The East European 'ethnic nation'– Myth or reality?

Abstract. This article challenges the assumption that there is an essential difference between a West European 'civic' and an East European 'ethnic' conceptualisation of the nation. If there were such a distinction, one should be able to trace a distinctive 'ethnic' concept of the nation among the populations of East European countries. The article analyses public opinion in three East European countries – Latvia, Poland and Lithuania – using a survey of more than 1,100 respondents in each country. This data suggests, first, that we must question the model of a general East European definition of the nation as an ethnic unit. Second, it is evident that the respondents of each country define the nation differently. For example, Latvian respondents presented a specific concept of the nation – one with clear ethnic undertones. A certain number of the Latvian respondents defined members of the nation according to a single criterion: having Latvian as one's mother tongue. The article also shows how we can deconstruct the concepts of the ethnic versus the civic nation, and thus analyse their separate components. This makes the distinction less rigid, and encourages the discovery of different combinations of ethnic and civic arguments. The result should be more nuanced studies of concepts of the nation and of national belonging.     

Sudan and South Sudan: identity,citizenship, and democracy in plural societies

This article discusses the institutional legacy of colonialism and how that has affected citizenship in Sudan and South Sudan. It argues that the colonial project made a legal distinction, especially in how citizenship was defined. It outlines problems facing Sudan and South Sudan and the challenges in managing a diverse population. It argues that a failure to build a democratic polity by resorting to ethnic federalism will divide the country along ethnic lines and prevent the emergence of a truly inclusive nation. Finally, the article discusses an alternative solution to the political crisis facing both Sudan and South Sudan, namely citizenship and the establishment of an inclusive framework to manage diverse populations within a unified nation. The article concludes with a discussion of the New Sudan Framework by situating it within the larger debate on democratic nation-building while also discussing its alignment with regional and international law.     

A ‘nation of intent’ in Burma: Karen ethno-nationalism,nationalism and narrations of nation

Fully-formed nationalisms do not emerge from nothing. Nor are they inextinguishable expressions of pre-modern forms of identity and political aspirations. The argument in this paper is that if they are fully formed, they have to emerge from ethno -nationalism; that is, out of ethnic identification-writ-large, where ethnic identification becomes ‘mapped’ onto that larger thing called a ‘nation’. Ethnic identification, however, requires a transformation in modes of consciousness and atavistic ethno-histories before ethno-nationalism and then full-blooded nationalisms can come into being. The argument is made in relation to the Karen nationalist movement in Burma. Karen nationalism emerged out of ethno-nationalism that was fostered by Christian missionary interest and ethnological attempts to set out a Karen ethno-history. Missionary writings offered Christian-educated Karen, in colonial times, the basis for a ‘narration of nation’ and for viewing themselves not merely as an ethnic group but a ‘nation’. This paper sets out the ceaseless unfolding of this ‘narration of nation’ that began in the nineteenth century and now tragically occurs in refugee camps in Thailand because of drastically altered politico-military conditions in Burma since the late 1980s. These narrations can only be understood in terms of their discursive history and how this history has been shaped. These narrations are examined with a view to addressing some key theoretical issues contained in more recent studies of nationalism and nation-state-making as modern phenomena and how ethno-nationalism is transformed into nationalism.     

政治学中的民族议题

突破中国民族话语中以“民族”概念专指少数民族的思维的限制就会发现,人类历史上的“民族”概念最早形成于欧洲,指的是具有国家形式的人群共同体。这样一种与国家结合在一起的民族,具体表现为国民的共同体,是在一个长期的历史过程中形成的。民族形成后便将形成过程中经历的人口国民化、国民整体化等蕴涵于自身,使其成为蕴涵一系列社会政治机制的人口组织形式,并为欧洲现代社会、现代国家和现代政治的形成奠定基础。在“民族”概念的使用范围拓展以后,不具国家形式的各种历史文化共同体也被以“民族”概念来指称和描述,从而使民族的种类迅速增加。这样的民族共同体又对民族国家的统一、稳定和治理产生着深刻的影响,在国内和国际政治关系中发挥着重要的作用。对如此形态多样和影响深远的民族现象,政治学者不能漠然视之,而必须积极主动地关注和研究。由此形成的民族议题,既是政治学理论和知识体系构建不可或缺的重要方面,也是解释中国现代国家的构建和发展及政治学知识体系完备和创新的重要渠道。     

Nation‐building or ethnic fragmentation? Frontier settlement and collective identities in Israel

The paper analyses the evolution of collective identities from a critical geographical perspective, and argues that certain territorial practices associated with nation‐building and state‐building projects may actually sow the seeds of social and ethnic fragmentation. The analysis focuses on the impact of ‘internal frontier’ settlement in settler societies and highlights the key role of space, place and social control policies in the formation of ethnic and social identities. These identities are shown to be shaped, reshaped and reproduced during the processes of settlement, migration, segregation and inter‐group territorial conflict. Within that theoretical framework, the paper explores the case of Israel, and the impact of the settlement and spatial planning in the Galilee region on the formation of regional collective identities. The analysis shows that the process of settling the frontiers has given rise to ethnic, social and institutional fragmentation, particularly between Palestinian‐Arabs, Mizrahi Jews and Ashkenazi Jews. These divisions may— paradoxically—undermine the very nation‐building and state‐building projects that had instigated the settlement of the internal frontier.     

试论雍和宫在乾隆时期蒙藏政策中的作用

中国是个多民族、多宗教的国家。宗教成为维系民族共同心理的纽带,是民族文化和民族特性的重要内容。如何处理边疆的民族宗教问题,关系到国家的统一,领土的完整,社会的稳定,是治国政策中的一个重要组成部分。本文探讨了乾隆时期雍和宫在"兴黄教以安众蒙古"的政策中所发挥的作用,即维护了国家的统一,祖国领土完整,民族团结,又成为民族文化交流的中心。     

民族复兴战略全局中的中华民族共同体建设

当代中华民族话语体系中,有两个关键词语:一是实现中华民族伟大复兴;二是铸牢中华民族共同体意识。深入研究中华民族复兴与中华民族共同体建设的关系,对于创新完善中华民族话语体系具有重要意义。民族复兴的涵义是国家富强、民族振兴、人民幸福,三者统一于复兴民族走向现代化的历史进程。与此相应,民族复兴战略全局中的中华民族共同体建设,要开拓世界历史、国家、民族、国民四个维度以形成新格局。中华民族共同体建设要兼顾规模和效率,平行推进中华民族作为民族共同体和国民共同体的建设;要在国家治理体系和治理能力现代化的整体框架中,作出相关战略布局和资源配置;作为民族共同体的建设,要铸牢中华民族共同体意识,夯实各民族共同繁荣的物质基础;作为国民共同体的建设,要从全体国民和国民个体两方面,增加扩展中华民族共同体建设的国民维度。     

Ballot-Box Vigilantism? Ethnic Population Shifts and Xenophobic Voting in Post-Soviet Russia

To what extent does voting for anti-immigrant parties relate to long-term changes in ethnic composition within states? Four theoretical models are developed, based on studies of interethnic attitudes, housing segregation, racial violence, and hate crime in the United States. Each model is tested with the data on ethnic composition of the Russian Federation from 1989 to 2002 and voting for the extreme nationalist Zhirinovsky Bloc in the 2003 parliamentary election, using multiple regression and ecological inference methods. Most consistently supported is the “defended nationhood” model derived from the sociology of neighborhood vigilantism and the psychology of the security dilemma. Non-trivial, counterintuitive findings are: (1) xenophobic voting was responsive to changes in the proportion of some ethnic groups more so than others and not necessarily those that were more numerous or more widely disliked at the time of the vote (Chechens), but those that raised more uncertainty about the future ethnic composition and identity of the state (Asians); (2) levels of change, but not the rapidity of change in the ethnic composition of the population related significantly to xenophobic voting; and (3) greater percentage of the nation’s dominant ethnic group in a region reduced xenophobic voting by members of that dominant group (the highest share of Slavs voted for Zhirinovsky in the ethnically mixed Volga-Urals area).     

Why might constructed nationalist and ethnic ideologies come into confrontation with each other?

The paper develops a model for examining ethnic conflict in Southeast Asia, using Indonesia as an illustrative case. Ethnic conflict is explained as arising not out of the facts of ethno-cultural pluralism, but rather out of the disentwining of the three visions of the nation: as civic community, as ethno-cultural community and as multicultural community.This disentwining occurs particularly in the context of pressures for democratization. Three aspects of politics are identified as promoting the disentwining so as to engender the weakening of the civic nationalist vision, and thence the confrontation between a majoritarian ethno-cultural nationalism and a minority-focused multicultural nationalism. First, the spread of ideas related to democracy generates the spread of liberal forms of the three nationalist visions, alongside the authoritarian forms, and puts the spotlight on the divergences between these visions. Ideas of democracy are then highjacked by ethnic majorities claiming majority rights, and by ethnic minorities claiming minority rights. Second, the patrimonial basis for politics in much of Southeast Asia means that ethnic majorities and minorities alike perceive democratization as the search for responsive patrons, rather than as the search for civic equality. Third, civic nationalism is further weakened by the erosion of faith in the social justice promises of state elites. While these features of politics promote ethnic tensions, they also generate countervailing factors that ensure the political disunity of ethnic minorities, and thereby inhibit the extent of ethnic conflict.     

Religion,language, race and ethnic voting

Why do some ethnic groups vote along ethnic lines while others do not? This article looks at whether the objective characteristics of ethnicity – in terms of language, religion and race – affect ethnic voting. I address three sets of questions: (1) are ethnic groups that are objectively different from other groups of their country more likely to vote ethnically? (2) is ethnic voting higher among groups that are linguistically, religiously and racially homogeneous? (3) do some ethnic markers, such as language, induce more ethnic voting than others? Using a dataset covering 142 ethnic groups and 49 democracies worldwide, I find that within-group similarity increases ethnic voting. On balance, however, there is little evidence that between-group difference or the identity of the ethnic dimension affect ethnic voting. These results suggest that a group's internal characteristics and the cohesiveness of its members play a key role in explaining its voting behavior.     

维护边疆民族地区社会稳定的基本对策

在建设全面小康社会的进程中,社会稳定具有基础性和决定性的作用.边疆民族地区作为后发地区,具有边疆、民族、贫困等特点,在整个国家发展战略和社会稳定中具有举足轻重的地位.维护边疆民族地区社会稳定,既有一般的共性,也有其特殊性.强化统一的多民族国家的宣传教育、推动边疆民族地区经济社会发展等十条措施.既是治理边疆的治本之道,也是维护边疆民族地区社会稳定的基本之策.     

论民族区域自治制度的政治整合功能

民族区域自治制度是我国的一项基本政治制度,它所具有的政治整合功能可归纳为以民族整合为核心、以领土整合为先导、以价值观念整合为基础、以目标取向整合为前提、以行为方式整合为重点等五个方面的功能。     

Two-tier Pluralism in ‘Colour-blind’ France

France lags behind most other Western countries in its degree of ethnic representation, despite the longstanding presence of non-Western minorities in the country. French politicians and the public usually justify this situation by arguing that there are no such things as ethnic minorities in France, and therefore no particular ‘ethnic minority’ interests. Consequently, there is no need to be concerned about ethnic representation; class representation is enough. More recently, attention has centred on the presence of Islam. This frame biases political attention to religious issues related to ethnic minorities, leaving aside major problems such as racial discrimination. In contrast, this article argues that France is very similar to America when it comes to ethnic politics, particularly when analysing the political orientations of non-Western minorities. Without a proper voice to articulate their claims, ethnic minorities see their interests neglected in favour of other issues.     

Social citizenship and ethnicity around a public sector steel plant in Orissa,India

This article is about a modern public sector steel plant in the state of Orissa and its promise to set standards for post-colonial India's citizenry at large. These steel plants were to provide their workforces with superior social and economic citizenship rights, which in turn were to serve as exemplary industrial relations for the industrialising nation. The steel plants were also intended to forge multi-ethnic workforces into exemplary Indian citizens by transcending their manifold ethnic differences. The trajectory of the public sector steel plant in the town of Rourkela confirms that enhanced social and economic citizenship rights detached public sector steel workforces from labour at large and produced a ‘labour aristocracy’. The trajectory, furthermore, reveals how in Rourkela policies designed to accommodate ethnic differences constantly recreated these differences and hampered the access of large sections of the local population to these enhanced social and economic citizenship rights.     

于成龙家训:家国共建有德有“分”社会

家训以治家训子为本务。好的家训既是家族繁荣的重要保障,也是国家文化的重要体现。一代廉吏于成龙的家训,蕴含着家国共建有德有“分”社会的治家治国理念与路径。于成龙家训立意于家国共建,主张通过官员改善家风来引领社会风气,实现国家风清气正。“德”是其思想内核,包括孝敬不违礼、勤俭不奢靡、宽仁不刻薄、公道不欺诈、高洁并立志五种美德。“分”是其精魂所在,通过要求家族成员遵守在家庭与社会中的本分、随分而行,来实现家国的和谐稳定。于成龙家训以训治家、以家治国,最终谋求家、国的共同发展,具有典范意义。     

Public health as an agent of internal colonialism in interwar Czechoslovakia: shaping the discourse about the nation’s children

Shmidt’s text discusses the specifics of internal colonialism in the discourses and practices of the dominant group (Czechs) concerning Slovaks and Rusyns, ethnic groups from the peripheral, eastern areas of interwar Czechoslovakia. By targeting the reproductive patterns of these groups, seen as undesirable by the authorities, internal colonialism shaped the discourse about children by consistently opposing the normalized childhood inside the nation to the supposedly abnormal child development outside the civilizing process. Shmidt focuses on three interwar projects aimed at introducing new public health practices as an ‘infrastructure of dependence’ with regard to the peripheral groups. Being directly supported by the Rockefeller Foundation, these projects contributed to building the new Czechoslovak nation and securing its international legitimacy.     

Measuring Ethnic Fractionalization in Africa

In most studies of the impact of ethnic diversity on economic growth, diversity is hypothesized to affect growth through its effect on macroeconomic policies. This article shows that most measures of ethnic diversity (including the commonly used ELF measure) are inappropriate for testing this hypothesis. This is because they are constructed from enumerations of ethnic groups that include all of the ethnographically distinct groups in a country irrespective of whether or not they engage in the political competition whose effects on macroeconomic policymaking are being tested. I present a new index of ethnic fractionalization based on an accounting of politically relevant ethnic groups in 42 African countries. I employ this measure (called PREG, for P olitically R elevant E thnic G roups) to replicate Easterly and Levine's influential article on Africa's "growth tragedy." I find that PREG does a much better job of accounting for the policy-mediated effects of ethnic diversity on economic growth in Africa than does ELF.     

Bodo ethnic self-rule and persistent violence in Assam: A failed case of multinational federalism in India

Indian federalism has been credited in the literature on comparative federalism for having successfully resolved many of its ethnic conflicts (in a country of immense ethnic diversity) since 1956 by conceding varied forms of statehood. In most cases, the resolution of ethnic conflict has entailed self-determination for ethno-nationalist groups. There are however cases when the experiment has failed and the institutional arrangements for recognition of ethnic self-determination have given birth to more conflicts and persistent violence. In this article, we argue that the Bodoland Territorial Authority (created in 2003) in Assam is a failed case of multinational federalism in India. We argue that the case of Bodoland illustrates the limits of territorial management when groups are intermixed and highlight the need for power sharing in government and/or non-territorial representation as a better method for managing ethnic conflict in such cases.     

Kurdish migrant mothers in London enacting citizenship

The article explores the mothering work of a group of Kurdish women in London as enactments of citizenship. Rather than focusing on their integration, it foregrounds the migrant mothers' ability to disrupt hegemonic citizenship narratives and bring into being new political subjects. They co-construct diasporic citizenship, through their mothering work, producing their children's cultural identifications as both British and Kurdish. These identifications are contingent, involving intra-ethnic contestations of legitimate Kurdish culture. Kurdish migrant mothers' cultural work is not simply about making nation state citizens. By giving meaning to cultural continuity and change, the mothers reference multiple levels of belonging (local, national and diasporic) which challenge state boundaries. The article shows that although mothers play a key role in constructing their children's cultural identities and their articulation in ethnic and national terms, they also contest the meaning of ethnic minority cultural practices and group boundaries, potentially disrupting hegemonic narratives of good citizenship as ethno-national.     

Building Reputation: Why Governments Fight Some Separatists but Not Others

This article attempts to show that future players and future stakes—two factors generally ignored by political scientists—strongly influence government decisions to cooperate or fight at least against ethnic minorities seeking self-determination. Data on all separatist movements between 1956 and 2002 reveals that governments are significantly less likely to accommodate one challenge if the number of ethnic groups in a country and the combined value of the land that may come under dispute in the future is high. Governments that refused to accommodate one challenger were also significantly less likely to face a second or third challenge down the road. This provides some of the first systematic evidence that governments invest in reputation building a least in the domain of domestic ethnic relations.