State weakness and support for ethnic violence in Southern Kyrgyzstan
| Author | Konstantin Ash |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/00223433211055581 |
| Published date | 01 November 2022 |
| Date | 01 November 2022 |
| Subject Matter | Regular Articles |
State weakness and support for ethnic
violence in Southern Kyrgyzstan
Konstantin Ash
School of Politics, Security, and International Affairs, University of Central Florida
Abstract
Does state weakness increase support for ethnic violence? This study proposes individuals who feel insecure due to
state weakness are more likely to support interethnic violence conditional on exposure to chauvinist messaging.
Support for interethnic violence is evaluated through a survey experiment in Southern Kyrgyzstan. The results show
random assignment of chauvinist nationalist rhetoric only induces support for interethnic violence among respon-
dents who trust informal non-state actors from their ethnic group to provide them security. The findings suggest
state weakness leads individuals to view their ethnic group as an alternative provider of security and that when
primed by chauvinist rhetoric, these individuals become more supportive of violence on their group’s behalf. A case
study of the 2010 riots in the Southern Kyrgyz city of Osh illustrates how underlying support for violence may
escalate to actual violence as a result of state breakdown, examining events in the months after the Kyrgyz state lost
authority following the April 2010 revolution. Jointly, the survey findings and case study illustrate pathways for
violence in ethnically divided low-capacity environments and potential drawbacks from protest-oriented
revolutions.
Keywords
Central Asia, ethnic riot, political violence, state capacity
Introduction
Kyrgyzstan experienced revolutions in March 2005,
April 2010, and October 2020. Two months after the
2010 Revolution, a large brawl broke out between Kyr-
gyz and Uzbek youth in the Southern city of Osh
(Temirkulov, 2010). Amid rumors of further violence,
thousands of Kyrgyz from rural areas flooded into Osh
and attacked Uzbek neighborhoods. After three days,
hundreds, if not thousands, of civilians were killed and
hundreds of thousands were displaced. The pattern seen
in Kyrgyzstan is not unusual. The Russian Revolution
led to pogroms against Jews (Miliakova, Rozenblat &
Elenskaia, 2006), Egypt’s 2011 revolution was followed
by greater violence against Coptic Christians (Brown,
2013), and even low-scale unrest led to the formation of
ethnic gangs and communal violence in Timor-Leste
(Scambary, 2009). While research has broadly linked
state capacity to the onset of conflict (Fearon & Laitin,
2003), the way in which either state weakness or
breakdown relate to public support for violence is not
well understood. This study provides an answer for
societies where ethnic divisions are relevant: support
forethnicviolenceismorelikelywhencitizensrely
on their ethnic group, rather than the state, to provide
them with security, but conditional on exposure to
chauvinist nationalist rhetoric.
1
In times of state break-
down, mutual insecurity and status threats among eth-
nic security actors are more likely to lead to actual
interethnic violence.
What occurred in Osh was an ethnic riot –‘an intense,
sudden, though not necessarily wholly unplanned lethal
Corresponding author:
konstantin.ash@ucf.edu
1
Where ethnic chauvinism is the belief in the superiority of one’s
ethnic group over others (see Patterson, 1977).
Journal of Peace Research
2021, Vol. 59(6) 860–875
ªThe Author(s) 2022
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DOI: 10.1177/00223433211055581
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attack by civilian members of one ethnic group on civil-
ian members of another group’(Horowitz, 2001: 1).
Ethnic riots differ from other forms of political violence
through broad participation of ordinary citizens and a
relatively short and contained period of violence.
Research on ethnic riots has focused on the extent pol-
iticians either directly influence (Brass, 1997; Toha,
2017) or indirectly foment or exacerbate riots (Wilkin-
son, 2004), as opposed to the role of larger structural
factors, such as horizontal inequality (Horowitz, 2001),
urbanization (Van Klinken, 2007) or insecurity (Scacco,
2021).
This study takes a different approach by looking at
why certain contexts are prone to communal violence,
rather than when riots occur or which individuals par-
ticipate in violence. While ethnic riots may be short
outbreaks of violence, their regularity and dependence
on triggering events suggests non-participants in riot-
prone environments have underlying support for vio-
lence that goes unexplained when research focuses on
riot participation. Moreover, the reasons for support
cannot be assumed to be the same as the reasons driv-
ing participation. As such, understanding societal sup-
port for interethnic violence is crucial to understanding
ethnic riots.
State weakness –a lack of undisputed authority over
state territory (Krasner, 2004) –plays a key role in
fomenting underlying support for interethnic violence.
Lacking a monopoly over the use of force within a
country’s borders can encourage the proliferation of
independent security actors, such as militias (Reno,
2002) and rebel groups (Fearon & Laitin, 2003). State
weakness manifests as perceived insecurity at the indi-
vidual level. Perception that the state is incapable of
defending citizens from harm encourages individuals
to join ad hoc groups that may carry out violence
against others (Scacco, 2021). As such, insecurity stem-
ming from macro-level state weakness may lead individ-
uals to rely on ethnically oriented non-state actors as
security providers.
However, reliance on ethnic security organizations
does not guarantee individuals will associate their per-
sonal safety with their ethnic group’s welfare. The study
proposes that an additional condition –chauvinist
nationalism –is sufficient for inducing support for vio-
lence in weak states. Chauvinist rhetoric convinces indi-
viduals that threats to their ethnic group are also threats
to their well-being. Chauvinist rhetoric emphasizes in-
group superiority, which convinces individuals relying
on ethnic security organizations that maintaining their
group’s status is vital to their personal interests. As a
result, violence to eliminate status threats becomes equi-
table to self-defense.
In weak states, this process operates in the back-
ground without major episodes of violence. State break-
down fosters uncertainty for non-state ethnic security
providers. Uncertainty increases potential threats to eth-
nic group status and decreases accountability for com-
mitting violent acts from state actors, increasing the
likelihood interethnic violence occurs.
The study applies a multimethod approach to test
the theory in Southern Kyrgyzstan. First, respondents
are randomly primed with a chauvinist message empha-
sizing in-group superiority in a survey. Receiving the
message only makes respondents more likely to support
ethnic violence if they trust informal community leaders
or friends and family members to provide them security.
Second, interviews and independent reports describing
the 2010 Osh ethnic riots illustrate how state break-
down created mutual insecurity and salient status
threats among ethnic security providers, contributing
to the risk of actual ethnic violence.
The findings clarify the process through which state
weakness and subsequent breakdown may increase the
likelihood of ethnic conflict: chauvinist rhetoric induces
greater support for ethnic violence among individuals
that trust informal sources of security. State breakdown
makes informal ethnic sources of security more relevant,
creating uncertainty about future group status and mak-
ing actual interethnic violence more likely. The results
contribute to work linking political institutions to the
salience of ethnicity, as well as work on the micro-
foundations underpinning ethnic violence (i.e. Scacco
& Warren, 2018; Shesterinina, 2016). They also sug-
gest sudden declines in state capacity, particularly after
protest revolutions, may expose or foment support for
interethnic conflict.
State weakness, insecurity, and chauvinist
nationalism
The main contention of this article is that chauvinist
nationalist rhetoric induces greater support for intereth-
nic violence among only those who feel insecure due to
state weakness. The theoretical mechanism rests on two
assumptions and two testable claims.
The first assumption is that weak state capacity fos-
ters perceived insecurity. By definition, a state that no
longer has undisputed authority over a territory cannot
provide security to at least some of its citizens. How-
ever, to act on this loss of authority individuals need to
believe the state cannot provide them with security.
Ash 861
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