Beyond ethnicity: historical states and modern conflict
| Author | Marius Wishman,Charles Butcher |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/13540661221106911 |
| Published date | 01 December 2022 |
| Date | 01 December 2022 |
https://doi.org/10.1177/13540661221106911
European Journal of
International Relations
2022, Vol. 28(4) 777 –807
© The Author(s) 2022
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DOI: 10.1177/13540661221106911
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E
JR
I
Beyond ethnicity:
historical states and modern
conflict
Marius Wishman
and Charles Butcher
Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Norway
Abstract
Historical states, be they sprawling empires or nominal vassal states, can make lasting
impressions on the territories they once governed. We argue that more historical
states located within the borders of modern states increase the chance of civil
conflict because they (1) created networks useful for insurgency, (2) were symbols
of past sovereignty, (3) generated modern ethnic groups that activated dynamics of
ethnic inclusion and exclusion, and (4) resisted western colonialism. Using new global
data on historical statehood, we find a robust positive association between more
historical states inside a modern state and the rate of civil conflict onset between
1946 and 2019. This relationship is not driven by common explanations of state
formation that also drive conflict such as the number of ethnic groups, population
density, colonialism, levels of historical warfare, or other region-specific factors. We
also find that historical states are more likely to be conflict inducing when they are
located far from the capital and in poorer countries. Our study points to unexplored
channels linking past statehood to modern-day conflict that are independent of
ethno-nationalist conflict and open possibilities for a new research agenda linking
past statehood to modern-day conflict outcomes.
Keywords
Artificial states, civil conflict, historical states, state entities, state formation, civil war,
ethnic conflict, pre-colonial states
Corresponding author:
Charles Butcher, Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Trondheim 7049, Norway.
Email: charles.butcher@ntnu.no
1106911EJT0010.1177/13540661221106911European Journal of International RelationsWishman and Butcher
research-article2022
Article
778 European Journal of International Relations 28(4)
Introduction
Hundreds of independent states existed in the 19th century that no longer appear on
political maps, many extinguished by colonialism. Some countries encompass many of
these historical states while others contain few. Studies reach differing conclusions on
whether these historical states are a source of conflict or stability in the modern world.
Some find that prior statehood (often labeled pre-colonial) facilitates peaceable solutions
to latent ethnic conflict (Depetris-Chauvin, 2016; Wig, 2016), while others find that they
can leave legacies of ethnic tension and war (Alesina et al., 2003; Besley and Reynal-
Querol, 2014; Englebert, 2000; Paine, 2019).
We focus on the national-level effects of variations in the number of historical states
that modern states encompass. We label these states “Historical State Entities” (HSEs)
throughout the paper. We argue that states with more HSEs within their modern borders
experience more internal conflict onsets because HSEs left behind social networks and
symbols of sovereignty that were useful for collective action, provided the raw material
for ethnic claims making in the post–Second World War period and resisted colonialism
before independence and state consolidation after. We test this theory with new measures
of the number of HSEs that existed in modern-day states from 1816 to 1939, finding that
more HSEs are positively correlated with civil conflict onsets between 1946 and 2019, an
association that is not explained or mediated by more politically relevant ethnic groups or
excluded ethnic groups in the modern period. This suggests that historical states are linked
to conflict independently of their impact on or through modern ethnic power relations that
are the focus of most research on the modern legacies of historical states (Paine, 2019;
Wig, 2016). Moving “beyond ethnicity” to understand how political topologies from the
past shape conflict may lead to new insights (Blaydes and Chaney, 2013; Herbst, 2014;
Mazzuca, 2021). We suggest further research on the symbolic legacies and mobilization
infrastructures left behind by HSEs as a useful way forwards (Ahram, 2019).
Contribution
This study makes three contributions to the existing literature on the legacies of histori-
cal states and internal armed conflict. First, many studies assume that prior statehood
impacts conflict through relations between modern ethnic groups and the state (Englebert
et al., 2002; Paine, 2019; Wig, 2016), or measure prior statehood with proxies of ethnic
centralization. While incorporating these important insights, we advance the field by
highlighting mechanisms through which historical states can influence conflict inde-
pendent of ethnicity and by drawing on a global dataset of independent states rather than
ethnic groups. The pre-colonial political landscape was certainly populated by ethnic
groups (Murdock, 1967), but it was also populated multi-ethnic empires. A focus on
ethnic groups cannot tell us about the legacies of the Sokoto Caliphate, for example,
which was a multi-ethnic empire overlapping with dozens of ethnic groups in the oft
utilized “Murdoch Map.” Moreover, states often made modern ethnic groups. There is,
for example, little evidence of an “Acehnese” ethnic identity before the 20th century
(Aspinall, 2009). This “ethnic group” is a product of the Acehnese Sultanate, which sur-
vived up to the beginning of the 20th century as an independent state before it was colo-
nized by the Dutch and incorporated into Indonesia (see also Wimmer, 2018).
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