From Colonization to Carnage: Secessionist Threats, External Support, and Repression of Ethnic Minorities
Introduction
When facing ethnic secession threats, why do states sometimes choose nonviolent strategies such as gradual demographic engineering while other times use extreme violence like mass killings? Existing theories provide limited explanations, especially at the local level. We propose that the presence of external support for secessionists and their internal capabilities matter. Without imminent threats of external support, states prefer nonviolent approaches like internal colonization, gradually altering the demographic makeup in frontier regions near external rivals to strengthen control over minority-concentrated territories. However, when external support becomes immediate and militarized, the urgency to prevent territorial loss drives states to employ mass violence. By targeting communities with strong separatist capabilities, states can quickly quell movements and deter further mobilization. Our research, using new data on China’s mass colonization programs and ethnic violence during Mao's regime, supports this argument. It demonstrates how external and internal territorial pressures shape minority policies in multi-ethnic states.
About the Speaker
Howard Liu is an Assistant Professor of Political Science at the University of South Carolina. He studies authoritarian politics and political violence, with a focus on how states repress, surveil, and govern contentious populations. Much of his research asks how regimes choose among tools of control, from covert infiltration and judicial sentencing to informant recruitment and mass violence, and why those choices vary across time and territory. He also examines how authoritarian regimes target ethnic minorities and diaspora communities to extend and consolidate control. His work draws on archival documents, news reports, and social-media data from China, Taiwan, and Hong Kong and uses spatial, network, experimental, and computational methods. His articles appear in the Journal of Politics, Comparative Political Studies, International Studies Quarterly, the Journal of Conflict Resolution, the Journal of Peace Research, and Political Science Research & Methods. He holds a PhD from Duke University.