1996). Indigenous struggles against marginality in Latin America: Beyond the national phase. In Sam C. Nolutshungu (Ed.), Margins of insecurity: Minorities and international security (pp. 155-183). Rochester, NY: University of Rochester Press.
21.
Hanratty, Dennis M. (Ed.). (1991). Ecuador: A country study. Washington, DC: Library of Congress, Federal Research Division.
22.
Horowitz, Donald L. (1985). Ethnic groups in conflict. Berkeley: University of California Press.
23.
Indians and Whites still at war in Brazil's interior . (1980, October 6). The New York Times, p. A1.
24.
Isaacs, Anita . (1993). Military rule and transition in Ecuador, 1972-92. Pittsburgh, PA: University of Pittsburgh Press.
25.
Jaggers, Keith , & Gurr, Ted Robert. (1995, November). Tracking democracy's third wave with the Polity III data. Journal of Peace Research, pp. 469-482.
26.
Mars, Perry . (1995, November). Foreign influence, political conflicts, and conflict resolution in the Caribbean. Journal of Peace Research, pp. 437-452.
27.
Morrison, Andrew R. , & May, Rachel A. (1994). Escape from terror: Violence and migration in post revolutionary Guatemala. Latin American Research Review, 29(2), 111-132.
28.
Muller, Edward N. (1985). Income inequality, regime repressiveness, and political violence. American Sociological Review, 50(1), 47-61.
29.
Nash, June . (1995a). The new world dis-order: A view from Chiapas, Mexico. In Lourdes Giordani & Marjorie M. Snipes (Eds.), Indigenous perceptions of the nation-state in Latin America (pp. 171-195). Williamsburg, VA: College of William and Mary, Studies in Third World Societies.
30.
Nash, June . (1995b). The reassertion of indigenous identity: Mayan responses to state intervention in Chiapas. Latin American Research Review, 30(3), 7-42.
31.
Nietschmann, Bernard . (1989). The unknown war: The Miskito Nation, Nicaragua, and the United States. New York: Freedom House.
32.
Ortega, Marvin . (1991). Nicaraguan repatriation to Mosquitia. Washington, DC: Georgetown University, Center for Immigration Policy and Refugee Assistance.
33.
Ortiz, Roxanne D. (1988). The Miskito Indians of Nicaragua. London: Minority Rights Group.
34.
Rothchild, Donald . (1991). An interactive model for state-ethnic relations. In Francis M. Deng & I. William Zartman (Eds.), Conflict resolution in Africa (pp. 190-215). Washington, DC: Brookings Institution.
35.
Rubin, Jeffrey W. (1987). State policies, leftist oppositions, and municipal elections: The case of the COCEI in Juchitán. In Arturo Alvarado (Ed.), Electoral patterns and perspectives in Mexico (pp. 127-160). San Diego: University of California, Center for U.S. Mexican Studies.
36.
Russett, Bruce . (1993). Grasping the democratic peace: Principles for a post-Cold War world. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
37.
Ryan, Jeffrey J. (1994). The impact of democratization on revolutionary movements. Comparative Politics, 27(1), 27-44.
38.
Sawyer, Suzana . (1997). The 1992 Indian mobilization in lowland Ecuador. Latin American Perspectives, 24(3), 65-82.
39.
Scarritt, James R. , & McMillan, Susan. (1995). Protest and rebellion in Africa. Comparative Political Studies, 28(3), 323-349.
40.
Schiller, Nina Glick . (Ed.). (1996, October). Identities: Global studies in culture and power. Newark, NJ: Gordon and Breach.
41.
Selbin, Eric . (1997). Revolution in the real world: Bringing agency back in. In John Foran (Ed.), theorizing revolutions (pp. 123-136). London: Routledge.
42.
Selverston, Melina . (1994). The politics of culture: Indigenous peoples and the state in Ecuador. In Donna Lee Van Cott (Ed.), Indigenous peoples and democracy in Latin America (pp. 131-152). New York: St. Martin's.
43.
Smith, Hazel . (1993). Nicaragua: Self-determination and survival. London: Pluto.
44.
Summers, Robert , & Heston, Alan. (1991). The Penn World Table (Mark 5): An expanded set of international comparisons, 1950-1988. Quarterly Journal of Economics, 106(2), 327-368.
45.
Tarrow, Sidney . (1994). Power in movement: Social movements, collective Action and politics. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
46.
Tilly, Charles . (1978). From mobilization to revolution. Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley.
47.
Van Cott, Donna Lee (Ed.). (1994). Indigenous peoples and democracy in Latin America. New York: St. Martin's.
48.
Vanderlaan, Mary B. (1986). Revolution and foreign policy in Nicaragua. London: Westview.
49.
Ward, Michael D. , & Gleditsch, Kristian S. (1998). Democratizing for peace. American Political Science Review, 92(1), 51-62.
50.
Wearne, Phillip . (1996). Return of the Indian: Conquest and revival in the Americas. Philadelphia: Temple University Press.
51.
Whitmeyer, Joseph M. , & Hopcroft, Rosemary L. (1996). Community, capitalism, and rebellion in Chiapas. Sociological Perspectives, 39(4), 517-538.
52.
Whitten, Norman E., Jr. (1978). Amazonian Ecuador: An ethnic interface in ecological, social, and ideological perspectives. Copenhagen, Denmark: International Work Group for Indigenous Affairs.
53.
Yashar, Deborah . (1996). Indigenous protest and democracy in Latin America. In Jorge I. Domínguez & Abraham F. Lowenthal (Eds.), Constructing democratic governance: Latin America and the Caribbean in the 1990s (pp. 87-105). Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press.
54.
Yashar, Deborah . (1997). Indigenous politics and democracy: Contesting citizenship in Latin America (Working Paper No. 238). Notre Dame, IN: Helen Kellogg Institute for International Studies.
55.
Zamosc, Leon . (1994). Agrarian protest and the Indian movement in the Ecuadorian highlands. Latin American Research Review, 29(3), 37-68.
