Forging Military Identity in Culturally Pluralistic Societies: Quasi Ethnicity.

AuthorHowe, Adam E.
PositionAFRICA - Book review

Zirker, Daniel G., ed. Forging Military Identity in Culturally Pluralistic Societies: Quasi Ethnicity. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2015.

Daniel G. Zirker's edited volume is an essential resource for students of relations between the state and civil society in the Global South. The book offers a nuanced explanation of how states manage and manipulate ethnic diversity through their military institutions. Critically, states that are able to create a separate identity for soldiers, what Zirker refers to as "quasi ethnicity," are far better equipped to contain the spread of ethnic conflict in the wider population. In other words, when a new military identity that is forged through comradeship and shared practices supersedes rigid ethnic allegiances, the state can more effectively provide security for all members of society.

In the introductory chapter, Zirker engages in a cogent and sophisticated review of contending perspectives in the subfield of ethnicity studies. His approach is grounded in the tradition of primordialism, or the theory that ethnic identities are hard wired in individual and group consciousness. These identities are socially reinforced over generations through stories, traditions, and past conflicts. While this approach excludes the possibility that ethnicity can be manipulated by elites or reimagined during times of crisis, identity tends to be an important and relatively durable cleavage in society. A broader debate on the epistemological questions informing the study of ethnicity is not reducible to a single volume, and Zirker does well to engage with the essential questions in a brief and accessible manner.

The chapters that follow provide an impressive array of case studies across the African continent. Here, understudied countries such as Guinea and Suri-name are compiled in the same volume with the more familiar cases of Nigeria and Kenya. The comparative chapter on Tanzania and Uganda usefully illustrates how the size and scope of ethnic groups profoundly impacts the trajectory of a states military culture. Importantly, states that feature ethnic balance, where no single group can dominate politics at the expense of others, have a better chance of nurturing "quasi ethnicity" through the military apparatus. Conversely, states that have profound regional ethnic imbalances, such as Nigeria are highly susceptible to ethnic competition within the military and to the political instability that accompanies such rivalries...

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