The Study Of Ethnicity And Politics

The book analyses the study of the growing field of ethnicity and politics from a number of different angles. These include the nature of the subject itself, different theoretical approaches, ways of addressing political issues the relationship gives rise to, the impact of major global challenges and a survey of output in the field. Comprehensive text book makes great course reading. Questions of identity, particularly ethnicity, play an increasingly important role in people’s lives. They are also of growing significance in both domestic and international politics. The increased attention to these issues has been matched by the mushrooming of scholarship in the field of ethnicity and politics. The chapters in this survey of recent analytical developments examine the contribution that this literature has made within the broad area of comparative politics within the discipline of political science. They are written by experts active in the international network of scholars that has been devoted to the study of this subject. The question of what we mean when we use ethnic terminology is rigorously interrogated. And the major theoretical approaches to the study of ethnicity and politics are critically examined. Ways of addressing ethnic diversity are debated under the wide headings of accommodation and integration. The issue of ethnicity in world politics is considered through an analysis of how watersheds of the last 25 years, including the end of the Cold War, 9/11 and the global economic downturn have impacted on the study of the subject. Also analysed is the output of publications in scholarly journals that has addressed this subject area. From the Contents: Ethnicity – What are we talking about? (Jean Touron) Ethnic and national mobilization (Eric Kaufmann/Daniele Conversi) The Politics of accomodation and integration in democratic States (Brendan O’Leary/John McGarry) Global Watersheds and the Study of ethno-politics (Adrian Guelke) Who is doing what, where and how in the study of ethnicity and politics (Britt Cartrite/Dan Miodownik)

How is ethnicity viewed by scholars of different academic disciplines? Can its emergences be compared in various regions of the world? How can it be conceptualized with specific reference to distinct historical periods? This book shows in a uniquely and innovative way the broad range of approaches to the political uses of ethnicity, both in contemporary settings and from a historical perspective. Its scope is multidisciplinary and spans across the globe. It is a suitable resource for teaching material. With its short contributions, it conveys central points of how to understand and analyze ethnicity as a political resource.

Despite implicating ethnicity in everything from civil war to economic failure, researchers seldom consult psychological research when addressing the most basic question: What is ethnicity? The result is a radical scholarly divide generating contradictory recommendations for solving ethnic conflict. Research into how the human brain actually works demands a revision of existing schools of thought. Hale argues ethnic identity is a cognitive uncertainty-reduction device with special capacity to exacerbate, but not cause, collective action problems. This produces a new general theory of ethnic conflict that can improve both understanding and practice. A deep study of separatism in the USSR and CIS demonstrates the theory's potential, mobilizing evidence from elite interviews, three local languages, and mass surveys. The outcome significantly reinterprets nationalism's role in CIS relations and the USSR's breakup, which turns out to have been a far more contingent event than commonly recognized.

Ethiopia s unique system of ethnic-based federalism claims to minimise conflict by organising political power along ethnic lines. This empirical study shows that the system eases conflict at some levels but also sharpens inter-ethnic and intra-ethnic divides on the ground.

This book offers a brief, broad, comparative study of ethnic politics that places ethnic conflict within the context of particular political systems. To develop these themes, they are explored by comparing and contrasting the experiences of France, Czechoslovakia and its subsequent division, and Nigeria.

Ethnicity is one of the most salient and enduring topics of social science, not least with regard to its potential link to political conflict/violence. Despite, or perhaps because of, the concept’s significant use, all too seldom has the field paused to consider the state of our knowledge. For example, how do we define and conceive of ethnicity within the context of political conflict? What do we really know about the causal determinants of ethnic conflict? What has been the most useful development within this literature, and why? This volume comprises reflections from an international range of prominent political scientists all engaged in the study of ethnicity and conflict/violence. They attempt to synthesize what the field does and does not know with regard to ethnic conflict, as well as draw out the research directions for the immediate future in unique and interesting ways. This book was originally published as a special issue of the journal Ethnopolitics.

Why have settler societies moved from a traditional position of ethnic insularity to being at the forefront of multicultural change? This question is addressed through comparative study of Australia, Canada and New Zealand, set against the USA and UK experience. The Politics of Ethnicity in Settler Societies explores the linked processes of aboriginal dispossession, settler state formation and international migration, and argues these historical foundations are still closely related to recent trends in ethnic politics. Contemporary topics surveyed include, multiculturalism, national identity, sovereignty, globalization, and citizenship.

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.