The Relevance of Culture for the Study of Political Psychology and Ethnic Conflict

There is a powerful tension between the context‐specific analyses which figure prominently in the social sciences in recent years and the emphasis on universal human dynamics which characterizes cross‐cultural psychology. Using the example of ethnic conflict, I seek to bridge the two and suggest that underlying the thick description of single conflicts as the parties understand them is what an earlier generation of psychological anthropologists called “the psychic unity of mankind,” referring to deep structural similarities in all cultures, which make us human (Spiro, 1987). I propose that a cultural analysis of ethnic conflict can effectively build an explanation putting each conflict in a context which highlights what the parties believe is at stake; identifying both the concrete interests and threats to identity crucial to the disputants; linking interests and identities to psychocultural interpretations and the motives underlying them; and proposing that successful settlement of ethnic conflicts means that the parties themselves must actively work toward proposals which address both their competing interests and core identity needs.