Study reveals roots of ethnic conflict
Ethnic conflict in Chechnya.
Photo by Mikhail Evstafiev
Scientists have developed a computer model that uses census data to predict outbreaks of ethnic conflict.
Yaneer Bar-Yam is president of New England Complex Systems Institute and co-author of the 2007 study. He tries to understand how ethnic groups interact with a local environment. He told Earth & Sky that it’s the nature of ethnic groups to impose certain cultural behaviors not just on members of their own group, but on the region with which they associate their identity.
And if there are no clear physical boundaries between themselves and other groups in the region, conflicts are inevitable.
Yaneer Bar-Yam: You can look at all of the details of individual events and who’s doing what and who’s responsible for what action. But if you try to look at where the violence is taking place – not just which country, but which local region of the country violence is taking place – it really can be predicted just by the spacial arrangement of people in that area.
In other words, according to Bar-Yam’s model, the patterns of group behavior repeat regardless of continent or history.
The model shows that groups will avoid violence when physical boundaries are in place, or when the ethnic groups integrate with each other.
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Yaneer Bar-Yam also said, “Our model shows that when you have groups that are mixed in population, it’s hard for the group to identify the space or region as associated with a single group. If groups are well separated, they identify their own area as associated with their group and impose social norms on that area.”
Podcast with Yaneer Bar-Yam by Science Magazine.
Out thanks to:
Yaneer Bar-Yam
President
New England Complex Systems Institute
Cambridge, MA
