Why do groups mobilize along one identity cleavage as opposed to another? In Alternatives in Mobilization: Ethnicity, Religion, and Political Conflict, Jóhanna Birnir and Nil Şatana argue that “minority group size relative to the majority and the configuration of identity cleavage sharing and segmentation incentivize minority leaders’ choice of identity mobilization and strategy” (pp. 12-13). Rather than accepting an existing coalition that excludes them, large ethnic minority groups who share an alternative identity with the majority will mobilize that shared identity to form an alternative winning coalition, which Birnir and Şatana aptly label as the challengers’ winning coalition (CWC, hereafter). In the same way that ethnic majorities mobilize an identity to form a minimum winning coalition (MWC, hereafter), “leaders of minorities who are targeted in majority outbidding or that do not gain access via the MWC will subsequently (or simultaneously) seek ways to re-define the relevant identity for political competition in ways that stave off targeting and afford access” (p. 12).` This theory can apply to various identity-based cleavages, but the authors focus on religion and ethnicity.
The book contains seven chapters and extensive appendices. Following an introductory chapter that sets forth the book’s main argument, scope, assumptions, methodological approach, and chapter summaries, the authors present a global picture of ethnic and religious groups’ segmentation and cross-cuttingness in Chapter 2. In contrast to the literature’s usual portrayal of ethnic groups as religious monoliths, this chapter shows that many ethnic groups are split into multiple religious families, and that the balance of groups within countries varies considerably.
Chapter 3 formalizes the book’s theory and outlines its implications. Depending on whether groups are balanced or imbalanced in size, and whether their identities are segmented or shared, the theory implies either cooperation, competition and accommodation, majority outbidding, or the CWC. When groups are imbalanced and are segmented, the theory implies that majority outbidding would occur. When groups are segmented and roughly balanced, the minority group would initiate competition and the majority group would accommodate. When groups share an alternative identity and are imbalanced in size, the theory implies majority accommodation and minority cooperation. But when groups share an identity and are relatively balanced, then the theory anticipates a CWC to emerge.
Chapters 4 through 6 test these implications. In Chapter 4, using the new A-Religion cross-national dataset that reports ethnic groups’ religious and sect affiliations and the Religion and Armed Conflict Data (RELAC) dataset on religious claims-making by groups in civil wars, the authors show that, consistent with their theory, more balanced ethnic minorities that share a religion with the ethnic majority tend to make religious claims more so than other ethnic minorities. Their results are robust to various model specifications, outliers, and measures.
Chapter 5 interrogates the internal validity of the book’s argument with in-depth case studies of group mobilizations in four countries engaged in civil wars. Tracing the mobilization of religion (or the lack thereof) in Pakistan, Turkey, Uganda, and Nepal, the authors show that large ethnic minorities articulate grievances involving religion to form an alternative coalition that can challenge the majority. In Pakistan, the Pashtuns push for a more radical Islamic government to appeal to other Muslims and resist a historically secular state. In Uganda, the Acholis-led Holy Spirit Movement and Lord’s Resistance Army mobilize religion to rally other groups against Yoweri Museveni’s government. In Nepal, the Maoist People’s Movement mobilizes against the Hindu state and forms a multiethnic coalition to demand the erasure of the role of religion in the state. In Turkey, the Kurds did not make a claim of religious incompatibility in civil war, but the authors’ account demonstrates that they have mobilized religion in electoral contexts and supported political parties based on their shared religious identity in more recent years.
In Chapter 6, the authors examine group mobilization in Indonesia. With careful attention to the demographic configurations across administrative units at different levels, they show that CWCs emerge in provincial and municipal elections with local ethnic minorities whose size is large enough and whose identity portfolio allows them to rally an alternative cleavage to appeal to other groups. The 2004 gubernatorial election in Kepulauan Riau province and the 2010 mayoral election in Medan, North Sumatra province, illustrate how aspiring candidates appeal to other Muslims to build a multiethnic coalition within their administrative units. The book’s conclusion highlights its contributions and suggestions for future research.
There is a lot to like about this book. First, meticulously researched and carefully written, the book offers a detailed picture of the varieties of demographic configurations and identity intersections that influence minorities’ mobilizational choices. Second, although the head-counting logic of CWC resonates with existing theories on MWCs (e.g., Daniel Posner, Institutions and Ethnic Politics in Africa, 2005), the mobilizational work in Birnir and Şatana’s theory is done by the ethnic minorities, not by the majorities. By theorizing and systematically examining minorities’ mobilizational choices, the book decenters majority groups and ruling elites, which have been the focus in the literature. Third, the authors view MWCs as “reasonable starting points” (p. 12), but they do not expect most MWCs to last. Instead, they show how the game may continue and CWCs may emerge. Fourth, their theory also implies that crosscutting identities can either stabilize or destabilize politics, depending on the circumstances. This contradicts the expectations of the crosscutting literature, which has generally considered intersections of identity to be conducive to peace and stability (e.g., Arend Lijphart, Democracy in Plural Societies, 1977).
This book also leaves questions for future research. While the authors paint a convincing picture of how minorities may strategize and mobilize a shared identity to form an oversized coalition that can challenge the state, they say less about what will likely happen once this CWC emerges and creates new losers. If the CWC is a response to an initial MWC, will there be an alternative reaction to the CWC? The theory’s implications, outlined in Chapter 3, suggest that mobilizational choices are ultimately conditioned by existing demographic configurations and crosscutting identities, but where these limits lie empirically needs to be further clarified. In addition, readers of this book will likely wonder how much exclusion prompts a response from large ethnic minorities to form a CWC. Both the Pashtuns and the Acholis enjoy some measure of representation in the civil service and the military (pp. 141, 222) and, for the authors, their intermittent inclusion means that minority leaders may “perceive the group as stronger than its numbers would suggest” (p. 141). But compared to other ethnic groups who enjoy even less representation, some may claim that the Pashtuns and Acholis at least have a foot in the door and may not need to form an alternative winning coalition.
Overall, this is an impressive book that broadens our understanding of identity-based mobilization. As Birnir and Şatana show, identity mobilization is a tool not only for majorities and rulers. Minorities also have an array of identity-based mobilizational choices at their disposal, and they use them to forge a path to a winning coalition.
