<P> A number of political scientists argue that the root causes of ethnic conflict do not involve ethnicity per se but rather institutional, political, and economic factors . These scholars argue that the concept of ethnic war is misleading because it leads to an essentialist conclusion that certain groups are doomed to fight each other when in fact the wars between them that occur are often the result of political decisions . </P> <P> Moreover, primordial accounts do not account for the spatial and temporal variations in ethnic violence . If these "ancient hatreds" are always simmering under the surface and are at the forefront of people's consciousness, then ethnic groups should constantly be ensnared in violence . However, ethnic violence occurs in sporadic outbursts . For example, Varshney points out that although Yugoslavia broke up due to ethnic violence in the 1990s, it had enjoyed a long peace of decades before the USSR collapsed . Therefore, some scholars claim that it is unlikely that primordial ethnic differences alone caused the outbreak of violence in the 1990s . </P> <P> Primordialists have reformulated the "ancient hatreds" hypothesis and have focused more on the role of human nature . Peterson argues that the existence of hatred and animosity does not have to be rooted in history for it to play a role in shaping human behavior and action: "If "ancient hatred" means a hatred consuming the daily thoughts of great masses of people, then the "ancient hatreds" argument deserves to be readily dismissed . However, if hatred is conceived as a historically formed "schema" that guides action in some situations, then the conception should be taken more seriously ." </P> <P> Anthony Smith notes that the instrumentalist account "came to prominence in the 1960s and 1970s in the United States, in the debate about (white) ethnic persistence in what was supposed to have been an effective melting pot". This new theory sought explained persistence as the result of the actions of community leaders, "who used their cultural groups as sites of mass mobilization and as constituencies in their competition for power and resources, because they found them more effective than social classes". In this account of ethnic identification, ethnicity and race are viewed as instrumental means to achieve particular ends . </P>

Where has ethnic violence flared up in the years since the end of the cold war