Ethnic Nationalism and Conflict: Yugoslavia and Germany

“Nationalism, as Michnik points out, is a device for avoiding responsibility. By identifying “the other,” which may be an ethnic minority, neighbors, or even just political opponents, as an enemy bent on subverting the nation, nationalist can shift blame for every social ill from themselves” (Stokes 96).

Stokes best describes Nationalism in pointing out the ability for nation-states in order to maintain their “superiority” amongst others avoid taking responsibility. They are able to shift the responsibility on the ethnic minority or any political and economic threat to their survival and success. The immediate link of nationalism and ethnicity has caused nation states to have internal conflicts. The association of nation states with a single ethnic group has produced nationalist ideals in the yugoslavian and Nazi Germany conflicts. They both have produced scapegoats that were subject to ethnic cleansing and genocide. International conflict is developed over the ideology of ‘nation-states’ and the need for different Ethnic groups particularly near Europe to identify themselves as nations. This essay will discuss the nationalist ideologies that developed in Nazi Germany prior to the Holocaust, as well as the Serbian nationalist ideologies that led to ethnic cleansing in Kosovo. The power of nationalist intellects and political leaders to manipulate the people in both cases in supporting ethnic conflict to the extreme. After discussing the emergence of both conflicts, the essay will go onto understand conflict and how it can be managed in an ethnic context.

[...] The association of nation states with a single ethnic group has produced nationalist ideals in the Yugoslavian and Nazi Germany conflicts. They both have produced scapegoats that were subject to ethnic cleansing and genocide. International conflict is developed over the ideology of ‘nation-states’ and the need for different Ethnic groups particular near Europe to identify themselves as nations. This essay will discuss the nationalist ideologies that developed in Nazi Germany prior to the Holocaust, as well as the Serbian nationalist ideologies that led to ethnic cleansing in Kosovo. [...]

[...] In countries like the former Yugoslavia and Germany, nation states are representative of their culture. The fact that there are so many ethnic groups and they are so different they each fight to gain their own nation state to compete in the global world with access to economic supply and political stability. In conclusion, constructivism explains the causes and types of interventions, how national and ethnic identities transcend borders, and how political ideologies construct a world of nationalism leading to ethnic crimes such as ethnic cleansing and genocides. [...]