An Analysis of Race Equality Policy and Practice in the City of Birmingham,UK

The city of Birmingham is home to a significant number of ethnic minorities. In 2004 it is estimated that almost a third of the city's one million people are of ethnic minority origin. How the city's institutions have responded to race equality issues is analysed in the light of the Stephen Lawrence Inquiry Report (1999) and the Race Relations (Amendment) Act 2000. Based on secondary analysis of documentary evidence and interviews with key actors, it is shown that ethnic minorities are disadvantaged in education, the labour market, and in relation to health and housing. It is argued that the local authority has made some genuine efforts to ensure that all its citizens are provided equality of opportunity; however, given the diversity and socio-economic polarity of the ethnic minorities in Birmingham, we conclude that race equality policies remain ineffective and a great deal more is required to ensure that ethnic minorities are treated equally as full British citizens.     

Belgrade,Pale, Knin: Kin-state Control over rebellious puppets?

The importance of kin-state involvement in ethnic conflicts and wars is often recognised in the literature, yet little theorising exists. This article analyses the links between the Serbian regime and the Serb leaders in Croatia and Bosnia during the Yugoslav war. Contrary to widespread assumptions, it finds that Slobodan Milo?evi? was not always able to control local developments; the local Serb leaders became increasingly rebellious and possessed means for limiting Belgrade's influence. Instead of assuming static ethnic solidarities, the analysis focuses on intra-ethnic divisions and the supply of resources and is thereby able to capture the fluidity of kin-state relations and the potentially limited longevity of such ties. It shows that links between a kin-state and its ethnic brethren may be weakened despite the existence of extreme insecurity.     

Multiculturalism,memory, and ritualization: Ukrainian nationalist monuments in Edmonton,Alberta

Canadians of Ukrainian descent constitute a significant part of the population of the Albertan capital. Among other things, their presence is felt in the public space as Ukrainian monuments constitute a part of the landscape. The article studies three key monuments, physical manifestations of the ideology of local Ukrainian nationalist elites in Edmonton: a 1973 monument to nationalist leader Roman Shukhevych, a 1976 memorial constructed by the Ukrainian Waffen-SS in Edmonton, and a 1983 memorial to the 1932–1933 famine in the Ukrainian SSR. Representing a narrative of suffering, resistance, and redemption, all three monuments were organized by the same activists and are representative for the selective memory of an “ethnic” elite, which presents nationalist ideology as authentic Ukrainian cultural heritage. The narrative is based partly upon an uncritical cult of totalitarian, anti-Semitic, and terroristic political figures, whose war crimes, ethnic cleansing, and collaboration with Nazi Germany the nationalists deny and obfuscate. The article argues that government support and direct public funding has strengthened the radicals within the community and helped promulgate their mythology. In the case of the Ukrainian Canadian political elite, official multiculturalism underwrites a narrative at odds with the liberal democratic values it was intended to promote. The failure to deconstruct the “ethnic” building blocks of Canadian multiculturalism and the willingness to accept at face value the primordial claims and nationalist myths of “ethnic” groups has given Canadian multiculturalism the character of multi-nationalism.     

Violence and Urban Order in Nairobi, Kenya and Lagos, Nigeria

This article examines the interaction between politics and informal institutions of order in two of Africa’s most violent and crime-ridden cities, Nairobi, Kenya and Lagos, Nigeria. In both cities, governments have failed to provide basic public services and security to citizens, especially to those who reside in informal settlements or slums. A variety of informal institutions, including ethnic militia and block-level vigilante groups, fulfill security and enforcement roles in these relatively ungoverned urban spaces. This article examines the differences in the character and organization of these “specialists in violence,” and it argues that these differences are often integrally linked to the political strategies and aims of elites. The article makes two primary contributions to existing understandings of informal order in violent cities in the developing world. First, I find that organizations seemingly organically linked to local communities, such as ethnic militia, are strongly influenced by national-level political struggles. Violent organizations can gain a foothold and degree of legitimacy by appealing to traditional loyalties, including ethnicity, but organizations with these advantages are also attractive targets for cooptation by political actors. Secondly, both direct state repression and electoral use of militia lead to more predatory forms of interaction between these groups and local communities.     

How does ethnic diversity shape the design of intergovernmental fiscal relations? Evidence from China

This study examines how ethnic diversity shapes the design of intergovernmental fiscal relations in regimes such as China, where local accountability and resident mobility are largely absent. We argue that in these regimes, ethnic diversity largely captures potential social conflicts and instability, consequently requiring a higher level of fiscal centralization and regional equalization from upper-level governments to preserve social stability. Using provincial and sub-provincial level panel data from China for 1995–2019, we find strong supporting evidence that an increase in a province's ethnic diversity significantly increases fiscal centralization and the provincial government's fiscal equalization efforts. We also show that these effects tend to be stronger in provinces whose leaders have closer ties with the central authority and where local capture is less serious. Our study contributes to a better understanding of ethnic diversity's consequences on the policy choices governments make.     

Ethiopian federalism: autonomy versus control in the Somali region

This study examines the relationship between Ethiopia's federal and regional authorities since the Tigray led regime came to power in 1991. The redivision of Ethiopia into ethnic regions was aimed to effect two changes: to abolish certain ethnic domination of the state; and to enable various communities to govern their local affairs. Using material from the Somali Region, this article evaluates whether ethnic‐based regional authorities have sufficient autonomy from the centre to be accountable to local populations. The ability of local people to elect their leaders is central to undoing past ethnic injustices. Although communities have gained from the new order, however, the federal ruling party tightly controls regional political authorities. Federal domination of regional governance is partly the result of the ineptness of local elite. This arrangement creates formal ethnic regions without significantly altering power relations in Ethiopia. Consequently, the spirit of the 1991 change is lost as local communities lack leeway while a new ethnic group reigns supreme at the federal level.     

Parties,Recruitment and Modernisation: Evidence from Local Election Candidates

Using pooled data from four separate nationwide surveys of local election candidates conducted from 2006–09 the paper assesses the role and importance of parties in the recruitment and selection of candidates. In many respects candidates are similar to councillors with men outnumbering women in a two to one ratio, with very few non-white candidates coming forward for selection and an age bias towards older rather than younger people. Candidates are found generally to have higher educational qualifications and to be employed in professional and managerial populations than in the public at large. Although a majority of candidates are resident in the ward that they contest a large fraction live elsewhere, suggesting that local parties cast the net widely during the recruitment process. The data suggest that the recruitment networks used by parties are relatively closed with many candidates reporting prior experience as local party officer holders or as members of charitable organisations and local public bodies. For two-thirds of candidates the initial decision to stand follows from a request by someone else, often a fellow party member. Women are more likely to be asked than men. Although candidates are aware of the current under-representation of some social and ethnic groups they are generally against using affirmative action measures to redress any imbalance. Although local parties are sometimes seen as contributing towards the problem of under-representation of some groups on council benches the data suggest than an increase in independent candidates would be unlikely to improve the situation and could perhaps cause it to deteriorate still further.     

Neighbourhood Ethnic Diversity,Child Health Outcomes and Women’s Empowerment

Much of the existing literature suggests that ethnic diversity undermines economic development. However, there are also ways in which local ethnic diversity might be beneficial, and we show that in the case of Ethiopian child health, the benefits of diversity can outweigh the costs. We find that children in relatively diverse communities are better nourished and more likely to receive a full set of vaccinations. There is some evidence that one explanation for this effect is that women in relatively diverse communities are better informed about health issues and more empowered in making healthcare decisions.     

Limits of nationalist mobilization: Bromberg/Bydgoszcz in the Kaiserreich, 1900–1918

Discussions about ethnic mobilization in eastern Europe have emphasized efforts of nationalist leaders to demarcate their community from their neighbors in mixed areas where ethnic boundaries and identities were blurred. Demarcation became a common means of defining the community both geographically and culturally, a process which later facilitated the community's mobilization. In the German Empire, however, the Polish–German demarcation was already stark, since it mostly coincided with Catholic–Protestant demarcations. But while the Polish community mobilized quickly and showed great solidarity, the German community did not. Using the Bromberg/Bydgoszcz administrative district as a model, the article argues that the local German community's internal divisions limited its ability to mobilize. Germans agreed on the need for greater German community solidarity, but differed on conceptualizations of its ideal structure and form. Liberal nationalists, envisioning a more egalitarian community defined by a common ethnicity, fought with local conservatives, who were as intent on preserving their prominence within the community as they were on struggling with the Poles. Such divisions crippled local German mobilization on any scale comparable to their Polish neighbors, suggesting that an ethnic community's self-demarcation is necessary but not sufficient to ensure its mobilization.     

The Politics of the Past in Dagestan: National Unity and Symbolic Revolt

Abstract

Dagestan is inhabited by numerous ethnic communities with their own languages, cultures and histories. However, despite its ethnic and cultural diversity, the republic’s authorities have consistently sought to promote a unified concept of Dagestani identity. This policy has been challenged by local ethnic nationalists concerned about the future of their ethnic communities, which they saw as being endangered by assimilation and marginalisation. This struggle to secure political and social benefits began in the Soviet period and reached its height in the early 1990s. Resentment was particularly widespread among the Kumyks and Lezgins. Their dissatisfaction with the status quo resulted in a competition between inclusive (national) and exclusive (ethnic) approaches, which in turn manifested themselves in debates over historiography. This essay analyses the development and outcomes of this struggle from the 1950s through to the early 2000s, with an emphasis on the early 1990s.     

Locating Ethnic Identity: Russian German Identity Construction in Ul’yanovsk

This essay presents a micro-level analysis of ethnic identity construction among ethnic Germans resident in Ul’yanovsk. The essay explores the local and trans-local situation of this group within a historical framework which informs the group's understanding of how to ‘be German’. It shows respondents’ participation in ‘return’-based, family-orientated diaspora networks. Analysis of the divergent discourses that emerge around the theme and experiences of mutual visits and travel to the Federal Republic of Germany and the differing identity outcomes which result are discussed. This reveals the ways in which transnational links can be utilised by non-movers both to problematise and to augment their local identities. This, in turn, uncovers the continuing relevance of issues around post-Soviet ‘returns’ for contemporary identity-construction and highlights the potential for analysis of non-movers as participants in migration networks.     

Lives on the border: language and culture in the lives of ethnic Russian women in Baltinava,Latvia

This study draws on ethnographic research conducted in a small village, Baltinava in Latvia, 2.5 kilometres from the border with Russia. The research examines how ethnic Russian women create a specific Latvian Russian identity by contrasting themselves from ethnic Latvians and Russians who live in Russia and identifying with both groups at the same time. To narrate their lives and to make them meaningful, real and/or perceived “attributes” are combined to draw boundaries between “us” and “them.” Thus, the same thing such as language can be used not only both to distinguish themselves from Russians in Russia or Latvians but also to form coherent identities and to emphasize similarities. This study suggests that ethnicities cannot be reduced to a list of set ethnic groups that are very often used in official government statistics. Ethnic identities have to be viewed as fluid and situational. Moreover, this study shows the dialectic nature of ethnicity. On the one hand, external political, historical and social processes create and recreate ethnic categories and definitions. Yet, on the other hand, the women in this study are active agents creating meaningful and symbolic ethnic boundaries.     

National Identity: Civic,Ethnic, Hybrid,and Atomised Individuals

We challenge the civic–ethnic dichotomy drawn by previous authors and propose a four-category typology of identities based on out-group tolerance and in-group attachment. Drawing from work on national identity formation and nation-building, we test hypotheses about the processes that cause individuals to adopt one identity over others using survey data based on representative samples of five ethnic groups in Ukraine. We find that the effects of socialisation processes vary greatly depending upon ethnic group. Our results challenge some long-held assumptions about the potential destabilising effects of ‘ethnic’ identities and the degree to which ‘civic’ identities correspond to values and behaviours supportive of democracy.     

The Consociational System of Democracy in Kosovo: Questioning Ethnic Minorities' Special Status in Kosovo's Constitutional Regime

This article examines the constitutional position of ethnic minorities in Kosovo, the individual features, and the key protection mechanisms applied therein. At the outset, the article provides a general introduction to the topic, illustrating the character of Kosovo's state model. Subsequently, it builds upon the view that Kosovo was shaped under an international supervision, which aimed to establish a state freed from mono-ethnicity, which is regarded as both multi-ethnic and a state of citizens. The article proceeds to explain the institutional mechanisms established with the objective to protect and uphold the ethnic minorities’ position at both central and local levels. Furthermore, it discusses the affirmative human rights law standards granted to ethnic minorities—both at personal and collective levels. The article concludes by suggesting that the constitution of Kosovo provides for a broad degree of self-rule to ethnic minorities, which, in turn, provides them with the capacity to enjoy a rather constitutive position as regards the essential components of the polity.     

GETTING TO KNOW YOU: ETHNIC DIVERSITY, TIME AND PERFORMANCE IN PUBLIC ORGANIZATIONS

Research on links between ethnic diversity and performance frequently illustrates that organizational diversity leads to process-oriented problems and negative work-related outcomes. This can cause problems for public managers who are tasked to increase workforce diversity for normative purposes but are nonetheless required to focus on performance goals. In this study, we test the proposition that managers can improve work-related outcomes in diverse organizations by focusing on stability and allowing diverse groups to 'get to know' one another, a process that should improve communication and coordination difficulties inherent in ethnic diversity. Our results show that the negative relationship between ethnic diversity and organizational performance does indeed lessen with time and stability.     

Child marriage,human rights and international norms: the case of legislative reform in Trinidad and Tobago

Abstract

The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child entered into force in 1990. It condemns child marriage, violence and discrimination against children and enjoins tutelage for their education and health. Implementing such principles in national legislation sometimes conflicts with local norms relating to respect for cultural and religious traditions. This was the case of Trinidad and Tobago, a multicultural and multi-religious society that legally sanctioned child marriage until 2017. The paper makes two unique contributions to the literature. First, using the literature on child marriage and the obligations under international conventions, the paper creates a child marriage conceptual framework with the main normative positions on child marriage. Second, using the framework, it explores the normative motivations underlying the domestic legal reform debates held in parliament between 2015–2017. The paper uses the conceptual framework to explain the transformations in the traditional positions of local religious and ethnic groups, provides evidence of norm penetration from the international to a local multicultural setting and furthers the literature on international human rights norm penetration and contestation.     

Hybrid Actors,Tactical Variety: Rethinking Asymmetric and Hybrid War

Wars like those in Iraq and Afghanistan should be understood as hybrid wars, wars in which elements of ethnic or tribal conflict, ideologically based insurgency, factional squabbling, and organized crime are inextricably intertwined, with the same actors playing multiple and partially conflicting roles. Hybrid war is inherently transnational, featuring transnational crime networks, “migrant warriors,” transnational diaspora links, legitimate international trade, and foreign intervention. It takes place in hybridized states reliant on local warlords and other actors whose power prevents effective state-building. In this context, while counterinsurgency doctrine prescribes appropriate military strategy and tactics, the core problem is more political than military. Since a hybridized client state is not likely to be politically reformable even if a foreign ally achieves military success, outside allies like the United States should generally refrain from boots-on-the-ground intervention, pursuing instead a diplomatic solution, even though such a deal is likely to be unpalatable.     

When are Minorities Worse Off? A Systematic Investigation of Size and Status

Are smaller ethnic groups less advantaged than large groups? This question has not been systematically studied. Using two new datasets, we find that when group size and status are analyzed at national levels smaller groups are generally worse off than larger groups. By contrast, when group size and status are analyzed at subnational (regional or district) levels, smaller groups are better off than larger groups. “National” minorities are disadvantaged while “local” minorities are advantaged.We theorize that two factors are at work in generating this surprisingly consistent relationship. First, a synergy exists at national levels among three features of ethnic groups: size, power, and status. The second factor is based on social dynamics. Specifically, insofar as internal migration is characterized by positive selection, then migrants and their descendants should form the basis of small, privileged groups within the region that they migrate to. Insofar as distance enhances positive selection, this explains why smaller migrations are associated with more privileged groups and larger migrations with somewhat less privileged groups.     

Conceptualizing and Measuring Ethnic Politics: An Institutional Complement to Demographic, Behavioral, and Cognitive Approaches

The influence of ??ethnic politics?? has been demonstrated in a range of empirical studies of economic growth, violence, and public goods provision. While others have raised concerns about the measurement of ethnic variables in these works, we seek to situate such discussions within a more thoroughgoing conceptual analysis. Specifically, we argue that four conceptual approaches??demographic, cognitive, behavioral, and institutional??have been used to develop theories in which the mechanism that relates causes to outcomes is ethnic political competition. Within this literature, we believe that institutional approaches have been relatively under-appreciated, and we attempt to address that imbalance. We begin by critically reviewing the three main ways in which ethnic variables have been specified and operationalized, delineating the assumptions and trade-offs underlying their use. Next, we describe an institutional approach to the study of ethnic politics, which focuses on the rules and procedures for differentiating ethnic categories. We propose some new indices based on this latter approach that might be developed and used in future research. Subsequently, we analyze the relationship between each of these approaches and patterns of ethnic political competition in a set of six country cases, highlighting their strengths and weaknesses, as well as theoretical links between them.     

Ethnic conflict, ethnic accommodation, and nation-building in Southeast Asia

Four types of ethnic conflict are found in the ten states of post-colonial Southeast Asia. Within these types, cases of peaceful accommodation, as well as forceful attempts to suppress rebellious minorities, are examined. Explanations for diverse governmental responses are found in geography, history, including colonial policies of divide and rule, and the nature of post-colonial governments. Some of the region’s governments have shown great skill in devising peaceful methods of accommodation. But several military governments, unsuccessful at nation-building, have seen the forceful suppression of ethnic rebellions as their only option. Carl H. Landé is a professor of political science and East Asian studies at the University of Kansas. His primary country of specialization is the Philippines.