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political entrepreneur cannot credibly promise his members a greater share of allocated resources and in
the latter case, the political entrepreneur cannot promise his members a greater share of allocated
resources.
It is in conditions of medium-level economic liberalization, that political entrepreneurs can
provide their potential members with significant and credible material benefits because it is at these
levels of economic liberalization that potential members rationally perceive that ethnically-based political
mobilization can alter profitably their payoff structure, i.e. there is a greater chance that by joining this
type of ethnically-based political mobilization organization that they can positively acquire a larger share
of allocated resources since there exists a significant amount of resources under state control.
Having presented my argument, I believe it is important to illustrate my differences from the
existing theories. Analytically, I differ from the Alesina et al. approach because I argue that domestic
institutions can mitigate the effects of changes in the international economy on domestic political
economy arrangements. Indeed, I argue that the mobilization resources that have been developed in the
pre-liberalization era can affect the incidence rate of ethnic conflict in multi-ethnic by changing the
process of ethnic collective mobilization. Asset changes do not automatically transform into changes in
political action. Methodologically, I differ from Alesina and his co-authors because I use a composite
indicator the level of economic liberalization and not just the level of trade openness. Beyond the fact that
my composite measurement of economic liberalization is far more reliable and accurate, there are acute
analytical reasons for doing so: Dani Rodrik has demonstrated how high levels of trade liberalization can
be complemented with levels of public-sector employment for risk-sharing purposes, something that can
be used in multi-ethnic societies to economically protect ethnic groups that would otherwise have been
adversely affected by this process of economic liberalization.
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Hence, my measurement captures more
reliably and more effectively the true level of economic liberalization. This methodological difference is
an important one because by relying solely on measures of external trade liberalization, Alesina misses
the critical role that mobilizational resources play in the transformation of structural stimuli -- as
generated by the integration in the international economy -- into political action.
I also differ analytically from the Woodward (domestic state) explanation because I argue that
the ability of political entrepreneurs to use the economic dislocations, created by economic liberalization
policies, into mass ethnic mobilizations is severely and critically affected by not only by the available
organizational resources, but also by the extent and the size of selective benefits that political
entrepreneurs can promise the ethnic group members. In essence, I argue that history matters not only
because it demonstrates that ethnicity has been politicized, but also how it has been politicized. I differ
Beissinger (1998), constructing a large database of collective action events in disintegrating Soviet Union, found the explosion of
ethnic violence in the later stages of mobilization was a function of their pre-existing social network resources.
Convention