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Ethnic resurgence in modern democratic states

By: Contributor(s): Material type: TextTextPublication details: New York; Pergamon Press; 1980Description: 270pISBN:
  • 80246478
Subject(s): DDC classification:
  • 305.8 ETH
Summary: For almost three decades, a mere handful of isolated analysts, including the editor of this volume, demonstrated reluctance to accept as gospel the facile assumption that modernization somehow would cause ethnic self-assertion and conflict to fade away. Despite the temptation to succumb to the fashionable belief that state sovereignty was about to dissolve into regional, transnational, and supranational institutions and associations of various kinds, the lonely skeptics pointed out that, if anything, indications pointed in the opposite direction - i.e. toward the emergence of substate actors capable of breaking down existing polit- ical units into smaller entities. In the view of this minority, such actors would be motivated by aspirations of a primarily ethnic nature, and the more developed regions, particularly the West, would prove especially susceptible to this trend. Today the beliefs articulated by such voices few and sometimes unpopular - have become well-nigh axiomatic in the light of irrefutable evidence concerning ethnic resurgence in Europe and North America, that appears on the pages of almost every current newspaper. With a selective forgetfulness that is typical of the profes- sion, however, not many care to remember how recent their own conversion has been to this point of view. (Incidentally, no normative implications should be read into the points noted in this paragraph. The few who anticipated the developments of the present era of ethnicity may or may not have welcomed them.) Since 1967, the editor of this volume has devoted a considerable segment of his teaching to an attempt to bring some conceptual and semantic order into existing chaos, particularly in the English language, with regard to the problematic area of ethnic and nationality issues. (The Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy has encouraged such efforts, since its leadership comprehends fully that a plethora of factors must be analyzed and taught if a modern graduate curriculum in international affairs is to be viable.)
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For almost three decades, a mere handful of isolated analysts, including
the editor of this volume, demonstrated reluctance to accept as gospel
the facile assumption that modernization somehow would cause ethnic
self-assertion and conflict to fade away. Despite the temptation to
succumb to the fashionable belief that state sovereignty was about to
dissolve into regional, transnational, and supranational institutions and
associations of various kinds, the lonely skeptics pointed out that, if
anything, indications pointed in the opposite direction - i.e. toward the
emergence of substate actors capable of breaking down existing polit-
ical units into smaller entities. In the view of this minority, such actors
would be motivated by aspirations of a primarily ethnic nature, and the
more developed regions, particularly the West, would prove especially
susceptible to this trend. Today the beliefs articulated by such voices
few and sometimes unpopular - have become well-nigh axiomatic in the
light of irrefutable evidence concerning ethnic resurgence in Europe
and North America, that appears on the pages of almost every current
newspaper. With a selective forgetfulness that is typical of the profes-
sion, however, not many care to remember how recent their own
conversion has been to this point of view. (Incidentally, no normative
implications should be read into the points noted in this paragraph. The
few who anticipated the developments of the present era of ethnicity
may or may not have welcomed them.)
Since 1967, the editor of this volume has devoted a considerable
segment of his teaching to an attempt to bring some conceptual and
semantic order into existing chaos, particularly in the English language,
with regard to the problematic area of ethnic and nationality issues.
(The Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy has encouraged such
efforts, since its leadership comprehends fully that a plethora of
factors must be analyzed and taught if a modern graduate curriculum in
international affairs is to be viable.)

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