Say my name: The effects of ethnofederalism on communal violence
| Published date | 01 May 2023 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/00223433221079861 |
| Date | 01 May 2023 |
| Subject Matter | Regular Articles |
Say my name: The effects of ethnofederalism
on communal violence
Andreas Juon
Department of Humanities, Social and Political Sciences, ETH Zurich
Livia Rohrbach
Department of Political Science, University of Copenhagen & Centre for Democracy Studies Aarau (ZDA),
University of Zurich
Abstract
Extant research highlights low or unequal access of ethnic groups to socio-economic resources as a driver of
communal violence. However, less is known about how institutional factors, such as control over ethnofederal units,
influence the distribution of these resources in the first place. Conversely, the literature on ethnofederalism has
focused on conflicts that involve the central government, while neglecting its unintended consequences at the
subnational level. Building on both literatures, we argue that ethnofederalism increases the risk of communal violence
between locally dominant and non-dominant groups through two mechanisms. First, it increases grievances among
locally non-dominant groups. Second, it increases the utility of coercive strategies for locally dominant groups.
Through both processes, ethnofederalism creates incentives for group elites to use communal violence in order to
attain or maintain control over local government office. We test our argument in a subnational analysis of Ethiopia’s
ethnofederal system, combining new spatial data on local demographics, government control, and horizontal
inequalities. We further substantiate our analysis with quantitative tests of the mechanisms’ intermediate implica-
tions and with original interview data gathered during fieldwork. Our results highlight the importance of accounting
for institutional factors in the comparative study of communal violence.
Keywords
communal violence, Ethiopia, ethnic conflict, ethnofederalism, federalism, grievances
Introduction
Between October 2017 and April 2018, Kemashe Zone
in Ethiopia’s Benishangul Gumuz region was the site of
deadly communal violence. Attacks on Amhara perpe-
trated by Gumuz and Berta militias and reportedly sup-
ported by local authorities killed dozens and displaced
thousands (AHRE, 2018). Although the Amhara settled
in Benishangul Gumuz decades ago, they are often cast
as outsiders in the region, which is designated as the
ethnic ‘homeland’ of the titular Gumuz and Berta ethnic
groups (Fessha & Beken, 2013). These events mirror
widespread tendencies in other Ethiopian regions
(Fiseha, 2017; Berhane & Tefera, 2018) and other
multi-ethnic states, including India (Adeney, 2017),
Kenya (Elfversson, 2019), Nigeria (Kendhammer,
2010), and Uganda (Green, 2008). Thereby, they illus-
trate an often-neglected aspect of ethnofederalism: while
it may alleviate conflict at the national level (Cederman
et al., 2015), it may inadvertently increase communal
conflict at the subnational level.
Previous research highlights that communal violence
is more likely where ethnic groups have low or unequal
access to socio-economic resources (e.g. Østby, Nordås
& Rød, 2009; Fjelde & von Uexkull, 2012; Fjelde &
Østby, 2014). However, in many of the states most
Corresponding author:
andreas.juon@icr.gess.ethz.ch
Journal of Peace Research
2023, Vol. 60(3) 428–443
ªThe Author(s) 2021
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DOI: 10.1177/00223433221079861
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affected by communal violence, pervasive clientelism
means that the distribution of socio-economic resources
is itself profoundly shaped by institutional factors,
including ethnofederalism (Hale, 2004; Cederman
et al., 2013). Yet, with few exceptions (Cunningham
& Weidmann, 2010; De Juan et al., 2015; Bunte &
Vinson, 2016; Wig & Kromrey, 2018), the literature
on communal violence has not been concerned with
these institutional underpinnings.
Conversely, existing research on ethnofederalism has
mainly investigated how it affects conflict at the national
level (Cederman et al., 2015; Anderson, 2016). How-
ever, as indicated by our introductory example, ethnofe-
deralism may have important consequences at the
subnational level, most importantly by affecting the risk
of communal violence between locally dominant and
non-dominant groups. Studying this relationship is para-
mount, as communal violence increasingly makes up a
sizable proportion of ethnic conflict in divided places
(Pettersson, Ho
¨gbladh & O
¨berg, 2019) and is often
directly tied to territorial issues (von Uexkull & Petters-
son, 2018: 961).
In this article, we derive a theoretical argument on the
relationship between ethnofederalism and communal vio-
lence. We argue that ethnofederalism increases the risks of
communal violence through two mechanisms. First, eth-
nofederalism boosts the grievances of locally non-
dominant groups. Thereby, it increases incentives for their
elites to mobilize for local government inclusion, territor-
ial boundary changes, or ethnic ‘homelands’ of their own.
Second, it creates incentives for elites of locally dominant
groups to aggressively monopolize political control over
‘their’ ethnic ‘homelands’ to ensure continuing access to
their socio-economic resources. Following the implica-
tions of these arguments, we hypothesize that communal
violence in ethnofederations is particularly likely to erupt
between locally dominant group(s) and non-dominant
groups settling in the same unit.
We test our argument quantitatively for the case of
Ethiopia’s ethnofederal system between 1994 and 2018.
A dyadic analysis based on 118 communal groups indi-
cates that the risk of communal violence in ethnofedera-
tions is indeed particularly high between locally
dominant and non-dominant groups. Our attained
effects are statistically significant and substantively
meaningful. They are also robust to an exhaustive list
of potential confounders, alternative measures of vio-
lence, and various model specifications. We also provide
additional checks of our hypothesized mechanisms:
using quantitative micro-level data, we show that ethno-
federalism systematically shapes mass attitudes as
predicted by our argument. And we illustrate the rele-
vance of our mechanisms by using original interview data
collected during fieldwork in Ethiopia in 2018.
Our study makes three main contributions. First, it
adds to the literature on communal violence, which has
only recently seen increasing systematic studies. In this
literature, we shift focus from socio-economic factors
(Fjelde & von Uexkull, 2012; Fjelde & Østby, 2014;
Hillesund, 2019) to institutional ones, specifically those
attached to ethnofederalism. Second, we add to the lit-
erature on ethnofederalism and ethnic conflict. By con-
sidering its effects on communal violence, we extend
previous work beyond conflicts at the national level to
subnational-level conflicts. Finally, we also add to the
specific discourse on ethnic conflict in Ethiopia. Our
results confirm and extend existing case studies (Kefale,
2013; Fessha & Beken, 2013; Fiseha, 2017) using sys-
tematic quantitative evidence.
Related literature
We start by defining four key terms. First, by ethnofeder-
alism, we refer to political systems whose administrative
units enjoy effective policy, fiscal, and political autonomy
(Bakke, 2015; Treisman, 2007) and at the same time
represent ‘homelands’ for specific ethnic groups (cf.
Anderson, 2016).
1
Second, we adopt a Weberian concep-
tion of ethnic groups, by which we refer to individualswho
‘entertain a subjective belief in their common descent’
based on ‘similarities of physical type or of customs or
both’ (Weber, 1978: 389). Third, intersecting the two
terms, we distinguish between locally dominant and
locally non-dominant groups. By locally dominant group,
we refer to the ethnic group(s) that exercise(s) predomi-
nant control of a given territorial unit, often by virtue of
being the local majority. Conversely, by locally non-
dominant groups, we refer to groups who are outside their
own ‘homeland’ or are not awarded one in the first place.
Finally, by communal violence we refer to violent conflicts
where both sides are nonstate actors and are simultane-
ously associated with specific ethnic groups, either expli-
citly through organizational claims or implicitly through
their ethnic composition (cf. Hillesund, 2019: 532).
Communal violence: Resource scarcity, horizontal
inequalities, and elite mobilization
Extant research on the group-level determinants of com-
munal violence highlights two complementary drivers. A
1
We use the term ‘homeland’ exclusively in its institutional sense.
Juon & Rohrbach 429
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