When Cities Fight Back: Minorities, Local Politics, and Conflict in Europe

Abstract

What explains minority-state urban conflict across Europe? When, how and why do some localities seem more prone to turn the political expression of grievance into a blood sport, while others avoid this fate altogether, even when faced with similar internal and external conditions? To answer these questions, my argument challenges existing interpretations of minority-state relations based on "national models" of integration, cultural variables and minority inequality. Instead, I find that it is the entrenchment of local political elites and their strategic foundational social alliances with minority populations that ultimately condition the likelihood of violent confrontation and the ways in which it is managed at the local level.