Affirmative Action Ethnicity And Conflict

In recent years a number of countries have introduced affirmative action programmes in order to put right historical injustices and economic inequalities involving ethnic communities. This book examines affirmative action programmes in a range of countries around the world. It discusses how such programmes came about and how they have been implemented, and examines their effectiveness. Throughout it explores how far affirmative action programmes reinforce ethnic identities and thereby contribute to division and conflict. The countries covered are India, the United States, South Africa, Northern Ireland, Brazil, Malaysia and Fiji.

In recent years a number of countries have introduced affirmative action programmes in order to put right historical injustices and economic inequalities involving ethnic communities. This book examines affirmative action programmes in a range of countries around the world. It discusses how such programmes came about and how they have been implemented, and examines their effectiveness. Throughout it explores how far affirmative action programmes reinforce ethnic identities and thereby contribute to division and conflict. The countries covered are India, the United States, South Africa, Northern Ireland, Brazil, Malaysia and Fiji.

In the revised and updated second edition of this comprehensive book, the first anthology to integrate social-psychological literature on prejudice with sociological and historical investigations, contributors introduce readers to the key debates and principal writings on racial and ethnic conflict, representing conservative, liberal, and radical p

The nine essays collected here examine ethnic relations, discrimination, and affirmative action in different regions of the world. The contributors focus throughout on the political economy of ethnic relations - an area that has until now been largely neglected in the literature. Written by economists, the papers both offer theoretical and empirical insights into standard neoclassical models of discrimination and explore in depth the historical and institutional features of the specific cases under study. Six of the papers address discrimination and affirmative action in developing countries; the remaining essays examine the problem as it has been manifested in socialist states. The aim throughout is to offer the reader an enhanced understanding of the economic and political genesis of the often catastrophic problems associated with ethnic discrimination. Following a general introduction by the editor, the contributors examine relations between Arabs and Jews in the Israeli labor force; the complex interactions between human rights, affirmative action, and land reform in Latin America; and ethnic relations and the new economic policy in Malaysia. The three additional studies of ethnic problems in developing countries look at apartheid in South Africa, political and economic discrimination in Sri Lanka, and ethnic conflict in the Sudan. Turning to an examination of ethnic discrimination under communism, the contributors analyze the problems faced by gypsies in Eastern Europe, the politics of ethnicity and affirmative action in the Soviet Union, and labor market discrimination and ethnic tension in Yugoslavia. A bibliography is included for those wishing to pursue further research on the subject. By focusing attention on discrimination in regions of the world little studied in past works on ethnic conflict, these essays represent a unique and important contribution to the literature of international economics and political economy.

The Soviet Union was the first of Europe's multiethnic states to confront the rising tide of nationalism by systematically promoting the national consciousness of its ethnic minorities and establishing for them many of the institutional forms characteristic of the modern nation-state. In the 1920s, the Bolshevik government, seeking to defuse nationalist sentiment, created tens of thousands of national territories. It trained new national leaders, established national languages, and financed the production of national-language cultural products.This was a massive and fascinating historical experiment in governing a multiethnic state. Terry Martin provides a comprehensive survey and interpretation, based on newly available archival sources, of the Soviet management of the nationalities question. He traces the conflicts and tensions created by the geographic definition of national territories, the establishment of dozens of official national languages, and the world's first mass "affirmative action" programs. Martin examines the contradictions inherent in the Soviet nationality policy, which sought simultaneously to foster the growth of national consciousness among its minority populations while dictating the exact content of their cultures; to sponsor national liberation movements in neighboring countries, while eliminating all foreign influence on the Soviet Union's many diaspora nationalities. Martin explores the political logic of Stalin's policies as he responded to a perceived threat to Soviet unity in the 1930s by re-establishing the Russians as the state's leading nationality and deporting numerous "enemy nations."

Despite global shifts in world power, racial conflict remains one of the major problems of contemporary social life. This concise and engaging book demonstrates the interplay between identity, power and conflict in the creation, persistence and transformation of patterns of race and ethnic relations across the globe. Stone and Rizova employ a neo-Weberian comparative approach to explore how evolving systems of group conflict have been - and continue to be - impacted by changes in the world system, global capitalism, multinational corporations, and transnational alliances and institutions. The authors analyse critical debates about ‘post-racialism’, ‘exceptionalism’, ethnic warfare and diversity management in global organizations, drawing on cases from South Africa to Darfur, and from global migration to the Arab Spring uprisings. In conclusion, the search for effective strategies of conflict resolution and the quest for racial justice are evaluated from multiple perspectives. Racial Conflict in Global Society provides stimulating insights into the basic factors underlying racial conflict and consensus in the early decades of the twenty-first century. It is essential reading for scholars and students across the social and political sciences, management and international relations.

In recent years, the saliency of conflicts pitting different ethnic, racial and religious groups against one another has increased dramatically. The world of nation-states is much more diverse than previously realized; only a small number of the 185 independent countries are truly homogeneous. With the end of the cold war, the relative importance of ethnic conflicts as a threat to international peace and stability is far greater. An international set of scholars collaborate in this volume to explore policy alternatives which can contribute towards the accommodation of cultural diversity.