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Nationalist and ethnic clash can take many varieties, from genocidal violence and civil battle to protest routine and peaceable squabbles in democracies. Nationalist Passions poses a stark problem to severe rationalist understandings of political clash. Stuart J. Kaufman elaborates a compelling concept of ethnic politics to provide an explanation for why ethnic violence erupts in a few contexts and the way peace is maintained in others. on the center of Kaufman's thought is an statement that conflicts are initiated as a result of renowned "symbolic predispositions"—biases of all kinds—and perceptions of threat.

Kaufman places his idea to the attempt in a number of conflicts. He examines a few hugely violent episodes, between them the Muslim uprising within the southern Philippines starting within the Nineteen Seventies; the civil battle in southern Sudan that begun within the Eighties; and the Rwanda genocide of 1994. Kaufman additionally analyzes different events within which leaders tried to tame the violence that nationalist passions can generate. In India, Mahatma Gandhi mobilized an openly nonviolent flow yet failed in his efforts to avoid the increase of Muslim-Hindu communal violence. In South Africa, Nelson Mandela and F. W. de Klerk ended apartheid, yet now not with out poor cost—more than fifteen thousand humans died whereas the negotiations have been below approach. In Tanzania, although, Julius Nyerere led one of many few ethnically different international locations on the earth with virtually no ethnic violence. Nationalist Passions is key studying for policymakers, foreign reduction staff, and all others who search to discover the very best results for destiny inner and interstate clashes.