Editing Ethnic conflict (section)

===Primordialist accounts===
Proponents of primordialist accounts argue that "[e]thnic groups and nationalities exist because there are traditions of belief and action towards primordial objects such as biological features and especially territorial location".<ref>{{cite journal |first=Steven|last=Grosby|year=1994|title=The verdict of history: The inexpungeable tie of primordiality&nbsp;– a response to Eller and Coughlan|journal=[[Ethnic and Racial Studies]]|volume=17|issue=1|pages=164–171 [p. 168]|doi=10.1080/01419870.1994.9993817}}</ref> Primordialist accounts rely on strong ties of [[kinship]] among members of ethnic groups. [[Donald L. Horowitz]] argues that this kinship "makes it possible for ethnic groups to think in terms of family resemblances".<ref>{{cite book|first=Donald L.|last=Horowitz|year=1985|title=Ethnic Groups in Conflict|location=Berkeley, CA|publisher=University of California Press|page=[https://archive.org/details/ethnicgroupsinco00horo/page/57 57]|isbn=0520053850|url=https://archive.org/details/ethnicgroupsinco00horo/page/57}}</ref>

[[Clifford Geertz]], a founding scholar of primordialism, asserts that each person has a natural connection to perceived kinsmen. In time and through repeated conflict, essential ties to one's ethnicity will coalesce and will interfere with ties to civil society. Ethnic groups will consequently always threaten the survival of civil governments but not the existence of nations formed by one ethnic group.<ref>{{Cite book|title=Old societies and new States; the quest for modernity in Asia and Africa.|last=Geertz|first=Clifford|publisher=Free Press of Glencoe|year=1963|location=London}}</ref> Thus, when considered through a primordial lens, ethnic conflict in multi-ethnic society is inevitable.

A number of political scientists argue that the root causes of ethnic conflict do not involve ethnicity ''per se'' but rather institutional, political, and economic factors.  These scholars argue that the concept of ethnic war is misleading because it leads to an [[essentialism|essentialist]] conclusion that certain groups are doomed to fight each other when in fact the wars between them that occur are often the result of political decisions.<ref name="RefError"/><ref name=":20">{{Cite book|title=Constructing Grievance: Ethnic Nationalism in Russia's Republics|last=Giuliano|first=Elise|publisher=Cornell University Press|year=2011}}</ref>

Moreover, primordial accounts  do not account for the spatial and temporal variations in ethnic violence. If these "ancient hatreds" are always simmering under the surface and are at the forefront of people's consciousness, then ethnic groups should constantly be ensnared in violence. However, ethnic violence occurs in sporadic outbursts. For example, Varshney points out that although Yugoslavia broke up due to ethnic violence in the 1990s, it had enjoyed a long peace of decades before the USSR collapsed. Therefore, some scholars claim that it is unlikely that primordial ethnic differences alone caused the outbreak of violence in the 1990s.<ref name="RefError"/>

Primordialists have reformulated the "ancient hatreds" hypothesis and have focused more on the role of human nature. Petersen argues that the existence of hatred and animosity does not have to be rooted in history for it to play a role in shaping human behavior and action: "If 'ancient hatred' means a hatred consuming the daily thoughts of great masses of people, then the 'ancient hatreds' argument deserves to be readily dismissed. However, if hatred is conceived as a historically formed 'schema' that guides action in some situations, then the conception should be taken more seriously."<ref name="Varshney2007">{{Cite web|url=http://ashutoshvarshney.net/wp-content/files_mf/varshneyethnicityandethnicconflict.pdf|title=Ethnicity and Ethnic Conflict|last=Varshney|first=Ashutosh|date=2007|publisher=Oxford handbook of comparative politics|access-date=2016-02-07|archive-date=2018-03-29|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180329002015/http://ashutoshvarshney.net/wp-content/files_mf/varshneyethnicityandethnicconflict.pdf|url-status=dead}}</ref>