Studies examine the causes of internal war, the techniques used by nationalist politicians and intellectuals to turn ethnicity into a powerful political resource, the response of the UN and of non-governmental agencies to such political emergencies as those in former Yugoslavia and Somalia, and the constitutional strategies that can be used to acknowledge and accommodate ethnic diversity. The papers demonstrate that the relationship between ethnicity and war is not a simple matter of cause and effect: ethnic differences are not given in nature, ethnicity does not arise suddenly and spontaneously but only in specific historical circumstances. Only through the deliberate calculation of political elites does it become a lethal force in human affairs. Contributors: DAVID TURTON, TOM GALLAGHER, STEFAN TROEBST, THOMAS ZITELMAN, KLAUS JUERGEN GANTZEL, JAKOB ROSEL, HARRY GOULBOURNE, IAON LEWIS, MARK DUFFIELD, GIORGIO AUSENDA.