Nationhood cleavages and ethnic conflict: A comparative analysis of postcommunist Bulgaria, Montenegro, and North Macedonia

Why do interethnic tensions in some multiethnic countries escalate into violence while in other cases, the tensions exist but they are contained? Most theories focus on the nation-state model’s exclusionary logic, different forms of institutional design, and external intervention by third-party actors. My argument centres around political divisions among the ethnic majority elites over conceptions of nationhood. Elites divided by a nationhood cleavage create an opportunity space for violence through a process of double ethnic outbidding. Majority nationhood cohesion, on the other hand, facilitates cooperation on ethnic issues among majority elites, prevents outbidding, and thus preserves interethnic peace. I develop these arguments building on outcome variation among three otherwise similar Southeast European countries and on conducting 33 semi-structured elite interviews. Post-communist Bulgaria and Montenegro built enduringly peaceful interethnic relations despite dark shadows of an assimilationist past in the former and the threat posed by greater Serbian ideology in the latter. Postcommunist North Macedonia, by contrast, has frequently experienced violent conflict despite a multiethnic past and a series of consociational arrangements tried until present.