Although theories of ethnic conflict are rarely emotion based, most of them implicitly utilize some conception of emotion to answer the question of individual motivation. Convincing theories of ethnic conflict must provide some answer to the puzzling question of why any individual would go out and beat, humiliate, or discriminate against another human being. In Eastern Europe, the substantive basis of this work, neighbors have engaged in grotesque acts of violence against their ethnically different neighbors. Why? As Donald Horowitz has argued, explaining the motivation for such action must go beyond ambition to antipathy, past incentives to passion.

Defining Emotion

Emotion is a mechanism that triggers action to satisfy a pressing concern. An emotion operates to meet situational challenges in two ways: (1) An emotion raises the saliency of one desire/concern over others; in other words, emotion helps select among competing desires. (2) An emotion heightens both cognitive and physical capabilities necessary to respond to the situational challenge. Consider the following example. A man desiring safety, wealth, and self-esteem is walking in a dark wood. All of a sudden, he hears a strange animal noise and becomes afraid. The emotion of fear sweeps over him. Fear pumps adrenalin into his body or produces an instinctive threatening pose that serves to frighten the animal off. Fear (the emotion) acted as a mechanism (an individual level, recognizable pattern) to cause action (fight/flight) to meet a pressing concern (safety).