Carrots, Sticks, and Ethnic Conflict: Rethinking Development Assistance. Edited by Milton J. Esman and Ronald J. Herring. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2001. 272p. $49.50

This excellent collection of essays takes the reader into a complex area: the relationship between economic development and ethnic conflict. It is such a tricky topic because there is consensus about neither what ethnicity is nor the contributions that economic factors make to the origins, dynamics, and resolution of ethnic strife. In fact the essays presented here steer clear of origins and resolution and focus instead on the less controversial area of how development policy impacts on the dynamics of ethnic conflicts. There is a great need for contributions in this area, because, as the introductory chapter by Herring and Esman notes, the international community is becoming more involved in humanitarian assistance and postviolence reconstruction initiatives in a number of protracted intercommunal conflicts. These include Bosnia, Kosovo, Israel and Palestine, Northern Ireland, and Lebanon. At the same time the increased awareness of ethnic conflict in the past decade has resulted in reassessments of what development means in a multicultural setting.