The author deals with the problem in political theory of how modern nation states must be structured in order to realise the two separate goals of equality of opportunity and the recognition of cultural diversity between groups. Subsequent chapters argue against a number of West European critics for a society of this type and the concept of multiculturalism is developed as it is applied in other contexts in Eastern Europe and North America.
A compilation of original essays dealing with ethnic challenges to the modern nation-state and to modernity itself, on the philosophical, political and social levels. These issues are examined theoretically and in a number of case studies encompassing three types of states: industrialized, liberal states in Western Europe, settler states in America, Africa and the Middle East, and post-colonial states in Asia and Africa. Contributors come from leading universities in Israel, Europe and North America and from several academic disciplines.
Ethnic diversity is on increase in Europe; at the same time, there is evidence of growing anti-immigrant feeling in some countries, such as Spain (especially in the Southern provinces). In order to build a politically united and democratic Europe, the accommodation of ethnic diversity and the integration of ethnic minorities are both key challenges. This book tries to explain ethnic problems in Europe.
Many scholars perceive ethnic politics in China as an untouchable topic due to lack of data and contentious, even prohibitive, politics. This book fills a gap in the literature, offering a historical-political perspective on China's contemporary ethnic conflict. Yan Sun accumulates research via field trips, local reports, and policy debates to reveal rare knowledge and findings. Her long-time causal chain of explanation reveals the roots of China's contemporary ethnic strife in the centralizing and ethnicizing strategies of its incomplete transition to a nation state—strategies that depart sharply from its historical patterns of diverse and indirect rule. This departure created the institutional dynamics for politicized identities and ethnic mobilization, particularly in the outer regions of Tibet and Xinjiang. In the 21st century, such factors as the demise of socialist tenets and institutions that upheld interethnic solidarity, and the rise of identity politics and developmentalism, have intensified these built-in tensions.
This open access book examines the question of collecting and disseminating data on ethnicity and race in order to describe characteristics of ethnic and racial groups, identify factors of social and economic integration and implement policies to redress discrimination. It offers a global perspective on the issue by looking at race and ethnicity in a wide variety of historical, country-specific contexts, including Asia, Latin America, Europe, Oceania and North America. In addition, the book also includes analysis on the indigenous populations of the Americas. The book first offers comparative accounts of ethnic statistics. It compares and empirically tests two perspectives for understanding national ethnic enumeration practices in a global context based on national census questionnaires and population registration forms for over 200 countries between 1990 to 2006. Next, the book explores enumeration and identity politics with chapters that cover the debate on ethnic and racial statistics in France, ethnic and linguistic categories in Québec, Brazilian ethnoracial classification and affirmative action policies and the Hispanic/Latino identity and the United States census. The third, and final, part of the book examines measurement issues and competing claims. It explores such issues as the complexity of measuring diversity using Malaysia as an example, social inequalities and indigenous populations in Mexico and the demographic explosion of aboriginal populations in Canada from 1986 to 2006. Overall, the book sheds light on four main questions: should ethnic groups be counted, how should they be counted, who is and who is not counted and what are the political and economic incentives for counting. It will be of interest to all students of race, ethnicity, identity, and immigration. In addition, researchers as well as policymakers will find useful discussions and insights for a better understanding of the complexity of categorization and related political and policy challenges.
Andreas Wimmer argues that nationalist and ethnic politics have shaped modern societies to a far greater extent than has been acknowledged by social scientists. The modern state governs in the name of a people defined in ethnic and national terms. Democratic participation, equality before the law and protection from arbitrary violence were offered only to the ethnic group in a privileged relationship with the emerging nation-state. Depending on circumstances, the dynamics of exclusion took on different forms. Where nation building was successful , immigrants and ethnic minorities are excluded from full participation; they risk being targets of xenophobia and racism. In weaker states, political closure proceeded along ethnic, rather than national lines and leads to corresponding forms of conflict and violence. In chapters on Mexico, Iraq and Switzerland, Wimmer provides extended case studies that support and contextualise this argument.
This book explores a largely forgotten legacy of multicultural political thought and practice from within Eastern Europe and examines its relevance to post-Cold War debates on state and nationhood. Featuring a Preface by former UK Home Secretary Charles Clarke, it weaves theory and practice to challenge established understandings of the nation state. Eastern Europe is still too often viewed through the prism of ethnic conflict, which overlooks the region’s positive contribution to modern debates on the political management of ethno-cultural diversity, and towards the construction of a united Europe ‘beyond the nation-state’. Based on extensive archival research in Estonia, Latvia, Germany, Russia, as well as the League of Nations Archive in Geneva, this book explores this neglected multicultural legacy and assesses its significance in the post-Cold War era, which has seen the reappearance of national cultural autonomy laws in several states of Eastern Europe. Ethnic Diversity and the Nation State is invaluable reading for students and scholars of political science, history, sociology and European studies, and also for policy makers and others interested in minority rights and ethnic conflict regulation.
A new perspective on how the nation-state emerged and proliferated across the globe, accompanied by a wave of wars. Andreas Wimmer explores these historical developments using social science techniques of analysis and datasets that cover the entire modern world.
The United States is rapidly transforming into one of the most racially and ethnically diverse nations in the world. Groups commonly referred to as minorities-including Asian Americans, Pacific Islanders, African Americans, Hispanics, American Indians, and Alaska Natives-are the fastest growing segments of the population and emerging as the nation's majority. Despite the rapid growth of racial and ethnic minority groups, their representation among the nation's health professionals has grown only modestly in the past 25 years. This alarming disparity has prompted the recent creation of initiatives to increase diversity in health professions. In the Nation's Compelling Interest considers the benefits of greater racial and ethnic diversity, and identifies institutional and policy-level mechanisms to garner broad support among health professions leaders, community members, and other key stakeholders to implement these strategies. Assessing the potential benefits of greater racial and ethnic diversity among health professionals will improve the access to and quality of healthcare for all Americans.
Political wisdom holds that the political boundaries of a state necessarily coincide with a nation's perceived cultural boundaries. Today, the sociocultural diversity of many polities renders this understanding obsolete. This volume provides the framework for the state-nation, a new paradigm that addresses the need within democratic nations to accommodate distinct ethnic and cultural groups within a country while maintaining national political coherence. First introduced briefly in 1996 by Alfred Stepan and Juan J. Linz, the state-nation is a country with significant multicultural—even multinational—components that engenders strong identification and loyalty from its citizens. Here, Indian political scholar Yogendra Yadav joins Stepan and Linz to outline and develop the concept further. The core of the book documents how state-nation policies have helped craft multiple but complementary identities in India in contrast to nation-state policies in Sri Lanka, which contributed to polarized and warring identities. The authors support their argument with the results of some of the largest and most original surveys ever designed and employed for comparative political research. They include a chapter discussing why the U.S. constitutional model, often seen as the preferred template for all the world’s federations, would have been particularly inappropriate for crafting democracy in politically robust multinational countries such as India or Spain. To expand the repertoire of how even unitary states can respond to territorially concentrated minorities with some secessionist desires, the authors develop a revised theory of federacy and show how such a formula helped craft the recent peace agreement in Aceh, Indonesia. Empirically thorough and conceptually clear, Crafting State-Nations will have a substantial impact on the study of comparative political institutions and the conception and understanding of nationalism and democracy.
