International Relations Expert Discusses Ethnic Obstacles to World Peace in Lawrence University Lecture

APPLETON, WIS. -- One of the country's leading authorities on international relations discusses the factors driving societal and interstate conflicts in the concluding address of Lawrence University's lecture series, "Race, Ethnicity and Nationality in Changing Societies."

Ted Robert Gurr, distinguished scholar at the University of Maryland's Center for International Development and Conflict Management, presents, "The Ethnic Challenge to World Peace," Wednesday, Feb. 21 at 7 p.m. in Lawrence's Science Hall, Room 102. The event is free and open to the public.

While many of the ethnic conflicts that accompanied the end of the Cold War were largely contained by the end of 2000, Gurr argues ethnic minorities will play critical roles in the politics of nearly every world region, including indigenous activists in Latin America, Kurdish nationalists in the Middle East and Tibetans in China. In addition to ethnic differences, Gurr believes anger and ambition across divisions of religious faith and increasing resentments over inequalities -- lack of basic goods and exclusion from power -- will drive most of the world's societal conflicts for the foreseeable future.

Gurr is the author of 10 books, including "Why Men Rebel," a winner of the Woodrow Wilson Prize as the best U.S. book in political science, and "Peoples versus States: Minorities at Risk in the New Century." In the mid-1980s, Gurr founded, and serves as director of, the Minorities at Risk Project, which tracks and analyzes the status and conflicts of nearly 300 politically active communal groups in the world.