Published online by Cambridge University Press: 03 June 2009
Overt ethnic conflict is frequently accompanied by the observation that the conflict is not essentially rooted in ethnic differences but is primarilyeconomic in origin. Examples are not hard to come by; it has been madein regard to the American Negro situation, the Catholics in NorthernIreland and the Ugandan Asians, to name but three instances. The claim that economic differences underlie ethnic conflict raises the questions of whether all interethnic conflict can be accounted for within the framework of a conflict theory of social stratification, and this in turn raises the broader question of whether all types of interethnic relations, of conflict and harmony, assimilation, integration, separatism and segregation can be subsumed under a more general theory of stratification.