Ted Robert Gurr speaking at the
Current Issues Briefing for
Peoples Versus States:
Minorities at Risk in the New Century
(USIP Photo)

In People Versus States (USIP Press, 2000), Ted Gurr contends that ethnic conflict is on the decline due to the employment by state and non-state actors of nonmilitary strategies [more]. At this Current Issues Briefing, panelists discussed this provocative study from the perspective of international organizations, the media, and the policy and scholarly communities, and analyzed of such issues as:

• the sustainability of the decrease in ethnic conflict;
  
  
• the level of real change in domestic governance in areas with large minority populations and the implications for U.S. policy;
  
  
• the new international environment catalyzed by real-time news reporting;
  
  
• "early warning" indicators that suggest how ethnic violence begins; and
  
  
• ways in which preventive diplomacy might be employed to facilitate de-escalation of emerging conflicts.

The presentation was followed by questions from the audience and the Internet.

Audience listens to Richard Ragan at podium during Current Issues Briefing. Seated l to r : Patrick Cronin, Ted Robert Gurr, Roy Gutman, and Andrew Mack.

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Speakers:

• Ted Robert Gurr
  Director, Minorities at Risk Project
  Center for International Development and Conflict Management
  University of Maryland
  
  
• Roy Gutman
  Foreign Policy Correspondent, Newsday
  Co-author, Crimes of War: What the Public Should Know (WW Norton, 1999)
  
  
• Andrew Mack
  Director of the Strategic Planning Unit
  Office of the Secretary General of the United Nations
  
  
• Richard Ragan
  Deputy Assistant Administrator, Bureau of Humanitarian Response
  U.S. Agency for International Development

Moderator:

• Patrick Cronin
  Director, Research & Studies Program
  United States Institute of Peace