Editing World on Fire (book)

{{Short description|2003 book by Amy Chua}}
{{Use mdy dates|date=May 2011}}
{{Infobox book
| name              = World on Fire
| image             = World on Fire, first edition.jpg
| caption           = Cover of the first edition
| author            = [[Amy Chua]]
| country           = United States
| language          = English
| subjects          = {{hlist | Economic inequality | ethnic conflict | globalization}}
| publisher         = [[Doubleday (publisher)|Doubleday]] (hardcover)<br />[[Anchor Books]] (paperback)
| release_date      = 2003 (hardcover)
| media_type        = Print ([[hardcover]] and [[paperback]])
| isbn              = 978-0-385-72186-8
| isbn_note         = (paperback)
| dewey             = 303.6 21
| congress          = HF1359 .C524 2004
}}

'''''World on Fire: How Exporting Free Market Democracy Breeds Ethnic Hatred and Global Instability''''' is a 2003 book by American legal scholar [[Amy Chua]]. It is an academic study of [[ethnicity|ethnic]] and sociological divisions in the economic and political systems of various societies. The book discusses the concept of "market-dominant minorities", which it defines as ethnic minority groups who, under given market conditions, tend to prosper, flourish, and dominate economically, often significantly, over other, often ethnic majority groups in the country.<ref>[https://books.google.com/books?id=KSp1okOggpkC&pg=PA6 p. 6]</ref>

==Summary==
The concept of market-dominant minority was introduced by Chua in a 1998 paper ''Markets, Democracy, and Ethnicity''.<ref>Amy L. Chua, [http://digitalcommons.law.yale.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1340&context=fss_papers "Markets, Democracy, and Ethnicity: Toward a New Paradigm for Law and Development"],  Faculty Scholarship Series. Paper 341, ''Yale Law Journal'', vol. 108, issue 1,  pp. 1–108 (1998).</ref> In the [[Philippines]], Chua notes that the [[Chinese Filipino|Chinese]] community comprise one percent of the population but control 60 percent of the private economy, with the result being resentment on the part of the Filipino majority against the Chinese minority creating an [[ethnic conflict]]. Similarly, in [[Indonesia]] the [[Chinese Indonesian]] community make up three percent of the [[population]] but control 75 percent of the economy. Similar patterns occur throughout other [[Southeast Asia]]n economies.

Chua gives examples of the concept that she calls ethnic "market-dominant minorities" such as the [[Overseas Chinese]] in [[Bamboo network|Southeast Asia]]; European diasporas throughout [[White Latin American|Latin America]] and [[White Africans of European ancestry|Africa]]; [[Israeli Jews]] in Israel and the Middle East; [[Russian Jewish]] [[Russian oligarch|Oligarch]]s in [[post-communist Russia|post-Communist Russia]]; [[Croats]] in the former [[Yugoslavia]]; [[Non-resident Indian and person of Indian origin|Overseas Indians]] in [[Indian diaspora in Southeast Africa|East Africa]], [[Lebanese diaspora|Overseas Lebanese]] in [[West Africa]] and [[Lebanese Mexican|Mexico]], and the [[Yoruba people|Yoruba]], [[Igbo people|Igbos]], [[Kikuyu people|Kikuyus]], [[Tutsis]] in [[Nigeria]], [[Kenya]], and [[Rwanda]].<ref name="yaleglobal">{{cite web |url=http://yaleglobal.yale.edu/content/mixing-free-market-minority-domination-and-democracy-results-world-fire |title=Mixing Free Market, Minority Domination and Democracy Results in World On Fire |publisher=Yale Global |author=Pat Sewell |date=February 10, 2003}}</ref><!-- fixed broken link, using clue here linking yale global "929" with actual title and author -->

In the book, Chua discusses different reasons for the market dominance of different groups. Some groups inherited market dominance because of colonial legacies and [[apartheid]]. In other cases, it may be due to the culture and family networks of these groups. For many groups there is no clear single explanation.<ref name="berkeley" />

Americans and the United States can also be seen as a global market-dominant minority, in particular when combined with their use of cultural soft power, military strength, economic might, and flaunting political hegemony, thereby causing resentment throughout the world.<ref name="yaleglobal" />

Chua believes that [[democratization]] can increase ethnic conflicts when an ethnic minority is disproportionately wealthy, arguing that "When free market democracy is pursued in the presence of a market-dominant minority, the almost invariable result is [[backlash (sociology)|backlash]]. This backlash typically takes one of three forms. The first is a backlash against markets, targeting the market-dominant minority's wealth. The second is a backlash against democracy by forces favorable to the market-dominant minority. The third is violence, sometimes [[genocide|genocidal]], directed against the market-dominant minority itself."<ref>{{cite book  | last = Chua  | first = Amy  | author-link = Amy Chua  | title = World on Fire  | publisher = [[Doubleday (publisher)|Doubleday]]  | year = 2002  | isbn = 0-385-50302-4  | url-access = registration  | url = https://archive.org/details/worldonfirehowex00chua  }}</ref>  Also, "overnight democracy will empower the poor, indigenous majority. What happens is that under those circumstances, democracy doesn't do what we expect it to do – that is, reinforce markets. [Instead,] democracy leads to the emergence of manipulative politicians and demagogues who find that the best way to get votes is by scapegoating the minorities." She writes, "Ballot boxes brought [[Adolf Hitler|Hitler]] to power in Germany, [[Robert Mugabe|Mugabe]] to power in Zimbabwe, [[Slobodan Milošević|Milosevic]] to power in Serbia — and could well bring the likes of [[Osama bin Laden]] to power in Saudi Arabia."<ref name="berkeley">{{cite web |url=http://globetrotter.berkeley.edu/people4/Chua/chua-con3.html |title=Conversation with Amy Chua: Markets and Democracy |author=Harry Kreisler |author-link=Harry Kreisler |publisher=Institute of International Studies |location=UC Berkeley |year=2004}}</ref>

Chua states that she is a "big fan of trying to promote markets and democracy globally," but that it should be accompanied by attempts to "redistribute the wealth, whether it's property title and giving poor people property, land reform ... Redistributive mechanisms are tough to have if you have so much corruption."<ref>{{cite web |url=http://globetrotter.berkeley.edu/people4/Chua/chua-con5.html |title=Conversation with Amy Chua: Policy Implications |author=Harry Kreisler |author-link=Harry Kreisler |publisher=Institute of International Studies |location=UC Berkeley |year=2004}}</ref>

== Reception ==
Chua's thesis and conclusions have been disputed by George Leef<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.carolinajournal.com/cjcolumnists/display_author.html?id=29 |title=Print Columnist |publisher=[[John Locke Foundation#Carolina Journal|Carolina Journal]] |access-date=March 2, 2007 |archive-date=August 8, 2007 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070808142858/http://www.carolinajournal.com/cjcolumnists/display_author.html?id=29 |url-status=dead }}</ref> of the [[John Locke Foundation]], who proposes that many other factors may account for ethnic violence, including the most simple motivation of pure [[racism]].<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.johnlocke.org/news_columns/display_story.html?id=1759 |title=No. 152: World on Fire: Government Fails to Protect Society's Scapegoats |author=George Leef |author-link=George Leef |publisher=[[John Locke Foundation]] |date=Aug 26, 2004 |access-date=March 1, 2007 |archive-date=May 28, 2008 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080528142340/http://www.johnlocke.org/news_columns/display_story.html?id=1759 |url-status=dead }}</ref> Leef argues in his review:

<blockquote> Nothing does more to reduce violence and many other social ills than the rising [[standards of living]] that capitalism alone makes possible. What a tragedy it would be if nations were to forego the tremendous long-run benefits of capitalism out of fear that there might be violence in the short-run against those who take advantage of business opportunities the earliest. All that ''World on Fire'' proves in the end is that governments cannot be depended upon to prevent violence against people who have been, for whatever reason, demonized by others. That's nothing new.</blockquote>

[[Andreas Wimmer]] and Brian Min, criticizing the book, state:

<blockquote>By contrast, our analysis shows that what has been observed in recent decades may simply be more of the same old story. Although history never repeats itself, the same process patterns may be operating at different times and in different historical contexts (cf. Collier and Mazzuca 2006). The dismemberment of empire and the formation of the nation-state have led to wars since the time of [[Napoleon]]. The patterns of warfare in the Caucasus and the Balkans in the 1990s resemble those on the Indian sub-continent in the 1940s, those of [[Eastern Europe]] during and after [[World War I]], and so on. The return of the "Macedonian syndrome," as [[Myron Weiner]] (1971) has called the intermingling of ethnic conflict and [[irredentist]] wars, explains such recurrent patterns of war much better than any variant of globalization theory. To treat them as a fundamentally new phenomenon, brought about by the end of the [[Cold War]] or increased globalization, represents yet another example of the widespread tendency among social scientists to perceive their own times as unique and exceptionally dynamic (on "chrono- centrism," see Fowles 1974).</blockquote>

They also note that several studies support a variant of the [[democratic peace theory]], which argues that more democracy causes a general decrease in systematic violence, at least for the most democratic nations. However, intermediately democratic nations do have a higher tendency for conflicts such as civil war than autocracies.<ref>{{cite journal |url=http://www.asanet.org/galleries/default-file/Dec06ASRFeature.pdf |title=From Empire to Nation-State: Explaining Wars in the Modern World, 1816–2001 |author=Andreas Wimmer |author2=Brian Min  |journal=American Sociological Review |date=December 2006 |volume=71  |issue=6 |pages=867–897 |doi=10.1177/000312240607100601|s2cid=85521711 }}</ref>

International law scholar [[Tom Ginsburg]] states: "the wide appeal of Chua's argument does not mean that she is correct. When one looks at the trees rather than the forest, many of the phenomena tied together by her theory do not in fact belong there... The book lacks the methodological rigor that must ultimately support any compelling conclusion about the complex relationships between democracy, development and ethnicity."<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Ginsburg |first1=Tom |title=Democracy, Markets, and Doomsaying: Is Ethnic Conflict Inevitable? (reviewing Amy Chua, World on Fire : How Exporting Free Market Democracy Breeds Ethnic Hatred and Global Instability (2003)) |journal=Berkeley Journal of International Law |date=2004 |volume=22 |pages=310– |url=https://chicagounbound.uchicago.edu/journal_articles/2698/}}</ref>

== Accolades ==
''World on Fire'' was selected as one of ''[[The Economist]]''{{'s}} "Best Books of the Year 2003".{{citation needed|date=March 2018}}

==See also==
*[[Dominant minority]]
*[[Minoritarianism]]
*[[Model minority]]
*[[Middleman minority]]

== References ==
{{Reflist}}

==External links==
*[https://www.salon.com/2003/01/13/democracy_6/ review] By [[Michelle Goldberg]]
*''[[The Guardian]]'' [http://books.guardian.co.uk/reviews/politicsphilosophyandsociety/0,6121,1152620,00.html review] By [[Martin Jacques]]
*[http://www.arlindo-correia.org/120604.html Collected reviews]
*[https://www.c-span.org/video/?174375-1/world-fire ''Booknotes'' interview with Chua on ''World on Fire'', February 9, 2003.]

{{Amy Chua}}

[[Category:2003 non-fiction books]]
[[Category:Books about democracy]]
[[Category:Books about economic inequality]]
[[Category:Books about foreign relations of the United States]]
[[Category:Books about globalization]]
[[Category:Books about international relations]]
[[Category:Books about post-Soviet Russia]]
[[Category:Books about race and ethnicity]]
[[Category:Books about Rhodesia]]
[[Category:Books about South Africa]]
[[Category:Books about the Soviet Union]]
[[Category:History books about colonialism]]
[[Category:History books about the United States]]
[[Category:Books by Amy Chua]]
[[Category:English-language non-fiction books]]
[[Category:Doubleday (publisher) books]]
[[Category:Ethnicity in politics]]
[[Category:Bamboo network]]
[[Category:Economic development in China]]
[[Category:Cultural depictions of Boris Yeltsin]]
[[Category:Cultural depictions of Osama bin Laden]]
[[Category:Cultural depictions of Slobodan Milošević]]
[[Category:Works about ethnic conflict]]