Content area
Full Text
(ProQuest: ... denotes non-US-ASCII text omitted.)
Constructing Grievance: Ethnic Nationalism in Russia's Republics . By Elise Giuliano . Ithaca, NY : Cornell University Press , 2011. 256p. $45.00.
Ethnic Struggle, Coexistence, and Democratization in Eastern Europe . By Sherrill Stroschein . New York : Cambridge University Press , 2012. 312p. $99.00.
Book Reviews: Comparative Politics
These two books deal with ethnic mobilization issues and provide a highly valuable addition to the body of literature that examines the relationship between ethnic identities and political behavior. The books' authors share an interest in exploring mass-elite dynamics and taking the role of masses seriously. Both books reject explanatory accounts of ethnic mobilization that focus on elite dynamics and relegate ethnic masses to the role of passive actors who automatically respond to elites' manipulation. Taking the role of masses in ethnic mobilization seriously does not mean, however, that the two books agree on exactly what these masses do and why.
The books offer very different accounts of mobilization, based on a radically different understanding of ethnic-group identity and the motivations for collective action. For Sherrill Stroschein, ethnic groups have a degree of internal cohesion and external boundedness. Priority in explaining these group characteristics is given to constructed collective memories, historical narratives, and cultural practices. More importantly for her argument in Ethnic Struggle, Coexistence, and Democratization in Eastern Europe, group identity provides group members with an understanding of their political interests and serves as a major motivating factor for their direct (not elite-mediated) participation in ethnic protests, demonstrations, and other forms of collective actions. For Elise Giuliano in Constructing Grievance, ethnic groups are characterized by a much lower degree of cohesion and boundedness. Group identities do not automatically generate political preferences or provide guidance for political action. Ethnic identities become politically salient only when group inequality and subordination (primarily in socioeconomic terms) resonate with people's present experiences and when ethnic elites' strategies of issue framing determine whether such resonance is achieved.
If you want to know how effective these very different premises are in explaining important real-world phenomena, you need to read both books. The authors do a good job of articulating their arguments and systematically collecting evidence to support their claims. Both address important empirical questions. In Ethnic Struggle,