Explaining the International Relations of Secessionist Conflicts: Vulnerability Versus Ethnic Ties Stephen M. Saideman
Introduction
With the end of the Cold War, many observers expected that international conflict would be less likely to occur and easier to manage. Given the successful resolution of the Gulf War and the European Community's (EC) efforts to develop a common foreign policy, observers expected international cooperation to manage the few conflicts that might break out. Instead, the disintegration of Yugoslavia contradicted these expectations. Rather than developing a common foreign policy, European states were divided over how to deal with Serbia, Croatia, and Bosnia. Germany pushed for relatively quick recognition of Croatia and Slovenia, whereas other members of the EC wanted to go slower. Some observers expected Russia to fall in line with the West because of its need for investment and trade, but instead it supported Serbia. It is puzzling that Europe failed to cooperate regardless of whether greater international cooperation could have managed this conflict. How can we make sense of the international relations of Yugoslavia's demise? Since secession is not anew phenomenon, we should study previous secessionist conlicts to determine if they share certain dynamics, and we should consider applying to Yugoslavia the arguments developed to understand such conlicts.
When studying secessionist conlicts, analysts have frequently argued that states vulnerable to secession do not support separatist movements in other states. This argument serves as the foundation for many analyses of the international relations of ethnic conlict. If this were true, the last few years would have been much more peaceful. Separatist tendencies in Kosovo and the Sandzak region, for example, should have constrained Serbia. Similarly, the secessionist efforts of Croatia's Serbian mi-
I would like to thank the Institute on Global Conflict and Cooperation, University of California, San Diego, for generously funding much of the research from which this article is drawn. Miles Kahler, Peter Cowhey, Arend Lijphart, Deborah Avant, John Barkdull, Brian Sala, David Lake, Peter Gourevitch, and, especially, Lisa Martin have provided insightful criticisms and helpful suggestions. All errors are my sole responsibility.
International Organization 51,4, Autumn 1997, pp. 721-53
© 1997 by The IO Foundation and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology
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nority should have inhibited Croatia's ambitions in Bosnia. Furthermore, the significant threat of disintegration should have deterred Russia from assisting secessionists in the rest of the former Soviet Union.1 In sum, the vulnerability argument fails to account for recent events.
The vulnerability argument does not even adequately explain the international relations of Africa—the region for which the argument was developed. Using differing logics, analysts argue that vulnerability to separatism constrains the foreign policies of African states and causes them to cooperate with each other in support of states resisting secessionism.2 These arguments posit the common interest and then use systemic-level approaches to explain the high degree of international cooperation. The problem is that in each African secessionist crisis most of the secessionists'important supporters were facing their own ongoing or potential separatist movements.
This article presents an alternative explanation: ethnic divisions within countries both constrain and compel leaders as they develop policy toward secessionist crises in other states. Although the vulnerability argument considers the weak positions of leaders, it does not take domestic politics seriously. The counterargument, the ethnic-ties approach, asserts that domestic politics is the most important influence on foreign policies toward secessionist conflicts. Specifically, politicians have to pay attention to their supporters' preferences, because they might otherwise give their support to someone else. Ethnic identity shapes what supporters prefer in both domestic and foreign policy. Individuals prefer that their states support those with whom they share ethnic ties. Since almost all secessionist crises are ethnic conflicts, potential and existing supporters frequently have ethnic ties to one side of a secessionist crisis. Politicians respond to their supporters' desires and support the side with which their constituents share ethnic ties. Therefore, the ethnic ties (or enmities) between a politician's supporters and the combatants in ethnic conflicts in other states help to explain the policies of states toward secessionist crises.
Systemic accounts fail because vulnerability does not determine the foreign policies of states. Instead, ethnic politics within states signiicantly conditions their policies toward ethnic conlicts in other states, as indicated by case studies of the Congo Crisis, the Nigerian Civil War, and the disintegration of Yugoslavia. This implies that we need to examine the domestic sources of cooperation more seriously, that fears of contagion or setting unfortunate precedents do not inhibit states as much as we might think, and that conlict management of secessionist crises may fail because outside actors may not agree on the preferred outcome.
Conventional Wisdom: Vulnerability Deters Support for Secession
''The greatest deterrent to territorial revisionism has been the fear of opening a Pandora's box. If any one boundary is seriously questioned, why not all the boundaries in
1. See Treisman 1997; and Hill and Jewett 1994.
2. ''Host state'' refers to the state resisting a secessionist movement.
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Western Africa?"3 This is the heart of conventional understandings of Africa's boundary politics and beyond. Vulnerability inhibits policymakers from supporting seces-sionismin other states. It also causes them to strengthen the norm of territorial integrity by building an international institution—such as the Organization of African Unity (OAU).4 Separatism is a serious threat because most African states face serious racial, religious, tribal, and linguistic divisions. Leaders fear that once some group successfully questions one tenuous, artificial African boundary, all the boundaries will be subject to challenges.5
Saadia Touval stresses the vulnerability of African states to separatism to explain why they have not supported secessionist movements or engaged in irredentism.6 ''Since most states are vulnerable to external incitement to secession, it was obvious to the majority of states that reciprocal respect for boundaries, and mutual abstinence from irredentism, would be to their advantage.''7 Touval goes on to argue that Somalia was the exception that proved the rule. Somalia's relative invulnerability to ethnic conflict, due to its homogeneity, explains its exceptional irredentism.8 Although the rise of clan conflict in the early 1990s and the de facto secession of Somaliland (northern Somalia) demonstrate that Somalia is currently vulnerable to ethnic con-lict, an examination of its history indicates that secessionism and ethnic conlict have plagued Somalia since it became independent in 1960, thus challenging Tou-val's assertion.9
Robert Jackson and Carl Rosberg argue that the norms of international society preserve African states lacking the empirical requisites of statehood.10 Jackson and Rosberg incisively apply Grotian theory to the practices of states and the in-luence of the international community.11 Their discussion contains keen insights into the nature of sovereignty, but one of their central points is problematic. They assert that ''there is a common interest in the support of international rules and institutions and state jurisdictions in the African region that derives from the common vulnerability of states and the insecurity of statesmen.''12 Thus they make one very important but very questionable assertion: that vulnerability to ethnic con-lict and separatism presents African leaders with similar opportunities and constraints.
3. Zartman 1966,109.
4. For example, see Buchheit 1978; Foltz 1991; Herbst 1989; Jackson and Rosberg 1982; Jackson 1990;Neuberger 1986; and Touval 1972.
5. Some analysts, such as Neuberger, have even argued that no rational basis needs to exist for such fears of dangerous precedents; Neuberger 1986, 97. For an excellent discussion of precedent setting and violating, see Kier and Mercer 1996.
6. I do not deal explicitly with irredentism here, though the argument can be applied to it; see Saideman
1996.
7. Touval 1972,33. For critiques of this argument, see Suhrke and Noble 1977; and Kamanu 1974.
8. Touval 1972,34.
9. See Lewis 1965; and Laitin andSamatar 1987.
10. See Jackson and Rosberg 1982; and Jackson 1990.
11. Forthe Grotian approach, see Bull 1977.
12. Jackson and Rosberg 1982,18 (emphasis added).
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Similarly, Jeffrey Herbst applies Robert Keohane's neoliberal approach to explain why African states have been able to maintain their boundaries.13 Herbst admits that for boundary stability to exist, states must solve a collective action problem. ''However, in the case of the state system that protects African boundaries, the large number of states is not a problem, because each state still feels at risk from secession, conquest, or some other boundary change.''14 Although elites face many threats, for Herbst, vulnerability to secession overrides the collective action problem. ''Since all countries are at risk from disgruntled minority groups, there is a general sense that all states gain crucial protection from the current system.''15
Herbst's approach does not adequately solve the problem that he seeks to address: Why do states still cooperate despite the temptation to free ride? Given the logic of collective action, vulnerability does not sufficiently explain cooperation; nor does the existence of common interest sufficiently explain cooperation—the temptation to free ride continues to exist.16 Herbst and others suggest that there is no free riding because a single violation of the boundary regime may undermine the entire system. ''Precisely because all parties know that once African boundaries begin to change there would be an indefinite period of chaos.. . . the grave danger of not cooperating is clear to all.''17 Thus since any boundary change, such as a successful secession, would reverberate throughoutAfrica, no country would have any interest in supporting such behavior. Herbst's emphasis on international norms and organizations, like that of Jackson and Rosberg, suggests that the greater the involvement of international organizations and the clearer the international norms, the less support secessionist movements will receive.
In these arguments, analysts treat vulnerability to ethnic conflict in general and secessionism specifically as a sufficient condition for explaining why a state would not support a separatist movement. Yet vulnerability fails to explain why a state would want to support a secessionist movement, suggesting only that a state that was invulnerable to secessionism could do so if it desired. Because states do help secessionists, the vulnerability argument only accounts for one value of the dependent variable. Furthermore, mutual vulnerability does not necessarily mean that states will pursue identical solutions to shared problems, because vulnerability may present different politicians with varying interests. Vulnerability by itself says very little about how leaders choose to deal with their fragile positions and divided states. Leaders may opt for external aggression to unify a divided society, or they may opt to acquiesce, depending on the nature of the internal conlict they face and their political interests.18 Another major problem with vulnerability arguments is that states under attack by secessionist movements have supported similar groups in other states.
13. Keohane1986.
14. Herbst 1989,690.
15. Ibid.
16. Olson 1965.
17. Herbst 1989,689.
18. For recent discussions of diversionary theories of war, see Morgan and Bickers 1992; and Miller
1995.
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Despite the vulnerability argument's weaknesses, it remains popular today, and analysts apply it beyond the African context. Radmila Nakarada refers to Pandora's box when he argues that ''if the territorial integrity of Yugoslavia is compromised in the name of self-determination, then the ensuing secessions . . . will have an external domino effect. The Yugoslav precedent will reach other dissatisfied minorities (Basque, Corsica, Sardinia, Northern Ireland, Southern Tyrol, etc.) whose aspirations for independence will be encouraged. The supreme danger is that once a precedent is set, no European borders can escape re-examination.''19 Indeed, Susan Woodward argues that initially Western countries sought to preserve Yugoslavia's territorial integrity because they feared setting a precedent for the Soviet Union.20
Should the vulnerability argument apply beyond the African context? Herbst, Jackson and Rosberg, and many others focus strictly on the single continent, so perhaps we cannot apply their arguments beyond Africa. Given the relatively recent decolonization of Africa, the artificiality of its boundaries, and the political, economic, and social weakness of African states, it might make sense not to generalize beyond it. Nonetheless, much of the vulnerability argument's logic should apply to any state suffering from separatism. If African states do not support secession due to fears of a backlash or reluctance to set nasty precedents, such concerns should constrain states in similar positions. Since vulnerability assertion is part of the larger systemic approaches Grotian theory and neoliberalism, contextual variables should not significantly limit the reach of such arguments. Of course, the vulnerability logic should apply most strongly to those regions closely resembling Africa. A similar region would be characterized by receding colonial or imperial domination, boundaries created by outsiders and not relective of the distribution of ethnic groups, and states suffering from economic disruptions and political instability. The vulnerability argument, therefore, should apply to Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union, given the significant similarities of that region today to Africa of thirty years ago.
In sum, the vulnerability argument predicts that states vulnerable to secessionism will support host states and oppose secessionists. Table 1 summarizes the key prediction of the argument. The argument by itself makes no predictions about the behavior of invulnerable states. The larger arguments associated with the vulnerability assumption, however, suggest that international norms and international organizations may constrain even invulnerable states. Before going on to the cases, I delineate the alternative argument: how ethnic politics within states influences their policies toward secessionist conlicts elsewhere.
Ethnic Ties and Foreign Policy
Ethnic politics does not always inhibit foreign policy but serves as a critical dynamic compelling some politicians to support secession elsewhere while constraining oth-
19. Nakarada 1991. See also Lukic and Lynch 1996, chap. 13; and Steinberg 1993,34, 61.
20. Woodward 1995,164.
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TABLE 1. The vulnerability argument's	predictions	
	State is vulnerable to secessionism	
Predicted policy	Yes	No
State supports secessionists	No	Indeterminate
State supports host state	Yes	Indeterminate
ers. Rather than always preventing politicians from supporting secession, the demands of ethnopolitical competition will cause politicians to assist secessionists in other states under certain conditions and limit them from doing so under other conditions. The ethnic-ties argument builds on a few basic assumptions and deductions about the motivations of politicians, the interests of their supporters, and their influence on foreign policy.
The first assumption of the ethnic-ties argument is that politicians care primarily about gaining and maintaining office, the prerequisite for most other goals attainable through politics.21 Second, each politician requires the support of others to gain and maintain political offices—the supporters forming the politician's constituency. How the constituency supports a decision maker varies, depending on the regime type and on existing political institutions. In a democracy, the constituency's support comes primarily through voting, though campaign contributions also matter. In an authoritarian regime, the leaders' constituencies generally consist of those who control the means of repression, such as the officer corps of the military as well as the security apparatus. Regardless of the particular support mechanisms, incumbent politicians care most about preventing these supporters from leaving their coalition, that is, exiting.22 Who is exiting determines how politicians respond.
Third, ethnic identities inluence the preferences of potential and existing constituents and, therefore, who might wish to exit and why.23 Ethnic groups are ''collective groups whose membership is largely determined by real or putative ancestral inherited ties, and who perceive these ties as systematically affecting their place and fate in the political and socioeconomic structures of their state and society.''24 These ancestral ties are through race, kinship (tribe or clan), religion, and language. A long-running debate concerns whether ethnic identity is a given in society (primordial) or created by politicians as they see fit. I follow the moderate position: multiple
21. For the classic discussion of this assumption applied to democracies, see Mayhew 1974. It is assumed here that elites in nondemocracies will behave similarly, since the costs of losing one's office are probably greater in authoritarian regimes; Ames 1987.
22. Hirschman 1970.
23. Fora rational-choice theoretic explanation ofwhy followers care aboutethnic identities, see Hardin 1995.
24. Rothschild 1981,2.
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ethnic identities frequently coexist, and the political context determines the salience of particular identities.25
From these assumptions, we can deduce that the ethnic ties of potential and existing constituents to external actors influence their preferences. If ethnic identity influences individuals'preferences toward domestic policies, these same identities should inluence preferences toward foreign policies for at least two reasons. First, ethnic identity, by its nature, creates loyalty, interest, and fear of extinction.26 International boundaries do not cause members of ethnic groups to ignore the condition of those who are similar to themselves—their ethnic kin.27 Constituents will care most about those with whom they share ethnic ties or those with whom a history of ethnic enmity exists. Ethnic enmity matters almost as much as ethnic ties, because ethnicity is partially an attempt to define who one is by who one is not.28 Second, ethnic ties inluence foreign policymaking, because support for ethnic kin abroad can be a litmus test for a politician's sincerity on ethnic issues at home. Politicians lack credibility if they take symbolic stands on ethnic issues but do not follow up when an ethnically charged foreign event develops.
Politicians care about the ethnic composition of their supporters, because this may determine who might exit and over which issues. Thus politicians avoid certain issues and embrace others to prevent their supporters from exiting and to attract the constituents of their competitors. If a politician needs Muslims for political support, for instance, the role of religion in the state will be a prominent area of interest for both the politician and his or her supporters. If a politician's supporters are predominantly African American, the constituency of that politician will prefer policies benefiting African Americans. The ethnic identities of potential exiters not only restrain politicians, they can also provide opportunities. Politicians can use the circumstances of ethnic kin to emphasize certain ethnic identities at the expense of other identities and other issues. When constituents become focused on economic problems or on a particularly problematic ethnic identity, a politician can use a foreign event to increase the salience of a specif c ethnic identity domestically, creating unity at least for the short term.29 Consequently, if ethnic ties determine the foreign policy preferences of constituents, such ties also influence the politician's foreign policy choices— both as constraint and opportunity. If the politician can influence foreign policy, the existence of ethnic ties and antagonisms between the politician's supporters and external actors will shape the state's foreign policy.30
Table 2 presents the predictions of the ethnic-ties argument. Specifically, states will assist the side with which the ruling politicians' constituency shares ethnic ties.
25. For examples of the primordial approach and its opposing argument (politicians creating ethnicity), see, respectively, Geertz 1963; and Brass 1991. For more moderate approaches that inspire the view of ethnicity presented here, see Horowitz 1985;Laitin 1986; and Rothschild 1981.
26. Horowitz 1985, especially chap. 4.
27. For a discussion of ethnic ties in U.S. foreign policy, see DeConde 1992.
28. Young 1976.
29. For a discussion of Slobodan Milosevic's efforts to use events in Kosovo and other parts of Yugoslavia to redefine the political context away from economic and other problems, see Gagnon 1994-95.
30. Davis and Moore 1997.
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TABLE 2. Ethnic ties and expected foreign policies
	Ruling politician's constituency has ethnic ties with		
Predicted policy	Secessionists	Both	Host state
State supports secessionists	Yes	Yes/Noa	No
State supports host state	No	Yes/Noa	Yes
"If constituency has ties to both sides of an ethnic conflict, the state is likely to support either both sides (ambivalence) or neither (neutrality).
Because constituents care about those with whom they share ethnic ties, they prefer their state to take sides in ethnic conflicts elsewhere, supporting the side with which they have ethnic ties. Politicians, because they need support and fear its loss, take the preferences of their supporters seriously and push for policies assisting the ethnic kin of their constituents. Ethnic enmity will work in ethnic politics like realism does in international relations: the enemy of my enemy is my friend. In other words, a politician's constituents want to support their ethnic kin and oppose those with whom they share a history of ethnic enmity. Ethnic enmities cause politicians to oppose those actors with whom ethnic enmity exists and to support ethnic groups fighting the ethnic adversary of their constituents.
Of course, politicians'constituencies are not always homogeneous. A constituency may consist of multiple ethnic groups, each having ties to different sides of ethnic conflicts in other countries; for example, a constituency might consist of both Muslims and Jews. When dealing with conflicts between these two religious groups in other states, a politician would have a difficult time choosing which side to support. If the politician were to avoid taking a position on the conlict, the result would be neutrality. If the politician preferred to satisfy both groups by supporting both sides of the conflict, the result would be ambivalence. Thus the ethnic-ties argument produces the following testable hypotheses:
States will support those actors internationally that share ethnic ties with decision-makers' supporters.
States will oppose those actors that share a history of ethnic enmity with the decision-makers supporters.
States will be neutral or ambivalent toward those conflicts where decisionmakers' supporters have ties to both sides.
Obviously, an approach based on ethnic ties cannot explain the policies of countries lacking ethnic ties or enmities between their own constituencies and the combatants. Other factors would play a greater role in these cases.
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Evaluating the Competing Arguments
The essential prediction derived from the vulnerability argument is that vulnerability inhibits support for secession. The conventional approach to the international relations of secessionism also predicts that when and where norms supporting territorial integrity and opposing secessionism are clear and where international organizations are involved, foreign support for secessionist movements will be less likely. The testable hypothesis of the ethnic-ties argument is that states will support the side of an ethnic conlict that shares ethnic ties with the leaders' constituents. Given these hypotheses, how do we evaluate them?
Since I am challenging the conventional wisdom, it makes sense to examine it on its home turf—Africa—where the vulnerability argument most likely applies.31 If the vulnerability argument fails to explain the internationalpolitics of African secessionist crises, we must seriously question the veracity of its claims. Rather than choosing randomly among all secessionist conflicts, I chose to study two African secessionist crises: the Congo Crisis of 1960-63 and the Nigerian Civil War of 1967-70.32 Each crisis should provide strong support for the conventional wisdom and has been cited as doing so.33
During the Congo Crisis, African states should have behaved as the vulnerability argument predicts. First, they were most vulnerable to separatism shortly after decolonization. There was still some question as to whether the boundaries created by the colonial powers would be respected, and this was not resolved until 1964 with the declaration of the OAU recognizing the colonial boundaries as legitimate. Further, since many African states became independent shortly before or during the Congo Crisis, they had not really consolidated their regimes. Given the uncertainty about boundaries and the basic weakness of African regimes, if vulnerability inhibits states from supporting separatism, African states should not have supported Katanga.
Second, the Congo Crisis is a most-likely case for the vulnerability argument, and a relatively least-likely case for the ethnic-ties argument, because the intervention of the United Nations (UN) should have deterred states from supporting Katanga. The conventional wisdom asserts that international organizations help to define international norms and inhibit states from supporting secession.34 The UN intervened more directly and more forcefully in the Congo Crisis than in any other secessionist crisis to date. Therefore, arguments focusing on the role of international organizations should do well here, and those that deemphasize international organizations, like the ethnic-ties argument, should not provide as accurate predictions or as good explanations.
Likewise, the Nigerian Civil War is also a most-likely case for the vulnerability argument. African states were still as vulnerable to separatism as they were a few
31. For using most-likely cases to evaluate theory, see Eckstein 1975.
32. In qualitative analyses, random selection may be problematic, as argued in King, Keohane, and Verba 1994,124-28.
33. See Jackson 1992,7; and Herbst 1992,20.
34. See Herbst 1989; and Jackson and Rosberg 1982.
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years earlier. The OAU was strongly involved, trying to deter others from intervening in the conflict. Most importantly, the war took place only three years after African states approved a resolution that affirmed the legitimacy of the colonial boundaries and the norm of territorial integrity. If the vulnerability arguments are correct, African states should not have supported the Biafran separatists. I also chose the Nigerian Civil War because this case facilitates a most-similar comparison. The secessionists and the host states of each conflict share many attributes, which helps to isolate the variations that might cause interesting behavior. Both Katanga and Biafra were mineral-rich regions, so the economic values of the seceding regions were similar.35 Both the Congo and Nigeria, at the time of the conlicts, were the most potentially powerful states in the region. The Cold War continued through both conlicts, so we can control for ideological competition and great power interest in Africa, which could potentially influence the superpowers' allies. What varies between the two cases are the ethnic identities at stake. For the Congo Crisis, tribal and racial identities are relevant, whereas during the Nigerian Civil War, tribal and religious identities were at stake, so the case selection assures variance in the key independent variable of ethnic ties.
Why then study the international politics of Yugoslavia's disintegration? Studying this conlict helps to disarm two potential criticisms: that the ethnic-ties argument applies only to the third world or to a particular period. Some non-African states played important roles in the African secessionist crises, and ethnic ties inluenced their policies. Still, analyzing the Yugoslav conflict should provide stronger evidence as to whether the dynamics predicted by the ethnic-ties argument are relevant in the 1990s and whether they apply to institutionalized democracies and to regimes making the transition to democracy. The Yugoslav conlict should be a hard test for the ethnic-ties argument because European states had many other interests at stake. Among them are building a common European foreign policy, reforming the economies of the former Soviet empire, developing institutions to govern European security, and setting precedents in the post-Cold War era. Finally, the Yugoslav conflict is an interesting anomaly. Given the web of economic and security institutions in Europe, many observers expected a greater degree of cooperation than actually occurred.
Studying these three secessionist crises allows us to analyze more than three observations, because each case breaks down into a number of observations: each country making policy toward the conflict.36 Thus the number of observations grows to between thirteen and eighteen per crisis, totaling forty-six observations. The important methodological question then becomes by what criteria did I choose the observations? To make sure the dependent variable did vary, I chose, from the possible universe of observations, the major actors in each conflict: those strongly supporting
35. The promise of economic resources might attract foreign support rather than ethnic ties, so the selection of cases might introduce some bias. Specifically, secessionists who do not have economic resources do not receive foreign support. Because this study focuses on the vulnerability argument, I am biasing the cases in favor of that approach (most-likely cases), rather than in favor of other theoretical arguments.
36. See Lijphart 1975; and King, Keohane, and Verba 1994,117.
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the secessionist movement and those strongly supporting the host state. To exhaust the possible range of observations, I also chose contiguous states that were neutral or supported both sides during the conflicts.37 By contrast, previous efforts focused only on one value of the dependent variable, support for the host state, and downplayed or overlooked cases where states assisted secessionists. Although I did study countries having no ethnic ties to the combatants, I do not discuss them here, because the ethnic-ties argument says nothing about states that have no ethnic ties.38 Such states may support host states or separatists, but ethnic ties will not explain or predict their behavior.
I determine whether ethnic ties exist by considering the existing literature on the domestic politics of each country to establish the essential constituencies for the reigning politicians and to determine the constituency's ethnic composition. If the constituency is homogeneous, coding is simple—do the members of the constituency share the same race, religion, language, or kinship (tribe or clan) as the secessionist movement or the host state? Since the secessionist movement and the host state may each have multiple ethnic identities, and since ethnic identity is partly perceptual in nature, perceptions of the conflict will influence the perception of ethnic ties.39 If the constituency is not homogeneous, the focus is then on the ethnic ties of each ethnic group in the constituency. Ethnic ties will exist if any group of constituents has the same ethnic identity as one of the combatants in the secessionist conlict.
A state is vulnerable to secessionism if (1) a secessionist movement actually tried to secede in recent history (the previous ten years), (2) members of a group have organized with the goal of independence, or (3) area studies experts view particular regions to be potentially secessionist. The last distinction should not be problematic because the vulnerability approach focuses on fears of separatism, rather than on ongoing or past secessionist wars.
Finally, I code the dependent variable as support for a particular side if a state gives either material assistance in the form of arms, equipment, or money, or diplomatic assistance in the form of recognition, votes in favor of that side in international organizations, or interceding with other states on the behalf of that side.40
The Congo Crisis
On 30 June 1960 the Congo became an independent state, even though the Belgians had scarcely begun the task of preparing the state for its new status.41 Although the
37. King, Keohane, and Verba 1994,130, 141.
38. For example, ethnic ties cannot account for France's involvement in the Congo Crisis and the Soviet Union's involvement during the Nigerian Civil War.
39. For a discussion of factors shaping perceptions of secessionist conflicts, see Saideman 1997.
40. Although one could argue that military assistance is a stronger form of support than diplomatic recognition, one could also argue that diplomatic assistance is a much more assertive step because it more clearly violates existing norms. Since secessionists are so eager to get recognition, and host states so desperate to avoid any semblance of recognition, its importance should not be underestimated. Therefore, I do not make distinctions between them.
41. The Congo changed its name to Zaire in 1971 and has only changed back with the successful rebellion in May 1997.
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Belgians had not intended to free the Congo so quickly, France's painful experience with decolonization intimidated Belgian decision makers.42 As a result, they shortened a four-year plan for independence to six months.43 Fears of instability were quickly realized when the Congo's armed forces began to mutiny on 5 July. Events quickly escalated, despite the efforts of President Joseph Kasavubu and Prime Minister Patrice Lumumba to settle the crisis, culminating in the declaration of Katangan independenceby the province's president, Moise Tshombe, on 11 July.
Early in the conlict, events indicated the extent to which white settlers had inlu-enced Katanga and the government of Belgium. White European settlers and former Belgian colonial officials held many important administrative positions. Belgian behavior differed in Katanga from elsewhere in the Congo, making it clear that Belgium was supporting Katanga's secessionist movement.44 Because of the close ties between the separatists and the white settlers in Katanga, many states perceived Katanga to be a supporter of white interests. External actors, including the UN, paid little attention to the tribal conlicts between the Lunda and the Baluba. Instead, most states quickly perceived the secessionist crisis to be part of a larger racial conlict between, on the one side, the former colonial powers and the white minority regimes of southern Africa and, on the other side, the black nationalist states of Africa.
Although no state formally recognized Katanga, some states supported the secessionists, assisting Tshombe's regime to persist for three years. Belgium (the former colonial power), the Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland (the neighboring white-minority regime), and Congo-Brazzaville gave critical support. They gave Katanga money and arms, facilitated the recruitment of mercenaries, and provided advisors.
Although few states assisted Katanga directly, many supported the Congo's territorial integrity. States helped in three ways: by providing financial assistance to the UN Operation in the Congo (ONUC), contributing soldiers to ONUC, and engaging in diplomatic efforts to end Katanga's secession. These efforts were pivotal because the UN force intervened with a vague mandate that evolved into a mission to end Katanga's secession.
Although many states took a strong stand on either side of the conlict, some countries were less certain in their support and either followed ambivalent policies or tried to stay neutral. The United States at first supported UN efforts in the Congo while giving some assistance to the Katangans as well. After John Kennedy took office as president, the United States stood more decisively against Katanga, irst permitting and later pushing for more assertive ONUC efforts.
The conventional wisdom expects very few states to support Katanga due to the strong UN role and widespread vulnerability to secessionism. Those states supporting Katanga would be relatively less vulnerable to secessionism. The vulnerability argument may account partially for the popularity of the Congo's cause, since most states supported the Congo, and many of these states were vulnerable to secession.
42. Spaak 1971,358.
43. For a discussion of the conflict's outbreak, see Hoskyns 1965.
44. Gerard-Libois 1966.
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Katanga's most energetic allies, however, were also vulnerable to secession. If vulnerability to separatism inhibited states, these states would not have assisted Katanga.
The ethnic-ties argument expects that leaders depending on ethnic groups with ties to Katanga or enmity toward the Congo would support Katanga, and those relying on constituents with ties with the Congo or enmity toward Katanga would support the Congo. Because most perceived the crisis as a racial conlict, leaders depending on black supporters or on those hostile to whites would support the Congo, and leaders depending on white supporters would assist the Katangans. Politicians depending on support from both blacks and whites would be ambivalent or neutral during this crisis.
Table 3 shows the major actors in the Congo Crisis, with whom the leaders' constituents had ethnic ties, whether the state was vulnerable to secessionism, the resulting predictions of the two approaches, and the state's actual policies.45 As Table 3 indicates, the ethnic-ties argument provides relatively accurate predictions. For ten of the predominant actors in the Congo Crisis, it predicts their behavior toward the conlict; it fails to predict the behavior of three of the actors. States where leaders depended on supporters with racial ties to the Congo almost always supported the Congo, whereas those states with leaders relying on constituents with ties to the secessionists tended to support Katanga. The vulnerability hypothesis correctly predicts the policies of six states, but does not predict all four of Katanga's most enthusiastic supporters, which is even more surprising given the strong involvement of the UN. Moreover, the vulnerability argument could not make any predictions for three states. The ethnic-ties argument incorrectly predicts the policy changes of Belgium and the United States and fails to predict Congo-Brazzaville's support for Katanga. In the first two cases, the behavior of states at the outset of the crisis conforms to the argument's predictions. Over time, however, each state changed its policies: Belgium decreased its support of Katanga, and the United States became less ambivalent in its support of the Congo. Two observations are worth noting: the policy changes by both states coincide with changes in governments, and the policy changes met with much resistance from precisely those groups having ties with Katanga and/or enmities with the Congo.46 Although the speciic predictions of the ethnic-ties argument do not bear out in those two cases, its logic still helps to explain Belgian and American foreign policy during the Congo Crisis.
When the crisis began, a weak coalition of the Christian Democratic party and the Liberal party governed Belgium.47 The main party in opposition was the Socialist party. Although the Socialists declared that Belgium should neither send troops to the Congo nor recognize Katanga, the Liberals pushed for recognition. The Christian Democrats sought to compromise between the two positions by giving arms, equip-
45. One neutral country, the Central African Republic, was included due to its proximity to the Congo and its similarities to Congo-Brazzaville in this case and to Nigeria's neighbors in the following case.
46. The focus here is on what states did, but the policies promoted by the decision makers' competitors are additional observable implications of the ethnic-ties argument.
47. The Liberal party's name is deceptive, since it was a conservative party with much right-wing support; Fitzmaurice 1983,162-68.
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TABLE 3. Racial politics and the Congo crisis
	Racial		Vulnerability	Ethnic-ties	
Country	ties to	Vulnerability	predictions	predictions	Actual policy
Belgium	Katang aa	High	Supportfor Congo	Supportfor Katanga	nitially supported Katanga,
					weakened over timec
Federation of	Katang a	High	Supportfor Congo	Supportfor Katanga	Supported Katanga
Rhodesia and					
Nyasaland					
South Africa	Katanga	High	Supportfor Congo	Supportfor Katanga	Supported Katanga
United States	Both	Low	No prediction	Ambivalence or	Ambivalent, shifting to
				neutrality	supported Congoc
Central African	Both	Low	No prediction	Ambivalence or	Neutral
Republic				neutrality	
Ghana	Congo	High	Supportfor Congo	Supportfor Congo	Supported Congo
Guinea	Congo	High	Supportfor Congo	Supportfor Congo	Supported Congo
Ethiopia	Congo	High	Supportfor Congo	Supportfor Congo	Supported Congo
Morocco	Congob	High	Supportfor Congo	Supportfor Congo	Supported Congo
Tunisia	Congob	Low	No prediction	Supportfor Congo	Supported Congo
India	Congob	High	Supportfor Congo	Supportfor Congo	Supported Congo
Nigeria	Congo	High	Supportfor Congo	Supportfor Congo	Supported Congo
Congo-Brazzaville	Congo	High	Supportfor Congo	Supportfor Congo	Supported Katangac
aThe Belgian case is primarily about its enmity toward the Congo and is not ethnically oriented. bThese cases focus more on ethnic enmity toward the Katangans, which produces the same foreign policies as ethnic ties with the Congo.
cIncorrect prediction for the ethnic-ties argument.
ment, and other forms of support to Katanga but refusing to give diplomatic recognition. An election produced a new government in 1961, creating a coalition between the Socialists and the Christian Democrats.48
Why should a new coalition develop a different foreign policy? Rising linguistic conflict was the key constraint for all Belgian politicians during the Congo Crisis. Linguistic conflict challenged all three major parties because each contained Flemish and Walloon (French-speaking) wings.49 All three tried to avoid linguistic divisions and preferred policies that stressed some common bond among their constituents, such as attachment to the Belgian state. If politicians could overcome linguistic divides by mobilizing their followers through Belgian nationalism, they might prevent, or at least delay, the breakup of their supporting coalitions. The Liberal party, due to its conservative background, and the Christian Democratic party, due to its ties to the monarchy, relied on Belgian nationalism. The Socialist party, due to its class and ideological appeals, relied on Belgian nationalism the least.
The Congo's Independence Day triggered Belgian patriotism when Lumumba responded to King Baudouin's paternalistic speech with a tirade against Belgian colonial policies.50 The Belgian press and people reacted very strongly against Lu-
48. See Gerard-Libois 1966,197; and Helmreich 1976,397.
49. Fitzmaurice 1983.
50. Hoskyns 1965,85.
Secessionist Conflicts 735
mumba, leading to a rise in Belgian nationalism.51 Because this patriotic sentiment was directed against Lumumba, it favored Tshombe.52 By supporting Tshombe, Belgian politicians rode the wave of Belgian popular opinion as they defended Belgium from the attacks of radical black nationalists like Lumumba. Although Belgium's support was splitting along linguistic cleavages, Flemings and Walloons could agree on supporting Katanga, because the conflict in the Congo was one of race, not language.
Despite a new government in 1961, foreign policy did not change immediately. Although Belgian nationalism constrained the Socialists less, they still could not afford to offend Belgian nationalists or their coalition partners. When Belgian decision makers did meet UN demands, opposition was fierce. As the conflict continued, Belgian nationalism lessened as politicians and voters refocused on economic issues and linguistic problems.
Despite increasing separatism at home, Belgian politicians could support Katanga because the conflict was of a different ethnic tie—race—than the one polarizing Belgian society—language. Although the ethnic-ties argument does not predict Belgium's policies correctly, ethnic politics provides a better explanation of Belgian foreign policy than does its vulnerability to secession.
Although Cold War politics mostly explains American interest in the region and some of its policies, ethnic politics also mattered. Under President Dwight Eisenhower, U.S. policy ixated on getting rid of Lumumba, who had asked for Soviet help, and the United States was less resolute when dealing with Tshombe, who strategically painted himself as staunchly anticommunist.53 Although anticommunism also motivated Kennedy's policies, his views were more nuanced, due to his previous experiences and his successful campaign strategies. As a senator, Kennedy made a series of statements on Africa, the product both of his opinions and of his political agenda. Within the Democratic party, Kennedy's left lank was his weakest, and he realized that he needed the support of liberals to be nominated for president. He was reluctant, however, to push for civil rights in the United States, fearing that it might alienate southern democrats. To get more liberal and black votes without losing southern whites, Kennedy used African issues to his advantage, making 479 references to Africa in a three-month campaign. ''Kennedy's handling of the Africa issue in the 1960 campaign . . . was a minor classic in political exploitation of foreign policy"54
Domestic opposition still constrained Kennedy. Most of the groups supporting Katanga and opposing Kennedy's policy in the Congo were anticommunist, anti-UN, and right wing, including the John Birch Society and the Young Americans for Free-dom.55 The Katanga lobby ''also attracted certain Southern whites who seem to have regarded Moise Tshombe as the African incarnation of Uncle Tom.''56 It is not surpris-
51. Helmreich 1976,395.
52. Hoskyns 1965,140-41.
53. Weissman 1974,63,74-75.
54. Mahoney 1983,30 (emphasis added).
55. Mahoney 1983,150-53.
56. Gibbs 1991,122.
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ing that Kennedy considered the most assertive attempts to end the secession after the Cuban Missile Crisis ended, when his right flank was more secure.57
Although ethnic politics may not provide the best explanation of U.S. foreign policy at this time, it does explain some of Kennedy's choices. The Congo Crisis provided American presidents with more than one option. Anticommunism could mean either supporting Katanga, which espoused anticommunism, or defeating Katanga, since it was a source of regional instability. Kennedy's appeals to liberal and black voters inluenced his policy choices as president.
The foreign policy of Congo-Brazzaville is very anomalous.58 ''Congo-Brazzaville was virtually the only one [black African-ruled country] that faithfully defended to the very end the secessionist policy of Moise Tshombe.''59 The ethnic-ties argument does not predict this policy, since President Abbe Fulbert Youlou of Congo-Brazzaville and President Joseph Kasavubu of the Congo shared the same tribal background, the Bakongo, a large kinship group whose territory crossed the boundaries of the two states. With these kinship ties, in addition to the racial ties, one would expect that Congo-Brazzaville would oppose Katanga. Rather than manipulating ethnicity through foreign policy, Youlou instead tried to decrease ethnic opposition through two methods: by building a dam that would ensure employment for all and bribing ethnic groups with funds solicited from abroad. ''All the country's hopes for improving the economic situation had centered on construction of the Kouilou dam and on the industrialization of Pointe Noire. Youlou, for his part, had staked his whole political future on carrying out this project.''60 By employing his country's youth, Youlou hoped to limit the inluence of radical movements. Youlou also solicited foreign sources of money to pay off all groups, especially government workers and the urban population.61 He traded his foreign policies for the funds necessary to pay off his constituents. ''Aid from Katanga and elsewhere was sufficient to provide the necessary subsidies'' to all tribes in Congo-Brazzaville.62 Although Congo-Brazzaville contradicts the ethnic-ties argument, its behavior still indicates that ethnic politics motivates politicians when making foreign policy decisions. The argument failed to predict Youlou's policies because it fails to take into account an alternative method of dealing with ethnic conflict—buying it off.
The Nigerian Civil War
Although ethnic conflict existed in Nigeria before the coup d'etat on 15 January 1966 that ended the First Republic, strife between tribal groups increased because of the military takeover. The coup resulted in the deaths of the prime minister as well as
57. Weissman 1974,171.
58. Because France supported Katanga, one could argue that Congo-Brazzaville did the same due to French influence. Most francophone African states, however, opposed Katanga, so French influence by itself does not sufficiently explain Congo-Brazzaville's policies.
59. Gauze 1973, 126.
60. Ibid., 89.
61. Ibid.,141.
62. Ballard 1966,249,295.
Secessionist Conflicts 737
the governors of the northern and western states. Only the eastern governor, an Ibo, survived. The leader of the military regime, Major General Johnson Aguiyi Ironsi, also an Ibo, proclaimed Nigeria to be a unitary state, abolishing federal institutions established before decolonization. This led to anti-Ibo riots in the northern region as fears of Ibo domination grew. A second coup occurred on 29 July 1966, resulting in the death of Ironsi; Colonel Yakubu Gowon, a member of a smaller tribe, replaced him. Rioting and massacres of Ibos in the northern regions occurred, leading to large lows of Ibos returning to the eastern region. General C. Odumegwu Ojukwu, who was made the military governor of the eastern region after the first coup, was reluctant to submit to the new federal military government. After failed negotiations, Ojukwu declared the independence of the Republic of Biafra, which comprised the territory of the eastern region, on 30 May 1967. Fighting broke out in July 1967, and the conlict ended two-and-a-half-years later in January 1970, after a series of offensives by the Nigerian armed forces.
Despite the tribal roots of the conlict, Biafran efforts caused outside actors to perceive this conlict as a religious dispute. By stressing religious ties, the Ibos were seeking support from non-Ibo Christians in the region, and by emphasizing the history of enslavement by Muslims, the Ibos were also trying to appeal to the animists.63 By def ning the conlict as one between Biafra and the Muslim Hausa-Fulani, rather than the whole of Nigeria, the Biafrans emphasized religious ties and enmities. The Biafrans also aimed their emphasis on religious persecution at the international audience. They compared themselves to the Jews during the holocaust and to Israel surrounded by hostile Arab neighbors.64 Religious appeals and assertions of genocide aimed against Christians by Muslims inluenced the positions of many states toward Biafra and Nigeria. This strategy was a double-edged sword, however, because it encouraged some states to support Biafra and alienated many others, pushing them into Nigeria's camp.
Strangely, the vulnerability theorists use this conlict to support their arguments. Of the four African states to recognize Biafra—Gabon, the Ivory Coast, Tanzania, and Zambia—three faced ongoing or potential secessionist conflicts, and the fourth, Tanzania, encountered the difficult problem of integrating a noncontiguous, ethnically distinct territory: Zanzibar. According to the vulnerability argument, these states should be the last, not the f rst, to support a secessionist movement. Other supporters of Biafra, including Israel, Rhodesia, and South Africa, also faced high levels of ethnic conflict, contradicting the expectations of the vulnerability argument. Furthermore, one would expect less support for Biafra than for Katanga, since the formation of the OAU in 1963 and its subsequent declaration on the territorial integrity of African states clarified the norms governing African boundaries. Nevertheless, more African states governed by blacks—precisely those supposedly bound by interna-
63. Emphasizing religion was also a strategy to divide the religiously heterogeneous Yorubas, the second largest tribe in Nigeria. For more on ethnic politics within the Yoruba, see Laitin 1986.
64. ''Biafra Sees Itself as David,'' African Monthly Review, September 1967, cited in Kirk-Greene 1971,172.
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tional norms—supported Biafra than Katanga and did so far more openly and aggressively.
Most African states took Nigeria's side in the conflict, supporting the efforts of the OAU to limit external intervention in the war and defining the problem as Nigeria's to solve. Their efforts lend some support to the vulnerability hypothesis.
Because the Biafrans deined this as a conlict between different religious groups, the ethnic-ties argument makes several predictions. Leaders relying on constituents with religious ties to the Biafrans would support Biafra. Decision makers relying on supporters with religious ties to Nigeria's Muslim majority would support Nigeria. Those politicians depending on constituents with ties to both would be either neutral or ambivalent. Suggestively, not a single country ruled by politicians relying on Muslims recognized or gave material assistance to Biafra.
Table 4 shows the religious ties of decision-makers' constituents to the combatants, the vulnerability of their states to secessionism, the expectations of the two arguments, and what the states actually did during the conlict. As Table 4 indicates, the vulnerability argument could make predictions for only thirteen observations, and of those it correctly predicted only four: Cameroon, Ethiopia, Somalia, and Sudan. Seven states that were vulnerable to secessionism and ethnic conlict supported Biafra, and two other vulnerable states were either neutral or ambivalent. In contrast, the ethnic-ties argument correctly predicted fifteen states examined, whereas only three contradicted the expectations of the argument: Ethiopia, Tanzania, and Senegal.
The Ethiopian case is the one observation that the vulnerability argument predicts correctly but the ethnic-ties argument does not. Ethiopia's emperor, Haile Selassie I, strongly supported Nigeria s territorial integrity despite relying on a multireligious constituency. Selassie, though predominantly relying on Christian support at the time, was trying to improve his relationship with Ethiopia's Muslim population. He called for religious tolerance, met with Muslim leaders, and inally included one in his cabinet in 1966.65 Supporting Nigeria would assist these efforts to gain the support of the Muslim populace of Ethiopia. Moreover, the emperor s strategy for handling ethnic conflict involved developing an alternative nationalism. ''Within the boundaries of this religiously pluralistic, ethnically and linguistically diverse political entity that is called Ethiopia, the government has been deliberately pursuing a policy of creating an Ethiopian national identification, a higher loyalty than that to religion or group. 66 Asserting Ethiopian leadership in Africa served as part of creating such a national identity. Supporting Nigeria against Christian Biafra would demonstrate clearly his commitment to a nationalist and African foreign policy rather than to a communal one. Although ethnic politics can explain the emperor s decisions to an extent, the Ethiopian case provides stronger evidence for the vulnerability argument than for the ethnic-ties argument. This situation, however, is quite rare—it is only one of four observations the vulnerability argument predicts correctly and one of three the ethnic-ties argument does not predict.
65. Clapham 1969, 85.
66. Hess 1966,522 (emphasis added).
Secessionist Conflicts 739
TABLE 4. Religious politics and the Nigerian Civil War
	Religious		Vulnerability	Ethnic politics	
Country	ties to	Vulnerability	predictions	predictions	Actual policy
Tanzania	Both	High	Support for Nigeria	Neutrality or ambivalence	Supported Biafrac
Zambia	Biafra	High	Support for Nigeria	Support for Biafra	Supported Biafra
Ivory Coast	Biafra	High	Support for Nigeria	Support for Biafra	Supported Biafra
Gabon	Biafra	High	Support for Nigeria	Support for Biafra	Supported Biafra
Portugal	Biafra	Low	No prediction	Support for Biafra	Supported Biafra
Israel	Biafraa	High	Support for Nigeria	Support for Biafra	Supported Biafra
Rhodesia	Biafra	High	Support for Nigeria	Support for Biafra	Supported Biafra
South Africa	Biafra	High	Support for Nigeria	Support for Biafra	Supported Biafra
Sierra Leone	Both	High	Support for Nigeria	Ambivalence or neutrality	Ambivalent
Uganda	Both	High	Support for Nigeria	Ambivalence or neutrality	Neutral
Senegal	Nigeria	Low	No prediction	Support for Nigeria	Ambivalente changing
Ethiopia	Both	High	Support for Nigeria	Ambivalence or neutrality
Cameroon	Nigeriab	High	Support for Nigeria	Support for Nigeria
Niger	Nigeria	Low	No prediction	Support for Nigeria
Egypt	Nigeria	Low	No prediction	Support for Nigeria
Sudan	Nigeria	High	Support for Nigeria	Support for Nigeria
Somalia	Nigeria	High	Support for Nigeria	Support for Nigeria
Tunisia	Nigeria	Low	No prediction	Support for Nigeria
to supported
Nigeria Supported Nigeriac Supported Nigeria Supported Nigeria Supported Nigeria Supported Nigeria Supported Nigeria Supported Nigeria
aIsrael had enmity toward Nigeria, producing the same preferences as its ethnic ties with Biafra. bThe two different ethnic groups within the politicians' constituencies had different ties and enmities at stake. One group shared religious and kinship ties with Nigeria, and the other had enmity toward the Ibos. cIncorrect prediction for the ethnic-ties argument.
Neither argument could predict Tanzanian foreign policy. For the vulnerability argument, Tanzania's support of Biafra is quite anomalous. Tanzania's leader, Julius Nyerere, had played a major role in organizing the OAU and its resolution sanctifying the existing boundaries, and he had made many statements before the crisis affirming African states' territorial integrity and the nonintervention norm.67 For the ethnic-ties argument, Nyerere's foreign policy is surprising. His constituency consisted of both Muslims and Christians, leading to the expectation that the policy toward Biafra would be ambivalent or neutral. Nevertheless, Tanzania strongly supported Biafra by formally recognizing it and by shipping arms to it from China.68
Several factors may have lessened the ethnic constraints Nyerere faced. He did try to redefine the conflict as a human rights problem, rather than as a religious conflict.69 Furthermore, the institutions governing political competition in Tanzania gave Nyerere some autonomy. Elites within Nyerere's party selected candidates for office,
67. See Chime 1969,76; and Nyerere 1967,206.
68. Heraclides 1991,95.
69. Nyerere tried to define his support of Biafra as one favoring minorities, thus appealing to minorities in Tanzania; Nyerere 1969, 11.
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and candidates were restricted from discussing ethnic identities or foreign policy during their campaigns.70 The Zanzibaris, the most important Muslim group of Ny-erere's constituency, might have supported his policies because they might have perceived the Nigerian Civil War as a racial conlict between Africans and Arabs, rather than as a religious dispute between Christians and Muslims.71 Although the ethnic-ties argument can make some sense of Tanzanian behavior, Tanzania is still a troublesome case for both arguments.
Senegal's foreign policy at the outset of the Nigerian Civil War does not it the predictions of the ethnic-ties argument, but as the war continued, it changed to the predicted support for Nigeria.72 Contradictions between the personal and political interests of President Leopold Senghor produced inconsistent foreign policies. His Catholic background and his support of Negritude shaped his personal interest in supporting Biafra. As a Catholic, Senghor had great sympathy for his fellow Catholic, Ojukwu, and the mostly Christian Biafrans. Moreover, as the proponent of an ideology stressing the dignity of the African man (Negritude) the war's destruction disgusted Senghor.73 Due to these interests, Senghor sought an immediate cease-ire, which favored Biafra. Senghor's political interests, however, constrained him from giving more support to Biafra. In his bid for high office in Senegal, Senghor gained the support of Muslim religious leaders, who ''represent the main traditional force in Senegalese politics.''74 These Muslim elites became even more important for Senghor during the Nigerian Civil War as crises developed within Senegal.75
Because Senghor needed the support of Muslim elites, he could not support the Biafrans without alienating those who helped maintain his position. Senghor was ''under considerable domestic pressure from his large Moslem constituency,'' to support Nigeria, not Biafra.76 Thus the religious composition of Senghor's supporters restrained him from following his personal preferences. The Senegal case supports the ethnic-ties argument, since the imperatives of political survival overrode the leader's initial personal preferences.
These three anomalies indicate that leaders must consider the dynamics of ethnic politics within their country and develop suitable strategies. Nyerere's construction of Tanzania's political system and Senghor's bowing to the preferences of his Muslim supporters indicate that ethnic politics, rather than vulnerability to separatism, strongly inluences the foreign policy choices of politicians. Ethiopia is the only observation where the vulnerability argument correctly predicts policies that were counter to the expectations of the ethnic-ties argument.
70. See Young 1976,262; and Nyerere 1967,263.
71. Lofchie 1964,488-89.
72. See Legum and Drysdale 1970, B588; and Corbett 1972,71-72.
73. Ingham 1990,119.
74. Foltz1964,47.
75. Boubacar 1988,285.
76. Stremlau 1977,140-41.
Secessionist Conflicts 741
The Complex Disintegration of Yugoslavia77
Studying African secessionist conlicts solely would limit our ability to generalize the findings beyond less-developed, weak institutionalizedstates. Expanding the cases to include the international relations of Yugoslavia's demise gives us an opportunity to examine how ethnic politics influences the foreign policies both of institutionalized democracies and of states undergoing transitions from authoritarianism to democracy. Moreover, there are multiple secessionist movements with differing ethnic identities—such as Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia, Macedonia, and Serbian populations of Croatia and Bosnia—that should also provide revealing comparisons.
Although the Yugoslav conlict has deep roots, it surfaced on European foreign policy agendas in 1991. After the rise of Slobodan Milosevic and his use of ethnic identities to gain and maintain his position, Slovenia and Croatia seceded in June 1991.78 Before this point and throughout the summer of 1991, the EC sought to keep Yugoslavia together.79 After Slovenia quickly won its independence, the focus of the ighting shifted to Croatia. EC representatives brokered a series of cease-ires, which eventually led to the introduction of UN peacekeepers separating Serb-held Croatian territories from the rest of Croatia. Throughout the fall of 1991, EC members debated whether to recognize Slovenia and Croatia, with Germany pushing for immediate recognition.80 Resolving this debate, the EC agreed to a set of rules on 17 December 1991 that clariied the conditions for recognizing those seceding from Yugoslavia and the Soviet Union: respect for human rights, guarantees for ethnic groups in accordance with the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe, and respect for all boundaries. To decide which Yugoslav republics met these criteria, the EC appointed a commission, which found that Slovenia and Macedonia qualified. Before the commission's decision, however, Germany recognized Slovenia and Croatia, with the rest of the EC following suit in January 1992. The EC withheld recognition of Macedonia due to Greek opposition. After this debate, attention focused on Bosnia, where conlict was emerging. War broke out in March 1992 and only stopped with the Dayton Accords in late 1995.
How do the various hypotheses hold up in the Yugoslav case? If fears of vulnerability motivate states, vulnerable states would have followed consistent policies. Such states would have supported the territorial integrity of Yugoslavia and then the integrity of its constituent republics once Yugoslavia's disintegration was a fait accompli. The United States, perhaps more than any other country, did take such a stand, supporting Yugoslavia's unity until it was no longer possible and then supporting Bosnia's
77. This crisis is complex because of multiple secessionist movements, with several seeking to secede from seceding territories. Despite Serbia's irredentism, the conflict is a secessionist conflict because Croatia and Slovenia tried to and successfully did secede from Yugoslavia. Their recognition did not end the secessionist crisis, since Bosnia and Macedonia then seceded, and groups within Croatia and Bosnia also sought to secede.
78. For an explanation of Yugoslavia's disintegration consistent with the logic developed here, see
Saideman 1998.
79. The EC became the European Union when the Maastricht Treaty was ratified in November 1993; thus the EC was the relevant actor until 1993, when the European Union replaced it.
80. For one explanation of Germany's desire to recognize Slovenia and Croatia, see Crawford 1996.
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territorial integrity for most of the conlict. Of course, the vulnerability argument cannot account for this, since the United States faces no secessionist threats. Great Britain and France, who have experienced some separatism, supported Yugoslavia's integrity but quickly accepted various plans to partition Bosnia. Furthermore, once Yugoslavia broke apart, Serbia should not have supported the separatist efforts of Serbs in Croatia and Bosnia because Serbia is quite vulnerable to secession. The Albanian majority in Kosovo, the Hungarians in Vojvodina, and the Muslims in the Sandzak region of Serbia are all potential separatist movements, with the Albanians in Kosovo providing the most serious threat to secede. Likewise, Croatia's effort to divide Bosnia is quite strange given Croatia's desire to maintain its territorial integrity. Moreover, Russia has backed Serbia and the Bosnian Serbs despite its secessionist conlict in Chechnya and potential ones elsewhere. Indeed, if vulnerability to secession truly constrained states, the Yugoslav conlict would have been quite short, because few actors would have supported the Serbs in Croatia and Bosnia and the Croats in Bosnia.
The timing of the recognition policy of the EC, however, suggests one constraint that the various actors felt: they did not want to set a precedent that might encourage the disintegration of the Soviet Union.81 After the coup in August 1991, the Soviet Union fell apart, and, consequently, fears of encouraging such an outcome no longer restrained Germany nor the rest of the EC. Even so, this does not support the vulnerability hypothesis, since it focuses on how the vulnerability of a state affects its foreign policy, rather than on how another state's vulnerability inhibits the state's foreign policy.
Did the involvement of international organizations limit external support for the various secessionists? Clearly, the UN arms embargo, enforced by NATO, decreased the amount of arms reaching Bosnia and Croatia, though arms continued to flow. The United States condoned arms transfers from Iran through Croatia to Bosnia despite its membership in both NATO and the UN Security Council. The arms embargo, however, impeded the United States, because domestic actors wanted to give more assistance to the Bosnians. Significantly, international organizations themselves supported certain separatists, enabling the separatists to continue their ight or maintain their holdings. The introduction of UN peacekeepers into Croatia essentially ratiied the Serb conquest of one-third of Croatia, which Croatia altered forcefully in August 1995. The expanding UN role in Bosnia from providing food and medicine to guaranteeing safe areas was signiicant in maintaining the Bosnian regime and its ability to separate from Yugoslavia.82 Of course, one can interpret this as support for an existing state as it fought off separatists (the Serbs).
Apart from providing direct assistance or blocking such support, international organizations also served as fora for supporters of various separatists. Because of hard
81. Steinberg 1993,34. Whether this is a reasonable fear is the subject of much debate, since the Soviet Union's path toward disintegration was similar to that of Yugoslavia's: largely the product of domestic political dynamics; see Saideman 1998.
82. The Bosnian Muslims used these safe areas as bases from which to attack the Bosnian Serbs; Boyd
1995,31.
Secessionist Conflicts 743
bargaining over the EC integration project, Germany could leverage the entire EC into recognizing Slovenia and Croatia. Without the EC and the coinciding Maastricht negotiations, other members might not have recognized the seceding republics. The EC also gave more influence to Greece (than it otherwise would have) as it sought to prevent states from recognizing Macedonia. Therefore, this particular international organization did not consistently support secessionists or the host states. At times the UN enhanced Russia's ability to support the Bosnian Serbs by opposing expansion of UN intervention. The United States and its allies were only able to use force extensively once decision making was moved from the UN to NATO in the summer of 1995, cutting Russia out of the loop. No international organization could develop a consistent policy during the crisis due in part to the complexity of the conflict (groups seeking to secede from seceding republics), but also because bargaining among member nations generated the policies of international organizations. Therefore, to explain the behavior of these international organizations, we need to understand the preferences and policies of their inluential members.
The ethnic-ties argument predicts that domestic political imperatives motivate states, and that states give support to the side with which important constituencies have ethnic ties or against the side with which relevant supporters have ethnic enmities. This conflict is complex, in part, because multiple ethnic identities—religious, racial, and linguistic—are at work. The Slovenes and the Croats are primarily Catholic. The Serbs are primarily Orthodox, though Serbia has significant Muslim populations in Kosovo and the Sandzak. Bosnia is multiethnic, but the Muslim community has dominated the government, so we can interpret support given to Bosnia as either support for the Muslims or support for the state. Macedonia consists of both Muslim Albanians and Orthodox Macedonians, but the latter largely govern Macedonia. Much of the region's population is Slavic. In general, we expect states with Catholic constituencies to support Slovenia and Croatia, states with Muslim constituencies to support Bosnia, and states with Orthodox constituencies to support Serbia.
Table 5 depicts most of the key players in the Yugoslav conlict, the ethnic ties of the leaders' constituents, the vulnerability of each state to separatism, the predictions of each argument, and the policies pursued by each state. The vulnerability argument is difficult to apply because of the complexity of the conlict. It is easiest to apply before Yugoslavia's breakup and hardest to apply after EC recognition in January 1992. Vulnerable states giving support to any of the separatists before the conlict began clearly to run counter to the expectations of the vulnerability argument. Of the nine vulnerable states (excluding Serbia and Croatia), only France, Romania, and the Soviet Union supported efforts to maintain the territorial integrity of Yugoslavia.83 Even this is complicated—since Serbs and the Serbian government wanted to preserve Yugoslavia, we can also view support for Yugoslavia's integrity as supporting Serbs. After EC recognition, it is difficult to code the vulnerability argument—what
83. For the purposes of this study, before June 19911 treat Croatia and Serbia as part of Yugoslavia and thus not independent actors with their own foreign policies. After the de facto disintegration, they can and should be considered as important states in this conlict.
TABLE 5. Ethnic politics and Yugoslavia's disintegration
Country
Ethnic ties to
Vulnerability       Vulnerability predictions
Ethnic politics predictions
Actual policy
Albania
Austria Bulgaria
Croatia France
Germany Greece
Hungary
Iran
Italy
Romania
Russia
Serbia
Turkey
United States
Albanians in Kosovo and
Macedonia Slovenia, Croatia Macedonia; enmity toward
Serbia Croats in Bosnia Croatia, Slovenia
Croatia, Slovenia Serbs; enmity toward
Macedonia Croats; enmity toward Serbs
Muslims
Croatia, Slovenia
Serbia
Serbs
Serbs in Croatia, Bosnia
Muslims; enmity toward
Serbs, Greeks Weak to all sides
High        Support for Yugoslavia, then for
new states Low        No prediction High        Support for Yugoslavia, then for
each state High        Support for each new state High        Support for Yugoslavia, then for
each state Low        No prediction Low        No prediction
High        Support for Yugoslavia, then for new states
High        Support for Yugoslavia, then for new states
High        Support for Yugoslavia, then for new states
High        Support for Yugoslavia, then for new states
High        Support for Yugoslavia, then for new states
High        Support for Yugoslavia, then for new states
High        Support for Yugoslavia, then for
new states Low        No prediction
Support for Albanians in Kosovo
and Macedonia Support for Croatia and Slovenia Support for Macedonia and
Serbia's enemies Support for Croats in Bosnia Support for Croatia and Slovenia
Support for Croatia and Slovenia Support for Serbs; opposition to
Macedonia Support for Croatia and Slovenia
Support for Bosnia
Support for Croatia and Slovenia
Support for Yugoslavia, then
Serbia Support for Serbs
Support for Serbs in Croatia and
Bosnia Support for Bosnia
Ambivalence or neutrality
Supported Albanians in Kosovo
and Macedonia Supported Croatia and Slovenia Supported Macedonia and
Serbia's enemies Supported Croats in Bosnia Supported Yugoslavia, then the
Serbs"
Supported Croatia and Slovenia Supported Serbs; opposed
Macedonia Supported Croatia and Slovenia
Supported Bosnia
Supported Croatia and Slovenia
Ambivalent"
Supported Yugoslavia, then Serbs
Supported Serbs in Croatia and Bosnia
Supported Bosnia, Macedonia Ambivalent
"Incorrect prediction for the ethnic-ties argument.
Secessionist Conflicts 745
does supporting territorial integrity mean when groups are seceding from secessionist states? Vulnerable states supporting partition of any of the former republics runs counter to the expectations of the vulnerability argument. Furthermore, if motivated by vulnerability, states should support all of the new states and oppose all of the separatist movements in this second stage. Of the eleven vulnerable states considered here, none consistently opposed separatism. Vulnerability theorists should be quite surprised at this finding, since separatism threatened many of the states supporting one or more secessionist movements.
The ethnic-ties argument performs much better than the vulnerability argument in this case, predicting foreign policies toward the Yugoslav conflict in thirteen of fifteen cases. Of the states examined, the theory failed to predict Romania's ambivalent foreign policies and France's support of Serbia. Given Romania's ethnic ties to Serbia, a focus on ethnic politics predicts support for Serbia. Romania assisted Serbia through its violations of the economic sanctions, but Romania also recognized Slovenia and Croatia, resulting in policies that supported both sides of the conlict. The most likely explanation of Romania's ambivalence is that the imperatives of ethnic politics conflicted with the need to engage in positive relations with the West.84
The ethnic-ties argument failed to predict the behavior of France. As a predominantly Catholic country, France should have supported Slovenia and Croatia. Instead, France helped to lead EC efforts to maintain Yugoslavia's integrity.85 France supported the introduction of peacekeepers into Croatia, allowing the Serbs to reinforce their claims to the areas they had conquered. Furthermore, France was among the irst states to support plans for partitioning Bosnia, giving the Bosnian Serbs much of what they wanted.
Why did France support the Serbs? A variety of factors might explain France's deviant behavior, with some following the logic of the ethnic-ties argument and others not. Francois Mitterand was president of France until 1995 and as leader of the Socialist party was less dependent on devout Catholics for political support. Furthermore, rising enmities within France toward its Muslim population might help to explain why France did not oppose Serb aggression toward Bosnia.86 Nonethnic explanations of France's behavior include rivalry with and fear of postreuniication Germany, historical ties with Serbia dating back to the first World War, and general concerns about European stability.87 The vulnerability argument suggests that Corsi-can separatism might have constrained France. Although this might partially explain France's support of Yugoslavia's territorial integrity, it cannot account for its willingness to partition Bosnia. Furthermore, Corsican separatism has not inhibited French support of other separatist movements, such as Katanga or Biafra. Regardless of the reasons why France placed troops in the region, their presence almost certainly became the most important inluence on French foreign policy. Fears that French soldiers would either become targets or hostages inhibited the French government from
84. Zametica 1992,52.
85. Lukic and Lynch 1996,259.
86. Foran accountfocusingon anti-Muslim sentiment,see Sells 1996.
87. Lukic and Lynch1996,255.
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supporting an end to the arms embargo or more decisive NATO action. The NATO bombing campaign in the summer of 1995 became possible once France reinforced its troops and moved them out of harm's way.88 More definitive explanations of both Romanian and French foreign policy toward Yugoslavia require further research.
The accuracy of ethnic ties in this case might be exaggerated somewhat because some cases might it into the coding scheme even though the dynamics may not have been ethnically driven. In the U.S. case, for instance, leaders weakly depended on voters who had ties to each side of the conlict, but such concerns drove neither George Bush's nor Bill Clinton's policies. Clearly, other domestic and international concerns, such as preferring to avoid the use of American troops, fears of genocide, anxiety about the future of NATO, and the preferences of American allies, influenced foreign policy toward Yugoslavia more than what Serb Americans, Muslim Americans, or Croatian Americans desired. Still, ethnic ties compelled European leaders more than vulnerability to separatism, since many vulnerable states supported the side with which the constituents of the leader shared ethnic ties.
Conclusion
How well do the competing arguments explain the internationalrelations of secessionist conflicts? Do they explain the level of international cooperation that the conventional wisdom sought to address? In this section I consider these questions and develop some theoretical and policy implications of this analysis.
Table 6 shows a cross-tabulation of vulnerability and the actual foreign policies of the forty-six observations from the three case studies. A measure of the association between vulnerability and the observed behavior, a Cramer's V of .297, indicates a modest relationship, but of dubious significance (p > 0.1). The case studies and this quantitative analysis indicate that vulnerability does not significantly deter states from supporting separatist movements. Indeed, vulnerability serves as a poor predictor of foreign policy: it correctly predicted the foreign policies of only twelve states and incorrectly predicted twenty-two. Because each case study focused on only a sample of countries, vulnerability may actually perform somewhat better than in this study. Nevertheless, the findings are striking, because vulnerable states were consistently among the most important supporters of separatists in each conlict.
Since vulnerability does not deter as strongly as previously believed, we need other explanations for the international relations of separatist conlicts. The ethnic-ties argument asserts that domestic politics motivates foreign policy. Since politicians seek office and need the support of others to gain and maintain political positions, they seek to attract supporters and avoid alienating constituents. Consequently, they care about the preferences of constituents. These supporters frequently share
88. The British government and its troops faced the same problem. Great Britain is not included in this study because British decision-makers' constituents did not have religious ties to any of the combatants. Therefore, the ethnic-ties argument could not predict nor explain British policy toward Yugoslavia.
Secessionist Conflicts 747
TABLE 6. Vulnerability and actual policies
Vulnerable to secessionism
Actual foreign policy
Yes
No
Row total
Supported secessionists Supported both/neither
20 [11]a 3 (Sierra Leone, Uganda, Romania) [2]b
11 [10]
34 (73.9%)
3[1]
2 (Central African Republic,
U.S.—Yugoslavia) [1] 7 [6]
12(26.1%)
23 (50.0%) 5 (10.9%)
(ambivalence/neutrality) Supported host state Column total
18(39.1%)
46 (100%)
aNumbers within brackets exclude the Yugoslav case. bIncorrect prediction.
Chi-square = 4.06 degrees of freedom = 2;p > 0.13; Cramer's V = .297.
ethnic ties with one side of a conlict in another state and will prefer that their state supports that side of the dispute. Therefore, politicians will push for foreign policies that assist the ethnic kin of their constituents. Consequently, the ethnic composition of the constituencies of politicians becomes the essential variable in predicting and explaining foreign policy toward secessionist conlicts.
Table 7 shows a cross-tabulation of ethnic ties and foreign policy. The ethnic-ties argument accurately predicted foreign policies toward secessionist conlicts. Using the same quantitative methods as before, the relationship between ethnic ties and foreign policy proves to be much stronger and more significant: a Cramer's V of .748 (p < 0.001). Where the constituents of politicianshad ethnic ties to the secessionists, the state supported the secessionists. This was true for twenty-one countries as they reacted to the various secessionist crises and false for only one such case—France toward the Yugoslav conlict. In the ifteen states where the constituents of leaders shared ethnic ties to the host state, the state supported the host state. Politicians with constituents having ethnic ties to the host state did not support the host state in only two countries. Not surprisingly, when constituents had ethnic ties to both sides of a secessionist crisis, the ties were less determinate, accurately predicting the foreign policies of only four countries and mistaking the policies of three. Admittedly, for two observations the vulnerability argument could make more sense than ethnic ties: Ethiopia during the Nigerian Civil War and perhaps France before the disintegration of Yugoslavia. Three other observations proved to be quite puzzling for either approach: Congo-Brazzaville during the Congo Crisis, Tanzania during Biafra's attempted secession, and Romania during Yugoslavia's disintegration.
Another weakness in the ethnic-ties argument is that it does not account for those observations where no ethnic ties exist. This may be as problematic as the failure of the vulnerability argument to account for states that are not vulnerable to ethnic conlict. It does not bias the results, but it may limit the generality of the argument. Still, if ethnic ties and enmities include such widespread identities as race and reli-
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TABLE 7. Ethnic ties and foreign policy
Ethnic ties with
Actual foreign policy	Secessionists	Both	Host state	Row total
Supported	21	1 (Tanzania)"	1 (Congo-Braz.)a	23 (50.0%)
secessionists				
Supported both/ neither	0	4 (Central African Rep.,	1 (Romania)11	5 (10.9%)
(ambivalence/		Sierra Leone, Uganda,		
neutrality)		U.S.—Yugoslavia)		
Supported host state	1 (France—	2 (Ethiopia, U.S.—Congo)a	15	18(39.1%)
	Yugoslavia)"			
Column total	22 (47.8%)	7 (15.2%)	17 (37.0%)	46 (100%)
"Incorrect prediction.
Chi-square = 51.46 degrees of freedom = 4; p < 0.001; Cramer's V = .748.
gion, for many secessionist crises numerous states will have ties to one or more of the combatants.
Furthermore, selection bias could have produced the strength of the findings—that is, something about these three crises, or the observations within them, produced these results. I have tried to control for selection bias by studying a third case, Yugoslavia, to ensure that there was not something unique about post-colonial African politics that might bias the results. Within each case, I selected observations on the dependent variable to ensure a full range of variance. Although it is possible that some bias remains, the evidence still suggests that ethnic ties motivate foreign policy.
The relevance of ethnic ties might seem obvious, especially given how the Yugoslav disintegration played out, but previous approaches to the international politics of secessionist conflict overlooked this variable. Furthermore, when analysts have considered this variable, they tend to focus on states acting according to affective, instead of instrumental, motivations: emotion rather than rationality motivated policy.89 The ethnic-ties argument asserts that politicians are acting instrumentally. Either they use foreign policies toward ethnically defined conflicts abroad to mobilize particular groups domestically, or they are compelled, because of the fear of losing office, to support particular ethnic groups abroad who share ties with potential exiters.
The ethnic-ties argument explains the foreign policies of states, but the conventional wisdom sought to account not only for the choices states made but for the generally cooperative outcome produced by the interaction among states. Although analysts may have overstated the degree of cooperation in Africa, it is still a puzzle requiring explanation. Ethnic ties may provide a better explanation of African cooperation for two reasons. It explains why cooperation in Africa varied signiicantly. Furthermore, the ethnic-ties argument suggests the conditions under which politi-
89. Heraclides 1991.
Secessionist Conflicts 749
cians might have a personal stake in cooperating with other states beyond potential threats of backlashes or dangerous precedents.
The ethnic-ties argument provides a better explanation of cooperation during African secessionist crises for two reasons. First, rather than being exemplars of African cooperation, the Congo Crisis and the Nigerian Civil War suggest that cooperation is likely only when the perceptions of the ethnic identities at stake create overwhelming coalitions against the separatists. If the Congo Crisis had remained a tribal dispute, rather than a conflict between black-ruled African states and white minority regimes and the remaining colonialists, probably less cooperation would have occurred among African states. Likewise, because most African rulers relied on Muslim or nonChristian constituents, most African states took Nigeria's side, with Biafra's few African supporters largely relying on Christian and non-Muslim constituencies.90 Focusing on ethnic ties, we would expect less regional cooperation when other kinds of ethnic divides—such as between Arabs and blacks, among Muslims, or among kinship groups—characterize the conlicts. For instance, the international relations of Polisario s attempt to secede from Morocco have been less cooperative, since it is a dispute among Arab Muslims dividing African states. In cases where each combatant has ethnic ties to more than a few states, such as in Yugoslavia, cooperation can be quite difficult, particularly when major powers have ethnic ties to opposing sides. Although Samuel Huntington may overstate the ''clash of civilizations," not surprisingly states fail to cooperate when the combatants within the conlict have ties to three major religions.91
Second, constituents immediate interests inluence politicians more than potential long-term threats. The threat of losing supporters is more likely to constrain politicians than fears of dangerous precedents and the like. Politicians are more likely to commit to cooperation if it beneits them directly. Most African leaders cooperated during the Congo Crisis and the Nigerian Civil War because their domestic political incentives and strategies, designed to deal with ruling ethnically divided societies, required it. Vulnerability to secession did not compel such behavior, but efforts to mobilize support or fears of losing constituents led to political strategies with foreign policy implications. Developing Pan-African ideologies or relying on religious groups for domestic rule implied certain foreign policies. Thus those who cooperated committed more strongly than if they were responding to the vague threat of dangerous precedents. Indeed, the two African secessionist crises may not have been collaboration games at all, but situations of harmony. Many states followed their individual interests toward a common policy without having to coordinate much with others.
Beyond explaining the foreign policies of states toward these crises and the patterns of cooperative and conflict that developed, what are the broader implications of this research? The first and probably most obvious implication for theoretical debates is that we need to investigate the preferences of states before assuming they desire
90. Morrison et al. 1972, 20.
91. Huntington 1993. Unlike Huntington, the ethnic-ties argument can explain the international politics of ethnic conflicts within civilizations as well as between them.
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cooperation.92 Although systemic theory often acquires much leverage while maintaining parsimony by assuming the preferences of states, such approaches may miss key sources of variation. Increasingly, scholars are looking to domestic politics to understand the sources of cooperation.93 This is the proper direction, especially when states face similar international pressures but somehow process them differently and develop varying foreign policies.
A second implication is that we need to reconsider arguments concerning fears of possible demonstration effects. The conventional wisdom's foundation is the fear of ethnic dominoes falling. Because such fears did not deter many vulnerable states, we need to think more carefully about how domestic audiences perceive external events. Under what conditions do demonstration effects matter? Do preexisting preferences cause politiciansand their constituents to draw varying lessons from external events?94
A third implication is that we need to pay more attention to variations in our dependent variable—support for separatism, that is, defection from cooperation. The conventional wisdom glossed over important examples of states defecting from cooperation and failed to consider why conlict developed over similar issues elsewhere, such as in South Asia. These variations may tell us much about which conditions cause cooperation or conlict.
A fourth implication is that international organizations may still have a role in approaches centered on domestic politics because they may inluence the domestic politics of countries. If perceptions of the ethnic content of a crisis inluence foreign policy toward the conlict, international organizations can shape foreign policy by inluencing those perceptions.95
Because ethnic ties inluence foreign policy, we cannot be optimistic about the international relations of future secessionist conlicts. States will probably ind it difficult to cooperate because their decision makers will face conlicting demands. Their supporters will have ties to different sides of a conlict, and this will probably compel them to disagree about how to properly manage a conlict. Although the increased interest in conlict management techniques may lead to useful indings, we cannot forget that domestic and ethnic politics drive policymakers as they develop foreign policy. Consequently, we should expect that a mixture of collaboration and conflict will characterize the international relations of future ethnic conflicts, and the ethnic deinition of each crisis will greatly inluence this mixture.
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