A Comparative Perspective on the Role and Function of Elite Ethnicity Discourses During Democratic Transitions

Why is violence always assumed to be of ethnic origin and whose interests are served by the acceptance of violent acts as routine events? How does the ethnic rhetoric of elites influence and configure the political discourse and how are masses aligned along ethnic lines? Why does ethnic violence increase with the transition to democracy? I propose to look at the link between ethnicity rhetoric, elite interests and state violence by applying Brass’s model of Hindu-Muslim violence in India. I will argue that the relationships among elites and between elites and citizens is of critical importance in the study of the rise and perpetuation of ethnic violence and that the tension between alternating de-and re-ethnicization of politics increases in times when national elites face a crisis (economic crisis, international context, internal migration, liberation struggle, terrorism, religious identity crisis etc) or uncertain transition prospects or a challenge to their legitimacy or when political opportunities are such that violence increases the support for a political movement, or decreases the support for another. My paper follows Brass’s framework on Hindu-Muslim violence in India. Brass's model provides an accurate and complete representation of the colonial legacies and legal frames that underlie state violence and of the sequence of triggering events, elite interests, mobilization networks, media discourses and administrative dysfunctions that lead to the eruption of ethnic violence. The model is then applied to two case studies: elite interest in Myanmar and the persecution of the Rohingya minority and elite interest in China and the oppression of the Uighurs, and will elucidate the mechanisms of de- and re-ethnicization. It will be possible to deduct insights and elusive conclusions with regard to 1. The competing collusion of national elite interests with local/regional grievances; 2. contextual factors in which elites operate and 3. The conflicting role of elite interests during transition phases (from an authoritarian to a less authoritarian regime and vice versa).