Ethnonationalism In The Contemporary World

Essential reading for anyone interested in problems associated with ethnicity and nationalism - it offers a guide to understanding the ethnonational forces that underpin much of recent terrorist activity.

According to most social scientists, the advent of a global media village and the rise of liberal democratic government would diminish ethnic and national identity as a source of political action. Yet the contemporary world is in the midst of an explosion of identity politics and often violent ethnonationalism. This volume examines cases ranging from the well-publicized ethnonationalism of Bosnia and post-Apartheid South Africa to ethnic conflicts in Belgium and Sri Lanka. Distinguished international scholars including John Comaroff, Stanley J. Tambiah, and Ernesto Laclau argue that continued acceptance of imposed ethnic terms as the most appropriate vehicle for collective self-identification and social action legitimizes the conditions of inequality that give rise to them in the first place. This ambitious attempt to explain the inadequacies of current approaches to power and ethnicity forges more realistic alternatives to the volatile realities of social difference.

Ethic Dimensions Of Politics And Political Dimensions Of Ethnicity Is An Area In Which Scholarship Has Remained Oblivious For Long. The Present Volume Goes A Long Way In Rectifying This Anomaly.

Nationalist movements have become a force in contemporary American politics regardless of the political party. As social issues plague America, civilian participation in activism is experiencing a resurgence. Nationalism, Social Movements, and Activism in Contemporary Society: Emerging Research and Opportunities provides vital information on the most current issues facing the American public and political system while also exploring nationalist ideology and its application in modern politics. While highlighting the challenges facing America’s democracy and social structure, this book explores how civilians and movements are working to make progress in the current political climate. This book is an important resource for researchers, activists, political scientists, journalists, professors, students, and professionals seeking current research on nationalism, social activism, civilian protest, and the current American political climate.

This text provides a comprehensive account of the most salient political issues in world politics and explains their significance in a way that is accessible to students and non-specialists alike. The end of the Cold War led to a widespread feeling of relief and talk of a new world order. Optimism however was short-lived and a whole range of difficult new issues, including ethnic conflict, refugees, terrorism and world security, have come to the fore. A number of ethical and moral issues such as poverty, human rights and religion has moved up the agenda of world politics. A new set of problems--involving the environment, technology, and health care--has impacted on the policy systems of states and international organizations. The contributors to this collection provide a basis for understanding emerging issues on the global stage.

Peoples of the Earth employs a comparative history of ethno-nationalism to examine Indian activism and its challenges to the political, social and economic status quo in the countries of Central and South America. It explores the intersect between problems of democratic empowerment and security-including the appearance of radical Islam among Indians in two important countries-arising from the re-emergence of dormant forms of ethnic militancy and unprecedented internal challenges to nation-states. The institutions and practices of Indian self-government in the United States and Canada are examined as a means of comparison with contemporary phenomena in Central and South America, suggesting frameworks for the successful democratic incorporation of the region's most disenfranchised peoples. European models emerging from "intermestic" dilemmas are considered, as are those involving the Inuit people (or Eskimos) in the Canadian far north, as policymakers there "think outside the box" in ways that include more robust roles for both sub-national and international bodies. Finally, the work challenges policymakers to broaden the debate about how to approach the issues of political and economic empowerment and regional security concerning Native peoples, to include consideration of new ways of protecting both land rights and the environment, thus avoiding a zero-sum solution between the region's 40 million Indians and the rest of its peoples. Peoples of the Earth has the potential to become a pioneer study addressing ethnic activism, characterized by multiple, small groups pressing for state recognition and democratic participation, while also promoting a defence of the environment and natural resources. Part of its attractiveness is the likelihood that the work will lead to further investigations and will become an authoritative point of departure for the fertile area of ethnonationalism studies in Latin America. Each country chapter provides a succinct but substantial presentation of the basic issue

Nationalism remains one of the key political, societal, and sociopsychological phenomena in contemporary Europe. Its significance for the justification of state policies and the stability of political systems, particularly in the context of advanced democracies, and its significance for people's basic needs for a political and cultural identity and a sense of national pride continue to challenge scholars. The international scholars assembled in this edited collection suggest that the use of three perspectives--supranationalism, boundary-making nationalism, and regional nationalism--may be promising as an explanatory framework for the analysis of nationalism in Europe. The book's contributors distance themselves from older dichotomies such as civic and ethnic nationalism and questions the one-sided normativity of nationalism, in particular in the concept of liberal nationalism. It argues that a promising approach to contemporary nationalism should reflect the multiplicity of nationalism. The volume is a collection of studies by a multinational group of authors with backgrounds in Belgium, Bulgaria, Canada, Germany, Latvia, New Zealand, Poland, Spain, Ukraine and the United States.

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.