The United States has frequently experienced outbursts of ethnic violence during its history, but the historical evidence indicates that not all ethnic groups were equally likely to be victims of violence. Why should different groups at different times and places be the targets of confrontations, ri...

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Bibliographische Detailangaben

1. Verfasser:	Olzak, Susan (VerfasserIn)
Format:	Buch
Sprache:	English
Veröffentlicht:	Stanford, Calif. Stanford Univ. Press 1992
Schlagworte:	Geschichte 1877-1914 Etnische conflicten Racismo (sociologia) Wedijver Minderheitenfrage USA United States > Ethnic relations United States > Race relations United States > Social conditions > 1865-1918
Zusammenfassung:	The United States has frequently experienced outbursts of ethnic violence during its history, but the historical evidence indicates that not all ethnic groups were equally likely to be victims of violence. Why should different groups at different times and places be the targets of confrontations, riots, protest marches, and other forms of collective action? The author focuses on the period 1877-1914, which was a time of massive immigration, economic turbulence, increasing industrialization, labor strife, and shifting race relations. During this time, violence against blacks rose dramatically, while violence against Asian and European immigrants rose and then subsided. The author uses daily newspaper accounts from the largest 77 cities in the United States to reconstruct the exact timing of ethnic confrontations. She then puts forward a new theory of ethnic conflict and tests it with data on events and with information on economic, social, and political changes during the period Contrary to conventional explanations that focus on the degree of inequality or cultural differences among racial groups, the evidence in this book suggests that the explanation of ethnic unrest is to be found in the processes of competition. Although earlier theories of race and ethnic conflict have often assumed that ethnic conflict is primarily a function of poverty or deprivation, the evidence presented in this book contradicts this view. Paradoxically, the analysis suggests that conflict arose during periods of economic expansion as well as during periods of economic contraction. The author explains this anomaly by arguing that ethnic conflicts erupt when ethnic inequalities and racially ordered systems begin to break down - when, in other words, different ethnic groups find themselves competing for key resources such as jobs and housing The book analyzes ethnic violence at three levels: at the national level, it examines the impact of economic fluctuations and immigration flows; at the city level, it investigates the effects of occupational segregation and illiteracy on rates of ethnic unrest; at the organizational level, it analyzes how ethnic conflict affects one type of ethnic organization - ethnic newspapers. The author adds new evidence to the debate about the relationship of inequality to the occurrence of collective action. Breaking with tradition by emphasizing the crucial role of availability of resources to the disadvantaged, she argues that to the extent we understand the processes of competition that spark ethnic conflict, we will have progressed beyond the outdated and static models that equate poverty, race, and hostility
Beschreibung:	XIII, 271 S. graph. Darst.
ISBN:	0804720282