Explaining murderous ethnic cleansing. The macro-level

This essay outlines a macro-sociological approach to explain murderous ethn ic cleansing. Firstly, the author rejects alternative approaches which focu s either on the state or weak civil societies as the crucial factors of exp lanation and suggests a precise analysis of political actors and their cons tellations, in order to cover the historical diversity and complexity of th is phenomenon. Secondly, against this background he develops a theoretical field of possibilities concerning the political constellations of ethnic gr oups. Multiculturalism and genozide are the extreme poles of this typology. Thirdly, the author develops a comparative historical strategy to explain the processes of ethnic cleansing. He shows that language, religion and ter ritory (province) are the crucial factors which combine in the political fo rmation of concrete ethnic actors' constellations to cover the entire typol ogical field of possibilities. The approach concentrates on conflicts about the political sovereignty of ethnic groups but it does not pretend to offe r a full explanation, since this would afford additional micro-sociological strategies