This panel explores the varieties of strategies organizations use when mobilizing ethnic groups within a state to achieve their goals. Each paper captures a different level of mobilization in its interaction with and attempts to transform the state: (i) a comparison of non-violent ethnic parties in regional enclaves and how this structure facilitates secessionist or autonomy bids (minorities in Serbia and Romania); (ii) the mobilization of tribal groups during civil wars with a focus on social structure and organizational ideology (tribal groups in Montenegro’s civil war); (iii) the use of multi-scalar politics from the local to the transnational in civil war violence (Kurds in Turkey, Syria, and Europe); (iv) efforts to mobilize both minorities and third-party actors to successfully reintegrate ethnic groups after civil wars (minorities in Bosnia and Herzegovina); and (v) a case of mobilizational failure that occurred despite various strategies in the face of widespread repression and neighboring insurgencies (Moldovans in the Soviet Union). The panel seeks to provide new insights into the relationships between majority-minority groups, center-periphery relations, and how ethnically-based organizations succeed and fail.