What do We Know as a Field about the Causal Determinants of Ethnic Conflict

This essay makes a provocative case against the study of 'ethnic conflict' as a special subset of political conflict. It pushes against the 'silo-ing' of conflict studies that exists in which 'specialists' study 'civil war', 'counter-insurgency', 'ethnic conflict', 'terrorism', etc. It calls for theories and hypothesis tests drawn from frameworks of political conflict that can explain everything from quiescence that is seen in contemporary Syria.