Some of the most complex and difficult conflicts across both the developed and developing world today arise when ethnic groups self-identify (recognize and define themselves as a cohesive group in relation to particular religious/ ethno-cultural characteristics) and mobilize politically, often in violent ways.

Exclusion, forced assimilation, civil war, ethnic cleansing and genocide are some of the unwanted results of world-wide ethno-cultural conflict. States, international communities and even civic communities can alleviate or exacerbate such conflict (sometimes in unintended ways), depending on whether, how and when they respond to ethnic diversity and conflict.Yet, some communities, at the state level or otherwise, are able to accommodate difference: diversity is a source of opportunity and growth. Can we study the relative success of these societies (societies that will themselves have areas of success and failure in their handling of diversity) and transfer it to areas experiencing, or in danger of experiencing, deep ethno-culturally based divisions?

In governing diversity, what institutions policies, approaches or organizations of community work, and can these be transferred to communities with deeply different political/historical/economic experiences? What is the role of the international community in monitoring and transferring this kind of human interaction knowledge? The key question that the Ethnicity and Democratic Governance Project hopes to answer is: