Ethnoreligious Otherings and Passionate Conflicts

Ethnoreligious Otherings and Passionate Conflicts demonstrates how and why emotions, symbolic predispositions, and perceptions are just as powerful and useful in understanding and explaining internal and intrastate conflicts as materialist and rationalist accounts. By uncovering the invisible emotive, symbolic, and perceptual causal mechanisms underpinning ethnoreligious otherings and the resulting protracted violent conflicts, this book aims to help address the incongruence between how the actual actors operating within these contexts think and act and the existing theories and models of how they are expected to behave.

Format: Hardback
Length: 208 pages
Publication date: 25 April 2022
Publisher: Oxford University Press

Ethnoreligious Otherings and Passionate Conflicts is a groundbreaking book that challenges the conventional understanding of internal and intrastate conflicts by emphasizing the role of emotions, symbolic predispositions, and perceptions in understanding and explaining these phenomena. By uncovering the invisible yet concrete emotive, symbolic, and perceptual causal mechanisms underpinning ethnoreligious otherings and the resulting protracted violent conflicts, the book aims to bridge the gap between how actual actors operating within these contexts think and act and the existing theories and models of how they are expected to behave.

The book has three main goals:

To highlight the centrality of emotions, symbolic predispositions, and perceptions in providing a more holistic and realistic understanding of otherings and conflicts.
To illustrate how the ethnoreligious othering framework developed and applied in the study bolsters and advances process tracing explanations by systematically incorporating context-specific intersubjective meanings into causal accounts of the events under investigation.
To emphasize the importance of recognizing religion and nationalism as legitimate constituents and instruments of contemporary realpolitik by underlining their enduring security utility and essence at individual, group, and state levels.

The book makes several key arguments:

Emotions, symbolic predispositions, and perceptions are essential drivers of ethnoreligious otherings and passionate conflicts. These factors shape how individuals and groups perceive and interpret their social and political environments, leading to the formation of identity-based enmities and the escalation of conflict.
Traditional rationalist and materialist accounts of conflict overlook the role of emotions, symbolic predispositions, and perceptions in shaping conflict dynamics. These accounts tend to focus on economic, political, and social factors as the primary drivers of conflict, while ignoring the emotional and symbolic dimensions that play a crucial role in conflict resolution and transformation.
The ethnoreligious othering framework provides a valuable tool for understanding and explaining the complex dynamics of ethnoreligious otherings and passionate conflicts. By incorporating intersubjective meanings and perspectives into causal accounts, the framework offers a more nuanced and comprehensive understanding of the events under investigation.
Recognizing religion and nationalism as legitimate constituents and instruments of contemporary realpolitik is essential for promoting peace and stability. Religion and nationalism can provide a sense of identity, belonging, and purpose, which can help mitigate the tensions and conflicts that arise from othering and marginalization.
The book provides a wealth of empirical evidence and case studies from various regions and contexts, including India, Sri Lanka, the Middle East, and the United States. These case studies illustrate the ways in which emotions, symbolic predispositions, and perceptions play a role in shaping ethnoreligious otherings and passionate conflicts, and how the ethnoreligious othering framework can be applied to understand and explain these phenomena.
In conclusion, Ethnoreligious Otherings and Passionate Conflicts is a groundbreaking book that offers a fresh and innovative perspective on understanding and explaining internal and intrastate conflicts. By emphasizing the role of emotions, symbolic predispositions, and perceptions, the book challenges the conventional understanding of conflict and provides a valuable tool for promoting peace and stability in diverse societies.

Weight: 448g
Dimension: 240 x 160 x 15 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9780192847751