Minorities at Risk Project Dataset

The Minorities at Risk (MAR) Project is a university-based research project that monitors and analyzes the status and conflicts of politically-active communal groups in all countries with a current population of at least 500,000. The project is designed to provide information in a standardized format that aids comparative research and contributes to the understanding of conflicts involving relevant groups. MAR tracks 283 politically-active ethnic groups throughout the world from 1945 to the present -- identifying where they are, what they do, and what happens to them. MAR focuses specifically on ethnopolitical groups, non-state communal groups that have "political significance" in the contemporary world because of their status and political actions.

Historically, the focus of the MAR project has been “minorities at risk.” The project defined a “minority at risk” as an ethnopolitical group that:

• collectively suffers, or benefits from, systematic discriminatory treatment vis-àvis other groups in a society; and/or
• collectively mobilizes in defense or promotion of its self-defined interests.

For the 2004-2006 update, criteria were re-developed as part of an effort to address issues of selection bias. The current criteria for this release are as follows:

• Membership in the group is determined primarily by descent by both members and non-members.
• The group may be a caste if membership is determined by descent and precludes public social mobility.
• Membership in the group is recognized and viewed as important by members and/or non-members. The importance may be psychological, normative, and/or strategic.
• Members share some distinguishing cultural features, such as common language religion and customs.
• One or more of these cultural features are practiced by a majority of the members of the group.
• The group has at least 100,000 members or constitutes one percent of a country’s population.
• For groups dropping below population thresholds after being included in dataset, coding will continue for up to 10 years to determine if population rebounds. This is to avoid immediately excluding groups whose population drops specifically because of political actions (such as expulsion from the home country).^{[ref 1]}

Variable Categories and Subcategories

MAR contains indicators in the Conflict Variables, Grievance Variables, Foreign Support Variables, and Legitimacy Variables categories. Variable subcategories include:

• Ethnicity Ideology and Culture
• Onset Indicators
• Quality of Life Indicators
• Economic Performance Indicators
• Human Rights and Discrimination Indicators
• Demographic Data
• Borders and Region
• Foreign Support for Insurgency Indicators

These variables can answer questions like:

• Does the minority group have different social norms than the rest of the population?
• Are there significant economic inequalities for the minority group?
• Are there policies that actively and deliberately impose other cultural or political restrictions on the minority group?
• Is there the existence of an advantaged minority?
• Does the minority group have a different physical appearance?

Data Quality

Critique

There are several critiques of the MAR data that relate to bias of selection cases. To be included in the MAR sample, a group must be larger than 100,000 persons in 1990, and be "at risk," which essentially means that the group is either mobilized, subject to discrimination, or at a major economic disadvantage. Thus, the sample does not include the large number of ethnically defined groups that are small or that are not already marked by factors that might increase their odds of being engaged in violent conflict. Therefore, virtually all cases in which there would be a high score on the rebellion index are included in the data base; yet not all cases are included where rebellion is 0, because under conditions of peace, the group may be insufficiently mobilized to catch the attention of coders. Therefore, the selection of cases induces an overprediction of rebellion.

Additionally, the "at risk" criteria for inclusion are subjective and may be contestable for specific cases. There is also the problem of how to decide what the "group" is in cases where group boundaries and self/other descriptions are contested or unclear. For instance, MAR codes as single groups "Hispanics" in the U.S. and "Pashtuns" in Afghanistan, when one could argue for greater disaggregation in each case. The coding of a number of the African groups in the sample could be criticized on similar grounds. For example, the data base does not include ethnic groups in Malawi, the Central African Republic, Gabon, Liberia, and Tanzania. It includes for Somalia the Isaaq, but excludes other clans equally at risk. The lumping together of almost all minority ethnic groups in Latin American countries under the heading "indigenous peoples" is problematic.

Additionally, the most politically dominant ethnic group in a country is not included, because these groups comprise numerical majorities -- they are not "minorities at risk." But if a politically dominant ethnic group has less than 50 percent of country population, it may be included, even if it is the largest group in the country. Thus, Pashtuns in Afghanistan (38 percent of population) and Sunnis in Lebanon (30 percent) are included as "advantaged minorities being challenged," though each forms a "majority" in the sense of a plurality. Also, five "disadvantaged" groups that form absolute majorities are included (Hutus in Burundi and Rwanda, "Highland Indigenous Peoples" in Bolivia, Shi'is in Iraq, and Taiwanese in Taiwan).^{[ref 2]}

Response

To address the criticism of selection bias, the Minorities at Risk Project authors highlight that the intent of the dataset is to monitor ethnic groups that are political significant, not provide an exhaustive list of all ethnic minorities. Additionally, the project authors note that the research is constantly adding groups based on the suggestions of researchers.^{[ref 3]}

References

1. ↑ "Minorities at Risk," University of Maryland, http://www.cidcm.umd.edu/mar/.
2. ↑ James D. Fearon, David D. Laitin, "Collaborative Project: "Minorities at Risk Data Base and Explaining Ethnic Violence," NSF Grant Proposal, 1999.
3. ↑ Jonathan Fox, "Religion, Civilization, and Civil War: 1945 Through the New Millenium," Lantham, MD, Lexington Books, 2004.

Minorities at Risk Project. (2009) "Minorities at Risk Dataset." College Park, MD: Center for International Development and Conflict Management. Retrieved from http://www.cidcm.umd.edu/mar/ on: (date here)