Is democracy dangerous in multi-ethnic societies?
Interview by Michael Deibert/IPS, Oxford – The CRISE’s goal is to explore the links between ethnicity, inequality and conflict in order to identify policies that could lead to more inclusive multi-ethnic societies. A first book-length publication ’Horizontal Inequalities and Conflict: Understanding Group Violence in Multi-Ethnic Societies’ from CRISE is slated for a July release, the fruit of the institution’s recent years of research into conflict and its causes. To find out more about that research, IPS correspondent Michael Deibert spoke to CRISE Director Frances Stewart. Can you explain the concept of horizontal inequalities? Horizontal inequalities put people into groups and look at how unequal those groups are. For example, black and white in the United States, or ethnic groups such as the Tutsi and Hutu in Rwanda, religious groups such as Muslims and Christians in many countries. Essentially, these groups are ways in which people see themselves, ways which are very important to
